race. >> [inaudible] >> when everybody asks me for funding, i take more time to respond because i do not have a whole lot in my pocket. >> we are going to break and we will be available for questions. commissioner campos: good afternoon and welcome to the march 23, 2012 meeting of the san francisco local agency formation commission.

i am the chair of the commission. linda wong is the commission clerk. madam car, if you can call roll call. commissioner avalos: present. >> commissioner olague is absent. commissioner schmeltzerchair ca? commissioner campos: we do have a quorum of the commission. >> approval of minutes from the 2012 -- commissioner campos: before we take action on this, is there any member of the public that would like to speak? public comment is closed. motion by commissioner schmeltzer, second by commissioner avalos. call item 3.

>> community twice aggregation, a status update on cleanpowersf program, a status update on proceeding at the california public utilities commission and a status update on state legislation. [chime] >> good afternoon, and director of cleanpowersf. a few things to update on, we continue to move forward with finalizing the services that we need, the call center in tracking which puts customers and and out, working with noble america's on that. having some good discussions with them on that. will waiting for action on the

board of supervisors as well as the contract for the energy and supplies. it is up for the first year in force of the committee, and subsequent board of supervisors to follow. we have had continuous discussions with local power on their ideas around enhancing the bill the associated with the program. in fact, staff had a meeting with some of the advocates this morning on that subject. both of my remarks are in response to the request of the last meeting about opt-out and such.

we wanted to give an update on the last little bit. analyzing the types of customers that make up the the average customer base here in san francisco, it would be in the high 40% for opt-out. we think it can get lower by figuring out ways to target different communities, and different types of areas, and different attitudes or makeup of customers. we go through the deep analytical work and the statistical models to overlay what we can gather from market research in terms of asking

customers what their attitudes are about the real ovals and the price premium a as well as overlain with records about demographics as well as things that related to public power and how people voted in various precincts like pg&e's coccyx team effort. it went down pretty handily in san francisco, but in other ways, it went down more heavily than others. we're looking at various energy related matters on the ballot here in san francisco. commissioner campos: before you continue, i know that commissioner pimentel has a question. first of all, i forgot to thank the moembers of sfgtv

staff. i also wanted to welcome our new a member, commissioner christina olague. with that, commissioner pimentel? commissioner pimentel: be no witch sides of the city have the highest opt-out rate? >> we don't know yet, we have projected rates. commissioner pimentel: do you know which side are more in favor? >> we will be doing much more granular research than we have done in the past. what we have seen is the north and the western parts of the city, because of the nature of the research we did up until now out, it wasn't really granular enough. that is the next level we're going to be doing.

in general, the northwest, if i had to make my best guess now, it would be the area with the lowest hot out. san francisco as we know ait is more like swiss cheese. i am thinking there are different ways home yet. that is how we will bring various proposals in terms of strategies on how to rescind or opt-out notices. commissioner campos: mr. campbell, as you're doing this analysis in looking at the data, when you think you will have a better sense of what the often- out number will be? >> we think it will have results to share about one month's time.

commissioner campos: can you talk about if you are communicating with some of the advocates to make sure that the rate is as low as possible? >> we have discussions regarding local power work and they talk about off-out rates there. it is very much a plant discussion. we're keeping those dialogues open. just so i can be complete, the proceedings related to the cpuc and state legislation, the latest intelligence is the cpuc is making a final decision on what the performance bond would be, and it is really an august timeframe. it is related to bonds for direct access. those are going through the

process first. regarding the implementation of state legislation that we had, it is moving forward with proceedings of having their be enhanced code of conduct for how the utility's interact. we are very active in that proceeding. we have been working with other communities that are interested to make sure that we have a unified front. there are also comments that will be due april 16. we will be filing on monday, the cpuc will be taking up those items to decide on code of conduct rules. commissioner campos: the august

date, is that something you have received from puc saying that is what they are expecting? >> it is based upon conversations i have had with those that are familiar with the proceedings there. commissioner campos: in terms of the code of conduct by communities, what are the kinds of issues that we are talking about in terms of the kinds of things that protocol will address? >> one of the biggest ones is functional separation. if the utilities can handle marketing aspect to their utilities to try to sway folks from participating, that it not

be housed in to the same group as the utility's. we are trying to come up with recommendations on ways to mitigate the incumbent power that the utility has, both money and resources and information. as well as rules about how utilities should have on what they are able to say, that type of thing. commissioner campos: any questions? >> i think he hit on the major points i would have hit on. it is actually not a hearing on the contract itself. a contract actually plays a big part, but it is not actually

part of the approval process. i wanted to make sure that was clear. he mentioned the meetings he would be having with the advocates and the discussion with mr. campbell and his staff to talk to them about what it looks like and have a look at where is the best place to go to start programs since we will be targeting for the initial launch? where the most customers located? those kinds of issues are what we will be looking at. hopefully we will be able to share a little more detail on that in the next meeting. there is not much else at this point. commissioner campos: colleagues, any questions? why don't we open it up for public comment? >> eric brooks representing, as

usual, san francisco green party. dresser's advocates of that with commissioner -- megrassroots advocates met with commissioner olague. she has a good grasp of the importance of the localized renewable. that was heartening. it was my way of reminding us that for advocates, a product that moves forward without insurancassurance that that will happen is something we would not be thrilled about.

let's make sure that does occur. we really want to see that it gets a lot lower than the 40%. in the meetings that we have had with lafco and puc staff, more and more this concept of rolling and customers at the beginning of the project has renewable and efficiency share owners. but buying in the shares for billing code-ownership, things like that, what local power is

coming up with, an opportunity to introduce customers to a couple meetings ago, how they think that they can use this method of getting people to sort of buy and stood of rent into the system, buying instead of renting electricity. the main thing that they think they can accomplish is price parity with pg&e. we need to make sure they are still cooking the data, once it comes forward, that will be an exciting opportunity for us to get this project under way. thanks. commissioner campos: is there

any other member of the public that would like to speak on this item? public comment is closed. these are informational items. to clarify, is there any action that is required of us at this juncture? great. if you can call item no. 4. >> update on study on the voting process including ranked hoyas voting for the local offices in the city and county of san francisco. commissioner campos: we want to thank puc and lafco staff on the previous item. this is an item we discussed in a couple of prior meetings and directed staff to begin their work on a study of the voting process by including ranked joyce voting. -- rank choice voting. >> jason fried, lafco staff

again. we have gotten most of the data that we needed to the system right now, we are continuing to refine or review the information that is available to us. over time, what has been available has gotten much better. some of that information isn't as a parent horas clear. we're trying to look at ways of comparing -- have there been any patterns with rank choice voting, are they good or bad? we are doing data crunching in the system. we also have the opportunity to sit down and talk with people about rank choice voting. there was a study done in 2004 and 2005. there is hope that we will get an updated version of that

study. this number-crunching, i have a very talented in turn that can help with a lot of that data crunching. he has been able to utilize that. commissioner avalos: it has actually been very noisy in your corner of city hall with all the number crunching going on. like cereal or something in there. i was at sf-state a couple weeks ago, there was a teacher there, a professor that was to end all the work looking at doing a lot of research eight years ago. >> he is one of them, both of them put together the 2004-2005 report.

i talked with both of them individually about what work they have and what work they currently are doing. >> colleagues, any other questions for staff? i have a brief question in terms of the next step, what we expect to see by the next meeting? >> i am hopeful we will be able to start talking about basic numbers and basic discussion to show you what information we have right now. in areas where there is something more detail. but the next meeting, i am hoping to have a more presentation -- to show what impact this has had or has not had and the city. commissioner campos: but don't we open it up for public comment.

>> i was rushing to get this to you in advance of the meeting. the purpose of this is to replicate -- and the mayoral

election, communities with higher proportion of pacific islander residents and older voters with progressive communities are more likely to make errors on the ballot. 1.2% of people made an error that can in validate their ballots. in some precincts, the figure is almost 10%. the highest concentration of voter error, there is a geographic component that i think is interesting and merits further research. we also look at the ranking behavior. only voting for one candidate, we find precincts with higher concentrations are more likely to not use the full complement ranking.

i wanted to share their research has been out on monday, so forth. and also to encourage you to look at putting forth further research on ranked joyce voting. -- rank choice voting. i think we can do a pretty good job of slicing and dicing the numbers, making it correlates strongly to the characteristics of the people actually voting. those of you that are interested, there is a demographic breakdown. [chime] commissioner campos: commissioner avalos has a question. commissioner avalos: i will wait for you to finish. >> the next step is to talk with voters and a number of ways. from my view, lead to a survey

research like san francisco state. we need to do focus groups with modeling will populations and to see if they are less likely to vote generally. there was a valid designed to figure out of there are ways to develop disparities. commissioner avalos: it is very interesting information. a couple questions, what invalidated the ballot in your study? >> an overvote. rank two candidates in the same column. we distinguish between voters that cast overvote. if they cast an overvote, it would have gone to your column.

we distinguish between those that were invalidated because they voted for someone in the final round and they cast an error. the margin is different, 1.3% of voters had an error on their ballot. i think 1.1 have a ballot that was invalidated. commissioner avalos: you actually counted a valid error is different from invalidated ballots? >> or we do both because the advocates underside do it differently and we want to be completely transparent and consistent. we wanted to talk about both ballots that were invalidated, so we weren't taking sides. commissioner avalos: is it any different in terms of the severity of the error?

someone who voted for the same candidate once and no other candidate. >> and those are treated the same by the department of elections and for our study, we treated those the same. if the voter was to vote for one person in column one, too, and three, it only goes to one person wants. we can argue whether the voters made a mistake in doing that, and the report that the only preferred one. commissioner avalos: if a voter voted for a candidate in one column, that is not considered an error? >> no, just a bullet vote. one thing that happened in this election, almost a quarter of voters ranked someone other than

himself and as a result, the ballot would be invalidated. but they only vote for one? the vote for two or three? was if home exhausted without all of those different dimensions? >> you did mention a voter voting for one candidate wants only, that was marked horn of the, but it was not with any kind of value? >> one of the things that we try to discern because of patterns, roughly 9% of voters only voted for one candidate. we make no judgment about why voters did that. it is geographically concentrated. there could be many reasons that voters would do that.

was that the candidate saying only vote for one? what caused voters to behave in such a way? commissioner avalos: that is great because i think is useful to note, that is a choice. if you choose only one, that is the choice you have been re -- in rank choice voting. commissioner campos: thank you very much. we appreciate the information and look forward to reviewing what you have come up with. is there any member of the public that would like to speak on this item? for the record, we have been joined by commissioner mar. colleagues, any questions for staff on item number four? we look forward to the continued work on this. commissioner olague, we will

come back to this at the next lafco meeting. please call item 5. >> consideration and approval of the budget for 2012-2013. commissioner campos: i will turn over to lafco staff, mr. fried. >> the budget is presented before you in the packet. we believe we have enough in the reserve account at this point, if need be, to return funds to the city and county of san francisco that we should reserve our right, we have the ability -- once the city and county has given money to us, the city and county does not have the ability to lower the amount. they can raise the amount a time they want, but they can't flourish without lafco's approval.

with the city and county having financial issues, time has been spent on a different pot of money. in future years, we need the funding source for and will have the funding source back. so the staff recommends doing that once again. commissioner campos: think you very much. any comments or questions on the budget? commissioner schmeltzer: i want to say that the process has worked well, there hasn't manhattan real -- the money wasn't there prior to it being adopted and this method has worked well in order to work hand-in-hand with the city of san francisco. commissioner campos: i completely agree, it makes sense for us to make sure that it can work