Transcripts For SFGTV SF Public Utilities Commission 20240712

Relieving the disparities between schools. And the other item that we discussed was whether to continue to extend the timeline and we talked about it and we considered extending the timeline for the redesign into the past the election into the winter. And decided as a committee that we wanted to stay the course. And still stay on track for a vote on the final plans in the late fall of this year. So more to come. I have not scheduled the next meeting of the committee yet. I believe that it will were going to take a little pause for the summer and then reconvene in august. President sanchez thank you. Although, you know, were probably going to meet throughout july anyway. Okay, so we have curriculum and program on thursday as commissioner collins has mentioned, thursday may 28th at 3 00 p. M. I want to make a plug that well talk about the summer so thats the time that people can talk about summer learning. President sanchez thank you. And rules, and policies and legislation will be monday june 1st at 3 00 p. M. And budget and Business Services committee is wednesday, june 3rd and i want to verify with the chair that is at 3 00 p. M. Yes . Yes, it is. President sanchez thank you. Commissioner lam. And section n, other informational items, hosts and agendas and acceptance of gifts. Monthly report for april 2020. Section o, memorial adjournment. Theres none tonight. And this time well take Public Comment for those who wish to speak to closed session items. Mr. Chairman, are you going to go back to section 8f, number nine, and theres challenges to the resolutions. President sanchez yes. We need to do that and i forgot. So superintendent matthews, i dont know if the staff has been able to this is on the contract for items and if we dont vote tonight, if the contracts will be able to be brought to us in the next meeting for a vote . Yes, im getting that information now. There was a recommendation for at least two and now i cant the other members, do you have oh, number 13 in terms of the ones that need to be passed tonight, 13 and 1 16. And the relationship reasons fos to start inservice staff work next week for summer learning. And 16 i believe is the bond audit, its a routine process and it has to be held and it needs to be funded. So theres recommendation for those two to be passed tonight. I dont know if staff had any others. To be clear, you are meeting the resolution for 200,000 yes. And those dollars actually are from sales force and theyre directed just for that. And then the one for the bond work, i think that its number 16. President sanchez so can we vote on those and hold off on the others to the next Board Meeting . Okay were talking about the k resolution, is that k13 and k16, mr. Superintendent . Or is this 13 and 16 in its quite different. Theres a difference here. Number nine is consent calendar item 9. But within that the one that is for the bond you see them or no . President sanchez so well vote on those two and the rest well hold off until next one, okay . The amendments where were getting credit those i think that we want to pass those as well, right . They are credited to our account. Right . President sanchez i dont understand. Yes, those are amendments to return money to the district. Right, so we would want to pass those today because were getting money back probably. Theyre belo below 21, 22, 23, l the way down to 31. President sanchez do you understand . No. I need clarity on this. On number 9 theres an attachment. With all of the k resolutions that have separate case numbers. Right. And so theres amendments all of the amendments were saying that we want to pass those because the amendments are theyre crediting our accounts. Were getting money back. President sanchez why dont we follow up afterwards. K31 yes. K9 k13 and k16. Okay, so they are k numbers. And k13 and k16. Yes, they are. I needed clarity. Thank you. All right. Got it. President sanchez roll call. Miss collins . Yes. Mr. Cook . Yes. Miss lam . Yes. Miss lopez . Yes. I didnt hear it. Sorry. Mr. Moliga. Yes. Miss norton . Yes. And mr. Sanchez . Yes. Okay thats seven ayes. Thank you. President sanchez just make sure that you are circling back thank you. All righty. I think that were there. So at this time well take Public Comment for closed session items and theres a total of five minutes for Public Comment. Is there any comments on the closed session items . Not seeing any, president sanchez. President sanchez all right. So section 2b, well go into closed session unless i call a recess of the regular meeting. And why dont we take at least a fiveminute break. Todays special guest is claudia dume. Hi. Today, my guest is claudia gorham. Shes the deputy managing director of the real estate dri division at the city and county of San Francisco, and shes my special guest. Thank you for joining us. Thank you very much. I know that your department is the department for managing and renting properties, and also cleaning for the city. How has your department been preparing for the crisis . Well, because our citizens are sheltering in place and our buildings are closed to the general public, a substantial amount of city staff and City Departments are still open and operating and doing city businesses. So we still have to do the cleaning and engineering on the portfolio and things that need to be service. And the other thing is all our workers are Disaster Service workers, so we have been providing the Emergency Operations center with various staffing needs such as drivers of trucks and accounting staff to assist them in this crisis. Have you obtained Additional Space for the city to use during this crisis . Yes. The crisis has actually required numerous transactions, and so we help basically the department of Public Health, the department of human services, and the department of homelessness determine where they can put the services that they need. So, for example, if they need a testing site or if they need a building a vacant building to put supplies or if they need to put some trucks, we will help them locate that Office Building or that property based on their factors that they need. We will then contact the landlord or the Property Owner of the space or the Building Owner decides they want, and then, we negotiate the terms that they need, whether its a permit or a lease, well help the City Attorney draft that agreement. Nice. So can you talk about how some of our iconic buildings, such address the palace of such as the palace of fine arts, has been repurposed during the pandemic . Certainly. The city needs as much space as it can use during this pandemic, and the department had to relocate to Moscone South Convention Center so that we could do social distancing as required by both the city and the state. We have hundreds and hundreds of staff people working on this covid19 crisis. All of the department of Public Health and the departments of homelessness and human services, including several other hundred people, they need several different sites. They need testing centers, they need shelters for the homeless, those with the covid19 virus, those who need a place to stay after they get out of the hospital. So weve been assisting them with places to stay. You mentioned the palace of fine arts. It has over 100,000 square feet of space. It could it we were going to use it as a shelter, but now, were going to use it for different needs. Were going to negotiate a different lease so that the city can use it for this crisis. Were using the bill graham Civic Auditorium and tfor the deployment of ambulances. The Fire Department needed additional supplies, so were using it for that service. Thats great. I also understand you have a staff of custodians, electricians, janitors and other support workers. How are they helping the city . We could not be more thankful for our civic and engineering staff under our real estate division. They have been working 247 since this crisis began, not only doing their daily responsibilities to keep the public buildings open and operating for the city staff continuing to go into the office but also because once the crisis started, several memos came down as to additional cleanings and how to do disinfecting, and we have to do the c. D. C. S recommendation does. So not only do they do recommendations. So not only do they do their regular cleaning, they are also doing deep cleaning and disinfecting in places like the Public Safety building and the haul of justice. But theyre also going in and doing a deep cleaning and disinfecting after we had a suspected case or a confirmed case of a person having the coronavirus. So theyre going in and doing this every night since this started. Our workers are continuing as laborers to make the buildings safe and secure and maintained. And however we help or however we can help the e. O. C. , we do that. Well, thanks for coming on the show, claudia. Id like to thank you and your entire team on behalf of all the residents of San Francisco for all the work you continue to do. Thank you very much. Its been a pleasure. Thats it for this episode. Well be back with another pandemicrelated episode shortly. This is coping with covid19. Im chris mathers. Thanks for watching. clapping. i think we have more companies anywhere in the United States its at the amazing statement were not trying to be flashy or shocking just trying to create something new and original were one of the things about the conduct our you enter and turn your your back and just so the orchestra. The most contrary composer of this time if you accountability his music you would think hes a camera come important he become ill and it was crazy he at the end of his life and pushed the boundary to think were not acceptable at this point for sure it had a great influence he was a great influence on the harmonic language on the contemporary up to now. I thought it would be interesting because they have e he was contemporary we use him on this and his life was you kill our wife you get poisons all those things are Great Stories for on opera. I was leaving behind a little bit which those collaborative dancers i was really trying to focus on opera. A friend of mine said well, what would you really want to do i said opera what is it not opera parallel. Why isnt it are that i have the support now we can do that. I realized that was something that wasnt being done in San Francisco no other organization was doing this as opposed to contemporary we are very blessed in San Francisco to have organizations well, i thought that was going to be our speciality you create a conceptual idea for setting the opera and you spear ahead and work with the other sdierndz to create an overview vision thats the final product felt opera. I was very inspired to work with him because the way he looked at the key is the way i looked at sports looking at the daily. So much our mandate is to try to enter disis particular work theres great dancers and theatre actresses and choirs weve worked with and great video artists is a great place to collect and collaborate. I had a model they have a professionally music yes, maam assemble and as a student i benefited from being around this professional on and on soccer ball and as a conductor id be able to work with them and its helped my growth i had a dream of having a professional residential on and on soccer ball to be an imperial it operates as a laboratory we germ a national the ideas technically and work with activity artists and designers and video all over the on any given project to further the way we tell stories to improve our ability to tell stories on stage. Thats part of the opera lab i was to investigate that aspect of renaissance and new work so thats why this piece it is important it was a renaissance composer. There were young people that are not interested in seeing traditional opera and like the quality and its different it has a story telling quality every little detail is integrated and helps to capture the imagination and thats part of the opera how we can use those colors into the language of today. So one of the great things of the stories of opera and story combined with opera music it allows people to let go and be entertained and enjoy the music instead of putting on headphones. Thats what is great about art sometimes everyone loves it because you have to, you know, really great you have to have both some people dont like it and some people do were concerned about that. Its about thirty something out there thats risky. You know, disliked by someone torn apart and thats the whole point of what were drying to do you never take this for granted you make sure it is the best if you can. music herb theatre,open rehearsal. Listen to the rehearsal. I think it is fun for them, they see our work process, our discussions, the decisions we make. It is good for us. We kind of behavior little bit when we have people in the audience. Msk music we are rehearsing for our most expensive tour; plus two concerts here. We are proud that the growth of the orchestra, and how it is expanded and it is being accepted. My ambition when i came on as music director here it was evident we needed absolutely excellent work. Also evident to me that i thought everyone should know that. This was my purpose. And after we opened, which was a spectacular opening concert about five weeks after that the economy completely crashed. My plan and im absolutely dogmatic about my plans were delayed slightly. I would say that in this very difficult timefor the arts and everyone, especially the arts, its phenomenal how new century has grown where many unfortunate organizations have stopped. During this period we got ourselves on National Radio presence; we started touring, releasing cds, a dvd. We continue to tour. Reputation grows and grows and grows and it has never stopped going forward. Msk music the bay area knows the orchestra. You maybe take things for granted a little bit. That is simply not the case will go on the road. The audiences go crazy. They dont see vitality like this on stage. We are capable of conveying joy when we play. Msk music any performance that we do, that a program, that will be something on the program that you havent heard before. String orchestra repertoire is pretty small. I used to be boxed into small repertoire. I kept constantly looking for new repertoire and commissioning new arrangements. If you look at the first of the program you have very early, young vibrant mendelson; fabulous opener and then you have this fabulous concerto written for us in the orchestra. Is our gift. Msk music and then you have strauss, extraordinary piece. The most challenging of all. String orchestra work. 23 solo instrument, no violin section, now viola section; everybody is responsible for their part in this piece. The challenge is something that i felt not only that we could do , absolutely could do, but i wanted to show off. I cant tell you how aware i am of the audience. Not only what i hear but their vibes, so strong. I have been doing this for a long time. I kind of make them feel what i want them to feel. There is nobody in that audience or anywhere that is not going to know that particular song by the fourth note. And that is our encore on tour. By the way. I am proud to play it, we are from San Francisco. We are going to play that piece no matter where we are. The regular meeting of the San Francisco Public Utilities commission. Todays date is tuesday, may 26, 2020. Roll call, please. President caen . Here. Vice president vietor . Present. Commissioner moran . Here. Commissioner maxwell . Here. Commissioner paulson . Present. We have a quorum. We begin the meet, id like to make an announcement. Due to the covid19 Health Emergency and given the Public Health recommendations issued by the San Francisco department of Public Health and that Governor Newsom and mayor brown have lifted restrictions via conference, its being televised via sfgov tv. There is a brief time lag between the live meeting and what is being viewed on sfgov tv. On behalf of the commission id like to extend our thanks to sfgov tv staff. If you wish to make Public Comment on an item, dial 8882733658, access code 3107452 and pound, followed by pound again. When Public Comment is called, dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the speaker line. You will be you will hear an automated voice that will tell you when it is your turn to speak and your twominute speaking time will begin. I will alert you when your time has expired. These instructions will be repeat. If they havent already done show, im going to ask the commission and staff to minimize microphones to minimize background noise. And id like to note that item number 9 has been removed from the agenda and will be rescheduled to a different meeting. Madame president , your first order of business is item three, approval a of the minutes of. May 12, 2020. Yes. Commissioners, before you have the minutes of may 12, 2020, are there any additions or corrections . Seeing none, madame secretary, could you please open this to Public Comment . Members of public who wish to make Public Comment on item 3, a approval of the minutes of may 12, 2020, dial 882733658, access code 3107452 and pound followed by pound again. Dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the speaker line. [dinging] mr. Moderator, do we have any comments on minutes . Operator madame speaker, there are three callers in the queue. You have three questions remaining. Callers, please note this is for item number three, the minutes. First caller, go ahead. Hello, caller. You have two questions remaining. Hello, caller. This is Public Comment for item 3, minutes. Go ahead. Caller im sorry. I messed up. I was wanting to be in the general Public Comment. Ive never done this before. So, i messed up. Ok. No worries. No worries. Ill hop off and do it again. Ok. Thank you. Next caller . Operator you have one question remaining. Hi, caller. This is Public Comment on item number 3, the minutes. Caller hi, there. I also misunderstood. I wanted to make a general comment and not on ok. Thank you. Well do that as the next item. Caller ok. Thank you. Madame president , we have no Public Comment. Commissioner, any further discussion on the minutes . Seeing none, may i have a motion . President caen . Oh, im sorry. Ill move move to approve. Oh. Second. Madame secretary, please call the roll for the votes. [roll call] we have five ay irks. The motion caser. Next item, please. Item 4 is general Public Comment. Members of public may address the commission on matters that are within the commissions jurisdiction and are not on todays agenda. By dialing 8882733658, access code 3107452 and pound followed by pound again. Dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the speaker line. And while were waiting for callers, i did receive two email correspondents to be entered into Public Comment that were forwarded to the commission and ill take the two minutes and read each of these Public Comments. The first one is from maddelein mueller. Please put this into document. It is not for an item that is on the agenda, but may be soon so it is sent now and will be referenced on 526 during Public Comment on items not on the agenda. It involves a complex issue and Commission Members will no doubt value to t time to read through the materials. A resolution to acquire the balboa reservoir property for city college of San Francisco presented by the defense city college alliance, dcca. Preamble the overwhelming support for the recent propa, 845 million facilities bond for ccsf show San Franciscos Desire Development and growth for city college. The balboa reservoir is a critical element for dccf use. The members of dcca, therefore, recommend the following resolution one, whereas proposition a and 845 million facilities bond measure for new and renovated buildings at city and college of San Francisco also included the authority to acquire land. And whereas the voter elected trustees of city college of San Francisco are responsible to the citizens of San Francisco for the protection of the institution, its students and employees from the effects of political inclusion, including any encroaching privatization of a public college. And whereas the voters of San Francisco previously defeated two proposals for private Housing Development in balboa reservoir, proposition b in 1987 and l in 1988. Whereas the San Francisco Public Utilities commission signed an agreement in 1991 [inaudible] half of its reservoir property [bell ringing] and the timer is up on that item. Again, this was forwarded to the commission so you have the full gist of the Public Comment. The second is from mr. Dave warner. Dear president caen and commissioner, it has been a great honor to communicate with you, not just for your present role at the sfpuc but for your experience, expertise and values you bring to the commission. Im sorry to report troubling information. In resolution 190057 march 26, 2019, regarding the bay dock to ecosystem, there is a clear system that directs staff to include biological outcomes in the voluntary agreement. But when reading the portion of the agreement for the river that was recently published on one of irrigation districts websites, there is no specific biological outcome mentioned. It is troubling not just because it is the primary objective of environmentalists, discussions with the sfpuc or perhaps even more so because of the accountability governance concern. If the commission makes a specific resolution, it is expected that staff will follow that resolution or communicate back to the commission that staff is having difficulty implementing it. Otherwise, the resolution becomes meaningless and the effectiveness of the commissions oversight is reduced. A biological outcome statement in resolution 190057 was key because it was solution to the conflict between the conflict of water agencies and environmentalists. The water agencies said that salmon populations could recover with nonflow medical examinerer and less water than the state Water Resources can full board required while the environmentalists said that at a minimum the swrcbs full measures were intended im sorry, were needed in addition to nonflow measures. By studying biological outcomes in the voluntary agreement t flow conflict became moot as flow debate didnt matter as long as fish populations recover. Perhaps staff has been intending to communicate to you at a future meeting of not being able to add biological objectives to the voluntary agreement. If so, the communication should have been done before the volunteer agreement became public [bell ringing] again, that correspondence was forwarded to the commission this morning. And mr. Moderator, can you open the phone lines, please . Yes, madame secretary. Operator you have five questions remaining. Hello, speaker. Go ahead. Yes. My name is thomas. Im the former trekererer of the Libertarian Committee of San Francisco. Id like to call the attention to the east bay. Its a huge 55,000acre parcel that travels four counties. It is slated for development and an inclusion into the state park system. However, Governor Newsoms budget cuts that line item and it is on the market for 65 million for the first time in 85 years. The agent is todd renfrew with which the p. U. C. Has an existing relationship because it acquired the wool ranch property from him. And although the press [inaudible] doesnt have water, its simply not true. This 55,000 parcel is adjacent to existing p. U. C. Watershed property and could be developed for future Water Resources, set aside for future Water Resources or set aside for other resources such as the development of wind power. I urge the sfpuc to investigate finance mechanisms that may not have been available. Specifically the public banking mechanism under senate 3wi8 57, the use of time dops and the use of private loan contracting. The p. U. C. Could acquire this property through an asset swap and if the p. U. C. Involved nontax, nonfinancing mechanisms, i could add the property, which is a 55,000acre, unbelievably beautiful open space, unencumbered by any conservation easements to its existing enterprise. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Operator you have five questions remaining. Hello, go ahead. Caller yes, thank you, president caen and commission. Im the person whos going to make a comment related to the resolution which you began the reading of. Ill say this this resolution to acquire the balboa reservoir property for city college of San Francisco is posted and available at this website. Its www. Publiclandsforpublicgood. Org. The overwhelming support for the recent propa facilities bond for city college of San Francisco voters desire for environment and growth of city college. The reservoir is a critical elements for city college use. The plan to privatize it in in other words to buy 1100 housing units, mostly at market rate, contradicts and undermines the Public Interest and members of the dcca therefore recommend the following resolution. And theyre all documented, you know, the source for the whereas in the document. Just wanted to mention a few things. Various entities have supported the transfer from the p. U. C. Through the college in order to make the retain the public status and there is a possibility that both expanding the campus and having 100 affordable housing, the San Francisco labor council, the coalition for San Francisco neighborhoods and the colleges participatory governance council. Id like to mention clauses nine and 10s. Nine says whereas city college lease the reservoir property continuously since 1946 as the only entity [bell ringing] thank you, speaker. Operator you have four questions remaining. Go ahead, speaker. Caller thank you. Hi there, president caen and fellow commissioners. I want to thank you for us to cut in and make comments through this covid per. I hope youre all safe and well. Im born and raised in the bay area and currently live in San Francisco and i live in district 2. Im calling about my support about restoring and protecting the river and the water and the bay delta system. The cold water that flows through the delta and s. F. Bay are important and make a difference. Every day, because i do this, you can walk down to the Municipal Pier at a quad park and you can see people fishing and crabbing, every day that i go sailing on the bay, without fail, you now see harbor por poises and when i was a kid, this was nots the case. And the salmon boats are out in the water again. So the river water flowing from the source all the way through the delta to the bay is very important. Id like to encourage the sfpuc to voluntary release the 40 of unimpaired flow and has been discussed many times. And if it is a dry year, they can always revert back to the previous ban. This is possible. Because demand for water is low and San Francisco and bay area residents have been very good at showing their willingness to conserve water, theyre very environmentallyminded and i would like the sfpuc to keep that in mind when making flow decisions. If it hasnt been addressed yet, it would be great with the recommendations by president vietor be addressed. Thank you for your time and please make decisions based on the environmental value for the bay area. Thank you so much. Thank you. Operator you have three questions remaining. Go ahead. Caller my name is michael frost. I live in san carlos. I have two young girls and we love fishing together. And my girls Pay Attention to whats in the news and whats going on and they ask me all the time dad, what is life going to be like for me environment tally . Is the world going to burn down . Will there be any fish left in the oceans . Questions like this. What do we do . What are you going to do. What im doing, kids, is im going to put pressure on our existing leaders, our elected leaders and our appointed leaders to establish priorities for what matters. Water is life. And fish are leading indicator of the health of a region. If the fish die, we die. I would like this board to assign priority to the flows of fresh water into the bay belt ecosystem. Because water is life and fish cannot survive on nonflow measures. My 6yearold understands that. Fish need water. The fish die, we die. And we have an insatiable market that were all living up to and it is tough to catch up with it. But we need to understand hard truths. This is one of them. This is an important time in our society. People are looking more and more to the environment. Today were living one day at a time and im going to implore you as leaders to put priority on to the fresh water flows which is the life blood of this region. If the fish die, we die. Were at extinction levels in the bay delta right now. Bottom line. And i dont want to have to explain extinction and the planet being burned down and a repatience market to my kids anymore. [bell ringing] thank you. Operator you have two questions remaining. Caller my name is francis de la costa. And you are still work on the technical problems, but all the same s it doesnt matter. Whats important is that we get an opportunity to voice our opinion. We have this pandemic and i should oefp our eyes. And one of the things that we have to reflect upon is resources and highdensity living. All other days of high density living, the last time i was throng this meeting, one commissioner was trying to make a point that we shouldnt be wasting water or we shouldnt be using too much water. And instead of listening to her, the general manager ganged up on her. I read his words. And the general manager should wisen up. The general manager of the sfpuc who makes 400,000 a year should wisen up and represent the people. If he cannot represent the people, then he should step down. Now whats going on at city college, whats going all over San Francisco, when i comes to the usage of our resources, we have to be very careful as the previous speaker said. Water is life. That is a concept from the native americans. We failed to respect the native americans. This is their land. Each and every square inch of this land was stolen from their native americans. It is time to repent and this pandemic is a sign for yall to learn something. Thank you very much. Madame secretary, i believe this is the last caller. Operator you have one question remaining. Caller hi. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. My name is mary holser and im calling in support of the Water Quality control plan and i would really like the ask you, commissioners, please drop your lawsuit against the latest plan. The plan is designed to protect, preserve and repair the bay delta estuary and it is seeking to increase the amount of water to be released from the various dams. The amount of water that the current voluntary agreement plans to release is not enough to flush and replenish the wet lands along the river. And it isnt enough to limit salt water intrusion, which is damaging the delta. In general, it is not enough to preserve the health of the delta and to safeguard a clean water supply, not just the water supply for single use. Its many people depend on the river. That includes Safe Drinking Water and supporting various livelihoods such as salmon fishing industry, and industrial agriculture. You, as the commissioners, have a responsibility to the environment as a whole and you should encourage no, you should insist on reducing dependency in the river by ramping up Water Conservation methods and recycled water projects. The ecological crisis in the delta is not going to get any better until there is enough water released from the dam to allow this delta itself to make itself healthy. Its important to put a strong bay delta Water Quality control in place to repair the damage and preserve a healthy delta environment for future general railsings. Generations. I totally support the previous speakers in favor of this. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any additional callers . There are no more callers in the queue. Ok. General Public Comment, item 4, is now closed. Madame president , your next item is item 5, communications. Any comments on communications, commissioners . Seeing none, madame secretary, could you please open this up for Public Comment . Members of public who wish to present comment on item 5 communications, dial 8882733658, access code 3107452 and pound followed by pound again. Dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the speaker lineful mr. Moderator, do we have any calls . Madame secretary, there no call ores in the queue. I do have a comment. I was on mute. On 5e. I wanted to ask a question regarding 5e. Certainly. I just want a little bit more background about it says the bids are, you know, whatever it is, 5e, aye like a little more clarification on 5e. The status of the connect of the change orders. It just says 5e. It doesnt say who. It just says Water System Improvement Program status of construction change orders. Can he respond to you . Good afternoon, commissioners. This is cathy howe, a. G. M. For infrastructure. This is a report that we provide at the request of some of the former commissioners and they basically wanted to know the status of all the list of projects that we have and how close how much of the construction contingency we were using and how many change orders we had and basically to report out on the change orders for all of the construction that is happening under the Water System Improvement Program. Ok. And the reason for that was . At the time, the bids were coming in quite a bit lower because the economy was not doing that well and a lot of the contractors were really eager to bid on our projects and so the bids came in very low and so everybody wanted to know twr contractors going to put in a lot of change orders to try to recupe some of their costs for the low bids that they had put in for. And was that happening and is it happening now . The program is now about 98, 99 done. And so for the change orders, it really was very specific to the project that was being done. On some projects, the construction change orders was well under the 10 that we usually budget for. On others, it was a bit higher. For example, for calaveras dam, i was quite a bit higher but a lot of that had to do with not knowing what the soil conditions were and not knowing that we had hit a slide area and a unstable area for putting in the dam. But in general we stayed if you exclude calaveras, we stayed pretty close to the 10 . Great. Thank you. Madame secretary, there is one caller in the queue. Ok. Thank you. Operator you have one question remaining. Caller, this is on item 5, communications. Caller yes. I apologize. My comment is actually for just a few minutes ago in the general comments. But i was unable to get through. I was on the whole call. Can i take one minute to comment in a general way . For item 4 . President caen, is that ok . Yes. Please take two minutes. Caller ok. Ill take less than one minute here. Yes. Again, my name is jeralyn moran. I live on the peninsula. This is a comment on the need for water stewardship on the river regarding the bay delta. I am a wildlife biologist by background and i care deeply about sustainable stewardship of our natural world. [echoing] im sorry. I cant understand you. I am also one of your constituents here on the San Francisco peninsula. The urgency to correct the continued overwithdrawal of water from this regions ecosystem is reaching a crisis level. Theres no more time to continue what has already been tried. Im not alone in this perspective. I implore you to boost all Water Conservation and water recycling projects, including the resumption of work on the bay delta Water Quality control plan. Thank you for considering my comments. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Moderator, are there any other callers . There no other callers in the queue. Ok. So Public Comment on item 5, communications, is closed. Could you please call the next item. Next item is item number 6. , report of the general manager. Good afternoon, commissioners. Thank you once again for your support and for helping us to continue the essential work. We must keep delivery of water, power and the Global Pandemic continues on. We continue to rethink and revamp our operations at p. U. C. Right now many of our employees are still working remotely. For the employees who were still reporting to facilities, we continue to take every step necessary to ensure their safety and wellbeing. Despite all the disruptions to our way of life, our customers continue to receive water, power and Sewer Services without interruption. While we continue to upgrade under this current condition, we must begin to shift our focus to the future. To determine how we move in a postcovid19 world. We have a team of employees representing every enterprise to put together our Business Continuity plan. That plan will summarize that plan can be summarized in three key words response, recover and reimagine. We continue we consider it a master playbook for how we will adopt where we work, how we work and what we work on while continuing to provide our Critical Services to our customers. Many of the issues that this team is tackling comes directly from responses that we collected from our very first covid19 pulse survey. More than 1100 employees responded to our survey and that represents 48 of our total workforce. Overall, 73 of our employees view the p. U. C. Response to the covid19 [inaudible] at this time. A mark that we can be proud of. However, from the survey, we have collected detailed feedback from our customers, which includes which included valid concerns around using Public Transportation, health and safety conditions in the workplace and the tools and resources we need for performing work remotely over the next 12 to 18 months. My deputy, general manager and chief operating officer, Michael Carlin and the chief people officer are leading the Business Continuity Planning Team and we expect transformational changes as a result of this work. As always, we will keep you all updated on this effort as it progresses. While we continue to push forward with efforts to meet the needs of our employees, we also focus on responding meaningfully to the needs of our customers. Just two weeks ago, we launched our emergency Customer Assistant Program with the goal of helping residential customers maximize their discount opportunities. This effort automatically extended the program for current enrollees and provides new enrollees who are experiencing Financial Difficulties due to covid19. So far the response of this program has been outstanding. In one week, we received over 2,000 applications and i think were approaching 3,000 applications as of friday. The covid pandemic has brought on challenges to our agency ies and we see hope amidst crisis. We are already exploring plans for similar, temporary saving programs for businesses and nonprofit customers. By continuing to work with our customers, employees, City Partners and others, we will look to move forward from these dark times and be a stronger, better and more responsive agency. I want to thank you for all the support on all of these efforts and i look forward to continuing to work with the commission for the weeks and months ahead. And that concludes my comments. Do you have any questions, id be willing to answer them. Commissioners, any questions . Yes, i have one. Last week, or i think we had some issues with some of the employees with p. E. E. They were having some problems. Has that been resolved . Yes. Actually, we had been receiving literally pallets of p. P. E. S and so we are in a much better place and i want to give thanks to the e. O. C. , with the mayors Emergency Operations center that is led by our very own person who actually led our operations over here, so, yeah. They have done an outstanding job of providing us with p. P. E. S lately. Ok. So, those those employees are have been satisfied or youre work on their satisfaction . Well, you know, we we are, you know, we take everyones concerns seriously and so, you know, the issue about p. P. E. S, were making sure that were providing p. P. E. S more regular to folks because at one time they would have to use one p. P. E. For, you know, for a couple of days and now were providing more p. P. E. So that they can use them less frequently. And in the beginning, even doctors and everyone, it was a shortage of p. P. E. S. And now i think were in a better place. And then as i stated in my comments, what we did is to do a survey of p. U. C. Wide and close to 50 of the folks responded. Although we received over 70 favorable, you know, saying were doing a favorable job, the 27 we are wanting to hear what their issues are and a lot of their issues were about [inaudible] [echoing] i hear an echo. And they also were concerned about taking Public Transportation and i think theyre just nervous about coming back to work. And so we move from the concept coming back and repopulating our office to basically, you know, seeing who absolutely needs to come back to work and so that is sort of a shift on how were looking at, you know, progressing and operating on what we call reimagining how we do work in the p. U. C. So a lot of the things that were working on, were working with the department of human resources, the city administrator, theyre taking a leave on how to bring city back, to you know, back in service. So, were working closely with them. Any other comments . On the general managers report. Madame secretary, could you please open Public Comment . Members of public who wish to provide comment on item 6, report of the general manager, dial 8882733658, access code 3107452 and pound, followed by pound again. Dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the speaker line. Mr. Moderator, do we have any calls . Yes, madame secretary. We have one question in the queue. Thank you. Operator you have one question remaining. Caller here is how i see it. The San Francisco Public Utilities commission is an enterprise department. So you commissioners understand you generate your own money. So, we shouldnt include the people who are involved with the general fund. When it comes to p. P. E. S and other things that have to be in place. If the wider equipment is up in place, somebody is at fault and it doesnt mean that [inaudible] could predict a pandemic, but since the pandemic is here, we have to learn from that. Now having said that, we are talking about things and go all over the place when it comes to the community. In the community, and ive been serving the community for over 40 years, and some of you all know that, im one of only ones continuously within the trenches, our children are [inaudible] our seniors are dying and one of elements that has brought about this slow death is the Sewage Treatment plant. And all the suggestions like what happened during the pandemic now is really not relevant when what is at issue is what is a San Francisco Public Utilities commission and ive said it a million times, what are yall doing to help the community . The bay view community. Some of the [inaudible] 200,000 in grants and are closed down. Yall know about this. And you look the other way. And now this is our time to do justice. This is a time to have your heart in the right place, to help our infans, our children, our youth, our elders. From slowly dying. Otherwise thank you, mr. Decosta. Caller thank you very much. [bell ringing] do we have anymore callers . There are no more callers in the queue, madame secretary. Thank you. Public comment on item number 6 is closed. Next item, please. Next order of business is item 7, new commission business. Commissioners, anyone . New business. Yes. Commissioner moran. Thank you, madame chair. Id like to request that staff develop a water supply budget worksheet for use by staff and the commission and members of public. My reason for that really is twofollowful twofold. One is to provide transparency as to the process we use to make decisions about water supply and the use of that water supply. And the second is to hopefully create a common can framework for the discussions that we have been having and will continue to have about the allocation of our water supplies. So i have send a more detailed version of that request to staff but i wanted to make that a request through the commission as well. So noted. Commissioner maxwell, did you have yes. Yes. Thank you. I would like to request a report. Im sure our fire is season has more than started and sko and so i would like the see a report in our next meet in regards to where we are, what we have done and the work we have to do to make sure that were doing all that we can do to be safe. From fire. Excellent. Yes. Any other new business, commissioners . Is it appropriate for me to ask to go a little bit of what were thinking a little bit further than that. I think that is extremely important and i wanted to catch all of it. Can you elaborate a little bit on that move . On that more . I will slightly. Ok, slightly is good. It is not a calendared item so we cant have a discussion about it. But i think that we sometimes get lost in the weeds of particular calculations. Without stepping back and saying, how do those calculations relate to the Bigger Picture of how much water we have available and how much demand we have placed on that water. So, what im looking for is a tool that will help summarize that at a pretty high level in order to facilitate the discussion, to identify not only areas of disagreement but also to help modify how much that disagreement might reflect. That is the intent of it and i think if we want to get into greater discussion, i think that, first of all, i think it shouldnt take very long to develop the work sheet. I think it would deserve probablying having a couple of sessions in regular p. U. C. Meetings about what it means, how it is constructed and how it might be used. Thank you. Any further new business . I have additional clarification on that and im wondering if we could possibly ask the staff and i dont know if this is what you had in mind, commissioner moran, but for an outline of what would be in the water supply budget by the next meeting, at a minimum. Next meetings come pretty quickly. I think i think we should be able to have. A general outline of it by then. But that is something im not producing, staff would be. So id have to leave it to them. [talking at once] yeah, thanks. Thats good for now. Just to let you know that were giving a water supply update the next meeting. So, just wanted to let you know that. Any further this is commissioner paulson. I want to make sure that you guys can hear me. Yes. We cant see you. Hes dialed in. Shall we call Public Comment on item 7 . Yes, please do. Members of public who wish to provide comment on item 7, new commission business, dial 8882733658, access code 3107452 and pound followed by pound again. Dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the speaker line. Do we have any calls . There are no callers in the queue at this time. Thank you. Public comment on item number seven is closed. Next item, please. Next item is item 8, consent calendar. All matters listed here under constitute a consent calendar, are considered to be routine by the San Francisco Public Utilities commission and will be acted upon by a single vote of the commission. There will be no separate discussions of these items unless a member of the commission or the public so requests in which event the matter will be removed from calendar and considered as a separate item. Commissioners, is there any matter that you would like removed from the calendar . Seeing none, please proceed to Public Comment. Could i make a comment on the consent calendar . I dont want to remove anything. Would now be a good time . I i believe so. I just want to comment that i there are a couple of items related to pier 70 and i did learn recently that that Development Project is going to have a black Water Treatment project as well as fossilfree fuel system so they are going to be cutting themselves off from gas and using renewables and i just think thats quite laudable. We saw that when they became our largest customer for clean power s. F. So i was just very pleased to learn about that and to see that and just would like to alert and request potentially our Communications Team if the item does pass that we want to be tracking and promoting those kinds of projects as a p. U. C. Really reduce our water use and fossil fuel use and that development seems to be really exemplifying those two pieces. Thank you. To clarify sorry. This is franchesca. Just to clarify for the public. Pier 70 is being heard item 13 under regular calendar and is not part of the consent calendar. Oh, sorry about that. Lets proceed to Public Comment. Members of the public who wish to provide comment on item 8, consent calendar, dial 8882733658, access code 3107452 and pound, followed by pound again. Dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the speaker line. [honking] mr. Moderator, do we have any callers . Madame secretary, there are no callers in the queue. Thank you. Public comment on item number 8 is closed. Commissioners, any further discussion on this item . May i have a motion . Move to approve. And a second. Second. Second. Madame secretary, could you please call for the vote. [roll call] you have five ayes. The motion carries. Item 9 has been removed from the calendar. [papers rustling] item 10. Public hearing adopt a new scheduling of hetch hetchy power enterprise general use municipal Electricity Service rates for fiscal years 202020 2 1 and 20222 to take effect on july 1, 2020 for certain city agencies, certain noncity governmental agencies such as the San Francisco Unified School District and certain nonprofit entities such as the California Academy of sciences and that are closely related to the city through city governance, Financial Support and other legacy relationships. The proposed action constitutes the approval action for the purposes of ceqa. And this should be will be introduced by deputy c. F. O. S charles pearl. Good afternoon. Commissioners, charles pearl, deputy c. F. O. The proposal before you today is to increase the general municipal electrical rates by one cent per kilowatt hour each year over the next two years beginning july 1 of this year. As the Commission Secretary noted, the rate applies to certain City Department and other discounted electric customers. The rate increase has been included in the citywide fiveyear planning and is necessary to support the ongoing Financial Health of the hetchy power enterprise. Enable it to continue reliably providing greenhouse gasfree power to its customers. The rate increase will provide the enterprise an estimated additional 3. 5 million next year and fiscal 21 to pay for necessary planned operating and capital investments. The rate increase is supported by the citys required 2016 power cost of Service Study which recommended moving all of our customers, all of our power customers to closer and full cost of service over time. This proposed rate action supports our sfpuc rate payer assurance policy as well as our Strategic Plan goal of financial sustainability. Commissioners, this rate action ties with the Financial Plan and the budget that you approved on february 11 of this year. But as you know, we are currently working to retool our budget and all of our enterprise, including the power enterprise, with updated revenue projections and we will be reporting back to you in about a month, either the end of june or very early july with a revised budget and how were planning to rebalance those. With that, im happy to take any questions you have on this item. Thanks. Commissioners . Everybodys muted. Any questions . Comments . Madame secretary, please open up public discussion. Members of public who wish to make Public Comment on item 10, dial 8882733658, access code 310. 7452 and pound followed by pound again. Dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the speaker line. More moderator, do we have any callers on this item . There are no caller in the queue at this time. Thank you. Public comment on item 10 is closed. Commissioners, is there any discussion further on this item . Seeing none, may i have a motion . Move to approve. Second. Madame secretary, please call the roll call vote. [roll call] we have five ayes. The motion carries. Thank you very much, mr. Pearl. Our next item, please. Next item is item 11, retroactively authorize the general managers implementation on may 12, 2020 of a temporary emergency bill discount for certain sfpuc residential customers who have been financially impacted by the covid19 emergency. The temporary emergency Customer Assistance Program for covid19 Relief Program provides eligible residential customers with a bill discount of 15 on water, 35 on sewer and 30 on hetch hetchy power bills for the next six months, spaning from march 4, 2020 to september 4, 2020. And this will be introduced by erin ranks. Hi. Good afternoon, commissioners and members of public. So, the item before you today is just one piece of the sfpucs response to the really devastating Financial Impact that covid19 has had on our customers and our community. Because of how suddenly this hit, what weve seen is that many residents and businesses who might otherwise have thought they were doing ok are really struggling to cover basic expenses, including our utility bills. So, to provide at least some measure of support for customers as they try to adjust to the new normal were all dealing with, were proposing a temporary emergency sixmonth bill of discount for residential customers who have lost income and who are experiencing financial hardships paying their utility bills. As was mentioned, this discount ranges from 15 to 35 off the the water, waste water and hetch hetchy power bills and open to customers for their primary residence only and they certify they experienced income loss related to covid19 or the shelter in place order. Further more, the income before that loss happened has to be under 200 of the San Francisco area median income. The full description of the program will, as well as the application that can be filled out online, is all attached to this item. Because this is a timesensitive program we know people are struggling now and they cant wait months to get this support to meet this need t general manager took action on may 12 to launch the program and began accepting applications. So, the item today seeks to retroactively approve it and to authorize and continue it until september 4 and if there is any questions, id be happy to answer them. Commissioners, any questions . Madame secretary, please open it up for Public Comment. Members of public who wish to make Public Comment on item 11,dial 8882733658, access code 3107452 and pound followed by pound again. Dial 1 and then 0 to be added to the speaker line