Transcripts For SFGTV Public 20240703

Area has and continues to benefit from, the use and occupation of the molecular ohlone tribes Aboriginal Lands since before and after the San Francisco Public Utilities commissions founding in 1932. It is vitally important that we not only recognize the history of the tribal lands in which we reside, but also we acknowledge and honor the fact that the ohlone people have established a working partnership with the sfpuc and our productive and flourishing members. With the grant within the greater San Francisco bay area communities today. Commissioner rivera, thank you, president paulson, i would please like to ask for a moment of silence in memory of the untimely death last week of an active duty San Francisco firefighter, lieutenant steve silvestri. Steve leaves behind his wife and four children. Lieutenant silvestri was not only an exemplary firefighter, he was also my friend. Thank you. Let us observe that moment of silence, please. Thank you. You read item number three, please. Donna item three is approval of the minutes of april 9th, 2024. Are there any corrections or additions to the minutes . Seeing none, can we open the minutes up to Public Comment, please . Remote callers, raise your hand if you wish to provide comment on item number three. Do we have any members of the public present to provide comment on item number three, approval of the minutes. Seeing none, do we have any callers with their hands raised . Madam secretary, there are no callers that wish to be recognized. Thank you. Public comment on item three is closed. Okay. Thank you. Can i get a motion and a second to approve the minutes of april 9th . Please move to approve. Second. Theres a motion. And second, can we have a roll call, please . President paulson, i. Vice president rivera. I. Commissioner maxwell. Commissioner jaime i. Commissioner. Stacy. I. You have five eyes. Okay. Thank you. Item number four is general Public Comment. Donna, can you read members of the public may address the commission on matters that are within the commissions jurisdiction and are not on todays agenda. Remote callers, please raise your hand if you if you wish to provide comment on item number four. Were going to call members of the public present in the room first and ask if you want to provide general Public Comment that you line up against the far wall. And be ready to provide comment. Okay and as donna said, there are a lot of cards that were getting. Were not going to read every card. Wed like everybody just to get in line, and everybody will have an opportunity to speak, so we will open now to Public Comment. First speaker, please. Good afternoon, peter drekmeier. Tuolumne river trust, its a very sad day for me and for many of us because were losing two wonderful members of the sfpuc family, commissioner maxwell, you have represented the people and the environment so well. And we thank you for all youve done. And someone was telling me at our little rally downstairs, its like, are you going to get sophie on your board . I said, im going to try. But you have just from even before you started with the sfpuc, with your wonderful resolution as a supervisor in 2007 to encourage Water Conservation and efficiency and recycled water. Youve been a great leader, and were going to miss you and donna. Youve just been fabulous to work with. You show so much respect for the public. Youre always really helpful, occasionally ill see you around town and its like, heres my friend, were going to really miss you. I know youre not fully retiring until the end, but ive heard that this might be your last meeting, so i wanted to acknowledge the two of you. We have a couple of cards here that were signed by all these fans who showed up today. And some flowers. You can pick your color there. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon commissioners. My name is john rosapepe, first time i was before you was, i think 14 years ago, unfortunately, i wish during that time i could say the salmon on the Tuolumne River have, prospered, but, weve gone from, like, 13,000 to hundreds now, i urge you to take steps, to help them recover. Most importantly, we dont appeal your loss in the lawsuit. And weve been telling you it was stupid from the beginning. Youve just been wasting money. Youve been wasting time for the fish to recover. Also for the health of the bay, commissioner maxwell, thank you very much for your service. I really appreciate it. I thank you for all for the time you spend here. Good day. Im dave warner, thank you for your service and your passion. Its an honor to speak to you. Thank you, miss hood, for your for her service and for to the sfpuc administering these meetings so well and for contributions to making these meetings accessible to the public. Shes answered numerous questions on how to do things for me, and im just one commenter, thank you, commissioner maxwell, for her service to the commission, her passion, particularly for the disadvantaged, has been terrific to observe. And id say her passion applies to the entire middle class raising families, managing their lives, and trying to make ends meet. I think most all of us here know what a challenge that is. Miss hood and miss maxwell are examples of the tremendous depth of talent the sfpuc has at its disposal. General manager herrera has a tremendous opportunity that is about to be missed. The water and Sewer Enterprises are on a stay on the course strategy, one that was set last century. Massive infrastructure, reliable at any cost. Imported Water Supplies. Fight for every drop we can take from the ecosystem. Last century. Imagine a new future. Excite your powerful organization. As commissioner jamie has pointed out, the world is shifting away from a purely centralized system. Right now, were woefully behind los angeles, san diego in Orange County with their regional supplies. Lets hopscotch ahead of them. Can we have a future with even residential on site reuse dramatically reducing water demand and effluent . A world where the average water bill doesnt triple in 20 years . We have 20 years to do it after all. Lets turn the ship, set a new course to steal a concept from jim collins old book, good to great. Lets reject the tyranny of the or and embrace the genius of the and eliminate the idea that we can do this or that. Instead, we use genius to do both, or even more. I hope youll reinvent the sfpuc. Thank you. Thank you. My name is bill martin. Id like to begin by thanking commissioner maxwell and secretary hood for their years of service to this commission. By way of background, i am the cochair of the Sierra Club California water committee. I am also a member of the stanislaus ohlone merced working group, abbreviated stm working group, created by the state Water Resources control board as part of the implementation of phase one of the baydelta Water Quality plan update. Today i am speaking as a concerned citizen San Francisco resident and customer of the sfpuc. The stm working group has met four times. I attended all the meetings. Numerous scientists attended from the us fish and wildlife service, california fish and wildlife, baykeeper, the nature conservancy, and of course, members of the state water board, Staff Members of the sfp, the purpose of the four meetings was to update biological goals for the lower San Joaquin River basin. Over the four meetings, the scientists presented findings of several different studies regarding the health of the rivers in the lower san joaquin basin. One finding stood out the rivers need more water in them. Nearly all of the Research Presented mentioned this issue. Another key aspect is that there are plenty of good habitat for the aquatic creatures in the ecosystem, but these living creatures need more water to make full use of that habitat. Currently the sfpuc thinks that voluntary agreements are an adequate substitute for the baydelta Water Quality plan update. However there, unlike the biological goals which were ultimately adopted by the state water board, the voluntary agreements have no scientific basis. None. There is no Peer Reviewed science. There is no Scientific Research backing the voluntary agreements. Essentially, the sfpuc is antiscience. That needs to stop now. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is francis mendoza. Im the land and water justice manager with save california salmon. To echo my colleagues here, i want to thank the commissioner maxwell, commissioner dodd as well. And i appreciate your work, and also, i want to, just point out the fact that just the last couple of years, salmon fishing has closed all over the state, and its been a tragedy for many salmon fishing communities and indigenous groups that up all up and down our state, i live in fremont, even though im not here in San Francisco, ive worked as a park ranger and naturalist in the east bay Regional Park system, and ive also, seen all of the harmful algal blooms that have happened within our communities and what its done to the not only our, you know, the lack of drinking water, but also harmful to our fish and animal relatives as well. So i really want to point to the mismanagement of water. Also talk about the voluntary agreements that are being, proposed in the state water board in the next couple of days and having a rally as well over there with many of our indigenous friends from, different places like the yurok, karuk, hoopa, tribes that are, as many of you might have heard, the Trinity River was just declared as an endangered river. So its something that speaks to the drastic measures that we need to take throughout the whole state to increase the flows as well as, have temperature, temperature protections for the fish that we love dearly. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good afternoon. Denise louis here, member of the center for biological diversity and San Francisco ratepayer. So first, thank you, Sophie Maxwell and donna hood for your service. And secondly, i strongly urge the commission to do its part for the environment and biodiversity by by not appealing the loss in the lawsuit and secondly, by withdrawing your voluntary agreements, which have proven to be useful and harmful in the fact that the, voluntary agreements have simply delayed recovery of fish species and the health of our bay delta ecosystem. And on a slightly different matter, i urge you to take a deeper look into the ten year capital plan, which apparently does not include the emergency supply, firefighting pipelines. And theres no High Pressure water available to the Richmond District at this time, recently, the sunset district acquired a hose tender, which is a machine that can provide High Pressure water from lake merced for a two mile radius, however, the hazards and resilience, climate, plan calls for 20 host tenders. So i urge you to look into the capital plan and make sure that we have High Pressure water available to the entire west side of the city. Thank you. Hello. My name is scott ardis, executive director of Golden State Salmon Association. Thank you for your time today. And appreciate this opportunity. Low flows on the Tuolumne River are directly contributing to the decline of salmon populations, creating toxic algal blooms, disrupting a once functional river, and hurting the San Francisco bay delta ecosystem. Excessive water storage, skyrocketing water rates, and low river flows are not the answer, and id like to read a message from a Golden State Salmon Association member, something that gets away from things that i often talk about, which is the loss of jobs, the economy, family impacts and things that, you know, just putting food on the table and those impacts that are happening right here in the city to commercial and recreational fishermen and businesses. And this particular message from tom, there is also an emotional price to pay for the destruction of our salmon runs. No sport fishing of salmon, which for me personally was pretty high. I love catching salmon. My wife, who died of cancer recently, loved catching salmon, which we ate and gave to friends after we found out she had stage four cancer and had 3 to 6 months to live, we decided we would fish as much as her chemo would allow. She lived two and a half years. We caught many salmon. I cant believe i cant begin to describe the joy my dying wife got from catching a salmon. I think it helped her stay alive as long as she did. The thrill of catching salmon for so many sport fishermen and so many sport fisher women, is something that has a Huge Positive emotional effect on tens of thousands of individuals who deal with stress on a daily basis. That was signed tom, these are things that we often forget about, kind of that family and cultural and aspect that impacts just from the salmon fishery and all fishing and just outdoors and river health. So we cant continue to take water out of the Tuolumne River that salmon, the environment and families rely on and are needed to sustain those healthy rivers. We cant let salmon continue to disappear. As was already mentioned, the average annual return of fall run salmon to the tuolumne was almost 13,000. Thank you, thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is nancy arbuckle. Thank you for the opportunity to comment. I live on hyde street. Im an sfpuc ratepayer and a member of Tuolumne River trust. Heres the situation we ratepayers are facing. Were paying among the highest water rates in california. We live and choose to live in an environmentally conscious green city. We expect the institutions that serve our city to reflect our values. What were getting from the sfpuc were getting a dying bay delta ecosystem, including the possible extinction of the Tuolumne River salmon population. Were getting frivolous lawsuits against state water board plans, and were getting a steady diet of disinformation, including highly flawed demand projections. What we want we want accurate demand projections rather than arbitrary design droughts. We want no more hoard and spill water storage. We want higher fresh water flows in our rivers and bay, and we want a thriving Tuolumne River ecosystem and a restored bay delta. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please come to the mic. Hi, everyone. Thank you for letting me speak here today. Im zarin and i live in San Francisco, and yesterday i was on my earth day walk through Golden Gate Park and i saw the earth day installation that they have by the rose garden. And it lists out california potential california climate landmarks from now to the next 100 years. And a couple of them stood out to me, one of which was that by 2055, either all the california salmon will be extinct or by 2055 we would have restored a healthy watershed that supports a local economy of fishing, farming, agriculture and recreation, and seeing this installation with these two sides really clearly reminded me that there are two futures ahead of us, and that every step you take through the park, every step that you guys take in your jobs, every day, allows for that. One of those two options to happen. So all the resources are here and in front of you by listening to the Tuolumne River trust and advocating for these higher river flows that support the salmon that support healthy ecosystems by still allowing adequate amounts of water to be stored for the residents of sf and have etiquette, drought, drought plans for the future. So yeah, this reminded me yesterday through the park that there are two clear futures ahead of us and just the simple steps make a huge difference, especially when you have all the resources of these intelligent people in the room to support you. So thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please come to the mic. Hello everyone. Thank you so much for giving us this space. And this time to dream Beautiful Solutions to the what seem like problems, but are actually opportunities it. If we try to bubble this up the United Nations last week pretty much told us that we have two years to focus on Nature Based Solutions in order to prevent our point of no return. You in your seats, stand as a beacon for california and as a beacon to all of the nation. When we talk about this sort of preservation, it is so tied to biodiversity. Its not just restoring the water, its restoring the path that the salmon take. And sometimes when deciding budgets, it might be hard to do the cost benefit analysis. But what youre doing today is prevention. That could return 110 billion, which is whats projected for preventing flooding and creating Climate Resilience. So when you think about restoring the water and the pathways of the salmon, what youre doing with this traditional ecological knowledge is youre building Climate Resilience in the watersheds there are two futures, and one of them could save you 110 billion, as well as winning the hearts and minds of the people here. So as a longtime resident and also part of the tech coalition, thank you for your time and your consideration. Thank you. Okay good afternoon. My name is michael frost. Im with restore the delta, and i want to start out by saying a couple truths out there. You know, biodiversity is a real wealth of this planet, and humanity does not exist separately and distinctly from the environment. And throughout the 20th century, we have been sold an illusion. And were now quarter the way through the 21st century. And its very clear that much of the underwriting and much of the work that weve done is badly flawed. We are at extinction levels of salmon who are the leading indicator of the health of not only this city, but this region and the whole west coast of the United States and the puc s support of the voluntary agreements is rapacious, greedy, nonsensical and suicidal. We are at extinction levels of fish and all the way down the food chain, down to the microorganisms. The good news here is that if we outsource some of this work to the ecosystem, they can do a lot of this work for us, thats what the previous speaker was talking about. That resilience piece. You know, were in the back side of the 20th century pyramid scheme and its not pretty. Biodiversity must be valued fresh waters, role as a lifeblood of this region needs to be valued. And it is truly heartbreaking for me to see farmed Atlantic Salmon on sale at Fishermans Wharf and in the restaurants of San Francisco. When we are sitting literally in the heart of a biodiversity hotspot and the entire world, more fresh water comes out of the San Francisco bay than any other estuary on the western side of either of the american continents. Thank you. Okay. Hi, im daphne frost, water is life. Freshwater flows to the ocean are valuable for fish, wildlife, and people. By thank you. Thank you. My name is charlene woodcock. The San Francisco Public Utilities commission needs to acknowledge the inadequacy of voluntary agreements and commit now to the state water boards bay delta Water Quality control plan. Rather than planning for an increase in water use, the commission needs to require california industry to achieve more effective Water Conservation. Residents have already proven their capacity to conserve water. The sfpuc. S failure to accept the 2018 bay delta Water Quality control plan update is threatening the health of the San Francisco bay delta, the delta and the once great salmon fishery humans enjoyed over eons is cannot survive without a greater, greater flow of water from the contributing rivers. As the delta and its fisheries enjoyed before the city began and the state began to divert and manipulate the water flows for industrial agriculture, it is unrealistic to expect that agribusiness and other corporations created solely to make profit would reduce that profit by voluntarily accepting lower water quantities. It is time for the sfpuc to represent the Public Interest and protect our great delta and its fisheries, for the public and for future generations. We cannot afford to ignore the Climate Crisis any longer, and californias industrial agriculture is a major contributor to our carbon footprint. With its gas burning, heavy equipment, deadly herbicides, insecticides, toxic chemical fertilizers in addition to its massive use of our water, 40 and up to 60 in a dry year in the face of the Climate Crisis, we. Thank you very much. Hello, commissioners. I bit of a speech or script. So im going to go quick. My name is jacob evans. Im an organizer with california ahsha. As you may have seen, we just had a rally outside of city hall asking the puc to wake up and stand up as better stewards of the environment. Sierra Club California has a few suggestions for how the commission can do this. First off, to accept and not appeal the recent decision in the sfpuc lawsuit against the state water board, the spooks antienvironmental lawsuit has delayed the state water board from implanting updates to the baydelta plan for the last five years, all while salmon populations delta ecosystem and the communities that depend on them are capsizing. The sap also drop its support for the antienvironmental voluntary agreements. Number two, reevaluating the design drought to create an appropriate plan that recognizes that the sfpuc will be able to manage a drought under the baydelta plan. Sfpuc design drought anticipates an 8. 5 year mega drought that could occur once every 25,000 years by moving just one year from this plan, the sfpuc will still have the strictest drought Management Plan in the state, and it will be able to anticipate the impacts of the baydelta plan without fear of running out of water. And third, the puc must also protect its ratepayers. Doing so will ensure the long tum Financial Sustainability of the commission. Sfpuc repairs already pay the highest water rates in the state by planning to triple combined water and wastewater bills over 20 years, and to implement further rate increases to fund alternative water supply projects. The sfpuc is ensuring a spiral that will result in financial ruin while harming ratepayers. As rates increase, water demand will decrease. The sfpuc must reevaluate its alternative water supply plan, protecting the delta and ratepayers alongside the sfpuc water supply is possible and we encourage the commission to reconsider their actions against the environment. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. My name is mary butterwick. Im a resident of San Francisco. At several meetings, members of the public have asked the commission to revisit its extremely conservative 8. 5 year design drought. The primary tool that sfpuc uses for managing flow releases is. This policy is particularly damaging to the riverine environment during dry periods when aquatic life need adequate flows the most. Again, i urge the commission to reduce the length of the design drought by one year. Apply reasonable demand projections, and then present the results to the public. These answers, these actions would go a long way toward addressing the perceived water supply needs and hopefully would facilitate a meaningful dialog on the instream flows needed to restore and maintain a sustainable population of fall run chinook salmon in the Tuolumne River. Last month, the Sacramento Superior Court ruled in favor of the state water boards 2018 bay delta plan update. In light of this ruling, i urge the commission not to appeal the ruling, but rather work with the state to ensure flows in the tuolumne are consistent with the instream flow standards adopted by the state. Weve already lost over five years of progress in implementing these flow standards. The proposed Tuolumne River voluntary agreement cannot achieve the objectives of the bay delta plan. It is essentially a delay tactic by water agencies to avoid the difficult decisions regarding the reasonable use of water in an over appropriated river system, their claim that they can produce more fish with less water is contrary to science and common sense. San francisco residents such as myself, cared deeply about the environment. We look to the commission to be responsible stewards of the river. Look, commissioners, my name is scott webb, and im here representing the bay Area Environmental ngo, the resource renewal institute. Im also the vice chair of the bay chapter of the sierra club and a San Francisco resident. Im here to stand in solidarity and support the positions mentioned by my colleagues at the Tuolumne River trust, golden gate salmon association, the sierra club and others to urge the sfpuc to begin to prioritize the health of our rivers in your jurisdiction. I look forward to engaging with commissioners and staff further. Thank you so much. Thank you. So id like to share some photos. Okay. Im cindy charles, board member of the Tuolumne River trust and the california sport fishing protection alliance. Im a native san franciscan and still live here. Ive spoken to the commission several times over the years about the declining salmon populations in the tuolumne and the need to keep more water in the river. The situation for the salmon is worse than ever, with the salmon season to be closed for a second year in a row. I come from a San Francisco family with a history of recreational salmon fishing. Here are photos of my father and his my uncle, his brother with their salmon catch standing outside 25 virgil street in San Francisco. Its in the mission district. Heres a photo of my mother with her fish caught in monterey bay before i was born. And the last photo is my father, in his 80s, with a fine fat chinook salmon. In my youth, i fished with my father for salmon. Given the collapsed state of the salmon fishery today, that traditional activity in our family is not really possible anymore. What has San Francisco done to save the salmon . Not much. Being opposed to higher environmental flows for fish with which they desperately required. You need to roll back that totally artificial design drought scenario of eight years to bring reality into your projection, you need to revise demand projections to account for the decreasing water demand trends, and not endlessly seek water rate increases from us citizens who have done our part in Water Conservation. You need to stop opposing the implementation of the approved baydelta plan in support increased flows on the Tuolumne River habitat improvements can only do so much and are not a replacement for giving life water. We dont need the voluntary agreements. So that concludes my comments. Thanks for this opportunity and thank you, commissioner maxwell for your service and donna as well over the years. Appreciate it. Hi, my name is patty regier and i grew up in stockton and fresno, and now i live in palo alto, which i feel very lucky to live in, i remember swimming with my grandpa in stockton in the water and, and my family also were farmers and, and now i have a grandchild. And thats why im here today. And im just asking you to think about your legacy. I was just at hetch hetchy and some of your names are on this plaque, and your names are going to be there forever. Your legacy is there. And you need to ask yourself, and im asking myself, what do i what future do i want . And, and i hope that you go along and dont fight the lawsuits and you just go and do your best to provide clean water, clean air for everyone and enough fish and enough water for farmers and everyone. And so i hope that that is your legacy, and i hope thats the future that you want, because thats the future id like. Thank you. Hello, commissioners. My name is glen rogers. Im a Landscape Architect and i am a member of csun. I write articles for the west side observer. You are going to be mentioned in this article. That being said, i would like to bring your attention to mill valley and the mill valley park that they have where the salmon is the Guiding Force as to how many people come to the park there and how often they pick up the garbage. This determines the health of the salmon, and they have more and more salmon coming there every year. Wouldnt it be a surprise if we could do Something Like that ourselves . With the Tuolumne River, instead of having a design, drought that is never really, in operation . Please bring your attention to the fact that San Francisco has 36, business vacancies downtown. We dont need more water. There so, lake merced or palmer said, has 13 vacancy rates. We dont need more water there either. And as San Francisco has becomes the birthplace of the mobile worker, its quite possible were not going to be having a lot of people moving to San Francisco. So in the future. That being said, when we do have, a need for more people, toilets only use one gallon of water. The washing machines used to use 50, now they use 15. So all of this being said, i would like you to consider the fact that your design drought is folly. Thank you. Hello there. My name is cynthia cortez. I am the policy analyst with restore the delta, California Water Management System was built on the foundation of racist policies and displaced tribes from their ancestral homelands. And redlined communities of color in the most disinvested communities. His this the sfpuc s contribution to excessive diversions from the delta supports that system that is harming marginalized communities and has historically excluded communities of color bearing the brunt of environmental degradation and water scarcity. Although the sfpuc serves the city, city, and county of San Francisco, its Water Management decisions and management of the hetch hetchy has impacts throughout the broader delta ecosystem. Water diversions are causing the proliferation of habs. New research. New Research Suggests that. But they are not only a Water Quality issue, but are also becoming an air quality issue for communities that reside along waterways that, have a history of habs in the waterways. Im here to ask the sfpuc to rethink its current Management Plan and be a better neighbor to communities that rely on the healthy delta, and im also here to invite the commission to tour the delta to better understand the communities, or at least the community that im from, and the impacts that your decisions and your management is having on such community. Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners. Thank you for your time. And a special hello to my former supervisor, Sophie Maxwell. Thank you for your time. My name is michelle lee. Im a 35 year resident of bayviewHunters Point. And as you know, this is where for all our affluent or 80 of our affluent ends up in our neighborhood. And this is an Environmental Justice issue. And also, im a, educator for our Community Garden program, and currently im working with the San Francisco conservation corps. And together with our program at north ridge coop Community Garden, we have received grants from the puc that have really helped us. But as i become aware of this issue of the release of a massive amounts of effluent, and we know what you know from, the sewage Wastewater Treatment plant that have damaged greater damaged the bay. And we are the gatekeepers of this whole huge delta. And we must remember that the Tuolumne River needs that water, and it needs more flow to successfully provide for the biodiversity, not just of the winged and the finned and the four legged, but also of us humans. And i find it very contradictory me to work with youth and teach them about the functioning of the Public Utilities commission at the same time as the decisions that you that the commission has been making or the puc has been making are very challenging and harmful, and i want to be able to tell the students that i work with that you have the capacity. Thank you. If youre interested in providing comment on item number four, please raise your hand to speak. Do we have any callers with their hands raised . Madam secretary, theres one caller that wish to be recognized. Thank you. Caller, i have unmuted your line. You have two minutes. Hello, commissioners. My name is jennifer vattaru. I spoke at the sfpuc meeting last month on march 26th, regarding the pierce street outfall, and the meeting adjourned before i could respond to the claim, mr. Herrera made commissioner ajani about my unresponsiveness to mr. Robinson, supposed outreach. This is simply not true. I have i actually have not heard from mr. Robinson outside of a single email he sent to me almost a year ago, on may 23rd at 5 55 p. M. And i quote mr. Robinson, i have connected with our wastewater Enterprise Communications team, and they will be adding you to mailing lists that are used to send information on resources to get rain ready. Commissioners, this is the only communication i have received being added to a mailing list. Mr. Robinson has been unresponsive to all my requests for information that mr. Herrera said he would provide to me in the puc meeting last year, in may 2023. Ive been to several puc meetings. As you guys know, ive sent emails to you, the commission and mr. Robinson, plus, i have made Public Public records requests for these reports. I have not received any information despite my numerous requests. I would appreciate your help getting the report that mr. Herrera claims to have regarding the pierce street outfall to both me and you, the commission. So theres no further confusion here. Thank you very much for your time. Callers. Thank you. Caller madam secretary, there are no callers in the queue. Okay then it is now closed, before we go to the next item, id like to thank everybody, that took the time to come down here to do Public Comment and to the, very much, say very succinctly so much that is on your mind. And we believe me, we all listen to you very hard and we only thank you for coming down. Thank you very much. Next item, please. Next item is item five. Report of the general manager. Thank you, madam secretary. Item five a is a water and wastewater Customer Assistance Program update. Deirdre andrews will be presenting. You thought throughout the presentation. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to provide an update on the sfpuc Customer Assistance Program. Before i begin the update, id like to provide background. The Customer Assistance Program started in 2004 to mitigate the Financial Impact of the new sewer rate increase on lower Income Customers. It consisted of a 15 discount for sewer charges on all qualifying Single Family residential customers. In july of 2005, the discount increased to 35. It was amended in july of 2007 and a 15 discount on to add a 15 discount on water charges. In february of 2012, the program was audited and in response to audit findings, we increased Program Oversight and governance the pandemic necessitated necessitated changes that included a standardized 25 discount for water and wastewater accounts, online enrollment and income, self certification. We also approved a plan to contract a consultant to perform post enrollment verification of household incomes. The discounts were changed into 2022, but changes. But due to challenges in the contracting process post enrollment, Income Verification has yet to be implemented. Less than a year later, this Commission Approved changes to use area Median Income to determine eligibility instead of the 200 of federal Poverty Level that had been the standard since program inception. We also introduced a tiered discount, increasing the discount to 40 for customers with the greatest need. These changes were operationalized in july of 2023. Also in july of 2023, we identified and set aside a non ratepayer Funding Source for the program and in order to ensure that resources would be available for san franciscans with the most need implemented, an Income Verification process at application utilizing the Human Services Agency Database as the primary qualifier and offering customers the choice to opt for Income Verification through transunion Income Verification at application ensures that we are exercising responsible stewardship of the resources dedicated to this program. Prior to utilizing the tool of transunion, applicants selfcertified their income. Transunion is not used as a credit check. I am privileged to lead the Customer Services bureau, where sfpuc. S Customer Assistance Program often referred to as cap, is operated. Our billing teams six member high bill unit administers the program. This unit is also responsible for administering leak alerts, leak allowance adjustments, the flow Factor Program to include monthly hearings, meter testing, and incoming customer calls to the Customer Contact center and the billing unit. The Billing Units primary responsibility is getting timely and accurate bills to approximately 180,000 customer accounts each month. Id like to thank and acknowledge the Leadership Team of the dedicated staff who administered the cap program. Customer accounts Operations Manager john icu and billy manager, jeweler, as well as high bill supervisor pauline lauren. These leaders have effectively managed the program through multiple pandemic related transitions, and have worked to stabilize the program and sponsor billy establish governance around eligibility. We partner with our Communications Team in the external Affairs Bureau on Outreach Campaigns to promote cap. Jessica boker leads communication campaigns and Community Outreach for the program. The puc has been able to take advantage of the pandemic related California Water and wastewater rates Relief Program or swap under swap customers. Pandemic period arrearages are forgiven. Acceptance of swap funds include restrictions on collection activities, and as we are awaiting swap funds, sfpuc has not resumed collections shut offs or liens for nonpayment of water bills since march of 2020. Operationalizing pandemic related changes while also maintaining Program Integrity was challenging. We successfully overcame the challenge to continue to have an online application, while also verifying eligibility by utilizing transunion, the data required for eligibility includes sensitive personal information such as Social Security numbers, income data, or w2s. The cybersecurity risk for the puc to receive this kind of pii online and digitally store it on its network is too great. We considered several options before contracting with transunion. Our online application allows customers to opt in for transunion verification. Transunion then passes us sanitized data, so pii is never on the puc network. When applicants are denied, customers must provide hard copy Income Verification, which we handle in compliance with pii data storage requirements. This process protects the puc from liability for breach of pii, while also providing the most streamlined application and approval process available for customers. As we formed a crossdepartmental cap work group that meets quarterly, our goal is to analyze program data and collaborate to make data informed recommendations for future changes to the program. This slide reflects data through the end of Second Quarter customers can opt to apply online with transunion Income Verification or by paper, 90 choose to apply online. 24 of denials in the first two quarters were from customers already receiving discounts. They likely responded to Marketing Campaigns hoping for additional discounts. Another 15 of denials were for accounts that are not eligible for cap. Although we have not explored the reason that customers do not completely or correctly fill out the application, that is an area that the workgroup can investigate further. All customers who are denied are sent. A letter provides an explanation for the denial and given instructions on how to appeal. Each denial letter includes instructions for translation assistance in multiple languages. Although the cap application is available in eight languages, denial letters are in english. The cap work group can also investigate options to provide translation support to csb. Applications are typically processed within 15 days of application submission. Applications deemed ineligible have 30 days to appeal. The reasons for initial denials vary. Staff go the extra mile to assist customers who contact us. After an initial denial. We work hard to ensure that those who qualify get the appropriate discount. As a result, 63 of appeals are approved. Additional investigation is required to determine why customers choose not to provide the required documentation after it is requested. Our financial statistics show that we have the resources to fund the program. We anticipate approximately 4. 5 million in cap it cap discounts. This fiscal year. Fluctuations in Program Enrollment data could be attributed to a variety of reasons to include the technical resets required each time we implement program changes, changes in the economy or customers moving in and out of San Francisco, stability of the program will allow the data to settle, providing a more reliable data set from which to learn and make decisions about where we Place Program emphasis and resources. Youll see one example on the next slide. This slide shows that most customers are receiving the 40 discount, and that our efforts have been successful in reaching customers and zip codes that typically have more households where that are eligible for low income assistance. However, the data shows that we could benefit by designing a targeted Outreach Campaign in the bayview Hunters Point area. Looking at data over a longer period of time or other data points will yield more actionable possibilities. I want to highlight the significant efforts our Communications Partners and external affairs have and are making to ensure customer outreach and accessibility to the program. The equity and Community Outreach team ran a large scale multilingual Outreach Campaign to promote the launch of the 2023 cap. We focused on multilingual outreach and low income bipoc immigrant and Environmental Justice communities and included materials in eight languages. Outreach included specific tactics to reach out southeast communities, including radio, newspapers, newsletter and banners. We also geo completed geo targeted social media, google ads shown more than 600,000 times, multilingual bill inserts in 120,000 bills, and multilingual eblasts to all residential customers with emails on file. We placed 1000 ads on busses in four languages and shared communication kits with the board of supervisors and hundreds of Community Based organizations in eight languages. The Communications Team also manned tables at Key Community events and custom, with custom posters and handouts and relevant languages. This campaign has yielded a great deal of engagement from our communities, resulting in over 25,000 visits to the cap web pages since the launch of the program. Thanks to these campaigns, cap enrollment has grown 200 over three years to more than 6700 customers. We do not have a confirmed date when collection activities will resume. When they do, we will simultaneously implement our policy for customers below 80 area Median Income to apply for an exemption from shutoffs if they can demonstrate extenuating circumstances. Extenuating circumstances include death of a spouse, partner or family member. Divorce or loss of income or employment, disability or injury, medical treatment expenses or other circumstances impacting the customers ability to pay. Documentation will be required and, if approved, will exempt the customer from shut off or lean for six months. In conclusion, this program is the recipient of a great deal of energy and support from sfpuc leadership and our customers benefit our leadership ability to find a Funding Source and to ensure proper governance are a testament to our care, compassion and commitment to those in San Francisco who may not be able to pay their bill. We are also ensuring responsible government by establishing parameters so that funds will be available to those most in need. We are proud of this commitment and honored to be the team responsible for its proper administration. We welcome your continued feedback and suggestions for improvement. Lastly, im delighted to share a thank you note received from a customer who gets the cap discount and took the time to write and mail a handwritten note to share their appreciation for the staff who assisted them. Thank you. Thank you, miss andrews, for that very thorough report. One data piece that i noticed on there was that after a first time rejection that, the second, the second, whack at all that stuff, two thirds of the folks ended up getting the benefit out of it. So that secondary piece after denial was , interesting for me. Just something to point out. So it sounds like youre pretty thoroughly in that. Okay, commissioner ajami, thank you. That was very informative. I really appreciated i have a question for you, how many of these people will apply are living in rental units . I understand that thats not the audience youre looking for. Since theres sometimes these, rental units are, you know, the landlord pays for the water, so its sort of hidden in there, sort of hoa or the rent, but i was wondering if, like, was there any, like, did you find some people who didnt realize that they cant apply, but they were in rental units and they applied . Im just trying to understand how many people fall in that category. Those could be in the people who the number of folks who apply for the program. But they were not eligible. But i dont have specific data to, to your question, but we can certainly find out. And i think it would be very useful to find that out, partly because i think right now a lot of rental units. Do you know the landlord, as i said, covers the rent, covers the water bill, but the reality is the water and wastewater, rates as they change that impacts the rents for people as well. Right. So its kind of like thats cost that gets, transferred to the, tenants, throughout through the rental process. So and often we have hard time catching those groups in this process. So im wondering if there is a creative way we can come up with that can help us to figure out how we can incorporate those people in these programs without necessarily making it super complicated. But making sure we can access i mean, we have a lot of multiunit buildings, a lot of them, and a lot of them are filled with, renters. And, you know, and it is important to be able to, you know, access a lot of those people as well. Okay thank you. And thank you for all of this information and the very extensive outreach. And, the language accessibility that you provide to customers. As im interested in a little more information on your appeals, you had a slide. President paulson mentioned it where 63 of the appeals are approved. Do you can you give us a sense of why what sort of went wrong that at the first step, that it was at the appeal level that their, application was approved . Is there, some better ability to work with people individually . Is there more information that they can provide at the appeals . Why they could yeah, there could be a variety of reasons why the initial denial happened. Again, the letter that we send out when customers get a denial includes instructions for us, for them to contact us and for us to give them additional assistance and the additional assistance that the staff provides is a testament to why were able to approve so many after the fact. It could be a variety of reasons. Maybe they didnt provide all the information, just a variety of reasons. So its really that individual help at the appeal level. Yes, maam. And i wonder, do you see a way of translating that help to the first level, or is it really hard to track that until it sort of comes to your attention . Well, we certainly do everything we can. Thats why we, you know, we created an online application. We provide assistance, you know, when theyre community events. Were trying to help, you know, we do everything we can. And again, even the quarterly review that we have, were always solutioning for, you know, how can we do things better, so were always looking for ways to improve, but if we can, we will. Well certainly continue to try to work on that. Yeah. It sounds like youre doing a really thorough job. Thank you. Maxwell. Thank you. Oops. Thank you. And it was good talking to you yesterday. We did go over some of those things. So thank you very much for the additional information, and that is that first of all, we dont, the denial letters are not in the language in which the application was written, but thats something that you all are are looking into doing changing and, and doing that. Well, i think we can certainly look at options, like i said, in the, in the quarterly work group and find the resources to try to figure out where we how we can probably do that because it could be a program that you could start and see how it works. And and, you know, and then continue later if you find it to be helpful. And it makes a difference because, on some of the information you sent me, there was 150 people that that, were denied because of documentation. And the documentation could be because it was not in their language. So it would be helpful to do that. And as, commissioner stacy mentioned, and it seems 60, i mean, over half if i were a teacher, if i were a student, and my teacher graded my paper and gave me, you know, this kind of grade, and then i come back and all of a sudden im way over 50 of my questions were right. I would have a little problem with that. And i and i think we need to really and its expensive because thats another contact. And every contact we have to make is more money. And so if were looking at efficiency and if were looking at trying to get the most out of our money that we have, and we also as i remember said, we would be more than willing to do more money if we had more people. So we need to really work on that because everything is going up. 8 is going up in our water, pga is going up. These are the most vulnerable people. These are the people that we have to take care of. And im sure that if our ratepayers knew that these were the people we were taking care of and not using 2 million, that they would probably appreciate that because at least those people will be able to pay something. So i think thats for me, extremely important. And i also want to say that you all do a tremendous amount of work. This is not easy. And were expecting you to do have 50 million hands and do all that, but we do because we feel like its part of your job. And you all do it. And so i think the things that were talking about here are probably not big tweaks, but are extremely important. And another concern i have, is the shutoffs, as you you say that youre not going to. But when i read this, it says youre going to resume in july. And so what should i believe that youre going to resume in july or that youre not. So we know shut offs since march 2020 resumption planned in july of 2024. So either you are or youre not. And what should we believe . We are awaiting swap funds from the state and the swap funds have restrictions on when we could resume shutoffs. So after we received the swap funds, then well be able to have a more firm date about when shutoffs could resume, when shutoffs do resume, there are a lot of processes that we need to put in place and we havent, you know, so before those so you will a lot of those processes are things that you can spell out so that the commission will have an opportunity to go over that and to look at those processes with you. You said before you shut off, youre going to have some other process that youre going to go through. We are we have a process by which we shut off. So for instance, we might we dont have the capacity to resume shutoffs for residential customers and commercial customers at the same time. So well probably have a graduated process by which we resume shut offs when we are able, which we dont have a date. I guess my concern is did you did you know that the funds that youre expecting, dont allow you to shut off . Did you know that . I mean, yes. Well, then why would you put resumed planned in july of 2024, if you know that you were going for the funds and they would not allow you to do that . We originally thought we were going to receive those funds by january, and we are still waiting past january. Yes, maam. I see were still awaiting those funds. And so january, february, march, april, may, june, july. You thought that in five months after you received those funds, that youd be able to resume turning people off in five months . We were going to resume shutoffs after the restrictions of receiving those funds allowed us to do so. And you would assume that that would be in july. We assumed that we would be able to. So that would be five months after you received the funds. So when you receive the funds, i guess my question is when you once you receive the funds, are you going to give another five months and then, start resuming shutoffs or what . How is that going to work . Maam, i dont have a specific, answer for you at this time, other than what ive already stated that we, once we receive those funds, then we have the ability to resume such shut offs. Were not doing that right away. We have a plan. We have to graduate. How we do that, resumption of shut offs. Okay, i see, i hear you, but i, you know, when you shut off water, water is life. You can get a candle. And if they shut off your pg and e, and that has happened to some of us, but water is very different. And so thats why im concerned. And thats why i continue to ask about that, because that is life. And were talking about the most vulnerable people. Theyre already at 50 of medium or between 50 and 81. So youre already burdened. And then cap customers are not subject to shut off if theyre in the program. Okay. But out of a thousand, we denied 7300 people. So that i mean, yeah, 731 people. So that means, you know, and as i look in, in, in your, you gave us the calendar and the Program Participants have gone down since october and so. Well, i mean, you know, you have programs is monitored quarterly by management financial summary for cap july, youre at six 6700 august. You had 6800, september you had 6900. And then october you had a october. It starts going down. You have 6800, and then november you have 6700, and then december you have 6600. And i think you alluded to that, but im not im not sure. And so it looks like in october things started going down. So you had fewer people. And thats thats what im talking to. Yes, cap, but, you know, youre going down instead of it going up, and you did more outreach. So thats my concern. Unless im reading this wrong, the enrollment is continuing to increase. Well, by this that you gave us this financial summary, it does not look like that. If you look at the financial summary that you gave us, it does not look like its increasing. In fact, in july it was 67. And then in december it was 66. So thats a decrease, if i may, i think its always one of those things where when you overlay a governance over a process that its not meant to deter, but it is meant to provide some level of control over the eligibility, in this case, its Program Eligibility over the process. Its not our intent to reduce the applications to the program. But when you do lay some monitoring, overlay monitoring, you will receive a reduction, lets say from the original volumes of applications. But thats not to say that were not increasing the enrollments into the program. At the same time, i do want to highlight that of the appeals that were received, i was looking at this earlier. Out of 1000 applications, owns 728 were im sorry, excuse me. Out of 1000 applications, where are the totals . There we are. Sorry, 728 were denied. And of that figure for the appeals that came in were a smaller subset that was 67. So im going to speak very frankly. You know, if someones denied and they truly feel that they should be reviewed and they have an application that is eligible, they should definitely appeal. And in that process, yes, we will work with them openly and ask for information. And in this case, we have had success. We have ensured that 63 of those, im sorry, 42 of those customers were enrolled back into the program. But if you look at the total applications that went in, those 42 only represent a subset of the 1000 that applied. Its i mean, this im really oversimplifying this, but the reality is, is that internal controls are put there for a reason. Youre going to see a limited performance. Youre going whether someone is meant to apply for the program. They will if theyre eligible, they will apply. If they were not eligible, they wont. And part of the things the reason why i had to stand up here is that i truly believe in the Customer Service bureaus work here and we need to do this. I cant stand by here as a cfo and say that im not going to overlay a monitoring process over this program and were doing the right thing. Were having successful performance of the program. Were looking at 4. 5 million for this fiscal year alone, and we have every intent of continuing and increasing the outreach as the data shows, we have some work to do and some of the zip codes and districts in San Francisco will continue to work with our partners in the external Affairs Group to get this work done. I understand that and thank you. However, when i look at, 700, when i look at 73 denial, thats concerns me over a thousand and you over half, most of the people were denied. Now there might be reasons for that. But but i and i appreciate that. Saying that youre going to look into that should be a concern when and if i hear you saying, yes, were concerned about that, were going to look into that because, yeah, i mean, certainly we want you to be responsible, but i mean, i would rather you be a little irresponsible with people than we do with other contracts. I mean, we sit, we sit here all the time and we know what happens. And so when it comes to people, when contractors do something, well, we go back. But when it comes to people, the people that we serve , theyve got to do everything we got to. Weve got to be a little bit understanding here. And if youre going to deny people, then you should at least deny them in the language and give them an opportunity. And i to understand you agree. I do agree. We will look into that. I appreciate that very much, but can i may i jump in . Yeah. Commissioner, if you heard what . Heard what, deirdre had to say, i think it was in response to your question about, why did you have the denials . And then you go through the appeal and you get the. And what . And i think it was commissioner stacys point. What was the reason . Right and some of that was precisely because, because of people might not have filled something out. Right. Or and our people worked out with them through the process to, to, ensure that there was a better application that is proactive work done, not necessarily because, well, you know, we miss something. Its because, deirdres team is working with them to try to get a application perfected so that it is in the appropriate form and justifiable to give them the relief that they want. But to your point is, there are there things that we can do better on the front end . I mean, sometimes its unavoidable that youre only going to get it when someone files something. But that is something in terms of our outreach and whatnot that hopefully were going to be able to excuse me, get folks educate them through the process before they actually go through the process of filing an application. And thats something that i think deirdre was saying were going to constantly try and learn from and look into. Well, i appreciate you only have six people. And so im looking at the they only have theres a small team of these people and they have an awful lot of other things to do. And im looking at that as well. And so thats why its important that we do what we maybe we need to go back to the drawing board and do look at the application, look how were doing it. So you dont have to go a second and third, point of contact because thats more time, more effort, you know, and, and i just want to reiterate, i hope i said this in the very beginning, that i appreciate what you do and i appreciate the work, but theres some issues we have here that we can do better on, and were bringing it to your attention. And you helped us with it, gave us the information, and now we can bring your attention. You said youre working on those things is because we brought it to your attention that youre working on those things. Its because somebody called that. Youre working on it. Thats good. Thats not a bad thing. Thats a good thing. I appreciate your your compliments. One thing that we can say thats a very good positive is that we found a way with such a small team to process these applications. Weve done some research of other jurisdictions and municipalities that have done this, and a lot of it is by hand. And, you know, long, long time either. No, no verification process or long processing times. And so working with transunion and also with hrsas database, weve looked at a way to bring in able to process more applications to kind of stop the bottleneck if there was one. And were continuing to do that. And so we appreciate your support. And so im sorry if i maybe got a little, you know, excited earlier. Im glad you did. You know that thats how i am, right . Thats good. We love what we do. Absolutely. Its okay that we have this exchange because its a good thing were all on the same team. We really are. Were just trying to look into it and see it better, thats all. But we do meet quarterly on this information. And so we only have six months of data thus far. You know were its a march data is being compiled right now. And so i think well have another quarterly deirdre soon. And so hopefully at the end of this fiscal year, well have a full years information and get our plan ready for the next year. Yeah. And start tweaking it, making it better. Perfect. Thank you. Well, thank you for thank you for the report. Thank you for pushing i know thank you for pushing. And, and well look forward to other reports. Commissioner ajami. A couple of things, actually, i realized i, first of all, i want to point out one thing that you said. I think out of that 73 denial, only 21 were the ones that you need to go back to and see why they didnt fill out the form properly. Right. Because everybody else had there was a very specific reason they were sent a letter and said, you know, you this doesnt apply to you. Thats correct. Right. So that number becomes much smaller and much more doable. Maybe. I mean, i do recognize theres so much else needs to be done, but i think that kind of its a it looks much better than, it sounds if you sort of dig into the data a little bit. But i think to commissioner maxwells point, i think its important for everybody to know we care, we want to do the right thing. And i know you guys want to do the right thing. So im not going to go down that path. But i think, and i want to reiterate one thing that she said, which is we are all in the same team. Were just looking at the same thing from different angles. So we have a chance. Youre in it. Youre outside. Yeah. Which is which is which gives us a chance to see Different Things. Right one thing i want to go back to the shut off discussion. I actually pointed, had it written, i forgot to ask you. You had mentioned. Now i cant even find the slide. Here it is. It says, accounts over 50. And i was sort of, like, surprised. Is it, sort of, these are the people who owe more than 50. Is that what youre talking . 50 is a threshold from where we are going. Okay so, do we i dont know how this would work, and its just like something just came to me. Do we even know why people, you know, have fallen behind . Have not paid . Has there been any sort of, outreach to better understand that, you know, just and i do realize there are so many different notices that goes out, but they also recognize the fact that as these things accumulate, all of a sudden from 50, you end up with a 3,000 bill that becomes much harder to pay versus something very small. So im wondering, some people, you know , how people fall in that category, who are these people . The and i dont know if you have done any sort of looking into that to see, how these accounts are, you know, mapped within the city. Are there things that we need to Pay Attention to . If you havent, it would be good to kind of have a sense of who these people are, i dont i dont at this point, i dont i mean, i recognize that slightly less than two years weve not shut off since ive been here. Yeah, but i am sort of data driven leader, which is part of the reason why i wanted to stabilize this program so we can actually look at data to make informed decisions, so we havent resumed shut offs. You know, when we do, well certainly be looking at the data to try to determine whats going on with those customers. I will say that the leadership of the puc certainly is focused on this. And so there are programs and external affairs already before weve even begun to shut off, already looking at ways to try to mitigate shut offs, we also have programs that we do even the Customer Services bureau, to try to mitigate shut offs by doing proactive outreach to customers. Before we even get to the point where we could shut off. So we are were very focused on that as a puc, and if when may be inevitably shut offs do begin, you know, well certainly be looking at the data to try to determine, you know, what ways we can mitigate that. Thats fantastic. I appreciate that, and i think i would also want to say, it is important to have a governance structure on every program, because if you want to make sure things are done right, and we want to make sure this money goes to all the right people, and i think thats really important. The second thing i mentioned, this, i cant remember if i think you were, providing us a Quarterly Report last time when i mentioned this, and i believe weve, i asked this question and the answer was pga does handle our data System Program at the power side. No. Do we do we do that . Im looking at miss okay. So i would love to see if we can have a map of the data System Program on the energy side and one thats on the water side. And how these two map into each other. And the reason i say this is because, first of all, if we can have people fill out one application for both, why not . Right . Simplifies your life, simplifies everybodys life. Right, the second thing is, and i do recognize people who are getting their bills from pga, they are the one. They are the ones who are handling this. So we have only our own customers to, sort of work through. The second thing is some of those renters that i mentioned, they do actually pay for their own electricity, right . Because they have we do do submetering for electricity, but we dont do submetering for water for various reasons. So that might actually also give us a sense of what are the areas we can focus on when it comes to renters that might need help . When youre talking about water and wastewater and the projection of where things are going. So since you are so into data, i am putting it on your on your plate. Those are very different. Theres a lot that youre saying there and i cant commit to that because theres a lot of Different Things going on. And i dont know that i have the time or, you know, to explain all the differences between power and water and how those programs work, that they are very, very different. I do recognize theyre different, but the needs are probably very similar. Right. So thats why we are trying to kind of see if, i mean, even to get to that subset of, of water customers youre talking about that dont have an account. Those are thats even a very, very steep hill to try to climb, to try to figure that out, honestly. I mean, we but you heard weve certainly heard, you know, youre not the first person to say that. And we and you know, thats a very, very difficult, thing to do. And i know we do the best we can. Yeah. And i would say, look, i think the key is not for us to have that in three months, right . This can be we can have short tum projects and long tum projects, short tum goals and long tum goals. Some of these things are easy. You just need to click on a button and then some of something gets calculated. The other ones are much more complicated because we have to think about like location of a meter, location of account. Are these things matching . Like theres so many Different Things that needs to happen . I do recognize that. But its still this can be something that we can put in our buckets of medium terme strategy of trying to get get to a place that we have a little better understanding of, sort of the whole holistic need of our community. And i would love for us to kind of look into that if possible, does it need to be next three months . Does it need to be six months . But maybe it can be a long like a one year goal for us to look into that so that i would love to for us to be able to look at in that. And another thing is, you know, i know shutoffs are not a popular thing to go to because not just because we dont want people to have access to water, but also it has Water Quality implications for us. We really like i mean, as a if some people who operate the system do not want to do shut offs because you can have Water Quality challenges. So we do want people to have access to water, but we also want to make sure people who cant pay are helped to be to pay their bills. But people who can pay actually pay their share due. So thats thats an important thing to recognize. Thank you. Im going to press a button and recognize commissioner rivera. Thank you so much, president paulson, thank you, miss andrews, for a very comprehensive report and igniting this robust conversation. I love it, so theres one thing i did want to mention. And this is kind of more of my personal, perspective. And you know, i work a lot with veterans groups, and im just wondering, do we have an accommodation . I know that that these, this program is based on the 0 to 50 average Median Income, but do we have an accommodation for disabled veterans, while they might not qualify under the Median Income, you know, they do have of, additional costs that they have to live with. And, you know, as i said, i work with a lot of veterans, disabled veterans groups, and it would be great. I mean, im speaking more on a socially minded position, right now to include them into this program, and i would be open to any discussion about it. And im not sure what other other commissioners feel or think, but i just wanted to mention that. Okay. Point taken. We know its not. Its not specifically highlighted in the program now, but its certainly something we can think about. I would appreciate that, maam. Thank you. Okay. Great. Commissioners, any other, comment questions . I just want to say thank you. Thank you for the time. Thank you all for all that you do. This is big. And thank you. Thank you again. Thank you. And thank you for your you you youve been here only two and a half years. It seems like you have really come in with both feet. So thank you. Not quite two years. Itll be two years in august. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, lets open item five a to Public Comment, please. If you have any remote callers please raise your hand if you wish to provide. Comment on item five. A do we have any members of the public present to provide comment on this item . Please come to the microphone if you want to provide comment. Seeing none, do we have any callers with their hands raised . Madam secretary, there are no callers in the queue. Thank you. Public comment on item five is closed. Okay. Thank you. Item 5b5b. Commissioners, as you may know, youve heard it alluded to today. Today is a bittersweet day for our agency and our commission today is the last Commission Meeting for two very important and special colleagues of ours who embody Public Service, both of whom are strong and inspiring leaders. First today is donna hoods last Commission Meeting. She didnt want to have a lot of fanfare or attention, but we would be remiss if we did not let her go into retirement without one last resolution. And before i read that, i, i just want to say what an honor and pleasure and privilege its been for me to work with donna. I first got to know her when she worked, for Ed Harrington in the comptrollers office. And, i mean, look, you even had Ed Harrington sitting through Public Comment here today that shows you how important this is. And it was i had the opportunity to work with her there, but i really had the opportunity to work with her once i came to the puc. And i quickly found donna to be incredibly diligent and detail oriented, almost to a fault, where id have to tell her once in a while, dont worry about it, well get there. But we shared a similar sense of humor. We share a similar astrologic sign were both scorpios, which means that we constantly go back and forth with each other to say, no, dont wear that on your face and on your sleeve and she does the same to me. So i have loved working with you, donna, over the last a little bit more than two years, and you have been a lot of fun, and i can see why Ed Harrington is here, because youre a gem to work with, and im going to miss you. And i wish you the very, very, very best in the next journey of your life when you move up to oregon. So with that, theres a resolution for donna. Okay. And whereas donna hood has enjoyed a wide ranging and fascinating career in service to others, spanning almost four decades, including as an aide in both houses of the Oregon State Legislature before taking on roles with the state of oregon, the Willamette Education Service and the Oregon University system. And whereas, donna earned her masters in education from Oregon State University in the year 2000 and in a surprising twist, launched her career as an executive assistant working for the oregon state head football coach, where she learned that rules were meant to be followed and the world would be a better place if people would just follow her guidance. And whereas donnas experience on the gridiron led her to relocate to the bay area in 2003, where she shared her exceptional executive assistant talents in support of San Francisco, 40 niners head coach Dennis Erickson polishing her Customer Relationship skills while managing calls for the coach during a challenging two and 14 season. And whereas donna became enamored of San Franciscos beauty and bounty, following her heart to the steps of a historic city hall and transitioning to the executive assistant position for then controller Ed Harrington in 2005, where she became adept at handling the sensitive temperaments of elected and other officials. And whereas donnas role with controller harrington was so indispensable that he insisted she join him on his next assignment as the sfpuc general manager in 2008, where donna loyally served until jim harringtons retirement in 2012. Gaining expertise in all matters related to water, power and sewer. And whereas the sfpuc elevated donna in 2012 to Commission Secretary, where she played a crucial role in the seamless functioning of commission operations, attending an unparalleled 270 meetings without fail, facilitating 2747 resolutions under the leadership of three general managers and in collaboration with 14 commissioners. While demonstrating extraordinary diplomatic skills. And whereas, on april 23rd, 2024, after 16 years in central roles with the San Francisco Public Utilities commission and 19 years of service with the city and county of San Francisco, donna conducts her last Commission Meeting and will soon retire from the sfpuc to enjoy life with her husband and pets. Now be it therefore, be it resolved, that this commission hereby expresses its deepest appreciation and profound gratitude to donna hood for her distinguished contributions to the sfpuc and warmly wishes her a long and rewarding retirement. Thank you. Now i have to ask your guidance on something. Okay, so we can hold Public Comment till the end of the next thing i have to do it right for. Okay . Correct okay. So. Well, but first i think it would be helpful actually if commissioners anything youd like to say to donna i, we dont hold that. So okay then as chair, commissioner jaime so it certainly has been a pleasure to work with you. I actually had not had no idea you worked for 40 niners. Im like, now i feel even more privileged. You figured that we are even better than the sports teams. I mean, how amazing is that . You left that glory to join us, it certainly has been a privilege to work with you, donna. I really, really, personally appreciated your diligence, your attention to details, but also your helpfulness. You have always been so helpful thinking five steps ahead of everything we have to deal with. And, you know, i will miss you personally and your kindness, your your, always being respectful, always being attentive of always paying attention to everyone and everything that needs, needs attention, it you will be dearly missed. Thank you for everything , commissioner stacy. Thank you and thank you for the many years of service that youve given to the city and to the sfpuc. You have been an exemplar executive director for us at the hearings. You have to be patient, but you also have to be quick on your feet to react to everything that happens during a Public Meeting in your day, to day work, you have to be incredibly careful and pay a lot of attention to detail, which you do admirably. But you also have to think ahead and think about what does the commission need . Whats the big picture here . And then finally, on a personal level, working with us individually, onboarding commissioners. When i started, you and the sfpuc staff were incredibly generous with your time and your wisdom and your just experience in letting me know even what to ask for sometimes. And i really appreciate that. Ive worked with other commissioners and other, directors, and you are truly one of the best, and i feel really lucky to have been able to work with you as a commissioner, congratulate us on your retirement, i hope you have a wonderful next chapter, and i hope youll stay in touch, and i hope youll continue to give us advice whenever you feel we need it, because i know youre going to keep watching these hearings as. Thank you so much. I just want to thank you. Youve taken us through an awful lot of things, transitions that we never thought wed have to go through. And without you, i dont know where we would have been. But you gave us confidence when we needed outside people. You knew exactly what to do all the time. And that makes such a difference when you have somebody. And im sure the person thats going to take your place is going to grow into that same kind of competency. So i want to thank you for all that. And for the cookies. And i know i wanted to say the cookies, cookies and the candy and all the things that you do to make it a little bit more tolerable, sitting up here for 3 or 4 hours. Thank you so much. Is that a job qualification for the next person . Really critically good baking skills. It wasnt the list. You didnt see it, donna, thank you so much. I mean, this is actually bittersweet. Im sad to see you go, but im glad ill probably lose a couple pounds now. Not eating all the sweets that you have for us. And i just wanted to mention how absolutely thoughtful you are. And, a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes, i just, i really salute you. And i remember when i first started, my question was, is, what kind of Commission Secretary do we have . And i remember the description was, she runs a tight ship, and you absolutely do run a tight ship. And i want to tell you, i appreciate it, it means a lot to me. And i just wish you the absolute very best for your future. Thank you so much. Im out of time. All right, so, donna, i want to say thank you. Ill have to admit, i, of the many things i was thinking of when i came to this meeting today, i forgot that this was going to be your last day. So. I mean, i know what has been happening, and i hope everything works out, but i do want to say that, you know, as i, as some of us have on our yearly, presidencies, i just know that, you know, working with a lot of different organizations that, you know, having an assistant or a secretary or executive, whatever that might be, you absolutely epitomize what is necessary to make sure an organization runs. Youre on time. When we dont want to be bugged, you will bug us because theres probably something that we forgot and just your professionalism and my short time knowing you is just really stood out. And its really made it, very good, feelings for me to be a commissioner, you know, with your help, as ive been here. So thank you. And, you know, have a wonderful continuation of your life up in up in that air, Erick Erickson country. Anyway thank you, donna. So are we going to donna . And then theres something else. Okay. You you run this part . Yeah i dont i think i dont want to be on that part. I want to be on this side, so i dont i dont donna, you have to go up there and were going to put a two minute timer, and it will be like, donna will do whatever she wants to do. I dont know what to say. I just its im excited for this, but its also. Im. I appreciate your words so much. It means very much to me, you know, i, ive always tried to do a good job and be respectful and be kind and get the job done. Thats my first priority. And im, i hope ive done that, ive met some spectacular people working for the city and county of San Francisco and the puc, and im going to miss everybody. I am a little more emotional. I thought id be, this is very its very hard when it finally comes, you know, you think about it your whole career and then. Yeah, its in your face and its like, you know, this is really hard. But, i do appreciate all the kind words. And i am going to miss everybody. And i probably wont be watching. So but thank you very much. Thank you. Well, as we all know, today isnt the last day for only donna, it was a little bit of a surprise to everybody. The last meeting that, commissioner maxwell let us know that, after, a lot of years in Public Service, this was going to be her last meeting. So i cant think of anybody better to talk about championing the fights for the rights of others and to thank her for her decades of service to the city and county of San Francisco. Then, Sophie Maxwell, weve had the opportunity to Work Together for almost 25 years from, you know, my, my 20 years as city attorney. And now two and a half years, here. And shes also she was also my supervisor. District ten. So we had the opportunity to work on a lot of issues together, when i was across the street and now probably the most notable being when we worked together to shut down the power plant at that point, the oldest and filthiest power plant remaining in the state of california. And what i saw through that battle was a stick to it in this, and a diligence, that i always wanted in a partner that i was fighting with to make San Francisco a better place. And that was something that sophie brought to everything that she put her mind to, whether it was that power plant or whether we were dealing with neighborhood issues and dogpatch or the potrero hill or in the bayview, i always knew that we had, someone there who was representing the interests of, of, a lot of times those that were least able to look out after themselves. And thats something that you want in a legislator, in an elected official, in a partner. And the city has been much the better for sophies Continuous Service over these last 25 years, probably even longer for community work, but when she was a supervisor and now here as a commissioner here, at the puc, there is no one that has stood up more to fight for, for people. And most times folks that dont have a voice than Sophie Maxwell. So i want to thank her for her service. And with that, we have a resolution for her as well. Can shorten it. No, its too late now. Whereas Sophie Maxwell is a Living Legend of courage and activism, the daughter of neighborhood leader enola maxwell, who fed sophies passion for human rights, sophie continues to fight for communities to be seen, valued and heard. And whereas sophies formidable stature as a crusader for economic and Environmental Justice led to her election in november 2000 to the San Francisco board of supervisors, representing potrero hill, bayviewHunters Point, vista valley, and other district ten neighborhoods, and whereas sophie was reelected, two more times, serving ten consecutive years working for the more equitable distribution of public resources, increasing Economic Development opportunities for all san franciscans, and nurturing and empowering our citys most vulnerable residents. And whereas sophie played an instrumental role in shutting down San Franciscos last remaining fossil fuel plant, the potrero power plant, which had an unacceptable impact on Public Health that disproportionately affected low income communities of color. And whereas the first apartment complex in the ambitious potrero power station master plan on San Franciscos formerly industrial waterfront will be named the Sophie Maxwell building, a 105 unit affordable Workforce Housing complex creating hundreds of union jobs and whereas mayor london breed appointed sophie to the San Francisco Public Utilities commission in april 2019, where she has fiercely promoted and protected the rights of all ratepayers, including underserved and disenfranchized communities, bringing greater understanding of multidimensional challenges while advocating for Environmental Justice and workplace equity. And whereas, sophie, as a commissioner for five years, including serving in leadership roles as Commission President from 20 to 20 20 to 2021 and Vice President from 2022 to 2023, made invaluable contributions to creating the utility of the future, which only grew her legacy as a champion for Environmental Justice, clean energy and Childrens Health and opportunity. And now. Now, therefore, be it resolved, that this commission hereby expresses its deepest appreciation and profound gratitude to sfpuc commissioner Sophie Maxwell, activist, warrior, environmental champion and voice for the voiceless and her many contributions to the sfpuc and the city and county of San Francisco. We wish her all the best in her future endeavors. Commissioners. So why dont we do the same way and i think ill start this time because, for my many years working for the San Francisco labor council, you were the supervisor in the district right across from me. I from district nine. And you were right across bayshore in district ten. And thats when i first got to know you. And we worked on a lot of different coalitions and a lot of things. Weve had a long career on that side. Down on the second floor. And ironically, about the time that i was, being recruited to run the Building Trades council in San Francisco when i was going to retire from the labor council, at the same time i was being recruited to be on the Public Utilities commission. And lo and behold, when i finally kicking and screaming came down to room 200, who did i see in there . But you and you and i got sworn in to this commission at the same time. And its, i guess, at least four years ago. Right now. And, and its, it was kind of a new life for me in some ways, because ive retired from the Building Trades commission since i came here, and ive been working with you now as long as any other colleague in the movement. Now here, sitting on the council, when i actually look at my own personal calendar, and im going to say, when you surprise the heck out of me last week, that im going to miss working with you, because its been a very dynamic, colleague ship that ive had here with you on the council, and im going to miss, you being sitting here and again , that surprised me. And, im still surprised that youre youre going to move on, but, you know, please enjoy whatever youre going to continue to do in your life. Youve had a wonderful career. Im fighting for human rights and civil rights, and its been an honor to work with you. Thank you. Thank you, commissioner adjani. So in you, im going to miss a friend. Truly, i did not know you as much as a lot of other people have. And i came to this commission. I think it was 21, maybe around that time, and very quickly found a friend and a thoughtful partner, an amazing, listener who is always seeking information and knowledge. And i would say i its my fault, but i always evaluate people based on their curiosity and, and you are one of the most curious people i know. You always want to know more, learn more. And i always looked up to you, because i always want to be that way even more than i am. If i am that way at all, and also, i would say you are such an inclusive person. You constantly want to empower others, you know, in this commission, everybody who came in, you try to create space for them, empower them. You have been so humble and always trying to, give voice to others, and i can imagine, based on what ive seen over the years, people coming and talking about you, this is your daily practice. So thanks for bringing it here. Thanks for being who you are, thanks for fighting all the fights with me. I appreciate that, thanks for being such a, you know, reminding sometimes times reminding me sometimes how to, think about things. Or, you know, i appreciated all the back and forth we have had on many different topics. And i do hope this is a friendship for a lifetime. And, i think this commission will miss you. I think the people of San Francisco, i mean, this place is better because of you. And i really hope that you continue sending us letters of comments. And maybe you should join peter. And then call in every, every time, wed love to see you here in person, but thank you, sophie. Thank you for fighting for people, for the environment, for having a better city. This. You know, i always see the. You know, i have lived in San Francisco for 20 years, i think its nothing compared to some of you who have been born and raised here or have been here generation after generation. And i would say it is fabulous to be able to see things through your eyes and through what you have experienced and everything that you bring in. So, please, please, please keep us on our toes and, and i look forward to working with you in other capacity, hopefully. Ditto all that. Commissioner ajamie. Commissioner maxwell, i have so appreciated the wisdom that youve shared, the incredible advocacy that you bring to this commission and the way that youve shared. And, your approach with me, one of the earliest memories i have in city hall, and i still think about it every time i walk upstairs to a puc Commission Meeting. I remember you as a supervisor, not just trudging up the stairs the way the rest of us do, but you were always going double time up the steps and i. I have that recurring image of you now, and i think that youve been a step ahead in so many ways throughout your career as an activist, as a supervisor, as a commissioner, and i know this may be your last sfpuc Commission Meeting, but i know that you will be a force in the city for many years to come, and i hope we continue to hear from you. Ive appreciated our walks together along the puc assets and all of the wisdom that youve shared. Really i feel like ive learned a lot from you and i so appreciate your advocacy and the questions that you ask, youre very much a people person, and you care a lot about people that might not otherwise have a voice, and thats really important. So thank you for all of it. Commissioner sophie, i just want to tell you that i really do appreciate everything that youve done on this commission, and i go back to my time with local 798, pushing for a lot of labor changes to help the health of our firefighters and their families. And youre always there. You were like, our backup , and you always supported us. And i remember we have internal meetings, and were thinking, okay, we need to push for this, and we need to do that. Okay. What do we do . Oh, we need to call our backup. We need to call, supervisor maxwell. And we always knew that you were going to be there and have our back and, just very prolabor, profamily, and then, personally, i am just in awe of your boldness and your ability to, really kind of dig, dig deeper. And that is that that has inspired me, you know, since ive been on the commission with you, and those are things that i saw in the past. But now working side by side with you, youve really, instilled within me, i think, a lot of your, really beautiful qualities. And im definitely going to miss you. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Can i Say Something quickly . I just also want to say, before i left the house, my daughter was at home today, for a medical appointment. And then i said, you are retiring. And she said, oh, mom, i remember her because she saw you at one of those events that we had. And you. Yes. The fire. Yes. And you made such an impression on her that. And then she said, oh, im sure you miss her. She was so nice. So i had to tell you that. Tell her i said hello. Thank you. Well, i was going to say, that the dams are built and theres snow on the mountains and theres water in the reservoirs. Im out of here. But but somebody said, come on, you cant just, you know. But i want you to know that i am honored. I was honored, to be a part of the puc. Ive always. Its always been here in my heart, closing that power plant. You know, we they said we couldnt be done at. And we found a way with barbara and her team to close a power plant. They said, you have to have incity generation in San Francisco. You cant have a city without. We found a way to do it. And so theyve always been very, very special. And water. Im in love with water for a number of reasons. And trees and plants and fish and the mountains and the snow that is so important. And to be a part of an organization with other people that care about it, that also have to care about making sure the water turns on and the power comes on and the toilets flush. And with all of that, they still care about the environment. But i want to give you a challenge. Do more. You cant do too much. You cant be too good. You cant care too much. You cant. And so when youre thinking about it, think about the people that youre serving. Think about the least among us. And i know being the people who want to have a utility of the future, you will do that. So im leaving this again with everything full snow on the mountains, water at the tap, and i know this will continue. So thank you all so much for putting up with me and knowing i do care. And i care about you, and i think youre wonderful and youre doing a good job, and so does your mother and your father. But they still say a Little Something to you every now and then, okay . And so do you with your own children. You love them to death, but you will bring something to their attention. And please take what ive said and what ive done and the same vein. Thank you. Okay. Well, what were going to do a couple of comment and then were going to have photos. Okay. So because robins been here okay. So were going to open this up to Public Comment. And i think well open it up, just come up as you wish for both of our, wonderful colleagues, the microphone is now open. Donna, do you want to know Public Comment has been called. Yes thank you. Commissioners, im so happy to be here today. My name is carla vaughn, and im the Commission Secretary at the Southeast Community facility commission. First of all, to miss commissioner maxwell, i just want to say i just found out today that you were stepping down. And i have so many great memories of just seeing you all over the city and all the work that youve done. And i want to thank you for just always, unapologetically being who you are and rising us, helping to lift us all to a really high level. I appreciate that, donna. This is so hard. I have tears not for you, but for me because im going to miss you. Your your generosity, your willingness to share knowledge, has been so helpful. I appreciate you so much. Your availability. There has not been one time that i have called you or sent an email that you didnt respond right away. Youve talked to me off the ledge so many times, and i appreciate that. And im truly going to miss you. So thank you for everything, all the work that youve done. I appreciate you, thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners. Nicole vasquez, ceo, i on behalf, i guess, of myself personally, bosca and the water customers that bosco represents. I want to thank both you, commissioner maxwell and you, donna hood, for your service to them, as i was sitting here listening it, you know, when people come together and they form a community and they decide were going to be a community where we lift ourselves up, there needs to be Public Servants of all kinds, right . You need to have a Public Servant that wants to lead and say, im going to push the envelope, and im going to have a voice for you, and im going to do that, and thats what youve done. Commissioner maxwell. And you also need the Public Servant thats willing to say, im going to make sure the rules are followed. Im going to make sure we do the publics work in the right way. So that the public knows what were doing. And thats often its as important and its often hidden. So i really appreciate that as well, because Public Service is not easy and its often overlooked in the absence of good Public Service. We have communities that do not thrive. So i thank you both for your Public Service. Thank you. Good afternoon. Commissioners Ed Harrington, i didnt realize both of you were leaving today when i started to come here, but i was coming here for donna first, so it was about 20 years ago that that donna came into the office when we had an opening for the assistant to the comptroller, and i said, you know, we have we have a lot of folks here that sometimes can be a little obnoxious. And they push and she said, you know what my last job was . She said, we lost. I was working for Dennis Erickson. It was a horrible season. You wouldnt believe the abuse we got from people. I can do anything. And she could, donna, i think, as you alluded, doesnt really have a poker face. Im not sure you all see it up there, but its really obvious when donna gives the look. And if you are smart, you get the look and you change behavior, she also has this wonderful ability to roll her eyes where its. You just know what youre supposed to do, i recall that when mayor brown was mayor, we ended up kind of being the hiring hall for him for department heads. And donnas job was to go down and meet them in the mayors office, bring them up to our office for the for the interview process. And as she would walk up with people, she would the five, the five minutes. And it was always the right choice. Like she read it down, she knew what they were going to do. And i specifically recall one person looking to be the head of the mta and he walked in and threw his phone on her desk and said, charge this for me. And between the different looks and the how is that my problem . Look, i almost felt like saying, just, you can just leave. Theres just so, so no way youre going to get this job. I know you know, the Commission President sitting in there, but im not going to give you this job. And he didnt get the job. Actually, he did come back to mta at one point in the future, and it wasnt very good. But that that ability to read people and the ability to kind of say, this is somebody whos a good person and this is somebody whos not is just clear and its there. And so when we came over to the puc, donna was, of course, the person i wanted to come with me when i came to the puc. And i knew some of the folks, she didnt, but we both were learning a lot about the people who were there, and, and i if somebody asked me a question, i can keep going. So i figure i will, so it was great because she would come in and say, that one i dont know. You know that one. Great. And it wasnt it wasnt that the people werent were good or bad people. It was really the performance in many, many ways, because one of donnas favorite things to say is just do your job. You know, its just so important. Just do your job. And so we were able to again, we were we would never hold it against somebody if they were not nice, but they wouldnt get a favor. And sometimes the difference between success and not as getting a favor from somebody, when donna decided to be the Commission Secretary. You dont understand. Thursday. Friday of Commission Week in our office was typically chaos. And trauma because nothing got done on time. And there was people. It took five people to get the packets out. It was it was absolutely crazy. And donna got there and said, were not were not doing this anymore. And theres a deadline. Theres a deadline. Just do your job. And it was a very big shock to a lot of people to make that happen. But its worked. And thats why shes been able to serve you so well, i know that this is not the favorite place in all time for her to be because she she enjoys being with robert and she enjoys with her animals, and she enjoys running. And she will enjoy oregon. And so i wish you well, donna, and i thank you so much for all the love and kindness over all the years, and we will be in touch before you go back to oregon. But yes. Thank you, but since commissioner maxwells leaving to, you know, i met you even longer ago than donna because it was back in about 2001, i think. And we had so many conversations about city politics, but also water and power issues as we were going through Different Things when i was comptroller, then when i was at the puc, i cant imagine either of us thought that either of us would be on this commission, never mind being on the commission together. And so it was just so much fun for that short period of time when we were able to do that. And whats not to love about somebody whos whos bright and kind and gracious and is pushy, you know, and especially when youre when you agree. Yeah, not so much. If you dont. But, but im so grateful for everything that youve done for the city in those different roles. And it was, again, such a joy being on the commission with you. And i wish you all the best. Thank you. In the room, if not, can we lets do this for Public Comment. If somebody happened to come in, do we have any callers in the queue . Madam secretary, there are no callers in the queue. Thank you. Okay, well, Public Comment is officially closed. And my its kind of a wild time right now in the middle of the Commission Meeting. I cant believe were going to be losing two great people. Yeah. And so we have robin here for photos. So you can do some photos. Id like to do photos with donna with the full commission and then you too. Okay. You orchestrate it. All right. Get up. Get on it. Lets do donna first. Oops yeah. Thats okay. I think were going into the corner over here. Okay what were doing first here. Yeah, were going to come here and then well do donna. First, lets make sure we get equal. Sort of not not so im surviving. Donna are you still okay . And then well put donna in the middle. Okay one, two. Three. Roll your eyes. Roll your eyes. I want to see it. Oh. Oh my god, oh my god. Oh my god. In the best. Thats perfect. All right, here we go. Lovely yeah. Perfect. Just switch kunsts. Yeah. Okay. Great. Yeah. Wheres the other one . Okay come on. Wow here. Perfect. Okay. Thank you guys. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Oh. No worries. Thank you so much. And they have new chairs. Theyre the best. Donna, make sure they heard last. Oh, i thought i said i said you succeeded. Exactly. Yeah all right. See you later. Okay. Okay. Item five c are there any events or activities that have to be. That concludes my report. Okay item number six please. Thats going to be the bay area bosco update. I believe. Welcome, miss sam kula. Thank you again, commissioners, nicole bosco, if i could have the slides, please. So thank you very much for having me here today. Before you, i wanted to take my time today to just give you some updated information, as you know, one of the things that bosco does every year is we do an annual survey of our agencies. This is getting information for each of our 26 agencies, bunch of its listed here. Its water use per person accounts. Those types of things, individually kind of boring data. But when you put it all together and look at it at the regional level, it becomes a valuable source of information that we use for planning purposes. I looked back, weve been doing this survey in its current form since 1996, weve been collecting other data all the way back to 1984 because it relates to the implementation of the water supply agreement, so the new annual survey and its for fiscal year 2223, because it does take a while to get the data all together is posted on our website at bosco. Org, and the bottom bullet here i think is important because its easy to forget the fiscal year 2223 was actually the end of the drought. So that was a drought year. So this data is really interesting because it reflects, some of these conditions that weve all been living under for some time. So this graph shows total water use by the bosca agency. So 26 agencies all the way back to 7576. So that drought, the blue columns are water use. The light blue columns are drought years and the orange line is population served. So and youll see the axis on the right, so in aggregate, as you look at it, for 20, there was 32 less water used in the bosca region compared to 1986, 87, which is basically the peak use, very similar to, just before the 7677 drought as well. Despite a 34 population increase, which means everyones using less on a per person basis, thats the only way you make that happen, and if you look towards the right, you see this challenging trend that weve all been living in right . Two large droughts, that sandwich, a pandemic. And we had an economic downturn before that drought. And what does all this data start to show us . And were starting to really figure out how to grapple with that. I wish i had the answer for that today, but the recognition that its definitely new trends, i think, is important for you to hear that we recognize. So a different way to look at this is what does it mean on a per person basis. So your axis on the left is per capita consumption in gallons per person per day. And again that same time period 1976 to current the line on the top is actually whats called gross per capita. So thats if you take all water production actually, and divide by the number of people served. And its more of a long terme trend of whats going on in a community. Right . So because it shows what type of Commercial Accounts you have, kind of nonresidential accounts, you have even your irrigation, all those types of things show up. But we do see this significant continuing downward trend in gross per capita, which means in general, businesses also getting more efficient. I think even more importantly is the bottom line, which is the red line that is residential per capita. So thats how much water is used on a per person basis. So total Residential Consumption divided by the people. And we are now at a historic low again, this is at the end of the drought, a 55 gallons per person per day, i was actually pretty stunned when i saw this number. Shouldnt have been because wed been looking at the charts, but just kind of putting it all into context that that is an incredibly low number. So kind of digging into that number a little bit more, theres 26 basque agencies across three counties, a very diverse region. Right both in, commercial use. Well, this is residential. So, land use policies, you know, how big are your homes . How big are your lots . Whats your weather like . All those types of things. And so this is showing how much of the population in served is at any given per capita use. So on the left side is again that residential per capita consumption in gallons per person per day. And across the bottom is the cumulative percentage of population served at a particular level. So one way to look at this is you say, okay, i want to look at 4 of the service area uses 100 gallons per day or more. So across on the left, if you follow that 100 line, that 100 gallons per person per day line, and then you follow it down to the y axis, thats 4. So that means only 4 of the service area uses more than 100 gallons per person per day. A different way to think about it is if the average resident uses 55 gallons per person per day. If you look at this graph, it shows that 72 of the service area uses 50 gallons 55 gallons per person per day or less. So this is where you see this really stretching out. And a significant change between the peaks of the low users and the few high users. Ive called out a few just i mean, theres no surprises here. Purissima. Hills Water District is our highest using agency. Theyre a residential in any other service area, theyd be a residential neighborhood, if you will, with very, very large lots, a little bit warmer climate, that number is changing over time, but they still are the highest user. Theres no denying that, the lowest user in fiscal year 2223 was the city of east palo alto. And why . Why . So theres a couple reasons, they have, smaller lots with less outdoor irrigation and generally more people per household, which means when you divide up that common Household Water use per people, it stretches farther, right. So when youre washing dishes with just one person per household, its not five times as much when youre washing dishes for five people per household is what the studies have showed us. So when you have more people per household, multi generational as well, you end up having a much more efficient water consumption in that household inside and. Youre welcome. Another thing that i like to compare against is saying, okay, well lets look at some categories of water use. You know, as far as, how much everybody uses on a per person basis. And lets look at two snapshot years. So lets look back before two prior droughts. So back to 2012 and compare against 2223. So basically ten years apart two droughts a pandemic in the middle of all this, so the average residential use in 2012 was 79. 3 gallons per person per day. And now were looking at 55. So youre seeing that shift in average. But how does that compare across the groups . If you move over one more category with the number of wholesale customers that use less than 45 gallons per capita per day, there were none. In 2012. In 2022, there were ten. So thats a significant shift as i look at it. And the numbers continue to show that, i kind of then go over to the right. I say, okay, well, whats going on with my high end users . Right. So the number of customers with a gallons per capita per day greater than 100, still three agencies in both categories. But interestingly enough, in each of those agencies they use, they had a reduction of 30 to 41. So again, theyre moving down in a downward trend. Theyre just still in the higher category, but overall the whole group is moving closer to that much more efficient use. And thats critically important when we think about long terme, implications for water supply planning, both from a reliability standpoint and a cost standpoint. Right. We need to recognize these things very different to save when youre using. 55 4045. Mr. Ritchie and i were just talking about this earlier before the meeting, then when you used to save 100, right. Its just a lot more difficult. So switching over to the supply piece, and youve seen this chart before. This is the breakout for fiscal year 2020, 22, 23 for where the agencies get their water supply. And in 2223, they continued to rely upon the puc for two thirds of their supply that they delivered to their customers. And in turn, for that privilege, they paid two thirds of the cost to operate the system that year. So i think thats a pretty important piece of our relationship, that remains. And as we look to the future. So our current projections right now are going out to 2045, that reliance is projected to stay relatively stable, meaning that percentage amount is still in this over 60, 63. The overall use increases and that also has they also show investments in their other supplies. So investments in groundwater, investments in recycled water, investments in conservation. So investments across the board to meet those future needs. In particular, ill point out so that the projected puc purchases remain below 184. I think thats a critical piece, right, because thats what those investments are doing, is enabling the collective group to stay below 184 of the supply assurance thats guaranteed to them. So what does this all mean, ive talked to you before. Bhaskars goal is a reliable supply of high quality water to fair price, the agencies that i represent and the agencies rely upon the puc for the supply, and, and they rely upon the construct that ensures the reliability of it for them and the cost. Right. Your legal obligations to provide the 184 mgd supply assurance and your obligations to meet the level of Service Goals and then their obligations to pay you for that. Right. Thats the construct that they live within. And its critically important as we think about our long tum relationship for this region. The basque region is continuing to project investments in other sources that enable them to live within that allocation vision that you have committed to them. Theyre investing in new supplies and conservation because they recognize that water is really too valuable to waste. And then lastly, this data, as i mentioned, we have just initiated two critical, planning studies. One is our drought report, which will look at this last drought and analyze what was done, what worked, what didnt, trying to use some new Data Analytics to figure out how were customers responding, possibly to help inform us about what kind of rebound we might or might not expect, as well as a new demand study for all 26 agencies that will be used for the next round of urban water Management Plans. And were excited to expand our sensitivity analysis. We did. Were also looking to do different scenario plans for droughts, again, hopefully being informed by the drought reports. So i look forward to presenting that information to you further. It will be about a year for the demand study for sure. The drought report will be done in a couple of months. So with that, ill conclude my remarks. Commissioners, commissioner jaime. Thank you, miss sancho. Thank you for being here a couple of observations on this. I think you looked at, i want to say one to the third, slide that has the graph of population and the water use and you mentioned the, the water use in the 80s. I did a quick calculation on the back of the envelope, and i basically, if you look, basically your population has grown by 50 since the 70s. And your demand has actually been almost the same. Right and i think thats a thats quite striking to see. And considering how what the peninsula and the bay area as a whole has gone through, right. We are now the hub of everything that everybody wants to do. And see and dream of hopefully. Right and we have done it. So efficiently. Right. So thats i think thats very important to Pay Attention to. The second thing i want to say is, i again, i did a quick calculation. I i said if lets assume everyone in the basque region decides to reduce the water use, then your average would end up being 55, like the 55 gallon per person per day would be. Actually, the average would be much lower, but 55 would be like lets say uniform distribution. Everybody is using 55 gallon per person per day, and that means 110 million gallon per day. Water demand, demand for the region, for the region. Right. Thats even less. I mean, right now i think your reliance on our system is about 117. If youre talking about 110 as a whole and your demand is right now, 176 as a whole, right . For current population, for current population. I actually even added, i said, if we had 2. 1 million people. So i added 200,000, 200,000 people on top of what your projections was here. Im just saying, because i think its important to kind of Pay Attention to and i know youre sort of highlighting that. Im reiterating what you said, and im just sort of touching on the fact that theres still so much more people can end up doing. And if we dont account for it, we can be caught off guard by having too much supplies and not enough people willing to pay for it. Right . Or then we have to raise the rates because somebody has to pay for the infrastructure. Thats not being used. Right. Or the services we are providing. So i think its really important to Pay Attention to those very, very, very important details that, that, that might not right now sound really good, but it is important to Pay Attention to because it can be an important detail 20 years from now, and i think one other thing i would say is, i know you mentioned you guys are doing the demand study and, i would i want to encourage you to think about who is doing your demand study and what theyre looking at, because a lot of the demand studies are not necessarily capturing all the Different Things that are impacting peoples water use, and they dont fully capture it. And the second thing is on rebound. And, you know, my team at stanford did a lot of research on rebound. And basically what we saw is like its very, basically no rebound has been happening. Right . It just goes up and comes down again, goes up and comes down again. And every time that comes down, it goes a little farther. It comes further down, and basically we are waiting for a rebound. That is not happening. So i think its just these are very important again, because as we want to have affordable, accessible water and every big centralized infrastructure that we add to the list or every billion dollar project we add to our list, it requires somebody to be on line waiting for that demand for that supply to come in and if the demand is diminishing, right, its going to be an issue. So i know youre thinking about this, and i would love to hear your perspective on this, but i just want to put it out there as well. No, i appreciate it. Thats exactly why i was showing some of those per capita, because i think its important to kind of understand the distance and kind of this, you know, a scatter plot would be another way to show it. Right . Just kind of the differences among the service area, and i think as we move through our next set of demand projections, that scenario planning will be really important. And, and it also i think becomes to me, i see that study as being critically important in if we can were going to try to relate total demand to peak purchases. Right. Because its not a 1 to 1 relationship, but understanding how we can share that information to the puc for its scenario planning for alternative Water Supplies. Right and i think its important that we all recognize that reliability, like that reliability of supply is so critically important as we get lower and lower and lower in their per capita use. What used to be an acceptable, potentially level of service goal of a 20 rationing, reduction may no longer be acceptable when youve got a region thats using, on average, 4045 gallons per person per day. I mean, unless everybodys willing to let business just go belly up, that, you know, thats a real issue that i think were going to face. So whether those investments in new alternative supplies are to ensure that reliability, even at that low level, i think thats one of the questions that ill be looking at to say, do we need it no matter what . If weve got these reliability concerns that we have, we may or we may not, but i think thats how we have to look at both parts of it. And i 100 agree, i think you but but that margin changes significantly, right. Because if you have people using 45 gallon per person per day, your reliability margins are very different versus if people are using 100 gallon per person per day. Just thats just the reality of the numbers. Yes. But you also have to look at your population growth, right . You cant you may be having 30 more people and theyre still using 45 gallons per person per day. You still have to provide them reliability. Right. But the reality is 30 more people using , you know, 45 gallon per person per day. You still have a lot of Water Supplies to eat into. I mean, look, i think i 100 agree with the scenario analysis, but no matter how you do these calculations, at the end of the day, there are also technologies we are not necessarily neither. Theyre not neither are fully penetrated. I mean, you and i have had this conversation. If we do start doing all these retrofits that are in the market, people start using shower water in their toilets. Ive said this billion times, right . Thats 30 indoor household, 30 per person per capita per day reduction in water use, right . So there are technologies that we are not thinking about right now either necessarily as a mass, sort of uptake, but they can become mass, right . Sort of like solar panels on peoples roofs. Now, there are all these markets out there. People are trying to use this, sell this units that people use shower water in their toilets. And, you know, three more droughts, maybe more people would be interested in them. Right so i think its just like it is important to think about that. And again, you and i have had this conversation and i know you guys are sort of seriously looking into this and you are interested in that, but i think its also important as a commission as a whole coming as a community. We need to have these difficult discussions because as again, its just sort of reliability, demand, affordability and investment. All of them are like looking at us and we have to make these decisions very wisely. Yep commissioners. Thank you for that. Thank you very much. Always good to see you. Okay. Let us open this to Public Comment please. From six. If we have any remote callers please raise your hand if you wish to provide comment on item six. Do we have any members of the public present to provide comment on this item . Seeing none, do we have any callers with their hands raised . Madam secretary, there are no callers in the queue. Thank you. Public comment on item six is closed. Okay thank you for that report. Again. Item seven, please. The consent calendar item seven is your consent calendar. Can we read items . I generally dont read consent calendar commissioners any comments or questions about either items . A or b on the consent calendar . Seeing none, lets open this to the general, Public Comment, please. We have any remote callers. Please raise your hand if you wish to provide comment on the consent calendar. Item seven. Do we have any members of the public present to provide comment on this item . Seeing none, do we have any callers with their hands raised . Madam secretary, there are no callers in the queue. Thank you. Public comment on item seven is closed. Okay so can i get a motion a second to approve the consent calendar, please move to approve second motion. A second roll call, please. President paulsen. Hi. Vice president rivera i commissioner maxwell i commissioner jaime i commissioner stacy i you have five eyes. Thank you. Can you read item eight, please. Item eight approve and adopt the cleanpowersf load management standards plan to meet the requirements of the California Energy commissions load management standards regulations. Good afternoon, president paulson and commissioners. My name is michael himes. Im the deputy agm in the power enterprise responsible for cleanpowersf and our power resources. Today, we are seeking your approval for our clean of cleanpowersf proposed load management standards plan as required under regulations adopted by the California Energy commission. Our proposed plan, which was shared with you as a communication item on march 26th, is also attached in final draft form to this agenda item. As indicated in our march 26th communication. The Commission Must adopt a plan for cleanpowersf within 60 days, or by may 25th. So what our load management standards, you ask . The Energy Commissions load management standards are requirements to encourage greater shifting of electricity usage from peak demands, demand periods to off peak demand periods to improve the reliability of the electric grid, lessen the need for new electric capacity, and reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions. About a year ago, updated load management standards went into effect, adding new requirements that apply to the states largest utilities and Community Choice aggregators, including clean power, clean power s. F. The new regulations do not apply to hetch hetchy power. As part of the new regulations, the Energy Commission directed Community Choice aggregators to evaluate the development of real time electricity pricing and or related programs that could feature price signals that vary hourly or subhourly. The regulations also direct ccas to provide customers with Automated Access to their rates via an Energy Commission managed database. This Community Choice aggregators were directed to develop a plan that considers the creation of real time rates or related programs that integrate with, and use the Energy Commissions database. The plan should lay out a process to develop new real time rates or programs. If they are determined to be Cost Effective, equitable, and technologically feasible, among other criteria. The sf puc has already demonstrated that it supports the Energy Commissions goals. Cleanpowersf existing time of use rates already promote the use of electricity during off peak times of day, as illustrated here. Cleanpowersf time of use. Electricity rates are higher during the peak period of 4 p. M. To 9 p. M, when demand and costs on the grid are the highest and lower at every other time. When grid demand is generally lower and power supply is more plentiful and affordable. Generally speaking, time of use rates have been shown to be successful in shifting electricity usage away from peak times. When the grid may be more strained, while also balancing other things that are important to our customers, like consistency and predictability. And our time of rates. Our time of use rates are predictable and send consistent signals to customers to reduce their electricity demand during peak times. By comparison, real time rates, which are typically tied to wholesale electricity prices, are more volatile and difficult to predict. This graph compares our residential time of use rate to a real time price during a typical summer day, while real time prices for some periods of the day can be lower than our time of use rates, that can also be higher and in some cases much higher during peak periods, especially during scarcity events that may occur during extreme weather events here in the state. During those events, real time prices can be multiple times higher than this summer day. Example for example, during the heat wave, california experienced in september 2022, real time prices would have hit the california iso market maximum of 2,000 per megawatt hour, which is about ten times our peak time of use rate. Our staff spent several months researching and evaluating real time pricing and qualifying programs, and came to some conclusions which we document in our plan. Overall, there is little data and real world experience implementing real time rates and programs in california, and the impact on our customers and the grid is uncertain. Based on our review of the real time rate, pilots that have been tried elsewhere, and our evaluation of the effort involved and likely benefits that would accrue to our customers, we conclude that real time rates would not be Cost Effective for cleanpowersf to implement at this time. In addition, the high volatility of real time rates would mean greater rate uncertainty for our customers at a time of generally increasing costs. Even if some customers could effectively manage the volatility of real time rates by programing their smart appliances, implementing real time rates in the near terme raises equity concerns for us, with disproportionate cost and affordability impacts likely borne by low Income Customers and disadvantaged communities that may not be well equipped to participate. And finally, real time rates are complex and would be technologically difficult to implement if feasible at all. For example, under state law, cleanpowersf is dependent on pg and e to supply our customers meter data pg and e is currently not able to provide us with the billing quality interval data needed to implement real time pricing. With these issues in mind, we believe it is premature to develop a real time, real time rates, especially when our time of use rates that are already in place will more effectively achieve the goals of the Energy Commissions load management standards. Commissioners, we recommend you adopt our load management standards plan for cleanpowersf. The plan proposes that we not develop real time rates or qualifying demand programs for cleanpowersf. Now, the plan evaluates and documents findings that support this recommendation. The plan explains that we will continue to monitor and evaluate real time pricing and programs, and will incorporate new information and Lessons Learned from emerging pilots. Pilot programs into future revisions of the plan. Lastly, the plan documents how cleanpowersf has and will continue to comply with the Energy Commissions requirements to make our generation rates available via the Energy Commissions rate database for demand automation. And that concludes my prepared remarks. Im happy to take any questions you may have. Thanks that was just a little bit confusing to me, just in the sense that, we are being asked to in some ways, the plan is asking us to do more than what were willing to do right now, but were still going to be talking about what we are looking at and what we are, maybe in the future proposing is that a little bit of an analysis of what youre saying right now, let me let me be clear. Actually, the plan is, is recommending that we maintain the status quo. Okay, its not recommending any changes, this is an ongoing requirement. Were going to have to reevaluate this plan every three years. Were also going to have to conduct reporting to the California Energy commission annually on the status of related programs and any changes of mind that the commission may have in the future to the recommendation that were bringing forth to today. So its really the regulations require us to prepare a plan and to evaluate the implementation of these new real time rates, so but our recommendation and its documented in the plan is to not adopt the rates now or not, not move to develop rates. I should say, because this isnt a rate action to not move to develop the rates at this time and instead and, there are a number of pilot programs that the state is going to launch and we may opt to participate in those pilot programs. And that will help us better understand how this is going to work, is it effective . Is it Cost Effective . What are the equity implications , and there just really isnt a lot of real world information about these types of programs available to us today. So our report isnt really like an outlier or a red flag type of piece. Its not an outlier. In fact, our review of the other plans that have been prepared by other jurisdictions, are very consistent. Its consistent with those where theyre hedging on putting a complete real time plan together, most of the other ccas that im aware of that have adopted plans that were that their boards have adopted plans for, have, made similar proposals to not adopt or develop real time rates at this time, but rather to continue to monitor and reconsider at a future date. Got it. Okay. Thank you, commissioner jamie. Thank you for this report. Im a little, confused because arent for example, isnt pg and e using real time rates, theyre not theres not a not yet. But dont you have like different okay. So lets step back for a second. So theres like you know how you had the graph in the slide three. You know higher price lower price that is that is in place right. What youre talking about is more like hourly dynamic rates. Yeah. To make sure that you understand what i mean by that. The rates would change every hour or even less than an hour every day. Right. Based on whats going on on the grid and who is using what and how much demand there is, like, like when you order uber like within half an hour, all of a sudden the prices go up or goes down based on. Its not a bad analogy, although the apps and whatnot right . To tap into all that information arent necessarily available yet to our ratepayers. Yeah, i understand, im just trying to see like on the other side for somebody who wants to connect what youre trying to say to actually what theyre experiencing is similar to ordering an uber. Right . And then like, you know, 5 00, 50,000 people want to go somewhere. The prices can be significantly higher versus, you know, 10 00 you want to go somewhere else. Yeah, thats the concept, that same concept. So, what im not. So i understand the, the challenges as that goes into that, what . Im not 100 sure or im not following fully is like how this can be, impactful or negatively impact our equity goals. Is it because people might not have access to their account or the work that they have might not allow them to kind of respond to those . I mean, can you walk through that . Yeah, i can, yeah. Really. What is required to engage with the kind of program that the California Energy commission is asking us to evaluate is are smart Home Appliances that are internet enabled that can automatically pull this data from the internet at and be programed to change demand and in real time. So you need the latest appliances in your home to do that. Right. Exactly. Okay. And not everybody has them. So they cant benefit or take advantage of Something Like this. So the burden falls on people who dont have the access to those things. Thats right. And one of our concerns is that if we were, say, to run this program next year, only those ratepayers who do have these appliances is will be able to participate, which could lead to Cost Shifting to those who who cannot participate. Right. So, two things i, you know, i totally follow what youre trying to kind of do. And i appreciate that. However, at the same time. Oh, i have another question. Talk. Can you talk to me a little bit about those pilot programs you are mentioning that we may participate in . What what are they like . Do you have any details about some high level details . I can i can share if you want more. I can ask my colleague to elaborate, but the california puc, has convened a proceeding with a number of stakeholders, and what theyre doing is ordering the investor and utilities under their jurisdiction to offer pilot, real time pricing programs as, that ccas could opt into, and theyre developing and pga service area programs that mirror some other pilots that actually one ca in in Valley Clean Energy has been working on for agricultural customers, so that thats sort of it in a thats about as far as i can go at the moment. But were happy this this isnt this decision does not affect the pilots or ability to participate in the pilots, so were happy. Im happy to come back and share more information or do so through written communications as well. Okay. And, how would we participate in those pilots . So you offer that a handful of people in the city and they would i mean, how how would we participate in those. Advice letter. Yeah, yeah. 2025. Yeah. So we would we would notify the pga and the california puc through an advice letter indicating our interest and desire to participate in the pilot by the spring of next year. And then i believe it would be on a voluntary basis. The customers would participate. Yes. Yeah. So we would promote the program and customers would sign up. Okay. And what is the infrastructure we need for Something Like that to happen . Like what do people need to have like to be able to participate in that, that we dont have right now . Yeah, well, some of that may still be to be determined, but, i think to some extent, some of the things i mentioned before, the, the programable smart appliances and infrastructure, to the extent its a commercial customer, because i think we are looking at this pilot also applying to commercial customers, and then you know, in order to calculate bills, right, were going to need that interval data from pg and e. So we know that theyre working on this because theyve been told to, but those are two things that stand out right away. They that need to happen in order for somebody to participate in this is we need to be able to get the information from the utility to calculate bills and let customers know what their charges are, and then the customers need the ability to interact with the system that is sending these price signals. Right. And i am assuming something in the in between is needed to be able to use that. Right . Im just trying to understand, like if for example, its two, i dont know, like 10 p. M. And the demand is low and you want all the washing machines that have that capacity to start running, somebody somehow need to send that signal to all those washing machines that are ready to start running. So there is this like communication piece that needs to happen. So the reason im asking is we might be able to use i mean, this might be the future, right. And we might want to learn and figure out and maybe thats what you were sort of saying to figure out what kind of infrastructure do we need and to enable Something Like this to happen, because 20 years from now, maybe everybody would have those smart, washing machines because theres no dumb washing machines anymore available in the market. Absolutely. I do think thats the vision. And, you know, as staff, we agree with that perspective. I think we agree that this is the future. Were just not exactly sure when. Right. And we want to be, you know, mindful of our resources at this point in time. And the impact of this type of effort, of course, on our ratepayers. But absolutely agree with you that that either participating or closely monitored and engaging with the process, for these pilots will help us understand, you know, what are the systems required . What are the actual benefits. So itll be a great opportunity for the state and, you know, hopefully for our city to start to learn more about how to do this. And i would just say i highly encourage maybe you participate rather than just watch because you know, theres Nothing Better than, you know, diving in and learning rather than like watching other people do it, so i think it might be a valuable exercise just in many ways. Right . You can watch the rates and how they change. You know, theres so many different ways we can learn from this. And one quick question, i sort of know the answer to it, but i want to make sure. So everybody in the city right now have smart meters right there are some customers who have opted out of smart meters. There there was an opportunity. There is an opportunity to do so. I couldnt tell you the statistics. Its a relatively small percentage of the customers at cleanpowersf serves, but there are some that that have continued to use analog meters, and those people cannot participate in this, obviously, i dont believe they would be able to know. Right. So thats another piece. Thank you. Yeah commissioner stacy, thank you for the report. I have a few questions. Just to make sure i. I understood your report. So the California Energy commission has so far only asked the individual, ccas to evaluate this real time pricing, right . Theres no requirement in place that anybody adopt it. Yeah. The when the Energy Commission adopted these regulations, i mean, maybe actually taking a step back, the statute that gives us authority to the Energy Commission directs it to do so for electrical corporations, which are investor owned utilities, but today in pga service area, more than 50 of the demand is served by a Community Choice Aggregation Program in a community like, like, cleanpowersf in our community and so the Energy Commission wanted to have a broader reach as far as the applicability of these, these standards. So in the regulations that adopted it, extended them, to Community Choice aggregators and to the largest publicly owned utilities which had previously not been subject to these and are not electrical corporations, the caveat is that the publicly owned utilities and the, the, the Community Choice aggregation aggregators, would bring a plan to their boards for approval. And its the boards as the rate setting bodies for our programs that determine our rate setting direction, so thats why were here, is really in your capacity as the rate setting body, so if you were to disagree with the staff now and said we want to see real time rates, you could tell us to do that and we would revise our plan, and there would be a time frame at which we would have to study this and come back, you dont need to do it today. You could do it in two years after the pilots, no. But seriously, that thats why thats thats the structure of this. And thats, why and i should say so the plan, that we were required to develop is, expressly to evaluate at real time rates and related programs and whether they, you know, would be Cost Effective, equitable, feasible. A number of criteria. And thats what we did. Right. And i guess when i was reading your report, if real time pricing is sort of going to be the way of the future, i want to understand, your conclusions or the conclusions that youre proposing for this commission to adopt, that there are technological Cost Effectiveness, volatility, de, problems for affordability, for the lower Income Customers. So as i was reading your report, i was trying to think, well, are there ways of improving on this real time pricing to make it less volatile and, and there are a lot of variable factors that seem to be included in this real time pricing that are not included in the time of use pricing, the time of use, you know, from 4 to 9. Its going to be more expensive. But real time pricing, its going to depend on cost of energy, availability of energy, who else is using energy that individuals dont necessarily have control over . So i, i know you did a pretty indepth analysis of the comed study out of illinois and sort of looked at what was missing in that study or what wasnt fully, explained in that study. But i wonder, if you see ways of improving the real time pricing or if you see it evolving in the future, and maybe its going to come with these pilot programs, time of use is has the beauty of simplicity that these high demand peak periods are going to be more expensive. And that encourages people to try to run their washing machines or, dishwashers or whatever during the off peak times. But i kept trying to think about, whether there were ways of getting around some of these, the problems, the i understand the affordability impacts that a lot of the lower income households just arent going to have the absolutely up to date appliances that can connect into a technical or technological system may be less flexibility on actually, when appliances can be run, but i just wondered if there are ways that you see, to improve this, real time Pricing System to make it less volatile. And maybe thats part of the plan. Yeah. Youll be youll be watching. I do think that the pilots are the key, like in the near terme to building more experience within the state, and, and, you know, as you noticed and appreciate that you, you picked up on that, we had to look really outside of the state for examples of this. So, you know, thats a little bit of a concern. And what what we felt is now is not the time to commit ourselves to this. Right especially given that what the California Energy commission has done is created a rolling, ongoing thing where were going to continue to evaluate, but, you know, as i mentioned before, i mean, we do think this is the future. And i think that the California Energy commission thinks this is the future. And increasingly, with more Renewable Energy on our grid, the ability for demand to play a greater role in balancing everything out, will be important. So, we are not opposed to this in concept. We just think now is not the time to invest a lot of resources into making this happen, but that, you know, we should stay engaged and, you know, look closely at the pilots and better understand what the requirements would be to actually expand this and would we continue to look in the future to pg and e for the data that we get on these . On the uses and the users . The report talked a little about the a little bit about midas signals and requiring smart devices. And i, i wondered, will there be expenditures at the puc has to make in order to connect to a system that allows real time pricing, or if puc would continue to rely on pg and e as as long as they exist in San Francisco before we buy them out . Yeah, its a good question. And good last point, because i think as long as were talking about cleanpowersf in our Community Choice Aggregation Program, the answer to your question would be yes. We would continue to be dependent on pg and e, because under state law there the meter there, the metering entity, and they transmit that meter data to us so we can calculate our bills, you know, there may be a variation of that where we let pg and e calculate our bills. But to date we havent felt comfortable with that. And of course, as a integrated utility, a single utility, we would then be responsible for the metering and the billing and integrated fashion. So i hope i answered your question there. Yes you did. Thank you. And i guess when i was just thinking about this and you know, how to make real time pricing less volatile, i end up sort of coming back to the time of use pricing that we have in place. But as you mentioned, just a couple minutes ago with more, clean energy, different sources of energy, maybe that time of use is not going to be responsive enough to the changes. So maybe we do want to look at real time pricing. It just seems like its such a volatile, set of factors that goes into real time pricing that we wed like to reduce that volatility to make it work better and be more predictable for consumers. Absolutely. Yeah and thanks for connecting that again. For me, i think that the as we documented in our plan, the time of use rates really fulfill a very similar function. And you know, these are rates that, that while static between rate cycles, right. Approvals from from this body, they can be adjusted. And thats, thats what we do is we take a look at our cost of service and we look at how that time of use pattern, or really pricing patterns or cost patterns does, change. And we can then adjust the, our time of use rates so that it sort of mimics the, it achieves the same goals that real time pricing achieves without being so volatile. You know, where, you know, if somebody asked us what our rate is, we could communicate that to them, you know, with real time pricing. It literally could change at any moment. And it may, you know, we could we could guess, but we wouldnt know. Yeah, exactly. So it really is dependent on the technology on the demand side to be programable and able to respond automatically to changing price signals in order to effectuate real time pricing. Those are very helpful. Can i ask one more question, this the real time pricing, the methodology, is that ultimately going to be defined by the California Energy commission or by we actually would be required to do our own . I see, and so that would be a step involved in, if we head in that direction, we would have to develop our own methodology for, for determining the marginal cost of our energy supply. We weve brainstormed some ideas already on how to do that in an efficient way, but it you know, by no means have we exhausted that process. So. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Yeah, thats a very helpful answers to our questions. Commissioner maxwell. Thank you. What do you mean by lessen or delay the need for new Electrical Capacity . What does that mean . Yeah, the idea is, that as in all other things remaining equal, if everyone used power as if, you know, they didnt know the price or didnt matter what we would be seeing in california is ever increasing demand in that 4 to 9 p. M. Window, and part of the reason why the price is, is high in the wholesale electricity market that we purchase from is because that demand is starting to creep up to the total amount of Electrical Capacity that we have to produce electricity. And so as that demand grows, or as we plan for more and more extreme heat in the state and more air conditioning, for example, we need to keep building power plants, or making investments in order to meet that peak demand. So the concept is if we send a price signal to consumers that they better understand how much it actually costs to receive the power during that window of time there, therell be more inclined to try to shift their demand to a lower cost time of day. So thats the concept. And that helps us avoid those investments. So that that is where it can become Cost Effective. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah okay. Its just like the same thing with water. All right. And then could there be a program say for low income families that we would help them, you know, like we did toilets and other things, help them with getting these smart, appliances. And they could then be a part of, of the study because as miss zinkula said, you know, when you looked at east palo alto, the water level went down and it was because because if you have more people, they still use about the same amount of water or something, but it went down. It was less. So. It seems to me it might be an opportunity to get socalled low income families involved in this, so we could see how they react. Because if you just have one group, well, you know, they come home at a certain time and they do whatever i think would be important to have, different families, different kinds of families and whatever else involved in the study. Yes, i hear you for sure. And if we were going to do that, we could help, you know, one of our oops money or less. Oops, we could afford to, to help people with their things. Yeah. And as we approach pilots, well well keep this in mind and talk with our Programs Team about, you know, what . We might be able to do there. Yeah yeah. And also are we considering generation if i have, if i have solar panels on my home and i have storage on my home, wouldnt that make it easier for me to do, or would that make a difference . Yes. If we had, it could make a difference. Yes it could make a difference again, you know, as i said before, we dont really need real time rates to do that today. You can make a difference on time of use rates and the price signal is very similar. Its just really averaged out a little bit. So its a smoother its not as extreme as, as real time rates can, can be, but yes, in your example, if somebody has solar and storage, meaning that they can store that solar energy in the middle of the day and they can discharge it in the evening when they come home and they decide they want to run the dishwasher, for example, during peak time, that thats complementary, right . Theyre not actually requiring the grid. Right. So they wouldnt be involved in the real time or, or would they. So, so they could be so, so the solar and storage would be an asset that would help them navigate the real time and sort of, yeah. To manage those costs. So if we had more than, individual generation and storage, that could make a difference. Yeah, it could, it could for those customers that have that i guess i want to emphasize not everyone can have that. So just given the, the configuration of their building and so its complicated. But for those people who yeah i understand that. But if youre in a residential neighborhood, those people could do actually do that, right . Yes. And right now were building houses, even these townhouses that have solar. So it could be something we could consider. All right. Sure i wanted to say those things. So thanks for saying that, i actually wanted to say it would be good if we do the pilot, and i hope we do the pilot. Join one of these pilots would be good to kind of, at least make sure we have a few commercial customers in their residential customers. People with solar panels on their roofs sort of like trying to have a broader representation to see. For example, i was just thinking, how does this impact commercial buildings versus residential, you know, customers very different, or how would it impact people with solar panels versus people who dont have solar panels . And i think it just would be very, very different depending on the customer type, and what they have access to or what they dont. So it would be really, you know, i know its a voluntary thing, but it would be cool to kind of be able to see if we can get enough sample across the board to be able to see how it impacts peoples bills and, and their capacity to play that. One other thing i want to suggest to you, i dont know, my colleagues have seen the duck curve, but i think it would be really, really cool. Next time you come to us to have the duck curve on, because it kind of helps people to kind of, think about generation and all that in the process. So, makes makes this a lot more, puts this in perspective, i guess a little bit. Yeah. And its a fun its a fun analogy or metaphor, i guess. Right. It just basically and i think that the, the question is at the end of the day is if we do this, would more people stop doing start doing solar panels on their roofs because they want to have more control over this . And then how would that impact our infrastructure . I mean, the same thing i was telling, i mean, the Energy Sector have been dealing with this for 20 years now, but you know, the whole, individual generation is an is a very interesting concept because its really impacts the way we do planning in the long run and how people sort of come and go into the system. So and the question of reliability at the same time. Right. So i think all of that would be very important. And we certainly should actually another thing is, we do not run our, appliance program. Does pg and e run that or we run our own. So the way, generally speaking, the way that we have approached our programs on the on the power side for cleanpowersf in particular is to focus on gaps, so there are a range of efficiency programs that have been run down, through funds that our ratepayers contribute to, sort of under the, the management of the investor and utilities and the california puc, and so what we have done is weve weve been looking at, okay, what arent they doing, so for example, we have a heat pump water heater Incentive Program for cleanpowersf, we arent currently offering like a smart appliances Rebate Program or anything like that. Maybe thatll be something that comes up in the future, its not something were currently looking at, though. Okay i was just wondering and, and i think it just goes back to also a lot of Different Services people provide, for example, laundromats and all that. How do you sort of manage those things as well . So very Different Services. So thank you. Any more comments commissioners . Thank you again for presenting and answering all of our questions. Thank you. Thank you. Lets open this up to Public Comment, please. Donna, do you have any members of the public to provide comment on this item . And if we have any remote callers, please raise your hand to speak. I see no callers or, speakers in the room. Do we have any callers with their hands raised . Madam secretary, there are no callers in the queue. Thank you. Public comment on eight is closed. Your comment is closed. Can i get a motion and second, to approve the, standards plan. And item eight, please move to approve. Second. Motion. And second. Can i have a roll call i. Vice president rivera i mr. Maxwell, i commissioner jaime i commissioner stacy i you have five eyes okay. Thank you. Item eight passes. Could you read an item nine, please . Item nine public hearing to consider and approve the power. Miscellaneous fee schedule, which includes the revision of existing fees, the elimination of certain fees for account and Billing Services related to the sfpuc. Provision of electric of electric service. If approved, the proposed fees will become effective july 1st, 2024, and will remain in effect until revised. Hello. Okay good afternoon, president paulson and commissioners and the members of the public. My name is christina venice. Thank you. And im a rates analyst for the Financial Planning team. Can i please have the slides, at the previous Commission Meeting, i introduced the sfpuc fiscal year 20 2025 miscellaneous fee study and presented the resulting water and wastewater miscellaneous fee proposals from that study, today i will now be presenting our proposed updates for the power miscellaneous fee schedule. And to supplement this presentation, we have provided a technical memo to refer to. For more details on each fees. Proposed update and specific calculations. I want to acknowledge that a lot of the information ill be sharing today is a little repetitive. From last week, but for the sake of any new members of the public and for any commissioners that werent here last week, ill do my best to quickly run through the similar context. On the scope, timeline and methodology of the study before getting into a high level overview of the proposals. So first, what is a miscellaneous fee, just quickly miscellaneous fees are Commission Approved charges that are billed to an individual customer and recovers costs for performing services outside of standard utility operations for the power enterprise, most of the existing miscellaneous fees charged for customer requested services or generally are for incurred account and billing charges. The revenues collected from these fees go into the Power Enterprises nonoperating fund, and help decrease the need for increasing retail rates. Therefore, it was vital for the sfpuc to reevaluate all of the existing miscellaneous fee schedules throughout the agency to align with the latest updates in cost. The miscellaneous fee study began in the fall of 2023. The Financial Planning team held review sessions with Department Managers to confirm the need for these fees and if so, develop our initial fee calculations through a standardized methodology. At the start of this calendar year, we updated our analysis with the newly adopted biennial operating budget and prepared collection and implementation strategies before reviewing our final recommendations with the executive team. As i said, today were presenting our proposals for updating the existing power miscellaneous fees, and in in preparation for today, a public hearing notice was posted on the sfpc website at the Sf Public Library and published in the sf examiner. If adopted, these proposed updates will become effective on july 1st, 2024. When developing our proposals, our methodology included three key steps. First, calculating the cost of providing the service. Secondly applying adjustments based on policy decisions and a third obtaining final staff review details around the methodology and each fees calculation can be found in the technical memo, but in general, the cost of providing Service Calculation follows Industry Standard guidelines that totals the labor costs. The Enterprises Associated overhead rate, and additional relevant materials and equipment. There may be some cases where policy considerations are incorporated into the calculation. The fee, such as when a fee serves as a penalty, or if the calculated fee raises concerns about customer affordability. Our last step is our review with Department Managers and the executive team, which is vital to help confirm that these fees align with broader city and sfpuc objectives, this is an example of our methodology calculation on a power fee. I want to take some time here because this will connect in our further slides, but as shown here, we identified the Staff Members required to complete the temporary Service Installation and removal fee as well as their hourly rate, and then multiplied it by the estimated time to complete the service. That gets us to the labor subtotal. However, labor costs are not just hourly wage costs, its also the employees Fringe Benefits and the applicable enterprises overhead costs, which weve applied to in columns d and e. For this fee, we determined that there were no material costs to be incorporated and no policy considerations to apply for this fee. So we totaled all the labor costs to get the cost of providing the service and rounded down to the nearest dollar for a cleaner rate. This slide shows a comprehensive list of the power miscellaneous fees we evaluated broken out into two buckets based on our proposals, starting on the left, we have fees with no proposed changes or fees escalated using cpi, similar to water and wastewater, these fees are either set through the city and county administrative code or were determined by Department Managers that there was no need to update. Therefore, theres no direct update or action needed for these fees. In the next column we have, that the sfpuc is recommending that the commission eliminate these following fees, again, this should be familiar from last week. The pending shut off notice fee, is being recommended to be eliminated as this service is no longer regularly performed. And there are also major affordability concerns that this fee will just further burden customers who have trouble paying bills on time. The next three fees are the field action charge, the pole or underground disconnection fee, and field visits fee. These are power specific charges, and we are proposing to eliminate them, as they are also rarely charged to customers, lastly, we are updating one fee with new cost data, which was the fee that we used for the cost of service example, the temporary Service Installation and removal fee, this fee is charged when a customer requests for a field team to provide them with temporary electric service, usually for no more than about nine months, and then to remove it, this fee applies for construction related activities and is usually requested by developers. The calculated proposed fee was updated to recover the administrative costs to coordinate with the customer, review the request and to ensure all the work can be performed safely, as well as the field work to actually provide the service. While this produces a pretty large increase from the current fee through a recent survey fees by other California Power utilities, it was found that even with the large increase, this proposed fee still remains within the range of what other utilities charge, overall, these power fee proposals dont garner a significant amount of revenue, but they are very important as they reduce the revenue requirement for retail rates and help ensure that the cost of providing a benefit to a customer are collected only from those specific customers, with that, im going to conclude my presentation and im happy to take any questions. Thank you. Maxwell, whats the utility specialist, thats thats like usually a Customer Service representative, somebody who just works to coordinate with the customer, i see. Yeah. So its usually an office person. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions . Comments . Seeing . None. Lets, open this up to Public Comment, please. Thank you for the report. If we have any remote callers, please raise your hand if you wish to provide comment on item number nine. Do we have any members of the public in the room to provide comment on this item . Seeing none, do we have any callers with their hands raised . Madam secretary, there are no callers in the queue. Thank you. Public comment and item nine is closed. Okay can i have a motion . And second to approve item number nine, please move to adopt the miscellaneous fees. Second, its a motion and second roll call please. President paulson hi. Vice president rivera i commissioner maxwell i commissioner jaime i commissioner stacy i you have five eyes. Please pass item ten is just information. The of the communications thats in the packet, item 11, which is items initiated by commissioner. Is there anything that the commissioners would like to bring up . Commissioner jaime i just want to acknowledge this is, yesterday was earth day, and i know, San Francisco climate week is happening this week. I was actually quite disappointed how limited water was represented in that climate week , so i was i wanted to put you in charge of making sure next year there is more water is in the agenda when theyre talking about climate, i, you know, i wasnt sure who were the organizers and who was in charge of that, but i know the city had been quite active in that. So i dont know how to reach reach them. But i want to make sure, you know, water is such an important part of climate discussion, and it should be on every agenda. And i think, you know, im, i think we need to be more present. Im not us as sfpuc, but water as a whole, so, and i want to acknowledge that, you know, we all depend on this earth for everything. So we have and we have to protect it as much as we can. And, while we expect every ecosystem to live for with less, we also need to learn how to live with less. So thank you, commissioner. Okay. Any other comments or initiation . Then i will say that we are adjourned. Thank you. 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The Small Business commission thanks Media Services and sfgovtv for televising the meeting, which can be viewed on sfgovtv two or live streamed at sfgovtv. Org we welcome the publics participation in person during Public Comment periods. There will be an opportunity for general Public Comment at the end of the meeting, and there will be an opportunity to comment on each discussion or action item on the agenda. Public comment during the meeting is limited to three minutes per speaker. An alarm will sound once the time has finished. Speakers are requested but not required to state their names. Sfgovtv. Please show the ofce