doing that. they're good businessmen for doing that. that does not necessarily mean its benefits sanplease, take a k at the options in front of you. i think there are better ways. thank you. next speaker -- supervisor chu: next speaker, please. >> good morning, supervisors. this discussion of this morning has gotten derailed from the central purpose, the land contract. it was competitively bid. the department of the environment has done a good job. you have had time to consider this particular contract. it should be approved by this committee. the issue that the supervisor brought up about the franchise fee is a valid subjects for discussion but in a different day. we need to move this forward.

the department has thoroughly analyze this and made a recommendation. we are the largest consumers of services and have a long and positive history with that company. as the supervisor pointed out, they have been very good corporate citizens for the citizens of the san francisco. and the citizens -- and the city. downtown buildings are filled with small businesses. you are looking at franchise fees and raising the cost of garbage collection in the city, it will be passed on to the residents and small businesses. i am here to support our organization, which firmly supports the ecology. supervisor chu: thank you very much. we currently have five people in

line to speak. if there are individuals that would like to speak on this issue that are in the overflow room, please make your way to the board chamber. >> supervisors, my name is david cham, from a nonprofit legal defense fund. we are very antagonistic to landfill expansions. at the previous meeting on the ninth of february, of your committee, we presented evidence that there is a great deal of unused capacity for landfills within the bay area. we believe that it behooves you to look at that. we heard this morning's testimony from mrs. anothes. nu. the city must act now. what is before you is a disaster. a remote landfill in another

county, does it have the capacity to handle disaster tonnage? there is 30 times that unused capacity in the bay area. i was glad to defer to mr. cleveland from the building owners' association. he based we supports this contract. yet the study from ms. nutter shows that you have comparability with other cities. page 170, you can see comparisons of commercial rates. the city and county of seven cisco, 17391 -- the city of san francisco, 173, 91. oakland, $114. fremont, 74.

heywood, 105. san jose, about $91. [tone] supervisor chu: thank you. next speaker. >> supervisors, in the director of the [unintelligible] marine division of the iow and share of the maritime adviser committee. i am speaking to you on behalf of captainship way, who is unable to be here. we support the existing workers and their union and garbage collection for the city of san francisco. the recology facilitation plan will result in a loss of jobs

in altamont. we are excited that the opportunity presented here to allow our report to finance infrastructure. barging can be very compelling. we have a tremendous opportunity to create maritime jobs, raise revenues, and we can take the bay area leadership's in for using container garbage as a baseline for business moving away from the maritime highway, which could be an environmentally sound way to move bardot in the injured. believe it would be in the best interests. thank you.

supervisor chu: thank you. >> my name is aileen from san francisco. we are urging the rejection of the current bid process. we have 2000 san franciscans but think the same, they have signed this petition and have circulated a new request for proposal. we strongly feel that the environmental impact report should be required for any party awarded the 2015 contract. it is appalling that the department of the environment does not feel the same way. perhaps because 50% of their funding comes from recology. if you approve this proposal, recology will have a monopoly. we will be at the mercy of recology. from what we learned, the city

has no legal control over franchise fees or service agreements. unlike oakland or other bay area cities. this committee should not move forward until the final findings are complete. as mentioned, the landfill option requires a state of the dark land feel -- state of the art landfill gas recovery. i urge you to see for yourself the altamont site. determined for yourselves, who has the best mental, gas, methane recovery program -- who has the best landfill, gas, methane recovery program. thank you very much. supervisor chu: next, please. >> my name is [unintelligible] my father and my uncle were early shareholders in protection

and the forebear of ecology. however, this proposal, any proposal that the supervisors choose to go with, should be subject to the impact report. the so-called green train will have 180 containers for each train trip, carrying the waste every two days to a landfill that is 130 miles away. the standard american container is 53 feet in length, again average for this proposal. 1.8 miles of containers. when everything is said and done, that is 2 miles of train moving our trash every two days. our trash will be trucked to the city of oakland. containers will need loading, unloading, storing, dumping. each proposal brings up a series of issues, including

environmental and other impacts. minimizing and mitigating impacts. we are turk -- taking the word recology as opposed the eir, who provides independent analysis. a government agency can advertise its judgment in carrying out a project. defined as having the potential to ultimately require physical changes to the environment. early on it applied to this proposal. it is our trash and our responsibility. finally, they recently took over the trash pick-up and disposal for san mateo county. they got a 23% rate hike. i raise this issue because supervisors have indicated that they're going to increase the

tipping fee. thank you. supervisor chu: thank you. >> thank you. i am the owner of a family-owned restaurant in san francisco. in approached continually by companies that say they want to undercut the purveyors that we know that we have. one of our main purveyors is barbara business supply. family-owned and operated. if i have a question, i call a lawyer. no matter how we look at it, businesses a personal relationship. when i first started work in 1976, i had the home number of

different and driver. it has not changed. if i have any questions, rates, we are talking money. i hear from someone immediately. i think that when you talk about someone who is going to save you money, people want to low ball. i think that recology has provided the best equipment, the best trucks. they are maintained with the environment in mind. they are using biodiesel technology. the equipment has always maintained that the top. the people are mostly natives, san franciscans. consider, it is not all money up front. supervisor chu: thank you. >> hello, supervisors. by antonia kelly, here in

support of the port -- i am tony kelly, here in support of the port. this discussion did not even begin until you start this process last time. keeping that conversation going does not serve the interest of recology. farthest away from the water, the discussions today. if you want to guarantee an increase in rates, a move forward today. why? we do not know the full cost. if you have one contract, even if we have competition in the rest of the franchise, there is a fixed cost over here with no competition. it becomes a lever for the rest of the process. especially on competing companies. in speaking more about

competition and the department of the environment, this is from page 7. at the bottom, staff indicated that having a long-term relationship is an appropriate alternative to a competitive process. this is an abdication of the public interest. even when found none of it -- not effective, they get a substantial amount of funding from recology. they have already said i am clear black and white, they do not need competitive bidding. they work to maintain their relationship with recology, not for us. public relations campaigns, talented lobbyist, commercials for their own pr to serve their own monopoly. does that sound like any other company to you?

[tone] supervisor chu: thank you. next speaker? >> good morning. i would like to make a couple of points. an earlier speaker indicated that a proposal contract properly bid -- was properly bid. we disagree. there is no land fell within the city. landfill and transportation, often the higher of the cost of the two components that are necessarily combined and inextricably linked. based on the miss assumption that the ordinance prevented input against a total properly integrated monopoly. the 32 ordinance initiative created 97 different geographic route before the ultimate collection of material, not the

transportation of collected material to an off site landfill. it is not one of the geographic locations. downstairs to have a permit to transport material from the station to and out of sight landfill. getting an apples to apples comparison, you need to read their own administrative code and the landfill portion. as well as the transportation grow rigid portion. if you approve this contract, the charges to the city, it will add up to $6 million. by comparison, under a franchise for city of oakland, waste management provides the same kind of services.

the charge is zero. supervisor chu: next speaker, please. >> david zucker, waste management. there are a couple of statements that need clarification. the contract currently states that they will reach capacity around 2015. that is if the contract states 2016. however, because of that, the years continue to grow. looking maybe it 2016. having the capacity to go to 2035. capacity is not the issue. the contract is not the issue. but you have time to really evaluate the program and know that there is no capacity issue at the alta month. we looked at this the many times

over. as you know, did called for disposal. not disposal, but transportation. that has always been our concern. we sent a letter to the supervisors on the ninth to confirm that if you want to have another look at this, we will offer an extension to the current agreement for those three years. we can discuss what the rate might be. less than what is proposed today. we have not heard a response to that. we sent it to the board. you have time. thank you. >> by name is steven [unintelligible] , but in a citizen of san francisco and i would like to say this. i urge you to approve of the disposal facilitation agreement.

we know who the operators are. they are excellent operators for very efficient. the city is going to know what they're getting. so are the people that they work for in the cities. they have wonderful programs that reinvest back into the city. this is something where we need to get back to business. we do not need to fix something that is not broken. >> good morning, members of the board. my name is bridget barnes. i am here for a couple of purposes. not the least of which is to make sure that the letter written by supervisor [unintelligible] and mailed to you, delivered yesterday, is properly put into the record. the letter deals with one main

point and several sub-points. the purpose of the letter is to let you know that there is absolutely no short deal in yuba county. first of all, what is important is the whole issue of recology winning the contract through the department of the environment. based on a $4.40 tipping fee, which is normally low. in january of this year, with our urging and the support of supervisors, a special subcommittee was set up to review the fees. they are still waiting for the report from 3r, and anyone can see that the tipping fee is one of the lowest in the state. supervisor vasquez is on record as wanting to increase it by at least $10. if it goes in, all the calculations received by the

city and county go out the window completely. also included in the letter, some other important points. there have been various administrative snafus. as pointed out to you in the letter, there are still copies of the exhibits attached. the major issue has to do with the calculation of the alternative daily cover. if they require their abc to be counted under the existing contract, there is insufficient capacity in the existing use permit, requiring further review. recolo[tone] supervisor chu: thank you. >> good morning, supervisors. my name is jim seek -- jim stevens from hunters point, a small-business owner. we set this morning and

listened to all of the numbers that were flowing across. no one mentioned that there is a human cost year also. recology has been like a son to the bayview hunters point. there is nothing that we require and go to them that we do not get in that arena. a supervisor said that the contract should grow to a competitive bid. the one that we are still here questioning is the process that was used toward the bid to recology -- reward the bid to recology. in this process we should look at what they have provided to san francisco as corporate

citizens, giving them do credit for that. thank you very much. supervisor chu: thank you. >> good morning, supervisors. eric smith. i have been following this process for years. every meeting i come to, if we really want to do the right thing, i urge the supervisors to continue this matter. supervisor," , supervisor camp, that brought up very good questions. the supervisor is correct when he says, look, recology might be certain things, but are we not moving forward to get the answers that we see? i urge you to continue this matter, get the report from r3 when they come back. do not think about making a decision. thank you.

>> [unintelligible] san francisco bay railroad. each of the items are easily answerable as to why you should not act now. first of all, as you heard, there is no host feet in yuba county regionfee -- fee in yuba county. ratepayers, under the agreement, would shoulder that tab. there is no host the in this brisbane regionfee -- fee in this brisbane facility. there has not been a single public hearing. there has been no input. all we have to go by is the word of the department of the

environment. at the last budget financing committee, the supervisor s staff who owned the transfer station. it is embarrassing that you heard that they did not know who owned it. the rate payers have paid billions for a private asset and the staff to your department did not know the answer. you have a fiduciary duty to look for the answers. to do the right thing. to hold public hearings. is not just these contracts. this is actually the future of how we contract for public services in san francisco hanging in the balance. i appreciate all your doing the right thing. thank you. supervisor chu: i do not see any other speakers in the center aisle. if you have not yet spoken but would like to, please come up. seeing that we have no other

public speakers, i will close public comment. supervisor mirkarimi: thank you. first, i would like to thank everybody. recology and everyone on every side of this issue. the city that has been steadfast in assuring this issue along the way. including the department of the environment. and the citizenry to ask us to do our do diligence to make sure that we are doing our best on the behalf of ratepayers in the city. there seemed to be ample reason for us to continue this discussion, deliver live even for a number of reasons that have emerged even in this discourse today. i will suggest a postponement date, realizing very much that we are about ready to get into the thick of our budget process,

which does not give us a window of time to be as thoughtful as we would like to be over the next couple months. i would suggest that we return back to this issue in july. there is no meeting on july 6. but there is a meeting on july 13. if that comports with madam chairs the agenda about how you want to orchestrate us between now and the conclusion of the budgetary process, that is simply an initial suggestion. supervisor chu: i do not anticipate that we will be able to bring this item up before the budget process. we will get the position in the month of may. if i could ask for flexibility to continue that to the call of the chair, we will likely see that in july, but, i would imagine. supervisor mirkarimi: makes sense. motion to continue to the call

of the chair. supervisor chu: i will be supportive of that. i know that currently there are not enough votes to move the item forward. but i want to make two points, very quickly, because i know many people are waiting to go. i know that we had talked about the issue of, if we were to impose a franchise fee, if it would be imposed on to the ratepayers. there are many conversations around the room, hypothetically, if that would be borne by the ratepayers. i am willing to be convinced that that is the case. i truly can but -- believe that there will be an impact. pochos to the extent that they are asking recology to pay more, i believe that they will actually, as it will be passed on to ratepayers.

coke's paying garbage rates now, particularly for my residence in my district, garbage rates are big concerns. rate increases are big concerns. the other thing that i want to address, we had a public speaker that came up and said that capacity is not an issue with regards to the site. i absolutely agree. capacity is not the issue. what is an issue is the fact that the tipping fee proposed by the competitor was 2.3 times larger than what recology provided for. in my mind, no one is disagreeing with the competitiveness and the process through which the contract went out to bid. the best fitter price is the one at the moment. i understand the point about how this is being made with facilitation and transportation. but it is about the price at the

end of the day. at the end of the day, no one is saying that these were not competitively bid or that it was not a fair process or that the best price one. i want to make that point clear. with that, i think we can take the motion to continue without objection. supervisor mirkarimi: on a footnote, and a couple of people mentioned this in reference to one of the reasons why this was postponed from the feb. the liberation, it was on the question of support being able to enterprise something that was short term or long term. the department of the environment have opined that it would not be workable in the short term or the long term. but they would support themselves. i would be more than happy to encourage the poor to return, when we come back at the call of the chair, to do just that. the chair, to do just that. i thought that this had been