tv Public Utilities Commission SFGTV January 3, 2020 6:00am-9:01am PST
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>> hello, good afternoon. i would like to call the meeting of the san francisco public utilities commission to order. may we please have the roll call madam secretary. [roll call] >> thank you. the next item is the approval for the minutes from november 26th. is there a motion and second? any comments on the minutes? hearing none, all those in favor? >> aye. >> those opposed? motion carries. next item please. >> general public comment.
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members of the public may address the commission on matters that are within the commission's jurisdiction and are not on today's agenda. >> mr. acosta, good afternoon. commissioner paulson is joining us. >> good afternoon. >> i got a few calls from the area where some houses were dren drenched and for some, the city workers or sfpuc did not respond to the situation. so, we need to find out what happened. in the army we have standard operating spread -- procedures.
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i know the general manager may not have been in san francisco when the rain fell. he should go over there in this situation because again and again, that area is effected. something needs to be done. it's engineering. the other thing is the island. the businesses over there and the people. they don't get steady electricity. we need to find out in the short range and the long range, what are we doing about that? i know in the year 2019, we have generators that can kick in and supply electricity. text not right when people have food in the refrigerators and it
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goes bad. some people can't afford to stock their refrigerators again and again. we should not fail to be considerate. i know some of you commissioners will talk to whoever is in charge of that situation and fix it. we also have a situation arou around -- and no clarity on what's going to be happening with the monopoly company. i know it's in your agenda, but when it's on the agenda, you speak about things in general. you do not speak to the constituents and the difficulties they may encounter if we have extended blackouts.
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so we should have some information given to the people if we have blackouts. who's responsible and how we are going to address it. thank you very much. >> thank you for your comments. any other public comment? next item please. >> item five is communications. you have before you communications. are there any commissioner comments or questions on communications? hearing none, are there any public comments on communications? hearing none, next item please. >> item 6 is the citizens' advisory committee update. >> good afternoon citizens advisors. >> hello. good to see you.
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my name is amy. i'm here to give an update from our annual report that recently came out that you should have. i'm excited to report from 2018 and 2019. i'll let you read the report, which tracy helped put together based on our annual membership survey and our leadership summit we had in july. i'm going to spend my moment up here to update you on some follow up items on the resolutions that passed in 2018 and 2019. so we have three updates and i have and ask of you. stay tuned. the resolution we passed in support of the sfpuc local distribution program.
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so they have kept in direct contact with our waste water subcommittee, especially with amy who has been engaged on the branding process for the new business line, which is really exciting. second update is our resolution in support of improved regulation. in order for the c.a.c. members to be more effective communicators around ground water, we asked staff to have more effective visuals around ground water quality and data. we're continuing that conversation and scheduling an update to see how that effort is coming along. three is our resolution and support of fostering a skilled and diverse utilities workforce. so this past august and in this resolution, we ask for a dedicated staff person to be hired, which would aid in the agency's progress towards being able to track the agency's
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process towards achieving the goal of diversifying the workforce. we heard from h.r. staff recently that the agency was struggling to reach core operational goals. so any additional staff would go to support these core operational goals. so i just wanted to emphasize the importance of staffing this role and creating the data collection structure and system to track the anciegency's proce each department is required to submit a racial equity plan by 2020. they're looking forward to seeing how they meet that policy mandate. my final update, which is around staffing. so, recently this past week we learned that the mayor rejected the most recent request to approve the staffing position for public posting.
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this position, which has been filled by the role of tracy for a while. i am here to make a plea to urge the mayor to approve the position. tracy has been staffing us for a while. she's been holding two roles for some time, i think two years. this position is an incredible addition to making the c.a.c. more effective. having that direct line and being in alignment with someone on staff allows us to be more fis efficient. it allows us to work in tantum with sfpuc staff and it adds a lot of power to the work we do. anything that you need from us to put pressure anywhere you need will write a letter. i will do a sit in.
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anything. i was on the p.u.c. when this position didn't exist and it's night and day. tracy has been holding it down for a while in these two roles because she recently had a different position. she's been doing it with style and grace. we need a dedicated full time staff person. yeah. i'll be providing an election update some time in january. we're going to be having leadership elections on the c.a.c. i'll be back. yeah. those are my updates. >> commissioner. >> yes, i like for you to go back over, if you don't mind. i think it was the second or third recommendation regarding a dedicated person dealing with diversity. you mentioned they said they were having some staffing problems with everything. what was that conversation again? >> so that was specifically an update through members of h.r., who had said that it's really
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important if they're going to hire folks, to just add it to the core operational needs. so we got the vibe that this wasn't part of that. so i just wanted to reiterate that. the reason why we wrote that resolution was to specifically underline the need for a dedicated staff person to track those, and create those metrics, because i believe they didn't exist and then also making sure that they are keeping that on track. >> with the diversity. >> yeah, specifically. >> okay. >> so your concern is that you need a dedicated person. >> yes, that was the resolution that was passed by the full c.a.c. >> all right, thank you. >> yeah, of course. i also want to thank you and appreciate you for your two years of service at the c.a.c. we really appreciate the work you do. i know that all of you are
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volunteers and put your time and energy into it. i don't really quite understand. i know it's a little confusing because there are two positions we're talking about. one is the equity position and the other is c.a.c. staff person. were reasons given for that position? before, was there a dedicated or shared responsibility before? >> so when we staffed that position, we staffed it with a temporary position and so that's how we have been staffing those positions. this is sort of the theme that when we go into budget, some of these positions are pretty much core of what we do. so we want to identify those as permanent positions, and i think at least what the mayor's office is telling us on these positions, they would prefer us to get a permanent position and
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fill them. so we're going to have a conversation with the mayor's office to identify you know, which ones we would say is a priority because i think they want to limit the number of additional permanent positions, so we have to have that communication. so we're going to have to go back to the mayor's office and identify that we are adding it to the budget and so if we can move forward with this temporary until we go through the budget process. >> right because i know how it is for somebody to hold two positions at once and you can't do either well. so, i'm hoping that through our budget conversations that we can indeed as soon as possible have this conversation and figure out how to both address the issue of one person holding two positions, but also figure out how to make this a permanent position. >> and just to say, it's a theme throughout the whole
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organization. it's about temporary and not hiring folks fast enough. >> yeah, again, diversity and workforce is certainly one of my main goals here as my seat is suppose to be community. for a long time, we heard that the workforce at p.u.c. is aging out. this is a great opportunity. i am with you on that. if you need any letters, if you need us to do anything, i'm willing to sit in and watch as well. we can't wait until the end of this. there are so many creative ways that we can start getting people prepared to take on these jobs. some creativity is not just about hiring and permanent positions and all that. where there's a will, there's a way. thank you for your work and all the hours that you put in. >> thank you, i appreciate it. >> thank you very much.
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>> any public comment on the c.a.c. update? >> let me give you another angle. so this is an enterprise department. some people in city hall should be told what an enterprise department is. you earned the money, hopefully to spend it in the right way. now the city, implicit biasness, resiliency, equity, but when it comes to action, it can be summed by two letters, b.s. so, i'm glad some of you commissioners have empathy and compassion.
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our young people need career jobs, not temporary jobs. whether it's in construction, whether it's in anything, i always had a job and i never had an interview in my life. i always got what i wanted. but, i am dealing with young people who are dying and they are dying because they're not given opportunities. let me tell you something with this $6 billion s.s.i.p. system improvement project, which will now be 10 billion and soon will be 12 billion. 5% of that should be put aside for community benefits. the people who are doling out the money, which i know they are, the they will give $300,000 to open up a restaurant, but
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they will not have the decent sit to have a full time employment for something that is conducive to battering the community. we need young people or somebody who's younger to understand what are their needs. we need people, older people like some of y'all, who can do a needs assessment because you have experience. the commissioner anson moran has been there forever. he can do the assessment in 5 minutes. he's a good man. i'm not saying the rest of you are bad, but he should be our leader. he should take these people aside. i know you're in the labor force, so i'm just like saying
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because from my heart. it's time to wake up. you talk the talk, but fail to walk the walk. thank you very much. i have to go now. >> thank you. any other public comments on this item? next item please. >> item 7 is report of the general manager. >> good afternoon. commissioners, the first item is a bay delta water quality control plan update. >> good afternoon, steve richey. the bay delta plan update will be brief. there's not been a lot of activity. the state i believe is in some disarray at the moment. there was suppose to be a milestone reached in mid-october where they were to determine if
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the voluntary agreements were suitable for the state water board review and that day came and went with no action. the thing that did happen recently is the state provided the results of much modeling they have been doing, using five different models to model different parts of the bay delta system and they provided the results of that modeling. the modeling results is just a pile of data. there is no analysis of that data. that came to us in late november and we had staff trying to digest it and understand it. they did have a webinar today to introduce the models, but buried in their e-mails and they would like comments by december 12th and those who received the data said the same thing. that's not enough time to digest all this information. we will be continuing that. in the meantime, i don't believe there are any meetings scheduled
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for discussions with state officials so probably not much will happen until january some time. that's where we are. >> can i ask a question? >> sure. >> so, looks like we're going to have a pretty good year, thankfully. so far so good any way. it's indeed that we have a high water year, which i believe happened last year as well. >> yes, last year and 2017. >> yeah. but in those previous years, i know that some of our stakeholder partners felt there wasn't enough water released, even though we had a high water year. can you explain if indeed we do, we are fortunate enough to have a surplus, if you will, of water. will we be able to release more for the fish as we have been trying to do? >> yeah, we do release a lot of water because there's simply no place to store it. that has been part of the
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criticism, that particularly in 2017 when we had 3 million acre feet of water that san francisco could have diverted, there was no place to divert it to. it was all released. so actually, it was a good year for the fish that year, in that there was a lot of water in the system and it did have to be released the same in 2019. then we had 1.7 million acre feet. we can't divert that much on the river, so that has to be released. so we do make big releases in big water years. there's no doubt about that. >> when does that determination get made? >> we ultimately determine the water year type generally january or february we have an idea. by april we know in terms of delivery. are we going to have to call for rationing or not? that's written in our contract. that's the drop dead date. most people really start to get a sense of the water year in january, when you do the first
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snow survey. so january and february is when you really understand. i was just looking at the results from this last storm and we've gotten for the month of december about two-thirds of the average precipitation for the month. we had wet starts and then it dries out afterwards. january is when we get the best idea. >> and the next step with the state? >> the next step with the state is to provide comments on the modeling and what we seen already is something i eluded to in a prior comment. some of the activities that we'll be engaging in, you need to look at in a way so you can see what happens every single day. they have certain models that are built for the system that only look on a monthly basis. so it loses that fine detail and that's how they modeled it gi n
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again. that's a big issue, because you're not modeling this at a fine enough scale. i'm going to try to produce a graphic that demonstrates to the commission and others what is lost in translation when you have that different kind of noting -- modeling going on because it's important to us. that we'll be providing to the state. then what is a little up in the air. >> okay. thank you. any other comments? thank you. next item. mr. general manager. >> public comment. >> are there any public comments on the bay delta update? >> all right, the next item is the sewer system improoument program quarterly report. i would like to introduce steven robinson who is the new program director. he comes from a consultant.
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he has worked on our projects for about 12 years. he's very familiar on how our system performs. also, he lets stantech on what they can help the community out as part of how they can help design and deliver some of the projects. so with that, i just wanted to welcome steven here for his first commission meeting and so if you commissioners could be kind to him. he will give his first update. >> welcome, we're happy to have you. >> thank you. so we have some slides please. good afternoon commissioners. my name is steven robinson, the director for the waste water capitol program. i came in november and i'm glad
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to represent and serve p.u.c. in this position. i want to give credit to all the work that's been done so far and i recognize there's a lot of work to be done and i'm excited to be in this position today. i've been around and served p.u.c. for over a decade. i sat in these seats behind me for years and this is my first opportunity to speak. i'm glad to be here and be gentle as the general manager has said. so i'll start in the period ending in september, and then i'll go over the quarterly report. so the overall, currently we have 34.7% complete with $899 million extended to the close of september. last quarter we closed at 32.2%, just to put that in perspective. this quarter, we're able to progress one project forward
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into the award face and two projects in the construction phase. so we have 19 properties in pre-construction, and 15 in construction, and 36 in the close out or completion stages represented in gray. i wanted to give you some highlights of those properties that is ongoing, especially in the construction phase in the upcoming slides. so this quarter, the project that you're familiar with, the construction phase in august. the construction management general contractor advertised four early out packages. demolition and the asphalt plan areas. next quarter we expect the opening of these packages. the team coordinating with multiple agencies to provide assistance to clear the sites in the intended work.
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we plan to provide an update early next year, knowing that it's also a significant project in the program. more to come early next year in this project. three of the five scopes are now in construction, very different from further ahead. scope one, site preparation. during this quarter, the contractor continued demolition and continued to work towards dry dependent work. the pump station across evans, constructions continues. recent work includes completing the installation of new bar screens. the influencer and force main, award has started. so they are constructing three work projects. and the lift station. the team has completed 95%
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design. scope three for the main scope work facility itself, we are on the third of six waves of bidding for construction work packages. 12 packages advertised this quarter so things are working steadily ahead for the head works project. so back in october, several work packages are seeing higher bids than estimated. the teams working with the contractor, they started to evaluate those bids and worked to rebuiid to make sure they me the objectives before the project. another project is the seismic reliability and condition assessment improvement project. it includes seismic improvements to the sedimentation building adjacent to the head works facility. they're doing that with concrete
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repairs to various channels and pipe structures within the plant. caps fleconnecting to the build on the north and south side to strengthen it in case of an earthquake. as you seen in the tours of the facility, the seismic work along the north side of the building folded in. it works within the head works construction area. the north side work continues with the replacement of these piles, but the work on the south side of the building was issued under a separate contract, ww665. the contractor has mobilized on site and started this preconstruction survey. construction is anticipated to start next quarter. one more area of interest is the jackson street project. completing rehab of the
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remaining 240 linear feet of the main. this was to combine sewage, servining over 300,000 people. this asset could not be construct with the previous work, and the force main could not be shut down to rehab this section of the pipe so it was phased. during this, they advertised the contract to receive bids. now they will proceed early next year. the timeline of a few of the major projects win phase one that are active and under way. the red line shows us where we are at the end of september. this is an update in the quarterly report. the blue includes both design and environmental, and green represents construction and gray is closeout. the highlighted more construction, division street,
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c.f.d. rehab project. that's our discharge project and construction is continuing to perform these concrete repairs, now that we had an opportunity to work on these and to implement repair on backflow control in these structures. a lot of this is night work and construction completion is expected to be completed next year. now one of the green infrastructure projects in construction right now and it anticipates completion in 2020. an infiltration gallery construction. the oceanside plan utilization project that's currently under construction with an expected completion of february 2021. the demolition of engines, similar to southeast. there's much coordination with adjacent construction at the plant, much more congested and busy with a lot of work going on at the same time.
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finally, a broader perspective for some other problematic updates. we want to acknowledge the great work happening here and this summer we celebrated the eighth year of the city works internship program. since it started in 2012, they provided a paid internship to young adults between 16 and 19. this summer we had 15, supported by 8 program partners, in which my previous employer use to be one. that's my engagement with the program. this is one more example on how we're trying to leverage our infrastructure investments into our youths in the community. special thanks to young community developers, and ms. lopez for managing this program. so this concludes our presentation for s.s.i.p. any questions? i'm glad to take them and i can
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roll through the quarterly report as well. >> thank you very much, pretty good for the first time. >> thank you. >> commissioners, any comments, questions? yes. >> you first tim. >> mr. paulson. >> you were talking before i even looked up. what was the role of young community developers in this? >> i can speak to that having served with my previous employer. now as program director, they're a community partner. they're a non-profit and helping leverage a public, private, and community partnership delivering this internship program. they help identified candidates, screened candidates, together with us as partners and p.u.c. and the private firms are involved. work to make sure the program is administrated and the candidates turn into successful internship partners. >> and how would you describe
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internship in terms of job descriptions and construction, and all the projects. >> yeah, there is a pretty broad range looking back to 16-year-olds and 19-year-olds. the earlier stages, a lot of it was work shadowing and work site or orientation. when they hit 19, they're on their way to college or in transition, so there's more practical learning skills in delivering projects. >> how does that work in terms of apprenticeship in the construction site? >> that's a next phase. i know there's a long career pipeline. this internship is one piece in the middle. from there, there's an expectation or progression in trades or more professional
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career opportunities. >> thank you. >> i want to point out that this is part of the proposal that the firm submitted to the city that they wanted to participate in the program, which is more professional service related. so, a lot of these youths rotate amongst your subs, in your team. this is something that they're doing using their resources to provide. so the city is not really, you know. we welcome it. we try to assist. it's something that the firms are doing as part of their social responsibility that we ask them to do as part of their solicitation. >> thank you. >> thank you. so you were sitting on the other side of the room for years. >> years [laughter] >> so now that you're on this side of the room, what do you bring? what's going to be different? what have you been looking at and seeing from the other side
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that now that you're on this side, why did we hire you? >> that's a great question. it's wonderful to be in another interview. it's really good. [laughter] >> i can say it has been ten years. >> it doesn't stop. >> yeah, it keeps going. it's been ten years since i started learning about how we work and what san francisco p.u.c. does in this city. over the last year or so with this transition of what the ssip has evolved. i've had a lot of conversations with the staff, learning how the program evolved and how it continues to evolve. market conditions have changed. we're ten years smarter than when it started. climate change, there are other impacts continuing to impact the development of this program and how we deliver good infrastructure in the city. i think the timing opportunity for this role, i can bring construction experience and design and knowing how to
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deliver, at least represent or facilitate the great work we have to deliver the commitments we already made. >> so you're the deliverer. >> we're moving into the delivery phase. one of the last slides shows the development to get to the red line. a lot of the thinking and the planning and the strategy has been developed. now we have to deliver. >> thank you. that wasn't so bad. >> thank you. good. as long as that answer was okay. [laughter] >> i guess since we're doing a few interview questions, i have one main one and you probably know what i'm going to ask. you know, one of my commitments to this commission in the city is around green infrastructure and resilient infrastructure, especially in the face of climate change. we had a lot of discussions and budget allocations and back and forths about that. i would love to hear your views on climate resiliency and what you -- because you did mention
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climate change. we now really get it after 10 years since you began. what do you supposed to do to address those issues? >> yeah, climate change, and how we address it in our infrastructure and our ongoing operations is huge. it's personally very important to me. to demonstrate some of that, the majority of the properties i have worked on here has been on the waste water side. the majority of those have been within green infrastructure. i helped deliver some of the early implementation projects. the first efforts in the capitol program to incorporate green infrastructure thinking to our day-to-day waste water and storm water and what we do here. the majority of those early implementation projects were streetscape probablijects. by moving those along and
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knowing the challenges and addressing those projects and what it meant to deliver is expensive. it's complicated. the streetscape as a public right of way is challenging. as things move forward, we are now looking to leverage some parcel-type projects and share responsibility with the school district as a partner and move that thinking forward and do other good things. there are other grant programs of course that we're on board with. then there's the storm water management guidelines with the developers, implementing lots of work across the city. there's a great map on the p.u.c. website that shows where all the projects have been implemented and their stages of progress. it is powerful to see it happen. it has to be integrated with everything we do. it is our future. as we fail to recognize that now then we would have failed. everything i see so far is moving towards incorporating to what we do. we have to keep it front and center and i'll always respect that.
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>> great, thank you. i invite my other commissioners, if you have an interview question at this time. if you do not, we will thank you for your presentationation. public comment? next item please. >> the next item is the update on pg&e bankruptcy and the city's acquisition. >> you skipped one. >> i'm sorry. that's part two. okay. waste water enterprise capital improvement program quarterly report. >> this one is much briefer. it's about the waste water capital improvement report. we highlight three capital projects that since the last quarter have now moved into a forecast of we're scheduled extended the previously approved schedule by six months or more or a cost variance of 10% more
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than the approved project. the first one is called kansas and moran street. it's a delay to the original baseline completion schedule. so the agreement with san francisco public works going underneath part of their property and public works is expressing some concern about the proposed tunnel alignment in this case underneath their maintenance yard. they work on a 35% design but won't be able to release the request for qualification and the r.s.p. for the specification of that tunnel work until we come to an agreement with the san francisco public works with that issue. that's a work in progress. now phase two, it's forecasting a delay to the original baseline completion schedule. this is the second phase of the project. it's to convert gary boulevard's
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center lanes and the bus transit lanes. they placed this property on a temporary hold due to funding. thirdly and lastly, the new treasure island waste water treatment plant. forecasting a delay also to the original baseline completion schedule. the team is working to complete the c.e.r. for early 2020 and is moving ahead with the recommendation for a design build operate approach. to -- so that conclude it is highlights of the three projects. i'll take any questions on those if there are any. >> commissioners, any questions? any public comment on this item? hearing none. thank you very much for your report. next item please. >> all right barbara, you're up for the pg&e bankruptcy and city
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acquisition offer. >> thank you, barbara hale, goods afternoon. i'm here to make a brief update on where we are at with the bankruptcy case and our efforts in acquisition. i'm going to do a highlight on the bankruptcy on the claims cases that involves pg&e. the regulatory, california regulatory and legislative activities that have been under way. so since we last briefed you, pg&e asked the bankruptcy court to find that inverse condemnation does not apply, which would relieve it of substantial claims against it. the court ruled against pg&e condemnation does apply. subsequent to that, pg&e reached a $13.5 billion settlement with wildfire claimants. you likely seen reports of this
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in the newspaper. it was covered in the chronicle today and there was quite a bit of anticipation of this happening, which was covered in the news as well. the settlement would cover pg&e 2015, 2017, and 2018 claims, which would include the campfire and the tubs fire. it also includes the ghost ship warehouse fire in oakland, as well as others. so it includes wildfires except for the kincaid fire, which is the one that happened most recently. the bondholders plan, which was the other competing plan that the bankruptcy judge allowed into the proceedings may no longer have the support as a result of the wildfire victims. so, another plan amendment, we seen a number of these. we're still on this roller coaster of changes in the bankruptcy where pg&e is trying
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to put together a plan that meets its financial op -- obligations. none of these plans meet the pg&e safety culture and general approach to center pg&e work on rate payers and customers that we're looking for in a broader change. it's the kind of change we would bring about where we own and operate the system in san francisco and be the utility providing service to all of san franciscans. in respect to claims cases, as a result of that settlement, the two areas of claims cases that are under way are in a bit of a pause mode. the san francisco superior court set of cases, trial to determine the wildfire claims for particular claimants, that may not need to go forward given the
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settlement. the judge did not rule on that yet. the u.s. district judge that was asked to estimate claims did formally pause that effort on monday, yesterday, given the settlement at the request of wildfire claimants. then moving on to the california regulatory environment. there's a number of activities under way at the california p.u.c. that is relevant to us in thinking about acquisition and the pg&e bankruptcy. so first off is that i would note the cost of capital case. at this time of year, every year, the california p.u.c. looks at applications from the utilities on what their estimated cost of capital and rate of return should be. the utilities, all three major
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utilities, pg&e, southern california, and san diego gas and electric ask for higher returns on equity to account for the additional risks from wildfire. the judge in that case recently issued a proposed decision that would reject that framing and said basically on the basis that ab1054 eliminates that risk by establishing a wildfire claims fund. so we will be filing supportive comments on that proposed decision. we have yet to see how pg&e may comment on that decision. more on that as we see that develop. the california p.u.c. has opened an investigation on the bankruptcy. looking at the plans, it's an accelerated timeframe. we're monitoring that at this point. we haven't made any substantive
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filing in that case yet. staff of the california p.u.c. recently issued a report that you may have read ability in the newspaper where it made findings of a pattern of negligence with pg&e, with respect to its treatment of transmission, operations, and maintain innocence, specifically they were reviewing the circumstances around the campfire. the ignition of the fire was sourced at a transmission tower and failing cable hook. the california p.u.c. staff found negligence there. so this goes to that issue of safety culture and what kind of company may emerge from bankruptcy. on that front, we're still continuing to see in the legislative setting a number of ideas and approaches to trying to address that, what i'm referring to as a corporate culture change. it's either because of a change in governance structure or other
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reforms. the co-op plan, which we talked about a little bit is one of those concepts. this is the concept that mayor licardo from san jose, working with other public officials throughout pg&e service territory embraced the concept of a co-op, which is a non-profit ownership structure for pg&e. since we reported on this last, we have gotten a number more of local government signatories to that concept and they distributed broad principles around that concept. the co-op principles address some of the concerns we had with the concept, particularly around the lack of trance -- transparency and the structure of the g.o.overning board.
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so, that approach doesn't speak yet to how local level decision making on distribution grids, you know, local distribution grids would interact with that co-op, but it definitely shows a lot of alignment with the interest we have in addressing the corporate culture concerns we have with pg&e. then of course there's an ongoing dialog on various yul y utility markets that we're continuing to monitor. as things mature there, we will come and brief you on particulars. with that i am happy to take any questions you may have. thank you. >> commissioners? any questions? that was a lot of information. thank you very much. >> you're welcome.
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>> next item please. oh, public comment, any public comment on the pg&e update? our next item please. >> the last item i have, which is not identified on the report so i'm going to give you an update on the storm event that happened a couple days ago. chris mcdaniels, please come up to lay out what happened and how we respond and just go over that. >> good afternoon. chris mcdaniels, i'm the manager under waste water. i have a couple of things i want to report on. the first thing is noah, which is our resource for predictions for the rain. the second item is the thresholds we use at the operations dictates what we do. the third thing i'm going to talk about is what we did this past weekend, when we had the
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storm. noa is the national rain forecasting resource we use. during storm watch, we monitor it on an hourly basis. we have to do that because it changes so often. what we're trying to find is levels of rain that we need to be concerned with. when we find those, then we react and review our process and make sure we have enough resources and coverage in the field to take care of the rain. so, that's what noa forecast is. internally, we have thresholds. so any rain predicted, a quarterquarter inch or less, it's under normal circumstances. if it goes to 0.5-inch, then we look for additional resources to respond to the rain predicted. we look at the city and divide it up into four pieces and we
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put resources in each area in the city so we can shorten our response time. when i say resources, that is equipment and labor. i don't know if you're familiar with the trucks that have a vacuum hose in the front. those come in handy for cleaning out catch basins. we put one in each zone so we can respond very quickly. if the forecast is over 1 inch then we deploy the flood barriers. 17 and fulsome floods on a regularly basis and we proactively try to minimize the flooding at that location. if you look at the corner, we create a barrier on the southwest corner to prevent the water from going into the businesses. there are a couple well-known establishments. a really nice coffee shop. unfortunately their kitchen and their dining area is 2 feet below the sidewalk.
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water tends to want to go to the lowest spot. we do that to protect those businesses and some of the residents that live there. this past weekend, as we reviewed noah every hour, the predictions were 0.5 to 0.75. that means we don't do anything extra. 7:30 p.m. on friday night, we took a look at it. it was 0.25. saturday morning at 5:50, it was still 0.25. that means internally, we don't issue any additional resources to fight the storm. so, as we all know around 2:35 and 3:00, we got hit with over 1.6 inches of rain in one hour. so they started ringing me saying what the heck chris, why
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didn't you have the resources out in the field? we have to go by noa. that's the resource we are going to use. although it looked like p.u.c. wasn't prepared, we were prepared and we had the appropriation resources in the field. these things happen from time to time. sometimes we have too much resources out in the field because of the report we're getting from noa and nothing happens. so we're in the middle of a situation here where we're doing the best we can. we had a meeting this morning where we tried to modify our internal thresholds and hopefully we could be more prepare for next time. >> go ahead commissioner. >> so what was the -- how did you decide to change the modeling or to look at it differently? some of the things you're going to look at? >> noa will tell you it's going
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to rain between 0.25 to 0.50. they also have a line saying we expect some thunderstorms. it's nothing exact, but they put that line on the description. what we discussed earlier today is maybe we take that line and take it as it's going to rain additional to what they're saying. we're going to add 0.30 to every prediction we get if that line is there. what the hope is, is that the original number was accurate and we will hit the target. it's a moving target. weather is something that's hard to predict. if we're not there, there is a lot of public impact and we want to minimize adverse impacts to the public. when there is a 1.16 inch rain, we have tons of resources out in the field. we try to work with them to help
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us. we are ready to go if we have accurate information. >> why is 17th and fulsome so problematic? is it the typography? >> yes, that particular location is prone to flooding as we all know. we also have 14th and rorona. we identified those as priority locations. when we send our resources out, they go there first. prior to rain coming, we send our staff there to make sure the system is functioning promptly. that means clean the c.b.s before the storm comes. we have proactive measures in place for those priority locations. 17 and fulsome back in the day, we had a stream, the natural path of water. the system can only hold so much. when it can't take anymore water, it comes up. so we know that and we put this flood barrier process in place
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to help the community there so we can help them protect their properties. >> so the watershed, the san francisco watershed has something to do with it as well. i mean that's what, the low points with the watershed. >> right, at those points we have over an inch of rain. our system is not designed to hold that much water. so at the low-lying areas. >> are they all built up or some under freeways or some places where we can do something different? i know that alamany usually floods. you can't even get in. >> yeah, we have been looking at the priority areas for a while and designed projects to help facilitate the water flow. the a main any project will help
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cayuga. >> what's the plan? >> so we can present to you, because this was on the calendar. we will present to you because we do have projects identified. we would love to share it with you. i know some of it. i can share with you offline, but bring a presentation to go over all that. also, the one thing i want to point out is that we recognize we need to do better communications to the supervisors and make sure that, i mean it's really challenging when we look at noa and it says that it's 0.75. we put the barriers up there. with the barriers, we have someone full time out there because if someone needs to get in and out of their property, we need to have folks there to remove the barriers. we're out there for three our four days and no rain. then when we saw the forecast go
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back to 0.25, we remove the barriers and then it rains. it is really challenging. it makes us look like we don't know what we're doing. that's why we're starting to tell the community that we're basing this knowledge on this forecast. so that we are trying to get the best data out there. >> yep. >> so maybe we'll be on television or some way that we can communicate with people so they know what's going on and they would say noa alert or whatever. people would really like to know so they can prepare. if they understand why and how things happen, then i think all of us could really work better together. >> yeah, so last thing. we do e-mail, but we're going to look at other ways that we can get that information out. so, with that, i just wanted to share that update. >> thank you. i have a question. for the modeling, because i vaguely recall that several
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years ago didn't we commit to investing in some new weather modeling system that was suppose to be more? >> we'll share that with you because that's something that's coming online in the future that will help us. it goes back -- well, we'll tell you more. >> yeah, because it seems that if it's not really serving us, then you have to add the thunderstorm line and add some arbitrary numbers so you can be protected. so i guess i would have a question, i would love to learn more if there is a better model we could use related to noa and in that conversation. i think what climate change is telling us is that we will be seeing these much more heavier rainfalls in shorter periods of time that are not really predictable. i mean there may not be a model for it. so it seems that we need to figure out some preparation, both from the communications perspective, but also from
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resource allocation so you guys aren't caught off guard. >> we notice that it's not just the intensity, but the sales are hitting us from different angles. the prediction is for san francisco in general, it may say 0.25 at city hall. but a sale may come at other -- over an inch. we have a plan to do better. >> thanks, we love to learn more. thank you so much for your work. >> thank you. >> any public comments on this item? hearing none, next item. >> that concludes my report. >> any public comments on the report overall? hearing none, we are now going to call item number 9 before number 8. if there aren't any objections, and then we will move on to number 8. if you wouldn't mind calling item number 9.
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>> item 9 is update on the disaster recovery and resiliency planning as it relates to the sewer system improvement program. >> good afternoon. you're going to get a full sweep of discussion today on emergency planning. i will keep this very brief. this is a follow up to a memo you had in your board package, i think about two meetings ago on this same topic. this is just elaborating it at the commission's request. got it? there we go. okay, so what we're going to cover here briefly is how the ssip program, the project development process incorporates emergency planning and recovery standards for the
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infrastructure. here's what we're going to briefly go through. we're going to use the seismic reliability, and what the high level of service is, and the supporting objectives for that. so what you see here is the five objectives related to the seismic reliability. the first objective is straightforward. it says we design all our facilities to meet the seismic design event, which is a 7.8 magnitude earthquake. then the three objectives, two, three, and four are where we take that high level objective and we bring that down into the design and other elements to make sure that we can actually achieve it once the system is
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built. so those three objectives in the middle, objects two, three and four. these all deal with how we recover from a major seismic event in terms of restoring the critical service. i'm going to briefly recap those. so objective number two is what happens immediately after the emergency event and through the first 72 hours when we are taking steps to assess the system and protect public health and make sure that we are beginning recovery mode of certain facilities. the second one is that within that 72 hour window, or at the end of it, we're able to start conveying and pumping flows to the treatment plant. the third objective, which is number 4 up there, pardon me, is that the plant themselves can provide primary treatment and
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disinfection of the waste water flows prior to discharge. so again if you put all three of those together, that captures our expectation of how the system performs following a major seismic event. so, we'll delve into those a little more. on objection number 2, minimizing the public health and safety impacts. i won't go into that in detail. it boils down to we will go through and rely on the primary conveyance routes in the city. i'll show you those on the map and we rely on the storage in the transport storage boxes, which i think everyone is familiar with, and in most cases, those have enough storage to hold between 1.5 to 3 days of dry weather flows from the system. you can envision those acting like giant storage tanks to the first one to three days of the event.
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i'm not going to go through this in great detail in the interest of time. i think there is more information here than we need to get into. of course, we'll come back and delve into this in more detail at the commission's request. so this just gives you a schematic. i think you seen this in different forms a number of times of the location and layout of the transport storage boxes and the treatment plants. again, at a certain point, if those storage boxes became full, then we would be relying on essentially discharge through the combined sewer discharge out fall structures. that wouldn't be ideal. you would have waste water flows to the receiving waters, and we recognize that is obviously a permit violation but think this is under emergency recovery for the city and you think of what's our least bad choice? it's to have that waste water flow if it needed to go through the structure.
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so what you're looking at here is a map that we use and we are actually very active on this right now. >> sorry. just before on that first objective, there is no other alternative? >> not for that first two to three days after the event. this is a point where you're not sure you have power and yeah, you're in a very -- you're trying to meet the very minimums for public health and safety at that time. so what you see here are two different maps side by side. one of those has the major waste water and storm water conveyance pipelines. the one on the right shows you also the primary street routes that d.p.w. will also use in a post emergency situation. we have active plans to work in conjunction with d.p.w. and other city departments to go through those routes and do post
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disaster assessments of those pipelines as part of the post emergency activity. in the third objective, as i mentioned earlier is to make sure that the treatment plants themselves can provide at least primary treatment and disinfections so this is where we get to a much more acceptable condition in terms of what we're discharging to the receiving waters. this graph shows you, even though we have a number of pump stations around the city, there are five of those pump stations that account for about a little over 99% of the flow. so when you look at emergency recovery and where we want to invest in resiliency, we don't have to cover every single facility to get the biggest return on our investment, so to speak. it's those large pump stations where we want to make sure we have reliable service.
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now again, we'll go through these future analyses that we're planning. this shows you the southeast treatment plant and this is post ssip. so you're seeing a schematic of the new bio solids and head works layout. so when we talk about meeting the level of service here, this is where we're currently drilling down a little further into the planning, so that we don't try to cover every possible need of that facility. again in that post 72-hour window, we want to have just enough ideally or at a minimum i should say, operational capacity to bring the flows into the system of head works, run them through primary treatment only, provide disinfection and then provide discharge to the out fall. so, many of the facilities you see there, we wouldn't
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necessarily be focused on in that post disaster recovery. we would want to make sure we have chemical supplies, power reliability, staff, et cetera, to just meet those operational minimums of again primary treatment and disinfection. this is a similar schematic of the oceanside detail. it gives you an idea of what we're focused on. lastly, the emergency planning topic is really front and center right now for a whole host of reasons, one being the recent developments with the pg&e public safety power shut offs from we haven't experienced those yet. the city is planning for them. what it does say is that we have a need to focus on the back up
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power supply reliability to our facilities. if we're relying as we currently do, we call it a duel feat. we have two power supplies coming to the plant from two independent substations. that has been our plan in terms of power reliability, but if the entire grid is down, then neither one of those substations is functioning. that strategy may not be as effective in the future. so that's something we're delving into. and i just wanted to highlight as a backdrop to all of this. there is a number of planning related mergemergencies going o this is a substantial update. we're working on a staff recall plan currently.
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in most cases we don't want it to work in a post disaster situation, but we want to communicate how to get them to work. we want to utilizing the collection division has used for the wet weather operations effectively in the past two seasons. we're also working on chemical procurement strategies and fuel needs. also, it's not on this list, we're working on the update and coordination with the rest of the city departments in the continuity of operations plan. you can think of that as a high level city-wide plan that overarches the different departments within the city. we can talk about any of this in the future if there is interest on the commissions part. that is the presentation. i'll be happy to answer any questions. >> i'm still kind of stuck on
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this notion of releasing the sewage into the receiving waters as you say. i would just love some creative thinking as it evolves on a potential plan b as an alternative. >> absolutely. >> any other comments or questions commissioners? thank you very much. any public comment on this item? hearing none, next item madam secretary. number 8. >> number 8 is an update on san francisco's sea level rise action plan and next steps. >> good afternoon commissioners and if i could have my slides. i'm a member of the city's sea level rise committee and i wanted to say i really enjoyed
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sister robinson's answer. >> which answer? >> about climate change. >> i'm here today as a member of the coordinating committee to provide a brief overview of the vulnerability and consequences development that was in the action plan and to let you know that the document is expected to be published some time early next year. i'm joined by brian strong by the chief resilience officer. after my presentation, they will provide an overview of the hazards and climate resilience plan, which includes climate change adaptation planning. his presentation illustrates how the city is transitioning to a combined climate resilience planning effort so city departments can maximize efficiencies and the con -- co
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investments of our dollars. this committee brought together representatives from city agencies that work on or have vulnerable assets within the sea level vulnerability zone, including the sfpuc. this group worked together to create the 2016 sea level rise action plan, which called on city departments to work together to delineate the impact of rising sea levels and developed strategies to protect our shorelines and assets. where are we in the process? we are finalizing the data collection phase and are about to publish the sea level rise vulnerability and consequence report. this report was a large multi-agency, multi-year effort to collect data so we can identify and georeference or map
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vulnerable assets, identify key findings, and outline next steps. this report does not provide policies or strategies. the analysis, which was based on the rising tide framework completes steps two and three and assessing the city's vulnerability to coastal flooding. it assesses the risks or consequences of that vulnerability on people, the economy, and the environment. as the first step we completed a mapping exercise and determined which assets were illustrated here by a blue line. this map shows a do nothing vulnerability zone. in other words, no shoreline protection has been included in the analysis. with that information, we were able to determine which assets were exposed to flooding.
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next we assessed vulnerability. vulnerability is a function of sensitivity and adaptive capacity. sensitivity describes the degree to which an asset is effected and adaptive capacity describes the ability of an asset to be modified, to reduce or eliminate the effects of flooding. finally we assessed the consequences -- sorry, what the consequences would be to the people, economy, and the environment. we applied this analysis to different structure types and systems described here, including waste water and public power. we also developed the series of neighborhood profiles for all neighborhoods bordering the bay or ocean that describe the affected public assets in this neighborhood and the people living and working here. once we completed the analysis, we were able to identify some key findings. again, these are based on a scenario which the city has taken no preventative action.
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impacts to local and regional transportation systems, including portions of bart, muni, caltrain and caltrans infrastructure. loss of recreational spaces as flooding risks in low-lying areas such as mission bay. we were able to develop these key findings not only by looking to impacts of individual assets but analyzing how entire neighborhoods would be affected. this map shows fisherman wharf are 77 inches of sea level rise. that is a tipping point where large areas of shoreline is overtop. we see the overtop and white line indicates areas of no overtopping. this is another example moving further south. mission creek and mission bay and some of our lowest lying
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areas built largely on fill. this map represents 52 inches of sea level rise. as you can see, there would be substantial flooding due to a low level shoreline. that gives you some insight on how the overall analysis was done. now i like to focus on sfpuc assets, first off the water enterprise and the type of facilities that could be impacted. as you know, san francisco relies on a regional water delivery system. even though this analysis was focused on san francisco proper, we recognize that key components of the water delivery system are outside of san francisco. therefore, it needs to be included in this analysis. as an example, key components are located near the dumbarton bridge. flooding in this area may impact sensitive control systems and electrical equipment, which could disrupt water delivery service for millions of people.
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within the city limits, most of the infrastructure is buried. however, as an example, the bay bridge pump station is within the city's sea level rise vulnerability zone. an impact to this facility could keep water from leaving treasure island. now a few slides on the waste water enterprise. similar to the water enterprise, the waste water enterprise has buried assets that are less vulnerable to the impacts of sea level rise. we do have treatment plans, combined sewer discharges and pump stations that could be vulnerable to flooding. to understand which assets were vulnerable, we did an assessment of all the potential pathways where flood waters could enter the facility. lastly, we looked at the power enterprise assets, which may change with everything that's
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going on. the power enterprise asset and pg&e assets are intertwined to provide a reliable and consistent power supply. because of the interrelation between the two systems, the consequences of power disruption due to sea level rise could not be separated. pg&e is conducting their assessment and we will coordinate with them with our adaptation projects as the city moves forward. so that concludes my brief overview of the work that has been completed, which is mostly focused on understanding the problem. before i finish my presentation, i want to talk a little bit about what the steps the city has taken or will take to address sea level rise. for example, as we continue to increase our understanding of how sea level rise would affect the city, we are already moving forward with adaptation planning for some of our most vulnerable areas. these are examples of watter front projects that are building
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adaptation strategies into their programs by elevating streets and infrastrungture -- infrastructu infrastructure. we have the ocean beach climate change adaptation project, the u.s. army corps of engineers sea wall program. on the previous slide, i mentioned the ocean beach project. i'm the project manager for this project, which is a climate change project, which is led by the sfpuc. this is addressing chronic erosion of ocean beach. we completed the report at the end of september and are now in the design phase. this is, if not the first, one of the first projects statewide implementing a manage street
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approach to accommodate sea level rise. in order to achieve this goal, we will be removing the great highway by skyline. in order to do this, we plan to construct a low profile wall to protect the waste water infrastructure in this area. we anticipate this project will go to construction in 2023. so what are our next steps? what are we doing to ensure assets that are being built now, while larger adaptation strategies are developed, consider sea level rise? first, the city has their sea level rise planning guidance that was originally adopted in 2014. that requires city sponsored projects incorporate sea level rise into their design. second, we are moving towards efforts that coordinate sea level rise adaptation so that the city departments can maximize efficiency and the co benefits of our investment dollars. we're moving towards the development of a city-wide climate resilience program.
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these efforts are led by capital planning led by brian strong who is here today and will present on the city's hazards and climate resilience plan. thank you. if you have questions, i can take them now or at the end of the presentation. >> let's take them at the end please. mr. strong, good afternoon. >> hi, thank you very much for having me here. i'll try to go fairly quickly because i know there's a lot of information you will be hearing that's already been heard. so as anna mentioned, i'm the chief resilience officer. we work on various projects that we're pulling various departments together from the city and it's interesting to hear all the various
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presentations today. we actually touch upon all of them in some way or another as far as how they relate to the broader city family and how we deliver services. so the city's first time we're putting a hazard mitigation plan that looks really extremely broadly. so there is legislation that would require at the state level, where we have to incorporate climate vulnerability and assessment planning into our plan efforts. so hazard mitigation plans are required by fema, every five years if you want to be able to receive fema support. that could be general assistance report after a major disaster. if you want to receive fema funding and so forth. also by having a complete hazard mitigation plan, you're eligible for the state to cover the local cost, the local matching cost that would come.
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so large amounts of dollars we get from fema. there's a match of around 6.5% that could be covered by the state. there are a lot of important reasons to do this work and to make sure the city has it done. the other goal of it is to have one place where we're capturing our policies around hazard mitigation. the program started a year and a half ago in april of 2018. i think he was fairly specific. anna was more general and now this is even more general than that. we're looking at the hazards that the city is facing and the assets we have and the vulnerabilities that those hazards will present for our assets. from there, we put together, you know we have a set of draft goals. from those two pieces, we put together strategies. this plan has over 95 strategies in it.
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it's more broad than what we done in previous plans. we're thinking big here and we're thinking long-term. the draft document was completed in june of 2019. it was distributed and we had public outreach that happened during the summer. we made further changes to the plan and we just posted the draft for public review. once the public review period is over, we send it to fema, and then the board of supervisors will vote on it. per fema policy, we have to submit it to them first before the board gets to vote on it. let's highlight so of the plans. we talked about reducing risk of damage and disruption. that's clearly critical. this time we're talking about trying to build capacity. i want to say build capacity at the city level with staff and how we work together, and also at the community level. we heard from some of our stake holder outreach that they want
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to be aware of what's happening and how they will be impacted and how they can participate and play a role in how we address it. that was important. access to the information we have is important and the ability to sort of enable them to have inputs. you know, in the planning and in the mitigation, and in the response and the recovery. it can't just be one piece. we also added addressing inequitable impacts. we wanted to make sure we have a lens on all the policies and programs. equity is something we're looking at for each part of the program and increasing public awareness, which i mentioned before. so this slide here shows the different hazards. there are 13 primary hazards that the city faces. these are natural hazards. we grouped them in four categories, geologic, which is common. the big earthquake is what we think about. it's our largest hazard and most
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vulnerable too. it's weather-related. it was mentioned that we are seeing more extreme storms. we're seeing more heat. in 2014 when we did the mitigation plan. heat and air quality was not an issue on the table. now we know after the fire and the heat events in 2017 and 2018 and some this year, this has become front and center and it shows how quickly climate change is changing our environment. combustion related fires and biological around toxic where we're capturing some of the hazardous materials that moves around during an earthquake and pandemic flus and those types of things. the process we do, this shows a sample hazard profile we have. these are covered for each of
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the 13 and they look at these different categories around the nature, the history of it and the city, where we expect it to happen. tsunamis are primarily on the ocean beach side with a little bit on the bay. we're looking at probability to make sure we understand what the risks are associated with those hazards. when we think of the assets. this is typically how we grouped them in the past. we're looking at emergency response facilities, buildings, transportation, protective infrastructure like sea walls, wetlands, parks, those natural types of barriers. the new thing is looking at population this time around. so we're looking at the total population and vulnerable communities. some of that goes to the equity issues, and some goes to all the clear evidence shows that vulnerable communities are the most likely to suffer the most after a major disaster and have the most difficulty recovering.
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so we want to make sure we have that in there. we create these vulnerability and consequence profiles around each of the assets as they're exposed to the disasters. this is a big part of our report. this is just the appendix of the report. it's around 300 to 400 pages. this shows an example of susceptible for critical response facilities so these will be fire stations, police stations, and those types of things. you can see the zones in pink on this graph and understanding which one are there and therefore are at risk. where do we run our critical emergency routes, those types of things. this is important information. the stakeholder engagement. we met with agencies and businesses. we really focused on these five different areas, which is businesses, older adults, people with access and functional
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needs. the aging population in san francisco is expected to nearly double in the next 15 to 20 years. so we know that's a big category. children, youth, and families. we know affordable housing around homelessness. some of the environmental and racial justice organizations in the city. we also submitted an online survey that we encourage people to participate in and we had about 600 responses. now we're looking for their feedback on the draft public plan. some of the feedback, i think i already mentioned these. diversified multipronged and coordinated solutions are what they want to see. they don't necessarily see the p.u.c., the library, the airport, the school district as separate entities. they really see it as the city. it's important for us to work together.
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most concerns about earthquakes and unhealthy air. it's interesting. i think a lot of people think they're able to address the heat issues, but unhealthy air, they don't feel as prepared for. importance of community cohesion, more information specifically on emergency preparedness and what they need to do and how it will effect them. finally getting to the strategies. there are more than 95 strategies. i think there are 96 in total in the plan. we group them into these different categories that are shown here, just so they're more digestible and so that people understand the impacts. we want to make sure these actions relate to different impacts. one of them is infrastructure, which is where most of the assets you see would fall. mostly horizontal infrastructure, which is the more complex of the three categories i would say.
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the stock, privately or publicly owned businesses like our fire stations and hospitals. resilient communities and that gets to some of the programs we have around working with communities. whether it's through the neighborhood empowerment network or the nert or alert programs in the city and some of the leadership programs where it is about developing that community capacity and increasing communications between the city and those folks. the different roles on the left column shows the roles that the city has to influence disaster mitigation. we either own the assets, we deliver services, we do research. sometimes we're doing work for research sake and daylight things. then we have adopted and enforced regulations. those are the primary tools. this shows you a copy of what one of the strategies looks like in the capital plan.
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this is around geologic, which is in the resilient buildings category. you see the title at the top. that would include some of the p.u.c. buildings, and some of the general fund buildings throughout the city. you can see we do lay out who the lead agency is, summarize the strategy and so forth. we have another example here around some of the addressing flooding. this is a strategy that's been identified not just through communi community meetings but with our experiences with design work and the p.u.c. work that's been done around the southeast treatment plant. again, the idea here is that we're summarizing the strategy. we're talking about how we can influence it. this is something we don't expect to have a solution for right away but it's important for us to be thinking about and working towards for the
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long-term. finally, there's another example here that shows what it would be for communities, for resilient communities. this is identifying clean air and cooling hubs, and public respite facilities which we're challenged by because we're use to cooler climates. we built things in way that would respond to the climate we have here. now that we're seeing 105 degrees weather for three or four days there a row, it's putting a lot of pressure on our systems. we are having to think about how to redesign rec centers and libraries, so they can accommodate communities and folks in these types of weather situations. i could say cold is another issue too, not to leave that out as we're entering into winter. finally, this is a long list of strategies so i'm not going to go into detail about it. i tried to make sure that i had
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at least one strategy for all. different people throughout, there are a lot of important work that is happening in the p.u.c. that we wants to make sure gets called out in the plan and this makes fema funding available. so for instance, under you know mr. chrichie's program we have e vulnerability for regional dams in the city. they received a $550,000 grant from the fema hazard mitigation grant program where they said to us, it needs to be if you want to have funding for that grant. it was a very direct benefit. other around the sewer system improvement program and making sure we continue that and we continue to push for the
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standards that mr. norby was talking about and how that interplays with our lifeline council, where we have all the different lifeline providers sitting around the table and how they have to work together. so with that, that's the end of the presentation. i'm happy to take any questions along with anna and adam here and anything else. thank you. >> yep. thank you so much for that and all of this very thorough. i think one thing i don't see is about our san francisco location, our watersheds. our watersheds are really important and they add water. so on top of the other, there is the watershed water that's there naturally, and it's enhanced. so how are we thinking and looking at that? that's part of the problem in a lot of areas when you add the water that's naturally there,
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and the other water to come. so how are we looking at and dealing with those things in our low-lying areas that we have? >> yeah, i do know we have a strategy where we're thinking of water as it relates to population growth. it certainly is a big issue. certainly, a lot of the issues around flooding and working with the flad -- flood programs are important. >> so i know that the water enterprise, the gentleman would be david, who is the climate lead for the water enterprise. they're looking at how climate change will affect the watersheds and the water production for drinking water. if you're thinking of flooding, we were talking earlier about the different programs that we're looking at and we're working with the national laboratory to develop some modeling information to help us understand extreme precipitation in the future under different
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climate scenarios and working with what we have here, our natural topography. >> also, how are we working with when we're redoing buildings, and we're building these huge buildings, and they're cracking, they're leaning, and then more cracking, how are we looking at where we are actually building and instead of just saying yeah, we can drive more piles. yes, that's true but sometimes the piles are not necessarily going deep enough. are we looking at that when we talk about resilience and we talk about coming back from something? >> yes, we are. i miss having you on the board of supervisors. i could talk to you about these things. we specifically talked about buildings. we completed a tall building study. we looked at the impacts of water and some of the geotechnical aspects of
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buildings, and whether we should be going down to bedrock and every single building that we construct. >> or maybe they shouldn't be built there. >> and what are the impacts of those buildings on the communities around them because often these tall buildings are nestled right next to chinatown and other communities. so that we did an extensive study with a number of scientists and experts. in fact city administrator kelly will be talking about this after this meeting. they're coming here for their 101st anniversary, 37,000 scientists, and that's one of the programs that will be talking about resilience in those types of buildings. it's important to understand the impacts that again sea level rise and these things and the raising water table are going to have. i can tell you from that specific report alone, which was
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initi initially required -- well initially asked for by city administrator ed lee, was to get to those interdependencies and thinking about not just the impact on the people that are in the buildings, but the communities around it. yeah, where does it make sense? and i think even talking about ocean beach again, and the fact that we're looking at pulling back, doing a managed retreat. we're probably one of the only jurisdictions in all of california that has publicly said yes, we need to do a managed retreat. >> it's great because it's very costly. we know that armoring that, it's not really working. so are we invited to that conference you just mentioned? >> yeah, if you want to come with me. it's in about 20 minutes. >> i do want to come. >> i can get you an armband. >> yeah, get me an armband. i think it's something that
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maybe the planning commission or what all the people we're talking to, we need to know. we're surrounded by water on three sides. we need to know a little bit more about what's going on around us and through us. >> i think that's one of the goals of the climate mitigation resilience plan, is to bring that level of knowledge, to get it out there more so people can understand that it's again the multihazards approach they need to be thinking about. it gets to the sea level vulnerability analysis where we're looking at neighborhoods. this is the impact on a particular neighborhood. >> and also the nert model. maybe it could be broadened so that people could be more helpful. i know a friend was at olive garden on saturday and then the water started coming in.
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it was wetting the rugs and they had to use the side exit because the water was just overwhelmed. i was at a theater, i came out, couldn't go to the muni because it was flooded. we need to really talk about it. thank you. >> yeah. >> i have another question for you. so, i appreciated the long list of strategies. it's a bit overwhelming. i guess what i would like to ask is two questions. one is, is there something that wasn't on that list in your experience now in the last period of time, year and a half since you started this major effort that we should be paying attention to or should be on the list? and then the second part of the question is, if you had to pick one, since you have a captive commission audience at this moment, that you feel is really of the utmost importance that we can double down on, what would it be? >> the second one is a tough
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question. let me go with the easier one first. now it has slipped my mind. now -- sorry. >> what's is not on the list that should be. >> that's not easy either. for the most part, i think it's from the p.u.c.'s perspective. we started broad so that we can capture a lot of the different programs underneath it. under these strategies are several programs that are being worked on. i do think -- i think we did a good job in getting them all in. i think you know, for instance for the power enterprise, we have one talking about increasing the resilience of the power enterprise. i think that's as detailed we want to go considering all the change happening right now with pg&e and what's happening. you know, some of the ones -- i think there is a lot there. i think city-wide, there is probably some stuff that we
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could be working on around the biological hazards and spending time looking at that. part of it is because those are things we don't have that much control over. some of it is the former redevelopment agency that's seeing it with the army corps of engineers and the navy that did the work there. those are the tough ones where we have to try to partner with and push some of our partners. as far as what's important here, i think clearly the sewer system improvement program is so vital and so many of our different lifelines depend on that, along with water. so those are two of the core missions that the p.u.c. is working on developing. if we struggle in either of those, that means after a natural disaster or as we're dealing with these climate change, as we're moving forward with client -- climate change, we're really stuck.
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we're not able to recover in a way that san francisco would want to be. we want to recover in a way where we're moving forward and growing. if we're not tackling those issues, then that will make it much more difficult. >> and lastly, it seems that you made your way through that circle of assessment and vulnerability and strategies even. you gotten to that point. that's when the real hard work begins and my specific question is around financing and funding, which is the road here. i know we're putting ocean beach out there, managed retreat and the expense is associated with that. i mean we're talking upwards of, i don't know. multibillion. >> it's in the billions. we have a $39 billion capital plan going forward over the next 10 years, so we actually are making really significant investments and lot of the
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strategies in here, for instance, some of the work around the airport are funded or at least partially funded, so i don't want to suggest that every strategy in here is something new and there's going to be a new budget ask. the budget office would have my head. these are programs that are either part of strategies or we really want to use it in a way to bring light to them so then it's more likely they will be prioritized either in the 10 year capital plan or the budget. you know, the fact that it's part of a city wide hazard mitigation plan, makes it -- the chances of us getting funding more easily. we're working together quite a bit to look at different financing options and i know the p.u.c. and eric is here. i know that the p.u.c. has been creative in how they're working
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with the federal government and doing green bonds and infrastructure that we're doing at treasure island. i think we're going to need to continue to push those as hard as we can. the other thing i would say -- this doesn't prioritize them, which is a big next step. how do we prioritize them. some of that will come out in the p.u.c.'s capital plan and the city's capital plan and other documents. >> all right, thank you very much. commissioner paulson. >> so mr. strong, i'm incredibly impressed with the list. this is the first time i seen the full presentation out of the city's office. they put all this stuff together. i know that when the mayor created the disaster committee and people told me never join a committee that's called a
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disaster committee. i know it still exists. as a matter of fact, i believe i'm still on it. i don't i think ever received a letter kicking me off of it. for that matter, i'm impressed with this stuff. i've been involved in a lot of different projects. fixing and everything else. i really just wanted to go on the record to saying the approach of saying here's the big picture of all the stuff that we need to do and then just to start continuing to flesh out the different specific plans. i mean even the antidote you made about how everyone of harlan's lieutenant. i know you said it that all the cities should be involved in this and to have people assigned
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to be in charge of these different tasks and roles to protect our city and to be forward thinking in terms of climate change. it's really impressive. that was the most impressive and maybe others have seen this before, but it's the most impressive presentation i've seen on preparedness in san francisco. thank you. >> commissioner moran. >> thank you. commissioner maxwell and i were talking before the meeting began about all of the work we're doing at southeast. and that's a project that is well into design. some parts of it is in construction. you know, in advance of your coming up with building standards as a whole. i think it would be valuable for us to hear how these issues play in the southeast plant modifications that we're doing. what the thinking is and what the design features are and what
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the design challenges are in dealing with the high water table and climate change and increasingly high water table. that would be perhaps an interesting case study as to how this thinking is actually playing out. >> i just want to make sure that they're looking at tall high-rises. we're talking about three story buildings. i think we did a presentation on the soil and the geotech work on that. i think we made a presentation on that, right? so, we can -- i don't know if you were here, but we can maybe show what we did because i thought we may have addressed that or i'm trying to understand what additional or was that not enough? >> oh, i do remember a presentation on that although the details fade.
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presenting them again in the context of this work will perhaps be a different lens that may be useful as well. also things change and understanding the risk that we have to build and be cog -- cognizant of that. >> if i may, just a little bit of background. so the sea level rise vulnerability map that the city is using is developed by the sfpuc by the waste water enterprise. we were a key agency in developing the sea level rise guidance that the city is utilizing for projects that are being designed and implemented and the components that are being built to the southeast
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>> i don't need to cover that for you folks. this shows the wholesale customers and the deepness of the blue is how much of our supply they depend on, so it shows hayward as the darkest blue. because they have 100% of the supply from us, south of there, alameda county water district gets 20% of its supply from us.
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that shows the wholesale customers and san francisco up there in the north. what i'm really going to talk about is what we do in terms of water supply planning, beginning with the urban management water planning act, where we develop urban water management plans and assessments, which you see both of those over time. it's a law described by many as the show me the water law. what was the concern was that there was rampant development in california and no one was paying attention to the water supply. assume the water would be there. so it was to direct water agencies to actually assure long-term supply, reliability and efficient use of water supplies to meet existing and future demands. so the requirements of the urban
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water management planning act are the plans to be prepared by urban water suppliers, updated every five years and they need to cover a 20-year planning horizon. that is developed in context of whatever the planning agency for any water agency is. in our case that's the san francisco planning department for the planning projections for san francisco itself. yeah, we do rely on the planning population and job projections and we always have. the plans are then submitted to the california department of water resources for review. so they review them. those five-year plans for adequacy, under the terms of the urban water management planning act. >> sorry. >> yeah. >> so the plan is developed by the p.u.c., approved by the planning -- >> it is not approved by the planning department. they provide the population projections that we include in the plan. and we're obligated to show that
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we have the supply or are going to get the supply to match up to those population and job projections. >> we submit to d.w.r.? >> they get all of the ones in the state and review them for -- actually this list of things here, which is we're suppose to cover our system and service area and our urban water management plan does cover our retail demands. the one that obligated water users to cut the demand by 20%. san francisco already complies with this. so that's a fairly easy thing for us top.
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for climate change, things like that, that we have to take into account. as we deal with those things, we need to deal with those in updates what conservation programs do we have in place to make sure that we're efficiently using the supply. then theft lay, we have to have a water shortage timcy plan in there, which is our potential in times of a drought. that's an obligation of all water suppliers in california to demonstrate we thought ahead to drought conditions and have a contingency plan for that. and so our current water urban management plan has one of those. and it will be updated as part of the next update, which is in 2020. that's the basics of the urban water management planning act,
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which ubiquitous throughout california. everyone has to do it, to demonstrate they're thinking ahead in concert with the local planning agency on how to deal with water supplies in the future. next, that's the guidance document that summarizes the conservation program that will take place over the next five years, when we do the plan. it's specific measures to be implemented. the estimated water savings costs and effects on demand. it explains factors that shapes the criteria used to evaluate measures. so, for example, in san francisco we emphasize fixture replacement. because that's what we found to be the most efficient thing to do to achieve water savings here, for many of our customers outside of san francisco, they would really focus on more water efficient irrigation, because that's the single biggest use out there, that is actually been reduced a lot of our time. i think as you saw from presentation that nicole made at
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the last meeting, where they reduced their water demands over time substantially. and just here's a measure of the -- you've seen similar graphs before. we've had a steady decline in the per-person, per-day. we're now down to -- actually this is the blue bars are the gross level, which we're down to about 80 gallons per person per day. that's basically total system -- total demand in san francisco, divided by the population of san francisco. and then the lower, grayer bars that are shown there, those are the residential gallons per person, per day. so that you see the residential use is down right now. it's down to about 41 gallons per person per day among the lowest in the state. so we've had the steady decline, while population has increased. but we expect population to increase more and so we're probably getting to diminishing returns on how low people can go, while as we increase population and jobs, overall
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water use is starting to tick up in our future projections. so what is the water supply assessment? this is also required by state law. and it documents retail supplies, demands and demands of the proposed project, because this is the project-based document. and references the most recent urban water management plan to cover what the setting is. if determines if water supply is proposed for the project. and that is the planning department. so the document that we prepare is included in the record and utilized by the planning department. emphasize for this commission an approval of the p.w.s.a. is not an approval of the proposed
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project. it's essentially a legal requirement. we have to provide that information to the planning department, so that they can then make a decision on the project overall. so the project require a water supply assessment. i won't go into the details here. but basically relatively large residential developments, shopping centers, office buildings, hotels, motels, industrial facilities, 500 dwelling units. so it's basically it's a large project document. it's not looking at like a three-unit condo or something like that. we, of course, see many of those in san francisco, with a lot of the redevelopment going on. now we've had to make some changes. what we do in our water supply assessments, based on the bay delta water quality control plan, back in december of 2018. that's put us into a challenging situation, where there's
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uncertainty about the future and we've got to deal with that. so we had to deal with that for projects in the last round. we analyzed three supply scenarios. one is the status quo, where basically it's out of the same analysis as before, just using the 2015 urban water management plan. second would be voluntary agreement. qualitative analysis about that, because as we talked about, we have a voluntary agreement that would require less water to be released to the river, that has a lesser impact on the water supply. we think would have better overall benefits. but that's still under review, as i mentioned earlier, that's got an uncertain future. then the last would be the bay delta plan amendment, which we have indicated would cause this to have to go to higher levels of rationing, up to 40%, 50% rationing in times of drought. so all of those are possible scenarios of the future. and we don't know which one actually will come to fruition.
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so we have also assume the same total retail demand projection, as those in the 2015 urban water management plan for all of those scenarios. and we reference our level of service goal, which is no more than 20% systemwide rationing during dry years, at a given demand. and then we've also identified additional water supply proms in there, as we've talked about here. we're beginning planning for additional water supply projects, because regardless of which future we face, we do need to develop additional water supplies. so we need to be moving forward on that. we also for the large projects require use of our non-potable water calculator to estimate the proposed potable and non-potable demands. that's basically a formula on how to determine what the demands of the project are. we estimate the level of rationing to be imposed in the proposed project on the severe drought. and we reiterated that the proposed project does not cause the overall shortfall.
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that that is a collective thing and that's where we are now. and we've talked about this at prior commission meetings, where the projects we're looking at now, have to reuse their wastewater in some ways. part of the non-potable ordinance. so their demands definitely are less, because they have that in combination with the most water efficient fixtures. these are the most low water-demanding folks in the city. so that's the overall, the legal requirements of what we have to do. we have to provide the urban water management plan, individual project water supply assessments to the planning department for dealing with the review of major projects. now i'm going to move on to how we actually plan for our water supply, because that enters into how the water supply assessment is developed. and i will start with 1991, when it was certainly deep into a drought at that point. and again our system is
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storage-dependent. we don't have the first rights to the river. so how much water we can store is what's important to us. and our water supply is driven by drought conditions. there's plenty of water in normal years and wet years. but extended droughts are where we have a big challenge. so the level of service objective, that was adopted in 2008 for attar -- for water supply, basically making it a through an eight and a half year planning scenario, 1997 -- with no more than 20% rationing at a total system demand of 265 million gallons per day. that 265 million gallons per day is the 184 million gallons per day, that we are obligated to make available for our customers, and 81 million gallons per day for san francisco as an allocation. so this graph shows how the design drought works. in this case, the demand of
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265 million gallons per day. i'll show one later that's about 223 million gallons per day. we've done this at different demand levels. basically what's on the left access is the total system storage, and on the bottom you see 86 through 87 fiscal year, all the way out to 92 and switches to 76, 77 and 77-78. what you see here, during that time that drought exists, you see, you know, declining levels of storage, as it continues over time. and this assumes that we go to 10% rationing at the end of the second year of the drought. and to 20% rationing at the end of the fourth year of the drought. and because we don't have enough water currently to meet the 265 demand, we also would have to go to 25% rationing in the six and a half years of the drought. now this is a planning scenario.
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this is not an operating scenario. so we use these numbers as guidance. this is where you'd have to tick off these increasing levels of rationing. because what happens at the very end is we get to what's called dead pool. that means there's only water left, you can't get out of the reservoir. that basically zero. i know one person who wouldn't have a job if we got our levels to zero, that would be me. you might be -- [laughter] >> you'd be first. >> yeah. i'd be first. so what we show here is that probably about three years before the end, and really depends, we're always doing some water supply planning. but we would have to start to take some emergency action when we get to -- in sight of what we get to zero. because we can't get to zero and then just wish we had some water. you know, there needs to be something in place. whether it's a transfer or some additional storage or we hope for rain, but you can't just hope to rain. we have to plan for it.
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that's why i had that notation there, that we would have to start some emergency action at that point in time, otherwise we run the risk of running out of water. >> wait. can i stop you there. >> sure. >> i think i'm finally understanding this a little bit. so this is the eight and a half year design drought scenario. >> yes. >> which we've seen, according some people, once in the last 1200 years, according to the tree rings, whatever it is. right. that's what this was based on was that one period of drought, that was pretty scary. >> yeah. >> that we were planning for. so i just want to be clear. that's why we have eight and a half. y , the '86 through '92 was the drought experienced when we decided to go this direction and this was developed actually during the last licensing process. this was a process in the 1994-1995 range that commissioner moran participate
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indeed, we were talking about -- how do we plan for the future water supply, given we had the very stair scary experience. >> i understand. we used somewhat of the outlier experience, the extreme experience. the conservative model. >> right. >> i don't know. with climate change -- >> i know, i know. >> all of the outlier, -- >> i know. >> it is extreme. but that is the challenge we have is if we look back, we can say, oh, yeah it might happen once in a while. looking forward, potentially scary future. >> right. right. i get it. the other question is on the 265. because you're saying that we would have to go into water supply emergency action. but we -- we haven't come close to our 265 yet. >> oh, yes. >> and i know we have a responsibility, on obligation, contractual obligation to deliver. but we haven't come close to that number, right. >> that's correct. >> i don't quite understand why
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we would have to go into water supply emergency action, it's not need-based. >> this is assuming we're at a demand of 265. this is all built around the presumption that you're at that demand, starting here, and these are the levels you have to get to to be able to survive. and if you get to that point and nothing has changed, then you better get on your horse at that point. the next slide actually will show a demand of 223 million gallons per day, which is much closer to where we are right now. >> right. okay. i just wanted to kind of really understand that. >> yeah. i think that -- i think you do understand that that way. this is a projected scenario. it's not our current scenario at all. >> okay. great. >> so here we're looking at -- and i put this slide together to kind of talk through some different thoughts on this. this is rationing through the design drought, if the bay delta plan is in effect.
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so when n-our case, what we've looked at there is we have to actually start rationing more deeply earlier. so that you end up, after the first year, have for ration at a level of 40% and after the fourth year, you have to ration at a level of 50% to be able to survive, if it extends that full eight and a half years. and, of course, you know, i did that in here. you hit the emergency button. usually that's, you know, probably three, maybe four years before the end of a drought. but you better have something lined up, because you can't get to zero. now i use this for comparison with what the river trust has suggested, that we should just use the 86 or '92 drought and they've shown a chart on this. i wanted to show what they're basically projecting, which is, you know, they say you can make through '86 through '92 with 10% and 20% rationing two, four
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years into the drought. the problem is their analysis ends with zero water at the end. again if the next year is dry, you know, you're up a dry creek with no paddle and no boat, no nothing. that's the strug we have in looking at how to plan for the future is how far to go out there and we've settled on this one design drought as something, because we're so storage-driven, it is protective for us. >> sorry. quick question. what is t.r.t. again? >> river trust. >> that's where they have put up -- basically a table that shows, see, you get to the end of this and a little bit of water level. i said let's look at the next line. and see what happens there. so at the same time we know we have to develop water supplies for a lot of different reasons.
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will there be demand increases because of the planned bay area projections. knowing that all of these projects will take time to develop. we're really looking at a variety of projects in the tuolumne river area, doing things in conjunction with our partners there, the irrigation district, trying to develop additional supplies. also within the region we're looking at various recycled water projects and looking at potential reservoir expansion and again at cal riveras where we can store water from really wet years, but then would go and be stored there in dry years so rely on that water in dry years. we also are looking at local water supply projects, purified
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water on the east side and satellite facility to serve dual-plumed office buildings there. again we plan for a future, we're concerned about the effects of the regulation on our water supply. so regardless of what future comes along, though, we've begun the process of planning for additional water supplies. and that's the sum and substance of what i'll be saying to the planning department and engaging in a dialogue with them. happy to answer any questions. >> i'm trying to think of my question. this presentation came about in large measure because of the rash of water supply assessments that we processed earlier this year. that being one part of our
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reality. it is absent something on adopting that or replacing it as scheduled to go into effect over the next few years. i guess the message -- and i think your presentation covers it all. as far as the key takeaway messages, that i would hope are conveyed to the commission, is that, number one, the planning scenario that we use, we're accused of, is having a planning scenario which is arbitrary. that we just kind of pick a number out of there. and what we have responded to is saying -- not arbitrary, it is a judgment based on experience. and i think that that's -- you know, one message that should get through.
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second is that we have water supply challenges with or without the state boards order. >> that's correct. >> and that is going to require us to pursue a variety of water supply projects that require our funding and planning commission approval, so they can expect, even under the most favorable circumstances to see us come forward with proposals for water supply projects. then the third is that the challenge presented by the state board's plan is significant. and that we haven't done anything predecisional in saying this is what we're going to do about it. but the discussion that this commission has clearly been, we
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need to prevent the 50% curtailment is not okay. and that we are acutely aware of that. and that if we are not able to get the voluntary agreements approved and in place, that we will have -- that those water supply needs will be far more acute and pursuing aggressively with the planning commission's approval as well. i guess those are the big takeways. and the thing that is hardest i think to grapple with is what 265 means and what it represents. and i'm glad that you included the graph that showed today's demand levels. the 223 or so i think that's important. the 265 is something that we're not currently projecting to
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reach, within i guess even by 2045. getting close. but i don't think we actually get there. but that that remains an obligation that we have for our wholesale customers and for our own city, as we provide for the long-term health and economic stability of the city. so that that number is real and is important. it's a little hard to talk about. >> yes. >> so practice. [laughter] but that's a point that needs to be made. >> yeah. and i'm not sure what planning department staff will be -- what comments they'll be making there. but i would hope that they would speak to the plan bay area, that they're plan on basically bringing forward a new version of that to the planning commission sometime in the next few months.
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and all reports are the numbers are going to be bigger for population and jobs. and i think i mentioned previously that in the 2001 -- 2010 urban water management plan, we had, i called it head room, 10 million gallons per day of head room. by the 2015 plan, that head room had gone away because of population and job projections. and the next projections are suppose to be higher. so san francisco's demand, under the new plan, presumably will exceed 81 million gallons per day by some amount. >> not only have we seen population grow and demand go down, i mean, our numbers have decreased. and so the hope is that we continue to innovate, we continue to bring supply online. we continue to keep pace, if you will. >> well, that demand has come down that way because we have invested heavily our money in conservation that will
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ultimately take place, as a result of the plumbing code. that line is starting to flatten out as plumbing code takes control and then we're talking about it. because there won't be new things to invest in, unless something gets really creative out there. >> one of your charts talked about kind of the change in how we do budget by assessments these days. and one of the elements of that was trying to estimate the effect of curtailment on a specific project. >> yes. >> what are you going to say about that? >> actually i will say that, as we've looked at that, we think that those projects, as i mentioned here previously, the ones we're talking about now are ones that will be the lowest water users in the city, because
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of the fact they have to comply with the non-potable ordinance and we have all of the most modern plumbing fixtures, most efficient fixtures. so that they will be very close to the health and safety level that we need to maintain. and so the room for them to reduce any further is very, very small, because they've taken their reductions up front basically. so looking for them to ration more is not going to be a successful strategy. >> yeah. i think that's a valuable point. and part of how we deal with population growth, we have to build housing and that new housing has more efficient fixtures and all of that. i think the thing that we haven't really -- we haven't come up with a formula yet for how we determine and how we apply a health and safety minimum. >> that's correct. >> i know there is one.
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and we have had some prior attempts to come up with that. that's where our recent policy, that we adopted, stopped short of doing that. >> yeah. >> and that's something that we still have on our agenda to grapple with as we go forward. >> and we have to deal with that within the next year, in dealing with the urban water management plan. because i think that's the place where that has to be there, as part of the shortage allocation plan. >> okay. thank you. >> i'm sorry. you might have said this. when is the urban water management plan update due? >> well, it's due, you know, theoretically due july 1st, 2020. each cycle the department of water resources has been late getting out guidance. so the 2015 plan actually came out in january 2016 or somewhere around there. so it could be as late as early 2021. we haven't gotten an exact date yet. but we're starting to gear up for that effort now.
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>> is that a standard template for all urban centers? >> yeah. >> there might be a piece in there that's unique to our situation? >> well, every water supplier, that has more than 3,000 connections, has to do an urban water management plan. ours is actually a little unique because if you look at, you know, the bay delta water quality plan applied to the tributaries of the san joaquin river, nobody else has a pending requirement like that. so we have this unique situation that we have to deal with. i suppose the city of modesto would have to deal with it to some extent as well, as well as oakdale. and they're not facing the growth issues we're facing. they probably have a different take on it overall for various different reasons. >> the state wouldn't put specific guidelines in the
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template? >> no. >> right. >> we have to make it up ourselves. >> thank you. commissioners, anything else? any public comment on this item? thank you very much. and good luck on thursday. i'll be eager to hear what the questions are and what the responses are. our next item, please, madam secretary. >> item 11 is new commission business. >> any commissioners, new business. i'm assuming no public comment. >> item 12 is a consent calendar. considered to be routine by the san francisco public utilities commission. only acted upon by a sing vote of the commission. no separate discussion until the public so requests, in which event the matter will be removed from the calendar as considered as a separate item.
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>> i'll move approval. >> second. >> all those in favor? >> sorry. public comment on the consent calendar? all in favor. >> aye. >> opposed? motion carries. >> item 3rd, approve the specifications and award contract number. in the amount of 27,577,000 with the duration of 690 consecutive calendar days to the responsible bidder submitting the lower bid. >> good afternoon, commissioners. dan wade. assistance general manager, allowed me the opportunity to come to speak to this item. i have accepted a position in the private sector to help
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provide leadership for growing water resources practice here in the west and throughout the united states. the opportunity to work is the sfpucand working with the commission. ever since i came here from the private sector in may of 2007. in my new role, i'll continue to work on dams and levies and other water resources infrastructure. but i will always remember this as being the highlight of my career to date. it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to be involved in an amazing program, led by amazing people. and overseen by an amazing
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commission. it's truly been an honor to work side-by-side with such dedicated officials. and to serve the public in that capacity. i'll miss being here. it's been hard to let go. but this is my last commission meeting. and i appreciate the opportunity to let you know and to thank you for your support over 30s last 12 1/2 years. >> oh, such big news. well, congratulations, first of all. and thank you on behalf of the commission for all of your work these past 12 1/2 years. it's really been remarkable to see you lead the program and how successful it's been and just want to express our deep, deep appreciation to you and our well wishes in your next venture.
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so thank you. and commissioners, would you like to say anything? >> yeah. you're the second head of this program that's gone to private sector. julie being the first. you follow in julie's footsteps was a real challenge. the support you have is not given, it's earned. and part of earning that is basically earning our trust. and you have done that time and time again. you've been straight with us. you've told us when things have gone bad. you have always tried to tell us what to do about it. you've been very forthright and in addition to being an excellent engineer and manager. so that is well earned. your advancement is well earned. we do wish you the best. we hate to see you go, but it's
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a good thing, that our project creates an environment where you can succeed and do better. we can take some pride in your advancement as well. >> thank you. thank you. and i hope that you'll express to commissioner kim for me my appreciation as well. i wish i could have told ler directly told. if you could pass that along. >> she would be sorry not to wish you well on her own. >> by the way, i don't see the opportunity is going to is better, just different. so i appreciate your kind words. and so with that, i'd like to request approval the plans and specifications and ten-year capital improvement program contract for the long-term improvements, alameda watershed center in the amount of $27,577,000 with the duration of
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690 consecutive calendar days, to s.j. amarosa. i'd be happy to answer any questions about the item. >> i think we're too shocked to say anything. [laughter] but, anyway, thank you. i haven't known you that long. i could say the same thing that the other commissioners have said, because in that short potrero, you've certainly given, that's what you give off. and that's how you approach your work. so again thank you. >> thank you. >> and move to approve. >> i think we already -- had a motion. >> a second? >> any public comment on this item? hearing none, all in favor. >> aye. >> opposed? motion carries. thank you. and congratulations again. >> thank you. next item, please. >> clerk: item 14, authorize the release of 391,392 construction funding for the green infrastructure grant awarded to
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the san francisco unified school district, to construct features at lafayette elementary. >> commissioners, is there a motion on this item? moved. >> second. >> second. any public comment on this item? all in favor? >> aye. >> opposed? motion carries. next item, please. >> item 15, adopt a resolution approving the 2020 update to the san francisco p.u.c.'s wildfire mitigation plan. >> commissioners, is there a motion? would you like to hear an update from -- >> i move. unless you'd like to hear. >> we heard her presentation. so unless you have an update from that. >> so there's a motion on the table. is there a second? >> second. >> any public comment? all in favor? >> aye. >> opposed the motion carries.
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next item, please. >> clerk: item 16, approve the resolution modifying the on-site water reuse water rules. >> is there a motion? >> move to approve. >> there's a motion. is there a second. >> second. >> any public comment on this item? all in favor? >> aye. >> motion carries. and passes. next item, please. >> item 17. approve a resolution -- >> there's a motion from commissioner maxwell. is there a second? >> sure. >> second. commissioner moran. the public comment? all in favor? >> aye. >> opposed? the motion carries. next item, please. >> item 18, adopt a policy on tis continuation of of water
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service for nonpayment. >> there's a motion. is there a second? second on this item? >> second. >> second. all -- public comment? would you like to speak? it looks like you're making your way. i'm pleased to see this on the agenda. we've talked about this before. maybe you could just come up for a moment. it's an important issue. i know, sorry. you thought you could get out. >> good afternoon. i'm the customer service operations manager. slide, please. just one second. >> take your time.
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>> continuation of the national water service water paint. the policy is to comply with senate bill 998, the water protection act passed on september 2018. the act requires adoption of the policy, which is the purpose of this bill, of this recommended action. this slide highlights some of the requirements, that are already in compliance with. the bill requires a minimum of
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60 days delinquency before shut-off. we did not discontinue water service before 60 days. actually per our process, it's around 70 days. it's also to set the maximum dollars reconnection fees for low-income customers. the commission approved elimination of the shut-off and turn-on fees for all customers on alemany 2018. -- may 2018. also requires payment plans to customers and -- and in compliance with both requirements. the requirements are adopt a policy, which is in front of you. we need to publish it on our website. it should be available in english, spanish, chinese, vietnamese and other languages. the change to the process will be in how we notify our customers, that they are at the
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risk of being shut off with water service. currently we post our customers by posting a door hanger at the property, the new change we'll be mailing a notice to customers. the notice will also be provided in the languages listed above. the other change is that we are required to report on the number of water service connections to the state board and to publish them on the website. thank you. >> thank you very much. so we have a motion. we have a second. any further public comment on this item? all in favor? >> aye. >> opposed? motion carries. thank you for your presentation. our next item, please. >> clerk: item 19. improving and authorize the general manager to execute an agreement between the bay area water supply and conservation agency. and the san francisco p.u.c. regarding operation and allocation costs for the violet water transfer.
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>> good afternoon, steve ritchie again. this is to approve and authorize and execution of the agreement between the bay area water supply and conservation agency and the san francisco p.u.c. and the agreement with the city of hayward, east bay municipal district, regarding a one-time use of the hayward for the pilot water transfer. this has been something that nicole i'm sure will make some comments on, because this has been in the works for six years to try to figure out what it would take to actually get a water transfer, it happens in this case to be through the hayward inner tide. taking water from east bay mud system and then passing it through the inner tide into our system, which really goes to the city of hayward. so they have been looking for a long time at, you know, what does it take to do it. and this has been long effort trying to actually put in line all of the institutional rates. that's the big issue of water transfers, more than plumbing
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and more than availability of waters. really can you get governmental agencies to work together in some of these difficult challenging situations. and so bawsca to be commended for sticking with it, to actually do it and learn some lessons from it, on what it takes to accomplish a water transfer. >> great. thank you. so what is this going to accomplish? what's the overall goal? >> the overall goal here is to actually test out the system of executing a water transfer. the actual amount of water being moved in this transfer is actually quite small, it's water that's being purchased from the amador water agency in the watershed. their goal was to actually, you know, see if they could -- what it takes to actually make a transfer, so hopefully in the future when we get into dry years, when you really want to get a transfer of some kind, that you know the hurdles you have to get over and have learned lessons about how best to get over those hurdles.
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>> gotcha. thank you. so how about we put a motion on the table, if there's anyone interested. a second and then we'll get public comment. >> second. >> so i have one public comment from nicole. and then we'll open it up. >> good afternoon, commissioner. nicole, bawsca c.e.o. i'll keep my remarks brief. but i do appreciate steve with this pilot. it is a significant effort that the agency and my agency has taken on the past six years to really prove, in fact, the ability to move water through the system. and understand what that takes. and our expectation is that when this is done, we will prepare a report and present the findings in that report to you. until that time, we're just kind of playing it low key, because you never know. it's still not done. it won't be done until that water move. it's a fairly significant
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effort. it's taking five public agencies to get the water from its source to the customers. that's not insignificant. but i also wanted to take my time most importantly today to thank general manager kelly, a.g.m. steve ritchie, city attorney's office, the staff at the p.u.c., the list to get this agreement and the multiple agreements with hayward done is not -- has been significant. and i appreciate their efforts to make that happen. so i'd be pleased to answer any questions, certainly i'll come and give you a report when this is completed. >> well, i for one would be very interested in the findings. i think there's a lot of opportunity and potential with water transfers. when do you think -- >> it's going to occur in january. so when i can do is plan to give you a brief report in february, about how it went. and then the report will take several months to get out. >> that would be great. we would love to hear about it. >> yes. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> any other public comment on this item? hearing none, all in favor? >> aye. >> opposed?
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motion carries. thank you. next item, please. >> clerk: would you like for me to read the closed session items? >> yes, if you would. >> item 22, -- 23. exiting litigation. and item 25, city and county of san francisco versus pacific gas and electric federal energy regulatory commission complaint. >> thank you very much. any public comment on matters to be discussed? hearing none, i'll entertain a motion to assert -- >> a privilege? >> is there a second? >> second.
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appointed as acting administrator responsible for developing all of the rates and charges for the water, power services we provide. >> the main things i work on are rates. it is really trying to figure out how much money we need to fund our operations and maintenance and thinking how to collect the money in a way that is fair to customers and sincentives for water conservation or installing stormwater management on their property. >> i nominated erin for the many accomplishments she has provided especially for the financial sustain ability. the reality required a lot of work retooling policies, financial planning as well as
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many rating and charges. er ron served in the projects including update to water and sewer rates, update to 10 year financial plan as well as setting the budget for fiscal 2019 higher 2020. >> i am pleased with working here. i feel like we have tons of work to do. it is important work. it has a direct impact on people's lives. >> she has a unique ability to get to the root cause of the issue and help develop consensus around a solution. not only is it troubleshooting what the questions are, but also coming up with what are the alternatives. >> i think a lot of the satisfaction from the job is looking back over the past few years and seeing cereal concrete change we have been -- real concrete change and that gives me pride.
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>> the team very much appreciates her hair color and the world of finance and accounting tends to foster conformity and boring guys like myself. i very much admire the fact that she walks her own walk and creates her own path, and i think we all can learn a little bit from her. >> i and a principal revenue and rates analyst in the financial planni is -- >> our united states constitution requires every ten years that america counts every human being in the united states, which is incredibly important for many reasons. it's important for preliminary representation because if -- political representation because if we under count california, we get less
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representatives in congress. it's important for san francisco because if we don't have all of the people in our city, if we don't have all of the folks in california, california and san francisco stand to lose billions of dollars in funding. >> it's really important to the city of san francisco that the federal government gets the count right, so we've created count sf to motivate all -- sf count to motivate all citizens to participate in the census.
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>> for the immigrant community, a lot of people aren't sure whether they should take part, whether this is something for u.s. citizens or whether it's something for anybody who's in the yunited states, and it is something for everybody. census counts the entire population. >> we've given out $2 million to over 30 community-based organizations to help people do the census in the communities where they live and work. we've also partnered with the public libraries here in the city and also the public schools to make sure there are informational materials to make sure the folks do the census at those sites, as well, and we've initiated a campaign to motivate the citizens and make sure they participate in census 2020. because of the language issues that many chinese community and
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families experience, there is a lot of mistrust in the federal government and whether their private information will be kept private and confidential. >> so it's really important that communities like bayview-hunters point participate because in the past, they've been under counted, so what that means is that funding that should have gone to these communities, it wasn't enough. >> we're going to help educate people in the tenderloin, the multicultural residents of the tenderloin. you know, any one of our given blocks, there's 35 different languages spoken, so we are the original u.n. of san francisco. so it's -- our job is to educate people and be able to familiarize themselves on doing this census.
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>> you go on-line and do the census. it's available in 13 languages, and you don't need anything. it's based on household. you put in your address and answer nine simple questions. how many people are in your household, do you rent, and your information. your name, your age, your race, your gender. >> everybody is $2,000 in funding for our child care, housing, food stamps, and medical care. >> all of the residents in the city and county of san francisco need to be counted in census 2020. if you're not counted, then your community is underrepresented and will be underserved.
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>> my son and i was living in my car. we was in and out of shelters in san francisco for almost about 3.5 years. i would take my son to school. we would use a public rest room just for him to brush his teeth and do a quick little wipe-off so it seemed he could take a shower every day. it was a very stressful time that i wish for no one. my name is mario, and i have lived in san francisco for almost 42 years. born here in hayes valley. i applied for the san francisco affordable housing lottery three times. my son and i were having to have a great -- happened to have a great lottery number
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because of the neighborhood preference. i moved into my home in 2014. the neighborhood preference goal was what really allowed me to stay in san francisco. my favorite thing is the view. on a clear day, i'm able to see city hall, and on a really clear day, i can see salesforce tower. we just have a wonderful neighborhood that we enjoy living in. being back in the neighborhood that i grew up in, it's a wonderful, wonderful experience. now, we can hopefully reach our goals, not only single mothers, but single fathers, as well, who are living that. live your dream, live your life,
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>> this is the regular meeting of the commission on community investment and infrastructure act successor agency for the san francisco redevelopment agency for tuesday, december 17th, 2019. welcome to members of the public please call the first item. >> the first order of business is item one, roll call. please respond when i call your name. [roll call] the next order of business is item two,
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