tv [untitled] December 3, 2012 10:30am-11:00am PST
10:30 am
is not interested. i'm having a hard enough time paying my bills. i really can't afford to make this choice, or i am just not interested. then we will be making sure that customer is aware of the opt out notifications they will receive. to the extent that we don't hear from them in reply of the opt out and we will go back and say "hey whrks we talked to you before you said you weren't interested and you haven't sent the opt out in. did it get lost on the kitchen counter?" just to make sure that folks that told us they're not interested follow through and how to say no thank you through the opt out card and again we don't want accidental customers. it's not in our interest as their neighbors or from a business perspective either. there will
10:31 am
be other residential customers who will be likely hearing about the cleanpower sf program and they might say even though we're not on their front porch and that is great and we will add them to the list of customers who will receive the opt out notice. there are those from the group they will say "i heard about this and i don't want it". okay we hear you. you're not part of target group and there is a mention of it in the data base. >> we have a question. >> thank you. i'm in the same section you're talking about on the notification piece and i wanted to comment on the new emerging demographic that we all recognized from the last election that i think has huge
10:32 am
potential to be participants and be excited about this program and young communities of color and different kinds of communities that before hadn't been as engaged, and it seems like a way to engage and educate those communities that really around social media, and i saw in here there is a big focus working with cbo's and operating their networks, but i would love to see something in here that social media is going to be maximized, what that looks like, whatever the plan is and i know for me and i'm not the emerging demographic and i'm not home much but to reach that constituency we have to maximize the tools which they respond to. i would love to see that as part of the plan. >> all right. we will highlight that more. we have a website.
10:33 am
you're certainly aware of the public utilities commission twitter and facebook and other social media activities and cleanpower sf will certainly be engaging in all of those activities. i think maybe it could be highlighted better in the budget section certainly where we're talking about how we're funding some of this media and outreach. it might be lumped a little too much under online advertising and social media is a tool we love to use. it's one of the least expensive approaches and it's a great leveraging tool too. >> are we also looking at -- this is really like a field campaign. we've just come out of election season in san francisco. there are a lot of resources around doing field campaigns. are there folks hired as consultants or organizations that do a lot of outreach especially to
10:34 am
communities of color that are involved in that outreach? >> yeah, that is all part of the community based organization and outreach we're looking at, and i absolutely want the folks that are representing our program to san francisco residents to be able to -- be reflective of the community they're talking to, so that's part of our focus, and what we will be working with are communications consultants on making sure we achieve. >> who is the communications consultant again? >> the commission authorized us to contract on a limited basis with davis and associates. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. >> commissioner vietor do you have another -- >> no, i'm done. >> commissioner olague. >> yes, i guess that is concerning to me actually.
10:35 am
>> okay. >> i just am not sure how much experience consulting groups have working directly with communities of color and low income communities and seniors and more disenfranchised groups so i think the social media works for a certain sector and even a certain generation and maybe a certain -- what's word? demographic within a certain range, right, but i think sometimes lower income people have less i think there is still a digital divide that is very real in san francisco. one of the issues that we started taking up a little bit at planning was the issue of outreach and how does one really engage more effectively with those more disenfranchised communities or communities of color, people who language and age and this sort of thing, so
10:36 am
i just think that's something that has to be really seriously looked at because i think we fail on a lot of levels, and one of the things we looked at when i was a member of the mission coalition we tried to popularize planning language so people who -- because sometimes what is so i guess challenging is that the language that explain some of these very valuable concepts is still very kind of lofty or like i said popularizing the language, so i guess that is critical when doing some of this outreach and that sort of thing to make sure that the language is such that it's, you know, accessible and it's meaningful, and i think that -- that is where a lot of cbo's and people that work in the community were
10:37 am
successful doing the outreach with land use and we had to break down the language -- i'm not suggesting people don't have the capacity to understand language that is more lofty and for any person regardless of educational background sometimes it's a turn off and there has to be a way to be sensitive to that because we fail in our attempts to do effective outreach to communities who i think are disenfranchised. that's all. >> supervisor, just to highlight the point that we do have davis and associates, but as we look at the makeup of the team if there is additional -- >> they're brilliant and great and everything but they're land use. seems to me -- i don't associate them working directly with low income communities of color certainly. >> what resources they don't
10:38 am
have under their contract what we will have them do is supplement and add resources to their team to accomplish that. >> it will be interesting to see how that works. >> yes. we will define what resources -- >> they're great at what they do but i don't know if they're the group that i associate working effectively with low income residents of color. >> i agree with you. >> and we're talking about the targeted areas and the areas on the heat map and consist of a particular type of outreach as well. we're looking at retention rate of 37% across the whole city. is that what i read? >> yeah 37 in the last survey. >> across the whole city. what are we looking at as retention rates in the target areas to gain through the initial outreach effort, the initial enrollment effort?
10:39 am
>> yeah, i think the -- if memory serves me it's in -- like 47 to 52% in the deepest green areas. more than half the folks in the areas -- >> which is close to the retention rate that we measured for the tier one customers? >> yeah, right; right. and so by the second quarter -- by the end of june we will have completed these activities and be in a position to ask our commission to decide the final size of the program because we will have completed the survey and the early notification and really begin to form a list of very active and interested customers, and that's what we expect to make the final call on the
10:40 am
overall program size in june, so then we move on to the third and fourth quarter activities which go to the largely the state required opt out portion. the state requires that four opt out mailers be sent to each customer that we intend to include in our cleanpower sf program. we will be in a position then as we talked before to know what the actual price is, not the not to exceed rate, but the actual wholesale price from shell that becomes our actual rate. we will be able to share with customers the actual price premium that they would experience knowing how much they typically consume at their household each month. it's at
10:41 am
this point that we will have signed the confirmation with shell. we will then be at this point financially obligated under this program. the opt out mailers then will begin to be sent with this detail. we will do multi-language, english, chinese, spanish. we will have customers able to opt out respond to us via snail mail or email. we will make sure that we meet the minimum requirements of the law, which is two of the notifications must be mailed before service occurs, and then two of the notifications must be mailed after service has occurred within a 60 day boundary before and 60 day boundary after, so customers will know from us what we think
10:42 am
their bill experience will be. customers who don't opt out after the first two notifications and get enrolled in the program see their first bill and decide they don't want to be part of the program will then receive again -- again they will receive an opt out notification and tell us no thank you at that point. they can call, let us know by various means that they want out, and throughout this time period we will be utilizing broadcast media, social media, broadcast media to make sure folks are aware. it's not just a quiet piece of mail that shows up at their home. it's going to be a full campaign here in the city, television, out door, advertising, newspaper, social media. our goal is really to reach as many people as possible throughout san francisco by
10:43 am
repetition of this message, so no one that you bump into will say "i have no idea what you're talking about". >> president torres. >> yes ms. hale i wanted to go along the comments by the current chair and supervisor olague as well. part of the challenge we with with the stem cell industry is put in plain language the consent form and one of those experiences that we just had was with a young lady, who i can talk about now because she went public, one of the spinal cord injuries in the stem cell trial was that the medical language was so complex in the consent form that it needed to be improved so someone couldn't come back later and say "this patient was under emotional
10:44 am
distress and of course they choose to because they didn't know what the consequences and side effects are" and this is not as serious as that, but it begs the question to make sure that the language is understandable english and in addition i don't think you're limiting the mailers just to the three languages of chinese, english and spanish; right? >> no, i don't think so. >> so you're including whatever languages are used by the city and county of san francisco in the distribution of election ballots for example? >> yes, as long as they're represented in the deep green district, yes. >> so you're going to have the mailers regionalized by language and geography and demographics? >> yes. >> all right. thank you. >> any other questions?
10:45 am
>> commissioner moran. >> thank you chair. we received correspondence suggesting in our effort to fully inform everybody what opt out means that we're getting close to a opt in program that would violate state law, and i assume that we have looked at what the limits are that the law imposes on us. would you elaborate a little bit how what we're doing has been shaped to fit within the state law or on the other hand where is there jeopardy for us? >> so the notification and education program survey and early notification portions are the sort of the new pieces that aren't required by state law. we are using those outreach efforts, those outreach components to inform who we talk to in the actual statutory opt
10:46 am
out phase. we are not suggesting that anyone who is going to be served by cleanpower sf would not receive an opt out notification. anyone who wishes to participate can participate which sounds like opting in, but we won't enroll them after we have included them in an opt out process. so i think we have worked with the city attorney on this to make sure we are accurately understanding our obligation and that our approach is consistent with it. we think it is. and so we're not always this careful with our language as we should be, but the actual steps will be anyone who says "let me in" will receive and be included in the opt out portion of the program. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. >> can i add also the people
10:47 am
who are seen in the green area that are saying "i don't want to be in the program". they too will be included in the program? >> right. and they're receiving the same opt out required by state law and encouraged to take the right action to be outside the program, yes. >> just a similarly we have folks outside the green areas, the deep green areas you want to enroll in the program. what is the actual early plan around reaching that and they have the ability to enroll in cleanpower sf? >> yeah, so we're assuming as part of our targeted marketing we may catch folks not part of the target audience. i might be in a deep green area. someone i talk to lives outside of it. they want to be part of the program too. all they need to
10:48 am
know is let us know they want to be part of the program. we will include them then in the early phase. they will receive an opt out notice just as if they are in the deep green district. they will receive the same communication. >> first they have to reach the outreach effort. >> right. >> but in terms of reaching out -- i live in the excelsior and it's deep red but within that area there are about 20% of the population -- we consider opting in or enrolling in the program. >> yes. >> so is there a plan in terms of reaching that population in the early notification effort? >> so not in the early notification phase, but during -- not intentionally i should say. we are going to be very intensal and targeted to the dean green areas during the early notification. we expect
10:49 am
we will still through community based organization work, through word of mouth be communicating with folks who aren't in deep green, so those folks will not show up on our opt out mailing list unless they come to us, so it's really the degree of proactivity. we're being active and engaging with deep green locations. other parts of the city that wish to participate in the program are going to need to reach out to us and then we will engage with them. >> okay. that is something our offices can help us. certainly we have our own ways of getting the word out or on social media efforts. i think as we're going through that phase and late summer perhaps we could be part of that effort and join folks from different parts of san francisco not in the deep green areas that want to participate. >> sounds good. >> can i add in the green areas
10:50 am
it's a higher success rate for people staying in the program and at the end of the day what we would like to have is in the green area making sure that whatever we buy that we have enough customers to actually sell the power, and so the great thing about is that now we know in other areas where there might want be a large percentage, but at least we know if people choose to start opting out we have a waiting list, because we want to be financially responsible making sure that we can sell the power that we bill, so another thing we're identifying is businesses, so we want to have a big waits list and so when we determine the size that's what we're taking into consideration as well, and not only focusing on the green areas but looking at the notification who is interested
10:51 am
in the red areas and put that on the waiting list so we take all of that into consideration. >> so the first group of participants to be enrolled in the program and stay in the program are going to be in the green areas and second early the people out of that. >> >> on a wait list to join the program once we have a set number of customers that we know what our program is going to be in the deep green areas. >> correct, and the best thing could be that we have too many customers for the amount of power, and we have a waiting list. >> okay. >> hi there. juliet ellis, manager for external affairs. i wanted to clarify during the early education program before the official launch of clean power the focus for the door knocking and the phone banking activities include the
10:52 am
partnerships both with community based organizations in deep green district like the mission and bernal heights and south of market has deep green areas for example so we will join the board of supervisors and other stakeholders to identify who are the appropriate community based organizations that can supplement direct outreach door to door and phone banking based on their expertise but there is a priority to do general education about the clean power program so that includes putting inserts into people's water bills throughout the san francisco service area, so supervisor avalos that's how we would reach you or folks that are not part of the deep green part and when you open the water bill you can read about the clean power program and reach out to us and even if you're
10:53 am
not in the deep green area you can reach out when the official program launches. i just wanted to clarify that piece. >> thank you. >> so that brings us then to the re-cap of activities for the third and fourth quarters, so july time frame we will have the shell master agreement signed. august we will be determining whether the puc should sign the confirmation with shell and once again that is when we become financially obligated at approximately $38 million a year during the sales period of 4.5 years. the statutory opt out notices would be sent then in mid-august for the first one and the second in mid-september. opt out -- the program launchs in october and then we do the final two opt out notices in
10:54 am
november and december. all of that has the wrap around multi-media components that we have been talking about, social media, advertising, word of mouth, all those efforts are under way throughout that time frame. so then let's take a minute with what that is going to cost. our final slide addresses the cost components by the periods we're in. early notification, statutory opt out period with community outreach with the broadcast cast media. on the bottom are the two polls we're are expecting to conduct for total 1.4 million in expenditures over this year, this coming year. that completes by formal presentation. i am happy to take any other questions. >> colleagues, commissioners,
10:55 am
any comments or questions? i know we have asked many already. seeing none i have one -- commissioner vietor. >> sorry. yeah, i had a question just about the davis and associates contract and just to refresh my memory because i know we took this up at our puc meeting and we had a robust discussion around the scope of activities and we really wanted to hear from them and this goes to the supervisor's comments about their focus and their sweet spot if you will, but really to hear back, sort of cap the initial contract with them to -- so they are able to provide a more robust plan and meet the issues raised today and their plan for roll out and education to the various communities and addressing some of the issues around language so it's not jargon like and
10:56 am
simplified and these pieces that we talked about in depth at our commission meeting and can you refresh us to the terms are? isn't that what they're doing and come back and this is the bull budget once we get that first piece of work done with them, correct? >> right. so what we were hoping is that after today's presentation you have a higher comfort level with what this whole plan looks like opposed to hearing about it in pieces. you have the full plan that you would be comfortable at our next commission meeting releasing the balance of the funding and allowing us to go forward with that contractor. the commission had limited us to $100,000 early task order with davis and associates. that allows -- has allowed us to consult with them in putting this program together. that allows us to
10:57 am
begin the work to be able to launch the poll in january that we talked about here, so hopefully with this fuller conversation and description and the written plan itself that you have before you will feel comfortable with action -- not at this meeting but at the next meeting of the public utilities commission to release funds. we're not asking you to release the funds today. we're asking the public utilities commission to endorse the overall framework of this plan. >> thank you. >> great. commissioner olague. >> i wanted to thank you for all of your work again and for answering these questions that i know you have had some influence over, but it's not your entire -- it's not all of you -- all of the decisions made around outreach haven't been on you. >> no, not at all. i'm not the
10:58 am
outreach person. >> thank you for being gracious in how you responded, but basically we do have city policies again where we have 100% renewable goal in the next 10 years and i think my whole intention was to make sure that this whole conversation is how we're going to reach these goals of 100% renewable energy in that time frame. >> right. >> and certainly that's why i had some concerns around making sure that the values of the cleanpower sf program are ones that are always emphasized because again this is a conversation that has been in this country really since -- for a long time, but certainly in the 70's it took on a greater level of discussion, but then the conversation sort of didn't go anywhere. i think it was
10:59 am
jimmy carter was the person person to put solar energy panels on the roof, and then i mentioned a couple of times someone named emory lovins who wrote a book "soft energy path" and took on the issues of fossil fuels and coal and sustainable wind and solar and other sources and just 30 years later we're still -- >> still plugging away. >> still at the beginning of the conversation, so for years i guess san franciscans really haven't had an opt in -- certainly not an opt out choice, and so sometimes we talk too much about opt in i get a little nervous, so anyway i thed to thank you. >> you're welcome. >> before going to public comment i have one other question and that is we ce
99 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
SFGTV: San Francisco Government TelevisionUploaded by TV Archive on
![](http://athena.archive.org/0.gif?kind=track_js&track_js_case=control&cache_bust=1441534764)