this afternoon to listen to your budget conversations. we are just in the middle of our budgets and coming up with some rate ramifications of the budgets that we are going through. always challenging. we had a great opportunity as a review panel, and first, i would like to introduce gary graves from stanford university, who is one of our panel members that lives here locally. we had a good amount of experience on the team, and we are very fortunate in the opportunity of reviewing this very large program. i would like to just share a few

of my observations and then go over a few of the answers to some of the questions that were posed to us and then some general recommendations we have quickly. first of all, certainly a very large and complex program. the wsip team has performed in an exemplary fashion. great support from the commission, and we interviewed a few of you as well as other top management, and there seems to be great support for all of the aspects of this program. exceptional safety record. we learn that over 1 million man hours were brought in with just one lost time accident, which is exceptional. i think the time and dollars spent on the environmental work and community relations work has really paid off and very few concerns over the life of this project.

just the volume and number of projects you have had without incident is substantial. there are some challenges in the project, in this merging of city staff and consultants staff. always some challenges, with a pointing fingers a little bit and just trying to get used to each other, but i think they have done a good job in kind of forming a team around all of these projects and say this is the wsip team, not particularly city personnel or consulting work. but that is something to keep paying attention to, i think, and making sure that those relationships are always strengthened. first question was, is the organization performing to plan and procedure? you have extensive plans, and you have seen the volumes of work. we went through hundreds of pages of the plans and procedures. they are very thorough.

the processes that accompany those plans i think ensure that things are followed to a great extent. almost by rote, the meetings, the agendas, everything is pretty well laid out, so as those meetings are held, those agendas are held to, and we know that the plans and procedures are being held to fairly closely. one suggestion that we had was that a configuration management plan might be useful for the program, and that is simply -- is being done for the most part, but this could be a formal process, whereby if there are any major changes to any particular project, that you go through systematically and look at what the ramifications of those changes are. operations are consultant. any other agencies that are

involved in that change. you look down the road and see if there are any other changes that are built on that one possible change so that nothing gets overlooked. in the, the details for the meetings -- again, the details for the meetings and reporting help assure the plan, and his management plans are important to help keep up to date. there have been some varying comments on the risk management plan. some of the field people do not see some of the larger political issues and do not feel they are as important, so they've got their own risks that they are dealing with. overall, i think the risk to the projects in general need to be kept up, and so the planning tool is important to maintain. there we go. is the organization performing effectively and efficiently?

the organization is strong with experienced leadership and the ability pull people in that had several years of experience to put in key positions with a strong move for the success, i think, of this program. i talk about the safety program. has proven itself as being effective. the first thing that hits us was just the sheer numbers of people that were involved, and i think that was a conscious decision, to put a lot of emphasis on the overall management of the program, the project management issues, so there was a lot of -- there were a lot of resources dedicated to the work, but it has proven itself, certainly. very few changes to the project, and effective scheduling, and cost estimating, and then good packages put together resulted in savings in a lot of ways and a good project costs and savings as you go

along maintaining those skills to save money overall. communication through the organization in the meetings and reports efficient. we attend several meetings during the week that we were here. they all seem to be run very efficiently. there were a large number of people there, and maybe, we could look at the numbers that are attending all of those, but it is nice for each member of the project team to keep current on those. some may be able to do that, reading some of the minutes of the meetings, and part of the attendance, i think -- we were a novelty attending some of those, so i think we attracted a few people for those meetings, too. the required reports address issues and provide an excellent continuity. the issues are always presented in the agendas. they are not taken off of those

agendas, so those issues are resolved, so we know there is continuity and as things are not slipping through the cracks. that is good evidence of paying attention to the program. the cmis program runs well. the issues are put in once, and they can be addressed or accessed by a number of people throughout the local project and regional systems, so there is not a lot of duplicate entries. so that is really efficient in doing that. the metrics track provides good indication for helping with projects, and very impressive is the public communication effort through the website and public meetings blogs. other things are really effective. our decisions being made timely and efficiently? again, the metrics that are part of the program showed that turnaround times, that we have several comments from

contractors saying we really hate all the detail we have to put into this every day, putting in all these things, but, boy, do they love the quick turnaround time on their invoices and quick turnaround times for the requests for information and the change orders being processed in a timely manner. so, good job there. a couple of responses on issues -- sometimes the issues took longer, and there were a couple of commons saying that there were so many people in the organization that we would get a couple of various comments from different people, and we have to make sure the flow of information is as planned in coming to the instruction from other people in the system. one of the great tributes to the program is that, though you have a formal dispute resolution program with a dispute

resolution board and partnering, there have been no issues that have had to be taken to that dispute resolution board. part of that is knowing that that entity is sitting there waiting for those issues, so there is an incentive to get this thing is resolved without going to that point. is the status of construction being reported accurately and consistently? this construction is so well documented in a meeting to cover it pertinent issues that i think there is very little chance that major issues can slip through the cracks. i think things are going well, and they are being reported accurately. is the status of construction be reported accurately and consistently?

is the cmis being used effectively? i think i have covered that, but it is a comprehensive tool that takes a lot of effort to keep that up day-to-day, but it does give excellent data. because the data is there, people tend to want to make a report, and one of the suggestions we have later is may be looking at all the reports and seeing which ones are used effectively -- is there any duplication that may be consolidating into some of these reports and making sure you are not producing a report just because it can be done. i think there can be and management should be open to suggestions for improvements. one of the greatest challenges

and risks -- i think ensuring that all roles and responsibilities are understood and being executed for plan. keeping personnel working as one team. as i mentioned before, maintaining certainly the communications staff work with exile organizations, insuring that all the shutdowns are meticulously planned. that has been one of the major concerns, i think, making sure that schedules are lining up just right so those shutdowns can be done appropriately. also maintaining strong support from you as the commissioners and upper management. quickly, on recommendations, i think continuing to make frequent visits to the programs shows support and acknowledging performance helps buoy morale in

the ranks. perhaps streamlining positions in the status of the projects change. a penny on size, there is a pretty uniform way of staffing each of these projects, but depending on the size of this project and may be each point in their construction should maybe look at various kinds of how each one is staffed and maybe being able to consolidate some of those positions. maybe one person functioning in the same role in multiple projects where appropriate. reviewing breakdown structures of projects that are in place, making sure they are not so detailed that it is bogging down progress. like tasks can be combined, just so that you get an accurate picture of what is going on, but it is not creating an undue amount of work. continuing to involve contractors and risks of

identification and monitoring and mitigation. sometimes there is a hesitation to bring in a contractor in identifying risks, thinking it is going to give the contractor some ideas of where to initiate changes to the contracts, but over all, it is good to have that extra set of eyes and ears in thinking ahead and looking towards possible risks and attenuating these risks. and then, consider conducting regular management review forms. a great asset in all of those people that are managing and working on designs and reviews of these projects to help throw out ideas of lessons learned and new ideas of maybe refining the process and the plans as you go along. had several opportunities, you can bring these people in and look for improvements to the whole program. there are other recommendations

listed in the report. i think those are some of the broad brush ideas that we had, and i would be happy to answer any questions for you. >> i do not have any questions, but i do have a couple of comments. i thought that both of these audits were very useful. too often, we think of audits as a difficult or bad thing. some are useful. in some cases, i know we talked about scheduled compression, which i know was not your piece of it, but there has been a lot of concern about that, and i think that report was helpful in sorting out. the obvious answer is yes, things are compressed. and what does that mean for us? does it mean we have a financial capacity problem? it personnel capacity problem? the answer to those are no. basically, there are things

that happen, especially with tunneling and major earth building project that screw things up. you do not know those until you get into them. the sense i get was that of the risks we have direct control over, as far as the staff, the assistance they have to work with, getting to the environmental reviews, and we've had a couple of very significant ones lately, that that part of it is in very good shape, and the risk is inherent to the test and is made a little bit more dicey just because things have slipped to the end of the schedule. we want to get things done by 2015 so that this stuff happens, that that will have some impact that we would just as soon avoid. i thought that generally, it was very positive. and in your part of the ordinance, the parts that you are responsible for, i thought it was helpful in saying that there are no big red flags, but

you also laid out a lot of things that were items that we should pay attention to, and i think that is really value- adding, and i appreciate your taking that approach to it. i did have a question about -- i think this was a very useful exercise. when should we do it again? for the issue of compression, there is probably not a need to repeat that. i think i heard somewhere during the presentation that this is in fact going to be repeated two more times with additional projects. >> the plan is to do this today we will more times at a nine- month interval. my guess -- sometime late this fall would be number two, and then sometime in 2012. during a very intense year for construction, unless the commission would like us to proceed with the other plan at this point. >> i think that is in -- that is fine. if you do them too often, you

just reporting on the same thing. so i'm very pleased with that, and i appreciate the work you did, and certainly, staff has once again validated as to the quality of the work you are doing. i am most impressed with the ability to manage the shutdown schedule the way that we have. just from an operating standpoint, it is incredibly important, and it sounds as though we have resources making that happen. so kudos to all. >> just one last comment. as director of engineering, i've taken a lot back myself from this program and looking at our own program. we had a $7,000,000,000.10-year capital program as well. we're building a plant -- we have a $7 billion 10-year program as well. we are building a plant, and we

have taken a lot of cues from your construction as well. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. any other questions or comments? >> next item is the consent calendar. all items listed here are considered to be retained by the sentence is the public utilities commission and will be acted upon by a single vote of the commission. approve an award job order contract to the lowest, qualified, responsible and responsive bidders. approve an award jobs or contracts a license to san francisco peninsula east bay not to exceed an amount of $5 billion to the lowest, qualified, responsible, and responsive bidders. accept work performed by cal

state constructors for water enterprise water system improvement program funded contract station upgrade, approve modification 6 to reconcile them and items to reflect actual quantities of labor, materials, and equipment required to complete the project, decreasing the contract and authorize final payment, and -- pardon me. sorry, i lost my page. and accept work performed by j. flores construction for waste water enterprise, renewal -- renewal and replacement program, approved modification to reconcile him and items to reflect actual quantities years, increasing the contract and authorize final payment. >> thank you very much.

commissioners, does any commissioner wish to remove these items from the consent calendar? is there a motion to adopt the consent calendar? >> so move. >> second. >> any public comment? hearing none, all those in favor? suppose? thank you very much. consent calendar passes. regular calendar. >> madame president, item 14, discussion and possible action to authorize the general manager of the san francisco public utilities commission to negotiate a service agreement with riverbank local redevelopment authority for transmission and electricity services. >> commissioners, do you have any questions or comments for ms. hale? >> i have a question that may lead to a comment or vice versa. in the resolution, it makes reference to creating the ability to recover costs, and it

cites a resolution this commission passed back in 1989. i was able to take a look at that, and that resolution is actually kind of interesting. it says that for municipal accounts, that we will seek to recover costs, and it sets -- it does not set with the cost was, but my guess is something less of the full cost, but it said that as an objective, and it says for commercial accounts, that we would charge rates approved by the cpuc and as they increase those rates, we would watch them lockstep. the item in front of us confuses that, at least as i read it. it talks more about cost recovery than it does about

matching approve rates. >> barbara hale, assistant general manager for power. it is not our intention to divert from the direction we were given historic plea. however, having said that, in practice, what we do in order to track the approval rates for commercial and enterprise department accounts is we charge some of the otherwise applicable pg&e rates, and in this circumstance, the service provided at transmission levels so the other was the applicable rate is not a cpuc-approve rate. there is a little bit of variation because of that. and then, what we are looking to do is maximize our revenue stream, not just recover our

costs. what might be helpful is to look at another data point. i think the resolution language if you are referring to does talk about recovering costs and thus also, in the body of the agenda item, described the fact that we are looking to charge comparable rates charged by pg&e. what i have by way of a slide to illustrate, if the secretary could show the slide please, are the rates that are charged by pg&e and the rates that are charged by the other electric service provider in the area of river bank, and you can see, on the top chart, what the rates are from 2007 through 2009. what we have been charging is what appears in a column titled sfpuc.

the other was applicable rate is a transmission rate. that is what you see next. and then the mib ratwe. -- the mib rate. to show you what the revenues are associated with those rates, given the mere usage in 2007, 2008, 2009, we have the current billing chart, and you can see that for the puc, relative to the pg&e rates, we are showing about a $400,000 to $600,000 shortfall each year, revenue opportunity we are not taking advantage of. we also need to be cognizant as we approach riverbank with the fact that mid is also a potential service provider. we're looking for authority to begin this conversation, to renegotiate the rate. the floor would actually be to recover our full cost, but we sort of see as a ceiling the

comparable rates that are provided by other service providers in the area. >> who else physically is in a position to deliver power? are there transmission ties to other providers? >> today, the only direct interconnection to this load is us. there are certainly proximate lines owned by mid. >> i would like the language in the -- let's see. which whereas is back -- that? the third or fourth where talks about resolution 89.

what i'm looking for is to capture what you just said, that we would at least recover costs and seek to obtain market rates. >> comparable? >> yes, comparable store are kind of tough. that competitive? -- >> competitive? >> when there are differences in the physical capabilities of a disease that provide power, what we seek to do here is get as much revenue from this transaction as we can. >> perhaps then i and the resolve clause, when you're giving us clear direction, we can add language about negotiating a new contract that

recovers our cost and maximizes our revenue opportunities or revenue recovery or revenue? maximizes revenue? >> that would be fine. given that understanding, i can leave this out to you. >> very good. >> i did not think this is an action item. just authorization as amended. >> it is still an action item in terms of adopting. >> four commissioners to adopt the amendment proposed by the vice-president and approve the item with the understanding that those factors in the final resolve clause will reflect what was said in the meeting. >> the ultimate result is after we negotiate, we bring back to the commission. >> great. is there a motion to adopt the amended authorization? further comments on that, on the amendment? all those in favor? oppose? motion carries. i guess we should vote on the

main authorization. any comments on the authorization? all those in favor? opposed? motion carries. thank you very much. next item please. >> item 15, discussion and possible action to authorize the general managers of san francisco public utilities commission to enter negotiations for community choice aggregation services for clean power non responsiveness of all proposals received in response to the community choice abrogation solicitation. >> thank you. i think this is an exciting moment to be looking at this resolution before us. this has been rolling down the track for some time, and we are all, i think, very eager to take it to the next level, and we have a resolution before us, and i have a couple of amendments to it that i would like to introduce before we open up the

floor for discussion. the commissioners should have a copy of the amended resolution, but there are a couple of additional amendments to that amended version that i would like to put on the floor. i think there is probably copies available for the public as well. the first amendment is in red, and i would just like to add -- i will read it, i guess. commission secretary, maybe you could read it, and i will add the amendment. >> it stated that the city goal of developing 360 megawatts of new energy resources revise, and the city intends to conduct a process for development, construction operation of green energy resources, including a.g. efficiency and demand-type programs, located with the city -- within, i assume that means -- within the city as well as northern califoia