The regular meeting of the San FranciscoPublic Utilities commission. Todays date is tuesday, may 26, 2020. Roll call, please. President caen . Here. Vice president vietor . Present. Commissioner moran . Here. Commissioner maxwell . Here. Commissioner paulson . Present. We have a quorum. We begin the meet, id like to make an announcement. Due to the covid19 Health Emergency and given the Public Health recommendations issued by the San Francisco department of Public Health and that Governor Newsom and mayor brown have lifted restrictions via conference, its being televised via sfgov tv. There is a brief time lag between the live meeting and what is being viewed on sfgov tv. On behalf of the commission id like to extend our thanks to sfgov tv staff. If you wish to make Public Comment on an item, dial 8882733658, access code 3107452 and pound, followed by pound again. When Public Comment is called, dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the speaker line. You will be you will hear an automated voice that will tell you when it is your turn to speak and your twominute speaking time will begin. I will alert you when your time has expired. These instructions will be repeat. If they havent already done show, im going to ask the commission and staff to minimize microphones to minimize background noise. And id like to note that item number 9 has been removed from the agenda and will be rescheduled to a different meeting. Madame president , your first order of business is item three, approval a of the minutes of. May 12, 2020. Yes. Commissioners, before you have the minutes of may 12, 2020, are there any additions or corrections . Seeing none, madame secretary, could you please open this to Public Comment . Members of public who wish to make Public Comment on item 3, a approval of the minutes of may 12, 2020, dial 882733658, access code 3107452 and pound followed by pound again. Dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the speaker line. [dinging] mr. Moderator, do we have any comments on minutes . Operator madame speaker, there are three callers in the queue. You have three questions remaining. Callers, please note this is for item number three, the minutes. First caller, go ahead. Hello, caller. You have two questions remaining. Hello, caller. This is Public Comment for item 3, minutes. Go ahead. Caller im sorry. I messed up. I was wanting to be in the general Public Comment. Ive never done this before. So, i messed up. Ok. No worries. No worries. Ill hop off and do it again. Ok. Thank you. Next caller . Operator you have one question remaining. Hi, caller. This is Public Comment on item number 3, the minutes. Caller hi, there. I also misunderstood. I wanted to make a general comment and not on ok. Thank you. Well do that as the next item. Caller ok. Thank you. Madame president , we have no Public Comment. Commissioner, any further discussion on the minutes . Seeing none, may i have a motion . President caen . Oh, im sorry. Ill move move to approve. Oh. Second. Madame secretary, please call the roll for the votes. [roll call] we have five ay irks. The motion caser. Next item, please. Item 4 is general Public Comment. Members of public may address the commission on matters that are within the commissions jurisdiction and are not on todays agenda. By dialing 8882733658, access code 3107452 and pound followed by pound again. Dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the speaker line. And while were waiting for callers, i did receive two email correspondents to be entered into Public Comment that were forwarded to the commission and ill take the two minutes and read each of these Public Comments. The first one is from maddelein mueller. Please put this into document. It is not for an item that is on the agenda, but may be soon so it is sent now and will be referenced on 526 during Public Comment on items not on the agenda. It involves a complex issue and Commission Members will no doubt value to t time to read through the materials. A resolution to acquire the balboa reservoir property for city college of San Francisco presented by the defense city college alliance, dcca. Preamble the overwhelming support for the recent propa, 845 million facilities bond for ccsf show San Franciscos Desire Development and growth for city college. The balboa reservoir is a critical element for dccf use. The members of dcca, therefore, recommend the following resolution one, whereas proposition a and 845 million facilities bond measure for new and renovated buildings at city and college of San Francisco also included the authority to acquire land. And whereas the voter elected trustees of city college of San Francisco are responsible to the citizens of San Francisco for the protection of the institution, its students and employees from the effects of political inclusion, including any encroaching privatization of a public college. And whereas the voters of San Francisco previously defeated two proposals for private Housing Development in balboa reservoir, proposition b in 1987 and l in 1988. Whereas the San FranciscoPublic Utilities commission signed an agreement in 1991 [inaudible] half of its reservoir property [bell ringing] and the timer is up on that item. Again, this was forwarded to the commission so you have the full gist of the Public Comment. The second is from mr. Dave warner. Dear president caen and commissioner, it has been a great honor to communicate with you, not just for your present role at the sfpuc but for your experience, expertise and values you bring to the commission. Im sorry to report troubling information. In resolution 190057 march 26, 2019, regarding the bay dock to ecosystem, there is a clear system that directs staff to include biological outcomes in the voluntary agreement. But when reading the portion of the agreement for the river that was recently published on one of irrigation districts websites, there is no specific biological outcome mentioned. It is troubling not just because it is the primary objective of environmentalists, discussions with the sfpuc or perhaps even more so because of the accountability governance concern. If the commission makes a specific resolution, it is expected that staff will follow that resolution or communicate back to the commission that staff is having difficulty implementing it. Otherwise, the resolution becomes meaningless and the effectiveness of the commissions oversight is reduced. A biological outcome statement in resolution 190057 was key because it was solution to the conflict between the conflict of water agencies and environmentalists. The water agencies said that salmon populations could recover with nonflow medical examinerer and less water than the state Water Resources can full board required while the environmentalists said that at a minimum the swrcbs full measures were intended im sorry, were needed in addition to nonflow measures. By studying biological outcomes in the voluntary agreement t flow conflict became moot as flow debate didnt matter as long as fish populations recover. Perhaps staff has been intending to communicate to you at a future meeting of not being able to add biological objectives to the voluntary agreement. If so, the communication should have been done before the volunteer agreement became public [bell ringing] again, that correspondence was forwarded to the commission this morning. And mr. Moderator, can you open the phone lines, please . Yes, madame secretary. Operator you have five questions remaining. Hello, speaker. Go ahead. Yes. My name is thomas. Im the former trekererer of the Libertarian Committee of San Francisco. Id like to call the attention to the east bay. Its a huge 55,000acre parcel that travels four counties. It is slated for development and an inclusion into the state park system. However, Governor Newsoms budget cuts that line item and it is on the market for 65 million for the first time in 85 years. The agent is todd renfrew with which the p. U. C. Has an existing relationship because it acquired the wool ranch property from him. And although the press [inaudible] doesnt have water, its simply not true. This 55,000 parcel is adjacent to existing p. U. C. Watershed property and could be developed for future Water Resources, set aside for future Water Resources or set aside for other resources such as the development of wind power. I urge the sfpuc to investigate finance mechanisms that may not have been available. Specifically the public banking mechanism under senate 3wi8 57, the use of time dops and the use of private loan contracting. The p. U. C. Could acquire this property through an asset swap and if the p. U. C. Involved nontax, nonfinancing mechanisms, i could add the property, which is a 55,000acre, unbelievably beautiful open space, unencumbered by any conservation easements to its existing enterprise. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Operator you have five questions remaining. Hello, go ahead. Caller yes, thank you, president caen and commission. Im the person whos going to make a comment related to the resolution which you began the reading of. Ill say this this resolution to acquire the balboa reservoir property for city college of San Francisco is posted and available at this website. Its www. Publiclandsforpublicgood. Org. The overwhelming support for the recent propa facilities bond for city college of San Francisco voters desire for environment and growth of city college. The reservoir is a critical elements for city college use. The plan to privatize it in in other words to buy 1100 housing units, mostly at market rate, contradicts and undermines the Public Interest and members of the dcca therefore recommend the following resolution. And theyre all documented, you know, the source for the whereas in the document. Just wanted to mention a few things. Various entities have supported the transfer from the p. U. C. Through the college in order to make the retain the public status and there is a possibility that both expanding the campus and having 100 affordable housing, the San Francisco labor council, the coalition for San Francisco neighborhoods and the colleges participatory governance council. Id like to mention clauses nine and 10s. Nine says whereas city college lease the reservoir property continuously since 1946 as the only entity [bell ringing] thank you, speaker. Operator you have four questions remaining. Go ahead, speaker. Caller thank you. Hi there, president caen and fellow commissioners. I want to thank you for us to cut in and make comments through this covid per. I hope youre all safe and well. Im born and raised in the bay area and currently live in San Francisco and i live in district 2. Im calling about my support about restoring and protecting the river and the water and the bay delta system. The cold water that flows through the delta and s. F. Bay are important and make a difference. Every day, because i do this, you can walk down to the Municipal Pier at a quad park and you can see people fishing and crabbing, every day that i go sailing on the bay, without fail, you now see harbor por poises and when i was a kid, this was nots the case. And the salmon boats are out in the water again. So the river water flowing from the source all the way through the delta to the bay is very important. Id like to encourage the sfpuc to voluntary release the 40 of unimpaired flow and has been discussed many times. And if it is a dry year, they can always revert back to the previous ban. This is possible. Because demand for water is low and San Francisco and bay area residents have been very good at showing their willingness to conserve water, theyre very environmentallyminded and i would like the sfpuc to keep that in mind when making flow decisions. If it hasnt been addressed yet, it would be great with the recommendations by president vietor be addressed. Thank you for your time and please make decisions based on the environmental value for the bay area. Thank you so much. Thank you. Operator you have three questions remaining. Go ahead. Caller my name is michael frost. I live in san carlos. I have two young girls and we love fishing together. And my girls Pay Attention to whats in the news and whats going on and they ask me all the time dad, what is life going to be like for me environment tally . Is the world going to burn down . Will there be any fish left in the oceans . Questions like this. What do we do . What are you going to do. What im doing, kids, is im going to put pressure on our existing leaders, our elected leaders and our appointed leaders to establish priorities for what matters. Water is life. And fish are leading indicator of the health of a region. If the fish die, we die. I would like this board to assign priority to the flows of fresh water into the bay belt ecosystem. Because water is life and fish cannot survive on nonflow measures. My 6yearold understands that. Fish need water. The fish die, we die. And we have an insatiable market that were all living up to and it is tough to catch up with it. But we need to understand hard truths. This is one of them. This is an important time in our society. People are looking more and more to the environment. Today were living one day at a time and im going to implore you as leaders to put priority on to the fresh water flows which is the life blood of this region. If the fish die, we die. Were at extinction levels in the bay delta right now. Bottom line. And i dont want to have to explain extinction and the planet being burned down and a repatience market to my kids anymore. [bell ringing] thank you. Operator you have two questions remaining. Caller my name is francis de la costa. And you are still work on the technical problems, but all the same s it doesnt matter. Whats important is that we get an opportunity to voice our opinion. We have this pandemic and i should oefp our eyes. And one of the things that we have to reflect upon is resources and highdensity living. All other days of high density living, the last time i was throng this meeting, one commissioner was trying to make a point that we shouldnt be wasting water or we shouldnt be using too much water. And instead of listening to her, the general manager ganged up on her. I read his words. And the general manager should wisen up. The general manager of the sfpuc who makes 400,000 a year should wisen up and represent the people. If he cannot represent the people, then he should step down. Now whats going on at city college, whats going all over San Francisco, when i comes to the usage of our resources, we have to be very careful as the previous speaker said. Water is life. That is a concept from the native americans. We failed to respect the native americans. This is their land. Each and every square inch of this land was stolen from their native americans. It is time to repent and this pandemic is a sign for yall to learn something. Thank you very much. Madame secretary, i believe this is the last caller. Operator you have one question remaining. Caller hi. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. My name is mary holser and im calling in support of the Water Quality control plan and i would really like the ask you, commissioners, please drop your lawsuit against the latest plan. The plan is designed to protect, preserve and repair the bay delta estuary and it is seeking to increase the amount of water to be released from the various dams. The amount of water that the current voluntary agreement plans to release is not enough to flush and replenish the wet lands along the river. And it isnt enough to limit salt water intrusion, which is damaging the delta. In general, it is not enough to preserve the health of the delta and to safeguard a clean water supply, not just the water supply for single use. Its many people depend on the river. That includes Safe Drinking Water and supporting various livelihoods such as salmon fishing industry, and industrial agriculture. You, as the commissioners, have a responsibility to the environment as a whole and you should encourage no, you should insist on reducing dependency in the river by ramping up Water Conservation methods and recycled water projects. The ecological crisis in the delta is not going to get any better until there is enough water released from the dam to allow this delta itself to make itself healthy. Its important to put a strong bay delta Water Quality control in place to repair the damage and preserve a healthy delta environment for future general railsings. Generations. I totally support the previous speakers in favor of this. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any additional callers . There are no more callers in the queue. Ok. General Public Comment, item 4, is now closed. Madame president , your next item is item 5, communications. Any comments on communications, commissioners . Seeing none, madame secretary, could you please open this up for Public Comment . Members of public who wish to present