>> if you want to take this out of practice, i should. >> good evening. [gavel] i call this meeting to order. >> good evening, this is meeting of san francisco commission on the environment. the date is tuesday, 3-28. the chair may order the removal of anybody using a similar device.

the ringing of cell phones can still happen virtually and still prohibited. please ensure that your device is silenced. public comment will be available on each item on the agenda. participants who wish to comment in-person will be asked to come up to the podium. members of the public may comment by calling into the meeting. opportunities to speak are available via phone, by calling. entering access code 29547266331 and meeting password sfgov. when connected press star-3 to be added to the queue. best practice is to call from a quiet location and silence any other devices.

alternative members of the public may commit public by email. comments submitted via he veil will be included as part of the official file. please know that i'm substituting for kyle but will be joining us via virtual. and i'm also committing meet with some of our dc congressional delegations. with that, i will now call the roll. vice president--president ang is excused. vice president. >> here. >> commissioner vermejo. >> here. >> commissioner hunter. >> here. >> commissioner stephen is excused. commissioner wald. >> here. >> vice president wan, we have a quorum. >> next item.

>> next item is item number 2, president welcome this item is for execution. >> good evening, everyone and chas will you please read the land acknowledgment. >> certainly. the commissioner acknowledge acknowledges that we occupy the home of the ramotushiloni people. we honor them as mother earth as protecters of this land. they have never seeded for this place. we recognize that we benefit from their working and living. as you know uninvited guest, we wish to pay our respects to the an chesters.

as environmentalist, we recognize how we care for san francisco and all its people. >> thank you, thank you for everybody's attention during this important acknowledgment. commissioners and staff and members of the public thank you for joining us for what is sure to be a busy and consequencetial meeting. we're dwg garden grove to start with the department grants in environmental justice communities and zero waste. next we'll hear a update on potential ordinances for san francisco and then we'll hear presentation from the controllers office and department on refuse rate setting process. finally, the commission will meet in closed session to holden vierment al director interviews. we expect a long meeting so let's get started. is there any discussion commissioners?

hearing no further discussion, we can open up to public comment. >> we will begin with public comment here in the room. once in-person, comments has concluded. we'll proceed to public comment. are there any members in the room today who wish to speak? if so come forward one by one and speak clearly into the mic. non januaried items. >> speaker: can i have three minutes? >> clerk: you have three minutes. >> speaker: i'm laura and i'm part of the growing community district which overlap in the goals of your strategic plan, lead on climate action and strength and am ply mrie community action, the issue is there is an abandon parcells

and connects tree avenue to, it's a former railroad right away. it has been squaded for decades by businesses adjacent businesses who lock it who share the key with each other and some of my older neighbors have been trying to change this for decades. and specifically last year, it goes further back but specifically last year, we decided enough is enough. this needs to be abscessable green space specifically for this block that used to be fully industrial. warehouses have been turned into apartment buildings, there is now like 50 apartment buildings there, where there used to be zero.

there is a 60-unit, no sorry, six story 90-unit plan right on that corner. all and all this needs to be public space. it's an illegal vacuum because of this ownership and businesses have taken advantage of that, specifically tech company called monkey brains. they harass us volunteers, they sneakly paid five years of back taxes in order to advance their agenda of adverse possession. they keep locking us out. they have falsified a permit application by stating that they own the parcel in order to get a permit to build their own iron gate which we were lucky to catch in time to file an appeal. so next month in this room, we're going to have a board of appeals hearing about this permit, which we're grateful

that it will give us a platform to speak to agencies and have the public join us. we need everybody's help to fix this legal vacuum and create this turn this into public land, otherwise these copsings will take it over for their private parking needs. and this needs to stop. is my three minutes up? >> clerk: you have 30 seconds. >> we have a website, greenway.org, please get in touch there for any additional information. thank you. >> thank you. are there any other public commenters in the room? i will admit i made a mistake,

item 4, we're glad that you did make that public comment. anyone else for public comment in the room? seeing none, we'll go to virtual public comment, kyle, do you want to take it from here? >> members on remember ex should dial star-6. we will paws for a moment while the access code and instructions are displayed on the screen. we have a couple of callers on

the queue. hell o, caller you're unmuted, your three minutes begin now. >> speaker: i have a general public comment, should i wait for item 4. >> yes, please wait for item 4. >> speaker: thank you. >> thank you. we do have another caller in the queue. hello caller, you're unmuted, your three minutes begin now. >> speaker: can you hear me now? >> yes. >> speaker: excellent to comment on the previous speakers's comment, i believe the area that she is speaking to is the original railroad right of way of the predecessor so the southern pacific that was the main line from san francisco through the mission district and the bern al pass

to san jose right off of harrison at 22. so i'm very interested in that property and support of what the residents are doing in that regard and very interested to hear her comments. thanks for listening. >> thank you for your comment. and seeing no further callers on the queue, public comment on this item is closed. >> next item please. >> clerk: approval of last meeting of march 7, 2023 minutes. this item is for discussion and action. >> thank you, are there any changes? >> i would like to move approval of the minutes. >> i will second. >> great, thank you. we have a motion by

commissioner wald and second by commissioner sullivan. and if there are no further discussions, let's open for public comment. >> clerk: thank you, we'll begin with public comment here in the room. once public comment is concluded, we'll proceed to remotel public comment. are there any members that would like to speak? if so, please come forward one by one. seeing none, we will proceed to remotel public comment only on the draft minutes, kyle? >> members of the public participating remotely who wish to make a public comment on this item, you may press star-3 to be let into the queue.

>> we do have one caller on the queue. hello caller, you're unmuted, your three minutes begin now. >> great. thank you, again. on the minutes i did not attend this meeting but the minutes appear to fairly capture what occured. i was just concerned on page 2, at the end of item 5 and the middle of item 6, it says session closed and particular time that session opened. i'm not sure if that is directly with 67.16 of the sunshine ordinance which requires that the minutes include the time, the board of commission began and ended any closed session. so, that just does not seem to be the practice, normally minutes would say, close

session began at x-time and at the end, close session ended at a particular time. subject to the commissioners secretary, checking in the form conforms with that admin code section. i support adoption of the minutes. thanks for listening. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. seeing no additional people on the queue, public comment is closed. >> seeing no more comment or discuss, please call the roll. >> president ahn is excused. vice president wan. >> aye. >> commissioner behrmejo. >> aye. >> commissioner stephen son is excused. commissioner sullivan. >> aye. >> commissioner wald?

>> aye. >> next item is item 4, general public comment. members may address the public on items not on today's agenda. we'll begin with public comment here in the room. once in-person comment is concluded, we'll move on to virtual comment. are there any commenters here to comment in-person. seeing none, we go to remotel public comment. kyle? >> clerk: members participating remotely may now press star-3 to be put in the queue. those in the queue, please continue to hold until it's your turn to speak.

we do have two callers on the queue. hello caller, your three minutes begin now. >> speaker: hello i'm peter and the director for the wtwulami trust where we get our water and we're having a difficult time with the pcu, to put it bluntly, they're terrible stewards of the twualami river. they hosted 5,000 salmon, this past summer, there were 500. they updated the plan to improve flows and the sf pc u and others sued to block it. they don't want to run out of water, well no one does.

but they have incredible weather rights. it's 1987 to 92 drought were repeat. the sfpuc can manage with place without requiring any rationaling and without any alternative water supplies. but they're planning for a much much more conservative drought, they call it the design drought where they coupled the worse droughts in the last century and they're planning for demand of 265 million gallons per day. command has been under 200 million for the last 8 years and finance bureau projects sales to remain flat over the next ten years. >> as far as the design route, the own climate study, three quarters of a million dollars found that the return period

are 1 in 70,000. we really need intervention here. it's not, the sfpuc is not representing the environmental values of the constituents. they're supporting something called the river agreement which was concocted by the service, they commissioned pure review of their fish models upon which the da is based. they found major flaws and yet the sfpuc is so eager to say that they will produce more fish with less water. i ask that you have a workshop where you hear from the sfpuc and ngos and you learn about the issues. what you'll find is they've been spreading a lot of disinformation. and the policies have lead to a

collapse in the ecosystem, you probably heard that the commercial fishery is closed this season. those in fisherman's wharf already out of. my email is peter @--if anyone wants to kkt me. thank you for the opportunity to comment. >> thank you for your comment. we have an additional caller on the queue. >> caller: there is a lot of background noi, i'm not sure where it's coming from. perhaps in the meeting room, somebody is near a microphone. so picking up where pete per meyer left off. historically have been a number of joint meetings, not a large

number but a number, again that noise is kind of a distraction. wait a minute, much better thank you. there have been joint meetings between the commission and this commission. that has not happened for a number of years. both commissions meet on tuesday afternoons, starts at 1:30 this commission usually starts at 5:00. so there is an opportunity to have a joint meeting with the commissions. i would encourage the commission chair to work with their commission xhair and discuss that possibility. to walami river water is important, and river trust, it's important to the, san francisco water customers and

the peninsula customers of sfpuc, it's important to all of us. but so too is our waste water system and our power generated both by pg&e and the clean power sf program. so there are a number of important topics between this commission and the department and the puc that would warrant one or more joint meetings between the commissions. and i encourage to you think about that. the other item i had for general public comment. is the sbernl the city's budget going forward in the event that the mayor and the board of supervisors appropriate additional general funds support to continue the department's climate work, that will be great in the event that that does not happen, it would be important to have a back up plan for what to do to either,

stop that work, reassign that work or figure out what to do about that. the department's climate work is important to all of us and that budget certainty, creates all kinds of uncertainty as to staffing and the ability to get that work done. so i just wanted to keep that front and center. thanks again for listening. >> thank you for your comment. and seeing no other on the remote queue, public comment is closed. >> moving on to next item, item 5, environmental service award to garden for the environment. this item is for discussion. >> thank you, can you introduce the environmental award. >> it's my honor to introduce

the commission on the environment environmental service award to garden for the environment. and garden for the environment is as this is established in 1990 and has helped make san francisco a more vibrant community and has helped countless resident to see discover their own green thumb and that's very important because sometimes i put plants on death row, so i'm very interested in on this. what began with a vacant lot and a small but mighty team of volunteers has developed into a ball work, cultivating a laoejenter of guard nen. it's become a hub for education in the city and the jewel of the inner sunset. here's just a sample of the garden for the environment work.

out doors workshop where san franciscan can hone their, to bee keeping and seasonal fruit tree care. field trips to the garden of san francisco youth as well as virtual tours and activities. the get up program on regeneral ra tiff gardening and urban agriculture and the dig in workshop series which shows residents how to create their own back yard vegetable garden. garden for the environment is creating gardening and composting advocates and practitioners, truly, has had a deep and lasting impact for the city. we thank you so much for your longstanding and on going to the commitment to the environment and for all san franciscans. thank you very much.

>> commissioners, any comments? okay, anyone from garden like to say a few words? please come up. >> speaker: my name is maggie marks and i'm the director for garden for the environment. and i have with me trina lopez which is our adult manager. and i want to thank you so much first for your very kind words. i felt like it was very representative of what we do which is how we're known in the community at gfc. i'm grateful to continue the work that was started 33 years ago by a group of people who wanted to teach to gaernd. i had a feeling that when we first started our work, we were considered to be radical or

kind of, we a lot of people were not speak abouting the environment in the ways that we were. and i feel that so much has changed in the 33 years and people are really start to go use the terminology that we're using and find a deep resident with the work. and honor to have this land that is owned and to be one small part of an ecosystem of people and creatures and plants that make up our robust half acre sk. thank you so much for honoring our work. it means a lot to us. triz na, do you want to say anything. >> hi, i'm trina lopez. as maggie said, i'm one of the program managers. i wanted to speak to the way that the garden for the environment cultivates community. so we're not only teaching people how to raise plants and garden and demonstrate water wise practices but constantly building community.

and one interesting i would like to bring up, when maggie and i started at different times, we were not really super skilled gardners at that time. i came as a volunteer in 2014, kind of a career change. and many people have. they often come to the garden at a point in their lives when they want things to change. and maybe they don't know how, they are seeking other people who think the way they do and want to make the city a more beautiful place to live. in that way, garden for the environment has really, we have learned to be gardners there too. so it's an honor and joy every time i'm there to pass the nal that i have gained in my time there and continue to just bolster that community and bring more people in week after week. so thank you so much. >> thank you for your great work, especially growing young

people for the next generation. thank you. >> thank you so much maggie and trina and now we would like to take a photo with our commissioners if that's okay. >> photo first or public comment? >> i'm excited to meet you. >> okay, yeah, hold on a little bit we'll take a picture after the public comment. thank you for your great work. let's open to public comment. >> we'll begin with public comment here in the room. once in-person comment has concluded, we'll proceed to remotel comment. if you want to comment, we do have a, we have two staff members who are going to make public comment. >> speaker: hi commissioner i'm alexis i'm the coordinator at the environment department. and on behalf of the waste team, i just wanted thank garden for the environment for amazing work. i've been work width organization for over 20 years.

and i just wanted to share what i think is one of the biggest impacts they've had, is they've been training by this time thousands of environmental leaders through their gardening educator program that they call get up and these are folks that maintain our community garden and it's had such a lasting affect. and i just want to acknowledge that and tell you thank you, i appreciate it. >> are there any other members here for public comment? okay, we'll go to virtual public comment. kyle? >> members of the public participating remotely, make up public comment on this item now by dialing star-3 to be added

to the speaker queue. please wait while i check the speaker queue. we have one caller on the queue. hello caller, you're uned. --unmuted, your three minutes begin now. >> caller: can you hear me? okay. i agree very much with alexis comment that gardens for the environment has been and continues to be great for the city. along with the urban farmer store and a small number of other important resources that hs really sports our neighborhood and communities in doing the right thing for the planet which is not always

obvious or easy. and although gardens for the environment gave us mohamed for better or worse, it also included people like fred barr and linda and blair randall and many others. so we are ultimately benefiting and recognizing garden for the environment for their good and continued work for and with all of us. thanks again for listening. >> thank you for your comment. seeing no others on the remote queue, public comment will be closed. now we will take the picture.

[applause] >> thank you again, i appreciate what you've done for the community. next item please.

>> clerk: next item is item 6, staff introductions the speaker is charles ian, this item is for discussion. >> thank you charles, back to you. >> thank you, so this is always the fun part of many of our meetings when we get to particular new staff to the department. and we have a number of new staff as well as some staff that have been promoted or moving to other parts of the department. and so i'm just going to go down the list here and if you want to come up and say your name and what you're doing, maybe just one minute that on what you special lies in. we have nicole or new senior clean transportation specialist. nicole, do you want to come on up? >> hi good evening, i'm stepping into a new role this month as a senior clean transportation specialist. i have over ten years of

experience designing and managing electric vehicle and electric vehicle charging programming and in my new role i'll be exacting as the city's first new ev person. i'll be work withing stake hold inventories problem solve and put in accessible charging. and looking forward to improving the process as well so we can continue to accelerate towards our clean transportation goals. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, nicole. the next person i believe is joining us virtually. and that is ayana who is our new racial coordinator. do we have you on web ex? i believe we do. >> hi, commissioners. most of you know me, i'm lins i'm the new senior equity

coordinator for the environment department. i've been with the department 11 years at various xas ilts. this work is extremely frustrating at times but also validating and meaningful and something that is crucial for us to tackle. so with the funding on at the may commission meeting, in-person. where we present on the racial equity action plan progress report for the department. thanks. >> thank you, moving down also joining us virtually is halle oeja who is our new eco systems

program manager. >> hi good evening. again my name is pali ojea and i'm very excited to be in the role. many of you before, i had a long career >> and then i worked on climate policy green for all as well another nonprofit. some of that work involved a

lot of our toxic campaign. i just started this new role and i'm very excited to lead our work into the future. thank you so much. >> thank you, pali and also joining us is hillary near, our new commercial zero waste coordinator. hillary? >> authorizing camera, hi, hillary here. i'm joining from, i'm your new zero waste commercial coordinator. i started also in 2011, concurrent with mandatory composting. so it's been a right

implementing our commercial sector and mostly came to, presenting two of our grants to apply compost related to our 1383 goals and i'm supporting some of our topic on the results and our refuge administration with sickology. thanks. >> thank you, hillary and that is it for new staff introductions. >> thank you, congratulations to all the new and welcome to all the new staff. any discussion my fellow commissioners? if not, we can open up to public comment. >> we will begin with public comment here in the room. once in-person has concluded. we will proceed to remotel public comment. are there any who wish to speak? seeing none, we will move to remotel public comment. kyle? >> members of the public

participating remotely who wish to make a public comment should now press star-3 to be placed in the queue. for those holding, continue to hold until it's your turn to speak. seeing no callers on the queue, public comment on this item is closed. >> next item please. >> clerk: next item is item 7, review and vote on whether to approve resolution file authorizing environmental justice grants. the sponsor is tyrone jue, i'll be acting for him. the speakers cindy program

manager and alexa, resolution file is 2023-05coe. this is discussion and possible action. contracting and grant processing including approval outgoing grants. tonight we're bringing each of our outgoing grants which include a second last year. if you remember the first set was approved and brought to our commission in the last meeting. so this is the second set. and i'm going to turn it over to presenter who is going to tell us more about what is in store for these grants. >> so cindy and alexa? >> good evening, commissioner i'm cindy comeford i'm here on the environmental team. and i'm here to present on the

environmental grants. we're fortunate enough to reactivate the program. we decide today focus on decarbonization. i'm going to present on our three latest grantees. if you can go to the first slide. first grantee that i would like to present is emerald city's collaborative. and they have received 100,000 grant from the department of environment. the funding source is from our add back from this year and also from the carbon fund. and those not familiar with emerald city's collaborative, they focus on high road job training and economic opportunity and sustainable building development. and i'm going to present this grantee in concert with our next one. so they're going to be work withing poder who i'll be

present next, to create a neighborhood scale building decarbonization plan. and they're going to focus on creating, putting out bids, recreating and selecting contractors, and also being able to kind of consolidate and stack rebates and incentives for their project. and while they're working in concert, they're going to have separate deliverables so they're going to work on a project that will be within the mission or excelcier and our next grantee is poder. and for those who are not familiar with poder, they're environmental justice advocacy group that focuses on latino immigrants and empowering them within environmental field and economic opportunity. and they're going to be working

with the emerald city collaborative on this program. they're going to focus on the community engagement part of the plan. and they will also have a separate electrification project that will be based in the mission for the excel sier. and if we can go to the next slide. and then our last grantee is our the san francisco bay physicians for social responsibility. this is also a two-year grant for $100,000. the funding is the same for add bac and carbon fund. and they're going to partner with the community and they're going to do a lot of out reach with building decarbonization. and they're going to be working in the bay view district to do a pilot project that will look

at community serving institution of doing heat pum that happens also have cooling capacity to help with community resilience in the bay view area. and i believe some of our grantees are here and we'll hear from them later in today's presentation. thank you. >> can i ask you a question? >> yes, please, commissioner. >> i'm sorry, cindy i'm sorry, but could you tell me and others, what a high road contractor. >> absolutely. so a high road contractor is a contractor that provides, we provide sustainable and living wages to. that there are guidelines around workforce development and safety. so a high road job may be a union job that have sufficient wages, so we're trying to make sure that they're all high road jobs. >> thank you.

>> any other questions? >> any other questions, i apologize that i left. okay, thank you. >> hi, commissioners i'm going to talk about our zero waste grant. we had 20 applicants this round of funding. we do two-year grant cycles. the request is for over 2,700,000, we only had 20,000 to award. we selected 10. that we're recommending for funding. all comes from the refuse rates. next slide, please. i'm dwg to go fairly quickly through this. so the first one is agriculture institute of marin. this is a first-time we're funding this organization which is excited. they're interested in providing

20,000 cotton mesh, reuseable bags to vendors at their farmers market, they operate two farmers market one in clement to eliminate plastic bags. i believe they're going to give it to the vendors and the vendors will distribute to their customers. next slide. apacc, this is a repeat organization, that we funded for many years. they're going to do out reach and education to sunnidale housing which is in the excelier, it's going to focus on to reduce trash and compost bins. next slide, please. we're looking to fund boys and girls club of san francisco. they're looking to install water refill stations and have youth lead zero waste education to their students and their staff on a regular basis.

next slide, please. farming hope. this is also a repeat organization. they're look to go recover 20,000 pounds of food every year to redistribute through their free community meal program as well as their culinary program. they're newer organization. they're doing a lot of innovative stuff in this space. next slide. and garden for the environment, we're looking to continue to offer their free back yard composting. we want to maximize that and of course the gardening composting education program which they call get up. next slide please. replay is a organization that we have worked with before mostly through serious grants

but also through our connection with cal recycle. they're working with 25 businesses in san francisco bring them into compliance with sb1883, that is requiring food donations and they will provide the food and make sure it goes to people who need it through their matching software, their food donation matching software. next slide. san francisco market coop, cooperation, corporation excuse me, they do tremendous amount of work. they do redistribute a million pounds of produce to folks in need in san francisco coming from the wholesale produce market. the funding is mostly to fund this, there is carolyn featured in the slide and she does a lot of work to actually work director with the vendors to

get the foods. and that ensures communication. and 500 reuse and students and artist at the warehouse. and if you have not been out there, it's an amazing place. happy to take questions. >> any questions, fellow commissioners? commissioner hunter. >> these are all amazing grants and your job is difficult, so i'm not sure i can decide. i don't expect an answer to this question, but i'll be curious to hear about the criteria that you use in selecting the grants? in particular, i think a few

organizations are repeat grantees and, and understanding how they're work has evolved overtime is a secondary point that i think the commissioner may be interested in hearing about. with understanding that i don't want to make your job harder but i'm always interested to learn more about it. >> yes, there is a number of criteria. this is the first time that we tried to create more objectivity with the objection process, this is the first time i was not directly involved. our contract manager managed the whole thing and we brought in three different panelist. so it's a little bit more removed than i normally am, so i can give you more details once i check in with david. but i would say in general what we're looking for is a solid business plan and a well thought work plan and a reasonable, allocation of funding sources. and ideally, it goes back to the tons recovered from landfill.

how efficiently are they able to recover material? and what is the cost of that? we don't want something that is out, the cost per ton being exorbitant high. where do we have holes in our programming where we can use support as well. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. >> thank you, alexa. i know that there are also grantees in attendance. if any would like to say a few words. >> good afternoon, i'm antonio diaz and i'm with poder, people organize to demand environmental rights, one of the grantee in the justice funding for building decarbonization and doing community engagement. we're proud of the current

support and past support that we've gotten on the department on different projects. but definitely looking to the continued partnership with the department on advancing the justice goals. we have collaborated with staff on developing strategies on equitable residential carbonization. on advancing equity hub and update and look forward to this particular work to, put policy to practice, if you will around building decarbonization and work towards advancing the climate, the city's climate priorities. thank you. >> thank you.

hello, hi, i'm patrice and this is. >> dr. mary williams. >> we're with bay social sxonlt this is the first time we've gotten funding. so thank you so much. san francisco bay psr works to protect human life from the greatest threats to health and survival and we promote policies that protect from nuclear war and other weapons of mass destruction, climate change, epidemic of gun violence and other social injustices in our society today. so this grant is being conducted in partnership with bay view hunters point advocates. and advocates are a long time organization in san francisco like our organization. we've also worked together with

the advocates for many years around the clean up of navy shipyards. we have a strong working relationship and we really appreciate this opportunity. we hope to educate the hunters point community around the health issues as well as conduct two electrification project in the bay view one as mentioned in the public space that the community will decide on themselves. and the other because we're not sure, we're going to rely around all the technical issues about electrification, we're the health expertise and advocates. i don't know how much it's going to cost to electrify this space, but whatever is left over we're going to be doing induction took top. mary has a lot of experience teaching people how to use a conduction cook top. so we combine with the

community engagement and we're really hoping that this will help move this whole issue as a gains attraction by example. so anyway, we also want to say that there is preventive health benefits from the work that you're funding. there is a lot, as electrification proceeds, there is a lot of indoor and outdoor pollution that will be presented. so we're excite beside that, as well as the justice benefits as you know, the debut, is at a disadvantage community and it deserves to have this support for everyone in the city. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. >> any other grantees in attendance that would like to say a few words? please. >> there may be some virtually, kyle do we have any grantees

virtually. >> we do have one. >> we do, but somebody snuck up here, we have one more in-person, so if we can hold the virtual in a minute. >> this is trina again, we're just incredibly grateful. the core is our compost is the physical heart of the garden. so when people first come to the garden, they learn about our composting system, our warm composting systems. and even though, we have a robust composting system and a wonderful recycling system, i'm so surprised and so happy every month that we have people come and register for our free urban

composting classes which many times are taught by our get up students, we think of them as our compost ambassadors. so it's just, it blows my mind that we get people that want to learn more about composting every single month. and, it gives me hope in a city that does a great job at this. so we're honored that we have fund anding we promise to do the great work through gardening and composting. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> any other grantees in the room? if not, kyle for grantees that are with us virtually. ?fm i believe -- ~>> i believe we have a guest from city's collaborative.

>> caller: good evening, i'm can collaborative. i would like to express thanks to the department for this opportunity. perceive the high road approach and strengthening our democracy. in the past we've partnered with the department and hot planning and equity priorities in the update to climate plan. and our project with poder, will identify design and implement equitable electrification demonstration project in excelier in partnership to reduce emissions and serve a low income community. we want to make sure that this work happens by road and contract opportunities for the work. we also embark on a longer term planning progress for a neighborhood decarbonization

which will be a bigger undertaking. we want to engage with a host of community folks to plan for that transition and show how to do that without adversely impacting communities without causing displacement and gentrification and making these affordable for low income residents. i would like to thank you and look forward to embarking on this project. >> there any other grantee? >> any other virtual grantees. >> no further grantees. >> thank you, thank you, really really appreciate especially the grantees that come here to attend or speak on your comments. we really really love to hear firsthand experience and how you are our advocate to review

education and also all the great work that you've done. before that, any other comments or discussion? if not, can i hear a motion? >> actually. >> yes, commissioner wald. >> sorry, i want to first endorse what commissioner hunter and vice president wan said about the great work especially those who have come tonight. i have a procedure al question before we make a motion. it is my memory that in the past, before we vote, we have been asked specifically whether anybody has a relationship with any of the grantees?

i would suggest or require that we not vote on these grants? am i making that up? and if not, is it good practice that we make sure that no one does, i'm assuming, maybe somebody does. but, good practice to have that kind of question asked and answered before we actually vote on these grants. >> yes. just a point of clarification, we do not vote or that the individual with the relationship recuse themselves? from voting. >> the latter. >> okay. >> so i'm happy to ask the question if anyone has a relationship that would cause them to recuse themselves. it looks like nobody does.

>> thank you, commissioner wald, always great to to have you remind us of the good practice. in that case, do i have a motion to approve the resolution. >> move to approve. >> thank you, commissioner hunter and also a second by? commissioner bermejo. and then we're ready to open up for public comment. >> we'll begin with public comment here in the room. once it's concluded, we'll proceed to remotel public comment. are there any members in the public who wish to speak. seeing none, we move to remotel public comment. kyle? >> members of the public who wish to make a public comment, should press star-3 to be added to the queue. please continue to hold until

it's your turn to speak. and we do have one caller in the queue. hello, caller, your three minutes begin now. >> caller: can you hear me? >> yes. >> caller: great, so on item 7, i support the grant awards. i just wanted note on page 2 of the proposed resolution two typos and one suggestion. online 17, says at a meet special meeting, i don't think this is a special meeting, this is a regular meeting. and i would strike the word special, it would just read at its meeting at march 28, 2023 online 12, it says scarp, and i think it should be scarp, the

center for recycled art parts, i believe. i don't believe the grantee names need to be spelled out in the name of scrap or ucsf for that matter. as a suggestion, three of these proposed grantees are to do work in the decarbonization and the other ten are in zero waste. my suggestion is to perhaps separate the three from the ten and have a sub heading to indicate what the intended purpose is. i don't think the source of funds is needed in the reso that is available but it would clarify to have page two which are zero waste and which decarbonization. but again, i support the grant awards and thank the staff for their time sorting through the

applications and recommending the best out of what was probably a difficult process. thanks again for listening. >> thank you for your comment. and seeing no other callers in the queue. public comment on this item is closed. >> changes. >> it's at your discretion if you want to? >> is that right, it's not a special meeting? >> i don't think, i don't i don't believe this is a special meeting. >> so we'll delete the special online 17 page 2. and also typo online 12, scrap scrap and--put sc a rp. >> i need a motion and a second. >> can i get a motion and a second. >> yes.

>> can i ask my fellow commissioner, sorry. >> i would like to move to amend the resolution to correct the typos on page 2, line 12 and 17. >> i will second the motion. >> motion approved by commissioner hunter and second by commissioner sullivan. please call the roll. >> and just to clarify we're calling the roll on amendment and then we'll call the roll on resolution. president, ahn is excused. vice president. >> aye. >> commissioner. >> aye. >> commissioner hunter. >> aye. >> commissioner stephenson is used. commissioner sullivan. >> aye. >> commissioner wald. >> aye. >> motion passes and now we can call the roll to approve the resolution. >> president ahn is excused. >> commissioner hunter. >> aye. >> aye. >> commissioner sullivan. >> aye. >> commissioner wald. >> aye. >> thank you, the motion passes.

and once again, thanks for all the great work by the grantees. next item. >> review and vote on whether to approve resolution, 2023- 04-coe to adopt a reuseable food ordinance. the sponsor is mike sullivan, the speaker is marrian, document resolution file 2023- 04coe. last december the commission heard a presentation from reuseable about the impact of micro plastics and potential mandating the use of reuseable food ware. last month, we had a resolution and voted to advance it to the

full commission for review. i'll now turn it over to marrian. >> thank you very much commissioners, it's a pleasure to be back with you. i'm here on behalf of community members and environmental organizations and reuse businesses and business advocates within the city of san francisco. next slide please. and as commissioner sullivan indicated we're back here after going through the process of your unanimous vote to support a resolution in support such a policy which you did in december and the policy subcommittee met in february and approved a resolution to send back to you for action today.

and so just a couple of highlights from the resolution, itself, it does state that reuse is the number one priority in a circular in a circular. and services in the u.s. are spending 24 billion dollars a year on disposable food ware purchasing one trillion pieces of disposables and that transitioning to reuse for onsite dining and reuse in take out could reduce disposable food ware by 86% eliminating 841 billion packaging items and 7 million tons of waste. and at the same time, saving the food service industry 5 billion dollars a year. so there is a lot of benefits from a policy like this. the san francisco department of

environment, the resolution points out has already helped 68 businesses to transition to food service ware and found that majority of them, 77 percent of them support a policy for reuse for onsite dining. next slide. so proposed policy has four elements, the first is reuse for onsite dining which means when you go to a sit down at a restaurant, or cafe, you would be served with real utensilses. this has been enacted in areas mostly in california. just to show, we did show this case study from san francisco, last time, house of dim sung which was transitioned by

rethink disposable and the benefits of taking this action, that business is saving over 3 3000 a year net, reducing 2.2 million disposable food items by switching to real plates utensils and cups. next slide. so the second piece of this policy, really fixes the legacy of the back lash against reuse from covid where a lot of food businesses no longer accept people's personal reuseable cups or mugs by saying that businesses will have to accept it when we bring our reuseables for take out and food containers. thisisallowed by the state retail food safety code and nine jurisdictions have already enacted a policy like this. next slide.

the food piece of the policy is to update san francisco skip the stuff law which is also called accessories only made available on request. and so to be consistent with the state's a b1276 that was enacted in 2021, the city policy has to provide that on lying ordering system and third party delivery on lying platforms have to provide customers with a specific menu of accessories offered by each restaurant so that you can as a customer select the accessories that you want and need. next slide. so the last piece of the policy is to provide, to ensure that large venues serve beveragages in reuseable cups. and it will ensure that there

is a reuse, sorry, a return system in place for those cups. president for this comes from the city of l.a.'s 2022-zero waste policy that was enacted and coming from a model ordinance that stop waste is just about to publish and we hope to see east bay communities adopt this as well. sol there are two vendors in san francisco readily available to make this service available at large venues, our cup in turn. and there is a cup washing facilities being built. and these these two companies are having fabulous success with reuse add large venues. our cup for example is in over 100 venues in 70 cities and 30 states and they claim that they're getting a 95% return

rate for reuseable cup at large venues. next slide. turn is operated in over 3000 events and venues. in 2022, they were select today rollout their system with live nation over the next five years. next slide and an example is a system at the moody system where they have mobile dish washing systems on trucks and they use smart bins where consumer replace bring back their cups, they have replaced 15,000 single use cups at one event at the moody center in austin with 97% return rate. so just in closing taken together these policy element reuse for onsite dining, allowing bring your own cups and containers and reuse at

large events, will help san francisco normalize reuse in food service and puts us on a path to changing the throw away culture and stop mindfully wasting our precious natural resources and polluting our communities at the same time. thank you, hope you all move this resolution forward to to the board of supervisors. >> thank you, commissioner sullivan do you have anything to add? >> some questions i forgot to ask in policy, i guess. let's say it's a mcdonald restaurant in san francisco and i want the burger and fries and a coke, do they then ask you, are you consuming on that on premise at which case, they gave me the plates and metal knives and folks, if not they would serve it with the plastic that's would go out the door? >> correct.

>> got it. i'm so glad that i will not have to remember to tell my favorite sushi favorite not to give me the plastic forks and spoons anymore. how will that work, i saw the nine different things that you can need or ask for. when i go to my favorite sushi restaurant for take away, what are they going to give to me or present to me if i, if, it sounds like the default is you will not get that stuff nonetheless you ask for it. do they have to give me a list that i may ask for. >> they're not really, the way it's designed, so this is the accessories on the request part of the policy. so they should not be offering anything. they should be waiting for you to specifically request something that you need. so there are so the idea is, it's not accessories on offer,

it's on request because a lot. there is been a lot of misinterpretation that you know, if they offer it to you. it's the same thing. a lot of businesses misconstrue this and if they put this in the paper bag, and i offered it, the customer accepted it to fill the obligation. but then we get the accessories we didn't want in the first place. i guess we'll see how well it's enforced. but theoretically, they should not be asking you what you want. >> it's nice to see that there are some large jurisdiction that's already doing this in california, county of los angeles, we know that it works in big place. >> san francisco is a large jurisdiction, and we need it. >> commissioner wald. >> thank you, i think this is a

great policy. it's a common sense solution to a huge problem. i'm personally very disappointed that we seem to be so far behind. so many other jurisdictions but i hope that tonight we'll move this resolution forward and that the board of supervisors will embrace it, the idea once it comes before them. >> also about culture change and make sure people get used to this. from the service industry people want to be so kind and so service oriented that they want to offer everything. it's going to be a mind shift,

to say to folks, it's not that you're being unpolite but we need to train people to ask for things that they need. sometimes you say would you like this and you say sure, without thinking about it. there needs to be some education. i was wondering, did l.a. get a lot of push back on this policy? are you aware of anything like that we can learn from? i think we should move forward with recommending this to the board of supervisors. thank you. >> no, yes, i'm sure there was some debate but not major push back. i think one of the outcome of the pandemic is that everybody can see what happens when we get these accessories that we really didn't want. there are a lot of councilmembers that talked about their drawers full of

utensil wrapped in plastic. and i think a lot of people are frustrated people who are not necessarily environmentalist, but they can see the mindless waste. the accessories upon request is a widely embraced policy. >> commissioner hunter. >> thank you. this is something that it's not an easy feat accomplish. watching you come here to south committee to full committee and go through the entire process is a feat in and of itself. i'm incredibly excited about this resolution. there is always the next project of what to do. along the line of food delivery, reuseable containers

is the next mountain to climb. i'm curious to hear your hopes or future when it comes to reuseable wear there. >> i have so much. we need more services so the burden is not. so for cafes and restaurants that don't know how to start up their own reuseable program to offer their customers, we need to have third parties system in place and there have been some stops and starts with that. i had gotten a saoer--zero. that launch was challenged by covid and there were all kinds of problems, could vid set us back. but we need more of these systems. and we need to figure out the

policy piece because a lot of jurisdiction tried to encourage and reuse and take out by charging for the disposable and it's a crime that disposables are given out for free so it's a mindless kind of consumption. but there have been equity charging for disposable. so my personal feeling is we need to get businesses to that do take out in disposable to offer a reuseable option to their customers and then charge for the disposable. so you have an option to get take out in a reuseable that is offered by the business that is not expensive or free of charge. or you can sit down and dine onsite. you can bring your own, or you can take out in a disposable but you're going to have to pay for it and then the disposable will be the least favorite

option. that's the future i would like to see. i would like to say that macy and i have been iterating this policy ideas together for a very long time. so it's really a privilege to work with jack and his team who have been really amazing partners in this whole process. >> thank you. i see any further discussions or comments. i would like to use your word common sense solution. so do we have a motion to approve this common sense solution. >> i move approval. >> we have a motion by commissioner sullivan and second by commissioner bermejo? public comment?

>> clerk: are there who wish to speak. seeing none, we go to remotel public comment. kyle? >> members of the public participating remotely who wish to make a public comment should now dial star-3 to be put on the queue. for those on hold, continue to hold until it's your turn to speak. it appears that we have one caller in the queue. hello caller you're unmuted. >> caller: judy with the san francisco environmental department i serve on the commercial zero waste team. i want to say thank you to marrian for all of your work on this and thank you to the commissioners for you know, supporting this resolution. we know that reuse is the future and the solution to a lot of problems that we see

with waste management here in san francisco and you know, just to give a pretty extreme example, the climate arena is the arena that opened in 2021 and they fell into a 10-year contract which supplies aluminum cups. and white settle has been working hard to get a lot of their venue to see reuse. so denver with 13 venues there. this is one that is brand new and you know, it's just falling to a regrettable green wash alternative. so really getting policies in place is really going to help move our city in the right direction. so thank you, appreciate it.

>> thank you for your comment. is seeing no further callers on the queue, public comment is closed. >> hearing no more comment or discussion, please call the roll. >> thank you. president ahn is excused. vice president wan. >> aye. >> commissioner behrmejo. >> aye. >> commissioner hunter. >> aye. >> commissioner stephenson is excused. commissioner sullivan >> aye. >> commissioner wald. >> aye. >> the motion passes. next item is item 9, sponsor is tyronejue i'll be presenting for him. and program manager from the environment department. this item is for discussion. >> back to you charles. >> thank you.

so today we've got a three-part presentation. first we're going to hear from the controller office which is going to provide the context of the new set. and next our zero waste team is going to tell us and how we implement the goals of the climate action plan. and finally from ricology as well. it's worth acknowledging that this is a new role for the commission and required under prop f which passed last june. today is an opportunity to learn about what goes into the rate setting process. and helping the city advance its climate and of course it's zero waste goals. with that, i'm going to turn it over to the controller for the beginning of the presentation. >> evening commissioner, refuse rights administerer for the controllers office. so for our presentation, today, we'll talk about a little bit about the context for why we're here in front of this

commission talking about refuse rates and then we'll talk a little bit about our process for setting those rates. we'll talk a little bit about some of the component of the rates and where we are in the process and status of the review for resent commission for rate changes. next slide please. so as mentioned earlier, that proposition f, was the reason why we're in front of this commission today. it made the controller and refuse rate and administrator and requires us to demonstrate in front of the street commission as well as the commission on the environment. the purpose is to provide greater transparency around any services or programs presented by the city or rate funded. and lastly these commission hearings are intended to

provide opportunity for you the commissioners as well as the public to comment on our proposed rate order. so we're going to do two presentations to each commission. this first one, this is meeting 1. more for context and background and rate setting process. and then to allow the department of environment as well as ricology to share the programs. and the second meeting will delve more into the rate and hear comment from this commission as well as from the public. next slide please. so, prop f, established four principles for rate setting. the first is that the rate should be cost affective. the second and meet it should meet a established standard and environmental goals. the second is that the rate

structure should be stable, reasonable and fair. the third is that the process for setting this rate should be transparent and accountable and publicly accessible and lastly, the refuse rate board and controllers office should conduct their work in high professional ethical standards and we hope that add we adhere to the first three principles that we can do the work with the high professional ethical standards and help restore trust in this process. next slide please. so prop f had 5 major changes versus making the control of the refuse rate. the second is replacing the controller from the refuse rate board with a rate payer representer. currently it's the city administrator that is the chair city manager and then this new

rate pair representative. and in previous processes there was a department of public works director's hearing where a lot of the rate change proposal would be hashed out before the rate board would just hear objections. and the requirement is that the refuse rate would monitor the rate and appear in front of the board to recommend rate adjustments and the rate board would have to adopt new rates. the fourth is that, the refuse rate board is authorized but not required to set commercial rates, currently reonly regulate residential rates in the city. and lastly, it authorized the board of supervisors to amend the refuse ordinance by super majority vote. next slide please. beyond prop f, we do take guidance from two settlement

agreement one in march 2021 where ricology agreed to pay for errors. and december 2022, settlement where they settled to the city to deposit 25 million into a balancing account to be used to stabilize rates for 2022 rate here. the sorry the 2023, rate year. at these two settlement created some new requirement that are implemented already. next slide please. and the last set of document that's we take guidance from are these public integrity reviews that were conducted by the controllers auditing arm. there were two two published, one published in april 2021, the other published may 2022 and there is a third audit

report coming out an audit of the landfill agreement. so the recommendation for the first two audits included ensuring conduct reporting at the highest and greater transparency and financial statements and rate setting mythology and then, regulating conducting rate analysis of comparable jurisdictions, establishing a balancing account and ensuring public access to all information. so all of these recommend a right side being implemented or in the process of being implemented. next slide please. so this is our rate setting timeline typically a rate setting process is a year plus. given the timing of prop f in the timing of establishing office we're in a much more timeline, for 7 months brent in order to meet this, affective rates of october 1.

so the first phase really is is our office creating, creating submission forms for refuse companies to submit to requests changes to the refuse rates. then after the submission of the refuse rates from refuse rights from refuse companies, we move into phase two which is where we are now. during this phase we're conducting our own analysis of that submission and comparisons of other jurisdictions. in the meantime, we're also presenting a number of public hearings. so there were two public workshops. we have these four commission hearings and then we'll have one refuse hearing where we kickoff the process. by the end of may, early june we plan on having proposed rate order from our office. and at that point, that will kickoff the refuse rate board

or trigger the refuse board to hear our rate border. so there is four hearings with the refuse rate board with thed hope of adopting new rates, at the end of august. or at the end of july and then, noticing in august in time giving rate payers some time to adjust. you also notice that, on these red stars indicate opportunities for oral public comment. we also provide opportunity for written objections. they can go to our website and members of the public can go to our website and submit written objections and once our proposed rate is issued, we have a prop 2 requirement for public protest for those rates. and that, that needs to be heard. there is a 25-day period before that is heard. next slide please.

this next slide is just a little summary of some of the summary and email campaign, social media, we've also enlisted the help of other departments, oewp, small business commission have also posted under social media. we have public records auto mation. we reaching out to reaching out to neighborhood groups and additional email campaigns. next slide please. so, the rate set process, that we see the first is input and another consideration so there is there is the public input and the written protest, the

written, the public, the 218 public, the 218 written protest as well. and then the refuse hearings. the department of public works and environment and respective oversight bodies sanitation street commission. and commission on the environment and opportunities for input from departments. but these two departments have program can service that's are funded. you'll hear more from environment on some of their programs. dph has an interesting role in terms of, permitting, permitting refuse companies for route licenses as well as truck licenses. and then, they also adjudicate any building disputes. and then finally it's the

refuse company ricology which has input through the rate submission as well as the hearings. our office does monitor recommendation of the rate order. we also conduct investigation and analysis and we advise the refuse rate board. the rate board has two rolls. one is to hear the order, and the second is to adopt service standards and goals for the refuse companies. next slide please. so i'll go over some of the components of the rate. the refuse rates are outlined across rate schedules. the rate term must last a minimum of two years, maximum of 5 years. so these six schedules on the left are the city regulated rates, so those are the residential refuse rates.

5 units or less, apartment buildings and plus units. and then tipping fee. so the tipping fee is the fee charged for dumping any rickology and processing land facility. so the tipping fee is actually, a included in the restial rates. so it's already included, but for anyone that is not a rate player, they will be charged that tipping fee. on the right side are rickology set rates, so these will be the rickology debris rates and extra service such as car or pickup charges or things like that. next slide please. so a really high level of kind of rate calculation. so the past practice really begins with determining rate eligibility.

so rick solg a large company they have a lot of operations, some of them are not rate eligible. so we determine what pieces are reeligible, once that's determined with rate eligible cost, we determine what is profit eligible. so some costs providing service right side not cost eligible for example. services provided by dpw for trash can cleaning of city cans, public city cans would not be eligible for additional profit. so once we've determined kind of categories cost and revenue, past practice, operating ratio. for the purpose of this presentation, we present this sd inverse of the operating ratio which is the allowable profit margin. so this has three main consideration.

so the profit margin is your net profit divided by your rate eligible revenue requirement. so the net profit that is just your, revenue minus your costs, rate eligible revenue climate is the amount that needs to be generated by the services in order to cover costs and generate a profit amount. so that's your eligible expenditure plus an allowable profit. so since we're setting rates for future years, everything is projected. so some of those projections are controllable some of them not so controllable. so the percent difference between projected revenue at the current rate, with the rate eligible climate will determine the change the refuse and the tipping fee. next slide please.

so the past rates have also included incentive account and impound account. so incentive account is a waste diversion account, you'll hear more of this from the environment but rickology can draw down on that receive diversion targets, away from landfill. so this account generates about 8 million per year, meaning all targets would be two percent target for the company. solid waste fee funds, services at dpw and department environment, so for dbw would be city wide relateds services. for department of environment, it would support meeting zero city waste goals. and then lastly as a result of

the settlements, the next rate setting cycle will include the consideration of a balancing account to help stabilize the rates. we're looking at the settlement for one model. next slide please. so these are all last year's slides. i'm going to talk about where we are in the process and in terms of our review of the rate change application. so you'll see this from rickology, the current request in rate year 2024 is at 3.9 percent increase in the, in the collection rate, 2.17 percent in 2025. so the tipping fee would be a 23.3 increase and point 08 in 2025. so our initial review included the identification of missing and complete schedules or data that needs further validation. we've also have a set of

additional exhibit requests to get additional details on any changes or items in rickologies requests. and lastly, we have a series of questions and all of this is to build, this is publicly available information that we put on our website. so to build the public record on how things are changing with the submission. so next slide please. so things have changed a little bit since i submitted this presentation last week. we've had an additional, additional time to review since then. so i think, i would reframe this slide a little bit. so to give you some context, we laid out 43 schedules for rate change submission. these schedules are table for refuse companies to include financial data or any

additional data to support their revenues in cost that flow into nr rate model. to date, i think we had identified about half of the schedules were complete. and this was to be expected given the truncated timeline and the month that rickology was given. we have agreed that they would submit the initial submission and provide detail in the following weeks. so we're building a record on what is complete and what is not. and now we're waiting for more information on details that support those high level costs and revenue numbers. and they're starting to come in. the first request was march 15th so we've seen a few of those flow in and we'll continue to update that. next slide.

the second part of our review was looking into, where we needed to increase detail beyond the schedules that we have. the schedules are financially focused. and so based on specific line items, in their narrative, rickology stated that they're increasing out reach and cancer services. we're looking for how those flow into addition costs that they will provide. we've also asked for additional details to support their changes to fde and significant, significant information around the pension costs as well. and lastly, we're asking for additional information on some non city reding fee, one particular focus is on increasing contamination revenue that we're looking into.

next slide. so the last item in our review is really, around some of their assumptions. so our initial analysis, our initial analysis, so just to frame schedules or the way that these are set. right now we're in year 2023, but this this is to set for year 2024 and 2025, so they need to project for rate year 2023. based on our analysis what they're doing is taking the first quarter of three actuals. and then for 2024, and 2025, most revenue projections assume a 2% increase, while expends tour most items assume a 2.6

percent increase in 2024, 3.05 percent inflation for increase in 2025. so these are inflation rates that they're using, that are assumptions from the city and the city five-year financial plan given that these inflation numbers were projected late last year, likely to change change today. there is been a few months that have gone by. lastly, we've asked for additional justification for any changes that are beyond the 2% and inflation increases so that could have projections on labor needs and things outside of the inflation changes will include things like fuel cost. and so, i think i already touched on this last one, how they change the line items. that's where we are in the

process. next you'll hear how we think rates should be. last slide? and i think with that is if you have any questions. thank you. >> any questions from fellow commissioners? yes, commissioner sullivan. >> thank you for a great presentation. and i'm really glad that the controllers office is in charge of it more than the past under prop f. one question i had is, prop f directs you to i can i think the words were reasonable and fair. is there a percentage that is fair rate of return? >> yeah, for doing that review in terms of kind of comparisons, and so, i can't

not say the specific number but it's something that we'll put in front of the commission on what we think is a reasonable change. >> do you look at other jurisdictions? >> we're looking at other refuse companies that are publicly traded and seeing what those profit margins look like. i think we've seen a bit of a range. it's been close to 10. >> and the other question i have is, where is there an incentive for rickology to manage costs? i'm not sure, if based on the presentation that i see that. that would benefit the city and

the rate pairs but they have an incentive to manage costs? >> yeah, i think. i think it's for our office to look at places for where we think those services, the projections for those services might not, for projections for the way they're projecting their cost might not match what the service will be provided. so it's up to us to put a check on it. >> thank you. >> yeah. >> thank you. commissioner hunter? >> thank you, always great to have details and informative presentation. i do have some general questions. about some points that you brought up, starting on slide 11, the zero waste incentive account. i understand that rickology can

draw from account if certain diversion targets were met? to reporting the numbers so that the targets are met and possibly not inflated? >> that's a good question. that's probably one for environment. so the waste is structure by the department there is, reporting requirement in terms that we get, the quarterly rate reports. in terms how we ensure that they're not inflated, i don't have an answer for you on that one. we can look into that. >> i can table this conversation if you want to follow-up afterwards. >> we can follow-up with you on that. >> and also you mention on flight 15 numbers around inflation being a little bit

outdated for lack of a better term. are those numbers going to be updated? >> yes, they'll be up tated. --updated. controllers report is coming up soon. we'll look at the numbers and see if they're appropriate to apply. >> and this was an incredibly helpble presentation, i will say that the refuse rate is now to me. what resources are available if you would like to dive a little bit deeper as a member of the public. >> yes, so our website will have a lot of information about kind of our process and prop f, what changed were made and what our process is going to look like. there is definitely resources there. yeah. and what we have, we have kind of on our websites links where

you'll be able to find resources about rates as well. >> thank you. >> any other commissioner? >> thank you, thank you. we'll see if i can help answer your question. in my presentation. so we can go ahead with the slides. it's my pleasure to join you and share with you what the department's priorities are in this process and the important work that refuse waste are funding and the priorities that we have for ricology. you can go on to the next slide.

i just want to acknowledge as you're you're well aware, the key department is the 2021 climate action plan. you have 21 strategies. and with that, refuse is the responsible. and this is, a sector that looks at the lifecycle impacts of products and services that, that the residents and businesses of san francisco consume and use.

to sort of shift the lands bringing in a lifecycle impact. so that we have set a goal both in the climate action plan and in jap ter 9, setting a remission target based on that. that has a close linkage to refuse and that's a key driver for us. next slide. and in the car mon action plan also incorporates the zero waste target commitment that that the mayor made. which is to reduce the total generation, that sort of meeting discards. so everything going into the three streams by 20% by 2030 and reduce disposal by 2030. those are two key drivers that

are linked to what we're asking for. and in the next slide, i want to shift now to our budget. we had a detail budget presentations made by our department. and here what we're presentation, because we have a new reuse, because it matches rickology, it will no longer match our fiscal year. so we had to shift our budget year, and look at what our department needs are to continue to do all the work that sort of as nexus with refuse. and here you see a different areas, there is zero waste but also toxics and environmental justice all which is supported by out reach. and so as you see there, you

have the expression, rye, that regulars regular ending. and regular is october 1, 2023 through september 30, 2024. and these are the budget numbers for impound funding and rate year-ending 24, 15.5 in rate year 2025. and now i just want to go ahead to the next slide and break that out with you a little more detail. showing you the amount by program area. examine how that ads up per year. in each of these programs,

impounding is not--and even in zero waste, we have a construction demolition debris team that is largely not impound funded because of other sources. so for zero waste it's 11.75 staff which is about 70% of our staff. and of course we're responsible for many local and state policies that have the mandates have continued to increase. and in addition to meet the targets that i just talked about. we have a lot of problematic work to help achieve those targets. so we're working in the areas, material reuse. a lot of work towards reuseable.

past that resolution, thank you. but we've done a lot of work leading up to that, as you heard before. so that is zero waste and in terms of toxics, as you know, they do a sweep of programs mostly dealing with materials that don't go into the three bins so there has to be separate collection programs because of their toxicity. and also reducing the toxicity of the programs. then we have the climate team. and the actions that have that direct mix.

they are refunding about 1 staff and 80% of their staff and for climate is about two and a half staff, 40% of their staff. and then there is environmental justice with a lot of the infrastructure on collection and processing. as well as issues working with affordable housing and that's 70% of the staff. green building, this is getting back to building material reuse and recycle content and strategies to reduce the generation of materials. and then finally the programs that are supporting these campaign.

and there funding 19 people. and school add and critical data management as part of that. so that's, that's kind of a high level summary on sort of the, how the impact funding which is about 45% of the department's budget and it actually represents about 44% of the rate payer revenue. it's still staying around 4%. even though we're looking at a million dollars increase going forward. because there is norman date, we have additional fde and some shifting of staff. now i just want to go to sort of talking about, the priorities that we have for rickology and that's the next slide. here are some of the key

priorities that we've identified and we've been engaging on rickology on what the actions are needed to achieve this. so key one is increasing mandates that we have locally as well as the state level. and an example the state level is sb1383 which is one of the most comprehensive laws impacting waste and materials and comprehensive organics, at the state level. so there is a lot of compliance work around that. and also our mandatory ordinances. and we've identified additional as well as addressing and an example is in language customer service. and then addressing, the challenge of contamination which means material put in the

wrong stream, you probably heard that term. so there is more kind of upgrading the monitoring and then using tools that have been approved and passed rate processes, if there is access contamination. so we're wanting to implement those in the commercial and multi family sectors. and also just, you know, helping reach all san franciscans and provide good access. so there is a couple more in there. there is a zero waste incentive and trash processing. so i'm fwg to do a quick processing. in the next slide please. so, one of the things that rickology does is to help us implementing and getting compliance with our mandatory separation and our revenue separation which targets the larger generators. they do audits. and that's an important role that they play.

they've been testing out camera technology and they're implementing that in trucks. and that allows them to look in to take really high resolution pictures and that can be provided loop in help us monitor compliance and follow-up with customers. and, now i want to move on to the next slide. we've used disposal targets. we started discussion there. express the person that whatever happens with the economy, businesses opening and closing, so forth, they have to

take what people give them. so we decided to sort of shift the incentive to be based on the what is called the recovery percent, so it's basically the percentage of what rickology handles that they're able to keep out of the landfill through recycling and composting. and there, their work with customering with customers to better sort their materials and improve their processing, that recovery is something that they have more direct over. and both the tonnage reports that rickology gives us every month. so there is a, comprehensive table. i call it table 3. and if you go online, and look what you submitted, historically, the annual reports will include many tables including table 3. so we look at that monthly, we

review and engage rickology with any questions. so we're seeing trends on a monthly basis. and how the processing is, and they show the residual looks out and what the net, the percentage is there. so it's really, our engagement with rickology looking at their programs, looking at their facility, reality checking it. that's the system that we have to sort of city you know, to kind of verify the numbers. and it's those recovery numbers that we're setting goals for. so if we look at the latest 12 months, for calendar year 22, the recovery rate has gone down because challenges with contamination. so it's only at 39 percent and

we have set goals for them to increase that recovery. and the zero waste incentive in resent years has had four tiers. so the profit that jake shared with you in the last presentation is divided into four tiers. so it's a half percent each and there is a target for each tier. so for tier one, it will be 41%, tier 2, 42%, tier 3, 43%, tier 4, 44%. and only after the completion of the rate year with all the reports they give us and us verifying that they met that goal, if they need a given tier then they're able to recover that money, if they don't, tier 1, if they meet tier 1 and tier 2, as it has in the past.

they can propose different investment that can improve their recovery examine help us advance towards zero waste. and in the second year, that's the gist of it. i'm happy to further elaborate or explain that. but i'll just go to, the last couple of slides. you see it's recyclable and we

think that with improved compliance, the numbers will go down. we need to recycle that trash of the recyclable and there is been a lot of advances and technology and now facilities operating in the region that we can send material to test. so, the proposal, the priority we have is to test.

so that trash processing putting together a longer term plan on how we can scale up trash processing in future rate processes is a priority that we've established. that is the strategy and that

concludes my presentation. >> thank you. any comments or questions? >> thank you for providing that additional clarification. there is table 3 which you received monthly which informs you on what percent is currently happening and then additional testing that you do, be it at a facility or engaging with rickology directly. if that is all correct when it comes to tier 3 and 4, i just wanted clarify how those funds are going for rickology. are you saying that they have to hit the rickology to improve the recovery rate?

or the funds are available. >> if they meet a given tier, they can take those funds. so you know, let's say that they met, tier 1 and 2 but they didn't meet 3 and 4, then they could put together a proposal and submit it to department and i think we would review it and have the controller review it, and make recommendations. they have an opportunity to put together proposal and propose using a summary of all of those funds. they don't get them automatically. if they meet the tier, they don't get it automatically. it's only if they didn't meet would they have the opportunity to propose additional investments which may or may not be approved. >> okay, and in ballpark figures how often are those

proposals being approved if the rate is not? >> right, so in resent years like in 2018, 2019, 2020, where there were actually big shifts in the market, you heard about china and the green sword and the collapse of markets. they were able to make request to improve processing and take advantage of the latest technology. that allowed them to keep marketing that material. if they had an over, i think three rate years, they made about 20 million additional investment for unitied central. if those were not be, we would be in a difficult place. that was an example why they did it. they have not done it in the last year or two, so they're

proposing for the current year, have all, all four tiers go back and going back to the subtracted out in the rate calculation. >> thank you for answering those additional questions. >> sure. >> commissioner sullivan. >> yeah, jack that was a really good presentation, both the slides and presentation. one of the best, they took a complex topic and made it understandable, thank you. two questions, so i want to understand what the department's role is in the recovery goals slide that you showed us. is that a recommendation that the department makes in the final decision is made by, the controller makes proposal examine refuse rate board approves it? what is our role in that? >> i think you said that pretty well. so yeah, in conversation with rickology, for us it was an

important principle to continue to have, the zero waste incentive is a fundamentally financial incentive for rickology to help meet the city's goals. and without that, there is, there is no incentive. so you you know, the challenge in the past is for them to meet the goals. so clearly, in the past we were going back a number of years. we were having a very steep targets because we were trying to get to zero very quickly. now we have 20-30 targets that we can aim for. we initially proposed tonnage and in discussion we came to percent targets, percent recovery. and i kind of created two scenarios, one straight line to 2030. progress is not just linier.

my interest is that they stretch and have a shot of meeting those goals. so it was kind of my proposal but the controller might say well, they may have their own concerns and ultimately, it's going to be the rate board. we saw the slide with the pie chart. who decides how big the pie slices are? do we have freedom to do what we think makes sense as to what is important to the department or do you use nexus at times? does it have to be a nexus. >> we're looking at all the work that the department is doing. there is a lot of work in place, a lot of policies that we're trying to implement local

and state. so it's just kind of looking at well, what are we doing and how is that sort of shifting. so it's very much looking at where we are now. just a little bit of tweaking to meet. >> there is no limit to say, you know, this year, a little less out reach maybe. sort of assessment what our needs are with all the demands, problematic policy wise and not trying to make any big changes because we don't want a big percent. >> thanks very much. >> yes, commissioner wald.

>> thank you. so what i don't understand is the relationship between the department impound budget and the rate setting process. that somehow in the formula that they use to set the rates, they assume or they, account for 14.7 million dollars that will come to the department in the 2024 rate year?

if you can explain the relationship between the setting process, it would help. >> well, it's a good question because we're in a new rate setting process that is being, controller is determining how this process goes. and in complying with prop s, so in the past, it was like the department determined what it is, what they needed for their budget. but then, there is an opportunity, in a review process, it was public works and the rate board that would make the recommendations and the final decision. so that's the case here with the controller and the rate board, but now, the commission and environment is part of the process. and your role does not have to

be passive just hearing the presentations, you know, you can, give your input as far as i understand on anything related to you know, and meeting environmental goals and the rate process. >> but, what happens once after we've done that. i mean, is that a recommendation the recommendation to the controllers office. >> it's the controller is going to make a proposal i understand it, the controller will draft a rate order and make a proposal to the rate board. and that proposal will include the whole package and they can impound the rate in. it does not include our increase. so that would increase by point 3 percent.

so if they factor that in, they would present that to the rate board. if they come back to us and say well, you know, can we lower it, there may be some back and forth. but if the commission wanted to support that recommended it, they could, you could state that? and the controller is, is part of the my understanding part of the process is for the commission to not only hear but to sort of, you know, get provide input into the process. >> would you like to say something? i'm still here. >> i just wanted to kind of reiterate what jack is saying. but because these are rate funded programs, it's similar

to have their proposal for what items they want funded through the rate as a controller's office as a refuse rate administrator will consider for our rate proposal. ours is just a proposal, the rate refuse is the energy whether or not to include these items to be rate funded. i hope that's clear. >> thank you. >> that's a little helpful. :. do we make recommendations? does the commission make recommendations like when you have the process? >> sure, these two hearings are opportunities for input. so when we come again, obviously, this is new for all of you. so we're purpose of this is to give you context to give you information about process.

to bring to the rate board. >> thank you. >> they will have, since you'll be going back to the commission, later, there will be a later opportunity. >> commissioner more. >> i just want more quick thing. i really like the idea of switching to a percentage recovery structure for rickology. i think that creates the right incentives going forward. thank you. >> thank you. >> any other further questions? or comments? thank you, jack. >> thank you. we can open up for public comment, i believe. >> do we have somebody from rickology? >> yes, we have a third presentation from rickology. >> thank you. thank you.

>> can you hear me okay? >> yes. >> thank you, commissioners, thank you commission staff. my name is jemario jackson. i'll be presenting on behalf of rickology on behalf of the rate change request that we submitted to the controller office. throughout my presentation i'll be referring to the rate request as a proposal because the city will make a final determination. again i'm the government and community relations manager for rickology. next slide. so rickology has been around in this community for over 100 years. we worked really hard to understand the community needs and make sure that our

community commonsed. so it's to enhance our programs and help keep san francisco clean and to, ensure that our work aligns to help achieve the climate action goals. next slide. so we provide a sweet of services that are supported by the rate. primarily we provide three stream collection to the green bin, blue bin and gray bin. but in addition, there are other programs that both keep san francisco clean and also to align with the city climate action goals.

i want to explain to you a couple of enhancements. and it's for the 311 requests, large bulky items that are in the public right away. so we want to be proactive in that program. that they may have and we want to make sure that this program allows us additional ability to

increase our frequency to response, to respond to the dynamic needs where these receptacles are located. and then the third example is our contamination strategy. and this is in regard to our green bin collection. so in san francisco as many of you know, we partnered with the city to develop a national recognized model for our green bin collection program referring to the composting program. and we've been working on that for over 25 years and we find it's very regarding and necessary program in san francisco and so to maintain that program and to strengthen that program we would like to invest in additional education to make sure that customers understand how to sort. and we also want to invest in additional technology such as cameras. and then of course on the preprocessing side, we want to

sort out any contaminates such as plastics to make sure that the material that we're collecting is being used and sent to our facility to ensure that we're providing them material to ensure that the compost is of high quality. next slide. there is a number of different business impacts that have that are driving the rate increase itself. and one of the big changes is the pandemic. for example a lot of our customers are addressing their service needs to match their existing needs in these times and because of the adjustments it's resulting in a tonnage. our collection companies scavenger and golden gate are

collection companies with the tonnage being done but fix cost remaining the same. there is a revenue impact there and impact. we're seeing our labor cost another example increasing. and so, we're also seeing because of these tonnage down as well. a higher per ton processing cost and then that is resulting in the higher tipping fee that we'll see in the latest slide and in the overall rate increase that rate pairs will see as well. next slide. so the tipping fee is what any customers will experience and would be subject to. make up 80% of our tonnage to

generate the revenue to support the system to make sure that we have the revenue to support the system as a whole. next slide. this tipping fee is captured and illustrated in the green triangle that you see in the pie chart. you're seeing the rate itself and the various elements that are factored into the rate and we're calling out how the tipping fee is captured. but at the same time, the rate increase that rate pairs will ex experience and the 2.2 year in 2025. customer requesting services, the default services that we would be offering for a 60-gallon gray and 60 gray and

32 gal an green bin. so you can see the column and what that will cost and the change in what that cost looks like. let's go to the next slide. and we've compared to oakland. and we're offering unique services and programs in san francisco taylored to san francisco's needs and so we're really proud to offer compared wages but also provide the competitive wages to go along with that. with me are a number of folks that help put together a proposal and control as many mechanisms to keep the rates as low as possible. and that concludes my presentation, and i'm happy to take your questions. >> thank you, fellow commissioners, any questions?

>> yes. >> so i don't know if you can do anything about this, but on the second to the last slide, where you show that the rates are going up significantly for recycling and composting and it seems less significantly for trash. the problem is that sends the wrong signal or not the ideal signal to residents. because we want them to recycle and we want them to compost and we don't want them to use the black bins. so my only question is there a way that you can legitimately put more more of the increase

of any increase? on to the trash line and lesson to the recycling and composting as a way to regard residents who seem to me over the years have done a pretty good job of increasing the amount of stuff they're putting in the blue and green bins and reducing the amount of stuff that is going into the black. >> i'm going to call dan our original v.p. to respond to that questions, thank you. >> good evening, commissioners. thank you for my name is dan, vice president. what you see on that up slide is not representative of the rates. it's actually a break down for educational purposes. what people pay in total is the 467, that's the rate for the three bin service as a whole.

and discounts are based on how they, arrange their services. and so, those individuals line items are for individual purposes. and as you can see, there are different size bins that's why they have different size bins.

>> once in-person comment is concluded. we'll proceed with remote public comment. is there anyone in the room that wish to speak? seeing none, we proceed to remotel public comment. kyle? >> members of the public participating remotely who wish to make public comment on this item, should press star-3 to wait on the queue. for those already in the queue, continue to wait until it's your turn to speak. we do have one caller in the queue.

hello caller you're unmuted. your three minutes begin now. >> caller: can you hear me now? >> yes. >> caller: david paul again. so you, on item 9, the commission briefly discussed making recommend atesings as to funds and/or the process. i believe you can have discussion but not make any formal recommendations tonight. this is only as presentation item and not an action item this can be calendared before the commission on your next regular meeting in may or at a special meeting between now and then if you would like to formally influence the progress. i have asked for more information summarizing the impound account request from various city departments including environment and public works.

and possibly also controllers office, city attorney, or public help and i anticipate that information will be available at some point. i appreciate the new information that the controller staff provided tonight and their dill jant follow-up on very complicated stuff here and sub commissions from recology and analysis. around that, i'm concerned about nexus and proportionality of the rates and the use of funds derived from rates. i'm concerned that there be reasonable and fair refuse rates for customers for the company, for the city, for the planet and there be good value for rate payers and ultimately that we move as much as reasonably possible to cost of service.

i've already made some other comments about rates at previous hearings. i intend to follow this process closely. but i appreciate the time that you've taken on this and all the staff work that you're seeing tonight and all the staff work that you're not seeing but the work that is going from different parts of the city and elsewhere. thanks again for listening. i appreciate it. >> thank you for your comment. public comment on this item is closed. >> thank you for detail presentation. next item please. >> next item is item 10 director's report.

speaker is tyrone, i'll be substituting today. this item is for discussion. >> back to you charles? >> thank you, commissioner wan. i'll be brief the board finally passed our ordinance, this is going to require new construction and major renovations of municipal buildings to exclude tarl gas and only include all electric energy sources. so it's generally applying to existing building. so when gas appliance fails in a building, they have to replace it with electric. it's important as we work with our commercial and private sector and our resident sxz ask them to electrify, we have to be doing the same. that's why it's an attorney mild stone. the next day after march 14, march 15, we joined the fta and controllers office to hear

findings and recommendation from the glee report and we did this in front of the committee and the conversation resolved around the climate bond. it was a good stepping stone, a good beginning conversation. so the next steps are to work with orcp the controller and attorney's office to flush out what may be and bring that back for consideration at some point. also in that week is a ruling for air management district which along the lines of our chapter 7, eliminated certain appliances. zero knox models for water heaters, you have to sell them, they have to be zero knox, they cannot be anything else.

hen by 2029, the only thing that can be sold and purchased are zero knox models for furnaces. and by 2031, the only thing that can be sold for water heaters, larger than 75,000 btu. and so again, if you kind of fall into this category, you're going to have to purchase these zero knox models which essentially means all electric. excluded from that are natural gas stoves and, you know, going forward there is going to be a lot of out reach on this. and i'm certain that this topic about existing buildings and natural gas appliances or knox emitting appliances is going to be a reoccurring theme, for state building code and federal building code.

this is where we're moving. so that was the con quenstial week. we're looking at a plan to consolidate floors. right now we're on floor 2 and 3, that design was made before covid introduced the idea of hybrid work and consolidating floors may save us funds as well. so we're looking at that initially from a logitic point of view, going to take a look at how that works. that is something that is kind of started, that initial look at that. and then i want to talk about applying for grants, we've been getting increasing questions about that. what are you doing about the inflation reduction act, are you applying for things? and the answer is yes. all the predictions is that there will be a lot of money coming, is true, we're seeing more and more grants being

released. since november, we have applied for five grants. we have applied for five and i say we're probably looking at applying for five mirrors. we're engaged in the application process and there is 5 to 7 more that are in our radar. we continue to take advantage. so that is an active important area that the department is actively working on. that's about it for the director's report. so i'll pause to ask any questions. what is the policy? >> the mayor decree for the departments and personnel, is you must work at least three

days from your office location and two days can be tele work from home. so that is what the staff at the office are currently doing. >> so with that calculation, that can consolidate into one is doable? >> possibly. it's an analysis and assessment that we're looking at, we have not made that yet. >> i see. >> it will be assessment. it's not a done deal, we're looking at with people being out of the office, some people do come in more than that, but with them being out of the office, is to consolidate on the third floor and we're looking at that question, we have not answered it yet. >> the foundation or public funds. >> most of the private grants or private foundation grants

that were found with we're usually a partner but we're not the lead. that's just kind been the case. most of the grant directly apply to almost all of them, have been to government agencies. i know there was maybe one or two, couple of years ago but, yeah, we're not being the lead partner on a lot of grants from climate organizations. and federal and regional grants. >> any of my fellow commissioners. >> just a quick follow-up, i know you said we applied for five different grants. are those for decarbonization? >> i believe it's 5, i don't have the list. but there is an ev grant. there is inter vait

--innovative that we applied for. zero waste, cup walker large stadium grant that we applied. the last two are from the eta. and i may be missing one. going forward, there is a government to government grant that may be closer to building decarbonization, that one we're looking at and preparing an application for. funding award. that was released two weeks ago. related to ev charging. so we're actively looking at that and there is a few more.

i just wanted to ask have comments about the grants. tt a unique time for federal grants right now. and i was in san bernardino and talked to somebody from the department of energy who basically said, there is so much money out there. and learning how to access it and applying it is worth our time. and i'm happy to share the contact information from them. because i think it's a great window of opportunity right now. it's never been like this before. >> we open up to public comment. >> we will begin with public comment here in the room. once in-person comment has

concluded, we'll proceed to remotel public comment. are there any members that would like to speak today? seeing none, we'll move to remotel public comment, kyle? >> members of the public participating remotely, who wish to make a public comment should now press star-3 to be added to the queue. for those holding on the queue, continue to wait until it's your turn to speak. seeing no one on the queue, public comment on this item is closed. >> next item. >>le next item is number 11, committee reports. >> please give us a policy committee report. >> policy committee, met on february 13 bt and reheard

three presentations from marrian gordon from the food ordinance which we heard about more this evening. a presentation from cindy and james annika on the exchange and biodiversity cup 15 from peter. the meeting for march 13 was canceled and the next policy committee meeting is scheduled for april 10th. >> thank you, and for operation committee we have not met since january 9th and next operation committee will be held on wednesday april 19 at 5:00 p.m. in city hall. and that's the report for operations committee. if there is no discussion, let's open up for public comment. >> we will begin with public comment here in the room. once in-person, comment is concluded we'll proceed to remotel comment. are there any members of the public who wish to speak?

seeing none, we'll go to remotel public comment. kyle? >> for those wishing to speak, press star-3 to be placed on the queue. public comment on this item is closed seeing no people on the queue. >> next item. >> item 12 is new future agenda items. this item is for discussion. >> charles please. >> thank you. the next policy meeting is scheduled for april 10th, we're still finalizing the search for rooms. we've actually made some progress but there is still some possibility that that may get canceled.

but we have made some progress. the next operations meetings is potentially scheduled for april 19th, same story policy. we made progress in the rooms there is still a possibility that it may be canceled. and next commission meeting is may 23rd, yes, may 23rd. at that meeting, we may have another presentation from the controllers office, that was alluded to tonight. we may also be bringing some updates to you from our energy efficiency program. our clean transportation program. there may be some bylaws especially if we finalize location and times from where we host the meeting that may necessitate the bylaw updates and we're also hoping to bring equity progress update. are there any questions? >> any questions from any

commissioner? no, web open to public comment. >> we'll begin with public comment here in the room. are there any public comment wishing to speak? seeing none, we move to remotel public comment. kyle? >> members of the public, should now press star-3 to be placed on the queue. for those in the queue, please continue to wait until it's your turn to speak. seeing no callers on the queue, public comment on this item is closed. >> next item, please. >> item number 12 are there any

members in the room that wish to speak? seeing none, we will proceed to remotel public comment, kyle? >> members of the public participating remotely who wish to make public comment on this item press star-3 to be placed on the queue. if you're on the queue please continue to wait until it's your turn to speak. we do have one caller in the queue. hello caller you're unmuted. your three minutes begin now. >> caller: thank you hear me okay? >> yes. >> caller: so on this item, i'm a little confused. the agenda says that the close session is about holding

director interviews, i'm fully in favor of that. however, the minutes from the last meeting indicated that the commission voted to approve a set of candidate to the mayor and that was that. so what is not clear is if the mayor rejected those candidates and is asking for more. or if the commission reopened the position and has subsequent interviews or exactly what is going on? i'm not at all interested in names of candidates but i'm very much interested in the status of the process. so if you could explain and disclose generally where we are in the process, that would help me understand where things are at. but again not interested in names and i have no objection to a close session to interview director candidates pursuant to applicable law. thanks for listening.

>> thank you for your comment. and seeing no other callers on the queue, public comment on this item is closed. >> moving on to the next item, item 14 vote on whether to hold a close session to holden vierment department director interviews, government code 54957 san san francisco administrative code 67.10b. >> do i hear a motion to hold close session. >> i move. >> second. >> the item is motioned by commissioner wald and second by commissioner behrmejo. please call the roll. >> sure, president ahn is excused. vice president. >> yes. >> commissioner behrmejo. >> yes. >> commissioner hunter >> >> yes.

>> commissioner sullivan. >> yes. >> commissioner wald. >> aye. >> motion passes, next item please. >> next is item 15 close session, i'm going to take us into close session. one moment while we deal with >> okay, i believe the closed session has concluded. it concluded at 9:47. we are on item 15, that is vote to elect whether to disclose any or all discussions held in closed session, code 61.12 a, this item is for action. >> i move that we do not disclose any of the content while in closed session. >> can i have a second. >> i'll second. >> thank you, we have a motion

and second by commissioner sullivan that we will not discuss closed section. >> i'll pause because we're not getting visual, kyle do we need to pause? >> yes, if we can pause for a moment, i alerted, it seems like we have a visual with second tv. >> commissioner wald do you want to make that motion. >> certainly, i move that we do not disclose any of the contents of discussion while in closed session. >> and i'll second that sektd. --motion. >> and while there is no discussion, we'll open up for public comment. >> seeing there is no one in the room for public comment. so we will move to remotel public comment, kyle? >> thank you, just one moment. members of the public participating remotely, may now dial star-3 to make a public

comment on this item. or any callers already in the queue please continue to wait until it's your turn to speak. seeing no callers in the queue, public comment on this item is closed. >> thank you, the motion passed. >> call the roll. >> sorry. >> no worries. >> president ahn is excused. vice president wan. >> aye. >> commissioner behrmejo. >> aye. >> commissioner hunter. >> aye. >> commissioner sullivan. >> aye. >> commissioner wald. >> aye. >> the motion is passed. the next item please. >> item 16 adjournment, the time is now 9:51, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, everyone for a long night.

hi, sandy, how are you? >> hi, fine, thank you. how are you? >> good. i want to ask you what inspired you to be a paramedic?

>> that's a good question. you know, i wanted to go into med school and after i found out how much time it took and all of that, i decided that that was going to be a little too much schooling, but i still wanted to figure out a way that i could provide medical care and doing that as an emt as well as a paramedic was a way to do that. >> can you give me a break down of a typical day for you? >> i come to work and sit at my desk and then i respond to e-mails and try to figure out what are some of the issues we need to address. can we hire more people. what kinds of policies we want to try to create that will help us do our job as ems. >> what does it take to be a female paramedic? >> you know, it takes quite a bit of schooling, but also required somebody who's empathetic. it can be a very stressful job and so we want people to be able to hand that on a day-to-day basis. >> so what's your greatest

satisfaction in your job? >> trying to make sure that the work that we provide and the services that we provide to the community is the best that we can in ems so that when we go out to see you if you call us for an emergency, that we'll be able to treat you in the best way possible and that you get the care as quickly and as effectively as possible. >> why is it important for young girls, women of color to see women in these roles? >> i think it really is important for us to be able to get into these roles because we are effective, we are able to reach out to the community. we are able to do the job in a very effective manner and to be able to relate to the community and be able to do that is one of the best things that we can do. and people of color and as women of color, you know, we are in a great position to be able to do that.

>> in the bay area as a whole, thinking about environmental sustainability. we have been a leader in the country across industries in terms of what you can do and we have a learn approach. that is what allows us to be successful. >> what's wonderful is you have so many people who come here and they are what i call policy innovators and whether it's banning plastic bags, recycling, composting, all the different things that we can do to improve the environment. we really champion.