>> second. >> commissioner stacy, aye. >> commissioner arce, aye. >> commissioner jamdar, aye. >> commissioner leveroni, aye. >> motion passes. >> thank you. >> and i think the commission will go into recess now and no longer than one half an hour and come back to item 11 and jump t >> (in closed session). >> okay. the commissioners is back in open session and would like to announce that the commission recommended that the settlements for items 21, 22, and from the commission took no agencies think items 24 and 25 and 26 they were discussion

items only and next item is. >> >> 27. announcement following closed session. during closed session pursuant to san francisco administrative code section 67.12(a). >> thank you. >> commissioners come back request a motion and to whether we should disclose the motions. >> i move we do not disclose the motion in closed session. >> second. >> thank you. >> commissioner stacy, aye. >> commissioner arce, aye. >> commissioner jamdar, aye. >> commissioner leveroni the item passes. >> thank you very much. and thank you to all staff for bearing with us today with members of the public bearing with us today this meeting is

adjourned.. thank you. >> [meeting adjourned]

>> the time is 1 p.m. i will now call the roll. please respond with here or present. city administrator legg, here. board member herrera, here. board member bowdry, here. with three members present, we have quorum. we'll move to the land acknowledge. we acknowledge that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the ramaytush ohlone who are the original inhabitants of the san francisco peninsula. as the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the ramaytush ohlone have never ceded, lost nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. as guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors and relatives of the ramaytush community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples.

>> thanks very much. i like to welcome newly appointed board member, steve bowdry. it is the first time this new reuge rate board had three members and it is a pleasure to welcome you to the board representing the interest of the people of san francisco. steve rfx you want to say a few words about yourself and introduce yourself? >> sure. i am steve bowdry, i'm a lifelong resident of san francisco. i am a cfo for a real estate management investment company, and i am looking forward to adding whatever contribution i can to this committee. >> thank you. please call item 2. >> item 2, opportunity for

public comment on any matters within the board's jurisdiction that are not on the agenda. members of the public may address the board limited to three minutes speaking time per person and total of 20 minutes for the item. we'll take in person public comment. members who wish to comment on this item, please line up at the podium now. for the record, there are no inperson public comment. we'll take remote public comment. members of the public who wish to comment on this item should dial star 3 or raise your hand in webex. please note you have three minutes. moderator, do we have public comments? for the record, there are no additional remote public comments. this concludes public comment. >> alright. please call item 3.

>> item 3, discussion for refese rates administrate positive report. >> hello. good afternoon. refuse rates administrator. we have-i will give the rates administrative report today. before we do that, i want to introduce new controller and deputy controller and thank them fl support of this work as they transition into their new roles. greg wagoner and-- and then we also want to welcome our new board member member bowdry, excited we have a full board. i have been able to connect with member bowdry a couple times before the item for what he brings to the table

as a rate payer representative so thank you. lastly, i want to welcome michael nguyen to refuge rate administration, a san francisco fellow and excited for the support he can bring to the work, especially as the rate setting process gets going. we have two other items here, which include a update on the implementation of the 2023 rate order and then i'll go over the rate setting process, which was kick said off beginning this month. so, the implementation of 20s 23 rate order is going well. i want to acknowledge recology, environment department and public works for continued collaboration making sure we are implementing what was laid out. for the impound account i don't have slides. there were two major

implementation activities here. there was a general swap funds to alineg city work with rates getter and establish procedures and financial controls for dispersement and reporting. these are all been completed and the next rate plan memorialize these procedures. i'll give a brief update on establishing reporting requirement jz talk about the other rate monitoring activities. i'll do a overview of the enhancements that were included in the last rate order and of the projects dive deeper into the banned material collection effort where we had a graduate student conduct a study on illegal dumping and how it is handleed by the city and looking how recology performed to the new service level agreements. then the next item here is performance metrics. [indiscernible]

doing the work and he'll be presenting on a performance metric framework. look for comments or green light from the rate board to move forward with the framework in the next rate order. lastly, we'll have hsh give a status update on projects they have been supporting around the big is capital planning and how to approach priorities of the capal it needs. after this update on the implementation i'll talk more about the next rate setting process. so, establishing the rate reports just as reminder, the rate reports specified 27 different types of reports, 14 of it which remember new or modified. since we've approved of the rate order, we've completed the formats and come to agreement with recology on the formats are all the reports.

all the quarterly reports are implemented, the annual reports wont be implemented till february when the annual reports come out. weal we'll see the annual reports february 2025. the last thing i wanted to note is that, as part of the refuge rate order and the previous settlement, we reached agreement around agreed upon procedures to help us reconcile the rate reports with the audited annual financial's. this allows us to have a lot of confidence in the rate reports we get that that they have been tied to annual audited financial's in addition we come agreement for procedures for a third party to look at property revenues and costs and also to confirm a balancing account so the con fomation is to allow the proper line items eligible are included and not including

anything beyond that. moving on to the rate order of monitoring, we have several services enhancements, and projects that were approved during the rate order. so, the first category and contamination mitigation and diversion where we had some changes to our contamination protocol. we also invested in a pilot of on-board cameras to track contamination, so recology will talk about how this pilot has been going. in addition, we've also included some funding for trash processing pilot so this is a effort lead efforts where we are looking whether or not

trash processing is a viable option for removing contamination and organics in the trash and getting those to compost. and then also organics preprocessing. we were seeing a lot of contamination in organics so this will remove some of the contamination before it goes to the organic site. we also had a couple approved studies. this includes a seismic study of pier 96 for recycling centers and this study will likely not see the results until the next rate-setting process, but funding for the study was approved in the last rate order. in addition last march we approved of a waste characterization study to be performed and environment will be talking more about that. some other enhancements include, we had

additional administrative supports, some additional analyst, help with the new reporting, and then we had some operational enhancements. relief drivers. a few two personal routes for safety issues and the routes where there were a high number of incidents. and lastly, clean streets. we enhanced public receptacle collection pickup, [indiscernible] increasing capacity by 20 percent so we'll look how the two programs are performing. additional cardbord pick up and weekend cleanups as well. so, jumping into banned material collection. january we brought a graduate student claire wilson to analyze materials. we included a full report in the packet. we felt this work is important to be

heard at the rate board hearing so i'll be presenting the summary of her findings and recommendations. our next step after this now is to review the findings and recommendations with recology, public works and 311 around feasibility and what the process looks like for implementing any or all of these recommendations. so, as part of claire's work, we asked her to map out the work conducted in the city around illegal dumping which includes efforts by public work s and recology. i'll move over so i can see better. for public works, they respond to 311 requests. they have monday-friday proactive bayview sweeps they run with recology. outreach informent team volunteer clean up events. they connected 800 in 2023 and manage

the public can censor pilot. on recology side they respond to 311 request. proactive bayview sweeps with public works. they have additional zone k proactive sweeps, which cover tenderloin, chinatown, north beach and financial district. they [indiscernible] bulky item recycling program and service 3 thousand garben can said. the chart on the right shows in the last year in 2023, it is pretty eveningly split in terms of the number of 311 requests that recology or department of public works responds to in the last year. recology responded a letal more then half of those requests. so, the report breaks out findings and recommendations in three ways.

first is around alignment, the second data collection and third around performance metrics. the first finding is the definition for illegal dumping and geographic boundsries. the first recommendation has to consenss for illegal dumping in san francisco and that includes the definitions for what materials count as illegal dumping and then, what the geo graphic boundaries are so she is recommending we are aligned across this. san francisco does not have a effort to guide illegal dumping activities and what she is referring to is the [indiscernible] frameworks the eee, education, eradication and enforcement. the recommendation is organize the actirfbties around the framework with clear goals to advance current and

future illegal dumping work. lastly, she notes that recology is required to report performance metrics. public works has no requirement under the rate order. in the next presentation, our analyst ben becker will be talking about the performance metric framework and it will include performance measures. the plan is to include performance measures relatesed to impound funded work so that includes public works measures here. we had initial conversations with public work jz look to have a set of measures for the next rate order. >> since recology is already reporting on illegal dumping, is the public works reporting requirement function going to be similar to that and is there any reason why they have to wait

until the next rate ordered to view equivalent reporting on illegal dumping? >> i don't think there sh a reason to wait to the next rate order. a metric will be similar, it is just we haveants talked through the details what would be reported to us and there is nothing requiring them to do so in the rate order and so, for the next rate order we want to memorialize that and spell it out. to your point, we could do something now. >> i think anything they are able to do in advance following the setting up-it will be informative for the next rate process and i don't want them to jump into doing things they can't do yet, but don't see a reason why they can't start the reporting. >> from the initial discussion they have metric similar to the ones we

track for recology so i think we can do that. >> thanks. >> the second item is data collection protocol. the first finding is, 311 tickets are not updated after on-site personnel respond to tickets so what she is referring to here is, requesters to 311 may not accurately input information and so, when on site personnel come to collect illegal dumping they don't update the tickets and there needs to be a protocol. the second is updating or labeling notification service can overflow and 311 is misleading and so we have a public cans pilot and those in

311 are being treated the same as a 311 requester putting into 311 there is a overflowing bin, and so the recommendation here, which is the third recommendation is basically separate those out. they should have its own type of ticket, rather then the same as the overflow ticket to make the distinction. the last finding was that there is little data available of where illegal dump material is coming from in the city, and yet evidence is anecdotal and not collected through 311, and so she is recommending creating a source category for on-site personnel input whether or not it is residential, commercial or other when completing tickets. the idea i think in the recommendation is that it helps the city to

understand where it focuses efforts around mitigation and enforcement. the last finding here is around performance metrics. so, her first finding is recology is generally meeting the requirements of the fla and service level agreement track performance adequately. she suggested a few miner adjustments. the first one, if we go to the recommendations, report the abandon material customer calls come directly from recology and for the [indiscernible] they are currently combined with some of the street sweeping tons, so it is hard to disaggregate some of the data. lastly, is adjusting the daily limit. in our service level agreement we have some daily limit standards and

this is to make a distinction between the overflowing request and censor request and to prioritize completing the over-flowing requests from people actually requesting in the 311 app. the second finding is around bulky item recycling. she is is noting it is minimally reported and under utilized compared to prior years and largely used by single family residents. requiring recology report to a number of requests for bulky item recycling by account type and participation rate and require annual outreach. lastly, she makes recommendation around --sorry--she is saying performance metric cover material collected from

311 request and public resepical programs and so more resources are needed:she is recommending adding budget in the next rate order for? illeem dump pilot projects to be agreed upon before the next rate setting process. for example, this report looks at-there is a lot of analysis around which months, which days in the month, which days in the week illegal dumping and bulky item requests happen and by neighborhood as well so based on these analysis she is recommending that we can possibly do a pilot that targets certain neighborhood and do a proactive illegal dumping pick up maeb the last saturday of the month when you see the spike in illegal dumping

usually due to move-outs and then or possibly beginning of the month when people are moving in and kind of getting rid of excess belongings. this was a high level summary of the report. it makes very specific recommendations we feel are actionable and improve alignment data and tracking and how we measure performance. the report does note that public works and recology do a good job of responding to request for 311 and do good job with the proactive routes. the emphasis here is really the need for more targeted approach and if the city wants to reduce illegal dumping more resources and programs are needed. as i mentioned earlier, we are going to take this report, talk about the report with recology, public works and 311 about these recommendations for how we might implement some of these in the next rate order. and then, with that, i think i'll turn it to ben to talk about our

proposed performance metric framework. >> good afternoon city adman strairt legg, board member herrera, board member bowdry, ben decker, the principal analyst for the refuge rates administrator. i will present the performance metric programs that were developing in collaboration with cs a perform nsh, sf environment, dpw and recology. proposition f created our office requires that we establish and monitor performance standards. today i present the first stage. this board the public and stakeholders like recology and city departments will remain engaged as we make progress. our objectives are [indiscernible] collection and can disposal, including city department activity. monitor and analyze these activities and report our findings in a manner that is publicly accessible and

understandable. we already established new reporting requirements in the current two year rate order and will improve them in the upcoming cycle. we compiled require rate report metric into a data which covers 2019 toprint. the data base a is the foundation of the work moving forward. we engage stakeholders it discussing the data available or currently unavailable. what questions will the public most want answered. how can we best measure our work and different roles and what improvements do we need to make in our future data collection processes? we propose these products from this work will be internal database of all rate related reporting. series of public facing online dashboard and detailed report of rate monitoring which include broad scope and city use of impound account funds.

the online dashboard are maintained with cs a performance, host [indiscernible] hosted on sf.gov and digital accessibility and inclusion standards. on all metrics need to meet critear for inclusion. specific and measurable, adquit qut relevance, time bound interest to the public, aligned with city goals, feasible to measure and work wg recology and city departments to define metric and meet criteria. we also propose the framework of metrics for evaluation be based on proposition f goals. goal 1, rate fairness and stability. focus on cost of service from refuge and general utility. reliability of services focus on customer satisfaction and support. third is environmental goals,

focused on tonage and greenhouse gas emissions. fourth category is rate monitoring. this is ongoing work and analysis which can't be summarized in simple dashboards. some of the proposed metrics, rate fairness and stability, might include metrics such as our refuge rates compared with cpi. other utilities and those similar jurisdictions. reliability of service might include metrics such as on time collection, customer service call wait times and dropped calls, in language support, and annual customer satisfaction survey which we will propose to include in the coming rate order. environmental goals might include our land fill recycling and composting rates, mandatory composting compliance rates, outleech contamination charges, reusable foodware. and finally rate monitoring consist of ongoing work and aanalysis that

can't be summarized in the dashboard. i did want to mention department of public works and sf environment are already reporting some metrics in the same line. they are not available to the average rate payer in one singular place, so when we talk about some of the performance metrics, this will be a opportunity to consolidate some of the work other departments have been doing so it is more easy for folks to find. we currentsly plan to continue stakeholder indpaijment in developing the on-line dashboard. to return to the board in the spring with products for review and propose to launch the metric in conjunction for the next rate order. thank you for your time and your feedback is greatly

appreciated. >> i think there are no questions on that. we will have hf & h talk about some of the analysis they have been helping us with. >> good afternoon city administrator. members of the board. good to be with you. rob, hf & h consultants. as jay indicated we are here to chat with you about few things we have been working on. the most significant of which dollar wise and impact to the community is the capital planning that is for the upcoming rate order as well as looking into the future beyond that. we are also working with recology on the cost allocation that shows up in the rate application and looking into some common practices in response to interest areas from the stakeholders we met with and the refuge rate

administrator. and then lastly, we will give you a quick preview of upcoming stuff that may impact rate payers around sb54. so, for the capital planning, where we are is we have conducted a stakeholder engagement process with a number of different stakeholders within the city as well as with recology to understand what the upcoming needs of the system are, particular to those capital requirements that you will have those more significant things that we may want to do long-term planning and saving for. met with each group individually then met collectively and shared the results and discussed the results, discussed the project and developed a framework we'll talk with you about today. before the next time we come to you, we will apply those valuation criteria and put planning level cost

estimates tothose capital items and then during this next rate order it is anticipated that some engineer ing level cost estimates in particular sequencing and timing for those projects would need to be developed. i won't spend long on this chart, but this chart reflects the result of the stakeholder engagement process and we tried to understand across political economic social technology legal and environmental axis what the various factors were that we will be influencing the upcoming rate orders and trying to understand what the customer needs around that were. the customer both the rate payer directly and the city as a customer. so, that helped to frame 9 key capital planning areas that we need to go into. the first center around post-collection processing of material.

there is a trash processing pilot that was approved in the last rate order. it is under way and results are imminent around that and we are looking forward seeing how san francisco works and cost effectiveness. >> it is great to see-i have to tell you, that was the most confusing slide i have ever seen. i dont know how that framed anything, so i think it is great to have something that frames a debate. i think be helpful if you have something a little bit clearer that i could- >> it all boils down to the 9 bullets. we took a lot and digesting it down is the point. trash processing to understand the potential of recovering material from the black containing stream in san francisco and the cost effectiveness that is. looking at any potential changes to recycled processing, particularly as a result of the pier 96 seismic

study. any look at the facilities at tunnel avenue require a look at all of what is going oen there, particularly if you look at doing trash processing there it may displace other activities so looking at the need to have construction and demolition waste processing at tunnel avenue and what other process needs to happen at that sime. recology identified a number of penl needs related to tunnel avenue site, particularly facility related things. they acquired that site and accumulated that site over time and so some of the buildings are fairly old and they are looking at a site master plan to rationalize the space as well as the next item is the zero emission vehicle transition. you may be aware the california

resources board passed regulations requiring heavy duty fleets to transition to zero emission. recology has had a chance to pilot some that technology here, but we need to look at a full scale transition to that over the next 10, 12 years. that will be a significant capital item as the trucks-lect trucks are twice the cost of conventional trucks and you have to think about charging infrastructure and maintenance. >> can i ask a question about the transition? i understand [indiscernible] requires new purchases zero emission. now it is 50 percent of the fleet, in a few years it is hundred percent of new purchases. they don't prohibit repower of trucks and extending the life 06 the vehicles. is that part of the analysis? >> there are two different sets of rules and 50 percent and

hundred percent you are talking about effect city fleets. there is a milestone program for private heavy duty fleets, and i believe recology is opted for the milestonopon at a particular time line you need 25 percent of zero emission fleet and get to 50 and they have dates and rates. under that program, it is a requirement that that percentage of your fleet by that date is electric. there are exemptions for it. >> or hydrogen? >> or hydrogen. zero emission in any that. powering zero emission or electric drive train is up for discussion. so, by those dates, they need to achieve those percentage targets and it gets fairly complicated with different classes of vehicles, so in the early years, you may be able to accomplish a significant portion of with pickup trucks and flatbeds. in the outyears we have to

figure out the class 8 trucks and that is where a lot of expense really starts to come in. relating these two things together if recology sets up charging infrastructure or alternative fueling infrastructure at tunnel avenue it will require redoing that site to trench and set up the fueling infrastructure for that, so they are looking at a overall site optimization when that needs to happen. those two are certainly the largest dollar wise. we are talking 8 figures certainly for each of those items. the next four are a bit smaller. contamination monitoring, you are aware of contamination monitoring pilot for the refuge trucks authorized under the last order. that is a ongoing need and once that has been determined what the right technology is, the right approach, there needs to be scaling to

that and that may have some significance to it. oerganic processing is ongoing discussion. a number of different attempts handling that contaminated stream. you aware through the last rate order some work was done to clean that up, but that is still under discussion and the future of sort of how to handle all that material and what will be allowable may be changing and require some processing upgrades. looking at it up grades, this is much smaller then some of the others we have been talking about, but it upgrades allow performance tracking and customer accountability and customer reporting that is being looked for as well as security issues to fortify the systems and protect them from cyber security issues. and then lastly, there are projects like the waste characterization study and others that environment

will be looking for over time to monitor the waste stream and look at evolving trends in the industry and in san francisco's particular waste make-up to understand what to approach next. pause and see if there are questions on the capital items specifically? okay. so, as we go through these various capital items, some of them are necessity. there are some things needed to comply with law. other things, there may be discretion about what to do and when to do them. we want to set up an evaluation process for these capital items to figure out how to prioritize. so set up a series of criteria that we want to apply to these various funding items, so as we come back to this board we got a rationalized

recommendation. so, we are thinking about things like city goals and regulatory compliance. if it is not needed to meet one of those two things, may not be something we promote to the next level of evaluation. we want to look at cost effectiveness. if this is something we have to do for regulations or meet city goals, we want to stack rank based on cost effectiveness towards that goal. then we want to understand things like accountability and adaptability. can the progress around this be tracked? is there clear line of sight to you and regulating this and to the refuge rate administrator moner tg over time? what is the rate payer impact. ? not just day one but is there volatility to this over time if we enter it and what is the administrative burden as the last filter? for each of these things we can put them into the set of criteria and we intend to come back to you with some

preferred ranking of them based on that. we intend to do that in 3 year chunks thinking about potential rate order horizons, so the immediate rate order or the next and one after that and may allow for longer term savings profile. that's the capital planning. the next item is around cost allocation and as you are aware, there is discussion during the last rate order for example about what preoperative allocaturs are for various cost categories. so, we have been working to understand with recology what appropriate allocaturs are for separating the commercial versus residential, as well as rate versus non rate allocations. i'll illustrate that here in the sample approach, where we have these total dollars in recology's income statement, and for each of those we need to be

able to separate them out to different activities. and depending on the type of cost, different allocateer are appropriate. for example, we might distinguish between lifts, accounts and volume because one account may have multiple lifts, so if we bill them it may be appropriate to allocate the cost based on the number of accounts because everybody got one bill, but if we are doing based on some truck wear and tear or driver time, accounts isn't a good reflection, because there are many times the number of accounts and lifts and potentially many times in volume. we want to align each of these potential allocaturs appropriate to the cost category allocated. next thing we have been working on when we came to the rate board last time we talked about a survey we are doing and

there is concern expressed about the idea of a broad reaching survey and what do we get out of this? based on the feedback we got at the last meeting, we pivoted that surveying efforts from a broad surveying effort to something very focused looking at key issues to understand what are common practices in other places around these issues that you may be looking at. the first two around regulatory issues, how do others regulate rates in their community and with their service provider? and then how do you do general oversight and performance management? and then around sh of the specific issues that are coming up in the capital planning or allocations, what are others doing around zero emission fleet? how is contamination monitoring work? how do others deal with the differences between single family residential, plexes, apartments, commercial

generators and how do those rates get structured? trash processing and how other communities are handling that and then the regulation of the construction and demolition debris system. so, hopefully the surveying we are doing is more focused there on these particular issues you are wrestling with. related to rate regulation, i won't read all this to you, we are finding that there are a variety of mechanisms out there, the different agencies use, ordinances, rate manuals, contract exhibits, operating procedures, and they occur in all sorts of different environments. open market, exclusive environments, but the prevalence of specific rate regulation methods and formalize rate regulation method where there is monopoly is all most universal throughout the state.

so, as we see that in these other places, we are seeing that the rate reg ulation includes some disaggregation of costs as well as transparency on revenues. you got performance metric. you got the cost allocate the cost out using defined allocation methods like we just talked about. and then you got ability to benchmark for efficiency and productivity to say over a certain point we are not paying for inefficiency. we will come with other details how this might work and alternative approaches used in other places. along the lines of general oversight, again we see a greater degree of oversight in those more exclusive systems, because the rate payer doesn't have the ability to call up and change service provider if they dont like the rate or don't like the service, and so

that's typically governed by either a contract or ordinance. something in law that defines that rate regulation or that performance regulation. so, going forward, we know that one example of this is the land fill agreement is coming up soon, environment will be working on bidding that out and a logical next step may be to include some of the post rate regulation for some of the other post collection services like organics. any questions on that before i get into the last item? okay. so, last item we were asked to give a preview on sb54. sb54 is a law passed couple years ago that establishes what is called a extended producer responsibility system over packaging in california.

what extended producer responsibility programs do is they shift the burden of cost from the rate payer from the local agency to the producer of those products and the consumer of those products and says if you are making this thing, we want you to be responsible for the cost of dealing with it at the end of the life. this is broadly applied in california to hazardous and hard to handle item because the costs are so much more dramatic. this is the first example of it touching something we are used to see as a consumer item and typically in our programs. the thing that is interesting about this, the law specifically says it intends to relieve the rate payer of these obligations and intends not to burden rate payers and service providers for these costs. so, the key goals, reduce the amount of

packaging generated, make sure all packages or sold in california is either recyclable or compostable by a certain date, and then about 65 percent of it is actually recycled or composted. they want to shift as i said, the cost from local jurisdictions and rate payer ers to producers and consumers and wants there to be clarity and consistency throughout the state what is and isn't recycle. they don't want daly city to have one and san francisco have another. they believe that will stimulate investment into the infrastructure needed to hit these yield targets and to fund the cleanup efforts around them. these are the rates and dates. hundred percent of single use packaging needs to be recyclable or compostable. 65 percent of single use packaging

needs to get recycled and they are looking for a 25 percent reduction through source reduction in the volume and weight of the packaging. ithaalso established early mile 37 stones de facto bans for certain materials. things like styrofoam, flex package and film packaging are not likely to hit recovery rates by required dates, mostly because the producers are not required to fund the system by that date, so they think it will automatically fail and be out of the system within the next couple years. the obligations of the city under the law are relatively limited. the obligation is that you accept all the materials oen the state's list into your program and you already do. so, san francisco is pretty well covered. there may be additional handling required to separate one material type from another, but you currently

accept everything on the list. the other thing about this bill that is important is, it requires interaction with local agencies and it specifically in the legislative text respects your relationship with your service provider, and says the producer cannot establish separate collection systems that compete with your collection system. how that gets set up and how you work with your service provider and the pro to decide whether others may be able to play in the system is really something that they are resting in your control, not at the state level. we received one draft of the regulatory text on 54 and probably only get one last revised draft before they go to final regs because it needs to be done by the end of the year. the big issue in play is what is the scope of the cost they will cover? who are they going to pay?

how is the payment mechanism dpoeing to work and what transparency will we see around the system? for example, if the producers write a check to recology to improve their infrastructure, will that be clear to you and regulating the rates here that they received some subsidy from some other source? similarly, will there be money flowing for example to department of environment to fund their cost of educating the community about these materials? as the final draft of the regs come and they have a comment period that will be a focus for local jurisdictions on those areas and making sure the reimbursement comes. we talked a fair bit with jay and ben about how to engage in this process as it comes up and if the city is interested, how to get your ore in the water. this is the time to make sure the rate payer gets what they are promised through this thing.

i'm available for any questions you may have. >> board members, any questions? thanks. any comments or questions that you have? okay. i think jay, are we done with this item and can we- >> we have one more bit of presentation about the next rate setting process. >> okay, great. >> so, we have a upcoming rate setting process and why we have hf & h help understand our capital priorities and what the costs look like and also to sort out the cost allocation

methodology and then look at common practices for things we may include in terms of controls for and monitoring for next rate order. for next rate setting process, we break into three phases. the first is application, which we put out september 1, and we are-it includes shared rate model, which is what we have last time. we were included supplemental schedules for additional revenue and operational validation, and then something really new is a program cost forms. we are asking recology to break out cost by various programs so we can look at the deltas for enhancements or reductions in those programs. the second phase is the rate order development, so once the application comes to us, we will do our rate review, we'll do the record building we did last time, and then we will

have also rate payer input. i'll talk about new things there in terms of rate payer input. and then, the last phase is the rate board hearings where we have the proposed rate order and then the refuge rate board hearings to consider our proposed rate order and prop f written objections and prop 218 protest determination. this is--i'm going to talk a little bit about this, but this is just the general timeline so the first chunk through december is phase 1, the rate application phase. the next chunk, the green dots are developing our rate order and the last phase is the rate board hearing and we'll plan on working with your calendars on establishing those hearing dates.

so, we made several improvements to the next rate setting process, and 2023, that rate setting process we focused on created a new transparent process prior oratizing transparency and accountability. we were focused on establishing financial controls and reporting requirements and investing in operational and investment neetds. the next process we have several improvements i'll talk during the next slide and the themes will be focused around addressing capital needs and how to mitigate long-term costs. talking about improvements, so we after our last rate setting process talked to several stakeholders to get feedback on how we might be able to improve process. the biggest thing that comment we got was, there was too much time pressure.

it was a very truncated rate setting process, 6, 7 months to set rates. we added 4 months to the rate setting process. we also have done prework in terms of determining city priorities and initial cost estimates through the reapplication period and before then we have done some that work. and then, we are planning through the rate application to outline service level agreements for each of the programs, so we are not trying to modify those last minute during the rate hearing process. we are imoving rate payer outreach engage. ment this is something from the rate board we needed more robust outreach and engagement so we have a few new outreach channels including the board of supervisor news letter, recology news letter and targeted e-mail

campaign. what is new also is stakeholder meetings, meeting with small property owners in san francisco and department association after the application comes out. and the one thing we are most excited about is the focus groups. we've work on contract with [indiscernible] to help us facilitate some focus groups with rate payers to get more insight into what they feel is important in terms of investment through the rates. we also have improved rate review, we have a shared rate model. this time we had separate rate models that caused discrepancies and made setting rates a struggle. we have new supplemental schedules to give us more ability to validate the numbers and applications and then the program forms allowing us to disstill cost by program. lastly, rate monitoring

improvements will-the last rate order was a report and we are doing as a separate report from the rate order. the rate order will be in a form prioritizing implementation. we found the last rate order was difficult to implement. searching through a report for kind of the different provisions we included in the rate order. and then we are including more comprehensive performance tracking. outlined the framework that we are going to put forth in the next rate order for the rate board to approve and also improve customer service monitoring and other larger focus in the next rate setting process. i wanted to talk about rate impacts that we will spect in the next rate order. from external factors, we have this business tax reform, which will be on

the ballot november. if it passes, we are expecting that will increase rates in terms of the tax obligation by the rate recology. economic factors, controller's forecast, not expecting robust economic growth and so that will impact revenues coming through the rates. and sb54, that just mentioned could have impact and possibly lowering rates if the reimbursement rules are written in a way that covers the cost of processing those materials. and then the ev requirements, which i think is going to be one of the larger costs that we will look to mitigate over the next few years. one time savings. these are things we were in the last rate order we won't have this

round and rate expenditures come includes capital needs, city priorities and new projects and impact of the balancing account. just briefly--i think this is talked about already, but some of those new expenditures, capital needs and long-term cost, including the advance clean fleet, post collection process, investment and it infrastructure modernization. city priorities and new initiatives, so environment department, we asked them not to just give a update but also talk about what they are hoping to see in the rate order so there may be new priorities from environment as well as public works and our office, which was previouslyfunded by impound account balance is now in the rates so

our cost are part of the rates and then, we'll probably need-may need additional rate monitoring support and looking for -looking to do a customer satisfaction survey as well. lastly, we approved a balancing account that increase or decrease based on profits earned or loss incurred during the rate cycle, so the amount in the balancing account is 50 percent of estimated profits above or below the target profit that is earned based on the 91 percent operatings ratio. any balance at the end of the rate cycle positive or negative can be al located [indiscernible] we are anticipating a negative balance in the rate cycle and so that is something that we'll talk more about in the next item in terms of why

that balance will likely be negative. any questions? okay. i think that end this item. >> then we are ready for public comment on this item. >> we will take in-person public comment. members of the public who wish to provide comment on this item, please line up at the podium now. please note you have three minutes. for the record, there are no in-person public comments. we will take remote public commentment. . members who wish to provide comment dial star 3 on the phone or click raise hand in webex. please note you will have three minutes. moderator, do we have remote public comments? for the record, there are no remote public comments. this concludes public comment.

>> alright. let's call item 4. >> item 4, action item, vote on proposed rate reduction and rate 2025 and rate credit for rate year 20 24. >> so, i will say a few introductory words and recology will go into details, but we made significant improvement in rate monitoring, especially around rate reporting requirements and invested in analytical staff at recology to support this additional rate monitoring and reporting so the good news is that is working. i think the q2 rates reports we flagged variance in the new reports and reviewing recology discovered material mistakes, one being related to overstated lease cost related to revenue projections under estimated anticipated revenues. they combined errors are approximately $10.8 million in the first rate

year, and $13 million rate year 2025. in terms of mitigating this, our new rate setting application and process help mitigate the errors in revenue and we are working with recology for additional validation interest lease cost. recology proposed action movaling forward is issue a credit adjustment retroactively and adjust rates downwards in the upcoming rate year down to what they have been had there not bine the material mistakes. we agree with these actions and will be asking the rate board to vote to endorse these actions and lastly, i want to note that in taking these actions, we will likely end the rate cycle with negative balance in the balancing account, because recology will likely not meet their operating ratio and they will be below the allowable process. 50 percent shows as negative balance in the balancing account and at

the end of the rate cycle [indiscernible] i'll have recology present the details around this item and afterwards we outlined a slide for the rate board to vote on. >> jay, will recology be talking about why the material mistake made it through the process and then through the rate review process? which is on the city side. >> yes. >> great. >> good afternoon. chair legg, member herrera, member bowdry. john braslaw, director of business process improvement for recology and work with the san francisco team on the rate setting process. as you heard, the current rate

order includes a number of new reporting requirements in financial controls. in order to fulfill the new obligation, recology made significant improvement in the internal review process. the discrepancy discovered during review of is the draft third quarter reports are a result of those expanded processes. as soon as we discovered the discrepancies and did due diligence to insure we understood the issues, cause and impact we requested meetic with the rf a and itisy attorney office and met and explained what we discovered and talked through potential remedies and did this in a effort to be proactive, fair and transparent. as jay mentioned, there are two discrepancies we are working to address.

lower revenue at current rates and higher projected lease expenses. revenue at currents rates is key input in rate setting. it is the base from which the rate increase percentage is calculated. the revenue at currents rates for rate year 24, was calculated based on the rate year 2023 revenues, which included a cola adjustment on january 1, 2023. when the rolling revenue forward for rate year 24, the impact of this cola adjustment was not fully considered. revenue at currents rates for 24 should have used the rates in effect from january 1, 2023 and projected those rates over the entire rate year 2023 year to obtain a correct base for the revenue at current rates for 24. the second issue was related to lease costs associated with fixed

assets used in operations. there were a number of leases that should have terminated at the expiration of the lease terms and inadvertently extended. the primary issue is extection of leases to deprecation lives instead of terminating at the end of the lease lives. for example, vehicles are leased over a 7 year period while the depreciation is 9 years. in addition, facilities at rsf we leased over a 20 year period were set to expire at the end of 2023 and extended through the end of the rate payer. to address these calculation discrepancies, recology san francisco company proposed to provide credit adjustments for rate year 24 and to reduce the rates for rate year 25. the difference for rate year 24

are proposed as credits since the rate year ends today. the adjustment to rate year 24 include reduction to the tipping fee of 1.78 percent or $4.29 off of the 24109 set in the rate order for 2024. that represents total adjustment of approximately $2.4 million. the majority that adjustment is incorporated into the collection rate adjustment since rsf drives most of the tipping fee revenue from the collection operations. the amount represent ing public and account customers is approximately $235 thousand. the tipping fee change along with reversing the impacts of the revenue and lease differences within the collection companies result in a 1.91 percent reduction in rates from

their 2023 level. the credit adjustment for rate payers would be 1.91 percent for the period from october 1, 23 through december 31, 2023 and 3.24 percent so the period from january 1, 24 through september 30, 24. the difference in these credit amounts is due to the timing of the last rate increase on january 1, 2024. because rates were held constant in q1 of 24, the credit adjustment is minus 1.91, because the rates had increased on january 1, the credit adjustment is the larger adjustment of 3.24 percent to offset that increase. for a typical residential customer, the credit for the entirety of rate year 2024 would be $18.

for rate year 2025, the company is proposed to reduce the change in the tipping fee from a planned increase of 3.08 percent to increase of 1.39 percent. the new tipping fee would be $244.44 rather then the planned rate year 25 tipping fee of $248.52. the collection rates would decrease by 1.01 percent instead of planned increase of 2.47 percent. even prior to the discovery of these discrepancies, recology san francisco companies have been working enhancing rate application review and dpuver nns process. some steps we will be taking to insure more accurate submission include, expanding our third party review of rate models and data. we engage with rate consultants

to perform comprehensive review of rate application and all supporting documents. included in the effort is engagement of third parties to assist in development and review of key assumptions including inflation and growth. in addition to expanding our third party support, we are increasing our support from our corporate team, including help from project management office and documentation support from our internal audit team. who has expertise in creating document controls. finally, we plan to manually recalculate all of the key schedules in the rate models in our submission. this step further reduce the chance of miscalculations. as we did in the last rate cycle, we will continue to work with the rr a and his team providing detailed support and responding to questions and inquiries throughout the rate review process. we are committed to making every effort

to provide clear accurate and focused information to facilitate that process. let me now address your question mr. legg. the 2023 rate application process as you heard from the rra was somewhat compressed. in addition, another one of the challenges that we faced was most of the participants were fairly new to this process, because we had moved regulation to the controller's office and the rra position was created. some of the process included kind of essentially a education process going over the history of rate setting and how we went through review. from the recology perspective, this is a-errors that occurred in the

schedules that were looked at were reviewed by a number of people. we even in the last cycle hired outside consultants that did review. we had a lot of internal review. unfortunately, the discrepancies we discovered came as a result of looking at not only the variances, but some ways of lack of variance in the quarterly reporting. as the rra mentioned, i think the report process worked. unfortunately it is comprex complex process with a lot of data and sub-schedules and this is one that quite honesty we missed and i missed. i have been involve in the rate-setting process for many years, and looked at those schedules and this is

something that got by myself and got my other members of our team. >> committee members, i will recognize mr. herrera first then mr. bowdry. >> thank you. i think i understood at the beginning of the presentation you said youz shared with the city attorney's office the discrepancy, number one. and presumably did you share with them the proposed credits scenario you laid out for us today, and the mitigation procedures that you outlined? >> that is correct. >> is that your understanding? >> yes, it is. >> thank you. >> mr. bowdry. >> i have one question. i like to understand little more detail maybe at a later time the

accounting here. just to understand that. i understand there is a lot of different schedules and things that goes into the calculation, but my question is, how long will it take rate payers to be made whole of the discrepancy? >> we plan to issue credits for rate year 2024 with the november bills, so it the first focus of our team and our technology our it team is to reset the rates for the rate year that is starting tomorrow. so, that's more time sensitive. those adjustments should be in place in the next week, so that everything from 10-1 forward reflects the new rates, and then we'll move to calculating and applying the credits to customer accounts. >> thank you.

>> i appreciate the--i been briefed what happens and appreciate the companies coming forward quickly working with rate administrator and city attorney's office. i feel like it is what the entire oversight process is designed to do, and so i do feel it worked in this case, and i want to commend everybody fl the work you have done. i know it is really disappointing to run into something like this. i'm glad we were able to correct it quickly. i am curious if this discrepancy with explorations, if we went back and took a backwards look if this is problem in past applications or have you not-have we not done that backwards look? we are not required to at this

point. >> actually, i did a bit of investigation on my own. it is one of the areas that i historically had spent a lot of time on and we spnt a lot of time in hearings discussing the lease process and there is a very detailed prescribed way that we set lease rates and we have been following that since inception in 2006. really the lease error came as a result of transition both like i said both in san francisco, but also in our corporate office. it really was a result of pulling a report that covered the lease data, but was template was depreciation report that had different lives for those assets and so, the subsequent calculation was a result of

using those deappreciateable lives. i went back and i looked at data from 2013 cycle and didn't see anything in my review that was out of the regular 7 year cycle. again, primarily related to vehicles. that was the bulk of the difference came in. >> okay. thanks very much. so, we have before us-are we doing the motion first or going to do public comment first? okay. let's do public comment. >> we will take in-person public comment. members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this

item, please line up at the podium now. please note you have 3 minutes. for the record, there are no in person public comments. we'll take remote public comment. members of the public who wish to provide remote public comment on this item dale star 3 on the phone or click raise hand in webex. please note you have e32 minutes. moderator, do we have any remote public comments? for the record, there are no remote public comments. this concludes public comment. >> thank you. jay, we have a proposed-went over action we need to take and you have a- >> we have a slide that outlines the proposal, so we can put it up here. what we are asking the rate board to vote on endorsing is the following actions.

issue a retroactive credit for golden gate customers, equivalent to 1.9 percent to all rate payers between october 1, 2023 and december 1, 2023. [indiscernible] between january 1, 2024 and september 30, 2024. recology will be issuing credit adjustment to all customers equivalent to 1.78 percent of the total tipping fee paid by such customers on tons delivered to transfer stations. if the rate payer is eligible for credit is provided and no longer has account with recology or recology golden gate will use good faith

efforts to locate the rate payers and refund them at equivalent amount. if a self-haul customer no longer has account with recology, san francisco recology san francisco will use good faith efforts to identify and locate the self-haul customer and refund them. the second action would be recology reduce the plan october 1, 2024 increase so the tipping fee changed to adjustment to the tipping fee from 3.08 percent to 1.89 percent which lowing the tipping fee from $248.52 to $244.44 effective october 1, 2024. the adjustment to anticipated rate changing for collection fees from 2 pote 47 percent to negative 1.01 percent effective october 1,

2024. >> alright. members, can i have a motion? >> mr. chair, i move to approve the credit and rate reduction detailed on slide 25 titled, credit and rate reduction approval including a credit for rate year 2024 and reduction in the change of tipping fee and collection rates for rate year 2025. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. can we have roll call, please? >> on this motion, city administrator legg, yes. member herrera, yes. member bowdry, yes. with 3 votes in favor, the motion passes. >> great. we can now call-thank you very much. we can now call item 5. >> item 5, discussion item for recology and city department status updates. recology will begin the

presentation. >> >> good afternoon city admin stairt leg, vice chair and board member bowdry. we appreciate the opportunity to provide a update to the rate board on recology performance through third quarter of rate year 24. for the agenda today, our team will provide updates on year to date financial results, status of program enhancements implemented under this rate order, city wide weekend cleanup events, hydrogen powered truck pilot, update on our contamination program and monitoring technology, update on organic processing enhancement

and diversion initiatives and studies we are currently performing. a brief facility assessment and modernization update and lastly, a high level summary of year to date performance. without further delay, i'll ask terry dawn, regional controller to present on year to date financial results. terry. yoorks good afternoon. terry dong, the regional controller of the san francisco companies. i will speak it our q3, 9 month ending june 30 rilt results. in the table to the left, our adjusted revenue for 9 month is $10 million then projected revenue. this is due to adjusting for revenue projection discrepancy along with lower revenues transfer station as a result of our lower volume.

the 9 month year to date expenses were approximately $5 million behind projection and this is largely due to the lease projection discrepancy john mentioned earlier. timing of the seismic study and facility monernization work and lower cost driven by lower volume. lower then projected expenses are offset by payroll and related cost which includes health and welfare cost experiencing double digit inflation. if you focus your attention to the table to the top right, after adjusting for the customer credits,b the 9 month net profit is approximately $18 million, with eligible operating ratio expenses at $238 million, the target process to get to a 91 percent operating ratio needs to be $23.6 million. this result in short $91 percent operating ratio needs to be $23.6 million. this result in short fall of 5 million

and 2.7 is attributed to the balance account. the table on the bottom right we estimate full year rate 24 shortfall is $6 million. $3 million atrbted to the balancing account and rate year 25 shortfall will be $23.8 million. that is additional 11.9 million to the balancing account. rate making includes up and down measuring the actual to projections. when the rates are set, we had growth assumptions in both years worth about $15 million that did not materialize for 24 and don't expect to materialize for 25. the expectsed rate year 25, $23.8 million short fall is a hult of the overall rate not set as level efficient to cover the cost and generate the allowed profit at 91 percent operating ratio. i know that is a lot of information and i'll pause and take any

questions. >> i assume the larger short-fall in rate 25 is largely reflection of the credit, the credits we just voted on as well as the revenue reductions? >> actually, that's just partially the reason. as i mentioned, in both rate years we have growth built into the projection and that's about 7 and $7 and a half million each year, so about $15 million for both years. the rate decrease will attribute to some that $23.8 million short fall in 25, but i think the main reason is also our rates are just not set at a level that will cover our cost. decreasing our rates for 25 and reducing the rates for 24 also doesn't cover the inflation that we have been experiencing in the economy. >> thanks. >> you're welcome.

now i'll pass the mic to anthony our senior general manager of sunset scavenger to talk about our program enhancements. >> good afternoon. anthony, senior general manager, sunset scavenger. as part of it rate order several program enhancements were made to support cleaner streets throughout is san francisco and implemented them this rate year. those included additional ban material routes, two new cardboard collection routes, and two additional dedicated public receptacle routes. the first 3 quarters of the rate year, our abandon material crews collected 3500 tons of material from the street. that is increase over last year. during the same time we received ov73 thousand calls for materials via 311 system and represents 10

percent decrease over the same period last year. this shows the additional zone provided has been effective getting trash off the streets sooner and leads to less complaent calls from the public. our compliance, service level agreement compliance is improved significantly to 86 percent and continues to climb. for the new cardboard routes, they have been operating across the city in major commercial areas. so far collected and recycling additional 471 tons of material. next, the public receptacle routes collected over 4 thousand tons thus far. while receiving over 13 thousand over flow calls via 311. compared to last year over flow calls are down more then 8 percent demonstrating the additional routes provided or continue to have a positive impact on street cleanliness. compliance for public cans is 86

percent, with preliminary q4 results in the mid-90 percent range. in total hard working employee owners collected over 8 thousand tons of material from our streets across these three programs. aortenhancement for the rate order was the weekend cleanup events. throughout the year recology coordinated 11 events across the city to allow customers to bring material as well as donateable items for good will. over 3 thousand residents attended the events and 41 percent of the material was diverted from the landfill. we also offered a total 99 tons of finished compost to residents free of charge. we look forward to the rate year and another 11 events. next recology was the first waste hauler to test the hydrogen power vehicle and san francisco was the first on the street.

a major milestone for the city and cower company. [indiscernible] provided valuable data hydrogen effectiveness in reuge collection. driver and customer feedback was overwhelmingly positive and concluded quieter operation, able to handle the terrain and the distance across the city. sf environment joined for a ride along to see the truck operating first hand and in the next rate order and into the future, recology looks forward continuing to partner with the city to explore this and other potential altenative fuels to minimize carbon foot print and delivering our services. now i'll turn it over to kevin flanagan general manager of golden gate to discuss our contamination programs. >> good afternoon. my name is kevin flanagan, the

general manager for recology golden gate. over the next several slides i'll talk about our contamination program. the rate order included funding for cameras that use a i. the systems installed late february this year and we have been testing the units the last 6 monthss. also included a new contamination protocol that clearly defined the process of win wh and how we address the contamination in a effort to change our customer's behavior. funding for one additional staff person was also included to assist in managing the contamination zero process. advantsage we found is allows our auditors to see the entire contents of a container as it is emptied into our trucks, versus when they are on site just looking at the top layer of material through on-site

inspection. the image quality significantly emproved over the last version and currently at the level we expected. the system is also able to receive updates by the vendor online and result in timely resolution on some issues we have been faishing during the testing period. a i is still evolving. it is important to note the technology is versatile though. for example, this vendor is using the same technology to identify over-loaded containers. this particular system is fully developed and currently installed in over 25 thousand trucks across the county. also exploring a system in residential situation. so, some of the challenges we experienced obviously the system is still in the beta stage, so we

have and will continue to work with the vendor through the different challenges we have been experiencing , but again the system is evolving. a frequent challenge we experienced is location of the cameras. these are located in the hoppers of the trucks, which allot of material is dumped inthat area and damage the cameras and knocks out of alignment so from a maintenance standpoint, that is a very frequent visit for maintenance technicians to adjust the cameras, clean them, potentially repair a damaged wire. a bigger challenge is having to man wale process the data the a i systems are generated. this is a area more development is needed with the software to support more efficient and accurate reporting. this is a pretty big hurdle for us. we also have the same challenges with customer association. essentially the gps coordinates of the truck during collection may not

match with the address of the customer and an example of this is a customer's account address is not on the same street as say, like the dock where we service the bin. we are having to manually match those two to insure we are charging the correct account for the contamination. again, the a i technology is promising, but not a point to start scaling at this time. this next slide highlights the quantity of tags our drivers generated compared to number of events the 6 camera systems jen raitded through a i over the last 6 months. the a i is generating expotential number of events over the drivers tagging and reporting contamination, however we see half reviewed events resulting in false positive, which is contributed to fewer notice

letters sent out as you can see on the slide. as mentioned, the a i generated events must be individually reviewed to verify contamination and the customer location determined before moving on in the process, versus the driver reported contamination which is validated by the driver aroung with the account that generated the contamination. additional the phase of est iting our focus is on the functionality and the internal process to utilize the systems and not on charging contamination fees. the review and validation of the a i generated events is a manual process that will again require additional headcounts and system improvements to scale the technology. the new protocol has been effective changing behavior. we see roughly 70 percent reduction of contamination from those who received

notice letters pertaining to contamination. again, we do not feel this technology is at a point to move forward in scale, we feel it is promising and we should continue to explore this system and other a i technology so it grows into a viable solution. there are not any questions, i will pass the presentation to general manager, recology san francisco. >> before you leave rfx i have a couple questions. have you been thinking about what the best way-it seems like the thing that is most of interest to the rate board is driving changes in behavior. i think rate board has expressed in the last meeting anxiety about sending penalities and fines to residents. are you thinking about what the best ways to drive those changes in behavior are as you implement the technology? >> yeah. so from our experience, the

protocol that was developed in the last current rate cycle is working. that requires us to go through a series of touch points and communication with the customer before they start getting significant charges. it also allows them to reverse those charges by cleaning up their streets. we feel that things are effective in that regard. it is more on the front end when we identify the contamination and working through that process. >> and, would separately would having some kind of bar code or qr code on the cans--instead of relying on gps. >> there is technology out there. yeah, and it is something we will propose likely in the upcoming rate cycle and tags for containers. >> thank you. you can pass it on. >> thank you.

>> good afternoon. maurice quillen the general manager for recology san francisco. this afternoon i will provide the rate board updates oen the deployment of arganic process equipment at the tunnel avenue site, trash processing test, city wide test characterization study, seismic evaluation and tunnel avenue facility modernization project. recology requested the procurement of processing system to reduce level of contamination in the organic and rates submission. thedition was made to procure a [indiscernible] to reduce contamination. a trommel screen ordered september 20 23 and made operational beginning this year. the screening operation spans two shifts 5 days per week and one

shift saturday. recology received approximately 500 tons of source separated organics daily and the operators are identify the process the dirty loads. we believe is the main source of contamination. our efforts identify prautss nearly 46 percent of the tonage on daily basis. 22 percent or 110 tons of volume is removed as contamination. within the following weeks we will work with sf environment and conultant to analyze the effectiveness. we are confident the trommel screen is doing a good job removing trash and plastic from the organics and deployment of the trommel is approved the quality of the material we are delivering to the compost facility.

this is a image of the trommel screen at the transfer station. a fairly simple piece of equipment. we load the piece of equipment in the middle off to the right, the clean 4 inch arganics are transferred after running the trommel process, and to the left the trash is extracted from the system. to the left is sample picture of what the organics look like and represent a commercial load and has quite a bit of contamination and the right is what the process organics look like after they are throw the trommel. the refuge rate provided funding for trash processing pilot test. identifying the viability of removing recyclables and organics from the san francisco trash using a full scale recovery system. recology is working with sf environment, industry partners to

conduct trash processing tests. june 1, recology delivered over 100 tons of trash to transfer station to green waste recovery in son jose. the tonage was a bit challenging to process as it contained commercial and residential material and the outcome of the test yield lower recovery results then what the facility acustom to receive from local jurisdictions. the organic was delivered tew the composting facility in hollister, composted for 14 weeks and cured 2 weeks and recently screened. hdr participated in the green waste test and produce a report to formalize the test results. recology and sf environment where working delivering a smaller prackz of the organic rich [indiscernible] in fresno. later this fall.

this processing test will imploe a modified food depackager. colony will compost recovered materials on site. in a similar fashion, hdr will observe the test and issue a independent analysis of the process and outcome. recology continues to explore additional trash processing efforts on site as a central component of the tunnel avenue facility modernization efforts. remain committed helping the city of san francisco achieve the climate action waste reduction and landfill disposal reduction goal of 50 percent by 2023. an action ited item was to reallocate trash processing to perform a city wide waste characterization study which was the last was in 2020.

covid and the economy we believe the information is outdated. recology is working with cascadeia consulting to perform a detailed city wide study. the study structure is based on identifying the composition of waste stream by customer type. looking at understanding the waste composition of residential multifamily customer. split side louder rates that collect plastic carts as proxy for residential and small multi-family customers, front end loader and commercial loader that service the metal containers are the proxy for the commercial and large multifamily customer types. the roll off trucks hold metal compacters and serve commercial and large multifamily customers. the project started monday september 16 and run through october 11. over the 4 week period 515

distinct samples will be collected and sorted. samples sorted by hand in 90 specific categories and weighed. the result will be used to assist with design of future recovery programs as well as equipment design procurement decisions. this slide here shows a sample load that was identified by the cascadeia consultant. the pink tag is our chain of custody which tracks that route into the transfer station, and then tracks the material into the sorting area. to thriu can see the cascadeia subcontractor sky valley sorting a 200 pound sample of trash into 90 different categories. failly elaborate and time consuming process. [indiscernible] finding for the pier 96 seismic

study, tunnel avenue facility modernization conceptual design: [indiscernible] from the port of san francisco and the lease was renegotiated and requires recology to conduct a seismic study issue facility retrofit report with cost estimates and conduct a facility assessment. recology has worked closely with [indiscernible] the company that designed the pier 96 facility to produce the required reports. in september recology started the field work for seismic evaluation. includes a geotechnical study and assessment of the building foundation, super structure and sheet pile sea wall. completion date is september 2024. upon completion of the study, a retrofit report will be drafted, outline the scope of the rehab project and the associated cost. we expect the retrofit report will be issued march 2025.

the facility condition assessment will be completed by the end of the rate year. the rate application submission also included funding performed conceptual design for tunnel avenue facility modernization, trash processing, fleet electrification and environmental review. recology conducted a solicitation to select a vendor to work on the tunnel modernization project. we selected rrt design and construction. rr it rks is engineering construction company with expertise in solid waste field and recycling industry and resume with over 400 projects to their credit. rrt will be exploring near term as well as long-term trash processing options for the tunnel betty site and consultant will continue on establishing fleet wide electrification requirements identify power availability and make recommendations on our on-site power

transmission. the fleet electrification and material processing rrt will work with our legal team on tunnel baity environmental impack report. [indiscernible] facility and vehicle, on site parking, traffic flow and storm water management will be studied to inform the environmental rue and permitting work for the modernization. if you have questions, i'm happy to answer them. i now will turn the presentation over to evan boyd, the san francisco regional manager to summarize and conclude our presentation. >> thank you. in summary, and as you heard from members of our san francisco team, recology is successfully implemented enhanced service. many of those you can see here.

year to date financial results after adjustments were $5.4 million short of projections. asia heard from terry, this is largely driven by economic growth that did not materialize this year. we continue to work closely with city departments to implement enhanced services and improve financial and operational reporting. we worked test the first of its kind hydrogen powed collection vehicle and more excited to be able to test this technology in san francisco. the first city in north america to do so. we are pretty bullish on this and pretty excited about that. lastly, we wanted to provide you with a glimpse into program enhancements and up grades you can expect in the next rate order cycle. those enhancements include, trash processing so looking at options to repurpose areas of our site to do trash processing. alsternative fuel collection

vehicles, so looking to transition our fleet to alternative fuels per the state regulations you heard about. implementation of additional a i technology. there was a question about is there other technology out there, rfid, bar coding, certainly those technologies, but there is technologies we also believe are out there that can help us with route efficiency and routing in general that we like to explore. engineering work for facility modernization. as you heard about from mo. upgrades to it infrastructure. so making our systems more durable, more reliable and more secure. certainly something that we would like to propose. and increased outreach and education to our customers and this is key to a successful and sustainable program as you all know. greatly appreciate the opportunity to provide you with updates on our business and our performance through the third quarter relative to

the rate order this year. we thank you for your continued support and partnership and we are happy to answer any questions you may have. thank you. >> thank you. board members, any questions? thanks very much for really good presentation. >> thank you. >> department of environment is coming up next. >> good afternoon refuge rate board. residential zero waste senior coordinator at the environment department. my presentation has three parts. the first part i will talk about our zero waste goals and where we are currently at. next i will talk about our policy

priorities and end with some highlights from the last refuge rate year. work the environment department has been working on so three separate parts. getting right into zero waste. here is a picture of the landfill rate over the last 20 years and what i want to point out here, we have been on a downward trajectory which is the goal. back in 2000 we were closer to 900 thousand tons of material going to landfill annually. now we are closer to 500 thousand tons. this is due to pioneering and innovative programs that have been rolled out in partnership between the city and recology and funded by refuge rate payers and this is really made us san francisco a leader in zero waste policy all over the world. all my colleagues get calls from countries and cities from all over the world asking how did we get

here and that's because of our innovative programs. speaking of one of our innovative programs, our composting collection-f - >> curious you see from 2000 to 2012, you continue to go down. goes back up. what was the spike for? >> that is economic growth. a lot of bumps you see along the way is economic growth. as the economy goes down, tiply our landfilling goes down which is environmentally great, but we are also in a recovery period, so thanks for pointing that out. speaking of one of the innovative programs thrks food composting program, which we are one of the first cities in the world to roll out such a composting program in 1999. we have been in a continual upward cycle of collecting at the peak. we were at 700 tons of organic material collected per day and that big

drop is covid. we are still in recovery period now. some is due to economic growth. we are not fully back, the city isn't back, some has to do with some of our recycling composting program s dropped off as well because we are in the post-covid era so we need to increase outreach and education to the public. we have a codified goal of cutting land fill rate in half by the year 2030. mentioned earlier by maurice. if you just look at recology's portion of the pie, they are touching 70 percent of what we are landfilling is handled by recology. if we just look at that, if we want them to reach their 2030 goal, they need to find a home basically recycle or eliminate all most 170 thousand tons of material per year, so that is a lot

of material that we need to recover by the year 2030. that requires some significant program development in the next 5 years. if you look at this through the greenhouse gas lens in our department is shifting looking at greenhouse gas to more consumption based inventory model, but for this presentation i wanted to just focus on landfill and 5 percent of our emissions city wide are coming from what is out of the landfill, and that's equivalent to all most 45 thousand gas powered vehicles on the road annually, so that is the 186 all most 187 thousand tons of co2 emit from the land fill which is primarily organic material. i will switch gears and talk about our priorities for recology in the next rate cycle. we have been talking to them,

so this wont be brand new. we hope to implement our reuse program and bulky item pickup program. bulky collection landfills 8 thousand ton a year of material, and we believe that that number can be reduced dramatically through implementing reuse program. we have consultant out there now with recology looking at what is the potential reuse volumes. which equate to how many routes would we have to roll out and the cost, so we are hoping recology that into their next rate cycle. we also want recology to look at a dimensional lumber reuse program into the local economy. right now much of the wood is getting hauled to mulchers which is

over 60 miles a way and green waste. we believe there is a cheaper option if we look at local reuse markets for dimensional lumber and i'll get to that, but we just opened-reopened our building material reuse center that is very close to recology, which we are hoping will potentially be a market here. we also want recology to update and strengthen our current incentive rate structure, so we believe this will drive behavior change for the generators. the accounts are going to be more incentivized to recycle and compost when we strengthen this rate structure. this will only work if recology also hires additional fte, waste zero specialist to change the service levels over. this isn't just a raise the base rate, but also to-you have to switch folks over from landfill to recycling

to make this make sense. we also want recology to consider adding medicine collection at district cleanups. this was a local ordinance that was passed by our toxic reduction team that requires pharmaceutical companies to take back their medicines from san franciscans, so this is a fullyfunded program and zero impact to rate payers, but this is basically creating another option for san franciscans to get rid of their medicine and the projth pays for this, so we like them to work with the district events. in addition we like recology to look at including residential properties 1-5 units to do additional auditing, outreach and contamination charges. this sector has been kind of ignored. we focused more on commercial and multi-family with contamination charges, but we do need to

spread out the contamination charges to also include the smaller properties. we want recology to adequately fund outreach to meet community needs and we want that in commercial, multifamily, single family and cover toxic reduction. this is required by law through sb1383 through that state law we are required to conduct annual education and outreach as well as monitoring and compliance in summary for recology, we would like them to improve source separation compliance and investigate trash processing options. we believe this is the only way we are going to get to our 20 30 goal. the right is a quick shot at how much is currently still being landfilled that is compostable and recyclable and at least 40 to 50 percent going

into our residential stream is still recoverable. so, highlights, now i will switch gears and talk about sf environment and highlights from the last refuge rate cycle. so, maurice covered it extensively, but we worked closely to roll out the trash processing pilot, a expenditure you all approve in march. it was a 50 thousand dollar expenedture. we completed the first to green waste and as maurice mentioned we are going to work with colony in fresno and i just got hot off the press here is the result from hdr. we had third party consultant doing analysis for us on the potential here and basically in summary, we sent 102 tons of material. that was-forgot how many that was.

but lots of tractor trailer roads to green waste and recovery rate is around 39.11 percent, so some that went to recycling and some went to composting facility. the green waste composting facility in gilroy and they isolated our material and that is the total recovery rate. i think that is pretty good. i think we can dramatically improve this because this material was pulled from the pit directly and i was there watching and a lot of was mattresses, potentially homeless encampments where we could be isolating more organics rich loads and get a much higher diversion. the waste cut characterization studsy was approved $400 thousand expenditure you approved in march. maurice went into it in great detail, but this is going to provide us a report that will inform our policy, our programs and infrastructure development

for both the department and recology. it is a very extensive report with a lot of detail. our toxic reduction team has been busy in the field certifying 97 businesses and to maintain very high stringent environmental projects, including high diversion rate, toxic reduction goals and recovered about 22 tons of material in the last year. lithian ion batteries are proliferating everywhere. you may hear there is quite a bit of risk associated with the batteries because they are burning down recycling facilities. there is a case in san mateo rolling out a comprehensive education programs to property manner ands with battery buckets teaching residents how

to properly dispose of these safely. procure adnew manager for building reuse center at 71 amador. san francisco environment holds the lease on that port property, so we got a new manager to do building material reuse. we are at about 602 tons of material. not sure if you know, but 67 percent of litter on city streets is food services ware and related and our commercial zero waste team is swapping out businesses for their disposalable to reuseable. this is our department plan to turn down the faucet of consumption so less material is rolling into the refuge stream which will lower rates for refuge rate payers. the rate paid for 450 inspections to food services businesses to bring them

into compliance with sb1383, getting them to donate their edible food, and in the last year that we tracked we did 4600 tons of food distributed to folks in need in san francisco. my last slide is we rolled out 13 clinics in the last year. this is free to san franciscans. we repaired over 346 bikes and articles of clothing and once again, this is what we call source reduction, turning down the faucet, so less material is rolling into the refuge rates. thank you and happy to take any questions. >> thanks alexa. any questions? thanks. mr. robertson. >> good afternoon refuge rate

board commissioners. bruce robertson rkss deputy director of financial management of public work jz will give the last presentation on the item talking about the refuge rates as relates to san francisco public works. the over arching goal of the rate process for public works is pretty clear. just to enhance the cleanliness of san francisco. to the rate process we do through a couple ways and in the last rate process in particular it was continue key city initiatives. i will go into more detail. the first is what is called the outreach enforcement team. i will go through the role in more detail. litter patrol. the rate fund staff for litter patrol in the public right of way. monthly can steam cleaning. there is 3 thousand public city cans and we get funding through the rate process to fix and clean and improve the trash cans. as also mentioned we do bulky

item pick up in the bayview and removal of illegal bumps and hot spot in the bayview and we do if you look at the bottom right corner, mechanical sweeping throughout the city on a regular basis. we get funding through the process for that. finallyx trash cans. there is 3000, and we work to maintain and improve the trash cans. to put the work in money in the current rate process it was $14.6 million. you can see top to bottom starting with mechanical sweeping, litter patrol. those are funding staff in public works. the bottom few items around basically refuge and trash cans are external funding sources and additional staff. i will go through each in more detail and highlight numbers and successes we have seen with those programs throughout the past refuge rate

year. labor represents about $12.7 million that $14 million mentioned earlier. you can see about 10 of the staff are for what we call the one team. earlier in the presentation today we talked about behavior modification. that is key component of what the one team does. there is 10 of the staff. started all most 10 years ago now and they try to work with residents, businesses, throughout the city of san francisco to talk to them about what the rights and responsibilities are in terms of cleaning outside their business. they also work to enforce sanitary and standards to make sure they are met. a key thing the staff does, they go through illegal dumping and look into bags and look for addresses or names. if you look at the photo, this is story covered by cbs national news basically that followed them looking at the staff

going through illegal dumping, looking for identification within the illegal dumping. it is something we try to issue notification to the people if we find it or, severe cases, penalities and tickets, but that is something-it is trying to identify the behavior. we have 31 staff for various elements. a trash can manager that helps analyze the best placement for trash cans, cleaning schedule for trash cans and additional staff that go out and do litter patrol, and drive the mechanical sweepers that mentioned earlier. a total of 31 staff. we produce many reports on our effectiveness and use of our staff funded through the refuge rate process. this shows the 10 one team staff. you can stee the significant increase in fiscal year 24 to all most

11 .million outreach. in the blue is largely outreach for staff are talking to residents and commercial owners throughout the city trying to enforce sanitation laws. they are responsible for cleaning the public right of way outside the building, but also letting them know if they find illegal bumping and the ramifications. the yellow is notice of violation and that is letting them know they have broken the law and have a certain amount of time to correct that. that darker orange is where we had to issue citation. that is usually the result of many visits, many public outreach with these individuals, and actually issuing several nov, as we call them. then i think it is interesting to see what they are doing by zone. so, as mentioned, there is a big challenge around illegal dumping in the bayview. we see evidence where

construction contractors are driving up from the peninsula and dumping in the southeast part of the city. we installed illegal vending cameras to capture license plates to see if we can capture the people that do this. >> what's your success rate? have you gotten a lot of guys? >> we haven't gotten a lot of guys. we just rolled thought out. we are seeing some suck res rate. part of the recent ballot measure by the voted for approval by city and county of san francisco and looking to see if we can collaborate with the police department putting up cameras in those hots spots as well. we know where they are, it is trying to find a way to get them and change behavior. that is what we are doing. later on during the process, be happy to report successes we have and what the impact that is. >> i would just say, changing behavior, that is one thing for residents, but when you have folks driving up and consciously making a choice, i don't

think that is change in behavior, i think the only thing they understand is something more punitive, so that is something i just keep in mind. >> it our plan to issue tickets for those folks, especially the ones coming up from the pulens nu. >> how do you know who is doing the illegal dumping? how do you know it is construction companies or from the peninsula? how do you know that information? >> a few different ways. one is, we have actually photographed evidence of where we have seen the general contractor truck in the name and license plate that lets us know it is a company from the peninsula and outside the sitee city and county of san francisco and through the one team efforts, going through the garbage, we found evidence where it is billing information, pg&e bill or other information that identifies and we do investigative resrs. >> that being said, does that give you the power to go back to those

different companies? >> it does. >> have you done that? >> we have. we started to be more aggressive rsh but as you can see we issued the citations numbers of 847 on the previous slide. i don't have off the top of my head the number of citations contractor in the city or outside the city. i can provide that information at a subsequent information or off-line. >> very well. thank you. >> moving on just to show the ever-it is go to show the sheer number of tons that public works collects annually. you can see we have broken down by sweeper, non sweeper so sweepers you see driving throughout the city on a scheduled basis. non sweepers are people you see with brooms and pickup trucks. i will highlight for fiscal year 24, there is bit of data gap of few months. we project the number out that

totals over 27 thousand tons so more in line with fiscal year 2020. moving on to the other non labor components of the funding. most of it goes to steam cleaning public trash cans that you see currently in the upper right. that is done currently by non profits, cyc. we do also get funding for repair of pieces for the existing trash cans. so, wapping up the presentation, wanted to highlight what we were planning to think through and discuss with the refuge board an administrator and recology. we want to continue focusing public works goal of clean city-clarify and memorialize the expectations to help improve cleanliness throughout the city. that is memorializing along the lines of trash can pickup.

we do have trash ca [indiscernible] we are in the process of trying to implement that all 3 thousand trash cans. as we continue with that process, we will be able to get more robust and real time data. we want to as mentioned by rate administrator improve performance metrics to insure goals are being met. we have detailed metric i didn't want to put in the presentation. one thing we are looking at is the causation or correlation between the one team effort and illegal dumping. we also want to track trash can maintenance and repair to insure timely and efficient within the service level agreement already included in the current refuge rate ordinance. we want to formalize the process of deployment of trash cans. right now it is a meeting that happens with recology and it is tracked but we want to just make sure that

process is memorialized in the refuge rate ordinance that comes before this body. we want to also explore additional potential afternoon services for abandon materials and just improve self--haul language. the agreement has language around self-haul. want to memorialize and be very clee what is included in the self-haul to insure recology and city family are on the same page. pretty nominal request from public works side and with that, happy to answer any questions you have. thank you for your time. >> any questions? thanks bruce. with the trash can monitors, are you seeing a decrease in the overall number of 311 calls? as a result-and realize it sound like you got about a quarter of those cans covered. does it mean we are getting

fewer 311 calls or not really? >> very good question. we are seeing a decrease in 311 calls in a varietyf oareas. we are trying to figure what is driving it. it appears so but we are analyzing the data to determine if the censors are having a impact on that. we are looking and doing analysis around the trash cans with the censors and the trash cans that dont have the censors, because city wide we actually are seeing a slight reduction in the number of calls related to this. we are looking to see if we can pinpoint a correlation between the cans that do and dont have censors. >> were the cans that had censors ones that you were getting the most calls from initially or are they more centered around certain areas for convenience of pickup collection? >> i would say generally

speaking, yes. but the censors are generally in some of the hot spots midmarket, the tenderloin, parts of the mission, so likely for a variety of reasons getting more calls in those areas. >> thanks. >> thank you. >> um, i think that concludes all the presentations for this section. let's see if anybody has shown up for public comment. >> we will take in person public comment. memberoffs the public who wish to provide public comment please line up at the podium now. threez note you will have 3 minutes. for the record, there are no in person public comments. we will take remote public comment. members of the public who wish to provide remote public comment dial star 3 on the phone or click raise hand in webex. please note you have three minutes. moderator, do we have any remote public

comments? for the record, there are no remote public comment and this concludes public comment. >> thank you. we have one final item number 6. >> item 6, opportunity to propose future agenda items discussion and possible action by the board. would any member of the board like to propose future action items? >> mr. bowdry. >> i would say at this time, no. >> okay. do you have-this is your first rodeo here at the refuge rate board. are there things that you like to share with staff or the refuge rate administrator team that would be helpful in the future or do you want to think on that for a while? >> i'll think on that. i think this has been a interesting meeting and the chance to meet sort of get my feet wet so to speak. so i'm listening and taking notes and understanding the process.

i will reserve now. >> great. the chair has nothing to add on this item either. so, i guess we have to take public comment on this item, number 6. >> we'll take in person public comment. members of the public who wish to comment on this item, please line up at the podium now. please note you will have three minutes. pr fr the record there are no in person public comment. we will take remote public comment. members of the public who wish to provide comment on this item star 3 on the phone or click raise hand in webex. please note you have three minutes. moderator, do we have any remote public comments? for the record there are no remote public comment and this concludes public comment. >> alright. well, there being no further business, i want to thank everybody for all the hard work to get ready for this

meeting and the presentations and it being about 313 p.m. the refuge rate board is adjourned. [meeting adjourned]

>> long it was in fashion, o'shaughnessy water system has been sustainable. in addition to providing water for the bay area, it also generates clean hydroelectric power to run city buildings and services. and more recently, some san francisco homes and businesses. >> satellite electricity is greenhouse gas free, so we see a tremendous benefit from that. we really are proud of the fact that, we've put our water to work. >> even with the system as well coon received as hetch hetchy, climate change has made the supply of water from the sierra vulnerable. and requires new thinking about where and how we use water. >> we have five hundred million gallons a day of wastewater being dumped out into san francisco bay and the ocean from the bay area alone. and that water could be recycled and

should be recycled for reuse through out the bay area. >> we're looking at taking wastewater and reading it to drink watering standards. we're also looking at our generation and looking at onsite water reuse looking at the technology and strategies we have available to us today. >> the very first recycling plant in the state of california for landscape irrigation was built in san francisco. we've just developed a new recycled water plant in the ocean side wastewater facility for irrigation purposes in golden gate park, lincoln park and the panhandle. >> a century ago, san francisco built a dam to create bunched znswer of fresh water to ensure the future and ensure the taps will flow for future generations, it will take as much vision when it reflects a fundamental change about how we think about water. >> i think we recognize there's going to be change in the future. so we're going to have

to have the flexibility and the creativity to deal with that future as it's presented to us, it's a matter of how to see it and say, okay, let's make wise use of everything we have. >> this o'shaughnessy centennial moment is made possib >> when i first started painting it was difficult to get my foot in the door and contractors and mostly men would have a bad attitude towards me or not want to answer my questions or not include me and after you prove yourself, which i have done, i don't face that obstacle as much anymore. ♪♪♪ my name is nita riccardi, i'm a

painter for the city of san francisco and i have my own business as a painting contractor since 1994 called winning colors. my mother was kind of resistant. none of my brothers were painter. i went to college to be a chiropractor and i couldn't imagine being in an office all day. i dropped out of college to become a painter. >> we have been friends for about 15-20 years. we both decided that maybe i could work for her and so she hired me as a painter. she was always very kind. i wasn't actually a painter when she hired me and that was pretty cool but gave me an opportunity to learn the trade with her company. i went on to different job opportunities but we stayed friends. the division that i work for with san francisco was looking for a painter and so i suggested to my supervisor maybe we can give nita a shot. >> the painting i do for the

city is primarily maintenance painting and i take care of anything from pipes on the roof to maintaining the walls and beautifying the bathrooms and graffiti removal. the work i do for myself is different because i'm not actually a painter. i'm a painting contractor which is a little different. during the construction boom in the late 80s i started doing new construction and then when i moved to san francisco, i went to san francisco state and became fascinated with the architecture and got my contractor's licence and started painting victorians and kind of gravitated towards them. my first project that i did was a 92 room here in the mission. it was the first sro. i'm proud of that and it was challenging because it was occupied and i got interior and exterior and i thought it would

take about six weeks to do it and it took me a whole year. >> nita makes the city more beautiful and one of the things that makes her such a great contractor, she has a magical touch around looking at a project and bringing it to its fullest fruition. sometimes her ideas to me might seem a little whacky. i might be like that is a little crazy. but if you just let her do her thing, she is going to do something incredible, something amazing and that will have a lot of pop in it. and she's really talented at that. >> ultimately it depends on what the customer wants. sometimes they just want to be understated or blend in and other times they let me decide and then all the doors are open and they want me to create. they hire me to do something beautiful and i do.

and that's when work is really fun. i get to be creative and express what i want. paint a really happy house or something elegant or dignified. >> it's really cool to watch what she does. not only that, coming up as a woman, you know what i mean, and we're going back to the 80s with it. where the world wasn't so liberal. it was tough, especially being lgbtq, right, she had a lot of friction amongst trades and a lot of people weren't nice to her, a lot of people didn't give her her due respect. and one of the things amazing about nita, she would never quit. >> after you prove yourself, which i have done, i don't face that obstacle as much anymore. i'd like to be a mentor to other women also. i have always wanted to do that.

they may not want to go to school but there's other options. there's trades. i encourage women to apply for my company, i'd be willing to train and happy to do that. there's a shortage of other women painters. for any women who want to get into a trade or painting career, just start with an apprenticeship or if you want to do your own business, you have to get involved and find a mentor and surround yourself with other people that are going to encourage you to move forward and inspire you and support you and you can't give up. >> we've had a lot of history, nita and i. we've been friends and we have been enemies and we've had conflicts and we always gravitate towards each other with a sense of loyalty that maybe family would have. we just care about each other. >> many of the street corners in all the districts in san

francisco, there will be a painting job i have completed and it will be a beautiful paint job. it will be smooth and gold leaf and just wow. and you can't put it down. when i first started, it was hard to get employees to listen to me and go along -- but now, i have a lot of respect. >> sanitation and streets commission. today is monday, november 18, 2024 >> >> roll call, please. >> commissioners chair kimberlee hartwig-schulman vice chair thomas harrison jayshawn anderson azalina eusope christopher si