and while the department emphasizes with the circumstances, staff does not deem that modifying the space to increase parking manages to accommodate the functionality. the d.r. requesters' parking spaces are being placed in an equivalent manner from the perspective of the applicable regulations. it -- the rent board may be better to determine how this results in a reduction of tenant services. regarding the work for the permit application involving the steps in the and the patio, the d.r. requester has issues related to grading, the retaining wall, and drainage are outside of the planning department's ability to review, regulate, or enforce. the relocation and reconfiguration of the parking

space conforms to the minimum standards and does not constitute an exceptional or extraordinary circumstance from a land use perspective. project conforms to code and the department is here to maximize housing. however, because a potential solution exists to widen the plank of the curbside parking by painting coloured curves on either side of the new curb cut, staff recommends approving the permit that it condition with an application with the sfmta or extended color curb zones on the side of the curb spee exhausted. this concludes my presentation and i would be happy to answer questions. thanks, very much. >> thank you, mr. winslow. is the first d.r. requester prepared to make their presentation? >> yes, i am here.

can everyone hear me? >> we can hear you. you have three minutes and your slides are already up. >> thank you very much. good evening, commissioners. the proposed construction will result in smaller and nonfunctional parking for my father, and elderly tenant. the current spot is accessible from the passenger and driver side, it's 13 and a half feet wide. the new design will reduce the width by 3 feet and will redo result in permanent no access to the vehicle on the passenger side. so what solution are we proposing? we ask that one of the three planned a.d.u.s be configured as a one-bedroom instead of a two bedroom. this would allow for an equivalent space to what the tenant currently has now and what is deemed -- what he needs her functional use of his parking. they need -- we understand the need for additional housing, but we don't think they are in the spirit of these efforts. the bottom line is they are not

just undertaking construction of the a.d.u., they are already in the made -- in the middle of a major construction process to cram 25 additional bedrooms into all existing units and dimensions of the building. this will triple the number of bedrooms from 12 to 37. we don't think it's right or in good faith that they would insist on diminishing the functionality of the parking for a long-term tenant just to add 25 bedrooms instead of 24. this would disregard the tendon 's need as a larger part of the -- is a larger -- this would disregard the tenant's need for a larger part -- [indiscernible] could you please advance the slides. keep going. and a clear disregard -- keep going up, please. any clear disregard for the healthy and safety of the

tenants. at 72, there is a high likelihood my father will face increased mobility issues in the future and would require different garage dimensions to his current space. it's also relevant that while my father is the a remaining applicant here cabbies plans were proposed -- proposed before this means that the owners and plan sponsor had no reservations about taking away current parking from a disabled tenant and replacing it with something that would require my elderly father to back into the new garage, which is impossible due to heavy traffic, and climb over my mother or any passenger and the center console to access the driver's seat. respectfully, it should not be the policy of the city, the planning department, more this commission to allow these landlords who are shielded by investment l.l.c.s to buy buildings, come in, and take way and elderly tenant's parking

facility just to build 25 more bedrooms instead of 24. thank you for your consideration in this matter. >> thank you. is the second d.r. requester prepared to make the presentation? mr. tanaka? mr. tanaka? >> yes. >> are you prepared to make your presentation? >> yes. you have three minutes. >> can you hear me? >> yes, we can hear you. >> thank you. my name is steve tanaka and i am one of the owners of the property next door. we have certain issues and concerns in regards to the planned backyard construction project on the property. one of our main concerns is in

regards to large elevated stairs that are planned to be constructed to the property line we estimate the size and weight of the patio stairs to be approximately 12 to 15 tonnes of concrete and we have concern if there has been adequate studies to ensure that this much weight will be supported, especially if there is a drain storm on it. one of our other main concerns is that the planned drainage will be adequate to serve the vast majority of the above ground and below ground water and will drain properly and not cause damage to our property or building. we also have concerns that it will stop us from making future changes to our patio or backyard property. it's right up to the property line. there is also large trees in the backyard and have they performed

studies to ensure the construction would not damage the woods -- the root system of this tree. we have been advised that during the demolition of the garage area last year that there may have been the release of harmful materials such as his best to us and some of these materials were stored and left unattended in the backyard area and have been studies been done for the possible carryover of these hazardous materials? we are proposing the following to address these issues and concerns. move the planned construction of the upper terrace patio and stairs they are located 4 feet in from the shared property line and for them to constructed approximately 25 to a 30-foot drainage system which will run parallel to the shared property line. we have been advised that we good construct a fence along the property line. this is being included in the

plans right now. please ensure that adequate studies have been performed to allow our representatives to do these studies if they haven't. please note that mr. went so suggested we have an online meeting to try to resolve these issues and concerns, but they elected not to do so. they decided to take this position, especially since the new project provides a waiver of open space requirements. this accurate project seems to be a key component of this waiver but they have no concerns of that. thank you. please consider our concerns. >> thank you. project sponsor, are you prepared to make your presentation? >> yes. can you hear me? >> we can hear you and you have a slight echo, you have six minutes. >> okay.

this is disturbing. >> yeah. if you have another electronic device that is broadcasting it can create an echo. >> my computer is off. >> okay. do you want to try now? >> i think we will have to deal with this echo. i will speak and i will deal with this. can you bring up my presentation >> your slides are already at. >> slide one is the front of the building for the commission. there are three garages on here and three garage doors and the ground floor is being completely modified. this is very frustrating for me. can i call back in again?

>> we suggest that you turn your computer speakers office. >> is off. my computer is off. i don't know what is going on here. >> only my phone is on. hello? >> yes, we are still here. >> okay. can you understand what i am saying? >> we can, but there has to be another device that is causing the echo. >> there is not. my computer is completely turned off. >> is someone else on your line with you? >> i have two people on my line. the project architect and the representative. >> if their computers are on, is probably causing the echo as well. >> you need to mute your devices >> can you hear this, david and andrea?

[indiscernible] >> you are not muted, we can hear you. >> the computer is muted. >> do you want to quickly try to call back in or log back in? >> yeah. let me find your number again. >> the indication i have is you are calling in not from your phone from your computer. >> no, i'm not. >> okay. i'm just letting you know what i see on my end. >> my computer sound is turned off. there is an x to the speaker. >> the sound is turned off, but

your microphone on your computer is on. that is what is causing the echo anyway. do you want to log back out and log back in? we will wait, otherwise i will start your timer again. >> let me hang up and call back in again.

>> are you back with us now? >> yes, can you hear me? >> the problem was your computer microphone was on and that's what was causing the echo. >> it is now gone. so i guess i will get the presentation without my associates on the line. go to the next slide, please. so to address mr. tanaka's concern, you can see p1 and p2 a , that shows the parking spaces that have been allotted out of the ground floor area. he stated that the trash bins were moved into the erosion. that is incorrect.

the brown area shows the new trash room. the red area shows where the new room -- room will be where we will be creating new hot water and heating for the building. these are fixed locations. he's are things we have done as concessions. the parking shows the actual dimensions of both his van and his portion how it fits in there the cars can be accessed. he can drive straight in and get in and out from the driver's side. the owner has also agreed to pay m.t.a. for the red curb in front of the building such that he has a place where he can part in the event that he becomes disabled and he cannot pull straight into the park flooding get in and out of his car from the driver side. for him to request three out of the next apartment, it's not a trivial change in the design. if you imagine moving the north end wall of the parking area over 3 feet, we would block off

the door and the access and you move into that garage space. so the design is not something that we just take off 3 feet by 40 feet and there's no problem. it is a little bit more complicated than that. then regarding mr. tanaka's concerns, we are excavating into the backyard with -- of five initial fee to provide 10 feet of exposure. we had designed a retaining wall and it has been structurally analysed to support the uphill load. so the concern of is adding a patio up there is not a legitimate concern. we are also not covering that with concrete. that is going to be decomposed granite, landscaping, et cetera. the green area that you see is where we excavated a triangular shaped there. it's about 2 feet deep end zero at the bottom, in order to provide a recreational area for the tenants. the patio cannot be private, but

it creates an awkward situation. this was done to accommodate the tenants. go to the next slide, please. so this shows a cross-section through the building. you can see the areas that are being excavated. the redline is the back wall of mr. tanaka's building. so the excavating that we are doing poses no risk to mr. tanaka's building. is up against landscaped areas. what we're doing to protect the adjoining properties as we are injecting the sand with cement to stabilize it. this produces a week sandstone, approximately 50-psi in strength to compare that, concrete has 5,000. we have stabilized it so that his property is not at risk of collapsing. additionally, behind the retaining wall, we are putting in a french drain. if you would go back one slide, please. slide one. we are putting in -- his slide

two, i'm sorry. we are putting in two area drains in the enlarged back patio. we are putting in an entirely new subsurface drainage system in the building. both for stormwater and for sewer because of the 100 -year-old building. all of that has been replaced. we have already replay or -- repair the drainage of the eastern lightwell and we want to have drains in the eastern and western and we have worked all the grades so if there is clogging of the drains in the backyard, it flows to the light will pick -- late well. it will, in fact, flow to the street. we carefully designed the drainage on this building such as that we don't get flooding. his concerns about our water going onto his property are misplaced. it has been analysed. we are also, -- advances slide, please. -- advance a slide, please.

this is a tree. the tree is not healthy and we have hired an arborist to remove that tree. work will begin on removing the tree in the next couple of weeks therefore, we will not be impacting any roots at all with the work we will be doing. advance the advanced the slide, please. this gets you a 3d view of what the work looks like so you can go back and get a better sense of what is being done. please advance. this shows the proposed parking area in front of the building for the van. go to the next slide, please. and this is just a summary of restrictions. there is no requirement from the state of california that we have to provide parking or sensibility to parking spaces in there. the issue at hand is contractual obligation between the owner and

mr. birch. >> thank you, sir. that concludes your time. >> pardon me? >> that will conclude your time, but you will have a two minute rebuttal. we will go to public comment, now. >> members of the public, if you would like to someone testimony on this matter, press stage three to be entered into the key you will have -- into that you -- into the queue. you will have one minute. >> can you hear me? >> we certainly can. >> thank you. i would like to comment in support of the case for a usable garage space in the building. he argues that the plan submitted by the builders and path -- is possibly inadequate and that the owners and contractor and the management failed to work with him in good faith to find a solution. i don't have a parking space in the garage and i haven't been directly involved with that, but i have seen, because i am a resident here, for a long period

of time, i have seen what problems have arisen. by the way, my name is joseph nicholson. our first encounter with the property manager was soon after the building was sold to the present owners. he arrived at our door to tell is that there were plans to remodel and option so everything would be as convenient as possible. we were sceptical. he immediately escalated to more extensive work, which would take longer to complete, but he had a solution. we could move upstairs to unit nine. >> my name is renee. i am a resident.

i'm also calling to support the tenant who filed the discretionary review. i feel what he is asking for is complete the reasonable. he is not saying don't build more units, but just asking for adequate space to park, the service he has been relying on. particularly given the context described by his daughter, which is even worse. i was able to determine that i saw -- there have been permits filed on this address before. the planning department should not reward what are official evictions. there are more crowded conditions with garbage bins overflowing and tens losing parking, storage, and space for bicycles. i wish that considering the quality of life of residents, it would become a regular feature for this mission. thank you.

>> good evening, commissioners. i am with the land use coalition this is a case of gross injustice. the requester is an elderly tenant, a long-term resident. in contrast, we have an l.l.c. that appears to be a large developer. they bought this 12 unit building in 2018, and shortly after, displayed -- displaced five tenants. that wasn't enough, so now they are trying to sever services for a long time. so is it okay to remove services included in the lease without the consent of the tenant, and thereby facilitating breaking the contract within two parties? i also want to point out that the rent board does not have the ability to stop severing services.

they can only determine the compensation for services severed. in this case, attendant, a gentleman who needs his garage, doesn't want monetary compensation. he only wants his services to continue as is. -- >> a, commissioners. i am a resident five blocks away i ask that you take the d.r. and let the owner keep the current garage with the existing tenants i also ask that you put a lot of this into the record so this owner or a future owner comes to you -- [indiscernible] thank you.

>> a, commissioners. i am one of the residents here. i have lived here for 15 years. three remaining tenants, combined, of 90 years of tenancy the construction project could gain a certain amount of increase in the value of the building, but nothing like removing rent controlled rent-controlled tenants. my concern as a parent is the release of lead and asbestos. when they came in, the sponsor came in and they came in starting to work without a permit. they use a contractor that was not licensed to remove asbestos. they didn't warn us. there was no warning that these chemicals were released and they

did no containment. they did the office it. they removed the garage wall so just went everywhere into light wells and neighboring buildings, out into the street, and once they were given a notice of violation, they packed all their materials into five trucks, just to give you a sense of the scale , 5 trucks. they were day labourers with no masks. the dust was flying everywhere. they never did abatement, they never warned anyone. you had a dozen workers who don't even speak english. they did not wear p.p.e. they had workers coming in every day, every single day. no one bothered to warn them and tell them that could be asbestos >> your time is up.

>> i support the d.r. requester. based on the injustice that had been happening in this building, and the fact that he gains this garage, should not be taken away from him just because of for-profit of making some a.d.u.s. thank you. >> thank you. members of the public, last call for public comment on this matter. you need to press start then three to be entered into the queue. seeing no additional requests to speak from members of the public , we should go to the

first d.r. requester for a two minute rebuttal. >> can everyone hear me? >> yes, we can hear you. >> i am just going to close here there were some false statements made by mr. perry, but in terms of rebutting, want to close with saying that just because something adheres to design standards and code doesn't mean it has been done in an equitable and good-faith manner. these rules need to be consistent. it seems the plan sponsor only adheres to rules and regulations when it is for-profit and not health and safety of the tenants if the commission approves this product because it needs that -- project because it meets the cold, we will have this approval that will be used by the landlords for accountability on many other instances where they have not followed the rules and regulations. my father is not asking for a

major redesign. he is not attempting to stop the current production of the building. all he is asking for is the placement parking that is equivalent to what he pays rent four and has enjoyed for 34 years as a tenant of the building. to reduce of the functionality of his parking just to squeeze one additional unit into the building seems -- serves as a potent example of the way that they have disregarded the wealth of their tenants in pursuit of profit. thank you. >> thank you. mr. tanaka, you have two minutes >> okay. in regards to our situation, i would like to know that our grandparents purchased this small apartment building approximately 75 years ago. our and of 809 years still lives in the building. unfortunately, i feel our family

feels that we are being steamrolled by the new owners and the representatives. it's not right or fair. i would like to add, you know, the complaint that, you know, how he is being treated is somewhat similar to how we have been treated. we have gone over what he feels that there is no problem with the drainage or what is being constructed in the backyard. they won't even need to have any discussions about it. and it seems to be the kind of status for the representatives to handle people this way. we don't feel it is fair or right.

we respectfully request the planning commission staff to put strong consideration to these issues and to please require the owners to take these issues into consideration and hopefully the commission will back that up. thank you. >> thank you. before we go to the project sponsor for his rebuttal, there is a late request for public comment. you have one minute. >> sue hester. i request the planning department to take d.r. this is hiding behind except three dwelling units. the entire building is being removed. the tenants in the entire building are being removed. the planning department should have to denounce this as tenant issues. we are supposed to be doing social equity and removal of

elderly tend -- elderly tenants is not the same thing. this analysis was not very well done and it is more than the level that i heard at the presentation today. send it back. be concerned about removal of the entire building. seniors especially. thank you. >> you have two minutes. >> okay. quick points. all hazardous material was debated with state regulations.

the issue of the garage, there was no hazardous material in their. we have reports provided and submitted to the state of california. that was all done within the current rules and regulations. their concerns are unfounded with regards to that. no tenants have been removed. when the current owner purchased the building, they were six vacant units and subsequently, another tenant moved out so there are seven vacant units. the owner is remodelling these units because they are vacant, as is his right. three of them are under construction and four of them are in plan approval and revision. again, no tenants are being removed. we haven't asked anyone to leave i am speaking out of my head a bit, but the owner did make offers to buy out various tenants. the ones that remained did not. no evictions. with regards to meetings of --

with mr. tanaka, both i and the owner's representative made several offers to schedule meetings. mr. tanaka cancelled those meetings at the last minute. that is incorrect. we have dealt with a number of complaints and all of them have been cleared. we have had building inspectors out there on 15 locations, including the district supervisor and basically we are addressing those as violations where work did proceed outside the building permit. regarding the accessibility issue, this is what is being presented to the commission. what is there will here? we have worked with mr. tanaka to come up with this design that we have for the parking space in front, as well as enlarging the garage. as i said before, to enlarge it even further, we lose one more a.d.u.

i think that is about the just a bit. >> great. that was your time. commissioners, that concludes the public hearing portion of this matter. it is now before you. >> commissioner tanner. >> thank you. a few questions. mr. winslow, i don't know if you would know this information, but there has been testimony that there have been buyout and evictions. i don't know if you have looked into that. did not see anything into the staff report, what if you were aware of any evictions or any buyouts for the board?

>> i am also here. i am the principal planner on this. according to our records we had no evictions in the past 10 years from the eviction history report, but there was evidence of tenant buyouts, which, for the purposes of legitimately pursuing this permit, not hindering it. >> and the city does provide a format or a layout of how buyouts should go about and they should be reported and documented. it seems like they did go through that process if we are aware of them. >> i understand. >> okay. i was looking -- i did not see any notices of the violations of this address. were there any notices or complaints filed regarding the illegal construction that was reported?

we her testimony about debris being hauled away. i don't know if this is in relation to this or if it was a separate permit that was filed for a different type of work. >> i will rely on david to answer that. he might be more familiar with the permit history for the entirety of the project. >> do you know if there are any notices of violation of any of this at the property? >> not from my understanding. i saw the property information. there were no violations that we saw. there were a number of permits on the property. [indiscernible]

is there any concerns with the drainage. are we at that stage of the process for that would be addressed? >> typically, the planning department doesn't review drainage. it is details and issues. it is not within our purview or expertise. it would be -- it may or may not be premature. the drawings that are up a well deal with it. [indiscernible] >> one would hope that would be under d.b.i.'s purview. [indiscernible] and then, to the gentleman who

is dealing with the parking reduction, i want to say i am very sympathetic to the challenge you are facing. my parents are aging and i know that access to a vehicle can be really important to be able to maintain certain activities. it is harder for them to get around and i'm also sympathetic that they used to live in an apartment where i had very, very close way in and out from my car that is how narrow i had to park next to the wall. i also had to park tandem. it's not fun to have that set up at all. i was fortunate i did not have to back up onto a busy street. i think the balance of reducing a bedroom in the unit in order to expand the parking space, i can't support that in addition, and especially since the parking space does meet the standards of

our code. i understand how that can be disappointing and not provide the same amount of space that you currently have four parking. i do encourage you to pursue it with the rent toward, investigating it and understanding the reduction in services and how that would be related to your tenancy and to your rents. i would really want commissioners to somehow, as a body if you all agree, to ask that the m.t.a. really consider -- if you could recommend review can't, friendly recommendation with no authority that they extend a red curve backing into the garage or backing onto the street in that location and having visibility. i think it's really important to maintain some visibility for the drivers going into and out of his garage, and especially since right now, because there is a garage, it's not like we are losing curbside parking space to have that red curve extended.

i would really want to send that to the m.t.a. with a strong recommendation to have that done >> commissioner fong? >> question for the project sponsor. the garage shows a removable 3-3 -- three by three ramp. i assume it is a ramp. is that correct. >> sorry, i needed to unwind him -- i needed to unmute him. >> can you hear me? >> yes. >> when his wife was alive, what we were proposing was to put the door from the lobby into this parking space that would align

with the passenger door on the van that would allow him to roll his wife straight into the van. she was wheelchair-bound. and that is still in the plans that the department has approved that is available. >> okay. so for that to work, a car has to back in. isn't that correct? >> that is correct. >> okay. thank you. >> thank you. i just want to clarify from the d.r. requester, whether -- i

think our comments are, in terms -- does he need an a.d.a. assisted garage? i just want to clarify that or does he not need that right now? >> mr. winslow, are you aware? and if there are any is goal disabilities? >> he is not currently disabled. should we all live long enough, we all will be. >> okay. thank you for that clarification and the package that was given to us, of course, there are seniors and a.d.a. accessibility

issues in the garage. with that clarification, i am in support of the planning department's recommendation for d.r. i would like to side with commissioner tanner's recommendation for the sfmta to widen the red zone for his parking. what is tricky about this, this situation is this is a d.r. i wish this is not a d.r. this is something else because the purview of the d.r. is so limited that it is within -- [indiscernible] -- and within the issue of tenancy, despite -- they have been very sympathetic and aware of the reduction of service that will be given to you because of the garage, this is going to be a tricky situation for the planning as we are trying to --

as the project sponsor, reducing services permitting n.a.d. you at the bottom floor. this is within d.r., which is limited to the design at the same time. i would suggest for the tenant to file for a decrease of service. and i hope that the project sponsor would be aware of the service in order for them to also recoup the rest of the tenants. , i guess this is going to be more of a policy level for us. this is something we will need to widen up. i am in support of the planning department's recommendation. >> i just wanted to do a staff

recommendation. together for the possibility of the commission to discuss this further as policy, because there will be other department buildings where parking may be replaced in lieu of a dus. it is a critical balance. but we need to look for other alternatives to accommodate the a.d.u. and accessibility in the public realm. i would like that part of the curb to be returned or dedicated for other issues. this is a discussion that goes beyond what we are currently approving. i would like that to stay on our radar as a policy issue as we move into the future.

>> commissioner tanner? >> i will venture a motion, seeing no other commissioners in the queue to speak, that we would not take d.r. and approve the stack recommendation with a strong, friendly, planning commission recommendation to the sfmta to allow the red curve at this location. >> second. >> thank you, commissioners. seeing no further deliberation, there is a motion that has been seconded. with a finding that staff recommend that the red zone be reduced -- board to be extended to allow for her visibility.

on that motion... [roll call] >> so moved. that motion passes unanimously 7 -0 and concludes your agenda for the day. >> thank you. >> take care..

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with a lot of guys. so when they see a woman, first they don't think that the woman is in charge and to know that she's a person that is in charge with operations, i think that it's great, because it's different. it's not something -- i mean, not only a female but the only female of color. >> i was the first female finisher in the cement shop and i was the first crew supervisor, in the shop as a woman. when i became a two, the supervisors would not help me. in the middle, they'd call me a rookie, an apprentice and a female trying to get somewhere that she don't belong. oh, it was terrible. it was terrible. i didn't have any support from the shop. the ones who said they supported me, they didn't, they talked about me behind my back. sometimes i had some crying, a lot of crying behind doors, not in public. but i had a lot of mentors. my mentor i will call and would pick up the phone and just talk,

talk, talk, please help me. what am i going to do? hang in there. it was frustrating and disheartening, it really was. but what they didn't understand is that because they didn't help me i had to learn it. and then probably about a year later, that's when i started to lay down the rules because i had studied them and i learned them and it made me a good supervisor and i started to run the ship the way that i wanted to. it was scary. but the more i saw women coming through the shop, i saw change coming. i knew that it was going to come, but i didn't know how long it would take. it was coming. in the beginning when i first came here and i was the first woman here as a finisher, to see the change as it progressed and for me to become a permanent assistant superintendent over

the cement shop right now, that's my highlight. i can look down at my staff and see the diversity from the women to the different coaches in here and know that no one has to ever go through what i went through coming up. and i foster and help everyone instead of pushing them away. i'll talk to women and tell them they can make it and if they need any help, come talk to me. and they knock on my door and ask how i move up and how i get training. i'm always encouraging to go to school and encourage them to take up some of the training with d.p.w. and i would tell them to hold strong and understand that things that we go through today that are tough makes you stronger for tomorrow. although we don't like hearing it at the time that we're going through all of this stuff, it helps you in the long run to become a better woman and a person

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>> welcome to the meeting of the san francisco public utilities commission. i'm president sophie maxwell. madam secretary, will you call the roll, please. >> clerk: [roll call] we have a quorum. and, madam president, before we get started i'd like to make announcements. given the public health recommendations issued by the san francisco department of public health and the mayor breed, they have lifted the restriction on teleconferences. it's being held via teleconference and being televised by sfgov-tv tv. and for those watching the livestream there's a brief time lag between the live meeting and

when it's viewed on sfgov-tv. i would like to extend our thanks to sfgov-tv staff and sfgov-tv staff for their assistance during this meeting. if you wish to make public comment on an item dial 1-(415)-655-0001. and meeting i.d., 146 747 2515. pound, pound. to raise your hand to speak, hit star, 3. you must limit your comments to the topic discussed unless you're speaking under general comment. and if you do not stay on the topic, that the chair can interrupt and ask you to limit your comment to the agenda item topic. we ask that public comment be made in a civil and respectful manner and that you refrain from the use of profanity. address your remarks to the commission as a whole and not to the individual commissioners or staff. madam president, your first order of business is approval of

the of february 23, 2021. >> president maxwell: thank you seeing no comments, madam secretary, public comment. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment specifically on item 3, the minutes of february 23rd, dial 1-(415)-655-0001. and the meeting i.d. 146 747 2515. to raise your hand to speak, press star, 3. note that you must limit your comments to the topic of the agenda item being discussed and if you do not stay on the topic, the chair can ask you to limit your comments to the agenda item topic. we ask that the public comment be made in a civil and respectful manner and that you refrain from the use of profanity.

mr. moderator, do we have any comments? >> there are no callers in the queue at this time. >> clerk: public comment on the minutes is closed. >> president maxwell: can i get a motion and a second to approve the minutes of february 23rd. [roll call vote] you have five ayes. >> president maxwell: thank you next item, please. >> clerk: next order of business is item 4, the general public comment.

members of the community may address the items not on today's agenda. to raise your hand to speak -- i'm sorry, dial 1-(415)-655-0001. and meeting i.d. 146 747 2515. pound, pound to raise your hand to speak press star, 3. we ask that the public comment be made in a civil and a respectful manner and to refrain from the use of profanity. address your remarks through the commission as a whole and not to the individual commissioners or staff. mr. moderator, do we have any callers? >> madam secretary, there are six callers in the queue. >> clerk: thank you. >> first caller, i have opened up your line. you have two minutes. >> caller: commissioners, may i remind y'all that the san

francisco public utilities commission is going to dire straits. and so in frustration, we are trying to remind anyone to be very civil. we've always been civil. what has happened is that we want our time and the deliberations to be factual. and we want honesty, we want transparency, and we want accountability. in all of the commission's hearings recently you have not received it. and i would prove it to you as we deliberate. item-by-item-by-item, how you are dictating to the public and y'all do not follow standards. thank you very much. >> thank you for your comments.

next caller, your line is open and you have two minutes. >> caller: yes, hello, my name is denise and i'm a former san francisco resident and a native to the bay area. and i just want to say how very important and precious the sfpuc watershed lands along the peninsula are. what a true gift of beautiful protected natural habitat to all residents and future generations. our neighborhood lives adjacent to the p.u.c. watershed on the peninsula and the p.u.c. has been a wonderful neighbor. but we're asking the p.u.c. to step in today on a disturbing plan to burn the entire p.c. watershed lands that are behind our neighborhood. not all of the p.u.c. lands, just the ones behind our neighborhood. no other neighborhood is being targeted the way that ours is with this burn.

and it's being done -- p.u.c. gave the go ahead i guess to cal fire and no outreach to the local neighbors here or even our city officials have been done for this proposed burn. this is an unprecedented burn. and it will be destructive and horrible for the native wildlife and this cal fire is refusing to even do an environmental assessment. they're doing a mitigated negative declaration which basically says that there will be no environmental impact. as the p.u.c., please do not allow them to burn this watershed behind our neighborhood. it's 50% of the proposed burn is behind our neighborhood. no other neighborhood -- just ours. and there's neighborhoods behind p.u.c. land up and down the peninsula. and also i request that cal fire extend the public comment by at least 30 days and they have refused. they have refused to even provide an extra 30 days, despite no outreach to the neighborhood or the city

officials. and, lastly, if a fire goes through, which i hope that it doesn't, i hope that you will require an environmental review, because it is important that what they've done in this mitigated negative declaration is laughable. where they posted these notices, they posted one -- >> thank you, caller. time has expired. next caller, your line is open and you have two minutes. >> good afternoon, this is peter with the trust. i am pleased with the progress that we have been making with the commission on dialogue. and i thank you all for that. unfortunately, our relationship with staff continues to deteriorate. last week i sent you a letter regarding the language that the sfpuc sent to bosco to prepare their water management plans. and among other things i pointed out that they used 265 m.g.d. as

a current demanded and coupled with the 8 1/2-year design drought they have 55% rationing which you have heard people repeat and you're going to hear it a lot in the coming months. the way that the supply works for the sfpuc is that there's carryover storage in the reservoirs at the end much the year. and the goal -- of the year. and the goal is to have enough water to last for six years and each year entitlements add to the supply and demand and other lawsuits detract from it, so by using 265 m.g.d., and every year in the information provided to boss ca, the remaining storage is off by 67 m.g.d. that is 75,000 acre feet per year. so do you that for 8 1/2 years and you come up with a deficit of 637,000 acre feet. that's the deficit that did not exist. with the current demand at 198

m.g.d. which is 122,000 acre per feet, and this additional deficit is the equivalent of enough water to last 2.87 years almost three years. so this is a huge difference. unfortunately, this is basic math and it's pretty shocking to me that the sfpuc would send this information to boss ca. so i ask you to check in with staff and check my numbers and make the corrections. in my letter i shared even with the plan in place, the sfpuc could manage the work on record for six years from 198 7-1992. >> thank you for your comments. your time is expired. next caller, you have two minutes. >> caller: can you hear me now? >> we can hear you. >> caller: great. good afternoon, david piltel, and very briefly i see that the new sfpuc website, sfpuc.org

that was previewed at a previous commission meeting is now and up most of the content seems to be there. and they have a couple of comments about what's there and how to present it and i'll find the right person to communicate that to. but in general it looks good and that's progress. i just wanted to note that. so thank you very much. good work to all of the staff that i'm sure that were involved in it. thanks. >> thank you for your comments. next caller, your line is open and you have two minutes. >> caller: good afternoon, commissioners. and i hope that you are all well and safe. we have been hearing a lot of things recently, and i want to bring up to your attention two things. number one, we have been communicating with the commission, yourself, all of you, regarding crimes that have

been committed regarding fraud in the program by d and d and including awards of contracts that have reached your desk for approvals, fully knowing that the companies do not qualify. as we speak today, there are two issued by the p.u.c. and the only ones that can apply to the contracts are the ones that have been doing work. and i can count them on one hand. a city with the companies and no one can work at the p.u.c. because of a few individuals. now you ask us not to talk with profanity, i agree with you, we shouldn't. but we have been communicating this with you and so far i have not seen a single action in the right direction. how do you reach the point where

we can bring this up and have solutions? we're looking for solutions. you cannot depend on undefined and them to come in with more of their programs that have been nothing but scams. millions of dollars have been scammed -- public money. please tell me when. >> thank you for your comments. next caller, you have two minutes. >> caller: hi, my name is pat and i live in belmont near 280 and i'm also concerned about the controlled burn scheduled for the watershed in that area. and i'm concerned about it generally and specifically. we're discussing this controlled burn because global warming and climate change has made our state hotter and dryer and more prone to wildfires that burn

hotter. and global warming is caused by humans and not only spewing carbon dioxide but by destroying the environments that are carbon gatherings and by releasing stored carbon and increasing global warming. so the irony is that by having the controlled burn to mitigate the damage caused by a wildfire you're increasing our chances of more wildfire by releasing more carbon into our atmosphere. as in the past the pressing wildfire was a knee jerk reaction that has left more problems than we solved. this will also bring more problems than we can solve. we are concerned with wildfire because we don't want our homes to burn. and the solution is to prevent them from burning and not having wildfires one minute and then more carbon gathering, etc., etc. so i please ask that the cal fire extend the public comments by at least 30 days or to not allow cal fire to burn the

p.u.c. watershed, and to have an environmental review, and not a negative declarations which basically says no environmental review is needed. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. next caller, your line is open and you have two minutes. >> caller: thank you. i live directly across the sfpuc watershed and i only found out about this burn project less than a week ago when somebody who happened to be running the trails discovered the notice and brought it to my attention. the neighborhood is entirely unaware of this unprecedented event. and to give us such a short time to comment on it is really not outreach at all. and i think that the minimum thing that you could do is to extend the comment section so that neighbors at least can learn about this thing. there is so much wildlife here,

heron, beautiful habitat out there in that sfpuc watershed and to have this unprecedented large burn we really need further comment and an environmental study, to be quite honest with you, because this is just too much. and we have a lot of homes that go right up to the sfpuc and the neighbors are very concerned. so the least you can do is to extend the comment period so that people can understand what's going on. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. next caller, your line is open and you have two minutes. >> caller: thank you. i also am a direct neighbor in the belmont heights area with property aligning to the areas

to be burned in the fall. i have several issues with this. one, with the notification to the neighborhood, and the signs -- the signs that are there are deplorable and we have many, many elderly properties that are right up against the burn area. i mean, the fences border it. and it's right smack in the middle of the burn area is the crystal springs cross-country course. so the middle of the burn and thousands of high school kids from september-november run on this course. and my issue is not only are we talking about a burn with the use of herbicides, but we also have between 100 to 200 neighbors who walk and run on this course daily. i'm not sure that -- there's no indication that this is a public recreation area. i think that you need to take a real hard look at this and then the wildlife, the deer and mountain lions and so forth, to be destroyed and to run off, it

will never revive itself. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. next caller, your line is open and you have two minutes. >> caller: thank you for the opportunity. i too am calling about the proposed burn on the san francisco p.u.c. crystal springs watershed. this property directly abuts -- directly shares the property line with dozens of properties and there are hundreds of properties literally within yards of this property. and none of the residents have received direct notification. they are completely unaware of what's going to happen in their own backyard. furthermore, the public notice that was posted on the property, a little fine print, 8.5-by-11 sheet of paper was posted on the inside of the property fence,

the backside of the fence, where the general public does not even go in order to see that notification. and i'd like to point out that even though the planned burn is -- is being proposed and the negative -- the mitigated negative classification is cal five, it's on sfpuc property. they've been uncooperative with increasing notification or its comment period to beyond the 30 days. and the public is pleading with sfpuc to intervene because this is your property and this is not cal fire's domain and we're calling upon you to demand improved notification and extension of comment period at a very minimum. with respect to the document itself, the negative declaration, i'd like to point out two glaring inconsistencies within the document itself. the first is that the document

declares that the mowing -- the current mowing policies on the land, which are performed annually, are adequate to control a fire. and then the document turns around and contradicts itself, saying they need to do this burn to control fire. well, which is it? they have an internal contradiction within their own document. and their own document makes strong case that this burn is not even needed to -- >> thank you, caller. your time is expired. madam secretary, there are no more callers in the queue. >> thank you, that closes public comment on item 4. ge >> president maxwell: thank you, madam secretary. because this is not on the agenda we cannot speak to it, but i would like steve ritchie and to have a report back to us as soon as possible regarding

the burn, the noticing -- >> you're on mute. >> president maxwell: maybe in the interim they could speak to cal fire. you didn't hear any of it? >> we just heard the first part, madam president. you went on to mute. >> president maxwell: okay, so you know that i asked to report back to us about the burn. and we can't speak to it now because it's not on the agenda. and also to ask about the noticing and all of that. >> we will report back. >> president maxwell: and commissioner harrington? >> commissioner harrington: if you could also, when you look at that, someone mentioned the cross-country course there and i believed that the community college is to maintain that and just recently announced they

won't be doing that. and i have heard from people who think they'll lose their cross-country course in that area. if you wouldn't mind also reporting on that, that would be helpful. >> will do. >> president maxwell: all right, commissioners, anyone else? all right, thank you. next item, please. >> clerk: your next items are item 5, communications. >> president maxwell: any discussion or additions to communications? madam secretary, public comment on this item, please. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment specifically on item 5, communications, dial 1-(415)-655-0001. and meeting i.d. 146 747 2515. pound, pound. to raise your hand to speak press star, 3. please note that you must limit your comments to the topic being discussed and i remind you if

you do not stay on the topic that the chair can interrupt and ask you to limit your comment to the agenda item topic. we ask that the public comment be in a civil and respectful manner and you do not use profanity. address the commission as a whole and not to individual commissioners or staff. mr. moderator, do we have any callers? >> madam secretary, there is one caller in the queue. >> clerk: thank you. >> caller your line is open and you have two minutes to speak to item 5. >> caller: good afternoon, commissioners. i'm addressing you right now regarding item number 5. specifically the correspondence log notice on the agenda. that's the only one that the emails or the letters received by the p.u.c. from various

sources are not listed and the only way that individuals like myself can obtain it is by putting in a request for public information. i don't see any difference between an email that i send or any other public that send itself to the commission to be requested as public information, rather than being listed in the link. so i'm asking you to as the p.u.c. to consider hosting all of the correspondence that are in the log on the agenda instead of wasting the public time and the staff time in retrieving this. the refival time is also not easy and it takes in some cases, you know, definitely more than a couple days to get it. and so there's no reason, again, to withhold that information from the public and i ask you to please consider putting it on the agenda as well. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. madam secretary and

commissioners, additional callers have joined. next caller, your line is open and you have two minutes to speak to item 5. >> caller: good afternoon. i am a senior program officer at the water foundation. i'm calling in today regarding your agenda item on sb 222 in your packet, the summary of the bill to have a state-wide water for the affordability assistance program. i wanted to call in just because we -- among many others, see sfpuc as a leader in this area in trying to reach out and to ensure affordability and access, particularly during a global pandemic. and we want to ask for your support and partnership on this bill. we have worked with your staff in the past and we would like to

continue that relationship, but we really need board leadership to direct staff to work with us closely. this bill is so important because it actually will create the structure through which federal fund will come into california and to be distributed to those who need it most. we were successful in getting $500 million aside for water affordability programs in the latest covid relief package. we're working very hard to get more federal funding. we believe that we have champions of the federal scale now, not at least of which is vice president harris who co-signed an op-ed with the water affordability this past summer. but we -- in order for that funding to make it to the people who need it the most, we need a state program. and, unfortunately, the association for california water agencies is against this bill. i don't believe that there will be any possibility that they

would ever support it, so we're really looking for the progressive leaders like yourselves to work with us to make this work for you and to get this money to the low-income households that need it. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. madam secretary, there are no more callers in the queue. >> clerk: thank you, that closes public comment on item 5, communications. >> president maxwell: thank you next item, please. >> clerk: next item 6, the presentation by kpmg l.l.p. of the audited financial statements of sfpuc enterprises for fiscal year 2019-20, detailing and summarizing the audit process, test work and audit options for the water enterprise, wastewater entry prize and the hetch hetchy water and power enterprise included by cleanpowersf. >> good afternoon, president and

commissioners. my name is nancy vaughn, and i'm joined today by lisa avis with kpmg l.l.p. she will give the detailed portion with the audit results of the audited financial payments for fiscal year 2019-20. may i have the next slide, please. thank you. thank you. kpmg issued the sfpuc the full year 2019-20, the audited financial statements from january 21, 2021 for the water enterprise, wastewater enterprise and the hetch hetchy water and power and clean power s.f. correction, january 22nd. these financial statements are available to the general public on our new website sfpuc.org, under "investor relations and financial reports" where they can be downloaded. quick results from our audit, there were no material in the statement in the financial statements, however, we did

receive a material weakness related to the intern controls separate from those financial statements. the management has begun implementation of the mitigations and the resolutions to address the deficiency related to the organizational program from the top. thank you. at this time i turn the presentation over to lisa avis, the managing director at kpmg l.l.p. thank you. lisa? >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is lisa avis and i'm a managing director with kpmg. i appreciate the opportunity to be here today to present the results of our audit. i believe that you've had a chance to receive these slides in advance, so i won't be going through each slide, but i will focus on the main points that i want to highlight. and so if you would please advance to slide 3, let's see -- or, let's see -- it might be a

little bit out of order, so advance a couple more, please. and one more. one more slide. there we go. so i want to start off by commending and thanking p.u.c. for quickly adapting to the remote environment in which we had to conduct our audit. p.u.c. management and staff were able to accommodate our requests and grant us access to the data and the files that we needed in order to complete our audit. and we appreciate everyone's cooperation as we all navigated through these challenging times the safety of our clients and our people continue to be a priority and we will continue to work remotely until it is safe for us to resume working on-site. so to kick off the results of our audit, let's look at slide five, but it might be a little different here, i think that

there were a couple slides combined. so let's just flip a couple more slides here. if you just want to advance maybe one more. there we go. so these next couple slides summarize the results that we are required to communicate. as nancy had mentioned, we conducted a financial statement audits for the following entities, there was water, wastewater and hetch hetchy water and clean power. and we have a very extensive set of procedures that we use to determine if those financials and the notes are fairly presented in accordance with the accounting guidance and the regulations that p.u.c. is required to follow. now the financial statements that p.u.c. management prepared and the notes that accompanied those financial statements received a clean opinion, or what we call an unmodified opinion, meaning that the balance is presented to us --

are fairly stated and they accurately reflect the financial activity of those p.u.c. entities. those that i listed for fiscal years, ending june 30, 2020. the purpose of our audit is to express an opinion on the financial statements, but our audit also has internal control over financial reporting. while we do not express an opinion on the effectiveness of the financial control, we do report deficiencies that took place during the audit. so if we flip a couple -- let's see here -- just one more slide so i know that we're all aware of the alleged criminal actors of the former general manager of p.u.c. under the standards the management is responsible for

establishing and maintaining an effective control environment. and for setting an appropriate tone at the top for compliance with laws and regulations as it relates to contracts and agreements within the entity. so that responsibility includes the commitment towards honesty and integrity and ethical behavior. the former general manager at p.u.c. is charged in the criminal federal complaint and there's still an ongoing investigation as it relates to these allegations. however, what we do know is that the former general manager did have a close personal relationship with a vendor of p.u.c. and that there was intent of wrongdoing. this went against laws, rules and regulations that were set forth within the organization. and although this is unacceptable at any level of employment, this was a person who was responsible for leading by example and was setting the tone at the top of the

organization. this was also an individual who had for the past 10 years represented to us as auditors on behalf of p.u.c. that the organization had complied with such laws and regulations. although p.u.c. management determined that there were -- that there was no financial statement impact resulting from these actions, because the actions occurred at an executive management level, this constitutes a material reasoning. we worked closely with p.u.c. and the city as it relates to this matter and we received full cooperation during this process p.u.c., along with the city controller and the city attorney's office have planned internal assessments to further strengthening the existing controls that p.u.c. have over various programs and processes to help to provide further transparency into the existing processes that p.u.c. has in

place. so the next couple of slides if you want to advance -- advance one more -- let's do one more, sorry. yeah, so the next several slides here -- just discuss the p.u.c.'s significant accounting policies and practices. and i won't go into a lot of details, but the policies and the practices are consistent with what we have seen in the industry. and although on the right side of these slides it says audit findings, it's actually audit results, so it's just a terminology thing. we use specialists throughout our audit when it comes to valuing some financial statement line items like pensions, opec liabilities, p.u.c. has had some unique transactions over the last couple of years, some property swap transactions. and we involve our internal

specialists to help with those evaluations. but our conclusions were that the balance is that management have presented to us were reasonable in the years that we had audited. and then the last couple of slides we can advance further along, but the slides discuss new accounting standards that are coming up in the next couple of years. and we work with p.u.c. and the controller's office to get ready for implementation of those standards. we try to be on the forefront of those just to help with the burden of going into those standards. so like i said, i wasn't going to go through slide-by-slide, but that concludes the prepared presentation that i had over audit results. i wanted to open it up for any questions that the commissioners may have for either of us on the finance team.

>> president maxwell: commissioner harrington. >> commissioner harrington: thank you very much, and thank you for your work on this, miss avis. i'd like to go deeper in the material and the findings if i could for some background. i'm a c.p.a. and i work for a firm for kpmg and so i have had experience with material weakness and auditing kind of experiences. when i came to the p.u.c. and the general manager there, there were -- there were witnesses in internal controls and so we started in the internal control group and hired nancy new hampshire and we did train -- nancy hamm and we trained hundreds of staff, we started with the top discussions and the expectation of honesty and the need to spend funds appropriately. and the downside of losing your job or going to jail if you broke those rules. so i get the need to be vigilant on these matters. and i also think that it's our responsibility as commissioners to set that tone at the top also. so i want to thank you for your

work and let you know that we expect to follow up with our staff as they work on following up also. but i also wanted to make it a little more clear so that we don't read more or less into your findings than is intended. so so in many places you say that you did not find any material familiar impacts to this material weakness, is that accurate? >> that is correct, yes. >> commissioner harrington: and i realize that you were not doing a specific fraud, but i don't see that you found fraud in your audit work. so i'm assuming that you're alerting us to the risk of fraud, rather than a finding of fraud, is that accurate also? >> that is correct. so a material weakness -- there doesn't necessarily have to be criminal action, there has to be the potential for material misstatement. an example that i have used is that i had an entity where we issued a material weakness to an

i.t. department over i.t. payroll access. there was super users who were granted multiple -- multiple super users who were granted access to that pay rate -- approved pay rate. they had -- there was no segregation of duties. and, fortunately, that access was not used, but the potential was there. and so they were lucky that nothing happened, but the potential with the weakness in and of itself was within the system. so we alerted management of the situation and it was an easy remedy of the situation. but an action that doesn't necessarily have to take place for the potential to be there. >> commissioner harrington: sure. that makes sense. and i also realized that in the

guidelines, particularly at the top issue is a material weakness, so i don't question that. while we want to set that tone correctly, we do also need to protect the former general manager's ability to get a fair trial. and these are as you mentioned allegations still that have not been proven in court. but the internal control report says that it's alleged criminal actions that constitute a deficiency, and -- let me finish -- the summary says that the individual failed to set an appropriate tone at the top and demonstrated a lack of commitment which sounds more like conclusions than that you're pointing out the risk of this happening. >> yes, there are some things that i cannot speak to, but there are some things that are available to the public that we do know and so those things that are available to the public do

demonstrate the intent of wrongdoing. >> commissioner harrington: demonstration is an allegation of that and i'm not sure that anybody has proven this in court. i don't want to overstate what you have found. because i totally get that allegations are serious, there's a need to follow-up on this. but the conclusion that the individual failed to set that tone, i don't think it has been proven yet. that's a concern for me. >> okay. and i'm happy to talk to you further in the closed session and i have to be careful about what i can say in a public setting with the investigation about that, that is ongoing. but there is information that is available out there to the public that showing evidence of wrongdoing. so that is kind of -- there is some information there. >> commissioner harrington: bak to you, madam president.

>> i have a question. miss avis, thank you for your presentation. and this is for me as an educational process. so can you actually let me know or sort of provide some content for me that, like, if you see something related to material weakness, what kind of actions need to be taken to make sure that this doesn't happen in the future? because it's sort of -- again, just because i have never been part of the sort of detailed audits, it might be my lack of information and knowledge in this. but if the audit sort of getting activated at the top, how do you make sure that the information that's provided to -- into this process -- will be the right

information? how do you make sure that we have the right set of checks and balances to make sure that, you know, this can be corrected before leading to something that, you know, -- certain consequences that we don't want to have. >> thank you. so, like i said, the processes that -- so our finding is not related to the processes and policies that p.u.c. has had in place. we have been working with p.u.c. for years. unfortunately, this is one individual who took matters into their own hands. typically what we see with a control finding, um, you have to step back and okay, where was the breakdown and where can the process be improved? and that's how entities evaluate how they could fix this, where

was the controlled breakdown. so looking internally and looking at the processes and as i said that's what p.u.c. is doing, working with the controller's office and working with the city attorneys to provide more transparency into the programs and processes that they have in place. for the communities to dive into that. >> commissioner ajami: and that guarantees that this will not happen next? or is that something that we as a commission need to do to make sure, you know, that we are vigilant about the processes and how, you know, -- how does the oversight can happen? i guess that's what i'm curious about. >> yeah, yeah, one thing that we remind the commissioners of every year is that the commissioners, you know, those charged with governance, and part of it is, again, as well setting the tone at the top. and reminding -- and having that

oversight over the entity. and reminding them of, you know, this is of the utmost importance. and also setting that tone at the top, the oversight and making sure that corrective actions are followed up on. and so when there is a finding, what i typically see is the board as to whether it be quarterly or whatever checks they have, one of the agenda items is following up on these types of things, can we get a status on the corrective action what is the process, is it partially remediated, because when we have findings like this, we have to also report in the subsequent year what the status is, and so it can be partially collected and fully corrected, and is it still ongoing. so those check-ins so that you yourself are informed as to the status. >> commissioner ajami: thanks.

>> president maxwell: any further conversations? commissioner moran. >> vice-president moran: thank you, president maxwell. with respect to the corrective actions, it's my recollection that you did make some comments to the effect that the general manager was no longer employed and that there were corrective actions being taken. is that correct? >> that is correct. >> vice-president moran: and did you express any satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the nature of those corrective actions? >> yes. we have been working with p.u.c. and the city controller, the city attorneys, at our check-in meetings. i know they are scoping out the various performance audits that they will be doing. we as independent auditors have to remain independent of that,

so we can't help design the audit that they will be doing. but we are keeping in touch with them. and know that they are moving forward and making the right steps going forward in this process. and so -- so, yes, we -- in our report we issued -- we issued -- we did see their response and concur with their response to the findings. >> vice-president moran: okay, thank you. >> president maxwell: any further comments or questions? seeing none, i would like to thank the commissioner harrington for his line of questioning and all of you. then public comment, please, on this item. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment specifically on

item 6, the audited financial statements, dial 1-(415)-655-0001. and meeting i.d., 146 747 2515. pound, pound. to raise your hand to speak, press star, 3. please note that you must limit your comments to the topic of the agenda item being discussed and to remind you that if you do not stay on the topic that the chair can interrupt and ask you to limit your comment to the agenda topic. we ask that the public comment be made in a civil and respectful manner and that you refrain from the use of profanity. address your remarks to the commission as a whole and not to the individual commissioners or staff. mr. moderator, do we have any callers? >> madam secretary, there are two callers in the queue. >> clerk: thank you. >> i have opened up your line,

caller. you have two minutes to speak to item 6. >> caller: in my introductory comments, commissioners, i spoke about transparency and accountability. this independent auditor has stated very clearly that upper management were involved in corruption of the worst order. and while it may be true that while we're having this investigation that the f.b.i. knows about it and we the people know about it. there are reams of documentation available on how this corruption was done and with intent. later you will discuss at the sfpuc commission, but y'all don't want to pay attention. we can see for the last 10 years

that millions of dollars have been wasted. and there are some of you on the commission that know about this in fact, there's one person that is part of it. we have the imperical data. i find it objoks that we challenge the independent auditor that what it is really true what she has said, she is speaking as the power of the independent auditor. she's not going to influence the attorney or ben rosenfield because they failed to represent the people. the commission failed to represent the people. that's all i've got to say. >> thank you for your comments.

next caller, your line is open and you have two minutes. >> caller: good afternoon commissioners. i am shocked -- i am seriously shocked -- to say that there is no material financial impact of corruption. did i hear this correctly? an agency that is funded by public money, taxpayers' money, and there's a wholesale fraud that has been going on for 24 years, ladies and gentlemen -- 24 years. this is not with no financial impact. let me give you some financial impact of the cost of doing construction in a fraudulent environment is at least twice as much in a non-fraudulent environment. because everything is fluffed up. for your construction project

that is $30 million, when it jumps to $700 million, you know, you need to ask why those increases. you need to ask, who is sitting on the board of directors for an engineering firm that allowed minimum of the dam that was flawed from day one. no one went after them because that guy is way too high up. so what i'm trying to tell you here is a couple things. there is a huge cost of corruption and there's a federal document by the united states department of transportation that describes exactly how much is the cost of fraudulent. your entire program is a fraudulent program. it allows rich companies, it allows larger firms to be certified as an l.b.e. and you're limiting who can bid on your contracts. so instead of having the

contracts open to the general public as they should be, you're limiting it to three or four. look at your procurement. and even ask kelly, you know how many times that -- >> thank you for your comments, your time is expired. madam secretary, there are no more callers in the queue. >> clerk: thank you, public comment on item 6 is closed. >> president maxwell: thank you next item, please. >> clerk: next order of business is item 7, report of the general manager. mr. kelly? >> yes, michael carlin and i have the first report, and it's presented by steve ritchie.

>> thanks, steve ritchie, assistant manager for water. this is a set of slides that i present in a written report but i'm giving a verbal update today as well. so we could see the next slide. this shows the degree of storage in the system. down at the bottom line you can see the total system storage is at 77% of capacity. at this time of year it's nomple normally about 80%, so we're just below our normal amount of storage. but our is a storage-based system so storage is really important to us. next slide. this shows the conditions of reservoirs around the state and one of the things to note is that there's a national drought alert map that is put out weekly. and it's a very kind of crude tool but in general it's showing in our area in the watershed and the bay-area watersheds that they refer to us as being in moderate drought. whereas up in the upper

sacramento valley on the north part of the state they're identified as extreme drought. like, you can see those conditions in the levels of the reservoirs up there, shasta and oroville, two of the largest reservoirs in california. next slide, please. this shows precipitation in hetch hetchy and down at the bottom you can see the red line which is the cumulative precipitation for this year. the blue dashed line is 1977, our driest year, and then 1983 at the top is our wettest year. and the black line is our median precipitation. you can see that back in the middle of january our precipitation was sitting right on top of 1977. so at that point in time things looked fairly grim but you can see that we have had precipitation since then and we're expecting more actually starting today upcountry. next slide. and the snowpack is a similar picture where that bottom dashed

gold line is the snowpack as a percent of april 1st maximum. and that -- that bottom line is 2015, which is our worst snowpack on record and you can see that the snowpack as well as the precipitation was sitting right on top of the worst year on record in january. so, frankly, i made the presentation to the board of directors, and indeed at that point i said that it looks pretty lousy right now. so let's see where we get. and you can see that we've had substantial snowpack added. we're currently at about 60% of the median for this time of year which is far better than we would be at 2015 levels. and next slide. in terms of water available to the city, this is the hydrograph of the river, with the unimpaired flow at the la grange. anything below the gray line is the water rights of the irgraitionz districts and above is water available to the city. and you can see that there's been only one little peak above

that line. so we have a little bit of water available to the city this year but we get most of our water available with the melt and the snowpack. so if i could see the next slide. this is the water available to the city. you know, 1676 there is the 2019 amount, 1,676,000 acre feet or 1.6 million acre feet of water back in 2019. and the low year there was 2014 which was only 22,,000 acre feet available to the city. and we currently have about 2,000 acre feet. (please stand by)

>> they are all below average but a little better than upcoming in a little bit and you'll notice february is looking betterthis year, both upcoming and below . you recall last year february there was absolutely zero

precipitationby itself . so each year is different in its own characteristics. we may see morelater this year, we may not . right now we're doing relatively weak on precipitation but we've got some time left. next slide. this shows precipitation forecast going through last week and this week. you can see a lot of color over california. that's good. white means it's not going to rain. blue means it's going to rain some, orange and red even more than that so we have a lot of blue and green last week and this weekover our watershed, particularly upin the sierra . next slide . we compare these with total deliveries.

the red is the five-year average by week, total deliveries from our system. the blue is what we did last year. as of next february we've got the dry month and you can see how demand spiked up february of last year. the green is this year . sothat it's been close to both of the five-year average since the beginning. it dipped a little bit and it's now, . next week, week after this one just showed up my investment yesterday and it increased again reflecting the factthat february had been a dry month and we're seeing it again this year . see where it goes from there. the next slide compared to 2015 . which is again, the flattest year on record, 2013. the year before the last draft. that green line caught up to 2015 this last week so right at thistime of year you can see those three sets of demands are about . we will see how this year goes

moving forward. so far we've given notice to our customers that they need to continue to conserve as always but no particular measures are called for. we have to give a water supply availability report to them before april 15 which tells our wholesale customers in particular if we would need to go to rationing this year in some way shapeor form. we don't expect to do that we may call for voluntary reductions . one thing we know for sure is read for itself will fill this year, that seems clear-cut based on the amount of snowon the mountain so that the overallpicture . it's been dry. it's gotten wet recently . hopefully it will stay wet and as we say on my side of the house every year is different and atthe end of the year you start all over again . happy to answer anyquestions . >>.

>> thank you for the presentationand i have a question about your slide . i'd like to slide that was showing last year. what is that during the month of february, is that because of the stay-at-home? >>. >> last slide. when the next two's last slide. >> last, i mentioned earlier in the presentation february in the bayarea we got zero precipitation . i mean, just none. so what you see there in the blue line is a big peek in terms of demand as a result of how dry it was. people started wondering their gardens. beginning of the drought you always see a spike in demand

because peoplethink it's just a dry spell. iwonder a little bit more in my garden will get through it and then it will start raining later . that is kind of what happened last year . but speaking of the drought you start to get behind faster. in this case it got wet in march as well as we went into the shutdown in march. so march at has a double effect of more precipitation and less economic activity so then we climbed back and pretty much for the year stayed on top of the five-yearaverage rest of the year . but what that meant is on balance , we had greater demand last year because of that big chunk of water used the end of the year. >> just a low country, that's a lot of watering loss. if that's the case, it seems to me more of a say shelter in place sort of effect. >> this isfor the shelter in place .

>> it's not just lawns, every bit of vegetation people were wondering. and the bulk of this demand course is in the wholesale customer area, san francisco tends to be less dramatic but there's been increases in san francisco as well. >> thank you. >> i have a question. actually i don't have a question, i have a comment i should say that this is probably part of the multiplier in the enjoyable part of being a steward on this commission is just to see that talent and analysis that we happen to get to share. and what the heck is really happening here. why are we behind the city hires intelligent folks to in their professions take care of

that stuff and this really is a good snapshot. it's not just for water but is also the sewers and public power that we actually are informed of what's going on so these are part of the reports that i enjoy and can digest to make some of the decisions that we have to make about the nature of how this agency looks forward so thanks for that. thanks for thatparticular report we have lots of intelligent people working in water under me . i wouldn't clean itfor myself but . >> it sounds like you just did but that's okay. >>. >> if you don't mind. this is really out of curiosity, doesn't water content have to still change

depending on when you get the snow? like the water you can get out of it? >> that's definitely not something i'm an expert on but it is variable throughout the snowfall period. sometimes it's wetter, sometimesit's drier. one of our concerns is it tends to be uniform snow from top to bottom . like it piles up higher more in a country where it's going to be colder. so you will probably get some pretty nice flows coming in as it starts to rain on the lower snowthis year this storm is really supposed to be downto 2000 for example. about water content varies all the time, that's something to keep an eye on as well .>> we may need to revisit how they operate . or that's not going to be a

concern. >> that's definitely a concern. we are looking at lots of different ways we might have to change in response to climate change in the long run. and were also engaged a lot in what's called forecast informed reservoir operations which is a modern way of doing basically flood control as opposed to water supply that is very much smart using data. >> when you mentioned that because the snow is going to be at a lower level, is that, you are saying that does impact? >> when there's more snow at the lower level generally you get warm rain on it and it will not snow fairly quickly so you prefer if there's going to be less floor elevation and notes each time rather than accumulating and you get more. >> thank you. any further questions or comments.

>> thank you. next item please. public comment on this item. >> members who wish to make two minutes of public comment specifically on item 7a, water supply conditionupdate . there are 141-565-5001, 8090 146 747 2515 pounds pound. to raise your hand press star three. note you must limit your comments to the topic of the agenda item being discussed. and i'd remind you if you do not stay on the topic the chair can interrupt and ask you to limit yourcomments to the agenda item topic .we asked the comment to be made in a civil andrespectful manner and you refrain from the use of profanity addressed remarks to the commission and not individual commissioners .

>> mister moran are there any callers. >> no callers inthe queue . >> public comment on item 7 a is closed. mister carver. >> thenext presentation is water supply by mister richie . >> thanks again for this slide again, general manager forwater and this is our quarterly update on our alternative water supply planning that we are pursuing very aggressively for all of the water needs that we have to fulfill out there . additional demands as well as making up for environmental water contributing to flow. here we are in 2020.

we have been workingthrough an alternative water supply program consists now of 15 projects, a regional, for local and three country we really in the project planningphase redoing feasibility studies , working on institutional agreements, working on operationalconsiderations . can they actually be implemented and contribute water and where providing monthly and quarterly program updates . through all kinds of different folks our goal currently is to have consistent with the june 2020 commission resolution , an alternative water supply plan in the middle of 2023 that would be ready for environmental review. under ceqa. rules would be made their status and one of the things i need to emphasize, it kind of pains me to do it.

these projects often a long time especially the ones that are big construction. so that's while we aremaking decisions hopefully in the 2023 and 2028 timeframe , actually construction will not be complete on the vast majority of these projectsuntil 2030 and well beyond because that projects of this nature are hard to put together . next slide please. we choose to end in the quarterly report highlights certain things so today i'm going to highlight our purified water storage projectswe're working on . purified water and storage are asignificant part of the strategy to build resiliency . purified water projects that were working on for water expansion, this means purified water projects, the alameda county water district purified water project and the store storage projects are calaveras expansion and i'll talk about these a little more detail. next slide.

on the purified water side, this is a diagram to give you a flavor of what thedifferent types of purified water are . there are four columns in this chart and three use pathways for purified water. the first one isgroundwater recharge and we start with wastewater treatment . take it advanced treatment and in some facilities to produce purified water goes to groundwater recharge and you use spreading basins or injection wells and that's why it's thenatural buffering that's necessary but called out sometime down the road . that's how it works for groundwater recharge. for reservoir augmentation is a first two steps and the nature that it goes through is not a groundwater basin but actually a reservoir of some kind. the crystal springs reservoir

for example that is the other end and that reservoir after spending time in nature it goes to be drinking water and delivered to customers. the last you aregroundwater augmentation and treatment augmentation . boxes signify these are direct potable reuse projects. regulations are not expected through that use until 2023 so you can see there's a minor difference, there's a little more advanced treatment there to bring wastewater posted if it were drinking when it comes out of the plant after being wastewater in the first place. the first one ball water augmentation into the wall water system with attack or something and then to a water treatment plantbefore going to customers . the treated water augmentation , that's really heavy duty purified water treatments because it's going straight into the drinking water system. there is no buffering involved

in that type of water so that's why the development of direct potable reuse relations is important. san diego is a leader on this and they've been pushing hard on getting those regulations in place because they think ultimately a part of their water supply is going to have to come from treatment based water so that is the area wher there's a lot of potential also obviously need to documentation with the public about the safety of the product and the value of it . next slide. so we've accomplishedvarious things in looking at these different projects so each of these levels talk about a different project .recycled water expansion, so looking ahead , we're looking atfurther alternatives now , cost-benefit analysis and agreements because this would fit in with the groundwater storage recovery project areas and we would have partners on these projects including daily city of course and california water service company. and working with the city of paula which is served by cal water so it would be a little

bit morecomplex thing . this is all still planning phase, this is not getting us to actual construction so there is going to be a fair amount of time working through a lot of issues to get to a really defined project there. crystal springs purified water is being done in conjunction with silicon valley clean water the city of san mateo and cal water service down in the san mateo belmont area. again we done some spectacle feasibility work but we're looking at alternatives and trying to come up with a regional operation impact and in our case that treatment based water that could go into crystal springsreservoir . sounds like a great thing for augmenting that supply me that water that would normally be transferred down to crystal springs would not have any place to go so we have to be thinking about you manage that water that could be environmental water or it could be stored in the comments.

the alameda county water district project has evaluated the potential supply coming from the wastewater entity and the sanitary district and working with a cwd which is of course our customers down in that area. they have a certificate of water basin and that could be putting water into their groundwater basin and as we pointed out for delivery to their customers or somehow bringing it into our system and one of the main pipelines. all these have a lot of agreements that need to be reached and a lot of technical analysis overhead and a lot of outreach because we're talking aboutpurified water . next slide. storage is important to us because increasing water storage allows for operational flexibility . that's what'sreally important in terms of our system because of the way our water rights work . provides adaptive capacityin

futureuncertainty such as climate challenges for new regulations . next slide . so the los vaqueros expansion project is the one there on the top. los vaqueros is a reservoir owned by the coastal water district and they've been working to expand and have a vast array of stakeholders in their potential project participants. there are many water districts are interested in apiece of this but frankly has made it very complicated to work through . it's a challenge as a result so we're looking right now at putting together a jpa that we will be talking to you about in the next couple of months and usage fees and water quality treatment, seeking water that would come through the delta in some way and what water supplies can we get there? we don't usually take water from the delta so we don'thave water supply we can guarantee would be there for us . a lot of water rights need to

be looked at in the course agreements in place and i'll talk about this in a little more detail later. the calaveras expansion, where wrapping up an analysis of what the potential raises of the calaveras dam are in trying to figure out if we can raise it that's great, we got capacity. how do you convey water to it so were looking to convey evaluation and water supply analysis and impacts. this is a place where people have commented in those big water years you should have found someplace to put that water. this would be a good place if we can getthere so those analysis are justahead of us . next slide. i want to step back to los vaqueros expansion . this is basically the assumptions we're using so we would be potentially interested in a 40,000 per share expanded losvaqueros and then the ability to deliver that over to the drought years . we're working on capacity availability in what's called

the transfer back to the pipeline that takes water from the los vaqueros area to bethany reservoir and then the south bay without down to our neck of the woods. we're looking at potential for exchanges with alameda county water district and valley water, both of which are state water project contractors and take water from the south bay aqueductand we're looking at the potential to put water from air into san antonio reservoir from an area where we need to be treated . this is a complex arrangement and it's very complex cause of the number of parties involved but from a plumbing point of view it was like it could work as long as you could get water there . last slide please. okay, this is what's coming up ahead. we have been working with all the parties, the water district to oversee the management that

expanded the los vaqueros reservoir so we expect to be updating you on the issues around los vaqueros coming to you probably in late april or may to look for commission action. whether or not to be a part of the joint powersauthority , the advantage of the joint powers authority currently is that for the advantage to you is you don't have to pay as much money, the money comes down the road so we've been participating in studies to the tune of about 1 and a half to $2 million.we will be looking in that service agreement negotiation with the partners in the last half of 2021 and various institutional and technical analysis as to again can we make this projectwork for us ? we expect there to be another action in august that would be what's called interim funding

allocation which we will be looking at some additionalstudy money . but then the real big action would come at the end of the year. that is where we would decide to enter into a service agreement and that's where you would be basically putting up your money and that would be a big decision that the commission would have to face there.the reason why it's on this fast-track is because water districts have been successful at getting proposition one grant funds. as a call in proposition one there were $2.75 billion set aside for water storageprojects . and we want to make sure that's a success so that time timeline to commit to funding projects and so the california water commission has set january 2022 when you have to basically show that you got the local share money to match the $435 million that would come from prop one and there's also money from the

federal government cost is really incentivized to get this done on time. we have raised constantly the issue of it's nice to move fast, we like moving fast but if we can't see that were going to getbenefits out of it it's going to be hard to commit . on the other hand, storage is not something to be shied away from lightly because you don't get many opportunities to get additional storage so that's the dilemma we have currently. i would not make the recommendation right now one way or the other as to whether to join us it's worth investing and continuing to push it and see if we can make it work. this is a good example of this is probably the most common gated one. ironically it's themost complicated and fastest moving at the same time soit's a bit of a challenge to work with . anyway, that's where we are now and i'd be happy to answer any questions .

>> questions or comments, commissioner moran.>>anson moran: sorry about that. two quick comments, one is i know you did a bunch of reformatting of the reports to make it more readable, usable document and i appreciate the work that was acted on. the other comment is with the third workshop at the end of this month, the other projects that we have inplace we will see how they relate to each other . that will start to give increase context and meaning for all of us. and i for one am looking forward toit , thank you i give full credit to the product manager for reformatting the responses to make sure these arevery communicative documents .

>> commissioner ajami. >>newsha ajami: thank you for this presentation. actually commissioner moran mentioned this but i was wondering doyou have a sense of how much water are we talking about here ? do all these projects or some of your projects like, what projects should i want to confront on these things west and mark. >> that's a tricky question now because we couldprobably put a number on each project of water could be generated . the devil is in the details. for example on los vaqueros expansion we could put the money number on it except we don't have water to put their so it's not really a number you can put on and i also mentioned crystal springs purified water. we could see water added to crystal springs reservoir that would displace water that would normally go there so it's a question of howoperationally

these all fit into our system is the challenge we have to get . we can expand calaveras by a lot and that tantalizing 1.7 million acre-feet water available in the city, could we have gotten 750,000 acre-feet of that water to source in place? there are constraints in the plumbing coming down from the sierra that we can't move all that water that passed so you can probably create our rosy scenario for each one. you probably also need to create a bleak scenario for each one when you get the projectdetails and know what it can provide. >>newsha ajami: i guess the question becomes how often you have water available . considering climatechange and each year are going to have it it will be extended . >> that the advantage of the purified water, you know you're going to have that water . >>newsha ajami: for the clean

water, silicon valley clean water collaboration you mentioned , i guess my question is are you working with them to sort of that water into crystal springs or is this something you are also considering our self as taking the water and trying to put into crystal springs? i'm wondering how that relationship is working workin . >>steven ritchie: the city of san mateo happen to local wastewater treatment plants so there the project partners that we provide the wastewater to with advanced water treatment facilities and that would either be delivered locally as purified water or indirect water through the san mateo or transported by pump up to crystal springs reservoir those are the closest treatment plants to the reservoir so that's what we're looking . we have looked at and it might

still look that should we take water from san francisco and moveit down the peninsula to san andreas or something like that . it would be abit of a long haul since there's no natural buffering within san francisco , we're looking at that fourth, where it comes directly into the system. >>newsha ajami: let me ask you a different question.what would be the option if we actually did not take that water and put in crystal springs but sort of working with some of the water agencies in the peninsula and having sort of a visual exchangewith them ? i think that way we are not necessarily taking that water and putting it in crystal springs but actually plugging it in to existing systems down there. that way you don't need to worry about losing storage. [please stand by]

hetch hetchy supply, that is how it would work to the benefit of the system. >> right, is that something that you are considering right now? >> yeah, all of these options continue to be on the table and we're trying to narrow down the

options so that we don't study everything all the way through, but those are all things that we are considering. >> okay, thank you. >> president maxwell: anyone else with questions or comments? i have a question. are there any short-term and mid-range projects that we're looking at? all of these are very long. so is there something that is mid, or short range? >> the potential for short-range projects really come down to one more than anything else which is a water transfer, a water transfer, if we could effectuate it with the turlock or the mow desto irrigation -- modesto districts and we tried to negotiate one back in negotiations that failed in 2012. those are -- that has been the best possible water for us because it coming through our existing plumbing. the challenge is for an

irrigation district to, you know, to transfer water to an urban area. it's hard. incredibly hard. but if you get it done, it could happen tomorrow. >> president maxwell: well, that was 10 years ago almost. so maybe something has changed, who knows. >> i want to add when those negotiations fell apart, the general manager lost his job. so it's a little hard -- >> the general manager. [laughter] >> i kept my job. he didn't. >> so it's a little hard to get their attention, but, you're right, there are new board members and there is new staff there. and we continue to talk to them >> president maxwell: great. okay, then thank you very much. public comment on this item.

>> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment specifically on item 7b, the alternative water supply planning quarterly report, dial 1-(415)-655-0001. meeting i.d., 146 747 2515. pound, pound. to raise your hand to speak press star, 3. please note that you must limit your comments to the topic of the agenda item being discussed and do not stay on the topic the chair can interrupt and ask you to limit your comment to the topic. we ask that the public comment be made in a civil and a respectful manner and that you refrain from the use of profanity. please address your remarks to the commission as a whole, not to individual commissioners or staff. mr. moderator, do we have any callers? >> madam secretary, there are two callers wishing to be recognized.

>> clerk: thank you. >> caller, i have opened up your line. you have two minutes to speak on item 7b. >> thank you. good afternoon, commissioners. this is nicole sanqulabot, the c.e.o. i wanted to thank the sfpuc staff for their work on the water supply plan and this quarterly report. as you know, bosca strongly supports the p.u.c.'s work in developing alternative water supplies. this effort and its results are critical to the p.u.c.'s ability to meet its obligations for wholesale customers for reliable supply. especially in light of potential impacts from the plans if implemented. so, again, i want to thank you for the critical work on the report. i will be sharing this report with our manage agencies and with my board members as well. and just as a note to aan aside, bosca special meeting spent

several years trying to pilot a water transfer and we were unsuccessful. so like mr. ritchie said, those types of projects can be very, very difficult. thank you very much. >> thank you for your comments. next caller, your line is open and you have two minutes. >> caller: hello, i want to thank you for focusing on alternative water supplies. there's a figure in this report that i take exception to and it's that the sfpuc would need up to 98 million gallons per day to meet the future demand and the bay delta plan flows. this is a really bad number. and using bad numbers results in bad decisions. some of these projects date back to the water improvement program in 2008, or even earlier, and you have to ask the question -- why after 12 or 13 years have we not made more progress?

i think that the answer is that we don't really need the water. you know, the demand projections for 2018 were 285 and the actual is 196. and it's a lot easier to kill the bay delta plan than to address reality. but the reality is that developing the alternative water supplies would cost $2.5 billion over 20 years. and the staff doesn't want to make a huge overinvestment for water that is not needed. you had a report from the financial auditor earlier. why not hire an auditor to look at water supply, to hear from your staff, and to hear from us and to serve as judge and say, you know, this makes sense, this doesn't. i think would be helpful. i mentioned in my letter last week that the sfpuc could manage the delta plans in place without any rationing or developing new supplies. and i looked earlier today what if you had the same scenario, and if you started rationing at 20% in year three of an extended drought? you could make it through eight

years of the 8.5 years design drought. or even if you think that the design drought is preupt, that makes a lot of sense. and if your own financial division is accurate that the sales are not going to go up for at least 10 years, that makes a lot of sense. and i'll end by saying that there's mistakes made in the past for the 51.74% of the unimpaired flow. and the contractual obligation to follow the irrigation for the speed on fish loads -- >> caller, your time is expired next caller, i have opened up your line. you have two minutes. >> caller: hello, this is susie, a bay area resident. so i'm just concerned, and i hope that the water experts, which i'm certainly not, accept that fresh water is essential to life. so i'm very concerned because it's noted that between 7b and 7a, the comments that were

regarding water and its availability and i think that an alternative plan is essential. but i hope that the vision is beyond just our area, so, like, comments were made that every year is a game-changer. that is certainly true. weather being what it is and looking like it could go if a bad way for us. and at the sacramento and i would say the other areas of our state, there are people that are in worst shape than we are. and so it's concerning that we're going to have water wars in our state. if we're not careful about really protecting our assets of fresh water. so i don't understand how water could be poured into a glass and keep pouring and it overflows and yet we keep talking about growth and growth and growth. i'm not against growth, but i certainly want fresh water without water wars. and we already noted that note s are without water in some parts

of our state. so i hope that the bigger picture is taken into account. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. madam secretary, there are no more callers in the queue. >> clerk: thank you. public comment is closed on item 7b. >> we will go to item 7c, the hetch hetchy capital improvement program quarterly report and katie miller will present this. >> good afternoon, madam president and commissioners. i'm katie miller, the director and i'm here to give a status on the hetch hetchy capital improvement as of the end of the second quart, december 2020. this slide shows the status of the 20 hetch hetchy projects representing $660 million. at the end of the quarter, $178 million was spend and the program is collectively 36% complete. the pie chart shows that four

projects are in planning, four in bid and award or construction, and eight projects are in close out or have been completed. next slide. this table shows a summary of the project costs forecasts compared to the 2018 approved budgets. the projects are grouped in categories by funding sources of water, power, or joint water and power. the cost variances that are shown in red in parenthesis are showing where it's forecast to exceed their budget. as you can see from the very bottom row for the overall program, the program is on track and it is currently forecast to spend $9 million less than the approved budget. next slide. this table summarizes the number of projects that are forecasted to exceed their 2018 approved schedules. as you can see, about half of the active projects are forecasted to complete at least

six months behind their approved schedules. next slide. and now i'll share some project highlights. the design build contract for the moccasin powerhouse generator rehabilitation was advertised in october. at the last commission meeting, we reported to you that there were no responsive bidders and you granted approval to negotiate with all qualified firms for this contract. a second smaller contract to install the new generator step-up transformer units was also advertised during the quarter. but only one bid was received and it was over the engineer's estimate. this contract was readvertised this quarter and two bids are currently being reviewed. next slide, please. for the oceania dam outlook currently in the planning stage, the project team is evaluating the construction sequencing for the three sub-projects.

also being reviewed are the special construction requirements such as the use of divers to access the underwater facilities. next slide. you all recently awarded the mountain tunnel improvements construction project on october 13th, to michael cunnigling for $139. and the notice to proceed was issued in january and the contractor is mobilizing it. requires five annual winter shutdowns of the entire hetch hetchy water system for 90-120 days and much other system work is being coordinated around these shutdowns. next slide. progress is being made on the planning for the san joaquin valve and safe entry project, including a detailed analysis of

the construction sequencing. this project will also be constructed during the mountain tunnel shutdowns over the next five years. the photo shows a removable spool piece that will be installed in several locations so that the pipeline can be safely isolated when workers need to access the pipe for maintenance. next slide. the new moccasin reservoir perimeter fence was completed during the last quarter. the top graphic shows the location of the fence around the reservoir and the bottom photo shows the install appearance of the fence along highway 49. actually did a very nice job and got it done on schedule. next slide. for the moccasin pen stock rehabilitation, the pen stocks received a full external inspection in november. and in january, the pen stocks were taken offline and a full

internal inspection was performed. overall, the pipes were found to be in relatively good condition this data will be used in the condition assessment report to confirm the needs for the future rehabilitation project. and that completes my update and i'm happy to take any questions >> president maxwell: anyone for questions? i have one. is there an opportunity or are we using and taking the opportunity when it's appropriate to put in i.t., to put in smart meters or smart instrumentation so that it's easier -- especially things that are difficult to get to. i am thinking about the pipes and, you know, what we could put in -- there are so many things that you can -- even the generators, you know, how they run and --

>> so where -- where we know of appropriate control systems, that makes sense. and we definitely consider that for example, i formally worked in the water -- in our distribution system in san francisco, and they were installing listening devices on fire hydrants to listen for pipe leaks and breaks. on our larger water system, i don't think that we've gotten to the point of doing that. we usually know when we have leaks or breaks because they're large. and one application that has been very successful is with prestressed concrete pipe. it's a particular type of pipe where it's a thin-walled concrete pipe that is wrapped with a wire. and in a couple of sections of pipe we have installed acoustic monitoring where we have devices that listen for the wires to break. and if we hear the wires break,

then we would go and we would excavate in that particular location and assure that there haven't been any degradation of the pipe and we usually replace a pipe section in that case. so we're really trying to stay on top of what innovations are coming on the market for smarter assessments. our condition assessments, you know, we're trying to use whatever the latest technology is and these particular projects i can't think of where we're specifically putting the devices in, but if i do run across, i'll let you know. >> president maxwell: okay, and especially our big generators that, you know, a lot of things happen when they began or when they, you know, in the middle and to keep spikes, is there anything like that going on? and how do we find out? i guess that you all decide to look, or are there other -- do you get alerted to those things from vendors?

>> in our preventative maintenance plans, we definitely have particular measurements that we take and look for to be alerted, you know, to a pending failure or if maintenance is needed. however, i'm not a specialist on the electrical facilities in particular. but i'm sure that someone could get back and that would be part of our maintenance program and we definitely have very specific factors that we are measuring for to try to be predictive in our maintenance and predictive about failures. >> president maxwell: great, thank you. anyone else with any questions or comments? thank you. seeing none, public comment. excuse me -- i'm sorry -- commissioner moran. >> vice-president moran: thank you. just one thing on the generator question. i know that we do have vibration monitors to make sure that everything is running true. and the other is partial

discharge analyzers which look for electrical leakage that you can't measure in any other way. so that's all technology and that's stuff that i know that we're doing and we're probably doing more now. if you could send pictures of the moccasin water reservoir stuff, and they would be delighted to know that has reached a conclusion. >> yes, that is a very nice idea and we'll make sure that commissioner cane gets some photos. especially with the historic buildings in the background, they really did a nice job. and, yes, i'm sure that margaret hanaford could give you more information on the tools they're using now and the data monitoring that they use for the electrical facilities. >> president maxwell: thank you any further questions or comments? seeing none, public comment on this item. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of

public comment specifically on item 7c, the hetch hetchy c.i.p. quarterly report call 1-(415)-655-0001. meeting i.d. 146 747 2515. pound, pound. to raise your hand to speak, press star 3. please know that you must limit your comments to the topic being discussed and i remind you if you do not stay on the topic the chair could interrupt and ask you to limit your comments to the topic. we ask that public comments be made in a civil and a respectful manner and that you refrain from the use of profanity. please address your remarks to the commission as a whole and not individual commissioners or staff. mr. moderator, do we have any callers? >> there are no callers in the queue at this time. >> clerk: thank you. that closes public comment on item 7c.

>> now we will go to 7d, which is the wastewater enterprise capital improvement program quarterly report with steven robinson. >> good afternoon, chair maxwell and commissioners. we also have ben pool with us today for part of this presentation. this is the quarterly report for the wastewater capital programs from october-december 2020. in the past we've had separate presentations for ssfib, and also for the facilities and the infrastructure program. we've also had separate updates for the major projects as well. so this presentation today will cover all three. and if you recall the last quarterly report was back in early december and then we rebaselined the programs later that month. i would like to try to start as usual with a reminder of the variety of work that we have as construction continues across the city. the photo on the left is the

baker beach green street, that's one of the green infrastructure early implementation projects in the richmond watershed. and this is a rain garden on elk and delmar and you see the pedestrian safety. and this is to capture and to treat the stormwater. in the middle is jackson and you can see they are ensuring safe excavation. and we mentioned this project before, located on the area in front of pier 3 in the downtown area. on the right is the oceanside utilization project. and you can see a concrete pour going in for the foundation of that holding tank. in this next slide this is a familiar pie chart shown in the previous quarterly update. it shows the program status for the 70 projects in the major part of the phase one, the first

part that we initiated. that now represents $3.6 billion which increased from the $2.7 # 9 number and prior to the base landing in december. and last quarter we closed at 46% complete. with this realignment of the schedules due to the process we show this currently as 42.4%. this quarter we were able to progress various projects between the phases as normal and we have in the blue area at the top, 11 projects, pre-construction. in the green, the majority from a money perspective, and 18 projects in construction. and then the gray area to the left is 41 projects in closeout or complete. this table is similar to quarterly report shows a combination of tables at 3.1 and 3.2 quarterly report. it shows the summary of costs for the site as a whole. on the left you can see that

it's broke you know down into phase one that we just looked at in the previous slide. and phase two and 3 priorities. these are projects that were initiated in 2018, if you recall, and also again last year in 2020. the columns across the stop are expenditures to date before capping costs and then the cost variance between the budget and the forecast. the baselining in december we noted how several projects were over budget and behind schedule the baseline process allows to us recalibrate against what is approved in the 10-year capital plan. it means that we have drawn a line in the sand effectively as of december, against which we can now again measure performance. so you do see that zero dollar variance at the bottom right which is what we would expect. if we look at the facility and the infrastructure program and in the same way that we also see that zero dollar variance since we just rebaselined.

there were several projects not aligned with the capital plan and that is now based on updated numbers as these projects have progressed over time. so these are the five active projects in the facilities infrastructure program and there's no change to scope, schedule or budget to report on these. and again a few highlights in just one slide. in this quarter we advertised two contracts and for the stormwater project we're planning to come back to the commission at a future meeting for the construction contract award. since this is one of our projects, we are preparing for the stormwater management of the response to the requests. so we're working on that as we speak. the second bullet and the construction commencing on three projects. and the power feed and the switch gear project, is important to provide electrical power to the existing infrastructure and the future projects in construction like

headworks. and i'm mentioning it here because i visited the site last week and there are real challenges working on this site while maintaining operation 24/7. if you recall that the congestion from the headworks project from our previous presentations, this is right beside that location, making physical space and logistics an issue and a challenge to work with. also in that second bullet the mission street project is one of the first large diameter projects in the s.e.p. it stretches from 16th street to caesar chavez, but we have been in discussions with a committee of the small businesses that have been struggling through the pandemic. so we have carefully undertaken more inspection work of the sewer and concluded that we correctly prioritized it for repair. and we do need to proceed with the work. however, we are working really closely with the community to try to determine how to do the work so that it minimizes the

disruption in these difficult times. the third bullet that we should pause to celebrate these two projects noted for final completion. the project that i showed a photo of the beginning and the new headworks scope 2a. and one more at the bottom is useful. at the last meeting the contract award for the improvement project was approved and the project team has been collaborating with multiple stakeholders to sure that we can stage and deliver this project along the rec park, and the zoo and public works and m.t.a. and we hope to continue to use the space that the zoo has leased us in the past but it's not fully resolved and we're continuing to collaborate and to work through that process. so at the last quarterly meeting there was a request to hear more about the project labor agreement. the p.l.a. so we invited ben poole today to share updates for it. and i will hand over to ben briefly. >> thanks, stephen. good afternoon, president maxwell and commissioners, my

name is ben poole and i'm the acting director of the workforce program services bureau for the san francisco public utilities commission. in 2016, the commission approved an extension of the water system improvement program's existing project labor agreement to extend to the project of the sewer system and to continue to ensure the labor harmony and access to skilled workers in order to complete sfpuc's project. based on that, we wanted to provide you today an update on the impacts of hiring under the project labor agreement, for the sewer improvement program through the quarter ending december 2020. as you will see, at this point in the sewer system improvement program of all of the hours worked by -- of all of the hours worked, 35% of the hours are performed by san francisco residents. this exceeds the requirements of the city's law for local hiring as administered by the office of the economic and workforce development.

64% of the hours worked by apprentices on the program have been by san francisco resident apprentices, again, going over the law with apprentices by the office of the economic workforce development. on the right side of the slide you can see a breakdown of the craft hours and works on visits through december 2020. as you will see, four of the five hours have been worked by four crafts. this is consistent with the sfpuc's other capital programs and projects. while we anticipate changes in the breakdown over the course of the program, it does remain consistent with our other projects. so far the administration of the project labor agreement has been very important to the success of this current program. and we will continue to work to maintain these trends. with that i would like to hand it back to director robinson for the remainder of his

presentation and i will be available afterwards. thank you. >> thank you, ben. we've combined a brief update on the projects into this presentation as well. but just one slide for each to keep it brief. for biosolids and this is the same forecasted project and schedule that we showed last quarter. no change. scope one, if you recall the demolition and the relocation work with substantial completion and relocating those utilities and demolishing, the buildings, that is cleat. and redesign in 2020, and that is the work after the cost reduction efforts from a year ago that required some significant redesign to save costs. and notice to proceed for scope two. the new lease for the remainder of the construction work was issued and the start of that excavation and shoring up the foundation work that we have looked at and now, of course, that is ongoing. and then we have been talking

about towards the last couple of the quarters of the last quarter year to facilitate that safe construction. that occurred on january 4th as planned and we did give notice to the community and other stakeholders. and so that went ahead on january 4th. so far, so good. we have been getting good feedback from people and making sure that we can adapt and adjust, but if people have concerns they could reach out. but so far that seems to be a relatively successful process. and for the excavation and the work on solid pretreatment, the water on the ground is from the recent rains and during that period. next project is the new headworks facility project. and, again, the same project budget and schedule that we showed last quarter. there's an item on the agenda for today for an amendment to that contract. as far as status, scope 2a, we

have mentioned earlier, and it's complete. a completion in november of last year. and the main scope three headworks itself, and it was completed. and these were also a result of the cost reduction efforts. and insulation of that temporary bumps and piping and the modifications is ongoing and it must rehabilitate the existing pump station. so keeping our flow 24/7 is the challenge so there's a temporary pump station there. we have our staff here but at the moment as of march 4th, 3 97 of the piers have been installed. and you can see the subsurface work, similar to what i showed last time. and it shows the grid handling areas and the piers and the steel bars are exposed and you

can see the drain system installed underneath the slab. we use a long reach excavator for this constrained footprint. and then lastly but not least, is the 1550 evans. no change. we have completed structural, and the topping off ceremony held on december 11th. great to see that milestone. and visiting the site last week to see how much it has progressed and commenced with the decking and the continued insulation of utilities and even some of the internal walls and construction going on. and the main site itself is sealed before that wet weather commenced as of 3 december. so this photo is a little bit outidated but to see it last week is impressive. with that it concludes my presentation and i'm happy to take questions.

>> you're on mute. >> president maxwell: mr. paulson -- >> commissioner paulson: i just have some comments and as i said under the previous report, i think that just making sure that we understand, you know, all of the different things that are rolling out and, you know, hetch hetchy and the wastewater and everything else and to get these reports are just very helpful. i want to point out because i'm going to be mentioning this at least a couple more times during the course of this commission meeting is that, you know, when it comes to workforce development and making sure that, you know, all of these great projects that seem to be moving to the spots that i think that we want them to be for the most part, you know, they are being done under the same issues

of economic justice and workforce development that has been, you know, an incredible, you know, policy discussion, you know, throughout. and not just the city, but, you know, california and throughout the yesterday. and to see the metrics that were presented in this report that san franciscans, you know, in particular, you know, in the southeast part of san francisco where most of this work are done are getting those jobs and that, you know, the super majority of the apprentices -- and i make an emphasis on apprentices, you know, are from san francisco also. because this is generating -- this is generating jobs based on public money and taking care of what they're supposed to be doing, which is one of the many agencies which we at p.u.c. are stewards of. and so i was just very pleased to see those numbers put together and i really want to make sure that those are noted,

because this is not -- you know, this is not, you know the end game. this is -- this is a discussion that's going to come up under the racial equity report that we're going to hear next and it's also going to have some comments about, you know, the exterior piece of outreach that we have when we talk about item 10. but i definitely want to point out that besides thanking, you know, the two previous presenters through giving us the update is that the workforce development stuff is at least in this report is very up to the standards that we are trying to move. i'm done. >> president maxwell: thank you commissioner harrington, thank you. >> commissioner harrington: thank you, madam president, and thank you, mr. robinson, for the presentation and also all of the

work that is being done that we see in the presentation. i particularly wanted to commend you for the sensitivity on mission street, you know, that has not ever recovered from when the park was tore up years and years ago when they rearranged the preferential streets it caused such havoc. so whatever you can do to keep those people going that are trying to survive -- we really appreciate it. >> thank you, absolutely. >> president maxwell: any further comments or questions? seeing none, then public comment on this item please. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment specifically on item 7d, the wastewater c.i.p. quarterly report, dial 1-(415)-655-0001. and meeting i.d. 146 747 2515. pound, pound to raise your hand to speak press star 3. you must limit your comments to

the agenda item being discussed and if you do not stay on the topic, the chair can interrupt and ask you to limit your comments to the topic. we ask that the public comment be in a civil and a respectful manner and that you refrain from the use of profanity. please address your remarks to the commission as a whole and not individual commissioners or staff. mr. moderator, do we have any callers? >> madam secretary, there is one caller waiting to be recognized caller, i have opened up your line and you have two minutes to comment on item 7d. >> caller: commissioners, good afternoon. i want to comment briefly on this item and specifically the projects that have been mentioned under this item. i want to bring up to your attention one simple fact --

look at the list of l.d.e.s that have been allowed and i stress the word allowed, by invitation to participate in these contracts. i have a list of emails from the last three years that i have been trying to reach out to the contractor and to meet with them and to find out what possibly there is for an l.b.e. firm to work on these contracts and i get absolutely no response. zero response. i'll tell you why. because there's someone by the name of wayne jones who is a gatekeeper. he's a gatekeeper because he is working with benjamin poole and they are making sure that only certain firms. one of those firms, i believe that one of the owners just passed away and that's unfortunate, and, you know, god bless his sowm. but what i want to ask is how benjamin poole will take this

one again? will he find a replacement or open up those opportunities for other contractors? see, when we talk about the costs of fraud that we heard today in the report, this is what's happening. you are limiting who can bid on these jobs. you are reducing the pool. you are fixing the pool. that results in one thing and one thing only -- the price goes up. it has devastating effects on the rest of the businesses in san francisco. so if you wonder why the companies are leaving this city, this is one reason. now can you imagine what is the dollar cost associated with these actions? you've got benjamin and jones, and they could not be -- >> thank you, caller for your comments. your time is expired. madam secretary, there are no more

>> clerk: that closes public comment on item 7d. >> president maxwell: before we go forth i would like to thank the staff and your report. i thought that it was well done and good critical information. we had an opportunity to ask questions and dialogue. and i want to thank the people who gave the report, but i also want to thank those behind the reports. again, thank you very much, well done. thank you. all right, next item. >> next item is business services racial equity action plan. as you recall, we did a department-wide racial equity action plan which we submitted to the city at the end of december. but you have to remember that each part of the plan there's a plan for each bureau and enterprise. and my goal is basically to have those people that actually prepared the plan to come before you and to share the plan with you. so this is the first one and i'm going to ask eric sandler to introduce the plan and his team who will be presenting. >> thank you, mr. carlin.

president maxwell, commissioners, my colleagues and i are here to share with you our developing the action plan. business services are responsible for customer services and financial services and information technology services and strategy, innovation and change. we're an organization with just over 270 employees and a number of us work in 525 ordinarily, but we also have a lot of field employees who work at locations throughout our service area. mr. carlin told you about the organizational racial equity plan. what we want to do here is to share with you the process that our team went through, what we learned from the process of developing the racial equity action plan, and highlight the three models that compromise our proposed plan and then also to

discuss a little bit of the implementation approach which emphasizes the fundamentals of change management. a couple things to highlight before i turn it over to my esteemed colleagues, what we're talking about here is a draft plan. the timeline for the office of racial equity deliverable was very tight. and so we have a draft plan that was developed by a team within business services, but there's a significant amount -- we haven't done broad engagement within the business services to validate that plan. so we know that the engagement has to be thoughtful and well executed and we have employees that have had some painful experiences and there can be some distrust and skepticism association we want to do this work right. and so this is a little untraditional, but we're going to be presenting this as a team and, you know, the racial equity action plan is all about centering voices that you don't necessarily hear from

day-to-day. so i think this is a great object lesson experience. so i'm going to turn it over to brandon nelson who is in our i.t. group and is the racial equity lead for business services. brandon. >> thank you, eric. and good afternoon commissioners. my name is brandon elton and i work in i.t. services and i serve as racial equity lead for business services. i'm here today to share the process and learnings from business services, racial equity action plan. so initially we began our efforts individually. but after deep review of the office of racial equity template we realized that we needed to come together to develop a plan that was representative of what our bureaus really needed. and as a result we conducted planning workshops. not only did we pause to meet three hours per week, but we decided that we should include

our develop liaisons because so much of the phase one office of racial equity template focuses on the processes that our department liaisons interact with on a daily basis. and as a non-manager within business services working with our leadership team closely for the first time, i was impressed by how readily eric and the management team agreed to make this extensive planning effort a priority. collectively, we believed that we had to land on a common understanding of the problems being addressed in the racial equity action plan to come up with solutions that felt right. and here are some of the impressions that we received from our team. so with our overarching long-term goal to facilitate lasting change that will feel inclusive and meaningful to our bipoc employees, we understood that we needed to take time to do this work. and so we all underestimated

what was needed to develop the plan, and it was only once we made time weekly that we came up with some good ideas. and working together as a group led to a better result. and to that end we also recognized that this is change management on a big scale, and how we roll out this plan is as critical as what we work on. next slide. and so the next few slides we'll cover business services proposed program modules which are the key elements that make up our racial equity action plan. we have bundled the three areas listed here of culture of inclusion and belonging, career growth and access to opportunity, and barriers to entry for external candidates. all drawn from the office of racial equity template and which cover components that we in business services have the ability to improve and

implement. this is with nancy hann representing financial services thank you. >> good afternoon, president and commissioners. nancy hann. as an asian woman with a blended family and a demanding, fulfilling career that i am fiercely protected over, this first area of our racial equity action plan resonates with me. the critical that our organization foster inclusion and belonging. this begins from the top-down and flows through to every corner of our organization. the sfpuc has a diverse worse force comprised of many ethnic backgrounds, in addition to the diversity that extends to the demographics and socioeconomics such as age, gender, education, and economic and other factors. as an organization we must acknowledge this diversity and recognize our current and future personnel for what makes them unique. while providing them a

culturally safe workplace that treats everyone equally and fairly. sfpuc can support in their careers and beyond. there's three steps towards a culture of inclusion and belonging. the first one is educating all managers and supervisors on racial bias. setting that foundation of what our organization and the executive team expects from leadership as we manage our teams and lead by example. secondly, fostering employee engagement by including those who are black, indigenous or people of color or referenced as bipoc to define what inclusion really means and also building a mentorship program that is accessible to all staff and provide career-building student opportunities. thank you. i would like to turn over to the director of customer services next. >> thanks, nancy. good afternoon, commissioners. the director of customer

services. the office of racial equity action plan mandated many initiatives to support growth and access to opportunity. this slide summarizes how the business services propose to support this effort, including assessing promotional trends to identify opportunities in career advancement, formal training, and access to cross-functional assignments. it also includes more proactive efforts to publicize the job openings, to develop the promoted paths and to decrease the barriers affecting our bipoc staff. one of our statistical goals in customer services is to invest in our people. our objectives include technical and in-house training, customer service skills as well as cross-functional training within the customer services. this investment in the internal growth of our staff results in promotion opportunities as

proven by many of our managers and supervisors who started from the ground up. on a personal note, i myself have started from the ground up i have been the director of the customer services for the past 21 years, and i started as a counselor 25 years ago. so this initiative to support the growth and the access to opportunities is something that we have already been doing and we will continue to do, not only in customer services but in all business services. thank you. i now would like to pass it on to our deputy c.f.o. charles farrell. >> thank you, marge. good afternoon, commissioners. the third module noted here focuses on work barriers to entry for external candidates looking for sfpuc job opportunities.

and of course as a hiring manager i would like to make sure that the candidate pools for recruitment is as wide and deep as possible. so the first two areas of work noted here is on examining the barriers to entry. to that sfpuc job opportunities this includes reviewing both the development of candidate pools as well as examining the hiring process itself and the references to the work that are noted here on this slide. the second area surrounds work to improve the building of that important pipeline of new, diverse talent for the agency. the sfpuc has several internship programs, so we will be looking at how those internship programs actually translate into entry level employment. and also we'll be looking at rotational and training opportunities for the interns that are on the programs themselves.

so with that, i will pass the presentation on to trisha yang, the director of strategy and innovation and change. >> thank you, charles. and good afternoon, commissioners. as eric mentioned earlier, the three modules that joaquin just went over right now are systemsimply a starting point. we want to engage our staff to make sure that the work that we carry out is truly what will make a difference. we also recognize that we as a leadership team have much to learn, and we need help upscaling to do this work effectively. how we do this work is just as important as what we carry out. for this reason, we have developed an implementation plan that begins with the careful set-up and assessment of our draft plan in phase one, we want to make sure that our approach is aligned with the sfpuc-wide approach that includes engaging a consultant to build affinity groups of staff in just the right way. we will also develop a project charter inclusive of the

objectives and values and these work streams here to formalize our commitment to this work in phase two, we focus on engaging staff and using their feedback to refine our plan and objectives. only with this engagement can we develop a plan that effectively addresses the need. and this is phase is about listening and refining our plan based on what we hear. this is not a phase that we intend to rush. it is one that we need to take care to do just right. in phase three, once we have a plan in place, we focus on resourcing, making sure that we have a dedicated team, enough budget, and other elements to be successful. these first three phases in blue are our foe focus for 2021. the our approach to make sure that we have a fit-for-purpose plan. the next two phases in orange are about delivery, monitoring and measurement and continuous improvement. a critical and potentially -- the most important element here is the orange arrow at the

bottom that focuses on cultural change. we want to be deliberate about all aspects of stakeholder engagement to work with care on what we communicate, how we communicate, and how we listen, and bring staff ideas into this work, and how our collective values may need to adjust. and we know that it takes time for new programs and ideas to stick and we expect the change management work to continue for many, many years. overall, we want to move forward with the flexible attitude knowing that there's much to learn as an organization as we do that work. with that let's turn back to eric for a final slide. >> mr. shandler, you are muted. >> thank you, commissioners.

thank you, team. i just wanted to bring the presentation to a conclusion and talk a little bit about what we've been up to and some of the next steps. we partnered with the racial equity team at the p.u.c. to develop the racial equity budget proposal that you have reviewed and adopted on february 9th. we are helping to develop the scope for consultants to assist with staff engagement, to deliver some leadership training and bias training, and then also to validate the plans for resourcing and the schedule. we're aligning our work as trisha mentioned with the sfpuc racial equity program. and then just a couple of details. for example, we have a high-level retirement and business services, the c.i.o., that is retiring and we're doing an extremely thorough job and an intentional job identifying the requirements for that position and ensuring that we have really

deep and thoughtful outreach to develop a really diverse candidate pool for that position. just the other day -- yesterday -- i approved a number of internship positions and a group that provide the opportunities for new folks to learn and to grow and to develop and to potentially to find a spot permanently with the p.u.c. so that concludes our presentation and we're happy to answer any questions that you may have. >> president maxwell: thank you colleagues -- yes, commissioner ajami. >> commissioner ajami: great presentation and i want to thank all of the staff who took the time and worked on this and presented. i actually -- eric, i have a question which is obviously this is -- this is something that a lot of the different entities

are seriously working on and trying to address. and it's definitely a very important issue. you know, i'm glad to see that we are sort of leading the way in different ways. i'm just curious to know, has anybody -- or any other staff or the team that's working on this have looked into, you know, other entities that are out there that have been more successful in promoting and if there are any lessons learned or opportunities there that we can learn from? and i just -- you know, there's no reason to reinvent the wheel, but it's always good to start from somewhere that you have knowledge on. so i'm just curious. >> yeah, i do think that is one of the efforts related to finding, you know, the consultants to find people who have done this successfully in

large organizations. i do know that some of our team, like the business services team, have colleagues who are very well regarded in this space. and, you know, one of the things that they have talked about is, like, success -- one of the inputs that we have heard is that success really depends on initial engagement. and really trying to develop an environment of trust where people feel free to speak their mind about what their experiences are. and i'm not sure, trisha, you had -- you had had that discussion with someone that you know who is an expert in this area and perhaps you can -- >> yes, hi, everyone. so i do have some prior colleagues who have been in this field for about 15 years and we did seek some feedback on how do we start. how do we do this in a public institution as big as ours. and one of the biggest, i guess that the most consistent feedback is engagement,

engagement, engagement. start off by developing affinity groups. and make sure that you have someone in there that knows how to facilitate these things because there's so many sensitivities. one of the other pieces of feedback is to be specific about what your organization, and how it's comprised and what the diversity looks like so with you are engaging you're not leave anything group out. so that you are really listening to what the reality is. and we can get very, very specific there. so, again, given that we have that as a first place to start, that's what we focused on in the first phase is to get someone in to help us and to figure out how to get those affinity groups right. because that will give us a lot of feedback on how to proceed and to have purpose. >> commissioner ajami: so the affinity groups that you are considering, are they open to everyone, but focused on one sub-group? or is it only specific to that

sub-group, and, like, all of tho belong to that group will be attending that meeting and if would not be open to others? and the reason that i'm asking is that it's just personally i'm always wondering what's the best way to approach this. is it better to have other people to come and to listen and learn? or is it better to talk among ourselves and never have an opportunity for others to kind of engage in the conversations as they happen? so i'm just wondering how you are approaching that. >> that's exactly the same question that we've had. (please stand by)

and have a chance to engage with the public. >> commissioner paulsen? >> so this is the first implementation of this program that this committee is engaging in, and i'm incredibly pleased that this is something we're getting into. it's something -- i'm a little bit more on-line with the favorite writer that i have [inaudible] who just basically

said that, listen, if we are not engaged, we're not going to get anything done, and sometimes just the fact that you make the decision and you make the engagement, [inaudible] you're going to be stopped from winning, and any course that we talk about here is going to be making equitable an organization as we can be. i guess that's my long way of saying i'm proud that the team has been devoted in an h.r. way to put this thing together to incorporate this into how we are going to make this organization to continue to look like the society we are, no matter where the equity divides might particularly be, so that's just sort of my

litmus saying -- litmus way of saying thank you, staff, for engaging in this as well as you do. >> thank you. any other questions or comments? mr. moran? >> i want to say thank you. we've put this together under the guidelines of the city, and as commissioner ajami has stated, we're trying to put this together in the confines of other cities, how they're doing it, and we're going to fight very hard to make sure this stays in the budget as we

go through the board of supervisors because without the resources, it's a hollow gesture. we need to have the resources to make it real, so thank you for what you're all doing to make this real. >> thank you to your team for your commitment to this important issue. it'll make us a stronger, better business entity. thank you. >> next -- next issue -- yes, q. >> actually, call public comment for this item? >> yes, public comment. thank you. >> members of the public wishing to make public comment on this item, 7-e, racial services equity plan, dial 415-655-0001, meeting i.d., 146-747-9255, pound, pound. to enter the public comment

queue, press star, three. we ask that public comments be made in a respectful manner and please refrain from obscenity. we ask that you frame your public comments to the commission as a whole and not to public staff. operations, do we have any callers? >> madam secretary, we have one caller in the queue. caller, i've opened your line. you have two minutes. >> this is [inaudible]. i want to be very frank. what are we talking about here because this topic has gone way out of wire.

we have a mayor, we have a disgraced former general manager, we have a disgraced former city administrator. we have a disgraced public works director. this is inclusion. what did we get out of it? scams, scandals, and fraudulent transactions. what we're talking here is before we start implementing any kind of solution, we need to examine what we have, and many [inaudible]. let's take the fact that there are two lawsuits involving san francisco, one is a class action and the blunder of building low-income homes on a nuclear point known as hunters point. now let's examine who's behind it. the politicians that i just named, the disgraced politicians that i just names. let's take another thing.

let's take [inaudible] and let's take benjamin. could you tell me how many lawsuits have been filed against those two individuals, and all we have to do is just go back to the controller's office and see the files that have been filed against [inaudible] by a former consultant who happens to be an african american female who worked with him, and she came up with statements that i can't even mention it to you here. this is your staff, this is the corruption, this is the discrimination that you call it, inclusion. if we start treating every human being as a human rather than what the color of their face is, then we wouldn't have these problems. commissioner ajami, i can't talk to you permanently, but i would tell you this: none of the stuff that you see is implementable, serious. i've been doing this for years and years -- >> thank you, caller. your time has expired.

next caller, your line is open. you have two minutes. >> commissioners, i've been listening to you all. there's a lot of racism going on, racists. they cannot be uprooted. finally, you don't need to be a rocket scientist. if you read title six, and you read every aspect of title six,

over 10,000 complaints have been filed by sfpuc, and you guys are stabbing them in the back. we need a change, but we need a change from the heart. the heart is not in the right place, we cannot go to a better place. racial equity are two words you don't know the etymology of. thank you very much. >> thank you for your comments. madam secretary, there are no more callers in the queue. >> thank you, that closes public comment on item 17. >> and that finishes the report of the general manager. back to you, president maxwell.

>> thank you very much. well done, everyone. thank you so much. next item, please. >> clerk: next item is item 8, new commission business. >> new commission business for discussion? seeing none, next item, please. >> clerk: madam president, your next item is item 9, consent calendar. all matters listed hereunder constitute a consent calendar are considered to be routine by the san francisco public utilities commission and will be acted upon by a single vote of the commission. there will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the commission or the public so requests, in which event the matter will be removed from the calendar and considered as a separate item. madam president, we did get a request to remain items 9 a, b,

c, d, and h from the consent calendar. >> are there any commissioners wishing to have items removed from the consent calendar -- wait a minute. we have to have public comment. we have to have public comment on those items. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment specifically on consent calendar items d-c, d, f, and h only, dial 1-415-655-0001, meeting i.d. 146-757-2455,

pound, pound. please stay on the topic, and if you do not stay on the topic, the chair can stop you and ask you to comment on the subject matter. we ask you to please keep your comments respectful and not to use profanity. please comment to the commission as a whole and not to individual commissioners or staff. mr. moderator, are there any public callers? >> operator: madam secretary, there is one caller in the queue. i've opened your line, caller. you have two minutes. >> hi, commissioners. this is [inaudible] again. i was the one calling in requesting the consent calendar be moved to give us an opportunity to comment. i have details on these contracts that are going forward right now, and it

clearly shows a disregard for the l.b.e. program by c.m.b. now c.m.b. are paid by the p.u.c. they're not independent. they are paid by the p.u.c., p.u.c. money. and the l.b.e. is a private program as we have seen it for the last couple months, of how companies that do not qualify, companies that are not licensed by the state of california, that have been getting the majority of the work. now what's funny is how c.m.d. has selectively omitted their memorandum for the consideration of these contracts. you need to address your staff, and you need to direct them to include a complete list of the l.b.e.s and why they have been eliminated from these contracts. the other contract, you can see

that the amounts are 20%, and one is 7% because they're, again, limiting who can bid on these jobs. so if you limit them, the only way you can correct it is by lowering the percentage from 20 to 7%. can you see the detrimental effects of a rogue department called c.m.d. on local business enterprise? just close your eyes for one second, one second, and if you cannot see it, all i can say, i'm sorry that you cannot because this is so obvious we're dealing with a corrupt agency, a corrupt office that has been fixing contracts for the last 20 years. every single one of them came in from s.r.c. >> operator: thank you for your comments. madam secretary, there are no more callers in the queue.

>> clerk: thank you. madam president? >> public comment is closed. then on that item, it's been motioned, it's been moved. may i have a second on the items left? >> second. >> may i have a second? >> second. >> it's been moved and seconded. roll call vote, please. [roll call] >> clerk: you have five ayes. >> thank you. >> clerk: madam president, would you like me to read the items that were removed? >> yes.

>> clerk: 9-a, approve modification to job contract 50 r-2, increasing the contract duration by two years for a total of five years with no change in the contract amount. item 9-e, approve an increase of 96 calendar days to the contract duration contingency for contract number ww-696, car go way flush line, and authorize the general manager to approve future modifications to the contract for a total contract duration of up to 536 consecutive calendar days, with

no change in contract amount. and d-g, approve an increase of 739,624 to the contract cost contingency for contract number ww-700, as needed suer cleaning and inspection, with pipe and plant solutions, ink corp. rated, and authorize the general manager to approve future modifications to the contract for a total contract amount of up to 2,773,5 # 8, 8, -- $2,773,588, with no change to the contract duration. >> all right. public comment on the items presented? >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment specifically on consent calendar items 9-a, b, e, and g

only, dial 1-415-655-0001, meeting i.d. 146-747-2515, pound, pound, to raise your hand to speak, press star, three. please note that you must limit your topic comments to the agenda item you discuss. we ask that public comment be made in a civil and respectful matter and that you refrain from the use of proceed fanity. please address your remarks to the commission as a whole and not to individual commissioners or -- profanity. please address your remarks to the commission as a whole and not to individual commissioners or staff. moderator, do we have any commenters? >> operator: madam secretary, we have no callers. >> clerk: thank you. public comment on the items are

closed. >> i've asked to see the contract compliance division to come and give us a presentation on this so that we have a clearer idea of what's actually going on. >> president maxwell, would you like the presentation to address the information that we received in an e-mail? >> yes. >> all right. then i'll turn it over to them. romulus, could you address the information that we received yesterday in an information? >> yes. commissioners, romulus [inaudible], my staff and i are available to answer any questions that you may have, but in the meantime, i can speak to the specifics to these questions. so with regards to 9-a,

joc-50-r-2, that was for modification for any increases in contracts that go beyond 20% of the contract amount. so in this case, that was a contract modification for a time extension only. so our need to document any approval was not necessary under the ordinance. on top of that, this project is only -- has expended $15,000 on this as needed joc contract out of the 5 million, so it's a relatively small amount of expenditure thus far. for 9-b, joc-76-r, they've

provided the [inaudible] of so far. any current l.b.e. percentage achieved to date of 13%, so that particular contractor is meeting their requirement. for 9-e, ww-696, again, this modification is for time extension only, so therefore, like d-a, a review and approval by c.m.d. was not required. for 9-g, ww-700, it was only for your permission to allow for giving -- giving the general manager permission to expend more money if they needed to for a contract modification, so if and when a contract modification does occur, we will, depending on how high it is, we can provide

a -- we would be providing a memo per the ordinance. pending any specific questions, i'm open for your comments or questions. >> mr. paulson, commissioner paulson, do you have any -- no. anyone else have any comments or questions in this regard? all right -- >> i just had a quick question? >> yes. >> i'm just -- i'm wondering why, on g, we need to -- and again, since i'm new, i haven't seen this report. but i'm wondering why, on g, we need to do this, and we're not -- like, every other item that we have, why we can't approve it when it's needed? >> good afternoon, commissioners. this is kathy howe, a.g.m. for infrastructure. usually, we like to make sure we have the contingency ready

because the construction is on going. and so when the city construction management staff negotiate with the contractor, and they reach agreement, if it exceeds the contract amount, it takes us a long time to then try and come to the commission to get approval for the amount that needs to be added to the contract, and then, we take a couple months. so what ends up happening is we cannot pay the contractors, so we negotiate change order work unless we have this contingency work approved in advance. >> was there an example of that, i believe, of the one at the zoo that somebody had been working for a while, and we had to catch up to them because they had gone on and done the work? is is that kind of an example -- is that kind of an

example of that? >> yes. we did come and ask to the commission to ask for forgiveness because we didn't get to it in time. >> i'm wondering how much [inaudible] just out of curiosity -- go ahead. >> i was going to say, usually it takes two months to get an item calendared, ready before the commission for you guys to actually see it, and so the negotiations happen on a constant basis during the construction. >> and how long the negotiation takes generally? >> it depends on what the item is or what the issue is. sometimes it can go on for weeks. sometimes it goes on for weeks, and other times, it just takes a day or two.

like, if they're asking for extra rain days, that's an easy one, because in our contract, we will say hey, we'll allow ten rain days. in our contract, all we have to do is say hey, we agree to this number of rain days. or if we have a contractor that gets tickets for how much concrete is being poured, there's no estimate, and it's a pretty easy to change the change order, but when there's not, it's not easy, and it becomes a back and forth negotiation. >> commissioner harrington, did you have a comment? no. okay. thank you, then. thank you, miss howell. all right. colleagues, any further comments or questions on this item? then may i have a motion to move these items forward -- motion and a second?

>> so moved. >> second? >> i'll second. >> thank you. it's been moved and seconded. roll call vote, please. [roll call] >> clerk: you have five ayes. >> thank you. it's been moved and passed, approved. next item, please. >> clerk: next item is item 10, approve the project learning partnership grant program and program rules, and authorize the general manager to solicit applications, award, and executive to 20 project learning partnership grant program grant agreements with a not to compete grant amount of 150,000 per grant and a duration of three years per grant, for a total program expenditure not to exceed

1,800,000 over the three year period. presenters -- [inaudible] >> i believe the project learning grant opportunity is the type of work that really changes lives and tilts trajectories. this project is good for business, it makes good economic sense, it aligns with our agency's mission, and it has social imperatives which demonstrates our continuing commitment to communities and the promise of what this country can be. as this process proceeds, we will circle back to the commission and share who was awarded and what they're doing, and i think this is something that the commission would appreciate and possibly even celebrate. additionally, it will provide another layer of transparency and accountability for such an impactful program, and with that, i'll turn it over to

simone to give the presentation. >> thank you so much, ronnie. good afternoon, president maxwell and commissioners, and i'm proud to share with you the project learning partnership grant program. next slide, please. so this program supportsist examining summer and academic year grant programs to integrate learning programs on water, power, and sewer concepts. next slide, please. so at the core of this is the project-based learning on water, power, and sewer services. during our current grant cycle, youth have participated in in-depth learning experiences on p.u.c. concepts, including the importance of safe and reliable water resources, renewable energy or systems, combined sewer systems and flood management, and so through research and

interactive activities, youth have developed a meaningful understanding of the important of utility resources and the investments needed from all of us to protect the environment and public health. next slide, please. so to date, and since 2012, more than 3,000 youth have engaged in meaningful projects through the sfpuc in this grant program. and in our most recent competitively grant cycle program, we implemented environmental and justice-related youth programs, as i just described. they participated in our annual futures fair, a summit focused on youth utility career awareness and exposure, and we reached over 400 youth per year with sfpuc-related programming. next slide, please. [please stand by]

-- through this program we also developed a range of deep partnerships and relationships with grantees and with the youth throughout the city and that really bolsters our work in so

many ways. next slide, please. we have a few exciting data points to share from our most recent grant cycle. so in that most recent grant cycle, nearly 40% of our participants come from district 10, with the highest number of youth coming from the 942140 zip cope. and 32% identify as black or african american and 1% as asian and pacific islanders and 1% as latinx. and in our most recent grant cycle we have about an even gender split amongst the youth participants, about half reporting and identifying as male, half as female. next slide, please. so our proposed new grant cycle is a competitive bid process to award grants in order to integrate this project-based learning curriculum that is so

essential, relating to the sfpuckoir programs and granteesl use light the funds to implement the project-based funding and to have educational experiences and have a youth survey and accomplish other grant deliverables. next slide, please. we have a few youth testimonials to share. again, we're really builting on the success of our most recent grant cycle in bringing this item to you today. next slide, please. that concludes our presentation and we'd be happy to take questions from the commission. thank you so much. >> president maxwell: thank you how are we doing with these programs? >> the majority of our program

grantees are in the san francisco area. i tang we have an opportunity of expanding this type of program, to service the folks in other counties and that's something for us to explore as well. >> president maxwell: any other questions -- yes, commissioner harrington. >> commissioner harrington: i noticed that part of this is awareness and part is about careers. are you connecting with baywork for those of you that don't know baywork is an organization that helps to include most water and wastewater agencies if the bay area and they work with community colleges and others. we go out to high schools and other plateses to talk about possible careers and the kind of training that you need to be ready to have a career in water and wastewater systems in the bay area. so are you connecting with them? >> that's an excellent question, commissioner harrington. i work very closely with baywork and being on a few of their committees. i think that is also something

that we can explore. currently, baywork has been looking to do a regional apprenticeship program in the development of that, and a lot of their work lately among the 40 water/wastewater providers have been in the south bay and the north bay. but as they do engage in san francisco and in our service territory areas, we definitely do work a lot with them. >> president maxwell: commissioner paulson. >> commissioner paulson: well, i have a couple comments. and one, i will start off by saying a great presentation and, you know, i'm enthusiastically to make a motion or at to least support it as we move forward. but i want to say a couple thicks and i will use this platform to talk about workforce development. because workforce development, whether we're talking about youth or getting into the community, or just talking about, you know, the issues that

are involved with, you know, moving people into jobs, has been incredibly politicized. you know, part of what i have done for a living, first of all, when it comes to support, when it comes to the total budget of this enterprise, it is, you know, less than 1%, okay. because a lot of people have talked about oh, my god, all of this is getting thrown away and there's corruption and whatever else. we're not talking about the work that is getting done. we're talking about is workforce development. and, again, i would probably make some type of request at some time to talk about workforce development, because i would like to know that when there is workforce development

attached to a lot of the contracts that are moving forward, that we know who they are. and the reason that i say that is because i asked a very simple question, not knowing the answer. you know, a few meetings ago, by the way, since the agenda said that there's a lot -- you know, this is big on workforce development and we're very happy and whatever and i just said, well, you know, who is in charge of this stuff. because what it comes to workforce development, there's failure just inherent in what that means. because it starts from a point of view that, you know, there are people that engage and they are involved in the economic system as long as and as intentionally as others are. so, in other words, the folks who decide that they're going to try to push and to try to

[broken audio] there's going to be failure in there anyway. there are some people that are successful and there are some that are not successful, there are some organizations that are competent, that are some organizations that are not as competent. and i'm going to want to know, you know, who -- you know, who is involved in this stuff. and this isn't directly, you know, related to item 10, which i think that is small grants on a great system but as to how we move forward. i don't want to have to be part of anything that we do, though transparency is the most important thing. we hire intelligence people here at the agency and i don't want to be looking over their shoulder every damned two seconds like some people might, because we trust that professionalism is going to move to where it's going to go and we

have elections. we live in a democracy where, you know, we are training and hoping that the folks that are dealing with our agencies and our government are going to do this stuff that we're doing. but i am going to, after talking with the staff and maybe legal, find out a way in which in the midst of the transparency and in a lot of the hoopla that we hear about workforce development, that we have a way of saying, oh, by the way, who's going to get, you know, on a $20 million project, or a $50 million project, who is going to get $100,000 to reach out? because this is in bayshore or whatever else. you know, without micromanaging as we move forward. so i think that is something that i -- i would like to finiss something that i would like to be able to bring up, i'm not going to bring it up officially right now because i'm going to support the item that's there.

but, you know, i got all kinds of crap, you know, for asking a very simple question. you know, just a while ago, that i frankly, didn't know the answer on. and people said oh, you're trying to mess with somebody or you're trying to start somethin i just want to deal with transparency. and i want to make sure that we -- if we're going to get people into good jobs, that we are smart about who we help to get folks into those jobs. and pro motion within our agency. >> president maxwell: thank you, commissioner. yes, commissioner moran. >> vice-president moran: thank you. the question -- i could not tell in reading the item whether these grants were going to be funding that is existing the programs or whether they were going to fund the creation of new programs. so the question is, is this money creating new

opportunities? or are we funding existing programs? >> so -- i'll let you start and i'll close out. >> thank you, ronnie, thank you for this question, commissioner this program is funding the existing youth programs to integrate project-based learning and other activities into their existing programs. so whether those are summer programs serving youth already in existence, or after-school programs that already exist, we're really resourcing these organizations to integrate meaningful learning on water, power and sewer concepts into those existing programs. ronnie, would you like to add to that? >> well, actually, not anymore. i think that you answered that completely. so that works for me. thank you. >> president maxwell: i thought that i saw in-school programs as well? >> more like after-school type programs.

>> president maxwell: after-school. >> yeah. >> president maxwell: thank you >> vice-president moran: if i can follow up on that -- does that mean that we're funding a curriculum change or are we actually changing the inclusion of more people in the training? >> i would say that we're funding the inclusion of more youth being in programs that implement curriculum related to the p.u.c. >> vice-president moran: okay. i think that's the answer. i just want to make sure that we are not supplanting some existing funding but we're relying on money that can be used effectively on the edge to increase programs and to increase the number of people served. that's my interest and i think that you just said yes. >> correct, commissioner moran. >> president maxwell: thank you and commissioner ajami. >> commissioner ajami: and maybe you mentioned it and i missed

it, but have you been tracking what happens to people who attend this -- you know, activities or programs? and if any of them have decided to go into, you know, to follow on on the studies related to water and energy? >> we have varying levels of success in our tracking ability part of the difficulty in tracking youth is that we're not always able to capture their demographic and personal information to do that, right, because they're with other programs. nonetheless, where we are able to do so, we have seen pretty solid through lines for young people being engaged in this work and then in turn getting connected to the internship opportunities that are available, i.e. project pool and, you know, other programs across the city that take place. and then those that are

after-school programs sometimes they connect to other programs that are available through the city, through other internships so whether it's the mayor's jobs plus program. >> commissioner ajami: i want to add that i really enjoyed reading this and i really enjoyed your presentation. i think that, you know, the fact that the water sector, especially since that is the sector that i have worked in a lot and it doesn't get enough young people into this, is that it is definitely sort of disappointing to me personally to see. and i think that part is because people do not understand what it takes to bring water to them and what happens afterwards. all of the wonderful things that happens in between. and the potential changes that we're going to see in the sector with a lot of, you know, data and sort of the revolution that we have seen in the sector. so i think that any opportunity that we can to take advantage of

to bring more enthusiasm to -- for this kind of sort of carrier change or trajectory change, i'm a big fan of. but i think that it is really important. and i know how hard it is. so i'm just saying this cautiously because i have been part of a lot of different programs that it's easy to say that we have some very good metrics and you have to know where people are going. and it is challenging. i know, but just for the sake of making sure that we can always sort of have a way of measuring our success, it would be good to find a way to track these people, these students and the young people, and to see, you know, how this changes their career and the future. thank you both. >> i wholeheartedly agree, commissioner. and we're working with our data

team. >> i would say that it could be done and we need to do that. it can be done. if we can put all of these sensors everywhere else we can certainly get the kids. and i would also like to find out if we ask them how the -- how the program is for them, it's a product. so we can ask them how is this product for you. what can we do to make it better. would you be interested, does this make you more interested? what can we do to make you more interested? and also are we also considering talking about watershed keepers that's extremely important, because, you know, we saw today people calling about a burn, but also there's housing associated with that. and really we just purchased this ranch and there was a

2500-square-foot house on it that somebody is going to be able to get and it's going to be a family. and all you have to do is to be a water keeper, which subject aa small thing. we need these people. we are in a bind and we're going to be in one more of them so it's not just la la land, we have a great place to work and we're going to make it better. so i think we should do a commercial and say come on down, you know. anyway, thank you very much for that. any further discussion? yes, commissioner harrington. >> commissioner harrington: i wanted to formalize what we said here. now or later? >> president maxwell: why don't we do it after we close -- later. just a little later. thank you. any further comments or questions? >> sorry, president maxwell, i

want to say that i agree with you, i think that it's important to track these people. and the reason that i mentioned that i have been a part of a lot of the national funding sources that they actually do end up doing all of these annual surveys to survey people. and i think that is definitely a model that you can follow. but we should also be very mindful of the fact that you may not get 100%, you know, tracking. but even if you can do 70%, that's wonderful. because at the end you know more than you knew before. i think that one thing that you mentioned, president maxwell, that i think that is very important is the diversity of jobs that people can have in the water sector is quite broad and i think that is really important to highlight. it's just not sitting behind the computer and you can actually be in nature and working with nature. and there's so many other things that we can do and i think that it's important for the young

people to know all of those opportunities. >> and i want to say just because we all are having a good time, you know, talking about how great this is -- which it in you talk about jobs -- i want these as a commissioner to be good jobs. i don't want somebody to just have a job and they're making less than minimum wage, you know, working in the field, or on the computer. you know, and just making, you know, a wage that is not sustainable. you know, i mean, the idea of having a career that, you know, might be involved with utility work and water work, you know, is one thing. but making sure that you can, you know, support yourself or your spouse or a potential family has got to be part of that also. and that's part of -- you know, i talk about workforce development and it's like, yeah, you get somebody spun through

the system and maybe they get into some job with some contractor that may or may not pay good wages. and that is not an end goal that we should, you know, be, you know, putting on a metric unless there's some other attachments as to what kind of job that is. so, you know, again, we're talking a million some dollars and there's going to be these great pilot -- i consider these pilot programs that people are going to -- we're all going to feel comfortable about, hopefully, when we get whatever reports we get in the future. but they better be good jobs and make sure that people are going to be, you know, moved in the direction that is going to be sustaining, not just -- not just, you know, arbitrary. >> president maxwell: all right, thank you for that. maybe it is time now, commissioner harrington, for your amendment. thank you all very much for your

presentations. we appreciate it. thank you. >> commissioner harrington: thank you, madam president. and this relates to what we were talking about, and it shouldn't be surprising. one of the further resolve that the administrating -- administering this grant program, the sfpuc staff should work with the baywork initiative, number one. and, number two, that further resolve that the general manager is directed to provide the commission with periodic written reports on this program annually, with the names of the organizationing seeking the amounts and the amounts granted and the indicators of performance by the grantees and the participants. so we find out how we're spending this and what the results are. >> president maxwell: thanks. thank you. all right, then may i get a motion -- a second on the amendments. public comment.

>> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment on item 10 dial 1-(415)-655-0001. meeting i.d. 146 747 2515. pound, pound. to raise your hand to speak, press star 3. please note that you must limit your comments to the topic of the agenda item being discussed and i remind you if you do not stay on the topic that the chair can interrupt and ask you to limit your comments to the item topic. we ask that the public comment be made in a civil and respectful manner and that you refrain from the use of profanity. address your remarks through the commission as a whole and not to individual commissioners or staff. mr. moderator, do we have any callers? >> madam secretary, there are two callers in the queue. >> clerk: thank you. >> go ahead, caller. i have unmuted your line.

you have two minutes. >> caller: good afternoon, commissioners. i will address this item number 10 and i want to bring your attention to the earlier comment that is related. i did mention about another consultant who happened to be an african american female who have worked with the p.u.c. and was sickened by what she saw and how she was treated by the gang. and i am sorry to use that term but there's no other honest description than his gang. so the story goes that that this lady -- i personally interviewed her -- very professional. she knows what she's doing, she knows what inclusion is all about. and she has done above and beyond and i stress this word -- i'm sorry? above and beyond her responsibility to address exactly the same items that are

in the item that you discuss right now. what happened to her? she was told to basically shut up, this is a song and dance by the p.u.c. none of the individuals that she trained -- the unprivileged ones that she trained to put them on a construction project told her that none of them will get a job. and i'm quoting here. everything that i'm saying is sitting on the controller's desk. the files, the investigation -- >> president maxwell: excuse me, caller. caller this is a project -- you are not -- so please speak to the item on the agenda. it's about the project learning partnership grant program. >> caller: that's what i'm talking about. >> president maxwell: well, it doesn't sound like it. >> caller: i am talking about -- i am talking -- i'm giving you

an example of what you are describing here in this item. if you please allow me to discuss it but you keep cutting me off. you have an item in front of to you give grants to non-profits to go ahead and whatever you want to do with it, right? i'm giving you a previous example of exactly -- the exact same project that went nowhere. you are spending $1.8 million over three year period to do what? to train what? you have already had those training programs and it was a scam. is that clear enough for you? >> next caller, your line is open and you have two minutes to speak to item 10. >> caller: can you hear me now? >> loud and clear.

>> caller: great. good afternoon, david filpel again. i have no particular issue with this proposed grant program or the expenditure. my question and i would appreciate if one of you could direct this to francesco or whoever is the deputy city attorney at this time, is does charter section 4.104a1 of 10 days of notice for rules and regulations apply here inasmuch as part of this calendar item would approve the program rules? whenever i see rules or regulations, you know, i'm reminded to go back to charter section 1.104, if it applies and if the required 10-day notice was not given, then i urge you to postpone this. and if it does not apply, i think that you can probably take action today. thank you very much. >> thank you for your comments.

madam secretary, there are no more callers in the queue. >> clerk: thank you, that closes public comment on item 10. >> president maxwell: thank you francesca, could you answer that question, please. >> good afternoon. you have not -- we have not historically applied charter section 4.104 to when the commission is adopting new grant programs or offerings. with this action this is offering an r.f.p. for grant solicitations. your action does technically include approval of what the rules for grant eligibility are going to be that are going to govern this grant program. but that has not been traditionally the type of rules that we have said that the 10-day rule applies to.

>> president maxwell: thank you all right, colleagues, may i have a motion to approve and a second, please. >> i make the motion -- >> president maxwell: excuse me we have to go back to the amendments. may i have a motion and a second on the amendments. >> so moved. >> i'll second. >> president maxwell: thank you now as amended? may i have a motion and a second on the item as amended. >> i'll move. >> don't we have to go down the amendment? >> clerk: yes we will vote on the amendment and then the resolution as amended. so on the amendment [roll call]

you have five ayes. >> president maxwell: thank you, commissioner paulson and as amended. >> i make the motion and i want to make a compliment. thanks, chair, for trying to steer something that, you know, is supposed to be, you know, succinct at the issue that was on hand. because that is, you know, that was the right way to move forward instead of people weren't talking about the issue so thank you for recognizing that. so i make the motion, madam president >> i'll second that. >> president maxwell: all right so moved and seconded. madam -- roll call on the amended item, the item as amended. >> clerk: the item as amended [roll call vote]

you have five ayes. >> president maxwell: thank you next item, please. >> clerk: next item is item 11, approve the modification number 4 to contract number ww-628, increasing the amount by $91,749,642, for a total contract amount of $490,251% 749, with no change to the contract duration. and authorize the general manager to proceed with the construction phase of the rehabilitation of the existing southeast lift station and revised odor control facility. this is presented next. >> good afternoon, commissioners and president maxwell. i am a senior project manager for headworks project and i'm a district 10 resident. i have been working for sfpuc for 20 years on various wastewater projects and programs

and other aspects. i do agree with you, president and commissioner maxwell, and that it's one of the best places to work on this planet at funk funk. i plan to -- sfpuc and i continue to work here. on december 22nd, 2020, this commission authorized to us proceed with planning and design of two revised components, the southeast pumping facility rehabilitation and the system. and we work with our san francisco planning department to analyze ceqa for those components and that we come back to this commission with project approval and authorization for the general manager to proceed with the construction phase. i'm here today to provide an update on those two requirements and to ask your approval of the project and authorizational funds to proceed with the

construction phase of these elements. i have a brief presentation. so if we can go to the next slide, please. i would like to take just a few quick moments to remind all of us of the main objective the headworks project. as the name suggests, headworks is the first step in the wastewater process and known as the preliminary treatment. the primary objective of headworks process is to remove debris and grit in the combined flow that enters into the plant from collection systems. the efficient removal in any treatment plan is the most important aspect of well-designed and operated treatment plants with new headworks we'll have 95% plus removal, where the current removal is around 50%. in addition, part of the commission's endorsed level of service included the drastic improvement in odors and noise and the visual quality of the

treatment plant. we'll address this in the new headworks facility project. to consistently to comply with the permit capacity of 250 million gallons, and we are constructing a facility with reliability and professional flexibility. last but not least we live in earthquake country. and the new facility has been designed for controlling seismic events of magnitude 7.9 earthquake, occurring on san andreas fault as endorsed by the service requirements. next slide, please. next slide, please. the headworks project is being constructed while we make sure that we continue to comply with making treatment or meeting the capacity of 250 million gallons this does require us to phase out and to sequence the construction work with multiple slopes.

the slide has three scopes of work. scope one was site preparation that required us to make space for new consolidated all-weather headworks by demolition and to constructing temporary ability for 100 million gallons per day and the scope two is the upgrade for 150 million wet weather facility. and the scope three is the main headworks with the two revised components that we talked earlier. both scope one and two a as we reported earlier, our direct or reported have been completed. and we had 2.2% on scope one and 4.2% on scope a which is lower than we see on the traditional projects. i would contribute that to the good work by the headworks project team working to control

the change orders to those stages. part of the sequencing and the design of the project we had made commitments that we will maintain two-way traffic lanes on both directions on the avenue. one of the things that we worked early on on the constructability and we limited the risky alternative of having deep sewer crossing the 7th avenue and w connecting with the pump station to the all-weather pump station next slide, please. part of the process that we have been able to get builders' input during the design and being able to concurrently design and to construct the various project elements. on the left side of the slide is the depiction of the new 15 million gallons per day lift station. this was the project configuration until december 201 to reduce the overall cost of the construction and headworks team developed alternatives,

working with wastewater enterprise to rehabilitate the pump station in lieu of building a brand-new lift station. that required us to relocate the odor control facility. the current configuration is shown on the right side image as it stands currently. next slide, please. on scope three we have awarded 23 packages of 59 plant total packages. the 23 awarded packages to date include some of the largest packages such as concrete package, the remaining 36 packages are similar in size and 23 packages that you talk about, but they are still subject to market conditions. i have shown here a couple of pictures from just a few days ago of the ironworkers working very hard preparing for concrete pour in coming days for the foundation system of the

building areas. next slide, please. we work with our bureau of the environmental management and s.f. planning department and provided information about those redesign components. the s.f. planning department approved minor project modification on january 26th, 2021, and no additional ceqa review would be required. in conclusion, we are requesting today to approve two elements as a part of all of the headworks project and authorized the general manager to proceed with construction phase of elements described earlier. in addition, we have been coming to this commission for progressive release of the construction funds as we complete the ceqa analysis. the $91.7 million today is going to facilitate us to continue scoping scope three project elements.

next slide, please. and this is the latest rendering of the two scopes that have been redesigned and it's going to look really beautiful once we are done. with that i'm happy to answer any questions that you may have thank you. >> president maxwell: any questions or comments? seeing none, thank you very much for your presentation. thank you. public comment on this item. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment specifically on item 11, dial 1-(415)-655-0001. meeting i.d., 146 747 2515. pound, pound. to raise your hand to speak, press star 3. please note that you must limit your comments to the topic being discussed and if you do not stay on the topic that the chair can interrupt and ask you to limit your comment to the topic.

we ask that the comment be made in a civil manner. please direct your remarks to the commission as a whole and not to individual commissioners or staff. mr. moderator, do we have any callers? >> madam secretary, there are two callers wishing to be recognized. >> clerk: thank you. >> i have opened up your line, caller. you have two minutes. >> caller: good afternoon. i'm directing you specifically in regarding item 11 and specifically the document that was included as part of the packet. i mean, i just simply cannot believe what i'm seeing here. one l.b.e. is listed for labor, basically to provide labor. this is exactly the same item that i have tried about three

years ago with c.m.d. to get certified for -- exactly the same item. so this is how the discrimination works on city contracts. i apply for it and i'm a licensed contractor and they would not give it to me. and they actually gave me the run around. and the same c.d.b. that stood in front of you 15 or 20 minutes ago could not answer a simple question -- a very simple question. yet you are approving contracts where the l.d.e.s are approved and businesses are run out of the city, and you're allowing a rogue c.m.d. to do what they want to do. he couldn't even answer it. i am speechless. how do you allow companies to be there in certain aspects and you deny for exactly the same aspects for others? isn't that called discrimination? if not, please explain to me.

maybe i'm an idiot and i don't understand what the meaning is of being discrimnative and you're paying for it and this is what they're doing. it's clear. black and white. nothing more into it. is this part of your inclusion plan? it's a simple question. >> thank you for your comments. next caller, your line is open and you have two minutes. >> caller: can you hear me now? >> loud and clear. >> caller: okay. david pelgel again. so one follow-up clarification on item 10, the item 10 resolution has the wrong date in paragraph 5, whereas clawdzs, if you could -- clause, if you could find a way to fix that, that would be great. on item 11, the staff report

refers to an environmental review document dated january 20th of this year, 2021. and i cannot find that document why is it not attached to the staff report? the planning department website has documents on this project in three different locations, but not the january 20, 2021 document. any other related documents that explain the scope change that i think that should also be attached to the staff report. i continue to support this important project but i don't know why getting these ceqa documents is so hard. if you do approve this item today, please have the planning department post the relevant document and send it to me going forward. i would like the ceqa documents referenced by case number and date in staff reports and resolutions with long documents linked and short documents attached to the staff report. and thank you. during these times, the government should make it easier for the public, like me, to

participate, not harder. thank you all very much. >> thank you for your comments. madam secretary, there are no more callers in the queue. >> clerk: that closes the comment on item number 12. >> president maxwell: thank you may i have a motion and a second to approve this item, please. >> i make a motion. >> second. >> president maxwell: so moved and seconded. roll call vote, please. >> clerk: [roll call vote] you have five ayes. >> president maxwell: great. next item please. >> clerk: next item is item 12, accept contract number wd-2799, approve the modification number one, final decreasing the

contract amount by $146,685 for a total contract amount of $693,740, and a total contract duration of 225 consecutive calendar days and authorize the final payment to the contractor it's presented by howard fung. >> president maxwell: thank you >> good afternoon, president maxwell and commissioners. howard fung, the manager of the project management bureau. this contract provided protection at 13 locations on our existing well to steel pipeline, some dating back as far back as 1930s. the system will help to protect approximately 14,000 linear feet or typically around 30 city blocks of our larger steel transmission water mains. the cathotic system will extend the use of our buried pipelines from corrosion am so it's based

on the sacrificial anodes that we install that act as the metal to corrode instead of the metal in the pipeline. thereby, protecting the pipelines. construction was successful completed, however, the contractor was p.m.ized by c.m.d. for not substantially complying with the l.b.e. sub-contracting requirements. included with the agenda are two attachments. the first is c.m.d. resolution memo. which describes the process and the penalty amount assessed. and the second is the c.m.d. closeout memo in which c.m.d. concurs with the closeout of this contract. i'll be happy to answer any questions that you have -- may have on the construction work. >> president maxwell: thank you any questions or comments on this item?

thank you, seeing none, then we will open up for public comment >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment on item 12 call 1-(415)-655-0001. meeting i.d. 146 747 2515. pound, pound. to raise your hand to speak, press star 3. you must limit your comments to the topic being discussed and remind you that if you do not stay on the topic, the chair could interrupt and ask you to limit your comments to the topic. we ask that you refrain from the use of profanity. please address your remarks to the commission as a whole and not to individual commissioners or staff. mr. moderator, do we have any callers? >> madam secretary, there is one caller in the queue. caller, i have opened up your

line. >> caller: commissioners, this is ali, i'm directing this item of azul works. azul works, as you might remember, is one of the companies -- one of the l.b.e. companies that have been indicted by the federal government for corruption, bribery, and this is how things work in san francisco. what's interesting here and i want to go back to our famous c.n.b. let's look at the report that is included in the packet. it has one l.d.e. listed and a 20% requirement. even with that 20% requirement, the original bid only accounts for 19.63. a small fraction, no big deal. but let's see how much this l.b.e. did, it's from 3.1. from 20% to 6%. with the c.m.b. this is the work that you'll be

approving and let it go. now what happens here? they got fined about $4,700. can you imagine -- hey, i'll tell what you, i'm willing to take a contract and get paid for it. fine. and that's a deal of the century. and who is behind it? c.n.b., again and again. azul is a company that has cut their work from the city and the county of san francisco paid for by the public money by paying bribery. you know what bribery is? okay. now you understand what the costs of bribery is? that was mentioned in the kpmg report, this is the cost of bribery. this is the cost of fraud that everybody wants to close their eyes and say, nope, it did not happen. thank you for your time again.

>> thank you for your comments. madam secretary, there are no more callers in the queue. >> clerk: thank you, public comment on item 12 is closed. >> president maxwell: may i have a motion and a second on this -- to approve this item, please. may i have a motion and a second to approve this item, please. >> i'll move it. >> second. >> president maxwell: thank you it's been moved and seconded. roll call vote please. >> clerk: [roll call vote] you have five ayes. >> president maxwell: thank you, next item please. >> clerk: madam president our next item will be closed

session, which i'll read the comments. >> president maxwell: yes, in closed session. >> clerk: yes. the items to be heard during closed session are item 15, law lewis hernandez to pay the claimant $65,202 and to are lease all claims. item 6, farmers insurance exchange s.a.o. joe espinosa, versus the city and county of san francisco. $60,000 and claimant to release all claims. item 17, receiving advice from the city attorney regarding existing litigation in which the city or the petitioner and pg&e is an adverse party. if you wish to make public comment on these items, dial 1-(415)-655-0001.

meeting i.d. 146 747 2515. pound, pound. to raise your hand to speak, press star 3. note that you must limit your comments to the topic of the agenda items being discussed and remind you that if you do not stay on topic that the chair can ask you to limit your comment to the topic. we ask that public comment be made in a civil and respectful manner and that you refrain from the use of profanity. address your remarks to the commission as a whole and not to individual commissioners or staff. mr. moderator, do we have any callers? >> there are no callers in the queue. >> clerk: thank you, public comment on closed session item 15 and 16 and 17 is closed. >> president maxwell: great. may i have a motion and a second on whether to assert the attorney-client privilege. >> motion. >> i'll second. >> president maxwell: thank you

roll call vote please. >> clerk: [roll call vote] you have five ayes. >> president maxwell: thank you then we will go into closed session. thank you. >> clerk: please stan

>> supervisor peskin: we'll be joined by vice chair supervisor rafael mandelman. mr. clerk, do we have any announcements? >> clerk: yes. comments or opportunities to speak during public comment are available via phone by calling 415-655-0001. the meeting i.d. is