>> seeing... yes, please come on up. >> i am from berkeley and i came because i heard that you have a better environmental plan than we have and i am here to find out what, it is, and and the emissions, and it is much better, and that you have, and it is nice to have good climate to bring them. yeah. any way. so i am active in the city council in berkeley and so i thought that i would come and see what is going on here. thank you. >> thank you. >> great, we are happy that you made the trip across the bay. >> i see no more public comment and so commissioners what is your wish? we do not have a resolution in

front of us, we could do a simple one. >> one of the things that i think commissioner arce suggested and what was read into the minutes was that we something about potentially giving approval to write a letter in support and i am very comfortable saying that we subpoena power support the intent of this and maybe we can include the language in the letter and i would be very up for that. >> so, we could, ask staff including that and many of the suggestions that were made this evening, and do i have a motion

to ask staff to draft such a letter? >> i move. >> it has been moved and seconded that we ask the staff to draft a letter expressing our support for this measure. and including our comments and suggestions. i guess that we could ask for a row call. >> commissioner gravanis. >> yes. >> stephenson nyes. >> wald. >> yes. >> wan. >> yes. >> approved. >> i want to thank everybody who came and spoke and everybody who has worked so hard on this and the similar measures in other areas. >> and next item please? >> director's report, updates on the department of the environment and administrative and program operations related to budget planning, and clean

air transportation climate, energy, public out reach, education and environmental justice, habitat, restoration, >> is that all? >> and green building, and >> this is an information item. >> i promise that i will not go through all of that, you do in your packet a list of just the key items that have been going on. i want to call out just a few things of some that are in the report and some are, sort of my own thoughts. and the first thing that i want to note is that we had thought that today we would be doing my performance review. and we decided as a commission that because both the president and vice president of the commission were not here that it would be better to wait until they come back so we will be doing that at the january meeting and that there will be a closed session and that we

will do my performance appraisal and in an advertisetation we are going to be serving the senior so you can get the sense of my performance and not just my self-apraysal or your experience of me, it is a first for us, as a department to do that and so we are going to pilot it, and our intention is to do a much broader, what we called climate survey and i don't mean that like the climate change but the culture survey of the department to all staff and we are working on that now, and it is going to take some care to make sure that the questions make sense and that it is going to take the appropriate type of implementation and introduction and so the staff understand what it is they are seeing, because it is never been done for the department. so that, and you will see, just the senior staff information and then next year's performance appraisal you will get a broader sense of how the department staff feel about the

department as a whole as well as my performance in terms of exciting initiatives we have a couple that are finally that are starting to move, that are very exciting and one is the safe medicine, disposal ordinance that was introduced by supervisor, chiu, president chiu, as you know he is going to be stepping away from his job, as a board of supervisor member, and he has given the ordinance over to london breed, supervisor breed will be taking over the responsibility and mar will be the co-sponsor and so we will be meeting with breed's staff and her as well to bring them up to speed on this, so i am very excited about where it is going to go. and i think that it could get, it will get interesting. we are certainly being looked at, very carefully, by the pharmaceutical industry and there is concerns, obviously,

things happen here, and they don't stay here. and we, of course, are following the lead of alameda county and king county up in washington state. and so this is a very exciting time for us. and we have learned a lot from our pilot, and we feel that we are on very strong ground in terms of understanding how pharmaceutical selection occurs and what the costs are and the challenges are for the industry as they implement this and another exciting milestone, for us, is residential pace. and so pace, is the financing mechanism to allow, in this case, home owners and residents, to take advantage of their property tax assessment, as a way to pay for energy and in an earthquake, and water upgrades. we have this in the commercial sector but we have not been able to implement it on the residential sector and we have worked on it now for several

years and we have reached a very important point in time where the mayor is introduced a resolution, that would authorize the city to join with some existing providers, and we once we work through those, milestones, or those hurtles we expect that in december, it will be taken up by the board of supervisor budget committee once it is adopted by the board of supervisors we can go and start to have the contracts put together with the financing entities and offer this to the residents of san francisco. so it is a very important piece if we are going to promoting the responsibility that we all have to retrofit our homes, to whether it be for energy or water, or to retrofit in terms of earthquake safety and we need to help the people finance the changes and this is one mechanism that the people can take advantage of as far as any

reimbursements and incentives and i just want to note that commissioner wan and i were in a very wonderful meeting and i, myself had a pretty impactful tour yesterday, where i saw the sro's of china town and some of of them, and i had never been inside of an sro i didn't understand that you can put your arms out and touch each side of the room, and that is where not only one person may live, but an entire family may live, so that was very impactful to me and we got a grant, the department of the environment and the planning department, together, got a grant with ccdc, to work on greening china town, and doing that, in a very thoughtful way, that engage the community, and with a particular focus on the pings, and that the housing, and the public housing, that was part of the housing authority, is going to be going

over, and to ccdc for their management and so this is a pretty phenomenal opportunity for the department to work closely with those organizations in china town, and see how they can bring the best in place and sort of the best practices to public housing so that they can have the green and livable space and we just kicked it off and i was pleased that commissioner wan could be there and it was a phenomenal group of people around the table and i am excited to see how this progresses and i will be coming back to the commission and give you updates on that and i just wanted you to know what was going on and we have selected a contractor, to help with our reevaluation and reorganization of our energy and green building programs. and those are 40 percent of our budget and they need special attention and we finished the scope of work and we selected the contract and her finished the scope of work and now it is going through the process of

getting auf all of the signatures but we are excited about moving forward. and we are in some final negotiations with the energy efficiency work and the good news is that we are going to have the full funding for 2015, with a public goods charge as well as with these strategic energy resources, the ser funding which gives us more flexibility to be creative in our energy efficiency world. and so, i am going to be and i am very hopeful that 2015, is going to be aa very strong year in terms of energy efficiency. i also wanted to call your attention to a wonderful movie that features robert hailly and raising to zero and i would have a way for the commission, screening, thank you. the word just... of that movie, it was wonderful to see, our

programs, our mayor, our zero waste ethic put in a story mode and the story line followed robert from start to finish and so it was a great owed to robert himself and i highly suggest watching it if you can find it on you tube or we can find racing to zero and the last piece of news that i wanted to share with you and something that warmed my heart tremendously, where press matters and i think that is something that we know and the last commission meeting i talked about an event that we did where we celebrated five janitor companies that had decided to go green and that meant that not only were the products that they were using green, and benefiting the occupants of the buildings but also, tremendously benefiting the people who were using them eight hours a day, five or six days a week. and well, after, that aired, on public radio, and on local tv. we got five different companies calling us and saying, well,

why wasn't i mentioned i am a green company and we said, well you may be green but you are not certificated green by us so the amount of square footage that we will green tripled by these new entities coming in. and it is exciting and they have not finished yet and they are anxious to be certificated and it is just an example that when we do a better job of getting out there and so the people know what we do and it snow balls and we can get an acceleration of the up take of the programs that we offer and i thought that it was a great piece of news and so that is it tonight. >> thank you, any questions or comments? >> commissioner wald? >> i have three comments. the first i would want to say, i really like the new format of this. and it is much easier for me to read, and understand, so i

appreciate that. and second, i was excited to hear about the new work in china town and i wanted to suggest possibly that the next or a future meeting of the commission that we have in the field, and broaden the input that we are going to get at the time of her review, and i think that starting that practice

>> thank you for all of those. >> any other questions for the director? >> thank you for that report and i appreciate getting it in advance of the meeting because i am a slow reader and there is so much to die ject, and that was especially interested to notice in the staff changes, tina is leaving the environment now to pursue a career with the investigative conducting group and that sounds fabulous. it blows my mind, especially when i hear the stories of environment now, staff who come

to us never having a job, in the case of tina she has two young children and in a prison and in a halfway house, she was told that she either needed to volunteer or get a job, she wanted to get a job. less than two years with us, she was hired, and she will be making upwards of 50,000 a year and i hope that she does not mind me saying that on the record. it is about the colleague that she had in the department who were with her every step of the way and to see the pride in her face, when she talked about her telling her children, what she was doing and the kind of mom she got to be now. it is something that does not happen that often.

and i give tremendous credit to the staff of the environment now to kara and donny and the people that work underneath them that are so dedicated to making sure that everyone who comes in their door leaves that that kind of potential. >> are there any members of the public who wish to comment on the director's report? >> this is about raising to zero the movie, we have a screening on november third, at our department from 9:30 to 10:30, so you guys are all welcome. >> in the morning. >> please come. november third, wednesday. >> thank you so much, for that. i appreciate it. very much. >> december third, at 9:30, great. seeing no further public comment, let's call the next item please. >> announcements information

and discussion. >> any announcements? >> i would have just one. and i think that everybody knows that for quite some time now we have had a vacancy on the commission due to the leaving of nicholas who left the campaign for the bart board and successful in achieve thating seat, we are about to have another vacancy soon because i will be leaving as of the end of this month and i am urging everyone to search far and wide, for some environmentalists whose names we can submit to the mayor for consideration to fill those vacancies. it is really difficult to function as well as we would like when we don't have a full commission. so that was just my request that please, do get names to people. so that we can get them to the mayor. >> commissioner wald? >> i was so, i know that i am going to get another chance to say this, but i just have to

say what a loss your leaving retiring, will be ruth, even if we get a grateful commission shortly after. you are the best environmentalist on this commission. your knowledge of the san francisco environment and the issues that are effect it as well as the broad sweep of relationships that you have built with the activists and the individuals and the environmental organizations and the people in the city departments, and including but not limited to the department of the environment, have been an enormous to the commission, and then have enhanced the work of the department as well as the commission. and we are going to be poorer for your leaving, and i hope

you know how much we all have appreciated and benefited from your service on this commission. >> thank you, so much. for that. >> i really appreciate it. very, very much. and you all will be very much missed, in the capacity in which i currently know you but i am probably not going very far and may return to be kind of a pain. >> you better. >> thanks. >> any more announcements or any comments on the announcements? >> public comment? >> yes. >> shrada. >> so almost 15 years ago, i sat in monica's seat of the commission secretary and there was a member of the public who came to most of the commission meetings if not all, and that was ruth gravanis and she came to the department with a lot of

wonderful ideas, talked about sustainability bio diversity and i am sad to hear that you are leaving the commission. thank you for all of your dedication to the department and to san francisco. >> thank you, so much for that. >> you are one of the people that i am really going to miss. >> any more public comment? >> there being none, next item. >> operation's committee chair's report, highlights of the november 12, 2014 meeting, this is an information and discussion item would a member like to report on the previous meeting >> sure. the operation's committee meeting, and we covered three main topics and it was a good meeting one of my favorite meetings ever. we had an update on the budget, which is heartening, because after more than a year of budget update wheres we had a shortfall, we were caught up and everything was good. so i felt good about that.

and we still did discuss the fact that there is some concern over the fact that we were still heavily grant funded and we don't have then the benefits because the grants actually articulate the money has to only go into the actual hours, worked and against whatever the project and program is, and it can't cover things like vacation and healthcare and so we have another discussion around whether or not it was time to go back and ask for the general fund dollars to cover that and we talked about at the prior meeting we suggested that there could be some conversations or working group put together with the other departments that saw the same problems and in fact there are not that many other departments that have the level of problem that we see at the department of the environment. and so, we are thinking that maybe the general fund money the right way to go. and then we had a fantastic presentation on the urban agriculture which made me happy. and we got to speak with the person from parks and recr, who

is covering the program and we had a lot of discussion around whether or not parks and rec should own the program or if it should be ours. >> but we learned and we learned fantastic things about the community gardens and the city owned property you know, that the people are creating, and they are growing food and some of that is going for feed the people who don't have other access to food in the city and it is heartening and fantastic presentation and then finally, we discussed the community meeting that we had and we learned as to whether or not the staff could accommodate that level of work, whether it was too much work to put the community meetings together and talked about what worked but didn't, and donny said that they had learned a lot from the first two that we had down about nine months apparent and that he felt that while there was a learning curve that made the work and the task for the department had to under taig take harder to know that they had it under their belt a

little bit and we could show case what the department is doing would be a good way to go forward, a good meeting >> great. thank you. >> any meants or questions about the operation's committee report? >> any public comment on the operation's committee report. next item please. >> policy committee report. chair report highlights of the october 8, november 12 meetings and information and discussion. >> commissioner wald? >> thank you.

on october 8, the two main topics that we addressed were review and approval of the resolution in support of the municipal transportation agency and the muni forward program that kept program that we have a great presentation and a great discussion and provided a very timely resolution, which the muni staff assured us that they absolutely needed and then we also, are very interesting update on the san francisco green business program, from anna wright. and... thank you. >> and then on monday, november 10th, we had a excellent presentation and discussion on the proposed safe medicine disposal stewardship ordinance which debbie referred to as the

safe medicine ordinance and i think that i will go forward with chris, giger and a representative from supervisor chiu's office and it a terrific discussion and we also, no, that was a major thing, that we did at that meeting and i have to tell you all that we have canceled our december 8th, 2014 meeting due to the fact that as of the end of this month, november 30th, that will be one member of the policy committee and that is me, hopefully we will have a plan and maybe even two members for the january meeting and we have what looked to be a very exciting agenda if

we in fact have enough people. >> so thank you. >> thanks. >> any comments, or questions? >> members of the public? comments on the policy committee report. >> next item please? >> commission secretary's written report, the and you also have in your packet a copy of the commission's correspondence log and listed on the correspondence received from the public to the commission and status, thereof and there was a 2015 meeting schedule for your commission and committee meetings and upon request of the commissioner king on the september 30th meeting, a member from the commission, listing the guidelines that are used to compile meeting minutes. >> thank you. >> and thanks very much for getting this all to us in writing and any comments or questions on the secretary's

report? >> i just want to say, how much i appreciate getting this legislative report. and thank you for that. and not to put you on the spot, but are there any items that you want to highlight that the department was involved in, and i can't tell from this report which ones we influenced and which ones just kind of happened in spite of us. >> commissioners rodriguez for the record. the report that the commissioners get is one that i put together on a weekly basis. and looking over at all of the items of interest that the department either program staff or senior staff may have, with respect to the happenings at the board of supervisors so we are tracking primarily those

ordinances of resolutions that have relevance to our department, and if it is, a public transit, and in terms of the mta's effort and if it is efforts at the public utility's commission with respect to the energy efficiency and we are tracking and making sure that we are on top of those and then again, of course, appeared before the public works department for example, as well as we track idealy what we do with a lot of that information is that if there are items that are coming before the board then we will flag those and either meet with the sponsor, at the board of supervisors, and give our comments to the process, or we will actually attend and support those items and most recently as our director shared with you, we certainly are tracking the safe ordinance that is one that our

department is prioritizing just this week. and for example, as well, the other item that we we were tracking is the renewal and there are about three others that we are talking that have not yet made appearance at a hearing, but one is on clean construction that supervisor. and the mayor introduced last week, three resolutions that will allow the city to join, to the join power authorities to do the energy efficiency and so we are working with the mayor's

office, and thank you very much for that and i also wanted to mention that i really appreciate the work that went into the guidelines on how the meeting minutes are put together and i find it really interesting to see, what we need to know and what is up to us, and i appreciate that report. >> and so do i, since i was the person who asked for it at least, i really, and i appreciate it, and it is very clear you can see in doing the minutes, monday ka, it is very good, thank you. >>