they are not in that group. there are currently affairs of a recession, as well as state and federal budget legislative changes that could affect revenues coming to the city. the mayor has set her priorities , building more affordable and low income housing, reducing homelessness, providing behavioural health services and cleaning up our streets and making them safer, creating equitable opportunities for everyone in making -- and making government more accountable. specific instructions to our department and other departments in the city are focusing on accountability and equitable outcomes and reprioritizing funding and budgets for highest and best use. new positions may be considered if they align with the mayor's priorities. she has also asked for departments to propose savings or revenues of 2% in the first year, four% in the second year,

and 1% contingency proposal in the first year and a 2% contingency in the second year. those two last measures do not apply to us due to prop b. key dates will be coming back to you in january for a budget preview at your commission and we will also be presenting the operation committees in fairbury 21st. will be presenting to you the final budget proposal for your review, and a hopeful approval to be submitted to the mayor's office. thank you. >> there is a request to speak. >> yes. the question i have is that projected, at this point i guess it is not projected, i assume it is real that 470 million or 471 million windfall, how is the

department perceiving that law is the department going to be engaged in and making recommendations? >> the monies that we received through property taxes are allocated first before it is calculated. we do not benefit. the mayor did announced today that the discretionary part of the revenues are going to be invested in housing homelessness

, mental health services and part of that funding -- there is a very small percentage of that funding which is being directed towards public works for the expansion of its pitstop program. we work in close partnership with public works on pitstop on -- it is possible depending upon the locations of the program that that might indirectly affect the benefit by having more staff bathrooms and communities. >> we don't have the type of set-aside funding that benefits directly. i do believe m.t.a. and the school district and the department of youth and the family benefits did receive some benefits. but again because of the the open space fund is calculated, we do not. >> okay. thank you for that information.

>> commissioner low? >> it is not necessarily related to the budget but i would request that the department give this commission an idea of a park bond which i am assuming is not occurring in 2019, it would be included in the park bond. >> sure thing. >> the city's capital planning committee will do its work in january to amend the ten year capital plan, and we will know more at the conclusion of that process, and then we are happy to come back. i gives it with relative certainty, we will not be in 2019. >> you may be part of your general manager report in february or whenever you have the information. there is a lot of folks who are counting on the park bond for

capital improvement projects in the park. >> they are all counting on it including the parks department. [laughter] >> thank you very much. >> we would very briefly conclude with a very short video >> thank you. [♪] >> great. >> so much fun.

[laughter] >> the general manager. [laughter] >> three, two, one. [cheering] >> that was a good party. >> great video. well done. >> thank you period ending on a happy note, happy holidays to this commission and to our community of park loving folks, and to the recreation and parks staff.

you did a wonderful job. >> commissioner anderson, did you want to see something? >> i want to wish everyone a happy holiday and to thank the general manager phil for your enthusiastic and comprehensive vision, and how gracious you always are to your stuff. to market for keeping us on the straight and narrow, to my fellow commissioners for being great colleagues and such great stewards of our parks, to the entire recreation of the parks department, they are so joyful and so professional and they do such magic is our parks and open space is a want to thank you for all of that. more importantly, to the citizens of san francisco. without you, we will not all be here. happy holidays everyone. >> thank you. >> commissioner harrison? >> i want to commence the general manager and a great staff that we have for that great christmas tree lighting event. i remember when it was just the tree lighting, and now it has grown into a city fair festival.

>> it is just great. thank you. i attended the employee's christmas party the other day. what a great improvement in the museum up there. that is just terrific. and the party was wonderful. everyone was having a great time accommodation to you. i want to wish each and every one of you a happy and a healthy new year. >> thank you commissioner. >> it goes without saying that without phil, where would we be? what i would like to do is to thank my fellow commissioners for being such outstanding volunteers. this is a volunteer position that we take very seriously, and that we are very passionate about. and i would like to commend our

command president for his extraordinary leadership, he has really and truly being a guiding light for us and for many years. i sincerely hope he will continue to be our guiding light >> thank you very much. that is very nice of you. i second what everyone said. i think under the general manager's leadership, and under the staff management and employees and margaret, the entire crew makes us look good we appreciate it very much. thank you. >> is there anyone who would like to make public comment on the general manager's report? seeing none, this item is closed we are now on general public comment continued from four.

is there anyone who would like to make general public comment? >> two things. one, would you please schedule the information hearing so you know what is being evaluated by the environmental review for the rebuilding of the playground, which includes childcare facilities, and childcare has an open space plan, and secondarily , i want to enter into the record a draft staff motion for the planning commission to approve on the park shadow? it is a staff recommendation. it is not a planning commission action. and despite the corrections that were made verbally, that is not on the staff recommendation.

thank you very much. >> thank you. >> please continue and have a hearing publicly. don't weight until the e.i.r. is done to give input and to have an idea of what is going on. thank you. >> thank you. >> okay. is there anyone else who would like to make general public comment? seeing none, this item is closed we are now on item nine, closed session. is there anyone who would like to make public comment on closed session? okay. seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioners, we need a motion and a second on whether to go into closed session. >> move to go into closed session. >> moved and seconded. >> all those in favor? >> aye. >> okay. i need to ask everyone[laughter]

>> we have reconvened into open session. commissioners, there are two items you will need to make a motion and second and vote on. one is that possible report of actions taken in closed session, and the second one is a vote on to elect whether to discuss or disclose any discussions in closed session. >> okay. we entertain a motion on whether or not to report it out. >> correct. >> move not to report. >> second. >> so moved to. >> and then a vote on whether to

disclose any or all discussions. >> move not to disclose. >> second. >> seconded. >> all those in favor quest. >> item ten. commissioner matters. >> just to thank the city attorney to for coming and explaining all of that to us. >> is there any public comment on this item? this item is closed. item 11 is new business. >> no. >> any public comment? at this item is closed. communications? any public comment? this item is closed. item 13 as adjournment. >> so moved. >> second. >> all those in favor? aye. >> so moved. thank you. >> thank you, commissioners, and a very merry christmas. >> merry christmas. happy new year. >> good job.

. >> golden gate parks largest body of water ska great labor for scrolling and picnicking and both miking which can both be rented at the boat house and the lakewood design for leisure boatings and carriages and a treasure trove passing hunting ton water falls two bridges connect the strawberry island and inclient to the hills the highest upon the in golden gate park and more than free hundred

feet and you can catch glimpses will from the city at the top of a romantic look out and for - h [ gavel ]. >> good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. welcome to the san francisco public utilities commission. it is december 11, 1:30 in the afternoon. madam secretary, will you please read the roll.

[roll call] >> clerk: we have a quorum. >> with respect to public comment today, it's not really something i like to do, limit public comment. normally, folks come from the public, they expect to have three minutes. some people come with prepared remarks, so i'm not just reluctant, but i'm unwilling to shorten that time. however, please be warned that it will be a hard stop at three minutes. kindly refrain from repeating things that the commission has already heard but will go forward with normal public comment. the microphone will be shut off at exactly three minutes. fair? okay. thank you. approval of the meeting minutes of november 13, 2018. commissioners. >> so moved. >> second. >> so moved and seconded. is there any discussion? public comment on minutes? hearing none, public comment is

closed. all those in favor? [voting] >> opposed. the ayes have it. madam secretary, next item. [agenda item read] >> i have two speaker cards already. i'll start with peter dreckmeyer, and after that, francisco acosta. >> i just wanted to bring up an issue that i hope doesn't get lost, and this is the adaptive plan for o'shaugnessy dam. there was a stipulation in 1987 between the city and department of interior that requires the city or fish and wildlife service federal to undertake a

study to determine what effect if any the kirkwood power house or addition would have had and have it on the resident population fish species. and that study was required to be completed by december 1992. u.s. fish and wildlife service did issue a draft study in 1992, and among other things, it recommended higher flows in the hetch hetchy reach between o'shaugnessy dam and the out reach, of 30%. in 2006, my predecessor at the tuolomne river trust found this paper trail and asked the sfpuc about this obligation and where it stood. and p.u.c. acknowledged they had not met the conditions of the stipulation and committed to a collaborative process to resolve these implementation issues by december 2009.

and in 2006, a bar on the upper tuolomne e co system project, which has been a very good project and staff has done a great job, but it's evolved into a program and expanded -- kind of moved away from favoring game fish, which include brown trout, which are nonnative, to native species, to rainbow trout, foothill legged frog. and riparian bats and species. in 2014, april, sfpuc released a stakeholder draft and nothing has happened in over four years, so we're going to be following up with staff on this. i think one thing i want to give everyone a heads up that it's really going to be important to have peer review of the studies behind that management plan and especially pertaining to discussions that we've had recently on the bay delta plan, so we will be requesting that. i will cede my last 28 seconds

to the chair. >> thank you, peter. francisco. >> so commissioners, i want to talk on two topics. i want to talk about the bayview and ask you, commissioners, to go back to our community benefits and see how the distribution of that community benefits is done. so what was agreed by the task force was 5% of $1 billion, which is 50 million. first, it was 6 million. first, it was 300 million, and then, reading your reports, it's $1 billion, so you all go read the reports and figure out your distribution. you all need to figure it out, please, because i'm the last of the mohicans. the others are just rubber stamping. we call them sellouts. so commissioners, step back,

look at this, and do the right thing. others are in bed, and in listening to the last commission meeting, and i think each of the speakers that spoke on the tuolomne river should be getting a commendation because they spoke truth to power. and so i was doing my research, and i said, let me go to the source of the tuolomne river, and i believe they are t glaciers. and once, i believe that whole area was covered with snow. and i was told that maybe in five or ten years, there will be no snow. so why are we building skyscrapers in san francisco, in the land of the ohlone, the land that i represent?

i have one minute and ten seconds, and i give it back to you. >> thank you, francisco. see how that works? all right. you guys can have it back later, right? is there any other general public comment on items that we do not have on the agenda today? going once -- i don't have any -- there was a card up there, donna, are we good? >> clerk: did you want to speak? on items -- [inaudible] >> clerk: this is for item four, general public comment. >> going three times, public comment is now closed. madam secretary, next item, please. >> clerk: item five is communications. >> commissioners. >> i have one request. on item 5g, the annual water report, that was done without increased fishery obligations

that we will be taking on. my request is the january meeting, we have an update that reflects both the state boards proposal as well as the proposal that is developing through the volunteer development process. >> if there's knox, that'll be the order. hearing knox, that'll be the order. commissioners, anything else else? is there any public comment on item number five? seeing none, public comment is closed. next item, please. >> clerk: item six is future calendars. >> okay. i'm asking for a report in connection with any proposed legislation in connection with anything, by works. i think we need to have a little more transparency about

the conversations that are taking place. if there is draft legislation, we need to see it because it's being done on our behalf, and i don't believe we've had any conversations in connection there with. additionally, i'd like to request specifically from the agency that i be notified and any commissioner be notified in conversation taking place concerning workforce development and bayview and anything concerning this commission so that we have an opportunity to put in some input. is that anticipacceptable? >> bay works is an organization that we're a part of. so we can give you the information as it relates to their plan. >> yeah. i think it's important -- thank you, general manager kelly. i think it's important to make sure that when we're talking about workforce development, that we -- you know, nobody's getting blindsided, and that may be a little harsh, but nobody's getting blindsided learning from outside these

rooms that conversations with advancing. certainly, with the mayor's office, in particular, the mayor's office of economic and workforce development. i think we are obligationed to make sure that government works as well as it can, and so that's really my motivation. but i think conversations that are taking place across the haul with the mayor's office so we have at least an opportunity to weigh in and make sure we have a chance to frame those outcomes. so i know i've spoke to donna about commissioner calendars, and i think that she's prepared, as long as she gets notice, that there are workforce meetings taking place at the agency, that i be kept abreast of those, so that when i get phone calls, at least i'm able to keep up on items. is that okay, commissioners? is there any public comment on this item?

seeing none, public comment is closed. madam secretary, next item, please. >> clerk: item seven is the report of the general manager. >> good afternoon, commissioners. first item is report on presentship resources, san francisco. >> good afternoon, miss reed. >> good afternoon. margaret reed from the apprenticeship division of workforce development. i am proud to say that p.u.c. is one of our strongest partners. and if i can have that slide.

awesome. so apprenticeship sf started about four years ago as an -- in response to the fact that we had several apprenticeship programs within the city and county of san francisco that were running independently and often in often -- well, let's just say it was incongruent with the current charter and some of the rules in the m.o.u. and some other things. so we decided hey, let's do something about it. and mickey callahan led the charge to centralize how we run prese apprenticeships in the city, and that involves the work of several unions. one of the things that we have to do is we have to identify who is truly responsible for

the city's apprenticeship programs. and one of the things that we found out was that each individual department found that they were, and the city attorney reminded us that the charter says that no individual department can actually encumber the city and make agreements with the state on behalf of the city, that it needs to come through the centralized agency, so that's why we moved. apprenticeship is, first and foremost, an employment opportunity for the city. that's the first thing it is. more importantly, apprenticeship allows for a successtion plan that actually makes sense, and with p.u.c., that includes our stationary engineers, both the power side as well as the wastewater side of the house. it also includes maintenance,

and automotive machinists, and what we discovered thanks to p.u.c. is we also needed a lot of work with our high voltage. because not only do we have any new people ner in san francisco, we don't have any new people in california, we don't have any new people in the united states. so we have to work really hard to grow our own, create our own cadre of folk to backfill and to move forward on all the various projects. in order for an apprenticeship program to be recognized, fully recognized, it has to be recognized by the state of california. and that's one of the things that my office did. we take an (ship, an idea and make sure that it follows all of the vision apprenticeship standards rules. we also make sure that in the case of the u.s. program, which is a department of labor program, as well -- u.a.

program, which is a department of labor program, that we make sure they follow the federal rules, as well. they all have to measure up to the m.o.u., so each individual union that has an m.o.u. with the city, we also have to make sure that our apprenticeship programs, the hiring, all of the processes involved in that, the selection processes, etc., all meet the same standards so that we have one central voice to move these things forward. the nondiscriminatory section of the apprenticeship standards is probably the thing that i am the most proud of because what we took was some very antiquated ways in which folks were hired -- in one case -- we can say it now, out loud, there

used to be one union that had a 234 negro list, an asian list, and a filipino list. when we saw that, we said no, no, no. that's not how we do business in san francisco. we convinced the state and we convinced the union to make some changes so that stuff does not now exist, and so now, we have a very open and truly competitive process in order to get employment in our apprenticeship programs. we have charter requirements. as i mentioned earlier, one of the charter requirements is that if someone is hired, they have to be hired under some version, and what we use is a permanent exempt. the reason we went permanent exempt is because it allows for an apprenticeship to come on board fully benefited -- that's medical, dental, vacation, etc. -- for the duration of

their apprenticeship. in exchange -- and this is the biggie -- they have no property rights to that position. in other words, you're an apprentice. you learn your apprenticeship, and at the end, our relationship is finished. they are now allowed to compete for any permanent position, and we made changes in our job codes and job specs to allow that to happen, which is a huge step forward. we have a strongly a son wi li the division of apprenticeship standards. we have one person that's dedicated to working with us so that we can always reach someone to help us to make sure that the city of san francisco

is in compliance with all of the rules so that all of the city departments know and can be confident about when they're hiring, when they're moving someone through the process, when they're meeting the standards, that everything that they're doing is above board and proper. training and mentorship is a huge piece of it. these are your journey men. these are the folks that are doing the work for point u.c. we have instituted -- p.u.c. we have instituted train the trainer, so we get journey men and women how to train. we work with the selection committees on how to move past some of the barriers that have been barriers to employment so that the selection committees are truly open. and i am proud to say we had some of the strongest

candidates for some of the p.u.c. positions for the apprenticeship program. as soon as that gets off the ground, we will have one of the most diverse populations of apprentices in that particular field. these are some of the positions that we currently have. we have the transit power line worker, transportation distribution line, that's what i mentioned earlier. that's your high voltage. the automotive mechanic, which is a new one. the ougauto body and fender worker, track maintenance, utility plumber and general plumber, so that's both the street plumbers as well as the house plumbers, and that is both with local 38. the preapprentice labor

maintenance program, again, that's with local 261. the car and auto body painters, station engineer, the painter apainter -- cement mason. we have a premechanic which is the one we spear headed here first with the admin division and m.t.a. that is because we are woefully short of women in the world of mechanics. we just finished testing for our preapprentice group, and i am happy to say we met our 30% female going towards the interview process, which is huge. we have no mechanics that are female right now in the city

and county of san francisco. so we are really working towards making that happen. and then finally, we are working now with the cyber security, and hopefully, p.u.c. will be joining san francisco airport on that. and yes -- >> that was nice. nice touch. so i am open for questions. >> thank you, margot. >> commissioners, questions? okay. i don't want my -- i promised we would keep these pretty short, so we're just lining up the dominos. i want to thank director kelly for lining up this report. i want to talk about a couple knowledge things. i think it's good that you mentioned that this isn't just a local 261 thing, this is -- every single employee that we

have here at the agency, there's about 2300, i think -- i'll stand corrected. at the end of the day, this is about adding that cliff in a responsible way, and i'm glad that you talked about centralizing it because these departments have a tendency to do all their own different things, and then, you don't have any alignment all, and then, it's the worker that loses out. what ea union is is a more centralized workforce, gets folks to just qualify for a city job, can enroll in these apprenticeship and preapprenticeship programs, everybody. it's wide open. i think that's a big progressive step in the right direction. it's a lot of work. that's what it comes down to.

if i have any success, this commission has any success, it will be our own agency making this report to us in the future, telling us about it instead of having the department of human resources tell us about it, but i think it's a really, really positive step in the right direction, and i want to thank you for all of your work. and again, to general manager kelly for permitting us to have this conversation. commissioners? any public comment on the report? >> yeah. >> thank you, francisco. >> so commissioners, not long ago, it was a hearing at city hall. and on the line was san francisco human resources. the topic was how people of color and especially blacks were treated.

despicable, to say the least. i don't want to say more. watch that videotape for yourself. now, i worked at the presidio of san francisco, and i've had talks with some of you all how we did things over there, having standard operating procedures. now, way back in 2012, i created a model, a concept for your contracting center. we did the hard work. we did the heavy lifting, and it was meant exactly for our apprentices so that those programs could start way back in 2012 and '13 and '14 and '15 and '16 and '17 and not in 2018. now one of you commissioners mentioned about institutional experience and learning and

knowledge. look at the florez treatment plan. where is tomi florez? where is karen kubic? do you want me to cite some more names? in the bayview, way back in 2012, we should have had young men and women filling all of these positions controlled by somebody from san francisco public utilities commission and working in sync with the city and county of san francisco. you should hear -- you should have heard that hearing. the people were crying, how they're treated like animals. and this is even in the sfpuc, more in the out lying areas.

i remember this man once rent, and they wouldn't allow him to go up in the elevator. they had to make a call to another person. they say oh, that's general manager kelly. you allow him to go up on the elevator. another woman who worked really hard was treated sexual abuse, had to go to another agency where she got her fair trial. so what i'm asking? where is our presentation on the digesters, a real good one. why are you having the opportunity with the -- and i'm sorry i took a little more time. >> i am, too. >> so those points, thank you, francisco, and people get fired up about it. i certainly do. it's about protecting the labor standard for brown and black folks.

that's just the reality. at the end of the day, when you delegate this workforce to other entities, they prioritize their own staffing, and they diminish the labor standards that we have here in san francisco. so if you look at that list that margot put together, it's mostly in semi skilled positions that are working with their hands. that's what the community is looking for. that's what they want us to watch out for and guard against folks riding on the backs of those workers turning what could be a really good career into a lousy job. so again, thank you for your comments. if there's no other comments, i'll move it to the next item. >> all right. the next item is the engagement survey results, and we'll have

justi justine leiter come up and talk about it. this is something we talked about to really have the agency understand the employees -- how we can get them engaged in what we do, and so this is a process that we went through, and we gave a presentation on how it works, but we want to kind of give you what the results were and how we're going to move forward to better engage the employees and the mission of the p.u.c. >> good afternoon, justine. >> good afternoon. hi. for those of you that don't know me. >> workforce hero. >> part of my job. as general manager kelly mentioned, i'm here to talk about employee engagement. so last we updated this body, it was prelaunch, and so i

think it was april or may. and we talked about kind of the system that we were going to use, which is called quantum workplace. so i'm here today to talk about high-level results, our focus areas, and next steps. so just as a refresher, when it comes to engagement, there's lots of different schools of thought, and how we decided to measure engagement was to really focus on the drivers of engagement because that's where you're going to see and be able to be actionable. and so it's different than looking at something from an outcome perspective because an outcome is a little more like a diagnostic tool. you can see where the problems may be but you're not necessarily sure what steps to take to do something about it, so that's why we're focusing on drivers. for results, we have -- we had

a really big push to get participation? the last time we did an engagement survey or an employee survey of any sort was back in 2012 or '13, and we had something like a 30% rate, and we were shoot -- participation rate, and we were shooting for much higher. we got that, so we were really happy about that. we have an overall 60% favorable rating, which is an awesome thing, but there's obviously room for improvement. and we have a six-point scale, so aniy whicquestion we asked, you agree, do you highly agree

shall in , that's the six-point system. we'll be analyzing it from a qualitative perspective to see what some good things would be to do. so this is our overall engagement profile in the p.u.c. it kind of speaks for itself, but as you can imagine, disengaged, you know, folks are fairly negative towards their work, barely engaged is maybe sort of an indifferent attitude, moderately engaged is somewhat favorable and highly engaged are just -- you know, they're super into their job, they intend to say, and they're -- stay, and they're putting forth that effort. we want to know what's the

discretionary output that you're providing to this job. what are the things that you're doing to go above and beyond in your job because that is really the hallmark of an engaged employee because that's what we want to identify, encourage, and harness to the extent that we can. so just to see, p.u.c. is on the top bar, and these are various agencies that we measured against. quantum workforce has thousands of clients, and so that's where these benchmarks come from. so you know, the reason why we do something like this is so we understand where we can improve. and so already, we have some good things to look at with our high-level highlights here. the top three where we rated

highly favorable, you can read for yourself. where there is room for improvement are in the below -- the red marks there. and so because of these top, i guess most lowest rated drivers, we came up with, as an agency, basically two focus areas that we're moving the needle on in the next two years. focus area one is communication, and that's basically just overall improve it. let's talk about what we do as an organization, as an agency across the agency so that everyone can understand what their colleagues do, what the different work groups do on a more regular and tangible basis. some of the things that we've moved forward already with is sharing weekly updates, and we're also going to be

strattizing on ways we can improve p.u.c.'s goals as they're defined in our strategic plan. the next one is recognition, so that's employee recognition. so how do our employees feel value here? do they feel like they are being recognized by their peers, by their supervisors, by the agency as an entity, and if not, what can we do to improve that? so there's a couple different things we are doing to address that. one i want infoto focus on is january , we're going to be launching -- a social recognition platform that's also within the same system as the engagement platform so people won't have to learn, like, something new, for the most part. and this basically hits two birds with one stone of the because of the social aspect, it's very social media-esque.

very facebook-esque. anyone that's interacting can see what's going on in that platform, so it's one way that people can recognize each other for great work. we also see this as a way to communicate more effectively and just to have a diverse set of communication tools. this is just one of them? but being able to communicate more effectively about what's going on in the organization, what, you know, great work is happening in power and water and in all of our support bureaus. so people can go to one place and see these in real-time, and it's exciting and modern and things that people are already using in their daily lives. the last thing that i'd like to point out for this recognition platform is that we've also tailored it so when they're

being recognized, people are being recognized for things that are their values. so for example, if i wanted to recognize general manager kelly for his excellence, then we have a badge, so to speak, for excellence, and that's also one of our values. so there's a lot of synergy going on in this one tool, so it's pretty exciting. and i'm going to skip back just real quick. also within the quantum workplace system, our supervisors and managers are ablg to make commitments. and so the whole point -- or one of the main points of an engagement survey is you're doing something about the results. and within the system, you're able to basically have action that is trackable, and so, for example, i'm a manager. i see from my results that my folks are more interested in professional development and

career growth opportunities, and so i developed my commitments to at least touch on those things in a significant way throughout the year. and so for example, i held an all-hands meeting for my folks, and it was focused on professional development. we had all sorts of exercises and speakers, but it was one thing that i committed to do in the system and to my people, and now, i'm able to talk about that in the system and from a higher level, we can see as an agency how we're moving the needing. and so we have, i think, so far, a little over 400 commitments in the system and a little over 200 completed commitments. these are some more highlights that we shared recently at a senior staff meeting, some of the things that people are doing throughout the agency to improve the engagement experience. and there was a great discussion, there was a lot of great ideas, and so these are just some of the ideas that

rose to the top during the discussion. this is the recognition platform. so coming up, besides launching that platform, we're really increasing the dialogue on this from a management perspective, understanding what people are doing, and i think that it's also a really great team building experience at that level. we're going to be, as i mentioned earlier, performing a quali qualitative analysis in that system, and we're going to be increasing program opportunities to increase engagement throughout our time here at the agency. so more to come on what's next in upcoming reports. do you have any questions? >> yes, i have a question. i think it's really great. are you tieing this at all into

individual performance management for people with director reports? >> so right now, i think we aren't. i think that is an overall goal of something that's long-term, and a program and a system that is applicable throughout the agency. i think right now, we're still -- because this is, a, a new platform, and b a reinr reinvigorated response. [inaudible] basis, but

how we can effectively tie engagement in promotive opportunities, i think we need to look at that more specifically. >> yeah. i appreciate your comments. certainly, the civil service system was developed in order to make sure that people are promoted on a merit basis and not just political influence or, you know, some good guys network or something like that. and i think that most of that was developed a very long time ago. and i would be interested at some point if we can get a read as to how that system is serving us in terms of the perceptions of the employees and if -- is it, in fact, giving the sense of fairness that the system is intended to do? >> well, i can maybe -- we actually had a lot of comments on hiring, promotions, and most

of them were not good, or really talked about areas where they felt what was problematic, you know, the tests are unfair, and, you know, a whole bunch of other things. so one of the things that we are doing is one, we want to make sure that people know about employment opportunities. the second is using consultants instead of city staff, so it's a lot of areas that we want to have more dialogue in and have folks understand when do we hire consultants instead of city staff and try to use that to get a better understanding of what the intent is. but it gave us a lot of information, so we are using the high points, but we're planning to address some of the specific issues that was throughout the organization. and one was, like, you know,

hiring, you know, why certain people were hired versus others, so we're going to address that, and using consultants is another example. so we're going to do a lot of that. in fact i'm trying to read all 3,000 comments, and they're pretty interesting. some are hurtful, but you've got to take the good with the bad. what i tell all the managers is i can't take it personal. what really matters with it is what we do with it and how we can move forward because this is just a snapshot. what we can do to change people's perception and address it. >> thank you. >> it's not always something people want to talk about, but there's always hiring and promotionals, but also releasing people. there's nothing worse for morale than five guys or gals working together as a team, and one not doing anything and

making the same pay. and i think it's not always getting down from the manager to the supervisor to make those calls, to be that bad cop, that's something that i would want to hear more about because it doesn't really happen in the private sector. and i think that civil service cuts two different ways. former city attorney louise renne was on the police commission at some point. she said it's easy to do as long as you have the will. you have to have the will to uplift the group and make sure that nobody's bringing them down and acknowledge that because that's a big part of our obligation to the workforce. >> and we receive those comments as well. >> from me? >> no, from some of the colleagues, as well. >> now we know. >> anything else? >> well, thank you, and thank you for bringing this to us. a lot of times, we get presentations that are about how good we're