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tv   [untitled]    September 17, 2010 1:00pm-1:30pm PST

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supervisor mirkarimi: good afternoon, welcome to the local agency formation commission. i am the chair. i like to wish everybody a happy yom kippur. i hope everyone has a very good day. can you please read roll call, madame clerk? >> chariperson mirkarimi? -- chairperson mirkarimi? commissioner campos?
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commissioner dufty? commissioner avalos? supervisor mirkarimi: i like to welcome commissioner pimentel to her first meeting. i would also like to thank sfgtv for producing and carrying this event today. the key to all the staff. can you please read item number two? >> approval of minutes from the july meeting. supervisor mirkarimi: any public comment on the minutes? seeing none, public comment is closed. without objection, move. item number three? >> report on community aggregation activity. supervisor mirkarimi: mr.
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campbell, welcome. >> thank you, commissioners. i am part of the program, referred to as clean power. . we will talk about the actions we have undertaken. in particular, we have seen a lot of efforts in coordination with the staff to maximize the potential pool. the efforts began prior to august 6. to discuss the forthcoming goals
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of the city and the types of things we're going to be doing. in the maintenance team kicked in the high gear. -- and the maintenance team kicked into high gear. they had an ad that ran from august 11, and local news publications like megawatt daily. we got several stories related to the -- two different stories related to the rfp. we held our pre-bidders conference as an opportunity for the project manager.
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there may be questions they have after having reviewed the rfp. i will take it as a time to encourage the folks in the room and the folks on the phone, it is an opportunity for them to have a certain set of skills that are the full range of services that we are seeking. they're described in rfp, noted the list of participants and contact information with each other as they see appropriate. a quick note in terms of the folks that were in attendance of the conference. we had morgan stanley
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commodities, ecosys, and those with the main players that were there. earlier this week was the final day for potential bidders to submit questions. we're looking at responses to that. we have seen it fit to amend it in a couple of notable ways. the first is that yesterday, it reduced the minimum credit requirement. it requires the lowest dodge of
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investment-grade rating. -- notch of investment-grade rating. we wanted to make sure that we could have the greatest number of firms being qualified so we could get them in the door and be thinking about their business proposals. secondly, associated to that, we're going to be issuing an amendment to extend to the submission date for with the responses are due. they had been due october 6 and we have given them an extra week, and we now know they can adjust their packets, potentially firms that were in that credit rating range, for example. they have time to respond. will also been working on responding to questions.
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the first round should go out today. we will have those out later today or on monday, tuesday of next week. i would be happy to answer questions or provide additional thoughts after this agenda item after -- how this body sees fit. >> i was just going add one other thing that had come up as part of the questions that was not part of the amendment, it basically has to tasks. -- two tasks. the second is customer care and our reach. based on the questions received, there are not a lot of companies that provide both of those services. you are either in energy service
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provider, or you help with administrative oversight and customer care. the way it is structured is for one contract that allows for joint bids, for two or more firms to come together and provide services. the city can decide whether it wants to contract all the services or do a subset of services. it doesn't allow the bidder to only been one of the services. they have to bid both in order to be eligible to be considered. the only question i have for you, i know that we had some discussion based on the questions as to whether or not we might want to make sure that it is cast a wide enough to -- they could put in that bid. this is just a question to you, not an action item, but more of an intent.
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i am concerned that we do throw the that as wide as possible. and given the questions, some firms are not comfortable bidding everything. if we had another amendment to allow bidders to big task one or task two, would that go against the policy of the program? i don't think it would, but i wanted to throw that out there. supervisor mirkarimi: i will ask you to address that point. it is important for us to have a thorough vetting of potential bidders. we want to elicit the best, the brightest, and hopefully the most advantageous it economically to san francisco. at the same time, based on the
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first exercise, a lot has been learned. what she is speaking to signals to us that sounds like we need to be mindful of what is happening in the industry right now. do you agree that we should potentially adjust our screening here and allow others that might interpret rigidities or what ever protocol is to maybe think twice in give them a reason to participate? >> i don't have a recommendation one way or the other, but i can go through what is in ithe rfp. we did hear that type of feedback before we issued it and
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maybe there is other feedback to hear about firms. we discussed this before the original, there aren't a lot of firms that do all of those things. we did hear after the issues related to the last ballot were resolved, there were concerns raised by this body about making things a lot looser like we did it the first rfp. we wanted to make sure we could get rolling as quickly as possible. it would be different policy that what is in the ordinance that clearly states a single supplier. one of the reasons for that has to do with the assessment of risk. which is, in my mind, in terms
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of managing a contract, it is easier if you are getting work done under house, it is hired to -- it is easier to hire a single contractor. if something doesn't work, you know who to go to. it is coming at of the general contractor as opposed to trying to figure out how to say things were not being done on time and get in the debate between the plumber and the roofer. having it be done with a single contract and a single supplier, there is a benefit to the city of not having the ability to point figures different directions. it is something we spoke about before the last one, there are a lot of firms that do all of those things.
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we recognized that and actively encouraged firms to try to form a joint partnerships. it is a long answer, but i wanted to give you the details if that ways into your thinking in any way. supervisor mirkarimi: i don't think anyone would discourage a one-stop shop process if they were able to satisfy all the particulars. between other municipalities, we have a pretty high bar to absorb much more of the liability that other cities require.
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it might have something important to contribute and that offsets something we don't need from them potentially, so it sounds like we should, as ms. miller suggested, find a way to widen the net so that we are more comprehensive. how do we do that? is this an action item or you just asking for a sentiment? >> it is not really an action item. we could work with that, i think. i know the problems he has amended again in the issue of risk, as you say, we are asking for so much more and it is all in the power supply. it is not much in the call center part. it might behoove us to allow a
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bid to either go for task 1 or tasked to. -- task two. i think they can understand that it is not this body saying that you have to keep it one. commissioner avalos: just a clarifying question, we are not constrained by the ordinance to have a single supplier that didn't offer any constraint? >> it did not constrain us to a single supplier. we went back in the amended ordinance to have more flexibility. it is certainly our preference, no question about it. that is how we structured the first rfp. if you can supply everything in the have a credit rating, that is what we prefer. >> there was an ordinance associated with the last rfp,
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but i'm not an attorney. after the meeting and will make sure i get in tough -- in touch with the relevant legal folks. one other thing related to -- i am sitting here actually think about in terms of how to actually make the nets and bolts offer different pieces, that was a bit of a challenge. we had to figure out how to get the scoring, in getting extra points for doing everything. it could reflect a benefit that we see it in a single entity. i will think about that. with this body be open to additional time? there may be some work that needs to get done in terms of
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legal, contract and, reworking the scoring that might be associated with that and the shift that maybe this body wants to give firms that looked at this and thought, we don't want to deal with this because we don't want to form a joint partnership. do you want to give time for responses? >> that is all very necessary, but the object of the exercise is a common refrain that the board of supervisors is constantly having to drill down on. no matter if we're talking about community choice aggregation or what other kind of public works related or land- use related project, this is the
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discussion we are having, ultimately. i am wondering how we are able to be more inviting to the industry that is a little bit fickle right now. and being able to answer our call based on the very high hurdle that we have established to satisfy our requirement. but at the same time, giving them the prospect that day, to can benefit on by partnering with us. this is probably of the last time, based of the chronology, that we are going to be able to tweak an rfp. let's make the modifications now if you think is the best way to go. if the rest of the commission agrees. i see nods in favor.
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>> he also asked the question about extension, that is the area that we're both -- we don't want to extend, but there might be a necessity. supervisor mirkarimi: are we talking weeks, two weeks? a month? >> i have not given it a lot of thought, we're just raising good dialogue here now. i think we are already extending one week for the change of credit rating, so at least another week in addition to that, maybe more time depending on what it means to make that change. a big there is more to its then just having to do -- if we did all tasks, there would be a
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question that the scoring is not lighting up with that currently. the scoring is something that we spent a lot of time making sure we got right. >> it is negligible if we're talking a couple of weeks. do other people think it is fine? >> do othtwo weeks is ok. supervisor mirkarimi: talk to your people, we will talk to our people. have your people call our people. ok, is this a enough formality in order to send the right message, legally speaking? >> i believe so. supervisor mirkarimi: we're talking about widening the berth on the