Week and no more than three days a week and the dose ans run the program itself and i can speak to all that they provide and the operation of it and we cant do it without the volunteers and our staff trains them to be part of the family and manage the ridge strail as part of the plan and we want to build the extension and change the management so if youre hiking on the ridge trail itself you dont have to go from a dose an program and to the south and open without restrictions or worth and get to this section and open dawn to dusk and then get to the deatd and its dosen lead and the plan is do it seven days a week from dawn to dusk and an permit system and that trail users are aware of the responsibilities and accessing the trail in a responsible measure and provide use for us. This is something that a lot of monitoring on the [inaudible] trail system and not impact on the trail system when it was opened 11 years ago. So that would be the annual permit but without dosens. East mud has a Similar Program and have the permit and carry it while on the property. There are details but thats the general proposal and make it less restrictive and easily accessible for the public. Do we have a fee for it . We havent talked about it. Most folks charge a minimal fee and we dont want it a barrier to using the trail. I think the process can be an educational experience and being responsible in accessing the area. Yeah, we talked about that as well at the staff level and not like online and check the box and not allow people to check the box without reading something, a quiz, some way to make sure they know what their responsibilitys are. We agree. So just wanted to wrap up in closing the three projects were have been working on for a long time and there is staff at the puc in our group that deserve credit and we do a lot of workday to day and this is part of our portfolio but try to keep it on the front burner as much as we can and we have good relationships with our neighbors and we want to continue that and whitening ridge is part of the proposal and not part of the plan but we hope to make it is at some point and done responsibly. The last comment the ridge trail itself we hope to manage as a puc trail system and for us it really is the way that we bring Education Opportunities to the public and to our customers. Were talking about a building on the alameda watershed, a public watershed building to bring kids out and experience the watershed, get to know the resources. We dont have that proposal for the peninsula right now. For us the proposal is the watershed. Thats the draw. Thats the way to get people there and really important to to do it that way and part of the educational effort. I am happy to answer questions. Thank you. I dont have anymore questions except the ones i want at the end of the presentations but if my colleagues have any questions they want to ask. We will be here. Thank you. We will go on to the next speaker who is mr. Levit from the golden gate recreational area. Thank you very much. Its a pleasure to be here and its a pleasure to talk about something other than off leash dogs. Just wait. Its a pleasure to walk about the watershed. As mentioned we do hold a scenic easement and recreational easement over the watershed lands and we manage as also mentioned we manage three parcels that directly abut the watershed, sweeney ridge, rancho [inaudible] and the property that he call [inaudible] estate. They adjoin the watershed in different locations. We have supported different uses on the watershed and have an excellent working relationship with our colleagues at puc for ways that can be done. I want to invite christina and shes our san mateo coordinator and will explain indepth how the general Management Plan envisions access to the watershed. Thank you howard and thank you for having us here today so as mentioned we have a scenic easement and recreation easement over the entire watershed and the contiguous lands adjacent and important to have connectivity to the trail systems. As part of our Management Plan the alternative approved in january of this year the title was really for connecting people with the parks. We know that a lot of the visitors of the parks live on the bay side of the peninsula and dont have access to the open space lands so as part of our general Management Plan i would like to read one sentence of what we leaded as part of we included as part of the ease ment area. We will continue to work with groups and improved access on trails. We know there are concerns about people have in opening up the water shed and related to Fire Management and Education Management and of course the security of the watershed itself. We also feel we have a responsibility in administering this easement and that were providing reasonable access to our visitors so part of that we have a great working relationship with puc and the ridge trail and working on opportunities to make sure that all of the trails are connecting. We find that the [inaudible] ridge in particular would offer access between the other trails and support the connections down to the [inaudible] estate and the san andreas connection and we support puc management in this proposal. We do think there are opportunities for reasonable access and making sure that were providing the connectivity to public open space. Thank you. Thank you very much. And mr. Lef itd thank you. I think we have supervisor pine up next if mr. Pine is here. Supervisor pine welcome. Thank you. Good afternoon supervisor. My name is dave pine. Im the supervisor representing district 1 which includes many communities that abut the sf puc lands and supervisor wiener i am no longer the president. We have a rotation system in San Mateo County so i am back to a secondary seat. I have lived in San Mateo County for 30 years now and my first exposure to this watershed lands was a few years ago when my son went on a cub scout tour in this area and somehow ranged special permission and it is spectacular. I urge you to get out there if you havent. Its an incredible resource and one that i strongly believe that the public should have extra access to and thats what brings me here today is that there is a real shortage of open space in the northern part of San Mateo County. When you go south of 92 you have the Midpeninsula Open Space land, a lot of county parks, and of course the coast side has tremendous opportunities for Outdoor Activities including the San Pedro Valley park which we operate and the referenced [inaudible]. But when you get to the north county there arent as many opportunities and this area really is one of the most densest populateed in our county, and also has a lot more folks have socioeconomic challenges that need opportunities to get outside so the idea of expanding access is one that i just think makes tremendous sense. I am supportive of the puc proposal. I had the opportunity to meet with mr. Ramirez who has done some terrific work on the topic and each of the outlines are good ones. I think the hard part is the eastwest connection in the whitening trail. I think theres a foundation in place to make that happen but the important thing is we dont want to spend 13 years making that happen because last time we addressed this issue was 2002 and it was a tough debate about opening access at all that was done and the sf puc now has some great proposals for expanding it so when we go to the next phase lets not take 13 years to get there. Finally two final points i think theres a tremendous opportunity for collaboration in this effort. Today on the peninsula theres a group called the Peninsula Park working group that brings together the leaders of [inaudible] puc, our park system, coastal conservancy and others and theyre a key group to work on the connector and finally i think we all understand how environmentally sensitive the lands are but i think we can balance the needs of access and environmental preservation. I had the opportunity to serve on the committee for green hills and on this group and the sierra club and i think they will raise concerns and we need to hear those but i think we can make this work and meet these objectives of access and environmental protection. I also should mention that our parks park director is here and can answer other questions if you have them. Marlene is a terrific leader in the peninsula. Were happy to have her and i think she would be involved in the east west trail discussions as we go forward. All right. Thank you. Supervisor pine. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming. Thats all i have for speakers presenting on the plans. I do have a list of questions i wanted to go through. Mostly are for the Public Utilities commission so if mr. Rich i, mr. Ramirez probably mr. Ramirez is available to answer some of these, about 10 of them all together. I might not go through all of them. I guess the first is like if you can go into a little more detail about conservation especially of sensitive habitats that are there . What are the plans to limit invasive plants . Overall what are the most sensitive areas that youre seeing . Wow. I will try to be very brief. So our group within the organization we manage the property we own and do all of the Environmental Compliance for the water supply system and the activities and our staff deal with this everyday. And steve can speak to some of the details how they affect our ability to operate the reservoirs after the construction and part of the projects as part of the capital program. Long story short we have a lot of species that are state and federally listed as endangered or threatened and in a few cases only on our property. We have the ones that most people have heard about, red leg red legged frog and the garden snake and hard to [inaudible] and marlene can talk about. We have mirabel [inaudible] and a rare bird and spend the day at sea and have others and we closely monitor the population and share the data especially in santa cruz and about the plants and a lot has been carved out to mitigate for the program so we have polygonos the property that are going to be managed in perpetuity to meet specific standards and we have to have money set aside to do that in an endowment and in the city treasury and this is relatively new for state and federal compliance with regulations and eventually there will be a third party that holds easements over the property and our staff has the obligation to monitor those sites forever into the future and so its a very tricky thing to navigate but we do it on a regular basis and these things on the trails are not insurmountable but takes time and additional funding and make a change in the design to navigate those institutional hurdles but i know a lot of folks at the Resource Agency are concerned as well about the potential change always in the management and they made us aware of those concerns and things that we have to work through. Great. And so is there old growth forest in the area . There is. The watershed looks very different from what it was. If you look at the old photos when the city purchased the property a lot was grass land. Many came in over time. We have plants and trees that were planted when owned privately and were taking some of the trees out to restore the grass lands and some of the important fanna and flora that are there and encroached upon by the trees themselves. We have sudden oak death on the watershed and somebody mentioned earlier and a big problem and dead trees and oaks and at the ridge on the south end. We did our best to clkt with all of the collaborate with all of the researchers in california. We tried in some cases experimental things to get trees that are infected and unfortunately that didnt work and we have to wrestle with that and protect the watershed and prevent we hope a catastrophic fire. Does the puc have any kind of a Trail Stewardship Program . Are you envisioning already one at this point and what does it look like . I think the dosein program is part of that and theyre part of the [inaudible] trail and in a nutshell we have a staff person who is a capable person who has been with us for a long time. Hes the point person for this. His job is train them and they run the trail system. They go online and i am running a program this saturday and its a bike trip or hike trip and people sign up for it and the folks that sign up have to be in the dosen and thats part of that and we want to expand that and even though were going to a permit system we want them to have a role and whether theyre on the property everyday and walking the length of the trail, being able to answer questions at locations. There are different parks that have volunteers there on their own time and easily identified and basically an extension of the staff and we want to do Something Like that so were looking to expand that. I went to another area recently and there are dosens there. Great. And there are questions whether its possible to implement the permit program earlier than were planning have access there and rather than through a dosen and do the actual permit very soon. Is that public . I think the proposal described to me is if we were to delay the construction for some reason can we jump to the change in the permit system . Were hoping to do it in one system to get approval for everything. That is one option. The permit system would be on the puc website so we would need to make a change to be ready and physically change on the it side to be ready so i hope were not delayed on construction and everything is timed to happen in 2017 but if we get hung up were working in parallel right now on the details website and the documents and there is an option to change it that if were not ready to go with the southern extension. Its my hope even earlier in terms of starting the permit program. That would be i think the intent of a lot and open up the watershed as well. The other question i have related to that or a statement about the permit system is that it should be educational to establish a permit. I think people should also get a sense as theyre going through the permit process what is there theyre learning what is there before they get there and anticipate that and be part of their intention of protecting that as well while theyre accessing it. Absolutely and one example is there is no water at the moment and so rain, sufficient water to navigate a very long rigorous hike is a very important thing and we want everyone to get the information on the front end so theyre prepared. Okay great. I do have other questions and i can take those off line and i know we have a hearing coming up and there are people for that and i have a number of speakers for this card and i think the questions raised on Public Comment for this item i want to mark them and come back to you to get a response and were looping people in with that response afterward. Absolutely. Okay great. So i have a number of cards that i will call up. If you can come up supervisor avalos before you start to the speakers in this next part on item two theres about 20 speakers. Were going to limit the speaking to two minutes per person. Soft buzzer goes off 30 seconds bferdz but if you can keep the comments short. We may lose our quorum for the next hearing were holding afterwards so its important to move through the public testimony as quickly as possible. And i might be able to switch my schedule around and stay and be a member for the next item as well so i will work on that at the same time so lets go to the list of cards that we have. If you can come up in the order your name is called and it can line up along the windows and starting before the tv by the windows would be great. Supervisor pine we already had you but if you want to come for Public Comment youre welcome. [calling speaker name s]. First let me thank the board and all of you for being here on this issue. The project that the puc i am a member of the open sf watershed group so this is something i have been working on for some time now. The projects that the puc outlined today i think are wonderful steps in the right direction and i will speak and my group will speak and we all support these projects and these take San Francisco closer to the successful and responsible policies of peers in the area and marin and east bay that successfully managed their watersheds and provides much more access than we have right now in the peninsula watershed while maintaining the quality of the water and the integrity of the environment. Let me say also i think Going Forward we need to have a focus on transparency and public input into the planning process. This today to my knowledge is the first time that all of the projects have been presented to the public in one place and i think even though many projects have been in the works for many years, probably a majority of San Francisco residents have no idea that these projects exist so i think that is something we should keep in mind Going Forward and let me say hopefully i think the switch from the dosen lead program to the permit system is especially important. By all accounts the tours are great but i will say if youre a San Francisco resident that doesnt own a car its nearly impossible to take advantage of the tours. They all begin at the southern end of the trail, the farthest side from San Francisco on highway 92 and those without cars and this will allow us to treasure the resource and take care of it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Hello. I am jason beck and part of the a group of Mountain Bike enthusiasts and i want to say personally thank you to the supervisors for moving this forward and thank you to the puc. I guess i want to focus on what an amazing opportunity we have here. Were blessed to live where we are. Were blessed to have these opportunities available and open up more space for recreation and its amazing and thank you for bringing this forward and i want you move forward and especially with the sense of urgency that was pointed out so thank you. Thank you. My name is iric miester and member of the open watershed movement. I want to thank you for hearing this. My end goal in this regard i am a strong proponent of the mental and physical benefits of getting outdoors. Im a marine corps veteran and a member of the Wounded Warrior project and i can speak to the benefit of having open space and unrestricted access to that open space. While i appreciate the dosen lead program that establish stalled for the San Francisco watershed more definitely needs to be done. And the public needs to feel that they have unrestricted access and i completely understand and echo some of the concerns about responsible planning and responsible use of this land and absolutely think that it should be done in responsible and strategic matter that allows for a balance of both sides but we absolutely need more access open to the San Francisco watershed. Thank you. Thank you. Before the next speaker i will call a few more cards. [calling speaker names] and i think we have him already. Next speaker please. Good afternoon supervisors. My name is mike ferrara. Im the conservation chair of the loma prieta chapter of the sierra club and a member of the executive committee, and as some of you may know this project if we call it a project crosses two chapters of the Sierra Club Chapter and the San Francisco bay bay chapter and the loma prieta chapter and i am chosen to say the chapters of are one mind and extremely doubtful in going away from the dosen program. We supported it in 2002. And thought it was an excellent idea. We do recall it was the preferred alternative at that time and i was actually on a Planning Commission on city council at that time and i thought the decision of the board of supervisors was well considered to take the preferred alternative. We dont see any really good reason
Andreas connection and we support puc management in this proposal. We do think there are opportunities for reasonable access and making sure that were providing the connectivity to public open space. Thank you. Thank you very much. And mr. Lef itd thank you. I think we have supervisor pine up next if mr. Pine is here. Supervisor pine welcome. Thank you. Good afternoon supervisor. My name is dave pine. Im the supervisor representing district 1 which includes many communities that abut the sf puc lands and supervisor wiener i am no longer the president. We have a rotation system in San Mateo County so i am back to a secondary seat. I have lived in San Mateo County for 30 years now and my first exposure to this watershed lands was a few years ago when my son went on a cub scout tour in this area and somehow ranged special permission and it is spectacular. I urge you to get out there if you havent. Its an incredible resource and one that i strongly believe that the public should have extra access to and thats what brings me here today is that there is a real shortage of open space in the northern part of San Mateo County. When you go south of 92 you have the Midpeninsula Open Space land, a lot of county parks, and of course the coast side has tremendous opportunities for Outdoor Activities including the San Pedro Valley park which we operate and the referenced [inaudible]. But when you get to the north county there arent as many opportunities and this area really is one of the most densest populateed in our county, and also has a lot more folks have socioeconomic challenges that need opportunities to get outside so the idea of expanding access is one that i just think makes tremendous sense. I am supportive of the puc proposal. I had the opportunity to meet with mr. Ramirez who has done some terrific work on the topic and each of the outlines are good ones. I think the hard part is the eastwest connection in the whitening trail. I think theres a foundation in place to make that happen but the important thing is we dont want to spend 13 years making that happen because last time we addressed this issue was 2002 and it was a tough debate about opening access at all that was done and the sf puc now has some great proposals for expanding it so when we go to the next phase lets not take 13 years to get there. Finally two final points i think theres a tremendous opportunity for collaboration in this effort. Today on the peninsula theres a group called the Peninsula Park working group that brings together the leaders of [inaudible] puc, our park system, coastal conservancy and others and theyre a key group to work on the connector and finally i think we all understand how environmentally sensitive the lands are but i think we can balance the needs of access and environmental preservation. I had the opportunity to serve on the committee for green hills and on this group and the sierra club and i think they will raise concerns and we need to hear those but i think we can make this work and meet these objectives of access and environmental protection. I also should mention that our parks park director is here and can answer other questions if you have them. Marlene is a terrific leader in the peninsula. Were happy to have her and i think she would be involved in the east west trail discussions as we go forward. All right. Thank you. Supervisor pine. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming. Thats all i have for speakers presenting on the plans. I do have a list of questions i wanted to go through. Mostly are for the Public Utilities commission so if mr. Rich i, mr. Ramirez probably mr. Ramirez is available to answer some of these, about 10 of them all together. I might not go through all of them. I guess the first is like if you can go into a little more detail about conservation especially of sensitive habitats that are there . What are the plans to limit Invasive Plants . Overall what are the most sensitive areas that youre seeing . Wow. I will try to be very brief. So our group within the organization we manage the property we own and do all of the Environmental Compliance for the water supply system and the activities and our staff deal with this everyday. And steve can speak to some of the details how they affect our ability to operate the reservoirs after the construction and part of the projects as part of the capital program. Long story short we have a lot of species that are state and federally listed as endangered or threatened and in a few cases only on our property. We have the ones that most people have heard about, red leg red legged frog and the garden snake and hard to [inaudible] and marlene can talk about. We have mirabel [inaudible] and a rare bird and spend the day at sea and have others and we closely monitor the population and share the data especially in santa cruz and about the plants and a lot has been carved out to mitigate for the program so we have polygonos the property that are going to be managed in perpetuity to meet specific standards and we have to have money set aside to do that in an endowment and in the city treasury and this is relatively new for state and federal compliance with regulations and eventually there will be a third party that holds easements over the property and our staff has the obligation to monitor those sites forever into the future and so its a very tricky thing to navigate but we do it on a regular basis and these things on the trails are not insurmountable but takes time and additional funding and make a change in the design to navigate those institutional hurdles but i know a lot of folks at the Resource Agency are concerned as well about the potential change always in the management and they made us aware of those concerns and things that we have to work through. Great. And so is there old growth forest in the area . There is. The watershed looks very different from what it was. If you look at the old photos when the city purchased the property a lot was grass land. Many came in over time. We have plants and trees that were planted when owned privately and were taking some of the trees out to restore the grass lands and some of the important fanna and flora that are there and encroached upon by the trees themselves. We have sudden oak death on the watershed and somebody mentioned earlier and a big problem and dead trees and oaks and at the ridge on the south end. We did our best to clkt with all of the collaborate with all of the researchers in california. We tried in some cases experimental things to get trees that are infected and unfortunately that didnt work and we have to wrestle with that and protect the watershed and prevent we hope a catastrophic fire. Does the puc have any kind of a Trail Stewardship Program . Are you envisioning already one at this point and what does it look like . I think the dosein program is part of that and theyre part of the [inaudible] trail and in a nutshell we have a staff person who is a capable person who has been with us for a long time. Hes the point person for this. His job is train them and they run the trail system. They go online and i am running a program this saturday and its a bike trip or hike trip and people sign up for it and the folks that sign up have to be in the dosen and thats part of that and we want to expand that and even though were going to a permit system we want them to have a role and whether theyre on the property everyday and walking the length of the trail, being able to answer questions at locations. There are different parks that have volunteers there on their own time and easily identified and basically an extension of the staff and we want to do Something Like that so were looking to expand that. I went to another area recently and there are dosens there. Great. And there are questions whether its possible to implement the permit program earlier than were planning have access there and rather than through a dosen and do the actual permit very soon. Is that public . I think the proposal described to me is if we were to delay the construction for some reason can we jump to the change in the permit system . Were hoping to do it in one system to get approval for everything. That is one option. The permit system would be on the puc website so we would need to make a change to be ready and physically change on the it side to be ready so i hope were not delayed on construction and everything is timed to happen in 2017 but if we get hung up were working in parallel right now on the details website and the documents and there is an option to change it that if were not ready to go with the southern extension. Its my hope even earlier in terms of starting the permit program. That would be i think the intent of a lot and open up the watershed as well. The other question i have related to that or a statement about the permit system is that it should be educational to establish a permit. I think people should also get a sense as theyre going through the permit process what is there theyre learning what is there before they get there and anticipate that and be part of their intention of protecting that as well while theyre accessing it. Absolutely and one example is there is no water at the moment and so rain, sufficient water to navigate a very long rigorous hike is a very important thing and we want everyone to get the information on the front end so theyre prepared. Okay great. I do have other questions and i can take those off line and i know we have a hearing coming up and there are people for that and i have a number of speakers for this card and i think the questions raised on Public Comment for this item i want to mark them and come back to you to get a response and were looping people in with that response afterward. Absolutely. Okay great. So i have a number of cards that i will call up. If you can come up supervisor avalos before you start to the speakers in this next part on item two theres about 20 speakers. Were going to limit the speaking to two minutes per person. Soft buzzer goes off 30 seconds bferdz but if you can keep the comments short. We may lose our quorum for the next hearing were holding afterwards so its important to move through the public testimony as quickly as possible. And i might be able to switch my schedule around and stay and be a member for the next item as well so i will work on that at the same time so lets go to the list of cards that we have. If you can come up in the order your name is called and it can line up along the windows and starting before the tv by the windows would be great. Supervisor pine we already had you but if you want to come for Public Comment youre welcome. [calling speaker name s]. First let me thank the board and all of you for being here on this issue. The project that the puc i am a member of the open sf watershed group so this is something i have been working on for some time now. The projects that the puc outlined today i think are wonderful steps in the right direction and i will speak and my group will speak and we all support these projects and these take San Francisco closer to the successful and responsible policies of peers in the area and marin and east bay that successfully managed their watersheds and provides much more access than we have right now in the peninsula watershed while maintaining the quality of the water and the integrity of the environment. Let me say also i think Going Forward we need to have a focus on transparency and public input into the planning process. This today to my knowledge is the first time that all of the projects have been presented to the public in one place and i think even though many projects have been in the works for many years, probably a majority of San Francisco residents have no idea that these projects exist so i think that is something we should keep in mind Going Forward and let me say hopefully i think the switch from the dosen lead program to the permit system is especially important. By all accounts the tours are great but i will say if youre a San Francisco resident that doesnt own a car its nearly impossible to take advantage of the tours. They all begin at the southern end of the trail, the farthest side from San Francisco on highway 92 and those without cars and this will allow us to treasure the resource and take care of it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Hello. I am jason beck and part of the a group of Mountain Bike enthusiasts and i want to say personally thank you to the supervisors for moving this forward and thank you to the puc. I guess i want to focus on what an amazing opportunity we have here. Were blessed to live where we are. Were blessed to have these opportunities available and open up more space for recreation and its amazing and thank you for bringing this forward and i want you move forward and especially with the sense of urgency that was pointed out so thank you. Thank you. My name is iric miester and member of the open watershed movement. I want to thank you for hearing this. My end goal in this regard i am a strong proponent of the mental and physical benefits of getting outdoors. Im a marine corps veteran and a member of the Wounded Warrior project and i can speak to the benefit of having open space and unrestricted access to that open space. While i appreciate the dosen lead program that establish stalled for the San Francisco watershed more definitely needs to be done. And the public needs to feel that they have unrestricted access and i completely understand and echo some of the concerns about responsible planning and responsible use of this land and absolutely think that it should be done in responsible and strategic matter that allows for a balance of both sides but we absolutely need more access open to the San Francisco watershed. Thank you. Thank you. Before the next speaker i will call a few more cards. [calling speaker names] and i think we have him already. Next speaker please. Good afternoon supervisors. My name is mike ferrara. Im the conservation chair of the loma prieta chapter of the sierra club and a member of the executive committee, and as some of you may know this project if we call it a project crosses two chapters of the Sierra Club Chapter and the San Francisco bay bay chapter and the loma prieta chapter and i am chosen to say the chapters of are one mind and extremely doubtful in going away from the dosen program. We supported it in 2002. And thought it was an excellent idea. We do recall it was the preferred alternative at that time and i was actually on a Planning Commission on city council at that time and i thought the decision of the board of supervisors was well considered to take the preferred alternative. We dont see any really good reason to get away from that. We could see possibly expanding it, and were an environmental organization. John gear was one of our founders and the whole concept of opening up wild places for recreation cuts across the grain. We think you need to be careful and did a wonderful job with the dosen program and should be commended for that and we hope the pressures to go away from that could be released. We will now get more involved in this. We havent been involved up to this point. Its our intention to do so in the future because theres a lot here to be saved. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker please. My name is ray hosher and a former bicycle columnists for the San Francisco chronicle and author of bay area bike roads. I have been writing about the area in discussion for 30 plus years and its given me a lot of inspiration. I wrote this magazine adventure rides in santa cruz mountains, and its something that i think we need to think about for opening up all space possible. Theres a concept called freedom to roam. If you look it up in wikipedia there is a lot of discussion about it and it says we want to give access to everything, all land as much as possible and i think thats the way it should go. Consider the marin marin municipal water district. They allow extensive recreation. Theyre just to the north of us. Liberal minded just like San Francisco. And finally i just want to say that if you dont think if you think there is plenty of open space already try visiting the sawyer camp trail on a weekend. And one last thing im going to do another addition of this. Its called adventure rides downtown San Francisco. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker please. Hello. My name is andy house and i started a Facebook Page called open sf watershed. Here in the San Francisco bay bay we come from bay area we come from diverse backgrounds and Diverse People and have different stories from our parents and ancestors but what joins us together and what is rarely thought of as a political thing is history, and within the San Francisco watershed lies lake po seatos and that most of the public dont know exists. This was the first Potable Water source for San Francisco. This building wouldnt be here if that lake wasnt there and [inaudible] to the mountain and [inaudible] red road flume when San Francisco was purchasing water by the barrel for gold so within that valley lies the lake and stone dam and great beautiful places that people dont know exists but are important to the history to the city and all of the great rock and roll out of the city and the things that wouldnt exist if it wasnt for the lakes and with history i would like to thank the Bay Area Ridge Council for the vision to see that the stewardship of people to manage land responsibly is tied to their emotional ownership of that land in the history of it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Before the next speaker a few more cards. [calling speaker names] thanks supervisors. I want to thank you for this hearing and also thank supervisor avalos and wiener for their leadership on this issue. My name is sasha mcgee and a member of the San Francisco urban riders. I want to under line the urgency that supervisor avalos is giving this issue. This is land that people are crying out for. San francisco and our neighbors to the south really have limited recreational opportunities within an easy bike ride or quick transit ride of the city and so i think this is a great opportunity to open that up. I always want to address supervisor avalos question around trail stewardship. Off road cyclists in San Francisco have put in thousands of hours of construction and hundreds of hours and creating world class trails for hiking and cycling around San Francisco is an opportunity that we should not pass by. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker please. I am speaking for the local chapter of the California Native Plant Society that historically been opposed to increased access of the watershed. We continue to support of dosen lead walks. We think that is the way to go. There are two commoditys in the world that focused world attention on oil and water. The quantity and quality of water is a great problem as you know. Many nations are in serious trouble because of this. One of those was south south africa which has a government lead program, a lot of funding for control of Invasive Plant thases are drieg up their streams. Volunteers like thousands of people. We dont have that kind of support, but the watershed does need it. This is not a park. People need to understand that. It is not a park. Its a watershed and it must be protected. This is not an opportune time for people to be pressing for greater access with the dry years were experiencing. San francisco itself has rows of trees that are dying now from lack of water, and they have not faced up to this problem but they had better soon. We were lucky in 2014. We will not be so lucky this year. We have six, seven, eight months of dry weather ahead of us. Humans we mess things up. We spread weeds mostly, annual weeds which add to the fuel load. We bring in weeds and envissive organisms and pathogens on boots and clothing.
The roads and this is the great interest to the people and the puc and we want to do our part to make that happen. So is there a way to cobble together a sing trail out of the roads and trails or is there a lot of work to build part of the trail to link the land together. I think from our perspective and i think this is shared from others as well we dont need to build anything. This is a management responsibility for fire control and these are fire roads that have been there for a long time and before the puc bought the property. Great. And this involves Environmental Review. Do you know what level that would be at . I cant speak to everybody else and on our side because its on our property we have to provide an update to the plan and its a seeky document. Its ceqa and one document analyzes everyones impacts and talks about mitigation measures for anyone that is part of the connection. Would that be a full eir or some other ceqa document . We havent talked to planning yet and theyre the lead agency, the San Francisco plning commission. We have a pln for the eir and the plan and we think about that first and it was a project Level Analysis for the ridge trail so we would work with city planning and what they think needs to happen within the context for ceqa compliance and whether we would do Something Different from the document that we have. I cant speak to the details today but its something were working on and talking about. Thank you. So they will have to do their own Environmental Review . We havent talked about this but in general i would hope we do a ceqa document that everyone can make use of so if the county if were the lead agency they could use it and we would reference that to make a change in the watershed Management Plan. Okay. That seems like a good way to go and that coordination and i hope that could be expedited. Theres a lot of interest in this trail and to open up the Crystal Springs area to the ocean it would be a tremendous thing to do and have a tremendous impact on access. Agreed and the san andreas connector is part of that as well and Crystal Springs you have to go through there which is the next construction project to get to the ridge and get to Whiting Ridge and trying to do in an efficient way. Great thank you. On the ridge trail itself part of the extension project and with city planning were taking the perspective this is one big project for us. We want to build the southern extension and change the way the trail is managed currently. We have been running the [inaudible] program for 11 years now three days a week and no more than three days a week and the dose ans run the program itself and i can speak to all that they provide and the operation of it and we cant do it without the volunteers and our staff trains them to be part of the family and manage the ridge strail as part of the plan and we want to build the extension and change the management so if youre hiking on the ridge trail itself you dont have to go from a dose an program and to the south and open without restrictions or worth and get to this section and open dawn to dusk and then get to the deatd and its dosen lead and the plan is do it seven days a week from dawn to dusk and an permit system and that trail users are aware of the responsibilities and accessing the trail in a responsible measure and provide use for us. This is something that a lot of monitoring on the [inaudible] trail system and not impact on the trail system when it was opened 11 years ago. So that would be the annual permit but without dosens. East mud has a Similar Program and have the permit and carry it while on the property. There are details but thats the general proposal and make it less restrictive and easily accessible for the public. Do we have a fee for it . We havent talked about it. Most folks charge a minimal fee and we dont want it a barrier to using the trail. I think the process can be an educational experience and being responsible in accessing the area. Yeah, we talked about that as well at the staff level and not like online and check the box and not allow people to check the box without reading something, a quiz, some way to make sure they know what their responsibilitys are. We agree. So just wanted to wrap up in closing the three projects were have been working on for a long time and there is staff at the puc in our group that deserve credit and we do a lot of workday to day and this is part of our portfolio but try to keep it on the front burner as much as we can and we have good relationships with our neighbors and we want to continue that and whitening ridge is part of the proposal and not part of the plan but we hope to make it is at some point and done responsibly. The last comment the ridge trail itself we hope to manage as a puc trail system and for us it really is the way that we bring Education Opportunities to the public and to our customers. Were talking about a building on the alameda watershed, a public watershed building to bring kids out and experience the watershed, get to know the resources. We dont have that proposal for the peninsula right now. For us the proposal is the watershed. Thats the draw. Thats the way to get people there and really important to to do it that way and part of the educational effort. I am happy to answer questions. Thank you. I dont have anymore questions except the ones i want at the end of the presentations but if my colleagues have any questions they want to ask. We will be here. Thank you. We will go on to the next speaker who is mr. Levit from the golden gate recreational area. Thank you very much. Its a pleasure to be here and its a pleasure to talk about something other than off leash dogs. Just wait. Its a pleasure to walk about the watershed. As mentioned we do hold a scenic easement and recreational easement over the watershed lands and we manage as also mentioned we manage three parcels that directly abut the watershed, sweeney ridge, rancho [inaudible] and the property that he call [inaudible] estate. They adjoin the watershed in different locations. We have supported different uses on the watershed and have an excellent working relationship with our colleagues at puc for ways that can be done. I want to invite christina and shes our san mateo coordinator and will explain indepth how the general Management Plan envisions access to the watershed. Thank you howard and thank you for having us here today so as mentioned we have a scenic easement and recreation easement over the entire watershed and the contiguous lands adjacent and important to have connectivity to the trail systems. As part of our Management Plan the alternative approved in january of this year the title was really for connecting people with the parks. We know that a lot of the visitors of the parks live on the bay side of the peninsula and dont have access to the open space lands so as part of our general Management Plan i would like to read one sentence of what we leaded as part of we included as part of the ease ment area. We will continue to work with groups and improved access on trails. We know there are concerns about people have in opening up the water shed and related to Fire Management and Education Management and of course the security of the watershed itself. We also feel we have a responsibility in administering this easement and that were providing reasonable access to our visitors so part of that we have a great working relationship with puc and the ridge trail and working on opportunities to make sure that all of the trails are connecting. We find that the [inaudible] ridge in particular would offer access between the other trails and support the connections down to the [inaudible] estate and the san andreas connection and we support puc management in this proposal. We do think there are opportunities for reasonable access and making sure that were providing the connectivity to public open space. Thank you. Thank you very much. And mr. Lef itd thank you. I think we have supervisor pine up next if mr. Pine is here. Supervisor pine welcome. Thank you. Good afternoon supervisor. My name is dave pine. Im the supervisor representing district 1 which includes many communities that abut the sf puc lands and supervisor wiener i am no longer the president. We have a rotation system in San Mateo County so i am back to a secondary seat. I have lived in San Mateo County for 30 years now and my first exposure to this watershed lands was a few years ago when my son went on a cub scout tour in this area and somehow ranged special permission and it is spectacular. I urge you to get out there if you havent. Its an incredible resource and one that i strongly believe that the public should have extra access to and thats what brings me here today is that there is a real shortage of open space in the northern part of San Mateo County. When you go south of 92 you have the Midpeninsula Open Space land, a lot of county parks, and of course the coast side has tremendous opportunities for Outdoor Activities including the San Pedro Valley park which we operate and the referenced [inaudible]. But when you get to the north county there arent as many opportunities and this area really is one of the most densest populateed in our county, and also has a lot more folks have socioeconomic challenges that need opportunities to get outside so the idea of expanding access is one that i just think makes tremendous sense. I am supportive of the puc proposal. I had the opportunity to meet with mr. Ramirez who has done some terrific work on the topic and each of the outlines are good ones. I think the hard part is the eastwest connection in the whitening trail. I think theres a foundation in place to make that happen but the important thing is we dont want to spend 13 years making that happen because last time we addressed this issue was 2002 and it was a tough debate about opening access at all that was done and the sf puc now has some great proposals for expanding it so when we go to the next phase lets not take 13 years to get there. Finally two final points i think theres a tremendous opportunity for collaboration in this effort. Today on the peninsula theres a group called the Peninsula Park working group that brings together the leaders of [inaudible] puc, our park system, coastal conservancy and others and theyre a key group to work on the connector and finally i think we all understand how environmentally sensitive the lands are but i think we can balance the needs of access and environmental preservation. I had the opportunity to serve on the committee for green hills and on this group and the sierra club and i think they will raise concerns and we need to hear those but i think we can make this work and meet these objectives of access and environmental protection. I also should mention that our parks park director is here and can answer other questions if you have them. Marlene is a terrific leader in the peninsula. Were happy to have her and i think she would be involved in the east west trail discussions as we go forward. All right. Thank you. Supervisor pine. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming. Thats all i have for speakers presenting on the plans. I do have a list of questions i wanted to go through. Mostly are for the Public Utilities commission so if mr. Rich i, mr. Ramirez probably mr. Ramirez is available to answer some of these, about 10 of them all together. I might not go through all of them. I guess the first is like if you can go into a little more detail about conservation especially of sensitive habitats that are there . What are the plans to limit invasive plants . Overall what are the most sensitive areas that youre seeing . Wow. I will try to be very brief. So our group within the organization we manage the property we own and do all of the Environmental Compliance for the water supply system and the activities and our staff deal with this everyday. And steve can speak to some of the details how they affect our ability to operate the reservoirs after the construction and part of the projects as part of the capital program. Long story short we have a lot of species that are state and federally listed as endangered or threatened and in a few cases only on our property. We have the ones that most people have heard about, red leg red legged frog and the garden snake and hard to [inaudible] and marlene can talk about. We have mirabel [inaudible] and a rare bird and spend the day at sea and have others and we closely monitor the population and share the data especially in santa cruz and about the plants and a lot has been carved out to mitigate for the program so we have polygonos the property that are going to be managed in perpetuity to meet specific standards and we have to have money set aside to do that in an endowment and in the city treasury and this is relatively new for state and federal compliance with regulations and eventually there will be a third party that holds easements over the property and our staff has the obligation to monitor those sites forever into the future and so its a very tricky thing to navigate but we do it on a regular basis and these things on the trails are not insurmountable but takes time and additional funding and make a change in the design to navigate those institutional hurdles but i know a lot of folks at the Resource Agency are concerned as well about the potential change always in the management and they made us aware of those concerns and things that we have to work through. Great. And so is there old growth forest in the area . There is. The watershed looks very different from what it was. If you look at the old photos when the city purchased the property a lot was grass land. Many came in over time. We have plants and trees that were planted when owned privately and were taking some of the trees out to restore the grass lands and some of the important fanna and flora that are there and encroached upon by the trees themselves. We have sudden oak death on the watershed and somebody mentioned earlier and a big problem and dead trees and oaks and at the ridge on the south end. We did our best to clkt with all of the collaborate with all of the researchers in california. We tried in some cases experimental things to get trees that are infected and unfortunately that didnt work and we have to wrestle with that and protect the watershed and prevent we hope a catastrophic fire. Does the puc have any kind of a Trail Stewardship Program . Are you envisioning already one at this point and what does it look like . I think the dosein program is part of that and theyre part of the [inaudible] trail and in a nutshell we have a staff person who is a capable person who has been with us for a long time. Hes the point person for this. His job is train them and they run the trail system. They go online and i am running a program this saturday and its a bike trip or hike trip and people sign up for it and the folks that sign up have to be in the dosen and thats part of that and we want to expand that and even though were going to a permit system we want them to have a role and whether theyre on the property everyday and walking the length of the trail, being able to answer questions at locations. There are different parks that have volunteers there on their own time and easily identified and basically an extension of the staff and we want to do Something Like that so were looking to expand that. I went to another area recently and there are dosens there. Great. And there are questions whether its possible to implement the permit program earlier than were planning have access there and rather than through a dosen and do the actual permit very soon. Is that public . I think the proposal described to me is if we were to delay the construction for some reason can we jump to the change in the permit system . Were hoping to do it in one system to get approval for everything. That is one option. The permit system would be on the puc website so we would need to make a change to be ready and physically change on the it side to be ready so i hope were not delayed on construction and everything is timed to happen in 2017 but if we get hung up were working in parallel right now on the details website and the documents and there is an option to change it that if were not ready to go with the southern extension. Its my hope even earlier in terms of starting the permit program. That would be i think the intent of a lot and open up the watershed as well. The other question i have related to that or a statement about the permit system is that it should be educational to establish a permit. I think people should also get a sense as theyre going through the permit process what is there theyre learning what is there before they get there and anticipate that and be part of their intention of protecting that as well while theyre accessing it. Absolutely and one example is there is no water at the moment and so rain, sufficient water to navigate a very long rigorous hike is a very important thing and we want everyone to get the information on the front end so theyre prepared. Okay great. I do have other questions and i can take those off line and i know we have a hearing coming up and there are people for that and i have a number of speakers for this card and i think the questions raised on Public Comment for this item i want to mark them and come back to you to get a response and were looping people in with that response afterward. Absolutely. Okay great. So i have a number of cards that i will call up. If you can come up supervisor avalos before you start to the speakers in this next part on item two theres about 20 speakers. Were going to limit the speaking to two minutes per person. Soft buzzer goes off 30 seconds bferdz but if you can keep the comments short. We may lose our quorum for the next hearing were holding afterwards so its important to move through the public testimony as quickly as possible. And i might be able to switch my schedule around and stay and be a member for the next item as well so i will work on that at the same time so lets go to the list of cards that we have. If you can come up in the order your name is called and it can line up along the windows and starting before the tv by the windows would be great. Supervisor pine we already had you but if you want to come for Public Comment youre welcome. [calling speaker name s]. First let me thank the board and all of you for being here on this issue. The project that the puc i am a member of the open sf watershed group so this is something i have been working on for some time now. The projects that the puc outlined today i think are wonderful steps in the right direction and i will speak and my group will speak and we all support these projects and these take San Francisco closer to the successful and responsible policies of peers in the area and marin and east bay that successfully managed their watersheds and provides much more access than we have right now in the peninsula watershed while maintaining the quality of the water and the integrity of the environment. Let me say also i think Going Forward we need to have a focus on transparency and public input into the planning process. This today to my knowledge is the first time that all of the projects have been presented to the public in one place and i think even though many projects have been in the works for many years, probably a majority of San Francisco residents have no idea that these projects exist so i think that is something we should keep in mind Going Forward and let me say hopefully i think the switch from the dosen lead program to the permit system is especially important. By all accounts the tours are great but i will say if youre a San Francisco resident that doesnt own a car its nearly impossible to take advantage of the tours. They all begin at the southern end o
Make sure it was something that was forward looking but going to be consistent with our efforts as well and were excited about that proposal and we will talk about that as well. Everything in red is also in the watershed Management Plan to some extent but not open due to various reasons and that is consistent with the San Mateo County plan for master trails and were working on the county trail system, specifically Crystal Springs to close the gaps and there is a connection on the properties. I will talk about these in terms of updates and in the planning quickly. So on the ridge trails itself highway 92 south. This is about 6miles of gap in the bay area ridge trail and as most folks know the ridge trail around the bay area is a long plan, very big effort with all of the open space districts in the bay area and were happy to be moving forward on this. We have been working on it as long as i have been with the puc, tennessee 10 years now and we hope to build it in 2016. And ideally open it at the end of the calendar year in 2016 so hopefully in less than a year that trail which doesnt consist now would be constructed and open and south from 92 and down to the [inaudible] state and managed by the [inaudible] and basically on the east side of the skyline highway down slope. It would be a new trail and then likewise on the san andreas connector were trying to connect the Crystal Springs to itself and running behind the extension and ideally constructed in 2017. Just one more picture here of the existing trail. These are bike riders out. That is the reservoir in the background. This is looking to the south on the ridge. This is sort of the same area but the same direction from the picture steve showed. A couple more up dates on the trail system. The county just this year was able to wrap up the section from Crystal Springs down to the dam and the dam was a big project wrapped up and we need to work with the county to get the bridge back. The bridge is the gap itself and the plans was to put the back and connect them to the trail systems to the north. South of 92 there is another gap in the trail system and unfortunately held up with permitting issues now and were hoping to work San Mateo County to overcome that and provide the trail system. We were able to provide funding for the construction. Could you describe the permitting issues are and what you expect it would take to get through . Sure. I can do my part of it. My staff were part of the discussion with San Mateo County and the state and federal committees and comes down to the endangered species act and there is a lot of fanna and [inaudible] in the area and this was a concern to the resource agencies and i think the county wanted to pause and how they would wrestle with that as part of their design and operation. Great. Maybe mr. Pine can speak about that. I am sure they would provide more detail. All of the Capital Projects have some of the very same issues and we work with the same people and do our best to work it out as best we can. This wasnt on the plan but in the short time with the puc everything has turned and waterways and land west has been purchased in some cases by the open space trust, a Nonprofit Organization and [inaudible] and folks heard most about [inaudible] and currently open to the public and if you often dont see where the boundaries are but some of the roads on the property go right to our property and right now there is a gate and its closed and were talking with them and the San Mateo County about the responsibilities to take care of the roads and this is the great interest to the people and the puc and we want to do our part to make that happen. So is there a way to cobble together a sing trail out of the roads and trails or is there a lot of work to build part of the trail to link the land together. I think from our perspective and i think this is shared from others as well we dont need to build anything. This is a management responsibility for fire control and these are fire roads that have been there for a long time and before the puc bought the property. Great. And this involves Environmental Review. Do you know what level that would be at . I cant speak to everybody else and on our side because its on our property we have to provide an update to the plan and its a seeky document. Its ceqa and one document analyzes everyones impacts and talks about mitigation measures for anyone that is part of the connection. Would that be a full eir or some other ceqa document . We havent talked to planning yet and theyre the lead agency, the San Francisco plning commission. We have a pln for the eir and the plan and we think about that first and it was a project Level Analysis for the ridge trail so we would work with city planning and what they think needs to happen within the context for ceqa compliance and whether we would do Something Different from the document that we have. I cant speak to the details today but its something were working on and talking about. Thank you. So they will have to do their own Environmental Review . We havent talked about this but in general i would hope we do a ceqa document that everyone can make use of so if the county if were the lead agency they could use it and we would reference that to make a change in the watershed Management Plan. Okay. That seems like a good way to go and that coordination and i hope that could be expedited. Theres a lot of interest in this trail and to open up the Crystal Springs area to the ocean it would be a tremendous thing to do and have a tremendous impact on access. Agreed and the san andreas connector is part of that as well and Crystal Springs you have to go through there which is the next construction project to get to the ridge and get to Whiting Ridge and trying to do in an efficient way. Great thank you. On the ridge trail itself part of the extension project and with city planning were taking the perspective this is one big project for us. We want to build the southern extension and change the way the trail is managed currently. We have been running the [inaudible] program for 11 years now three days a week and no more than three days a week and the dose ans run the program itself and i can speak to all that they provide and the operation of it and we cant do it without the volunteers and our staff trains them to be part of the family and manage the ridge strail as part of the plan and we want to build the extension and change the management so if youre hiking on the ridge trail itself you dont have to go from a dose an program and to the south and open without restrictions or worth and get to this section and open dawn to dusk and then get to the deatd and its dosen lead and the plan is do it seven days a week from dawn to dusk and an permit system and that trail users are aware of the responsibilities and accessing the trail in a responsible measure and provide use for us. This is something that a lot of monitoring on the [inaudible] trail system and not impact on the trail system when it was opened 11 years ago. So that would be the annual permit but without dosens. East mud has a Similar Program and have the permit and carry it while on the property. There are details but thats the general proposal and make it less restrictive and easily accessible for the public. Do we have a fee for it . We havent talked about it. Most folks charge a minimal fee and we dont want it a barrier to using the trail. I think the process can be an educational experience and being responsible in accessing the area. Yeah, we talked about that as well at the staff level and not like online and check the box and not allow people to check the box without reading something, a quiz, some way to make sure they know what their responsibilitys are. We agree. So just wanted to wrap up in closing the three projects were have been working on for a long time and there is staff at the puc in our group that deserve credit and we do a lot of workday to day and this is part of our portfolio but try to keep it on the front burner as much as we can and we have good relationships with our neighbors and we want to continue that and whitening ridge is part of the proposal and not part of the plan but we hope to make it is at some point and done responsibly. The last comment the ridge trail itself we hope to manage as a puc trail system and for us it really is the way that we bring Education Opportunities to the public and to our customers. Were talking about a building on the alameda watershed, a public watershed building to bring kids out and experience the watershed, get to know the resources. We dont have that proposal for the peninsula right now. For us the proposal is the watershed. Thats the draw. Thats the way to get people there and really important to to do it that way and part of the educational effort. I am happy to answer questions. Thank you. I dont have anymore questions except the ones i want at the end of the presentations but if my colleagues have any questions they want to ask. We will be here. Thank you. We will go on to the next speaker who is mr. Levit from the golden gate recreational area. Thank you very much. Its a pleasure to be here and its a pleasure to talk about something other than off leash dogs. Just wait. Its a pleasure to walk about the watershed. As mentioned we do hold a scenic easement and recreational easement over the watershed lands and we manage as also mentioned we manage three parcels that directly abut the watershed, sweeney ridge, rancho [inaudible] and the property that he call [inaudible] estate. They adjoin the watershed in different locations. We have supported different uses on the watershed and have an excellent working relationship with our colleagues at puc for ways that can be done. I want to invite christina and shes our san mateo coordinator and will explain indepth how the general Management Plan envisions access to the watershed. Thank you howard and thank you for having us here today so as mentioned we have a scenic easement and recreation easement over the entire watershed and the contiguous lands adjacent and important to have connectivity to the trail systems. As part of our Management Plan the alternative approved in january of this year the title was really for connecting people with the parks. We know that a lot of the visitors of the parks live on the bay side of the peninsula and dont have access to the open space lands so as part of our general Management Plan i would like to read one sentence of what we leaded as part of we included as part of the ease ment area. We will continue to work with groups and improved access on trails. We know there are concerns about people have in opening up the water shed and related to Fire Management and Education Management and of course the security of the watershed itself. We also feel we have a responsibility in administering this easement and that were providing reasonable access to our visitors so part of that we have a great working relationship with puc and the ridge trail and working on opportunities to make sure that all of the trails are connecting. We find that the [inaudible] ridge in particular would offer access between the other trails and support the connections down to the [inaudible] estate and the san andreas connection and we support puc management in this proposal. We do think there are opportunities for reasonable access and making sure that were providing the connectivity to public open space. Thank you. Thank you very much. And mr. Lef itd thank you. I think we have supervisor pine up next if mr. Pine is here. Supervisor pine welcome. Thank you. Good afternoon supervisor. My name is dave pine. Im the supervisor representing district 1 which includes many communities that abut the sf puc lands and supervisor wiener i am no longer the president. We have a rotation system in San Mateo County so i am back to a secondary seat. I have lived in San Mateo County for 30 years now and my first exposure to this watershed lands was a few years ago when my son went on a cub scout tour in this area and somehow ranged special permission and it is spectacular. I urge you to get out there if you havent. Its an incredible resource and one that i strongly believe that the public should have extra access to and thats what brings me here today is that there is a real shortage of open space in the northern part of San Mateo County. When you go south of 92 you have the Midpeninsula Open Space land, a lot of county parks, and of course the coast side has tremendous opportunities for Outdoor Activities including the San Pedro Valley park which we operate and the referenced [inaudible]. But when you get to the north county there arent as many opportunities and this area really is one of the most densest populateed in our county, and also has a lot more folks have socioeconomic challenges that need opportunities to get outside so the idea of expanding access is one that i just think makes tremendous sense. I am supportive of the puc proposal. I had the opportunity to meet with mr. Ramirez who has done some terrific work on the topic and each of the outlines are good ones. I think the hard part is the eastwest connection in the whitening trail. I think theres a foundation in place to make that happen but the important thing is we dont want to spend 13 years making that happen because last time we addressed this issue was 2002 and it was a tough debate about opening access at all that was done and the sf puc now has some great proposals for expanding it so when we go to the next phase lets not take 13 years to get there. Finally two final points i think theres a tremendous opportunity for collaboration in this effort. Today on the peninsula theres a group called the Peninsula Park working group that brings together the leaders of [inaudible] puc, our park system, coastal conservancy and others and theyre a key group to work on the connector and finally i think we all understand how environmentally sensitive the lands are but i think we can balance the needs of access and environmental preservation. I had the opportunity to serve on the committee for green hills and on this group and the sierra club and i think they will raise concerns and we need to hear those but i think we can make this work and meet these objectives of access and environmental protection. I also should mention that our parks park director is here and can answer other questions if you have them. Marlene is a terrific leader in the peninsula. Were happy to have her and i think she would be involved in the east west trail discussions as we go forward. All right. Thank you. Supervisor pine. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming. Thats all i have for speakers presenting on the plans. I do have a list of questions i wanted to go through. Mostly are for the Public Utilities commission so if mr. Rich i, mr. Ramirez probably mr. Ramirez is available to answer some of these, about 10 of them all together. I might not go through all of them. I guess the first is like if you can go into a little more detail about conservation especially of sensitive habitats that are there . What are the plans to limit invasive plants . Overall what are the most sensitive areas that youre seeing . Wow. I will try to be very brief. So our group within the organization we manage the property we own and do all of the Environmental Compliance for the water supply system and the activities and our staff deal with this everyday. And steve can speak to some of the details how they affect our ability to operate the reservoirs after the construction and part of the projects as part of the capital program. Long story short we have a lot of species that are state and federally listed as endangered or threatened and in a few cases only on our property. We have the ones that most people have heard about, red leg red legged frog and the garden snake and hard to [inaudible] and marlene can talk about. We have mirabel [inaudible] and a rare bird and spend the day at sea and have others and we closely monitor the population and share the data especially in santa cruz and about the plants and a lot has been carved out to mitigate for the program so we have polygonos the property that are going to be managed in perpetuity to meet specific standards and we have to have money set aside to do that in an endowment and in the city treasury and this is relatively new for state and federal compliance with regulations and eventually there will be a third party that holds easements over the property and our staff has the obligation to monitor those sites forever into the future and so its a very tricky thing to navigate but we do it on a regular basis and these things on the trails are not insurmountable but takes time and additional funding and make a change in the design to navigate those institutional hurdles but i know a lot of folks at the Resource Agency are concerned as well about the potential change always in the management and they made us aware of those concerns and things that we have to work through. Great. And so is there old growth forest in the area . There is. The watershed looks very different from what it was. If you look at the old photos when the city purchased the property a lot was grass land. Many came in over time. We have plants and trees that were planted when owned privately and were taking some of the trees out to restore the grass lands and some of the important fanna and flora that are there and encroached upon by the trees themselves. We have sudden oak death on the watershed and somebody mentioned earlier and a big problem and dead trees and oaks and at the ridge on the south end. We did our best to clkt with all of the collaborate with all of the researchers in california. We tried in some cases experimental things to get trees that are infected and unfortunately that didnt work and we have to wrestle with that and protect the watershed and prevent we hope a catastrophic fire. Does the puc have any kind of a Trail Stewardship Program . Are you envisioning already one at this point and what does it look like . I think the dosein program is part of that and theyre part of the [inaudible] trail and in a nutshell we have a staff person who is a capable person who has been with us for a long time. Hes the point person for this. His job is train them and they run the trail system. They go online and i am running a program this saturday and its a bike trip or hike trip and people sign up for it and the folks that sign up have to be in the dosen and thats part of that and we want to expand that and even though were going to a permit system we want them to have a role and whether theyre on the property everyday and walking the length of the trail, being able to answer questions at locations. There are different parks that have volunteers there on their own time and easily identified and basically an extension of the staff and we want to do Something Like that so were looking to expand that. I went to another area recently and there are dosens there. Great. And there are questions whether its possible to implement the permit program earlier than were planning have access there and rather than through a dosen and do the actual permit very soon. Is that public . I think the proposal described to me is if we were to delay the construction for some reason can we jump to the change in the permit system . Were hoping to do it in one system to get approval for everything. That is one option. The permit system would be on the puc website so we would need to make a change to be ready and physically change on the it side to be ready so i hope were not delayed on construction and everything is timed to happen in 2017 but if we get hung up were working in parallel right now on the details website and the documents and there is an option to change it that if were not ready to go with th
Supervisor wiener i am no longer the president. We have a rotation system in San Mateo County so i am back to a secondary seat. I have lived in San Mateo County for 30 years now and my first exposure to this watershed lands was a few years ago when my son went on a cub scout tour in this area and somehow ranged special permission and it is spectacular. I urge you to get out there if you havent. Its an incredible resource and one that i strongly believe that the public should have extra access to and thats what brings me here today is that there is a real shortage of open space in the northern part of San Mateo County. When you go south of 92 you have the Midpeninsula Open Space land, a lot of county parks, and of course the coast side has tremendous opportunities for Outdoor Activities including the San Pedro Valley park which we operate and the referenced [inaudible]. But when you get to the north county there arent as many opportunities and this area really is one of the most densest populateed in our county, and also has a lot more folks have socioeconomic challenges that need opportunities to get outside so the idea of expanding access is one that i just think makes tremendous sense. I am supportive of the puc proposal. I had the opportunity to meet with mr. Ramirez who has done some terrific work on the topic and each of the outlines are good ones. I think the hard part is the eastwest connection in the whitening trail. I think theres a foundation in place to make that happen but the important thing is we dont want to spend 13 years making that happen because last time we addressed this issue was 2002 and it was a tough debate about opening access at all that was done and the sf puc now has some great proposals for expanding it so when we go to the next phase lets not take 13 years to get there. Finally two final points i think theres a tremendous opportunity for collaboration in this effort. Today on the peninsula theres a group called the Peninsula Park working group that brings together the leaders of [inaudible] puc, our park system, coastal conservancy and others and theyre a key group to work on the connector and finally i think we all understand how environmentally sensitive the lands are but i think we can balance the needs of access and environmental preservation. I had the opportunity to serve on the committee for green hills and on this group and the sierra club and i think they will raise concerns and we need to hear those but i think we can make this work and meet these objectives of access and environmental protection. I also should mention that our parks park director is here and can answer other questions if you have them. Marlene is a terrific leader in the peninsula. Were happy to have her and i think she would be involved in the east west trail discussions as we go forward. All right. Thank you. Supervisor pine. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming. Thats all i have for speakers presenting on the plans. I do have a list of questions i wanted to go through. Mostly are for the Public Utilities commission so if mr. Rich i, mr. Ramirez probably mr. Ramirez is available to answer some of these, about 10 of them all together. I might not go through all of them. I guess the first is like if you can go into a little more detail about conservation especially of sensitive habitats that are there . What are the plans to limit Invasive Plants . Overall what are the most sensitive areas that youre seeing . Wow. I will try to be very brief. So our group within the organization we manage the property we own and do all of the Environmental Compliance for the water supply system and the activities and our staff deal with this everyday. And steve can speak to some of the details how they affect our ability to operate the reservoirs after the construction and part of the projects as part of the capital program. Long story short we have a lot of species that are state and federally listed as endangered or threatened and in a few cases only on our property. We have the ones that most people have heard about, red leg red legged frog and the garden snake and hard to [inaudible] and marlene can talk about. We have mirabel [inaudible] and a rare bird and spend the day at sea and have others and we closely monitor the population and share the data especially in santa cruz and about the plants and a lot has been carved out to mitigate for the program so we have polygonos the property that are going to be managed in perpetuity to meet specific standards and we have to have money set aside to do that in an endowment and in the city treasury and this is relatively new for state and federal compliance with regulations and eventually there will be a third party that holds easements over the property and our staff has the obligation to monitor those sites forever into the future and so its a very tricky thing to navigate but we do it on a regular basis and these things on the trails are not insurmountable but takes time and additional funding and make a change in the design to navigate those institutional hurdles but i know a lot of folks at the Resource Agency are concerned as well about the potential change always in the management and they made us aware of those concerns and things that we have to work through. Great. And so is there old growth forest in the area . There is. The watershed looks very different from what it was. If you look at the old photos when the city purchased the property a lot was grass land. Many came in over time. We have plants and trees that were planted when owned privately and were taking some of the trees out to restore the grass lands and some of the important fanna and flora that are there and encroached upon by the trees themselves. We have sudden oak death on the watershed and somebody mentioned earlier and a big problem and dead trees and oaks and at the ridge on the south end. We did our best to clkt with all of the collaborate with all of the researchers in california. We tried in some cases experimental things to get trees that are infected and unfortunately that didnt work and we have to wrestle with that and protect the watershed and prevent we hope a catastrophic fire. Does the puc have any kind of a Trail Stewardship Program . Are you envisioning already one at this point and what does it look like . I think the dosein program is part of that and theyre part of the [inaudible] trail and in a nutshell we have a staff person who is a capable person who has been with us for a long time. Hes the point person for this. His job is train them and they run the trail system. They go online and i am running a program this saturday and its a bike trip or hike trip and people sign up for it and the folks that sign up have to be in the dosen and thats part of that and we want to expand that and even though were going to a permit system we want them to have a role and whether theyre on the property everyday and walking the length of the trail, being able to answer questions at locations. There are different parks that have volunteers there on their own time and easily identified and basically an extension of the staff and we want to do Something Like that so were looking to expand that. I went to another area recently and there are dosens there. Great. And there are questions whether its possible to implement the permit program earlier than were planning have access there and rather than through a dosen and do the actual permit very soon. Is that public . I think the proposal described to me is if we were to delay the construction for some reason can we jump to the change in the permit system . Were hoping to do it in one system to get approval for everything. That is one option. The permit system would be on the puc website so we would need to make a change to be ready and physically change on the it side to be ready so i hope were not delayed on construction and everything is timed to happen in 2017 but if we get hung up were working in parallel right now on the details website and the documents and there is an option to change it that if were not ready to go with the southern extension. Its my hope even earlier in terms of starting the permit program. That would be i think the intent of a lot and open up the watershed as well. The other question i have related to that or a statement about the permit system is that it should be educational to establish a permit. I think people should also get a sense as theyre going through the permit process what is there theyre learning what is there before they get there and anticipate that and be part of their intention of protecting that as well while theyre accessing it. Absolutely and one example is there is no water at the moment and so rain, sufficient water to navigate a very long rigorous hike is a very important thing and we want everyone to get the information on the front end so theyre prepared. Okay great. I do have other questions and i can take those off line and i know we have a hearing coming up and there are people for that and i have a number of speakers for this card and i think the questions raised on Public Comment for this item i want to mark them and come back to you to get a response and were looping people in with that response afterward. Absolutely. Okay great. So i have a number of cards that i will call up. If you can come up supervisor avalos before you start to the speakers in this next part on item two theres about 20 speakers. Were going to limit the speaking to two minutes per person. Soft buzzer goes off 30 seconds bferdz but if you can keep the comments short. We may lose our quorum for the next hearing were holding afterwards so its important to move through the public testimony as quickly as possible. And i might be able to switch my schedule around and stay and be a member for the next item as well so i will work on that at the same time so lets go to the list of cards that we have. If you can come up in the order your name is called and it can line up along the windows and starting before the tv by the windows would be great. Supervisor pine we already had you but if you want to come for Public Comment youre welcome. [calling speaker name s]. First let me thank the board and all of you for being here on this issue. The project that the puc i am a member of the open sf watershed group so this is something i have been working on for some time now. The projects that the puc outlined today i think are wonderful steps in the right direction and i will speak and my group will speak and we all support these projects and these take San Francisco closer to the successful and responsible policies of peers in the area and marin and east bay that successfully managed their watersheds and provides much more access than we have right now in the peninsula watershed while maintaining the quality of the water and the integrity of the environment. Let me say also i think Going Forward we need to have a focus on transparency and public input into the planning process. This today to my knowledge is the first time that all of the projects have been presented to the public in one place and i think even though many projects have been in the works for many years, probably a majority of San Francisco residents have no idea that these projects exist so i think that is something we should keep in mind Going Forward and let me say hopefully i think the switch from the dosen lead program to the permit system is especially important. By all accounts the tours are great but i will say if youre a San Francisco resident that doesnt own a car its nearly impossible to take advantage of the tours. They all begin at the southern end of the trail, the farthest side from San Francisco on highway 92 and those without cars and this will allow us to treasure the resource and take care of it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Hello. I am jason beck and part of the a group of Mountain Bike enthusiasts and i want to say personally thank you to the supervisors for moving this forward and thank you to the puc. I guess i want to focus on what an amazing opportunity we have here. Were blessed to live where we are. Were blessed to have these opportunities available and open up more space for recreation and its amazing and thank you for bringing this forward and i want you move forward and especially with the sense of urgency that was pointed out so thank you. Thank you. My name is iric miester and member of the open watershed movement. I want to thank you for hearing this. My end goal in this regard i am a strong proponent of the mental and physical benefits of getting outdoors. Im a marine corps veteran and a member of the Wounded Warrior project and i can speak to the benefit of having open space and unrestricted access to that open space. While i appreciate the dosen lead program that establish stalled for the San Francisco watershed more definitely needs to be done. And the public needs to feel that they have unrestricted access and i completely understand and echo some of the concerns about responsible planning and responsible use of this land and absolutely think that it should be done in responsible and strategic matter that allows for a balance of both sides but we absolutely need more access open to the San Francisco watershed. Thank you. Thank you. Before the next speaker i will call a few more cards. [calling speaker names] and i think we have him already. Next speaker please. Good afternoon supervisors. My name is mike ferrara. Im the conservation chair of the loma prieta chapter of the sierra club and a member of the executive committee, and as some of you may know this project if we call it a project crosses two chapters of the Sierra Club Chapter and the San Francisco bay bay chapter and the loma prieta chapter and i am chosen to say the chapters of are one mind and extremely doubtful in going away from the dosen program. We supported it in 2002. And thought it was an excellent idea. We do recall it was the preferred alternative at that time and i was actually on a Planning Commission on city council at that time and i thought the decision of the board of supervisors was well considered to take the preferred alternative. We dont see any really good reason to get away from that. We could see possibly expanding it, and were an environmental organization. John gear was one of our founders and the whole concept of opening up wild places for recreation cuts across the grain. We think you need to be careful and did a wonderful job with the dosen program and should be commended for that and we hope the pressures to go away from that could be released. We will now get more involved in this. We havent been involved up to this point. Its our intention to do so in the future because theres a lot here to be saved. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker please. My name is ray hosher and a former bicycle columnists for the San Francisco chronicle and author of bay area bike roads. I have been writing about the area in discussion for 30 plus years and its given me a lot of inspiration. I wrote this magazine adventure rides in santa cruz mountains, and its something that i think we need to think about for opening up all space possible. Theres a concept called freedom to roam. If you look it up in wikipedia there is a lot of discussion about it and it says we want to give access to everything, all land as much as possible and i think thats the way it should go. Consider the marin marin municipal water district. They allow extensive recreation. Theyre just to the north of us. Liberal minded just like San Francisco. And finally i just want to say that if you dont think if you think there is plenty of open space already try visiting the sawyer camp trail on a weekend. And one last thing im going to do another addition of this. Its called adventure rides downtown San Francisco. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker please. Hello. My name is andy house and i started a Facebook Page called open sf watershed. Here in the San Francisco bay bay we come from bay area we come from diverse backgrounds and Diverse People and have different stories from our parents and ancestors but what joins us together and what is rarely thought of as a political thing is history, and within the San Francisco watershed lies lake po seatos and that most of the public dont know exists. This was the first Potable Water source for San Francisco. This building wouldnt be here if that lake wasnt there and [inaudible] to the mountain and [inaudible] red road flume when San Francisco was purchasing water by the barrel for gold so within that valley lies the lake and stone dam and great beautiful places that people dont know exists but are important to the history to the city and all of the great rock and roll out of the city and the things that wouldnt exist if it wasnt for the lakes and with history i would like to thank the Bay Area Ridge Council for the vision to see that the stewardship of people to manage land responsibly is tied to their emotional ownership of that land in the history of it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Before the next speaker a few more cards. [calling speaker names] thanks supervisors. I want to thank you for this hearing and also thank supervisor avalos and wiener for their leadership on this issue. My name is sasha mcgee and a member of the San Francisco urban riders. I want to under line the urgency that supervisor avalos is giving this issue. This is land that people are crying out for. San francisco and our neighbors to the south really have limited recreational opportunities within an easy bike ride or quick transit ride of the city and so i think this is a great opportunity to open that up. I always want to address supervisor avalos question around trail stewardship. Off road cyclists in San Francisco have put in thousands of hours of construction and hundreds of hours and creating world class trails for hiking and cycling around San Francisco is an opportunity that we should not pass by. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker please. I am speaking for the local chapter of the California Native Plant Society that historically been opposed to increased access of the watershed. We continue to support of dosen lead walks. We think that is the way to go. There are two commoditys in the world that focused world attention on oil and water. The quantity and quality of water is a great problem as you know. Many nations are in serious trouble because of this. One of those was south south africa which has a government lead program, a lot of funding for control of Invasive Plant thases are drieg up their streams. Volunteers like thousands of people. We dont have that kind of support, but the watershed does need it. This is not a park. People need to understand that. It is not a park. Its a watershed and it must be protected. This is not an opportune time for people to be pressing for greater access with the dry years were experiencing. San francisco itself has rows of trees that are dying now from lack of water, and they have not faced up to this problem but they had better soon. We were lucky in 2014. We will not be so lucky this year. We have six, seven, eight months of dry weather ahead of us. Humans we mess things up. We spread weeds mostly, annual weeds which add to the fuel load. We bring in weeds and envissive organisms and pathogens on boots and clothing. Is that it . Thats it. Thank you. Next speaker please. Hello. My name is vern smith. I work for the bay area Ridge Area Council and speaking on behalf of council today. We have other volunteers and active members and Board Members in the audience and i will call one out in a moment. The bay area ridge trails mission is create a 500mile trail along the entire bay area open to everyone on the ridge lines with views of San Francisco bay. I think its probably obvious to you why we worked for many years and i