Environment Committee Meeting - June 29, 2017
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Environment Committee Meeting - June 29, 2017
The Environment Committee of the San Diego City Council met on June 29, 2017, to consider consent items, hear public comment, and receive updates on the utilities undergrounding program, advanced metering infrastructure, and the new H2O San Diego low-income assistance program. Councilmembers Kate, Sherman, and Alvarez were present; Councilmember Ward joined later. The meeting was chaired by Councilmember Alvarez.
Consent Calendar
- Approved the minutes of the May 25, 2017 meeting by unanimous consent.
- Approved three consent items (items 1-3) unanimously. The chair asked questions on item three regarding the evaluation criteria for a selected bid, specifically how EOC (Emerging Local Business Enterprise) participation and climate action plan goals factored into the selection. Staff clarified that EOC is one factor among many and that the selected vendor will assist with the municipal energy strategy.
- All consent items passed unanimously.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Ms. Welch, a member of the public, spoke on a non-agenda item. She expressed concerns about water supply and conservation, stating that San Diego's water comes from the Colorado River and not from northern California via pipeline, and urged the committee to continue water conservation efforts.
Discussion Items
- Utilities Undergrounding Program Status Report (Item 4): Presented by Hassan Yousaf and Jim Namba. The program has converted over 400 miles of overhead utilities. Annual revenue has increased to approximately $68 million for FY17. There are 26 projects in construction this fiscal year, with 12 more anticipated to start in FY18. Staff recommended accepting the report and approving a list of 29 new projects. Councilmembers discussed staffing additions (six new positions), coordination with SDG&E, five-year planning efforts, and concerns about carrying forward large fund balances (approximately $140 million). The motion to accept the report and approve the project list passed unanimously.
- Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) Update (Item 5): Presented by Leanne Joan Santos and David Bryant. The program has installed smart meters at about 11,500 locations (accounting for 30% of water usage) and completed the citywide network. Approximately 85,000 of 225,000 meters have been replaced with AMI-ready meters, and endpoints will be installed at around 270,000 additional locations. The new My WaterEasy customer portal and mobile app will launch in fall 2017. Discussion covered installation schedules, meter reader retraining, leak detection capabilities, data privacy, and potential future pricing models. This was an informational item; no action taken.
- Help to Others San Diego (H2O SD) Program Update (Item 6): Presented by Susan Lanier and Wilson Kennedy. The donation-driven program helps low-income customers pay water/wastewater bills, in compliance with Proposition 218. It partners with 211 San Diego for qualification. To date, over $160,000 in donations has been received (including $150,000 from Service Line Warranties of America and $10,000 from Qualcomm). The program aims to serve at least 500 households per year through FY2020, offering up to $100 per 12-month period. Donations can be made online via the San Diego Foundation. Councilmembers expressed strong support, shared personal stories about utility struggles, and offered suggestions for corporate outreach and donation methods. Informational item only.
Key Outcomes
- Approved consent items and the minutes unanimously.
- Approved the utilities undergrounding program status report and proposed project list unanimously.
- Accepted the AMI and H2O SD updates as informational items; no formal votes were required.
- Next meeting scheduled for July 20, 2017 at 1 p.m. (note: the transcript also mentions July 28, creating a discrepancy; the earlier date is used here).
Meeting Transcript
Good morning, everybody. Call our meeting to order and say thank you for being here. This is our June 29th, 2017 Environment Committee meeting. Council members Kate and Sherman and myself are present. Councilmember Ward will join us uh briefly. First, we will take up the approval of act record of action items for our May 25th, 2017 meeting. Unless a committee member has questions or wants to make changes, those will be approved by unanimous consent. I don't see any, so we'll move on to non-agenda public comment. We have one speaker today speaking on an item uh not on today's agenda. Ms. Welch, come forward, please. You will have two minutes. Good morning, Martha Wells. Does even snow in the high high on stairs right now? There ain't there's an in fact because we don't have m water from up there. Our water comes from the Cal River. I know that you're part of uh San Diego um county water I've seen meetings. I saw the people in fact right here. Also, I saw um right now there's no pipe for a little no pipe from LA to here. There's no water, can't can't come down here. I know about that. Now I know we're not the drought is probably not over, maybe we don't know. So maybe you should uh also um also um you know you can do it uh save water if you can because you never know. We can't tell but every year you can't tell. I also now we have we're talking about whether the county now because well we have a book only and now so it's on us to print our own stuff, which I look I looked at I looked at the agenda on at night, so I know what you're talking about all the time. Because um what are you hiding? Because you're on the you're on that board, and all the time it sometimes it's on as it's the city, sometimes it's it's somebody else, but it's never it's never barely ever San Diego Water Authority, yeah, it doesn't step up with our water all the time. Because it we're we have reports all the time from north the north, but it's not true because there's no pipe. That pipe stops like uh up uh uh top of LA. I I've I've water's my my my best subject. I mean work I went feather river when it was a dam, so I know what's going on with uh with water in northern California because I'm that's where I'm from. So that water doesn't come down here. I don't know why it gets to be ports all the time from northern northern because the water does not come down here. There's no way to get it down here, there's no pipe, there's nothing. This is this is Colorado water and what we get in our in our lake. That's all it is with our water. And and if you and all you do is you know, you have thank you very much. We only had one uh non-agenda public uh speaker, so we will move on to the uh committee comment if there are any or the uh IBA city attorney or mayor's office. Anyone no? Okay. Then we move on to the consent items. We have three items on consent. Um I have uh if no one has questions or comments on one or two one or two. I will um I have some questions on item three for whoever is uh on that one. Just two questions. I hope might you receive from my staff the two questions I had. One of them has to do with um uh in the summary of the um of the item. It was mentioned that the EOC uh well, among other things, the EOC uh component of the contract was one of the um reasons why this uh bid was selected. And uh I was just curious of that because uh it's of interest to me, and uh certainly we always want to see participation in this particular contract has significant participation, which I think is good. Um but uh I just wanted to ask that because it re usually is not a reason that is stated as why um the the bidder or the winning bid was selected.
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