>> feel like it really is a community. they are not the same thing, but it really does feel like there's that kind of a five. everybody is there to enjoy a

literary reading. >> the best lit in san francisco. friendly, free, and you might get fed. ♪ [applause] >> this san francisco ryther created the radar reading series in 2003. she was inspired when she first moved to this city in the early 1990's and discover the wild west atmosphere of open mi it's ic in the mission. >> although there were these open mics every night of the week, they were super macho. people writing poems about being jerks. beatty their chest onstage. >> she was energized by the scene and proved up with other girls who wanted their voices to be heard.

touring the country and sharing gen-x 7 as a. her mainstream reputation grew with her novel. theses san francisco public library took notice and asked her if she would begin carrying a monthly reading series based on her community. >> a lot of the raiders that i work with our like underground writers. they're just coming at publishing and at being a writer from this underground way. coming in to the library is awesome. very good for the library to show this writing community that they are welcome. at first, people were like, you want me to read at the library, really? things like that. >> as a documentary, there are

interviews -- [inaudible] >> radar readings are focused on clear culture. strayed all others might write about gay authors. gay authors might write about universal experiences. the host creates a welcoming environment for everybody. there is no cultural barrier to entry. >> the demographic of people who come will match the demographic of the reader. it is very simple. if we want more people of color, you book more people of color. you want more women, your book more women. kind of like that. it gets mixed up a little bit. in general, we kind of have a core group of people who come every month. their ages and very.

we definitely have some folks who are straight. >> the loyal audience has allowed michelle to take more chances with the monthly lineup. established authors bring in an older audience. younker authors bring in their friends from the community who might be bringing in an older author. >> raider has provided a stage for more than 400 writers. it ranges from fiction to academics stories to academic stories this service the underground of queer fell, history, or culture. >> and there are so many different literary circles in san francisco. i have been programming this reading series for nine years. and i still have a huge list on my computer of people i need to carry into this.

>> the supportive audience has allowed michele to try new experiment this year, the radar book club. a deep explorationer of a single work. after the talk, she bounces on stage to jump-start the q&a. less charlie rose and more carson daly. >> san francisco is consistently ranked as one of the most literate cities in the united states. multiple reading events are happening every night of the year, competing against a big names like city arts and lectures. radar was voted the winner of these san francisco contest. after two decades of working for free, michelle is able to make radar her full-time job. >> i am a right to myself, but i feel like my work in this world

is eagerly to bring writers together and to produce literary events. if i was only doing my own work, i would not be happy. it is, like throwing a party or a dinner party. i can match that person with that person. it is really fun for me. it is nerve wracking during the actual readings. i hope everyone is good. i hope the audience likes them. i hope everybody shows up. but everything works out. at the end of the reading, everyone is happy. ♪

>> this is one of the museum's longest art interest groups. it was founded by art lovers who wanted the museum to reflect new directions in contemporary art. it has been focused on artists

in this region with an eye toward emerging artists. ♪ it is often at the early stage of their career, often the first major presentation of their work in a museum. it is very competitive. only a few artists per year receive the award. it is to showcase their work to have a gallery and publication dedicated to their work. ♪ i have been working with them on the last two years on the award and the exhibitions. the book looks at the full scope of the awards they have

sponsored. ♪ it has been important to understand the different shifts within the award program and how that is nearing what else is going on in the bay area. -- how that is mirror beiing wht else is going on in the bay area. ♪ there are artists from different generations sometimes approaching the same theme or subject matter in different ways. they're artists looking at the history of landscape and later artists that are unsettling the history and looking at the history of conquests of nature. ♪ artists speak of what it means to have their work scene.

often you are in the studio and do not have a sense of who is really seeing your work. seeing your own work at the institution have gone to for many years and has an international audience is getting the word out to a much larger community. ♪

>> good afternoon. now like to call the january 24 meeting of the public utilities commission to order. secretary, would you call the roll? [calling roll] i expect vice-president torres to be joining us shortly. >> we will go into closed session at the beginning of the meeting. any public comment on the items listed in closed session? he none, can have a motion? >> so move.

a-- seeing none, can i have a motion? >> conference of legal counsel anticipated litigation is council of bill legal counselor. conference with legal counsel existing litigation as defend iant fontana v city and county f san francisco. government code sese >> we are now live. [inaudible]

president moran: we are back in open session. the commission met in closed session and took no action on items 5, 6, and nine. the commission did approve settlements on items 7 and 8. can i have a motion as to whether disclose discussion during closed session? >> motion not to disclose. >> second. >> motion carries. -- president moran: motion carries. mr. secretary, if you would call item 12. >> item 12, approval of the minutes. approval of the minutes of the january 10, 2012, regular meeting. president moran: any revisions or corrections to the minutes? could i have a motion? to go so move. >> second. -- >> so moved. president moran: all those in

favor? motion carries. >> item 13, public comment. this opportunity is members of the public may address the commission on matters that are within the commission's jurisdiction that are not on today's agenda. i have no speaker cards so far. president moran: mr. acodecosta , welcome. >> happy new year. i think 2012 is going to be a very challenging year and a good way. i am here to talk about the san francisco redevelopment agency, and at some of the changes that are being fostered.

not because the city needs it, but because the state demands that somebody take charge of the assets and a one ever has been grandfathered in. so they have to do it rather quickly. after the martin luther king holidays we did not get sufficient time when the meeting was held for some sort of resolution being presented. today that same resolution will be before the board of supervisors, and if they vote on it, then all of the details will be taken care of. and whether you like it or not, and i am talking about the san francisco public utilities commission, with all that's happening with the america's cup, this, that, and the other,

the larger properties of mission bay, hunters point, candlestick point, comes under your jurisdiction or one way or another. whether it is you wersewer, clen water, and also, energy. even transportation effects you in one way or another because of the infrastructure. so because every development has gone away, other large parties are primed to come in, if they have the money some of which they do in some cases. in so i am here to say that with a sewer system improvement project, which is in our

backyard, and with whatever else is happening, sfpuc is poised to have san franciscans, because we know the training was done and a lot of money came from the redevelopment and other enterprise agencies are going to have changes there. and so i am here to request that the southeast sector is taken care of so that we have people with skills to do the right thing when the right time comes. thank you very much. president moran: and you. any additional public comment? -- thank you. seeing none, communications. we have a fairly rich set of communications that have been provided to the commission with this agenda. faugh foon item three, a quartey

report on the waste water improvement projects, i know it does combine the interim cip and anticipated ssip. that is something we requested, and i appreciate you doing that. that is something we were asked to develop under recent. that is something very positive. i appreciate that. >> on the same topic, page 10 of that report, ongoing construction. i wanted to ask about the cost variants, which is almost 11 percent signed. -- 11%. that would be the figures on page 11.

>> page 11 is blank. >> let's see. capital improvement programs. that is quite a bit. why is it so much?

>> do you have this report? item 14, 3c and under tab 2, page 10 and 11. i think i can answer it. and there are two big things. the single biggest thing is $7 million. originally we were going to do this in two different phases. we record to do an underground portion, and then we were going to do a trench on another portion of it, and this came to the commission two or three meetings ago where we said this micro tunneling went so well that by continuing to continue to do micra tunneling and bringing in a new contract would save us time and money, so we amended the old contract, which is the reason for $7 million. but we figured it would probably

cost us 8 million or $9 million to have an outside contractor do that, and we would have to stop the entire process. that is the major portion. >> see, we do look at these things. [laughter] president moran: it is a format that point out things like that. where things are happening, and makes it clear they are happening. >> for that one change, the real variants stake here is more along the lines of 2%, right? -- the real variant figure at stake here is more along the lines of 2%, right? president moran: any other comment on the communications?

>> thank you for catching that item. this is a really comprehensive projects under way. it is very helpful. i assume it is on the website. perhaps people >> any other public comment? commissioners, is there any other commission business? >> without any, the report of the general manager. >> good afternoon. we have two items today. first is a short update of where we are.

>> as part of today's agenda, we're going to seek your approval for the clothes out of two regional project. i would like to give you a progress update on the challenges that have been encountered in the last two weeks, starting with that eastern segment of the pipeline currently on my radar screen. there are two issues that could lead to potential schedule delays. one is the potential delay of fabrications -- fabrication of the pipes and the other is the need to secure a missing environmental permit from fish and game. we have a project tracking these issues and i am confident we will be able to mitigate these issues and the overall project

schedule will not be delayed, but i wanted you to be aware. i want to keep you apprised of two of the most challenging progress issues. it continues to average 40 feet a day, which is projected in our schedule. we are not falling back schedule-wise, but we are not able to make up with those rates, leaving us what about six months behind schedule. the good news is that in the last two weeks, we have had to use less ground water and this is a good sign we may be able to start making up time. at the dam site, the deep soil mixing work that was needed to stabilize one of the areas where we will be disposing some of our

soil, that work is going well and will be done the first week of february. the actual excavation of the dam will begin in earnest the second week of february, and this is what we will start blasting. for your information, we could be blasting several times a week for a couple of years. bade division pipeline no. 5 -- they were continuing to make good progress on all remaining change east bay segments so that we can declare a final completion in march. on the peninsula segment contract, we are 85% complete. welding repair work is progressing as planned. on monday, we will issue an order for the tunnel under a large archeologist -- archaeological site.

this will proceed in the next few months and it is projected to be completed at the end of april. we had a record day last week and we were able to make 160 feet advanced and one day. we had to go through a curve and we have the entire trailing year, we are very optimistic in our ability to achieve great production rates. yesterday was the first major day of the shutdown. while it is not operational, we wanted to use the opportunity to show you the photos that show the extent of work taking place. it's hard to see -- we want to actually go the other way.

that doesn't count for my five minutes, does it? maybe we will forget about this. it's better for us. this whole area is where the wall is built and where we will be building the treated water reservoir. in this area here is where we are going to be building new filters. this does not do it justice, but these are like little bulldozers and they look like ants on these photographs. this is another photo of the basins which are now totally demolished and getting ready to add new filters installed. watts of work taking place.

i wanted to close by giving you an update on the project -- we're going to finish the design of the connection that failed in november by the end of this week. we have yet to schedule the work in the field but a new connection should be installed by the end of june. all lot of efforts have been spent trying to clean up the area in south san francisco. that work will be completed by the end of this week. that's all i have. >> commissioners, any questions? >> the second item the public utilities commission gets involved --