and usage based means you pay by the amount that you use. and so for applications that would download video files or large files, on a suzeage-based model you can actually end up with pretty high costs. if they go to that direction for the public market. and just to kind of point out the problem with commercial usage, as mayor lee mentioned, there was an earthquake back east last month. 5.8. it didn't cause a lot of damage. but it caused a lot of -- a lot of interest and a lot of excitement on the east coast because they're not -- not necessarily used to those types of things. so as part of that, when that earthquake occurred, fema put out an advisory and the advisory stated, the key part is that due to overload of cell phone usage, there are reports of cell phone congestion. and fema was asking people to not use their phones, to use texting or other things to allow folks with legitimate problems to get into call 911. and that just kind of plays up the fact of the problems that we have relying on a commercial service for our public safety us

>> it depends on your usage. if a large commercial building like this, they have a lot of electricity usage and they need a lot of panels here. your house will use a lot less. how much less depends on your usage. >> what is the impact of tilt versus flat and are those things that i need to think about before investing in solar panels? >> absolutely. you're tilting them up to harvest more sun and have them perpendicular to the sun. as utility them up, you can't have them close together anymore. as you can see my hands are shading each other here. you have to start separating them so they don't wind up casting shadows on each other. if you're able to get less panels in a given area. >> i would love to take a look at one of these solar panels if you have something that we can look at. are they heavy? what's the deal with this? >> you're 150, 100 something pound person walking on your roof. >> 150? >> i'm 150 pounds. >> carl! >> most modern houses are designed to take the weight of a solar panel instaglation. >> i do

>> a majority of our customers are low energy usage. the bulk of the customers would see their bill by about $7. >> up from the current pg&e rating? >> correct. >> what is it costing us to increase their rates? >> this is what it costs. our costs -- >> how much total money would we have expended to ensure that a ratepayer will get a second dollar increase? >> we will have spent the $3 million we have spent so far. and the additional $19 million to appropriate. >> what is the total? >> $25 million. >> plenty of that is security. >> don't fall in love with appropriations. i am just trying to get a handle about whether this is the right thing to do for the ratepayers. we don't know -- that we know that is not the case. at the minimum, it could be an increase of seven or maybe more. when does this program start? ok, thanks. >> you are basing this on the minimum. >> the typical customer falls in various usage bands. we are using the majority of customers falling within this band and using them out of kilowatt hours per month. -- the amount o

a legally-mandated 15% cut in the electricity usage took effect in summer in areas serviced by tokyo electric power company due to power shortages caused by the nuclear accident in march. tepco says power demand hit its peak on august 18th. when 49 million kilowatts of electricity were used, down 18% from last yeek's peak day on july 23rd. the utility estimates that major users, including factories, achieved a 29% reduction in power usage. small businesses showed a 19% cut. households held down power use only by 6%. tepco says this was probably because it was difficult to reduce the air conditioning in the sweltering summer weather. the power company also says it will have to ask for energy-saving efforts this winter to insure ample power supply. >>> australia is looking to build a high-speed rail line, like the u.s., britain, india and vietnam. the line will stretch some 1,700 kilometers from brisbane in the east through sydney to melbourne in the south. japan is jumping at this opportunity to sell its shinkansen bullet trains. we report from sydney. >> reporter: at long-distance tr

the usage is much higher. this is changing almost daily. there will be the need for more antennas, and as far as the city having to get involved or regulate something outside of their jurisdiction, i believe this is a waste of time and energy. this is a federally regulated industry and they have the levels they feel comfortable with with nondiscrimination against competitors, whether or not there will be a merger in the future. and if you have problems, you should talk to your federal representatives, and a department without much more jurisdiction than we do. we would be changing providers and i think it would be counterproductive and a poor use of taxpayer dollars to set up the policy that would change within a month there so. and a structural issue is something that we have to comment on. there are concerns about the structural integrity, and i feel members should take this up with the agency's that regulate or control the maintenance of the buildings and if you believe that this is not before us today, all of the other sites will be ana

>> that bill has a couple of rows on it that shows usage in kilowatts and shows the usage in british thermal units on your natural gas so you will continue to see that. there will be one row that says clean power sf. >> commissioner moran: you'll pay most of the charges for electricity. they will still do with -- deal with pg&e? >> could remove the gas part? >> that is a fair question. we show the breakout on how much of that pg&e bill is how much gas, how much electricity. we do the same thing on our water bill to save on costs and so we combine the water and sewer under one bill just like pg&e combines a electricity and gas. customers typically -- that is why we show them with two parts to the column. >> commissioner moran: in the term sheet itself, let me start with the simplest of questions. this is the parameter for contract negotiations. it seems it is really contract, not so much program. am i missing something there? >> there were a number of things describing the program. if someone was writing this in isolation but would not just be looking at contract terms. there are broa

and otherwise not provide notice, and the fact that we have only had 20% of usage, i think we would all agree that that is not acceptable. that being said, as i think folks know, i do hope that we can figure out how to do this in a way of accomplishing the main goals of supervisor campos' legislation but do it in a way that does not dramatically increase costs for businesses that right now, today, are struggling to stay afloat. and that the folks know, last week i introduced a potential alternative to what we are considering today that as a number of things. first of all, the alternative that i introduced would eliminate the use it or lose it nature of current hra's. and it would take care of the so-called january problem where an employer tries to get reimbursed for health care needs in its january only to find that money has expired at the end of december. we can achieve this goal by requiring that at least a year's worth of more of health care dollars must always be available to an employee. the alternate that i have proposed also strengthens a notification requirements by mandat

the mta will be paid about $50,000 a month until the region's usage of clipper hits that $20 million a month -- 20 million transactions a month average. there was a lot of discussion about how to get even further penetration of clipper into the systems. there was discussion about fair discounting, which i know this board and pretty much every other transit agency board has been reluctant to do in the past. also a lot of discussion about transfer policies or transfer elimination, which i know has also been an issue of great interest here. i think we have gotten major portions of our affair portfolio on to clipper already, so the rest will be difficult, but i just wanted you to be aware of that. finally, when it was started, there was a $5 a card acquisition fee. you paid $5, and you would load it up with cash for a pass. that was waved at some point some time ago to try to get more people in to clipper. the mtc -- the mtc is moving back to reestablish that, possibly this january. actual cost is about $3.50. what the mtc is looking at is a $3 a card acquisition fee with a $2 minimum. t

we are still talking about the employment of these of the usage of these ships. what i'd like to add. to what the foreign ministers were saying is that the usage of fancy ballistic missiles. we are holding. our unanimity of positions between france and russia that we do not want to see this missile defense. is to be frets to national security is a fresh in france. and this is and. we can see that we do not want to see this as a new phase of. an arms race. you know we have partnership ties between with russia nato and frou frou the e.u. . would like to talk about the. interest that russia has in the operation in afghanistan this is a good sign. this. but now that he is down. in the concern that one of the countries surrounding afghanistan have to situation afghanistan is a very important element for us all to force this on and so we have expressed the french point of view to the this transition process. to restoring the principles of responsibility when it comes to the situation in kabul. it's important to signal to the to the to my colleagues that our work has be

it was the sixth straight month of lower usage. tokyo electric power company saw industrial use decline by 12.5%. the largest drop for this time of year. the figure for tohoku electric power fell by just under 16%. households used about 15% less electricity compared do a year ago, even though they did not have to cut down usage by law, the second-largest drop since august of 2003. when a cooler-than-average summer reduced the use of air conditioner. >>> the eighth round of talks on the establishment of a free trade zone around the pacific, known as the trans-pacific partnership or the tpp came to a close on thursday, some participants have voiced concern about japan's delayed decisions on whether to join the talks. delegates from the united states, australia and several other asia-pacific nations gave a news conference after the talks in chicago. >> we can leave chicago feeling good about our progress. however, everyone should be realistic about what remains to be done. >> the u.s. chief negotiator told reporters that challenges re

for overtime from 30 to 20, and we would not see any material difference in the overall over time usage in the city and county of san francisco. i wonder if the amendments we have today change that in any way. we are still going to see pretty much the same amount of overtime across the board from our different apartments. >> ben rosenfield, controller. my expectation would be this legislation like the legislation proposed several years ago and adopted by the board, rather than serve to reduce overall over time expenditure levels -- it will serve to spread it over a larger base of employees. you will see fewer employees with very high overtime use balances. i would not expect it to dramatically change the overall level of overtime expenditure, though. >> i just want to get a clear acknowledgement about the value of this ordinance. are we looking at the goal of overall reducing overtime in the city, or are we looking at the goal of reducing overtime for certain individuals who have a high use of overtime? and explain why is that important? supervisor chiu: from my perspective, the thrust

francis yacht club agreed to such usage. department and the yacht club directed a letter of understanding that the club will agree using a lump-sum balance. it also states that the club and city are interested in having seawall repair project agreed to in 2007 performed as soon as possible. the city also confirmed that it falls within the scope of the city's general responsibility as it protects. the city would like to include this as part of the scope of the current harbor renovation project. estimate for the project is a maximum of $550,000, including construction design, engineering, and permitting costs. a final estimate will be submitted for approval of a sea wall repair change order to the city put the contract harbor renovation project. the first source of funding for the sea wall repair project is $1.9 billion construction contingency, which is what we started at. which can be accessed at the available completion of the project. secondary source of funding following the depletion of the contingency fund would be the

. >> fees for debit card usage is just something we're going to see a lot more of in the weeks and months ahead, because banks are going to be making less revenue every time a consumer swipes that card. >> reporter: the new fees, totaling $60 a year, will only apply to those using their debit cards for purchases. rolled out early next year, they'll be added to existing bank fees. >> with the recent regulations, as a result, we decided to introduction the monthly usage fee s. >> reporter: bank of america is not the first bank to add a $5 per month fee for using a debit card. atlanta based sun trust blazed the way this summer. giants wells fargo and jpmorgan chase are testing $3 debit card fees. the new fees would generate billions for an industry that just last year posted $76 billion in profits. so we asked the nation's three other biggest banks whether they would hold the line, or if we're looking at the new industry standard. citibank was most explosive. >> i'm wondering if you're going to follow suit. >> we've not. and we certainly don't have any immediate plans to. >> reporter: will c

the mta will be paid about $50,000 a month until the region's usage of clipper hits that $20 million a month -- 20 million transactions a month average. there was a lot of discussion about how to get even further penetration of clipper into the systems. there was discussion about fair discounting, which i know this board and pretty much every other transit agency board has been reluctant to do in the past. also a lot of discussion about transfer policies or transfer elimination, which i know has also been an issue of great interest here. i think we have gotten major portions of our affair

we have a shrinking but still real divide between rural usage and urban or suburban usage. and these divides are quite important. we also see in terms of, which people are motivated to engage in online politics. and especially which sorts of people actually able to get the postings about politics read. i think in some ways the most surprising thing that i found when i started looking more closely at the political blog was the extent to which, even among bloggers that were a anonymous or synonymous, but didn't post under their real names, these turned out to be not exactly ordinary citizens. they were extremely highly educated. most of them had graduate degrees. most of them had a degree from an online university. it was disproportionally white, hugely disproportionately male. and so even in this space where there was no institutions, per se, very quickly the social hierarchy had emerged which we should really profoundly shape the content that people did, the types of issues they think are important. and blogging is now the most important form by an audience today. >> what d

you see the difference in terms of usage. in help the san francisco, the usages 55%. with respect to the reimbursement accounts, the median is 50%. you know, just on the data we have available that when you have none of the restrictions that the business community is opposing on these accounts, the people are more than three times more likely to use the account. i do not understand why there is a need to wait when the evidence is clear that the problem is not that workers do not need these accounts, but that, simply, they do not have access to the accounts. and i am not prepared to, you know, pay for yet another study, and many are paid for here in city hall, and we know it usually happens to those studies. i am not prepared to pay tax their money on something when we already have the data. you can get it directly from lsc. if you have not gotten it, my office would be happy to give it to you. but the data is there. >> thank you. we have looked very carefully at the data provided by the department of public health on the health care security ordinance more broadly. th