we do have transmission lines here in san francisco. all of those transmission lines are underground or out in the bay, except for a small portion down at hunter's point which will be undergrounded in the near future when we put in a new substation there. so you do have more underground distribution than you do overhead distribution. the joint pole authority was created so that we could reduce the number of poles that have to be in your neighborhoods. we wanted to also ensure safe safety/reliability in a way that we can all work together. so as part of the joint pole authority, we follow all of those standard procedures to ensure that there's an accurate inventory of poles, that each attachment is applied for, all of the things that the cpuc speaker mr. palmer referred to before. we all work together and that's where -- we all work together,

but we also know there is go 95 and we work under that and that kind of sets our protocols for our routine patrols and inspections. in urban environments like san francisco, we look at every pole every year. we do an inspection of that pole. we visually identify safety and reliability issues. if there are attachments on the poles, we will make sure there is pole-loading calculations. then we have our pg & e pole inspection routine program. that's an inspection we do for everybody. and then every five years we do a detailed inspection of poles and all the associated equipment. for facilities located underground, we do that inspection every three years. we also make minor repairs. in addition, the requirements of a patrol, our detailed inspections, are also used to identify potential go 95

violations that mr. palmer discussed, and we'll make those repairs as necessary. the xurenunder cpuc go 165, tha means it needs to be looked at every year. we do the boring down every ten years. we've been doing this more and more because we have seen these attachments put on poles. we have seen -- we call them unauthorized attachments because a lot of times you see this political signs, people climb up the poles and attach political signs to them and stuff like that. in urban areas, we stick to the one year so that we can make sure whatever people have been doing around the poles in urban environments, there are issues with that. if the pole is tested and it doesn't meet the requirements, we'll go through and make sure

that it meets the requirements. we know there are a lot of issues with poles in urban areas, so we constantly are replacing poles here in san francisco. last year we replaced about 700 poles on a regular basis with our inspection. >> supervisor fewer: yes, supervisor walton. >> supervisor walton: just briefly before we continue, i want to make a motion to excuse chair mandelman without objection. >> supervisor fewer: yes. >> supervisor walton: perfect. thank you. >> supervisor fewer: you're going to miss all this interesting stuff. yeah, i know. >> i have a slide on undergrounding. so as has been mentioned before, any electric load added to poles must meet the strength requirements by go 95. what we do is require that any entity that would like to attach to a pg & e pole, that that

entity must enter into a license agreement with the joint utility department or be a member of the california joint pole association. once that person is identified, then we determine if they will want to be pg & e's tenant, that's where we own the entire pole, or if they want to be a tenant and rent a space, or become a joint owner and purchase that space. so a communications company would purchase the space underneath our space if we own the whole pole and it becomes a jointly owned pole. in both cases the attacher must submit an application with a job package, purchase of intent, all the usual things, but in short, everyone must apply for permission to attach and to perform pole-loading calculations to ensure safety. that's why when we do see signs and other things that are attached to poles, we say please don't do it, because we have folks who will look at those

pole-loading calculations and ensure that the pole is safe and we realize and everyone realizes once this protocol is not followed, disaster could happen. now, supervisor walton, you had brought up a point about is there a map? well, we actually have a map. this is not under cpuc, but cpuc has opened up what is an oii, which is an investigation into having this kind of state-wide map. we have what we call jump, the joint use map portal. we like to have acronyms that sound good. this is how we coordinate with our partners. even the sfpuc can go into this portal, look at where all our poles are and make decisions about what's going on with the system and stuff like that >> supervisor fewer: are they able to determine which ones are

jointly owned and which ones are wholly owned by you? >> yes. >> supervisor fewer: that's identified on juch -- jump? >> we just changed all the light bulb s to led. we mapped every pole that is sfpuc owned and what is pg & e owned and we have shared that data so we know whose poles is what. that's when we started discovering a lot of unauthorized attachments and we have made notations of those. we will start working through those issues. we do feel the pole loading is okay, but we will check them >> supervisor fewer: okay. >> supervisor walton: just quickly, the average resident can't go in? >> no. this is protected, as mr. palmer referred to, for homeland security reasons, it is protected. only members of the joint pole authority and folks that we work

with have access to this, and this is something that i'm sure is the cpuc is looking at during their investigatory period, as to providing a map what that portal would look like and those kinds of things. we are providing that information to them how we manage these poles so people can get this information. we do have what you need. we have details on the location, type of material, height, the circumference, remaining strength, the most recent inspection, test, and treat results, and all that information can be downloaded so that they can do the calculations. so as was mentioned, i did -- we did pop up a slide here so you can understand a little bit about the oii or order instituting investigation. i apologize to the public for the use of acronyms. this is where we are working

with the cpuc and the other utilities to form this state-wide database. so those workshops started in the fall of 2018. they continue now. we are talking about strategies on how to best ensure the integrity of affected communications and the electric supply infrastructure, and that includes poles, wires broadly speaking. we will make sure and what we are advocating for in that is the same information that is in our jump information. i was told i had five minutes, so i've been kind of going through this a little quick. any time you have any questions, please ask. i do want to bring up undergrounding. we operate and maintain approximately 100,000 miles of overhead line. as i mentioned, we have 400 miles of overhead distribution. we are right now evaluating what

is best for undergrounding versus having above-ground poles. it does depend on what the soil is. it depends on really the geographic location, just to say in general, because yes, a lot of people say why don't you just underground your lines? is it really all about cost? it isn't all about cost. it is about what is underground. we know undergrounding are not immune to weather. i will tell you when you underground lines in minnesota, they have problems with gophers. they actually had a gopher guy that does gopher surveys to make sure their underground lines stay safe. i don't think we have gophers here in san francisco, but we have -- and that's what i mean by -- when you talk about the geographic difference, what is it that affects with what goes above ground and below ground. so we also know that underground

lines, when they do get affected like in an earthquake, they do take longer to repair. when you look at a situation like all of the underground transmission lines we have in san francisco, if there was to be an earthquake, the earth shifts, breaks those lines, it will take a long time to bring those lines back up. we have made -- we have taken measures to mitigate for that just so you guys know. i don't want you to think that pg & e is worried about the underground lines. we have a warehouse next to our martin station that has all your transmission lines, the bay area restoration warehouse, it has all the transmission lines and poles so that we can very quickly set up new transmission lines while we repair the underground lines so san francisco will still have power if you have a large earthquake. >> supervisor fewer: okay. that's great. any questions or comments? yeah, supervisor, welcome to the

discussion. >> is it true that undergrounding saves in terms of energy loss, so rather than being above ground, underground when you're distributing the energy there's not as much loss when it's underground? >> that depends and that's one of the issues we would look at when it comes to undergrounding here in san francisco. when you have transmission lines underground and you have distribution lines undergrounding, if they're far apart enough, they can flow electricity, it might be more efficient or not. but as you put the lines closer together and we have very busy utilities under your streets in san francisco, you have a problem called impede entans that will reduce the effectively of the power going through the wire. we can't go in and say we'll put 12 transmission lines down a street, because if you have 12 transmission lines you would have to put in a special cooling system so the impedance will be

used. >> in general it's more efficient unless it's in proximity? >> that's really what it depends on, what the proximity is and do you have enough room. we faced a lot of challenges with some projects in supervisor walton's district where in some of the industrial areas we have a lot of transmission lines underground. when we look to put distribution underground we actually can't fit it so we have to move some things around. >> minus transmission lines, the distribution line is more efficient; correct? >> i -- it depends on the application. i mean, i -- the lines are efficient, you know, when we go in and put those lines in, the efficiency of that line depends on where it's geographically located. >> do you guys voluntarily underground or are you doing it

when we're requesting it? is it. >> i couldn't rightly say because we do have more lines underground here in san francisco than not, but we work with our regulator, the cpuc, to decide if lines go underground or not. >> you don't know the answer? >> no, i can get back to you. >> if you voluntarily do it, it's usually when we request it on the city side. you're not voluntarily undergrounding? >> we voluntarily underground our transmission lines. do you want to take that one? >> i'm the rule 28 program manager. the rule 28 is set up so that requests from cities and counties can come into pg & e and other utilities to convert overhead lines to underground and the tariff permits the allocation of work credits. cities and counties accrue these work credits very much like

airline miles and redeem these credits for future undergrounding credits when they have a sufficient number of work credits. for new construction, those are under other rules, such as rule 2, rule 15, and rule 16. so many times those new construction projects will be done from underground from the get-go. specifically with the conversion of overhead to underground is rule 20. >> so do you voluntarily do it or you do it based on what we're requesting? that last part sounded like rule 20 was when we require a new construction, because i know often new construction in san francisco will require it and so then you have to abide by that, but otherwise you're not voluntarily doing it, you prefer it above ground? >> that's correct. so what the rule 20(a) because we are a regulated investor-owned utilities, we

must follow all the various tariffs and rules that are provided by the cpuc. rule 20 has three parts. rule 20(a), rule 20(b), and rule 20(c). rule 20(a) which is where rate payer dollars utilized to convert overhead to underground facilities and as mentioned the cities and counties accrue work credits and convert these work credits for future projects, and a future project is designated by passing a resolution. a rule 20(b) project would be when a city or a county also passes a resolution, but it would be a self-taxing measure for those residents within the designated underground district. and a rule 20(c) is more or less a -- just a cash transaction. when someone wants to underground a specific facility. these are the ways that cities and counties have at their disposal to underground overhead to underground lines.

i will mention also that the cpuc has created an order instituting rule-making to readdress a lot of the concerns that they have heard from cities and county. the city and county of san francisco is a party to this process. the oir started in 2017. one of the things that the cpuc is looking at is -- one of the aspects is the rule 20 work credit allocation methodology. currently the city of san francisco had a significantly large project. and so they have been allowed through exemption by the cpuc to do approximately $48 million worth of undergrounding -- sorry, 48 miles worth of undergrounding, but that unfortunately, the city of san francisco has now mortgaged approximately 14 years of future years. so this needs to reach a zero balance of work credits, you

need to wait 14 years to start undergrounding overhead lines >> supervisor fewer: that translates to say that the rate payers will be paying this off for another 14 years; is that correct? because this is really by rate payers? >> there is the -- the capital projects themselves are paid for when they're entered into pg & e's rate base, so at the completion of the project. so those projects are essentially recovered through pg & e's rate-making process. the work credits, they are not collected in advance from rate payers. so as pg & e distributes those work credits in the cities and counties, there is not a commensurate treasury or a bank of rate payer dollars that is utilized >> supervisor fewer: so the

rate payers will continue to pay this until we're at a zero balance in 14 years? is that what you -- >> not quite. it's -- the capital costs of the project is in our rate base and is amortized over the period of that capital project >> supervisor fewer: so we've already done -- we've used our 20(a) sort of in san francisco when we did some undergrounding and my -- what i'm hearing back is we ran out of money to do the rest, but we'll be paying it for another -- last year it was 15 years. so i think what you're telling me is 14 years. >> yes. actually, it's going to be 15 years before you reach a zero balance of work credits. i just want to emphasize these are work credits, these are not rate dollars. the city and county of san francisco in their comments, opening comments, in the oir proceeding with the cpuc has

made mention of this to examine the work credit methodology, given that the city and county of san francisco has significant ambition to underground more overhead lines to underground. >> supervisor fewer: okay. any other questions or comments? okay. thank you very much. thank you. all right. so we've heard from pg & e, who brings in energy and electricity. now we're going to hear from communication lines. i think we have kammy blackstone from at & t. i'm assuming, ms. blackstone, that at&t is part of this association of northern california's joint policy -- i didn't even know that existed -- joint pole association; correct? >> indeed we are. >> supervisor fewer: and i'm assuming, ms. blackstone, that you are joint owners of these -- some of these 22,000 jointly owned utility poles; is that

correct? >> indeed we are. >> supervisor fewer: okay. >> good morning, supervisors. thank you very much for having this hearing. my name is kammy blackstone and i am the director of external affairs for at&t and looking forward to this presentation. i'm here not only as a director of at&t but a city long-time resident of san francisco. i'm a part of this community that has concerns about overhead wiring. i wanted to start by presenting some basic facts about poles in

california. you've heard quite a bit already from the cpuc and pg&e. just to go over it again, you're looking there in this slide just some basic facts about the poles in california. we are in the communications zone, and you had mentioned seeing a lot more additional equipment. you are seeing that additional equipment in that communications zone as more people entered the market. so i'm going to refer to, like sonic or monkey brains or some of the other utility providers you will see up there >> supervisor fewer: they are all members of this other organization that i didn't know existed? >> you know, i would say you need to ask them. i know we are required to allow them space in that area. >> supervisor fewer: okay. >> so our inspection and maintenance plan is kind of covered here. we also follow all the regulations that are used throughout the state of california. so we stay with -- we comply

with all the state and federal regulations, and it's our interest of course to keep our customers and workers safe and to keep our services reliable. this slide shows you all of the different rules that we work under. there's -- this is just a partial list of the most important and most relevant to this discussion which you've heard a lot today is go 95, and that's 600 pages of state rules for overhead line design, construction, and maintenance. of course as you heard earlier, this was developed over years of workshops and reviews and collaboration between all of the utilities. so on this slide, i'm just kind of going over the attachments and what we do. at&t is attached to approximately 26,000 poles in san francisco. now, of those, 2,000 are solely owned by at&t. the majority we are co-owners with pg&e and you heard a little

bit about that earlier. our inspections -- as far as maintenance and inspections and protocols, our techs are required to inspect the infrastructure for safety issues every single time they touch our equipment. so if you are running around san francisco, you see our trucks everywhere. so we are constantly doing these evaluations. they actually call it a t-zone inspection that they need to do, where they look up the pole and then they look both directions as far as the ooi can see just to notice if there are any irregularities or anything that needs to be repaired and they are empowered to repair that on site or file a report immediately. go 95 also lays out a timeline that you heard earlier for routine inspections at longer intervals, but we feel here with at&t and in san francisco which is so dense and pop you you -- populace, we are identifying the

pole for integrity. additionally every provider attached to a pole is obligated to notify the other users of that pole if they identify a safety issue. which means if pg&e is looking at a pole and they see some problem with our equipment, then they notify us right away and we would do the same if we saw another provider having an issue, we would report it right away. as for our protocol in responding to these issues, go 95's rule 18 specifically lays out timelines for how quickly we should address each issue and we do follow that. let's see. i know as far as mapping, we do have a map of all of our equipment. we don't share that publicly for security reasons, but we are also working with the open proceeding that cpuc is holding right now to develop sort of a solution to that. as far as load calculations, the cpuc has rules that every attacher must follow. a new attacher will apply to the

pole owner and then conduct the required load calculations that they must do as part of their application. the pole owner would review this and approve or deny that attached application. every single time new equipment is added to a pole, it is reviewed pretty thoroughly. >> supervisor fewer: kammy, just for clarification, you own -- part ownership of 26,000 poles in san francisco. so every time anyone wants to attach new stuff onto the pole, that they have to follow -- they must apply to the pole owner. >> right. >> supervisor fewer: so if at&t wanted to attach new stuff, new equipment, you would apply to yourself? >> i don't think we would file an application to ourselves. i'm talking about an external carrier or provider

>> supervisor fewer: so that means of 26,000 poles that at&t had ownership in, you can attach any new equipment that at&t owns. >> with the 2,000 that we solely own, yes. but with the co-ownership ones, we would need to discuss with pg&e. we still need to do a load calculation. all of this has to be approved. it has to be able to withstand all of the additional load and we would never install something that would make a pole fail. we do have the internal review process as well. it's not a formal application. >> supervisor fewer: so would at&t then have to apply to the other pole owner, which is pg&e. so you jointly own these poles with pg&e? >> yes. >> supervisor fewer: so if you wanted to put new equipment on, would you then apply to your partner, pg&e, who is a joint owner of the pole -- >> yes. >> supervisor fewer: -- to see

whether or not you could put this equipment on? >> yes. >> supervisor fewer: but you wouldn't apply to your own self? >> no. >> supervisor fewer: okay. so has there been any incidents of at&t wanting to put new equipment on and it being denied at all? >> we have had instances -- yes. we have had instances where we have applied for like a puc pole and the puc will say, you need to -- if you're going to do that, you're going to need to replace the foundation or you're going to have to help us -- you have to replace the pole. we've gotten denials like, saying, yes, you can use that pole but here's what you're going to need to do in order to make the pole withhold that weight >> supervisor fewer: so do you -- forgive me that i don't know this, but puc owns poles also? >> the san francisco puc, yes. >> supervisor fewer: the san francisco puc. you don't jointly own poles with the san francisco puc? >> no, we would rent space.

>> supervisor fewer: you would rent space. >> yes. >> supervisor fewer: so the san francisco puc that owns these poles, they only rent space, they don't have co-ownership; is that correct? >> right. >> supervisor fewer: thank you. >> yeah, i know it's all confusing. i'm grateful for this hearing because i learned quite a bit about my own company because i don't normally do all this engineering stuff. yes, then there's the abandoned equipment question which i know that is very important to you, supervisor fewer, yes, so the definition under go 95 is if it's considered to have no future foreseeable use. in san francisco where we have so much churn as far as residents and there's a lot of renters and i actually have friends who change their cable provider every year just to get a bit more miles for their flight programs, people change all the time. so as long as that technology is still something that we're

using, if a customer moves, we don't want to just take that equipment down because we don't know if in six months someone else might move there and they would be responsible for paying for that equipment to be put back up. as long as it is still being used that technology then it stays up. the other thing is at&t is required by the cpuc as carrier of last resort, that we need -- as long as there are still landline customers in california, we need to be able to provide landline service. so we can't take it down. >> supervisor fewer: so what you're telling me is that if you have an existing line, you keep it up because people may want to eventually connect back to it. so this happens -- this could happen repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly -- >> yeah. >> supervisor fewer: -- and is that why we're seeing so much more stuff on the line? >> i think why you're seeing more stuff is there are more companies that are attaching to

poles. there are more options for consumers. there may be more people now who have cable than five years ago or more people that have internet service than five years ago. so i think that's why you're seeing more stuff >> supervisor fewer: and we're seeing, as in the photo with the extra wires that are just hanging there -- >> the drops. >> supervisor fewer: -- yeah for a very long time? >> yes. and we like to take care of those right away. of course if a consumer or a resident sees something that they feel is out of line, they can report it to the cpuc complaint line, they can call 611, they can -- we get -- i get calls from your office occasionally when there's something that residents see as a miss and we try to take care of it as soon as we can >> supervisor fewer: okay. any other questions? comments? nothing. you're not done yet? sorry. >> no, i'm done. you know, we just -- we like to work with you guys and we try to keep it as safe as we possibly

can. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. >> you probably already know this, ms. blackstone, but the majority of the things we hear more recently in terms of complaints is when there are companies that apply for really large kind of overhanging -- there's no other word to describe it other than kind of ugly and very obtrusive in the neighborhood. i think they're antennas or -- can you talk about that because the thing is they look -- they're just ugly. >> infrastructure is rarely beautiful. >> but the truth is it's on a pole and it's hanging and it's big and if it's next to your house you say, why do i need this large obstructive thing next to my house? and then i hear -- then i drive

to other parts of the city and i don't see it as much in other parts of the city as i do in our part of the city. i'm not necessarily sure whether that's true, if you're looking around you're going to see them, maybe you're noticing it more. at least in our neighborhood, they're copper, brown, they pop up. people say i didn't have something here, now i do. it's large. can you talk about that. >> sure. i'm not exactly sure what you're talking about. >> the large antennas that hang off the side of poles. >> so we've been -- all cell providers are doing small cell which is a like a canister that is on top of a pole. however, sometimes when there is a wood pole, the planning department has asked for what's called a side arm installation. that i think is the one you're talking about -- >> when it's just on the top, people have less of a problem. when it's hanging out and it

looks like a big -- >> sure, no i understand. and that's maybe a planning department -- >> those are small -- >> or it could be the antenna or the radio that serves that. >> they're on your poles and definitely related to cell service and at&t. >> i will say there are internet providers that have boxes that go on poles. i don't know if you've invited those smaller providers today, but they might be able to speak more to that >> supervisor fewer: we might have to have this continued because this is i think deeper than what we originally anticipated. >> i'm sure you get them in your district too, supervisor walton. >> supervisor walton: i definitely do, but it's getting more and more concerning about it how many providers we have attached to poles and who's regulating or not that. >> supervisor fewer: it seems the regulation is very loose what can stay up on the poles and what can't. >> i have a clarifying question,

these smaller providers, do they come and get permission from at&t if they're coming on your pole and are you required -- do you have to let them on there? >> yes. >> but they have to get your permission? >> they have to apply and make sure whatever they'll be installing will be safe and the pole can withstand that load. >> maybe we should have a follow-up on this one. >> supervisor fewer: i think we should, but actually we're going to have puc here too because puc also owns a lot of poles in san francisco. puc owns poles, pg&e owns postal jointly with at&t. thank you. thank you, ms. blackstone. now from comcast, our friend dylan in a new capacity here. [ laughter ]

>> supervisor fewer: colleagues, it's this presentation, so i hope everyone has a copy. all right, dylan, good to see you again. >> good morning, supervisors. for the record, dylan ellian comcast, government affairs. i'm joined by my colleagues kevin domer from my left and behind me john gumar from regulatory affairs. thank you for the invitation to speak to comcast's commitment to safety and the safety program. we share the vision of the city of san francisco for a well-maintained network and the safety of workers and the public. we continue to invest in our network to provide a broad range of innovative products and services, including gigabit service to all clients. we have invested $8 billion

infrastructure improvement since 2011. additionally we continue to demonstrate our commitment to inclusion which provides low-cost high-speed internet to students and seniors in san francisco and others. and since the launch of essentials in 2011, comcast has connected more than 6 million individuals to low-cost, high-speed internet. i just wanted to quickly say that we have a focus on community impact and digital -- with that, if i may, i would like to hand it over to my colleague kevin domer to speak. thank you. >> thank you. kevin domer with comcast president field. so for us, safety is really important, it's number one. we have approximately 100 technicians that work here in

san francisco, and we do a lot of training with them on what we call outside plant conformance, which is the go 95 regulations. we do a lot of training with them in getting them up to speed in these safety issues. we are instructing them to on every single job to look one span right, one span left, and look for any non-conformance issue that they may have. part of the closing of any work order requires that they close the job with a pass, fail, or repair on outside plant conformance. if they repaired something and made it up to standards, then they would close that job out as a repair. if it's something that they aren't capable of repairing right then, because of time or

it's beyond the scope of what they can handle, then they fail it and a return job is immediately created to have the work done. >> supervisor fewer: thank you. >> now, if it is an extreme safety issue that is perilous, they are instructed to stay on site for as long as it takes until they can hand that off to the entity that needs to fix it, whether it's another utility, even the fire department, something like that. we must stay on site until the issue is resolved or hand off to someone that can resolve it. so we have a map here. this is just kind of an example. this is six months of data and this is the number of work orders that we've had within the city of san francisco. so every black dot is one of

these work orders. just to kind of give you an idea of how much territory we cover during the six months so that we can do this evaluation of the spans, one left, one right, and do this what we call the patrol inspection to make sure everything is up to our outside plant safety conformance. so all field personnel are trained in this. it's an ongoing process from the very first pay that they become an employee. we're talking about the safety conformance. every month we have specific training tailored precisely for them to gain their knowledge. i personally go out and train supervisors and what i call calibrate the eye. so i go out and train the supervisors so they can in turn

use that knowledge to train the front-line employees as well so we're all on the same page. we also have an outside plant conformance guide book that the technicians can reference when they're out in the field. the technicians actually created a quick reference one-page sheet that they can use. it's a hard-bound laminated sheet that they can use with the most common non-conformance issues that they can reference if they need to. >> supervisor fewer: so if you don't mind, i have a question. so when we're looking at these utility poles, are you joint owners of any of these poles? >> no, we're tenants. >> supervisor fewer: you're all tenants? when we're looking at where -- you would be in this communication zone of the pole; is that correct? >> yeah. >> supervisor fewer: okay.

and since you have so many customers, i'm assuming that you have really a lot of wires on our poles. would that be an accurate assumption? >> well, we have the drop lines that go to the facilities, the house or the building. >> supervisor fewer: okay. so your lines go from the building. okay. so your lines actually do you -- so to get your service to the building, is it a single line that runs? >> yes, single line. >> supervisor fewer: thank you. what additional stuff do you have on the poles besides that? >> well, we have, you know, active devices like amplifiers, things like that that are not on the poles but are on our strand. >> supervisor fewer: on your strand. >> that hangs between the poles. >> supervisor fewer: are those those black things hanging between the poles? >> i'm sorry? >> supervisor fewer: we see

these bibbing black things now on the poles, on the wires, are those yours? >> i'm not sure, that -- i mean, there's several utilities that have black things, like what you're describing. >> supervisor fewer: yeah, i know. i'm so sorry. untrained eye. >> it's nice to see you again. yes, we do have amplifiers on our poles, but over time it's -- our investment in our network is to put more fiber into our network so we don't need amplifiers. and what that does is take an rf signal and boost it. if you put more amplifier in, you don't need to boost it. are there more amplifiers? yes, but less than when i started the company a decade ago >> supervisor fewer: is there a plan to get rid of those and have more fiber? >> get rid of, yes, but not

totally eliminate. there would be some portion of a neighborhood that you may need to boost signal. for instance, our 1 gig service was referenced. you have lots of people using that at one time, that rf signal is going to be need to be amplified. we will not eliminate, but bring more fiber over time >> supervisor fewer: so you're saying there is a plan to remove many of these on the poles by using fiber; correct? >> that's correct. >> supervisor fewer: any questions? >> supervisor walton: just a quick question. you may not be able to answer this and i'll have to wait. do you know how one comes to owning a pole? how does that decision get made? >> i do not know. i mean, cable started as a tenant. we have a long-term interest in being owners >> supervisor fewer: thank you.

any other questions or comments? thank you, comcast. we have other providers, though, that are providing the service that you provide; is that right, dylan? >> pardon me. >> supervisor fewer: we have other providers that are providing the same service that you are providing? >> we like to think our service is unique and best in class, but there is competition to your question. >> supervisor fewer: you are sharing that particular area. >> the communications zone, yes. >> supervisor fewer: so would you say that also through inspection that this is where we're seeing most of the new wiring coming in, is in this communications area? >> if i may. >> yes, supervisor, there are and this has been spoken of this, monkey brains and other folks, sonic coming into the frisk market. you know, the -- a lot has been said about the -- how competitive this market is. i think san francisco are the most competitive internet access

markets in the country, but it does come with additional facilities in the city >> supervisor fewer: okay. so as -- and so when my constituents say we're seeing much more wiring on our poles, it is because more companies and more competition is coming in so they are putting up their own lines. then we don't have any regulatory ability to regulate that in san francisco, i'm believing, because that is regulated by the california puc and also this other pole agency, whatever it is, association; is that correct? >> i do not know the pole process -- >> supervisor fewer: i think it's a question for the city attorney. thank you. now we have puc, ramon abway. >> good morning, supervisors. so our portion here, i wanted to clarify a couple of things.

so we do own poles, and once we get to that diagram. we don't own too many poles, power poles, in the city. i want to clarify that. we own probably about 200 power poles, but we own about 25,000 streetlight poles. so the applications that the at&t represented stated they're not on power poles but on our streetlight poles. i just want to qualify that. there's a difference. >> supervisor fewer: okay. >> so the poles that we own, it's shown on this map, it's very limited. like i said, it's about 200 poles and a lot of those still belong to the housing authority. they don't transfer those ownership to us until they're ready to close the project and they're ready to transfer the utilities to us. i also want to clarify about jurisdiction, private versus public poles. so just to clarify, we're not under the jurisdiction of the

california public utilities commission, we're under your jurisdiction. basically you give us directions. although we abide by the general orders 95, 165, we follow the construction standards on the pole for safety and reliability. so -- >> supervisor fewer: how many poles. >> i want to clarify that. >> supervisor fewer: sure. how many poles do you own? >> we own about 200 poles, that includes the poles owned by the housing authority and that are going through the construction site. >> supervisor fewer: okay. so san francisco puc owns 200 power poles? >> correct. >> supervisor fewer: in comparison to the, something, 22,000 -- >> 32,000 by pg&e. >> supervisor fewer: owned by pg&e. so i think it's safe to say the vast majority of these utility poles are owned by -- in some part by pg&e, even if they're jointly owned?

>> that's correct. and i also want to clarify -- yeah, so this is basically when you say there is utilities, so under the joint pole agreement a lot of the communication companies are able to attach to the pole on the communication space that they have >> supervisor fewer: so they're able to attach to your poles? >> they do if they apply. we're also part of the joint pole agreement. we're the base owners >> supervisor fewer: so you -- all of you -- so this association is getting really -- >> we don't have any ownership on the pg&e poles that i know about, of that 32,000 poles, because we don't have any facilities to attach. >> supervisor fewer: okay. but on your 200 poles, and you're just up 200 poles, which is a small number. okay. i feel like that's -- got it. okay. >> so of those 22,000 poles jointly owned by pg&e, one of the challenges to mention about

undergrounding, some of the challenges in doing underground working, a lot of times the base owner in this case, which is pg&e, will be much ahead of the other utilities due to the coordination that may be done, but the base owner under the joint pole agreement can abandon the pole -- not abandon, but transfer ownership responsibility to the communications company. in terms of who has to get rid of the pole, it's really depending on the schedule. under the joint pole agreement, once pg&e gets done and the communication companies are not ready to transfer their facilities, they will -- there's a term that will top it off and let the communications company deal with the poles. one of the questions i was asked to answer was what do we do with abandoned poles? it really depends on scheduling and coordinating with the other joint pole owners. in most cases from my experience, not here, is that

the communication companies are behind the power companies because they're always needing to get the power up or through the underground project completely. so coordination is a major challenge that we need to work on in order to clean up the poles. >> supervisor fewer: so, supervisor walton, looks as though you see a lot of poles in your hood. >> again, i want to clarify, we do own over 25,000 streetlight poles, but not power poles. >> supervisor fewer: not power poles, but the street light poles, okay. >> all right? >> supervisor fewer: okay. got it. >> thank you. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. any questions? supervisor walton. >> supervisor walton: do you know the answer to how a company or a public utilities becomes an owner of a pole? >> yes, that becomes a public easement. they have to apply with the public works department to allow them to install the pole, and

one of the reasons for the joint pole, i think mr. klein mentioned, we want to avoid having all communication companies and the utilities to insert their own poles. so we're trying to minimize poles in public right of way. so really to allow a pole it's up to our public works department to allow that to be inserted. >> supervisor fewer: got it. thank you very much. thank you. we are learning bits and bits of information, aren't we? now let's have public works, eric thrasher to talk about the utility underground master plan study. thank you.

>> good morning, supervisors. my name is eric thrasher. i am with -- >> supervisor fewer: hi, mr. thrasher. >> i am with san francisco department of public works, bureau of street use and mapping. i have been liaisoning with our partners at telemon engineering study, the master plan underground utility study. i'm going to invite doug zeiring with telemon to discuss the slides. this isn't the actual study. we're giving you a sneak peek. the results should be completed sometime late august or early september. just quickly as a way of background, the last program to underground utilities in san francisco began in 1996, and

from 1996 to about 2006 roughly 46 miles of overhead wires were undergrounded in the city. at cost of about $173 million. as was mentioned earlier, the 20(a) fund that was used to pay for this program went into deficit and that's why the program stopped in 2006. there is currently a program, a second streetscape program underway which will involve two blocks of lines that will be undergrounded, but aside from that nothing has happened since 2006. i would also mention that there is a neighborhood association in supervisor stefani's district that are interested in doing a 20(c) property owner funded. so there hasn't been much activity in a while. so the purpose of this study was to kind of get a state of where things are currently to talk

about funding and some other issues which doug is going to go into. here we have as our agenda for this brief overview. i'm going to talking about the goals, governing policies and previous projects which i just mentioned, lessons learned to underground, the approach for the master plan, and the benefits of the study. >> supervisor fewer: excuse me. >> yeah. >> supervisor fewer: i think as a matter of time, since you mentioned that there is going to be a study, the study results are going to be released in august or september, which i think could be an appropriate time to bring this back to committee, quite frankly. >> okay. >> supervisor fewer: i'm wondering if you could just then -- because i feel as though once we hear from the study, when we call it, you will actually address some of these other areas. so i'm just wondering if you

could focus now on the master work plan approach and then maybe on the framework of the study and we'll have you come back when the study has been completed. would that be okay? >> perfect. >> supervisor fewer: i'm sorry, this plan isn't numbered, but it's a master work plan approach. >> i'm going to invite doug ziering from telemoney ziering up. >> good morning. thanks for calling this session together. it's been very informative with all of the other utility agencies here. one of the main goals that -- as we have reviewed all of the past history and documentation and everything else, there is a large amount of lessons learned that we have obtained. so as we have developed this master work plan, one of the key

elements we're looking to identify is unforeseen conditions of which will help to mitigate any risk as we move forward with any undergrounding master plan that gets developed in the future. from these lessons learned that we have identified some of the big elements in this master work plan approach that we're entertaining is to plan by risk mitigation and alternative funding sources, as well as identifying a process that can be implemented during design and construction as well. as you can see, there are a lot of various poles in san francisco. so one of the key points is trying to make sure that the database of what is out there as well as who are all of the sf stakeholders, that would need to be engaged as we go to underground various districts and everything is very important

piece, as well as understanding the cost per mile, which can vary quite substantially depending on if you're undergrounding downtown or versus in more of a suburban area. we have seen those costs range from $3 per mile all the way up to $13 million per mile. so depending on how much of a maze is below ground can greatly increase those costs. one of the other big elements that we're looking at for alternative funding sources is identifying collaboration with other san francisco projects or developments that might be occurring in the area. we feel this is a pretty big opportunity that can reduce costs as well as share in the burden of finding funding sources for undergrounding utility. as we move into the design and construction, we would build off

this initial planning effort, which is probably the bulk of the work that would take place. so establishing what is known as existing site conditions with respect to -- there are methods of doing underground utility locating or pot-holing to understand what's under the ground as well as making sure you have an accurate survey of everything that you are going to underground so the design makes sure to take all of that into consideration. another key element we feel is phasing and constructability. dealing with the phasing with so many services and points of connection not only to the existing systems becomes quite an effort. so making sure that that effort gets reviewed in a timely process and gets brought forth during design process, then you can make sure that the costs get allocated appropriately. the final point that kind of seems to be during design and

construction is this early coordination and collaboration that these sf stakeholders. we can't emphasize that enough. to me, the more we collaborate and the more we understand what each person is doing, the more we can make sure to build off of each other and make sure funding gets shared or you share in that burden of having one sole person doing the undergrounding. then if you want some of the benefits we feel from doing this master plan framework. the goal is to help the stakeholders developing a formal master plan as well as capital planning for anything in the future. we feel we will be able to help out with minimizing risk and any cost overruns you'll be able to identify that over time. identify funding sources. as you can see rule 20(a) doesn't seem to be the best

source anymore. and then the other big one is identifying these collaboration projects to help share in the burden of undergrounding >> supervisor fewer: okay. thank you. actually, that was one of the things i was going to ask about the collaboration. as you know, we are putting in also pretty extensive new water systems, sewer systems, those types of things and seems as though we should be coordinating it at the same time so we don't keep ripping up the streets. colleagues, any comments or questions? if not, this opens -- thank you very much, i appreciate it. let's open this up for public comment. ilene bovin, richard kordelo, mark snider, david banroft, jill fox, steven edwards, and then mr. phillips. every speaker will have two