it would be some sort of cooperative agreement in which we pursue our objectives together. san francisco and alameda county are two of the most progressive counties in the world, and we can work effectively together using in-kind services and other things rather than dollars to promote our mutual objectives. so our fees should simply not be part of the decision as you make it. your staff told me they cannot even discuss that issue because their hands are tied. you have the power to untie their hands, so thank you. >> i was hoping to say good morning, but good afternoon, everybody. i'm here to talk about the benefits of recology, but i do not support a contract less certain environmental criteria are met. it was a fantastic program, a

creative link between the community and the corporations. ecology is a leader in the industry in the areas of reuse, recycling and the areas of composting. they also pride themselves on their environmental sensitivity. they should not object to any kind of environmental impact report that would make certain that there was no harm being done to the farmland in yuba county and that there was documentation that there was enough area that would safely accommodate the tons of garbage that is going to go down there. in fact, i think they might be able to help farmers by reviving local farming practices. so i do hope that they continue to work with the community and see this as an opportunity to engage in another award winning practice by creating a safe and

sustainable environment. supervisor chu: thank you. next speaker please. >> i live in yuba county, california. assumptions. assumption 1 -- permits for the rails for are in place in yuba county. not true. assumption two -- you but county fees will be static at $4.30 per ton. not true. assumption 3, you county is satisfied with the current ostrom road landfill permit. not true. san francisco is immune to a recology shell game tactic. not true. you have been given complete data. not true. yuba county has been used. san francisco has been used. as a former supervisor of placer county said to me recently, san francisco is a wholly owned

subsidiary of recology. this record i told i and my hand is from the board of supervisors yesterday morning in view of county, documenting all the facts of this. the original use permit is under question now, and one supervisor accepts that it is a consideration for us to close the ostrom road landfill. now, you have an obligation to the people of san francisco, not to recology. recology has no obligation to the people of san francisco or to the people of you but county. your obligation is to make the best decision possible. not to rubber stamp and unsatisfactory decision. act on the best information possible and available.

listen to the people. thank you. supervisor chu: thank you. next speaker please. >> hello. i'm a resident of san francisco, and i'm appalled that this contract was given without conducting any environmental review or confirmation of the permit. i'm coming from the perspective of the san francisco county and city as a grain community, but it seems we do not seem to be taking any concern for you by county and the farmland surrounding them. the 30-foot water table does not seem to be enough. yuba county is one of california's forests counties. recology, you the county landfill is surrounded by farms and orchards, and by the watershed of the sierra nevada foothills.

30-foot whatever is not big enough. recology does not have all the permits needed for disposal. yuba county is in the process of raising their fee. so that the rates that have been proposed in the contract are not necessarily valid. this is information that i have been given. i really do not know, but recology proposes to deposit san francisco jose sewage sludge at the landfill. -- san francisco cozy sewage sludge -- san francisco's sewage sludge. it will pollute the farms of neighbors as well as damage the local water table. the sierra club's san francisco bay charter and burners without borders support the reopening of the bidding process and to the

most environmentally responsible. thank you. supervisor chu: thank you. next speaker please. >> madam chair, supervisors, i am speaking on behalf of recology's efforts to represent big community. as a ratepayer and if we go back about 20 years ago, i was the president of fisherman's wharf merchant association. we had an extreme problem with rodents. we found out that many of the old fishermans wharf restaurants did not even have garbage service. i tried to implement a program where they had shared compactors. it was totally rejected. golden gate disposal said they could fix that. they would put in compactors and added on to the rate hauling.

we eliminated the rodent problem. as time went on, golden gate had worked hard with the community to do the best in recycling. we have -- i have my bills with me, which i'm happy to leave with you. my restaurant has actually had three or four city programs been awarded as a cop recycler, and this only came from one thing -- it came from the support that came from golden gate disposal. our rate right now in december, which is not big -- i have a rebate for recycling for $8,587. if you start to balance these things out, the only way you will get people to participate in is recycling is to have a

penalty for not participating properly. this is someone who represents the community. thank you very much. >> good afternoon. i want to dispel a couple of concerns and myths. our calculation is under the contract, about 1.9 million pounds remaining, -- tons remaining, and we calculate that to go another six or seven years left on the current contract. under no circumstances was transportation ever discussed or provided for in the rfp relative to raise management, but one of the things -- as we look with the possibility of doing that after the fact, that material can be brought over from san francisco. we actually disagree that it applies to the transporting the waste out of san francisco, but to the extent that it does,

there is an infrastructure in place on davis street that has the capacity. that volume can come from san francisco to davis street and on to the landfill and never leave a trailer. we can provide all the trailers they need, so to the extent that you are looking for competitive bid process, and even if the 32 ordinance applies, we have a methodology that can deal with that piece for substantially less. want to make it also clear, which we -- what we found puzzling as all get out is after the process was submitted and we publicly responded to an rfp that said it was not exclusive asti disposal for disposal site, not exclusive as to volume, we responded based on that. recology got a separate notification from the board of environment, and they responded to an exclusive disposal

contract that included transportation. there is no way in hell you can compare our response to a public response. we appreciate the reading of what we quoted as our price, but if you look at the competitive bid -- supervisor chu: thank you. what was your name for the record again? >> [inaudible] supervisor chu: thank you. >> and the publisher of the independent is paper in livermore in eastern alameda county, and i urge the rejection of the contract before you. i think the process used to arrive at the contract was flawed, and up for a re- evaluation of all the options was precluded. an alternative bid is superior and is available in alameda county. there may be others. in alameda, over 1,500 acres of

open space have been preserved with the help of these from the dumps. i believe the recommendation of the budget and legislative analyst makes sense. asking san francisco voters to repeal the present monopoly and put all phases of refuse collection, recycling, and disposal up for bids could lead to a waste solution beneficial to the whole bay area. i hope you will follow the lead of your analyst. supervisor chu: thank you. next speaker please. >> good afternoon. i oppose this contract. this has been really interesting listening to this for all these hours, but there are many questions i do not feel have been answered, and i do not think you should rush into doing this. one of the options is to extend the present contract four more years. one of the questions i have that i'm a little bit confused because people say there's only so much volume there available is because there is the volume

available on the contract. i understand that the landfill has capacity beyond what your contract says, so perhaps if you would extend the contract for a certain amount of time until you can get this right, until you can change the 1932 law and bring it up and do it right. i recommend that you do not rush into this but you get it right and go out to bids and to the rfp's because, as i said, it has been a great benefit to the bay area with open space. >> good afternoon. san francisco chamber of commerce. i want to start with agreeing with supervisor mirkarimi's comment earlier that recology has done a good job. we have an employee-owned local company that is leading the world in waste reduction. we have 77% of version rates, better than anyone else, any

other major metropolitan area in the world. we have something that is working and functioning, and the department head reiterated that. the public/private relationship we have created with recology has functioned very well for this city, and we have to remember we are here on a particular item, and that is the contract on where we are putting our ways. that was competitively bid over the course of multiple years. we have the results of that bid. recology won on cost overwhelmingly. it is a better environmental approach. you are hearing people who were upset about the process who would like a second bite at that apple so that they could maybe reform their bid to make it cheaper. they had a fair process to go through recology through --

process to go through. recology one on that item. other items had been brought up. the measure from 1930 to is not the item before us. the item before us is the dump and the contract for the trash disposal, not the other issues. that is another conversation. as regard to the competitive bid, recology won the contract. the department did a good job of administering the process. thank you. supervisor chu: i'm going to call a few more names. please line up in the center aisle. [reading names] okay, next speaker. >> 50-year resident of san francisco, and also, family has

been farmers in the yuba county area for the last -- since the 1860's, so we know both areas -- i love both areas very much. i object to sending our san francisco trash to the yuba county landfill. there are several reasons why we oppose it. first of all, the recommendation was made last year. after the recommendation was made, david was asked by a reporter from the "bay guardian ," if he had ever been to the site, and he said no. then, he was asked if any of his staff had been to the site, and he said no. i believe that is not a complete process in determining which side is environmentally better site. i hear at this meeting that they

are both environmentally the same. i do not know if i can show some pictures -- is it possible? supervisor chu: yes. go ahead and put it on the slide. it will automatically come up. >> [inaudible] it is a rain shadow, meaning there is little water. there is no underground water table 30 feet below. [inaudible] supervisor mirkarimi: in the microphone please. >> i'm sorry. this is what you the county looks like and the landfill, the local landfill. here is a river coming by, coming from the sierra nevada foothills with a watershed of 40-plus inches a year. here is across the creek, an orchard of water -- [bell rings] supervisor chu: thank you.

next speaker, please. we are unfortunately just able to give the allotted two minutes per individual. >> in a resident of view but county. i'm a fifth generation californian, and all my family before me have been farmers in yuba county. currently, i have three brothers and two nephews who are farmers there. the major source of income is agricultural. in order to be a successful farmer, you need clean water and good soil. we have both of these in yuba county, but our water table is rising. this is the offer where we, our water from. it is five to 10 feet below the level of the landfill. training san francisco garbageman sludge increases the pressure on the liner and increases the likelihood of leakage and poisoning our water.

in the valley, we have wins, especially the north wind. when the sewage sludge drives, it can be windblown, and it will poison our domestic landscapes and gardens as well as our agricultural lands. training in san francisco garbage and sludge will destroy both our water and soil. thank you for your time. supervisor chu: thank you. next speaker please. >> good afternoon. thanks for your time. i just wanted to submit a few items for the record. i have a letter from our district director of the california farm bureau federation. the proposal is concerned, i have materials they would like to submit to your record.

our local chapter has also expressed serious concerns and would like to submit a letter to the record. we realize that the department of the environment started this review, so you care about the environment, but now that we are talking to the budget and finance committee, i wanted to talk about money for just a moment. the recology bid is inaccurate. the yuba county board of supervisors, since october 2010, has been reviewing an increase in our tipping fees, and i've brought some minutes from their meetings from as early as october as last year to show that they are going to increase them. that is really all i would like to share with you this afternoon. thank you. supervisor chu: thank you very much. next speaker please. >> good afternoon. i'm the director of good government policy at the san

francisco planning and urban research association. i'm here today to speak in support of the process that has been conducted by the department of the environment and the selection they have made. there is a number of benefits that the agreement contains that are consistent with our goals, and i would like to speak a little bit about each one of those. and how they best reflect our goals and the stated goals of the city and county. one of those is obviously related more to the ancillary part of this proposal, which is not officially included, but significantly reducing emissions and using low emission vehicle and levering -- leveraging the use of vehicles is obviously an important consideration when talking about a proposal like this. more importantly, i think it really comes down to a question of cost. in this type of environment, i think it reminds us more so than it normally does, or it may be should not, that we should be focusing on the city trying to explore opportunities to conserve resources both natural

and financial. in the case of this agreement, we have managed to reduce costs and potentially emissions that ultimately reinforces all these priorities. it also reinforces the city's commitment to taking care of our long-term capacity needs as are required under state law. the agreement can and should be reviewed at the end of the contract. it is a reasonable amount of time. should be reviewed at the end of that to seek other types of savings and environmental benefits that might be available at that time. finally, i want to speak to the fact that it reflects a very public and very thoughtful -- i mean, it has been four years. a four-year selection period and process based on criteria that were established many years ago and takes into account the book -- but the city's financial and environmental goals, so i would urge your consideration to support. thank you. >> good afternoon.

i am council to waste management and have been involved in the process since its inception in the rfq, and i think there are a couple of misconceptions that i want to address. one, the landfill is not nearing its capacity. what you are doing is nearing the end of the term of the contract. the landfill has decades of remaining capacity that could be contracted for in wic -- and waste management, if necessary, could extend the existing contract to allow the board of supervisors to review the process to make sure it is legal, fair, and equitable to the ratepayers. two, there is a notion that we are not dealing with the facilitation or transportation agreement and disposal agreement, but indeed, you are. 3, the 1932 ordinance does not apply in our opinion to the transportation of waste from the transfer facility to the landfill. the rfp itself -- this is new

because we have not heard this brought the process, but it says the 32 ordinance does not address consolidating materials, processing for material coverage, or transporting them to other facilities. it is the board of supervisors that makes that determination from time to time. now, it is being done currently under a contract. it is not being done under one of the permits issued by the department of health pursuant to the 32 ordinance, so there is a misconception that somehow the city is bound by this 32 ordinance to not consider the opportunity to competitively bid transportation, which is an integral part of this whole process. and eat you do not abated and the 30 to order and does not apply, then you are in violation of section 21.1 of the city's administrative code, which requires competitive bidding for these contracts. we learned only after we submitted a response --

[bell rings] supervisor chu: thank you. i'm going to call a few more names. [reading names] >> ok. madame chair, supervisors, the vice president in charge of recology san francisco. i'm pleased to be before you today, but i think the issues that i'm hearing today being discussed, the landfill contract, the transportation agreement, and the 32 ordnance -- we are happy to talk about the issues. we think it has worked well for you. but today, really, the issue is about the landfill. it is a good deal. i was not here, you would be paying $125 million more.

two, transportation, we propose rail. during the negotiation, the city of san offices go ask us to commit to the price for that theory that was our out of box thinking. therefore, the agreement committed to transportation, and why now? because that agreement would be in jeopardy with the land. we believe we have favorable pricing. so to sum it up, recology will work with the city to handle transportation however the city decides to. we think rail is good, and recology negotiated a good price at the union pacific railroad, but the contract and facilitation agreement are separate and can be looked at separately, and we certainly will urge you to move forward with this agreement because we believe, as we propose, that our agreement provides the highest environmental benefits, the process was thrown -- five and a half years went to every meeting

that ever transpired, listened to all the city's reasons for the overriding consideration development, through the process of getting qualified, to the rfp process of addressing that. one of our things was -- why not consider rail? we know it takes all those trucks off the road, saves 1 million gallons of fuel. it does not take a rocket scientist to know the savings. thank you for your time. supervisor chu: thank you. next speaker please. >> good afternoon. i would like to take this opportunity to correct one important error in the budget analyst report regarding commercial rate in san francisco. the report states that conversion rates are higher in san francisco band in oakland, but the numbers in the budget analyst report ignored the discounts given to san francisco businesses to encourage them to recycle.

it is the separates its waste into garbage, recycling, and organic -- a business that separates its waste will receive returns. a commercial customer in san francisco is $494 a month for [inaudible] if that same customer separates their waste into garbage recycling and organics and achieves 75% recycling, they could pay as little as $152 a month. businesses in san francisco are required to comply with mandatory recycling. as a result, almost all businesses in the city pay significantly less than the rate quoted in the budget analysts report. commercial customers can go on the recology website and

determine the discount percentage they are eligible for. once recycling discounts are taken into account, commercial rates in san francisco are much less than the rates quoted in the budget analyst report and actually lower, not higher, than commercial rates in oakland. thank you. supervisor chu: thank you. next speaker please. >> madam chairman, supervisors. for the past 25 years, in the recycling program and with production manager for recology. i'm also a 30-year resident of san francisco. i'm also a life member of the sierra club, as this little pin commemorates. unfortunately, i'm here today to speak against the opposition letters submitted by the sierra

club. i also served on the executive committee several years ago. the opposition letters, i believe, were ushered through these organizations by an on- again/off-again member of the sierra club, who i believe misled these groups to take recology positions take and the department of the environment -- take positions against recology and the department of the environment. as a base primarily on out of context. and not sound environmental grounds. an additional irony for me personally is that i'm here today defending recology's landfill proposal. i do not like landfills. to