[roll call vote taken] >> we have a quorum. >> this meeting is being held in-person at san francisco city hall room 400 authorized by the code -- i'm so sorry. 54953e mayor breed's supplement for emergency proclamation. i would like to remind all individuals present and attending the meeting in-person

that all health and safety protocols and building rules must be adhered to. hand sanitizer stations are available and masks. we welcome during public comment periods. two minutes of public comment, first from those attending in-person and then remotely. members of the public may provide remote public comment by dialing 1-415-655-0001, meeting i.d.24804498950, pound pound and star 3 to raise your hand to speak. please know you must limit your comments to the topic agenda item discussed, and remind if you do not stay on topic the clerk will interrupt and ask you to limit to the agenda item. public comment be made in a civil and respectful manner and address remarks as a whole not to individual staff or

commissioners. i would like to thank sfgovtv staff and i.t. staff for their help during this meeting. >> appreciate your subtle reminder we all silence our phones. before calling the first item, san francisco public utilities commission acknowledges and stewards of the unseeded lands in the historic territory of the tribe, and other familial descendants, alameda county. sfpuc recognizes every citizen in the greater bay area has and continues to benefit from the use and occupation of the tribe's aboriginal lands, since before and after the san francisco public utilities commission founding in 1932. vitally important we not only recognize the history of the

tribal lands on which we reside but also we acknowledge and honor the fact the people have established a working partnership with the sfpuc and flourishing members in the greater bay area san francisco communities today. madam secretary, next item. >> 3, renewed findings and state urgency legislation to allow hybrid in-person meetings during the covid-19 emergency and direct the secretary for a similar resolution in the next 30 days. >> members of the public who wish to make two minutes of remote public comment on item 3, star 3 to raise your hand to speak. do you have any members of the public present who would like to make comment on item 3, seeing none, any callers in the queue? >> madam secretary, we have one

caller in the queue. >> item number 3, caller. >> i have unmuted your line. >> sorry, i think i'm waiting for the general public comment period. >> all right. >> madam secretary, no other callers in the queue. >> commissioners, any questions or comments on this item? if not, a motion and second, please? >> move to approve. >> second. >> moved and seconded, roll call please. >> commissioners, on the matter of the minutes of the june 14th meeting, any additions, comments, corrections, seeing none, open public comment. >> members of the public who wish to make two minutes of

remote public comment on item number 4, approval of the minutes, press star 3 to speak. any present wishing to make comments on the minutes? >> we have one caller in the queue. >> item 4, the minutes. >> thank you. i'll be brief for the record, my problem -- pronouns are she and her, i'm going to comment on the minutes. i don't know if i'm in order here but i want to raise a spelling correction. i didn't know how to submit this. my first name is spelled aleta, alpha lema echo tango alpha.

and so in the minutes for the longest time it's been with an i as in india, so i'm not making a big deal out of it. hope i'm not making a big deal of it. thought i would let you know because i've never gotten to submit my name to you in writing. so if i'm out of order, you have my apologies, but i just thought i would raise the typo. and i appreciate the good work the secretary has done in taking my minutes over the last few years. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. >> thank you, caller, i'll make that correction. >> madam secretary, there are no other callers in the queue. >> thank you. public comment on item 4 is closed. >> thank you, commissioners, any further comments? seeing none, motion and a second, please? >> i'll move.

>> second. >> moved and seconded, roll call. [roll call vote taken] four ayes. >> minutes are approved with that one correction. next item, please. >> item 5, general public comment. members of the public wish to make two minutes of general public comment on matter in the jurisdiction and not on the agenda star 3 to raise your hand to speak. do we have any members of the public present who wish to provide general public comment? seeing none, mr. moderator, callers with their hands raised? >> we have four callers in the queue. >> caller number one, you have two minutes. >> thank you again, president

moran, she and her, good to be back with you. i speak to the basics, i hope to be back in san francisco again very soon. to enjoy my beloved second home. and frame in general, what i would like to see as the primary focus of the puc. so always remember the first two words of your mission's name, is san francisco. and so when i set foot in the city and county of san francisco and experience your services firsthand, it's like having water and electricity. i want that always to be our focus. that's the focus of my conversation and how can we make sure that our water supply is

adequate to make it the san francisco and serve the people and our electric supply through cleanpowersf, be adequate to serve the people of san francisco. because when i am in san francisco i am thinking about san francisco and the reason why i enjoy coming to your meetings is because i care about san francisco being my beloved second home. so i ask in the basics, always keep this in mind. first two words of your commission name, how can we do the very best we can to ensure that we continue to serve the people of the city and county of san francisco and i thank you. >> thank for your comments.

next caller. you have two minutes. i have unmuted your line. >> good afternoon. i think sfpuc missed opportunity on the importance and quality of white water on the river -- [inaudible] and economic, recreational, educational value. i'm a fifth generation guide, and commented as an individual, not a representative of my agency. my family has lived in bay area since 1860, and multiple generations have served the bay area through distinguished careers in military service, healthcare, education, small business ownership, employment, and businesses, and more. i'm proud to be from the bay area with all good and bad. i moved to the sacramento region

and have not come home because of the river and the affordable housing. release local businesses in rural towns, national website describes the river as one of the finest boating experiences in the nation. i've spent over 300 days on over 20 rivers across north america and i agree. the tualme river is fun, challenging and safe, and protected for all people, it is relatively more affordable for commercial boaters and private boaters to access. the last two years have the recreation for physical and mental health of all americans for every background and income river. it's an excellent educational experience where all people can learn about nature, history and culture on location, including

where their water comes from. i understand the river dams most other dams in california are exempt from -- >> thank you, caller, your time has expired. next caller, you have two minutes. i have unmuted your line. >> good afternoon. as i think you know, sfpuc staff have not been for the coming with the long-term vulnerability assessment so we have had to be created to find answers. the model runs that use current demand and the bay delta plan flows but received no response so we ask the question a different way, knowing they compared the flow requirements to 15% decrease in precipitation, we ask a similar

comparison between the in-stream flow requirement and demand. the answer no, it had not been calculated. we look back, and the current regional water supply conditions, either state amendmented water quality control plan for extreme flow, requirement on the tualme river or increase in demand 15% have impacts on the performance equivalent to the mean annual precipitation around 15%. the requirement of 15% increase in demand and 15% decrease in precipitation are all equivalent. now, the baseline demand of 227 mgd is 16% greater than current demand. therefore, the graph based on 227 are equivalent of using

current demand and in-flow requirement. why doesn't staff see all the positive in this, after all you can provide the bay delta fan flows and restoring the environment without risking running out of water. win-win. why are key staff leaving sfpuc, could it be the employee who oversaw is leaving because he was forced to keep quiet of the findings? how many other good employees will leave the sfpuc for similar reasons. i hope you will have a chance we submitted earlier today. thank you for the opportunity to comment. >> thank you for your comments. next caller. i have unmuted your line. two minutes. >> i'm one of the authors of the trust letter you may have received today. letter is intended to provide information to the practicality of the design drop, i want to take a moment to talk about the

design drop return period or how often it's expected to occur. among other things, tries to leverage the staff analysis to estimate the return period for the severity of the design drop and reduce security. demand 23% higher than today, design drought return period is once in 3,000 years. to put the 3,000 years in context, 3,000 years ago humankind was just entering the iron age and no justification to make economic or environmental tradeoffs to plan for such a rare event. of course, what the design drop model was created we didn't have the tools to know what the period was, but just did not want to run out of water. as going back to the beginning of the iron age is too long, what would be a reasonable return period to plan for. i don't have an answer but two data points come to mind. one, for flood control, went to extensive process and came up

with a one in 200 year target. the other data point, the situation today. i doubt there is any other major water district in california close to the water are in storage, i'm sure they wish they had more water in storage but i would guess our outliar with so much water in storage means the drop model could be shortened. knowing the return period for the design drop is valuable information, thank you. >> thank you for your comment. madam secretary, one more caller in the queue. next caller, i have unmuted your line. you have two minutes. >> can you hear me now? >> yes, loud and clear. >> great. david pillpel. general public comment, it would be nice to have maps and photos as a standard attachment to staff reports where appropriate.

i've made that comment before. i think commissioner agreed, hopefully she's not nodding off because she's paying close attention, but in particular on items 11a, 11c, 11d, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, all of those involve very specific locations that could have a general area map and photos of either completed work or where work is intended to occur and just to orient the commission, anyone paying attention here, etc. i think it would just be good going forward to have as many maps and photos where appropriate as part of staff reports, that would be great. thanks very much for listening.

>> the call queue is clear. >> general public comment is closed. next item is item 6, communications. >> commissioners, any questions or comments on the communication provided? seeing none, public comment, please. >> members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment on item 6, press star 3 to speak. do we have any members of the public present who wish to make comment on item 6. seeing none, mr. moderator, any callers with hand raised? >> one caller in the queue. caller, go ahead, you have two minutes. >> thank you, she/her, i'm going to speak about the municipal

benchmark. i was able to find the report but i had to do it in a roundabout way because the link at the bottom of the one page intro was broken, so you'll want to fix that. but in looking at the report here, i think it's a pretty good report. it shows that we definitely have a lot of work to do, given about 50% of the city's municipal energy use is natural gas, and so we know we are getting the clean electricity from your power system, we have a lot of work to do, i'm seeing the airport is a huge user of energy here, more than anyone else. and i admit to you i have not

yet used the airport, not in 40 years. so as i go through this i am seeing some tables here which look very helpful. i would like to see us somehow take this 2020 benchmark, this eight-page report and somehow put it in a more readable pdf that i can just download. because sometimes slides are not very mobile friendly, don't work well on phones and ipads. other than that, i think the report will help us go where we need to go. >> thank you for your comments. madam secretary, no other callers in the queue. >> thank you, public comment on item 6 is closed. >> further comments on this item? commissioner ajami. >> just wanted to reiterate the

caller's comment. i also noticed the link wasn't working, and i had to do a bunch of search to figure out where that report was. so it will be great to make sure next time these are checked before they are posted. thank you. >> thank you. any further comments? seeing none, next item, please. >> next item is item number 7, san francisco public utilities commission employee retirement recognitions for distinguished service for the public utilities commission and city and county of san francisco. >> i'm honored to introduce and recognize two outstanding individuals who are in the process of retiring from the puc and having served the agency and the city for more than 25 years. one of whom is here today, and

one whom is not. and i just want to personally say having had the opportunity to work with acting assistant general manager alan johanson and michael carlin over the course of this transition period of the last 6 or 7 months i have seen their incredible professionalism and commitment not just to the agency but to the city more broadly and our residents and our rate payers, and they have been absolute professionals and stalwarts on behalf of the agency and it's my honor to read resolutions of recognition for both of them because they both are eminently deserving of any and all praise that they get from our staff and from the public for a job very, very well done, and a great commitment to public service. first, for alan johanson, whereas he has served the city and county of san francisco one

waivering commitment and leadership for nearly 30 years, in that time he has skillfully and effectively championed multi-billion dollar capital improvement for the wastewater and power systems and whereas alan began his impactful career with the city in 1992 as a resident engineer with the san francisco municipal transportation agency before transitioning to construction management with the san francisco public utilities commission in 1998. and whereas as manager of the construction management bureau, alan was critical in advancing our $4.8 billion water improvement program and initiating 20-year sewer program to upgrade and ensure reliable, sustainable and seismically safe for generations to come, and tenure overseeing the large scale infrastructure projects, alan prioritized the safety of

thousands of construction crews who recorded millions of hours of work without a single major injury or accident and whereas since 2021 has the acting assistant general management of infrastructure, led a team of over 280 employees and tremendous implementation of the projects and capital programs, and proven himself to be a thoughtful and collaborative leader to all those with the privilege of working with him, and on june 30, 2022, after nearly three decades of exemplary service to the city and county of san francisco, alan will retire from the sfpuc. therefore be it resolved this commission hereby expresses deepest appreciation and gratitude to alan johanson for contributions to sfpuc and wishes him a long and prosperous

retirement. congratulations, alan. and i will say he always does it with incredible good humor. he has a fabulous sense of humor. even though he's not here, i speak on behalf of all our employees when i say he is going to be sorely, sorely missed. secondly, i'm going to wait -- no -- >> public comment. >> do it at the end, correct. >> one public comment period at the end unless you prefer to do two separate. >> let's do them separately. >> do them separately? ok. >> ok. so, public comment on the retirement for mr. johanson, members of the public who wish to make two minutes of remote public comment on the retirement for mr. alan johanson, star 3 to raise your hand to speak. do we have any members present

who wish to make comment? >> commissioners, it's unfortunate that alan is not here today, it would be great to see him, i have not seen him in a long time but i too express my appreciation on behalf of the board, our member agencies, there are 26 of them and customers for the work alan has done, specifically on the water system improvement program. there was many times we were knee deep in it trying to figure our way through it and he was a strong voice for a good direction and i appreciate that on behalf of amal and the system is better off because of his efforts and i think that is the greatest testament to public service there is, so thank you. >> any more members present?

>> david pillpel, i agree with the comments that were just given, i was going to speak on both of them together. i think i'll do that very quickly. given the extraordinary testimony and congress today, we absolutely need epics in all levels, federal, state, local now much more than ever. i appreciate michael carlin and alan johanson over their work and integrity many, many years. each generation of the puc has leadership potential and opportunities but must take the time, meet with people, be able to listen and find themselves in

their place at the puc to do the best work for people. i note this item on the agenda is for some reason listed as discussion only, but it sounds like there are actually resolutions of appreciation, so i don't know how you want to deal with that in terms of the brown act, but in the future this should not just be listed as discussion, if there is in fact a resolution which is entirely warranted here and to paraphrase billy crystal during the 1980s, "they are marvelous, absolutely marvelous, and i don't say this to everybody." thank you for their work, thanks for listening. >> thank you for your comments. another caller with their hand

raised. you wish to speak, press star to unmute. madam secretary, no one else in the queue. >> thank you, public comment on mr. johanson's retirement is closed. >> thank you, madam secretary. secondly, introduce deputy general manager michael carlin and before i read the resolution, i just want to say that i think his career has been extraordinary, and what i'm going to read in the resolution, i've had the experience to live firsthand for the last seven months in terms of seeing his wisdom, his counsel, good nature and commitment to the agency and thank him personally to the counsel he's provided over the last half year as i have stepped into this role and honor to work with him over the course of the six months and appreciate his

wisdom and counsel. so the resolution for michael carlin, whereas michael carlin began his career december 2, 1996, water resources planning manager, and invaluable part of the san francisco public utilities commission. whereas michael's contributions include the diversification of sfpuc water supply portfolio, championing environmental initiatives and leading the sfpuc with a steady hand through challenging times. and whereas michael was instrumental in the water system improvement program, 4.8 billion multi-year capital program that updated water systems to bolster reliability, long-term sustain ability. and assistant general manager

for the water enterprise, created the natural resources and land management division and under several general manager, shines most brightly with the people he hired, promoted and mentored, and june 30, 2022, after nearly 26 years of exemplary service to the city and county of san francisco michael will retire from the sfpuc, therefore be it resolved this commission expresses the deepest gratitude, wishes him a long and prosperous retirement. congratulations. now i know we are happy, before we ask michael to say a few words, we are happy to be blessed in the chamber with

former fire chief now representative senator dianne feinstein. >> good afternoon, gives me great pleasure to be here in my relatively new role as northern california director for dianne feinstein, and in my role as chief, retired three years ago and attest for the san francisco fire department michael was a great resource for us, a great partner, similarly so, i've noticed the senator's office great asset to the sf staff and d.c. staff. i would like to read the certificate of commendation she has prepared for michael. in honor and recognition of michael carlin's more than 29

years, michael is many of the traits of public service. leadership in hiring, cultivating and supporting other dedicated people will be his lasting legacy. michael was the leader who assembled the team to push through the water system improvement program $4.6 billion to bolster the reliability of the san francisco water supply, seismic safety and long-term sustain ability. michael's vision, his savvy and camaraderie were critical to the effort. a huge accomplishment for the people of san francisco and the broader region of which michael should be proud. as a united states senator representing the people of california, i commend michael carlin for leadership and achievement in water. so, i would like to present this

certificate of commendation. [applause] >> thank you. >> thank you, chief, and i would like to invite deputy general manager michael carlin up to say a few words before we go to public comment. >> good afternoon. i'll tell you, i won't miss this standing before you, to tell you the truth. i have other things to do. but thank you dennis for the kind words, appreciate it. i've had about 25, 26 years with the puc but 31 with the city. i started out as a camp assistant in the 1970s, you can

date me from there. i enjoyed my time at the puc, it's the great people that help accomplish things that need to be done and chief, i never forget the 2013 rim fire, by the way, huge step up for us and the chief especially. but most of all i'm going to miss the people here, and i'll miss just talking to them, seeing them on a daily basis. and working with them on things of mutual interest, not just for puc, but for communities in general, and very happy that we have accomplished a lot and i wish you the best of luck. i'm not going very far away. i'm planning a wedding for my daughter, so i got to finish that, finish building my house and looks like i just sold my grapes and my vineyard, in good shape for the rest of the year. so, thank you very much, i'll see you soon. >> thank you.

>> and then after that. >> members of the public who wish to make two minutes of remote public comment on retirement of mr. carlin, please press star 3 to raise your hand to speak. do we have any members of the public present, we do. >> honorable mr. harrington. >> it's good to see you all and look like you are doing well. i could not let michael leave without a few words, and so much to say about michael, concentrate on three things. the first is michael knows everybody. i think, you know, i expect him to know people in the puc. i did not expect him, probably relatives, 10% of san francisco. but all of that going on. but much more outside the city and so when you become general manager of the puc you are a member of all kinds of organizations, typically four letter acronyms, normally with a

w in them, so aqua and all the rest of them, and michael knew everybody and i could never figure out why and whether that was important, other than socially. then i realized that as things came up, michael could say oh, you are thinking about, seattle is doing this, d.c. doing this, denver, tampa, what about san diego, and hands out to all the water agencies in the country to help us do what we do the best. and then federal and state regulatory agencies and looking at trying to do the water rebuild, we get together with our staff, our engineers, our water people, our environmental people and talk about the goals and what the project would do and then turn to michael and steve and tim and is that going to fly. who is it going to be at fish and game or that agency or this agency, and who is their boss, and say this is a winning argument and this is not, and

incredibly important to have that connection. the second thing is michael's willingness and flexibility. you know, he would say we could try that, give that a try and maybe things could be better. one example, you know, i'm a fan of engagement and communication and so when i was general manager i wanted to have commission and staff and the public get together and talk about issues of concern. and if you ask me a question i can continue, is that the way this works? >> what else do you have on your minds, mr. harrington? [laughter] >> and i will be quick. and so it's not a magic bullet, communication does not fix things. but it certainly gives you a better basis to have conversations with people, makes people feel listened to and a way to move forward. and so when i was general manager my commission didn't care, but in 2021 we had a time

when we were in a place where the community and the commission and the staff, i'm not saying michael is excited about this, but he was willing, to have conversations and move that conversation and engagement forward. that's a very important thing. the third is the constant. in the 25 years, commissioners come and go, general managers come and go, department heads, leaders of the city come and go, and we hope when we have the positions we offer good advice, good decisions, provide some guidance, but we all know that when you flush the toilet and turn the tap and flip the light switch it's the women and men of the puc that make this place run and michael was an incredibly essential part of that glue that made the place run and move forward over those years. so i will be eternally grateful. so thank you for your service, your friendship and wish you the

best of luck in the next chapter of your life. thank you, commissioners. [applause] >> again, good afternoon, commissioners. president moran. michael, very good to see you. as i put together the letter that's in your packet thinking back i actually was hired at bosca three years after michael joined the puc, so worked my entire career on the water system together. you can imagine there have been times we have been on opposite sides of an issue and same side of an issue you about the words were so true, i never questioned his loyalty to the regional water system and that's an important thing. i think that's part of the critical piece of good public

service. we may disagree, that's part of how we move forward. and certainly were a lot of challenging things in our time together and through the course of that together and with your leadership you made it better. and so i want to thank you for that, michael and wish you the best of luck on your retirement, and good health and good times. so, thank you. >> any other members of the public present who wish to speak? mr. moderator, do you have any callers? hands raised? >> madam secretary, we have one caller. >> go ahead, i have unmuted your line. you have two minutes. >> david pillpel again, hopefully the last time today. the only thing i can add to earlier comments is i agree completely with all the words just spoken by chief

hayes-white, fantastic ed harrington and nicole sandkulla. best of wishes, i'm sorry i'm not down there in person but thank you, thank him for your work over the many years and absolutely it is the people of the puc all these years that make the place run, 90 years this year, and michael absolutely represents the best of all of that. thanks again. >> thank you for your comments. madam secretary, another caller has joined the queue. caller, you have two minutes. >> thanks very much. rosecranes for restore hetch hetchy. and as you know wants to remost reservoir, relocate your

reservoir so the valley can be returned and national park. so in a sense the sfpuc is adversary of ours and michael carlin has often been the face of the sfpuc as adversary. but we have undying respect for the work that all utility people do and michael has been more diligent, worked with more integrity than most, and really first class water agency official and sfpuc is, sorry to lose him and i'll speak directly to him, i'm not supposed to, michael, i wish you really well and thanks very much for all you've done to make the system work for san francisco and regional customers. >> thank you for your comments. madam secretary.

we have one more caller in the queue. caller, go ahead. you have two minutes. >> hi, my name is mark musgrave and i am a white water kayaker. i wanted to give some perspective on the water releases on the tulame river, obviously that's really important river resource for many people that recreate in that area. >> excuse me, caller. caller, i'm sorry to interrupt you but we are on item number 7, resolution for the retirement of our deputy general manager. this is not general public comment. >> oh, i'm sorry. i'm sorry. >> thank you. >> the call queue is clear.

>> thank you. public comment on item 7 is closed. >> wondering what your white water experience was there for a minute, but -- commissioners, comments for mr. carlin. >> i'm the newest member of the commission at this point i guess, but i wanted to say i came in right as things were really rocky in this organization at the leadership level and i know michael, i came in and you had taken the rein and trying to kind of move everything as smoothly as you could and i appreciate that it's not easy to run an organization this large that provides essential service under such a

complicated and not very pleasant situation and be so thoughtful and calm and be able to make decisions day in and day out with so much grace and i real appreciated all of that. i think on a general format i would say i have known you for a long time, i have been in the water world for a long time. i followed you and steve to the regional water quality control board hearing all the great things both of you had done there, and it was really -- as always appreciated all the work that sfpuc have done for, as a member of this city and as somebody who worked in the water world, and i would say as part of that world i always appreciated how much, how quietly san francisco public

utilities was doing things without necessarily making a lot of sort of story around it, but so much leadership is required for some of the work that has been done here around diversifying our water supplies, treatment systems, managing both wastewater and electricity and all of that has been done in, you know, making sure all the best science is available to people, making all the best decisions, obviously we can't do everything but i always appreciated to be a leader without living in a city with a water utility that's a leader but not necessarily screaming that we are a leader, and that demonstrates the humility and the thoughtfulness of the leadership of this organization which are quietly working towards a better future without necessarily trying to make a

huge deal out of it. so i always appreciated that and coming into this role i could see that continuing on. i want to say i'm grateful for your leadership, for your thoughtfulness, for always listening to all the ideas and questions i've always asked. i've never ever sort of being frustrated by them. i know it's not easy to have everybody asking you questions from the top or the bottom, i'm sure all the members of staff, all the things you have to deal with on top of that,s you know. all the asks that we have as a commission and i appreciate working with you on everything and i will miss you, and i hope you stay in touch and keep us in your mind if you have great ideas and, you know, and stay in touch with all of us, it would be good to use your wisdom once in a while with we can. thank you for everything that

you have done. public service is -- is really being, like not getting as much appreciation these days, i've said this a few times, everybody wants to be a billionaire and run a start-up and have a company that's sold for many, many million dollars, but you know, we often forget how, how much selflessness goes into this kind of line of work. so i appreciate all the work that you have done over the years. thank you for making this organization what it is now. >> thank you. commissioner paulson. >> so, michael, thanks for your service. like commissioner ajami, i came in at a time when things are chaotic and transitions were coming through and rich and you in particular were real resources. i got to become a new commissioner and wander my way

through the complexities of this incredible department here in the city which is -- which is pretty unique, the amount of talent and skills that is needed with the staff as i said the other day, you know, to really make, you know, these utilities work in the city is absolutely amazing and your help as a go-to person when i first came in is very valuable. i don't know you that well. i want to also thank you for something that you didn't do, you know, as you know, i've worked in the labor union for quite a while with hundreds of unions and my firefighter and building trades and police colleagues in those unions spent many years boring me and taunting me about not knowing anything about sacred heart and reardon and the west side fights that have gone on all the time and you never, despite the fact that you probably know more

about that stuff than anybody in san francisco did not impose those rivalries and stories on me. so that being said, thanks for your service and we'll be missing you as been stated here. so, good luck on your retirement, enjoy it, thank you. >> commissioner maxwell. >> i've known michael a very long time, since my days on the board of supervisors. and i think what comes to my mind that michael has is a gift for relationships, and understanding the value of them. have to have a relationship with 11 members of the board of supervisors and was not the easiest thing but he has a way of making people feel comfortable, and that's important. and that's a skill that when we start looking for other people that we need to really consider.

they may not have maybe a lot of one thing or another, but being able to have a relationship with all the people that he's had a relationship with is extremely important. and you've been such a valuable asset, michael, and it's natural, so thank you for everything you've done and you are going to enjoy the hell out of your next phase, you are going to enjoy it, michael. so, we look forward to seeing you in a couple of, a year or two when you've had a chance to really get into it and you'll look like ed, very serene and comfortable. we'll miss you, and thanks a lot for all you have done. >> thank you. michael, i was thinking of 1996, and we were a different place back then. it was a smaller department, simpler department, and we had a lot of work ahead of us, we

didn't even know what it was going to be. your time here has been a momentous time, and when you think about that, the whole creation and delivery of the ssi -- of the s -- wsip, i'm sorry, and others, too, i don't know that there's anybody in senior management that has served that full spin. i was trying to think whether there was somebody else, i could not come up with anyone. and during that time you helped steer this organization into being an organization that's capable of doing just about anything. the old joke was that if you want the mountain moved six inches over to one side you could probably do that if you gave us money to do it. and it's -- it is a fundamentally different

organization. our priorities are different. and 1996, environmental stewardship was not very high on the list of things. today it is. and people, mentioned, but the people you brought into the organization and nurtured are number one, i think the mark of successful manager when you can bring people in and basically seed the organization with talent and you have certainly done that. some of the things you did were fairly quiet. there's some charter provisions that make us a stronger commission today that are there very much because of the work that you and i think barry had a piece of it too, to make sure that we are the undisputed masters of water in this city. and then last and alluded to, i think the -- as i loved your

recitation of the general managers and commissioners that, you know, michael's experience did occur to me earlier that it would actually be a very long list, and if you had it supervisors and all got pretty crazy. [please stand by]

>> clerk: these resolutions are not an action item.

mr. president, your next item is item number eight, the bay area water supply and conservation update. sandkulla. >> nicole sandkulla. if i can have the slides, please. >> clerk: you need to -- oh. >> it's up. steve did it while you were taking your picture. thank you very much, commissioners. i wanted to take the

opportunity today to share with you information about what's going on in the service area with regards to the drought and drought use reduction. and, you'll hear a little bit from steve when he talks about what's going on, but i want to see what we're seeing. first and foremost, the agencies and their water customers strongly support your call for demand for reproduction and conservation actions to achieve that. they are all implementing their conservation programs to reduce their demand to meet your call and to meet the governor's call. that said, what we're seeing this year, because of the magnitude of this drought and kind of how it's shown up interestingly enough that there's some differences going on in the service area. 10 of the 26 agencies actually have water supply sources other than the san francisco regional water system. different percentages of what they serve from their system with those, but those are

significant to them and what we've noticed is that agencies have alternative supplies and in that case, much more significant than the constraints they're experiencing with their supply. and these are not predictable and they're necessarily not all related to drought. we have two agencies that are dealing with ground water issue that is are impacting their ability to use that ground water source or impacting how much they have to blend to use that ground water source. what we're noticing or anticipating is that these constraints on alternative supplies may impact those individual agencies regional water purchases and it may limit their ability to roll off of your system which historically often they would do. they would go to their alternative supplies if they had them and it may require

them to purchase more of your regional water system depending upon the situation. so, as we've been these last couple months, my staff and i have been tracking these issues and i have asked them now to conduct an analysis of it. i've spoken of it with mr. richie as well so we can get a better picture of what's happening with these particular agencies. how they reduce in their demand and what's the impact on their purchases from you. so just to kind of show you what we're seeing, this is the graph that your staff prepares weekly and you'll see lines that we're all getting very familiar with. i will call attention to two particular lines and i and steve, mr. richie also, we're continuing to try to keep our

numbers flat if we can just like we did in 2015. can we get down to those numbers that we achieved then? can we stay down that low and the green line is calendar year 2022 numbers and showing up recently, there's just a bigger gap between that orange line and that green line and these are san francisco purchases only at the meter line and this is concerning. right. and mr. richie will remark on that as well. and so the question is, is that all the picture? and, so, what i've done and unfortunately this data is -- this is the data that the agencies report to the state board as they're required to, but it's showing all poetable water use. all potable water use by month. and what i've done is the orange line is the same orange line that you had.

so that orange line is 2015 total potable water use, but the green line is 2022. and, now mind you, this is april, so it's not may or june, but it's certainly showing something different than just those regional water system purchase numbers. and that's the concern. that's the concern to understand what's going on with that. and i wish i had the answer for you, but i don't. but right now if we were to look just at april, for example, april 2022 use is actually 3% less than april 2015. that wouldn't necessarily be what you would have thought if you lookeded at april on the p.c. purchases data. so what's going on? so some observations that we've made that i wanted to share with you. as i mentioned, we're having widespread impacts from this drought and they're really showing up differently.

in particular, we have three member agencies that are among the largest purchasers of water from you, so they purchase the largest amount of water and those three are experiencing significant constraints on their alternative supplies. the concern is that this disproportionate use by them because of their size can be outweighing what these numbers show and i'll give you an example and you've probably heard of it before because i think steve has mentioned it. but alameda county water district relies on your supply for a small portion normally for their water supply portfolios somewhere around 15% give or take and the state water project and also local ground water. and your supply generally is used to blend their ground water and they deliver a combined treated water to their customers. alameda county water district has two issues going on this year. they got a 5% allocation of

their state water project contract water. normally, they get about 50%. so that's a significant reduction in that major source of supply for them. and their ground water is requiring greater levels of treatment -- not treatment but blending, and so they're even using more to deal with the one of other available source they have. and, so they're actually purchasing more today than they would normally be purchasing from you despite they are significantly reducing overall uses. some other examples santa clara valley water district and the state water project has implemented drought restrictions. the six member agencies in santa clara county to get water from valley water either ground water or treated water are being asked with a mandatory 15% reduction being imposed on with fines and restrictions and things like that. so, again, they're trying to figure out how they manage

their way through this and then i mentioned alameda county water district to you. in addition, two agencies rely upon local water. locally developed water. one of those is a very large agency cal water bear goulg and they have not gotten water out of that reservoir for the last two years. all these things begin to add up and the question is how much is that impacting our picture because i think it's important for us to actually understand what's going on. so we are as i mentioned reaching out to the agencies, getting a better sense from them of what's actually happening. i wanted to call this to your attention because i didn't want you to think there's no action going on because particularly the area is reducing, but we'll decipher this, distill it, but

just to reiterate, the agencies are committed to promoting drought messaging, conservation savings supporting both your call and the governor's call. i thank you for this opportunity to give you updates and certainly answer any questions that you have. >> president: commissioner ajami. >> commissioner: thank you. i have a question for you on the county's request to hire, sort of treat the ground water a little more, mix it with more water. do we know why is that happening? is this because they were using the ground water too much? is it salt intrusion? do we know what's going on there? >> so i believe they are having some pfos issues in some of their wells. >> commissioner: some ups and downs. >> so it's a blending right now is how they're dealing with it. i think in other circumstances

if it wasn't a drought, they probably wouldn't be taking their ground water at all. they would probably do a big switch, but that's obviously not a possibility right at the moment. >> commissioner: and just to talk on the allocation, i think i would not be surprised if this continues considering the fact that you're experiencing drought after drought. so i don't think that's a passing matter. it's probably going to repeat itself over and over. so that's something to think about. >> you know, it's interesting you say that because that has really, that highlighted not so much with bear gulge because i think they're used to that, but coast side has a water supply and they went into this drought and they were using because we had a very wet year, so they actually took more surface water than they normally did and so by comparison to that year, their purchases are much higher. so it is interesting as we start to talk about these

investments in alternative supplies, better understanding their reliability and factoring that into our drought allocations. that's one of the conversations we're having is we're talking about our drought allocation methods. >> commissioner: on the same topic, i know just recently, maybe a few months back, we had this conversation. you mentioned your team is looking into sort of tracking the amount of production in your region. i was wondering where that process is. i know there's so much going on with the drought. >> yeah. i believe we have a white paper that was produced last summer that was kind of a snapshot analysis where different studies were at in the service area. so i will check back at my office and i'll provide that to donna for distribution.

>> commissioner: thank you so much. >> president: thank you. commissioners? commissioner maxwell. >> commissioner: thank you. it's good to see you. >> good to see you too. >> commissioner: i missed why the ground water is the problem with the ground water. >> so generally alameda county water district always has to blend with the ground water supply and the surface water supplies. they take the hetchy water which is such high quality and they blend it for taste and odor issues primarily so it's a better quality water, their customers like it better. right now, they're having a pfos issue so it's a contaminate issue that can be treateded out but also can be blended out. so they're also doing blenting to extend their ground water

sources as much as they can. >> commissioner: so do you foresee this as a permanent problem? >> my understanding is no it's not going to be a permanent problem. but it's not going to be fixed right away. i'm not exactly sure for the timeline of that project. >> commissioner: all right. thank you. >> president: thank you. commissioners, anything else? seeing none. public comment. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of remote public 'comment on item number 8, press star three to raise your hand to speak. do we have any members of the public present to make public comment on this item. seeing none. mr. moderator, any callers with their hands raised? >> we had one caller, but they lowered their hand. caller, if you wish to speak, star three, please. we have no callers.

>> secretary: okay. thank you. i'm sorry, no callers or caller. >> no callers. >> secretary: thank you. public comment on item eight is closed. >> president: thank you, next item. >> secretary: next item is item nine, report of the general manager. >> thank you, madam secretary. it's a draft update from steve richie. >> thank you, commissioners. steve richie, assistant general manager for water and i've got these slides up for our drought conditions update and many of which are slides that you will seem to have seen before because some of them aren't changing now during summer. i'll go through them very quickly. first is our storage. hetch hetchy storage is full. water bank is down about 230,000 acre feet. so i think that's commissioner moran mentioned in the last drought. this is where the levels should

be. we're keeping water in storage where we can make the most beneficial use of it. and you see also that overall, we are without water bank at 93% storage in our system. next, is the slide showing the california reservoirs and, again, shasta and oroville are really quite low. for any of the commissioners that may have noticed it, there was an online article today in the san francisco chronicle talking about something like winners and losers in the california water supply situation in the drought. the article was really all about the state water project and the central valley project driven by these two reservoirs. they did have a picture of the reservoir. it was a full reservoir. it was our reservoir in the sierra. we did bring it to their

attention so it's now been replaced with shasta. but it was actually a fact. our reservoir was full where others are struggling, that's part of the design and operation of the system that we work with. the california drought monitor, this has not changed either. california is definitely in a drought and we're all having to deal with that. precipitation at hetch hetchy has stayed level now as we get into the summer months. we don't expect that to change very much. again, we were above 2021 and certainly above 1977, but below the median. very similar for snow pack, below the median, again, we were fortunate for the snow pack because of the heavy rain in october, that really set the stage for having much more water available to the city as time progressed which you see here got to be ultimately be about 200,000-acre feet which is far below what it would take

to totally fill the system, but just balances out roughly what we use. so if you recall the last drought, we had three successive years of a steep decline in water bank. this year has gone kind of level. so basically this has been the year that's bought us another year of time in terms of our overall storage. this is the new slide and it might take me a little bit to walk through this. different questions have come up about what are the other things going on in the system. and this is a graph of monthly hetch hetchy generation totals with and without the threat of water rights curtailment. so, basically looking through this, you can break it into about four chunks. the first chunk is august '21 through october '21 there on the left-hand side. and you'll see that the actual to date operation meaning the generation was on a downward

trend. and that was really in anticipation of curtailments occurring in the last quarter of calendar 2021. curtailments didn't come until august, but we foresaw we might be curtailed through the end of the year and we wanted to preserve our storage, so we generated much less at home during that period. but with the storm at the end of october, november 2021 through june 2022, you see the actual generation pretty much increasing during that period and that was because we did have a fair amount of water coming through the system. so we were basically operating to manage our water supply and the fact that we had a fair amount of water supply allows us to be generating a fair amount more. so generation turned for a good bit during that period. you know, the blue line took a

steep dive that was no curtailment, you know, and we thought that the curtailments we believe would not have been generated much at all. then you get to the period of january 2023, where basically it flattened out a bit and the period june '22 through january '23 again anticipation of curtailment looking forward now shows that red-dashed line because the threat of curtailments, we would anticipate we may have to minimize generation later in 2022 because of curtailments because to preserve water supply in cherry -- it's one of those reservoirs up there. i couldn't recall the name for whatever pup.

now, if there are no curtailments, then we would expect that we would generate more during that period and the state board just put out an announcement they're looking to adopt a renewal of the curtailment regulations because they're in emergency regulation in effect for one year. they're going to expire in august. so they're going to consider adopting the new year's words in july of this year to go forward. so they're fully anticipating to need that curtailment tool available to them. and then, looking at february '23 through july '23, we're looking at this is with median hydrology, we would be generating a fair amount more coming through the system. if it turns out to be dry, it will look a little less. generation varies overtime based on the availability of water to us and anticipation of whether or not the state water board might curtail our

diversions. those are the two fundamental drivers of how much we do. what the impact of that is is not necessarily on total generation, but one of the things we've talked about a little bit is resource adequacy and others can talk about that more. the state is looking for us to be able to agree. we're concerned about curtailments. that's where we get into the challenge of how do we meet all of our obligations moving on, precipitation, the up country precipitation hasn't really changed nor has it for the bay area and also it really hasn't changed looking at the california outlook.

the most recent report shows the cities of california looking totally dry for the next couple of weeks. so that's just the way it's going to be for the next little bit. and, then, lastly to talk about the deliveries as nicole talked about in her presentation, you can see we were starting to move up a little bit with the green. yesterday's report came out and it actually dropped off a little bit, so that's a good sign there. but one question that really has come up and i've asked our staff to look into this and we'll be working with bossco on this because of our importance and reliability as a source, they are going to be looking to us for more water supply and that will affect our ability to achieve the 10% reduction but in a good way because acwd are looking at a 15% and the

greater need for ground water. they're doing a good job overall. and an answer to the question that commissioner maxwell raised, the pfos condition is one that will require treatment to eliminate those chemicals. they're organic chemicals that are persistent in the environment. particularly agencies rely on ground water throughout the country are grappling with this issue. i know that orange county took 70 of their wells out of operation until they could come up with the treatment process to deal with it and put them back in operation after removing those chemicals. that's what alameda county water district is looking at down there as well. treatment of the water supply overall and not just blend it down is what they have to do to survive with enough water in the current time. >> commissioner: where are the

chemicals coming from? you said they're in the environment. are they from what we put on the ground? are they -- what is it? is it organic? >> pfos are very common. they're ubiquitous in the environment. they are associated with fire retardants and various other things. probably in lots of different things that you wouldn't expect to find organic chemicals in, but they're there in trace amounts. and just last week, the u.s. c.p.a. took an action to propose an action level or something like that that in effect is zero because they don't think there's a safe level in the environment for them overall. they're doing a lot of data and i'm sure there's going to be a

lot of discussion about that and there's a discussion that water agencies throughout the u.s. have been facing for the last four or five years, it's really come to the forefront. >> commissioner: so, are we looking at plastics and aluminum and those kind of things? >> in case of aluminum, that's a metal, but in this case, it's -- well, i'm trying to recall is it associated with nonstick coating as well on pans. it's in cookware. so it's in the coating, it's not in the aluminum itself. it shows up lots of different places. so, yeah, in conclusion, again, we're really looking hard at can we achieve the reductions that we want to. it's going to be dry for a while. so the data aren't going to change and we're looking forward to seeing what the state board poses on the regulations for continued curtailments and we'll try to

keep on top of making sure we continue to put water first, but do the best we can in terms of optimizing power generation and white water recreation while we do the other job. and i'm happy to answer any questions. >> president: commissioner ajami. >> commissioner: thank you. going back to power generation slide. i had a question there. so, basically, the difference between the blue and red -- >> can you flip the slides, please? >> commissioner: yeah. can we have the slides up one more time. >> there we go. >> commissioner: thank you. so i'm looking at the lines between june 2022 and december 2022 and the difference between the red line and the red dash line and blue dash line basically what i hear you're saying is if the curtailment, if there is a chance of being curtailed, we

may not release as much water, therefore our generation reduces. is that -- >> yeah. the actual amount of water that we're delivering basically from the peak of summer to about november, our reservoir levels come down every year because we're running water out of them. and so what you see in blue is the generation at kirkwood and moccasin from the water supply and also from holm for the nonwater supply water that's coming out of cherry. so what this demonstrates is the blue would be with holme generating more and the red line is the generation that's left in just the other power houses when we would generate less out of holme by about 50 gig watt hours. [please stand by]

it is communicated well to us and to you that they are actually meeting those requirements at the same time. obviously, if there is water and they need it and they are already doing the conservation requirements -- i mean, meeting the conservation requirements. >> we've been talking to the county water district since january of this year, knowing we would get into this situation. we have a running commentary. their general manager always reminds me how much they value the high water supply.

he's getting a good deal out of it. as we really get into the numbers and find out if that is really making a dent into the amount of water we would like to see conserved, that's a role that this commission would be happy for us to fulfill for the bay area. we want to make sure we communicate that loudly and clearly to this commission, to all of our customers and elected officials and other in sacramento that we're doing our part even though we're not meeting our conservation goal and still providing the basic water supply levels necessary. >> absolutely. i just want to make sure we don't end up on the wrong side of the story for something that should not -- >> no, we will make absolute sure. that's why we're looking at it right now as ms. amcula mentioned. we've got to bring the deliveries down in the summer. great. if we don't do that, we want to

make sure we know why. if it's because we're providing greater reliability, we want that message out there. >> thank you so much. >> chair: thank you. any other questions for mr. richards? no, seeing none, public comment. >> clerk: members of the public who want to make comments on item 9(a), drought conditions update, raise your hand. do we have any people wishing to make public comment? seeing none, do we have any callers in the queue? >> operator: we have two callers in the queue. first caller. you have two minutes. >> thank you very much. just to reiterate a couple of

things said and to ask the question. he is right that san francisco by virtue of the two big storms did well under their water rights. most people in the state and the artifact of california is what i can, can you want this water right system and [indiscernible] san francisco in an ideal world would be changed and fixed and made more equitable all the way around. it's true that san francisco can do better things for alameda county. what's unclear is the curtailments and the curtailments, i understand they affect hydro power and not water supply. that's all sort of a little confusing. thank you. >> thank you for your comments.

next caller. i unmuted your line. you have two minutes. >> i'm here with some college students and we are listening to this meeting. now i want to say a few things. number one, if we do not release sufficient water to serve the needs of the salmon, soon we will not have the salmon. and guess what? you will not have water. you will not have water. write this down in red, blue, green, yellow, whatever. you will not have water. go to the place and see how you have wasted millions, maybe

trillions of gallons of water and how you have accommodated people like botsa who refuse to become a permanent member, but now is cajoling you. you have the people on the commission and some are white. i respect that. don't pay attention to public comment. don't pay attention to empirical data. don't pay attention to the first people now. i'm in touch with the first people and they don't know what's going to happen to hetch hetchy. you need to have curing with the first people. go back to the days when it was the hetch hetchy valley. thank you very much. >> thank you for your comments.

secretary, the call queue is clear. >> clerk: thank you. public comment on item 9(a) is closed. mr. herrera. >> thank you, mr. president. that concludes my report. >> chair: thank you. next item. >> clerk: next item is item 10, new commission business. >> chair: do we have any new business from the commissioners? seeing none, next item, please. >> clerk: next item is item 11, consent calendar. >> chair: i'm not sure if there's any items you would like removed from the consent calendar. seeing none, public comment, please. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of remote public comment on item 11, the consent calendar, please press *3 to raise your hand to speak. are there any members of the

public who wish to make a comment? seeing none, are there any callers in the queue? >> operator: madam secretary, there are no callers in the queue. >> clerk: thank you. item 11 public comment is closed. >> chair: thank you. the consent calendar is before us. may i have a motion and a second. >> move to approve. >> second. >> chair: moved and seconded. [ roll call ]. >> chair: and the consent calendar is adopted. next item, please. >> clerk: next item is 12, approve the terms and conditions of and authorize the general manager to execute a purchase and sale agreement with cypress lawn cemetery association, purchase and sale agreement with carlos alberto and an easement deed granting pacific gas &

electric company an approximately 300 square foot overhead electric line easement for no cost over the sfpuc parcel and providing electrical service to a remote sfpuc water sampling cabinet. >> my name is deana brazil, right of way manager. this item could approve three real estate agreements to power a remote round water sampling station built through the storage and reliability project. this is a multi-agency effort led by the puc to provide additional water supply for customers through the coordinated use of the stored surface water and groundwater pumps. the project includes the construction of over a dozen well water facilities and treatment facilities to be connected to the sfpuc system as

well as the wholesale commissions. the groundwater sampling station that is the subject of this item is located on sfpuc's parcel 17 in south san francisco. the electrical service line would be owned by pg & e. -- on third party property. the applicant must convey to pg& e an easement. there is a requirement of a 10-foot-wide right of way. in the item before you, we seek approval of two purchase and sale agreements for an easement over the property located at 1755 mission road owned by the

owners $7,500 and one easement on the parcel owned by cypress lawn cemetery association for $1,000. the fair market value of the easements is estimated at $2,500 and $1,000 respectively. however, the sfpuc is paying an additional $5,000 for the seizement over the road and seeking a reimbursement as afforded by the code of civil procedure. this fair market was obtained from associated right of way services and certified by the city's director of real estate. additionally, we seek approval of an easement deed between the sfpuc and pg & e with an easement at no cost. should you approve this item here today, the sfpuc would go on to seek approval from the board of supervisors and mayor

as required by the city's administrative code. delays in these agreements would result in a delay in implementing this critical project. thank you for your consideration. i will gladly answer any questions. >> chair: thank you. commissioners, any questions? seeing none, public comment, please. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment on item 12, please press *3 to speak. do we have any members of the public who wish to make comment on this item? seeing none, do we have any callers on the line? >> operator: madam secretary, there are no callers in the queue. >> clerk: public comment on item 12 is closed. >> chair: can i have a motion and a second. >> move. >> second. >> chair: roll call. [ roll call ].

>> chair: item 12 passes. next item, please. . >> clerk: approve the terms and conditions of and authorize the general manager to execute a purchase and sale agreement with bay area rapid transit (bart) to purchase (1) an approximately 14,619-square-foot permanent easement across bart property located in colma, california, and 3, and (2) a temporary construction easement to support construction of the vehicular and pedestrian access road, for a total of $306,000, subject to board of supervisors and mayoral approval. >> thank you, commissioners. this next item is related to the same groundwater project as the previous one. this is a real estate agreement between the sfpuc and bart for the acquisition of an access easement and temporary construction easement over bart property to reach the sfpuc groundwater well station known as the treasure island treatment facility. this facility was constructed on sfpuc parcels 2 and 3 in south

san francisco. while it isn't landlocked, our existing land access does not accommodate the delivery of equipment and materials necessary to operate and maintain a groundwater well for production of potable water. sfpuc and bart staff negotiated a purchase and sale agreement for a permanent easement over an existing bart access road and a temporary access easement to accommodate this proposed use. bart agreed to sell the easements to the sfpuc for the negotiated settlement value of $306,000. the purchase price is based on a series of independent third party appraisals commissioned by the sfpuc and bart. should you approve this, the sfpuc would go on to seek approval from the boards of supervisors and mayor, as required by the code. a delay in implementing this project would impact the

treasure island facilities and services. thank you for your consideration. any questions? >> chair: any questions? seeing none, public comment, please. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment on item 13, raise your hand to speak. are there any members of the public who wish to make comment on this item? seeing none, mr. moderator, do we have any callers in the queue? >> there is one call in the queue. go ahead, i have unmuted your line. you have two minutes. >> what i wanted to say is we need a hydrologist and some experts to tell us about the quality of the groundwater. now we stole the land and the water from the first people. now we're into groundwater.

this mickey mouse is not going to take us too far. there is already some nervousness about the distribution. it looks as if they are now into the business of making more money selling contaminated water. i say this that even in san francisco recently people are getting a foul smell when opening up their water. a foul smell. so we are mixing groundwater, but we are bragging that our water is the best in the world when it's not. moreover, some of you know and i hope the general manager takes note of it, we haven't replaced

many of the pipes, thousands of the pipes that carry clean drinking water. i can say more, but i'll put it in writing. maybe i'll put it in an article so the world can know about the foolishness of this commission. thank you very much. >> thank you for your comments. madam secretary, the call queue is clear. >> clerk: public comment on item 13 is closed. >> chair: thank you. any further discussion? seeing none, a motion and second. >> move to approve. >> second. >> chair: roll call. [ roll call ]. >> chair: item 13 passes. please call items 14 and 15 together. >> clerk: 14: approve amendment no. 5 to contract no. ww-647r, southeast water pollution increasing the contract by

$498,103,597 and increasing the contract duration by 621 consecutive calendar days for a total contract amount of $1,787,283,149 and a total contract duration of 3,848 consecutive calendar days . item 15: approve amendment no. 2 to contract no. cs-235, planning and engineering increasing the contract amount by $55,000,000 and extending the contract duration by three years and six months, for a total not-to-exceed amount of $208,500,000 and a total duration of 16 years; and authorize the general manager to execute amendment no. 2, subject to board of supervisors approval pursuant to charter section 9.118. >> my name is steven rollanson. i am acting for my colleague as he is in the process of retiring today. he's going through the motions

of signing a lot of paperwork. i'm here about items 14 and 15, both amendments for the biosolids facilities project. this is for the contractor and the design contract. since they're both the same project, i'm joined by the project manager. we have a brief presentation. i wanted to note that you may recall back at the beginning of this year in january when we went through the budget hearings for this plan, we noted there was a significant increase in forecasted costs and time for this project. it is a big deal and now what we're hearing today is the contract administration going through the process now to formally document that in this amendment. there is no change from what we presented at the beginning of this year, no new news. but this is important to go through. i'm happy to take any questions, but i'll hand over to carolyn to

cover some of the material. >> good afternoon, president and commissioners. carolyn chiu, project manager biosolids project. we are before you today to request amendments to the construction contract and the professional services contracted that support the biosolids project. and to bring this in line with our biosolids scope and budget that was adopted through the 10-year capital plan earlier this year. just a little history and background to remind us. as you may recall we suspended bidding activities and paused the project in 2021 when business came in higher than expected and we paused to confirm our project delivery strategy. in the months that followed, the p.u.c. and others looked at lessons learned and made a few

significant changes and saw the positive impacts of these changes. hence, by october of 2021, which was the last time this project was in front of you as the commission, we provided the update where we wanted to share that we were going to confirm our use of the approach to construct the facility but with an improved project team and an updated bidding strategy. since that last october, the bid procurements and the construction have been going at full pace. this is a slide you're probably very familiar with. you probably only saw it a couple of weeks ago as this is a page out of the quarterly report to the commission. to date we have a significant portion of the biosolids facilities, including the five digesters. we have the brain of the whole process and some of the supporting chemical facilities and number 2 water facilities.

we anticipate buying out the rest of the job by the end of the year. so in the contract amendment under your consideration, we are requesting to increase the contract by $500 million and to increase the duration by 21 months. the longer contract duration reflects the contract schedule which was an outcome of having that bid suspension that i just mentioned, coupled with the necessary time just to do that necessary competitive bid and award procurements of these and the site constraints associated with having multiple contractors working on a constraint site. the proposed increase to the contract value is based on a recent estimated cost of construction to complete that we obtained from the independent cost estimating team that took into consideration current

market conditions, escalations, timing of subcontractor procurements, et cetera. so here is a high-level breakdown of that construction costs increase. you can see the majority of it is because the cost of the construction work has increased. obviously there was some escalation due to time, but there is also an increase due to the cost of materials and labor ongoing in the market right now. and then going -- and obviously with the longer schedule and the complexity, of course the general conditions and general requirements also proportionally go up as well. lastly, we increased the cmgc contingency to match what we think the project will need going forward. here is the ask. as don already read it.

this reflects the estimated cost of construction and it is the amendment and the time extension was in the current approved budget and schedule. all right. now, segueing on to item 15 which is the cs235 professional services contract with brown and caldwell. they led the team when we started in 2013. then they progressed on to the full design of the facility. hence by approving this amendment too, it ensures that the same brown and caldwell team will available through the construction phase, facility startup and commissioning to provide that engineering support and that specialized service that they have provided all along since the beginning of the

project. so we are through this commission agenda item, we are looking to increase the contract value by $55 million for a total contract value of $208.5 million with an extension of 42 months through july of 2029, which is the closeout of the project. once again, having this amendment will continue that engineering support and ensure that they are available to us during the course of construction and then obviously when we have a new facility that we have a commission on more. once again, this like the other one, the cost estimation and in the current budget and schedule. with that, that ends my presentation here. i'm happy to take any questions. >> chair: thank you very much. commissioners, any questions?

seeing none, thank you very much. public comment, please. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of public comment on items 14 and 15, please press *3 to raise your hand to speak. are there any members of the public present who wish to make comment on these items? seeing none, mr. moderator, do we have any callers with their hands raised? >> madam secretary, we have one caller in the queue. caller, i have unmuted your line. you have two minutes. >> let me say this. could we have the assistant general manager of infrastructure just come and say a few things and turn it over to somebody who told us some funny tales. why don't you do a needs assessment on this project and find out why we have three middle-level managers who have

jumped ship? we have an assistant general manager of infrastructure who doesn't know what's happening. so it says a few things and turns it over to somebody who told us a story. what is a story? we started with $6 billion, now at $12 billion, heading to $20 billion. and not one of you commissioners there had a question to ask. oh, we had some difficulty so we had to have a gap, you know. the contractors couldn't go forward. yes, you have contractors. the one contractor was a group that was suspended or fired and then brought back. this is what has been happening. we don't have -- this is taxpayers' money.

this is not those who brought this guy initially. last year i had to step in and tell your commissioners that something is fundamentally wrong. nothing has changed with this general manager on the 13th floor walking up and down singing the blues. he is not an engineer he may be an attorney, but even that is dubious. we need a good engineer, a manager, and not middle management -- >> thank you for your comments. secretary, the call queue is clear. >> clerk: thank you. public comment is closed. >> chair: thank you. commissioner paulson. >> i did have one general question and i'm going to couch it with a couple of comments. one is i think somebody did mention that i think all of us

as commissioners have been out to the southeast facilities to see that incredible project that is ongoing, and it is. it is incredible. i know that we acknowledge that with the complexities and the state-of-the-art and all the great stuff that is going into this resource, that there was a pause because there was a price piece that i think we, very responsibly, said let's look at this a little bit more and find out how we're -- let's talk about what this is. the general public wants to -- will be asking questions like question asked as commissioners. we have seen both high-level and low-level additions of all the work done to get new business and to explain what is going on. will there be designs and actual

construction themselves and whether or not the cost went up or down for workers and materials, which is general in construction. this isn't just san francisco or one project. this is the entire country if not the world. what can you say -- and this is my question -- what can you say is in layman's terms or in just general terms, what happened -- has happened between the pause that we put together a half year ago and right now when we have these budget numbers which -- and these the same budget numbers i hear you saying, what has changed besides the diligence that i talked about to move forward. if you could just talk about what specifically this means outside of just the diligence that we had. if you could, please. >> great question. >> because we have to own this.

>> oh, absolutely. a couple things as a part of that. one, i think now we have weekly management meetings where steve robinson as the director and allan when he was the a.g.m. with infrastructure and our head of construction management, we all meet once a week so there are no surprises with the cmgc, whether it's competitive business or what's going on with the market. on our side we're caelting a more collaborative marketreatin more collaborative market. we changed our dynamics in the field. the other one was i felt like we maximized the benefits of the cmgc which is not something we had seen before we paused them. meaning that ability to right size bid packages. even now they're always thinking about if we make this package

smaller, we can get more business for a more competitive bid process in the procurement. also looking at the availability of resources there, maybe we can carve out this one and let an l.b.e. prime it. there are all these benefits of trying to get the best price that they take advantage of -- especially since you just mentioned that the market is changing. sometimes we slow it down without exacting the schedule to get the better pricings. a lot of that is our contractors thinking because this is what they do. understanding the market and what we think the procurement could be and obviously putting risk in the right place and obviously doing it in communication with us and the p.u.c. as well. steve, did you want to add? >> i will add briefly, carolyn touched on the culture in the team and the collaboration and partnership we needed to strengthen and forge.

also the contract was looked at as well. you mentioned the opportunity when we paused to evaluate what we're doing and make a conscious decision moving forward. part of what you see is the amendment to modify it. we looked at the terms and the specifications and how they would more fairly and transparently allocate risk. the contract was looked at, as was the culture. we also did some independent cost estimating. we wanted to be transparent. we used that pause to look at how we're measuring pause. now we have more confidence that the number remained confidence from the beginning of the year seeking that pause to today. >> thank you. and the reason i ask that also is just in general when it comes to infrastructure and structures, the public and the private sector, there are many things that happen during the course of the project that are

not known on day one absolutely, from the extreme of an earthquake, changing the price of a project or really finding out after because there is no other way to find out what exactly the bedrock looked like or what exactly happens once you start digging or playing. just yelling about cost overruns for me is a stupid exercise unless the types of things that we've seen right now have taken place. where let's not just wander forward. let's look at things. that's why i ask that question. thank you. >> chair: commissioner jonny. >> i appreciate you walking us through this and i do want to emphasize the fact that the cost of labor definitely has increased significantly in the past few years especially due to the pandemic. i do understand that.

two things. one is i want to make sure as we are approving this amendment, we are sort of doing it with acknowledgement that they can do this job in this price and there is not going to be another one in the next three years. i think that is very important, going back to your comment on risk assessment and risk allocation, i think we are definitely taking on a lot of this risk on our side. this is a common practice in all these public-private partnerships that private entities try to throw most of the risk on the public side and take the benefits of that. that is not uncommon. this is not the only project and we are not the only ones experiencing this. the second thing i would say is going back to my request and i know we are working on that. every one of these projects has

a lot of lessons learned. we have staff changes. people come and go. obviously as people move up the ladder, there are new people coming in. we need to make sure we are documenting and tracking these things to make sure we are learning from them. if we're not learning, we will constantly be on the side of being caught off guard by different things. i still hope we are collecting that data i asked earlier in the budget process. i still hope at some point i will have a way of seeing that data in a better way. and i think i said two things, but i will say this last thing. the concept of how we do project assessments also needs to change. i know we want to make sure we get the lowest bid, but we also don't want to get the lowest bid

that keeps rising up and rising up and rising up. we fall for that lowest bid, but obviously they know when they put this bid on, they're going to take it and amend it as many times as they can. i don't want this to happen. i want us at our end to have better ways of assessing this that is more accurate and we can identify people who are low bidding for no reason or high bidding for no reason. finding some middle ground that's right and accurate. so i'm hoping that dataset that you are putting together will help in that process as well. >> commissioner, if i can say. thank you. absolutely agreed to all of your points. we are working to put that together. it will be telling and help us moving forward. working with business in the construction phase is important. i would bring us further with my

program director hat on. some of that is from inception, preplanning and pre-design, the values associated. this is something we need to think about more in the delivery process. this is something we're focused on at the moment in the budget process. >> nobody expected the pandemic would happen and the labor shortages and supply chain disruptions. no one says that won't happen again, but we have to try to minimize some of the other things. minimize the effect of those and then something like this happens and we need to adjust things slightly and not significantly. >> thank you. i think what also gives me a little confidence is that you're doing independent evaluation.

i mean, when something comes in, you look at the market. you look at what other contractors are doing. i think that really for me gives me more confidence that we're not taking anybody's word for it and they understand that as well. i'm feeling going forward that we have learned some lessons and have put things in place. thank you. >> chair: thank you. any additional comments or questions? seeing none, we will take these two items separately. on the first item, 14, may i have a motion and a second. >> so moved. >> second. >> chair: moved and seconded. [ roll call ]. >> chair: item 14 passes. >> move to approve. >> second. [ roll call ].

>> chair: item 15 passes. thank you call. next item, please. >> clerk: award contract no. wd-2879r, to clark construction group as construction manager/general contractor, for a total contract amount of $260,450,682 with a duration of 2,464 consecutive calendar days; this will be presented by shellby campbell, who is participating remotely. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm shellby campbell for the new distribution campus. i'm sorry i'm not able to be with you in person today and

greatly appreciate the opportunity to participate virtually. if we could have the slides. great. thank you. today we request your approval to award a construction management general contract for pre-construction construction services to clark construction for a total contract amount of $260.5 million for construction of the campus. [indiscernible] -- in february i provided the background on this project and shared our progress of completing the schematic design. this includes administrative offices and shops, an auto shop on the east side, a warehouse and meeter shop on marin street

and more on evan. there will be a separation of vehicular and pedestrian traffic for improved safety. we hope to start construction in 2024 and occupy the campus in 2028. [indiscernible] -- next. we advertised for the construction ceqa at the end of 2021. there will be an evaluation of real-time costs the ceqa is

looking to maximize opportunities for local contractors. finally, we received three proposals from clark construction, web core buildings and one more. here are the results of the process with clark construction in the high four. we request your approval to award the contract to clark construction in an amount not to exceed $260.5 million for a duration of approximately seven years. we hope to [indiscernible] -- we will return to the commission for approval to proceed with the project. n.t.p. for construction is scheduled for january 2024. lastly, i would like to

introduce clark and the clark teams we'll be working with on this project. building on the success at 5050 evans, this project will represent another unprecedented experience. there will be men and women of calendar representing 60% of the team. clark is a founding member of the construction inclusion week and they also have an internal mentorship program. lastly, clark has an incredible teaching partnership program. the spp is a unique program offering opportunities to disadvantages communities. this is an m.b.a.-style program fully funded by clark and aims to provide core construction management skills. to date there are over 1250

graduates, of which 61 are from san francisco. of the 61 from san francisco, 27 are from the bay view and $80 million in contracts have been awarded to the bayview graduates. their commitment to the graduates is evident in the contracts awarded to the graduates. just a couple of weeks ago the graduates were met with on another project. i would like to close with a quote from clark, that clark envisions an industry where we celebrate and embrace diversity, foster inclusion and equity. i'm honored to be working on [indiscernible] -- commission and welcome any questions that you have. >> thank you very much.

it's good to hear. i have a question. on contracts that we see, the future approves the contract amount for construction will be not to exceed. what does that mean when we say not to exceed? i mean, i think i know what it means, but what does it really mean when we say that? >> is your question -- this is not a maximum guarantee price if that's what you're alluding to, but it is an agreement that they have proposed, what their class will be for general provisions and requirements, their fee and insurance costs and that is applied towards the estimated construction costs and we're entering into ana contract that is a not-to-exceed amount. it's a not-to-exceed budgeted amount for the project.

>> okay. so what assurances then do we have that this will be the price and the timeline? >> so the purpose of working with the instrument of the contractor is to bring them on board early in the project so there is collaboration during the design process so that as you move through the design, there is ongoing reviews and cost estimates so that you are aware of your project exceeding the budget that you set. so it is a collaboration, a partnership. the contractor assists with presenting potential alternative solutions, to bring the project back on budget. so it is more of a give-and-take process, but aligned with the goals of delivering the project on budget.

>> okay. so i guess it means -- all right. maybe i'll let tim go and think about it. >> i had a question about the spp. i'm not quite as familiar with that. is this a program -- i'm just trying to bump up the fonts here on the powerpoint on the graduates. are these companies that go through the program or individuals? if they're individuals, what are examples of some of the jobs or titles or certificates that they might get by going through that program? >> they're subcontractors. i should preface this by saying that i'm pulling this information from their proposal

because until they're awarded the contract, i don't have any engagement with the contractor -- >> but you highlighted it so that's why i'm asking. >> no, i appreciate that. it's a subcontractor and then there is an ongoing relationship and commitment to award those subcontractors work and business as graduates are given a favorite position with respect to being awarded subcontracting jobs on clark construction projects. >> so these are contractors, not individual workers per se? >> correct. >> thank you. >> thank you for your presentation. a question for you. i sort of know the answer to this, but i want to see. have we worked before with clark

construction? >> no, we have not. >> i would just say, i would like for us as part of the continuum and comment i made in the previous discussion, i would like us also to know which contractors we have worked with and how accurate their business have been and how they have been able to keep to the price. again, i do understand these are complex projects. there are so many unknowns and risks associated with them. even a simple home remodeling can go south because of one complexity. so i do understand that, but i think it's also very important to know if there are groups that we work with that continuously run -- go over their bidding price and making sure that we are tracking that, that would be

valuable for us, i think. i also appreciate how the groups -- one other comment actually i want to make. i also was very much -- i found this quite reassuring, just because there are three different contractors bidding for this project. they were quite close. they weren't really that far off. that makes me a little more confident about these numbers. so we'll see if they can deliver based on the value of the contract they have provided to us. but i also appreciated the emphasis on the diversity and the inclusion in their contract. i think that was really good, so thank you. >> if i can add. >> sure. >> a little bit of information here. clark has done several projects with public works. as you know, public works has

done space for other city projects. their projects are more similar to the projects i do focused on workforce space. and the building industry and the construction and building is more standardized than the highly specialized infrastructure project. so there is more certainty to some degree in how to proceed with the project. and i do think that public works has had a really positive experience working with clark on the last two or three buildings they built with them. >> thank you. >> chair: any additional questions or comments? seeing none, public comment, please. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of remote public comment on item

16, please press *3 to raise your hand to speak. are there any members of the public who wish to make public comment on this item? seeing none, do we have any callers in the queue with their hands raised? >> we have one caller in the queue. i have unmuted you. go ahead. >> so let me say if we take city bills which are one -- the commissioner who is sitting down there knows the origins of city bills. city bills cannot produce workers that can build a hospital. we don't have any entity within the 33,000 workers who worked for our city and a city department who can build a hospital because those standards

are high. hodgepodge standards. maybe one commissioner will know the details of what i'm talking about. there is one labor person there. he has no clue what i'm talking about. of the three contractors that bid this contract, clark construction is the better one. they had better accountability and transparency. but let me look at it another way. don't you think our unions should have the ability to have training and produce high-skilled workers. we don't have that. we have this ongoing sfpuc who prefers not to work sometimes with a union, not to work with the city, but to work in their own mickey mouse bay way.

the bottom line is this is taxpayers' money. we have to be very wary of the money stated. somebody said, oh, [indiscernible] -- >> i'm sorry, caller, your time is expired. madam secretary, there is another caller in the queue. caller, go ahead, you have two minutes. >> not to work sometimes with the unions. >> yes, thank you. i'm not sure -- >> can you lower your volume on your tv, please. >> okay, yeah. is that better? okay, thank you.

good afternoon. my name is elsa buey. i am a graduate of the clark construction spp program and a small business owner. i've been in business in bayview since 2008. and the strategic partnership program has allowed me to expand my business. it has given me an opportunity to perhaps to even participate in this particular award if it'sed approved. and i know of other people just like myself from bayview who greatly benefit. so i don't know what other major construction companies are doing, but i so greatly appreciate the opportunity that having been a part of the clark

strategic partnership program, the benefit that that has offered me. i am hopeful and i feel certain that since it's an ongoing process that more small and minority business owners will have the same opportunity that i had. thank you, commissioners, for giving me the opportunity just to have a word. thank you so much. >> thank you for your comments. madam secretary, the call queue is clear. >> clerk: thank you. public comment on item 16 is closed. >> chair: thank you. any additional comments or questions? seeing none, a motion and a second, please. >> move to approve. >> second. >> chair: moved and seconded. roll call. [ roll call ]. >> chair: item 16 passes. next item, please.

>> clerk: item 17: public hearing, discussion, and possible action to authorize the general manager to impose a temporary mandatory prohibition on irrigation of non-functional turf at commercial, industrial, and institutional (cii) sites with potable water in alignment with state requirements. this action constitutes the approval action for the project for the purposes of the california environmental quality act (ceqa) >> i'm the assistant general matter for water. this is a relatively small item. when the governor issued his executive order in march 28, he asked the state water board to adopt a prohibition of irrigation with potable water of large landscape areas -- not landscaped areas, but turf areas at commercial industrial facilities. as we have done before, the state board did adopt this prohibition on a temporary basis back in may.

we're trying to keep pace with the state, making sure that in san francisco we reflect the same prohibitions the state has adopted state wide so we can take enforcement if need be. this one is unique. we're hard-pressed to think of is there any in san francisco of large turf that is not used for some recreational purpose, but we want to make sure that we're prepared to do that if, for example, a proposal came forward to institute a large water-using landscape that didn't have any real function, but used real water. we recommend approval of this. if the state board takes an action to make this permanent, we will reflect that and come back to the commission. >> chair: thank you. questions or comments? >> you said we are working on -- working to see if the government -- i don't know --

how much of this do we have in the city. is this something that we will be tracking? i'm so curious to see this. >> literally we're keeping our eyes open. i talked to the recreation and parks department and i believe every square inch of turf is used in the recreation and parks area. we have golf courses but those are recreational. so there is no large campus-style areas where it is really hot and people don't go outside and the grass is just there to be green and a nice-looking thing that happen that's what the real target is. >> thank you. >> chair: any other comments or questions? public comment, please. >> clerk: any members of the public who wish to make public comment on item 17, please press *3 to raise your hand.

do we have any members of the public or callers with their hands raised? >> madam secretary, there are no caller wish to make comment their hands raised. >> clerk: complement on item 17 is closed. >> chair: any additional comments or questions? seeing none, a mover and a second. [ roll call ]. >> chair: item 17 passes. next item. >> clerk: item 18: approve the plans and specifications, and award contract no. hh-1007, in the amount of $23,980,141, and with a duration of 668 consecutive calendar days (approximately one year and 10 months), to the responsible bidder that submitted the lowest responsive bid, wilson utility construction company. >> hello. i'm margaret hanaford with the water enterprise. i'm the manager of the hetch

hetchy water management division. i fast-forwarded a little fast, but i think we're good. here is my famous -- i thought i would take a little bit of time to show you where the project is and why it's so important for us to get this project done. this project will upgrade transmission lines 7 and 8 on our facilities. as you can see on the map on the right, i have highlighted -- this is a segment of -- an excerpt of california. you can see hopefully in the upper right hand, that is the hetch hetchy reservoir and on the right-hand side of the map is newark closer to the bay aware. that yellow line is 162 miles

and that is where our transmission lines transverse from approximately early intake up on the hetch hetchy water project down to newark and the bay area. this is to upgrade lines 7 and 8 located at our substation on the west near the town of oakdale and going 12.5 miles west to the stanford substation. i want to talk to you a little bit about why upgrading these line sincere important. we're upgrading these lines to address safety and reliability issues. i first want to talk about safety. we have identified safety

detections where minimum safety clearance criteria are not met on lines 7 and 8. we call these hard clearances. an example of a hard clearance is where the low point of the conductor or the wire that runs between the transmission towers has insufficient ground clearance. we have 18 of these discrepancies remaining on lines 7 and 8 and this construction project will raise those transmission towers and address these -- address these safety issues. a second reason for this project is reliability. there are hundreds of proposed renewable electric-generating projects seeking to interconnect to california's electrical grid system that is controlled by the california independent system operator or the ciso.

this will be used to pay for the implications of impact. though these are not interconnected with our transmission system, connection with these new generators can cause an adverse impact to our reliability. we have studied the impact of this new generation on the grid and the adverse impact to our facilities in specifically lines 7 and 8. to mitigate these effects, our selective mitigation project and to remit gait lines 7 and 8. the developers of the renewable generators are responsible for this mitigation project. we are seeking reimbursement in the amount of $33.3 million. of the 21 developers, we've entered into agreements with 11 developers valued at about $22.5

million. recently we reached agreement with five more developers with agreements valued at about $7.9 million with a total of about $28.6 million or 85% of the total funding we are seeking to collect. finally, commissioners, there has been correspondence regarding the contractor for this project, wilson utility construction company and their commitments to unions and wages. i understand a representative is here today that can answer any questions in greater detail. but i want to report the contractor and the scroorkts sign the agreements even though

not required by the agreement. we want to solve the safety and reliability issues of transmission lines 7 and 8. thank you. and i'll answer any questions. . >> i do have some questions regarding some correspondence that came in and as everybody knows this was on the agenda maybe two or three weeks ago to approve this contract and it was pulled, but there was correspondence attached to it that had to do with an organization that tracks contractors to make sure that training requirements and prevailing wages and everything that's usually required in the public sector gets taken care of. i was actually surprised to see these letters because this is the first time i've seen a letter from this organization, the fair contracting department

coming in. and there were two unions in particular that have apparently relationships where they have pointed out that this contractor has absolutely no track record of having a certified training program in the state and it's never been put together and then there was also thoughts that they thought -- and i don't know if this is totally true, but the letter did state that this was such a low bid that just when it comes to paying all the different components of what prevailing wages are that this contract does not have a track record of taking care of that. that as a commissioner had great concerns to me and that's what my concerns are. signing the p.l.a., we have -- whether or not the contract documents, desired or not, this is one of the things that this

commission in particular, not just for prevailing wages, but local hire and whatever else project agreements that we have in place and various parts of the infrastructure work that we do are important to the city and county and this department and san francisco in general. it seems to me that there were enough red flags as to whether or not this company was going to -- if they got a contract through us to be able to provide the things. the main thing is there is no track record whether or not you sign a p.l.a. or not to have people that are going to be trained to become the trades people that they will be in order to move that forward and that raises a big concern to me whether or not this contractor should be given this contract. i would like to have that

question answered in a hard enough way that convinces we that this is worthy of getting this large contract. that is my question and i would like to have some answers as to that track record and the commitments to the wage and hour and training that we require. >> thank you, commissioner paulson. let me just turn around. i hope this is okay. this is -- i would like to introduce walt posy with the construction company. >> good afternoon, president and commissioners. i am the director of the training for wilson construction company. to your questions about our track record, we've been in business an i.b.w. contractor for 70 years this year.

we participate in joint apprentice training programs across the country. our workers come out of the i.b.e.w. we're signatory with them. our skilled tradesmen come through a certified apprenticeship. that's where we hire from. we do have a very robust training program that we operate in all the states that we do work in. i would be more than happy to talk to any organization to look at our training program to show what we do and how we are meeting regulatory requirements when it comes to training and the ability for us to train. we have three training facilities. one in washington, one in oregon , and one here in california. >> and these are management

labor programs or just are these singular programs? >> they're management labor programs. so in conjunction with working with the ibew apprenticeship, we [indiscernible] -- when they come on board, we just don't rely on the apprenticeship training, we give them further training and job-specific training. we are involved with apprenticeship training and development. i sit on the local 1245 rules committee that dictates a lot of the rules for the apprenticeship and i have a very strong relationship with the ibew and their training programs. we're very dedicated and committed to furthering the trade. i think for the cost to do the work, we look at the prevailing

wage, we look at the wage of the ibew members we will be pulling from and that exceeds that. again, we put out a fair price bid to do this work. and i think the difference between us and maybe some other people who did the work is we're solely doing this on our own. there aren't multiple entities working with one another to provide this product. >> thank you. just one other question. do you consider yourself a general contractor? >> we're a utility contractor. we build power lines. >> do you have other crafts besides electricians that you directly employ? >> we do have other crafts besides journeymen electricians. we have utility workers which would be the labor operators all through the ibew classification.

>> thank you. >> i'm not sure if the question is for you or others. i guess my concern was a little bit also on the low bid, especially because it was even lower than what the engineer's estimate was. i'm wondering if you have gone through these business and sort of evaluated how they have managed to have much a low bid, just to avoid at the end paying much higher later in time. i'm just trying to understand how this bid could have been so much lower than the other ones and so much lower than our engineer's estimates. >> the fact that it's lower than the engineer's estimate, we were not that concerned. we actually did a third party evaluation to do that, the $28

million estimate and then compare that to some of the information in the bid. we felt that it was still reasonable and understandable from what we had seen and felt that the information -- the bid was acceptable. >> so the engineer's estimate was externally gathered, right? >> yes. >> okay. that makes sense. i appreciate that. thank you. >> chair: any additional questions? seeing none, public comment. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to make two minutes of remote public comment on item 18, please press *3 to speak. do we have any members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this item? seeing none, mr. moderator, are there any callers with their hands raised? >> madam secretary, we have one caller in the queue. caller, go ahead, i have unmuted

your line, you have two minutes. >> first and foremost, i know a lot about the company who's going to do this job. as i know a lot about other companies who belong to the ibew. and i know a lot about carolyn chiu. so again, there is a lot of ignorance among the commissioners. that line agenda or the agenda items coming before you should get some sort of orientation before you bring it to the public. one commissioner speak ill of the contractor who's really not a contractor. he's a labor management type of operation as we have in our project labor agreement. with some ties to the labor

union. okay? and we know about 261 right here in san francisco, about their transparency and accountability. now, having said that, my concern because of the fires, are we going to put a high-power line up or could we put it underground? i was also thinking that we had [indiscernible] bringing in the water from hetch hetchy and now we are using three. i don't know how we could use the fourth pipe that is now lot used, but -- i was just thinking about it. now, how about having some sort of an orientation, some sort of a public-making --

>> sorry, caller, your time has expired. madam secretary, there are no other callers in the queue. >> clerk: public comment on item 18 is closed. >> thank you. i was glad to see that you upgraded your safety and drug protocols in light of the incidents that have happened. have you noticed, have you had any -- have you noticed any -- have you -- i hate to use it. have you found anybody that was out of compliance because of your new protocols? >> yes. so we're catching most of that at our new hire orientation. i think what's really helped us is we provided reasonable suspicion training to all of our front-line people all the way down to the crew foreman. what we've seen is they have

concerns and will speak up and get someone else there to have a second opinion to say, hey, maybe we should get these individuals observed and tested. that's been very successful for us to provide a safe working environment. in some cases it comes back as negative and that's a positive thing as well, right. so we're getting a 360° view of the workforce that's out there. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> chair: thank you. any additional comments? seeing none, a motion and a second, please. >> so moved. >> second. >> chair: moved and seconded. [ roll call ]. >> chair: item 18 passes. thank you. next item, please. >> clerk: next item is public

comment on the matters to be addressed during closed session. members of the public who wish to make two minutes of remote public comment on item 21 to be heard during closed session, conference with legal counsel regarding the existing litigation dumer versus san francisco public utilities commission, please raise your hand to speak. any members of the public wishing to make public comment on item 21? seeing none, mr. moderator, do we have any callers with their hand raised? >> madam secretary, we have no callers with their hand raised. >> clerk: public comment on closed session is closed. >> chair: do i have permission to assert attorney-client privilege? >> so moved. >> i'll second that. >> chair: roll call. [ roll call ].

>> we have four ayes. >> chair: item 20 passes. we'll now go into closed session. >> president: we are back. there was no action taken during closed session. may i have a motion on whether

to disclose discussion that took place during closed session. >> commissioner: move not to disclose. >> commissioner: second. >> president: moved and second. roll call, please. >> secretary: [roll call] you have four ayes. >> president: okay. the item passes. there being no additional business before the commission, this meeting is adjourned. >> commissioner: what happened to your gavel? >> president: it got stolen. we evidently have one on order.

>> it had been rain for several days. at 12:30 there was a notice of large amount of input into the reservoir. we opened up the incident command and started working the incident to make sure employees

and the public were kept were safe there is what we call diversion dam upstream of moccasin. the water floods the drinking water reservoir. we couldn't leave work. if the dam fails what is going to happen. >> we had three objectives. evacuate and keep the community and employees safe. second was to monitor the dam. third objective was to activate emergency action plan and call the agencies that needed contacted. >> the time was implement failure of the dam. we needed to set up for an extended incident. we got people evacuated downstream. they came back to say it is clear downstream, start issuing

problems and create work orders as problems come in. >> powerhouse was flooded. water was so high it came through the basement floor plate, mud and debris were there. it was a survey where are we? >> what are we going to do to get the drinking water back in. >> we have had several emergencies. with each incident we all ways operate withins dent command open. process works without headache. when we do it right it makes it easier for the next one. >> we may experience working as a team in the different format. always the team comes together. they work together. >> our staff i feel does take a lot of pride of ownership of the projects that they work on for the city.

we are a small organization that helps to service the water for 2.7 million people. >> the diversity of the group makes us successful. the best description we are a big family. it is an honor to have my team recognized. i consider my team as a small part of what we do here, but it makes you proud to see people come together in a disaster. >> safety is number one through the whole city of san francisco. we want people to go home at the end of the day to see their loved ones. we don't want them hurt. we want them back the next day to do their work. >> there is a lot of responsibility the team members take on. they word very -- they work hard. they are proud of what they do. i am proud they are recognized.

it's nice to see such a wonderful crowd in san francisco. i'd like to thank you for being here and thank supervisor dorsy for marking the moment and all you have done. you revitalize our downtown and brought people back to work safely. that's really important for all of us as we rebuild. hi, everybody. hi team. good to see you all. i'd like to thank the gap in teams that brought this vision to life. today's a