projects and properties managed and run by puc. what we did find was that the community wants more. they would like to have a stronger community partnership, and they would like puc to be more part of their community. we have developed a community benefits website, and it is to increase public input. it is an opportunity for people to learn about what we're doing as well as to provide input back to us through the online survey, and you can find that again on the sfpuc website. we have a banner there that will take you directly to the information about the community benefits program. with that, i would like to turn it over to bonita to talk about our definition of community benefits. >> good afternoon. i'm very excited to be here, and i would like to add my congratulations to the general manager, t juliet ellis, a friend of mine, and someone we hold in high esteem. i think it was a brilliant decision to uphold this position or expand its response ability to really consolidate your action, and we want to thank the commission for the

resources -- there are ways that puc's resources can be made available. this was brought up in groups of people who may have language difficulty understanding english, so we think this is an area where there is lots of room for opportunity. finally, financial and in-kind contributions. that means not just money, but the staff time that is devoted to boards and commissions and task forces that shows the community that sfpuc really cares, so i'm going to move into some of our initial recommendations. first is that the community should adopt the statement and develop an agency-wide community development program. we think the concept should be integrated into the core mission of puc and that it needs to come from the top down. we think you, as a commission, and the general manager harrington, harlan kelly, and all of the staff that we talk to are very committed to community benefits. we think with coordination at the level you are now proposing, that you will go leaps and bounds ahead and be the real trend setter, and really the benchmark for what community b

in 1983, he moved over to the puc where they built the data center and did all the processing. but that was the past, and now we are over at left 55 market street, and his temporary job and a commission after 40 years, so we want to thank john for the chance to serve. we will ask all of you to come up at the end. the next is cynthia clark,i7) oy 32 years. starting in 1978, again, the city's data processing group, which was a division of the controller's office, and then, the department of technology and information services. in 2004,]hó cynthia transferredo the puc and has been active in our licensing systems ever sinc, then. i appreciate that. last of days abel, probably the Ñ 't is abel, idçprobably the most recognizable person in the puc, delivering the mail and doing everything we have asked him to do. again, you can always see his happy face going from floor to floor with decorative kinds of things he would carry with him as he moved through the building, so we are saying goodbye with a sad face. if you would all like to come up and take a picture, that would be great.

role for the puc to play. that has become more clear overtime. i think is a credit to the project sponsors, and particularly the land owners and funders of this program. it took a lot of patience. this is the kind of program we want to be involved in. a lot of collaboration and very broad support from the community. i think the people here to speak for the project will cover some of that ground. long ago, as part of the 1934 agreement, the puc did provide some funding for projects like this in the area. there was a very large flood. timing is everything. as a consequence, lots of landowners came forward with proposals to have their land protected with easements and acquisition. many of those projects have happened in the last 14 years. this is another opportunity. this is one of the largest ones in terms of size and dollar value, and maybe in benefit because of its location downstream. the refuge has already been a major player under the federal law. this is the area that the salmon migrate up and down from. a

>> i am at harrington, general manager of d puc. i'm so happy to be here today where we will be building a new building for the puc and contributing to the green movement in our state. it is a wonderful place to be. i will be introducing a number of folks, but i want to start with introducing my commissioners. as i mentioned, this is one of those things where the puc has trained about a new headquarters building for i do not know how many years. buying one or building one, but it was always sitting out there because we have people in different parts of san francisco renting space, and that is not a good thing for ratepayers ultimately. we are one of the leaders in green technology and water and energy conservation, and we should showcase that in our new building, and this building will give us a chance to do that. one of the proponents of this building since day one who was very excited to be here was a major gap in -- mayor gavin newsom, and i will turn it over to the mayor. [applause] >> the spirit of this announcement is the crea

the response to last thursday's explosion by the puc staff was amazing. it was immediate and multifaceted. there was certainly a response by the fire department here and at the airport. that was very rapid and throw. puc staff or the first ones on the scene. some of us live in san bruno, 20 to 30 staff. they are our neighbor and wholesale customers. within minutes of the explosion, we knew exactly what was happening. staff at the tracy water treatment plant were only 2 miles away. staff there felt, heard, and saw the explosion. we have staff in the watershed that live half a mile away that were sent immediately. once we pinpointed the location, we quickly determined our system was okay. that was the first thing we were concerned with -- our own ability to keep delivering water. we verified that within minutes and then made ourselves available for mutual aid. obviously, the situation was very chaotic and real time on thursday night. our activities in the first few hours after the incident were four fire support. our first issue was making sure san bruno ha

supervisor avalos: it is puc property? >> in 1950 the board of supervisors passed a resolution authorizing the parks department to permit or allow recreational activity on these properties that was an agreement with no end date. the future board of supervisors could of course the cyber control of the property back over to the puc. as the current agreement exists, the parks department will continue to permit recreational activities on the properties. supervisor avalos: well, let's open this up for public comment. unless there is more from supervisor maxwell? two minutes per speaker? >> good morning, hon. supervisors. i am here to represent local 261 labor. i came here today to show the full support for this puc agreement with the park and we commend them for coming up with innovative ways to bring savings while innovating staff and service. thank you. >> good afternoon. my name is bruce and i am a gardener at harding park. i am also a shop steward. also the acting chair of the gulf committee for local 261. i will read a sta

projects and properties managed and run by puc. what we did find was that the community wants more. they would like to have a stronger community partnership, and they would like puc to be more part of their community. we have developed a community benefits website, and it is to increase public input. it is an opportunity for people to learn about what we're doing as well as to provide input back to us through the online survey, and you can find that again on the sfpuc website. we have a banner there that will take you directly to the information about the community benefits program. with that, i would like to turn it over to bonita to talk about our definition of community benefits. >> good afternoon. i'm very excited to be here, and i would like to add my congratulations to the general manager

the petition that we filed calls on the puc to modify their roles. i want to give you some background about wind it is critical 40 commission to make the changes. -- about why it is critical for the commission to make the changes. one of the key positions in the legislation states that the utilities are required to "cooperate fully" with the programs. in 2005, when the california puc was making the rules, pg&e continues to be a supporter of community choice aggregation. pg&e proposed that utilities should not be allowed to market against committee's choice aggregation programs. they should not be allowed to discourage customers from becoming customers of the program. add that time, a judge here recommended utilities are barred from marketing. the final decision did not adopt that particular provision without providing a full explanation. based on the cooperative attitude of the facilities, they did not see any need to be concerned about the cooperation. things have changed considerably. pg&e has reversed the position. you know about the various effor

i think the communications between staff, both at the puc, myself, the city attorney, with the mayor's office, with the stakeholders, it has been good in this process, so i think we're seeing really positive improvements in that regard. we have different opinions about the technical information. xibñiÑiÑiduring the board of gos meeting, so in the event that it does not come through the test successfully, we have a common understanding of what our next possible steps are to achieve closure. on that note, unfortu8puqe on september 8, the trans bay cable project did trip off-line during a test period. the testing ish= scheduled to resume. it was scheduled to end on september 10 and then resumed and that will conclude on october 10. they will of the other big results of the testing, and a determination will be made about whether the project is ready to bear, if you will, the reliability burden that the potrero is involved in. they would look at the termination of the process. they are, at this time, working with mirant to shorten and accelerate determination process that is in the curre

one was around facilities and how the puc thinks about the actual facilities that we own. the architects we went into, they were talking about the recycled water project. as we talk about legal and the waste-water facility and bayview, we have talked about people being able to have tors and that kind of thing, but how we think about the facility assets that puc has. we talked quite a bit about the arts commission, and i never realized when you bring up the parts issues that previous commission meetings, about kind of why we are pursuing certain pieces of art and what the nexus is to sfpuc's priority, i did not actually realize we were supporting the arts commission financially until i sat down with you, so that, i think, is a huge asset as you think about resources that could really support the puc's vision and values. at this point, the puc does not have a connection, so now i get what you were asking because there's probably some work we could do to make those connections a little bit stronger. then, i did have a connection to -- a question about the connection to 218. a

the data collection units, that receives the meter reading frequency channel, puc, at 77 places across the city, and they are pretty innocuous looking, but they are scattered around the city. most of them are run on solar power, with a few on ac current because they are in areas where there is not access to enough sunlight to make it working very well. this one is actually on the roof on some offices. the project deployment schedule, we have been in the phase where we have been deploying about 300 to 400 meters per week. this will extend it to about 8000 units. we will then go into work in phase one. again, will be testing at the end of that phase. we will be doing even more than 2000 per week, so by april 2012, we will never replace all of the leaders in san francisco, and they will all be wired up so you can read them electronically. this map shows the distribution. the green boxes are the dcu's, scattered around the city. you can see that there was a big vote agglomeration -- a big agglomeration. and yellow areas are where we are going to go beyond the first 5000 to get the next 300

the original proposal was to escalate parking -- the revenue we received from the puc annually at a 3% rate. some commissioners will -- were concerned that might not take into account the true cost escalation over the long-term 75-year proposed agreement. i went back and had a couple of conversations with the public utilities commission staff. in order to address your concerns, the proposal that i am here to speak to you about this afternoon is the following. if actual increases to the parking rates that are approved by the mta board, because they approve parking rates at all city garages, including ours, if this increases to rates that exceed 3%, the puc will cover the difference in one of two ways. one, the length of the lease would be reduced from 75 years to some shorter time, according to the amount of money, or, and i think this is the more likely probability, the puc would make a supplemental payment annually to the department for the difference between what the new rate would be and what the 3% escalated rate would be. i hope that this is a provision. i think this gives the dep

the result is that commissioner juliet ellis is the new general manager for external affairs for the puc. [applause] we were able to convince her that four to eight hours a month was not enough. welcome, and thank you very much for accepting our offer. commissioner ellis: thank you to the fellow commissioners, the staff, and the community partners. part of what makes the position so attractive is the ability to work on this more than eight hours a month. i look forward to continuing to work in this different role. >> i would like to add to the general manager -- this is brilliant. [laughter] who would have thought. it really is. i am so pleased. we are very, very fortunate. you have worked on both sides. [laughter] >> i also would like to chime in. i was in the same position, where i had heard juliet might be moving on. i was broken hearted because she has been such a great colleague and ally on these important issues. i think this is a wonderful solution and opportunity. i think we will really be able to get some amazing things done with juliet in her new role. congratulations. we are s

power generation plant, the budge of those new facilities will have to be located oat the site that puc has targeted skyline stables for decades. >> unfortunately, the site is so compacted and it's a really restricted site that we don't have room to maintain the stages on site with the improvements for the regional water system. >> reporter: the key is finding a new place for the horse. >> we have been in open discussions with them for the last few months andtine to work with them, pretty much on a weekly base. >> reporter: a dozen of skyline riders gathered for a bbq, saying goodbye to their stables. the new emergency water system broad of water to 2.5 million customers in the wake of a quake. something that they can understand, but they are hoping that the puc makes plans to relocate the stable. >> even if we signed papers for relocation, it's still until we actually have horses going into stalls, it's not a sure thing. >> reporter: skyline is one of the few cooperative stables, horse owners lend a hand and in exchange, pay less money. >> to put my horse down the peninsula, i have to

why am not clear what the role of puc is. this project is unresolved. there are other organizations that can share their thoughts with you. this continues to be unresolved. the city of san francisco has had to work with the agency's. this is clearly not a policy directive. that is what is going on right now. we know that your response to public comment, this could be directed elsewhere in the project changes. this is it part of the overall project. i believe that 80% was directed towards sharp park. it would feel fortunate to have federal funds not spent towards this project. this is also quite water intensive and the restoration may not have that same use. thank you for the discussion. thank you for your time for conserving water. >> hello, i'm a resident of san francisco and i'm concerned because we would like to authorize a general manager to negotiate a memorandum of understanding with the parks department for the delivery and application of recycled water. i don't oppose using recycled water in place of drinking water for non drinking uses. the sub

they do all of the interface with puc. in contrast to the power choice approach, we are keeping responsibility for a couple of things that you will be able to get through your power to force. this is an impressive bunch. marin energy decided to maintain agency management of the items listed here we are getting this directly with the puc. we will handle most of our customer service issues. we will have deprograms within our agents separately from the contracts we are getting from shell energy. ours is a slightly different approach. >> why did you decide to do that? >> it was a judgment call about the kinds of policy-making and activities that are citizens wanted to see and the cost effectiveness that we believe that we could achieve with our staff. >> just to clarify, will we be the main point for customer service? >> the answer is yes. we would be the primary agents. >> if people have an issue, would they pick up the phone and kit a puc staff person? >> in terms of doing customer outreach, i think that that would be us. in