i can be ghetto when i want to be. i grew up with the black panthers doing peace and freedom benefits for them. so on the one hand i like the softness of spirituel the day, but i also like the energy that you need to be a warrior where you need to be. i love martin luther king, but also malcolm x, sometimes you have to really hold your ground. compassion, kindness, education. rather than more killing. >> when you graduated in 1965, it was the height of the civil- rights movement. you just alluded to the environment that you were growing up in. as a young musician, what was it like for you in san francisco at the time?

>> it was heaven on earth. we would go down to the fillmore and see these great band, the doors, and jimi hendrix, cream, and then go down to the grove to see other music. you could go to the mission district to hear mexican. everywhere i went there was this multi dimensional color and i felt like it was on necessary for me to do just one. like baskin-robbins, i want all the flavors. you cannot just be a mexican play music. there is a lot of beauty in that, but it was not for me. i was born without arms around my heart that wants to embrace

everything. palestine's, israelis. japanese, apaches. i am more concentrated with life and love than flags, nationality, religion. that stuff gets in the way. one gets in the way is me, myself, my story. for me, that is why music is liberating. when you hear "imagine" anywhere in the world, people sang the lyrics. as soon as you hear the melody -- same thing with a bob marley song. i grew up taking everything from bob dylan, curtis mayfield, the

beatles, smokey robinson. mike alma mater was the streets of san francisco. i would dare to go to school. where i really hung out was at the fillmore. that was my university, checking out be the king, and james brown, a cream. finding out how they were able to penetrate people's hearts. with their music. once you do that, something happens to their eyes. they become brighter. they start crying, they do not know why. they start dancing. it is like when a woman gives birth. =mmfirst, she cries and then she laughs. later on, she dances. and that, to me, is the beauty of what san francisco is about. >> one final question, and we

are going to link it to your music today. such a rich legacy that you are giving us. you mentioned to me that you are working on a new album. could you share what is coming up? >> i love to dream when i am awake. kand so i had this dream of working with india arie and yo- yo ma to do the george harrison saw; and "-- song. this is the definitive way to do this. we are all in it together, we do not leave anybody out. t

conviction, i am one of the few people that you can recognize by one note. god gave me that universal tone, and that is what we want to implement in all the songs. thank you. >> carlos santana, thank you for accepting the 2010 mayor's part award. >> to watch the ceremony, visit the home page of the arts commission website, sfarts commission

>> it has been amazing. the people have been so gracious and so supportive of what we're doing. the energy here is fantastic with so many couples getting married. it's just been an absolutely fantastic experience, so wonderful. >> by the power vested in me, i declare you spouses for life. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> to actually be able to get married and be a part of this time in history and time in our history is amazing. >> this is a momentous occasion for us to be able to actually have this opportunity to have equal rights. >> we have been together for 14 years. everyone is so welcoming. it's been all set up and people have guided us from step to step. it's been easy. there was live music.

people are so friendly and excited. so excited for us. >> it's really great. >> yeah. >> and salvador is party a here to known as party a. >> on the out it looks pretty simple. you come in, you made your appointment. you pay. you go here for your license. you got there to get married. you go there if you want to purchase a certified copy. behind the scenes, there was just this monumental just mountain of work, the details into everything that we had to do and we quickly realized that we were not ready to issue the numbers of licenses that people are anticipating that we would need to issue. we definitely did not want people waiting in long lines. this is somebody's wedding. you want to be able to plan and invite your family and friends. know what time you are able to get your marriage license, know what time you're going to have

your ceremony. >> thanks for volunteering. >> we got city volunteers, we got members of the public volunteering. we had our regular volunteers volunteering. we had such an overwhelming response from city employees, from the members of the general public that we had way more volunteers than we could ever have hoped for. we had to come up with a training program. i mean, there are different functions of this whole operation. you were either, you know a check-in person. you were a greeter. you were part of the license issuing unit. you were deputy marriage commissioner, or you were on the recording side. each one of those functions required a different set of skills, a different oath of office if they needed to be sworn in as a deputy county clerk to issue marriage

licenses or as a deputy county recorder if they were going to register the marriage licenses or the deputy marriage commissioner if they were going to be performing ceremonies. >> donna, place the ring on her ring finger. >> the marriage commissioner training was only about a half hour. it was very simple. very well run, very smooth and then we were all sworn in. >> they said we would get our scheduled sunday night and so 7:00, 8:00, 10:00, you know, i got it at 11:00. this person who was orchestrating all of the shifts and the volunteers and who does what, you know, said from her office sunday night at 11:00. they are just really helping each other. it's a wonderful atmosphere in that way. >> have you filled out an application? >> not yet. you want to do that. >> take this right over there. >> all right. >> take it tout counter when you're done. >> very good. >> congratulations, you guys. >> for those volunteers, what a

gift for them as well as us that they would take up their time and contribute that time, but also that they would in return receive so much more back because they're part of the narrative of someone else's love and expression of love in life. >> this isn't anything that we had budgeted for, so it was basically we asked our i.t. director to do the best you can, you know, belling, borrow, steal if you have to and get us what you need to do this. and he knew what the mission was. he knew what our goal was. and, you know, with our i.t. grids and our software vender, they really came together and pulled it together for us. it made it possible for us to be able to serve as many couples as we have been. >> so once you're ready, you and your husband to be or wife need to be need to check in here and check in again, ok. are you also going to get married today? >> yeah. >> let's process you one by

one. do your license in, exit and re-enter again check in at that desk. >> our wedding is at 3:00. >> as long as we get you in today. >> we're getting married at 2:30. >> don't worry about the time line. we're greeting people at the doorway and either directing them to the services they need on this side which is licensing or the services on this side which is actually getting the ceremony performed. >> this is an opportunity to choose to be a part of history. many times history happens to us, but in this case, you can choose to be a part of it. this is a very historic day and so i'm very, very proud to be here. >> i have been volunteering. last monday i performed 12 different marriage smones. the least amount of time that any of the couples that i married have been together is two years. most of the couples have been together eight, nine, 10, i'd

say 70% have been together at least that long if not longer. >> there is a lot of misconception about who gay and lesbian people are. it's important that people see that we love our husbands and wives to be and love our children and have the right to have families just like everyone else. >> it's important that we have experienced our own families, our own friends, and the excitement of the volunteers when we get here has made us feel wonderful and accepted and celebrated. >> there is a lot of city agencies, city departments, divisions that offer up their employees to help us out since overwhelming response, it's unbelievable at how city government works. this is the time that san francisco city employees have really outshined san

francisco's clerk's office didn't need to hear from the mayor to say what's your plan. they offered a plan and said here is our strategy. here is what we can do. we can add all of these computers here and there. we can connect our databases, we can expand our capacity by x. we can open up early and stay late and stay open on the weekends. it's unbelievable. we can coordinate all of the training for our volunteers and them in as deputy marriage commissioners and make sure it's signed and certified. that's an example and a model for others. this is -- what happens is when people prove that things can be done, it just raises the bar for what is possible for everyone else. >> it kind of went cooled plan and this is what we planned for. in some respects, people have kind of commented to me, oh, my god, you were a part of history and how many couples did we

mary? how many families did we start? how many dreams did we make come true? the whole part of being part of history is something that we are here and we are charged with this responsibility to carry out.

supervisor mirkarimi: good morning. my name is ross mirkarimi. i want to welcome everyone here to this meeting of lafco. we hope you are having a wonderful holiday. we also have a joint meeting with the san francisco public utilities commission. seated next to me is the president of the sfpuc commission. would you please read roll call? >> [roll call]

mr. chairman, we have a quorum. supervisor mirkarimi: thank you. >> [roll call] >> we also have a quorum. supervisor mirkarimi: thank you. please read item three. >> item 3. opening remarks and discussion of expectations for the joint meeting. supervisor mirkarimi: who wants to talk about expectations? [laughter] how about we just say that this has been an event will an

exciting year in 2010 and we very much appreciate what lafco, local commissions, and p u c has taken together toward the activation of our goal to be alligator. i want to thank everyone here for their leadership and do diligence, particularly for the two departments to do one thing that is certainly unprecedented, that is banding together with other jurisdictions to send off the interest that had been threatened from the last election, proposition 16, with regard to our extracurricular intentions. we are learning how to navigate around the rfp process for the prospective bidders.

i recognize that that has done been easy, since this is un chartered, both for the city and county of san francisco. i want to say how much i appreciate the lafco commissioners, i colleagues, and the puc commissioners for your commitment to this. we conclude this year on hopefully the highest know we can, and that is, with that reinforced commitment that we will deliver upon what we have set out to for the last few years, and even before i came into elected office, that my predecessors had wanted to see. that is that san francisco has a seat at the table in deciding what its destiny should be, as well, it's destiny delineated by our goals and objectives while

diversifying our energy portfolio as much as possible. so thank you, everybody for collaborating in this meeting today. it will certainly add to that more institutional step to get us where we need to go. director vietor? >> thank you, i could not have said it better. i would also like to welcome our new commissioner, mr. torres, and by understand there is a new lafco commissioner as well? i would like to welcome you as well. we look forward to continuing to work together to bring cca online. it is an exciting opportunity. as far as expectations, i am hoping we can hear a bit about the schedules and something about the rfp process, where we are, what we can see as far as

the conclusion and when we can receive our recommendations from lafco staff. it would also be great to hear about finances. i know there was a budget hearing yesterday with a request to release monies from the reserve. it would be great to get an update with that in conjunction with the items on the agenda. i know we have a couple people here, one from marin, one from san joaquin. we look forward to hearing about your cca process. supervisor mirkarimi: this is going to work and beautifully. why don't we opened this up to public comment, as our process provides for. is there anyone from the public that would like to comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. we will continue that item to the call of the chair. madam clerk, please call the next item.

>> item 4. update on state community choice aggregation issues. >> through the chair, madam president, thank you for appearing at this joint session. this first item is an item that we wanted to start with, dwhich is basically, in addition to our efforts, there are a number of things going on with our sister jurisdiction in the public utilities commission. as we wait anxiously for the results of our rfp process, which will be concluded today, i wanted the sfpuc, through michael campbell, to provide an update on those activities. secondly, dawn weiss is here from the marin energy authority, as well as david orth from the san joaquin valley energy

authority to talk about their status of where they are with their program and also to address -- am i getting feedback? to talk a little bit about -- these are two programs that are independent programs. they are structured differently than ours in that they have taken on the risk themselves as a public entity for the program. this was an issue that came out before our commission, so they will address some of the issues on risk that they have dealt with in their jurisdictions. so with that, we are going to start with mike. >> good morning, chairman, commissioners, my name is michael campbell. as ms. miller just highlighted, i am going to give a status

update on the variety of areas we are pushing aggressively at the puc to make sure the rules that are set up are as favorable toward the cca as possible. right now, the deck is stacked against us. as mentioned, we will have discussion from representative from the brent and san joaquin valley power authority. first of all, i wanted to let the pc commission know that on september 9 there was a senate committee chair a meeting. i was invited to speak at that meeting, as were marin and san joaquin folks, as well as nancy miller and chairman mirkarimi. i know president vietor was also in attendance. we gave presentations to the senator to discuss the issues we are facing with pg&e and areas

where the enabling legislation could be beefed up. i think that was a good conversation, and hopefully, we will see movement in sacramento associated with those points. we are aggressively participating in a number of proceedings alongside our allies. we are really pushing back on the role that make cca success all the more difficult. one place where we are fighting is the adjustment to the exit fee structure. exit fees will be levied on the customer. what we wound up doing, we are pretty much pro forma applications, utilities, pg&e in our case, what put forward to the puc to get a rubber stamp. those could include approval for using a method of attack the exit fee.

that has not been looked at since it was said in 2006. we noted there was a systematic bias, and that makes the exit fee higher than we believe is appropriate. in protesting that pro-forma filing, we got the commission interested and looked at it, and we have been attending workshops. there was one this week on tuesday, another next week. we have also found common cause with direct access providers who were also there because these exit fees affect them as well. but this is really trying to address is the issue where exit fees have the perverse incentive, that an accident cca customer has to pay this fee which will help to subsidize renewable portfolios of the

utility. we are doing what we can to be more green. why should our customers have to pay an additional fee to pg&e? we are getting some traction at the cpuc. on top of that, at the cpuc, we are looking at making the bond and not more fair. looking at the guarantee, performance bond, that is required in ab 117 that a cca must put out, to cover any entry fees that the local iou my experience, should the cca terminate and return the customers.

if pg&e would have to go into the marketplace, purchase incremental energy. it is to protect their bundled customers. at least that is what the regulatory framework says. we have been looking at that, the method that is currently under consideration. it also has a significant bias to make that value be a lot higher. we have estimated, should we go through a full rollout, in some market conditions, a bond amount would vary depending on where prices were. it could be more than $200 million, the amount that san francisco would need to guarantee to pg&e. marin has been looking into this because it matters very much to their program.

as they have been mentioning at the cpuc, there is really no market for such performance guarantees. one of the perverse outcomes of this rule and mechanism, we are fighting against it, we could foresee there could be conditions where the existence of this bond requirement could be the reason alone that daa cc could terminate. how we intend to structure our program, we do not have exposure to fluctuations in the marketplace, but the mechanisms to cap to the bond amount is based on current prices are. if prices escalate rapidly, the bond amount would escalate rapidly, but there is a disconnect on how likely the cca needs to put their customers back to pg&e. that is a fight that we are

taking at the cpuc. lastly, there is an unfair settlement between what are called cogeneration operators, firms that combined heat and power to generate electricity. there is a summit between those entities and utilities, negotiations facilitated by the cpuc for more than a year and a half. provisions of that settlement applied to us, cca's, direct access providers, that would procure crossed for heat and power. the part that we are offended by, we were never parties of the discussions. we think that it is patently unfair that we were not included. we are working