lafco meeting but we are in the lafco, local area formation commission. to my immediate left is commissioner cynthia crews and eric mar. madam clerk, could you call the next item. >> item 22, approval of the lafco mibts from the september 12, 20 foerb special meeting. >> colleagues, have you approved the minutes and can we get any comments or questions and seeing none we will go on to public comment is open for minutes from our last lafco meeting. seeing none, we will go forward. motion to approve from commissioner crews and secretary lindo >> item 3, community choice aggregation activities report, a, status update on clean power sf

program and b, status update on proceedings at the california public utilities commission. >> jason creed, lafco staff. yesterday we got the final staff version from the build out that is available to look at on the web site under the what's new section. at this point it's a very low bust large report, it's 190 pages in length but there is a nice shorter executive summary. i encourage everyone to look at it and get any comments or feedback to it. at this point we're trying to correct any errors in it, the consultants have put some of their feedback into it. i have a position of not intervening with the consultants' opinion, their opinion will be their opinion by the end of the day. i would like to get comments back by

november 7 so we can bring it back to you in the december meeting which will be the final final, but i think pretty much what we have in the report will be in the final. the biggest problem and issue you will find is they have a hard time trying to figure out what an energy efficiency program looks like without knowing what the rates of the program look like and without having more information about an actual real program so one of the things you will probably end up finding is we should probably do what we were scheduled to do last august 2013 and that is set rates so we can move a program forward and learn even more about how jobs can be created

even more but they did do a good analysis on items that sf puc identified last time. we have more customers in the system like cca customers, for example, you would actually have that customer base to then justify building out more of these programs that are available through already-identified projects that the puc could do, but doesn't need to right now. >> i understand the puc was looking to increase their wholesale base and was going to build to do that. you are saying instead of that we could actually support energy generation for cca customers. >> you could use that, you could build out for either. you could build out for a new market of large commercial

like is being discussed, as well as cca when you look at the report you will actually find there is more than enough energy through that to cover both customer bases, not that you would necessarily, those would be the only things you would build, but there's definitely enough to have more commercial, there's some legislation sitting in front of the board of supervisors to do or also having cca, so you have both of them available to do. i'm just saying cca is one place where you can do that and fund the sources as well. one thing i wanted to mention --. >> you want to make sure you have comments by november 7? >> it is a large report so if someone comes back to see and says, hey, we need a few extra days, it's not hard set but that's what i am proposing. i have already started getting some comments back from folks and it's only been out for a day. a lot of the report while it's large is similar to what was done in the first draft that you saw a month or so ago, so that part you can almost skim over. if you didn't have comments on it before you will probably not have comments on it again. it should be a quick read at least for the people who reviewed it the first time. it should be a

quick read the second time. >> is there going to be any review and comments from city departments like the public utilities commission or the department of the environment, is that part of the process that we'll be hearing from those departments? >> yes, we already sent and the puc has a copy of it and they have started to look at it. the department of environment, i sent a copy to carl broomhead who has been my point of contact over there and sent it to carl egan to see if it jives with what the city is going to do and if there's anything to let us know. those three are the three big ones and waech -- we've also sent to the general public for their review as well. >> any comments from these areas will be optional or are we expecting there to be some kind of correspondence or --. >> it really depends on knowing what the comment is i can't address

that directly. if it's something where you just disagree with an opinion of an expert i'm going to say it's an opinion and they have their right to have their separate opinion and you can have your own and we can incorporate that into a broader discussion but if there's an error in the report itself we're definitely going to get that corrected. it definitely depends what avenue it goes under. >> did you say what errors could be? >> i've already noticed in one spot they referred to the department of the environment as the department of energy. >> little minor things. >> hopefully it's minor stuff but there are new sections to this. mostly it was a copy of what was in the first one but the analysis has come up. if there's something that someone misbe understood what was said by the puc and they mistranslated it in their report, and puc comes back and says, i

get what you meant but this is what we actually said, then we can get that corrected in the report. >> so we're talking about slight inaccuracies. >> hopefully it's slight inaccuracies, that would be my hope. >> commissioner lindo >> thank you so much for the report. barring some of the errors and the puc, sounds like there will have to be that discuss, what are the next steps once the puc comes back with their comments, we agree, what are we going to do next? >> the goal is to take everyone's comments, collaborate them all at the same time, i will sit down with internex and their folks, have a discussion, figure out what comments make sense, what comments are, oh, yes, we will fix that or they are making a comment about an opinion, we will do it -- if there's something they are making a comment on that we just fundamentally don't agree with i myself and working with internex would come up

with some kind of responses here's why we're not going to include that in the report. it's either outside the scope or it's something that cannot be done at this time because rates haven't been set or whatever it is, then the goal is to have that report final and then try to get a joint meeting between lafco and the puc we were hoping if everything stays on its current timeline that perhaps we can figure out how to do something in january after the holidays. we do that joint meeting, they can come present and you can ask them all the technical questions you would like to ask of them, we can have a discussion between us and the puc, figure out what makes sense, what is it that now lafco and the board of supervisors would want to see the puc do and are they willing to do that. that can all be part of that joint meeting and see if we can get this program being worked on again on a more

robust level than is being done now. >> thank you. commissioner crews? >> thank you. i just have a question for mr. freed. so if we have the joint meeting in january with the puc is it at that time that the report will be finalized and then there will be action at that meeting, or is that something that the puc would then have action sort of next steps or setting the rates or whatever those next steps would be at that meeting? >> lafco can take whatever action it wants. puc i will yield to miss hale to see what they might do at a january meeting. >> barbara hale, assistant general manager for power at the sf puc so we just spoke today, director freed and i, about having a meeting

in january. i have asked the commission secretary to consult with the commission president on their calendar about calendaring such a meeting. the way our process works, commissioner, the agenda is set for our commission by our commissioner president in consultation with our general manager and the commission will take actions based on staff recommendations. we have only just received the report so i really don't have a sense of what sort of recommendations we might have but we definitely committed to director freed this morning to have our comments and thoughts to him prior to the next lafco meeting. >> great. i wonder also if the citizens advisory committee for the puc would get a copy of this report. >> we'd be happy to make sure that they receive a copy of the report and we engage with them on a regular basis. we actually have a number of

topics scheduled prior to january already in the queue for the citizens advisory power subcommittee. perhaps we can queue this in, take this item out of order and i'll suggest that to the committee chair. subcommittee chair, rather. >> thank you. >> the one thing i would add, there might be a discussion about waiting to present the report to them until the final report just in case there's any changes that do need to be made i don't want any confusion to occur but once the final report is made that might be a better time to get it to the citizen advisory committee and get any discussion if they show desire. i have worked with the chair of that body, one of the other items i was going to update on the cca, lafco has a good working relationship with them and i'll

be sure they would be happy to entertain when it was a little more appropriate than it is right now, wait till that final report before we submit. >> if i could add to that thought, our desire is to present to our power subcommittee before we present to our commission. so we're trying to engage with the citizen's advisory committee before we go to our commission so they can have some input if they wish. so i'd just like to have that kept in mind as we schedule forward. >> i think that's actually a great idea because i think that a numb er of individuals in the public actually engage with that body more than the puc thank you. >> so the only thing which i kind of hit on was the sf puc citizens vezry committee under chair aragon

passed a resolution overwhelmly about getting a rate set and moving forward. we are grateful for the hard work of chair aragan there and hope that will be one more thing to help move the cca program forward, especially now we have a report when it becomes final that shows jobs can be created if we have a program created and have customers to sell energy to. and i will yeed to miss hale >> barbara hale, assistant manage for power at the sf puc we really don't be have much abdomen activity at the puc on the various issues i've been presenting to you over the last several issues. in particular the green tariff option has captured a lot of interest but we're still waiting for the california public utilities commission to propose a decision on the application that pg&e filed. i

think that my expectation would be that president peevy would like to have a decision issued so it could be available for adoption prior to his termination of his term at the california public utilities commission. so i would guess that there's probably some effort to meet that. so i'm optimistic that we'll see something before the end of the year that indicates whether pg&e will have the authority to move forward with the green tariff option. our commission, the san francisco puc, did request a report from staff on the green tariff option much as i've been reporting to you. my colleague, mike himes, who is here today made that presentation to the commission in my absence on october 14th. it's definitely something we're paying attention to here and we're

hoping the california public utilities commission pays some attention to it before the end of this calendar year. that's all i have, thank you. >> thank you. if there are no other questions from the commission we'll go on to public comment. any member of the public who would like to comment, please come forward. >> good afternoon, commissioners, eric brooks representing san francisco green party and the local grass roots organization, our city. so just i'll keep it to the internex report for the most part. i did read the executive summary last night and it looks like, just based on reading that summary, there are some really exciting thing about reading the report, there are some things that raise questions. what's really exciting is that the report really nails down what the previous report started to say, which was that this program can be handled in house by the san francisco public utilities commission with

regard to purchasing energy and running the program and even conceivably doing customer service. makes clear that the sf puc cannot only serve that role but can make its own income from this so it can be beneficial to the sf public utilities commission 's budget. another thing that's nailed down really well in the report it shows a lot of actual projects can be built and it shows what advocates and consultants have been saying for almost a decade now, which is we can get a thousand or more jobs a year for the next 10 years by building a lot of stuff for a clean power program. the things that looked like, the thing that looked like it was most lacking in the report is that it emphasized building large solar and wind and hydro projects and things like that, but really seemed to deemphasize a lot the idea of small solar and behind

the meter efficiency throughout businesses and residences throughout the city and clean energy is headed in that direction. we're not just trying to get clean energy, we're trying to get decentralized energy that's owned by the city and owned by the customers. even though that other stuff is low hanging fruit that's cost effective, we need this to be more balanced and do a lot of --. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> hello, commissioners, my name is ed holtzman, i'm representing 360 san francisco today. i'm excited to see the report, i looked over the executive summary last night and i think that in general like we're pretty happy that a lot of our comments seem to have made it into the document. i guess

the two things that i would flag, just having read the first 25 pages, and i'll send some comments to mr. fried, i mean they are small like sloppy error type stuff, but the more substantive thing was at some point it says a more detailed analysis will be required and it kind of lists the things that will need to be scoped for that more detailed analysis and i think they did a good job of that. i would just want the lafco to, you know, take the lead in thinking about where that more detailed analysis would happen, like who would conduct it and when and how that might occur. certainly we have heard from critics that, you know, advocates are presenting a draft of a plan or a draft of a draft of a plan and we want this to be as close to a plan as we can and i think that it's great and it provides

the next steps that we would need to drill down even farther and i just want to make sure we do that. the only other thing that i would mention is it does kind of in a throw-away comment seem to suggest introducing -- it suggests a light green and dark green approach like marin and sonoma have but it suggests introducing the light green in a later phase of the program, but we need to opt folks into something that's cheaper than pg&e or else terrible things will happen as national president has shown, so the light green that is cheaper and greener needs to be available from the very beginning. thank you. >> good afternoon, bruce will, ashbury neighborhood council. i would like to add a little more excitement that they suggest that because it can be

handled in house at the puc that we could roll out even more than what was originally planned for instead of a 20 to 30 percent rollout that it could be even more. and i think that's exciting to try and bring in as much of san francisco as possible into the program as quickly as possible. thank you. >> thank you. any other member of the public would like to comment? seeing none we will close public comments and this is an information item so no action on this so let's go on to our next agenda item. >> item no. 4, study on the implementation and opportunities for undergrounding of wires in san francisco. >> this is part 2 of a discussion we started at the last lafco meeting about undergrounding utilities and i believe we have a report of progress mostly wanted to get scope of work for the study coming forward. mr. fried. >> jason fried, lafco staff

again. in your packet you will have a one and a quarter page, one and a half page that i drew up that goes over the big picture of what we drew up. if that is acceptable to you, more than happy to continue that work. if there's something that we're missing, something that you want to see changed, today would be a good day to give me those instructions so i'm not doing work on an area that doesn't need work. just to give you a high level view of what we're looking at, trying to figure out from a big picture perspective how much are the costs, we know how much it is on average per mile but it's the whole kit and caboodle, doing everything at once. the question is

can we break parts up, can we break sections up, as there's legislation going through the board of supervisors right now on the undergrounding of fiber and doing a dig once type philosophy, what impact would a dig once type of philosophy have also on the undergrounding of not just fiber but also other utility, the electricity and telephone and all the other wires that are on the poles as well and trying to determine is there a cheaper way maybe that we can do it than just doing it on our own, digging the streets up multiple times which i know is something no one would want

to see in the city. if you can dig once, figure out how we can do that together, finding out what the price points are. there's a lot of information that's been out there and done during various points in time, some of it is a little outdated now. so i would try to update the information , make sure we have all the correct number sz as of today or as of this period of time to make sure we are looking at it all hoeflistically and not comparing apples and oranges because we're comparing numbers from other time frames and finally find out what others have done, dealt with undergrounding, are there better practices out there and if there are figuring out, the biggest question of them all is what are the better option for funding and what hurdles lie in the way of those options. can we change the franchise fee, as someone who's worked on the cca program for some time, changing the franchise fee is not something that's really within the power of the board of supervisors these days. it was done in the 1930's and the city attorney's office says it's an agreement in perpetuity so we don't have control over it. but maybe pg&e voluntarily agrees to renegotiate or maybe something at the state level that can be done, look at those types of things so we can figure out what needs to be done. the current timeline i have in front of you has me coming back in my december meeting which will be our next meeting since november-december of the holidays we combine our two meetings, coming back to you with a basic report, verbal report and then depending on a joint meeting with the puc and how much time it takes me to get the

final draft of the internex report done, coming back either in january or in february with a written report as a draft, which can then be put out to public comment for a couple months i think would be a good time frame, let everyone have a look at it, come back to you with a final report that could then be presented to the board of supervisors and the city and county of san francisco so they can do what the project says although once again that time frame is very much based on how much time i have not working on cca to do this work. so that time frame could slip a little bit if things on cca really get heated up. if something really heated comes out of the internex report and we get the puc energized on doing that, it might take me a little longer because i have to focus on the puc to make sure they are doing things correctly there. >> have you shared this with supervisor tang

>> yes, i gave her a copy to make sure i was getting what she was looking for out of her request and she seemed very happy with what we were doing. yesterday i had a meeting with her and the san francisco coalition to underground utilities to have further discussions, they were the ones who kind of brought this idea to her to get their feedback as we. i know we have a representative today from that group who will speak on behalf of that group. they are excited to have things moving forward again. no one seemed to complain at least in the meeting to me about what that looked like. from that spers tech tif i think we are on the right track but i need to get everyone's opinion if that's what you want or something in addition. we do plan on looking at both fiber and the utilities, not really mentioned in the work plan, i realized later that that was not mentioned but i wanted to make sure it was mentioned that we look at

both the fiber and the other utilities at the same time. >> do we know of any place around the state of california since the time the report came out in around 2007 any place in california that has actually moved forward on an undergrounding process that we can use as an example for ideas what we can do here? >> san diego has been doing a lot of that type of work, i'm sure there's other places but i know san diego is the one the 07 task force report points to and the coalition we met with yesterday is also looking at what they've been doing down there and how they have been able to do it. they have some cheaper price points, really looking at the numbers, i'm going to try to delve into it and maybe determine if san diego is cheaper why is it cheaper, is there something they aren't counting in theirs that we aren't counting in ours, outside of it's more expensive in san

francisco that you would expect a little bit of a break difference here versus san diego. >> i'm also looking at stuff at the local level but also the cpuc as well so i hope you are able to touch upon those issues. >> that is part of my plan. most of our stumbling blocks, there's been a lot of work that's been done by legislative budget analyst's office and some other folks and as i've been walking around to some of the other supervisors' offices asking them questions about it they have given me some of their reports that's been done on their behalf. it looks like a lot of the hurdles are outside san francisco government's control, it's more pg&e and state level stuff that would need to be done. i will do my best to identify where there are problems because of that, trying to identify here's the problem, here's a thing that needs to be fixed somewhere else, if it's something that needs to be fixed here i will identify that as well, saying here is something

san francisco can fix itself. >> are there other municipality that is might be in the same predicament that we might be in in san francisco that could be joined in an *r a leveraged effort, i think that's something to look at, if there's opportunities we might have to go to scale or something with other places around the bay area that are looking underground. >> i'll add that to my notes to see if there's other places and seeing if there's other people we can partner with should changes need to be made. one of the biggest ones would be a franchise, san francisco is the only one that's in the boat they are in. most of the others have created franchises that need to be changed. but san francisco's was done so long ago that option was never put into it. i'm not sure yet and i'll talk with the undergrounding folks see if they know of other folks we can partner with that would help us if we have

something that needs to be changed. >> i would hope so because in perpetuity is a long time. commissioner crews. >> thank you. so i was very interested in our last meeting and supervisor haynes' request that we look into undergrounding. part of that was really around addressing the digital divide. so i was interested when i saw a wall street journal article recently that had to do with kansas city's digital divide so i want to read really briefly something that i provided to colleagues and to the public. when google launched its fast internet service in kansas city in 2012, the web giant said it wanted to spread broad band widely and close the dipblg cal divide but a study submitted to the wall street journal suggests the company is far from completing

the goal. in 6 kansas city neighborhoods found in only 10 percent of the residents subscribe to google's fiber service. by contrast, 42 percent of the residents surveyed in nearby higher and middle neighborhoods signed on to google fiber. so i think really what i'm getting at here is i just want to be cautious that we don't use lafco staff to look at something that could be potentially not reaching a goal that staff really got at as to, you know, the purpose and spirit behind why we would support undergrounding. supervisor tang requested we look into long-term master plan, alternative funding sources, establishing city policies and implementation of the program. and so, you know, in