any other public comment? public comment is closed. we will continue this to the call of the chair as well. how can you read the next item? >> item numbe 5, executive officer's report. >> i just wanted to follow up on the comments about the senate committee meeting and the possible legislation to assist the efforts. we went over those of briefly, so i don't want to go into too much detail. i would like to suggest that we have the staff working with the consultant staff to put together some legislative language that follows up on some of those ideas. i think that given budget problems going on, it is nice to have legislation drafted for

you. that is all that i have for you today. if there isn't any objection, i will ask them to help the conceptual ideas. commissioner mirkarimi: is that ok? and did you want to share any prospective -- perspective? >> the cca programs, one is no longer in business. another is up and running but had a lot to say about the problems of the programs and given pg&e activities. we are certainly no stranger to that. if you take away the idea that

you are -- or if we are to survive, there needs to be some changes in the regulatory field about how to compete. i think that was the main idea that they took away from that hearing. commissioner mirkarimi: i am curious what you thought the cpuc might take away from that. >> when he spoke, he basically said that they understood the problems and that they welcome some regulatory clarification about the kinds of things that they can do. one of the suggestions was additional fines and penalties. he indicated that he thought they already have that power.

just letters and that sort of thing. i think the cpuc, if they have the tools, they would use those tools. they don't really have clear tools on how to develop -- deal with that kind of situation. a competition going on. commissioner mirkarimi: i hope they have the will. to be more supportive of local government against private utilities. >> that is true. part of the reason might be that they are used to investors and utilities. they will not regulate. there is a little bit inherent question among the staff people because they are not regulated. they have little bit of that. isn't it better if we regulate the entity? i think that they understand the

problems of their, and i think that they are supportive of legislative changes to give them more power. commissioner mirkarimi: any questions? seeing none? -- none. public comment? public comment is closed. we will continue this to the color of the chair. >> item 6, public comment for items not on the agenda and future agenda items. commissioner mirkarimi: with a body like to suggest future agenda items? -- would anybody like to suggest future agenda items? public comment. >> the first part of my comments, i will represent the green party, and you will see

why. i wanted to flesh out a little bit more on the electricity reliability plan. another big red flag that we saw at the stake holders meeting was that the recommendation was for san francisco to become a big test bed for renewable efficiency technologies. while it is great for us to be a test bed, i think any of you that followed the green peace or the kind of work that people like me have been doing, we will say loud and clear over and over again that we have technology ready to go for other programs like it right away. making test bed technologies, and doing the big energy rollout is not great interaction.

i have not discussed my next comments with any of the groups that i work with or coordinate with. this is just me talking, but it is important. i will put you guys on the spot by being very political. if programs have the potential for public power, the potential for good electricity resources, we can see that having stability in room 200 of this building is absolutely crucial. you will hear from many grass- roots organizers that come next week, we need to start a very open and strong public process in which be sitting board decides to 6 in room 200 so that when we get to the rollout of

the other programs that are coming out, we know that we have somebody in there that will be strong with us, and we have somebody in there that has a good chance of doing four more years. we need you to start making that decision on tuesday and make sure you give us a lot of consistencies so that we are not getting to the mid-january and having a mad rush behind the process to appoint god-knows- who. i want to put that out there. s crucial to they/ success of cca. [chime] commissioner mirkarimi: any other public comment? >> on what he was saying, i

would like to know if someone is appointed to be mayor for this one year period, how would that affect them if they wanted to run in the future? if someone sat in that seat and they held the position and did a good job, would it affect reappointment to run later? if you guys could give us the information, i would be happy to know that. commissioner mirkarimi: anyone is welcome to speak with you afterwards. public comment is more rhetorical. we appreciate that. is there any other public comment? public comment is closed. i would like to thank everybody for their input and participation today.

thank you, madame clerk, sfgtv, sfpuc, lafco staff. we will have another meeting on december 10. it looks like it will be a very substantive agenda. i don't believe that there is any other business. seeing none, everybody have a great weekend. the meeting is adjourned.

>> cents and cisco's buses and trains serve many writers -- san francisco buses and trains serve many riders. the need to be sure they can get off at their intended stop. the digital voice announcement system, which announces upcoming stops, can help these low vision riders know where they are, but only if set properly. >> it is a wonderful piece of technology, but in practice, it is a little bit more tricky. oftentimes, i find that the automatic announcement system is turned off or turned down so low that i'm unable to hear it, or

it is turned up so high that the sound is distorted. >> most of the time, it does not ever seemed to be on. or is it is, it is a really quiet. occasionally, it is so loud that it is distorted. >> driver, may i have california st., please? >> no problem. >> whenever the announcement system does not work properly and a driver does not call out the stops, and i'm totally lost as to where i am. the announcement system calls out the stops, but to help the customer, i caught the destination, transfer points, and requested stops. and it is the law. >> i use the p a system to make sure everyone on the bus here is my announcements. >> i have had both experiences with the loudness and the to stop for the announcements. you are never going to have it exactly balanced for every trip because your level of noise changes. the announcement system ranges

from 1 to 10. 10 would be too loud, a little distorted. eight is a good number. not too loud, but loud enough for everyone to hear and understand what is going on. >> i think bus drivers might not be aware of the fact that if you let a visually impaired person off at the wrong stop, number one, they may be absolutely unfamiliar with the area they are in. >> the driver overshot the stock that i wanted. i decided to get off and find my way back, but it was very disorienting, not exactly understanding how far i was. number 2, it might be a potentially dangerous situation if they do not know the area and are attempting to make crossings that they are unfamiliar with. >> they let me off somewhere else. i had no idea where i was. i missed the stop, and the bus was gone. then, i look around.

i tried to find someone to help me, and i cannot find anybody. i would have no way of knowing where i am at. >> [inaudible] i asked why he did not stop when i asked. we did not panic. we do not know where we are. we do not know what is going on. i get over there, and right away, i almost got killed. >> #3, it's the person in question is trying to get somewhere, it is going to make them late for whatever they are doing. >> i had to find my way to a corner and ask someone where i was going to and how to get there. i eventually made it to my appointment, which was with social security, but i was very late, and they almost did not see me. >> i was very late former doctor's appointment, and there

was concern about whether or not i could be fit in. >> when i get off i stock that is unfamiliar to me, because i have no sight, i cannot just automatically orient myself off to a new environment. it takes a lot of training, a lot of work. there are a lot of skill sets involved when i am first introduced to a new area. to get off at an unfamiliar bus stop for the first time and to do it unintentionally -- it can be a really disorienting experience. >> i think there is a sense that it is ok, that person is going to find their way, and did they do not know where they are, you are potentially putting them in a seriously dangerous situation. >> i always appreciate when the drivers are proactive in asking questions like, "where do you want to get off?" i appreciate when they help find

a seat for me. i also appreciate when everything is working properly as far as the voice announcement system. they make sure that it is turned on, that it is loud enough for everyone to hear, not turned down so low that it helps no one. >> excuse me, driver, what stocks are we at? can you remind me when we get to venice and broadway? thanks. >> what we're talking about here is full participation and inclusion. i want to be able to lead a full life. the only way that i'm able to get from place to place this by using a fully accessible public transit system like meany -- muni. >> the americans with disabilities act of 1990 is a wide-ranging federal civil- rights law that prohibits

discrimination against persons with disabilities. title two of the ada addresses access to public services, including public transportation for persons with disabilities. it requires transit operators to call out stops at transfer points, major intersections, and major destinations, and to announce particular stocks requested by customers with disabilities. stop announcements are especially important for passengers who are blind or have low vision. these individuals cannot travel independently if they are not assured of getting off at their intended destination point.

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>> thank you for taking the time to be here. i am very enthusiastic about the work that folks uc to my left and your right, and behind me, in front of you, have done to get us this far and really lead the way in terms of making government more transparent and more accountable. and empowering people. at the end of the day, the spirit of the legislation that i am signing today is about empowerment, connectivity, turning back government to the people who have allowed us to serve them, by giving them the most important resource, information. i have said this in the past. it is remarkable. the transparency that we promote, particularly, here in

san francisco, seems to be limited to gotcha government. the transparency is the sunshine asking the mayor to turn over a document based on the meeting they had 15 months ago, based on the expectation that there would be that gotcha sentence so that we could expose corruption in the government. that is important, and we should promote that kind of transparency, but it is so limited and how is focused on what is wrong, not what is right. we are taking that notion of transparency and actually challenging people to do good things. and to promote their government by promoting the government they want, a government in their image, in our image. we, the people, not the image that their elected representatives believe we should have. we talked and we have had other opportunities, the chance to talk about two different

government, the vending machine notion. you have a limited amount of choices, you pay your taxes, and then you pull out your limited amount of services, they replenish the services, next here is a little bit less, but you could be paying more. then you have your 10 things which are limited. now this is really a celebration of creating a more complex relationship in terms of the kinds of programs and services that the people themselves in government can provide to make us more responsive and accountable. i am excited about this. i may be wrong, but i believe 10 years from now, we will look back at this as the genesis to something that i do not think any of us fully understand.

you have seen this with apple. what we know is the limit last this for people to have -- limitlessness for people to have an interracial idea. creating opera tours, small businesses. brian was the impetus for me to be motivated by this when he was at the press office, before he left us for more money. i will be honest. he will be last honest. he says, for new challenges. more money.

>> [inaudible] >> we have got these data sets which are machine readable. we load more information. mothers' groups say that they are going to go out and track down the closest recreation museum that is family friendly. you have some people who say that they have a better idea with muni, they want to make it better. taking next level information, a crime mapping. all kinds of things have happened without cost to the taxpayer. if we initiated some of these things, it would go through the

procurement process that begins at 8 commission, it has to be there for 30 days, then we come back, recess, all this other -- executive directors are sick, paternity leave -- then we get the appropriation -- then it is a new fiscal year and then we have less money. then there is a board of supervisors. then another when changes their mind. then the comptroller leave because they became the city administrator. and then nothing gets done. it could cost $1 million for just one thing. or you could give people information, and within weeks, days, as we have seen, magic occurs. that is why this is just an amber. we do not know what we are unleashing. -- an ember.

we just need to convince politicians and bureaucrats like me that it is okiokay to let pee know what you are doing. this is not a way to fire or embarrass you. it is a way to support you. all these datasets are coming out, apps, all this new competition. i just want to think jay and his team for a great job. thank you for supporting this and being on the cutting edge. brian, ed. and to phil teng who really

supports this. and to our new school board member who is going to bring this to the school board and force education reform by empowering parents, not just special interest, to release information in a way where they can start designing the future of education reform. i think that is perhaps the most exciting place to see this kind of application. let me say this in closing. mark my words, this is coming to the state of california. if it takes me four years just to get it killed in committee, we are just going to keep at it until the state of california leads the way in open data. we are going to bring some sort of legislation. get ready.

thank you very much. with that, ed, come up and give us a sense of the more practical applications of why you really love this. >> i actually love this from the start. i was a believer -- one thing that i have told my staff, colleagues, what we're talking about is not our data. it is not the department heads, not the city's data, it is the public's data. we have an obligation, i would say, to push it out to the public to make it available and useful to the public. when you do that, it can help the department and city, but most importantly, it can help the public. it can be very empowering. a lot of what we do, whether it

is abating graffiti, picking up trash, filling pot holes, improves someone's quality of life. when a neighborhood group is getting together to see how they can improve the conditions in their neighborhood, it is hard for them to do so if they do not know what the crime looks like in the neighborhood, where they have the legal dumping problems. community groups can then have real data to base their solutions on. it is very empowering in that respect. it can help us avoid a lot of cumbersome public record requests, rather than waiting for people to come to us to pull data out, we push it to them. they do not have to come and ask us for it, which for us to track it down. it is available for them to use. and finally, the mayor made reference to this, there are some leads that we have that if we were to try to address them would be costly and time-

consuming and may not even yield the results we want. a small example, mechanical streets weeping. we have them go around the city and we have people move their cars in order for us to be able to clean their streets. for those people that do not move their car, not only will they get a ticket -- >> [inaudible] >> for the record, the department of public works receives no revenue from street cleaning tickets. that goes to my friends at the mta. >> [inaudible] >> but if you do not move your car, not only will you get a ticket, but i cannot clean the street. then when the control or somebody comes out to inspect how well we are keeping the city clean, that reflects badly on us. that information will be going out on data sf.

one change that we made recently, at changing the street cleaning frequency from weekly to twice a month in about half of the areas in the city. now not only do you have to remember it is thursday, but you have to remember, is this the first or third thursday, maybe it is the second or fourth? it has gotten maybe a bit more complicated. it is not the first thing that people are going to think about, so we wanted to think about -- create a smartphones application so people could be reminded, sent a message, just be able to look it up. if that is something that we had to do, you heard what the process would have been. the mayor recounted just a few of the many steps that would be required for us to get an application procured. what we did is we put out the raw data of our street