Minutes - December 2021 JCGC Board Meeting
Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors
City of San Francisco Japan Center Garage Corporation
(A California Non-profit Public Benefit Corporation)
Thursday, December 16, 2021 – 11:00 a.m.
Zoom Meeting
MINUTES
Present: Edward Ong, Rodney Chin, Hagen Choi, Robert Hsu, Jerry Ono, Keiko Murase, Jan Masaoka, John Noguchi and Vas Kiniris
Also present: Claudine Cheng, Corporate Counsel; Richard Hashimoto, Corporate Manager; Fred Bekele, IMCO; Steve Nakajo, JTF; Grace Horikiri, Japantown CBD and Greg Viloria, website developer
1. Call to Order
Board President Ong called the meeting to order at 11:02 a.m.
2. Approval of October 21, 2021 minutes
A motion to approve the minutes was made by Director Noguchi and seconded by Director Ono. The motion was adopted unanimously.
3. Board President’s Report
There was no item reported.
4. Corporate Manager’s Report
a. For the month of November, Revenues increased $207,690 over last year but overall, the garage is still down $1,322,348 since the shutdown started.
As previously mentioned, CPMC income was removed from the comparison so it does not distort subsequent gross parking revenue. As directors are aware, CPMC canceled last December in which the garage lost $69,700/mo. and $836,400/yr. respectively. Transient Parking has increased 23,951 vehicles over last period resulting in 162% increase. Cumulatively, however, we are still down 102,166 vehicles.
b. Japantenna attracted nearly 6,000 people over the four weekends they exhibited. There was only a slight increase in Transient Parking from the exhibit.
c. In the past two months, the garage has been plagued with vehicle break ins which will be reported under the Operations and Security report by Mr. Abayneh.
d. As I reported at last meeting, our corporate administrative assistant, Joelle Tan, has been hired by Portsmouth Square Parking Corporation working 32 hours a week. MTA has approved to reinstate her for 8 hours at Japan Center. I will monitor Joelle’s time and duties and will propose any adjustment if needed in the future.
e. The contractor working in the new Yi Fang Fruit Tea space drilled through one of our electric conduits shutting off power to the lights at the northeast corner of the garage. Their electrician was able to restore power temporarily and will propose a permanent repair. We had our electrician onsite as well to assess the damage.
Director Chin asked if the temporary repair was legal. Mr. Hashimoto stated that the repair is not legal which may be overloading a circuit. Mr. Hashimoto will demand that the service be restored to its original state.
President Ong asked if the tenant was cooperating about the repairs. Mr. Hashimoto responded that the tenant, the Yi Fang Fruit Tea Company, was responsive and the contractors were insured and bonded. Mr. Hashimoto also notified the Department of Building Inspections to inspect the damage and repair. The inspector did not arrive in time for today’s meeting and Mr. Hashimoto will provide a report at the next meeting.
5. Corporate Counsel’s Report
Corporate Counsel discussed AB-361, a legislation that provides an exception to the rule prohibiting telephonic meetings. In order for commissions and boards to hold remote meetings via zoom or similar vehicles, each entity must adopt a resolution to declare that in-person meetings would not be feasible under the circumstance due to current health conditions. This item will be on next meeting’s agenda for discussion and vote.
6. Treasurer’s Report
Director Chin went over the highlights of the August financial statement, including the current balance ($755,157.96), liabilities and assets, profit and loss.
JCGC is four months into the fiscal year and the gross revenue is 50.89% to budget.
The total revenue was $273,980, an increase from prior period. The total expense was at 23.9% of the budget. Part of the expense was due to increase use of credit card fees resulted from card payments.
A motion to accept the August 2021 financial report was made by Director Noguchi and seconded by Director Kiniris. The motion was adopted unanimously.
Director Chin proceeded to go over the highlights of the September financial statement. There was an increase in transient vehicles and an increase in revenue over prior period.
A motion to accept the September 2021 financial statement was made by Director Noguchi and seconded by Director Ono. The motion was adopted unanimously.
7. SFMTA Update
There was no update.
8. Committee Reports
A. Community Participation and Marketing Fund Committee
Director Noguchi reported that the committee met on December 8, 2021 to review two requests for funding from the Community Participation Fund, as follows:
1. Japantown Community Benefit District for $5,000 for holiday lighting program and the committee recommends the full requested amount.
Ms. Cheng asked what the balances are in each fund. Chair Ong stated that the budget was approved at $35,000 for Community Participation and $25,000 for Marketing. Mr. Hashimoto reported that from those budgeted amounts, $5,000 was previously awarded from the Community Participation Fund leaving a balance of $30,000 and $24,500 in Marketing.
A motion was made to support the committee’s recommendation by Director Chin and seconded by Director Masaoka. The motion was adopted with Directors Kolbe and Ono abstaining from the vote.
2. Japantown Foundation for $5,000 for their COVID-19 Recovery Fund Program. A motion to support the committee’s recommendation was made by Director Chin and seconded by Director Murase. The motion was adopted with Directors Ono abstaining from the vote.
In addition, the committee has had discussion about website effectiveness and garage marketing. The consensus is to create a sub-committee to focus on additional analysis and developing strategies to market the parking garages. Director Murase has agreed to chair this sub-committee.
Director Murase commented that there was useful information from the website statistics but no action has been made. Director Murase feels it is time to implement steps to improve more visits to the website and that would lead to the increase in garage use. The proposal is for Director Murase to chair this sub-committee and to include website developer, Greg Viloria and Director Hsu as members.
Mr. Hashimoto asked if the committee could include non-board members. Corporate Counsel responded in the affirmative. Counsel also suggested that the Bylaws can be amended to include sub-committees or task forces in the organization’s structure. The item to create a new sub-committee will be placed on the next meeting’s agenda.
B. Contract Review Committee
1. Corporate Counsel Annual Performance Review
Director Chin discussed highlights of the report including a description of Counsel’s responsibilities. The committee recommends the approval of the review. A motion was made by Director Kiniris and seconded by President Ong. The motion was unanimously adopted.
2. Corporate Manager’s Annual Performance Review
Director Chin shared that the Japan Center Garages performed well despite the pandemic and was among the top 3 of 19 city garages. However, the corporate manager’s salary has not been adjusted since January 2016 and recommended an 8% increase.
Mr. Hashimoto commented that in view of the garage’s financial situation because of the pandemic, it would not be a good time for the increase, and the adjustment was not budgeted. Thus, he expressed appreciation for the proposed increase and would be happy to defer that to a more appropriate time.
President Ong acknowledged Director Masaoka’s comment in the “Chat” feature, that appraisals should be discussed in Closed Session. This will be noted for future performance evaluations.
A motion to adopt the committee’s recommendation was made by Director Kiniris and seconded by Director Hsu. The motion was unanimously adopted.
Director Masaoka commented that the board should give all the directors opportunity to participate in all performance reviews in the future.
9. Website Review
Greg Viloria had to leave for another meeting but shared his report in the “Chat” feature.
President Ong proceeded to read Mr. Viloria’s comments mentioning that he will work with the website marketing sub-committees and included:
a. Holiday season traffic into the 4th quarter has been lighter than expected, while October and November numbers are almost identical.
b. In terms of web traffic from January 1 through July 1, there has been a steady increase, then stays similar for the four following months.
c. More analysis needs to be done to understand search behavior and to determine what can be done to improve transient parking numbers.
Director Masaoka stated that she appreciates the reports but would also like to see actual numbers in addition to percentages.
10. Community Updates
A. Japantown Task Force
Mr. Nakajo had to leave but sent a update report for review.
B. Japantown CBD
In addition to the written report, Ms. Horikiri shared highlights about the Dandelion Project which has drawn over 3,569 visitors over the first two weekends that will continue through January 23, 2022.
11. Garage Operations and Security Report
Mr. Abayneh reported that due to the holiday season, there has been an increase in vehicle break ins (VBI). For October, there were 39 reported VBIs and 17 in November. There were also two vehicles that ran through the gate without paying. These incidents were reported to the police.
In addition, there was 120 incidents of homeless and 22 suspicious activities reported for the two months ending November.
Mr. Hashimoto shared that the MTA has been communicating with the SFPD about parking one or two of their police cruisers inside garages with a high rate of VBIs as a deterrent. The police are issued access cards so they can enter and exit the garage at any time. The program has been successful thus far. Unfortunately, the Northern Police Station which serves Japantown currently has an interim Captain and does not have the ability to make a decision until a new captain is assigned. Mr. Hashimoto will follow up when a new captain has been appointed.
12. Closed Session
Corporate Counsel confirmed that there was no need for closed session.
13. General Public Comment Not on the Agenda
Mr. Hashimoto confirmed there was nobody in queue to make public comments.
14. Announcements
Mr. Hashimoto mentioned that the holiday lights has been installed and thanked Ms. Horikiri and Mr. Viloria for all their hard work on this year’s lighting.
Director Ono stated his retirement from Union Bank – Japan Center Branch but will continue his participation on community organizations.
15. Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 11:57a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Jan Masaoka
Jan Masaoka
Secretary