Transcripts For SFGTV 20110323 : vimarsana.com

i have an amendment that i would like to introduce. the amendment would be a number seven that would say to the extent that the san francisco public utilities commission must identify and procurer the most energy-efficient product available and will explore the efficacy of charged lighting as the technology becomes available. in many cases, we would not be the ones procuring. how is that specify if someone gets a standard? that is a standard light? then what do we do? under this proposal, we would be on the ground floor at the planning and design phase and they would have to come to us and say this is what we want to install. we would then be able to say, no, you re not allowed to install it because it does not meet the efficiency specifications that we have. we would have the authority with this policy adoption that we don t have today. to develop and apply the standards. so, would you come back to us with a set of standards as the next that after this policy? we could. we already have under development and are planning to bring to you the street lights portfolio and will incorporate into the pedestrian lighting. we are planning on having that complete by the end of this year. we presented to you over a year ago and that project has been under way since we have incorporated the pedestrian lighting into it. we would be able to specify the type of polls and fixtures. we have a portfolio so someone could not say, i want to do this one unique-looking poll. we would have those controls in place. we would bring this back to you for consideration. i think it makes sense us to go ahead on this. in the counter item, you talk about the operating costs that would go to 303,000. that sounds smaller than the numbers we re talking about. that was on the slide that i showed you. my resumption is that it pay the capital cost. in some instances we would, we would look to provide that capital cost. that this would be a city requirement to have pedestrian writing and the developer would be responsible for that cost. the city requires them to provide 10% of the installed polls and fixtures available to us. that is all at the beginning of the capital project. sponsored by a third party, not the city, that would come to us as part of that. this of reborn by the project developer. this includes having some inventory and stock. i am not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing but there is very little money for the rest of the program to deal with. all the more reason. most street improvements, the sidewalks and amenities are paid for either by the developer or by the department of public works and the become teachers diction s for them to maintain this. a lot of the pedestrian lights we are talking about are not our obligation and their basically owned by the department of public works. i am not sure. i think that the document that you were given with the package, we re just looking for it says who has what. this is another area where someone is trying to figure this out. it environment where we show a financial plan that does not balance and we are talking about taking on a variety of obligations. this is yet another one and this is at the same time that we re subsidizing the municipal power rights. it seems to be that there is something not being considered here. we are not a bottomless pits. there is a limit to what we can do. pedestrian lighting and having must take charge means we don t have to deal with people not doing their job but there is a cost and i m concerned about it. this is a resource that we know is insufficient. if we postpone this item for a month to see what happens with the better streets planning and the economy and what not. i see the pedestrian my question. does that mean that nothing can take care of those lights? that s right. there is no clarity on who gets called and to take the truck out there to fix it. in the case of the district, yes. there presently owned by the developer who improved the area. we would try to insist that they continue to maintain them. you would not let the lights go out. these are actually street lights. they have not been accepted by the city. outages are happening. these are not our lights. they have not been inspected by the city. it kind of goes into limbo. at some point, it becomes a safety and security issue. there are special improvements. this lighting is ours. there was always be ambiguity. we understand your problem but this is not ours. we re not sure whose responsibility it is. perhaps to move this along, and we are hoping that they will maintain responsibilities from these areas. we will revisit this in three- six months. we can revisit this. there are problem lights, they need repair. we have insane for two years, not our problem. the other part is the better streets, not a developer, not someone coming in, this is really the city changing the look of the city. you are right, they re looking for money to be able to do that and we can come back with a suggestion. we come come back with the use of pedestrian writing and we can continue this while you think about that. no one else is going to listen to most of these lights. the way that i would like to frame the discussion is that there are many things that there is a desire to do. we have a source of funding which is considerable to those kind of issues. this is not an infinite supply. there should be discussions about how this is most important to us. we have a variety of programs. how does this back up compared to those? that is a discussion that we should have. at this time, i don t see how this compares with the programs that we have already committed ourselves for. my recommendation would be that we not act on it at this time. we don t have the resources to do with it. we re willing to get into a discussion about priorities for the use of the resources. are there further comments? i just think that we have to take into account the historical nature of this district. that was one other option, can we take on this piece? i don t think this approach is ideal but there is a problem already. this seems to be a very specific piece, maybe our meeting, you could come back to us with what that would look like because of the historic nature. i to have that. you are talking about the film more jazz district? they are not even a fixture that we would have. right. if that comes back, part of that discussion should be whether a special assessment is a reasonable alternative for that. part of what we re trying to corral is all of these different concept and there is a unique idea about the look and feel of the street. now, will you take it. there is a big burden on having adequate land to put all those inventory and when a poll gets knocked down and needs to be repaired, you have in stock. coming into the game midstream is probably the worst way for us to come in. what we were proposing is that we will take on things and then we are at the table, at the planning phase and can no how those conduits are being designed, know that it meets all of our requirements. it can be properly maintained. what i m hearing is that this commission would be relatively comfortable with us setting the standards. let s look and see if we can get the benefits of setting the standards and take a special look at the fillmore. let us look and see what we can do and bring that back to you. moccasin compound president vietor: any public comments on this? proposed upgrade to the facilities at millbrae yard, sunol yard, and moccasin compound. we had a number of items related to fixing the different facilities we had. you asked us to come up with a more global view. item 12, before asking you to approve that, we wanted to get back with a larger discussion of what we are trying to do with those yards we maintain. mr. ritchie? steve ritchie, assistant general manager for water. the millbrae yard upgrades are on the 10-year capital plan, funded by water rates. the moccasin compound is part of the hetch hetchy budget. it has a little bit of a different character. that is one that has caused some questions here. i am going to cover all three of these facilities. first, just looking at what we are talking about are fairly old facilities. millbrae yard was established in 1900. we have 200 employees there. sunol yard also dates prior to 1900. it accommodates 30 employees on the east bay side. the moccasin compound was established in the 1920 s. you have about 200 employees. between these and the least basin, this is the place where over half the water department works. the of the core of where our operation is outside of san francisco. we have a number of drivers for the upgrades we are talking about here. modernization of these facilities a lot of them are very old facilities. and consolidation of staff into the right places. we have looked at where we should move stuff around. safety and efficiency considerations are also a big piece of this, trying to make sure our folks are working in modern, say, efficient facilities. some of you have been to them. some of you have not. this is a photograph of millbrae yard, looking toward the yard. it is set well back from the street and is a fairly large complex there. this is an aerial view of it. there are existing facilities right there. there is administration an administration building which is an unusual shape. in 1960 to design, i believe. we have empty spaces there and some large shop facilities in the existing facilities. our objective as part of the upgrade is office space consolidation. release about 16,000 feet. we want to consolidate those employees back into millbrae yard. modernization and consolidation. we would be devoting the entire administration building to laboratory facilities. we really have a need to modernize our laboratories and bring them up to date. we would be eliminated in the laboratory facility in the southeast water control plant and relocating that facility down here for a much more efficient and modern laboratory. at the same time, we would be modernizing the shops and providing for security improvements. this is a quick shot of the administration building, the laboratory, from the ground level inside the yard. it is a little bit of a vintage building. they call this midcentury in real estate ads. this is one of the less attractive areas of the yards. this is the trailer facilities. note the blue tarp roof, which is what you do when they start to leak a lot. we have some older facilities there. this is the proposed site plan. one component would be building an anonymous building close to the street, fronting on the street as opposed to setback as are now. that would be where the staff would be working and the main administration buildings that currently exist would be devoted to a laboratory facilities. that would be a major change. there are a few other improvements. you can take a look at this yard and it looks like a farm. that is basically what it has been for many years, over time. that was located in the snow valley. the large yellow-circled area is where the yard is. the small yellow circle toward the southern part of the photograph is where the sunol temple is that we have worked into overtime. sunol yard upgrades are modernization and consolidation. to be moving some staff from millbrae to sunol. there would be modernization and security improvements, public amenities as well as for us. alameda watershed would be part of this. this was originally a primary residence out in sunol. this represents sunol, which looks like a barn. a lot of things are stored outside. we would be moving to a lot more inside storage and removing older structures to put in modern facilities. this is a photo of the sunol temple, one of the major features of their in sunol. we had the 100th anniversary not long ago. this is looking down the temple access road, which runs straight down for about a mile, back to calaveras road. we are talking about here putting the watershed center off to the left side of this photo, which purchased pe rches on top. this is a simple line drawing encasing all the guard in a modernized cents, providing for shop buildings along the lower line. to the right is the main administration building. there are warehouse facilities to the north of this. this is consolidating and paving this whole area. it is partly unpaved and full of potholes. it is dusty in summer and muddy in winter. this is a challenge in place to work. this is a shot of what we actually displayed at the sunol event in september of some visions for the alameda creek watershed center. we envision the three buildings that would be off to the left of the temple. there would include a classroom, meeting room, and interpretive facility. this should be something people could use for educational purposes, for making purposes for us, for other public agencies, and for folks in the local area, learning about our facilities and using them as community access. we are working on trying to define those interested needs out there in the area. lastly, the moccasin compound. this is a view over moccasin reservoir. the dominant feature there is the old power house, the brick- colored building to the center right of the photograph. to the left is the current administration building. to the far left is the old power is the new powerhouse. these are vintage facilities. the old power house was built in the 30 s. the new power house was built in the 60s. this is a quick over head of the existing moccasin facilities. this was the original company town there. there are lots of buildings spread over this area. the ones that are labeled are part of the operation. there are many smaller buildings that are not labeled. those are cottages that in some cases are rented out to employees and in some cases are empty. the ec and number of powerhouse facilities, a number of shops on the lower part, surveyors, artie rt, engineers, and other things in this area. our objectives are office space consolidation. the we are looking at reuse of the old power house. this is an issue we talked about in the budget. this has been sitting there for a long time. there have been desires to do something or not with it. i will show you the status right now of it. it is time to come to grips with that. modernization of our shop and security improvements. right now, it is fairly easy to get into moccasin. we need to get better control. we have to eliminate health and safety issues in the compound. there is an exterior shot of the old powerhouse. you can see a little bit that some of the beautiful glass window there is broken from rocks. it is a mature building. you can see the paint flaking off. there are issues with mold and other problems we have to deal with with this building. this is a shot of the old power house when it was a powerhouse. that basic image is one where there is lots of light that comes in from these large windows on either end of the building and along the upper stories. this is a very open, like space. in talking with the bureau of architecture, there is great opportunity to do something very constructive with the space internally. that very old, thick wall they do not build them like they used to. this one has some energy and vintages we might want, going forward. is its seismically sound? one of the things that needs to be done with the old powerhouse is structural upgrades, because it is in a position now where it could collapse, if we just let it sit there. i would not put an exact date on it. if there is a seismic event or just sheer old age, like some of us get that way over time. this is what it is currently used for, which is storage of large pieces of equipment that are used in the moccasin effort. that is something we need to provide for. it is a function. but that huge space is underutilized. we just have to come to grips with the cost of doing this. right now, our administration facilities are spread throughout the compound. the idea of consolidating them in here, where we have built structural supports around the edge of the building, it might be like the ferry building. it is a good possibility. we have a number of modular buildings there, some of which are 30 years old. they have issues where they are in the middle of starting to have some structural problems. the idea of consolidation is very attractive here. we have some different things we can do. here it shows red text and black text. the first option is building a new administration building. the existing at fenestration building is like a slightly converted old hotel. the offices there are very small. it is kind of a rabbit warren. one option is to build a new administration building with a worker support facilities. the other option is to do something in the old power house, where it would consolidate administration functions and workers support facility to make sure that function is consolidated in a constructive way. we are looking at the costs. now, it costs more money to convert the old power house. one of the things i have requested of the engineers is an energy use comparison over a 50 year life. if you use an older building like that, i think chances are good that we would have lower energy costs. nobody has done that analysis yet. that is information we are looking for right now. in total, we are lookin