Transcripts For SFGTV To Be Announced 20240712

We have a quorum. Commissioner very good. Announcements, madame secretary . During the coronavirus disease covid19 emergency, the San Francisco Public Utilities commissions sfpuc regular meeting room, city hall, room 400, is closed. Commissioners and sfpuc staff will convene Commission Meetings remotely by teleconference. Commissioners for those the live stream there be a delay. I would like to extend our thanks to sfgtv staff. If youd like to make a comment dial 18882733658 access code and dial access code 3107452. Youll hear a speaking tone when its expired. Madame president , your first order of business is item 3, aportfolio of the minutes of approval of the minutes july 14, 2020. Commissioner commissioners, before you, you have the minutes of july 14, 2020. Are there any additions or corrections to the minutes . Hearing none id like to ask the secretary to open it up to the Public Comment. Clerk for those who would mike make comments on the minutes of july from july 14, dial 18882733658 and 3107452. If you wish to speak on any other item wait until that item is called to provide Public Comment. Do you have any callers . There are no callers. Clerk item three Public Comment is closed. Commissioner may i have a motion and second on the approval of the minutes . Move to approve. Second. Madame secretary, please do a roll call. [roll call] thank you. You have five ayes. Commissioner the motion carries. Next item, please. Clerk next item is item 4 general Public Comment. Members of the public may comment on matters within the commissions jurisdiction not on the agenda by dialing 18882733658 access code 3107452 and pound followed by pound again. 1 then 0 to be added to the speaker line. This is for general Public Comment. Do we have callers . There are seven callers in the queue. Caller im speaking for the comments made at the capitol planning meeting and the description for the emergency Fire Fighting water system states Potable Water option. This is inconsistent with the board of supervisors directive and pucs options as well. The Capital Budget does not include funds for the phase two also known as phase b. Phase two extends from sunset and terravill and it includes water and sewer line replacement and dedication of awas consistent with the policy. Its supported by the sfn, the park side merchants also known as props and the greater west porto neighborhood association. The environmental would take 18 months and the statement lacks credibility. The puc also stated it is pursuing a Potable Water option because its a more moderate solution. Thats one perspective. Another perspective is the p. U. C. Is pursuing a Potable Water option because it aging equipment and doesnt have the bonds and using funds to replace water mains is inconsistent with prop 218. Clerk thank you. Caller im bill maher and im speaking as an informed citizen. I have two related topics to bring to you today. First a group of fisheries and environmental organizations in a lawsuit with the state water board. In the july 20, 21, 2020 edition of the cahill news under the agreed settlement in considering future modifications the water board will have to conduct enhanced analysis on the potential impact of the Public Comment in addition the fish and will have to explain its decision in writing and commits to following a similar process for evaluating process to the dealt ta plan and the Regulatory Commission responded to the proposal for managing the Tuolumne River and a quote is the final Environmental Impact statement still needs review by federal fishery agencies and the state water board. The state board voted in december 2018 for much higher releases end quote. The state water board just settled a lawsuit committing to enhanced analysis regarding the health of fish below dams and ferc agreed to a proposal that will impact the same fish. The same fish for which you are stewards. I suggest you should be consulting with the water board and reporting back to the public. Thank you very much. Clerk thank you. Its good to be back with you. Very important work were doing. Again, continue the conversation about a municipal direct for utility to lower rates for all San Francisco. Certification is essential and i see youll talk about pumps later. Its important to talk about the electrification of cooking facilities to improve Indoor Air Quality in temperature in both homes and businesses. Its possible to make great cuisine in an all electric kitchen the World Trade Center had one and the statal bonny of new york had one in the dutch quad doerm dormitory produced many meals a day. I do it at home too and its important to develop a neglect work where people can pay theyre ideally using aut may and we want to minimize any in person interaction and theres a coin shortage so people should be able to take the coins and transfer them in the hopper and use them to pay the p. U. C. Bill better than handling cash in person. I look forward to the items to be discussed today. Thank you. Caller hello. I am the chair of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Citizens Advisory Committee and first and foremost i want to thank every one of you commissioners to do Something Congress doesnt seem to know how to do that is act quickly on behalf of the citizens of San Francisco. Specifically here to commend you on the interim emergency Rate Assistance Program. Recently the c. A. C. Put forward a resolution and [background noise] and we want to commend you on the more tore moratorium extending the program under the interim Rate Assistance Program to a larger number of people. What we hope to do next is if we really want to work with you as we see the program had 26,000 people qualify and only 1200 people enrolled, clearly since you made changes a larger number of people have been able to take advantage of this and a personally appreciate it because we not only looked at the rate program and said, yes, all people affected and looking at higher income thresholds in order to ensure all san franciscans can take advantage of the program and recently you also added Small Business and nonprofits to that list. We all know how badly our businesses and nonprofits need the additional help so any way we can get it is great. At the c. A. C. We want to commend you and show our support by putting forward a resolution. One thing we do want know and want to work with you on clerk speaker, im sorry, your time has ended. Commissioner he can continue with his thought. Clerk im not sure hes on the line any longer. Caller hi, my name is jackie yan. Im a resident of San Mateo County and im new to the process here but im an advocate for the Crystal Springs regional trail update. Unfortunately, i wasnt able to hear what happened but i just want to highlight that theres so many people frankly now with the pandemic but more travel between the road which is a safe place to ride and sawyer camp if they were made accessible. In 1993 there was a plan in place to provide the trail easement. Im not sure why its never been realized but theres a document in last weeks meeting of the crystal trail plan and it hugs the reservoir. The trails already insistence so it would be really to open up the gate. I feel its a life safety issue as well because theres a lot of cyclist and its a dangerous intersection and theres no safe crossing at 92 so we need to provide a safe crossing as well as trail access and its so important for safety and Public Health and this was an agreement. It was supposed to be done back in 2004 were quite a bit late and i hope you consider this as a nice easy low hanging fruit that would provide wonderful opportunities for all who live in the peninsula and San Francisco. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Caller hi, im a biking advocate and i appreciate you had the item on the agenda last week and wasntible to make that meeting. Able to make that meeting. I wanted to specifically request you do whatever you can to get the easement to be granted to allow a bike trail a safe bike trail between canada road and the trail and there was an alternative plan to possibly put a twoway bike path crossing 92 with a designated bicycle light and staying on the west side of halfmoon bay and over to canada so bikerers bikers only have to interact with traffic one time. The reason its so important right now is with the covid19 issues its an increase issue that covid19 is related to air pollution levels. We need to make sure our Community Supports the safety of biking, try not to drive and people dont have to get in their cars to go exercise. Thats a major problem. Be exposed to air pollution and covid at the same time seems to have severe consequences. Its timely. Thank you for taking my call. Clerk thank you, speaker. Go ahead. Caller thank you for allowing me to speak today. My name is Elaine Salinger and im a member of the san mateo biking Pedestrian Advisory Council however, the opinion im expressing today are of my own. Id like to also speak to you about the dangerous situation created by having cyclists ride on highways between lower skyline and canada in the unincorporated area of San Mateo County. Open up fire access roads which previous callers have said this was part of the plan established many years ago, and the fire roads would provide a beautiful safe passage for cyclists. However, i also recognize time is of the essence as more people get sick. The number of Police Reports are the tip of the iceberg. For every report that makes it to a police file, there are easily close calls and my husband and i are one of those and i know other people. As the exceptionally dangerous. The solution we are talking about today is a relatively inexpensive and easy solution. We have given pictures of the route as it is now and an inexpensive solution which also provides safe passage and its just giving up land along the easement of lower skyline and along 92 so there would be enough land available for a protected twoway bike path and while [chime] clerk thank you, speaker. Im sorry, your time is up. Caller hi, im from the sfpuc once more. I want to finish what i was saying and thank you the commissions for the work theyve done around the interim program and personally number one and the p. U. C. Advisory council i want to personally work with you on these issues of efficacy and affordability and encourage changes to the cap program and work to extend it to outreach. And we dont want to make us wait for the program. You have likeminded people on the commission so i really do appreciate it. Again, we want to work with you. I personally want to work with you and we want to extend the interim rate program past september 10. We lastly want to make changes to the cap program so you have more san franciscans can take part of it moving forward. I do appreciate you and your time and the hard work youre doing. I appreciate you. Bye. Caller im a bicyclist and i have a keen interest in advocating for better and safer infrastructure for bicyclists for all. Im here to further escalate the efforts to complete a safe bicycle access way between carter camp trail and canada road. I recently read the staff report that summarizes the status. Im disappointed to hear the efforts stalled for various reasons and the area continues to be quite dangerous even for experienced bicyclists and i ride it nearly daily and i can describe all the times ive been assaulted and harassed by people. My colleagues at the bicycle collision at san carlos bikes sent a proposal of a twoway bike trail that could be implemented on the lower shoulder of lower skyline and it could be implemented with modest cost and minimal impact in comparison to the previous proposal in the staff report. We recognize it will require other approval and the p. U. C. Will need to provide easement access to enable a trail to be completed. I urge the commission to enable the safe access able bicycle route between two already safe locations and provide a western corridor for bicycle commuters as well. Thank you very much. Clerk thank you. Caller good afternoon, commissioner. Im harry bernstein. Id like to bring something to your attention the amendment for the balboa reservoir project. So the move from the north street in the project to align it with to move it from where it next to reardon is the easement area i want to share something with you about that. Id read the document at the sole discretion of the director of Public Utilities commission and the chancellor and vice chancellor each approve the College Property easement area the agreement may be amended or recorded to adjust the college easement area without further approval or action. Thats the key part. There is no requirement to participate from the citys Public Utilities commission, thats you, or the board of supervisors without further approval or action required by the colleges board of trustees. Another thing about this alternative road is potentially puts the road across the campus to any area already flagged by the facilitys master plan as a potential hazard area and a change was not studied in the e. I. R. I dont think that should go ahead. Also, there was an anniversary on july 26 in the chronicle the balb balboa reservoir work shefld shelved and the work was delayed by the s. F. P. U. C. Yesterday. The contributing factor of not only [chime] clerk thank you, speaker your time has expired. Caller s commissioners, this is pablo decosta. Were having problems with the renting. The environment meeting a pain in the [bleep] and we dont need the added problems. Yesterday i was listening to the board of supervisors talking about the balboa reservoir and we have a developer who got that land for 11. 4 million and you dont have seemed to have paid attention to it though it was deliberated before the commission. Theyre not paying attention which pertains to the physically challenged, the professors, teachers. Theyre not paying attention to the workforce training at city college. And you commissions should have somebody give you orientation on this. This land is public land. You shouldnt be selling it to any private developer. The developers have had sufficient of the land which belongs to the native people. We dont want this private developers. And we dont want you folks not understanding what yall are doing. Yall are commissioners. You represent the people. Not to screw the people. Every time you get we get screwed so much the fbi has to come in [chime] clerk thank you. Your time has expired. Mr. Rod mr. Moderator do we have any other callers. No other callers in the queue. Clerk Public Comment is closed. Commissioner next item. Clerk item 5, communications. Commissioner commissioners, any comments, questions on communication . Hearing none, madame secretary please open Public Comment. Clerk members of the public who wish to provide Public Comment on item 5, communication dial 18882733658 ac said code 3107452 and pound then pound again then 1 and 0 to be added to the speaker to the speaker line. Do we have callers . No callers. Clerk item 6 is report of general manager. [technical difficulties] as guidance evolved so do policies, practice to keep employees safe and healthy. This week we are holding our third virtual meet to update employees on everything weve done and will continue to do to keep them safe and healthy now and into the future. Well cover topics such as cleaning and disinfectant measures, new signage, markings, plexiglass barriers installed and update them on the Onsite Health screenings. We also continue to educate on important social distancing and face mask protocol. While much of our workforce is following guidelines we cannot let us. Some may not be taking it as serious. First we want to recognize those doing the right thing and those who are not know there are consequences. Were happy to prode provide the commission with the registration to participate on our allhands meeting we plan to have. With your support, we have expanded our emergency financial Assistance Program now it includes Small Businesses and nonprofit customers as well as all the residential customers of our water, sewer and program and we received closed to an additional 100 applications for Small Businesses and nonprofit businesses. In the coming weeks well launch a comprehensive campaign to reach more eligible customers. Later in this meeting youll vote on a similar bill Relief Program that will provide a onetime credit for residential, nonprofit and customers and hear about water shut offs. By continuing to work with our customers, employees and City Partners and others we will look to move forward on these tough times to have a strong, better and more responsive agency. Finally, were kicking off an innovative virtual tour series that allows us to continue engaging with customers during this time. Its called the p. U. C. Source virtual exploration. Its a really good program. Were using existing resources were leveraging inhouse experts on water, sewer and power programs to interact and answer questions and teach about the system. Sign up at www. Sfwater. Org woe recommend those to tune in and the first was hosted by a. G. M. Steve richie. We record the sessions and based on the participation well either make the recording available or schedule more live sessions in the future. I want to thank the commission for their continuous support because it has made a big difference to the staff going through this tough time and just again want to thank you guys so much. That is what weve been doing operationally through the emergency. If you have any questions or comments . Commissioner these are wednesdays at 1 00, correct . Are they going to be every wednesday . Weve going to provide a schedule so people can anticipate the topics. Commissioner im looking forward to it. Steve richies really good by the way. Commissioner we know that. Yeah, hes a rock star. All right. Shall we continue with the real estate update. Clerk Public Comment on this . Commissioner you said through the month. Ending in july . Up to september. Commissioner thank you. All of the us would like a schedule. Clerk would you like for me to call Public Comment on item 6a. Commissioner please do. Clerk members of the public who wish to provide 10 minutes of Public Comment on item 6a dial 18882733658, access code 310 310642 and and pound then pound again and then 1 and 0 to be added to the speaker line. Do we have callers in the queue . Not at this time. Clerk Public Comment on 6a is closed. Next item is 6b real estate update presented by rosanna us he will. Im the p. U. C. Director and head of real estate services. Im pleased to present the p. U. C. Real estate report. Im briefly describe the work we do and then summarize our key projects and some new initiatives. This is what we do. Real Estates Services is to negotiate real estate over Real Property where the p. U. C. Has jurisdiction and issue licenses for parking lots, trails, utility crossings and landscaping primarily for use in the p. U. C. Right of way. And the Second Mission is to lead the review team and support. The teams that propose thirdparty projects for potential impact on our infrastructure and land. In the past several months we worked with colleagues to complete real estate transactions some of which weve been working on for years. The transactions fall to three c categories, land purchases, transaction of lands and transaction purchasing property for capital projects. These projects will all sound familiar because we sought Commission Approval for these transactions. The Water Quality include three properties. Together they added 956 agricultural acres to the alameda watershed. It was bought to protect native species and habitat consistent with the alameda watershed management plan. Secondly, we worked intensively on the disposition of the water enterprise property. The largest transaction for 11. 4 million recently came to you for approval and is being heard this week by two board of supervisors committees. We also closed escrow on the property at 639 bryant for the 6. 9 acre property of 2000 marin and they have roughly equivalent value of 63 million. We also spent time at sonny veil. It took time because of the survey work to separate the lots to be sold from the p. U. C. Pipeline rightofway. After a Public Notice we negotiated a purchase and sale agreement. Bidder withdraw due to the uncertain economy introduced by the pandemic. When the economy is more receptive we will resume efforts to sell the lot and the retaining unutilized property the reservoir and rightofway. And an Industrial Property is located in a critical location from the treatment plan. The existing tenants and the p. U. C. Will use it for construction and equipment storage. Here are some of our new initiatives. We issued an r. S. P. For a location and negotiating a lease with the new tenants. Secondly, on behalf of the waste water enterprise we have a list of the easements and compiling them on an online database. It will ensure and its not locked in the public rightofway. The Second Initiative has been a close collaboration of Natural Resources of the Land Management staff to refresh the 2015 interim Water Pipeline rightofway use policy for san mateo and santa clara and Alameda County and we anticipate bringing it to the commission for approval after management reviews and approves the draft policy. And the impact has been minor meaning to date only four tenants have asked for rent deferral the reasons are almost our rental agreements are around ground lease and the p. U. C. Has few retail tenant and the rental is static due to the High Percentage of agreements with other agencies. And in negotiating the agreements the p. U. C. Has been following the june 1 memorandum we were paying attention to rapidly changing events, the economy and policies issued by the city administrator and other agencies to make appropriate adjustments to existing agreements in conform answers conformance of city policy. This concludes my report. Im happy to answer any questions. Commissioner any questions or comments . When we have property like the Mitchell Ranch and theres an improvement on it, like au house, how do we deal with that . Our colleagues are in charge of the watershed property. Typically a watershed keeper or a manager will occupy the house from my understanding. The allocation of cottages to watershed paper allocate m. O. U. Reporting reporting to seniority. Commissioner id like to learn a little bit more how that gets allocated to the 2800 square foot house or more. Is it how is it . By the seniority, who determines that and whats the agreement . Id like to know that and also how many we have and how theyre occupied. Its assessed according to the m. O. U. And has been escalated by the c. P. I. Ill send you a copy of the m. O. U. And report for your review. Commissioner and the number of properties we have. Around the amount of rent we are looking in the m. O. U. Of the agreement and the cumulative amount. Yes. Commissioner great. Thank you. Commissioner what are we doing with encroachment on our properties . The p. U. C. Has an encroachment policy which i understand was amended in 2015. It is a hybrid effort. The water said papers and the rightofway managers look out for encroachment and manage them. They come to me if they need letters to remove them asking the encroachers to remove their ebb encroachment and we work with the City Attorneys Office and we have someone we employ to go out especially to meet with the encroachers and asked them to remove the encroachment. Its a never ending duty because we remove some and others pop up like weeds. We have someone on our staff a former rightofway manager who love encroachment removal and has a Good Relationship with almeida county public agencies and has been working with them to remove encroachment from the wholesale scale. Commissioner so he loaves encroachment removing . He does. Commissioner good. We need somebody like that. My second question is on page 4, under the lease and license expenditures. It says youre going it bring somebody in to evaluate. Let me read over this again. You talk about a chart and the ref recommends the p. U. C. Hire a consultant for master analysis for the next fiscal year. I think that may have been eliminated in the budget profs. Perhaps Michael Collins can speak to that point. Im here. We want to do a masters Facility Plan to have an idea of what we need and where. Weve been planning on an basis different corporate yards and were growing out of it before covid19. We are always looking for Additional Space whether its office space or corporate yard spate. We need the ability to plan on a p. U. C. Wide basis and start breaking it down to Different Enterprises and bure scro. Bureau. We have contract money in it for next year. Commissioner so its still in the budget . Yes. Commissioner im curious where we had to go out of house to do this. We wanted to bring in someone with expertise and provide recommendations in a son to consolidated report. When you think of the Geographic Scope of what were looking at and the people and different location and what we need to build its important. Commissioner okay. Answers my question. Any other questions, comments . Commissioner id like to hear what rosanna was going to add to what michael said. Were a rental and Lease Administration department. We dont really have the in house expertise in our division and we have talented people throughout the p. U. C. But its a real art for success plan on a macro scale. We saw sfmta undertake this efforts years ago and it produced a good report i thought was useful in my conversations with my colleagues at sfmta. Commissioner so nobody could look at that. Not in those services but we have many talented people in the p. U. C. We dont have the expertise because we dont need it all the time. S we dont have the persons to do that kind of work thats why well hire a consultant to help us. Commissioner okay. Thats clear. Thank you. Any other comments before we move on . We need Public Comment. Clerk members of public who wish to prost to provide Public Comment on 6b dial 18882733658 access code 3107452 and pound then pound again and 1 and 0 to be added to the speaker line. Do we have callers in the queue . We have one. Caller good afternoon. [indiscernible] when you spoke on june 23 about the college and how the land was made surplus, you said there was city College Personnel mentioned who are part of the process of approving developers of the p. U. C. And id like the names of the people you were talking about and i dont expect to you have that information with you today. How would i go about that . Maybe i can give you my email address to pick that up rique, rique at yahoo. Com. That would be very helpful. And is there any lawsuits going on other than involving city college and the p. U. C. Other than the appeal of the ceqa . Thank you. Clerk i have his email. You can provide his comments. There are no other calls in the queue. Clerk Public Comment on item 6b is now closed. Next item is 6c the clean power integrated Resource Plan present clean power sf director mike hynes. Im the director for the enterprise. Im sorry i am having wifi issues and doesnt want to let me connect so youre stuck with my voice only. I will have some assistance walking through the slides. Im here to provide an update on the Resource Planning process we have underway. This is on slide two. Clean rsf is required clerk im sorry, to stop you but the slides arent quite up yet. Were on slide integrated Resource Planning. Apologize. Thank you for being hi my eyes. Its required to submit an irp to the Public Utilities Commission California commission every two years and in process of develop ting the irp. Well submit it to the california p. U. C. To project the electricity demand to 2030 and identify a portfolio of electricity resources that meet our customers demand at the lowest cost while also satisfying local and state policy goals. The major objective of the irp is to develop pam pathways to empower San Franciscos goal. The bar chart youre seeing identifies identifies our recent progress and the annual planning targets were using in our irp for reaching the 2030 goal. Each graph is the amount of power we plan to acquire to meet demand in that particular year. The only difference between the green and blue segment the blue can include hydro electric energy that may not be eligible for the California Renewable Energy standard but still Greenhouse Gas free. The dots show clean power s. F. Exceeded its target for Renewable Energy in 2018 and 2019 and were again expected to seed our target in 2020. Exceed our target in 2020. The goals the Commission Adopted in 2015 to guide the clean power s. F. Program are also guiding our i. R. P. It includes affordable and rate and financial stability. Providing more Renewable Energy and reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions and reinvesting funds and local Clean Energy Resources and jobs. Were trying to balance the plans at the intersection of these priorities. To find our preferred portfolio, or submission to the california p. U. C. , clean power s. F. Is modelling portfolioing that satisfy the base Case Scenarios to meet the citys 2030 Renewable Energy goal and feature local Renewable Energy resource development. An accelerated case where we see the impact of renewable five years sooner by 2025 and featuring local renewable development. A portfolio that emphasizes matching Renewable Energy produced with customer electricities in real time is the third one. This portfolio would be designed to minimize the use of the grid to help manage the natural variability of our Renewable Energy supply and lastly a california p. U. C. Required case that meets clean power s. F. Share of the state 2030, co2 emission target for 46 Million Metric Tons of co2. As you all