Transcripts For SFGTV Special LAFCo 92916 20161007

And i would like to congratulate ms. Pollock for her wedding. And our clerk. Please share your announcements. Clerk please silence all electronic phones and devices. Speaker cards should be submitted to the clerk. Supervisor john avalos okay, todays meeting is broadcast by sf govtv staff. Thank you for your service. Weve done no. 1. Roll call. Item no. 2. Clerk approval of lafco minutes from july 29, 2016, regular meeting. Any comments. Is there any additional Public Comment . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Can we have a motion to approve . Okay, motion from commissioner pollock and second from commissioner campos. Next item, please. Clerk item no. 3. Community choice aggregation cca activities report, a. Status update on the cleanpowersf program and timeline for program launch. And b status update on proceedings at California Public Utilities Commission. Thank you. Im barbara hale. Im going to talk about five topics. Enrollment in our program and some facts that we have solidified and we have new staff and materials from our outreach efforts. First offer enrollment, im very happy to report that the Program Continues to successfully operate. We are serving 7300 active locations. We have no additional customer opt outs for about a week now. We are at a steady 1. 9 opt out. Very low. Our fall enrollments are under way a continue. We have sent 64700 enrollment notices. What we are talking about doing here is going from 7300 to 67400. So quite a big jump. And if we continue to have that 1. 9 opt out rate, thats a huge jump. Thats a big jump, yes. And so far weve only had 0. 4 of the customers we sent notices to opt out. Thats how we started with our may enrollment. We started with two notices so far. We are going to send out two more as required by state law. For main enrollment we had a low number at the start and it grew to 1. 9. We expect a similar kind of increase as the notifications get out and we do more outreach. But so far, so good. We received 151 upgrades to super green from that cohort, from that customer group. And thats continuing to increase. That doesnt count additions that we know we got this past weekend with different activities that we had between puc staff and the department of environment staff at various fairs and festivals. We know that number is going to go up more. The uptake with green is really encouraging. We are continuing to have a queue, a sign up opportunity for customers who want to participate in our next enrollment. Now im talking about three different enrollment tranches. We are talking about after fall for the First Quarter of 2017. We have 153 customers queued up on that list and 75 want for that service as a green customer. Im sorry, this fall 150,000 . No. 153 customers said they want it and of those 75 said they want super green. Thats my report on enrollment. Im going to move on to procurement. Any questions on enrollment . Supervisor john avalos yes, they will be enrolled by when . November is when we expect to provide service to them. They are technically enrolled today, right . They are not going to receive service until november. Of that number, 151 are going to be, how many of that are we expecting super green . So far 151 have said they want to be super green. And at the end of this presentation, im going to show you what we are doing to try to bring that number up with some of our marketing materials. Okay. Great. So, procurement. We have two outstanding regulatory requirements from the state that affect our procurement efforts. One is we have to meet Resource Adequacy requirements and the other is we have to meet a long term contracting requirement. We have negotiated and are finalizing arrangements for the Resource Adequacy requirements. We actually finalized one of of four. We have more work to do there and on our second requirement our longterm contracting requirement. We are making progress but i dont have a report yet. I want to make sure that stays on your radar screen. What about those Resource Adequacy . The Resource Adequacy that the state has that owner investor agency, Community Choice, aggregator providing service directly to retail customers have to meet to make sure the overall system, the inter connective electric grid stays reliable. We have to do our share to ensure adequate services are ready to operate if the demand goes up. Its just meeting our share of that obligation. Great. And then the longterm contracting requirement is that we have to have a renewable portfolio of compliant resource. We are not there yet. Next collaboration with partnerships. We mentioned its in our interest to collaborate with other services in california. We have done that. Operating and Communication Strategies really have been improved by the dialogue and in p put we received especially from sonoma and clean power and from sacramento and regulatory form have been strengthened through those partnerships and we have now formalized that collaboration through a nonprofit ocean. Its incorporated as the California Community choice communication. Or cal cca. Its going to be convening local agencies in october to share information and our experiences around planning and operating a cca program. Just as we benefited from the work of sonoma and marin like they started. We are getting calls from other places in california asking how we got started. And interest in being a cca and operating as a cca. We are going to get together in october to talk about those issues. Its a local agency sort of supportive effort there. Great, do you have a sense of how we will expand to the market share in years to come. Since the cca is around the the state. There is a lot of interest around the cca in the state, peninsula, clean energy has already started notifying customers. They are getting ready to Service Customers soon. Sonoma valley, they havent started their notification process yet, but they are getting ready to. Los angeles county is getting ready to launch. They are planning to launch next year but they havent got a plan before the puc yet so that might be a little aggressive. But its taking off. Mendocino is getting evaluated joining sonoma power. So its taking off. Great, at the California Public Utilities Commission we are going to go through in december and do the same kind of termination they did last year how cca is going to engage in the market and what the rates are going to be for opting out . Yeah. That all is going to happen again. That happens in a filing that pg e makes every year thats decided on in december. We have submitted comments and briefs i this. So based on calcca will we have a better impact . Absolutely. Well speak as one voice and with that well be a stronger voice at c puc and sacramento. There is something always going on to try to shift cost away from investor on utilities to Community Choice aggregate. We are keeping an eye on that quite diligently. Moving on to staff. We had positions in the budget and now we have them filled and we have staff at the puc both in communications and in operations. So weve just added additional staff bringing our operations staff number up to eight for the Power Program and on the education staff 8 and 4 consultants. Thats a team of 12. Those are actually daytoday in the budget part of the cleanpowersf part of the puc power budget. There is additional Power Communications and finance staff at the puc who perform other critical functions that supports cleanpowersf that charge across from the hetch hetchy part of the subject. Thats not everybody, but thats the dedicated team. So now im really happy to say we have enough folks to take on the program and take on some additional responsibilities. I want to give you a highlight of what those are. First we are putting on a growth and phasing plan. This was a plan we implemented in september. Now we have more experience working with our customers, more experience in the market and those facts are going to improve our program. We have moderate and financials and what the demand and Market Conditions are. Our finance needs and our options for addressing our financing needs and our operational readiness. We plan to engage with stakeholders and other operating cca colleagues, and our commission in developing this plan. And our target is to bring a plan to our commission in the final form of the spring. The second activity is in grated resource plan. This is going to talk about how well meet our customers for electricity and renewable content. Effective use of electricity, affordability and financial stability. Its going to meet our resources to meet our customers demand. This is required by state law but its also good utility practice. We are going to be bringing that plan to our commission in the spring. In the final area our group staff is working on Overall Program and planning implementation in the rate and materials for that and feed and Tariff Program and the feed from go solar sf to integrate. I talked about that last time we met here at lafco and the solar programming and on the demand side its really locally response to efficiency programming, storage programming and what we can do to promote electric vehicle participation. And also some Important Program tools to help us facilitate participation in those programs that i just mentioned particularly on bill repayment. We have a lot of interest among customer groups in using the bill as a way to repay the cost associated with making distributed Energy Resource investments be they efficiency or on the supply side. Then well engage with the stakeholders community and colleagues and environment staff to make sure we put together some programs to work with our unique base here in San Francisco. Im going to move on to the final topic which is outreach materials unless there are any questions of what i just talked about. Can you as to what you discussed can you send a memo to us summarizing to us. There is a lot of meat in there . Sure. I will be happy to send what i just described so you have it handy. So, outreach materials. You know we have an incredible Communications Team at sf puc. And then taken the time to put together some materials and taken the necessary arrangements for advertising in districts 5 and 8. We are going to have small billboards in districts 5 and 8. We are going to have the castro street muni station dominated. Station domination is the communications term. Whereas you come through that station, all advertising will be associated with cleanpowersf. You are going to see advertising for cleanpowersf on the city bus shelters. Whats that advertising going to look like. I have five examples here to promote super green particularly and three promote the general concept of cleanpowersf. You will see that these are very consistent with the look and feel of the enrollment notices we have been sending out to your constituents. The first one is its wind, its clean, its super green. This is going to give people an option. Most of it is wind so its great to advertise what we are up to. The next one, green one. It says are you the next super green hero . It encourages again upgrade today. A more general, excuse me, our next super green is go zero. Be our super green hero. It says zero Greenhouse Gas emissions. Upgrade today. Clean energy is a breeze and only you can save the planet clean energy is on its way to you. Those are what you will see soon. Great, is that what we are going to focus on . Yes, thats where the 64700 notifications are already out and we expect more upgrades to super green. Okay, great, thank you. Jason fried for lafco. The staff at sf puc has been doing tremendous work and its great to see the new staff come on board and continue to do the work. One thing beyond the sale update is i wanted to update you on ab 710. There was a lot of work done thanks to our c puc partners and other advocates. Instead of what they have for staff for electricity, they sent to the commission to put together experts, come up with a good formula that will work. Ab 110 did pass by the governor. But the answer hasnt been addressed it. It will be addressed in the who, group the way the ce does the process. So that was the one thing i wanted to add. The rest was covered as far as the cca update at this point. Supervisor john avalos great. Thank you for your work. Its great to see how things are aligning. Its been a great year finally. I know its a lot of work from your staff. Thank you for leading that way. We are going to Public Comment. Anyone who would like to comment, please come forward. Public speaker good afternoon, commissioners. Eric brooks San Francisco green party, and San Francisco Clean Energy Advocates and energy choice. Its good to hear we are making process, but since i have a short amount of time im going to talk about stuff we need work on and that is that the mayors office, sf puc staff and lafco staff and the environment staff have been meeting about getting the local component and getting an actual plan together. And the last meeting in september was that by november we are going to have a buildout plan, a basic outline for a buildout plan. A lot of that depends on many of the Bigger Picture plans and financials that ms. Hale was speaking of but we cant wait until spring to get started on that. Its important that sf puc staff get something by november to give us something to work on for the local buildout. On the state level especially with a new association, thats a really profoundly important development. There are scores of ccas getting ready to start in california. I was one of the folks that lobbied in sacramento against ab 1110 this year and last year, and one of the problems we are running into is that a lot of the legislators feel like once they have talked to the cca themselves they are done and they dont have to talk to anybody. Its hard to get them to listen to the thousands of advocates statewide. So its important that this new association try to form as close a relationship as possible with the statewide coalition and other groups that are working on this. So i would encourage that. One quick note on marketing is there are a lot of credit marketing that are bogus marketing wind. Supervisor john avalos thank you. Any other member of the public would like to comment . Seeing no one come forward, well close Public Comment and go on to our next item. Item no. 4. Executive officers report. I dont have a lot to report today but to congratulate ms. Pollock on her nuptuals and congratulate mr. Campos for his birthday and talk about the next meeting. Thats all i have. Supervisor john avalos okay. Public comment. Public speaker good afternoon, rumors have been going around and i think they are more than rumors that that some folks in our legislative body of board of supervisors is not interested in keeping lafco going. I in both energy and communications as you have in future agenda items how we land in forest and trees. It would be a really bad thing if we did not have lafco. I want to remind staff that without lafco, we wouldnt have this buildout. I dont fault for c puc staff to be conservative. Its their job. Their job is to take care of this. Its important to get outside of the box and think about whats needed in our local and regional level especially because with Community Church well be building relationship with other communities. There are areas that can be used for solar panel. Its crucial we keep lafco for that and Energy Technology because we have reached lawsuits on the east coast that have made it extremely difficult for one state to have local Community Broadband internet to make it illegal. If we dont get on that and really good time and aggressively, we are going to lose our shot at having broadband. Im sorry, i have to be frank. But the department of technology has had this ball in their court for 4 years and have done nothing. Its important that we have public internet and make sure we have our own energy and not just buying energy on the market. This has to be done independent of the board of supervisors. I encourage you to have this strong and keep lafco going. Its really important that we do that. Thanks. Supervisor john avalos thank you very much. Next speaker . Public speaker thank you, i wasnt planning on speaking but in the event that my comments mean anything in the future. I would like to echo the support for the continuation of lafco. The idea that because cleanpowersf has been implemented that now there is no need for lafco anymore is definitely you know somewhat misguided. Cleanpowersf will be around for a really long time until its up to full speed and ultimately the sf puc is an agency that really functions to complete some important infrastructural task and not meant to be as responsive to the public as either the board or lafco and certainly has a 100 plus year Institutional Culture that might not always be the most nimble. Compared to the other ccas which have started up primarily as a Standalone Agency and are in a very kind of nimble and forward thinking, its especially critical since our department that we have a group like lafco that is more responsive to a public at a ground level and we have the mayor that a points c puc commissioners, but that only happens every 4 years. And at a citywide level, certainly members of the board of supervisors and lafco commissioners tend to have a more grass roots connection with the community and thats kind of the reason why lafco has been so critical of this time. So, to the extent that these comments mean anything at some point in the future, 350 San Francisco and 350 bay area definitely support the continuation of lafco as a critical agent and moving this Initiative Forward to 100 clean energy. We cant have people only being heroes supporting 100 clean energy. Thats what the city has to move to by its own policies and what we all really need to survive on this planet. Thank you very much. Is there any additional Public Comment . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Well go on to our next item which is general Public Comment. Item no. 5. Public comment. Public speaker good morning. The officer of realistic aspects. One must apply talent and good virtues for speech and actions and good discipline and the combination of science for philosophy and usages. A working agenda of right and wrong to determine the case would have support. The gathering of facts for the working case. One can visualize with perfect consumption. So one must have working without for colorings in order to show capabilities. One system for having close net to the people in a higher principle that requires that mercy and love into a principle bypath way onto society with destiny and true wisdom for missionary career. Of loyalty of destiny of wisdom of rescue gods holy mission. Thank you. Is there any additional Public Comment . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. And go on to our next item. Clerk item no. 6. Future agenda items. A how to connect fiber to every home and business in the city and county of San Francisco. B. How tree maintenance and general landscaping is coordinated and operated in the city and county of San Francisco. Jason fried. We have two items. The two items, first off the Fiber Connect in the city and we had a robust discussion about how to connect every home to high speed internet. We did a report back on underground utility wires and how to expand it and how to do the expansion itself with the theme of this subject matter. Since that last meeting i did more research and found out the department of technology issued an rfp. They got bids back submitted september 12th. I dont have the number of bids they received. They are in the review process of those bids. To my knowledge they havent at least issued any sort of awarding of the bids. But thats quick in the process. Thats where the department of technology is at in this subject matter. I will leave it up to this body if they want to continue down this path. We can continue down this path to do it ourselves. We were going to issue and rfp to do similar work to what was described in the rfp. We can do that or see what comes out of their process first. That will be up to the commission. The next item we have is tree maintenance in the city. I will give a brief description of what happens right now. Right now you have several departments that do tree maintenance, landscaping, the type of work that is done in the city. That is done in silos. You have the department that does the work, and dpg does it. They have it in silos. You can have a work go up to a park and another truck at another park. You can have at the very same time have another truck pull up and do street landscape. It seems there is a lot of overlap with what the department has things done. Instead of sending two teams out to one location, we send one team out and they do stuff and recreation and parks and then dwp for street landscaping. I think there is a better way to come up with a more comprehensive have way instead of having these emergency silos. Its not how much it cost but how costeffective and about raising more money for those items. This is a way to really dig deep into how do these departments do it. Is there a more costeffective and better way to do it and looking into the streetscapes and making sure there is not increased cost and looking at those items. Thank you, i appreciate you bringing up these two issues forward and also as people in Public Comment address the elephant in the room. The elephant in the room is very significant. Lafco is in a very existential moment right now whether we are going to continue or not. Its not that we can actually come to cca launch and that seems to be a puc function and the work that lafco has done to help to align the city departments resources for that launch. That has now happened and cca and cleanpowersf can go on without lafco. There are a number of us at lafco that has been going on for 8 years we are going to be termed out. If there is no one else to replace us, then well see that lafco could die in the vine. What led each of us to want to take part in lafco was that we had a big project that we wanted to see happen, cleanpowersf. So i think its important that if we are going to make sure that its not just the, you know, the existence of the organization, but what the organization can do. I think having these two projects are really great ideas to explore. Fiber has been one that lafco has looked at and addressed 10 years back if not more. I think there is a possibility of fiber being a really program and project that can grow. And i think its important if we are going to have, it seems like the department of technology is doing their own rfp that looks for fiber, i think thats a project that we can monitor. Lafco should have that report heard here when its ready. I think we should also you know, talk about if fiber is going to be a reality in San Francisco, what are the different ways that it could work. I think having not just the department of technology doing it perhaps from the technology perspective, but lafco being involved actually broadened the perspective of what it could be. One member mentioned the grass roots and that will be key to say to have a private person to have for fiber or is it a public or private partnership. That will be an important discussion for lafco to weigh in on and the next membership to look into that. There will have to be new blood for this to continue. As far as the tree maintenance work, yes we have issues in San Francisco where various departments have their own tree functions and where we lose out is we dont have a robust urban forest. Now we are going to see with the ballot whether or not we have the right investment and especially the alignment of our department to look at how we can keep our urban forest strong and under a single entity, that is a really important project to look at. On the one hand, fiber is a broad citywide function that has a real direct impact on local consumers, kind of like cleanpowersf and its a really great project for basis and work for board of supervisors and lafco and the other is how our city can be better as a city to take care of a primary function like maintaining our forest. I think those are both really great projects. To me, these are worthy of supporting. I do appreciate you bringing these up, jason fried. With that, i will let my colleagues comment as well. Commissioner mar . Supervisor eric mar thank you, mr. Fried and your suggestions in terms of holding on and what we would do with a study but connecting the rfp from the department of technology and miguel gammanos staff moving forward. I want to say that tom yamanos study and the municipal work done by the Columbia Telecommunications corporation, im hoping that they are drawing from that report as they issue that rfp and whatever study is done and not just reinventing the wheel but the process and i know wolf and aaron talked about the chattanooga and other models. But i know that whats missing is Community Involvement in this process. I know we have coit which is more of an inter departmental department and we have a senior tech council that is active, but im hoping that for our future there is some kind of Digital Inclusion task force like other cities have as we move forward different big ideas so that low income seniors and people with disabilities and children and families are not left behind. Im hoping that as this rfp is moved forward and data looked at that we dont reinvent the wheel and we have Different Community members involved to think about what the future of San Franciscos hopefully fiber to the home efforts as they move forward. Thats my 0. 02. Thank you, mr. Fried. Supervisor john avalos commissioner pollock . Thank you, that is great to see two great items to move forward with lafco. I just want to echo the support for the Digital Inclusion task force that commissioner mar was speaking about. I think there is a sense that in these walls that a lot of people and advocates have this sort of feeling of you are talking about us without us. So i just want to make sure that advocates are brought in on that front as well. I think that lafco along with other organizations within or inclusions within the city have a fiduciary responsibility not to squander resources. I think it makes sense for us not to do the exact same thing the department of technology is doing with an rfp but similar as we worked with cleanpowersf, we partnered with them to make sure everyone is included in the discussion. As commissioner avalos suggestion to have the results of the rfp discussed here at lafco and invite them in so we can be a part of the discussion. Lastly, i cant miss this opportunity to make a pun which is im excited to get in the weeds or in the trees for learning more about what the city can do to consolidate services with the landscaping and tree maintenance, and just in the same way that i was talking for department and technology and including advocates to bring in those groups. Like the organizations that are supporting parks and also friends of the urban forest and those groups that are really interested in maintaining our urban forest and keeping this city invested in just the environmental and Health Benefits of having trees in our city. So, excited to move forward with both of those items. Thank you. Supervisor john avalos thank you. Commissioner campos . Supervisor david campos thank you, mr. Chair. I will be very brief. I do hope that lafco continues to function to serve this city. I think its an important function. I think a lot of it though, depends on who the members of the board of supervisors are because unless you have an interest on the newly elected on the part of the newly elected supervisors, you are not going to have a quorum and not have the kind of backing needed for lafco to be effective. So one suggestion that i have is once we know what the Election Results will be to begin outreach to whoever gets elected. Because i think the best way to get people interested in lafco is if they are working on issues that they care about and as much as we have these two great ideas, im certainly willing to support that, but i dont know whats out there and depending on the individuals that get elected, there could be ideas that are really important to them that to create incentives for them to be more involved. For me one issue that has so many different components that i think its something that should be out there is the whole issue of the sharing economy because its impacting so many different aspects of how society functions, how the city functions, and so, but i know there will be other things. I will say, lets reach out once we have a better sense of who is going to be here. Thank you. Supervisor john avalos great. Thank you. Anything else to add, mr. Fried . Any reactions to what we had to say here . Yeah, i think i made notes of all your comments and they are good comments to be making. The question at this point would be if you want me to work on this, give me the say so and the staff will start working on both of these items. My first thought on 6a that perhaps at the next meeting we invite the department of technology to come and discuss what are the fees and then talk to staff and a memo and get feedback from them to get what you might want to see out of this report. They just got their person on board. It would be good to give them any feedback on what you are looking into and i can set that up with the with ralph nadar, part of the pesticide watch. I had this passed and especially dangerous herbicides in one public forum and other areas. I left 1996. I left perg in 1997 and those regulations started not because i left, but the city started weakening on these recognizes as soon as we left. We need lafco to be just looking as forward as when we started cleanpowersf and talk about how we are going to manage other areas. Another example in recreation and parks and pacifica, they are looking into chopping down trees and it will release the huge carbon stores is not good for global warming. I would encourage you to get into this structure and policy issues. The one on pesticide should not be contentious. We got involved with the department of environment to get away with that. We are not going to use tier one herbicide in our natural areas. Thanks. Supervisor john avalos thank you very much. Is there any additional Public Comment . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. And move on to our next item. Clerk item no. 7. Adjournment. Supervisor john avalos colleagues, we are adjourned. Everyone have a great day. Thank you. [ meeting is adjourned ]