moving forward, just recently completed the mta board improved legislation associated with the project last tuesday. so, now comes the hard part. we have tried through numerous different programs to try to fund the detail design phase which is the next step of the project to continue to move us forward. i think in the next couple of months, the one bay area program specifically is our best opportunity to fund this project. we are going to continue to try to move to fund the next phase, which is detail design which is a couple million dollars. so, this is the next generation of street projects, bike and pet projects, completely separated graded lanes. it is a little bit more expensive than paint and takes a little more engineering, but we are continuing to move forward with the project. >> okay, thank you. also with the geary vrt, one of the issues that kept coming up was i guess it's the very costly, but it's one that i'm committed to seeing also and that is filling in the bridge because a lot of people feel

that, you know, it's sort of symbolic of the separation and divide between that community and the rest of the other parts of the city. so, where are we with that? >> good afternoon, [speaker not understood] transportation planner. * chester i believe the commissioner is referring to the fillmore intersection that is currently separated and the idea of filling that grade separation. so, it's actually all running at the surface. where we are with respect to the geary bus rapid transit corridor bus and how it relates to that, we've been doing some engineering work to really figure out what the options are for running the buses through that area, whether we run it in the existing tunnel or we run them on the sides or as commissioner suggested, filling

the fillmore intersection. the geary project has concluded that there are workable options for if the fillmore is safe, it's compatible with running the buses in a dedicated center lane. and we'll be taking that option into our environmental analysis. we've done some preliminary costing work and we recognize that it would be a costly project to put solely on the rapid transit project. we have in mind that we want to compete nationally for federal transit funds to implement geary. we want to make sure it's competitive from a cost-effectiveness standpoint. so, we think that the filling of the totally by the geary vrt project. but we will take the analysis of that compatible transit project to our analysis.

so if there is a related project at the filling of the fillmore intersection, that we can move forward separately in the city that it would be compatible with the geary project. but we'd love to have a conversation about how to move that project forward from the funding standpoint. >> because i know with the -- i know the woman who was working on it, she i think has left the department since. she did really good work, it was seven years of taking input from the community. it's good that it's being considered in the environmental report. and finally, i'm happy about the oak connecting neighborhood sort of thing. i think it's really long overdue. finally, i guess at some point, then the traffic calming in ashbury heights, those are the types of issues i've been following. but i guess this is a question

i have, is -- let me see if i can remember. fell en oak -- fillmore street, is that something that's in the works? [multiple voices] >> it's on the list as something to talk about. >> we can work with dpw and see where it is on the list. >> thank you, commissioner olague. again, colleagues, this is an opportunity for you to not only let your residents know what projects are in the works, but to the extent there is not something being done that should be a priority, it is an opportunity to raise that issue. i don't know if we have any other questions on any other presentation on districts 5 and 7. why don't we open it up to public comment. and again, thank you to staff for the presentation. i'll use this microphone because it's on. again, my nick hastings is jackie sachs and i want to make

comments on the presentations. -- on both districts. regarding district 5, regarding the geary vrt, like i mentioned at the last meeting before you took your recess, that you should flip, go back into the archives through our public records, look into the final report of the geary transit task force that was published back in 1989, 1990, and also the geary -- the final report of an engineering report that was done that was finalized in 1995 about a light rail transit that was passed by -- one of the property sale sites by the projects that was passed by the voters in '89, grandfathered into prop k that i also worked on. that is in district 5. regarding district 7 regarding 19th avenue, i went to the tepp

meeting. there were many concerns about moving the stop on 19th avenue for the simple reason it is the wrong distance for people with disabilities, with walkers, with canes with wheelchairs, to walk long distances between the streets -- between the streets in the district. and if you move the stop, that means someone with a wheelchair or walker or cane that has packages will have to walk, and in the rain, when it gets dark in the wintertime, it will be very difficult for them. i also want you to take that into consideration. i aired these concerns before, and i urge you to consider them again. as far as the -- putting the m

line in the middle of 19th avenue, i have suggested that they consider leaving it where it is and having a bus -- having a bridge going over 19th avenue so people -- peep well walkers, wheelchairs, strollers, whatnot, those who are disabled, instead of taking their chances crossing the street at 19th avenue [speaker not understood], go over the bridge and make it safely to the stop for the light rail system. thank you very much. >> thank you. is there any other member of the public who would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. again, want to thank ta staff and all the other agency staff that are here to present on these items. and i hope colleagues found them informative. madam clerk, if you can please call item 14. >> item 14, introduction of new items, this is an information item. >> colleagues, any new items for introduction? is there any member of the

public who would like to speak on this item? seeing none, public comment is close -- commissioner olague. >> yes, i guess in the future i'd like some kind of update on lof. [speaker not understood]. i'd like to know where the conversation is. >> duly noted. thank you. any member of the public who would like to speak on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. if you can call item 15. >> item 15, public comment. >> an opportunity for any member of the public to provide public comment on anything within the jurisdiction of the agency, but not on the agenda. seeing none, public comment is closed. and can you please call item 16. >> item 16 adjournment. >> meeting adjourned. thank you very much. go giants.

>> so good morning, folks, thank you so much for being out here. i'm ed harrington, from the general facilities commission and we are out here for the ground breaking of the reservoir, there are a lot of reservoirs to make sure that we have a clean source of water, for firefightering and all of these things. we have been working on these retrofits since 2004 and this is the last one. we have completed work on every other reservoir and pump station in san francisco. sister reservoir is the last one and we are celebrating that today and also celebrating the finish of the whole city park, and the water improvement program. >> you know the whole program is a $4.5 billion and there are still projects happening in the bay area and the rest, but this is it for san francisco and we want to celebrate that. and when we finish this, this

reservoir, actually handles about 15 percent of the water of san francisco. and so we will just be that much more secure in terms of our water supply for san francisco. we have a lot of people that are with us today and i will be introducing them as we bring them up here to speak. i do want to make sure that we without a lot of people involved. we have the supervisor and the people from labor here and it comes together to makes the projects work, and the sj amoroso and this is the project that they are working on and thank them for being here also. what i would like to do now is introduce mayor lee, he has been involved with the program since day one and head of dpw and as the city administrator and as the mayor and so he has been with us all along as we work through this and he is here to help celebrate here today. mayor lee. >> thank you, ed. >> well, if you notice,

supervisor elsburn, and ed harrington and you notice the blue, i'm wearing blue, we are not dodgers fans, we only do this when we have a water system that we want to talk about. and i wanted to thank the supervisor for being here and you know, the commissioners, as well, for being here and all of the parties that ed has mentioned. five years ago, when ed harrington took up this mantle of being the general manager for the puc, it was also around the same time that then the mayor asked me to go down to new orleans and take a look at what they did not do to safe themselves from all of the years of recovery that they have had to engage in. that they are still doing as of today. one of the big lessons that i found out at that time is that they did not invest properly in the infrastructure knowing that disaster was in front of them, having experienced a flooding

and the gates of their water barriers having melted down a couple of times, even before then. so when ed harrington obviously knew that history as well and he took up this leadership, five years ago. he had a very focused determination of getting this water system improvement program, not only up and running, but the education of the rate payers has to go along with tthe people, along, not only in san francisco, but all the way up to hefp ety has to be a part of this because it is a whole system and then five years later have completed all of the six other reservoirs and this being the last one in the city, to know that we have done 16 miles of water main, or restoration and reinforcement of the valves and everything that goes along with it. some 21 pump stations, and infrastructure that have been part of the system have already been completed.

we have honored what i saw was not properly invested in new orleans. we have honored our public, we have honored the 2.6 million users of our water system. and we have honored our rate payers and our city and the history of the marvel of engineering fete up at hedge hety which i will never stop talking about as something that we need to protect and will not allow it to be drained. this is that honor, that i think that ed is proud of leaving our city and all of the residents and all of the rate payers with, we have done correctly what we are supposed to do. and it is a great fete. it is one that i thank ed for his many years of leadership here, but his experience and his fortitude in keeping focused and keeping all of the public utilities commission, and working marv lously.

we have something to kick off in this wonderful seismic rehab project that we have that amarosa, has been happy about. >> they know how to layout 2400 tons of steel. they will be laying out 37,000 tons of cement. and they know where to put it. you know? and they know how to reinforce the system so that water continues to be not only saved, but used responsibly, and making sure that we plug all of the leaks and have this reservoir there for us on a daily basis, but also, should there be any seismic event it will be here for us as well. we are taking care of infrastructure and that is something that i will cherish and i want to say as the mayor of this city, that take care of business and we do it with the contractors and we do it the right way. and there is also thanks to be recognized because we are doing

it with labor and honor of the labor men and women who are here to provide the decent wages that we do, to give them a good, living salary. we have also worked with our office of economic and workforce development and our city bill project to make sure that our residents have a good shot at these jobs and so the training and the local hiring that is being done and the effort by labor and their procedures to be flexible and work with us on training our own residents to have that shot at these jobs. it is incredibly important to getting everybody involved in our infrastructure and involved in our work that we have to offer. and again, i need to thank the puc commission for their leadership and accommodating that to happen because that is another one of those very nice parts of way that we do business in the city and of course, our labor leaders are figured in very big on that. well, i am here to make sure, that's why i will be out in

front talking about our hedge hetchy and making sure that i willfully will, fully be against draining that. we will honor the rate payers and those who depend on it for generation to come. we are in sean elsburn district and i want to thank him for his years of leadership and making sure that we are fiscal responsible he has added a great mound of focus for us to keep doing what we do in the right way. but i want to end by thanking ed harrington for his wonderful years. and i know that he is trying to complete as many things as possible for his last month on the job here. and i know that he feels comfortable in having left, leaving the city in good hands and in the good processes that we have had. he has got a wonderful

foundation for having completed all of these projects. and then, we are off with mr. kelley's leadership as we start talking about the waste water system and what we need to do with red pairs, and i know that mike and todd are eager to work as a team. i'm with them on that. and to then, reeducate our public, our rate payers about what is next on the agenda. what do we have to take care of to make sure that our future is safe and our infrastructure is safe as well. so i am glad to be here and i am glad to celebrate this with our puc and all of the friends that they have. i am glad to be creating more jobs with our contractors and then putting everybody together and making sure that they know that our infrastructure is safe and we will continue to make it safe and make it workable and improving it along the way. thank you very much for being here. [ applause ] >> thank you, very much. mr. mayor. and with us, today, also is

sean eldburn, it is fitting that the first very project that we did in 2004 was in district seven and the last one that we are doing is in district 7, and in fact of the 35 projects, 15 have been done in district 7. we have torn up your streets and rearranged your businesses. but we appreciate your support as we did that. >> thank you. >> the last time that i stood on this reservoir was about 20 years ago when i was playing basketball right over there when we had the basketball courts on top of the reservoir. about ten years ago, i got my introduction to the wisp, by helicopter. do you remember that? >> harlin' and ed predecessor took me and a couple of other people on a tour of the hedge hetchy and to think that ten years here we are. i would like to thank the puc

specifically. you mentioned 15 projects, it did seem like maybe it was 30. but we got through them all and you were tremendous to the residents of the district. and you worked fantastickly with the neighborhoods in the district. anybody that i communicated with were responsive and much more importantly the residents who were right nearby any of the projects could always work with the staff on site and were always cooperative and you you really worked seamlessly with everybody here and we appreciate it and are very grateful. thank you. >> thank you very much, sean. >> we have the pleasure of having three of our five commissioners here today, also. we have our commission president ram and we have our commissioner cain and speaking next is franceska detor. >> thank you. ed and you have heard a lot about what a major milestone

this project is, the 35th project in the we sub program and it is the last and final city of san francisco project here in san francisco. so we are so excited to be celebrating that. but it is also another major milestone, but it is our general manager's last week here at the san francisco public utility commission. and i want to thank him publicly here as part of this major milestone for all of the work that he has done to serve as commission and the city, not only as general manager but as city controller for the last 27 years. thank you for your leadership and your commitment to this city and to this system. >> i want to thank everybody else who has worked on this project. not only the commissioners that are here, but our incoming general manager and all of the staff. i know that there is a lot of staff here. the engineers, the planners, the operators, everybody that

has been involved. you can't take on a project like this or a system rebuild without a lot of effort and help. and i want to give a heart-felt thank you to everybody who is here and everybody who is not here who has worked to make this project a success. so thank you so much. [ applause ] >> thank you, very much. commissioner. and as you can see, it is not just about this reservoir, today. it really is about all of the things that we have accomplished together and we appreciate that so much. one of the groups that we obviously couldn't do without is labor. who builds these things, we just announce them. who actually does all of the work? and we are pleased today to have michael terio and the puc have worked together for so long on all of these things it is a pleasure to have you here, he is the secretary treasurer of the labor trade council. [ applause ] >> this has been a wonderful program. it has brought in project after project, after project on time, under budget. it is a complex system and yet

you don't hear any complaints about service interruptions out there. maybe you have streets torn up but not about service interruptions because we have managed to bring in project after project on time and under budget. it is a great partnership between the labor unions and the city. i want to call out the labor folks, charlie, would you raise your hand? >> tony, with the sheet metal worker, and david. with the laborers. and that partnership has been formalized in an agreement that has functioned beautifully, attention all the way back to washington, d.c.. and if you want to talk about stimulus in washington, we like to talk about stimulus more than 1.7 hours of work have gone to residents of the service territory of the public utilities commission in the course of this project. 1.7 million hours of work. i don't have a total of how many homes that has saved, i don't have a total of how many braces that has put on kids. i don't have a total of how

many meals that has put on tables. but it has got to be huge. and it has got to be critical, for the survival of construction workers and the construction industry in this area. so i want to thank the city for that in a big way. one of the things that has been very innovative about this project and something that i have supported consistently for years, is a close partnership with regional service providers of preapprentice ship. that is access to apprentice ship for young people in the service territory through the jobs training and opportunity program. so they have partnered with city builds here in san francisco, you see the city build folks back there, gave them a wave. [ applause ] >> mandela and project build and young build. to channel folks into our apprenticeships that is one of the great things that a program like this, a civic program can do, it can leverage the work

that we are doing to bring folks into our trades and to start them on careers. and there are some trades that have done especially well in that regard. i think that we have to call out the plumbers who are at 30 percent of apprentice usage, actually. and the roofers who are at 27 percent at last report. and the iron workers who are 22 percent and the electricians who are 20 percent. and i also think that the laborers right now working with the public utilities commission, on developing a program for buyer regional habitat restoration are also doing something extremely innovative that is important to the future of this area. we have to do over the next few decades a lot of undoing of the damage that was done in the 19th and 20th century to the habitats in our region and that program allows that to be done by skilled workers at good wage and i thank the laborers and the public utilities commission for putting that together. finally, i am with the mayor on this, this system starts at

hedge hetchy and comes down to san francisco and should always start there and come down to san francisco. and that is the most efficient system, that is the cleanest system, that is the system that we need to have for the future and for a long time to come. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you very much michael for your support and your comments on all of the topics, thank you. >> a few more people to introduce this morning. we have mike antwo no. sorry. joint administrative committee national alliance, thank you for being here. muligan. and we have burskin and chamber and the staff includes michael krelin and todd restrum and david who is in charge of people who work in the area and julie who is the head of the

project that we have been talking about the water improvement program and here to say a few more words about that is the assistant general manager and the incoming new general manager of the puc, harlin kelley. >> well, first of all i wanted to say that it has been an honor working for ed harrington he has demonstrated great leadership and you will be a hard man to follow. also i want to acknowledge that i have been at this for fine years myself and i think that ann cain was on the commission and her and i were talking about how we can make this happen and so we have done it. we are getting real close to completing. but when i tell you when you talk about complex engineering projects, and how difficult it is, the main key is the people behind it. and i really want to give a shout out to julie labonte, the

program director with her leadership, it made things go a lot smoother and we were able to really move and advance this program. also, all of the people for infrastructure, raise your hand, those are the people who worked tirelessly to make sure that these programs and projects are finished ahead of schedule and under budget. also, you know, we talked about labor, labor is our friend. we work with labor, different trades to talk about apprentice ship programs to make sure that the communities are participating in the construction of these programs. so, i just wanted to say that it is just amazing from our helicopter ride nine years ago to see where we are today, this is just really a treat. we are still not finished, we have a couple more years before the completion of this program. but would i like to just say that it has been a great t