contingents and look at what the risks are there and reduce the funding from $5 million and this is a really technically challenging project but on the other hand the project has made very good progress now i believe it's pretty much been handled and as a result we reduced $3.1 million out of the contingent and same with the pipeline which has been done which is also done and contributed a million plus. now, the newer tunnel is going to require besides calaveras dam is going to require $15 million. further more i think it is the access to the size we

wanted and negotiations with san mateo and others and how we do the approach is what's going to take extra funding the transmission upgrade has been a challenging project it has changes in it it's going to require extra funding and the recapture project also the scope has changed and need $5 million we're still actually working on this project really to fine tune it and see if we can come up with a better approach so this gives you in a nutshell -- >> i have a question on the recapture project and i can't find the reference in my notes but i recall in the reconfiguration of the project there was a range of water production depending on the approach you took and it looks as though we're choosing to fund at the low end of the range and i'm wondering why that is.

>> i can't answer you that question right now i will get back to you on that but we were coming up with a different combinations if we recover this water and have to mix it and how do we -- the treatment plant and i think those combinations are the ones giving us extra design features. >> so commissioner if i can interject -- so you have to have a point of diversion and have to have a water right for that point of diversion so it's a much more complex question so we can come back into the water rights question and the recapture of water in the alameda creek. >> next meeting we'll review

the water supply contracts generally ly. >> that's correct we can have that as part of that discussion. thank you. >> so i will request to you sir is to approve this project level scope the cost and the schedule changes also direct the staff to send the report to the state as well as authorize general manager to proceed to the board of supervisors to get the funding reallocations formally approved. >> commissioners? >> mr. her ly can you come to the front? >> good afternoon sir. >> good afternoon. >> anyone else i'm sorry anyone else interested in having public comment on this item please submit a speaker card. >> my name is michael hurly the

new water resources manager let me start by clarifying commissioner moran's question the comments today are related to the rebate and there's a separate letter and response from the puc staff regarding the 10-year but again today's comments are focussed specifically on the rebate. so to give you -- with only 1 year passing since the last major rebate the commissioner is considering modification of the budget and schedule. >> the statement you have available i made a few more copies available to the secretary. >> you are going to read this

out loud. >> any objection to that that will be the order you can finish the rest of your time though. >> appreciate. do want to reiterate appreciate the staff's cooperation and support on this on the 10-year response as well as working with mr. wade and his staff on the rebate signing as well. >> thank you very much. >> happy earth day commissioner torres. >> thank you very much i have a question so there's a set of recommendations that have been presented and i'm just wondering if the puc staff general manager's office and team had a chance to look at the recommendations. >> before you arrived we had a discussion on this. this is a letter and we're going to prepare a response and come

back to the commission at a future meeting addressing each one of these issues. >> so the answers were not incorporated into the potential action that we'll be taking today? >> that is correct. we actually just received a letter this week and this is a reiteration and we can't fully address those in a comprehensive way and we'd like to develop some responses to bring back to you. >> okay and so this would not prohibit us from taking action today potentially. >> this would not prohibit you from taking action today. >> okay i just would want to make sure of that and we're being responsive. >> yeah we've been through this a couple of times and if we were to decide that there was

additional information we can always amend our filing to include that. >> you can always amend your filing at any time but today we've posted a notice of change given the public a chance to review and this is a public hearing today. >> so i'd just ask that if there's a recommendation that we amend our filing based on this letter and the response once it's been reviewed. >> that's fine. >> so to clarify we took action on this earlier right? commissioner moran would you mind restating. >> it has been fairly normal process of late as we prepare for a filing like this that bawsca comes to us with some recommendations we have almost always accepted those

recommendations and so we haven't already approved these we have to consider them there's some things just more complicated than some of the prior recommendations so i think it takes time to really review them and come forward with an appropriate recommendation to the commission. >> thank you mr. hurly for being here today there is no other public comment that i can see. yes, donna. >> i believe dr. jackson has a card. >> are we still on 11? >> yes we're on 11. >> doctor jackson good afternoon happy earth day [laughter]. >> happy earth day to you. >> i'm not here to oppose what you are looking at right now i have a question because when i see budget, then it comes to my mind that most of the times when you are talking about the budget, nothing is ever mentioned about the funds that

your department puc has been receiving from the greenhouse or the rents from the other people that is in at the college fair and i was here 2 months ago remember i asked you where was my money and i've never gotten an answer and the question was at that time was the amount of money that you have received since you have been the commission here with those funds because of the community benefit funds, and i made sure that i put here benefit funds that we had been receiving in the past was 10 percent and during that time it was just for 80 percent of the san francisco sewer age coming into the zip 94124 and i will be stating on number 12 my concerns about it again, okay?

>> thank you doctor. >> so seeing no further public comment on item number 11 is there a motion or did we already get it moved and seconded? it's been moved and seconded. no other public comment i'll call for a vote all those in favor please signify by saying aye the item carries. >> members of the public will have 3 minutes to comment on items 12 through 16 correct. >> that's correct. item 12 public hearing to adopt the schedule of rates fees and charges of the sfpuc for san francisco and suburban areas. >> item 13 the san francisco public utilities commission in

san francisco and suburban areas . item 15 public hearing to consider and adopt connection fees and miscellaneous fees of water service within and outside the city and county of san francisco. item 16 is presentation by the state fairness board. board. >> this is for you to deliberate over the next couple of weeks and consider action by the 16th of may. >> good afternoon for the public today this is the full hearing for our rates and charges for retail operations as mentioned earlier today by commissioner moran our costs are rising with the cost of

inflation about 3 percent a year and in fact you hold us to to a high budget standard to keep costs affordable and what's also included so the rates that you are going to hear from 4 speakers today who have approximately 3 to 8-minute presentations for you will go through what the charter requires and reviewed by an independent rate consultant and and patricia magove r.n. did the independent rate study and next up will be charles pearl will go through the staff proposal what we need to pay for the cost of the water as well as sewer improvements and i should

mention the cost is a penny a gallon for water and to make that water clean and to go out to the bay and ocean just over a penny the rates that are presented to you today go from 2 pennies per gallon to less than 3 pennies per gallon over the next 4 years and that's really what this rate package this 4-year rate package helps pay for. in addition to that kevin chang who is the chair of the rate fairness board will report on the hearings he chaired as part of the public process also required by the charter and that will summarize the year long effort that was taken for this comprehensive independent review but first i'd like to turn the mic over to debra and she will describe

for you and summarize the input that we received thank you very much. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon thank you. my name is debra i'm the deputy communications director and i'm pleased to present to you the outreach to support the rate package you are going to hear today. our approach has always been at this agency to engage in continuous education with our communities that we serve and impact and i believe that set a solid foundation for this effort and we have a history. we were also able to highlight

the successes of the water system improvement program that made much more visible the often invisible infrastructure and have been really appreciated by the public as we were able to point out. we were also able to broaden the conversation in terms of of the fact we are not the only ones facing aging infrastructure as agencies across the nation are grappling with this we were able to start early so we were engaging stakeholders in a way to provide feedback to consider as we approach the forming of the package. so whenever we talk to the public we bring forth we emphasize the 3 main topics basic general education about the water system and the value of the water that we have

we talk about how we've been spending rate pay er dollars and our plans going forward for those investments and keeping affordability in mind in this process and we also held internal speaker trainings and very clear on what we were talking about when we were talking about the rate package. so at the start of our road show back in november we issued over 700 letters of invitation to trade groups developers landlords we tried to reach every audience that would want to hear about this package as a result we were able to schedule 98 presentations and participate in 19 citywide

events that reached nearly 10 thousand people in person and 10 were given in chinese and 10 were given in spanish and we were able to use this opportunity to reinforce our call for a 10 percent voluntarily reduction and found that audiences were very eager to do the right thing and water resources helped us so along with the information about the rate package we were able to provide information about the programs we have to promote conservation for the communities that we serve. as part of our ongoing operations we offer public tours of our head quarters and plant tours and newly launched this year are in city tours these are popular with the public and use the opportunity to brief the

public and the opportunity for participation in the process. we created a suite of materials in 3 languages english spanish and chinese available on our website and paper form. the various newsletters that we're now featuring details of the package and investments and also released a rate pay er scorecard to make room for the materials and revamped our website to make sure our message was clear and understandable to to the public and allowing bill pair ers going forward what the

impact on their bill will be for the next 4 years and let people no my accounts is being launched in may and they can see real time water usage data in the hopes of promoting even more conservation efforts. >> 9 were in chinese and 4 in spanish and focussed on infrastructure investments and information about the rates package we were also pleased to be ranked as the second utility. the steward campaign was really popular so we were able to use and leverage all of that attention we were getting

on facebook and twitter and focus on infrastructure investments and promoting any public hearings we were having and also obviously conservation messages. . >> which was the first? >> i think maybe portland in the northwest. >> we'll get them next time. >> it's all that green infrastructure. >> [laughter]. >> all that rain. >> so our public feedback in your communications packets you have details and documentation of some of the concerns questions and comments that came up generally ly folks do understand and appreciate the need for these investments they want to see us finish the work that we started and understand the need for investment in the sewer system and lower income communities have concerns about

how significant these increases are and as charles pearl will speak more of that and of this morning it was 92 formal protests i think that does speak to the successful nature of the outreach effort and in fact when we were talking to the public about the messages we could do better to highlight we did often make sure to speak to the fact that our 24, 7 operating costs do rise at the cost of inflation and the misconceptions that drought is the cause of the rate increase so we talked about the infrastructure investment that is the cause of the increase not the drought and bay area counsel building owners and

managers association. so with that i'll be happy to answer any questions and i could also hand it over to robb and take any questions that might come up at the end of the presentations. >> commissioners. commissioner torres -- vp ann moller caen. >> i was curious to ask with the letters that you got in decent -- was there anything else mentioned? >> the letters that came? >> well in terms of the feedback the particular groups have particular concerns the general gist though is that those folks as commissioner moran was saying too much and ongoing but generally i think that represents a very very tiny percentage of the actual letters received. in the packet too there's concerns that are specific to landlords

and specific groups and always concerns about how to promote conservation and to look into but generally i think that when folks hear what the money is going towards, they understand it. >> of the 210 thousand that were sent out what was the breakdown in terms of renters landlords and commercial. >> i know that 180 thousand or so were individual account holders and the remainder was san francisco property owners who were not account holders. >> under prop 218 you sent out a notice and the challenge would have to be the property owners themselves. >> as opposed to the renters.

>> correct. >> how many were property owners. . >> i'd say half. one property owners would submit 10 or 12 for all of the properties in their portfolio. so 3 individuals submitted 30 of those ninety. >> the 88 really isn't an accurate representation is it? >> well we also did make available to all the public whether or not they are the bill pay er an email and address and phone number where they can provide feedback as well even though they were not formal we did include in the packet. >> did you also compare your hits to other agencies or the city as a whole? >> i'm sorry could you repeat that? >> did you delineate the number of communications in other

words hits that you get on the internet for the website is that number reflective of most agencies or lower or higher -- sf dot org does that receive more than what we do at puc. >> that's a good question i think our website is slightly above kind of what's considered average for government organizations but certainly our social media outlets are above what are considered normal i think our reach has really expanded and in part the rim fire drove a lot of traffic for people coming to us for our response and water supply in terms of of the social media we're leading the pack. >> that's what i wanted to ask do you think that the rim fire a very unusual incident caused

the spike? >> i think it caused a spike. each time these folks come to visit they like us they stay. >> that was my next question. >> we keep them engaged there's always the next campaign whether it be my account people are very interested about conservation now so there's always a value or reason to keep them coming back. >> so are you in charge of this program. >> under tyrone jew is my supervisor [laughter]. >> i'm a little off today. >> because it's an important thing what you are doing and what this agency is doing because there's so many other state agencies that are just grappling how do we communicate with the outside world for

example organ transplant and the d.m.v. they have done pretty well but how can they improve their outreach because we have a shortage. so what kind of research is actually be conducted so i'd be interested to talk to you offline to get some of your feedback. >> sure. it's so cost effective it's practical free to use social media contacts and more and more that's how people are getting their information. >> thank you. >> thank you. great work. >> thanks. >> i'm going to add to that i'd like to see a little more of you at these meetings i think often times it's really a benefit to the rate pay ers and it's a really benton what tools are being utilized and i follow

all of your social venues i'm not sure there's a learning curve it continues to grow and i think the work that you are doing for the public is kind of undervalued and i would like to see you here a little more often kind of keeping us up to date on what's going on. >> i'd be happy to. >> thank you very much. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon mr. president and commissioners before i get going if i may i'd also like to mention patricia magove r.n. a key partner in delivering the program and i'd also like to acknowledge and say our appreciation to staff this is a collaborative effort and something i think we're all very proud of. >> thank you. >> thank you so much.

>> so i'd like to give a very brief presentation today talk about the overview of the process and talk about the modelling process and end with the recommendations so we provide engineering support to the puc and collectively delivered over 20 thousand projects and also provide business solutions financial management and other types of business solutions we're also recognized as an industry leader having contributed to national publications on rates and charges throughout this process gone through data collections reviewing different rate structures and presenting to the public there's 2 components i'd like to highlight as part of this timeline one we met weekly with the staff throughout the divisions within the agency and

in order to get a broad context of what rates and the financial projections that meet the needs of the puc and towards the process met monthly in order to continue to engage the public and make sure the public's voice was heard in terms of our recommendations. when developing rates there's 3 major components. also noted the reinvestment for the liability of the infrastructure both water and sewer system once we identify those costs then move into the cost of service what is a fair and proportionate share and finally integrate design. how do