they don't understand what is expected of them. that to me is a very fair statement. so, when you start to give a nonelected official like myself discretion, it can get funky after a while, problematic. it can be dependent on who is in my position. >> exactly. >> also then be overwhelming to me personally, because we have 400 accounts and if i am deciding on each of those 400 as individually, i'm spending way too much time on this issue compared to all the other things that i need to pay attention to. having said that, i do believe that one size doesn't necessarily fit all. and so what we have -- there are two pieces of this legislation that i think are positive, and came across after discussion. one is that upon failure of the audit, we will give a very detailed report to the failed business, the business that did not pass on what the problem is.

and so they will be able to see where they need to work and what they need to do. that will be tailored to each business. it's not the same reason that everyone is failing. it will be different for a restaurant versus a hotel, versus an apartment building, versus a commercial office building. so, there is discretion for me, for the department to list the terms. there is no discretion on hiring a facilitator, i get that, and that is a policy call, but that is where the discretion stops. >> ends, right. >> the other place there is discretion built in here is on the fines. so, it says the director may issue fines, that was changed from the very first, to shall. because we heard loud and clear that those fines were incredibly onnerous and only used under, you know, extreme circumstances where someone is truly blowing us off. they just are not wanting to pay

attention to this issue. so those areas have been addressed given the one area that hasn't. but those are addressed. >> the one area that hasn't, i -- i will, at some point, will direct the, have already been in touch with the deputy city attorney to start to draft some language. we don't have it here today in this committee to actually go over and to present with you, but when we do have them, when we do have the language, we'll present it to you as a department head and then also to the sponsor. >> ok. >> ok. very good. >> i have another question. how are we enforcing fees? how are they enforced? because i understand, and i want to just confirm this, that they are not very well enforced. >> i don't know what well enforced means. i would say the way that the fines, or extra charges happen as recology and there is someone from recology here that can speak more specifically than

myself. they are pretty communicative in terms of people's performance and they will just start charging on their bill. so, i don't know what not enforce means. >> okay. supervisor safai. >> thank you, president cohen, appreciate the questions. those were really to the point. one point of clarification that i want to add in terms of when in this instance where the director is giving all their orders, spent a lot of time, the legislation says, you would have to have someone dedicated. for instance, we have been in conversation with the flower mart. flower mart is 40, 50 vendors, all under one roof. they have one operator. we explained to them. they already have a 0 waste facilitator, some one dedicated to doing the sorting, sop one that goes around, looks at the waste stream from each of the

respective vendors, says ok, you are not doing the packaging here, you are not doing this here, you are not sorting it properly. sends it back, they end up fixing it, it comes back out. so, the point is, in that instance, if they were to fail, they would not, part of the director, correct me if i'm wrong, director rafael, but would not be required to hire a new sorter. they would probably have to retool some. so, when i talk to the operator there, jeannie boaz, she said waiting and working with recology, need new equipment. it might require department of the environment to retrain the individual or is the person knowledgeable of how things are. sometimes and i know you all have been doing this very aggressively, where things are sorted changes, right? one, you know, wet paper versus soiled paper versus lining, and

part of the legislation, what levels of contamination are, where things are. they allow for that to be updated on an annual basis. that may be part of the reeducation. a place like the flower mart, if they were to fail, they would not be required to hire an additional staff person, but retool, identifying, additional equipment. >> originally written if you fail, i think the word is audit, then you have to -- then the legislation requires you to hire someone, is that -- has that chan changed? an a that has nodding chaed. we talked a lot about drafting the legislation. first the universe was larger than 424, universe was up to 6, 700, right?

we originally had it at 30 cubic yards of waste. slightly different definition and so when we talk to recology, and we have been in negotiations with recology and the department of environment since the spring, since it started, even before the spring. we changed the definition, right? and we also talked about -- >> changed definition from what to what? >> from 30 cubic yards and rolloff compactor, to 40 -- shrunk the businesses. it's no longer on the list, because of the level of waste they are doing. >> that's where we get to the 424. >> yes, i think it's down to 419 now. >> 419. >> so, we are down to universe of 419. one thing we heard from depending upon the time frame recology said to us, well, and this is another thing we did, we

rolled back the start date from january 1st to july 1, 2019. we org in a lly were going to go for a 2 or 2 and a half year period, all the audits would happen. we extended that out to three years, we wanted the appropriate spacing. recology does not want to spend all of the time doing audits of businesses that have rolloff compactors. so we spread out that time and we also know, and again, this is just, i know there are some folks from the industry, know that if someone has an audit, fails that audit, and then knows that they are going to have an audit in a very short period of time after that, it's very easy for them to temporarily reorganize themselves on bringing some additional staffing and then know the audit is coming and then potentially pass that audit and release these folks. so, we are also concerned about gaming the system. so, one, the amount of time the department of environment and recology would spend on this,

two, and i'm sure with a smaller universe, recology would say we can do additional audits, right? but we also are very concerned about false positives, and very concerned about people that are not necessarily going to really be changing their culture. so, this is another thing we would change to your question. originally we required it to be a two-year period the 0 waste facilitator would have to be there, we reduced it to one year. after one year they have the ability to go and have an additional audit, and at that point they can see if they are doing better. but i mean, when jack gets into his slides -- >> interject a question. where are these changes codified? >> the changes i'm talking about are all already changed. >> in the legislation. >> all changed -- i have a couple of additional amendments today but i can -- >> you have language for your amendments? >> i do. >> would you like me to talk about them now? >> circulate them.

>> i was waiting to hand them out, after the presentation. >> you can still do that, that's perfectly ok. >> those are the two things i wanted to jump in and clarify on, i'm glad the director talked about the discretion piece. another point to your point about discretion, we did also make some amendments, they are reflected in the legislation already, and this is in a previous version with regard to the city, on the city side of equation. some consideration given to our budget process. so, the audits happen outside of the budget process as it pertains to city agencies, and we give consideration to the budgeting and hiring process that the city has to participate in. so they would not be required to have the same turn around of 60 days as everyone else is, and so there is more discretion in this realm, in city agency realm than there is to your original point. and director, not to put words

in her mouth, felt more comfortable as it pertained to the city to have that discretion to work with city departments. the truth is, as the budget chair, it has not been authorized, not required to hire additional staffing. so we wanted that discretion, and that is already reflected in the legislation. >> all right. supervisor mandelman. >> happy to be here, my first meeting in budget committee, learning my way along the way. i have a question for supervisor safai about the legislation, stemming from the flower mart issue. so, the folks who already may have 0 waste facility, heard concerns, hire another one, and

that's generally the case -- >> let me be clear. someone like the flower mart that has the appropriate level of staffing, and this is -- that this is the analysis and the review that the department of environment will do. they will be able to come in and see, because they are already operating, doing a really good job, might just be the day it happened or the person in the position. it's not going to be part of the director's orders. but if you are talking about for instance the embarcadero center, it's five large class a buildings, five distinct. and i don't know what the level is today, but if they had ten waste facilitator for that entire universe of 60 story buildings, or 50 story buildings, it's not the right level. >> an at the director's discretion. >> analysis to come up with the appropriate level response. >> yes, yes, absolutely.

>> but the reason i gave the example of the flower mart, i think there's been some concern for those on this list, but on the smaller scale. the reason the flower mart is on this list, it's 40 vendors collectively on one garbage account. if they were separately on separate garbage accounts, they would absolutely not be on it. but, and i don't want this to be lost, and i think the recology has hit this point, it is in their interest to have someone doing this work, it saves them money overall. >> mr. macy, are you prepared to quantify that? not yet. >> good segue. >> i just wanted -- ok, teammates are saying yes. so -- >> assume -- >> and through the chair, did that answer your question? >> a couple more questions. do the large refuse generators, hire facilitator dribtly or contract it?

i'm unclear on that. >> i'll say something and the director say something. a lot of times when you are talking about a large class a building, they have janitorial service companies, so they are contracted with those companies. with -- with the flower mart example, might be someone on their staff already doing the work or have a service company. if it's affordable housing and wall talk about that today, they might have a non-profit there working with like green streets, and green streets is going to look at formally incarcerated residents and they will put those folks to work. it depends on the respective industry that's impacted, but -- does that answer your request he? >> yes, thank you. supervisor mandelman. >> i think there is -- i'm confused about the level of discretion the director has around the hiring of additional

waste fa sill tay -- facilitators. >> deputy city attorney. ordinance requires the director or allows the director to adopt regulations setting out further parameters, but if, if a large refuse generator fails an audit, the director consistent with those regulations issues an order requiring the generator to hire one or more facilitators, match up with the findings of the audit. it may be the flower mart or emba embarcadero has one, the director has the discretion to order the larger number. >> thank you. so -- miss rafael, i don't know

if you have any other remarks. >> no, i don't. those were -- no problem. >> bring up mr. macy for the presentation. thank you. >> good morning. jack macy. so, director rafael was talking about the large generator, and to answer your question, supervisor cohen, and the total generation, so, recology is handling about 900,000 tons of material, and out of that, over 400,000 tons are being disposed, that includes construction, demolition, debris, out of that, about a quarter of a million tons is trash, part of the regular collection. and these generator, only a quarter of a percent of the 167,000 accounts, including residential, have an impact of

about 20% disposal of trash and the refuse recology handles. does not include construction demolition debris. this is the list of these -- now 419, looking at more up to date data from recology, fine tuned that. also provided a more detailed break down of the different types of accounts, so the largest category are office, and then we have multi-family, and then we have hotel, medical, school, university, supermarkets and markets. retail nonfood, city government agencies, restaurants, largest of those at 15. convention theater, stadium parking, affordable housing, pulled out separately. only five left after moving up to 40 cubic yards. and we have a few state and federal buildings, some

wholesale. we pulled out the non-profit food pantry, five of those, and a couple industry. so, those are the break down of the types, and we actually have a detailed list, up to date list i want to hand out. the list i just handed you has the name of the account, the property, also indicates whether as i'll talk in a minute about -- if there are -- if they have or under extra charges, so i'll get to that. so, regarding, this is part of why we are focussing on the largest generators. where are those that have had their trash compactors audited, 77% of those audits find ore half the material is recyclable

or compostable. should have gone in the blue or the green bins, and end up in the trash. a lost opportunity. 22% of recycling and 12% of composting compactors were also contaminated. and we had, we have about 42 have 0 waste facilitators, the most recent count might be 38 to 40, but this is out of previously at the last hearing talked about 80 properties that had 0 waste facilitators already, so about half of them are large generators, and that's being driven as the director said by the financial incentives in the rates through discounts provided by recovery rate and by extra charges. so, out of those 419, 32 of them are paying extra charges based

on contamination and 14 of them have been paying that for over a year. and that is thousands of dollars a month. so, we see a big financial impact and value for 0 waste facilitators, and i have some case studies. business model for 0 waste facilitators, go to a property and say we can, in a combination of either in crease your diversion or recovery rate, giving you greater savings or get you off contamination charges, and make it, provide you a net savings. that's really the business model that the facilitators work under, and we just have some examples here, a large high rise apartment building before and after they saw a net savings of $28,000 a year, that's after paying 0 waste facilitator. and we also have some affordable housing examples, mercy housing,

increase the recovery rate, same as diversion rate, and net savings of over 8,000 a year. here you can see what the refuse charges, savings were, minus the cost of the 0 waste facilitator. with a smaller unit, smaller property, also saw a net savings of over 6,000 a year. and there are many more examples that we could give. there was a detailed analysis of nine residential properties and among those nine, on average they were able to, with the 0 waste facilitator, reduce the trash service by 66%, increase the recycling composting by 150%, increase the diversion of recovery from 30 to 75% and create, have a net, average net savings of 25%.

so, this is really being driven economically at this point. and sfmta gauged a 0 waste facilitator at three of their yards and were able to increase the recovery rate from 29 to 42%, but very in press sievely, net annual savings of $116,000. i would like to pause to see if there are any further questions around the economics, cost benefit of 0 waste facilitators. >> supervisor stefani: i have a question, the chart you handed out with those accounts that have current contamination charges, do we know the source, do we know why? have we followed up with them to understand why they are facing

contamination charges? >> yes, they have gone through quite a process of getting numerous warnings. they have failed audits. and after numerous warnings they were not able to clean that material up. they may have had additional audits and then the way it works with recology, after giving a property warnings and time to remediate it, if they don't take action, unable to clean it up, they can get extra charges. >> what is the typical excuse for that, offer any reason as to why? >> it varies. you know, these tend to be multi-tenant properties. so, a lot of times property management may say i can't get my tenants to sort properly. and that's why, with -- the biggest benefit with 0 waste facilitators are the multi-tenant properties and most of the large refuse generators are multi-tenant, in that even

if you have a well-designed program and we work with properties to have a well-designed program, adequate bins and signage and training, if we don't get adequate separation, we have the ability to do quality control clean-up. so, and that's why we list those who have 0 waste facilitators on the list. so, it's a variety of reasons. but we offer them lots of help. whatever help they are willing to take, you know, we have as the director mentioned, a whole team of experts in the field working with these properties. >> you gave two examples of 1390 mission and britain court. are these -- how are they different from multi-tenant properties. aren't these multi-tenant properties? >> they are. >> mike, i guess my question is, for a property owner to say i can't get my tenants to do it, but you have examples of at least two in this presentation

where you have a property owner who is getting their tenants to do it. >> yes, so these are examples using a 0 waste facilitator. >> i see, got it. properties saying i can't get my tenants to do it, they are not using the 0 waste facilitator. >> the property owners had a facilitator going through, then that's where the costs would happen. >> the whole cost benefit, they pay for the facilitator, but saving even more. >> i understand. right. right. thank you. continue. >> ok. >> we have a list of 9/11 companies, currently identified, others in the course, but these are currently nine we know -- >> i'm sorry, one more question about the facilitators. how long has mercy housing, and for a city entity, how long have

they been using these facilitators. >> yeah, well, as a city agency, they had a contract and they were able to do a one-year contract and saw the big benefit and the contract ended, and then they worked to secure the, so the up front funding. they have been in the bidding process and hope to secure a new 0 waste facilitator. >> my question is, how long did they use -- how long -- >> the sfmta was a full year, i understand. >> what about mercy housing? >> i believe it's been in place, trying to think -- i think, i believe it's been in place over a year. >> so these are new facilitators put into place, a relatively new concept. >> well, facilitators out there, some, we have seen facilitators out there for at least, i would

say, in buildings, at least half a dozen to maybe ten years. it's been a while. >> legislation is almost nine years old, right? >> mandatory, yes. over nine years old, and we actually had, as you may recall two weeks ago, started talking about how this industry was, we helped create this industry and part came out of special events we have been working with long before where they were so difficult to get people to do the right thing on a street fair and so forth. so, back of the house sorting there made a difference and some of the entities started to work in buildings. so, about a decade we have had this, and it's been growing, over 80 properties now and examples like the flower mart where they are not, they don't have the 0 waste facilitator companies, so they are doing it in house. so even more beyond sort of the outside companies. >> thank you. thank you very much.

>> so, here are nine companies, and we have this, i think a comment last week, someone could not find it. it is on our website and we keep it up to date. we got an email from somebody that said please add me to your list. >> so the 0 waste facilitators available to be contracted with. >> so looking at 9, 10 now and i think an opportunity -- three janitorial companies here, two of the largest, and more than that, and i think there is an opportunity for them to get more engaged in the work, especially if the legislation passed. so, i want to close and happy to answer any questions, but i think the key point here is even though these are very small number, the largest accounts in the city, they do have an impact of about 20% of trash disposal of the refuse stream and we do see where we see audits, and a

lot of contamination and big impact. on the trash, if they put recyclables, we are not sorting or recovering the trash. looking at technologies to do that, but it's difficult and the quality of the material is lower, so seen as a world leader, we need to keep it separated at the source so we can recover that material and market for best economic environmental benefit, and finally, you know, we are seeing the 0 waste facilitators have a great success, and we are seeing they in large part can offer economic savings. >> how long is that track record as success? >> as i was saying, i would say in these types of properties, the order of a decade. and even longer if you look at special events. >> thank you.

colleagues, do you have any questions? mr. macy, thank you very much. two weeks ago we had a lot of questions and appreciate you answering most of them, at least the ones i had. that you've made, that you and your staff have made yourself available to answer questions and i'm grateful for that. i particularly like the list that you provided of us of the 419 businesses, initially when this legislation was introduced, i was concerned about small businesses. how the small businesses would be affected by this. if i'm not mistaken, the language has been changed and so they are no longer considered due to the change of the cubic tonnage. >> everybody with a rolloff compactor, and 40 cubic yards or more. previously, threshold of 30, supervisor safai was mentioning, and earn 550 account, and

knocked 150. >> now 40 cubic rollout, learning the language here. >> that, we would consider those, those are all large generators, and maybe some of those restaurants might consider them a small business but the largest in the city, the largest markets and so forth. >> ok. on this list, how many have, i guess i can do the count. my question is, how many with current contamination charge. looks like there is -- >> currently about 32. >> so, it's not that many. these are the -- these are the worst offenders, the ones that keep offending, factor the fees into a cost of doing business. >> that's right. so, those, the 32, they have been paying for months, well over a year. >> and they are paying because

they don't want to come in compliance of the law? >> well, you know, they are given opportunities, they say, we offer any kind of assistance they want, and they are generally just blowing us off. >> ok. all right. it's a problem for me. >> 14 of those paying well over a year, and thousands of dollars a month each one of these in extra costs. >> and who are they paying? who gets the money? >> part of the refuse bill they pay recology. >> recology gets it. so this legislation would hurt recology bottom line. >> yeah. well, i guess -- >> if you think about it. generating a fee, i mean, businesses are not in compliance, paying a fee for it, that has an impact on recology bottom line. yes or no. >> yes, small percent of the bottom line, but yes. >> and i'm not saying that,

we'll call it the recology representative and get her on the record without a doubt. i want to make sure i'm following this correctly. so, in your conversations with your point person over recology, working with 13, 14 companies, how do the conversations go? are you in conversation or recology? >> both. my team is very engaged. there is phone conversations, there's multiple written notices. >> just sounds so -- it does not sound aggressive. >> well, i mean -- what are the different ways of communicating? you know, you send people letters, you call them up, meet with them. doing that as much as we can to offer, offering the assistance that they need. >> ok. so, how do we increase the fees again? i know you talked about in your presentation, the director did, remind me. how do we increase the fees,

penalties? >> the way it works is that there is just to review, two parts. one, that the recovery or diversion rate that an account has, shown on their bill, which is the level, the volume recycling composting divided by all three streams, they get a discount based on that. so, three-quarters going to recycling -- >> three-quarters is reduced. >> 50% off all their three streams. that's significant. many thousands of dollars a month for the generators. in addition to that, if they end up contaminating, they could use that diversion discount. in addition, they can get contamination charges, if contamination is bad and they are not taking steps to remediate it. if somebody is taking steps, we give thep the time. if they lose that, if they end up not taking action, then they get the contamination charge,

starts at 50% of the service and up to 100. >> how do we get -- how do we break the cap of 100? how do we get to a top level of fee, to bring it to 150%, for example? >> basically, escalates over time. >> yes, i know. what's the process? >> well, it's all part of the rate process. they have notified an account, talked to them, they have gotten warnings and then they get the 50%. if they are not taking action, a letter later on saying it's going up to 75. >> who has discretion for that. >> rate board that gave the authority to go up to 100. they have the ability to go higher than that. at this point, they go up to 100. >> the rate board, cpuc? >> no, its own rate board. public works. >> it's the city controller, it's the city administrator, and

it's the p.u.c. director. and this was actually, rate board created out of 1932 legislation. so it's -- it's a very robust process, like a year-long process with many public hearings. >> and i would just like to comment and say you are right, it does not sound aggressive, and because it's, what the tools we have. so the tools we have had before this rate process were simply asking, please, that's all we had. then when the rate, or we have the ability to remove, we, meaning recology, the diversion discount, that was it. it wasn't enough. we went to the rate brd and how about if we send the signals with the penalties. penalties are in place, 50% for several years and 100% for a year. still seeing it's not sufficient. >> if it's insufficient, what reason are we not targeting this and making it sufficient?

>> it appears for some the cap is unknown. and what we really want to do is rather than just get more money into recology's budget, with he want to get people on the ground to pay attention to the problem and fix it. >> i totally agree with you, and not an advocate. >> the way i see it, punitive damages is a huge motivator to get people to comply with the law. or they factor it in, if it's low enough, but probably discounted or on their taxes, filing the taxes as cost of doing business. i'm frustrated, the conversation is very illuminating. sounds like the rate board needs to, we need to turn the fire up

on them a bit and petition them to increase rates so that we are getting the response that we want to see from these, what, 30, 40, i can't remember exactly. >> and it could be more than that. those are just once audited. as the audits continue, we expect those numbers to go up. >> and the trash auditing has been quite limited, and one of the benefits of this legislation is that it's going to drive more trash audits. everybody would have the trash audited, at least every three years. >> one more question about the legislation. basically if you, you go through an audit and you fail, that means you are required to hire someone. what makes me uncomfortable about this, is that even in baseball you get three strikes rule. here you mess up one time and there's no forgiveness, there's no -- we'll work with you? it just seems arbitrary.

i don't fullyp understand and follow that reasoning, that logic. maybe one of you can help me understand why there is no second or third. i mean -- baseball, i think about criminal justice, the three strikes you're out, o he -- >> from the department's perspective, we can implement it in many different ways. so i think that's a decision, that's a question the author needs to -- >> supervisor safai. >> that's a great question, one of the things that have gotten everyone's attention, the fines. reason for the 0 waste facilitator one audit and move, we are trying to change the culture of these businesses, and as they said, this is -- you see on the list, 30 plus. that's only the ones that have so far been audited in the last year, choosing to just pay more money. but this additional person,

again, this is not just one strike. if you talk to recology, they work with the account holders, they will leave them notes, send them letters, talk to them and say -- we are experiencing contamination. so, there is not -- this is not just a one strike and you are out piece of legislation. this is something that the industry, recology, department of environment, has been working on for a decade with these account holders and to the point of 20% of the waste that's generated by this less than 1% of the entire population of account holders sending that to landfill, that's the information we got today, and that's not even talking about the construction and demolition. so -- >> which we should probably be talking about. >> we are, and that's what i had said in the last meeting and i know there was so much going on, that's another piece of the legislation that we are going to work with the department of environment on because that's a matter of where they, where the

construction materials goes is really important. we have facilitates that can recycle them, but what ends up happening is contractors, builders, so on, they will go out of county but we pay, we end up getting dinged because it says city of origin, has to say san francisco. so we are working with them. they have asked us to wait until we get through this, and the next step is construction and demolition. but to your point, there's been a decade, been a lot of education, there's been a lot of attempts by the department of the environment and recology to talk to people about contamination. this is the result of ten years' worth of work. t he end of the day, yes, there will be finally consistent baseline audit, but there has been audits, there have been discussions, there have been education, contamination. and this is kind of the tip of the iceberg. so, that's why we want to move with one audit and move to change the sculpture.

>> even in football you get four downs before -- it doesn't -- still does not make sense to me why just one. >> well, what you said, and point you brought up, why are we not being aggressive more with fines, where aren't they responding more, why aren't we working with the rate board. which by the way, four individuals set up through the charter in 1932, right? so, that's a whole other conversation. but we have worked aggressively in this industry for ten years. fines are not working, fees are not working, notes are not working, contamination charges are not working. so, it's not that -- that is the first down, second down, third down, this is fourth and long. >> i disagree with that, the rules have changed. rules that govern, established 9, 10 years ago, we are updating and so from my perspective, not

grandfathering these -- excuse me, thank you. we are not grandfathering these past audits, and moving forward our expectation. if you fail, you -- you get two chances to fail. >> we are updating enforcement. the law is mandatory recycling and composting has been in effect. the ability for carrots and sticks have been in effect. this is still more carrots and sticks at the end of the day because we are saying, we are -- we are certainly compelling you to participate and at the end of the day you are going to get a savings and we are going to get environmental savings and the rate payers are going to get a savings. >> supervisor mandelman. >> i want to maybe pursue the question, whether large waste generators should get a second chance. that idea is sort of floating around. and so one things i've heard,

everybody has a bad day, that there are, you know, some -- some large waste generators that already have 0 waste sorters, can flunk the audit. and so i think -- i want to hear what the concern is about, from the department, the concern about giving that additional chance a second chance, is there a fear that we might have waste generators who get that f, and then do everything right for a short period of time to be in compliance for the second audit, but then kind of like forget about it? and i think that might be the fear about doing two. the i don't know. >> what fear. >> well, the -- i've heard that, i think supervisor safai, that there could be backsliding, that you know, you might -- anyway, i'm curious from the

department's perspective. >> so you bring up. >> what do you think of the idea of a second bite? >> you bring up two issues. one is the bad day issue. somebody has a 0 waste facilitator, had a bad day, and i think we covered that earlier, that if somebody is having a bad day they have a 0 waste facilitator and they fail, that's a perfect discussion opportunity for us to investigate why and to say you have the facilitator, is it that you don't have enough facilitators or the truly the person called in sick and you need a back-up. we have the discretion to handle that. so, i do think -- i think we have covered that. let me know if you still have heartburn on that area. the issue of the second chance, i would just have to say on that, that we personally do not have a big fear on that for us. we can work with it either way. we understand the worry.

we understand the potential. we don't know -- it's a little hypothetical either way for us to be more certain on the outcome of that decision. i -- so, that is the fairest thing for me to say on that. >> thank you very much. i want to kind of keep this moving on a little bit. i want to see if the budget legislative analyst has any further remarks. miss campbell. anything else you wanted to add to the discussion from your report? maybe try the other mic. >> we get offered some numbers last week, we have not changed our report but we are available for questions if you have any. >> thank you. i want to give the recology representative an opportunity to

come, and she's been able to hear the discussion. >> good morning, everyone. stephanie medias, with recology. manage the diversion auditors, the people doing the auditors of the compactors and deciding whether or not a customer passes or fails a particular audit. also manage the 0 waste specialists. the people that talk to the customers and let them know when there is a concern around contamination. so i will share recology is not in the business to collect charges from our customers, to put that on the record. our goal is for our customers to be successful and work with the department of the environment to put together a program for each and every customer so they know really clearly where the problems lie. and the type of contamination that we have seen. most of the contamination that we see in which customers are in

fact charged are clear contamination and evidence of nonsorting. it's not necessarily one item, a plastic clam shell container, it's many clam shell containers filled with food or bagged waste or a variety of different things in which we see, but they are clear and are specific to that particular customer. there is a process in place. we give the customers a lot of time in order to gain their compliance so they can be successful. the first thing is whether an audit shows that a customer has been contaminated, or tags, which is where drivers tag our customers. we let the customer know this is what we have seen and send a letter to them and follow up with a phone call and say customer, do you understand that this particular, this is what we are seeing, we have seen it multiple times, we need to be able to make a change, let me share with you some of the pgs options and tools to be successful. and if you don't take advantage

of any of these tools, we want to help you. if you don't, there could be charges ensued on either of your bins, the black, the blue, or the green. and helping them really understand what they need to do in order to be successful. so, then there's another set of letters, and we tell them in that last set that you will have an audit, and that audit will take place in a period of time, usually 30 days unless we know otherwise, for whatever reason, a larger facility, it may take 90 days, whatever it is. we give the customer an opportunity, share that the audit will occur. the audit happens and then based on that audit we will make a determination the customer knows, they have seen where the contaminants are and what the problem area is, and has it improved or not, and based on that, the charge is levied on that customers. when that happens, we have customers that decide to use waste facilitators or hire more

janitorial staff. they use lots of different tools in order to ensure they don't have the charges on their accounts for long periods of time. currently the way the charges impact the customer is they say on their account for a minimum of two billing cycles, about two months. and we hope it's agregious enough to get them to stop and pay attention and make some changes. and generally it is. but that's not necessarily true in all cases, but generally it is in most cases. our customers are not charged, they are able to pay attention to what happens at some point during all of these conversations and outreach and education that we are providing to them. >> thank you. i want to recognize supervisor mandelman, a question for you. >> thank you for being here and your work. i wonder if recology has a position on this idea of a second opportunity, a second bite of the apple.

>> well, you know, as i said, the waste facilitators are told customers use and have been successful, it's one of many. i would say right now we give our customers a chance. they know that this happens, and then we give them a short opportunity to correct it. so, i don't know -- i would like to say that it's whatever you all decide. we will work with. in the meantime, we will do all the things we do. any other questions? >> all right thank you for your time and expertise. i think what i will do is go to public comment. oh, wait. sorry. question for the budget office. good morning, ladies. so, in the presentation we have heard that audits outside the city, auditing outside the

city's budget process. i don't really fully understand what exactly that means. maybe you can -- i hope you know what i'm talking about. >> good morning, president cohen, mayor's budget office. i need to follow up and get back to you on that. >> ok. director rafael, maybe you can talk to me about it. you said in your presentation, supervisor safai in his, and as the budget chair, who i thought i understood the budget process, i don't understand xabtly what you mean. >> we understood that in order for city departments, if they fail an audit and are required to hire 0 waste facilitator, they don't have one already, hiring a new staff person is not something that can happen overnight because of our hiring process and secondly, they need to have the budget authority to do that. so, we put in the legislation the months of the year whereby we would do the audit so that

they would then have the time and the results to go through the budget process and make the case of why they needed to hire an additional person. there is, you know, often heartburn as you know about adding additional f.t.e.s to city staff and that's going to be part of a much bigger discussion so this enabled the city departments to have the time to go through the budget process if they were denied, so if for some reason the city could not afford to add that, they would -- they would simply be directed to work with us on alternative paths until such time as they could come again to the budget or have solved it. >> so, i'm just one chair in the line of many chairs and there's future chairs to come and i have to be honest with you, it doesn't necessarily sound like a full function that is, a hiring a facilitator, a function of the department's mission. i'm talking about department of

public health, talking about, i don't know, the port. we have not even touched on the port issue yet and their trash can issues, i suppose we will get to that. so my question -- i guess more of a statement, trying to understand, and then i ask to hear from the budget office and they didn't have an answer, they need to get back to us on it. i saw the deputy city attorney standing, hear what his thoughts are. >> just to jump in here. the way that that amendment was drafted, fairly broad for, intentionally broad. because it may be that a department has funds in their budget and has a potential staff in the annual salary ordinance but does not have a requisition for the mayor's office. maybe that -- that the department needs an annual salary ordinance amendment in order to hire someone, it may be that they need a supplemental appropriation, so, there's

just -- this gives the director some discretion to give the department more time if the department needs to come to the mayor's office, to the controller, to the board, to ensure that they have enough money and staff to hire someone. >> ok. and in terms of their mission, it would be likely to be, i mean -- already has 0 waste facilitators, i understand they save money. and department of health through the hospitals, maintenance and custodial staff. >> arbitrary examples. >> about you good examples. large ones and i know they have a lot of waste. i have not looked at all 419, i don't know which other city -- >> 15 properties and two are department of public health, five are m.t.a., port is one, i think. so yeah, it's a smattering, but not -- they are not that many of them frankly.

>> okay. pivot to the port, get them on the record and share some of their ideas. from brad benson, good to see you, thank you for being here. great. >> good afternoon, chair. brad benson, representing elaine forbes. >> perfect. reached out and been playing phone tag with elaine forbes. the port is interesting. enterprise department, so not on the general fund budget, means whatever costs are incurred, come out of your own budget. what i'm interested in hearing a little bit more about the discrepancy on trash cans on port property, and i believe you have a private entity that you contract with to collect them. >> so -- >> let me address that issue. >> please, please. >> much of the portland and the piers are the the 100 foot

shoreline bands. and in the areas in the shoreline bands, bcdc has dedicated most of those areas as dedicated public access. recorded against the property. and in those public areas, outdoor areas, there are trash receptacles, but often included in private leases like the lease for pier 1, or 1 and a half, 3 and 5, or tfive, or the explora at&t or pier 39. the trash receptacles in an area that is outdoors and a private leasehold. so, we have been working very closely with supervisor safai's office crafting language that would exempt those cans from the ordinance in just the way that public cans are exempted in public streets and parks city-wide.

>> mr. benson, your concerns, are they reflected in the amendments that supervisor safai has today? >> we have given him language but it requires further city attorney review. >> deputy city attorney, are you drafting those, trying to figure out where they are. >> yes. so, if the -- we are working on those for the next meeting, whether it's the committee or the full board, committee or the board could adopt those amendments, they would not be substantive, we are not ready to sign off on them today but will be by the next meeting. >> ok, great. thank you. >> and when we have final amendments with the city attorney we'll share them with the members of the committee. >> thank you very much. >> thank you for the brief presentation. missing anyone else, any other stakeholders? i think what i will do, go to -- yes, affordable housing representative.

remy dare. so these are interesting as well, a lot of waste as well, and i understand that they have some amendments that they are in the process of hammering out as well, please. >> good morning, mercy housing. i am here because sunnydale is one of the five affordable housing properties on the list, meaning the cutoff for the 40 cubic yards, and as you know, mercy housing and the co-developer related transforming sunnydale to all new affordable and market rate housing. and throw out some things to consider as you work on different amendments for the legislation. one is we are building 14 new affordable housing developments as part of the master plan for sunnydale, and some of the developments may be able to absorb the requirement of hiring a 0 waste facilitator, some may not. we set our operating budgets for each property before the building opens and before it's

occupied, that allows us to determine how much private financing we can leverage to construct that building. so, operating is set and we have some flexibility but sometimes not a lot, and it depends on the property size and number of units, and we, so we ask that as you consider this legislation that we have some flexibility to be able to work with the department of environment, to be able to come out with different solutions if there is an audit or other means of determining that work, the waste stream is not being managed appropriately. so, i just wanted to make that request, and thank you very much. >> thank you very much. one question for you, supervisor mandelman has a question for you. >> thanks. >> my understanding is that supervisor safai has done extensive work with the affordable housing community to prepare amendments, introducing them, and i wanted to see whether, with those amendments, do those amendments address your concerns? >> so, i think i'm caught up on

the amendments but i'm not 100% positive. >> are you finished? thank you. thank you, appreciate that. >> through the chair, for clarification i have the amendments in front of you. we got those finished at the end of the day yesterday but we worked with amy chan and kate hartley and the city attorney to draft the amendments and amy could not be here today. i appreciate the mayor's office of housing actually sending a representative, so, but yes, we did work in conjunction with them on this, and there's another -- there's a slight subset of that as well, which has to do with nonprofits that serve indigent, food serving to the indigent, like st. anthonys, or glide, or food bank, and five of those