skill to bid on that, but once it passes the relay, it is instructive? >> the first part, one of the advantages is you can identify the scope and utilize the contract over a 3-year period, and ou don't have to -- for convenience, but as far as committing the money, it is $400,000 -- a lot more efficient. it could be that you could do

that and probably get bidders online. i have to defer to steve on that. this is a very small pool of contractors that do this kind of work within the industry. only 3 proposals to do this work, and we have outreached with a number of them. in this case, the only one is local, in sacramento. this is a small niche market without many people. there are not a lot of us. i think if we broke it up we

would find the same bidders would do more with others. >> the concern i have is that i understand the flexibility, and that is something that has not always been with us, and that is relaxing the process against a more competitive environment. i want to make sure we don't abuse the privilege, and where it makes good business sense, we should do it. i am prepared to support this and keep it moving, but that's something where i want to make sure the staff is paying attention as we go forward. it's a matter of paying

attention to the issue and making decisions consciously. with that discussion, i will support both of you. 20-a and b. >> moved and seconded. i want to echo the comments. thank you, steve for each question and how it was answered. >> seeing no public comment, all in favor, please say aye. ayes have it. next item. >> item 21. discussion to authorized the general manager for applicants on behalf of the puc to

authorize the use of portable water supplies. >> another mindreading test. evidently this one did not go through. [laughter] i will have to work on my technique. i asked earlier for information on various projects, and that is somewhere in the works an fhopefully will emerge. i asked about the dollar cost providing that, and for the commission reference, and and i

can are criminals of the -- a benchmark. the question for you, putting together -- cost is you had a couple with pretty high numbers here. jefferson off the plaza. what was the thinking that was included? >> we are going forward as part of park improvement projects, even if they aren't the most

cost-effective in terms of water. this has come back through the board, and we talk about evaluating how good they are. there is one that is not in here, and that one -- >> the cutoff is somewhere south of 17,000. >> definitely south of 17,000. >> ok. and we did a study 2 years ago now with 10 parks. what could you do differently in those 10 parks that would make a

difference? ni this program, we ended with them asking us for certain parks to be prioritized. we are hoping to get rec park kinds of things, and since the first year they only got 120,000 out of 2 million, they are not going to do things that are so outlandish. out of $4 million, there are about $2 million to spend. >> there is still money left in the pot. by not doing the last project, that was 2 + million dollars, i didn't think it was worth getting started on that.

>> and clearly where i am heading on a lot of this is given the cost of reclamation opportunities, it does up the level you can afford to spend on conservation, and that is a good thing. so i think that is good. with the other outstanding request on that, i am looking forward to having a discussion about how we prioritize and what role in that the unit cost plays. >> all right. anything else? any public comment? seeing none, ok. is there a motion? >> not yet.

[laughter] >> so moved. >> thank you. >> there is now. >> moved and seconded. 22. clerk: discussion to authorize the general manager to request approval for an epa grant agreement funds totalling $696,000 to the consolidation appropriation act -- $580,684 from the waste water project, sewer system improvement. >> ok. so moved by commissioner moran. seconded by ellis.

item 22? all in favor, please signify by saying aye. opposed? ayes have it. clerk: mr. president, is there any additional new business? >> i was keeping notes on follow up items, and i have 3. one was something that must be useful to have some technology policy and how we direct staff as far as having the appropriate level of investigative alternatives. second is with the sewer system, it invites a discussion of police -- policy, and we need

to come to grips with that more concretely. third, within the universe of our planning for the program, we have been focusing on ssip and not as much on the r & r. it may be possible to do a level of service definition for them as well, and we look forward to doing that in the near future. >> there were o elements.

one was the 10%, and the other was the structure. putting it together, is there a financial plan or staging process? >> i agree, but i know that time is of the essence. given the rates and inflation taking off, i guess before we get there we will know fairly

soon. >> and that is the result of the acquisition, whether you wanted to have gold rates or limit some of the greats. -- rates. >> we don't really have the budget to know. kind of a look that we took, though. 20, 30, if you get it. that's going to help. we have to figure out how to be comrortable with that.

>> with your concern about the focus, isn't that really discussed? >> in the program, there are some goals that would be met more by our and our than the new project. i think it is just how i take your comment. >> when you look at long-term planning, it is feasible.

>> it is how they of corporate it or set it up. >> we believe to have a permit requirements. -- we do need to have permit requirements. the other is a nice statement. staff test and not be bashful about waiting. they need to tell us what is required and figure out how to fund it.

a third set of eyes have been placed on it to get the job done. to justify it and not have a service level is incomplete and confusing, and you get to whatever happened to the master plan. in terms of covering everything, those are not covering everything. president crowley: ok. anything else? motion to adjourn. all in favor, say aye? thank you.

. >> forgot no. 2. silver is nothing. there is no having made it and so we beat foreman. i love the competition. . >> american made has really taken it on themselves to green american cities. >> we have a new organizer for

the city and county of san francisco. oh, mayor as well. yeah, that's part of the job description. yeah, mayor of san francisco. >> the city is extremely concerned about the emission of green house gasses and making san francisco a sustainable city. >> we need to find other ways to create energy without harm to the environment and this is one source. >> we have over 2 megawatts of solar on various city buildings. we are looking at tidal power and we're beginning to look at geothermal power. >> we're on the roof of the moscone center of san francisco and we have 2500 panels that power the center. >> here we are using real energy, energy from the sun, free energy from the sun coming in right here. this converts directly into electricity. >> all these technologies cost money. they don't make economic sense.

solar never made economic sense. bio fuels never made economic sense. it's when it was adopted that it started making sense. >> some of them have challenges, that take a long time to prove out, but there's no reason that the challenge of where we will get tomorrow's energy in the united states should not produce a very, very large. >> san francisco is unique in the united states because we serve our own power needs. >> the city of san francisco is well positioned in that we are perfectly located to take advantage of any renewable category. >> we tend to be the last one to figure it all out. it's real people that are saying, enough's enough. . >> the answer is going to be in renewable. the sooner we do something about it, the easier it will be it resolve. >> we're not just talking about what a city can do, we're doing

it. >> san francisco has set very aggressive goals for greening the city. >> i'm not just naively optimistic, i am pragmatically optimistic that we

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>> good morning. i am the executive director of the transportation authority. your emcee for the event. it brings me tremendous pleasure to welcome you all, notable visitors, elected officials to the event which is the groundbreaking for a contract 4 on the presidio park where project which will deliver the

southbound battery tunnel and detour road that will bring everybody who uses the oil and dive into safety by the middle of 2011. we are delighted to be able to use this opportunity. back in october, we had a ground-breaking ceremony for the project as a whole. we had the speaker of the house nancy pelosi with us. the mayor was here, other dignitaries. at the time, we were looking at the oil drive -- doyle drive. we now have a different project for the 21st century.

it is an example of what partnership and inventiveness and the full participation of the amazing community of san francisco residents can do to create a project that is really worthy of the amazing natural setting of the presidio park, the largest urban park in the park system. let me start by making some acknowledgements. we have some speakers who i will introduced in a moment, but i am very pleased to welcome to the event, dan representing the speaker's office. i would also like to have very much thank christine from senator feinstein's office, as well as mega miller, a field representative team for senator

boxer. in that knowledge and then come i want to the knowledge and leadership of both senators and their vision for how important this project is from the first moment, they have been a steadfast force in washington, d.c. for us. together with the speaker, they have been a formidable set of champions for this were the project. i also want to it knowledge the chief operating officer of the presidio trust. a major comeback indispensable partner in the product -- execution of this project. we have had the pleasure of working with him for several years and look forward to working with them and the future until the project is completed. i also want to acknowledge the first vice-president of the

golden gate bridge district team. i also want to thank the chief engineer. of course, the study on doyle drive. mary curry, the leader of public affairs. let me take a moment to introduce the administrator of the federal highway administration. we are simply delighted that he has been able to take time from his busy schedule, which he spent reshaping the way we think about transportation, to come to san francisco to be here with us. when he leaves today, he will take with him this memento. it is a little