Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20240714

A correct manner that there are on no unnecessary delays. We would urge every other neighborhood that is facing such a major disruption to business to follow our footsteps. Get involved, and make sure we are actively involved with whatever the department and contractors that are involved. Yes, i have attended the dumb festival in chinatown. It is organized dumpling festival in chinatown. It is a promotion for the businesses in chinatown. Many of the restaurants participated by providing different types of dumplings. Delicious. I mentioned previously, i been working with oewd on a possible concert for jobs area that continues to progress. I just want to drop while everybody is here. When it hopefully pops up down the road, we are already to jump in and be supportive. Any other commissioner comments . Do we have any members of the public that would like to make comments on Commission Reports . Seeing none. Next item, please. Item ten, new business. Allows commissioners to introduce new agenda items for future consideration by the commission. Discussion item. Any new business or from any of the commissioners . Do we have any members of the public who would like to comment on new business . Seeing none. Public comment is closed. Richard kurylo please show the office of Small Business live. Sf gov tv please show the Small Business commission lie. A reminder that the office of Small Business is the only place to start a new business in San Francisco on the best place to get an answer to your questions about doing business in San Francisco. The office of Small Business should be your first stop when you have questions about what to do next. You can find us online or in person here at city hall. All of our services are free of charge. Small Business Commission is the official public forum to voice your concerns about policies that affect the Economic Vitality of Small Businesses in San Francisco. If you need assistance with Small Business matters start here at the office of Small Business. Next item. Adjournment. Do we have a motion to adjourn . Meeting is adjourned at 4 05 p. M. [ gavel ]. Good afternoon. Id like to call to order the regular meeting of the San Francisco Public Utilities commission. This day is tuesday, july 23, 2019. Roll call, please. [ roll call ]. Before you, you have the minutes of june 25. Are there any additions or corrections to the minutes . I move approval. Second. Any Public Comments on the minutes . All those in favor . Aye. Opposed . The motion carries. The next item, please. Item 4 is general member of the public may address the commission on matters that are within the commissions jurisdiction and are not on todays agenda. Mr. Di costa. Commissioners, i want to talk on a number of issues, and i was watching one of the committees the board of supervisors. Two of your consultants, one who deals with iso, electricity, and the other one is, i suppose hes an engineer that i havent met before. So im very much interested in how you commissioners are going to be dealing with the transmission line from the 75 megawatts. So i had to do a little bit of investigation, and i see that the digesters cannot go forward unless they have steady energy, electricity. So why dont we have this conversation . Are we dumb or something . We have a Contracting Center there and we dont have any discussion what really is happening with the digesters, where are they going to get the energy and electricity to do it. Why are we kept in the dark . In the interim, there is Community Benefits and outsiders are getting 300,000 in grants, and we advocates who have been monitoring everything, we are getting shafted, but not for long. Not for long. So commissioners, some of you all are astute and i worked with you all, and we need to get the Empirical Data first before we make all these plans. Now, reflecting to a different time when ed smelof was here, we were good friends and we would discuss about some of these areas. So this transmission line, i want to know more about this transmission line, theres full accountability and transparency. Its supposed to be bringing about 75 megawatts so that the digester project can go forward. Now, paradoxically we started with 6 billion and now this system, the sewer system Improvement Project is 10 billion. Its like the central subway that started with 600 million and ended up with 2 billion. Somebody has to ask the question and commissioners and those appointed in high places and who get high salaries, they have to be accountable with full transparency. Thank you very much. President caen thank you. [ bell rings ]. President caen any other speakers snr i would like to take this opportunity to welcome the project Management Bureau interns who are seated in the back row. Welcome to our meeting. Next item, please. Clerk item 5 is communications. President caen commissioners, any comments . Public comments on this item. I see none. Lets move on to the report of the general manager. Good afternoon, commissioners. First, i wanted to update you on one of the items that you requested from me about working with the Planning Commission to present on our water supply assessments. So what has happened is that the twalimee river trust has engaged with the Mayors Office and so the Mayors Office is helping coordinate a lot of activities they would like to see happen. So the first thing is that the Mayors Office will sit down with the twalimee river trust and have a meeting with them, and i believe its scheduled for august 6. And then the next thing that were working on is actually the pc making a presentation number of the Planning Commission i think sometime in august. Were nailing down those dates, where we will give an assessment of our water supply and then they have an opportunity to present their case in front of them. So i just wanted to give you an update on that because thats something you wanted me to follow up on. And then the other item i just wanted to give you, that today was a very exciting day. We had an opportunity to really partner with the community about the best use for our different Water Supplies. It kind of follows a whole onewater concept. We worked with Energy Center San Francisco, which is previously in our deed. They use 33 million gallons of water to produce steam to heat buildings in the downtown area. Meanwhile, bart was pretty much dewatering their foundations and putting it in our sewers which was nearby. We found a unique opportunity to have those folks partner to save water, and what we did is we participated with giving them a grant to help them put a reverse osmosis plant there so they actually now are using the groundwater that bart would normally put into our sewers, treat it so that they can use that water instead of our water. We thought that was a great partnership. That is one of the largest onsite use projects in San Francisco today and were really proud of it and you will probably see it in the news today. I think it was earlier today. But thats the type of projects that were really pushing and that really means a lot to san franciscans. Other than that, that concludes my report. President caen thats wonderful news. Why do they have to use reverse osmosis . Is there salt in the water . The groundwater that theyre using is from from aquafer. So its not only to remove sod, but it had other things in the water. So theyre actually spending i think the whole processing train is about 4 million, and we provided a grant for half a million dollars, but theyre saving about 1. 2 to 1. 5 million in water costs purchasing water. So it actually benefits them in like four or five years. They get a payback. President caen so the bart water then, the bart water goes down our system and then we do something with it there . It goes to our Treatment Plant. They pump it into our sewers and it goes to the Treatment Plant. Now it doesnt. President caen it doesnt go to our Treatment Plant . Theres an infrastructure there that we have to build . What they did as part of the whole coordination is that Energy Center San Francisco, part of their whole design was to also give larger pumps so that bart can actually pump it to their location. So instead of pumping into a cistern that pumps that it goes into our sewer system, they actually pump it directly to them. So they worked in partnership, which is very challenging working with City Government and a sort of Quasi State Agency bart. So it was a partnership. It took about seven years of going back and forth and figuring out all the obstacles that we had to figure out to get around, but very excited about it. President caen thanks. Any Public Comment on the general managers report . Next item, please. Clerk item 7 is the bay area water supply and Conservation Agency update. Good afternoon, commissioner applis s, thank you for having me here today. Last month i talked to you about the new dry your Water Supplies in the San Francisco water system that are needed for the water that is represented and mandated by state law. I was encouraged by commissions strong positive response, and i want to take part in the conversation. For your successful Water Improvement Program which was built to rebuild the earth quake system, you established a strong and qualified organization within the pc that was led by an outsider at the time who reported directly to the general manager. That was a very bold step and i suggest that you need to take another bold step now, perhaps with someone already in the organization or another outside executive to lead this new water supply area. This new leader should be responsible to the general manager. This new leader should be responsible to the commission. This new leader should be assigned the huge and urgently needed task to find and develop new water sources for future drought years with an Adequate Program to make process. This was about rebuilding the pipes and infrastructure of the system. This new program will be the water to put through the system during drought years. Annual reports about your progress should be continued to the state, as required by law, and they should talk about the real water sources and their development. As boscos chair said during our board meeting, the next dry year for water users should depend on your Regional Water system may not be far away, so there is no time to lose and time for the pc to find a water center as needed during drought years. Similarly bosco will respond and fulfill its obligations. So i suggest by december of this year, 2019, that the pc staff should bring to the commission a plan that documents how your agency will develop and implement a program, not a plan, to deliver new critical Water Supplies for future droughts. They shall have a realistic budget. They should have full staffing, focus and responsibilities. This program should be included in your cip that you will be considering for adoption in 2020. Also needed will be a schedule that will be met with updated details as theyre available adds this program gets implemented and with continued engagement of bawsca. With that, that concludes my comments. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. I had an opportunity to talk to nicole and i do agree that we need to focus and make sure we have a Program Manager. Weve been talking internally about that, but i would say that the way we structure the water system Improvement Program, we have a Program Manager that actually reports through infrastructure and because thats what they do. And so i think we will come back with a structure of what we feel is appropriate and what resources we need. We will try to put together an overall schedule, but it is a little more difficult than designing a project when you have a lot of negotiating with other parties. So i dont know how a realistic schedule that you could put together when you dont know what your people that youre trying to coordinate is very challenging. But we will do our best to put it together. We understand the seriousness of this, and we are going to put resources we need so we can be successful. Thank you. President caen its a start. Its a start. Thank you very much. President caen any Public Comment . Commissioners, id like to go to the source. So i mentioned the raker act umpteen times over here, but i think some of you commissioners havent read the raker act. Some of you commissioners and i know one or two of you all have been in the capacity of being the general manager, i dont know if it was under the Water Department or the San Francisco Public Utilities commission which was formed in 1996. So when you say San Francisco Public Utilities commission, people think its a hundred years old. No, it was formed in 1996. The reason why i say that am i wrong . The commissions been around for a long time. It has had some changes in structure. Okay. The structure. But its i made a mistake it goes back at least the structure in 1996 when things were changed. Im saying this because originally we have to come to an understanding why did we damn the hachachee dam and reservoir and whose needs did we have in mind . Thats what im focused on. Some years ago i was doing some investigative reporting and i found out that ibm and some of the companies in the south were using inordinate millions and millions of gallons of water. And we agreed to those contracts because we get some money. Now, ive attended a few of the meetings and they do a good job, but again i want to come to this place when the raker act was established, whose needs did we have paramount in mind . Thats what im focused on. And the reason why im focused on that is because i work very closely with the native americans, the first people of the area, whose water that was. [ bell rings ]. And without their permission, the water was taken away from them and dammed. Today we think we can flush our toilets with clean drinking water, and thats a shame. I want yall to connect the dots. Im not going to go into the details because im not here to teach adults what is right and what is wrong, but those are my comments. Thank you very much. President caen thank you. Any other Public Comment . Next item, please. Clerk item 8 is other commission business. President caen commissioners, any business to bring up . No . Okay. The next item is the consent calendar. Clerk item 9 is a consent calendar, all matters listed hereunder constitute a consent calendar are considered to be routine by the San Francisco Public Utilities commission and will be acted upon by a single vote of the commission. There will be no separate of these items unless a member of the commission or the public so requests, in which event the matter will be removed from the calendar and considered a separate item. President caen is there any item you would like removed from the consent calendar . Any item that the public would like removed from the consent calendar . Seeing none, may i have a motion. So moved. Seconded. President caen all those in favor . Aye. President caen opposed . The motion carries. Next item, please. Clerk item 10 is a workshop overview of the sewer system Improvement Program including update on new headworks facility and biosolids digester facilities projects. Approve the terms and conditions if i can figure this thing out. Donna, can you can i have the overhead or the computer, please. Good afternoon, president caen, commissioners. Howard sung acting director of the water programs. Commissioners, this will be our second part of our twopart workshop in advance of our monthly updates. At our last workshop we provided an overview of this program and went over the construction manager, general contractor cmgc model being used for our headworks and biosolids. We also discussed how we incorporated Environmental Justice into the program and went over our Workforce Development strategies. For today i would like to recap on the approach as well as go over how we cost estimate how we cost estimate our projects and how we address project risks before we dive into the two biggest projects in head work ones and biosolids given they their respective project managers. At our last workshop we presented the concept of a traditional design bid build and the construction manager general contractor, cm gc approach. To recap the majority of our projects were using the bid build project where we developed 100 of steins and put the project out to bid. At no time during the design phase do we interact with the desig