[gavel]

>> okay. colleagues, we are back in open session. and closed session on 6 to 5 vote, we selected our preferred candidate and on unanimous 11-0 vote selected our secondary candidate. we also discussed terms of offer that will be negotiated and vetted by the personnel committee. the items that are the terms of the agreement we'll talk about will include goal setting, review process, a six-month and 12-month review process, a review of other departments to check in on how the candidate or the new executive director will be performing involving an executive coach, and also using the standard employment verification moving forward. and we expect to have a personnel committee next

tuesday on the 17th to fully vet those items. and the chair will be working on negotiating those terms of agreement. they'll come before the full transportation authority board on september 24th for final approval. colleagues, any other comments on discussion? and seeing none, madam clerk, do we have any other items before us? >> no, item 7 adjournment. >> we are adjourned. [gavel] visit us at

sfgovtv.org and click on buzz, thanks for watching. >> hey there, san francisco, here with the weekly buzz, it is september, and you know what that means? it is summer time in san francisco. you want to burn some calories while enjoying the great views enjoy a work out this friday, they are different each week and exist with the work outs including running hill and core, and be ready to feel the burn, after your work out, recharge with the healthy goodies from the farmer's market. this saturday, will feature a free cooking demo and check out the class at eleven and rock out with treats and recipes. >> the 33rd annual comedy day is the event for you, laugh your socks off with a full line

up of 40 comedian and this free, five hour comedy show is the biggest biggest day of the year in san francisco so don't miss it, and that is the weekly buzz, for more information on any of these events, visit

[gavel]these events, visit >> good afternoon, welcome to the board of supervisors meeting tuesday, september 10, 2013. madam clerk, can you please call the roll? >> yes, mr. president. supervisor avalos? avalos present. supervisor breed? breed present. supervisor campos? campos absent. supervisor chiu? >> here. >> chiu present. supervisor cohen? cohen present. supervisor farrell? farrell present. supervisor kim? kim present. supervisor mar? mar present. supervisor tang? tang present. supervisor wiener? wiener absent. supervisor yee? yee present.

supervisor campos? campos present. mr. president, you have a quorum. >> thank you. ladies and gentlemen, could you please join us in the pledge of allegiance? i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands; one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all . >> madam clerk, any communications? >> i have no communications, mr. president. >> and could you read our 2:00 p.m. special order? >> the first item of business is the policy discussion between mayor edwin lee and members of the board of supervisors. this week representing the odd districts, specifically districts 1, 3, 5, 9, and 11. the mayor may address the board initially for up to five minutes. the president will recognize the supervisor who will present their own questions to the mayor, follow-up questions are in order as long as the entire discussion does not exceed five minutes per supervisor. >> thank you, madam clerk.

i want to welcome back the mayor for our september question time. if you have any opening comments, i'd like to hear them. >> thank you, president chiu. and good afternoon, members of the board of supervisors. good afternoon to our public for joining us this afternoon. i know we have quite a few questions to get through today, but i wanted to first take a moment to thank all of the first responders for their quick and coordinated work to fight the california rim fire. there were thousands of firefighters on the ground over the past few weeks battling the third largest fire in california's history and helping to protect our city's assets. and i want to offer my sincere thanks to the men and women who risk their lives to stop this fire. i also want to thank all of the staff of the san francisco public utilities commission who took all available steps to ensure that san francisco's water and power supply continued uninterrupted despite the great threats to our facilities in the sierra. from general manager harlan kelly to all of the staff, you

kept our water system safe and for that we are all very thankful. even now as we're here today at question time, the public utilities commission are upstairs getting an update on the many months and significant work ahead to restore and repair our sierra water and power facilities. san francisco is lucky to have some of the best, brightest and most prepared city employees for situations just like this. i also want to thank supervisor mark farrell for his leadership as acting mayor during the time and i want to thank you, supervisor farrell. for that, let's get started with the questions. >> thank you. why don't we hear from our first colleague, supervisor mar from district 1. >> thank you for being here, mr. mayor. as you know, san francisco has set ambitious goals and i thank you for your strong leadership also in ambitious goals and implementing our climate change efforts in the city. in many ways, our city is making incredible strides in

this direction from increasing bicycling to pursuing zero waste goals to hiring our new excellent environmental policy advisor to you, roger kim, who has a strong background in environmental justice and community engagement. however, the public utilities commission has repeatedly failed to set rates for clean power sf, the most impactful local proposal yet designed to cut and curb our carbon emissions. this program was adopted by the board of supervisors, the legislative body of the city. however, there are some allegations that your office is stalling its implementation. what specifically are you doing as the city's head executive to implement our clean power sf policy in a timely fashion? >> thank you, supervisor mar, for asking this first question in a series of questions all on the same topic. i know that many members of the board of supervisors are upset about the san francisco public utilities commission's recent vote to reject proposed rates for the community choice aggregation. the fact that all of this

month's questions focus on ccas, an indication of the level of attention that all of us are paying to this important topic. i'll do my best to answer each of your specific questions without repeating myself. let me start, supervisor mar, by addressing your comment that the san francisco public utilities commission has repeatedly failed to set rates for the community choice aggregation. the puc's primary charter mandated duties are to protect the rate payers and ensure clean drinking water for 2-1/2 million bay area customers, collect and treat wastewater and stormwater in san francisco, and deliver power for the municipal needs of the city and county of san francisco. this obligation to the rate payers and the fulfillment of these core charter responsibilities which i know all five commissioners take very seriously is the overriding concern they have when faced with any issue. after getting lobbied very hard

by advocates and members of this board to approve a program, the commissioners ultimately decided that the proposed rates for the community choice aggregation weren't a deal for san francisco. here's why i think they made that decision. as you know, supervisor, that the program they were asked to approve was very different from the variety of programs that the board of supervisors authorized over the years, including in 2007 and most recently in 2012. in september of 2012, when the board authorized our san francisco public utilities commission to enter into a contract with shell oil, the program that was in front of you included 95% renewable energy mix on day one. this included many hundreds of megawatts of energy that's called firmed and shaped. this means truly green electrons produced by truly green power sources that make

their way to san francisco to power our city. this is what a green power program should look like. through a combination of truly green power, mostly produced right here in california, san francisco's cca would have made great progress towards our city's shared environmental goals. but that's not the deal with the shell oil that the puc commission just rejected. the program that they said no to included only 25% true renewable energy. this is a serious degradation of the environmental benefits. the san francisco public utilities commission took a look at the deal that the staff had negotiated with shell and the commissioners decided that using 75% renewable energy credits or recs did not provide the green benefits this board of supervisors had repeatedly insisted upon. recs, as you know, supervisor, are like certificates. they can be traded from one

wall street speculator to another. they derive their value from commodity trading just like stocks. by the time those recs reach our community choice aggregation program, their environmental benefits are far removed. we're not even sure whether we can achieve any greenhouse gas savings from recs. we'd be dependent upon shell oil to help us reach our city's climate goals. and this certainly doesn't help reduce greenhouse gas emissions here in san francisco. this is all to say the public utilities commission did its job, protecting the rate payers when it made a fair and informed decision that the environmental benefits of cca had degraded so significantly. supervisor, that's not defying the board of supervisors. in fact, the city attorney, dennis herrera's office [speaker not understood] that the commission is authorized, not required or compelled, but

authorized to set rates for community choice aggregation. so, the public utilities commission took a look at the latest version of cca and said, this is not what the board adopted and this isn't good for the rate payers. i would submit that the commissioners exercised their oversight rule as an independent commission under the charter and i'd argue that protecting tax payers and rate payers is precisely what the commission exists to do. supervisor, you asked what my office is doing to support the city's clean energy goals and what we can do together. i think there's very great deal we can do and i'll detail that more in my answers in the next two questions. but i will say that we are leaders and signing a contract with a fossil fuel company in texas that forces san franciscan residents to pay more for electricity that isn't generated here and doesn't produce direct local jobs or environmental benefits doesn't measure up to what our residents deserve and expect. thank you. >> i have the next question. mr. mayor, could you please

outline your objections to the clean power s.f. program as approved last year on an 8 to 3 vote by the board of supervisors? >> thank you, board president chiu. i agreed with the majority of the public utilities commission when they asserted that the community choice aggregation program that was presented to them no longer had any direct immediate local environmental benefit. but the lack of a true climate change impact of this cca is not its only fatal flaw. it's also gotten progressively more expensive as time has gone on. back in 2007 the board insisted that a cca program would meet or beat pg&e's rate, meaning that cca power should cost 7.9 cents or less per kilowatt hour. the theory was that if we wanted to convince people to participate in a green energy program, we couldn't hit them with massive monthly bills or they'd likely opt out. that was good logic.

but over the years the costs crept up and up and up, and last year this board authorized the puc to set rates at 12.8 cents per kilowatt hour. we ran the risk of large scale opt outs, but the logic was that the environmental benefits were so strong that san francisco would vote with their wallets and absorb the increases. set aside for the moment that there would be dangerous opt out aspects of this program, i feared that such an expensive cca would run the risk of sticking mono lingual and elderly san franciscan with soaring energy bills without fair knowledge. i made those concerns known and staff recommended reducing the rate to 10.9 cents per kilowatt hour. this is still significantly above the original goals of cca to meet or beat existing energy rates. and in order to achieve these savings on the residential rates, staff had no choice but to make th