of selly. right on. >> we like >> good afternoon and welcome to the san francisco local agency formation commission. my name is john avalos, the chair of the commission and joined by two of our new commissioners. cynthia crews and edwin linda and joined guy supervisor tang. any announcements?

>> please silence and cell phones and any documents should be submitted to the clerk. >>supervisor john avalos: i would like to thank secretary fgtv. first item. approval of lafco minutes from june 27, 2014, regular meeting. >>supervisor john avalos: colleagues, any questions? >> i just have a couple changes to the minutes. i just wanted to make some corrections in terms of the names of persons you spoke on my behalf. >> commissioners those were clerical changes.

we've already made them. thank you. >>supervisor john avalos: okay. sorry about that. if there are no other comments or questions we can go on to public comment for this item. public comment is open on the minutes for lafco. seeing no one come forward, public comment is closed. can we have a motion to approve these minutes? >> >>supervisor eric mar: so moved. >> >>supervisor john avalos: next item. actually let's go to item no. 5, supervisor tang the here. let's going to item no. 5. city clerk: study on implementation and opportunities for

undergrounding of wires in san francisco. >> from lafco staff. supervisor tang's office came to us and asked if there is a way to do an a study of the finishing of the underground utilities after a discussion with the commissioners it was consideration to put it on the agenda for discussion and i will we go into what she's looking for as to this study. >> thank you for entertaining this item. as you know i'm probably not the only supervisor that is interested in seeing what our city can do to push this in our entire city. this is not an aesthetic issue. we were able to complete almost about 50 percent of underground of our utility wires previously. however we have roughly half of that to go.

recently the controllers office issued a report and basically stated that now we have about 470 miles left of our utilities lines that have not been undergrounded and the estimated coast is $3.6 billion. this is quite a lot of money and out of 990 total utility lines we had originally. existing funding for this work is puc rule 28 undergrounded program which is allocated and directed by the puc for the design and construction of underground projects and san francisco received about $3 million for these funds. there is a project that occurred between 1998-2009 that would have completed 2

miles and that went over budget. so as a result our city had to mortgage our rule 28 allotment and pg & e estimated about 28 rule credit in the year 2031. so, under the rule 28 program at current funding levels and cost per mile, it would take more than 600 years for san francisco to underground all street side overhead wires. that is incredible and that's why i'm here today. i would like to see if we can figure out a way to study some alternatives to funding and figure out a way to do this under these years. to create a project under rule 20c, undergrounded cost is so much per mile. there's an underground

utility task force in 2007, we just in courage everyone to look at that task force. i think it presents some really great information. the majority of undergrounding weigh -- was implemented in certain parts of the city. if you are going to move forward i want to make sure that we are doing this in all parts of the city and so, again, hence our office is here to request that lafco conduct a study on some possible alternatives. some of the things to consider which are also mentioned in the utility task force report is we look at developing long-term master plan for our city, we can figure out some alternate sources for funding which is critical and establishing policies, for example one of the suggestions they made was a policy of in

no new overhead utility wires and the work mentioned in san diego and what they are able to achieve this with a budget far smaller than what is projecting and i would love to see what san diego is doing and how to replicate their portion of the program. that is my request today, i'm happy to entertain any questions and i'm willing to get the ball moving forward so we can achieve that in less than 600 years. thank you for your consideration. >> okay, we have several questions here. >>supervisor john avalos: do you have a question? >>supervisor eric mar: i want to thank you for bringing this forward. i'm very supportive. i also want to see some understanding of cost and

resources to ensure that more neighborhoods can be undergrounded. i'm looking at chapter one of the report, in 96 when board of supervisors legislated the first step the west side not completed gets a fair share. i'm hoping we look at a process. i know in 96 the process was based on neighborhood groups submitting petitions. my hope is that we look at equity and social justice criteria that local neighborhoods wouldn't submit applications would be part of the mix and we see neighborhoods left out of the first phase to get their fair share of resources as we move forward for the future. i also wanted to say that as we see a digital divide with low income neighborhoods scene --

seniors and others we are considering underground that help us to ensure that low income neighborhoods are connected to the new technologies as well as we move forward. thank you to supervisor tang for moving this forward. >>supervisor john avalos: commissioner breed? >>supervisor london breed: thank you. i want to thank supervisor tang for bringing this forward. recently i was approached by a few residents in the inner sunset on irving and judah and 9th, it's almost a gateway to gold gate park, a photo which says a thousand words that shows how it looks. it's a beautiful neighborhood and a lot of great families. it looks a mess, the wires crossing all over the place. it's pretty unbelievable that

we have not moved in a direction of looking at how we can do this more all over the city i know in the bayview hunter point when i served, there is a model block program where the neighbors came together, there was grant funding, there is support. it took so much effort, so much money to do the work for one block 1 block in the area and what a difference it made. it was a huge difference in terms of the look of the area, many of the property owners didn't know each other and now they know each other very well and they come out and plant gardens and they feel they have been given a whole new place to live and it looks a lot better. i would love to explore what

financial opportunities could be available to make this happen all over our city. the information that i received from dpw and i don't know how this translates into information that you have on the estimated cost, but my understanding is it cost roughly $1 million per block to actually get this work done and that's quite expensive with an expectation of property owners to pay for it, yes and more affluent neighborhoods they are able to afford to do that but in other areas of our city, they definitely may not be able to, so i do love the idea of looking at the possibilities in our city. >>supervisor john avalos: commissioner linda in >> thank you. a couple questions i had i wanted to make sure the

underground would also include the fibers for the internet as well because that's constant changing technology and if we are putting that underground, the best quality or perhaps of wires that we know is going into the future and perhaps won't expire. secondly because i think that's important to commissioner mar's point of getting the technology in the digital divide shrunken because if we can get it like sunny dale we can have a significant impact and as the research is done to look at also what kind of technology we are using. >>supervisor john avalos: thank you. commissioner tang do you have a response? >> sure. >>supervisor katy tang: thank

you for your response. if you approve this that we would see what other opportunities there are not only to coincide and have everything mesh together as a timeline but leverage other resources if you put in fiber optics to underground. absolutely interested in that t. we did feel that lafco would help us do this research because of lafco's mission to conduct studies and reorganize and stream line governmental structures and there were different mentions of funding mechanism. so i'm looking to see if we can come up with a combination of things perhaps it's now -- not just one source perhaps doing a self assessment through mellow roost

establishment. >>supervisor john avalos: commissioner crews? >> thank you for bringing this forward. i just the want to piggy back on comments by supervisor mar and lindo that talks about undergrounding fiber optics. i think i sent that to jason and i know that he will consider that. it's probably further down the road but there is information to leveragendo linda oh that.

>>supervisor john avalos: i would like to leverage that in staff and not clear if we should do that in the same report or have one lead to further by address fiber and having a separate report later more depth about fiber. what are your thoughts? >> i have been thinking about this as well, perhaps having the undergrounding talk about any type of undergrounding anything even potentially future needs, but also with the understanding that there is an interest in this is looking that the city has a large fiber system that covers parts of the city but not all of it and we can look at where it currently exist and to the degree we are trying to put it together. this would be something we can look at farther down the road and where we are looking to get this in potential low

income communities how do we combine that altogether and look for ways that supervisor tang was talking about bringing this all together. we may have one report and follow up to that after we get through part of it to say this part really is more technical than what undergrounding is about and hold that off until a 1.5 type of report until we finish the aspects of underground fiber and the best uses for the city. >>supervisor john avalos: maybe we can take a step back to define where we are on the same page, when we talk about undergrounding, what does that mean. we have utility poles and wires attached to those utility poles and they provide electricity and other

utilities as well, we are talking about undergrounding all of those, i imagine we are, but let's be clear about what it is we are giving you responsibility to cover. when we are talking about underground, it's also removing poles with wires and would have a dramatic impact on visibility looking down the street. when we are talking about underground are we talking about all utilities that connect with those wires that interface with buildings on the street with removal of poles and the cost of doing that and then separate from that new resources that we want to layer in. there are places where we don't have any fbi -- fiber

and we want to lay new fiber. >> i believe it is referred to as dark fiber. >> those things i think should be covered and other aspects we want to look at as well so we are not missing anything. tang tang if >>supervisor katy tang: if i may speak along with utility wires that there is a requirement that you install new lighting. that is also a cost that has to be fact ored into it because a part of that actually makes the whole project cost prohibitive. >> one part that helps with the definition side of it is the city was doing this and ran out of money and perhaps what we should be doing is part of continue to finish that and the other definition would give us a bigger picture of the definition finishing that work and the additional part would be how do we

extend fiber throughout the city and that becomes an additional layering on and the work would cover everything that you are talking about at least how to extend fiber and how do we potentially while we are doing this undergrounding is there a way to expand the fiber network in the city. >> then the expectation is that we are doing this work in-house? >> yes. then that would lead to the question to make sure that cca has been the top priority for lafco and assuming based on the discussions i have had with you that cca continue to be the priority and this would be secondary work for me and i would work with this intensively as cca wouldn't be, it's not going to be something that gets jumped on tomorrow because i'm still working with puc and getting

comments to when we get to that subject matter next and where is the balance supposed to be for me so i have my clear direction. >>supervisor john avalos: first let's go to supervisor tang where your expectation around it? >>supervisor katy tang: obviously the sooner the better. i appreciate the work of mr. freed and the main goals of lafco. i do want to refer to the commission but would love to see something within a year at least. >>supervisor john avalos: why don't we expect that the next lafco meeting you can provide a scope of work entails and providing a scope of work before delving into the research you can do that and you can give us a sense of

what your current commitment is around cca and so it gives you a month to continue to work on cca and divide your time and work on your scope of the project. >> that makes sense. one of the thing i would do is perhaps at the next lafco meeting invite some of the departments to come in and share a little bit of information that we've already learn to flush out what the final report would like like. >> okay. commissioner breed? >>supervisor london breed: i would like a little direction on what we are providing because it's my understanding that plans for undergrounding were specific to certain location, not all locations throughout the city. so i guess, i would like to know exactly what we are

asking. we are using the same parameters of undergrounding the utilities as a way of making a determination of what it would cost and also what the plan could potentially be for the city and what the other potential funding mechanisms might be for the project. i'm just trying to get clarity on the direction we are giving because i'm concerned. i don't want it to be limited to the projects that were already under way because one of those projects in particular sucked all the funding dry and clearly the cost estimates were useless for that plan. i guess i just want to make sure we are clear on what we are doing. >>supervisor katy tang: i think that probably what mr.

freed was referring to is to examine what we have left to do but not confine it to just certain locations. i'm interested in looking at again as commissioner mar said geographic equity throughout the entire city and taking what we have learned from the past which also contains in the utility undergrounded task report as to what are some of the things we can do better based on what happened in the past. i would like us to look more forward and more broader. >> thank you. >>supervisor john avalos: i think part of the research should also include not just reading the report but actually talking to people who were involved in the utility underground task force because that will flush out and there are probably new picture percent -- perspectives that can be included. okay in ?

great. colleagues we have consensus on giving that direction. so i will motion that we ask mr. freed to follow-up on this a provide a scope next week -- >> next meeting. yes. next meeting. very good. supervisor tang, thank you very much. it's very important for a lot of neighborhoods in san francisco. >>supervisor katy tang: thank you all for your consideration. >>supervisor john avalos: okay. public comment. yes. this item is still open, item no. 5. >> good afternoon, commissioners and ms. supervisor. bruce wolf, as many of you know i have been involved in some of this regarding the fiber aspect, but also

regarding electronic and other utilities. you have an opportunity to find a way to pay for this. and that is through the sewer renovation project. back in 2007, as commissioner crews pointed out when supervisors armiano was here that anytime the ground gets covered, that's when new conduit would be laid down. it doesn't have to be filled with fiber right away. we just need the pipe that's there and owned by the city and also claiming our rights of way. almost everything underground is given away to somebody else and because of the sewer project, that allows us to reclaim some of those rights of way and control them as we should. and after that there is new

technology to install inside the sewer pipes that now 7 years later is not new technology anymore. we can find plenty of examples around the country to replicate that and find different cost. i also sent a document that lafco did a study from columbia tech around doing fiber in three phases for the city leading up to fiber to the premises and the first phase, the whole thing would not cost more than $50 million. so this is all feasible. i think it's a great idea and i think it's time coming. thank you. >>supervisor john avalos: thank you very much. next speaker. >> good afternoon commissioners, eric brooks, san francisco green party and the public net coalition

where in 2007 we put in a plan that they would take over the system without giving us much. i want to also chime in on this lovefest about fiber because it's really important. i kind of wish supervisor tang was here to hear this because it's key that what director freed does on this issue that we identify the current "dark fiber" that we are already talking about that the city already has on the ground and looking at these underground projects and expanded possibility for undergrounding projects especially what commissioner breed nailed down on is that this needs to be citywide. we need to scope all that out and see where there are opportunities to run new conduit for fiber and even

new fiber and connect that fiber with what's already on the ground that the dark fiber that the city already has on the ground and it will create a citywide effort. i'm looking at chattanooga tennessee where they have the citywide public network in the country that is reaching every homeowner. it's creating a boom in internet businesses and other related businesses. this would blow away any kind of at twitter tax break. this is where the rest of us can get revenue bond money to build out things like undergrounded and network that reaches everybody. this is an opportunity to get funds to build things out.

>> hello. i'm a district 5 resident. i would ask that you look into the chattanooga project, they are providing service ten times faster than what's in your home. that's not streaming netflix faster. that actually allows businesses to really have a competitive advantage over businesses basically anywhere with inferior infrastructure as we have an advantage over businesses in guatemala. so strongly support the attempt to find a way to pay for this and to make sure we have forward thinking of in terms of obviously a smaller additional cost and the huge added benefits that will provide for such a small maternal -- marginal cost.

>> good afternoon, lafco and supervisors. never can say good-bye no to power, no no, lafco, never can say good-bye no to power lafco. every time i think we've had enough power i start headed towards the door. there is a power underground vibration that hits you to the core and we want the power and i'm glad it's on the floor and i want power to be great. tell me now, i can't wait. i want this power wire great and i'm hoping that our city wire problems are all just going to work out because you know how they protest and they scream and then