>> sfpuc regular meeting of january 23 is called to order. roll call of commissioners, please. >> good afternoon. before i call the roll i like to announce item 6 is going to be [indiscernible] item 15 on closed session will be rescheduled. president paulson, aye. here. vice president [roll call] you have a quorum. >> thank you. before the first item i like to announce that the san francisco

public utilities commission acknowledges it owns and stewards of the lands within the territory of the oholone tribe. also recognize every citizen residing within the greater bay area has and continues to benefit from the use and occupation of the oholone tribes aboriginal land before and after the public utility founding in 1923. it is vitally important we not only recognize the history of the tribal lands which we reside and acknowledge and honor the fact that the oholone people have established a working partnership with the sfpuc and productive and flourishing members within the many greater san francisco bay area communities today. donna, can you call the first

item, please? >> item 3 approval of the minutes of january 9, 2024. >> commissioners, are there any corrections to the minutes? seeing none, let's open the minutes to-call for public comment please? >> members of the public to provide comment on item 3, the minutes. seeing none. >> seeing no public comment, we have a motion and second to approve the minutes of january 9. >> so moved. >> second. >> there is a motion and second. roll call, please. [roll call] five ayes. >> item 4. >> general public comment. members of the public can provides comment to the public comment to the commission on items that are within the

commission jurisdiction and not on today's agenda. i do have two speaker cards. one from spreck rose and i know we have others present. >> please come up to the microphone. you're up. >> i'll be quick. this is about the emerson community hunters point bayview economic development commitment. members of the commission, as a concerned resident of the hunter point bayview communities, there are several points of questions i like to bring forth to the body concerning the new waste treatment facility that has been undertaken by sfpuc in service of these neighborhoods. they are as follows, one, there was a commitment made to the hp and bayview neighborhoods of 5 percent of total cost of the facility completions dedicated to the furtherment of education

and training for residents of this project. originally totaling 5 percent of the project are $300 million. what happened to those funds? [indiscernible] what is the status of this endowment? how much of the fund has been allocated and how much remains? how has it been disseminateed to the community and what body has been and will be responsible for this distribution of funds? two, the project seems to have hit several impasses that put it outside the timelines originally set. community presentations have not been announced or presented. this needs to happen as soon as possible so a sense of transparency from sfpuc is satisfied to the community of the project is the serve. what is the current status of

the finance? what is the current expectation for the final projected cost of the project? as 5 percent of the project is committed to the community, what is the final expected commitment to the community based on the cost and when will those funds become available for intended use? >> thank you, sir. thank you, sir. next speaker. >> commissioners, yesterday i listened to the presentation on the future of how this commission will address a number of very pertinent issues. we have to be very careful how

we spend our money linked to the sewer system improvement project, because we failed miserable with the water system improvement project. now, this project, the largest project and i'm referring to the sewer system improvement project is in the bayview hunters point and we have a contracting center. this center was created because i had a vision. it was my model. it was created so that we could address the fte link today the sewer system improvement project and also, help who ever need ed help like the contractors. in the middle [indiscernible]

chose to make it a contracting center where they dumped all the documents and nothing more is happening. furthermore, the southeast sector was [indiscernible] many small businesses before we turned over the model romulus so we did what we could holistically to serve the community. today we ask you commissioners to give us the resources so we can improve the community and address the pertinent issues. thank you very much. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi. [indiscernible] a native of bayview hunters point raised my children there. i am requesting that the funds that they have set aside for

the bayview reinstate the stationary engineer program for our community members. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> president paulson and commissioners, thanks for the opportunity to speak on spreck rose crans talking for restore hetch hetchy, here to thank the commission for support of projects around hetch hetchy reservoir, including a new and safer falls bridge. if you is have been there when the water is high you can't cross the bridge. people have been washed off it and died but try to see the water fall when it is high you can't get there, so thank you. thank you for repairing the boat ramp. thank you for the project to provide potable water to the camp site. people camp there and don't like to have to walk a mile

around the road to where the potable water is and thank you also working with park service improved interpretation around hetch hetchy and much appreciated. i included some of these things in a letter i wrote to you folks a year ago that i thought was supposed to be part of the moa and realized that was the wrong forum, but anyway , thank you very much. >> thank you. next speaker, please. general public comment. seeing no more speakers, let us go to the next item, donna. >> 5, report of the general manager. >> thank you madam secretary. item 5a is human resources update and wendy macey and melissa white will be presenting.

>> good afternoon commissioners. i'm wendy, here to present our update on the hiring efforts. may i please have the slides? so, as we enter into the new year, i'm pleased to report our vacancy rate for permanent funded positions is trending down after having risen during the pandemic. we all know about the challenges during the pandemic. our current raw vacancy rate is trending downward despite having added over a hundred positions in the meantime, which is as i analogy is the goal post is moving down the hill and able to trend downward so we appreciate the progress and appreciate your attention to these issues. this slide should appear as a [indiscernible] this is where

we identify the bureau's or enterprises which have the highest numbers of vacancies or vacancy rates and i do want to caveat that our vacancy rates are raw numbers. as you might have noted when agm robinson spoke yesterday, there are a number recruitments in process and so our actual net vacancy rate is much smaller, so this time for the first time since we have been reporting this wastewater actually came out with the highest number of vacancies. very small things could impact our vacancy rates, so in this particular case, we had a unusually large number of 73, 72 stationary engineer sewer plants leaving the commission. eight of them, four of which were retirements, but we are-we have a strategy for addressing these vacancies, so what we have done is we analyzed both

commission wide and also within wastewater which of the classifications have the highest number of vacancies, so for example, in wastewater, i'll pick them because they are the highest number, in addition to the stationary engineer sewer plant, we have senior stationary sewer plant, sewer plant worker and each we have a eligibility list that exists from which people can be hired from. many of these jobs that are in the highest number of vacancies do typically require either a degree, level of experience and apprenticeship or some combination of those. just for your information. this slide actually looks different. we have been continually trying to improve the data we provide to the commission. you may remember the one that looks like a circle with arrows going in and out, a little

confusing. this is more straight forward and you can see that basically we have now-run the cusp of the threshold of 2,000 positions filled, which we had not achieved in the past but as of today tolds we are over 2,000. tomorrow could be different but for now it is 2,000. we want a streamlined way to indicate how many transactions and recruitments staff are performing. as noted before, we have a complex civil service process. there are a lot of movements among the agency so looking at the net how many in and out doesn't necessarily tell the whole story. thank you again for your continued interest. very very appreciative of the commission. on continuous improvement

projects we have embarked upon as a team, the hiring demands are relentless and the commission and public we loved sharing some results with these data in the presentations and committed to better leverage our data to continually improve the data we provide to you. we also created a hiring priority dash-board which we shared with all of our managers of bureaus and enterprised. this helps us to prioritize our work. we can't work on all recruitment at the same time so made a effort to focus on those the greatest need and focus it as safety sensitive highest number of vacancies, ones where the enterprise is fully able to absorb new staff, things of that nature, so that has been a very good initiative. one thing i did want to give you a preview coming attractions and just so you

know, this will be a process, it will take a little time to implement, but we mentioned the talent acquisition group, which is the largest group within hrs. it is traditionally been organized in three main subject matter areas. this is common many city departments have it the same way. there is a group that focus on examinations, there is a group which focuses on hiring operations which are transactions and a group which is focused on employee life cycle so on-boarding and things of that nature. and this is the way traditionally we have been organized. it has served us well in many ways because our staff have been able to develop specialized knowledge and expertise in these areas. well known very common in the city, but as you can see it is

very definition of a silo. what we are now moving towards is what we call the ta revamp and this is a pretty dramatic reorganization of our team into more a client centered cross-functional team. for example, power enterprise would have a pot of analyst who dedicate soup to nuts for all the work for that enterprise, so that allows sort of better consistency with each of the enterprises, better familiarity with their particular operating needs. there is less disruption if someone should happen to be on vacation. there is always someone in the groop ready to step in and importantly from the staff perspeckive, rather then being narrowly focused in the subject matter areas i mentioned a moment ago, they will be cross-trained.

each of the members of the team will be able to understand in a better way how the work fits with the overall agency priorities and able to provide better customer service as well as better candidate service, so this again is the vision of the future. it has a lot of benefits we believe to the client and excitesed about the change. we do want to make sure it is done right and staff have their change management concerns address jd training concerns address ed. we don't want to throw them in a new system without having all the tools in place to allow them to be successful and it has been a little of trepidation to doing something new. change is hard, and so again, we want to make sure and treat it as a project and do if right methodically and make sure all the questions and things are ironed out before we go live,

but again i want to give the preview because this is the way we believe we can best focus our resources to provide the most proactive responsive and timely service to our clients. the other big thing, big news we have in hrs is we have two recruiters on board and you know many times we talked beour outreach and how important it is to have people who are adept at social media and boots on the ground and so we are thrilled that they are here. they are really working hard on building our brand. david and [indiscernible] if you want to stand up, they are in the audience. they wanted to come and say hello to the commission. they really have been doing hit the ground running. some commissioners mentioned you kind of forward our linked in and so forth so we appreciate that as well and we have been able to at least get

our advaratizement specifically tailored to the puc that are set in the language, the word job titles came up in another presentation. again, making it more engaging and more relevant to what our candidate pool is looking for. so, they are in the process of developing a strategic plan for recruitment, so utilizing the expertise from the private sector to align our recruitment strategy with the sfpuc goals working on outreach channels, diversifying talent pool and engaging in events such as recent outreach event on student summer internships. so, i see on the time and happy to take any questions that you have, commissioners. >> great. thank you. always look forward to all look forward to continuing reports you give and the invasion you

are doing and we don't have to say it again and i think we said it yesterday during the budget hearings that this is always a moving target with people looking at benchmarks and if is 15 percent, 20percent, whatever it for unfilled positions, that is not only need-based, it is like boy, we really need the people and sometimes turns into a political football so this commissioner in particular appreciates the amount of invasion you are trying and moving around because ultimately i don't think we dont know what the benchmark is. people say 4 percent unemployment is a good thing. i always for hundred years said why is that a good thing? there are certain-this is a science of some regards figuring how to get these things put together, so i appreciate these reports and i see progress even though obviously it is the benchmarks

that we ultimately need to look at to see if we are winning our losing so to speak. on one particular issue on the 7372's, you highlighted i assume for a reason that the stationary engineer position in the sfpuc is volatile and there are openings. i am assuming somebody on your staff is doing this, but the path to a stationary engineer i know has been sometimes people don't always just say i want to be a stationary engineer when i'm 17. they get there, some of them get some folks get there in different ways, sometimes teachers say i want to do something different andnd up be agstationary engineer, sometimes a plumber does. sometimes a stationary engineer goes to be a plumber and a janitor moves into being a stationary engineer. i assume not just by talking to local 39, the stationary

engineer union the representative and bargaining unit for stationary engineers i believe, hopefully your staff are reaching out to those folks to see, because that pathway is sometimes not as straight forward as just i'm going into that apprenticeship program and i'm done even though the apprenticeship is important. just a tidbit i assume there have been connections on that particular need. any comments on that? >> yes. we have been working for quite a long time with dhr, the labor partners looking at strategies for particularly in wastewater, either coming in and also looking at classification work that helps people progress either within maintenance or within operations, and so trying to make that a way that again gives people advance opportunities, that is a long

conversation and it continues. >> i expected that, but i just-you highlighted it so thank you much. commissioner maxwell. >> [microphone not on]. would you explain transaction when you said [indiscernible] it is on. transaction, what- >> thank you. i was able to hear you because you project your voice well. it was just pointing out the fact that every time there is movement within the puc, it can be someone doing a transfer, someone promoting, it could be someone moving from temporary to permanent status, it could be any number of things. those take the staff time even if it maybe doesn't net an additional new person coming in

to the puc. as i always tell staff, 25 people come, 25 go and looks like me did nothing. we thought it was important to be transapparent to the commission we not only show the net increases or decreases in staffing, but also show again we have a system where people are able to promote, people are able to move around and diversify their skills in many different ways and want to encourage that and also understand hrs analyst need to do a lot of processing on the back-end to make all these things happen. >> okay, thank you. there was a question asked yesterday and i-at our budget meeting, and it was [indiscernible] sandkulla and she said is the process efficient to insure necessary staff resources to implement

the budget objeckives operating goal? the budget operating goals? is the process you are undergoing you understand the question? >> yes. it is a big question. i can only just say that the strategies that we are proposing are sound and appear to have the most likelihood of success. we don't know necessarily how many people come and go, all that we-so two pillars of this strategy to address overall staffing, one is the focus on retention, which you heard a lot of people talk about, particularly creating permanent opportunities for our staff, right? so, because we believe that that is-has been a reason that some people have gone for other opportunities because they have

been able to get a permanent opportunity somewhere else. one thing that we feel increases our ability to be staffed in a way that will allow us to achieve objectives is focus on the retention piece and giving people opportunities. having the positions aligned to the work that is needed. that is very important. the second thing and you know, not to advocate for our own department over everyone else, because everyone ask was important, but you know, hrs has been-has fallen behind in its being able to keep up with the work. it is not a secret, and it has fallen behind for multiple reasons in terms of the number of positions that they have and then also our own staffing challenges. our own turnover. i believe that these things

sort of self--perpetuate if it is left where there is perception there isn't enough staff to get the work done, the staff get more demoralized and perhaps more might leave. if there is investment in hrs to acknowledge we are act in partnership with everyone, we cant do our work without everyone else doing their work- >> i understand that and i think we heard that and we get it. the question was, do you feel that with what you are doing now with what you have in place and all the revamping and the organizations, do you feel then that you are in a position to fill the 600 or 500 or whatever, do you feel you are in a position then to--do you feel you are in a position then to do the work that needs to be done going forward? we have a lot of big plans, so do you feel what you have done will get us to where we are

trying to go and that is a specific-we are try ing to get somewhere and staffing at a level that we can function at better by your own office. >> i want to be as candidate as i can. we have a process that is always going to take a long time. we have a civil service process. it exists for really good reasons. it allows people to have a opportunity to have really permanent job where they can have a wonderful career and really move and grow. i can tell you, we have encouraging statistics. it used to be that it took i think like 275 days on average to fill. the latest stats i have from dhr for puc is we are down to 175 days. >> excellent.

>> we cut the time substantially and that's looking at a data set over 50 recruitments so it isn't a small thing, so i know we are moving in the right direction in terms of time to fill. i know we had a question about how many candidates are we getting and i know we are getting hundreds a month, so i know on the measure of the number of candidates we are getting, we are improving there. i know that with additional staffing we have more capacity to get more recruitment done at a time. so, again, i feel like we are trending in the right direction. i cannot promise you that we will be fully staffed- >> not asking for any promises. i think what you said so far is that it is trnding down, that you cut your days from 2 to 100, that is excellent cht those are things that we want to hear that there is more people in the pipeline then there have been previously, so all those things to me if i

were to answer her question, i would say yes, we are on our way to making this happen. thank you. >> i think we can say we are on our way to make it happen. i dont know the time table will be. >> nobody is asking you don't have to give a timeline, just we are matching in the right direction. >> we are marching in the right direction. >> thank you. >> i like the [indiscernible] commissioner ajami. >> i also had that question on transaction so i appreciate your clarifying. the only thing i wasn't sure how the numbers added to that number of transactions, so at some point when you have a chance to look at the table it is good to have a clarification because if i add up all the numbers you have it adds up to a different number and i assume every one of those have been a transaction because regardless if you are promoting people or leaving or coming in, something is happening, right? >> yes. >> checking those numbers would

be great. then, another question i have for you going back, you touched on this, which was on the job titles. i couldn't fully understand exactly what this strategy is there and i do understand for certain jobs those titles would be sitting as it is because that is what you need, but i wonder if there is a way to test the waters and figure other titles out there that are being used or-another thing is, for example-50 people apply for a job, interesting to see what are the different skill set the people bring in and i know you in your budget request you had a request for data analyst who can actually work with your information and data. it is good to kind of have that.

do more digging. i still think it would be useful for all of us to have a sense of at least for you guys to know how many people apply, how many ends up being people qualified that you would like to follow on, these information can be very useful. i think 175 days is great. it is still a long time, so my question is, imagine if i apply for a job today, it is one thing to [indiscernible] 175 days, just because i apply today, there is another thing like, i get a call back in a week then i have to take the test, but i mean, then it takes 3 months to put me in my position, i understand the processing, all that, but if it takes 4 months to get back to someone, then that 175 days

sounds very long and along the way you may lose candidates, so wondering what does the 175 days really entails? if you have any comments on any of these topics and then i have one last comment for you. these are exactly-you are looking at exactly the right lens from our consumer as a consumer. what are your expectations? i did have the staff pull what smart recruiters has the city wide thing to see what can a candidate see in the process. i use the analogy of my [indiscernible] i know i see cars coming and know where it is. right now it is very rough. it doesn't-it just says application received and in process. it doesn't give those milestones that you and i would be looking for, but we are committed to working with the sit a wide data team.

they entrusted the puc to be a test case for some of these dashboards so we provide them feedback on what we are looking for and i think that would be very helpful to engage the candidates because if i understood it typically takes such and such amount of time for this step to happen, i would be more calm then if i didn't hear anything at all and so i understand that as well. i will say another encouraging thing is, we share our experiences with the city, the city dhr and other departments and then they are also training each of the departments, so the last training that i went to was on post referral selection process and it was about best practices once a list is established getting the final interview done and debunking some of the myths people might have of you can only have a

raider of a certain level. when really it is interpreted too strictly. i was pleased when we took the training to find out the things they recommend for other city departments were things we were doing at the puc so that always gives me a level of comfort to know some of our best practices can be replicated throughout the city and they do use us, they use us very much. we all participate in the thought meetings and big 7, which is 7 largest department hr directors so always constantly sharing our thinking and if there is something another department is doing better, or i also reach out to labor partners, if they have a suggestion we haven't thought of, we are more then willing to look at them. >> that's important. one last thing and under job title thing, is that something-you sort of went through it and yesterday as

well, so are there some things specific you are doing or looking into it? >> so, i heard it come up in a couple context. one is an odd thing is that we stopped using the word lineman. i think it was a way to make our terms more neutral, but people in the industry only know that word and so it wasn't popping up when people do a search. that could be one thing which could be a opportunity for improvement. another one is again in speaking with our two new recruiters who come from private sector experience, they said our titles are a little bit not the right words that people expect when they come from software engineer lands so one thing we can always do in our engagement campaigns and our discussions with candidates the way we post things is, use the working title or have it align there because one thing

it does attract people to a job, it may not be necessarily salary, but it could be the opportunity to have this title which can leverage them further down their career, so i mean you hit on a very important point and again, i think our recruiters with private sector experience have also highlighted that because of our city classification titles or sometimes are a little bit more admin analyst or something like that. they are more generics so sometimes making more compelling can make all the difference in the world. >> i tell you, working with all the youngsters at university everybody is looking for a title. it is so important for people, versus a lot of other things. it is a important topic and i appreciate you looking into it. theest last thing i want to mention, i appreciate you trying to break the silos. whatever you do will have

silos, but wondering if there are now that you are doing--create opportunities for some cross pollination between hr sort of or sub-orgs you are creating to make sure that one, there is consistency across, they know they can potentially share candidates occasionally. another thing is, maybe as we do more cross collaboration, if you want to hire someone that is halftimeen water enterprise and halftime in energy enterprise i wonder how something like that [indiscernible] if there is a process for that. just thinking ahead, how you create cross silo collaboration that they are not all cut off, but actually still have some way of talking to each other in a process wise and

functionality wise. that was my last comment. i dont know if you thoughts on that, but- >> we do spend a lot of time working behind the scenes creating standard operates procedures. i neglected to mention it because it isn't the headline work, but the important work behind the scenes to make sure there is consistency and i like your out of the box thinking so i appreciate that. >> thank you for that. >> commission, rivera. >> good afternoon. thank you so much for a great presentation. you inspired me with a lot of hope for the future for puc. i really like a lot of the ideas, they are out of the box, efficient and i just wanted to make sure that we are including the community when we reach out looking for candidates. that we have to me it is like san francisco is still the gold

mine. our people are the heart of our department, and so making sure we are reaching out to the community, finding people that are within the city that i believe will be great contributors and it was great to hear about the social media recruiters. when i'm trying to get a hold of my kids i have to sends a instagram chat for them to talk about to me, so society is changing, things are changing, i love that, i think that's great, and i look forward to more young people being involved and becoming part of the sfpuc so thank you very much. >> thank you. commissioner stacey. >> thank you for the update. as i was looking at your slides and the vacancy rates, the

linear graph and then you have a more of a bar graph, i don't know if you have this information at your fingertips, but the graphs and information seems to start during covid, quarter 4 of fiscal year 2021. have our vacancy rates-were they high before covid or is this really a recent phenomenon that the vacancy rates are this high? >> i'm told that hrs was smaller then and didn't have the resources to fully be caught up, but i do believe that our statistics are much more reliable in recent years just because of our enhanced focus on data, so i don't know i'm able to go further back to just have apples to apple comparison, but an icdotally

that's what i'm told. >> thank you. one of the issues that we talked about at a earlier meeting when you made a presentation to us was that the puc was going to look hard at the positions and see if all of the job requirements and job experience were really necessary for those positions. have you reevaluated very many positions that maybe you don't need a college degree or maybe you don't need to have x number of years of experience in order to make those jobs more accessible and more reachable? have you engaged in that-- >> some of the classification work is something that has fallen to the back-burner and that's why our hope is with the hr modernization team they are able to focus specifically on those things without also having to do exam workload as well. i think those points are very

well taken and i think points were also well taken about making sure our exams or assessment process isn't undue burden and looking for things we do need for people to get the job done. >> and, going to go back to the job titles, but i have a couple questions as it relates to civil service. are these job titles normally created by civil service? i know there are sort of city wide classifications or does the puc have the ability to change job titles on some of the unique positions? >> so, we have classifications that are part of the whole classification plan that is through dhr, but many are generic, manager 4, something like that and so that is like the official job class, but they don't go by that. people say i'm the manager of whatever and so that is where we have the more flexibility

specific working title versus your official class code. >> i see. when you post the jobs you can be a little more flexible in how you post them to make them more descriptive or more maybe updated? >> yes. >> okay. and, again this may be a civil service related question when commissioner ajami was asking about multiple applicants for a position, i thought how great if we had that many. do you have the ability to sort of divert candidates if they were not selected for the position that they applied for, could you say you know, position a didn't work out, but why don't you check out positions b, c and d, are you allowed to have that contact with applicants and redirect them to other positions that might work for them? >> i think we are--we have these i think called community

of interest, so people can express interest in certain types of jobs and then they receive the notifications and so forth so i don't see why we couldn't engage with the candidates who might have applied for one job-might express interest at number of different jobs. >> if they haven't you would be able to interact with them-- >> i think so, but i have to check. >> okay. i see nods behind you. >> hopefully they are affirmative nods. okay. >> okay. and then, you mentioned the dash-boards so people can track their application process. do you have personal interactions? is there somebody they can ask in the hr division about their status if it is not clear

online for them? >> they can ask the analyst? there is typically a analyst the point of contact and can go to them for trouble shooting or questions about the process. >> that is great. i think the personal contact if they can't figure online makes a big difference for somebody who is waiting to hear or in the process. i think that's it. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. again, thank you for the update. i do have one question. when is-is this a quarterly report traditionally or is there another one scheduled? don't know if general manager, anybody knows that. >> schedule on a regular basis. >> regular means every month- >> no, not every month. it was pretty much going every quarter or every--every 3 or 4 months.

>> the general charter around town has to do with freezing jobs and freeze permanent positions and move them and nice to have in context with all the other stuff during bargaining which takes place with city employees to beginning of the summer and with the entire budget process how that might be effecting what happened, so a update where we are might be a- >> we do that on a regular basis. >> okay. that is my context for the question. thank you. one more commissioner ajami has another question. >> can the city freeze our employment process since we pay our own employees? i have another question for you. if somebody--i asked this yesterday too and a comment by commissioner stacey triggered this question again in my head. if i apply for a job and i take

the civil service test and i don't end up getting the job and then i figure out there is this other job that i can apply for or very good fit for it, do i need to take the test against? is the test sort of adjusted for the position or is it-just trying to figure how somebody goes through the process they don't necessarily really fit into job a, but job b can be a great job for them, do they-can we expedite that process? >> we with look at it. sometimes there is a application review and may be able to use-go ahead, melissa. >> commissioners, melissa white, deputy people officer. in general the test are tailored toward the position. there are dhr test batteries that you can apply your score to other positions like if there are manager positions you

can apply the management test battery score to another management position if they use the same- >> you have an applicant portal that shows all this information and then if the applicant is applying for another job that is similar to the previous one, they can potentially use that, is that-am i imagining this right? >> there is not exactly a portal for this. it would be indicated on the job announcement what test battery if they use a test battery used for several different management positions. >> okay. if i apply for that job a year ago and now applying for another a year later and i can't remember what test battery i had-just trying to like-sorry, because i have not done this so i can't really in my head imagine what the process is and if i- >> can we do some of this

off-line? >> would you please answer that question? thank you? >> the scores are banked if an announce mentd says it is using the same test battery you can assume they will be applying your previous score that you-when you took the test previously. >> so, i have a applicant portal that reminds me that this is the test that i took and if it sort- >> it isn't a portal, it will say management test battery and the analyst will say, you have taken-once it is time to score or take the exam that you have a previous score banked. >> so they can see it? the analyst can see that information? >> right. dhr who can see it. >> so dhr does track these things? >> yes. >> okay. that is important. is there like--okay, that's good. as long as there is a process you can connect all the pieces that is important.

how much time does that cut if somebody has done that before? >> it depends because other candidates still have to take the test so still have to wait until those candidates complete that exam process. >> okay. if there are multiple people who apply for that? >> right. >> thank you. >> are we going to keep asking individual questions? >> i might. may, yes. i think that is a port of what we are doing. we have a opportunity. doesn't happen every month. - >> you like to ask another question. commissioner maxwell, please ask your question. >> you never stop old people in the middle of a sentence because i caents remember what i was going to say, but i get it.

i guess--[indiscernible] >> last comment and i will entertain a quick pause if necessary, but if not, thank you so much for your piece. i do encourage as i have commissioners if there are by there way, if xy and z happens, i can find it out by calling any of you guys, so that being said, thank you again. let's open up to public comment for item number 5. donna. >> public comment 5a, >> commissioners, i want you to pay very careful attention to what i'm saying. we have now in the bayview have taken it upon ourselves to have the san francisco hyperlocal building trades contractors collective. we have our president here williams and our secretary here, mansefeld.

now, let me give you history about there stationary engineers. that was tied to the treatment plant. okay? i remember a time where it stopped hiring and susan [indiscernible] was the general manager. [indiscernible] and myself fought for this fte's and now suddenly the human resource services or whatever they call themselves looks at it like you know, you need to be a ph.d to handle that situation and that's ridiculous. that is a reason why in 2016 i had this vision of the contracting centers so that we could anticipate this so skills can be provided and training can be provided and some of you

commissioners are astute because you spoke about it, but of the commissioners think like, you can just do this, you know? now, we have 44 million square feet of commercial space vacant and we have hundreds of those engineers--we need our community to get them. we need our community to get them and we need whoever is in charge to talk to me so i can chronologically give the history, including the recruiters who we bring here, because this nonsense has to stop. >> thank you. public comment on item 5. seeing none, let's go-- >> general manager. item b, any announcements? >> one more public comment.

>> sorry. excuse me, sir. >> i thought it was over. please-- >> yeah, so hi, i'm demetris williams the president elect for san francisco contractor collective. we are trying to make sure that the community is involved in these stationary engineer opportunities and we got about 25 youth ready to take these places and get involved with stationary engineer opportunities, and you know, what we basically try to do is, we are contractors, but the opportunity that stationary engineer jobs does is give us the opportunity to find people that is in our community, hook them up, get them involved with getting involved with the stationary engineer

opportunities, so the san francisco hyperlocal buildings trades contractor collective, collectively we got plumbers, plaster, drywall, framers, electrical and we come together under one collective to make sure that we get as many youth involved instead of being outside doing other stuff that they would be doing but get them involved in these trades because you can have a record, you can go to prison and you can still get in the building trades, so we give them that hope in the process. thank you again for listening to us. >> thank you for your work. are there anymore folks for public comment on item 5? okay. let's go to item b, any announcements? >> yes. thank you mr. president.

sad to announce the passing of hannah vuwho passed away from complications of a accidents. hannah worked on information technology service team and business service bureau. was a principal engineer and would have reached the 10 year anniversary with the puc this coming marn. hannah was a respected colleague and dear friend at the puc and like to honor her memory by extending deepest gratitude for hannah and her work and giving deepest sympathy to her daughter and family and we are very sorry for your loss. sorry to report that. >> thank you for that update. can we open this up, any public comment on this announcement? >> public comment on 5b. seeing none. >> okay. seeing none-- >> can we maybe have a 30

second pause or something to respect- >> absolutely. >> thank you. >> let's do that. commissioner would you like to do that right now? >> yes. >> let's have a moment of silence for our departed colleague. [moment of silence] thank you. okay, item 6 has been pulled. not able to make it today for that report. we look forward to that later. the next item, can you please call it please. >> item 7, consent calendar. >> are there questions or comments or any items that want to be pulled from consent

calendar commissioners? seeing none, let us open up the consent calendar, item- >> i have my hand up. >> commissioner ajami. >> is there someone for 7a we can speak to that item, please? >> engineering series? great. thank you. please come to the microphone. >> good afternoon commissioners. >> thank you. you know, i went through--it is such a great thing to have the digital tool because you can go for years back and see what items we have looked at, so i did go through because i remember this item vividly. we had the conversation, it was a very eye opening sort of

experience to me to kind of look and see how we went through the design and not having the right information. one thing i couldn't find, i remember be already did-put a pause, tried to figure out the alternative, then we had a contractor to come in and do the work, so i feel i'm missing somewhere between some other item happened and i couldn't find it in my list of items. we did either extend the time or increase the contract amount initially one more time. >> no. not in this [indiscernible] >> okay, so but this is the one that we figured because of cal tran foundation we can-- >> that's a different- >> i apologize. i thought that's the one. >> okay. >> whoever is under that one-

>> we have no questions on- >> i do not have questions on 7a, but thank you. >> any other questions? >> give me one second, please, i am going to pull that up. >> do you have a question on a-i commissioner ajami? >> yes, i do. >> okay. >> okay. the item i'm looking for is--here we go. i think it is 7a, no? isn't this 7a? am i imagining this? >> 7a- >> [indiscernible] this is lower contract for professional services caltrans are involved so cal transis mentioned within the item but very different

reasons i'm surmising referring back to the folsom project where we service concern with the piers of the freeway. >> didn't we do redesign on this one because of something else? >> the project is about 65 percent design and evolving as it should during the design project. it [indiscernible] very much the normal process. yes, it is a similar challenge and similar challenging project because it is collection system project that involves tunnel within a dense urban environment, so there is more challenges. >> the cleanup is causing us to add that $2 million because of the additional requirements that we are getting from regional board? for the cleanup? >> there were no additional requirements for the board. >> okay. then can you remind me what that extra $2 million needs to go to? >> let the project team explain

that. >> this is for additional shaft tunneling shaft relocation and result in the tunnel realignment caused by input from caltrans telling us it is very difficult to shut off a freeway off-ramp and this is when we approached for design where we have the details we have preliminary schedule showing them what the work will look like during detail design and we decide to mitigate that by shifting the shaft location, redesign upstream at a different site, which is about 800 feet. >> did we talk to them at the beginning and they were supposed to help us close the highway? >> in planning we definitely-it wasn't me, but we informed of the project and planning. we have different alternative, grand scheme looking at big picture and a lot has a lot of impact to the freeway because

that location is at 280/101 interchange so this alternative selected has the least amount of impact to transportation agency, sfmta and caltrans, but once we dive into more detail is when we know what are the true impacts, what's the exact request and this is when we approach detail design approach caltrans and say this is more specifically here is the impacts and this is what we need such as freeway off-ramp closeier extended period of time. >> we did not anticipate this level of closure when we did the initial design, is that what you are telling me? >> we do anticipate some amount of closure, but not to this extent. >> okay. and caltrans was involved from the beginning? >> yes. >> they didn't anticipate that at the beginning?

>> hi. project manager. we mention there will be for this option there will be a possibility of off-ramp closure and during planning phase caltrans indicate they will provide more detailed feedback once we further develop the plans so in it design phase we have more detailed drawings that we can have more in depth conversation with caltrans and when they inform us that to close the off-ramp for that will be extremely challenging and so the team tried to involve with them as early as we can once we get more details and so once we get that feedback we have to realign the tunnel design. >> i mean, this is really honesty disappointing and not because you have done it

anything, but because this is the second time at least in time i have been here that i hear that the communication with cal tran has not been as productive as we have hoped for and it cost us money to redirect our design or work in many ways, so i'm not hundred percent sure is there any way we can improve this communication somehow to avoid these kind of challenges, because i mean, they could-this is costing a extra $2 million, because they were not willing to provide feedback early on on the design, right? >> they didn't provide very specific feedback during planning phase because--we have captured lessen learn from other projects so this we engaged with caltrans very on

and that is we establish agreement with them and they have been actively reviewing our drawings throughout the design phase right now, so we are hoping that with the increase engagement with them throughout the design we can continue to mitigate some of the risk during construction. >> is there any way-maybe mr. robinson you know the answer to this, i wonder if you have projects cal tran is involved, i dont know maybe we can hire someone from cal tran for 25 percent to just focus-i think at the end it cost a lot less then all the redesign. i don'ts know if we can do something to avoid these kind of things. >> it is true the two large collection systems hit hurdle with our relationship with caltrans because we are doing big movement within the city how we work with storm water.

i would describe some of which we heard today as normal process is a project develops. we initiate very early, you look at the need and identify alternatives. as the team learned from the folsom project we know caltrans can only give as much input at that point because we don't know the agreed solution. it want appropriate to come back and say give more detail now you know more so we can argue [indiscernible] some of this is iterative, some is normal but there is definitely concerns how we communicate with caltrans so we want to think about that more and-we have other projects. these are the two largest that cross freeways and largest interaction with caltrans so we want to see if we have other projects of that nature but these are the two largest.

>> it might be best management practice to put in place, not just for caltrans, for any other agency we interact with, how we can minimize this kind of-i understand, every project can have hurdles, but it is a little bit of like, 50 percent hurdle or 20 percent. this is not a small increase for this project, so somehow we need to come up with best management practice to help avoid the changes. >> thank you. this is professional service contract to help through planning and design so the iterative process as we plan and design a project. we could procure a contract that is much larger in dollar value to allow the to navigate the process but the risk is sig cntsly rarjer so inception of project when we imagine what the contract should look like we pick what we believe the most viable realistic solution and anchor the contract

language and scope around that which includes alternatives. it means woo edo a amendment to the contract to take on additional scope how the project developed. may not necessarily be something not foreseen or concern or gone wrong, but there is feedback to think about how we engage with caltrans and get recally warning to have a better perspective. >> sounds good. thank you so much. >> any other questions on anything from a-i from commissioners? seeing none, let's open the consent calendar to the public, donna. >> any members to provide comment on consent calendar item 7? >> seeing none, motion and second to accept the consent calendar, please. >> so moved.

>> roll call, please. there is a motion and second. [roll call] >> 5 ayes. >> consent calendar passes. could you read item 8, please. >> approve contract no. cs-1413, comprehensive management of watersheds within yosemite national park supplying the san francisco regional water system memorandum of agreement with the united states department of the interior, national park service yosemite national park, in the amount not to exceed $40,958,727, with a duration of four years, subject to board of supervisors approval under charter section 9.118. >> good afternoon president paulson and commissioners. margaret hanferred the manager of hetch hetchy water division in moxson california part of the water enterprise. here today to request approval of hetch hetchy water

memorandum of agreement between the puc and the yosimite national park. the puc and national park service entered into service agreement since 1997 and share in the common goal of protecting water quality, improving and maintaining environmental resources, and providing security for essential facilities within yosmite national park. this agreement serves as a important mechanism for the source water protection program under the federal and state water drinking act we are required to demonstrate a watershed control program exist with the land owner, in this case the park service to

prevent micro biological contamination of the upper tuolumne river watershed within yosmite. has the authority to establish regulation regarding visitor use within the park under the national park service organic act. the park service existing regulation and the fact much of the watershed is within the northern wilderness enable the hetch hetchy water supply to maintain filtration avoidance desing ignation. another goal of the agreement is meet environmental stewardship objectives shared by the city and park service. secure of the facilities and assets within the yosemite national park are essential. the federal government has

exclusive authority [indiscernible] of the sfpuc responsible for maintaining all physical and electronic security components in and around the hetch hetchy area. the security program is confidential and relaets to home land security. thank you for your consideration. >> thank you mrs. hanford. i along with other supervisors have been up in your neck of the woods a couple times and haven't had the opportunity to run into you, only see you when you wander down here to give your presentations about what's going on in the hinter lands. thank you for that presentation. are there any other questions? commissioner maxwell. >> thank you so much. what did we do before 1997? >> well, i wasn't here but we did still have an agreement

with them, but it wasn't as defined as well and our goals and our objectives we want to do together but we always had a long relationship. what i like about this, it lays out the expectations are and-- >> who makes sure that those expectations are met? >> as part of it agreement we meet with the park quarterly, review their-one thing we review is projects they are working on that we helped fund, and usually there is a partnership where we may review some of the information that they are providing us, but we do look at their work quarterly and make sure one of the things in the last agreement was accountability of spending, and if there were funds left how those funds are going to be managed. we work together a lot on making sure that our objectives

are being met. and we agree to pay for and fund. >> on that funding and on those agreements, do we have-do we look at those things in-house as well? >> yes. they actually submit a proposal to us and different things that are of interest to us and then we work together on what those projects are, how we want to participate, and how we want to fund it. >> participation do we have workers that work alongside them sometimes and-- >> not always. i would say that on our upper tuolumne reservoir environmental releases we worked on, we were working side by side on a lot of it. if we are working in the dam on a communication project, we are working side by side. it just really varies. >> do they have contractors i assume that do a lot of their work or do they have staff? >> i think a lot of their for

the projects we participate in, i think it is mostly staff. unless we are paying for like a bathroom in the tuolumne meadows, that is a contractor that builds it. >> when you say most of the work is staff, give me a example of what that might be? >> so, we have-there is source water protection and we do monitoring of the water. we want to know that information. hetchy doesn't do it ourselves or puc doesn't do it, we pay people to go out there, collect and do reports with the park service. >> i see. okay. thank you. >> okay. >> commissioner stacey. mr. ritchie wants to weigh in, is that okay margaret? >> since i'm a little older i can speak to the pre-1997 issue that the requirements for filtering water came about through the safe drinking water

act, but there was a provision added later that allows for exemption from the filtration requirements and so we were able to achieve that status in 1996 i believe it was. it was just right around that time, so that was one of the points where it became important to have a formal agreement with the land owner as margaret said. we clearly worked with them a lot before then but that was a necessity to have a formal agreement. i'll turn it back to margaret now. >> okay. >> commissioner stacey. >> thank you. nice to see you. every time i go up to hetch hetchy i see very much strong presence from both pu c water staff park rangers and national park service and it sounds it is a cooperative and collaborative relationship. you noted before that you will

often have conversations with the park service and figure out how to best execute the work. i recall last year the commission authorized the general manager to undertake emergency repairs along some part of the road that had been damaged as a result of the rains and flooding. i assume that's another part of your sort of ongoing collaboration with the park service if there is something puc can do more quickly and more effectively that you work that out with the park service as well? >> so, when it comes to the roads the puc is responsible for maintaining and the capital improvements on the roads. good example that spreck brought up earlier, we did the boat ramp that goes into o'shaughnessy. that is one we partnered with on how the park work on it or do we do it for our own r & r

forces, our forces at hetchy so we work together and there are partner on the environmental portion of whatever we are doing, but it was decided hetchy crews actually do that work. it is ongoing conversation with different things. >> note in the staff report that it said that we are required to reimburse the national park service for the cost of maintaining the roads and trails, so to the extent the park service does the work, the puc pays them for that work- >> for the trails. that is- >> just the trails. >> for the roads it is actually historically been the puc. >> okay. >> after a lawsuit. >> thank you. >> commissioner ajami. >> thank you so much. great to see you here. question. any data yet [indiscernible] as part of this process and if it

is, who has that, where does it go? >> so, we do exchange-we meet quarterly. we get a report usually verbally what they have been working on but also have presentations, and we can provide you information. >> what about on the environmental things like, i don't know, like just on the environmental stewardship work they do. do they count things, measure things? >> a good example would be our sanitary survey we are required to produce, and that is definitely a partnership between the park service and the puc, and copy of the report would show different things we are working on together and how we put together work together put out the report. >> okay. the data is shared among us? >> yes. >> okay. thank you. >> thank you. any other questions? again, thank you for the update

and walking us through this partnership. let's open this item 8 to public comment. >> item 8, any members of the public present to provide comment? >> hi. spreck rose crans, restore hetchy. commissioners, we restore hetchy appreciates the partnership with the national park service and we also appreciate the operative language in the document changed in some important ways. but it is still we believe does a poor job describing the provisions of the [indiscernible] that speak to the visitors ability to explore the park and the water quality protections that are in the act and what is not in the act. as you know, there are very

specific water quality provisions not much applies more then a mile outside the reservoir. the park service is recluding in involvement of the ordinance. at best the document is confusing. we think it discriminates against park visitors and at worst it may impact the illegal. we are asking you not to approve it to rewrite some of the sections and we'll ask the park service not to sign it as well. thank you very much. >> is there any other public comment on item 8? if not, i would request a motion and second to approve item 8. is there a motion? move to approve. >> i have a question before we-

>> there is motion and on the motion you can speak on the motion. yes? >> this language we work with the park service to put it together, right? i just want to-okay. they are full y in agreement. >> that is correct and we are in compliance. >> thank you. >> anything else on the motion? >> public process. >> it an agreement. it is a process we worked on with the park service. it hasn't had a public hearing.

there is a motion. do i hear a second? >> second. >> there is a motion and second. can we have roll call, please? [roll call] >> item 8 passes. >> can i have follow-up question. i know the item passed, but since we have you here--this is obviously a very losely defined language based on the agreements we have, so if there is input in the process that can happen, even since we have this agreement, public can engage with the public park service and us to do things in a different way if needed? >> i think can have that

discussion. >> okay. my point is, this is a mou. mou are not like written in stone and can be more flexible, right? based on my understanding of mou. >> again, steve ritchie. we follow the park service lead on development of the document. they are the ones who are responsible for public input on it, so we follow their processes and so we would differ mr. rose crans to the park services on this. >> okay. they are the ones-since they are the ones who apply or deploy the project or work they engage with the public? >> yeah, and it is done under federal law. >> okay. thank you. >> [indiscernible] >> no you can't. thank you. that being said, let's go to item 9.

>> item 9- >> public comment is over. >> sorry. public comment is over. >> thank you. >> thank you, public comment is over. >> [indiscernible] >> item 9 please, could you read? >> item 9, approve and authorize the general manager to seek approval from the board of supervisors to execute power sales contracts, with anticipated revenue in excess of $1 million or more subject to an annual revenue limit of $20 million per year, through july 1, 2025. >> good afternoon commissioners. my name is julia ogwen the director of origination and power supply for the power enterprise. my team is responsible for manage the hetch hetchy power and clean powersf energy portfolio. i am here today to seek your approval to increase the annual revenue limit on the power cells contracting authority

conditionally delegated to the general manager and commission resolution number 22-0109 and administrative code chapter 2143. specifically we are asking you to approve and authorize the general manager to request board of supervisors approval to increase the annual revenue cap for power cell contract that exceed $1 million in total value from 10 million to $20 million per year. increasing the limit will have staff access the best value in the portfolio for the benefit of rate-payers. as you know, both of our power enterprise programs engage in power procurement efforts through competitive bidding process as necessary to manage the program power portfolio consistent with best utility practice. as the power enterprise manages fluctuations in supply and

demand and navigate the chaichcking [indiscernible] that exceed the power needs. cells of such excess electricity allows is san francisco puc to maximize value of the asset entrusted by our rate payers. wholesale price for electricity have been higher then expected since the commission adopted resolution number 22-0109 and the board of supervisors and mayor established chapter 2143 of the administrative code. such increases reflect several factors. including global energy shortages caused by trade disruption and armed conflict in addition new california energy facility have not come online as expected due to supply chain disruptions and delays to project permitting

and grid interconnection. as a result, our power portfolio are experiencing significant price increase for all energy products. creating both higher cost and higher revenues when hetch hetchy power or clean powersf solicits offer to purchase power supply resources. this fiscal year our power cells of contract exceeded $1 million have now utilized est moof the 10 million $10 million cap. you and theboard authorized. staff anticipates this high price market environment will continue for the next 2 to 5 years. given these market conditions and need to move quickly in the market place to insure our rate payer get the best value for the assets we manage, we ask that you approve increase of the power cells revenue limit for contracts exceeding $1

million in revenue from 10 million per year to $20 million per year and authorize the general manager to seek board of supervisor approval. that concludes my remarks, thank you for consideration of the item and happy to take any questions you may have. >> thank you for laying that out for us and i assume this is about flexibility and i know that we have visited this before and heard about the volatility of the market for power. is this something that is sunsetted and now renewing with different language in some sense? >> no, this is actually part of our 2143 ordinance where we had a cap on expenditure side and also on our revenue side. we are asking for a increase $2143 ordinance where we had a cap on expenditure side and also on our revenue side. we are asking for a increase of $10 million to $20 million. >> i got it. thank you. commissioner maxwell. >> how did you come to $20

million? what is the process? >> this cap is per fiscal year so just based on what we were looking what our needs would be to finish out this fiscal year and next fiscal year, we did a forward forecasting view what we see in the market that we think we will need to be selling and based on the forecast we totaled around $20 million. we figured that will cover it. >> when you say-what were the administrative and environmental code wavers and what was that? we had environmental code wavers and you had administrative code wavers and the first $10 million. you had wavers. >> it wavers for labor? >> it said administration and environmental. no administration and environmental code wavers. i wanted to know what the code

wavers were and administrative wavers and if it has anything to do with our policies as the puc in regards to community benefits and how [indiscernible] wanted to make sure- >> understood. i do not have those with me right here but happy to get back on all the wavers we have. unless you have them. >> is there somebody- >> sorry i didn't realize somebody had them. >> somebody eager to answer? >> hello commissioners. michael himes the deputy agm responsible for power resources. i don't have it the list with me at the moment, but the wavers were brought through this commission-the specific administrative code sections environmental code sections were brought through the commission and the board of

supervisors i believe in 2022 and the wavers are determined on a per contract basis. i think in this case was sales--maybe if i generalize a bit, the wavers are specific to terms that don't typically appear in the power industry or may not apply to the kind of commodities that we are transacting with, so power electricity, energy where for example-i wish i had a specific example handy. i think lbe for example is a good example of a provision that wouldn't apply in the transaction with a existing power product. it is commodity. there isn't a local component to that transaction. hopefully that helps.

happy to elaborate further. >> can i translate that? >> i see gm hale in the audience. i think you know what i'm trying to get to. we had the discussion and i just want to make sure that our policies are still in-- >> barbara hale, what we are talking about today is a small part of the ordinance passed. setting that aside, looking at the broader ordinance that was passed and been operating under, it does include wavers. these wavers are administratively granted as appropriate, largely because the commodities we are purchasing are just that.

they are commodities. we are purchasing kilo watt and megawatt hours:resource and capacity products. when we as a organization go out for a long-term commitment and ask the market place to bring a new project to us to build something, we are not routinely applying wavers. thalities polk that's where we have the opportunities to see is this project appropriate for local business enterprise? is this a project appropriate for our social impact partnerships? is this a project where there are community issues that need to be addressed and we need to be attuned to are there workforce issues is where we apply the prevailing wage requirements and give preference for projects that commit to these sorts of city objectives. so, those are our opportunities when we are building something,

not directly, but through a contractual commitment where we achieve those city wide goals. when we make purchases and sales of products in the short-term or medium term market where something new isn't going to be built, we don't really have a opportunity to explore those issues with the counterparty, we are talking to brokers and sellers. they pick up the phone and tell us this is the price good for 15 minutes. that kind of a environment where we can't apply these city objectives and that was the basis for the wavers that the commission authorized us to take to the board and the board granted. >> thank you very much. every time try to be responsible and see a waver i want to know what i'm waiving. >> yes, and we have been-the other part that we should mention is, we have been reporting just for the members of the public listening to the dialogue, we have been reporting to the commission and to the board on a quarterly

basis on the exercise of this 2143 authority. we have been including in those reports exercise of the waver as appropriate. the wavers as appropriate; so those are all documented for you and we'll continue to do that. >> thank you very much. >> you bet. thank you. >> commissioner stacey, before i-can i do a follow up on that barbara hale? what i think your colleague was trying to explain as a example is this is about a commodity. it isn't about a labor compount so lbe isn't like we are waiving lbe, even though you might, there is no labor-nothing to violate in terms of the stuff we have. that was the example i think he was trying to- >> i think mr. himes was giving a example where there isn't any authority to exercise. >> prevailing wages would not be-if you get on the phone and you get that 15 second break to get a cheaper price on stuff that is too much but you got to

get it, prevailing wage does not matter, local hire, that stuff isn't there. is that a summary of what happens? >> yes. >> there is nothing in this what is already passed at the board of supervisors two years ago, this is just a addendum to that? >> that is right, what is proposed doesn't effect the wavers. >> and by this commission as well. >> i got it. >> giving more head-room to make sales to bring more revenue in to off-set our operating cost. >> got it. thank you. i wanted to make sure we were clear on what commissioner maxwell had and wanted to do a follow-up. thank you. sorry, commissioner stacey. >> thank you. i may just be dreaming big here, but i see that the original three year period is up in july 2025, so by the time this ordinance is passed and takes effect we have just over a year with this $20 million

cap. did you consider at all is it possible to think about extending it out another few years? >> we'll be back. we will be back to extend. >> i see. >> that is the plan. >> you are not folding it into this effort? >> no, just trying to get this pushed through for this year and then yes, we do have a effort that is just beginning and ongoing, so you will be seeing us back here in about 6 months. >> okay. thank you. >> sure, absolutely. >> commissioner ajami. >> i actually i thought why do we have a cap on sale amount. can you clarify that for me so for example, if in two years we can sell excess power for more, why can we sell it for more? why do we need to have a cap? just wondering? >> i personally am probably not the individual to answer that

because i want working here at the time. the delegation of authority that went through which i wasn't understanding the waver question because of short-term and long-term and difference in the way we look at that, so either mike or barbara can probably answer that and give you more feedback. >> if i might commissioner, the fact when we first dealt with this a couple years ago and the waver issue, i think there was robust discussion here about getting approvals at the level we had and both at the board of supervisors as well, so as practical matter to insure that the public is confident there is oversight and that's why you have the waver provision, the waver reporting, i don't--as a practical political matter, i don't think that it make as lot of sense to move flward with unlimited amount so people that have the confidence there is oversight so this is out of respect for the process. >> i appreciate that and i

remember that conversation actually vividly because that was all about purchasing. a lot of that is purchasing power and we were trying to if i remember increase the cap to be able to buy more power in the spot market, which i think there should be a cap there, but this is a little of reverse, but wondering if these two are tied together so why we need to make sure we always come back here regardless of if it is a cap for purchase or cap for sales. >> some of this as we look has to do with what the market prices are doing which is a reason why we need to increase the cap because we are in a higher price environment when we first did this a few years ago, i think when we were putting the caps in place they were where the market price was at the time.

having to deal with voltailty in the market isn't a bad thing to come back and talk with you about that so you understand what we are doing thin market and why it is happening. give you the economic view what is going on in the market place so imagine that is why we have caps and limits in place to come back and update on what is going on. >> fantastic. i [indiscernible] >> public comment, please. >> any members of the public present for comment on item number 9? seeing none-- >> seeing none, can we have a motion and second to approve item 9? >> i'll move. >> second. >> motion and second. can we have a roll call,

please? [roll call] >> 5 ayes. >> okay. that item passes. item 10, can we read item 10, please? >> item 10, discussion and possible action to amend the terms of an employment contract, pursuant to san francisco charter section 8b.126 (a) and (c), between the san francisco public utilities commission and dennis herrera, general manager of the san francisco public utilities commission, and authorize the president of the commission to execute the contract amendment. >> thank you. to put this in context 2 years ago when the mayor nominated and the commission both interviewed, hired and negotiated a contract with the general manager herrera, there was a 4 year contract that was put in place and based on the way those contract negotiations went there was a reopener for

two years, and so this was going to be revisited by the commission, which we have been revisiting and what you see here today is an action item. what happened is that there was again a very robust performance review and i want to thank if i could just say, dennis herrera for going very deeply into answering questions that all 5 of us as commissioners talked about what happened and what we expect over the next couple years, so thank you and there has been a-i feel comfortable that based on because this is contract negotiations, i feel comfortable that what you see in your package here is that i would entertain a motion as summarized in the paperwork that our counsel put together

that this position goes to what is known on the dhr chart for the mea salary and mccp salary plan to go to range a in the department head-or department head 5 category as a-which are two categories, high and low category that that gets split down the middle and that is the position that i would entertain a motion on that we pass to amend the contract for 2021 and maybe our colleague can-counsel >> if i can correct that, and be more specific what that is. >> it is mid-range point of range c. of putting midrange c department 5 category and entertain a motion

that that is the way the contract will be amended for the next two years to complete the four year. if there is a motion to that effect. or is there any comment? sorry, is-commissioners, any comments right now? if not, let's open this to public comment. >> any members of the public to provide comment on item 10? seeing none-- >> seeing none, i would entertain a motion and second. >> motion to approve. >> second. >> there is a motion and a second. could i have a roll call, please? [roll call] >> you have 5 ayes. >> resolution passes. can we call the next item, please? kwrrks thank you commissioners. i look forward working with you

for the rest of the term of the contract and appreciate the confidence. thank you very much. >> thank you general manager herrera. >> item 11. >> item 11 is information only. communication items. i see no discussion so therefore we'll move to item 12. any items that we like to be initiated by the commissioners for future discussion? anything? seeing none, let's go to- >> i have my hands up. >> commissioner ajami. sorry. >> mr. herrera, you were not here last meeting and i did ask our team regarding public comment and the fact that some of the other commissions apparently have virtual public comment or remote public

comment still available to them. i would appreciate-i spoke to [indiscernible] general counsel and i wanted to bring this up to your attention as well. i like to have some-somebody look into this and let us know if there is a possibility for us to also incorporate that in our program if possible. if there are others can do it, why can't we do it? >> commissioner, we will certainly get you a list. my understanding is--we haven't looked at that yet? have we inquired into this yet? my understanding is that commissions are not doing this. there may be one that has not changed, but in conformance with the mayor office directive

most if not all commissions have gone. if we haven't gotten a complete list i'll be happy to get you that. >> i wondering if there is the option available and that one commission decided not to do it. i was under the impression that we are required to only have in-person public comment so i was surprised to see there was flexibility in that. >> i think your first impression is correct. that was the directive both from the mayor office and board of supervisors. there may be my understanding there was one commission that did not take any action. i can't speak to why that is, but in response to your question or directive, i asked mrs. bregman to do a survey to see if there are any

commissions doing that and happy to get you that information. >> that would be great. thank you. >> i had a follow-up question that i was trying to ask last time if i could. is the board of supervisors taking any action to that effect because that is where this originated? >> taken action? >> taken action on this particular item? >> they are no longer allowing remote public comment is my understanding. >> so that is still correct? they have not taken subsequent action? >> my understanding is the timing is they took that action and mayor office gave a directive and that it was my impression all commissioners were following it. >> but there is not another action taken that was my question? >> that is correct. >> thank you. >> excuz me, can i ask a follow-up? >> of course. >> if we figure other commissions that decided not to take action and they are fine and they can continue doing that, is there something that we can do to revert where we

were before and allow for remote public engagement? >> i will differ to legal counsel on that. >> i'll follow up with you directly on that. >> thank you. >> okay. i think we all like to know what that is when it is done. all the commissioners should find out. any other discussion? >> when will we know? when will you follow-up? >> in the next day or so. i have the information. >> okay. >> thank you. is there any other discussion initiated or information or discussion by commissioners? okay. we need to go to public comment on the item that was discussed

by commissioner ajami regarding the questions and inquiries regarding public comment. is there any public comment? >> do we have public comment on item 12? seeing none. >> seeing none, okay. so, that being said, let's i guess we are-could you read the items heard during closed session, please? >> as we noted, item 15 on closed session has been removed and will be rescheduled. item 16, conference with legal counsel nicolas, proposed settlement resulting from a water main rupter with city county of san francisco to pay 32.[indiscernible] subject approval by the board. item 17, conference with legal

counsel regarding existing litigation (government code ♪54956.9(d)(1), san francisco administrative code ♪67.10(d)(1)): state farm et al v. city and county of san francisco unlitigated file no.: 23-02357 date filed: may 22, 2023 proposed settlement of unlitigated claim resulting from a water main rupture with the city and county of san francisco to pay state farm, et al $54,213.76 in exchange for a full and final release, subject to final approval by the board of supervisors. (action item) (bregman) following closed session, the commission will reconvene in open session >> thank you. i entertain a motion to assert the attorney client privilege, is there a motion? >> move to assert. >> second? >> second. >> roll call, please. [roll call] >> you have 5 ayes. >> thank you.

>> open session. item 19, can we have a motion whether or not to disclose the discussion during closed session? have a motion to not disclose. >> motion to not disclose. >> second. >> there is a motion and second. roll call, please. [roll call] >> 5 ayes. >> i never voted, donna. >> sorry? >> you didn't call my name. >> i'm sorry. commission ajami? >> yes. >> five ayes. >> i want to make sure- >> thank you. apologies. >> this session is now closed and we will meet again on friday--am i missing something. >> you want to make note for

everybody's knowledge the friday budget here is 9 a.m. in room 416 down the hall. >> thank you. >> we are now adjourned. >> thank you.

>> here we are responsible to oversee the drinking water distribution system. in san francisco changes in the fire code required anyone doing representtro fit to the home to get a new fire service this caused the need for new water services to spike. we used to do 200 a year. now we are up to 600. >> if you are building a new house you need fire protection. you have to make application to the water department for that. if you go through the process we come out and install the new line and the new fire line. >> the project got kicked off by two of our a gms, steve and eric. they recognized the need for improving this process. they pulled together the project and selected the team members and asked me to lead the effort.

>> on c cd there is permit and no parking signs and installing the service, having water caught at the check off and pave. >> it is a lengthy application process with manual tracking. for construction because we communicate with ccd we have to stay in touch with ccd to inform the customer for updates. >> at one time there was three separate visits to activate the fire service. water quality and gate manment and then gate man would go back. now the gate man goes one-time, one visit and it is done. >> we dissected the process and looked for ways to streamline the process and use technology to make the experience smoother and what we are building is an

online portal for customers to apply without coming downtown and they can get updates. >> with the online application everything is there. it is built in condition logic with tracking to communicate with the customer without having to take notes. >> we want to tell you these are 10 steps and you are on step three or four. >> we streamlined the process. we knocked it down to 65 days. the goal is half of that. from the time you make application to put the check on the table to the time we pave the street, we want it down to 30-days. >> i am proud of the team for the work to get together to understand each other's work and come up with solutions. i really wanted the rest of the team to understand the time and deliberation and thought so they could get the recognition that they deserve.

>> oh now i do. it is a two-knock. [gavel] there we go. good morning, i'm calling the january 11, 2024, t.j. pa meeting to order. this meet ising held in-person in san francisco city hall room 16. members of the public may attend the meeting in-person or watch on cable or visit the sf gov. tv website.