gerald turner. pardon me. chair post is present. commissioner turner is present. paul woolford is absent today, fatty zabi present. vice chair. zabi is present. and with three members present, we do have quorum for the public works commission. public comment is taken on, all action items, all informational and action items on today's agenda. and to comment in person , you will please line up against the wall, near the screen. the audience is left

when public comment is called for members of the public wishing to comment on an item from outside the hearing room. you may do so by joining via webinar through the link shown on page two of today's agenda. and to be recognized, select the raise your hand icon in the webinar. you may also comment from outside the chamber by dialing 14156550001 and using the meeting id of 26602622290. pound pound. and to raise your hand to speak, press star three and the telephone login information is also available on pages one and two of today's agenda. commenters may speak for up to three minutes per item, and you will receive a 32nd notice when you're speaking. time is about to expire. in the event we have many commenters on an item, the chair may reduce public comment time to less than

three minutes per person. unless you are speaking under general public comment. please note that you must limit your comments to the topic of the agenda item being discussed, and if commenters do not stay on topic, the chair may interrupt and ask you to limit your comments to that agenda item. we ask that the public comment be made in a civil and respectful manner, and that you refrain from the use of profanity, abusive or hate speech will not be tolerated. and please address your remarks to the commission as a whole, not to individual commissioners or staff. the public is always welcome to submit comments in writing via our email address. public works dot commission at sfdp .org or by mail to 49 south van ness avenue, suite 1600, san francisco, california 94103. and on behalf of the commission, we extend our thanks to the sfgovtv building management and media services staff for helping make this meeting possible. chair

post. thank you. before calling the next item, are there any requests from the commission to amend the order of today's agenda hearing? none. we will move on to our next item today. announcements by chair, commissioners and secretary i have a number of announcements. i suggest the audience sit back and get comfortable. this is what happens when one misses a meeting. late last week, the san francisco civil grand jury issued several reports at the conclusion of its work over the 20 2324 fiscal year, two are of particular interest to public works and to this commission. the first report, whimsical, titled commission impossible, actually addresses the serious subject of the city's 115 oversight and advisory bodies. commissions, task force's advisory boards and the like. a number far greater than similar sized cities and counties, and a condition that can impede the efficient and cost effective execution of our local government. the jury made a

number of findings and recommendations to strengthen the composition and performance of city commissions and similar entities. these included disbanding the sanitation and streets commission in light of voter passage of proposition b in 2022, which of course kept the public works department intact and did not split off street sanitation functions. the second civil grand jury report, entitled building san francisco, is of keen interest to the department and to our own commission. indeed, the document focuses primarily on public works and the public works commission and discusses a number of issues we ourselves have been addressing over the past almost two years that we've been seated. in sum, the report describes the civil grand jury's findings regarding how the city's capital projects are planned, built and monitored on behalf of the public and makes recommendations on how capital, project delivery and oversight can be improved. the jury has requested that the commission comment on several of the report's findings and

recommendations, ones which we will do this summer after we've had a chance to carefully analyze the report and discuss its findings. the public works commission thanks the citizens of san francisco who served on the civil grand jury and for the hard work and careful thought they put into developing their recommendations. for those who would like to read this report and the first one i cited, they can be found easily on the civil grand jury's website. also last week, commissioner turner and i spoke to the board of supervisors rules committee regarding our reappointment to this commission. commissioner zoghbi and turner have been reappointed by the board of supervisors itself, and i have been reappointed by controller greg wagner. our terms would be for four years ending in 2028. commissioner wohlford and our currently vacant seat are mayoral appointments up for renewal in 2026? commissioner zoghbi turner and i spoke of our work on the public works commission and our desire to be reappointed to continue it in

light of the civil grand jury report on capital projects that i described. i think continuity on the commission is important. our reappointments will be considered by the full board of supervisors at their regular meeting tomorrow. commissioner zabian turner is there anything you'd like to add about your potential reappointment to the commission? all right. and while reviewing the board of supervisors agenda, i noted a consent item to approve an ordinance amending the public works code to improve how sidewalk vending is permitted, managed and enforced. i thank the department for its continued effort to keep the public right of way safe and unobstructed, and for its attention to the law, as well as to its day to day work. director short, do you want to add any comment about this pending legislation? good morning, commissioners. carl short, director, thank you. chair. post. we view this amendment as a tool that will assist, we hope we think will assist our our inspection team

in being more efficient in being able to enforce the rules around vending. so we are grateful for the amendment. we think it will be helpful. it there will there's no silver bullet. i think we need to be mindful that this we will continue to have challenges in doing this enforcement, but we are appreciative and we think it will help us be more efficient and just clarify some of the rules. great. thank you. last month there was a local television news story featuring public works, homeless encampment, cleanup team and their heroic work to treat homeless individuals with dignity and respect while maintaining a clean, safe and attractive public realm for san francisco's citizens. as public works hotspot team leader daryl dilworth was interviewed and demonstrated admirable leadership and common sense management of the challenging situation public works employees

navigate every day. the public works commission extends its gratitude to mr. dilworth and his team for their diligence and commitment to working to ensure that a high quality of life can be enjoyed by us all. and just last week, there was a local television story on public works, illegal dumping enforcement team headed by ramses alvarez and featuring team member shannon sweeney. the daily work of this team to point out and enforce illegal dumping laws is critical to maintaining the city's quality of life and the commission thanks mr. alvarez, miss sweeney and their colleagues for the effort they put in each day to remind people to take pride in their community and not be a public nuisance by continuing the garbage theme at this commission's request last month, the sanitation and streets commission had a presentation on the department's trash can program. i think i thank chair hartwig shulman and the commission for taking up

this subject. during the presentation. it was noted that among the department's efforts to respond to public requests for service, a new trash can manager position has been created. director short, how is this new position funded and what will this person be doing specifically? will the duties include identifying private properties of all types that do not have trash service, and enforcing the city's requirement that all properties must have it? and is this, in fact a city requirement that finally, if it is, what is the process for ensuring that all properties in san francisco pay for ecology, trash service? thank you. chair. post the trash can manager position is a new position and it's currently in the hiring pipeline. this. position will be tasked with managing our more than 3000 public trash cans, ensuring that they're properly serviced and maintained. assessing locations and the optimal level of service

monitoring trends through our in can sensors and troubleshooting constituent concerns. currently we don't have a dedicated trash can manager, so that responsibility falls to our special projects team and our government affairs teams, both of which of course, have much larger portfolios. and given the importance of trash cans in our city as a tool to keep our streets and sidewalks clean, it really made sense to us to add this dedicated position. you asked about funding. it's funded through the recology ratepayers, and it's part of the negotiated rate agreement between recology and the city, which is approved by the refuse rate board, a process now that's now under the purview of the city administrator. i'm sorry, of the city controller's office, city administrator sits on the refuse rate board, this position will not address whether private properties have sufficient trash trash service. however that is something that we do. our outreach and enforcement team coordinates with recology and

the department of public health, and it is a city requirement for property owners and businesses to maintain garbage service. that's part of the health code. so we work as a team to address this issue. and i oftentimes they will look at locations where we see frequent dumping, and then they can do an assessment of the adjacent property owners to see if they have sufficient garbage service. and that is required. thank you. also, last month was a print media article on the 24th street repaving project. this commission recently approved the contract for the article, interviewed a number of small business owners along the noe valley portion of 24th street, who expressed their support of this needed roadwork, but also their fears about its detrimental effects on their businesses during their busiest and most lucrative time of year. autumn and the holiday season. director short. can you please describe the department's outreach to and coordination with the noe valley merchants

and professionals association and what measures can be undertaken, if any, to address the concerns outlined in the media report regarding notification, project timing and business disruption. yes. thank you chair. post happy to respond. we have conducted extensive outreach to the business community on 24th street in noe valley. initial letters were sent to parklet sponsors informing them of the upcoming project, and that they would need to temporarily relocate their parklets. the first letter was sent in may of 2022, and a follow up letter was sent in november of 2023. i do really want to note that parklet sponsors were informed when their permits were issued that they may need to move the structures to accommodate construction and or emergency repairs in the right of way. on february 29th of this year, the shared spaces program planning and public works teams met with the north valley merchants to discuss the upcoming project and hear how we might minimize any

impacts during construction. aware of their desire to delay construction between september and december, our project team has been discussing the feasibility and is scheduled to meet with the contractor actually later this week. i do want to note that the noe valley work is part of a larger infrastructure project, and the work has already been delayed once to oblige business concerns . however, i want to note that since this issue has gotten more attention, we're actually hearing from others in the noe valley community who want construction to get underway as soon as possible to improve the condition of the road. the pavement condition index score for that stretch of 24th is 36, meaning that it is rated as being in very poor condition and far below the citywide average of 76, which is good sewer and water system upgrades. vision zero pedestrian and safety. cyclist safety improvements, new ada compliant curb ramps. upgraded traffic signals, and freshly paved streets are essential to advance the

resiliency and safety of our city. these are the types of projects we're talking about that will benefit noe valley. we know that construction in the right of way can cause disruptions, but we make every effort to minimize them while balancing the need to get this important work done. thank you. thank you. yes, i know that the merchants and businesses in the area fully support the project. it was just a question of its timing, but i also understand there are always trade offs. delays often cost taxpayer money. and so it's a balancing act and i appreciate the department's effort to strike that right balance. further, last month there was a media report on the city's whistleblower program and specifically the controller's most recent report on filings. in the first quarter of this year, public works had 13 whistleblower complaints filed in that quarter. director short, can you please describe how whistleblower complaints are called to the department's attention and how they're generally investigated and resolved? yes. thank you. so the

whistleblower program, as you noted, is run by the city's controller's office, and it's designed to be a platform for members of the public city employees to report fraud, waste and abuse by city employees and contractors. if a complaint involves one of our employees or contracts, the controller's office notifies three people at public works the director, the cfo, and the executive assistant to the director. we investigate each complaint, often led by hr, either in-house or in conjunction with the controller, depending on the case and what's being alleged. a determination is then made about what, if any, action to take based on the findings. in some cases, the complaints are found to be without merit. in others, all or portions of the complaint are deemed valid. i want to assure you that any, that any and every whistleblower complaint is thoroughly and fairly investigated and adjudicated as a department committed to

building the public's trust, we would settle for nothing less. thank you very much. there was a recent media article on how city sidewalks are repaired. this article noted that all those sidewalks are public property. as has been noted several times in our own commission meetings, the responsibility to keep a sidewalk in good repair is actually on the adjacent property owner. per a century of state law, many cities have a similar policy to san francisco's, although not all. the article also noted that on average, it takes san francisco public works 477 days to repair a sidewalk after its initial inspection. director short, is that an accurate number in the press, and if so, why does it take nearly a year and a half for a repair to be completed? the short answer is we're looking into whether or not that is an accurate number. and there are a number of factors that

could affect whether or not i think they looked carefully at the data. i want to give them credit for trying to assess that data accurately, but there are a number of factors that may have contributed. so just to back up a little bit, i'll give a brief overview about the process. so when we get a notice about a sidewalk concern we perform an inspection. and if a sidewalk deficiency is found, the team will issue a notice to repair. the property owner has 30 days to respond and make the needed repairs. they can choose to hire their own private contractor to do the work, or if part of our sidewalk inspection and repair program, they can take part in a competitively bid sidewalk repair contract that we administer. we prioritize sidewalk repairs found to be in extremely poor condition in high priority pedestrian corridors such as transit hubs and near schools, hospitals, and transit centers. we elevate accessibility issues and safety hazards if the property owner doesn't perform the work as is required under state and local

law, the city can perform the work and invoice the responsible property owner. so one of the contributing factors to why that average may be so high was the covid pandemic. prior to the pandemic, we had three separate contractors working on behalf of the city at. and then we had to pause all of that work. in april of 2020. and then once the city had more clarity about what was allowed to work, that program didn't operate at full scale. one of our contractors never returned to work. another contractor returned to only complete a few of the packages, and then the third contractor did finish out all their work. another contributing factor that we're investigating is when our own crews perform the sidewalk repairs. if there is maybe a disconnect between the data because they get an ntr from our sidewalk inspectors, but if they close it out, it's supposed to connect to the ntr system that the work was completed. we're

double checking whether there may have been a disconnect there, because that average does seem higher than we would expect. and here's what notice to i'm sorry, notice to repair. yeah. so our inspectors will send a notice to the property owner if the sidewalk is not related to a city maintained tree, if the damage is related to a city maintained tree, then they will issue the notice to our cement team, our urban forestry program. okay, thanks. so you're looking into it and. yeah, well, we can report back i think. great. yeah. one of the i'll just note one last thing because we have a i think a very, appropriate and robust process for prioritizing if there is damage that's located that is related to a city asset that's located in a very low pedestrian volume site, it will take our crews much longer to get to that repair. and of

course, that can then potentially skew the data. or if we have 1 or 2 sites where maybe the work was done, but it didn't get re-inspected the property owner did the work, didn't tell us they had done the work. then that the conditions could be safe. but we're dealing with a that bringing our average down. so that's the type of information we want to try to dig into a little bit to see. and i appreciate your explanation since of course data is only as good as what goes into it. and often there are considerations that are omitted that that could change the picture if they were included. so thank you very much. finally even though it's a bit of old news by now, i did want to call out the may issue of in the works, the department's newsletter featured articles on the department's glass shop and the skills required by our glaziers to execute a variety of repairs and installations for city projects. it also described the groundbreaking for the folsom street improvements from

second to 11th streets in yerba buena and soma, a major city residential, commercial and transit corridor that will greatly benefit from these improvements in the works featured landscaping improvements to the iconic bayview gateway project. the capital project contractor connections event that director short told us about in may. public works has worked to ensure the bay to breakers race route was clean and safe both before and after the event that we also discussed. and finally, mays love our city neighborhood cleanup and landscaping day in district three neighborhoods. do any of my colleagues have questions on my announcements or announcements of their own? today? commissioner zombie? good morning, everyone. and then thank you for the for the report, chair post, just a couple of questions about the subjects that were raised right now. so the first one about the trash can manager there. so that is that position is going, are

you looking to hire a person right now or are we going to be waiting because we did kick that can down the road after our budget was cut, we did not kick the can down the road for our existing trash cans. so we still have about 3000 trash cans around the city, and yes, we are looking to hire that trash can manager now. in fact, we have initiated the hiring process. thank you. and my next question is about the sidewalk, repair, i understand that it's the responsible of the landlord, but does the reason the cause of the damage have to, play play any role in that? like, for example, roots of trees? would that be ours or would be the landlord? thank you for that question. so if the sidewalk damage is caused by a city maintained tree. so a street tree that is the city's

responsibility, which is most street trees, only if someone has opted out of the our program would it not be our responsibility in those cases, the city is responsible for repairing the damage caused by those tree roots. but for example, if the tree is located on the private property but may be damaging the sidewalk. so sometimes a tree located in a backyard that's adjacent to the sidewalk, or even in some cases a tree planted in an area that may be in the front of the property, but actually on property, private property, then that damage would be the responsibility of the property owner. thank you. thank you. secretary fuller, do you have any announcements today? i only have two brief announcements. and one is the report on the sanitation and streets commission, their june 17th meeting was, canceled due to a need to, postpone some of the

items that were one of the major items that they were considering. but their next meeting is scheduled for july 15th, when they'll hear the bureau of urban forestry's performance measure reports as well as the racial equity action plan update and then, just a reminder to commissioners that their title six training is due at the end of this week. i believe most of us have completed it. so it's a brief reminder video. so it's but still very important. and that's the those are all of my announcements. thank you. please open public comment on this item . members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment in person on item one. the announcements by the chair, commissioners and secretary may line up against the wall furthest from the door. and if you are commenting from outside the chamber, please press the raise your hand button in the webinar or star three on your

phone to be recognized. and no one has, approached to speak on this item. and sfgovtv is letting me know that they we do not have any callers on this item either. so that concludes public comment. thank you. please call the next item on the agenda item two is the director's report and communications and public works director carlos short is here to present. this is an informational item. thank you. bob good morning again. carlos short, public works director. hope you're enjoying the first days of summer. and as i said at your meeting earlier this month, and i'm happy to say again, happy pride month. all right, we've covered a number of the updates already, but i'll just say a little bit more about, the civil grand jury, we have the

report, as you noted, chair post, we are also reviewing the findings for accuracy, for example, how they describe which agency is actually responsible for what, such as maintenance and site selection. there are some assumptions that we identified that we know are not factually correct. we are also reviewing the recommendations to assess where we can and should do better. and i'm happy to report that actually, later this week we have a new colleague started starting with us, who is really helping us focus in on capital project delivery and where we can make improvements. we appreciate the civil grand jury's goal, which we share to improve government services and as you noted, even before the report was issued, we already had initiated some process improvements that were touched on by their recommendations. examples include facilities renewal project delivery that streamlines processes around project delivery. we also have worked with capital planning to establish a process that better assesses the true budget needs to establish those original

budgets. with that said, there's always room for improvement, both in the delivery of capital projects and in educating the public and our city partners on our roles and responsibilities. building an infrastructure projects from identifying and securing funding to planning and design, to construction and closeout is a highly complex undertaking and one that we have a very strong track record to stand on. next up, another update on sidewalk vending, this past friday, working with the mayor's office, supervisor ronan's office and the office of economic and workforce development, we launched a pilot program for sidewalk vending. in the mission, we're allowing ten permitted vendors to return to a one block stretch of mission street to sell their wares. we will assess the impact on street conditions as the pilot comes seven months after the city imposed a temporary moratorium on sidewalk vending in the mission between on the on mission street, between 14th

street and cesar chavez, to bring order back to mission street prior. the corridor that was packed with more than 100 permitted vendors and many, many others without permits, selling fenced goods. the sidewalks at times were impossible and impassable and impossible and dangerous. since the moratorium went into effect, data has shown a drop in assaults and street cleaning requests. another consequence, however, was that the good actor street vendors saw an impact to their livelihoods. now we are testing on a small scale whether we can bring back a limited number of vendors who have played by the rules. the ten vendors in the pilot were selected by a city run lottery. they can set up shop between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. they are identified by branded mission street vendor uniforms, canopies and tablecloths. they must set up at one of the ten sanctioned spots between 23rd and 24th streets, and maintain an accessible path of travel at all times. meanwhile, our street

inspectors, accompanied by uniformed police officers, will be on the ground seven days a week to one. make sure the vendors in the pilot program are adhering to the rules, and two, that no other vendors will be able to sell in the corridor. our inspectors will continue to issue citations and impound items from the unsanctioned sales. the moratorium, however, does not apply to food cart sales for things such as cut fruit and hot dogs. the moratorium is set to expire on august 22nd, and the city will continue to monitor the conditions on a daily basis. i will continue to keep you posted . i am also happy to report that last week our budget was approved by the board of supervisors budget committee with no consequential, consequential impacts beyond the mayor's recommendation. the budget process, however, is far from over. it's now in the hands of the full board, where the supervisors and the mayor will continue to debate proposed cuts and restoration. i will keep you looped in as the budget advances, but for now, it's

looking good for public works with no layoffs. i do want to take the opportunity to thank cfo bruce robertson, finance manager jennifer marquez, budget manager victoria chan, and their teams for all the hard work they put into this year's budget plan. their strategy, skills and determination served us well. and on a lighter note, i'm proud to report that team public works came in third place at the may louisa may's softball tournament. this was the first year back after 2019 and is a key fundraiser for the san francisco san francisco foster youth fund. it's an event that draws teams from many city departments, as well as major partners like the san francisco giants and the golden state warriors. after an early loss, public works went on to win four straight games, beating the san francisco county transportation authority, the warriors, to be clear, staff, not players. the office of economic and workforce development and rec park. i'm proud that our team drew from all divisions of the department

and embraced the best spirit of the event. it was a long day, starting with the first game at 8 a.m. and wrapping up at about 10 p.m, but team public works kept their energy and commitment strong. and with that, i'm happy to take any questions. thank you for that report. the games were all played in one day. yes, at moscone softball fields, which has, i think like 5 or 6 fields going at any given moment, and it was a long day of.

in the middle of this project. and of course, this project has a lot of steel. i do want to give a shout out to our project manager, who's now the manager of our of our project management team, who really managed to actually claw back some of those costs that we had to pay. and was tenacious in finding out how we could actually not be held accountable for all of those steel tariffs, some of the other challenges were the bcdc, which

is the bay conservation development. yes we anticipated, you know, anytime we're working on the bay that we will have requirements from bcdc. i think from our perspective at least, the requirements on this project were greater than we had ever experienced on other projects. so while we did anticipate some of what they would require and planned for that, there were additional requirements that we did not foresee. and that adds to the to the time. and then therefore the cost of delivery. so, i appreciate your pointing out that this is a unique project and with any unique project, it's going to be more, more challenging to deliver. and i think it's a really great project. in the end. i'd like to while i do think and i commend our team for delivering a very complex project, the reason i bring this up and why, as we, you know, develop our response and our recommendations, i want to make sure the public is well aware of things that are coming down the pike, i'm very proud of

the work we've done over at laguna honda. that work has got it recertified for medicaid, hugely important for the work that we see every day on the streets and how we support our community, we also have general hospital coming down the pike very soon. so as these very unique projects are coming down, one of the misnomers that seems to be out there is that it's all about our cost. and these things, but does it not boil some down, boil down to the complexity of what we're doing? and given that they sometimes are just one offs, i.e. sometimes we like to call it boutique, but how does that factor into our planning to our both our response to the civil grand jury, but also the public who often do see what seem to be caused very different than building their home. in fact, we are doing something very, very different. is that not a matter of fact? yes, i think that is absolutely correct. and i think, you know, some of the challenges that we also face is that we don't always have control over certain aspects of the project. so a lot of the grand jury's

report focused on location, location, location and i think a very dense city like san francisco does not have a lot of easy places where we can just pick up a great spot and decide to build on it. right. so a lot of those locations are driven by what's available, what is the city already own? and they may not be ideal, but sometimes it's a balancing act. do we build here now and provide those critical services to the city, or do we hold out and delay and potentially impact the residents of san francisco? so, there are a lot of challenging factors in delivering important capital projects for the city of san francisco. thank you. i thought it was important for that as a matter of record, for every citizen who reads that report, but also for the world who visits san francisco, so who get to make sure they can do it safely from cruise ships on the pier to biking up and down our streets to if you need to go to a hospital. we've been there to

make sure those capital projects are delivered safely in every single day. perform. i've never seen a perfect project. i've never seen a perfect house. i've never seen a perfect building. but i do think that we are working toward perfection every day. and i thank staff for continuing to improve process every single day. thank you. good morning. alameda, deputy director for buildings and city architect. and i really don't have a whole lot to add to what carla had had spoke to, but i want to express my appreciation, commissioner turner, that stepping back and understanding kind of the array of complexities and challenges that we face every day, with a smile and leaning into, we've delivered a lot, of lot of projects under esser and other programs that have been quite successful. and, i'm eager to dive into this report and address it with my colleagues. i

think my first impressions of the report is it was one that started or did recognize a lot of the array of complexities and challenges, some of the recommendations and dive in drilling into some specific s, put a big focus on some smaller areas, and i appreciate that you step back and look at kind of the whole array of types of projects and complexities and innovation that we apply to the project. but as, as, director short has noted that we're always seeking, ways, ways to improve, with our other departments in terms of as she said, you know, stepping back and understanding that we want to, focus on facility renewal programs and starting to build a

focused group on that in conjunction with our, sister departments, if you will. so, again, much appreciate the reaching mission of what we what we do and the level of complexity. thanks again. okay and i'll just comment on the fire station 35 project. i recall something because it made such an impression on me that, for example, when the floating fire station was was had to be put in, as you noted, it caused shadowing on the bay. right? so one of the bcdc requirements that director short referred to is all right. now, if you're going to create more shadowing on the bay under this fire station, you need to then eliminate shadowing somewhere else on the bay. and so as a taxpayer, i think, well, i certainly don't want to see life disrupted by more shadows. sea life that needs sun, but it's just an indication of time and cost that you might not expect either the department or as a taxpayer to, you might support

it in the end or not. but it just these things crop up and it's terrific. if a state agency like bcdc gives you the laundry list ahead of time way early. but that's not always the case. so again, who would have thought shadowing would have would have? i just remember deputy director alameda when i was on go back that being mentioned, and i obviously remembered it and made such an impression. if there are no further questions or comments on director's report, please open the side into public comment. members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment in person on item two, the director's report may line up against the wall furthest from the door and if you're commenting from outside the chamber, please press the raise your hand button in the webinar or star three on your phone to be recognized. and no one has approached to speak on this item, and we are getting indications that no one has

called in to speak on it either. so we have no no public comment. thank you. please call the next item on the agenda. item three is general public comment, which is for topics under the commission's mandate but not related to a specific item on today's agenda. members of the public who wish to make three minutes of general public comment in person again, may line up against the wall for this from the door, and if commenting from outside the chamber, please press the raise your hand button in the webinar or star three on your phone. okay. and no one has approached to speak on this in in person and also no one has raised their hand to speak about it, through the phone. so we have no further public comment. thank you. please call the next item, the consent calendar. item four is

the consent calendar of routine matters. on this meeting. it only includes the draft minutes from the june 10th, 2024 meeting of the public works commission. and please note, there are corrections for clarity that have been made to the draft minutes, and these corrections are reflected in the documents posted on the commission's website, and before we take a motion on this item, i'm happy to take any questions or corrections to the minutes. i have no changes to the minutes. do either of my colleagues i move? we approve. second, thank you very much. can you please open this motion to public comment? members of the public wish to make three minutes of comment in person on the motion to approve item four. the consent calendar may line up against the wall for this from the door. and if you're commenting from outside the chamber, please press the raise your hand button in the webinar or star three on your phone to be recognized.

and we do not have any in-person commenters, and no one has raised their hand over the phone to speak either. so that concludes public comment. thank you. all in favor of approving the minutes from the last meeting, please say aye or yes. i it passes unanimously and the minutes will be posted to the commission's website. secretary fuller, please call the next item. item five is the public works collaboration with the department of environment, report and director carla short will present this item and is joined by the department of environment's chief policy and public affairs officer, charles sheehan. and this is an informational item. i'm going to

try to use this microphone. good morning, commissioners. again i'll be presenting today hoping to give you a glimpse into some of san francisco's environmental priorities and showcase our extensive collaborations with the san francisco environment department. i want to thank charles sheehan, who's here today, for joining us. he is the chief policy and public affairs officer for the department of the environment. as you know, probably san francisco has been at the forefront, forefront of environmentally conscious policy making on a local level for quite some time now. in 1996, san francisco voters created the department of the environment to lead the city's efforts with other city departments, including public works, supporting and amplifying our collective commitment to sustainability from prioritizing green building practices like leed certified facilities to incorporating native plants into projects and beefing up our electric vehicle friendly infrastructure. preparing for a changing climate, rising seas and a warming planet is at the

heart of nearly everything we do , and since the release of its first climate action plan in 2004, san francisco has been leading the way on local climate action. some of the goals include supplying residents and businesses with 100% renewable electricity. that is reliable and affordable by 2025. another is eliminating emissions from all buildings by 2040 through electrification and using 100% renewable electricity. and we do know that what we're doing is working. so here are the areas in which we collaborate with sfe. and i will try to relatively briefly go through this extensive collaboration. all right. the interagency biodiversity working group is a group that meets monthly to ensure that the city is becoming more biodiverse, including through the planting of local native plants in all municipal projects. this is close to my

heart as this i am trained and have worked in biodiversity conservation for many years. biodiversity. in its simplest definition is looking at the variety variety of species such as plants and animals found in a thriving, found, thriving in a sample area, and typically the larger the variety of species is, the healthier the environment. the working group has representatives from all city agencies that share information best practices, grant opportunities, project successes and lessons, lessons learned, and the convening group was directed by a board of supervisors resolution. in 2018, passed unanimously by the board. the san francisco biodiversity policy directs 15 city departments to strengthen their collaboration on behalf of the citywide biodiversity vision. san francisco environments biodiversity coordinator peter brastow convenes and runs the

monthly meetings, and we have staff who attend and contribute to the discussion and information sharing. the port just put out their own biodiversity guidelines that also follow san francisco environment's guidance and mandate 50% native plants on all port projects, public works design projects such as pelican park, which is part of the trans bay block three park and streetscape improvements project, features a native habitat meadow at the heart of the project and uses 80% native plants and trees and our sunset boulevard biodiversity master plan and its pilot block, implemented by san francisco public works with great collaboration from the california native plant society, boasts new plants that are 100% california native plants. all right. building traditionally has been very carbon intensive. concrete and steel, which are ubiquitous in modern day construction, are significant drivers of greenhouse gas

emissions, specifically, carbon dioxide. and those emissions further supercharge our climate change crisis. the act of making cement requires a tremendous amount of energy and releases a lot of co2 in the process, similarly, producing shipping and recycling steel requires copious amounts of energy, much of today's steel is recycled content, but melting down steel and repurposing it is often achieved by burning coal, which makes it a pretty dirty process. once construction. buildings historically also use a lot of energy to stay operational, and buildings in san francisco currently generate 41% of the city's greenhouse gas emissions. however, we are working to build better and this shows one of our great projects. the southeast community center, this is a great example of, all of the best green building practices. it's leed gold certified and all electric facility. the center

has solar panels on the roof, uses high performance glass to stabilize the internal temperature, and features motion sensor activated lighting inside and outside to save energy. not only does the center take advantage of natural light, but the lights indoors don't turn on if there's sufficient daylight in the room. sunshades in the form of slats around the building help keep it cool, and the parking lot includes nine electric vehicle charging stations. and when it rains, the stormwater runoff feeds our extensive rain gardens on the campus. the water is filtered through the planting area areas and recharging the aquifer. so how does sf environment play into all of this? the san francisco environment code has several chapters that are relevant to public works. perhaps most importantly, chapter seven. chapter seven specifically outlines the green building requirements for city buildings. that includes everything from leed certification requirements for municipal construction projects to the collection, storage and

loading of recyclable and compostable materials, as well as indoor environmental quality guidelines. all our projects, regardless of size and budget, make huge efforts to comply with all the city regulations as required, and we frequently reach out to sf environment with implementation questions and we also provide input when new regulations are being drafted by them. and then there's the municipal green building task force. the task force has representatives from 12 city departments, including public works, and it provides communication among city departments on green building issues and policy development, supports the integration of green building practices, and plays a key role in implementing chapter seven of the environment code. so for example, if the sponsoring city department of a municipal construction project determines that compliance with any of the chapter seven requirements is cost prohibitive, that city department can request a waiver which is submitted to the task

force, and then department of the environment handles those waivers. one last piece of that is the construction and demolition debris requirement for recycling. so to properly track the recovery of construction materials, we use an online platform called green halo. all construction projects, no matter the size or budget, are required to recycle or reuse a minimum of 75% of the discarded materials generated by a project. all right. we have a new, pilot project that's being launched with the mayor's office. the sfmta, sf environment and public works to allow public curbside electric vehicle charging stations to help us understand the demand, identify impacts, and garner market interest, and gather data and learnings to consider a future larger scale program. for the first time, electric vehicle charging providers will be able

to install their charging infrastructure at select on street parking spaces. this effort in the very early stages also aligns with the mayor's climate action plan and the ev roadmap, which includes the goal of increasing electrification of all new registered vehicles to at least 25% by 2030 and reach 100% by 2040. similarly, the california air resources board established new regulations in 2022 with the goal of ensuring that all new vehicles sold by 2035 will be zero emission. the project works to advance the city's climate resiliency efforts and help bridge the gap for city dwellers who use electric vehicles, but have limited access to charging, charging infrastructure. last year, electric vehicles and plug in hybrids made up 37% of all new vehicle sales in san francisco. so here's how the pilot works ev charging providers can apply at sfgovtv sfgovtv curbside, detailing

their technology and proposed installation locations means the city will review applications to ensure they meet the necessary criteria and support san francisco's climate action plan and equity goals. once approved, applicants can proceed with obtaining any required permits, such as excavation permits from public works, and once installed, the program establishes a data gathering partnership with the charging providers to monitor usage, demand, and other key metrics. this information will support the sfmta's ongoing feasibility study and guide the development of a comprehensive citywide policy for curbside ev charging. the goal is to implement and install a select number of charges in the coming months for up to two years, or until san francisco completes its citywide implementation effort. the stakeholder group consists of representatives from the city departments. and, we've been meeting regularly to generate all the necessary elements for

this pilot project, which includes communications with a third party charging installation companies, coordination with other city agencies like department of building inspection, the public utilities commission, developing our intake forms, and a public facing website, and ensuring a relatively streamlined process and processing any border commission legislation that may be needed. so we anticipate rolling out this project, this pilot program, to the public this summer. all right. the urban forestry council, also close to my heart, public works bureau of urban forestry reports its tree maintenance and planting data to sf environment's urban forestry council during its annual survey. the annual urban forest report, now in its 20th year, serves as analysis of survey data from public, private and nonprofit agencies that grow and maintain the urban forest within the city and county of san francisco. the bureau of urban forestry has assigned a manager to serve on the council since its inception. nicholas

crawford, acting superintendent, currently sits on the council. in the past, i've had a seat as has urban forester chris buck. buff pays a portion of the salary of the council's urban forestry coordinator and the council has served as the public meeting forum during development and approval of the city's urban forest master plan. phase one street trees. buff also works with sf environment through the integrated pest management program. buffs team ipm is led by acting landscape manager nikki mixon, and we provide annual pest management reports to sf environment, which regulates pesticide use for all city departments. i'm proud to say that public works has significantly reduced our pesticide use since the implementation of this program, san francisco maintains stringent regulations and even stricter than the state for our pesticide use. the principles of integrated pest management are that we exhaust all non-chemical

methods available for weed and pest management before considering the use of products on the reduced risk pesticide list. if buff wants to use such an application during its work on medians and in the public right of way, we have to go before sf environment's technical advisory committee for approval. as i mentioned, there are regulations around road construction debris and our bureau of street use and mapping works with sf environment to issue and enforce permits for companies who collect and haul construction and demolition debris in a debris box and or in collection vehicles. so the goal behind this is really to reduce solid waste disposal. that's going to the landfill or to incineration by 50% by 2030. so the city requires anyone who transports construction and demolition debris in san francisco other than the owner of the property at which the

material was generated. so if you are doing something at your own house, you don't need to get one of these permits, or to register with san francisco environment and any facility that in san francisco that processes construction and demolition debris must also be registered with sf environment. while most construction and demolition debris is recovered for reuse and recycling, at least 150,000 tons needlessly, winds up disposed in a landfill or incinerator annually, making up a quarter of all solid waste. and community engagement. as you know, we host, regular events with the community. we had one on saturday in district 11, and we also work with sf environment at these events, including arbor day, the best event of the year where sf environment staffs and information table every year, as

well as our free neighborhood beautification day compost giveaways. eva chang, our program manager with community engagement, works with the san francisco unified school district and sf environment to coordinate free compost giveaways at some of our 2024 neighborhood beautification day events. we talked about our outreach and enforcement team, and historically, we've worked with sf environment on night walks, which were paused during the pandemic, and we are looking to restart those operations mostly looked for contamination issues within containers, so businesses and residents not properly sorting their castaways landfill compost and recycling. they also provide constituents with waivers for certain trash requirement. for example, if a business is cited for not having compost, they can go to sf environment and obtain a letter from them saying they don't need compost for the trash. if two businesses want to share service . and that is a brief overview

of our extensive collaboration with sf environment, and i'm happy to take any questions. thank you, director short and i appreciate this presentation which was at my request. so i'm particularly grateful for it, if mr. sheehan's here, i'd love him to come to the podium since i have some questions for him as well. hi there. hello, hello, commissioners. charles sheehan, chief policy and public affairs officer for the environment department. glad to be here. thank you very much. and thank you for your good work. i don't know much about the department. how big is your staff and what is your annual budget, staff. you know, obviously fluctuates depending on vacancies, but it's around 90 ish personnel, and then in terms of budget, i want to say about 25 to $30 million. and do you partner the most with public works in terms of all

city departments or. not necessarily, i would say that there are a couple of departments that we routinely collaborate with, work on existing city programs and then work on like new upcoming environmental initiatives and ordinances. public works is probably one of the top three five. i'd have to really sit down to see who is number one, but like when it comes to ipm, when it comes to like building electrification in our latest initiative with, ev charging on the curb, there's usually one or more public works representatives in the room helping us to collaborate and kind of move, environmental initiatives forward. so i did listen carefully to director short's report, but i'd love to hear in your words what you see as the department's role in san francisco, the environment

department. yes, please. sure. so we do have a place in the charter, and that's kind of how we came about, in terms of our role, it's a very open ended question that i don't often get, when i look at like, kind of what you know, our department and what we do with other departments and how we collaborate on the environment, like our role is to get the city to zero emissions. and that's clearly stated in our climate action plan, which was a, you know, community led, you know, city department collaborative process that got us to that climate action plan. and you know, one of the main goals is zero emissions by 2040. and so, like, how do we get there? and that's what our department is tasked with being the lead on. and i say the word lead, but also collaborator because there are so many other departments that own the electricity supply. that's the sfpuc, for example. or like, you know, smaller roles to helping us. do you know, ev

charging on the curb like public works is doing. and so while we're lead, we're also like kind of the lead collaborators and so we're leading we're collaborating to get us to that 2040 zero emissions goal. and that collaboration takes us from, you know, our department to other city departments to the private sector and to residents as well. and so it's kind of an all hands on deck. and we're trying to like, get everyone on deck to work towards that goal. and so that's zero emissions. but we're working towards zero waste, which is also, you know, an all hands on deck, challenging environmental imperative. and so, you know, when i look at our role like that's pretty much it, we want to create that green all electric, zero waste, sustainable city of the future that we're all aspiring towards. thank you very much, director short. i did have a few specific questions on your presentation. please in your your discussion of, of biodiversity and all the plantings, which all sound

fantastic for all city facilities. my question is about homeowners, what outreach is done by the city, by public works specifically, or by other city departments to encourage homeowners to plant biodiverse gardens, use native species? san francisco species, or at least california species, that we have so many gardeners in san francisco and all these different microclimates, i would think regular reminding and assistance in converting gardens to, of course, drought tolerant and native species would be an important goal. do we do any of that? we do. thank you, chair post for the question. so one of the things that public works does is when we send out those, everything is coming full circle . when we send out those sidewalk repair notifications, we also send information on sidewalk landscaping. and we have a very low cost permit to install landscaping, in the sidewalk adjacent to your property. if the sidewalk is

wide enough and we can meet all our accessibility, guidelines. and with those notices, we send information that links to our website where we have a lot of we have sample plans as well as plant palettes. we also, as a city, have developed, sf plant finder, which really is a useful tool for people to look up what plant might do well in their condition. you can, you know, describe what you're looking for . showy flowers, you know, very low water use. and it really guides people. and of course, we're always looking to promote, local native plants as well as california native plants. so we do that outreach through our sidewalk inspection and repair program, at our neighborhood beautification days and at our, our, arbor day. we have information on native plantings. and then we did hold a series of community meetings around our sunset boulevard biodiversity

master plan, where we really talked to the neighbors and anyone who was interested about why we were going with a biodiversity master plan and the goal behind that. so we do do some outreach around how to support property owners and then direct them to those resources that are available, to help them choose the right plants and find where they can get native plants because they at times can be difficult to source. okay. great. thank you. i think i think that's an important effort that should be ongoing. so thank you, regarding the charging station pilot program, which i'm excited to hear about, will, i hope public works will be drawn upon for its expertise in siting. i mean, no one knows better than we what's under the ground when you stick a jackhammer in, right. so will will we take a proactive role, insert ourselves whether or not we are invited into into this pilot so we can really give some advice on on where we think some

of these stations should be sited. so we are invited. let's, to provide our, our expertise. and yes, we will be reviewing the location. so the providers will submit where they would like to place these locations. and then the city, including public works, will review those sites. of course, before they can put the jackhammer in the ground, they will have to get an excavation permit from us, and we will ensure that there are no conflicts with other projects or utilities through that review process. but yes, we will always provide our guidance on best possible location, but the initial request will come from the company that wishes to install the infrastructure. great, and i would love to see it ahead of the permitting process. i mean, that's i think always our goal, right, is to try to check as many of these things off before it gets to permitting, because by the time it gets to permitting, it's late in the game. thank you. and my last question was, integrated pest management. what does the department, i don't recall, do we handle rat abatement, i mean,

we talked about pest, you know, lowering pesticide use and all of that. but how do we handle live vermin? yeah we do handle rat abatement, in fact, that was i talked more about rats during our trash can design process than i ever thought i would, our integrated pest management team is trained in handling rats. we mostly deal with rats in the public right of way. of course, and often we are working with other city departments like department of public health and in many cases sfmta bart, the those stations and their tracks are great rat corridors in the city, as well as san francisco public utilities commission because sewers, they're called sewer rats for a reason. they like to run through the sewers. so we do handle that. we do trapping. we also do baiting in some cases, i know way too much about what the rats like to eat. i'm happy to share that at

another at another time. so yes, our team is trained in that. and in fact, we met with, with, new york city has a rat guru and our ipm team proactively reached out and met with him to learn about how new york handles their rats, because, of course, the pandemic . really, you may have read, increased the rat population in new york or, or brought them out of the shadows more. thank you very much, commissioner zarb. thank you for that presentation, very informative. and you're right about especially the compost, presentation at arbor day with all the worms and stuff was was very interesting. to learn about it, the question about the collaboration with the san francisco environmental, how do we measure the emissions? how do we measure it as only a dome, like a certain radius in san francisco or how is the

measurement done, i, i will defer to my colleague for the answer to that question. thank you, commissioner, for that question. again. charles sheehan, commissioner, environment department. so every two years we do a comprehensive, emissions analysis, for the city of san francisco and its operations. and we do it in two ways. one is a sector based emissions analysis, and one is a consumption based emission analysis. the consumption based emissions analysis is a little newer, and we're still developing it. and it looks at you know, all the emissions we generate, especially from what we consume. and so what the emission impact is beyond our borders. when, you know, residences or businesses are buying something, it's shipped into the city and then it's manufactured somewhere else. and so we're looking at kind of the whole line of emissions on that supply chain. again, that's a little newer. what we

traditionally do, though, is just measure the emissions from sectors. so the building sector, which is about 41, 42% of the city's emissions, the transportation sector, which is like 42, 43 and then everything else, landfill organics and municipal, i don't have those off the top of my head, but so we do that every two years and we follow a standardized model that other cities use throughout the world. so it's widely accepted, way of putting together your city's emissions, and that's how we do it. i'm happy to take any questions. thank you. sure, so through the follow up question to that. so we were talking about adding, ev charging stations on the sidewalk, has any, any, research or surveys done about the fossil fuel that takes to get the electricity to the chargers? i mean, i love the idea of

electric cars, but is the environmental department actually calculating that part where more electric station charging stations, they're going to use our power plants that use fossil fuel, well, the good thing about our electricity supply here in san francisco, it's very, very clean. and so, you know, if you're on hetch-hetchy power, it's 100% greenhouse gas free, no fossil fuel. if you're on cleanpowersf, it's. i don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but it's probably 90, 95% greenhouse gas free. very, very clean. and then even if you're on pg and e, like, it's also very, very clean. like primarily from non ghg emitting sources of energy, including nuclear. and that's got its other environmental issues. but technically it's non ghg emitting. and so when you charge up in san francisco when you're kind of accessing the san francisco grid, whether again it's like getting hetch hetchy power cleanpowersf power or even pg and e power, it's very clean,

electricity. and so the emissions reduction that goes from like, you know, driving a, you know, typical gas powered car around the, around the streets versus driving an electric vehicle, car around the streets that's using electricity sourced here in san francisco. the emissions reduction by that ev, by charging that ev is dramatic and significant. we don't really have to worry about fossil fuel energy sources in our electricity supply. there might be a little bit of natural gas, power supply in our electricity, but we're we're approaching 100% greenhouse gas free electricity. and that's a goal of cleanpowersf by 2025. so that's not as much of a concern as it is somewhere else in the nation where, you know, if you're charging your ev, you're getting coal power that doesn't exist here in san francisco. we don't have that issue. it's very clean electricity. when you're charging up your car. thank you for clarifying that. another environmental issue. batteries have we is there any plan. are

there are there any plans or, foresight of what's going to happen with those batteries? batteries are definitely an issue, i know the federal government is looking at it. there was recently a grant, about how you do battery recycling, kind of on a large scale level. i know the state of california is looking at it. and we here locally, we're concerned about kind of our batteries and the electric vehicles we're driving all the way down to the batteries and the scooters and some of the bikes that are on our road, you know, i think this is being more addressed at the state level, which is which is a good thing because we want it to be comprehensive throughout the state. and then there obviously needs to be national legislation as well. but what is best is kind of an extended producer responsibility model, where when these batteries are manufactured by a manufacturer to and when they're sold by a retailer, you know, and then a, you know, a customer buys it, there's kind of that extended producer

responsibility model where, where when it is sold, there is a program for the end of life disposal and recycle and recovery of that scooter, of that bike, which includes the battery, that is the model we kind of want to move towards. we're moving towards it. i'm not so sure we're quite there yet as a state, but it is an issue that we and state agencies and, you know, the state assembly, senate, the state senate are kind of looking at to do better that there is a comprehensive extended producer responsibility for batteries and products so that when you buy something, there's a way for that customer to recycle and recover and that burden the mandate to recycle and recover because it's extended producer responsibility should be borne by the manufacturer and the retailer. got it. okay. thank you. last but not least, sure, i, how

confident are you with the zero emission? i mean, if we get if we hit it by 2 or 3oz, we failed, right? well, actually, our climate action plan recognizes that getting to zero emissions is challenging. and so , you know, what we want to do is we want to get all of our cars medium light duty, heavy duty vehicles off of gas and fossil fuels on to clean electricity. we want to electrify all of our buildings, you know, continue to decrease the amount of organics we have in our landfill. and that gets us very close to zero. but again , our climate action plan recognizes that it's difficult to get to absolute zero. that's another term for another science issue. but if you can't get to absolute zero, there are ways to sequester to, you know, plant trees, to encourage biodiversity, to make a natural sequestration process. and so anything that you're still emitting, whether you're, you know, if you're at 95% below your emissions and you're still

emitting that 5, you're going to try and use your natural resources, your tree, your biodiversity that you've encouraged throughout the city to sequester carbon. and that's what helps you get to zero. and so we do recognize that getting to zero is difficult, but we also have strategies in place mainly through, you know, sequestration to help us get to that zero. and that's why we call it net zero emissions and not like zero emissions or carbon neutrality. the technical term is net zero emissions. so at the end of the day, when you kind of put it all together, you're at that net zero figure. last promise. so sure, no worries. these are good questions. i like small successes. i like celebrating successes. is there a, a detailed plan of, like 20% drop by 20, 30 or 15 other percent drop? is there is there like, such thing that is, detailed? yes for us to, to like,

celebrate at least as as we go. there is, off the top of my head, i believe we are supposed to be at like 60 to 65% below our 1990 emissions baseline by 2030, so the ultimate goal is obviously net zero emissions by 2040. but we do have that interim goal of by 2030. and off the top of my head, it's either 60 or 65, and so we do have some smaller milestones along the way that's on the emissions front on the zero waste front, by 230, we want to have reduced our waste generation by 15. and then by and then what we send to landfill by 50. and i believe that's also by 2030. and so we do have some of those interim goals, those small successes help motivate you to keep working towards those large successes. so i think you're exactly right there. thank you. and mr. secretary, can we all we i'm not sure if, i'm going to get reappointed by 2030. can put

that on the calendar from now. okay. thank you. thank you. mr. thank you. if there are no more questions, mr. sheehan. director short, please open this item to public comment. members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment in person on item five, the public works collaboration with department of environment may line up against the wall for this. from the door . and if you're commenting from outside the chamber, please press the raise your hand button in the webinar or star three on your phone to be recognized. and no one has approached to speak on this item, and it appears no one in the queue has raised their hand to speak either. so we do not have any public comment on this item. thank you. and again, thank you, mr. sheehan, for attending today's meeting and answering our questions about your department was very informative. secretary fowler, please call the next

item. item six is contract number 36. traffic signal modifications, and product, project manager earl gaffud, will present this modification. and it is an action item. good morning. let's see if i can make this a little taller. good morning, chair post, vice chair. darby, commissioner turner and,

deputy city attorney tom, and, of course, director short. my name is earl gaffud. i am the project manager for this project and an electrical engineer in the bureau of engineering for the electrical section. i'm here to present. and a proposed contract modification for the contract 36 traffic signal modification project. accompanying me here today is, deputy director albert co, electrical section manager, chief yao and sfmta senior traffic engineer brian wu. thank you. okay. okay. public works is requesting the commission to

approve a contract modification to increase the contract duration for by 365 calendar days and increase the contract cost by two, $2,754,707.20. the original contract was awarded to bay area light works incorporated for. 3,443,384. with a 608 consecutive calendar day duration. the reason is our client department at sfmta requests the addition of new traffic signal work at the intersections of 19th street and folsom 21st street in folsom 22nd street in folsom, 23rd street in folsom, and golf and market. the original contract

consists of 14 locations located throughout san francisco, as shown in the blue colored pins. our client department is requesting to add five new locations, as shown in the red colored pins. the funding for this project is projected and provided by our project sponsor, the sfmta. this is a brief overview of the proposed contract. the purpose of the contract is to install upgraded traffic signals, upgraded street lights, and upgraded curb ramps and pedestrian accessibility improvements. a major. a major reason to add these locations is to ensure the project is constructed by april 2025, and final billing sent in june 2025

to meet the criteria to use the hsc, affordable housing and sustainable communities grant funds. this grant applies to the four folsom street intersections and would be a potential loss of approximately $1.2 million. the additional five locations were part of another traffic signal project, which was delayed and the project schedule would not meet the ahsc grant criteria. since contract 36 was starting construction, it seemed to be a reasonable, reasonable solution for multiple reasons, including the intersections for the two projects have similar scope and locations for the intersections are close in proximity to one another. three of the folsom intersections and the golf and market street intersection are part of the vision zero high

injury network. this project will support the city's adoption of the vision zero policy and commitment of zero traffic signal fatalities. there will be more pedestrian safety improvements made to the intersections, such as curb ramp upgrades, crosswalk improvements, pedestrian signals , and countdown timers. another major reason for adding these new locations is to improve the overall safety of the intersection. in areas of low lighting and dark spots, the streetlights are being replaced or added to increase the visibility at the intersection. the traffic signals are upgraded to increase the visibility to drivers. the curb ramps are upgraded to meet the latest codes and standards to provide improved accessibility to pedestrians. an accessible push

buttons are installed to provide safer notifications for pedestrians with disabilities crossing the street. this contract, originally started construction in april 2024 of this year, and we are in the early stages of construction approximately 1% complete. what the requested contract modification in the projected final completion will be in december 2026, and the total contract cost will be approximately $6.5 million. these five locations are expected to take an additional 365 calendar days, or approximately 12 months, mainly because of the time needed for ordering new equipment, particularly the steel poles, which based on recent contracts, have been taking a minimum of seven months to manufacture. to

summarize, the original contract was awarded to bay area light works incorporated for approximately $3.44 million with a 608 consecutive calendar day duration. the public public works is requesting the commission to approve a contract modification to increase the contract duration by 365 calendar days, and increase the contract cost by approximately $2.75 million. the reason is our client department department sfmta, requested the addition of a new traffic signal work at the intersection of 19th street and folsom 21st street in folsom 22nd street in folsom, 23rd street in folsom, and golf and market. thank you for your time, and i'm happy to answer any questions. thank you very much, mr. gaffud. am i saying your

last name correctly? yeah, that was correct. great. thank you very much. does mr. wu want to come to the podium to add any comments from mta on this project? since he took the time in trouble to join us? thank you, commissioners, director short, and, want to just, comment and appreciate the public works commission and the department of public works for continuing continuing to support our, projects, it's certainly been a collaborative effort, given the amount of infrastructure that we have to do that requires coordination, cooperation with multiple city departments, including the puc and public works, naturally, we only want to tear up the street one time, minimize disruption to the public. and so this is the best way to do that. and certainly we don't want to miss the opportunity to lose out on grant money. so, we hope, that you can support this, change

order. thank you very much. thank you. commissioner zogby, yeah, actually answered one of my questions, but, so the funding is going to come from mta through a grant that was provided previously last year. right yes. that's correct. but so my question is how how is that process go? so because the 17th and folsom was already on the initial contract, right, yes . there was, certain, well, did you want to run that one? yes. so my team, develops a list of project locations, identifies locations of greatest need, and 17th and folsom was already on the list of projects, under contract 36, under contract 35

is what you're approving under this change order, which were other locations on folsom, including 19th, 21st, 22nd and 23rd. and given the proximity of the work already ongoing for contract 36, it makes sense to add the contract 35 scope on folsom to this project as well, so that we don't lose that money . got it, i'm not sure how you know what level, what percentage of the money we already used, but my the question is the, what what is being requested today is almost pretty close to the original contract amount for adding five locations, but then it's very close to the 15 other locations. how is that calculated and how can it was missed in the first first place? so when we do a signal

modification contract, oftentimes, as in the original contract, contract 36 scope, the majority of that is to simply touch one corner at each location. and modify, for example, location, a direction where we could improve signal visibility in one direction. in this particular case, the intersections on folsom that we're adding to this to the change order is actually touching all of the signals at each of those intersections. so instead of touching just one corner, we're touching all four. so yes, from the number of intersections standpoint, it looks like the original contract 36 scope is very large. but in reality it's a bunch of piecemeal improvements at each site. at these locations on folsom, we're touching every corner, so we're touching 16 corners rather than just 1 or 2. so that's the key reason for the

difference in cost relative to the number of intersections. so, whenever we touch a corner, we of course try to address other shortcomings such as intersection lighting as well as the lack of, accessibility and, in adding curb ramps as well as adding pedestrian signals. so at these four locations on folsom, we're doing the complete 100% job. so 14 is not is not the complete job. no do we should we expect another visit for the other 14 locations? if you decide we want to do the eventually of course as funds allow as part of our normal state of good repair, this is where the cooperation comes in with other departments, because other projects could come in first, whether it's a sewer line, a water line, or a simple repaving job that would do the

curb ramps and other projects first, as well as the puc maintain a state of good repair to their street lighting programs. so it just depends on the locations that we do and what work needs to be done. what has or hasn't already been done. thank you. sure if there are no more questions for mr. wu or mr. gaffud, please open this item to public comment. members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment in person on the motion to approve item six, the traffic contract. number 36 traffic signal modification. the modification to that, may line up against the wall furthest from the door. and if you are commenting from outside the chamber, please press the raise your hand button in the webinar or star three on your phone to be recognized.

and seeing no one coming forward to speak on this item in person. and we also do not have any of our callers have not raised their hand on this item either. that concludes public comment. thank you. i'll move to modify contract number 36, traffic signal modifications. is there a second? second? great oh, i'm sorry i didn't do that before. the public comment. can we proceed? since i didn't, i didn't make the motion prior to the public comment. should we reopen public comment now that we have an active motion, even though nobody commented? i think i think you're okay to proceed. great. thank you. all in favor of the motion, please say aye or

yes. i, i and the motion carries and, the resolution will be posted to the commission's website. thank you again, mr. gaffud and mr. wu for attending today's meeting. so we are going to take a recess in about 15 minutes. but so before then, i'd like to move item seven up, which is new business by commissioners. oh. what am i saying? i guess we're fine. we'll do item okay. we're on item seven. pardon me. any new business by commissioners to discuss this? so hearing no new business, we still do need to hear public comment on the item. thank you. please open comment to item seven. so members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on item seven, new business initiated by commissioners may line up against the wall for this from the door. and if you're commenting from outside the chamber, press the raise your hand button in the webinar or

star three on your phone in order to be recognized. and no one has approached on this item, and we do not have any callers on it either. so that concludes public comment on item seven. great thank you. we will be taking a recess now until 11:00, after which we will enter into closed session. i do not anticipate any further, commission business after the closed session for those members of the audience and staff that don't want to hang around. so we are now going to recess until 11:00. thank you. the next item on. eight and nine will be heard in closed session. item eight is the conference. is the conference with the legal counsel regarding existing litigation and item nine is the

performance evaluation for the commission secretary. the commission will need a motion, will then take public comment and a vote to enter public to enter closed session in order to do that, is there a motion to enter closed session to hear this item number eight. so moved i will. second, given the motion, we will now turn to public comment. and just just to clarify, this will be a single closed session for both items. so members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on the motion to enter closed session to consider items eight and nine will may line up against the wall for this from the door. and if you're commenting from outside the chamber, please press the raise your hand button in the webinar or star three on your phone to be recognized. and we do not have any in-person commenters, and there are zero callers on the line for this item. so that

concludes public comment. thank you. if there's no debate, all in favor of the motion, please say i or yes, i, i and that passes unanimously. we will now move to closed session. all members of the public and staff not part of this discussion are asked to leave the hearing room. i think as everybody left, the commissioner fuller, excuse me. secretary fuller, please call the next item. so item ten is the announcements following closed session. and it is an informational item. exactly. there are no announcements following our closed session. so, secretary fuller, please open public comment on this item. members of the public who wish to make three minutes of comment on the announcements following closed session item, which is item ten, may line up against the wall for this from the door, if you're commenting from outside the chamber, please

press the raise your hand button in the webinar or star three on your phone to be recognized. okay, no one has approached and we do not have any callers. so that concludes public comment. thank you. please call the next item. item 11 is a motion regarding whether to disclose the discussions during closed session pursuant to san francisco administrative code 6712, a. thank you. i would move not to disclose our discussions during closed session. is there a second? second? thank you. please open this time to public comment. members of the public wish to make three minutes of comment on the motion to disclose discussions during closed session, and this is item 11. may line up against the wall for this from the door. and if you're commenting from outside the chamber, please press the raise your hand button in the webinar or star three on your phone to be recognized. and we

do not have any callers and no one has approached to speak on this item. thank you. all in favor of not disclosing the items discussed in closed session, please say i or yes. all right. and that takes care of that. that passes and i don't think we need item 12. is that correct? that is correct. we did not exceed the public general public comment time. all righty then. we will next meet on monday, july 22nd at 9 a.m. in this building. and we are adjourned.

>> still a lot of people wonder since the trees have a lot of issues, why did we plant them in the first place? >> trees are widely planted in san francisco. with good reason. they are workhorses when it comes to urban forestry. we have begun to see our ficustrees are too big and dangerous in san francisco. we have a lot of tree failures with this species in particular.

this is a perfect example of the challenges with the structure of the ficustrees. you can see four very large stems that are all coming from the same main truck. you can see the two branches attached to one another at a really sharp angle. in between you can't it is a lot of strong wood. they are attached so sharply together. this is a much weaker union of a branch than if you had a wide angel. this is what it looks like after the fi c.u. resolution s limb l. >> we see decline. you can see the patches where there aren't any leaves at all. that is a sign the tree is in decline. the other big challenge is the

root system of the tree are aggressive and can impact nearby utilities, and we can fix the sidewalk around the tree in many cases. we don't want to cuts the roots too severely because we can destabilize the tree. >> in a city like san francisco our walks are not that wide. we have had to clear the branches away from the properties. most of the canopy is on the street side and that is heavyweight on those branches out over the street. that can be a factor in tree limb failures. a lot of people wonder since these trees have a lot of issues. why did we plant them in the first place? they provided the city with benefits for decades. they are big and provide storage for carbon which is important to fight climate change and they

provide shade and really i think many people think they are a beautiful asset. >> when we identify trees like this for removal and people protest our decision, we really understand where they are coming from. i got into this job because i love trees. it just breaks my heart to cut down trees, particularly if they are healthy and the issue is a structural flaw. i have also seen first hand what happens when we have failures. we have had a couple of injuries due to tree failures. that is something we can't live with either. it is a challenging situation. we hate to lose mature trees, but public safety has to always

>> we are ready to start! happy juneteenth! happy juneteenth! for those who are standing, can you come and please sit down, so that we can get started? can we have everyone come and take a seat, so that we can get started? everyone who is standing in the back, there are plenty seats. please come forward and take a seat. thank you.