Financial report, which will be snapshots of last fiscal year through the financial lens. So, madam chair, could we go back one slide. Yes. So what jobs are you talking about in terms of lean hiring process and the dashboard stuff . What are you talking about . Are you talking about staff at puc or construction . What does that mean . So the first one is the lean hiring process. Thats actually looking at how we do recruitment. So we actually have controllers recruitment for what . Personnel. So how we go about recruiting staff. What are the various steps with going through the posting, the announcement, the actual interview process, all of these things we have identified ways to improve that process, to speed it up. We have noticed a lot of issues around the agency in terms of the time, how long it takes to recruit staff. So this effort is associated with streamlining the process so we can recruit people faster. Is this through the d. H. R. . Yes well, its through the Controllers Office through their lean training process which is about business improvement. It is advised by the d. H. R. But being runned by the Controllers Office. Does it parallel with any other department in the city . This particular training is just for the sfpuc training. So folks are coming into the sfpuc and training our h. R. Folks and about looking at different ways of recruiting our positions faster as being the goal. Thank you. Just another thing. Agencywide Community Impact dashboard. Can you flesh that out a little bit more. Sure. The dashboards that exist now are currently exist for our external affairs, we report on metrics, we report a lot of Workforce Development activities to the public. So this also is to include our infrastructure Workforce Development information on those dashboards. Thank you. And just to point out, a lot of the information that we gather is from certified payrolls of whos working and stuff like that. So were trying to make that transparent as well. So we put that on the dashboard. You can see the website and click on dashboard somewhere. Is that what youre saying . Yes. Its on our website, right . Yes, it is. Im not quite sure where it is. Maybe my folks can help me. External affairs, we can forward you the link, but yes. If its there, thank you, director, sir. Youre welcome. My last slide is just to give you a quick update on once the audit is completed and there is an audit report, typically what happens is theres a number of audit recommendations. And our job isnt done until all of the audit recommendations are concluded. So this summary here provides a list of the open recommendations. We have two audits that currently remain open. There are 11 recommendations that we are working on closing. I do want to point out, the first one is in a relatively old audit report back from 2015. We are working with the city Service Auditor to close these recommendations. We dont currently have an agreement with the irrigation districts and we arent currently selling them powers through these agreements, so its not possible for us to close these recommendations. So we are working with the city Service Auditor to close out these recommendations. They are currently in agreement with that proposal. We are just working on the details. A lot of activity in the fourth quarter, as noted on the right of this slide. We closed a number of recommendations related to the wastewater divisional audit. That was a major audit here at the sfpuc. All of those recommendations have been closed and concluded. We also had a number of recommendations related to an ssip preconstruction practices audit that were also closed. So a lot of work. My team is here that does all of this work. Im just merely talking with you, but my colleagues here and i want to thank them for organizing 42 audits. Thank you very much. We appreciate your hard work on this. You want to stand up for a minute . [ applause ]. Thank you. So with that, ill be happy to answer any other questions. Commissioners . Any Public Comment . Hearing none, next item. The next item is water Enterprise Capital improvement program. Dan wade. Good afternoon, commissioners. Dan wade. Director of water capital programs. Im here today to speak to two topics. First is the water tenyear Capital Improvement program. This quarterly update covers april 1 through june 30. Would you please go to the slides. Thank you. So the highlights for this reporting period are that we did begin construction on one major pipeline project, thats the san and andreas pipeline project. We began a shut down of the harry tracy water plant in june for preventive maintenance. We have o totalled up our mileage for the incity waterline replacement program. Its 11. 2 miles. I think most of you know we have a goal of 15 miles a year. Were still not there yet, but were not going to reduce that goal. Were going to keep striving for 15 miles. Next year we anticipate 13 miles plus, so we hope to get to 15 in the next couple of years. Ill talk more about whats dragging us down in a moment. We did recently put into service one of the major joint projects, which is the irving Street Project as part of that program. So the san andreas pipeline no. 2 replacement provides a replacement. The lock bar steel sections of this are more than 90 years old. Theyre pitted, deteriorated and need replacement approximate this will replace and rehabilitate approximately 6500 linear feet of pipeline in san bruno. The contractors mobilized and began potholing and pipeline fabrication this quarter. The photo shows a portion of the pipeline were actually sliplining, that is putting a smallerdiameter pipe. This is at rage roadway crossings where we cant dig up the pipe and put in replacement pipe. But the page pipeline replacement work will begin in the next quarter. Now be the inner sunshine streetscape improvements and moving forward project which we also refer to as the irving Street Project is a joint project between m. T. A. Led by public works in which the sfpuc has participated. The water portion of this project includes 8500 linear feet of 8inch and 2300 feet of 12inch ductile pipe. The overall project completion is anticipated tomorrow. Ill doublecheck with the project manager and make sure that happens. Again, this is one of the joint projects. Many of our resources, ive mentioned this before, but just as a refresher, many of our resources for this program are tied up with these joint projects. So were somewhat at the mercy of some of these other agencies in terms of making the progress towards that 15 miles, but were going to continue striving towards that goal. You just blame each other . Try not to do that, but we work hard together. Lets put it that way. I think one of the they are complex projects. I think one of the things that you know, because there is an effort and a desire for us to coordinate. So we, you know, at our sewer work as part of their Street Project. So one of the things weve been thinking about is identified that we allotted the money this year for the project. If it goes a year or like another project three years, we did put money aside for that mileage in this year. Its going to happen, hopefully sooner rather than later, but were not managing that contract. So were thinking of a way to just let you know that weve completed this, how much miles weve completed is how much miles weve committed to and providing money in other contracts so that we can do a rolling accounting of all this. Its just hard to do 15 miles in one year when you participate on contracts that take multiple years. So were just trying to figure out a better way to report it accurately. Thank you. And, director, through the chair, i just you know, i mean, its music to my ears when i hear so much construction and i see folks digging up stuff and whatever. I know that the general public sometimes gets irritated because theyve only got one lane instead of two lanes to go down, but this is infrastructure work. One of the things we care about in this country right now and its not being paid much attention to, except in se a place like San Francisco is infrastructure, whether or not its m. T. A. Or the department of public works or whatever else. Were trying to take care of our town to make sure that it functions in the way that it was brought up to be. Interdepartmental strategies are whats going on between water and streets and whatevers going on. My office is on vaness and been, frankly, a pain in the ass but its great work thats being done because its got to be done and thats what were supposed to care about. Are you saying then that youre allocating for 15 years. So it just kind of rolls over so the money is there. Is that what youre saying . No. What were saying is our goal is to complete 15 miles of sewer replacement each year and we only have certain amount of money. So we may selfperform or have a contract directly that will do like 6 or 7 miles. Then we put money as part of the street paving that d. P. W. Does, we put money so when they pave the street they can actually do the sewer first. Sometimes we joint with the m. T. A. Because they want to do tracks and we want to have them replace a sewer because we just want to go in there once. So a lot of the contracts we dont have control over, but we allocated money. Im just saying that it goes multiple years. The other thing that i want to point out is its a little more challenging now, especially when you do combined projects because they take longer because youre not just doing the sewer, youre doing the sidewalk, widening, water and pg e. The concern is the residents and the commercial. Youre blocking their streets and taking their parking. One that was in the paper recently and vaness. With social media next door, we just have to be a little more mindful of how we can minimize impact where we definitely need the infrastructure done. So i think thats something that as a city were trying to figure out how we can do a good job of not only traffic, but also the businesses and the residents that youre impacting. But do you think that it makes sense and it seems that it does to do it all at one time. Because if you didnt do that you would have to hope it up again. A lot of us are saying why didnt they do that at the same time . So it has its pros and cons. Its challenging. Especially where a lot of areas are mixed use. It would be nice if we go in and do 24 hours a day, multiple shifts, and youre in and out. Folks need to sleep and businesses need to operate. You cant do it during the night because folks want to sleep and you cant do it during the day because businesses have people coming in. Its hard when you cant go in. If you can go in at 8 and have to leave at 3 00, its going to tack for ever to do the work. Those are the challenges we need to face and work with the communities to see if you have inconvenience for more hours hopefully the project duration would be shorter. Is it more efficient . I mean, fiscally are we saving money by doing it this way . Is that a plus side . I wouldnt say were saving money doing it this way because theres a lot of complexities that come into play when we do these joint projects. So give me what is a so what is the plus side . So the plus side is that we are coordinating the work, were doing it all at one time. In theory, it should be cheaper because youre sharing a lot of resources like Construction Management and stuff like that. But also the perception that youre coordinating is valuable. But on the minus side is that it takes longer because the when we do it separately we go into the sewer and then we go on and we put temporary pavement over it. Then you see pg e coming and cutting up the street, why didnt they do this together . Our issue is our thing is in a different location and whats also challenging you have to keep traffic going. They have what they call the green book that identifies how much traffic you have to have a lane open. So you need to have barriers and you need Traffic Control and thats where it becomes expensive and harder. Then you have noise, you cant have noise before this time or after. So its a lot of restrictions. Then all the lyfts and ubers, its challenging. Thank you. Thank you. Just moving on to out back in the region, the longterm improvements project has two components. The first one is essentially complete and were scheduled to move in in september. We did install the first badge of pathogenfree native plants. So thats exciting. Then the watershed Center Contract b of this project is scheduled to advertise this month. Weve prequalified three contractors. Theres one contractor thats still attempting to prequalify and we do expect to have hopefully see all of those contractors bid the project. In terms of dams and reservoirs improvements, theres two active projects. We are continuing with geotechnical exploration and we are also looking at a task order to assess probable maximum flood and spillway. So we are continuing to assess those facilities as we go forward. Im sorry . Whats the geo geotechnical . Yeah. Exploration. What are you exploring for . Were exploring the soil and the rock in the facilities to evaluate both static and seismic stability of the facilities, both the dam and embankments with the facilities. How often will you have to do that . This is something you do at the beginning of a project when you build a project. These are old facilities, so were reevaluating these facilities. So its something we only do very occasionally. Thank you. Lastly, the west side recycled Water Treatment facility consists of four contracts. This is 2 million gallon per day recycled water. The Treatment Plant contract is the one thats shown here and the construction of the new Treatment Facility buildings have advanced to the second floor, slab, and walls. Weve conducted a sevenday Operational Test of the system and demolition of facilities inside building 510 have begun in june. With that id be happy to take any questions. Are you continuing on . Dan is also going to give an update on the next section. So my second item is the water system improvement program. If you would please go to the slides. Youve seen this chart many times before. This is just to emphasize that we are 98 complete with the program. The red in the pie chart represents projects that are totally complete. The green represents projects that are technically still in construction, but that portion of the chart is going to get much smaller in the next several months when we close out the replacement project. Can i ask a question on that . Because we have an item coming up in the consent calendar that i might pull just to understand it a little bit better. Does that 310 million include the project at Alameda Creek . 310 million. Thats remaining; right . Yes. It does include that, yes. Its not the fish project is not in the excuse me. Okay. Theres two projects. Theres the fish passage at the Alameda Creek, thats one project. The alameda catchment project is still in the Environmental Review process. So the 310 million includes that. And then where does the fish passage replacement thats technically still in construction, part of the 1. 015 million. Okay. Yeah billion, i should say. And 310 remaining in the pie chart; right . 310 million remaining in the pie chart. Right. Thank you. Yeah. So the replacement project was substantially complete in april. Final construction completion did complete in july. Im reporting on the last slide so they report that. You can see the plaque that was presented at the dedication in may has now been installed. The project administrative close out will continue through the end of this year. And theres eight administrative awards awarded on this project so far. Then the fish passage facilities at the alameda diversion dam, which again is a subproject of calaveris is 98 complete. The close out documentation was in the final quarter and the final documentation will happen in the next quarter. The regional groundwater projects is one that will continue past the calaveras dam. Phase 1 construction is 98 complete. There were changes to the chemical treatment. Phase 2 which we call contract c is in the planning phase and is about 10 complete. Now, you may recall there were some comments from a meeting a couple of months ago. We did have a good meeting with bawsca to discuss meeting the Service Goals and objectives related to this project, and we are finishing a memorandum as we speak that will be presented to the commission in august that will present the status of the project. The Alameda Creek recapture project is the one that is still in the Environmental Review pha phase. We do anticipate recirculating the draft e. I. R. In october. Once that document is published we will reforecast the entire project schedule. We have decided not to reforecast the schedule until we actually have that document published. So it is anticipated that this project will likely go beyond the end of the current program, but again we will not make that reforecast until we get this document on the street. Would that then make this the last project . It will be a close race between this one and the regionalal groundwater storage i would say. Then i would like to inform the commission that we did the City Capital Planning Committee and presented a proposed reallocation of regional budgets that was subsequently approved by the board supervisors. As you way recall the wisup has been managed in six buckets of money. So the appropriations were made by region. Now that weve gotten past most of the risk on the program, we had requested the board to allow us to move money from the regions where we no longer have risk into regions we still know there is risk. In particular the San Francisco region, which is where the Recovery Project is located. Weve lumped up weve basically cleaned up the money from these other buckets and but it in that bucket. So i just wanted to make the commission aware that weve done that. Were not asking for a formal baseline at this time. We want to get the calaveras project completely closed out, but we do anticipate coming to you next spring for a rebaseline. With that, id be happy to take any questions. You dont anticipate that rebaseline to be an additional amount. Its just a reappropriation . Thats correct. So the reappropriation is essentially allowing us to put the money in the buckets where we anticipate the money will need to be spent going into the future. Any questions, commissioners . Any Public Comment on this item . Hearing none, thank you very much. That concludes my report. Great. Thank you very much. Next item, madam secretary. Clerk other Commission Business. Any Commission Business . Hearing none, donna is going to ahead the highlighted consent calendar. I ask that dumb d be removed. Clerk 8. All matters listed hereunder constitute a consent calendar, are considered to be routine by the San FranciscoPublic Utilities commission and will be acted upon by a single vote of the commission. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the commission or the public so requests, in which event the matter will be removed from the calendar and considered as a separate item. We are removing item 8 d . Move everything except for d . Ill second. Any questions . Comments, commissioners . Any Public Comment on the consent calendar . Hearing none, all those in favor . Aye. Opposed . The consent calendar passes. I would like to hear on 8 d . Cathy or dan can present on that. Just to better understand the increase of 4 million and the extension of time and why thats happening. That seems like an important project to move forward if possible. Let me first say the construction is completely done. So what were doing is were working out change order requests with the contractor and negotiating those. So weve trended money that we feel is needed to be able to negotiate appropriately with the contractor to close out those contracts. So you may recall over the last several years there have been a number of site conditions on that project. There were some undetected landslides that were on the right bank looking downstream coming into the fish ladder. So we had to install some soil nails and tiebacks that were in exceedance of what was anticipated. That was a very costly change to the project. So thats one example. There were a number of other examples that added up to this amount. And the time extension is just so the time extension is to get us to where we are today. We do anticipate having the project totally complete and closed out in september. So this is in anticipation of being able to pay all of the contractor contractors what we deem to be appropriate change orders and to close out the contract time. Okay. So im okay with it if theres a motion to approve item 8 d . Ill move it. Is there a second . Any Public Comment on 8 d . All those in favor . Opposed . 8 d passes. Next item. Clerk item 9. Adopt 9. Adopt the final mitigated negative declaration fmnd , the mitigation monitoring and reporting program mmrp , and the findings as required by the California Environmental quality act ceqa for the Montara Mountain rainfall prediction and radio replacement project; approve Montara Mountain rainfall prediction and radio replacement project to install a weather radar and Communications Tower on Montara Mountain; adopt the required ceqa findings, fmnd and mmrp; and authorize the general manager to implement the project. This this is a sequa action that youre taking today to adopt the final mitigated declaration and Mitigation Monitoring Program as required under ceqa for the Montara Mountain rainfall prediction and radio replacement project. The real key of this project is the installation of radar facility. A new hightech facility radar facility on top of Montara Mountain which is a regional effort were taking part in with other water and floodcontrol agencies in the bay area called the advanced quantitative precipitative information system, aqpi is the acronym for short. But the whole concept is to establish a Radar Network that can provide much better accuracy in terms of predictions of prescription in various parts of the bay area. What weve seen historically and recently is more extreme evens s and those are going to be significant for us to deal with as well as other agencies. Weve got a cooperative effort being largely funded from a grant to acquire radar facilities and then operate them in cooperation with National Oceananic and Atmospheric Administration and folks from Colorado State university. There are various agencies involved in the east bay for radar facility there. So these are being located at Strategic Points around the bay area. This is the Strategic Point in our system is on top of Montara Mountain. So we expect to be able to make use of this. Hopefully this will turn into a real longterm viable project. The initial funding coming from the state is really to get us to the installations and starting to make the system work. We have great confidence its going to produce really important results for us in terms of operation of our reservoirs and we also think there will be benefit for the wastewater system in terms of being able to predict highintensity rainfall patterns that may show up at any given time. Thats the Overall Program and all youre doing is approving the ceqa document. The radar equipment has already been paid for. So the installation that will take place on Montara Mountain will be by our staff. There wont be a contractor hired to do that. I want to take up one particular set of issues. This is not part of the wisup its inhouse . No, this is a different project. No, this is not a wisup project. This is inhouse . Yes, this will be performed inhouse, yes. So the slide here shows the upper lefthand corner the aqpi and radio installation where that will be located on Montara Mountain. We had to deal with some issues here, and i wanted to make sure the commission was aware of those issues. In doing the biological surveys for the project we found near Montara Mountain a habitat for particular endangered butterflies. So one of the things that we have done as part of our normal watershed management activities something that had fallen into disarray there was the security fence on the lefthand border there, that black line with the hashing mark on it, that is the watershed boundary. The other side is ggnra land. So that has fallen into disarray and, in fact, no trespassing signs have been removed from it which had already been there. We wanted to make sure we controlled access into the area because it is restricted area up there in terms of all of our watershed. We only have certain trails that are open. So this shows we will be constructing a new road to get up to the site and eliminating the old road there where that yellow box is in the corner talks about ripping the ground and allowing it to revegetate there. So the access will only be on a lower road and the access to the site on that pink road there. That gray area and building is a communications installation that is on our property as well. One of the things that folks have expressed concern about being cut off from access to the watershed there, well they were already cut off from access to the watershed. They had been illegally entering our property at that point. So one of the things we wanted to do was make sure that we made it very clear that that access was not allowable there. Going to the next slide, this gives a bit of where we are on Public Access. This is actually a slide that we produced several years ago when we talked about Public Access on our property in the watershed back in 2001. The commission put in tremendous effort over a couple of years to develop a watershed Management Plan. In that, the commission committed to a certain amount of Public Access in the watershed which had already been closed completely prior to that. So what we have in there are the black dashed lines which are existing trails there. There is one, the Crystal Springs regional trail which is on the Eastern Shore of Crystal Springs reservoir. Then there is the fivehill cahill ridge trail. That ends about halfway down the watershed. The red line there shows the extension of that trail that we are working on right now. We are working on the environmental document. Hope to have it out next year so we can construct that segment of trail. Those are the trails that were committed to in the watershed Management Plan. Theres also way up in the top there a little san andreas connection trail. Those were in the watershed Management Plan that were not trails in the watershed Management Plan. On the left, the red lotted line, that is the trail that would come to this area that was proposed by the Golden Gate NationalRecreational Association a couple of years ago. We have talked to them and are looking with interest about establishing a connector there, but that would be a new action by the commission that is not currently anticipated. So we would have to do Environmental Review of that along with any other proposals to change access. This is a fish and game refuge that we manage there and there are a lot of important considerations that we have to deal with in terms of protection of our watershed and protection of the native species there. I would be happy to answer any questions about the project. Im sorry, just to clarify. So that proposed connector is not part of the action . That is not part of the action, no. That is something im trying to remember when exactly we presented this slide to the commission. It was several years ago when we started work on that trail extension in the middle of the watershed. Thats where weve been focusing our attention because that was the original commission. That trail showed up as a suggestion that we should consider. We think its a worthy suggestion, but we want to deal with it in the proper manner in due course. So thats because i did hear that there were some i do have some speaker cards so we will be hearing, but i do hear that there were some members of the public that had some questions or concerned about this project. So is that proposed connector one way that might appeal to some of the members of the public, at the idea . Yes, that connector, if we do that connector, would establish for the first time what really shouldnt have been used as a trail by the public. Thats one of the things were dealing with here, is that the trail had been the gates had been ignored basically. That was something we felt we needed to protect once we found particularly the endangered species habitat there. Okay. So maybe well hear from some members of the public. Thank you for the presentation and then we can hear from commissioners after that. I have a card here for lee watts. Good afternoon, commissioners. What im talking about is the sudden closure of the north peak of Montara Mountain to hikers. This is something ive been hiking for 15 or 20 years. Hundreds of people have been hiking there based on what ive seen over the years. Were not crossing any gates that ive been aware of or not going on any land that were not supposed to. I wanted to point out this is a prominent destination for hikers. These books i pulled off my shelf at home. These are 101 hikes in northern california. This is one of the destinations in this book. Peninsula trails, again, its one of the destinations. I have california hiking and it has two different routes to get up to the top of the north peak of Montara Mountain. From scenic value he rates one of them as a 9 and one as a 10, two different routes. You go to the website. I worked with the r. I. A. Trail project, to the top of the north peak of Montara Mountain is rated as a 5. Thats the highest we give. All of the websites that list trails in this area are going to list the hike to the top of Montara Mountain. I guess what happens is you have to understand this is a really difficult hike. I mean, its a very steep climb. So youre hiking for an hour and a half, two hours until you get to the north peak. And if you meet a gate you cant actually get to the top. You have the watershed fence that blocks off all assets that way. You have no view towards the bay. You have this sudden blockage. You cant make it to the top or make it to the other side, it really spoils the hike of so i hope i mean, if they absolutely have to build whatever youre building on the very top of this mountain, it seems like there ought to be some way you can walk around what you build to get a viewpoint so they feel like theyve climbed to the top of the mountain as weve been doing for the last decades. For decades people have been climbing this mountain. There ought to be some way you can allow us to get to the top of the mountain and see off to the other side. Thank you. Next i have a card for shaun handel. Can i use the overhead, please . Ive got this set of documents that id like to show. So first ive been a longtime resident of heparin bay and montara. Like the previous gentleman, i dont think the Current Situation around Recreational Use has been represented well in the document that was submitted to you. I would respectfully ask you to reconsider before you approve this project and absolutely do an analysis of Recreational Use thats been long standing. I have some pictures to show. First in the document itself it says the project site is on sfpuc watershed land is not open to the public. It has been open to the public for 20plus years since ive lived there. Theres never been a sign prohibiting access. Im up there two to three times a week running, hiking, biking, never seen a sign. Number two, Golden Gate National rec center has signs pointing to north peak as a destination. There are signs at the peak and at the bottom. County of san mateo lists this. Same thing with this north peak. Sf chronicle date book from june of this year, just a couple of weeks ago, Montara Mountain north peak. I as a member of this community did not know about this project until a couple of weeks ago as i was running up on my tuesday night run with some buddies and encountered the gate. There is a new fence put up in front of the peak with barbed wire at the top and nothing explaining the project. Theres been no community input. We need to do that before proceeding. Theres some pictures. Weekly running club every tuesday night we run to the peak. Been doing this for a long time. My kids, First Mountain they peaked, theres my son. Hands up in the air. They loved it. We cannot take this away. From the document analyzing the open butterfly, it specifically mentions public construction and improvement projects probably represent the greatest threat to this butterfly habitat. Its not hikers. Its putting a concrete pad at the top of the mountain and fencing it off. As a result, san bruno butterfly and their associated habitats have been surveyed from 2001 to 2007. So the question is if you had this information for this project since then, how come we just put up a fence last week . Its a little suspicious. Let him go. If you have a question, you can ask a question. We have to then allow for the rest of the public to have full amount of time. Well, let me ask what he has in mind. I would like do you have a question . Can you display that slide again . I have two things in mind. One is respect the open space. Mount tam is open to the public, mount diablo open to the public. Were talking about closing Montara Mountain. Thats going backwards. What i ask is that we respect Montara Mountain for what it is. Consider putting up the signs, warning people to stay off the sensitive habitat. People have coexisted for years. Remove the chainlink fence and restore Public Access. If possible, find a different location for this project. There have to be other locations suitable for this. Thank you and i respect your work on this. Thank you very much. Matthew blane. Im not sure if ill use it or not. Im a resident here in San Francisco and a member of various hiking and biking advocacy groups. When i first learned about this project a couple of weeks ago, i wasnt sure. It sounds like a reasonable and important project. We need the radar facility. Its extremely strong in scope, things like that. I went up there this weekend to just look at it and decided i should come here and speak up to many of the concerns the previous speakers have said. I met a runnerup there. This runner has been running and lost weight and this is something he accomplished. The butterfly habitat has been there for decades. Its mentioned in surveys. If you look at the report that has just been mentioned. Hilltops are also important for certain other species. The map which was just shown of the road is interesting because a new road is shown here but the old one is there. The reason im showing this particular map is you can see these lines here. There was an intentional line placed. This is the access you take to go to the top. This is not a surprise to the watershed management because that black fence has been there for many years allowing you to get to the peak but not to the rest of the interior watershed roads, such as the perimeter road. Im going to ask that you reject this simply because of this lack of access to recreation, but with the understanding that the project is super important. Perhaps it could be located slightly further east or taller. Perhaps it needs to be on the peak for radar, but limiting access wouldnt allow for an important recreational resource. Thank you. Thank you. I have another card here for mr. Ron little. Hi, thank you. So i lived in montara for 20 years and im in the coast Side Running Club and on the board of directors for that running club. So we have about 150 members. Our president paulaluisy drafted the letter and we concurred. Dear commission members. We represent a group of runners on the coast side who have enjoyed summiting Montara Mountains north peak weekly, oftentimes more than once in a week. So when we first saw the locked fence you placed to block the access to the peak it was both surprising and upsetting. The peak means a lot to our club and im sure residents who have hiked and ran to this summit, we cannot say enough in this letter about the emotional connection we all have to montara and the summit. Many of us have stories and memories of training runs, group gatherings, and personal triumphs that theyve had on this mountain. Its not just about a running club. There are residents who have emotional connection to the mountain for different reasons, loved ones lost and family members moved away and are often the reason for the hike to the top of Montara Mountain. Closing it off with no feedback or announcement to the public feels wrong. While the weather station, the weather radar, and the Communications Tower and the butterfly habitat are important, some of the claims including hikers and injuring the habitat make no sense to us at all. Theres never been reports of people trampling on the grounds the butterflies need likely because everyone sticks to the trail that leads to the summit and its hardpacked dirt and you can just walk there. So the purpose of this letter is to remind you the impact this enclosure will have on the community and the people who have enjoyed that summit for so long. Were hoping you reconsider the proposal to block it off and perhaps find a way for visitors to continue to enjoy the summit without interfering with the habitat or the weather station. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other additional Public Comments at this time . Commissioners, any thoughts or comments on this . Commissioner maxwell. Id like to hear from steve. Youve heard the comments. So im sure then with all of this you must have we must have not heard everything from you that we need to hear to say that this should be closed permanently. I need to hear some other things. Sure. Id like to introduce deb craven green from our infrastructure staff. She worked with the fish and Wildlife Services and others on the permitting of the project. Good afternoon, commissioners. Im Debbie Craven green and work with the bureau of Environmental Management and permitting manager. Im happy to provide some Additional Information for you as part of the project to install the radar conducted coordination with the u. S. Fish and Wildlife Service and conducted informal consultation where we identified for them that as part of installing the infrastructure we would be fully avoiding the habitat associated with butterflies found in the area, which would be the host plants as well as nectar plants in the area. There was the informal consultation was issued i think it was 2018 and then there was a slight modification to the project where we were adding the radio tower as well. So i had a phone conversation with the u. S. Fish and wildlife staff to explain that. They conveyed that basically with the avoidance and minimization measures that we would be implementing that they were fine with the project proceeding. We would be implementing if work was proceeding during the flight season of butterflies, we would have a bioologist on site to make sure they are monitored. We would avoid impact to the host and nectar plants as well. Do you have further questions . Yeah, it seemed to me and i dont know who this question is for that the concerns it doesnt seem like the issue of the butterflies has been one up until now, when now theres a proposed construction project that could impact the butterflies is what ive heard so far. Thats not yeah, the construction project could, but we have taken great steps to avoid the impacts. Thats what deb was emphasizes. Thats what fish and Wildlife Service was doing, to avoid impacts. The impacts that we saw at the habitat were in the biological aways in the area trying to assess it in advance. Thats when we found that there had been damage to vegetation from hikers. I hike a lot. I go with my dog a lot of places. Theyre all beautiful and you just have to be really careful. Thats why we have a closed watershed is because we do have impacts. So the installation of the gate and the fence is totally independent from the project. That was done because that was we saw that the there were endangered species impacts and we felt we needed to control the watershed there. I think were quite happy to meet with groups to talk about is there an alternative approach, and particularly to talk about a process to get to that complete connecting trail that i showed on the map. That would be i think a good goal to work towards. We can spend time doing that. But i think we really do have to maintain our watershed. Im frankly disappointed in the Water Department for not doing a better job of maintaining the watershed which they should have done for years and years and years. Hearing people say ive been doing this for 20 years i dont believe theyre just going to the top of the peak. These people might be. If the watershed is open, the watershed is open. We have wildlife cameras where we see twolegged animals out there far more frequently than i would like to admit. So if i can just ask you a question. I didnt hear a lot about butterflies even though i heard about butterflies and i heard about the new infrastructure that is being proposed to put in there. What i heard from the four Public Comments is we want access to the top of that mountain just like we have for a long time. How do you address that question to people . I heard you say let us continue to see if we can work on that, but thats what i mean. Thats what i heard from the folks. What i heard if those want to get to the absolute top of the mountain, but i think what we can provide with that dotted line i showed on the map would be access at the top of the ridge. And then access down that trail into the watershed. We have to work out the program whereby we would allow that access, but doing it on a trail that the commission has actually approved the construction and use of i think is what we need to do. So what specifically has to be protected in your view as this moves forward . You know, you talked about butterflies, you talked about environment, you talked about maybe people having access to the infrastructure that they shouldnt have for vandalism or whatever. What do you have to protect in order to move with this proposal . Well, the things you just mentioned, the butterfly habitat. And we would have a separate smaller fence for the radar installation itself at the top of the peak. So i just want to maybe try to summarize it that as part of the project we did an assessment out there of the condition and working with the resource agencies. Weve identified that the habitat has been impacted. So thats something that we felt we slipped on and we shouldnt have provided access. But hearing from the folks that theyve become accustomed to having access and now since were working with the agencies, we say okay we have to control the environment. So i guess we just fenced it off without any dialog, which thats something that i would take responsibility for. But so the project is one thing and i think when we identified what we wanted to know in the project, were talking about how we can minimize the impact to the butterflies and their habitat, but the bigger issue is that when we did the assessment we noticed with the agencies that the habitat has been impacted because of the trails and stuff like that. So the question we would ask is how can we minimize that and gain access . So thats something that steve is saying were will to go sit down and talk to them about. But i think was on notice that we are impacting the Current Situation is impacting the habitat of the butterflies. If i can just ask the question. Everybody is saying with happy faces that they like to get to the top, it has had an impact on the [ indiscernible ] correct . As i understand it from our monitors, yes. I dont know if its the people going to the top or people going around the top and going Different Things there. So there is a stewardship that were responsible for thats correct. Thank you. What i dont like about this is this process, and i think you both admitted it, is not the kind of process that we should really be conducting when we are looking at a project like this. There has got to be much more Robust Community engagement before a fence goes up to be able to Say Community members, hikers, runners, we have discovered and we have some documentation and data here that shows there has been an adverse impact on our watershed and we are proposing to do an infrastructure project, a radar project, we would love to get your input and understand what we can do to still provide access while were moving forward with this project. What i seem to be hearing both from the public and our general managers is that that process didnt happen. To hear that its in the hiking books and on the websites and there are signsnt