with the tariffs by offering the city the secondary and primary plus, wholesale distributions services that they provided and we have asked ferk to pay the city refunds consistent with the rules that are on file there. and to take any other actions that they deem necessary, to make sure that we get fair service from pg & e. so with that summary, i'm happy to take any questions or if you wish to hear from the other departments? >> from the time you reached agreements to move forward on a number of the other projects, have any of them been finalized. >> so we have four projects actually get energized, ok?

permanent power or temporary power? >> with permanent power. >> ok. >> so, those, the balboa pool has been energized, the randall museum has been energized, rest room at rec park facility was energized. >> that's good to know. i don't know that you'll be able to fully answer this question but i'm curious of your thoughts. >> i'll do my best. >> we are all wondering what does pg & e means for city projects. but have you encountered any situation where pg & e is using the bankruptcy as an excuse to delay and not to move forward on energizing any of the projects? >> so i would say that pg & e requested of the bankruptcy court and as i understand it, the bankruptcy court in the

first week approved its request to allow it to conduct business as it normally would, right? so there's that. the federal energy regulatory commission's tariff that pg & e has on file is part of its routine business. so one could argue that that with that position by pg & e at the bankruptcy court, that the bankruptcy court granted, they should be able to continue to implement -- to go forward with the application process and process requests under that tariff. we have, as i mentioned, compromised in order to move some projects forward. those compromises were reached prior to bankruptcy. pg & e has told us that they believe that in order to implement any other projects under a similar compromise they

would need bankruptcy court approval. so it's my understanding that is pg & e's position, on how the bankruptcy would affect the processing of actses. actions. >> even if they were engaged in that prior to the bankruptcy, they're saying now because of the bankruptcy, they don't know if that's a regular course of business. >> they said we need bankruptcy court approval to implement that type of compromise with more than the six projects that they agreed to prior to the bankruptcy. >> again, the games. it's just incredibly frustrating. i heard you say that up until now these delays to all of these critical projects in the city have cost the city up to $12 million. today you said 8. is the 8 in addition to -- >> no, i'm sorry if i misspoke

earlier. 8 million is what we reported in the november report and the same number we're reporting in our january report. >> ok. and then when -- that 8 million is because there's been unanticipated delays. it doesn't take into account that figure, other problems that result from those delays like when a family continues to live in a tent on a sidewalk because they can't get into that affordable housing and drum up hospital bills and having been exposed to the weather. we're not even really capturing the true costs to the city of these delays. that's just in terms of construction delays and projects, et cetera, i'm assuming. >> yes. it's definitely an estimate an understatement for the

additional indirect costs that you're calling out. these are more direct costs. you know, did we have to do additional engineering work, did we have to pay a contractor to mobilize, demobilize, because the project site wasn't ready because we have delays on the electrical configuration. it's more hard costs the city is improvisincurring, as opposed te costs incurring within our community beyond that. balboa pool example is one where we heard from a number of constituents, randall museum as well, about the packs they were experienced and those aren't included in the 8 million but they're definitely real. >> and since the bankruptcy, have you noticed that progress on these projects being any

better or any worse than prior? >> i would say the progress is limited. it was very limited before. it remains very limited. the prospect of having to take any possible resolution on the 53 projects individually to the bankruptcy court tells me that we don't have good prospects for more expeditious treatment. >> last question before i turn it over to the representative from rec and park. at our last hearing we heard from the san francisco unified school district they were forced to do costly engineering to protect the district against any last-minute pg & e decisions to eensure the deadlines of the

school calendar. unfortunately, nick kissner was unable to be here into speak for the school district. can you talk about any of that? >> so the two projects we've been working closely with the school district on most recently are lafayette elementary school and tulark early education. both those projects are not making any progress right now. the puc had to withdraw our second temporary power request at lafayette and that temporary power is needed for relocatable classrooms that will house students during the actual construction. so this is trying to make way so the construction can happen without disrupting the educati

educational experience and because of the delays, we've had to stay we'll stop fighting with pg & e about getting temporary construction power to site and the school district is applying directly to pg & e for temporary construction service. when they do that, they incur a considerably higher electric bill for that time period. so that's a direct and measurable impact of the disputes we're having. and so neither of the projects are moving forward as planned. >> i would just note that we had a long discussion at the board to kind o cover the cost of saly increases for teachers because the school district doesn't have enough revenue to provide a living wage to teachers in order to sell recor fill record vaca

yet, pg & e is requiring our district to incur extra costs because they're trying to prevent the district from getting power from the city, which is clean and renewable. it's truly disgusting behaviour. it boggles the mind and i wish that were more that we're able to do about it. but what -- i think that the change in public opinion our efforts to municipalize the distribution and transmission of electricity here in san francisco is absolutely directly related to this behaviour. it is reprehensible and i would just urge my colleagues to understand why supervisor paskin and i are fighting so hard to take over the infrastructure here in san francisco because if

we are to longer dependent on pg & e to deliver energy to these projects, we don't have to play these games and we don't have to delay these critical city services and infrastructures. so i just want to use the opportunity of the hearing where we have, unfortunately, very little direct power to force pg & e to be a responsible company and help us provide these critical services to our residents and instead take that power from them and really just provide this energy directly. it is a basic human need to have the energy in our modern world and we can't be dependent upon a company engaged in such ridiculous behaviour. that's just my plug with that. i want to turn it over to my colleague to ask additional questions before we call up

representative from rec and park. >> senator walton? >> thank you. just a quick question. so am i understanding some of the projects that get held up, we end up paying a higher rate for grid access for projects to move forward? >> that's correct. >> how is that not extortion? i know i'm sitting here with three lawyers. [ laughter ] >> but how is that not extortion? whatever excuse they may give for holding up a project, we simply solve it by giving them more money, how is that allowed to happen? >> the grid operator and sort of

gatekeeper are one in the same. and they are a competitor of hours in providing this service. (please stand by).

reasons they give us is not that we would like more money, right? they say they hold it out for etc., and i think that i understood you right -- if we offer more money we can move faster in some cases. >> in some cases, yeah. >> it's very problematic. and like supervisor ronen and supervisor peskin, i'm excited about the opportunity that we have to provide our own power to residents here. definitely why we foughto hard for prop a and i just want to make sure that we have the sources to do that. but i'm 100% behind that. and i would lose no sleep over that. but just want to make sure that we have the ability to do that fiscally. but thank you. >> thank you, supervisor. supervisor stefani.

>> i agree this is maddening, and it really is and it is in my district and it's been vacant for a while now. i didn't realize that exactly was the hold-up. also i have noted j.f.k. towers, is that still a hold-up? because we have a loss of residential units because of it. >> so that project was delayed but it's receiving electric service now. we do still have some loose ends to tie up with pgn and e on that project but it's my understanding that it's no longer holding up the occupancy of that senior affordable housing project. >> what does it take to energize these locations? when they give you excuses, do you just look at them like you're lying? i don't understand how they can just blatantly lie? >> on many of these is projects they're already connected to the

grid and that our existing facilities connected to purchase g and -- pg&e grid, now that the projects are improved they touch the electric grid and we have to submit a new application to pg&e and they're re-reviewing what the appropriate electrical configuration is. in that context they're putting up these higher hurdles for us. we believe that -- and we have filed at the energy regulatory commission that we have a right to continue service at secondary under the federal power act and that's an open issue that is pending for action at the federal energy regulatory commission. >> okay, thank you. >> thank you, vice chair stefani. and thank you miss hail. i thank we have -- is that everything from rec and park?

>> good morning, chair and committee members. i'm beverly ing with the san francisco recreational and parks department. thank you, super ronen, for bringing this legislation forth. since june we have had some progress on a few projects and i want to highlight a couple of them. margaret haywood playground that broke fall last year, it was an application for electrical service demo and transfer -- transformer removal. which pg&e we were appreciative of the efforts that mike reardon has put forth where they'll have removed and scheduled for february 27th. another one for burtrill hill, they're doing a renovation project out there that is also scheduled to be energized by the end of february as well. and so those are just a couple that have changed and kind of progressed since june which we were appreciative of. but there are still a few outl

outliers and any delay further adds cost and also for the community benefit it just has a drastic effect. and the civic center right out here in front of your offices, as you have noted, we have had a couple great additions. we had the helen gillett playground and the café and the ice skating rimpg during the fall as well. and that also adds in more power. so one of the things that we have asked from pg&e and we have submitted an application in august and we're waiting for them to get back in terms of reevaluation and analysis on the load for that area. and in particular if they could expedite the review of the system impact study itself. next is corona heights state street. and it was one of the items that was problematic. and during that time period of construction they had the

constuks continue. when they did that they inadvertently cut power to the restroom at corona heights right nearby and, unfortunately, since then we haven't gotten a clear timeline when the power would be restored and we're urging pg&e to work to identify the next new section. >> when did the power go off? >> so we asked for power to be cut off when construction was happening in about early fall or so. and then that's when we noticed that it wasn't -- our staff noticed that the lights were not turning on. so we did further investigation and we realized that it was a connection to the randall museum and that cut off. so we're hoping that a little bit more is resolved. >> there's no power in a restroom in a park for six months? >> from my understanding, yes. and next up, supervisor ronen you're quite familiar with and

as you understand, it's a $19 million bond renovation project that is the community is kind of itching to get ready to jump in the pool when the weather is warm. one of the things that we're asking for is removal of the existing metering by february 28th. if it doesn't happen by then we'll continue to delay the project further and impact construction. next is geneva car bond, a renovation project. it's moving along in a slow slide metering but any resolution to further advance that would help with construction of the project moving forward. and, lastly, one of our biggest public tennis facilities that is coming forth with a renovation project that we hope to break ground actually in april and pg&e had indicated to us in january they were going to help to energize and finalize service and we're still waiting on that and we're hoping for the end of

february so we can break ground in april. so that is kind of the summary of the latest and the greatest. if there's questions, feel free to let me know. >> thank you. >> if you wouldn't mind can i ask barbara hale a question because i'm not sure if she would have an answer. but both stay tuned. so for this restroom in corona heights, if this were just a private customer whose power went out in a restroom -- so, in other words, are they not energizing the restroom because they're punishing the city for using clean power, assessed power, to energize the restrooms? >> so, you know, i can't attribute why, right, they're doing it. but it's definitely clear that pg&e did not know when they

performed the work and disconnected service what the consequences of that would be. and this is more like an asset management challenge they're having, right? they didn't know that when they took random museum offline they'd also take off another facility, the restroom. and then typically if the power is out as a pge and retail customer, you're right, you call and they send a crew out and it gets fixed. that was not our experience here. and we called and said here's the problem and you appear to have accidentally disconnected this service as well. and instead of saying oops, we'll fix it, we went through a dialogue with them over a number of months to get them to the point where now they're saying, okay, yes, we'll fix it. >> but it's still not fixed six months later? >> it sounds like we have a path forward for it getting fixed.

>> so it's either complete incompetence or it's direct punishment and extortion in the words of my colleague. so if it's incompetence, no wonder they're in bankruptcy. they didn't realize that they were cutting off power to another facility and then when made aware of it they haven't been able to turn on the power for six months. and if it's extortion, then that's criminal behavior and no wonder they're in bankruptcy. but, you know, we only have the bully pulpit here. we, unfortunately, don't have the power to directly regulate. so i hope that the press is listening to this conversation because pg&e will not turn on lights for a restroom in a park for over six months. i canno mean, you cannot make ts stuff up. and it's extraordinary. and the city of san francisco, yes, we filed a complaint before

the regulatory commission, but it's just unbelievable to me that this is happening and we haven't gotten movement. and we could sit here all day in this hearing and go over the 53 examples of egregious behavior that we have here, but i think this one bears shining a light on because we're -- power was inadvertently shut off and we haven't been able to get it back on in a restroom in a park. it's just extraordinary. i just had to underscore that. >> thank you. >> thank you both. i also think that we have erin carson from the mayor's office of housing here? >> good morning, supervisors. thank you, and thank you supervisor ronen for your leadership on this work. it has been immensely helpful, even as it continues to be immensely frustrating and difficult and challenging. at least we have seen some movement and some progress.

and it has been really been useful for me at least to see pg&e in the room with us and with you and with our non-profit affordable housing sponsors to work through every single project, its schedule and where the. so it's been very helpful. and as you know though we have two projects that are not sort of agreed upon in terms of their design approach going forward. and that is very tenuous for them. and so to barbara's point that pg&e says they can continue forward in its current business, they're saying that those two are not part of their current business because they didn't have that agreement made. so that is a challenge for us because if we cannot get what we now call primary plus, we used to call it secondary -- i don't understand any of it -- but if we can't get that same agreement

made with the other six, they face $175,000 to $200,000 in costs and we lose housing. and it's just a waste and it's a waste of time and it's a waste of city resources. and it's a waste of affordable housing. so that is something that is really upsetting and frustrating for us all. >> yeah, can you -- so, there's 14 projects in the housing pipeline that aren't included in this primary plus. >> right. >> so how do you even plan for those projects when you have no idea what type of extortionary practices that pg&e might subject us to? >> i think that, you know, thanks to your work we are basically proceeding and negotiating every one-off project. so it's a challenge for each one. and our design teams, electrical

engineering designers are amazing and they have found solutions and they've found ways of trying to address the things that pg&e brings up that they think are valid to try to address those concerns or those issues. so we're really relying on our consultants and our sponsors to push and to negotiate and to submit those applications through the -- through the p.u.c., and the p.u.c. has to submit those to pg&e and they review or rejects them or accepts parts of them and we just go through it constantly and it's a constant challenge. and we hope that we can make our targets, make our milestones, and not lose housing or services space. >> thank you. colleagues, any... -- supervisor ronen, you have any additional speakers? >> i believe that benson is here

from the port. brad, were you planning on presenting? >> mr. benson. >> brad benson, the director of special projects for the port of san francisco, representing for director wayne forbes. and thank you for the chance to speak. the port, all of the port's projects are really trying to connect to sfpuc clean power. and we are always navigating this issue about interconnection with the p.u.c. system. i can speak to our major development projects along the port, primarily mission rock and pier 70. we have one affordable project at 88 broadway. we have our chief harbor engineer wab washana who can speak to our other projects

along the port so he can come up and speak after i'm done. with pier 70, we're looking at up to 3,000 housing units in a phased development at that site. 30% affordable housing. and we're in the process of working with the city's infrastructure departments on processing the infrastructure permits for phase one of that project. and we think that we have a strategy to power phase one of the project and there is a piece of pg&e infrastructure that are in 22nd street which is one of the main entrances to pier 70. and it's really critical that we're able to work with -- our partner at pier 70 and pg&e to relocate those feeder lines at 22nd street so we can timely

build the new 22nd street so that phase one can open. so far we don't know that there is a delay that would force a delay to phase one of the project. but it's critical path for the project. and so when we come back and report next time we'll give you an update about that. it's very important. the mission rock development has up to 1,800 units of housing, 40% affordable at different income levels. the first phase of that project is looking to need power in 2020. and so there will need to be intervening facilities installed and negotiated between them at that time. again, i can't report any delay in that work. i know that the tentative map for the first phase of the mission rock project has been circulated among the city departments. so the infrastructure work and planning is pressing ahead in that project as well. and it would be very unfortunate

if the inability to connect to clean power were a delay to that phase one. and then, finally, the 88 broadway project, we appreciated the board's approval of that project last year. i'm less familiar with the timelines for that project and i believe that bridge is hoping to complete the financing and to start construction in the next year to 18 months. and, again, that, like the other affordable housing projects requires a timely resolution to this issue. so we really appreciate the board's attention to all of this and it's critical to the work that we do in trying to reconnect the city to its waterfront at multiple locations. and i'll stop there and see if you have any questions for me and if you don't i can invite rod up to speak to the

committee. >> you want to wait? okay. thank you. >> thank you. >> good morning, supervisor, i'm the chief engineer for the port of san francisco. so brad has talked about our big development plans and i wanted to highlight a few of the other projects that we are relying on for power. that need power. we have the mission day ferry terminal adjacent to the warriors' new stadium. that will come online -- our ferry terminal is supposed to come online in the first quarter of 2021. that will need power. in plain cove park, that will come on in early 2020. and the backlands project, at

pier 94. it is a lay down area that we are developing right now. it's almost complete i think. and we have had delays that have caused us to make -- or take temporary measures and to redesign some of the electrical supply so we could get power out to the site. and the weeda ferry terminal is not a port project but it's on port property. they have also had to do intervening -- not intervening measures -- interim measures to supply the ferry floats at the port. and the last project is pier 43.5, for the red and white fleet. the red and knigh and white fles

built a ferry ship that needs shore power and they're in the process of trials right now but they will need power to recharge the batteries at that site. those are the -- those are the projects. >> great, thank you. supervisor walton. >> i just wanted to say and this is actually not for the port but thank you so much, and i appreciate miss hill and mr. scarpula from being here, but this is why we're reluctant to enter into any agreements with pg&e at this particular time. i mean, not just the bankruptcy, but everything else that's been happening. so i just hope that as we continue to do business with them in the circumstances where we have to, that we are really mindful about trying to avoid any path forward with this

corporation when we can. because the things that they're doing to our residents in this city, our constituents, and to, you know, the p.u.c., is despicable. so i just want us to remember that as you bring -- as that involves pg&e and why we're so reluctant to move forward. >> thank you. supervisor walton. >> i'm happy to make closing remarks. >> we should see if there's any members of the public that want to speak to us on this item? i -- any colleagues want to say anything before -- i'm going to say a few items and then maybe i'll speak and we can close. yeah, i mean, it seems to me that pg&e, you know, as an unregulated monopoly, has all of the bad attributes that people

sometimes ascribe to government in terms of unresponsiveness and inefficiency without the commitment to serving the public that is government's, you know, chief beneficial attribute. so, you know, the conversation about municipalization and about making good on the promise of the reiker act which is, of course, more than a hundred years old. i think that i have engaged around every ballot measure to establish public power in san francisco over the last two decades. and, you know, repeatedly we have come to the brink of doing something about these problems and then hold back and not moved ahead. and i think that one of the things that seems different maybe about this moment is now seven months of being inside of this building it does seem to me like there is at least among the

city's elected leadership more of a commitment or understanding of the challenges of our unhappy marriage to pg and even and an interesting -- pg&e and an interest in looking for ways to change that relationship and to do something different than i have seen over those two decades. and so i think that is a happy thing. but i also think that, you know, although supervisor ronen spoke about a sea change in public opinion, i hope that is right. i think that it is very beneficial to have hearings like this, to are reports like the reports that are here that identifies the 53 projects where we are having a problem with pg&e that shows the $5 million in direct additional project costs, and the $3.5 million in lost revenue, and to at least have the conversation to begin to speculate on, you know, the

unquantifiable cost to our communities of not having access to an affordable housing development, a park bathroom, all, you know, all of the other ways in which we are not being well served by pg&e. so i'm -- so thank you, supervisor ronen, for having us to have this conversation today. thank you to all of the folks at the p.u.c. and in the city's attorney office who have been fighting this fight and trying to get a good deal for the city under difficult circumstances for a long, long time. and to all of the city departments that are also laboring under these difficult conditions. so with that supervisor ronen. >> yes, thank you for that. you know, i just want to note that the mayor is putting forth all of these proposals to streamline and hasten the review and the approval of affordable

housing projects and cutting lowal fees that we change -- local fees that we charge to these projects and p pg&e undo that great work because they increase the cost to those projects and they delay them. so the impact on the city cannot be overstated. and some of the good works that we're doing to try to deliver these essential units even faster is completely undone by the behavior of this company which is actually regulated. i would just say, not sufficiently regulated, to the point that it feels like it's unregulated. >> exactly, unregulated. >> you did say unregulated and i understand why you feel this way because it certainly does feel that way. you know, i would also encourage my colleagues if you can get pg&e at the table the way that i have been able to and to sit

down with the city departments and to go over every project in your district, it's also illuminating. i can't say that it's any less frustrating, but having them in the room and having to respond in detail, you know, and to give, you know, try to give explanation to the delays or the ridiculous requirements, puts them on the spot in a different way. so i would recommend that you do that with projects in your district. but i finally just want to end by just saying, you know, again, i'm so disappointing that pg&e didn't show up today. i don't think that it's too much to ask to come to a hearing and to respond to these critical projects in our city that they are directly impacting. and their last-minute excuse they're not coming because there's ongoing litigation is absurd, we're not asking them to respond to a complaint in this

forum, we're asking them to respond to their responsibility to provide power to these critical projects. and to explain the cause of the delays and the justification for the infrastructure requirements. and that is completely separate from litigation and there's no reason they couldn't be here today to respond and to justify if they can their actions. and they did last time when we had a complaint, so i don't know what is different about this time. so i would just have to say that once again pg&e, surprise, surprise, we're disappointed in you, not that it seems to matter. so i -- you know, i wanted to echo supervisor mandelman for the good work of all of our city departments and particularly the city attorney's office that is trying to get action, you know, in the regulatory courts and

then the courts of law and i hope that, you know, for the public and for my colleagues this hearing continues to illuminate the urgency, i think, to divorce ourselves from this irresponsible corporation and to provide public power for public good. and we have the ability to do that. and i think that we should act as soon as we possibly can on that. and with that i would ask one of my colleagues on the committee to continue this hearing to the call of the chair because we're going to bring it back every single quarter until it's no longer necessary. because we don't have many venues to bring -- to shed light on this situation and to push this company to act. but we will continue to do so here at this committee. >> great, thank you, supervisor ronen. thank you to our clerk for reminding me that i need to close public comments.

public comment is now closed. and i had a request that we continue this item to the call of the chair and i will make that motion and we can take that without objection. mr. clerk, do we have any more items? >> clerk: there's no further business. >> great. then we are adjourned. thank you. .

>> a lot of water heater in san francisco look like this may be yours doesn't too do you know it is the post earthquake problems we'll show you to brace our water heater hi, everybody i'm patrick director of quarter safety for the city and county of san francisco welcome to another episode of stay safe today, we'll talk about bracing water heaters water heater failure is a leading problem with earthquake fires you have a a single source you'll have in our

home. >> how are you. >> so what are we looking here. >> this is a water heater 3 weighs from 200 to nine hundred pound during an earthquake that weight will try to move sideways we need to secure is. >> we'll brace the water heater our model home in south of market we'll use a simple kit interest the hardware stores from $20 it the the clean up itself single thing to do what necessary look like. >> this is what you'll find in our kit a inch and a half wide strap to attach to the wall around the water heater and so you want to compare this in some garages around the city and

state which is called plumbers tape innovate as strong and we need to brace the water heater if you find this you'll want to replace it with a streetscaping kit. >> we've put blocking so that way we streetscape the water heater a nice fit it is important and important probation officer mention you need to move our water heater to strap is it talk about to a license plumber they'll come out with a firm once we streetscape those obviously we want to follow the manufactures instructions. >> typically the instructions will require the strap one strap be installed to fit the top third of the water heater and the bottom on the bottom 1/3rd away from the controls if it is above a certain size 50 gallons a third train e streetscape in

the middle of the water heater. >> a lot of time i see older water heaters on the ground obviously explain why this is required and the mr. chairman is required if you pa a water are hereto in the garage gas fumes can accommodate and the pilot light will ignite the fumes so you want to above the grouped level. >> so why not go ahead and he get started with the bracing. >> we're joined with peter from construction he'll help us

>> there you have it for not a lot of 340e7b in a short time we were able to reduce the risks as you can see secure and even in a big rumble bell not going to come losses thank you for watching we'll give is one more big push as you can see with

>> a way of life in san francisco. when the next major quake hits, the city hopes a new law requiring seismic upgrades to five story buildings will help keep more residents safe and sound. tell me a little about the soft story program. what is it? >> it's a program the mayor signed into law about a year and a half ago and the whole idea behind it was to help homeowners strengthen buildings so that they would not collapse. >> did you the soft story program apply to all buildings or building that were built in a certain time frame? >> it only applies to buildings built in the time frame of 1978 and earlier. it's aimed at wood framed buildings that are three or more stories and five or more units. but the openings at the garage

level and the street level aren't supported in many buildings. and without the support during a major earthquake, they are expected to pancake and flatten ~. many of the buildings in this program are under rent control so it's to everybody's advantage to do the work and make sure they protect their investment and their tenant. >> notices have gone out to more than 6,000 owners of potentially at-risk properties but fewer than one-third have responded and thousands might miss an important deadline in september to tell the city what they plan to do. let's talk worst case scenario. what happens in a collapse? >> buildings have the tendency of rolling over. the first soft story walls lean over and the building collapse. in an earthquake the building is a total loss. >> can you describe what kind of strengthening is involved in the retrofit? >> one of the basic concepts, you want to think of this

building kind of like rubber band and the upper three floor are very rigid box and the garage is a very flexible element. in an earthquake the garage will have a tendency to rollover. you have to rubber band analogy that the first floor is a very tough but flexible rubber band such that you never drive force he to the upper floors. where all your damage goes into controlled element like plywood or steel frame. >> so, here we are actually inside of a soft story building. can we talk a little about what kinds of repairs property owners might expect? >> it's a very simple process. we deliberately tried to keep it that way. so, what's involved is plywood, which when you install it and make a wall as we have done here already, then you cover it with this gypsum material. this adds some flexibility so that during the earthquake you'll get movement but not

collapse. and that gets strengthened even more when we go over to the steel frame to support the upper floor. >> so, potentially the wood and the steel -- it sounds like a fairly straightforward process takes your odds of collapse from one in 4 to one in 30? >> that's exactly right. that's why we're hoping that people will move quickly and make this happen. >> great. let's take a look. so, let's talk steel frames. tell me what we have going on here. >> well, we have a steel frame here. there are two of these and they go up to the lower floor and there is a beam that go across, basically a box that is much stiffer and stronger. ~ goes so that during the earthquake the upper floor will not

collapse down on this story. it can be done in about two weeks' time. voila, you're done. easy. >> for more information on how to get your building earthquake ready, >> when i look at an old neon sign that's working or not working, i feel the family business that was in there. >> since 2009, citywide, sf shines, has supported businesses and sites like the ones that receive new neon signs. >> you know, sf shines is doing an amazing job to bring back the lighting and the neon glow of san francisco. >> sf shines is such an amazing program, and i can't think of

another program in another city that gives matching gunned funds to store owners, mom and pop owners, and if they've got a neon sign, they've really got a great way to advertise their business. >> this is a continuation of the sf shines program. >> focusing other neon signs is relatively new to us. of the seven neon signs, we've invested about $145,000. >> a good quality sign costs more, but it lasts infinitily longer. as opposed to lasting five years, a good neon sign will last 15 to 20 years. >> in san francisco, the majority of neon signs are for mom-and-pop businesses. in order to be able to restore these signs, i think it gives

back to your community. >> part of the project has to do with prioritizing certain signs in the neighborhood based on their aesthetics, based on their current signs, and base on the history. in the time that we've been here, we've seen a number of signs restored just on eddy street. >> there are a number of signs in the tenderloin and many more that are waiting or wanting to be restored. i have worked with randall and al, and we've mapped out every single one of them and rated them as to how much work they would need to get restored. that information is passed onto sf shines, and they are going to rank it. so if they have x budget for a year, they can say all right, we're going to pick these five, and they're putting together clusters, so they build on top of what's already there. >> a cluster of neon signs is

sort of, i guess, like a cluster of grapes. when you see them on a corner or on a block, it lights up the neighborhood and creates an ambient glow. if you havy got two of three of them, you've created an atmosphere that's almost like a movie set. >> some of the hotel, we've already invested in to get those neon signs for people to enjoy at night include the elk hotel, jefferson hotel, the verona, not to mention some we've done in chinatown, as well as the city's portal neighborhood. >> we got the fund to restore it. it took five months, and the biggest challenge was it was completely infested with pigeons. once we got it clean, it came out beautiful. >> neon signs are often equated with film noir, and the noir

genre as seen through the hollywood lens basically depicted despair and concentration. >> you would go downtown and see the most recent humphrey bogart film filled with neon in the background. and you'd see that on market street, and as market street got seedier and seedier and fewer people continued to go down, that was what happened to all the neon strips of light. >> the film nori might start with the light filled with neon signs, and end with a scene with a single neon sign blinking and missing a few

letters. >> one of my favorite scenes, orson welles is chasing ririt rita hayworth with neon signs in the background. >> i think what the office of economic and workforce development is very excited with is that we'll be able to see more neon signs in a concentrated way lit up at night for visitors and most especially residents. the first coin laundry, the elm hotel, the western hotel are ones that we want to focus on in the year ahead. >> neon signs are so iconic to certain neighborhoods like the hara, like the nightcap. we want to save as many historic and legacy neon signs

in san francisco, and so do they. we bring the expertise, and they bring the means to actually get the job done. >> people in tenderloin get really excited as they see the signs relit. as you're driving through the tenderloin or the city, it pretty much tells you something exciting is happening here. >> knee an was created to make the night more friendly and advertise businesses. it's a great way of supporting and helping local businesses. >> there's so many ways to improve public safety. the standard way is having more eyes on the street, but there's other culturally significant ways to do that, and one those ways is lighting up the streets. but what better way and special way to do that is by having old, historic neon signs lighting up our streets at night and casting away our shadows. >> when i see things coming back to life, it's like remembering how things were. it's remembering the hotel or

the market that went to work seven days a week to raise their money or to provide a service, and it just -- it

>> president cook: glad you're here. this is the regular meeting of the board of education of the san francisco unified school district for february 12, 2019. this meeting is now called to order. before i get started, we have at least one birthday in the room. commissioner collins turns 50 today. [applause] i was hoping you will join me in brief version of