>> good evening this is the meeting of the san francisco commission on the environment and the time is 5:07 p.m. cell phone pagers are still prohibited. please turn devices off. due to the health emergency, the commission on the environment meeting room is closed. however, commissioners and department staff will participate remotely. this precaution is taken pursuant to the state wide stay at home order and all orders, decorations and directives.

to comment you can call 415-655-0001. interact -- access 187 814 4525. when connected dial star 3 to be added to the queue. (roll call)

>> president stephenson: next item please. >> clerk: item 2 president's welcome for discussion. >> president stephenson: good evening everyone. the commission on the environment acknowledges that we occupy the unseated homeland who were the original inhabitants of the peninsula and understand the connectedness of all things. we honor them for their enduring commitment to mother earth as the indigenous protectors of the land and in accordance with our traditions, they have never forgotten their responsibility as the care takers of this place and for all people who reside in their traditional territory. we recognize we benefit from working on their traditional homeland. as uninvited guests we wish to pay respects to the ancestors, elders and relatives of the

community. as environmentalists, we recognize we must embrace indigenous knowledge for how we care for san francisco and all its people. i want to take a moment to note today is the one year anniversary of the death of george floyd. as we focus on environmental goals, it is important to heal our communities and create a city and planet where all can live whole, vibrant and sustainable lives. so another climate action month is in the books and while we were hoping to be in person, i felt the community came together to rally around exciting new climate commitments. whether you're interested in gardening or chemicals, the department was able to reach a wide audience, a benefit of virtual programming. i was able -- sorry, i have a cold. i was able to join the earth day celebration and hear from

familiar voices, including the president of the board of supervisors, the american indian cultural district and the san francisco climate coalition. i can't think of a more exciting way than to celebrate with a bold new climate commitment from mayor london breed. not only was it incredible to see the logo up on the screen at the chase center, it was exciting to hear her reinforce the role to fight for the climate. the timing couldn't be better to hear about it tonight and proposed updates to chapter 9 of the environmental code. as i look forward to supporting incredible organizations through the zero waste grants. i'd like to note we will be hearing items 8 and 9 on the agenda together to have a full discussion of both topics at the same time and be sure to call for public comment on each item individually. and finally, congratulations to

commissioner wan who was sworn in earlier today. any public comment on the president's welcome? >> clerk: i will share the instructions for making a public comment on the screen. we'll take a quick pause in case anyone wants to call in.

i'm not seeing any callers in the queue. >> president stephenson: next item please. >> clerk: approval of minutes on the march 23rd draft meeting minutes and this is for discussion and possible action. >> president stephenson: commissioners, do i hear any discussion or a motion to approve the minutes? >> so moved. >> president stephenson: is there a second? >> second. >> president stephenson: seconded i think by commissioner wan. is there any public comment on this item? >> clerk: i will share the instructions for making a public comment on the screen once again. please remember to press star 3 to be added to the queue and comments should be related to the approval of minutes.

i'm not currently seeing callers in the queue. we'll take another pause. i'm not seeing any callers in the queue. >> all right. let's go to a vote on the item please. >> clerk: all right. i will call the roll call vote. (roll call vote) the motion passes. next item. item 4 general public comment. members of the public may

address the commission with items not on the agenda today. >> president stephenson: open up for public comment. >> clerk: i just shared the instructions for making a public comment on the screen for anyone joining on web-ex. you will have three minutes to make your comments. i am seeing we have one caller in the queue. so i will pull up my timer. i will unmute our first caller and their three minutes will start now. >> good evening commissioners. as you probably all know, in the residential neighborhoods the rear yards are the greatest source of tree canopy in the city in the residential neighborhoods throughout. more so even than golden gate

park and the other parks. what i have noticed in the residential neighborhoods, new projects, particularly dense -- density, the lots in our neighborhood are having full lot excavations and losing the natural rear yards because with the full yard excavations, they have to put in a lot of cement for shoring for the adjacent property because everything is so close, so it becomes like a cement outdoor bunker when this happens. not only are trees and growth being lost, the soil is being replaced by all these concrete bunkers and retaining walls and the thing is, at the planning commission, when the projects are approved, they really have no oversight or jurisdiction on what happens in the rear yard, other than the structure doesn't

go too far out into it. i think it's something that i hope you will talk to the planning commission about as well as bic. maybe that's in their area, too. i didn't realize you had item number 9, if i'm talking out of turn, i'm sorry. i think it's something that needs the be looked at and someone needs to figure out who is going to be responsible for what happens in our rear yards, especially if the policies to add density in the neighborhoods to proceed. it is happening already. that's it, thank you. take care. bye bye. >> thank you for your comment. >> clerk: i'm not seeing additional callers in the queue. >> president stephenson: all right. public comment is closed. next item please katie. >> clerk: item 5, presentation

of the commission on the environment tiffany chu and discussion. >> president stephenson: tiffany chu joined the commission for two years and benefitted our city and our climate. she brought a valuable perspective from her background in urban planning and design and dove into all aspects of the department. she helped to make systems more equitable and now working with more than 350 cities around the globe. commissioner chu realizes that addressing transportation is a key component to solving the

climate crisis. i personally benefitted from her expertise in planning insight as she asked important questions in committee and full commission meetings. i'll miss having her here and our loss is seattle's gain. i want to express gratitude and present tiffany with the award. commissioners, would you like to add anything? just a reminder i can't see you all because of the center screen. if you want to raise your hand using the raise hand function, that would be the best way to call on you. mike sullivan, i can see you. commissioner sullivan. >> commissioner sullivan: i'll just second everything you said chair stephenson and seattle is

one of the few places that does environmental stuff a second before san francisco. if we're not the first, it is often seattle. i'm hoping that soon to be ex-commissioner can let us know when there's good stuff going on in seattle. >> president stephenson: director raphael. i see your hand raised. >> i finally figured out how to raise my hand. tiffany, i can't believe you moved to seattle. so, we do like to say that we are part of the access of good here in san francisco, the access of good being california, oregon, washington and british columbia, seattle is definitely part of the axis of good and we share things but we do have a bit of a competition. i have to say, it is great for seattle but i'm going to miss

you. you have been a phenomenal commissioner. your curiosity, your integrity with which you bring your intelligence to thinking about where we are now, where we need to go, have we thought about these things. i just really love the way your brain works and i have so enjoyed getting to know you these last couple of years and i feel a little sad because one of them we had covid. i hope you stay in touch and continue to work together and you remember us fondly as the commission that could and commission that does and commission that really believes with all its heart in what we're doing and you're such a big part of that. >> president stephenson: any other comments?

tiffany chu, would you like to make a statement? i'm sorry. commissioner bermejo. >> commissioner bermejo: i want to briefly echo the sentiments about having commissioner chu on our commission and she was always eager to step up and represent us well and just very good. our loss is seattle's gain and i do hope you remain in touch with us and let us know what you're doing and come visit often and who knows, now that we can travel soon, we may come visit you as well. >> president stephenson: thank you commissioner. all right former commissioner chu, would you like to share anything with us? >> commissioner chu: yes, gosh, i wasn't expecting such kind words even though it's only been two years, i felt it was a

completely new experience to be on this commission and be so close to debbie's leadership and obvious her lead, the staff in a department that most cities around the world would die to have. so honestly it's been a pleasure and privilege and honor and thank you to everyone i have had the chance to work with and listen to and learn from. i invite you all to visit seattle once the time comes, we'd welcome you with open arms and a lot of the experiences i've had here on the commission are informing my community engagement and involvement in my new community. thank you so much. please keep in touch. >> president stephenson: any public comment on this item? >> clerk: i will share the instructions up on the screen for making a public comment.

please be sure it is related to the agenda item, the environmental service award to tiffany chu. press star 3 to be added to the queue. i'm not currently seeing callers in the queue. we'll take a pause. >> can i say one last thing to tiffany? so because you see a virtual image of the award but you will be getting a hard copy of the award wherever katie can get

back in the office and get the physical award in the frame and send it to you. i'm hoping you gave katie a mailing address. that's it. >> president stephenson: next item please. >> clerk: all right. there we go. moving on to item 6. presentation of the commission on the environment environmental service award to dan flanagan and this is for discussion. >> commissioner sullivan: i'm delighted to present this environmental service award to dan flanagan, retiring as executive director of friends of urban forest. i have been lucky to work with dan and see him make a difference. i have been involved myself with friends of the urban forest since the late 80s and i can say without a doubt, since that

time, no one has made a bigger impact or done more for the urban forest than dan flanagan. planting almost 14,000 street trees and focusing on neighborhoods underplanted and beyond street trees to sidewalk gardens for a total of 217,000 square feet of concrete converted to urban greenery. and dan has been a member of the council for 10 years and served as effective chair since 2013. there's one more thing on dan's list of accomplishments that is probably the most impactful and that was the campaign to pass prop-e in november of 2016. dan was at the center of that successful campaign. prop-e passed with 79% of the vote and thanks to street tree

sf and dan, all of san francisco's 125,000 street trees are getting the professional care they need. i'm pleased to join colleagues in thanking dan for his work and leadership and accomplishing all of the above with his humor and grace by presenting him with this award. director raphael, would you like to say a few words? >> i would. thank you commissioner sullivan. dan, you -- i like to say one of my favorite phrases is wherever i go, there i am. dan, wherever you go, you bring this sense of fashion and determination that is infectious. i have been around the table -- many tables with you, where we were brainstorming, problem solving, determining what our priorities need to be, what our next steps need to be, and you

have this ability to invite people in with you and while you invite them in, to push them forward, to push them to acknowledge what they're capable of and what is needed in the immediate situation. it is a phenomenal combination and very effective. the foundation that you are leaving of the organization is so strong and it is strong at a time that we really need to think about our urban canopies, biodiversity and nature in the city. your impact on this city will live on for hundreds of years because of everything you created and the capacity that you have left for us to run with. so i'm super grateful for the 13

years you decided to spend with friends of the urban forest. frankly i know wherever you go next, there you'll be and whoever you partner with next is going to be really lucky to have you. congratulations dan. >> commissioner sullivan: dan? i don't know if any of the commissioners have additional comments. >> i do actually. i'm the lucky, lucky homeowner who has the tree in front of my house and great sidewalk gardens as well. and what was interesting about that experience, before i was even on the commission, what was interesting, it made me clue into where i see these planted throughout the city and what neighborhoods they're in. i have a 9-year-old and 5-year-old now and it's such a part apparently of the conversation i have about our tree in front of our house, my

kids when we go around the city now rake on this street doesn't have enough trees. this street has so many good trees. i like this street. and they'll complain about four garages in a row with no place to put a tree and it's 100% because of the efforts and i appreciate your hard work through the years and the legacy you are leaving across the city. thank you for your service. any other comments from commissioners? public comment please. >> clerk: i will put instructions for making a public comment on the screen. please remember comments should be related to environmental service award to dan flanagan and comments can be three minutes. give me a second.

i'm not seeing any callers. we'll take a brief pause. i'm not seeing callers in the queue. >> president stephenson: dan, we would love to hear from you parting knowledge or words of wisdom to leave us with. you're muted. >> don't have anything more to add -- i was blown away by the kind things and wonderful things and debbie, what you said about me is i really want to write that down. i want to remember that.

i don't see myself that way. anyway, it has been an incredible ride. i have loved working in conjunction with the department of the environment. and i go back 10 years now and one of the things that you say i did all these things and i remember one comment i read one time, dan flanagan planted 60,000 trees -- >> president stephenson: i think we lost you, dan. dan, if you can hear us, you may want to try turning off your video. okay. i can see you.

but we can't hear you. if you try to turnoff the video, maybe the sound will come back on. >> can you hear me now? >> president stephenson: yes. >> okay. okay great. thank you. thank you. i loved working with the department of the environment. i had an incredible team. i had incredible history with the council, it had an amazing reputation and brand throughout the city and when you say i did all these things, it was a bunch of folks that made all these things happen. and commissioner stephenson, when you talk about how your kids are so excited about trees now, that's probably the coolest thing i have heard in a long time. that is truly where it is important. and the mere fact that 13 years

ago, i think that i would never in my wildest dreams would think the department of the environment would focus on trees and their climate action plan, that is such an important move and i had to thank you all for understanding the vital role that trees have. and i think that you folks are on the cutting edge. i have worked with peter, katie, gordon, all of them have been incredibly high quality folks. a lot of the things i have worked on, it's because of them. thank you all and keep up the incredibly important work. i'm note going anywhere, still live in san francisco but i want to take a breather and i don't want to worry about budgets and making -- asking for big amounts of money. i'm looking forward to reading and running and writing. >> president stephenson: thank you for your service.

>> thank you. >> president stephenson: next item please katie. >> clerk: moving on to item 7 discussion and possible action to approve resolution file number 2021-03-coa. the speaker is shawn rosenmoss for development and community partnerships. resolution filed 2021-03-coe and spending recommendation and the staff memo for discussion and possible action. >> president stephenson: all right. director raphael. >> this action item is one of my favorite kinds in our commission process where we get to enjoy the work of others so broadly. one of the most wonderful things

i did in the past few days was read the list of who is getting funding on the zero waste grants. after i read it, i just thought there's a deep culture of zero waste across san francisco. it's not limited to a very narrow cross-section of our city. these grants you're going to hear about reflect the and not the or in terms of environmental benefits. yes, they are all based on zero waste, and the benefits beside zero waste are phenomenal for each one of them. the last time we came before you was may of 2019. it feels like a lifetime ago. since that time, grantees have been working and delivering and new have applied and now we present you with a summary of the applications, our best assessment of which projects are

going to be funded and ask you to take action. some of the things you see are familiar names and some are new, as it should be. with all of that, we have alexa and shawn and right now you're going to hear from shawn. take it away. >> thank you. hello commissioners. it's wonderful to see you. so first, just some background. we issued an rsp on march 5th and had slightly over a million dollars to give out in grant funding. we promoted it to at least 1500 organizations. a lot were happy to forward it for us. we received 23 zero waste proposals and four proposals for youth education. we received 27 proposals,

totally about $2.7 million. so it was highly competitive and we have fabulous community-based organizations working in san francisco as you know. we took it down to 14 zero waste organizations and i will tell you about them a little bit. i know you have a long agenda. i will try to be quick. debbie used the word about their accomplishments, i'm proud of them but part of it is and did i say i know them, because i do. i'm going to talk about the organizations a little bit because they do amazing work. the asian pacific community center will get to work in funding in sunnydale housing

development to work on zero waste. it's a big issue there. they have been granted funding and we're excited to have them on board again. next. and then the bike hut. it is also an incredible program, they repair bikes. they take bikes out of the landfill that would normally go to landfill. not only do they keep them out of landfill, they train youth on repairing bikes. they do work force and youth development. so, again, fabulous organizations. next. the california product stewardship council will work with us to figure out some way to try to keep textiles out of landfills. this is a huge issue for us with landfills. it has gotten worse with disposable culture. clothes are inexpensive, they're going to work with the goodwill,

work force development to come up with processes to keep clothes out of landfill. next. charity training youth on waste chinese american kids from chinatown and they'll go out and work with their parents and other people in the community to train them on zero waste. so, again, youth development, work force development but youth involved in the project will get some payment. a great wrap-around program. next, we have farming hope. they have been feeding thousands of people since the pandemic started. food security was an issue and

became a greater issue with the pandemic. so they are going to be working on keeping stuff out of the landfill, but trying to come up with a process so instead of giving food out in disposable containers, they will be recyclable containers that can come back and be reused. and it is connected to restaurants all over san francisco. not only will they use this, this will help us get a foot in the door to work with restaurants the adopt this of using reusable to go materials. next. garden for the environment. we have been working with them for so long. we just love them. they are going to work on training people in composting and doing backyard composting. in addition to the composting,

they train these gardening masters and they have trained over a thousand people over the years who then go out and train a lot of other people. so you're getting a theme here. we're webbed all over the city. zero waste. they're going to be giving out -- they're going to set up at places that people go and leave waste and working on training people on where things go, making videos, doing some pr stuff. some youtube videos and instagram stuff around here's where plastic goes. here's where compost goes. and they're going to be all over the city doing this. and they are new. we're excited to work with them.

next. san francisco market corporation. you may know this as the san francisco produce market. right in bayview. they will be taking produce that doesn't sell and get that into the hands of people who really need the produce. so, wrap around again, food insecurity, this keeps food out of landfill and it serves foods purpose. foods purpose is to be eaten. it's not to be composted and not to be landfilled. and of course it's healthy produce, which is great. next. san francisco community recyclers building resources. i encourage you to go in bayview off third street, this is the only program in the city of san francisco that recycles building materials.

it is really important for small businesses for local contractors and artists for do it yourselfers. i shop there all the time. it's great, building resources, long time partner for department of environment. next. san francisco new deal. another one that has been feeding people since the beginning of the pandemic. they operate community seeding programs and another one working with us on reasonable containers for meal services. next. university of california. i don't know if you have heard of them. ucsf. they're a big organization and produce a lot of waste and do a lot of work and a lot of models for how you deal with the waste. this one they're going to work on disposable gowns that you put

in your thing when you go to have an x-ray. they're going to work on instead of disposable to have reused gowns and looking for alternatives to foam products and these are the foam products that people stand on when they're doing operations. anything that hospitals are using that is disposable, they work year after year to look at what are alternatives the that. that's what they're going to be doing this year. and model that -- imagine modelling that for hospitals all over the country, right? which is what they do. we're leaders. so next. ymca of san francisco. as you probably know, they have branches all over the city. they're going to have a reuse

center. it will provide a lot of materials for reuse within the branches but also for the community. i'm hoping one of the things they take on is soccer cleats so anyone can get the next size up. they're going to use a lot of other things, office supplies turned into art materials. that's an exciting project. and, again, so many co-benefits, they work with so many people in san francisco. so with that, i'm going to turn it over so you can hear about youth education grantees. >> good evening commissioners. i manage k-12 environmental education program and wanted to share our two youth education awards. first literacy for environmental justice for their eco adventures

program. they will serve our district 10 schools, our public schools that they have a long standing relationship with and offer them adventures in their native nursery to connect them to environmental justice and climate action and how to do that with zero waste principles. and then a new grant for us, urban education and sustainable agriculture. they run a work force development program with teens at three high schools. they will be serving as partner with us and focusing primarily on teaching the young students how to cook and reduce food waste as well as connect to school gardens and composting

and selling at farmer's markets. they will reach over 200 youth throughout the two years as well. we're excited to be partnering with both organizations. thank you. >> all right. i'm going to second what director raphael said at the beginning. this is one of the best days of commission meetings because i remember the first time that this came to the commission, my first few years on the commission thinking we have access to touch so many lives through these efforts and what i love about this, i was making notes while you were going through the list, oh, there's kids and food and environment and health and hospitals and it's such a connected web. when you look at something that might seem sort of scientific

and sort of zero waste and look at how it turns into human interaction and impact, i think it's a remarkable thing and i want to commend all the work by everyone in the department going through the process of trying to figure out how to grant and how to cut down to drill down to the ones we wanted to give the grants to. thank you for that work. commissioners, are there any questions or comments? >> commissioner ching ting wan: hi, i just want to thank you for all the community partners and allies for applying to the grant and being a champion. i especially want to shout out to committees serving the multi lingual and china community and underserved communities.

thank you for the work and we count on you to make sure the zero waste goal can be achieved. thank you. >> president stephenson: let's open to public comment please. >> clerk: also, just to note that this item is also for possible action. in case you wanted to take a motion -- >> president stephenson: let's do that. do i hear a motion to approve the grant? okay, commissioner wald. anyone second? i heard commissioner bermejo first. now let's go to public comment. >> clerk: one second.

share the instructions for making a public comment on the screen in case anyone wants the call in to comment on this item, the zero waste grants. you will have three minutes to make your comments. i do see we have a couple of callers in the queue. so give me a second. i will unmute the first caller and the three minutes will start now. >> hello commissioners. this is eric brooks with the local grassroots organization our city san francisco and californians for energy choice. i'm glad to see this program is getting grants moving forward to improve beyond what it is already doing, which is of course some good work. but i wanted to raise a criticism. last night i went down to take out my recycling and my compost in my apartment building which is pretty large.

and i'm sure most apartment buildings are like this, especially large ones, the situation down in my basement was a disaster. people do not know how to do recycling and compost. and there are some little tiny messages on the bins that explain to you usually in just one language what to do. it's not working. i decided to try to clean up some of the mess last night and it was unreal what i had to go through. we need in all apartment buildings, we need big signs behind the recycling bins and compost bins explaining in multiple language with visuals how people are supposed to use the bins. they think anything made out of plastic can go into recycling and should put their compost in regular plastic bags first.

those are just examples. i'm guessing based on my own building experience, i have noticed many times before, there's a lot of buildings that are just a mess with this. it's great it's moving forward but please do something aggressive to have big signs and if you need something passed by the board of supervisors, people like me will be willing to help do that. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comment. >> good evening commissioners. i'm the director of education and as mentioned in the presentation, we're a new recipient if approved for the

funds for our program. this is a happy call i'm saying thank you to see the list of others and be a part of that list is very rewarding for us having run this youth development program with the lens of sustainable food systems and food literacy and justice and all of those things. we have been doing this 10 years and to see our name along side some of the other brother and sister nonprofits doing the good work in the city was very rewarding and i appreciate all you are doing and that you are investing in youth specifically through these mechanisms. thank you very much. >> president stephenson: thank you for your comment. we'll close public comment and

move to a vote. >> clerk: all right. (roll call vote) >> president stephenson: motion passes. next item please. thank you to all of the participants in the grant. >> clerk: moving on to the next item and as i mentioned earlier, we'll hear items 8 and 9 together. so item 8, presentation on the development of the climate action plan, speakers are cyndy

comerford and rich chien and laura feinstein. this item is for discussion. and item 9 discussion and possible action regarding a resolution urging the board of supervisors for a proposed ordinance to update the process and establish goals and responsibilities. the speaker is cyndy comerford. documents and resolution file 2021-04-coe for planning process and establish department roles and responsibilities. for discussion and possible action. >> commissioner sullivan: thank you. as you all know, the development of the climate action plan is well underway and tonight we're going to get a look at the process. we'll hear from cyndy and rich about the amazing work and collaboration they have done.

this is closely connected to the proposed updates to chapter 9 of the environment code. the policy committee got to hear about the changes to chapter 9 on may 10th. at that time the ordinance was not introduced yet at the board of supervisors. the ordinance was introduced may 18th. we'll hear presentations on the climate action plan and proposed updates to chapter 9 and i look forward to the discussion around the resolution. i'll turn it over to cyndy and rich and then hear from laura feinstein the sustainability director at spur. >> thank you commissioner

sullivan. i apologize for no video. i was able to call in. thank you everyone this evening. i'm cyndy comerford. for this presentation, we are going to give a climate action update. this will include both an update on chapter 9 of the environment code, an ordinance amending the code to update the climate action goals and department goals and responsibilities and then i will turn it over to my colleague rich chien to talk about all of the wonderful amazing work we have done in developing the climate action plan. i'm going to give a brief

summary of chapter 9. then we have a resolution for your consideration. we'll take the resolution at the very end of the presentation but i wanted to let people know in advance that will be coming. and then rich will talk about the development of our climate action plan, the collaboration between our stakeholders and city departments and also some of the wider benefits and then we'll hear from laura feinstein at spur and we're happy to take any questions and discussion. next slide. we started on the revision to this legislation in september of 2019 in conjunction with other city departments and we did limited stakeholder engagement.

we had a final draft ready to go in february of 2020 and then the covid pandemic hit and we ended up taking a pause. and this pause actually ended up being good for our department. we had an opportunity to develop more detailed climate models and provided us an opportunity to do more outreach and advanced really important concepts that i'll discuss as we go through the presentation. next slide. i want everyone to understand the relationship between chapter 9 of the environment code and the climate action plan and what we'll be doing after the climate action plan is completed. so what chapter 9 does, it sets the city targets and goals. our greenhouse gas targets and

climate action goals. it also sets the requirements and responsibilities for the climate action plan and it really kind of develops the framework of the climate action plan. this legislation which i'll talk about next has been introduced by mayor london breed and it will need to be approved by the san francisco board of supervisors. that's chapter 9. the climate action plan is the documentation found in chapter 9, the strategies and actions we're going to put forth as a city to realize goals and targets and we'll have all of the details in there. the implementation criteria of timeline, cost estimate, city leads, all of the benefits and then it will also develop our key performance indicators and equity metrics to help determine what does success look like. after the plan has been

released, we'll have a public station dashboard that will track our progress and so we'll continue to report on the progress, the successes and whether we need to change course around our strategies and actions. this kind of frames our trajectory. next i'm going to talk about chapter 9. next slide. so why are we updating chapter 9? chapter 9 serves as a unique opportunity to unify the city and all of our stakeholders. it really helps us to set the expectation for the future, for us, for our citizens, for our partners, our businesses. it really serves as an important signal to the city. it's an opportunity for us to set science based targets. these are mission reduction targets aligned with the 1.5°

paris agreement. it provides a very clear and concrete framework around climate action goals and it offered the department an opportunity to simplify and align the legislative language. so if we go to the next slide, this shows the key components of chapter 9 updating the greenhouse gas emissions and target action goals and requirements for climate action plan, it updates the rules and responsibilities of the city department and criteria for long-term monitoring evaluation and reporting. so if we go to the next slide, this shows what the original version of chapter 9 looked like in 2008.

we can see the emission targets and those are reduction from the 1990 baseline. so we can see we were looking for a 35% reduction by 2017, a 40% reduction by 2025. and 80% reduction by 2050. i'm excited to announce the 2019 greenhouse gas inventory released last month, we achieved a 41% reduction around our baseline. while this was very exciting news, it is definitely not time for complacency. it is time for us to establish new goals and to really keep pushing hard for the policies, the funding and investment decisions that we need to really match the scale of the problem we're faced with around the climate crisis. so we established new ambitious goals looking at reducing

greenhouse gas emissions from sector based inventory by 61% and new net zero goal of being net zero by 2045, which would be a 90% reduction from the 1990 levels. we added in consumption based reductions as well. we are looking at proposing a 40% reduction by 2030 and 80% reduction by 2050. i just want to note that all of the work we have done on chapter

9 has not been in isolation. it has been in collaboration with many city departments. the main city departments are on the bottom of the slide. the next slide, these are some of the goals that i just want to

point out that are really exciting in our energy supplies we're looking to have by 2025, 100% renewable electricity, which is great. we have passed for building operations, all electric new ordinance implemented june 1st, all new permits for new construction will be zero emissions building and looking for the next step, starting with making sure that all of our large existing commercial buildings are zero emissions by 2035. really exciting goals in our

climate action plan supported by new strategies and actions. so i believe that is my last slide. that's an overview on chapter 9. next, i'm very excited to introduce my colleague rich chien who has served as the project manager for the climate action plan. i know you have all heard the phrase herding cats and rich has been herding the climate cats around the city to come together and focus on this task of developing the 2021 climate action plan. i want to publicly thank rich for all his dedication and trouble shooting and let him talk about the work he's doing.

>> thank you cyndy. i'm very excited to be here to share an update on the progress we have made updating the climate action plan or cap and where we hope to go next. i couldn't have done it alone. they are other city staff and technical experts and community and business stakeholders and everyone else who took the time to engage and contribute to the efforts. i'm grateful for all of the

support. it serves as our foundation pointing us to where we need to focus and for us, primarily energy buildings and transportation and land use and we look at data from all of the other work departments are doing to gain more knowledge and help us develop better solutions. build on experience, this is important to me personally and acknowledges that we're not starting from scratch. we have been doing much of the work in various forms over 20

years and there's a lot of valuable experience to leverage and learn from. we connected with community leaders to deepen our knowledge in climate equity and from that experience, key staff from the department created the racial and social equity assessment tool, especially for the cap and i'll talk more about that later. it has been a key component of

the development process. leveraging efforts. this is related to number two. this is important and urgency of the climate emergency means we must leverage all efforts. so key examples are working with the planning department and mta updating connect sf, the long range transportation plan and working with the transportation authority and bringing in elements of pricing. working with the planning department to integrate key ideas from the housing and transportation element updates currently underway. it includes the ev road map, building efforts, urban forestry and zero waste and so on. next, convene and engage. we convened many city department

working groups including staff from key departments who poured time and creativity and knowledge into the process. along the way we conducted various forms of targeted stakeholder engagement, including zero emissions building task force and as part of that, the anchor partner network where we specifically had a process to work with community stakeholders the identify equity priorities for residential building decarbonzation. other examples include multiple transportation and land use focus groups during the development phase and key staff from our teams providing regular updates to policy bodies, for example the urban forest

council. the team worked internally for greenhouse gas reductions efforts in building and transportation and updates and strategies through ongoing engagement. we applied racial and social equity tool analysis and had rigorous working sessions with staff for equity language and we're collecting information such as high level of cost, feasibility and capacity to implement the strategies.

update based on feedback that is currently underway and wrapping it up now. we received a lot of feedback from if workshops and online open house and gone through every comment we received and we are incorporating changes based on the feedback we got. next, very excited to say that hopefully soon we'll be close to publishing and adopting the plan. and where the rubber meets the road, implementing the plan and i'll just have to say that's going to take a huge collective effort from the city family to the community and business to come together and make hard choices about the investment cyndy was referring to. policy changes that are going to be required.

we lost staff because they had to be called on to be disaster service workers. school closures impacted our capacity and we lost key funding from departments who their bulths were being hit. we had to scramble and figure out plan b for getting some of the technical analysis. everyone pulled together and i'm thankful for everyone's support. the climate resolution kicked off the process. is it possible to get to net

zero emissions by 2050. the answer was yes. it didn't really talk about the specific actions that we needed to take and that's what the climate action plan is. technical working groups were formed and the process i previously outlined kicked in leading us to this point. we're on track to have a plan completed and out sometime mid summer of this year. this is not a complete list but we have engaged with a lot of folks along the way, prior to engaging with the public. these are city partners, technical working groups, state

and other regional agencies and entities. they have to cover the racial and social equity, the assessment tool was designed to help us evaluate draft climate action through these four lenses that are part of the framework for the climate action plan. the tool considers the root causes of disparities created by racial inequity and helps to

shape strategies and expand the equitable distribution of benefits. finally, we need to make sure our climate action meets the goals for the city to prepare for and respond to hazards of all types, including impacts of climate change to help better cope with the risks. next slide. i believe this is my last slide. just a little bit on the engagement process we just completed. it was -- occurred from mid

december to the end of march and we obviously did everything online. we would have loved to meet people in person and do big white boards and sticky notes and everything. but we did our best and we learned a lot about the process. i think we have built a lot of great capacity. over the course of 3.5 months we hosted 10 public workshops including english, spanish and chinese and early english language workshop which was great. we had 11 pop-up community

presentations and over the course of all of this, we reached 238,000 people which includes people who just saw media posts or visited the website. actively engaged people who took a survey, attended a workshop or presentation and provided comments or interacted with social media content. all in all, i think we have done a good job given the circumstances. looking forward to hearing the discussion and questions. thank you.

>> thank you again rich for all your work. we have come a long way and like rich said, we are kind of at the last mile, which everyone knows seems to be the hardest part of the marathon. we look forward to coming back after the climate action plan is completed in late summer to showcase all the work. the trajectory of next steps, we are going to chapter 9 was introduced by the mayor last week. it will go to the board of supervisors in late june or july. we're hoping it will be formally adopted by the end of the summer. once it is formerly adopted, we'll release the climate action plan, probably august or

september. and hopefully that will time well with our fall commission meeting where we can come back with the final plan. so before we go to discuss the resolution for chapter 9, it is my honor to introduce laura feinstein. as part of our climate action communication strategy, we developed a climate community council. i'd like to introduce laura feinstein from spur to talk about her experience around the

climate action plan. >> hi everybody. thank you for having me. it's a pleasure to be here. i'll just introduce myself really quickly. i'm with spur, in case you are not familiar with spur, spur is a think tank based in the bay area that works on a number of issues, including housing, good government and sustainability and resilience. and i'm the sustainability and resilience director at spur and invited to serve on the council. and got the opportunity to attend a couple of very well facilitated workshops for the community climate council where we discussed mainly the public outreach strategy, how to best present the climate action plan to a broad cross-section of people and we were trained in how to distribute the information and communicate about the climate action plan and then spur had the

opportunity to co-host one of the series of workshops that department of environment held on the climate action plan. we did that in december. we had 40 attendees. of the 5,777 that department of environment engaged, 40 of those were at the spur workshop. it was small but mighty. we had five breakout sections where people had the opportunity to directly have conversations with department of environment staff and consultants to dig in on one of the main topics within the climate action plan. and then following up on that workshop, everybody received information on how to attend future workshops and how to comment in the open house on the climate action plan. it was a great opportunity. spur is very supportive of everything san francisco is doing on climate. it was a great opportunity to get to work in partnership with

department of environment. >> president stephenson: any final things before discussion? >> just two things. i want to thank laura for being a leader in the climate space and foregoing the extra mile for hosting the workshop and that concludes our presentation. and then the last thing we have commissioner stephenson, we have a resolution for your consideration. it urges the board of supervisors to support the changes to chapter 9 and we're happy to answer any questions. as i said, the ordinance was introduced by the mayor last week. now is the perfect opportunity to take comments and convey your

support. >> president stephenson: it was helpful to see everything that way. and to see the public facing dashboard as parts of that. if there's one thing i have learned during covid, my need to sort of stay connected to what the city is doing and how we're performing against something is acute and having that same attitude for climate goals is important. i log in and check our vaccination percentages several times a week.

i have a couple of questions and then i wanted to open it up. how often do we need to do this? you look at 2008, it was originally put forward and we're amending or changing and redoing the goals. is there a time frame we think we need to reassess this and does the plan include sort of triggers that might cause us to reassess or look at those goals and maybe modify or improve or change them? >> that's a great question. within chapter 9 it would require the city to update the climate action plan every five years. we can see if we need to revise our goals.

>> president stephenson: there was a comment about plan b technical analysis because of budget constraints that there were budget changes that happened i think richard you made mention of that. can you expand upon that a little bit? >> sure. one of our key partners is sfmta. we know what happened when covid hit, revenues lost from riders not taking transit anymore. had a very direct and strong impact on the budget for that fiscal year.

unfortunately it got cut, that is what the plan b was. we needed to do everything in house which was a very labor intensive process with all of the key agencies involved, people were amazing. and then thankfully for the specific quantity of the impacts of our strategy, the transportation authority through a contract they had for a project they had was able to carve out time to help us model the impacts of our draft strategies and actions.

>> president stephenson: commissioners, questions, comments? anyone from policy want to jump in, i know you've had a deeper dive -- commissioner sullivan. >> commissioner sullivan: thank you chair stephenson. i wanted to start by saying how grateful i am to the department and especially cyndy and rich for their work on both the action plan and on revised chapter 9 and to rich for herding the climate cats. it was a lot of work i'm sure and underresourced probably. thank you for all of that. as commissioner stephenson said, i'm very happy to see that both the cap and revised chapter 9 provide for a dashboard and monitoring evaluation reporting

from section 907. chapter 907, i'm wondering if the dashboard is going to give us the opportunity to check progress within those two year time frames? >> that's a great question michael. so, what we have done is during the process of developing our strategies and actions, we have asked department for how we back measure success. we are developing equity and key performance indicators. it will depend on the availability of that data, the availability of frequency of the data. my best guess, it will be updated yearly but probably no less than that. we look at the greenhouse gas inventory, a 6-7 month process

to collect it. some data around vehicle miles traveled, updated on an annual basis. >> commissioner sullivan: i like the idea of the dashboard as a way to keep our feet to the fire as we see how we're doing against the goals. my last question is a deep dive on the electric vehicle targets so the 100% by 2040, are those

numbers registrations or sales, what do those represent and do you have any idea where we are right now. >> those numbers represent private vehicles registered. it would be registrations through the dmv is measuring the progress against the goals. we are well under 10%. how's that? as far as ev's. i don't know the exact percentage. it is a small percentage that hopefully will rapidly grow. >> commissioner sullivan: no further comments here. >> president stephenson: any other comments or questions commissioners?

then i would like to open up for public comment on item 8, the climate action plan. we're going to take it in two parts. item 8 and then again for item 9 after we have a motion. >> clerk: i will share instructions on the screen. i will unmute the caller now. >> good evening again commissioners. eric brooks with local grass roots organization our city. and state wide coalition californians for energy choice. you all have received it hopefully in the e-mail and from

your secretary the letter that 15 groups presented to you on local clean energy build-out. please do consider this official kind of at the end of the process feedback on plugging us into the climate action plan. in many ways it will help support the climate action plan. in some ways it is crucial to the plan your staff has put forward, especially the equity, economic recovery resilience pieces. i would say with confidence all the groups that signed the letter will tell you you can't get to the goals without a big local clean energy build-out

plan. i'll go over quickly the basics of this. we want to see within 10 years of a plan being developed this year, 100% of san francisco's electricity needs to be met within 10 years by locally and reasonably installed clean energy and micro grids. and the key objectives that need to happen with that are local jobs is the first one. san francisco local agency formation commission received a report in 2015 that said on a very kind of scaled down version of a local build-out, not like the one we're asking for, it would create at least 10,000 local jobs. that kind of job production locally needs the happen.

environmental and climate justice needs to be the priority of the plan. communities of opportunity and communities that are marginalized get the jobs first and get the installations first and savings first and because they are vulnerable to things like sea level rise and heatwaves, they need to get all of the benefits first and once again that's in the climate action plan. we don't think without a local buildout plan you can get there. and get away from long transmission lines to not contribute to the danger of wildfires and so that we are reducing line loss between 5-15%. i can say a little more about this stuff in comment for the next item but i wanted to layout the basics and please like i said, do include this as feedback on your climate action

plan. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comment. i don't see additional callers in the queue. >> president stephenson: now that we have the public comment on item 8, commissioners discussion on the proposed resolution? >> commissioner sullivan: i move

the resolution. >> commissioner wald: i second. >> president stephenson: let's move to public comment on this item. >> clerk: i will put the instructions back on the screen for anyone who wants to call in to comment on item 9. press star 3 to be added to the queue. i will unmute the caller now. >> good evening again commissioners eric brooks. just wanted to say about the item itself and details that it is all the objectives that you have put forward are good, they're important progress and better than previous iterations, but it bears mentioning if you look at the science, they're not strong enough yet. so as we reassess this plan, we

need to rachet up to get to climate goals that even the ipcc is saying we need to get to. we just saw a huge piece of antarctica break off, the biggest ever. and if we don't make these numbers more robust, we're not going to be doing our part to help get there. even though this is great and it's progress, we need to push the envelope and do more. the plan we have put forward for local buildout plan will help you get there faster. thank you. call the roll call please.

>> clerk: (roll call) the motion passes. next item, please. >> clerk: item 10. additional funding for equitable climate action. the speaker is deborah raphael, director and the item is for discussion and possible action. >> i want to continue the budget discussions tonight, as mentioned in prior meetings and budget discussions, we're going to keep going. we're going to keep pushing forward to make sure the department has the funding it needs the achieve the huge climate work we have ahead of us. it's the perfect time for us to advocate for additional funding.

we have already taken action to show support for making the budget hole and addressing long-term funding solutions. tonight i want to focus on what we can do to make sure the department has adequate funding for the plan we just heard about. the mayor is going to submit the budget to the board of supervisors. this is our time to state support for additional funding. in order to act on all climate objectives, our additional funding is not going to solve the crisis but will help to kick start a strategy and design a system where we're not always looking for money. my decade on the commission i have seen budget cycle after budget cycle we're scraping together what we need to do this important work and there was another period of time in the climate action plan we had to

scrape and pull together fund together try to get the consultant. we have done so much with so little but it's time for real solutions and taking the funding needs seriously. i'm going to turn it over to director raphael for additional context. >> thank you president stephenson and thank you commissioners for putting the topic on the agenda. there's probably very little more important right now than thinking about how we fund the work we say we need to do. so i'm going to ask katie to put up a slide in a minute but what i want to do is just give you a little update on where we are. so as you might recall when we did the budget discussion, we started the budget discussion pretty much in crisis. where we had a significant hole

in our budget in our non impound funded work. that meant losing two staff members. the mayor's office has assured us we are whole. we have put in our budget, we submitted the budget and they have submitted their budget to the controller's office that shows us at whole. i can't guarantee i understand how we are whole but i understand we are whole. i am going forward with that promise that i have gotten from -- assurance from the budget office. that's great. i'm super grateful for that. what it did, the journey of becoming whole pointed to the amount of energy that i'm not just spending as director and staff is spending but frankly

the mayor's office is spending to try to make us whole when it's a tiny amount compared to the larger budget and it pointed to the fact that when our funding is coming from work orders from other city departments, they're looking at this as their money and therefore what do they want from us as sort of a contractor versus a foundational source of money where we as the department choose, you as the commission can choose how we spend it. as opposed to another city department. so this budget process very much highlighted the pain points that the department is facing but also how the pain points raidated out to other city agencies and to the mayor's

office. what we have been working with some supervisors on is an ask -- a realization that the department needs this funding that we need to solve the funding dilemma. the funding dilemma for our department, so we're not spending so much time searching for funds and not doing the work, and of course, that's the dilemma of all nonprofits. it's not that the department of the environment is unique in feeling that. but we're a city agency and we would like to see that the city can help us have some security so we're not worrying about

laying people off when a grant ends or when a work order drys up. if all we solve is that, we're not going to make the progress on our action goals. we need to figure out how to get real money into climate action and i think dan flanagan is a wonderful example in prop-e, how he and the community who were interested figured out a way to go to the voters to raise funds to fund something very important to san francisco residents. now, in order to go before the voters, there's a lot more analysis that has to happen and we don't have the funds to create that analysis. to do that, bringing together the great minds of the legal experts, the financial experts, the people who -- the community

members who want to shape and craft how we spend money. i have been talking with my fellow city agencies who are also thinking about going before the voters. there are ways we need to work together but we need to be a serious player at the table, not somebody begging for scraps if you will, or charity. so, in order to put aside that kind of funding, i have been talking with members of the board of supervisors and community members and what they came up with was a million dollars for climate. that is sort of a kick-starting element that would help fund this initiative to figure out how to do a ballot initiative or figure out how we find stable funding for the department and climate action. but also to involve the

community more -- intentionally instead of asking for support of a future we define, how do we bring in wonderful nonprofits the help co-create that future for what they're calling an equitable clean energy hub. a place where frankly ideas like eric brooks can go and be sorted through and looked at from community's perspective and prioritized through all the other lens of the things we need to do for existing buildings, to act on supervisor mar's incredible report that the budget legislative analyst did. the board legislative analyst. that's the pitch, i don't have a catchy title or way to market

it. i hope maybe you on the commission can put your heads together in some other way off line or perhaps work with president stephenson to think about that. there's already a movement out there for that that's coming from the community. and so the question i think president stephenson was thinking is, all right, great, what is the role of the commission, how can you join in that conversation. so, can you katie, show the one slide? i want to just show you the timeline that we are working under. the mayor's budget is in the controller's office and doesn't have the million dollars for climate in it as far as i know. there are things that can happen outside of my knowledge.

the board of supervisors gets the budget and they could decide this is where the decision would happen to put that in the budget and make the case for this kind of both ongoing funding which is the energy hub and one time funding which is to do this analysis for a potential ballot initiative. it's a combination of things under the million dollars. under no certain terms are we saying a million dollars gets us the climate action plan imitation. it builds the launching pad for that. there's the first committee hearing before the budget committee is on june 14th. generally at that point, i get asked questions and they -- the budget committee starts the make the recommendations, goes back

to the budget analyst and asks them to do things and then makes their decision june 21st, i would come back, they would have final -- i would either agree with the assessment or challenge it. generally we always agree with the assessment that comes back on the 21st and that's the end of our role in the budget process and then there's the final deliberations at the end of the month in june where the budget gets essentially completed. so it's a compressed timeline between where we are now and the end of the budget process. but it wouldn't be the first time that anybody is hearing this. it is simply what is the role for the commission and if so, what might that be. so that is sort of what i am -- i'm happy to answer questions to the best of my ability.

>> i understand how our budget process works. how does this -- this million dollars is not part of our budget request, it's going to come from supervisors as part of this budget suggestions and then gets added to our budget through this process or -- i know about supervisors having -- i know there are different mechanisms they use. is that what we're talking about or part of a budget ask they're going to ask to add to our department? >> it could be either one. supervisors have the ability to manipulate a certain percentage of the budget, they're already talking to the mayor about what

is important to them. so, and then at the end of the day, they have some discretion where they say i want to add this back in to the budget. of course for the mayor, this is not easy. i am cognizant of that as a department head, i'm not -- the mayor made decisions, the mayor's office made good tough decisions, i'm just responding now to what i see as a need for us and what i'm hearing both from the community and some supervisor members. the mechanism of how it ends up in the budget is a little uncertain to me. this is not something we have seen a lot for our department. other departments have been at the center of these things a lot more than ours has. >> president stephenson: and one other budget question you may not have an answer to.

i understand because i follow twitter, i read the twitter, that there's a pretty decent amount of stimulus money and other kinds of money come together the city, is that wholesale added to the city budget and partitioned out as part of that or something already ear marked independently in another bucket. >> the way i understand this and i wish i had other budget people here to give you a more confident answer. the mayor's office understands how much stimulus money is expected to come in and allocate that within her budget. that stimulus money is allocated to priorities that the mayor has and mayor understands are priorities to the community. the board of supervisors

sometimes disagrees. >> president stephenson: okay. commissioner wald? >> commissioner wald: i have a question or maybe it's two. i'm wondering if you could explain how the million dollars might be allocated between the two things you talked about and second of all, i'm not sure i understand the energy hub at all, but is the funding to establish it as opposed to keep it going? or is it a permanent thing that we're going to have to figure out how to fund going forward? just so i know how to think about this. >> it's kind of a yes to everything. the energy hub was actually something that -- not came from our department, it came from the community of when we -- we have been working with community partners now ever since eric

mar, supervisor eric mar had an energy efficiency coordinating committee five or six years ago. it allowed us to work closely with community based organizations around energy efficiency and building upgrades. this is something that came out of that initiative five years ago that the community groups have been thinking about and polishing and growing. so to your first question, it would be about one third, two thirds. so one third and one third of the funding would go to one time allocation that would go to figuring out how we get a ballot initiative and how we raise big bucks frankly. and then two thirds would need to be ongoing funding because we don't want to create a hub and then have to scrape and beg and borrow and steal for a hub. that two thirds is a combination of grants for environmental

justice communities organizations, it's also for staff time and consultant time to create this hub that does multiple things but it gets at a lot of the things eric was talking about, the need to look at -- if we're going to transition the built environment to be all electric, what are the different pieces that need to be put in place. we're going to have to educate contractors so when you call somebody up and say i want a heat pump, i don't want natural gas water heater, they know what to do and are familiar with it. we're going to need to create work force development opportunities for local hires. we're going to need to work with partners to figure out how to train people to benefit from the work. we're going to need to probably initiate policy for time of sale or other policy levers we have to get things moving and we're

going to need to be able to fund our nonprofit partners to help us with the work and also to distribute funding to underwrite the costs of some of these early adopters we want to prioritize the switch. there's a lot of different pieces to that part of the climate action plan and this is focusing on one of the pieces of the climate action plan. >> commissioner wald: thank you. how many years is this two thirds of the money supposed to last for? >> well, it would have to be appropriated each year. the million dollars is not a one time. roughly 600,000 would be ongoing. it would be a way of offering it -- getting a bit of the

foundational funding the department needs to solidify that work. we know the work is ongoing. hopefully what will happen, we'll figure out the long-term funding need and then we can figure out how to allocate that money somewhere else. i don't have -- they're linked together. it is hard to say when one ends. it is a significant ask for our department. for the whole budget it's not a big deal but for our department, it's a significant ask. there's not a nexus, how are we going to fund this work. >> president stephenson: commissioner sullivan. >> commissioner sullivan: it is exciting to hear an idea to solve the department's long standing broken budget process. it is so exciting and refreshing

to hear an idea and we're obviously a really long way from the idea to the end of the road but it's exciting to hear the thought. there are so many claims on the budget and so many ideas for where money should be spent, but this -- where supervisors should be supportive of our efforts as a city that is leading the effort on climate to make a difference, i can't think of anything more important than the work that this department is

doing. >> i love that you are excited about the idea. for me, once we start the conversation of how to really get something on the ballot perhaps -- this is where the commission can very much engage. i can picture the commission being that convening spot for these conversations, bringing in experts, we'll probably have to do it more frequently than once a month policy meetings. but if you as commissioners are interested in thinking about that journey and how we get from

where we are now to there, it's going to be an all in kind of function for the department and for the commission frankly i think. >> commissioner sullivan: one more idea if i may. one of the reasons i'm excited, there is some precedent for this kind of thing in the environmental sort of sphere broadly, prop-e that we talked about earlier today. not that long ago that passed with almost 80% of the vote in 1996 and we have people that this department knows very well, dan flanagan, maybe we can reel him back out of retirement in a tiny way to give us ideas and senator scott wiener who was involved with the process and i'm sure would be helpful. it's exciting this has worked before and maybe it could work

again. >> vice president ahn: i'm supportive of exploring and would want to make sure as a commissioner this conversation is equity driven working along side the nonprofit partners to be engaged on that front. >> president stephenson: commissioner wald. >> commissioner wald: i'm supportive of it and also i would actually like to suggest as part of it, we think about playing hard ball here or kind of hard ball. i think part of it has to be a calling out by the public of the city being hypocritical in what it is saying about its environmental commitment and desire to achieve these climate

goals. i think part of the effort should be an attempt to really make people understand that the department is what has made the city a leader on these issues. i love when tiffany said this is a department that cities around the world would kill to have. that's absolutely true. and the department has done so much for the city in terms of providing everything it has needed to achieve this around the world and i think our success in this does depend on making people understand the truth. and if they -- i think we

should somehow signal to them that if they don't support this, we're going to call them on it. my fantasy is we would all in front of thousands of cameras and reporters, we may be don't have to be quite that dramatic, but i think we need to do something out of the ordinary because the circumstances in which we are -- in which we find ourselves are so out of the ordinary. playing nice has gotten us the scraps. i don't want scraps anymore than debbie does anymore. that's my thinking on this.

one other thing, we can talk to commissioner stephenson separately, we have to figure out a way to operationalize whatever we're doing without making too many demands on the department that has so many other things to do. to me that a key part of the campaign. >> i agree with everything just said. i think one of the things that strikes me about the whole conversation is that we're asking for a little bit of something so we can create our own solution for funding. we're not going and saying can you give us these million and millions of dollars from the general fund to enact the climate action plan you asked us

to create because you declared a climate emergency. we're not even asking for the money. we're asking for the money to get the money. to me, the ask for this money to get the money can be pointed and fierce and full of advocacy and still be somewhat nice. i think we can still go out and say this is where i think we all need to talk about this and figure out what we want to do, to your point, we need a mechanism to go have this conversation. we can't go have a bunch of meetings and show up at supervisors with all six or seven of us. i think we need to be very serious about the fact that this is tiny. it's a million dollars in a multi billion dollars city budget that just got a bunch of stimulus funding. i know the city has a million things to focus on, i don't know there's one that is more urgent

that has more flavor to it. i think there's a lot of ways for us to push for this million dollars that is tiny but i'm interested in everyone's thoughts. and i have to plug in my computer. any other commissioners have thoughts?

>> can i ask a question -- i think what is always helpful for me when i go to have a difficult conversation with someone meaning it may be inconvenient timing for them or they have a lot on their minds, i want to come prepared and i want to come with a very clear ask and i want to understand what their solution might be and consistent messaging is important. so it could be that a letter as a starting point from president stephenson may be a way to get you that information so that then you can have what you need to feel like you have the ability to take the next step. there are -- to commissioner

ahn's point, there are organizations having meeting with supervisors. we can -- these are community organizations that have presented at our commission meetings, at our policy commission meetings and well established partners in the city. i don't know if that is helpful. that is something because this was a potential action item, that the commission can ask -- give president stephenson permission to sign that letter, it could be a helpful start or tool. i don't know.

>> commissioner wald: i think the letter as you described it is a good idea and i also think, if we had a calendar that told us, a google calendar for example for when different groups are going to see different people, different members of the board of supervisors, one or more of us and certainly not the wrong two or three of us could show up at those meetings to speak in support of this request. i think it would be terrific if

someone could write an op-ed, i would volunteer to help with that. but part of the next two weeks i'll be out of town. i think there's a finite list of things that we all or many of us all sort of know we need to do in circumstances like this. i think we should get that list together and then just try to execute i as promptly and effectively as we can. i personally think that op-ed should be high on the priority list. i think talking to dan is a really good idea. i think he can probably give us -- maybe the plan he developed

for prop-e and start at the beginning. and i think we should talk to people in san francisco, one is because i think they may give us money but also because i think if we could get these people to support our request, it would be meaningful. that's the third or maybe the fourth thing we should suggest. we need to get together a list of people who have the ability to influence the mayor and members of the board to the extent we can and see which of

those people, who are the environmentalists that they might listen to. >> president stephenson: we can have conversation about these things. >> commissioner wald: we probably need to ask our lawyer about that. >> president stephenson: my understanding is -- >> commissioner wald: we couldn't have lunch. we weren't -- >> president stephenson: we weren't on the same committee. >> commissioner wald: we weren't. >> president stephenson: we'll worry about that later.

commissioner wan, i would probably go with what the advocates are suggesting so it's fairly consistent. my guess is it would be at the level i just shared with you. it wouldn't be down to this position costs this much money, it would be so -- there are supervisors who have already heard this and gotten this level of details. if there were supervisors very interested, they could follow up. >> kind of like what

commissioner ahn said, go talk to different supervisors and information and we have to know history and background. there's strategic sessions we need to figure out. >> commissioner wald: or even if we had fact sheets with bullet points so that they say who is in this with you so we could say what the groups are for example. who you have already talked to. we know who our supervisors were. i have a lot of experience looking like a fool in these kinds of meetings but maybe the rest of you wouldn't feel so

comfortable. >> so i'm hearing that a letter is a great start and i'm hearing that putting together some more information on the groups we have been working with -- and then it would be up to you if you as individuals were going to reach out to them on your own -- if you knew somebody and how to brainstorm with them on how to coordinate. so -- >> president stephenson: yeah. so i hear using the letter as a mechanism to consolidate messaging and making sure we go with the same ask so the work we do potentially in partnership with community groups to our supervisors to do this ask is

coordinated and has the same story. i hear support from commissioner wald on that. do you want to make a motion to do that and then see if we get a second and maybe open up to public comment and hear from anyone in the public who might want to weigh in on this. >> commissioner wald: yes, i move that we have a letter sent by you chair stephenson that we use as you described, to inform the members of the board and the mayor that the members of this commission and mechanism to ensure that our -- that we're all on the same page both as a commission and in terms of our partners. >> if i could interject.

i think just if we could include also the content of the letter and set some guidelines for in the motion as well would be included in the letter, that would be great. >> the guidelines asking for -- >> just the content of the letter. yeah. >> commissioner wald: we're asking for the total, what we're going to do with it. who the community groups, some, maybe all, that we are working with. and a lot of it about what they have done to get us to this position. namely declared a climate crisis, said they wanted a climate plan and what they

haven't done which is give the department enough money to do the job that's been given. >> president stephenson: do i hear a second? >> commissioner sullivan: i will second that. >> president stephenson: open up to public comment to hear from community members. >> clerk: i'll share the instructions for public comment on the screen. press star 3 to be added to the queue. you'll have three minutes. i will unmute the first caller now. >> good evening once again, eric brooks again.

i agree with commission wald, it is time to make some demands to the government. i was happy to say i was part of the coalition lobby teams that talked over zoom over the last couple of months with a lot of supervisors and made -- demanded your funding not be cut first of all, be expanded and talked to them about the hub and things like that. we also are fishing in the next budget cycle over $100 million for climate in san francisco. that's just 1% of the budget. so the fact that you guys in this first effort are only asking for a 10th of a percent is notable and should be said to the legislators, that's a really tiny amount. i want you to know the community is ready to get behind you to ask for a lot more so this stuff can get done.

specifically to commissioner stephenson, when we spoke to the supervisors, one of the big things we heard was that the current stimulus money is just going to be able to fill holes in the budget that were caused by the covid crisis and economic crisis that started a little before the virus crisis. so what that means is, we need to get the funds from the upcoming infrastructure bill the president and congress is telling us we need to pass. we are ready to fight with you to get that. lastly, something not brought up and i think is so important to talk about, get your staff to work on this as they work on the climate action plan and local build out plan and that is, two

key words, revenue bonds. they're the same type of bonds you used to build the toll bridge and that is the letter i delivered to you about the local build out plan, that would not come from the city budget. that would come from revenue bonds and pay for itself. solar and wind and renewables and efficiency and battery storage are cost competitive with fossil fuels and bring in their own revenues to pay for themselves. a lot of the things you need to do as an agency can be accomplished through revenue bonds and you need to really get your staff dedicated to doing -- to looking at the possibility and usually to make that possible, you need a big community wide program like the local build out that our letter puts forward to you. i would also say that back in the day, we started fighting for

cleanpower sf back in 2004 and 2005 and as we struggled to get that off the ground, it was key that the department of environment and environment commission said we can't reach our climate goals without cleanpower sf. it was your agency that helped us get the program off the ground and it's your agency that can help us get to the next step of the local build out, which will be important to the rest of this stuff being met. we're ready to get your back in asking for 100 million or more for the city to use on climate. and if you would, connect my e-mail with rich chien and cyndy comerford so my coalition is communicating back and forth about all this stuff. thank you. please send the letter and we support the effort.

>> president stephenson: thank you. >> clerk: next caller. >> hello commissioners. i'm a member of the san francisco climate emergency coalition. i kind of was going to echo the things that eric said. i'm thrilled to hear you all talk about this finally as the climate emergency gets worse. it is so time to step up for more funding and it shouldn't have to be a significant ask for your department. considering the climate is everything. the climate is what holds us all together. anyway, i wanted to let you know the climate coalition sierra club and constituents over the past few weeks have been visiting almost every supervisor with these very asks debbie was talking about. the first one, restore the cuts to funding, they almost all said

oh, that will happen. they were pretty supportive of the several hundred thousand to do 0 a study to even figure out what it might cost to implement. and an important part of the study, funding streams. this is like -- just to get everything started. this is tiny, it's just kickstart and then the clean energy equity hub is a natural follow-up to passing the legislation for all electric new construction. now we have to work on existing buildings and to make it equitable it needs a lot of help and people need help with education and contractors need education and local jobs that can get started for like 500,000 the first year. the same amount the next year and between the study and the hub, they can figure out what should be ongoing funding.

also the federal money, like eric said, perhaps the stimulus, but we were saying 136 million which is 1% for climate. it's 1% of the 2020-2021 budget. we would be happy -- the coalition also submitted budget proposals that had the same things if you wanted to see what we submitted, i'm happy to give it to you. we have bullet points and everything and would be happy to meet again after the mayor has submitted the proposal june 1st if you wanted to come to meetings with us, that would be great. we are behind you all the way. this is major for us, so important. and thank you so much for bringing it to the forefront. thank you. >> president stephenson: thank you for your comment. >> clerk: i will unmute our next caller and start the timer now.

>> it's very exciting to see you speak up and insist on what it needs the have in order to do what must be done. it seems a million for climate is a great slogan but that's tiny. we seek 100 fold bigger and that's -- as people have been saying, that's a small percentage. but you know, it's easy for us to despair about the climate and the news is getting worse and worse and the resolutions are flowing freely and the action on the money is not flowing freely. so to see you all taking this action, it's terribly heartening. and you have to stand up and shout. it's a small step but you have taken your first step. it's a really big deal.

that's all. thank you. >> president stephenson: thank you for your comment. >> clerk: i'm not seeing additional callers in the queue. >> president stephenson: all right. let's close public comment. commissioners, any other conversation or questions before going to a vote? all right. let's do a roll call vote. >> clerk: (roll call vote) item 11, director's report.

this item is for discussion. >> it's kind of hard to follow that. i'm just so moved by the public comment and by all of your reactions and the urgency i feel and i know you feel along with me and everyone on this call feels. my director's report is fairly brief. i will just say that april was climate action month. this is our first full commission meeting since then. president stephenson in her opening remarks beautifully summarized it. i just want to say how much fun it was and how inspiring it was for me to watch the team pull together and get creative in terms of how to bring fun and authenticity and action and

engagement in a virtual setting. that is so not easy. so you have heard from the school education program, she was phenomenal in pulling together a san francisco youth climate action summit, a full day of events and commissioner wan was there for part of that. it was wonderful. i loved hearing you speak commissioner wan. it warmed my heart. we had amazing numbers in terms of people who interacted with us, in terms of numbers of impressions and clicks and participants. we had 125 events. you know, they were -- i think president stephenson talked about that. i just want to say how grateful i am for my staff, shawn is still on the call, cyndy's here, gianna and so many more of the

team who put their heart and soul into making climate action month fun. next year, who knows if we'll have an in person and virtual event. i think it will be tough to figure out what to do next year but we'll get there. the other thing my team is focused on right now, getting back in the office. so our goal is to be completely unpacked and ready to return to the office by the end of june. we still have -- nobody has come back in and unpacked their stuff. everything is sitting in boxes. we're going to spend the next five weeks really intently unpacking and getting ready in a safe way. and then we will have a period of time where people may come back into the office. and then at some point, september 7th is my best estimate right now, after labor day, we'll have a must come back into the office.

so some way of combination of telecommute and in person and we'll work through that with staff in taking into account people's concerns, but letting people know what to expect to start planning their lives. it is very important to the mayor's office and the mayor that the city staff repopulate the city. we come to work and go out to lunch and make the civic center feel like a welcoming place. we have an important role to play in that as well as an opportunity to be more flexible. and i will let you know more details when i know them as you may know, the board of supervisors is planning june 15th to have in person full board meetings but committee meetings, commission meetings are all still remote until further notice. i don't know -- i have no idea

when that actually changes. we're hoping to get instructions on the state wide level in terms of how many people -- how much distance you need to have in an indoor setting. once that state wide guidance comes in, the city department of public health makes it san francisco specific. we're all waiting for more information. the last thing i'll say we have been working a lot on, the racial equity action plan. so phase 1 is internally focused. we have 103 actions and assigned owners to all actions and 70% of them are in progress already. we're not slowing down. we're working on them and now we're going to be bringing on a consultant to help with a few of the actions where our consultant is the owner and it will be very exciting to see some of the

progress that we'll be able to report back to you on the implementation for phase 1. phase 2, externally focused. we're waiting for guidance from the office of racial equity and on the other hand, getting trained on racial equity tools, using them to analyze our programs and thinking about how we institutionalize our work. a lot of exciting energy around that that i will continue to keep you posted on. it's a journey. there's no end here. that's it. >> president stephenson: all right. public comment please. >> clerk: i'm showing the

instructions on the screen. we'll pause in case anyone wants to call in. >> president stephenson: next item please. >> clerk: item 12 committee reports and for discussion. >> president stephenson: commissioner sullivan, do you want to give a report please. >> commissioner sullivan: happy to. since the last full commission

meeting, the policy committee met april 12th and may 10th. on april 12th joined by the planning department for a great presentation and discussion on the update to the general plan and the environmental justice communities map. on may 10th we had a presentation on a recently approved heavy duty truck blueprint grant and proposed updates to chapter 9 we discussed earlier today. that's the report. >> president stephenson: thank you. is there an operations committee report? >> we had a presentation on the department's work with the treasure island development authority. we get a first hand to see how the island will be developed and then we heard about the new sf

recycle web app and we encourage everyone to check it out. we have great idea about maybe a snap shot of a photo to find where to recycle. that might be something more in the picture. we ended with a discussion about the committee's land acknowledge and agree on the statement to be read at our meetings moving forward. that's the report. >> president stephenson: thank you. any questions commissioners? all right. move to public comment, please. >> clerk: i'll put the instructions on the screen. we have one commenter in the queue. i will start the timer and

unmute the caller now. >> good evening again commissioners, eric brooks specifically representing the local grassroots organization our city san francisco. regarding the treasure island details, it's good to see the policy committee is working on that. another coalition that i helped build has been meeting with supervisor haney and talking about with him and we had a hearing on february 8th in the land use committee. it's a long hearing but i recommend you all look at that because what we were unpacking was treasure island is that contractors like shaw just in the bayview hunters point have been involved in not properly doing clean-up of toxic and

reporting about toxic and radioactive chemicals on the islands. so it's important that the department of the environment learn about what came out in the february 8th hearing. one of the main things that came out about that was finally getting admission from the department, california department of public health that the clean-up wasn't done properly. it's the first time they have really publicly admitted that. we were making key new progress on this and anything that the department of environment does in relation where there's also issues with underground storage tanks and fuel lines and who knows if they were observed and cleaned up properly, we need you all to be aware of that. please talk to supervisor haney's office about it and please have some staff at least go through the long hearing on

february 8th of this year so you are learning about that. i have other comments on another issue i'll bring up during item 14 new and future agenda items. >> clerk: thank you for your comment. i'm not seeing callers in the queue. >> president stephenson: next item please. >> clerk: moving on to item 13, announcements and this is for discussion. >> president stephenson: commissioners, are there any announcements? okay. public comment please. >> clerk: i'll put the instructions back up on the screen. remember to press star 3 to be added to the queue.

we'll take a brief pause. i'm not seeing callers in the queue. >> president stephenson: next item please. >> clerk: moving on to item 14, new business and future agenda items. this is for discussion. >> president stephenson: all right katie. go ahead. >> clerk: thanks. the next commission meeting is tuesday july 27th. the next policy committee meeting is monday june 14th and next operations committee meeting is wednesday july 21st. some potential agenda items we are considering include presentation on the sf program. update on the sfcta pricing

initiative and overview of the energyaccess sf program. and then before we know it, it will be time to review the reduced risk list again. so that's it. i'm happy to answer any questions. >> president stephenson: commissioners, any questions? or other items? i would love help figuring out from the city attorney whether or not two of us can go see supervisors together and have conversations around the budget. just a little more clarity on that would be very helpful. >> clerk: yes, i can get that. >> president stephenson: thank you. let's go to public comment then. >> clerk: i'll put the instructions up on the screen. one second. we have a caller.

so let me start the timer and unmute our caller now. >> good evening one last time commissioners. eric brooks representing our city san francisco and californians for energy choice. i want to propose for future agendas and reiterate something i said before that in my view, the key to climate goals in the city and efficiency in building efficiency, etc cetera, that is revenue bond financing. that is crucial. it's not a big part of the discussion. so please as commissioners give direction to your staff, give direction to the policy and operations committees to start talking about how we use revenue bonds to fund large community-wide and neighborhood-wide programs so that we don't have to bring

money out of the general fund to fund these things and just fund them from the revenues they create. as an example, the project, the local build out project that we're putting before you tonight, that will cost upwards of probably $2 billion with a b. you can't do that from the general fund. you need to do it with revenue bond financing. it is really important that the staff and committees and this committee start getting its head around this issue of revenue bonds so we can actually meet all these goals that we're rightly demanding our city give us the money to do it with. and that is a big piece of getting the money. if you can please make sure that becomes part of the conversation in your hearings and in your committees, and with your staff, that is my most important ask of you for the evening.

thank you. >> president stephenson: thank you for your comment. >> clerk: we don't have additional callers in the queue. >> president stephenson: all right then. next item please. >> clerk: all right. moving on to item 15, adjournment. and with that, the time is 7:48 p.m. thank you for joining us. >> president stephenson: thank you everybody. have a good night.

>> chairman: good morning, everyone. today is the may 25th meeting of the san francisco transportation authority board. i am raphael mandelman, the chair of our board, and. will you please call the roll, madam clerk? [roll call]