Nancy Miller, Esquire stated that the Commission has before them for review at today’s public hearing R. W. Beck’s Final Report on Community Aggregation (AB117) that incorporates comments that were received through July 25th and comments received from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) on August 7th.
Mike Bell, R. W. Beck discussed the Final Report’s summary of changes from the June 20 hearing draft, conclusions, and next steps. The presentation that was given is available at the Clerk of the Board’s Office, Room 244, City Hall.
Commissioner Fellman inquired as to what LAFCo’s procedural steps should be on this plan, and if the first step would be to adopt the AB 117 Final Report.
Nancy Miller, Esquire stated that she would ask the Commission to direct her to prepare a Resolution to bring back to the next meeting adopting and accepting the AB 117 Final Report. Based upon the Commission’s concurrence with the findings of the Report, it would be directed to be sent to the City and County of San Francisco for some of these next procedural steps. There are issues that the SFPUC has raised with regards to questions that have not been answered fully in the Report such as the governance structure. That is a determination that could be made by the City and County of San Francisco, not necessarily LAFCo.
Commissioner Fellman asked if that would mean to forward the report to the agencies through the Mayor or to the Board of Supervisors.
Ms. Miller stated to all of those because the agency is through the Mayor. You might want to have it go to the Board of Supervisors for their consideration and determination. It is up to the Commission how it should be done or it could be sent to both.
Chairperson Gonzalez asked what the time period would be in approving the plan.
Ms. Miller stated that there is no legal time period as the SFPUC has no timetable at this point for community aggregation. The next real step is to prepare the Implementation Plan that has no outside legal time requirement. There is time to develop further policies and studies.
Commissioner Fellman stated that the California Public Utilities Commission has not yet set a proceeding for community aggregation. There was one deadline in the adopted AB 117 regarding allocation of the public goods charges for communities that were interested in community aggregation, so we were forced to do a foot first procedural step to look at the distribution of the local goods charges to the local communities. That decision is pending this summer, but they have not yet set the timetable or started a proceeding for the overall community aggregation or for implementation plan development.
Mr. Bell stated that was correct and a good point. He talked to a couple of the CPUC Commissioners and they have a number of issues that they are dealing with right now. They have been slow in addressing the community aggregation issues. He gets the impression that until a plan gets filed and an entity starts to request decisions and opinions, that it might continue to be slow in coming. There is a great deal of interest around the state on this issue, and there are a number of communities that are anxiously watching the process to determine what to do next.
Public Comment
Paul Phen from Local Power made the following comments: He stated that he wrote the AB 117 and worked on this policy nationally for ten years. As far as supplementing, the PUC will decide on August 21 between two draft decisions which conflict over the 2004-2005 energy efficiency funds whether or not the solicitation will be completely open to a city like San Francisco or will be limited to a percentage of the fund. Once that decision is made and if decided in San Francisco’s favor, there will be a solicitation on September 22 at the SFPUC at which date the City will have the opportunity to apply for those funds. Under the current criterion, there is approximately eight million dollars per year.
Francisco DaCosta made the following comments: He stated that they had a Commissioner and Administrative Judge visit the southeast sector. Some points had been discussed among the Commissioners regarding the PG&E bankruptcy and the Judge ordered one of the Commissioners to work with PG&E. The public needs to know the details and how it affects the community at large, especially the community from the southeast sector.
The previous speaker explained rather briefly that right now the CPUC Commissioners are taking comments from those affected. A lot of the constituents of the City and County of San Francisco that are watching this hearing know they have until August 20 to submit their comments before the CPUC Commissioners. A lot of the issues that are being discussed here are online, but a lot of the final issues are not available to the community. The community doesn’t have the details in order to talk to their representatives. It’s difficult to keep up with what is happening because the Judges and the Commissioners have not decided what the final issues are. The public is supposed to participate in this final energy plan on behalf of the City. The constituents are supposed to come up with something on behalf of the City and there is no master blue print to address not only renewable energies but the role of PG&E, Mirant, and the transmission lines. We need to learn from what happened yesterday on the East Coast.
Ed Smeloff, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission stated that the CPUC is going to have a proposed rulemaking that will be on the agenda of their August 21st meeting. There will then be an opportunity for interested parties such as San Francisco to review and comment. It will set up a number of issues. The most important issue in the immediate term is to get access to PG&E’s information on their customers and the load within San Francisco so we can do more detailed analysis of the cost of community aggregation. We have been talking offline with staff at the CPUC about what we think the need today is going to be. We haven’t seen the draft decision, so we will need to see what they are proposing and respond.
Commissioner Gonzalez asked Mr. Smeloff if it makes more sense to wait on the approval of the Plan that was prepared by R. W. Beck.
Mr. Smeloff stated that this is a consultant’s report. The Commission could vote to accept the plan. There would be additional steps. Pat Martel, the General Manager for the SFPUC sent a letter to the LAFCo explaining some issues that are relevant to the PUC. A big issue for PUC is that if this is something the Board and the community wishes to proceed with, SFPUC would need to develop the appropriate staffing levels to carry this out efficiently. Currently, they do not have all of the expertise and the resources they would need to do this official activity. She expressed concerns that a lot is being asked of the SFPUC right now to carry out the Capital Implementation Program, to rebuild the Hetch Hetchy system, to develop a Master Plan for the sewage treatment facilities in the City, the site, the Williams and Combustion Turbines. The SFPUC would need to add staff to take this project on too.
The Commission without objection agreed to accept the Plan and to thank Mr. Bell for his hard work.
Commissioner Fellman asked for the next procedural steps. She recommended that the LAFCo adopt a Resolution to be forwarded to the Board of Supervisors and Mayor for consideration. As Mr. Smeloff stated, there would be issues with respect to funding, and the policy requires a level of staffing that does not currently exist.
Chairperson Gonzalez stated that this should be discussed at the next LAFCo meeting and asked Ms. Miller to convey to the Executive Officer to prepare the Resolution.
Ms. Miller concurred.