supervisor chu: hello, welcome to a special meeting of the budget and finance committee. mr. young, do we have any announcements today? >> please turn off all cell phones. if you wish to submit comments, please provide your card to myself. supervisor chu: thank you for might -- thank you very much. please call item no. 1. >> item #one. ordinance amending the san francisco business and tax regulations code by adding article 16-a to provide funds for public safety programs and services to children and senior citizens in the city and county of san francisco by imposing a transactions -- sales -- and use tax at the rate of one-half of one percent -- 0.50% -- for a period of ten years, to be administered by the state board of equalization in accordance with parts 1.6 and 1.7 of division 2 of the california revenue and taxation code -- adopting an expenditure plan --

amending the administrative code by adding section 10.100.321 establishing a special revenue fund -- and directing submission of the tax for voter approval at the november 8, 2011, municipal election. supervisor chu: thank you very much. this item came before us at the last meeting on wednesday. we had to continue the item to allow for public comment today. before we do that, with two like to add any comments? >> thank you very much, madame chair. thank you for adjusting the schedule to accommodate the amendments. this discussion has emerged as a part of the strategy adopted by

the city to bring the budget back into long-term financial stability over the next five years [laughter] [applause] -- over the next five years. in combination with the state sales tax reduction, through the end of our five-year financial plan it will be assured not to exceed the level that it was prior to july 1. under no commission, even if the state recomposes the sales tax, will the sales rate climbed to where it has been for the last several years. those amendments are to provide that stability and predictability about the tax rate for that period of time over financial planning. i am happy to answer questions, if you have any.

supervisor chu: to be clear, this is a sales tax that coincides with state options going through the five-year financial plan. a stopgap measure not to exceed 9.5%, which was the previous sales tax rate, correct? >> correct. supervisor chu: this does have a 10 year verizon? >> correct. the state has allowed one person's sales tax to expire and this would replace half of that. supervisor chu: thank you. are there any additional comments to make? last week we heard from the

comptroller of the economic impact of the comptroller as well. any members of the public that wish to speak? seeing no one, public comment is closed. colleagues? supervisor mirkarimi: i propose that we advance this recommendation. supervisor chu: we can do that without objection. mr. young, do we have any other items? >> [inaudible] supervisor chu: thank you, we are adjourned.

>> good afternoon. welcome to the san francisco board of supervisors meeting. supervisor avalos: present. supervisor campos: present. president chiu: present. supervisor chu: present. supervisor cohen: present. supervisor elsbernd: present. supervisor kim: here. supervisor mar: present.

supervisor mirkarimi: present. supervisor weiner: present. >> all members are present. president chiu: thank you. please join me in the pledge of allegiance. colleagues, we have copies of the june 21 meeting minutes. motion to approve by a supervisor mirkarimi seconded by campos. those are approved. >> i have no communications. president chiu: could you read the consent agenda? >> these items will be acted upon by a single roll call vote unless a member requests discussion of a matter, which will be considered separately. president chiu: would anyone like to sever any of these

items? >> on items one through six -- supervisor chu: aye. supervisor cohen: aye. supervisor elsbernd: aye. supervisor farrell: aye. supervisor kim: aye. supervisor mar: aye. supervisor mirkarimi: aye. supervisor weiner: aye. supervisor avalos: aye. supervisor campos: aye. president chiu: aye. >> there are 11 ayes. president chiu: these ordinances are finally passed. items seven through 18 constitute the upcoming budget. >> items 7 through 8 are the positions in the annual budget, and appropriation ordinance for the fiscal year ending june 2012.

aiken's 9218 of the legislation associated with implementation of the -- items 9 through 18 of the legislation are associated with implementation of the budget. i contend increases fees for non-residents and tournaments at parks and golf courses. item 12 designate this weekend hours. item 14 is the ordinance increasing all fees based on the controller's consumer price index. there are fee amounts set for applications for planning commission, certificates of appropriateness, and building permits. item 16 sets the patient waits for the department of public health. item 17 modifies monthly and daily fees for construction and

st. occupancy. item 18 establishes a fee for a program for services provided by the public administrator. president chiu: colleagues, any discussion on the budget for the second read? why don't we take a roll-call vote on the final ordinance? supervisor chu: aye. supervisor cohen: aye. supervisor elsbernd: aye. supervisor farrell: aye. supervisor kim: aye. supervisor mar: aye. supervisor mirkarimi: aye. supervisor weiner: aye. supervisor avalos: aye. supervisor campos: aye. president chiu: aye. >> there are 11 ayes. president chiu: these ordinances are finally passed. >> item 19, ordinance providing for a special election to be held on tuesday, november 8,

2011, for the purpose of submitting a proposition to incur the following bonded debt up for $248 million to finance the repaving of roads and streets safety. president chiu: any discussion? roll-call vote. supervisor cohen: aye. supervisor chu: aye. supervisor elsbernd: no. supervisor farrell: no. supervisor kim: aye. supervisor mar: aye. supervisor mirkarimi: aye. supervisor weiner: aye. supervisor avalos: aye. supervisor campos: aye. president chiu: aye. >> there are nine ayes and two nos. item 20, amending the administrative code to limit overtime worked in a fiscal year by any employee to 20% of

regularly scheduled hours. president chiu: colleagues, this is an ordinance that does two things. first, it lowers the percentage of regularly scheduled hours that the department is required to get an exemption from the department of human resources from 30% to 20%. it helps reduce the number of written reports required from the controller's office. i conferred with labor leaders earlier. they have requested a second meet and confer, so i would like to ask that we continue this item to next week. supervisor campos: that motion is seconded by supervisor farrell. can we take the without objection? madam clerk, next item. >> item 20 -- item 21 approves the 10-year land fill disposal

agreement and facilitation agreement with recology san francisco. president chiu: and the discussion? supervisor campos: i know this is an item which has been vetted a number of times in committee. let me begin by thanking all the people in the city departments that have been working on this item, including the mayor's office and the department of the environment. as you may recall, the item was continued quite a few times to provide an opportunity for the local agency formation commission to delay study -- to do a study of how the issue of the kind of trash collection, transportation, and disposal is handled in other jurisdictions.

i think that discussion and process was informative and helpful. i think that in some respects it perhaps addressed some of the concerns that had been raised in terms of how we were doing relative to other jurisdictions. i think in others it probably also raised additional questions. what i wanted to say today is simply that i recognize that recology provides great service to the city and county of san francisco, and we have through this process learned a lot about all the positive things they are doing. but for me the question with respect to this contract, at the end of the day, comes down to not so much the specifics of who the players are, but simply the process and where we are as a city in terms of management and the handling of this issue. and it is because of that,

notwithstanding the many positive things recology is doing, i will be voting against this item. i understand why other supervisors would support it and can see there are very good reasons for that. but i think it is important for us to create certain protections for the city and county of san francisco before we go down the process of approving this landfill agreement. one of the things the lafco study showed is we are really the only jurisdiction that does not have a franchise agreement. there are legal limitations as to why, but i think we need to continue discussions that i know began, so we get to a point that, through a franchise agreement or similar contract or document, we can provide additional protections to ratepayers. i also think it is important for

us to provide a further delineation of responsibilities and obligations that recology has to the city and county of san francisco. i would hope we would have that in place before we went down the road of approving this agreement, which is the only reason why i will be voting against it. i do hope, though, that those discussions continue. i think it is in everyone's interest, and most portent -- most importantly in the interest of ratepayers to have those formalized. i think there will be a proper forum for those issues to be discussed. i certainly look forward to being a part of that discussion. the other thing that i would say about this deal is that it also includes a facilitation agreement, which was not

subjected to a competitive bid process. coupled with the land fill agreement, the extension of the facilitation agreement would essentially create vertical integration. there may be different views on the positives or negatives of that, but i simply believe that before we go down that road that we should have some of the contractual protections i have discussed in place. that is the reason for my vote today. but again, i want to thank recology, the department of the environment, and the lafco staff for all they have done and their good faith efforts. supervisor avalos: thank you. much like supervisor campos, i want to echo my thanks to the department of the environment and lafco and the mayor's

office, and recology as well. i will be voting also against the land fill agreement and the facilitation agreement, the amended version between d.o.e. and recology. much for the same reasons, i believe our process for selecting this land fill agreement has not been as thorough as it needed to be. we also need to look overall at what our system for garbage is in san francisco. i do not think it reflects where many jurisdictions are in the bay area, and most likely in the country, in how we create our garbage functions and garbage utilities functions. i think we need to be going to a new direction for that at some point. we are reliant on, i would say,

an outdated process that was established back in 1932, which i think in practice provides a way of doing things for our garbage functions but not the best way to do it. are there other ways we can reconfigure how we select and build our garbage functions that can protect ratepayers? i know there is a lot of discussion for the next year, possibly going to the ballot, of a process to competitively bid our garbage functions in this city. that is looming heavily over what we are doing here today. i am not quite sure if it makes a lot of sense to move forward, knowing there could be major changes happening in the future. i actually had the occasion to visit the garbage -- the land fill site in yuba county late last year. i went there with melanie

nutter, director of the department of the environment, and a supervisor eric mar. it was an enlightening trip. we met with folks from recology and at the landfill site, and we met with residents and elected officials. there were some concerns about environmental issues related to adjacent farms and what the impact of the set would be on an adjacent farms. but the thing i took away most from that trip was that the host fees that govern how much it costs to deposit a ton of refuse at the landfill were much lower in yuba county than the rest of california. there were $4.40 at yuba county, but much higher in other places. i think it is over $16 at the current land fill site in

livermore. there was some tension from elected officials in the yuba county to possibly raise those fees. how those increases would affect local ratepayers -- i felt that was a risk, a potential risk that it would increase the cost locally, and whether the bid that could be approved today was the right bid that would later in flight what the costs were to the city and to the ratepayers. -- inflate what the costs were to the city and the ratepayers. because of that i was skeptical of this contract, knowing the great work the environmental -- the department of the environment did to put this together. but i felt my vote on this measure has really weighed on what is right for the process of the city and the true cost to ratepayers. i will be voting against this agreement. thank you. supervisor chu: thank you to my

colleagues. i do appreciate the discourse we have had over this topic. we have had a number of meetings at the committee level about this contract. although i appreciate the comments. we appreciate the comments, i disagree and will support this contract, which is a strong one. overall, the department materials show this is a contract that would save our ratepayers over $100 million over the term of the contract in terms of the landfill component. much has been said about the environmental benefits, so i won't go into that. in terms of where we were in a competitive bid process, one reason i feel comfortable with this contract is we did have an extensive contrast in order to get to today. the department went forward with an rfp many years ago, worked to do outreach to every

landfill in the state of california to encourage them to bid. we did receive a small number of responsive victors -- bidders on this process. that process took many years. knowing our current capacity at the alta month site, i think it would be bad for the -- altamont site, i think it would be bad for the city to hold off on this, whether it is a natural disaster or something else that comes down the pipeline. i think this is a positive contract, one that was competitively and fairly bid, one that will show ratepayers $100 million worth of savings. finally, with regards to the issue of fees, i know much has been said about whether certain counties and jurisdictions can increase fees. regardless of where we would be, whether it is altamont or you but county, those local jurisdictions have that

capability, so we do not have certainty either way. we do know at our current site we have fees that are far higher than the current yuba county amount. should that increase, that would drag down the deferment to, but in either case we would still be under the same pressure of local jurisdiction in terms of these. i do believe this is a strong contract and hope you will also support it. supervisor weiner: thank you. we often bragged in san francisco about our 77% diversion rate and how we are the envy of the country, and we really are. we have done a tremendous job as a city in terms of encouraging waste reduction. there are a number of reasons for that success. one of them is recology. throughout this process, i do

not recall hearing any actual criticism of recology's service. even folks who are not supporting this today i have heard make positive comments about the service recology provides, a system tailored to the needs of san francisco. if this were a situation where we had a shoddy provider, that would be a different scenario. but i think everybody agrees to provide excellent service. i have heard an argument that we should somehow delayed this because there is the possibility of a ballot measure next june to repeal the 1932 ordinance. the 1932 ordinance has been around for a long time. this whole process, culminating in today, has been around for a long time. if people want to repeal the

1932 ordinance, they had a long time to put something on the ballot and try to get it repealed. i know there have been efforts in the past that have failed. i do not see a reason just because this late in the game some once again -- someone collected signatures to put this in the ballot, but we should stop the process when we know we are going to run out -- that we should stop the process when we know we are going to run out of landfill space. i will be supporting this item. supervisor kim: i also sat on the budget committee, and this is an issue that has been brought forward several times. although many questions came up around barging, things i support in the long term, i think questions or answers to this process. we have a good contract in front of us and recology has been a good partner for san francisco in the goals we have tried to achieve.

i have question separate from this issue. other supervisors have brought this up. i question whether 1932 is good policy and should be in our charter, and what we can do to increase franchise fees here in san francisco. something which came out of the lafco report is seeing what other counties are doing. even with the free services recology provides, i hope we can continue that discussion without raising rates for ratepayers. if we are able to give back more to the county, as we do in other counties, i think that is a conversation that can continue. however, i do not see that conversation as being attached to this contract, which i will support today. but i do hope to continue conversation on the franchise fee in san francisco. i think that is where the conversation about the 1932 ordinance.

i was committed to not raising that issue as we consider -- continue the discussion to july, but i look forward to continuing the discussion for next year. president chiu: any further discussion? supervisor avalos: i do think the 1932 ordinance is pertinent. under the rubric of our garbage services, they are all going to be related. if we are approving a landfill contract while there is a question about overall garbage collection and transfer, sorting, and disposal, that is going to be pertinent. i want to make sure -- we have no franchise agreement that governs the monopoly that currently has control of our garbage. i think that is worth looking