afternoon. welcome to the april 27, 2012 meeting for the lafco for the city and county of san francisco. my name is david campos, the chair of the commission. we're joined today by commission vice chair john avalos, as well as christina olague. we have commissioners mar, hope schmeltzer, and leah pimentel. the clerk is linda wong. we would like to think john and greg from sfgtv staff. please call item number two. >> item number two, approval of lafco minutes from march 23, 2012 regular meeting. supervisor campos: is there any member of the public who would like to speak on item number two? the seeing none, public comment is closed. colleagues, this is an action item. motion by supervisor avalos.

a second by commissioner olague. without objection. please call item 3. >> community choice aggregation activities report. status update on clean power sf program. status update on proceeding at the california public utilities commission. status update on the state legislation. supervisor campos: great, thank you very much. we have three items under item three. i like to turn it over to robert, the assistant general manager of the san francisco public utilities commission. good afternoon. >> thank you, commissioner. i just wanted to give a brief update on, first of all, the program itself as we have conceived it. what is going on at the california public utilities commission. and i really do not have anything to add today on state legislation. with respect, first of all, to our activities, we are

anticipating consideration of our proposed contract and supplemental appropriations request that the board some time in may. that is our expectation. meanwhile, we have been busy determining, with the help of our market research -- our polling firm, the phasing and notification process approach we would like to take. you know, we have had many questions from policy makers and advocates about what sort of additional research we are performing to determine the level of opt-out we anticipate throughout the city. our data is still very new, but it will help us as far as the program during our initial rollout phase, and it helps to minimize the opt-outs we experienced in our early introduction. the work we have been performed

has been performed by a member of fm3. his polling and research team assisted us with data collection and analysis. you may remember dave. he prepared work for our team already. his firm conducted our last poll and presented to you. they have polled for other city departments, and they have paul for -- polled for marin authority. i would like to turn it over today to present our findings. >> thank you very much. it is a pleasure to be here today. i will walk through a brief overview from some of the highlights from our recent research project. then i will answer questions. you may recall last year, we came to you with findings of a detailed poll we conducted of local energy consumers to assess their attitudes toward a clean power sf in the parameters of the program as it was being developed. this year's research project was designed toward a slightly

different ending. our goal is to gather data on a much more limited set of questions to be used in a project to try to model geographic patterns of support for a clean power sf and try to understand the rates at which the program might retain customers or which they might opt-out of the program. for those reasons, the current study is somewhat different than the one last year. last year we had about a 20- minute interview and a smaller sample of local residents that we spoke with. this year we had a much larger sample of residence, over 3500 that we interviewed between april 4 and april 12. we used a much more limited survey. we were asking a series of questions totaling just under five minutes to understand their feelings about the broad outlines of the program as is currently constituted. some aspects of the methodology were similar to what we used last year. we interviewed respondents both on land lines and cell phones and conducted a survey in three languages.

english, spanish, and chinese. the data we have gathered has been statistically weighted to reflect the distribution, both geographically and demographically, from which the sample was drawn. i want to highlight a couple of comparisons from the current data to the data we gathered last year. be mindful, for the reasons i just described, that the approach of the service, the sampling, interviewing, and the uses to which the data was put at a different set of objectives this year than they did last. that said, one of the basic questions we asked last year, which we repeated this year, offered the responded two choices. whether they would like to keep paying the same rates for electricity, even if it meant that their electricity would not come from a greater portion of clean and renewable sources or if they would be willing to pay a little bit more to ensure that their energy did come from clean and renewable sources there was a slight shift toward people

saying that they would prefer to keep their rates the same. 49% said that this year versus 43% last year, with a corresponding decline in the portion who said it would be willing to pay a little bit more. on the central question of whether our respondents said they would be likely to stay with clean power sf once the program was up and running in their area or whether they would opt-out and return to pg&e, the numbers are comparable to what we received last year. i would note that we change the description of the program we presented in this year's research to reflect decisions that have been made about the way the program will be structure, including offering 100% renewable and greenhouse gas free energy. we see that about one-third of local residents, 37%, said they would stay with clean power sf. that number is essentially identical to what we observed last year. the proportion who said that

they would opt-out rose somewhat, about 10 points from 2011. all of that increase comes in the middle category of people who say they would probably opt- out. the proportion that would definitely opt-out remains unchanged. the uncertain portion has gone down somewhat. it needs to be kept in mind of the process of opting out is somewhat different in the context of a telephone survey that it will be when the consumers are actually presented with that choice. there is obviously far less information about the program that we are able to convey in a short telephone interview, and more information will be available to them ultimately when they're presented with that option. one critical piece of information, of course, is the cost of the program. we offered our respondents a list of the estimated costs to them given the rate tier in which they belong. we included in this year's

simple people that are in the care program, a group that was not included as part of last year's survey. we read them the impact on their rates as well. having heard the rate index, we then repeated the question about whether they would stay with clean power assets or opt-out. the proportion saying they would stay with the program remains very consistent and a 37%. it is essentially did not move. opt-out numbers crept up a little higher after we provided the cost information. there are some variations across rate tiers and demographic groups in terms of the white respondents react to the cost information, but there is a consist -- of why respondents react to the cost information, but there is a consistent group. as i mentioned, the ultimate goal of this year's research was not to conduct a survey to directly measure attitudes but to provide data which would be an input to the modeling process. that would help us understand how great -- ratepayers in

different portions of the city would react to the program. we took the data, our large sample, and we matched that with other available sources of data, including voter registration, senses, and develop a demographic profile across the city -- including the census data. we used it for the interaction between the other attitudinal factors and residents propensity to said they would opt-out of clean power sf. using the data, colleagues developed a statistical model was projected for each voter% in the city the likelihood of opting out -- each of voter precinct in the city, the likelihood of opting out in that area. the map that you see now is a result of the process. each individual precinct is color coded to show the likelihood -- essentially the retention rate for each of those in geographic areas. the darkest -- and the darkest green are the ones for the

retention rate is highest, the largest portion of people that are likely to indicate that they will remain with clean power sf. the dark red are the ones were the opt-out rates are likely to be the highest. there is a gradation of the color in between to give you a variation across different geographic communities. overlaid on top of that is the current supervisory all district map, the one that has been in effect up until the current redistricting. so you can get a sense of how those precincts played out across the different supervisor districts in the city. obviously, that map has been amended, and this next slide shows you the new district maps, again overlaid on a the same map, indicating the projected retention rates within each precinct. this provides data to input into that process, understanding what the likely retention rates are projected to be as the program is phased in.

with that, i would be happy to answer any questions you have about the research and then turn it back over to the folks from the puc to talk more about next steps. supervisor olague: yes, as far as the maps are concerned, do you have a new bear -- a numerical breakdown? i am wondering if you have a percentage? at the end of the day, which district -- i notice that there is some popularity in districts 5, 6, 8, i think. they seem to be the ones where it is more, you know, desired or whatever. is that about right? >> yes. we do have -- and the department has, for each of those

precincts, the score which translates into the colors. >> -- supervisor olague: i would like to see that. supervisor campos: colleagues, any other questions? ok, thank you very much. >> [inaudible] supervisor campos: is the microphone on? >> excuse me. so, now that leaves the f -- as with the question that given the careful research, what are our next steps? what we're looking at is, how does this analysis affect our enrollment strategy across the city? commissioner, you mentioned that on its face, the map shows some districts with more interest than others. we have been talking about performing our enrollment in a geographic way. how do we want to spread that around the city to provide opportunity throughout the city

in the initial phases for an op- out program. we're also interested in understanding which precincts and how many we enroll to minimize those opt-outs, but to match the customer demand and then with the supply that we are proposing to commit to. as you will recall, our proposed contract with shell that is before the board, would have less purchasing between 20 megawatts and 30 megawatts of power. we need to select enough precincts' to match that, given what we know about the consumption, to match that volume. and then to determine whether the additional research has altered our program in any way. those that the additional pieces of analysis that we are now performing given the information that the firm has provided to us. supervisor

chairperson campos:, wondering if you have some thoughts to the recent development we read in the paper, which is that pg&e is trying to provide new customers with the options of being greener. as i understand it, they are saying that move has nothing to do with what has happened in marin county or with our efforts to pursue community choice aggregation, so i am wondering if that changes things? >> we are taking a look at the application that pg&e filed before the public utility commission, supporting their request. it is a program, as we have read so far, that offers customers 100% the option to purchase

100% green-e energy credits. it is providing an opportunity to look at what pg&e is already providing for its renewable compliance, which, i think there latest filing at utilities commission, said they were at 19.5% renewable. sell under their proposal, you could as a customer say please green-up the rest of my consumption, that 80.5% that is not covered yet. they are also proposing, as an alternative to allowing customers to choose blocks of kilowatt hours to be green, so a customer could choose to green- up just a portion of their

kilowatt hour consumption. that way, pg&e argues in its application, they will have stability on what that potential cost commitment will be each month to have greening of their portfolio that is serving them. i thought it was interesting that in their testimony they also addressed the customer desire for a program like this. they talked about the survey work that we did with residential san francisco customers earlier, and most recently. pg&e lists the number of surveys that have been conducting, which tells them that their customers want a program offering like this. so i was not aware they were making representations that it did not have anything to do with the cca program that is competing with pg&e, but they

clearly acknowledged through their public testimony that there are a number of cities that have expressed an interest. they have been pulling, hearing from their customers that they want a program like this. they're showing numbers consistent with what we were shelling, 42% of green-minded residential respondents rated their interest as high in the green program. that is consistent with what we are hearing from him today. chairperson campos: and that is one thing for me, in reading about this, i feel that it confirms some of the work that we have done in terms of what the customers out there are thinking about, renewable energy come clean power programs. i think it validates that. i think it also, in my view,

points to the need for us to make sure that we move cca forward in san francisco. on that note, i was wondering if maybe this will be addressed by lafco staff, but what the status is in terms of the item that is pending before the board and when we expect -- i know that you talked about may, but is there a specific time or date in may that we are looking at? >> may 10 was the last debate we had heard from the supervisors -- may 10 was the last date we had heard from the supervisors on the audits and oversight steering. that would allow us to have a hearing, in time to also have hearings at the budget committee before the budget committee turns its full attention to budget matters. we were hoping for that to go,

but to have those two steps accomplished before the end of june. one of the conditions by request of the supervisors before having that hearing was to see the city comptroller economist report on the program. we have seen drafts. we are continuing to work with that office to make sure the program is represented accurately, and so that dialogue continues. if i may, two other points with respect to the pg&e filing that you asked me about? the pg&e program is a certificate of renewable energy certificates program, and one of the things that distinguishes our offering from that is we would be offering san francisco residents an opportunity for not just renewable energy credit purchases, but bundled renewable

energy for a portion of the 100% renewable portfolio we are proposing. so it is a different product that distinguishes them. and then the other point i wanted to make sure that i shared with you is that pg&e has requested in their filing a proposal. excuse me, a schedule that would have them in a position to begin the program and early 2013, with a final decision from the california public utilities commission in their request by february 21, 2013. chairperson campos: thank you. i think it is important to note the substantive difference between the programs that also understanding how quickly pg&e wants to move at the puc level. commissioner olague? commissioner olague: in addition to the numerical information, i also want to see the demographic breakdown.

related to the survey. >> mm-hmm. yeah, so we have access to some of the demographic information. commissioner olague: i don't need it today, obviously. >> we would be happy to work with your office for the specifics that you are interested in. commissioner olague: or their barriers in terms of accessing this product? >> no, the product that will be offered to the account holder of record, so if your renter but pay your own electric bill, which is typically the case, you would be the person who gets to decide whether you are part of the program or not. commissioner olague: ok. chairperson campos: ms. miller? >> i wanted to add to what barbara was saying. the first is the schedule. in addition to the proposed contract with shell that will be

before the board, the sfpuc has also been working on hiring a marketing consultant to start the program, and that process has been ongoing, and i think the timing to select a consultant is within the next few months. they have been working on that as well. one other thing about the timing on the may 10. that date may slip. due to some of the issues that barbara was talking about. i just wanted to be aware of that. we will be in contact with you prior to that to talk about that, but it may. chairperson campos: ms. miller, i am also aware of the fact there is a conference going on may 10, where a number of advocates may not be available at that time? >> that is correct. also part of the process is sfpuc has set monthly meetings with a stake holder group, and

that came out at the stakeholder groups, that there is a may 10 conference that many of them will be attending, so that may be another reason for postponement, in addition to the issues that miss hale brought up. and i want to take a minute to talk a bit about the pg&e filing, because it is fairly, i thought, -- monumental might be too strong of a word, but it is definitely indicative of a change in their marketing of their program and the kinds of things they have done in the past to try to deal with the issue of going greener with public entities, prop 16, and now we have something that is, i think, a more positive step in the right direction for all companies, profit or nonprofit, to provide electricity to folks. i think that should be noted for all of the hard work that

everybody here has done. sfpuc, people and audience, and you, because something like this, the other investor-owned utilities look at it, potentially following suit as well. i want to make a point that barbara made as well, which is the difference in our program with this. we still look forward, and it is a very -- in addition to the bumbled energy, we also have a component to our program that is local generation, local jobs. i don't want anyone to fail to keep sight of -- granted, it is a longer-term goal of ours, not the immediate goal, but it is also a goal, to bring that economy and that economic and aegean -- that economic engine to the city. chairperson campos: thank you, ms. miller, and that is a very significant difference between what they're doing and what we are proposing to do.

colleagues, unless you have any questions for puc or lafco staff, which will open it up to the public. any member of the public would like to speak, you have three minutes. >> good afternoon, i represent the san francisco green party and our city. i just wanted to touch on a couple of things staff raised, the main on the polling data, mixed in with the p.g. in the announcement, and what this program is looking like. the stake holder meetings between lafco, sfpuc, a local power, and the advocates have been going pretty well. the local power information about the rollout is maturing. well, indicating a lot of very good things. it looks like there will be a lot of creative ways that we can use to build out to, for example, reduce the opt-out

rate, which was raised at the beginning by very specifically targeting consumers who are willing to buy into the program at the beginning, to become part owners of that, things like that, renewable energy shares. if local power is able to come up with what it believes that it can, that also will give those customers a comparable rate to pg&e's correct rate, so it actually would not be higher, and that changes the whole dynamic with the polling. if we get that to happen, we don't have to pick and choose which customers and what region we start out with, we just find anybody who likes the idea at the same price. let's keep in mind that is a possibility that will become more -- i think we will find out in the next couple months how doable that is. and that gets me to reiterate what a couple of you have said, which is that it is good to see.

i know that pg&e is in the room, probably watching as well. what i would like to say as i am glad we have finally got your attention. i would also say that we will offer a much better product. we will offer something that will create a green new deal and san francisco that will put thousands of people to work, building real, local energy efficiency. as far as the time line on that, the efficiency is actually low hanging fruit that a lot of it can probably be installed right away. let's not think this is too long term. but what this all points to for us as advocates, pg&e has finally taken a step that we have to acknowledge is very creative and sang, we will offer 100% at $6 more, you guys are saying $7 more, clearly they are on their marketing game. that means that we need to come out with something real,

physical, local, a buildup that will hire a lot of people, that will green and the city, giving us real renewable, not just purchased on the market, which may or may not mean stuff gets built. that is where our strength is. now that the local power information is coalescing, we need to make sure we have final votes on this, hopefully around july and august, and sfpuc, so that becomes what we are selling to the public so that we can beat pg&e. chairperson campos: thank you. mr. brooks, is there any other member of the public would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. any other comment, questions? ok, let's go to item number 4. >> item number four, update on study on the voting process, including rank choice voting, for local offices in the city and county of san francisco. chairperson campos: thank you, and this is work that was

started earlier this year. i know that mr. fried ihas been working diligently on this item. i know that some of you may have been briefed on the progress on this work. but i will turn it over to mr. fried. >> thank you very much. jason fried, lafco staff. i am presenting a preliminary report and more data that we could put into a final product. there has been a lot of interest in what we have found out so far on the big picture items. as we start drilling down, i will be coming with a more drill down approach. the objectives of the survey is to look at what are the basic voting systems we use an san francisco and what type of information is