you, mr. pitts. i do not to deborah. the elisabeth -- elizabeth. ramon lacayo. >> good morning. i was born in san francisco but i would move to nicaragua. i was there to help impoverished citizens to provide them free medicines. in 2005, i was the director of the campaign. i worked with the illiterate nicaraguan citizens. in 2008, and 2009, i became a public defender in nicaragua. now i am back in san francisco. i am eager to work with the homeless community. i have heard that -- i have learned that they need somebody to hear them, to make them feel that they are not just a bowl of

soup. i want to also help the spanish speakers, being a spanish speaker myself. i want to help in all i can with the san francisco homeless community. i am committed to finishing my term if appointed. any questions? commissioner elsbernd: you live outside of san francisco now? >> yes. commissioner elsbernd: mr. upshaw?no. is there any public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. the matter is in our hands. commissioner farrell: as a matter of process, i would be open to either scenario. given that we have a lot of applicants and just a few people here, do we want to wait to hear from everyone to appoint folks, or do you want to take action today? there are probably problem with

both. commissioner elsbernd: i suspect there is some sort of communication breakdown because we only have three applicants here. it may do a disservice to the other applicants if we took action without giving everyone the opportunity. i am inclined to continue this item to the call of the chair and let supervisor king worked with the community to make sure that everyone gets an opportunity. >commissioner farrell: i support that. commissioner elsbernd: respectfully, thank you to eu3 who showed up. will be something that i remember. if you cannot make the next hearing, it is understandable. supervisor farrell and i will be able to attest to your presentations. supervisor kim also have an opportunity to review your testimony on line. out of a abundance of caution, i think it would be proper to make sure that everyone gets a fair shake.

madam court, are there any more items to for the committee? >> there are not. commissioner elsbernd: this committee is adjourned.

>> good afternoon and thank you very much for being here this afternoon. i am general manager of the san francisco public utilities commission. i want to thank you for allowing us to be here to talk about the energy retrofit programs they have been allowing us to do. it was a really simple goal. it was federal stimulus money, and the goal was to do something long term that was good and the other goal was to make sure we spend the money quickly and got jobs we were creating. what is great is we accomplished both. we wanted to celebrate that today. the city already provides about 100% clean natural gas -- not natural gas.

back that up. the city provides greenhouse gas free, 100% renewable energy. what is different is we're saying now that we provide that energy, we should always still be conserving, all we still be looking at energy efficiency opportunities, and that is what we're doing. this is one of 10 sites in the city including other cultural centers, health centers, where we took this money and really changed the behavior of what is happening in those buildings. we are here to celebrate that work. we had $3 million of this money from the stimulus funds. we are updating fluorescent let's -- lance and replacing them with modern efficient versions. we are updating the outside air economizers, as we call them, which is a nice way of bringing the frog inside buildings and cooling it down. we spend this money on time, which is difficult to do for some places in the united states, but the goal was to

spend a certain amount of money by this last june. we have already spent 80%. we are completely on target to spend all the money by next august, which is the requirement of the program. we have also created jobs. we have over 12,000 labor hours. it is a wonderful success. we have been doing a lot of energy efficiency programs peer this extra money allowed us to step up and do even more of those, so we are pleased about that. in the last 10 years, in total, the puc has saved a total 40,000 megawatt hours per year, enough to power 5000 homes. it is a wonderful program. it is really pretty simple. we are reducing greenhouse gas emissions, saving the city money, and improving the performance of facilities like this, so what could be better than that? thank you for joining us in that

today. i would like to introduce our mayor to save a few words. [applause] mayor lee: thank you. thank you for your stewardship of this program but also the whole pc. we appreciate your mindset, your attitude to go forward and really help our city in all of this energy use. i also want to welcome you to the arts commission. we are here at our mission cultural center, and it is one of the buildings the city owns, but amongst the 10 buildings the city owns, you should see the diversity of where these buildings are. community health centers, other cultural centers pierre the arts and is very enthusiastic about this center because it houses so much. after november 8, i can do the

salsa. a? but thank you. there are so many people that visit the center every single day, and they, along with our arts commission, art lovers, just get to appreciate the cultural historic art that is presented here, both in its visual and performing, but it is functional buildings like this that i want to really express my thanks to the department of energy and dr. kelly is here today as the acting assistant secretary to verify, if you will, our city's appropriate use of this money. and, of course, supervisor campos is here today. he and i have been on many walks throughout our community. not only for public safety issues but also, i think, for both of us, it is just the pure enjoyment of being in our neighborhoods. we love to see our buildings updated as they are. there is an update on the boilers, the furnace, the air economizers, as they say.

we do not really have air- conditioning in our great city. we have air economizes to freshen the air. to the lighting fixtures where if the rams are not being used, why are we wasting energy in that respect? our health centers, our community centers, 10 of them, and the smart thing cpuc did with this energy efficiency team, they did the auditing, so they knew what the base line was and how we would measure the improvement, and i want to talk about them. they have been doing this not just from went and that money came in. barbara hail -- hale, others, you are part of that energy efficient team, and i want to express my thanks for working

with the rest of the city and the building owners and everyone working together, because it is with those audits, and then wit and a great mind, to bring down what could have been in large single contract, we broke it down to represent opportunities, something the supervisors and i have been working on, and that resulted in 76 bay area workers getting jobs. that is that we use our federal money not in it -- not only in a responsible way, the money we were rewarded, but we use it even more responsibly. we kick up the standard by engaging the people who use the building in their habits and their culture and using it. it can be improved, and then we use our ability to contract out, and the puc contract in the 42 suggest this could be done by many more people involved, and guess what? we have that many more people

who are trained to this kind of building improvement, so you look at all of that, and you say it got started with president obama, to stimulate. it was not to do everything. it was to stimulate the economy, and we took that word "stimulate" in a very specific way, and we stimulated our neighborhoods and our art and our culture, and we stimulated our job ability. that is what this whole program was about, and i think is another example of how san francisco does it not only the right way but even a better way, so thank you very much for everyone coming here to celebrate. [applause] >> thank you, mayor. next, we want to introduce the acting undersecretary. thank you very much. from the department of energy. >> assistant secretary tree you

have to keep your washington vocabulary correct. that's right. anyway, thank you. thank you, mayor, and thanks to the cultural center for inviting us. it is a wonderful opportunity to see how san francisco has been created in the way it has been able to use its recovery act money. the recovery act, of course, as the mayor said, was designed to stimulate economic growth, and clean energy, of course, is a key part of that, and the things you are doing here are a wonderful example. altogether with the recovery act, we put something like $12 billion into upgrades. more than 2300 grants to cities and counties around the country, and that includes 306 grants to the state of california, for a total over $700 million, and that money has been put to very, very good use.

one of the things we tried to do was create flexibility so that they could design and the most effective way to use it in their local communities, and the way that san francisco has chosen to do this is an example of when you let people be creative. it is a marvelous example of what can be done, but nationwide, we are very proud with what we have been able to do. we are creeping up on having to retrofit many homes, saving the average homeowner $400 per home, and that is per year. for a total savings to the homeowners of about $200 billion. we have also in the process created over 24,000 jobs. they are offered jobs with continuity. people have picked up skills that will be very important to them.

our goal was to get 1 million homes retrofitted with the recovery that. there are 125 million homes left out there, so we are not going to be running out of work. we have also upgraded commercial building space and put in 156 megawatts. this is all under this recovery act. this has been a very significant clean energy investment for the whole country, and it is important to the whole national energy economy and achieving our environmental goals, because buildings alone are 40% of all u.s. energy and a certain percentage of all u.s. electricity, and the irony is you have a very fine and sophisticated energy generating industry, providing 70% of their energy into structures that are not sophisticated in the way they use the energy, so the good news is there is a huge amount

of opportunity to do this. the other theme is that in addition to being able to provide a cost-effective way to meet our energy and other goals, it is a very strong driver of economic growth, and for clean energy, it is central to the economic future, and there are at least two reasons for that. when you are just achieving productivity, you are putting money in the hands of home numbers because there electric in utility bills are there. you make government buildings and commercial buildings more productive. companies can be spending that money on other things. the second thing you can do is that the industries associated with clean energy themselves are major economic drivers. energy is a $1 trillion

industry, and nationwide, it is about four or four -- or five times that big. investments like the ones we have seen in the recovery act make me real confident that america is going to be at the head of the world clean energy revolution, not only leaving in technology but also leading in business growth and job creation, and what has happened right here in san francisco is an example. it was imaginative and intelligent and the way it designed and used to the energy, but it was also very creative in the way it managed the project and was able to draw the best technical support from utilities and also create a contract in an environment that allowed you to hire people locally, so i am here from the department to congratulate you. thanks to the mayor and to san francisco.

[applause] >> thank you, mr. kelly. it is amazing what an lined leadership can do, so we appreciate that. aside from the mayor who is here, there is our supervisor in this area, supervisor campos. [applause] >> thank you, everyone. my name is david campos, from district 9, and i think i represent the best in san francisco, not to take anything awayhe mayor will not be able to confirm that. i want to recognize jenny and her staff and the board members who are here for the tremendous work they do with the center. the center is a very special institution. it really is an integral part of the life of this neighborhood,

and i think it makes sense as we are making these kinds of investments and retrofitting these kinds of buildings that we focus on these kinds of cultural centers, and i want to thank the general manager and his staff for the tremendous work they have done to make that happen. it makes a lot of sense. not only is it the impact of the actual retrofitting of the building, but because the centers are a gathering place for so many of us in our community, it does not just stimulate the economy, but it stimulates the mind and the way people think about energy efficiency, and you have a multi-cultural but multi generational congregation of people, so it is the elderly, the young people, who are not only looking at art but who are going to have, i think, a better understanding of why energy efficiency is so important, in terms of being good stewards of the environment, and the arts

commission, you can see the connection between the arts and energy efficiency and technology, and so, it is a very exciting opportunity. you are, dr. kelly, here in one of the most vibrant neighborhoods in san francisco, and the mission is a neighborhood who attracts people who are very creative, very innovative. i know you were walking around our neighborhood. you can see the amazing art that happens, and that energy transcends beyond art. we have a lot of people who are starting businesses in the mission. we have a neighborhood that notwithstanding the tough economy is thriving, and that is because of the energy and innovation of the people who come to the neighborhood. i want to thank the mayor for being part of this investment because it is an investment that will go beyond the actual money that is spent. it is an investment that is going to have its roots for a

long time to come, and what i would like to say is that the mission welcomes that kind of investment, so i encourage our federal government. i encourage room 200 and the mayor's office, puc, and other agencies to come to the mission, continued to come back to the mission, because this is a place to get things done, and innovation is happening every day on our streets, and you do not often hear the confidence. there are things that happen, and you pick up "chronicle," and you read about bad things that are happening in places like the mission, but these are great things that are happening, and i again want to thank jenny and the others because this is what makes this happen. again, thank you to all of the members of the city staff, whether it is puc, the arts commission, the environment, all of you for making that happen, and i look forward to the future. thank you.

[applause] >> and the arts commission has some new ideas about what we can do. thanking the puc staff and the art commission staff, they are the ones who run it, the department of environment people, our in trunk cards -- in trump arts -- thank you. if you have time for a quick tour, we can go around and see the things in the building. thank you very much for coming today. [applause] captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org--

if you would like to make general public comment on an item that is not on calendar, that is item four and continued again on item 15. last, please address your comments to the commission during comment on public comment. neither commission or staff will respond to public questions but will respond after public comment is closed. with that, i think there was announcements about items. >> yes.

the basketball court renovations will be removed from the consent calendar and be heard on the general calendar. items, 10, 11, and 12, have been removed from the calendar and will not be heard today. if anyone is here on those items, they have been taken off the calendar. we are now on item number two, the president's report. >commissioner buell: i will be brief. that is the general manager and i and abroad committee and community work with a spur for the last six months on a report on the funding of the public parts and challenging financial climate, and i want to acknowledge the work they did and think them for taking the initiative on it, and managing the process. i think the record they came out with is a good one and will

inform the public on where we would like to go, because as many of you know over the past five years, $41 million has been cut from the general fund, and it has been challenging to say the least. this was an effort, and will be an ongoing effort to try to find solutions to that problem -- term. i want to acknowledge spur. the chinatown resolution -- recognition center, we had a ceremony, which was really quite nice. in the process of preparing for that, i concluded that i think that is the largest expenditure for recreation center in the department's history in terms of the amount of money that is being put into that beautiful facility, and it is very appropriate. a very nice day and event, and more to come on that subject in the next couple commission meetings. with that, i would like to ask

commissioner lee to give us a report on the ping-pong tournament. commissioner lee: we have two tournaments to talk about. i have the ping-pong tournament organizers on their way up. i was wondering if i could indulge the commission to wait until -- call this side of back up later when they come up. they have photographs of things of that nature. commissioner buell: may be under public comment we will call them up and give them a reprieve under the chair if it takes for prevent three minutes. -- takes longer than three minutes. commissioner lee: we had a terrific event at the richmond center three weeks ago.

it was really well attended with i believe that some of the most amazing pingpong players this side of china. it is a testament to the department that we were able to pull it off, and that we were able to partner with a great organization to get it off the ground. it was the united states table ping-pong association with the judge and cash prices -- prizes. the top prize was $500, and there was quite a battle to win the $500 check. we had players come from all over the bay area and internationally.

i hope that this is just the beginning of what will be a tradition here at the department for hosting professional level for amateur level -- or amateur level tournaments because there is so much interest in table tennis. with that, i think i will ask the organizers to come back when they arrived and show you pictures from the event. i think you will be amazed at how well organized it was and how a large part of a set up it was. thank you. >> any public comment under the president's report? being done, item number two is closed. item number three, general managers report. >> good morning, commissioners. a number of announcements today. california coastal cleanup day is saturday, september 17.

help take part in california's largest volunteer event. it is an annual event that focuses on the much-needed beaches and waterways. last year more than 82,500 volunteers removed more than 1.2 million pounds of trash and recyclables from our beaches, lakes, and waterways statewide. to register for this event, please visit our web site and visit the high light section and click and get you registered to participate. the song is the sport of the month. on sunday there will be a city- wide ping pong event. -- ping pont is thng is the spot of the omonth.