Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20240714

Supervisor mandelman to implement ab 1784, so id like to make a motion to add that language. President yee okay. Theres a motion to amend. Is there a second . Seconded by supervisor peskin. If theres no objection, then well take these amendments outlined. [gavel]. President yee colleagues, can we take this item, same house, same call, as amended . Seeing no objection, then, this resolution passes unanimously. [gavel]. President yee number 62. Clerk 62 is a resolution to support the rights of San Francisco veterinary specialists. President yee supervisor ronen . Supervisor ronen yes. I am so proud to have the cosponsorship of every single colleague on this board. Thank you so much for standing by these workers. As i stated last week, sfvs is owned by v. C. A. , a company that owns 800 animal hospital. In 2018, v. C. A. Was purchased by mars, the candy company. The next step is for the company and union to negotiate a contract. That started 14 months ago, but unfortunately has resulted in delays, not a contract. Colleagues, bypassing this resolution unanimously, we are sending a strong message to marsv. C. A. And San Francisco veterinary specialists that we expect them to honor the law and do right by their employee. They need to know that San Francisco is a strong union town that will always fight for justice. President yee okay. Colleagues, can we take this same house, same call . Okay. With no objection, this resolution is adopted unanimously. [gavel]. President yee number 65 . Clerk 65 is an authorization to written ballot arguments for submittal to the voters for the 2019 consolidated municipal election. President yee okay. Colleagues, the amendments to the motion have been distributed to authorize preparation of ballot arguments for the november 2019 election as follows. Number one, president yee to write the proponent argument for the Charter Amendment regarding the disability and ageing Services Commission and department. Number two, mayor breed to write the proponent argument for the g. O. Bond regarding affordable housing. Number three, mayor breed to write the proponent argument for the Initiative Ordinance regarding the tax on net rider fares. Number four, supervisor fewer to write the proponent argument for the initiative regarding the Affordable Homes for educators. Number five, supervisor mar to write the proponent argument for the Initiative Ordinance regarding prohibitions on campaign distributions. Number six, supervisor walton to write the opponent argument for the petition Initiative Ordinance on vapor products. Can i have a motion for on these amendments . Motion by supervisor walton, and seconded by supervisor fewer. Then, without objection, these amendments are adopted. [gavel]. President yee on the resolution, can we take this item, same house, same call as amended . Without objection, this amendment is approved unanimously. [gavel]. President yee madam clerk, lets go back to item 60 which was scheduled pursuant to motion m19. Clerk this is where Public Comment to enter into closed session was taken for the board to convene in closed session for the purpose of receiving advise or conferring with the City Attorney in a case which pacific gas and electric is an adverse party. President yee okay. Weve already had Public Comment on that, and well go into closed session. [inaudible] president yee members of the public, we ask that you exit the chambers and the sheriffs to lock the doors behind them. We will open. President yee okay. We are back in open session. May i have a motion that the board finds that it is in the best interest of the public that the board elect not to disclose this closed session deliberations. Motion made by supervisor ronen, seconded by supervisor mandelman. Then without any objection we will not disclose our closed session deliberations. Madam clerk, please read the in memoriams. Clerk todays meeting will be adjourned in memory of the of the following loved individuals, motion made a supervisor walton by the late mr. Walton, sr. , and on behalf of Clifford Benjamin henry, on behalf of supervisor brown on behalf of the late hannah sigri, and on behalf of supervisor stefani, on behalf of the victims of the gilroy shooting. President yee colleagues, that brings us to the end of the agenda. Madam clerk, is there any further business before us today . Clerk that concludes this session. President yee this is our last meeting before our recess session. Have a great summer, and we are done with the agenda. [gavel] sustainability mission, even though the bikes are very Minimal Energy use. It Still Matters where the energy comes from and also part of the mission in sustainability is how we run everything, run our business. So having the lights come on with clean energy is important to us as well. We heard about cleanpowersf and learned they had commercial rates and signed up for that. It was super easy to sign up. Our bookkeeper signed up online, it was like 15 minutes. Nothing has changed, except now we have cleaner energy. Its an easy way to align your environmental proclivities and goals around Climate Change and its so easy that its hard to not want to do it, and it doesnt really add anything to the bill. [ 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 ne