>> next item. >> briefing from mayor's deputy legislative director on city lobbyist process and protocol. speaker is kelly pretzer, deputy director for state and federal legislative affairs. informational report and discussion item. >> thank you, monica. just quick background. it was back in april when our policy committee was asked to consider a resolution in support of an assembly bill dealing with producer responsibility for marine plastic pollution. when we had the hearing on this matter, we discovered that our city lobbyist was already on it and already working to support this bill, which what news, but we weren't exactly sure how that happened. we found out it was our staff that requested the support. some of us thought it would be great to have a quick little briefing and also to meet kelly and quick briefing on the process by which item are determined appropriate for the lobbyists to carry them and then also maybe a word about

how we as a commission can become involved in that process. so,ing welcome, kelly pretzer. >> all right. thank you. good evening, president arce, members of the commission. really pleased to be here tonight. my name is kelly pretzer. i am deputy director of the legislative affairs in the mayor's office and i'm primarily responsible for handling state and federal legislative affairs on behalf of the city. and if you'll indulge me for a moment, quoting section of the san francisco charter, section 3.1, which among many other things is clear that the mayor has responsibility for coordination of all inter and governmental activities of the city and county. it was under that authority that i operate. and then stepping a little more into the administrative code, article 3 section 5.5 specifically delineates how the city weighs in on state legislative issues. article 3 creates what's called

the state legislation committee or slc, a fun lick factoid article was put in place in 1939. so, the state legislation committee is not a new thing. with the legislation committee is chaired by the mayor, comprised by two members of the board of supervisors, appointed by the president of the board of supervisors. the controller, the assessor, the treasurer, and the city attorney. or any of their designees or representatives. currently the two members of the board that sit on the state legislation committee are president david chiu as well as supervisor mark farrell. the state legislation committee meets at a regularly scheduled meeting monthly on the second wednesday of each month at 11:00 a.m. in city hall. our next meeting is august 14th at 11:00 a.m. in city hall room 201. this meeting is open to the public, publicly noticed with an agenda and noticed 72 hours before each meeting.

state legislation committees, state legislation committee meetings, those overarching state legislative agendas as well as specific legislative proposals are considered. and i'll go into what both of those are. generally in the earlier months of the year, january and february before the state legislation really kicks into gear, departments like the department of the environment will bring forward an overarching policy agenda for the committee to consider and hopefully endorse. so, these are general statements of policy. they're not reactive to a specific bill or proposal, but things that in any circumstance the department would like to see done. most departments do this. some of the larger proposals come from our department of public health. our human services agency. and those agencies that have most interaction with state legislators. in addition, as the year moves on and particularly around march and april when we get to

see all of the ideas that have been percolating with our state legislators, departments will bring forward specific legislative proposals and in the circumstance that you described, commissioner gravanis, they bring forth a specific bill and recommend that the legislation committee take up a commission of either support or oppose. ~ take a position we consider generally between 10 and 20 bills at each meeting. so, over the course of a year, we have quite a few positions on a number of bills. the administrative code is very clear that only the state legislation committee can speak on behalf of the city and county of san francisco. so, if you look at any legislative analysis, any stand or support or oppose [speaker not understood], you can guarantee that item has gone through the state legislation committee process. the second part of your question, commissioner, was, then, how does the city's lobbyist in sacramento then follow through on those

recommendations. the mayor's office retains the services of a lobbyist in san francisco to advocate for those items that have been considered and acted on by the state legislation committee. so, that is a very clear direction that the city now has an official position of support or oppose and it gives all lobbyists then clear direction as to what we'd like to see happen in sacramento whenever they might be asked. how does the city feel about x or y. it's very clear and transparent. currently our lobbyist in sacramento is the firm shaw yoder antwee. communication with lead advocate paul yoder and provide input from other city department, city staff. while we do have single [speaker not understood] designated to be our key point of contact, we have multiple advocates from the firm working on myriad of issues. they cover every issue for us whether it be health care

reform implementation, economic initiatives or environmental issues. our lobbyists will send us any news or information that they might have heard throughout their day in sacramento. and then i quickly field that information out to relevant departments. and then, of course, the situation happens where departments will receive news and information from their colleagues in sacramento and we ask departments to keep me, to keep the mayor's office in the loop so that we can direct our lobbyists most effectively. it's just information sharing. it's really key to ensuring we're all in the same message and advocating most effectively. that covers our state issues, but i also work on federal legislative issues. unfortunately there is not a federal legislation committee. maybe didn't want to bite off too much in 1939. stay focused on the state. however, the process can sometimes be very similar, at least when we think about overarching legislative agendas. in december or january of each year, i reach out to each

department and ask for them to put forward a sort of federal legislative platform or a list of federal legislative priorities. while those priorities don't go through a legislative committee process like they do for state priorities, they are compiled into a single document which then becomes the city and county's federal legislative platform for the year. similar to state issues, we do retain the services of a lobbyist in washington, d.c. to advocate on our behalf. currently the firm is holland and knight and our lead advocate there is a woman named eve o'tool who has represented city for many years. similar to state issues, that fluid information sharing that i described is critical is making sure that the city's priorities are most effectively advocated for. and with that, that's a brief overview on state and federal legislative issues and the process behind that and happy to answer any questions you might have. >> thank you, kelly. bureau chief we go to

commissioner josefowitz, any questions, thoughts, comments from our sponsor, commissioner gravanis? >> thank you, that was really informative, something we should have known a long long time. it was a clear presentation. thanks very much. >> commissioner josefowitz. >> thanks very much, that was interesting. i just had a few questions. and the first one was how can we be more help as a commission, more helpful to you in your work as you sort of take san francisco's position up to sacramento or to washington on environmental issues? >> certainly. i think that one of the best, most clear ways that the commission can is by resolutions of policy and policy statements. and those clear directions about what it is you'd like to see and see done. provide clear direction to the staff, but also to me in understanding what exactly your

priorities are. so, really encourage the commission to do -- you already do that's correct but to continue to do that. it's very helpful. >> and is there any way that we can be helpful personally in sacramento, sort of going up and sort of, you know, i don't know, sort of advocating ourselves on behalf of any of the legislation we consider in committee, is that something we kind of toyed with a few times as how we can maybe be a bit more proactive about that. we obviously don't want to do anything that would interfere with your carefully crafted plan. >> absolutely. once a bill has gone through the state legislation committee process, in some ways we are free to -- once we have that clear direction from the committee, we are free to advocate as strongly as we can for the city's position. so, once it's made it through that clear process and the city's position is clearly stated, yes is the short answer. please, we look for all the

help we can get in putting forward san francisco's priorities. >> great. i mean, i think based on some conversations we've had previously, i think that would be something some of us might be quite interested in assisting on. i guess another question that i have is how are the priorities prioritized? because, you know, having minimal amount of experience in sacramento, you know, you can either just sort of sign your name at the bottom as a supporter or oppose list. or one can actually go and sort of push things and talk to legislators and try and sort of inform the staff. i was wondering has that happened. >> sure, in some ways we look to departments to do a little bit of that prioritization themselves. there are only so many legislative proposals and certainly the more pieces of legislation the city takes a position on in some ways that might dilute the city's effectiveness or the city's voice. so, i think that department

staff and particularly to director [speaker not understood] do a wonderful job of really making sure that it's a make or break critical pieces of legislation that go through. so, i know that if it's coming to my desk, this is really, really important and something that requires my attention. i do also think, when thinking about the overarching legislative agendas, in some ways those are more -- i use this term a little bit loosely, but more of a reference document. it's the first place that i go when someone asks me what the city might think about an issue is to say, well, the department has already done the cataloging of its primary issues. let's see if it's addressed in there and get some early immediate direction. so, in that way more is better to kind of give us a better reference point when understanding the department's priorities. >> and then my final question is when we were discussing one of the bills in policy committee, we were sort of unclear as to the best process

by which we could express our support for a portion of the bill, but maybe not for the whole thing or maybe those a bit we thought might get amended, was really critical and we would want to not support it if it was amend or something like that. we don't have a hugely sort of quick turn around because we meet infrequently. so, i was wondering how on the very practical level we could best sort of communicate that to you or to the city's lobbyist. >> absolutely. a couple of suggestions there. while the state legislation committee does meet once a month, we have been known particularly in april and may when things move very quickly to throw in an additional meeting. so, that's something we do to make that body even more reactive and proactive hopefully. so, in that way department staff has greater opportunities to have that official county and city stamp on an item. but we also have been known to take positions that are a little bit more nuanced than

just support or oppose and in particular the department of the environment has been really great about picking out the critical pieces. like you've said, if we lose this piece of the bill, then it becomes far less important to us. or support, we like where this bill is going, but request additional amendments. here's how we could make it better. so, in that way we could be a little bit more creative about the types of positions that we take and can be a little bit more prescriptive to give that leeway to react to the legislative process which sometimes can be a bit unpredictable. >> great, thank you very much. that was tremendously informative. and thank you for the good work you did. >> thank you, kelly. thank you very much. any members of the public like to comment on this item? seeing none, thank you again, kelly. [gavel] >> next item, please, monica. >> clean power s.f. program update. speakers kim malcolm, clean power s.f. san francisco public

utilities commission. this is a discussion and possible action item. >> and really quickly, colleagues, thank you. malcolm for being here. we have a new commissioner, relatively new commissioner and we've been working on this program, staying on top of it, becoming aware and there was interest from a number of us on the commission to hear the status of the program, to have a check-in, and to find out more of what's the status and where things are at going into what we know is a decision that's before the san francisco public utilities commission next tuesday. so, thank you very much for being with us tonight. >> thank you for having me. i'm pleased to be here. i was able to brief your policy committee i believe in may at

hauled's invitation. actually a number of things have happened since may. ~ commissioner wald i want to give you a history on a program, which is quite long for a program that hasn't been launched yet. and tell you about the kinds of policy issues we've been trying to address recently and where we're at right now. okay. i understand, monica, over to the left, the one that's on. we'd like to show the powerpoint presentation now. while we're doing that, you do have the paper copy of my briefing before you and we can start that.

if you look at the third slide, the board of supervisors approved clean power s.f. as part of a bigger energy strategy in 2004, and that energy strategy was intended to pursue the city's commitment to reducing greenhouse gases, to develop local -- okay. i think mine is not loaded here. so, i'll just try to be clear for the audience. to develop local renewable energy resources, increase conservation and energy efficiency projects, and support the local economy with jobs from a build out of local energy resources. and then there was a lot of work done between 2004 and september 2012 when the board

of supervisors approved the, i should say authorized the general managers' signature on a contract with shell energy of north america. that contract would identify shell or cnet as the city's procurement agent for about 30 megawatts of power on california's energy market. at the same time, the board of supervisors -- sorry -- approved of several program elements and pretty much gave us the go ahead to implement the program. where we're at today is we do have a program design and i've been working on it for the last four months since i joined the commission. and what we need right now in order to move -- >> i'm going to ask you to pause for just one moment.

commissioner king had a question. >> sure. >> well, a couple things. if we can't get the powerpoint going, then we should at least -- if that thing can just pick up the page -- >> the pictures. >> right. you should put the page on the projector. and the other thing is if we're going through by paper, you need to say which page number you're on because i'm getting confused. >> okay, sorry. >> i know, but i was on page 3. see, i was confused. see, i have to say that -- i have to say it for all the people who may not be courageous enough to admit their limitations. >> you can just put it on the document camera. >> all right, at least we can

have something for people to look at. >> thank you. thank you. >> thank you. >> yes. so, as i was saying, currently we have developed the program design that is hopefully responsive to the concerns and the ideas we've heard from our public officials which includes our own commission, lafco, members of this commission, and our rate fairness board. as well as the board of supervisors. today the program is designed to provide 100% renewable product to all clean power sf customers, renewable by the california public utilities commission standards. and we are planning to initiate work on our local buildout at launch. we're doing planning and work on that right now which i can explain a little more in a few minutes. as i mentioned, we have a contract with shell energy of north america for 20 to 30

megawatts of power. and something that i've been working on very hard in the last month or so is an investigation of whether we can be buying power in-house with expertise we already have. san francisco puc already scheduled and delivers about 240 megawatts of power to municipal and other customers every year, adding -- adding 10 or 20 megawatts would not be a big change in what they're doing. it's a matter of conducting some risk assessment and figuring out the best way to do that on behalf of the city. i also think i should tell you that we believe we could serve the program with hetch hetchy power at least four months out of most years and we're doing some analysis of that internally as well. and finally because the shell

contract has been quite controversial for some, we've asked shell to investigate whether it could provide us a portfolio that would be -- from resources that are greenhouse gas free, all hydro, and all wind, all california, and all unionized facilities. and they're working on that. i think they're actually pretty close. they can't give me any confirmation until we're actually in our final discussions about the contract and we actually have a way and plan to move ahead. as you probably already know, we intend to serve 80 to 90,000 small residential users in the first phase of the program, and we would target areas of the community where we know from customer surveys that there's the highest level of interest and support for the program. in fact, i thought i should mention that we had a lot of

support in a lot of san francisco communities even when our rate was almost -- proposed rate was almost twice as high as pg&e's. it's no longer that high and i'll explain that in a minute. because we had a rate originally that was higher than pg&e initially, we designed the program to not include customers, low-income customers that are subscribers of pg&e's care discount program. they could opt in, they could join the program voluntarily, but we wouldn't require them to opt in. we want all of those customers and we'll be conducting customer outreach in those -- in low-income communities and among some commercial customers, but they won't be subject to an opt-out initially. finally, we have a very extensive customer outreach

program that is intended to educate customers about their opportunities to opt out about the different program components. we actually want people to understand that they have two choices. one being clean power sf and the other being pg&e. if they don't want to be with our r, we want them to opt out. they'll have plenty of opportunities to do that. four by mail. any customer can always go online and opt out, or call us and opt out. or look at us with a phone and we'll probably help them out that way, too. in fact, the department of the environment staff is going to help us with the customer outreach that -- in a program that we've -- that we're designing with them to go into neighborhoods. do you have any questions about that?

>> commissioner king on the -- that's from the last one. you didn't erase. >> i'm sorry. are you about would you say halfway through or do you want us to wait until your conclusion? >> it's fine with me. i'm halfway through. >> okay. commissioner josefowitz has a question. >> so, when you say the sfpuc is buying power itself, could you maybe explain a bit more what that means and how it relates to the shell contract and all that stuff? because i'm not entirely clear how that would work. >> sure. the way the shell contract was originally envisioned by the staff was that shell would basically buy, sell, schedule all power for the program, up to 30 megawatts. there are two ways we could do

that a little bit differently that we've been talking about internally. we could, for example, reduce the shell contract a little bit by some portion and buy the net short ourselves, schedule it, create a portfolio for that small amount of power, and have shell go ahead and schedule -- buy and sell the power within the contract amounts, the contract [speaker not understood]. or we could take all scheduling and management decisions in-house and treat shell as a -- as one supplier in a portfolio, just a power supply, not an energy manager. we're analyzing that internally and we are getting some help from a consultant who has expertise in this area as well. >> would the second option require sort of a new contract

with shell? >> a new contract? >> yeah. would it be -- it would sort of [speaker not understood] in the existing contractual structure? >> well, it would require some modifications to the contract, but not -- >> the new contract? >> not dramatically, no, it wouldn't be a new contract. and we haven't discussed this with them with very much detail or depth. it's just options we're looking at. >> and, so, do you think that's something that could be kicked off? is that -- it's option to basically getting rid of shell? is that kind of the -- or and you could procure all the power independently of shell if you wanted to? >> no -- well, at this point we're not talking about abandoning the shell contract. we're just talking about taking on a bigger role in managing energy decision making and

portfolio development in-house. >> i have a follow-up question on that. and would that enable you to lower -- will that change the cost of the program? and specifically, if you took some of those actions in-house, would it enable you to deliver the electricity, the power at an even lower rate than the one that you are currently thinking about? >> my first assessment is that it would. not just because the shell price would be lower, and it should be because we would be getting the same level of service from them. but also because we would be able to purchase market -- market resources that are less expensive than what's in the shell contract. and hopefully for several months of the year, at least that would include hetch hetchy

power. and, of course, if clean power sf purchased hetch hetchy power, it would be after all water commitments are satisfied, all other contract commitments are satisfied, and at a price that makes the city a little better off. or at least indifferent. those are the terms i'm thinking of doing that in. >> commissioner yuan. >> i just have two quick questions. the first part, you mentioned the initial launch to target neighborhoods in the first phase. how many different phase you have and how many neighborhoods in each phase? i'm new to this. just trying to get more information. >> that's a very good question. i can get you a copy of our heat map which shows the neighborhoods where we think we would be most welcome and they tend to be in the central part of the city. coincidentally are not where there are a lot of apartments and small users, which makes it

an expensive group to serve because it's a small amount of kilowatt hours per account and we pay some cost by account. so, we wanted to -- we wanted to be in neighborhoods where there's most confidence about this product and program. >> i see. second part in terms of community hours, i'm new to this, but i heard a lot about it, did some research. i've been going to committee events, our constituents in chinatown, especially those that live in single room occupancy, it's really hard to reach out to them through internet or by mailing maybe. a lot of contra specific education on this population to help them understand what is going on and what are their choices and what department do you have to reach out to these kind of communities? >> yes, good question. we've gone out and made dozens of presentations already to

explain the program at neighborhood association meetings mostly around the cities. there is one tonight, in fact. we do have chinese speakers, spanish speakers, people who have some connections in specific communities and we're hoping to do better when we're working with the department of the environment in a more sort of deliberative and targeted structured customer outreach canvassing effort. >> yes, i remember one time i actually translated for one of -- a canvas worker in the chinatown fair. i think it's important to find a bilingual and [speaker not understood] worker to reach out to the community. >> we have those people on our staff now who are helping us. >> can toe knees speaking? >> i presume cantonese. i'm not sure. i can find out. >> if you give me more information, i'll be happy to help. >> thank you. >> that will be a good one to find out, mayb