supervisor mirkarimi: we're reflective of what happened three years ago. there is the summation of the projects changes. number of cabinets, by 124, and there is the technical change in terms of power supply. the radius of the project, the cabinet's.

other than historic resources, i think our analysis was fundamentally the same. the characterization of the project has the specific nuances of the analysis of this reflected a change [unintelligible] supervisor mirkarimi: you answered the corpus of what i was asking. it was an unresolved issue. at&t withdrew. there was no difference in ceqa law. it's an arbitrary question of

what we may decide here as cumulative. >> supervisor mirkarimi, i would defer any legal questions to the city attorney. for our purposes, the analysis is fundamentally the same. supervisor mirkarimi: it is different, is it not? a question to the city attorney, when was the last time that there was something before the board of supervisors that we had in favor of cumulative impact. >> i will make an attempt to answer your question, hetbut in

essence, and the appeal that comes before the board of supervisors, the planning department did a more substantive analysis for medicated declaration. certainly in all of those instances, the planning department has looked at this issue of cumulative impact. any decisions that this board has made to uphold the ceqa determinations have -- [unintelligible] in terms of the cumulative impact relating to the particular project and similarly situated projects in the vicinity if they are going on at the same time. supervisor mirkarimi: in recent memory, i know this might be of more interest to someone else.

of all the appeals that have taken place here and the hours we have sat through, the question of cumulative impact has been at least attempted. i do not recall any time that we have ever ruled in favor of cumulative impact. that is anecdotal, but would you say that that would be almost as safe? >> i don't think i can answer that question. i have been absent for a lot of the appeals. supervisor elsbernd: i keep gong ing on -- you're trying to compare the legal analysis today to the 13 or four years ago. -- one three or four years ago. there is also language in ceqa

that says you can't apply categorical exemption. that was the thrust of the discussion. there is a big distinguishing characteristic right there between this hearing and that last hearing. and the big distinguishing mark that should be applied today. supervisor cohen: planning staff. planning staff. i have a question for you, miss gibson. hi. is it common to work on projects that have not described a specific location? >> lisa gibson at the planning department. is a common thread your project and specific elements have not been defined or certain locations have not been defined? i can tell you is not.

-- it is not an exceptional circumstance. the intent of ceqa is that the environmental review will occur early enough in the process, those can be addressed through mitigation measures and consideration of alternatives. it is really difficult to change course. it is a requirement that the review occur before and the entitlements are issued. -- any entitlements are issued. if we don't know the details, it was to clarify the misunderstanding.

it was prevented by some of the speakers that the project -- presented by some of the speakers that the project is the exclusive replacement and the cabinets of the public right of way. the project proposed, we evaluated the placement of the right of way. because of the requirements, and there could be locating these in the private properties. it requires that the applicant consider placement of the facilities on private property so that could occur. that is something that we don't know specifically whether it would be in the public right away or not. we made a worst case assumption that it would be in the public right of way.

>> how do we know that the parameters that the sponsor laid out of the number of boxes that would be placed -- be met? how do we know that the parameters that the sponsor has indicated in the proposal, how do we know that they will be mad? -- met? is there mlu? some contract that has been assigned? >> the planning department is not in the business of enforcing the project in every aspect as it moves through the entitlement process. we plie a reasonable analysis to make sure this passes the first

blush test and then we conduct our analysis. our secret determination stands for the project as we define it. other city agencies that are responsible for approving the project have to consider whether there was secret review done and they are required to look for it. if it is different, there has to be a revisiting if there is a change in the analysis that we need to revisit our review. supervisor mirkarimi: i agree with the supervisor in reflection of the 2.5 years ago, slightly different discussion of what the appeal was then and potentially what it is now and what has unfolded since then. but remains the same is a

historical fact and this is true for every municipality in the state of california and i'm guessing and that will be interesting if we could get some corroboration. and even for san francisco, it has been a very high bar for us to challenge ceqa on the question of cumulative impact. this has taken six years to get any reform, reform on reform on level of service, which we incity debated back in 2005. with that, i doubt we are positioned very well to understand how we would insert the question of cumulative impact on ceqa and this would cat lies that potential atlantay, otherwise we default back to our original habit and that is to never challenge. >> by the way, you still have three minutes on your

presentation if you wish to use it and have any final closing comments. >> i believe the presentation has been covered. in the interest of time, i will conclude. first, i would like to correct one statement that was incorrect during the speaker testimony. one of the speakers stated that the department's categorical exemption has a significant impact with regard to historic resources and that is not the case. if you have any questions, i would be happy to answer them. otherwise, after listening to this very active and detailed discussion, we still continue to find that the project is exempt and we recommend that the board of supervisors deny the appeal and uphold the categorical exemption. >> any other questions? why don't we hear from the

project sponsor, representatives from at&t. up to 10 minutes for presentation. and good evening president chu and president of the board. i'm president of at&t california. i represent a company who has been operating continuously in san francisco for 130 years. i'm proud resident. my office is here. my partner and i live here and kids go to school here. i will be passing the baton to my team as to why the planning department should be afffirmed but let me provide a few brief thoughts. i want to invest in san francisco. if the decision of the planning department is afffirmed, i plan to spend upwards to $75 million hiring skilled union labor to put more cables in the ground,

building a high-speed broadband network based on the standard called i.p. this is the largest single upgrade to the san francisco local network in more than a century. we call this new fiber optic network uverse bringing more reliable phone connections using fiber, significantly faster broadband speed, wifi hot spots and top video service in the nation according to j.d. powers. san francisco has the highest percentage of people working from home more than new york and boston. residents have come to expect easy access to the best technology to do their jobs. our network will provide the next generation of i.p.-based technologies that san francisco needs to provide if it wants to continue to attract the best and the brightest in the region.

residents up and down the state in more than 260 different cities like berkeley, los angeles, south san francisco, oakland and bailey city have access to this faster internet service, more reliable phone lines in case of emergency and choice to traditional cable. they are seeing the benefits of a growing, unionized workforce in their cities as well as substantial payment of franchise fees to their city treasuries. i would like my hometown to have the same choices and benefits. someone has asked me when is it coming to san francisco? my team has met with 106, yes, 106 neighborhood or community groups. my instructions have been simple. work collaboratively with the community to make this upgrade a

reality. we listened, we educated and we pledged to continue our dialogue throughout the course of our three-year build. the cornerstone of our outreach while working with neighborhoods and actually seeking their guidance. the after firmation would not change that directive. this is the first step of the long site permitting process. each cabinet will go through its own permit review and my teams will continue to work with our neighborhoods on placement. we will overcommunicate, as we have done, and provide notice beyond what city law requires. this is quite, frankly how san francisco should want its citizens to act and i expect nothing less from my team. our process has been simple. we provide an overview of the network upgrade and we answer questions. and then most importantly, we ask residents to lead us on a

tour of their neighborhood. through these tours and through literally thousands of follow-up conversations and communications over the past 15 months, we have identified mutually agreeable locations for most of our cabinets throughout the city. i am proud of this col brative process. i appreciate the opportunity to speak this evening and i will be here to answer any questions you might have. and i hand it off to mark blakeman. >> good evening, supervisors. i'm the regional vice president of external affairs. you have heard a lot today about our plans to upgrade our network as ken just alluded to and i wanted to hit on a couple of key points. we have spent the last many months meeting with your constituents, neighborhood groups, merchants, condo associations all across the city with an outreach and wanting to

work insighting new pieces of infrastructure in the city. a couple of questions have come up that i wanted to address specifically. one about undergrounding. there have been questions about whether we can underground and what the technological feasibility of doing so is and some of the technologies you have heard about today. our equipment is sensitive computer equipment. if you have ever been in a computer server room of an office or i.t. environment, this equipment gets hot very quickly and when you bury it underground, that exascerbates that issue. if we need to underground this, it needs to be placed in a controlled environmental vault and that vault needs to be dry. that vault needs to be air conditioned and cooled and because this equipment requires access by our technicians, it needs to be safe. and we have to meet os hmp a standards about when women go

underground and they need a certain amount of space to work around in and that necessitates the equipment room now becomes larger because we are putting people underground. more importantly, it needs to be sealed. moisture does affect this equipment. if anyone drops a can of soda on their keyboard of their computer, you know what happens when moisture gets inside a piece of computer equipment. those are the issues that necessitates putting it in a controlled vault and the representative spoke about what it does to placing it underground. i want to talk about the d.p.w. process we go through. it is not a ceqa process but something we live with every day. in 2005, the department of public works initiated the order and it's the bible we live by when we operate in your right-of-way. san francisco has adopted one of

the most aggressive regulations than anywhere in the nation. we operate in thousands if not tens of thousands of jurisdictions in the country. that surface mounted facility order is just that. i should point out the appellants were important in developing that order that we live by but something after the lengthy process and the people were apart of it, we came up with strict guidelines and there isn't a permit that's issued by the d.p.w. that doesn't review that process with us and then as was mentioned, there is a very lengthy comment period and an appeal process if anybody feels that that process was not solid. i would like to turn some of my time to our attorney who can address some of the ceqa issues. amanda.

>> i'm from the law firm representing and outside ceqa counsel for at&t. i have a lot of issues to cover. first on the definition of equipment. i won't spend too much time on it, but the title of the exemption says structures in it. this exemption relates to structures. the definition of installation of equipment in structures is actually the structure that is being installed or built or put into the environment. the distinction between this and the other exemptions is the word equipment. all your traffic control signal boxes would rely on. this is equipment. moving on to the exemption. there are two exemptions. first is unusual circumstances. under case law it is clear you have to have both unusual circumstances and that unusual

circumstance results in in an environmental impact. here, we don't meet the first threshold. this is not unusual. you walk outside, having a utility box in the right-of-way is not unusual. state law and your own code says where the utility equipment goes. by definition, it's not unusual. the way the law works, you don't get to the next question, but assuming for argument sake we do, that is actually the only place the fair argument standard applies, which i'll talk about it in a minute. that is a factual determination and that is the only place case law says you apply fair argument. with that said, the only impact we are talking about tonight is the fed ex. there is specific law that constitutes fair argument. urban environment does not constitute fair argument.

this was clearly discussed in a case that was cited in bowman versus city of berkeley. she actually lost that case so -- sorry, i didn't mean to end on that. >> thank you. i think there will be a number of questions. let me first start off and i'm not sure who i should direct this question to, but there has been questions about undergrounding and your position is something that at&t doesn't believe that's possible but we have questions about whether that is a case. i have a different question around the possible siting of these boxes on private property and i'm wondering if you could talk about that. i understand you have suggested there are issues around emergencies and difficulty of accessing boxes, but can you explain why you need to use the public right-of-way and why you

can't contract with private parties to put these boxes on private party? >> public private of way and directs public utilities to place their equipment. but as mentioned earlier, the surface-mounted facilities order does hold the threshold that when we apply for a permit to place something above ground, we must demonstrate we have reached out to private property owners to see if they would allow us to use their private property. when we do our site assessment, the first thing we look at where within 300 feet of this cross-connect cabinet could we locate a cabinet on private property with the following caveats. we do not place the equipment inside a person's residence or inside a structure that would impede our ability to reach it. private property is that, it's private. people -- property changes ownership. somebody could wake up one day

and decide i don't want to allow them on my property anymore and we found, actually, as we submit with every permit that when we ask for private property use, we have not found any takers. there are many reasons why that might be the case. one is we speak easements for your property forever and that goes on your title and when you try to sell that property in the future, you have at&t as having a position on your private property and when you go and try and sell that, some people view that as a detriment in trying to get that property sold. >> it's hard for me to imagine there is no property out there who is unwilling to negotiate for the right price an easement into their property. there are many examples of times when individuals enter a private property in order to conduct business, whether it be a mailman, whether it be a cell phone company bho's accessing a

cell phone tower on a roof. can you explain what is different from those circumstances, because that seems to be a contractual relationship that was established with the property owner? as a property owner, that comes with obligations as well. and under state law, those obligations require us to provide access. your service goes out and we are required to repair that within 24 hours. we take very seriously our ability to access our infrastructure in case of an outage or if there is an issue and there have been issues where we have been denied access where contractually, we have the right to be there but whatever circumstances might occur that don't allow us to get access to private property, so that presents an issue to us in providing the service as we are required to under state law. >> it's hard for me to imagine

you can't work that out and obviously when we've got scores of cell phone towers that are located on private buildings, if those go down, those create issues and those companies need to have emergency access into those buildings and in those contracts that is permitted as well. >> if i may, president chew, one of the distinct -- president chu, this particular cabinet will control the infrastructure for 400 homes in your neighborhood. so the issue becomes if the network goes down or you lose service in your particular house, in case of an emergency would you like your neighbor to be totally responsible for access for public safety reasons to have access to that particular box, controlling 400 homes in that particular neighborhood. and it is very different from a cell flight tower where we enter

into relationships with commercial landlords because we are able to pass traffic to traffic from one cell site to another cell site. if your phone goes down, there is nothing that we can't transfer your particular connection to another person. it is a very particular connected situation where this actually is the line to your home and it houses over 400 of your neighbors as well. >> i appreciate that, ken. i'm trying to understand if you have a key into the building, you can get in and have access. like having a key to a box on a sidewalk in my mind. >> absolutely. certainly with respect to multiple dwelling units nights where that particular box controls a particular building. we enter into an arrangement with that landlord because all the residents are housed in that particular facility. it's very different than putting a box on gary controlling 400

homes in a 10 or 15-block radius. >> and one other follow-up question. i know there have been changes over the last few years in the number of permits you have requested. that number has gone done, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> and that is a function of tech tholing? >> somewhat. mostly as we went back and re-engineered the project to make sure we weren't duplicating any efforts. there are cross-connect boxes are close enough in proximity to locate one new cabinet and serve both out of one cabinet rather than putting two new cabinets in the right-of-way because they are within 300 feet of a new cabinet location. that is one area. we have been able to expand the reach of where we place the new cabinets so they can go within 300 feet of existing cross-connect box and last time

we were here was 150 feet of cross-connect box. >> could you talk about your developments in technology. from my perspective, we know that technology is shrinking over time. you can often get the same power into a smaller space than the size of the boxes we are talking about now. many of us have been hearing folks from the technology world that they expect that the size of these boxes should be able to shrink over time. how should we think about that? how should we think about the sheer number of boxes you are requesting us to approve? >> unfortunately, two areas of technology haven't shrunk and that is batteries and fans. and that's what makes up a considerable amount of these cabinets that were placed in the right-of-way. we have backup battery supply that allows us to have eight