when the federal government removes billions and billions of subsidies. we moved here in 2007 because the city policy leadership on things like climate policy and solar. go solar sf is one of the central policy leadership items that was attractive to us. we are elated to be an anchor for many companies to come here and follow us. they probably wanted to be associated with the city's leadership, too. these jobs and dollars, to the city because of the result of the program. it has been an anomaly of a low- income project. the small city incentive spurs the private sector -- it

attracts the building owner to energy efficient programs. by the way, since solar does not use water, we also benefit from water savings. the city has supported a bundle of low and high cost energy programs. this is no different. this is a tiny budget funded by water resources. please do not cut a program that seems to be working. thank you for listinening. >> good morning, supervisors. my name is walker wright. i work with petro solar. i work with an east coast

company currently distributing the largest project that has created over 100 jobs in new jersey. i'm currently advocating to our company to open a fully staffed office in san francisco. i think the reason we are trying to do that is because we firmly believe that programs like go solar represent policy leadership in our industry. the suppliers are here. the people are here. we can continue to grow our industry and be a part of a movement. i fully recommend the continued funding of go solar sf for these reasons. thank you. >> good morning, supervisors. from here on behalf of a leader in one of the fastest-growing areas of solar in the country, residential solar. .

we were born in san francisco in 2007. one of the founders of our company installed solar on his roof in the mission. since then, we've outgrown the two offices and we continue to relocate within san francisco. we now employ over 100 people. you know, as the solar industry developed, policies, obviously, have a significant role in the nature of the market of element. policies have shavetail we expand and grow. we now have over 10,000 customers over eight states. the policies also implement where we keep our roots. go solar sf has been a great sign of leadership on behalf of san francisco. companies are very attractive and want to be anchored in places that are known and seen by the broader industry and by the public as leaders in their

support for solar energy. i just want to offer two additional fiscal considerations as you talk about extending the budget for this program. one is the extent to which private investment is. leveraged by this. as an example for a residential project, every dollar the city puts into a residential project attracts $8 or $9. most of the investment goes to equipment and local labor. i just want to point out that the equipment purchases also generate revenue in san francisco. we're also adding value. >> good morning, supervisors. my name is monique washington. in the solar installer in san francisco.

i was hired through the work force development go solar sf program. i'm here today because go solar sf gave me an opportunity to not only change my life but to build a career in the solar industry. i am asking that the go solar sf is not cut, but been fully funded so we can continue to grow and help our environment. thank you. >> hello, supervisors. my name is melissa mcdermott. i was also hired through the work force development go solar sf program. i'm one of the low-income single moms this program has benefit. i do not need to get into where i was a few years ago, but i can assure you i was not paying taxes and you never find me in a place like this. i needed to get into something and i needed to do it quick in

order to save my relationship with my family and be able to progress and make a difference in. my. -- in my life. in turn, i've also seen things from different perspectives professionally. i've seen families be able to install solar on their homes that would never in a million years be able to do that if it was not for this program. they are able to make a difference in their community and teach their children how to respect our planet and move forward in a positive direction. also, many nonprofits have benefited from the program. i have been able to help with some volunteer installations and i have been able to see people in communities be able to walk a couple blocks from their home and volunteer. if it was not for programs

training people and helping them learn something they can take to society in a positive way, we will not be able to do thank you thank. >> good morning. my name is angelo. i'm a 40-year resident, homeowner in san francisco. i could not believe my ears when i heard that the solar -- go solar sf program stands a chance of being the most. when we had mayor knew sonewsom around, there were so many ideas floated. i thought, we are on the right track. they were talking w talkingiabod generator. they were talking about a tidal generator under the bay bridge. the one program that got us started was solar.

it is here. the development is getting better. it's becoming cheaper and you want to nip it in the bud. just to show you where you are on this, go up to the top of twin peaks and look down. see if you can find those 2400 installations. they're lost in a sea of empty rooms. you have to be visionary and you have to think like this. where there is a will, there is a way. all the numbers mr. harrington was throwing at you -- they do not mean a thing. you can find the numbers. you can find the money. where there's a political will, there's a way. i hope you are on board. thank you. [applause]

>> my name is john risso, president of the board of trustees at city college. i'm here on behalf of the board of trustees. city college is the largest educational institution in city and county of san francisco sa. it's one of the largest employers. we have almost 3000 employees. we have 100,000 students. 70,000 of them are san francisco resident. city college has suffered through several years of cutbacks from the state. this year, we are facing our most dramatic cutback effort. we have our own budget committee meeting tonight and i'm very much not looking forward to it.

we have eliminated hundreds of classes already and we're looking at eliminating any more. our students are -- more than half of the students are on financial aid. our students are students who can only succeed at city college. they go on to four-year colleges. they go on to get a graduate degrees. we start with people who are having real problems in their lives. some of them have not finished high school. what we are now looking -- looking last fall, we have 15,000 students who could not get into a class. absorb that. 15,000 students. they are more at risk to drop out when they cannot get into classes. we're asking for a one-year only

amnesty of the fees that city college pays to the city and county of san francisco. it is $2 million from several departments. i have 1600 signatures here from students that i would like to give to you. we have finals going on right now, so students were not able to come here. we are going to have some students later this afternoon visit some of your office is to tell their stories. supervisor mirkarimi: may i ask him a question, please? thank you whore being here. i am very sympathetic to this need and i endorse this idea. we have to be even about the stats and the numbers.

is it in exemption that we should consider as a one-time, but are other institutions also obligated in the city, like school districts, like other departments were also required to pay. >> the mayor gave the school district funding to help with a summer school. that was just announced recently. the school district also gets funding through an approved a measure -- the rainy day fund is what is called. the school fund also gets staffing. the city pays for staffing.

the mayor did not offer us any money this time for summer school. we did not have a summer school last year. we are hoping to have a summer school this year. it will not be as big as we would like it to be. supervisor mirkarimi: i think that is an important step. on a utility level, that's what we're asking for. since we are bringing this back to the puc, help us figure this out a little bit. i will ask the puc at the end of the public comment. what is the break or the exemptions provided to other institutions that are provided to pay into the utility that we can use as a foundation for this case? >> i believe there are city departments that do not pay anything for electricity.

that is just what i have heard. i do not know what other institutions get or do not get. we are just asking for this one year because this is the worst year. supervisor mirkarimi: i think the city should do everything it can to foster that relationship with city college, just like we have with the school district. i know we have been talking about that. in the here and now, we have to navigate around our limitations. i'm looking at this discussion at how we might be able to help as best as we can. you had been in negotiations or discussions with the puc. how far did you all get in at least some elimination of what city college's obligation is? >> we did not come to any agreement. it is not all utilities with the puc. part of it is a rent for

facilities for the southeast campus, which is one of our 10 campuses. we also pay the up-keep on that building, which is unusual for the tenant to provide the janitorial services. we have 10 campuses. we're looking to see if we can still keep them. we have 100 satellite locations throughout san francisco in the neighborhoods and the communities. we are also looking at setting some of those down, as well. as far as where things come from, i do not know where the quarter of $1 million -- i do not know where that came from. i would welcome wherever it came from -- something like that. this $2 million represents over 300 classes that could be saved. supervisor mirkarimi: thank you. >> thank you very much.

supervisor chu: thank you for your question and perhaps we can also ask the puc later on to explain. i think that the san francisco unified school district pays their electricity bill, as well. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. i residents of bayview hunters point. and currently at the design training program. we work hand in hand with the go solar sf program. i'm a former foster homeless youth. my future depends on the go solar sf program. i ask that you take that into consideration that the future of the youth are in the hands of view, the beholders. thank you. supervisor chu: next speaker.

joshua, james, steve, and jeremiah dean. >> good afternoon. my name is jacob. i want to speak on behalf of asian neighborhood design construction program. i would like to say that the go solar sf program is a wonderful program. it has already set in place a lot of installations and already established that it is successful. cutting down a successful program is saying ok, you are doing a good job, but not good enough, so we are going to take what we have given you and take it back. i feel like that's not right. if it is successful, may be more funds should be allocated because it is successful, instead of being cut. i understand there are a lot of financial issues and separate entities that determine whether

or not it should get the funding, but you should look at the success rate and also what it could do for the city as far as housing and energy efficiency and the whole green movement. it would be a wonderful opportunity for other communities and cities to look at us as an example. look, they were not doing so good in the beginning, but they kept with it and did a phenomenal job. i just want to say please keep in mind that it is a successful program. just because it is not as successful as you would like it to be is not any reason to reduce funds. i appreciate that. supervisor chu: thank you. we do have a question. supervisor kim? supervisor kim: this is a question for anyone in the program. if you can state who you are employed by and if it is full-

time or part-time, and if you are a resident of san francisco. >> i live in sunnyvale, the bayview district. i'm a pre-apprenticeship program, so a lot of different organizations. a higher students such as myself to work with them. mostly those companies would like to hire students such as myself. it is full time work generally. it is sustainable work. its a good career move meant. supervisor kim: who is your pre-apprenticeship program coordinated by? >> jamie brewster. supervisor kim: thank you. supervisor chu: next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors.

nice to see everyone who has come from the puc, the go solar program, and all the hetch hetchy people. my name is james patrick carroll and i made democratic candidate for mayor. this last year in san francisco, we experienced over 50 inches of rain and a record- breaking snowpack in the sierra. there's more water available now than ever. i think it would be an excellent idea to turn this. into a win-win. yesterday, while walking through the tenderloin, i noticed that shop owners were spreading their buildings with high pressure spray water to keep the crack cocaine dealers from being anywhere near their block. i dithought this was a very intelligent way to keep them away from the stores. i heard the puc director

commented that there was $1.3 million in profit available from the go solar program. he also mentioned that there's a $25 million available in a capital development program, which he, for some arbitrary reason, has chosen to absolutely not pursue at this time. why not force him to pursue that capital development program into a private capital development program, and also use the $1.3 million surplus to fund a program in the tenderloin area to finally, for once, clean the feces and urine off the street and let the businesses spray their businesses would be high-

pressure hoses to keep the crack cocaine dealers away. i believe it is the fox guarding the hen house when it comes to hetch hetchy. supervisor chu: thank you. thank you. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> i work for luminal. i came in through work-force development through the san francisco conservation board in the back office. just a little bit about what i know, where i came from, and how i got involved. i would not have had a chance to do what i'm doing now, working for a solar company, because of my history and some of the decisions i made. programs like asian neighborhood design -- in an alumni from that. the young people, we have messed up and some of us goes through that program with that hope i am

thinking that we can still change our lives and be on the right track. go solar sf gave me the opportunity to get back on my feet. i feel like you should keep in mind -- cutting the program, you may be cutting some of our second chances and getting back into work and really doing something with our lives. thank you. [applause] supervisor chu: next speaker, please. >> hello. i am 22 years old, born and raised in san francisco. i attended asian neighborhood design and i'm currently not workinworking with luminal thano go solar sf. we would like to keep a full funding for people like me.

thank you. supervisor chu: thank you. >> good afternoon. some of the people that have spoken today have installed on my house. i was the first to get solar in the neighborhood through puc. i was coined the name the ambassador of solar. i would like for you to write down three things. one is commitment. committed to funds. go back 40 years, prior to the puc to the department of public works. the expansion of the sewage plant in my community. i would like to say to you that from that expansion of the sewage plant in the 1970's, we

got a southeast community college. that is a responsibility that the city owed to bayview hunters point. i'm not like to talk about any other community. as most of you may know, presently, bay view hunters point has changed quite a bit. we have a lot of asians that do not speak english. we have a lot of latinos that do not speak english. what we need in bayview hunters point is truly education and training for jobs for the people in the southeast sector. i really pray and hope that you take this under consideration. there was a task force set up two years ago because we are going to be having 5 coming into the community that will help create jobs. they just opened up job

opportunities for the southeast facilities. we need education. i hope you take that under consideration. thank you very much. supervisor chu: thank you. next speaker. if there are any other speakers that wish to speak, please line up. otherwise, this will be the second to last speaker. >> thank you for the opportunity to speak. i'm steve hunter, the director for project open hand. we provide nutritional services for critically ill folks in san francisco and east bay. we currently have a 30 megawatt system on our roof. by virtue of the legislation we are talking about today, go solar sf, it was a very successful program for san francisco. it seems to be a program that works. i saw new faces on our roof

installing the system this time. i really think that when a government program does work -- because there are a lot -- that lot -- it should be funded. that's what i wanted to say today. supervisor chu: chu. -- supervisor chu: thank you. >> there are challenging decisions. i think general manager harrington -- i think we have somebody we can work with to make sure we do everything that we can do. i'm here to advocate that we increase funding for this program and i hope we can work together to do that. after supervisor mirkarimi added a low-income incentive fees, an amazing little peace to add to this, as well as a work force component. as a result, we have seen the jobs created among economically disadvantaged communities. the job numbers have created a

little confusion and questions that need to be resolved going forward. it allowed miss jackson to become ambassador jackson when she went solar on may 21, 2009. i remember it like it was go solar. -- we have 24 to 25 football fields worth of panels to superchu's question of how many panels, -- supervisor chu's question of how many panels. 85% of which happened when we started this program. it's also a jobs program. in an industry that we now see the chance of becoming a unionized work force. at this moment we are starting this question of being a unionized work force which can't be under estimated. it's clearly not a 72 jobs that have been created. that's the work force hires. that does include nonwork force installers, nonwork forceed a

-- force admin personnel. 400 to 500 needs tore clarified. i think no one would dispute when we look at a 40% cut to this program which would cut a lot of these benefits, clean energy and jobs. there's a lot of things we want to do as a city. i personally want to see us restores funding and find a way. and the city to pay the real rate for electricity. supervisor chu: thank you. supervisor kim: do you have an understanding of what potential layoffs might be or reductions to this program or loss of jobs? >> supervisor kim, i think this is something that a lot of us wanted to put today, what this 40% cut would mean to layoffs in addition to stopping companies relocating here to be at the center of the solar