Good morning, everyone.

This meeting will come to order.

Welcome to the regular meeting of the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for Thursday, May 14th, 2026.

I'm Supervisor Matt Dorsey, Chair of this committee.

I'm joined today by my fellow committee members, Vice Chair Danny Sauter and Supervisor Alan Wong.

We are grateful for our clerk today, Mr.

John Carroll, whom we thank for staffing us and keeping us on track as well.

We are appreciative to the entire team at SFGov TV for facilitating and broadcasting today's meeting, and that is especially true for our producer today, Jaime Eschaveri.

Mr.

Clerk, do you have any announcements?

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Please ensure that you've silenced your cell phones and other electronic devices you've brought with you into the chamber today.

If you have any documents to be included as part of any of today's files, you can submit them directly to me.

Public comment will be taken on each item on today's agenda when your item of interest comes up and public comment is called.

Please line up to speak along your right-hand side.

Alternatively, you may send your written public comment to our office in one of the following ways.

First, you may email the usual clerk for this committee, which is Monique Creighton, and her email addresses M-O-N-I-Q-U-E.C-R-A-Y-T-O-N at SFGOV.org.

Or you may send your written comments via U.S.

Postal Service to our office in City Hall.

The address is one Dr.

Carlton B.

Goodlit Place, room 244, San Francisco, California, 94102.

If you submit public comment in writing, a clerk will forward your comments to the members of this committee and also include your comments as part of the official file on which you are commenting.

Items acted upon today are expected to appear on the Board of Supervisors' agenda of June 2nd, 2026, unless otherwise stated.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Would you please call item number one?

Agenda item number one is a hearing on the state of San Francisco's drug court program, including an examination of diversion criteria and practices, program outcomes and termination rates, treatment capacity and associated wait times, and the program's implications for public safety and recovery.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

As some of you may know, I called for this hearing following reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle last January that raised serious questions about how drug court is functioning today.

That story was entitled, San Francisco Drug Court was once meant for minor crimes.

Now people accused of violent offenses are getting in by David Hernandez.

It detailed the impact of diversion, how dramatically it has evolved in recent years, and whether the system is currently structured is meeting its dual obligations to support recovery and protect public safety.

I want to begin by acknowledging my own perspective in this, which is personally informed as someone who is in recovery from drug addiction and alcoholism and who God willing will be for the rest of my life.

I believe strongly in the life-saving and life-changing potential of interventions that involve drug treatment and abstinence-based recovery.

I have seen firsthand how people can find success against evenly even the most daunting odds when they are offered meaningful opportunities to stabilize and to access treatment, including medication-assisted treatment or MAT, to take responsibility for their lives and to change for the better.

Drug Court should be a ticket that helps people rebuild their lives.

Drug court should not be a get out-of-jail free card.

Done right, in fact, drug court may be one of the most important and effective tools available to us in a drug crisis that synthetic drugs have made deadlier than ever before.

If we are going to ask the public to continue placing confidence in this system, however, we also have an obligation to honestly evaluate whether it is operating effectively and whether it is appropriately scoped, and whether it is producing the outcomes we intend.

According to data cited by the Chronicle, drug court referrals and admissions have increased dramatically in recent years, with admissions increasing from roughly 180 cases in 2023 to more than 600 in 2025.

At the same time, the makeup of the program appears to have shifted significantly.

Evidence suggests that mental health diversion referrals under California Penal Code Section 1001.36 now make up the overwhelming majority of drug court admissions, reportedly more than 90% in 2025.

And unlike the original drug court framework, which was designed primarily for low-level addiction-driven offenses and generally excluded violent crimes, the current system has increasingly included defendants charged with offenses such as attempted murder, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, and other serious violent conduct.

Now, to be clear, the existence of violent charges alone does not and should not automatically mean someone is beyond treatment or rehabilitation.

In fact, some of the academic research we reviewed in preparation for this hearing suggests that certain drug court models can reduce recidivism among both violent and nonviolent offenders when properly structured.

But the same body of research also suggests that outcomes may worsen for certain high-risk populations, including individuals with extensive prior convictions.

That tells us or should that we need a much more nuanced conversation about eligibility, screening, supervision, treatment capacity, and outcomes measurement, because another issue highlighted in the reporting is that our system appears to be under significant strain.

We are hearing reports of defendants waiting months in jail for treatment placements because capacity is insufficient to meet the demand.

We're also seeing troubling completion numbers.

In 2024, there are reportedly 134 program graduations compared to 259 terminations back into criminal court.

And perhaps most concerning, multiple agencies have acknowledged limitations in our ability to rigorously track long-term recidivism and outcomes.

If we can't reliably measure outcomes, then it becomes very difficult to evaluate whether the program is succeeding, where it is failing, and what reforms may be necessary.

This hearing is about oversight, it's about transparency.

It is about ensuring that San Francisco has a drug court system that actually works for its participants, for their families and loved ones, for crime victims, for victimized neighborhoods, and for public safety in our city.

And now I'd like to introduce our speakers today.

We are joined by San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, and from the public defender's office, Aaron Morgan, who is the deputy public defender, and Anita Naba, the felony manager.

And lastly, we have Director Dan Sai and Jose Luis Guzman from the department, both from the Department of Public Health, and Mr.

Gosman is the director of the collaborative court programs.

For the order of operations, if we can please start with District Attorney Jenkins, followed by the public defender's office, and then we'll conclude presentations with DPH and we'll reserve questions if that's okay with my colleagues for the end of the presentations.

Madam District Attorney, welcome to the public safety committee.

The floor is yours.

Thank you, Supervisor Dorsey, and I appreciate uh the board's interest in this particular matter.

I want to start by going back in time a bit and really expressing my support for the drug court program.

Um this is a program that I have referred countless uh defendants and offenders to over the course of my time as a line attorney who was handling cases.

It is one that I believed was an appropriate model and a model for the country.

Uh, that we were making an investment in ensuring that low-level offenders who were suffering from addiction had the opportunity to not only engage in treatment but earn uh the ability to keep their records clean of a conviction once they completed uh drug court successfully.

It is one that was historically just for everyone's edification, something that was grounded in an agreement between my office under District Attorney George Gascon, under the public defender's office, who at that time was led by Jeff Adachi and the courts.

Jeff Adachi and George Gascon signed an MOU along with the courts, agreeing to a set of criteria for which both offices agreed that certain crimes and certain offenders would be eligible for drug court, and identifying a set of exclusionary categories for those that they did not believe were appropriate for this particular court.

That was again largely driven by a desire to ensure that the right people were chosen for this program, who they believed could be served by this program, and that we were still able to ensure that public safety was paramount and was protected for those who they did not believe belonged in drug court.

For many years, both offices functioned as well as the court with that agreement.

And let me be clear that this is not about condemning those who sometimes may relapse.

That is a part of recovery.

And uh thankfully, the teams that were involved from both offices as well as the court and public health understood that sometimes people will fall off the wagon and we have to get them back on.

Sometimes we assign them to a program that doesn't work for them, and we have to find a different one that's more suitable.

So this is not about, this is not about a lack of compassion for people who may struggle to complete drug court because no matter what, it is difficult.

But this is about the abuse of the mental health diversion statute and the way that it is being abused through allowing in a large influx of defendants who do not meet the criteria for drug court to be allowed into this collaborative court.

It is essentially become an end run around the MOU that was signed by the two offices and the court, allowing now violent and dangerous offenders into the court, scaling up in a manner that I believe is destructive to the program, and it has proven that it is reducing its effectiveness, and has considerable implications for public safety, which is of paramount concern to me.

And when we are investing tax dollars and resources into a program, I think the taxpayers in this city are entitled to have programs be effective and are entitled to have us look out for public safety.

So the evidence shows that drug court has shifted from a small MOU-bound voluntary program for low-level driven addiction-driven offenses into a high-volume pipeline dominated by mental health diversion admissions, many of which would not have qualified under the original original drug court eligibility rules.

So that is my concern.

Drug court, as I said, was established many years ago.

It was established in 1995, but more recently, as I said under the previous administration was uh of Gascon, there were agreements about what the scope of it was.

In 2018, state law allowed defense attorneys to ask judges for drug court diversion even if prosecutors objected and opened MHD to defendants accused of violent crime, even if they have a violent crime if they have a qualifying mental health or substance abuse diagnosis.

Only narrow bars, so exclusions apply to mental health diversion.

Murder, voluntary manslaughter, sex crimes, DUI, weapons of mass destruction, but everything short of attempted murder is allowed into mental health diversion, short of and including attempted murder, I should say.

Court data shows that the cases that have been accepted to drug court are rising and rising quickly.

In 2022, the MHD cases referred to drug court represented about 12% of the drug court cases.

Now it is about 91%.

Defense attorneys have moved to divert cases into drug court 516 times in 2023, and now 1,9 times in the first 10 months of 2025.

I don't even have the latest data.

That's the last data that we have available to us.

But that is triple the level of referrals by referral requests by defense attorneys in only two years.

Successful admissions, so the court allowing people to enter drug court through MHD rose from 180 to 608 cases in just that time frame, including charges of attempted murder, armed robbery, and assault with a deadly weapon.

Charges that were never allowed to be eligible for drug court.

Again, that does not mean that I am saying these are individuals uh who we may not consider for a treatment type resolution.

Drug court is only one avenue.

So I do want to be clear about that and make sure there is no confusion.

Drug court is a diversionary court that is very different from my office deciding that if somebody charged with a felony uh deserves the ability to go to treatment to resolve their case in lieu of custody time, that we still have the ability to do that in a more structured and supervised manner we were we will most often ask in those serious cases that the individual plead guilty to a certain crime so that that is reflected on their record but it is often offered treatment is offered in lieu of jail or prison time.

The Superior Court's own collaborative court data for drug courts shows that clients served jumped from 203 in 2023 to 378 in 2024 to 785 in 2025 while MHD clients served rose from 433 in 2023 to 570 in 2024 and 720 in 2025.

Reporting indicates that some admitted defendants wait one to four months in jail before being placed in treatment because we have allowed more people than we have capacity for to enter this program.

Examples where I want to offer some examples where MHD via drug court was granted in cases which were one ineligible for regular drug court under the agreed upon guidelines and two representative examples of cases that were allowed the examples include road rage shootings a gang related shooting that wounded a victim in both legs a firing into an occupied bus a Watson murder that means a DUI where somebody has been advised during a prior DUI conviction that if they should drive under the influence and kill someone that they could be charged with murder so a Watson murder hit and run pedestrian death and a repeat residential hot prowl burglary case where motions to terminate MHD were denied and new MHD petitions were granted.

So that is a person who repeatedly absconded from their program and went out and committed further residential burglaries hot prowl means that someone was home at the time of the burglary.

So we are talking about someone who violated the terms of drug court absconded reoffended and not only what multiple times and then was allowed back in not only on the original case but now was granted new uh grants of drug court under the for the two new cases that were picked up these are serious crimes and again that require uh more supervision for the individual that is that is uh that we are dealing with that should not be eligible for uh drug court at all of these cases were admitted over the objection of my office this pattern of abuse um has I said watered down the effectiveness of this court has scaled it up in a manner that the providers cannot keep up with that case managers now do not have the ability to keep up with again we have seen as a result more terminations and fewer successful completions of drug court uh since this rapid increase the the data shows that drug court participants were sent back to criminal court more or more of the the participants were sent back to criminal court than those who have graduated in each of the last three years.

In 2024, there were 134 completions versus 259 terminations from drug court.

The Superior Court's data from 2021 to 2025 shows that drug court graduations, while they've increased by number, that is because, of course, the volume has grown, that terminations have outpaced that increase.

The system's stress is now visible.

We have had instances in court where the jail behavioral health services staff has been unable to show up to court, where they have expressed that they are overwhelmed by the number of clients that they are trying to serve, again, which scaled up by the hundreds overnight.

And now what we have seen is something else that I think is very relevant.

I've often been highlighted in the news for challenging and disqualifying judges from hearing certain cases involving my office.

But one thing stands out to me that has not been reported on very much, which is that recently there was a change in the judge who was overseeing drug court, who had allowed most of this what I will call madness to occur.

And that is Judge Michael Beggar.

Judge Michael Beggart was both one of the judges overseeing mental health diversion and also the judge overseeing drug court.

So he was the person mostly allowing this end run to happen because he was overseeing both courts.

Recently there was a change in judicial assignment.

Judge Beggart was put back into a trial court, and Judge Merlene Randall was assigned to oversee drug court and take over that assignment of partially also hearing MHD cases.

Since then, after Judge Randall expressed that she was not going to be as liberal in allowing this abuse of the statute, has filed at least 70 peremptory challenges to disqualify Judge Randall from hearing MHD and drug court cases.

And I recognize that their job is to represent their clients and only the interest of their clients solely.

That is their ethical obligation.

But for my office, we have multiple obligations.

Our obligation is to ensure justice for our victims, it's to ensure fairness to our defendants that we prosecute, and it is to take into account overall public safety.

And so when we are making these decisions, when we are objecting to violent offenders going into this type of program, it is because we are taking into account all three of those very important things that we have a duty to look out for.

In my opinion, the court has the same obligation.

They have to ensure fairness and equity to those who are charged.

They have to ensure that each side in a case has a fair opportunity to be heard, and they do have a responsibility to ensure that public safety is taken into account in every decision that they make.

And so I wanted to call attention to this issue because as these abuses continue, we're going to continue to have people on our streets suffering from addiction, rotating in and out of the courthouse like a revolving door.

We are not doing what is right by them to be able to get them into recovery so that they can stop destroying their own lives and victimizing others.

And it puts our criminal justice system at stake.

It truly does.

If we can't follow our own rules that we have set for ourselves, how can we expect anyone else to follow the rules that are set for them that we work every day to enforce?

And so I appreciate your interest in this.

I do want to see people get into recovery.

I want to see them be successful.

I want this program to be successful, but it requires that all of the people who play a part in it are honest about what it needs in order to be successful.

Because at the end of the day, all we are doing is creating more victimization and more cases, quite frankly, for the public defender's office and my office, if people can continue to re-offend day in and day out and have this court do nothing for them.

Thank you.

I will have some questions, but I think we're gonna go next to the public defenders, and I know that the director Sai has a has to leave shortly after 11, so we'll get through all of the presentations first.

Thank you.

Good morning.

My name is Aaron Morgan, and I am a deputy public defender.

I am currently staffing the drug court, and I have been in this role for over three months.

So I was there when Judge Merlene Randall was there, and I am there now that Judge Randall is continuing on in a different position.

I will briefly discuss the practice and process of drug court so we all have a basic understanding of how that works.

Then our managing attorney, Anita Naba, will speak to broader trends and share some recommendations for a better impact.

Drug Court, as said earlier, is one of the San Francisco collaborative courts.

Its mission is to connect defendants who suffer from substance use disorders to services in the community.

This is designed to enhance public safety, reduce recidivism, and to find appropriate criminal dispositions.

Drug court is working effectively and does, in fact, support our community and safety in the community.

Accountability is built into this system.

Each individual must actively engage in their treatment.

Each participant has a case manager.

This case manager assesses the participant using standards like the ASAM and then recommends a treatment level such as low intensity residential, high and um, I'm sorry, it's high-intensity outpatient treatment.

And then the treatment, the participant must then follow that treatment.

The court holds this participant accountable for progress towards completion of this plan.

If a participant has San Francisco Medical, like many do, then they are assigned a case manager from the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

This program has four phases.

A participant will enter in phase one, and in order to participate, they must go to at least three to four weekly group meetings.

They must meet individually with their case manager.

They must provide two-year analysis tests.

And in order to graduate to a different phase, they must submit a written application that is pages long, and part of that application, they must they must uh attest, and it is also signed off on that this person is tested clean for longer than 60 days.

So this is not a light program, this is a rigorous program.

We as strategic partners do come together and discuss every case of case conferencing.

We discuss how people are doing, and they must, in fact, attest to their challenges and successes before the court.

Many of our clients, who are especially in custody clients, have received credit for time served offers, however, they are showing their commitment to change by waiting in custody many weeks for available treatment, beds, and things like that.

So if the board of supervisors at all wants to support this program, we can do it by expanding drug court capabilities.

One such client did have this offer and instead chose to remain in custody because he knows that treatment will make him a better co-parent and will give his children a better future.

We do have out of custody clients who are engaged in the program who have earned their way into residential treatment and are engaging well in residential treatment.

One such client is in a local program.

He has been for months.

He's on home detention there, where he's monitored by the sheriff.

He has had excellent reports.

He had come in most recently and specifically asked for a carve out, which was supported by his case manager for one day so that he could go and attend his first AA convention in Sacramento.

He attended the convention and he met people there, and he's helping to build his sober support network.

This was supported by the judge, this was supported by the strategic partners, and it was effective.

Our client, he came back to court and had excellent reports about his first convention.

This is all possible through the partners coming together and through the immense effort of the drug court team, many of which is due to the San Francisco Department of Public Health as well as the Superior Court.

These staff members literally cheer on every participant through each phase up.

People are given incentives for completion and really build and see what a supportive community they can have.

And graduations are very important times in people's lives.

There's often tears and there's a lot of success and joy.

And I have to say, a lot of our participants are able to appear through alternative measures such as Zoom because it implies that they are doing well and they've succeeded.

They are engaged in work and have difficulty missing work to attend court, but they understand that that's their obligation.

So this program is very successful.

It does support safety in the community, and if anything, it should be expanded upon.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, supervisors.

My name is Anita Naba.

I'm an attorney at the San Francisco Public Defender's Office.

I've been a public defender in San Francisco for 15 years, and for the past four years, I serve as a manager in the felony trial unit as well as in our specialty courts, which includes overseeing mental health diversion and drug court.

Today it is true that most individuals participate in drug court through our mental health diversion statute 1001.36.

And over the past several years, our state legislature has modified that law to expand access to drug court.

This is a good thing.

It is an effort to achieve the broad goal of addressing the root causes of crime, minimizing the use of incarceration as the primary mental health and substance use treatment point for individuals, in particular those who can be safely treated in the community.

And it serves to increase accountability and real sustainable public safety.

When District Attorney Jenkins was talking about a historical point of reference, our original days of drug court and the memorandum of understanding that our offices had, that was a starting point, but it is grossly outdated.

And what we're seeing today is a reflection of our state legislature understanding that access to treatment needs to be expanded, that more people need to be able to participate in treatment.

Because recall that that time that she refers to is a time when our prisons and jails were grossly overcrowded, when mass incarceration was at a crisis point, when our California prison systems went into receivership because of their wholly inability to care for the mental health needs and substance use needs of people who went into their system.

The district attorney's assumption is that the traditional system of plead guilty and be placed on probation, perhaps referred to treatment, going to jail or prison for some period of time, then getting released onto the street, is more effective.

This is wrong.

And indeed, recent reporting indicated that while there was recidivum recidivism rates or rearrest of about 43% of drug court graduates, it was at 67% for those engaged in the traditional system.

And I don't know if you're aware of this, but when people plead guilty to a crime in San Francisco and they are sentenced and released, they are released to the street.

They're released to the street between nine and midnight.

We are not told what time they will get released.

We're not able to tell their family what time they should show up at the 7th Street jail to pick them up.

They are dumped onto the street and they walk directly up to market.

Straight line access to the drugs that brought them in there.

That is not public safety.

The law, the mental health diversion law sets out diversion criteria.

And to be clear, no one is admitted into drug court without an assessment of their needs, an individualized treatment plan.

And I think to the concern of most people in this court in this room, a determination that treatment in the community will not pose an unreasonable risk to public safety.

So while there may be people who are charged with violent offenses who petition for drug court, not all of them are accepted or admitted.

And before they are admitted, there is a hearing.

And it has to be determined that they can be safely treated in the community and would not pose an unreasonable risk to public safety.

The vast majority of participants in drug court through the mental health diversion statute are charged with low-level nonviolent felony offenses, autoburglaries, thefts, drug charges, the sort of property and quality of life crimes that we see and hear about that allow people to sort of cycle in and out of the system because the traditional system is not working.

There are some participants who are charged with assaults and other crimes of violence.

And if the root cause of their criminal activity is their addiction and they can be safely treated in the community, the law says they should get treatment too.

And for good reason.

We have relied on the carceral system to solve these problems for far too long.

These are individuals who are dealing with trauma.

They are dealing with co-occurring mental health issues, PTSD, depression, anxiety.

They are dealing with housing instability.

They are dealing with lack of access to health care.

Drug court provides not just treatment.

It provides a community.

People come to court every two weeks.

They see the same faces.

There's a clerk at Polk Street at that courthouse who cheers for them, who knows what programs they're at, who knows what jobs they have to get to, who knows who has to leave by three in order to pick up a child.

This is a community, and it supports them and provides for accountability.

While guilty plea may lengthen a person's incarceration or result in them being released in time served, it does not force people to confront the problems that brought them into the system in the first place.

Now there are definitely challenges that we need to address so that we can make drug court its most effective program.

Treatment capacity and associated wait times are a huge problem.

Jose Luis and his team work tirelessly to get people into programs, but they are working with the same pot of treatment opportunities.

Everyone is trying to get clients into the same programs, and those programs have month-long wait times where people do wait in custody.

And it's sometimes surprising that individuals who may likely beat their case at trial or could accept an out to day offer from the district attorney's office, choose to wait in jail because they don't want to be dumped onto the street.

They want to be connected to treatment and a program.

But we need to do better.

There is not treatment on demand in this city the way it has been promised.

There are especially monolingual Spanish-speaking clients who wait months longer than their English-speaking counterparts to access treatment because of the lack of program availability.

Drug court is hard.

And I want to make that clear, it is not a get out of jail free card.

Quite the opposite.

We're catching people, these are adult clients.

We are catching people sometimes years or decades into their addiction.

It's not easy.

It's not easy to just get clean and stay clean.

It is a long process.

It is a process through drug court that requires multiple phases, multiple forms of accountability, regular drug testing, and eventually to graduate proof not just that you're clean, but of housing and employment.

Those are very difficult things to accomplish and are likely reflective of the graduation rates being difficult.

We need to prioritize progress, not perfection.

Sometimes clients struggle in a program that they are sent to, and we know that recovery is not a straight road.

We need multiple options in our treatment programs so that if someone is not doing well in one of the programs, they can have the opportunity to be referred to another.

Based on these concerns, we do have some recommendations.

We hope that we can all share the same goal of getting people into treatment, increasing access.

That's the stated goal of Prop 36.

And while it's not really happening there, it is happening in drug court.

We need to invest more in treatment programs, more in the Department of Public Health staffing so that they can meet the growing needs of the program.

We've also thought about expanding access to drug court in our courtrooms, making it available more than four court days a week.

There are so many participants and so much need.

It may be of a volume that is too much for one judge to manage.

I thank you for your time and your consideration.

Drug court at its best recognizes that people aren't defined by one moment.

It reminds us of the belief in second chances and in the inherent dignity of all people.

Our community is safer when drug court is expansive and well supported.

And I look forward to a continued discussion.

Great.

Thank you so much.

And now, Director Sai.

Floor is yours.

And Mr.

Grisman.

Good morning.

Morning, still correct.

Morning.

I'm Dan Sam, the director, the health director for uh the city and county here.

And Jose Luis is the director of our collaborative courts program.

And I just want to highlight two pieces before I pass to him.

I think our role here is less around expertise for the right criminal justice involvement interventions, but from a health standpoint, when someone is referred to us, we want to make sure we are able to help serve and meet the treatment and individual need to the greatest extent possible.

The two themes I just want to note.

First, Jose Luis and his team do really amazing work.

We have been flat staffed.

We are staffed for a caseload of 240.

We are 260 rather.

We now have 420 clients in drug court.

The drug court treatment referrals that we've gotten have tripled since 2023, and our staffing has stayed flat.

Um the team does really good work.

I was just there, they had we had a safety incident uh where they work this morning, and they are proceeding with their work.

And I met one of our monolingual Spanish or serves monolingual Spanish clients.

His caseload is 90.

Uh, our average caseload should be around 40.

Um, and for so it gives you a sense of um uh both folks are very committed and we are not staffed for the volume and some of the things and timeliness that come up are a result of that, but not for lack of our team pouring out their hearts to try to try to do what they can.

The second piece is where we see um wait times and getting people into residential treatment.

As a city, we've looked, and Supervisor Dorsey, especially, you've seen many of the numbers.

For the general population, uh, we're able to get folks relatively quickly into withdrawal management and then into residential treatment.

The areas where we have real challenges exist for one, where we have monolingual Spanish speakers.

These are for gaps in the residential treatment programs.

Two, when folks have co-occurrent mental health and substance use disorder needs and need pretty intensive support around both, and three, various exclusions that various residential treatment uh programs have for folks with various um criminal justice involved uh backgrounds.

And so that sometimes leads to a much longer than average wait time for placement.

And so those are two things that are relevant factors.

I'm gonna pass it to Jose Luis now just to go through a few of the factual details of uh where the department is.

Thank you, Director Sai.

Um I'm gonna speak uh to DPH's role in drug court, including clients served, trends, and improvements.

Next slide.

Yeah.

Drug Court is a collaborative court established in 1995, and participation is voluntary.

DPH's role includes evaluating clients and custody for behavioral health disorders, which is done by jail health services.

Behavioral health services drug court treatment center team conducts additional assessments and provides treatment uh plan for participants.

Next slide.

Drug Court operates on a continuum that is in line with national best practices.

Referrals from our programs are initiated by the defense attorneys through a request for an evaluation.

Jail Health provides the assessment and results back to the court.

If a client qualifies for drug court, their case is referred to our team for assessment, and if they agree to participate, we then assess them and develop a treatment plan.

Our team then works with the client to achieve the different benchmarks outlined, including having consecutive days of negative drug tests.

Next slide.

Drug court is staffed with a clinical manager and six case managers.

The team is when fully staffed, is designed to serve 260 as director stated, and our current caseload is 420.

Case managers coordinate with residential and outpatient programs to assert uh for to assert that clients are meeting their treatment goals.

Next slide.

In 2025, during that same time period, our staffing has remained flat.

Most clients need placement into residential treatment.

Though they are not though there is no priority to treatment for these clients, our goal continues to be that everyone receives timely access to care.

Drug court participants stay in the program on average of 14 months.

This includes that's inclusive of graduates and non-graduates.

Clients leave drug court prior to graduation for a variety of reasons, including needing higher levels of care and self-discharge, which is quite high.

Additional staffing or reduced caseloads would allow drug court team to invest more into retain in retention efforts.

One of the factors contributing is the mental health diversion.

In 2023, only 44% of our referrals were through MHD compared to 65% in 2025.

This expansion of the law has increased the burden on the number of assessments and ongoing caseloads for the team.

This has led us to be 62% overstaffed capacity.

Next slide.

Additional staffing is needed, including monolingual Spanish speaking staff.

And our continued effort to increase capacity across the behavioral health system will help accelerate entry into treatment for drug court participants.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you so much.

I want to thank everybody for um participating.

Why don't I go to on questions?

District Attorney Jenkins.

Can I I got a couple?

Thoughts.

So there I guess just starting generally.

Do you think drug court is working as well as it should be?

And do you have some thoughts on what was presented here?

No, I don't think it's working as intended.

I think we've heard a number of reasons why, which I think are multifaceted.

There are certain people that are more suitable for out treat outpatient treatment, for a lower level of supervision in the community.

And those were the original reasons why the MOU had that criteria for drug court.

It was it was meant and intended for a specific target population who we believed would be more successful in the program and pose less risk for public safety when immediately released into the community.

And so I think we are both scaling this up faster as we've just heard than the Department of Public Health can manage.

We have to have sufficient staffing to assess people to ensure that they are being communicated with continuously to ensure that they are engaged in their programs and have that oversight.

We have to make sure that we are not releasing people who pose a threat to public safety back into the community.

And I will tell you that there are countless examples of reoffending happen happening when people are admitted into drug court through MHD, again, who were not suitable under the original guidelines, who have committed very serious and violent crimes, even strike offenses under our state law, and they are going back out and they are reoffending in serious ways.

And so it is not working for that reason that we are having continued victimization, because of the fact that they weren't suitable likely in the first place.

Their needs are likely much more, they have they have higher needs, I should say, than those who this court was originally intended for, and the case managers just simply are managing too much and can't give them the attention that they would need at that higher level of acuity.

And so for me, those are largely the reasons.

And again, having a judge who I believe was excessively lenient in his consideration and evaluation of the public safety risk and of the appropriateness of who was being allowed into MHD.

I want to be clear about something.

Nothing about the MHD statute uh requires a judge to let someone into drug court.

MHD is its own program, it has its own criteria based on state law.

It has nothing to do with drug court.

What is happening is that drug court is being used as a vessel for placement of the large number and overwhelming number of people being allowed into the mental health diversion program.

And so that is the end run that I'm speaking of is that the rules and the criteria around drug court do not legally have to be disregarded.

These people, yes, might be eligible for MHD.

That does not automatically make them eligible for drug court.

And again, what we have done over the course of my career for higher level offenders who do have substance abuse problems that have contributed to uh the commissions of their crimes, is that we ensure that they have pled guilty to a crime so that we have a hook for them, should they not continue through the treatment process so that there is a vessel for us to be able to have a consequence, right?

And to remove them from the community if needed.

But we give them the opportunity to work towards a lower, generally a lower crime, a lesser crime that they can have their charge reduced to if they complete treatment.

Or as I said, treatment in lieu of custody time.

That is not novel or new to the San Francisco DA's office.

As I pointed out, we talk a lot about mass incarceration, particularly with respect to prisons.

We have less than 500 people in CDCR from San Francisco.

We are not sending very many people to prison.

We do have a number of people in the county jail, most of whom are awaiting trial.

They are pre-trial uh defendants that are incarcerated in our county jail.

So we don't have a problem here with mass incarceration, not in this county.

But I need to make sure that when somebody is released back into the community, that it is safe for the community and that it is in the best welfare even of that individual so that they don't simply go out and pick up a more serious case that could land them in state prison and with another victim.

And so I think that that those are those are the issues.

Can I just ask?

You know, I'd like to, when we have hearings to have think about this in terms of what are the action items we're coming out with this.

It it feels to me like the issue may be that you know we don't control the California penal code here, but there's nothing to stop this board of supervisors or this city from making a recommendation to our own lawmakers in Sacramento and to the legislature generally that we'd like to see some changes in the state law.

If there were changes that you would make, one that I would think would it make more sense for drug court participants to plead guilty as a condition of their participation, for example.

Um is there something that we could do to to give us a little to enhance the incentive for success in this?

I think that that would be more appropriate for MHD more generally.

Again, drug court, that was that was the concept at its inception was that you could engage in drug court and then leave successfully without the conviction on your record.

We still want to be giving people that opportunity to have a clean record because we do understand the implications of having felony convictions on one's record and what that means for their life going forward.

And I still do believe that those avenues should exist.

Um but what I do have a concern about are the cases going in into MHD.

And I've had conversations with a number of state legislators about uh the fact that the floodgates for MHD were opened far too wide, that people who commit child abuse, attempted murder, um, armed robbery, things of uh very dangerous crimes should not be put through a diversionary court where they have their case dismissed at the at the end.

We need to make sure that they're um appropriately held accountable and again that they're dealt with in a fashion that is safer for the community, which is not what's happening through MHD.

So I think that there are a lot of um uh amendments that need to happen to that statute.

I know that there are a number of bills coming through the legislation there's two bills coming through the legislature right now, uh, but we need to make sure that MHD is uh has some has some boundaries to it that ensure that these types of abuses don't happen.

Okay.

Um I think that's it.

I guess I'll just for the public defender's office.

Um are there changes you you had mentioned changes that you'd like to see.

Yeah, you know, a couple things that I want to respond to.

I mean I think that first, there's just no evidence that smacking a guilty plea on the front end increases people's participation, their engagement, and their success in a treatment court program.

The same problems that um Mr.

Sai and Jose Luis Cusponde presented, they still exist, right?

You can't you can't account for that through smacking a guilty plea on the front end.

You need to increase treatment staff, increase capacity, increase programming, increase access.

If you want treatment on demand that's going to change people's lives, I think those are the recommendations that need that need to come out of and the action items that need to come out of this committee is that, you know, if we care about public safety in our community, we need to be evidenced-based and and not just fear-mongering.

We have to, we are not moving backwards from the MHD statute.

There will always be tweaks.

There will always be modifications, people will propose changes.

Some of them will make it through the state legislature, some of them won't.

But at the end of the day, you know, that statute is here to stay.

It is important, and we need to work with it as a city.

So those are the you know, focuses I would have.

I'd also just note that I think on the district attorney's public data dashboard, they tout a 50% decrease in violent crime in the last year.

So, you know, which one is it?

If we are decreasing violent crime while we are expanding access to mental health diversion, perhaps we can work together to make this program the most effective that it can be.

What keeps you coming back is some of your own internal motivation.

Some of it is your accountability to your community, your family, and some of it is the provider who's there for you every day.

And when that provider turns over and changes when they don't have capacity to meet your needs because they're overburdened by a massive caseload, that makes it harder for them to be sticky.

So what when you when you look at graduation leads, we should be considering the I I don't think there's any evidence to suggest that the certain types of crimes, the sort of small group that has been focused on that have been admitted that maybe raise people's alarm bells when they don't have all of the information is the reason why uh people are not as successful in drug court as we would like them to be.

Okay.

Okay.

Um I think I I would this is just more of a the thing that I would say about recovery traditions, and this I think is you know it's nearly universal among the recovery traditions that I'm aware of, whether it's a 12-step tradition or Dharma recovery or um life ring recovery, there's smart recovery.

There's a lot of different traditions, but they all seem to have a common element in accountability and taking responsibility.

The fact that you did something that you wronged someone in some way is not an excuse that relieves you of making an amends for it.

And that that's just that's why I don't know that having taking a look at something that would be a plea that could be expunged or something that would give more leverage to how this works out, or how the legislature is looking at it.

Um why don't I do this?

Why don't we, as we think through what we want to ask of our legislature and some of the things that are pending, I will say that it talking to some of our state legislators.

You know, we are in a different era now in drug policy with synthetic drugs that are deadlier and more potently addictive than ever before.

Um I think there are ways that we should be looking at this.

So I will be committed to working with your office and and your office on what we should be thinking about with the legislator, legislature, if necessary, and that if you think there's things that we need to do, and part of that is obviously funding.

You know, right now we're facing some challenges.

I think the one thing that we're all going to agree on is we I think money for recovery and drug treatment is uh money well spent, and I completely agree that we're not living up to the promises of treatment on demand that um San Franciscans expect of us when they s when they voted for this years ago.

So thank you for your participation.

Um I will now ask uh Vice Chair Sauter.

Thank you, Chair Dorsey.

Um, we heard about the after the.

Sorry, public defender, please.

We heard about after the change in the drug court judge that there was a uh 70 or so legal challenges against the new judge filed.

Why why was that the case?

Why did you bring those?

You know, individual attorneys make a determination about whether they think that a judge will be prejudiced against themselves, their client, or the interests of their client, whether their case can be properly served in a court.

Um we don't we don't direct that.

We allow individual attorneys to make that determination.

And I think that many, many attorneys had had experiences with the judge that they felt made her not the judge that they wanted hearing their matter.

Um and I think that the courts uh the law allows for that challenge to be made.

Um and the courts have now, and I think it was over a month ago, uh, made shuffling of assignments, and the new judge that's going to be presiding over drug court, community justice court, as well as young adult court, is a former district attorney.

And uh we've met with her, we met with her actually yesterday.

Um we look forward to working with her, and so um it it's really not about you know whether someone was a uh liberal judge or a conservative judge, a district attorney prior or a public defender prior.

This this judge that's gonna be taking over as a district attorney.

We feel like she has presented to us a commitment to uh the model and the vision of drug court of treatment and access to treatment.

Um, and I know that she's not gonna agree with us on everything, and we'll work together.

Do you are you able to share any specifics within those filings, though those challenges what was in those?

I mean, it does seem quite um coordinated and sudden to have all these f these challenges filed at once.

I'm sure you're aware that the district attorney did a mass challenge against Judge Michelle Tong when she entered the building of 850 Bryant Street.

I don't think she heard a single matter.

Um it sometimes happens, um, sometimes it appears coordinated, sometimes it's based on individual determination with both sides.

Uh you need not state more than what the California Code of Civil Procedure 170.6 requires, which is that you you don't believe the judge can be fair to yourself or your client or the issues that your client is facing.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Great.

Um I don't see anyone else on the roster.

I do I don't have any questions for the Department of Public Health because I have a feeling those answers would involve uh our responsibilities as people who are doing working on the budget, and I think we've I think we can all agree that there's a lot of challenges that your that your department is going to face, and I think that's especially true with HR1.

Um I will just put it out there though.

If you think that there's anything else you want to add, I would welcome the opportunity, or if there's a question that you think was was raised by this.

Otherwise, I really appreciate your participation.

Okay.

All right.

Oh, uh Vice Chair Sauter.

One question for Department of Public Health.

Um, if you would be able to elaborate a bit more on this uh this concept of self-discharge, what that is, um, and how uh what series of events would lead to that, what that looks like.

Uh so self-discharge can be clients going back to criminal court, they could uh by choice, they could uh decide to start an assessment and then ask to, after being explained to the process and the wait potential wait time, they decide not to continue forward.

Um and then some clients um just are not able to complete the program and so they end up um being categorized as self-discharged.

And uh, you may have shared this in the slides, but approximately how often is this happening?

Uh it is uh quite high.

I don't have the exact percentage in front of me.

And I guess you know, we're obviously um the numbers, you know, make very clear how the participants in drug court have exploded in recent years and how that um, you know, really impacts your work and your team's work and caseloads going up.

Um, how does that translate to, you know, to an individual uh client, an individual participant in drug court?

How does that translate to impacting their experience?

I mean, are we talking about um delays?

Are we talking about um or is it just a matter that it's it really falls on your team uh and your workload?

Uh it's a little of both.

I think for the client, especially once they're in the community, um, it's the number of touch points we have with them.

Um, because the caseloads are so high, we are not able to meet with them maybe as frequently as we would like or that they need.

Um, so that's kind of the the impact that the high caseloads are having uh with the individual clients.

Thank you.

Um and thank you, Chair Dorsey for please.

Just one other follow- can is it my understanding is the have you told the court that you're beyond capacity?

Uh yes, we have mentioned it.

Um what is the court's response, Ben?

Uh the court just continued to add new cases.

Okay.

Okay.

Thanks.

Okay, seeing no one on the roster, uh, Mr.

Clerk.

Can we invite a public comment on this item?

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, the public safety and neighborhood services committee.

Will now hear public comment related to agenda item number one, this review of San Francisco's drug court program.

If you have public comment for this item, please come forward to the lectern.

Do we have any speakers?

Here comes someone.

And if you're waiting for your opportunity to speak, you can line up to speak along that western wall that I'm pointing out.

Please begin.

Good afternoon, uh, public safety and neighborhood services committee.

Thanks, Supervisor Dorsey for calling on this hearing.

Thanks to all the presenters.

On behalf of Connected SF staff and membership, a couple things.

One, I I do think what Supervisor Dorsey is pointing to towards working with the legislature, uh state legislature, it's very important.

Uh the fact that uh cases to drug court skyrocketed triple the triple, three times the amount over two years, is just it's hard to fathom, especially when a lot of these crimes are not related to drug offenses, uh, such as violent crimes.

Um that seems like an abuse to our system.

On the mental health diversion uh front, there's gotta be more accountability for those that we actually enter actually allow to be entered into that that process and through mental health diversion.

Uh the accountability right now is not there.

And it's I think it's we think it's an abuse to the system, and not fair for everyday citizens due to lack of safety, but also for those we're putting through those those uh those processes.

Um so we do appreciate uh Britt Jenkins for continuing her fight, and we look forward to uh further accountability and and hope hope the state will uh further fund things like Prop 36 to ensure public safety for all.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments.

Do we have any other speakers for agenda item number one?

Mr.

Chair.

Okay.

Public comment on this item is now closed.

I don't want to thank everyone for participating in today's hearing.

Um I think we agree that we believe in drug court.

We may have um some different perspectives on how we can make it more effective, and I will um probably reach out to your office who I want to talk to some colleagues who I know who expressed interest in this, what we should be saying to the legislature about um uh where we think improvements might be made.

Uh my hope is that today's discussion moves us forward.

Um this is a system that is it should be evidence-based, properly resourced, transparent in its outcomes and capable of both supporting recovery and maintaining public confidence.

Um so I would like to make a motion at this time to um consider this hearing heard and filed.

On the motion offered by the chair that this hearing be heard and filed, Vice Chair Sauter.

Solder I member Wong.

Wong I, Chair Dorsey.

I.

Dorsey, I, Mr.

Chair, there are three eyes.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

The motion it carries.

And Mr.

Clerk, can we please call item number two?

Agenda item number two is a hearing to discuss the causes, escalation, response and impacts of the widespread power outages that began on December 20th, 2025, which impacted residents and small businesses in the Richmond, Sunset Presidio Civic Center, South of Market and other neighborhoods, to understand how a localized substation incident escalated to affect nearly a third of the city, to assess communication failures and gaps in emergency response protocols, to evaluate economic impacts on small businesses and hardships faced by seniors, persons with disabilities, and other vulnerable residents, to discuss and understand the remedies, claims, and processes and support being provided to affected residents and businesses.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

This hearing was initially called by supervisors Alan Wong and Bilal Machmood following the widespread power outages that impacted thousands of San Franciscans right before the holidays in February.

This committee held the first hearing on this matter, where we heard from city departments, PGE, and members of the public about the significant disruptions these outage caused across our city, including parts of my district.

Residents spoke about losing power for extended periods of time.

Businesses described economic impacts and operational challenges they faced, and city departments discussed the strain these outages placed on essential services and infrastructure.

The impacts were felt across multiple neighborhoods.

As chair of this committee and as a supervisor whose district and whose own neighborhood is home to the PGE substation where this fire first occurred, I can I continue to take this matter extremely seriously.

This hearing was continued to allow PGE additional time to complete its review and investigation work.

And today it's my understanding we will hear further findings, updates, and information regarding the causes of the outages, the response efforts and step being steps being taken to help prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.

Our constituents deserve clear answers, accountability and confidence that our infrastructure is reliable and resilient.

Today's discussion is an important continuation of that oversight work.

And before we uh continue, I do want to also welcome our colleague, Supervisor Bilal Machmood, who, along with Supervisor Wong, called that.

And with that, I would like to invite uh Supervisor Wong to offer his remarks and uh introduce our presenters.

Supervisor Wong, the floor is yours.

Good morning.

This is part two of the hearing on the December 20th, 2025 PGE outage that originated at the mission substation.

When we last met on this matter in February, this committee continued the hearing at PGE's request to give the company time to conduct a root cause analysis and report back.

We are here today to receive that report.

I want to thank PGE for being here today, and I also notice leaders with the for uh with IBW local 1245 representing the workers at PGE.

And I want to thank the residents and small business owners who have been waiting for five months for for answers.

With that, I like to turn it over to PG and E.

Or, actually, just I want to just uh ask uh Supervisor Machmo to say a few things.

Thank you, Chair Dorsey, and thank you, Supervisor Wong.

It's good to be back here with you at PSNS.

Um, earlier this year, PGE invited me to take a tour of the mission substation, and I got to see the so-called incident cubicle where the fire started on December 20th.

And the row of circuit breakers identical to the one that caught fire next to it.

Given the scale of this outage, I was expecting to see evidence of a massive fire.

But the breakers are only a few feet on each side, and the damage was contained to the area immediately behind the breaker that caught fire.

What was going through my head was how could such a small box take out power for 120,000 customers?

I noticed on the tour that there weren't any other people at the substation besides those that I came in with.

It's not a bustling power plant with lots of moving elements and staff, as you would expect, but it is almost always empty as it is monitored and controlled remotely, from my understanding.

If something goes wrong, or perhaps more importantly, if something is about to go wrong, how would anyone know?

All these questions were front of my mind as I waited the independent report for the cause of the fire.

This report has a lot of good pictures and technical specifications.

Learning about the role humidity and rain likely played in the fire is critical new information.

We appreciate uh that coming to light.

But after reading the 77 pages and taking a tour of the substation, I'm still not sure that PGE has given us a good answer as to the question as to why so many San Franciscans and including constituents in the tenderloin and elsewhere across the city lost power for as long as they did.

And I definitely don't have a good answer yet as to what PGE is doing to make sure that this doesn't happen again.

There's three underlying questions that I believe San Franciscans deserve answers to, and I hope we're going to be covered today by PG<unk>E.

First, what is PGE doing today to make sure that these facilities and the electrical equipment stays dry?

Second, what procedures are in place to make sure that chronic safety issues are caught and properly addressed?

And finally, what investments can San Franciscans expect PGE to make for the long-term safety and stability of their power system.

Again, I thank PGE for commissioning this report and the steps they have been taking so far, both inside the substation and in coordination with emergency responders.

I look forward to learning more in the presentations and questions ahead.

Thank you.

Supervisor Wong, you want to introduce your.

Sure, PGE.

Would you like to come and present?

Yes, thank you.

Good morning.

Chair Dorsey and members of the committee.

My name is Sarah Yo, and I'm the government affairs manager for the Bay Area Region at PGE.

Thank you for inviting us here today.

We are grateful for your continued engagement and partnership following the outage that took place in San Francisco last December.

We want to again express our sincerest apologies to our customers in San Francisco and our commitment to serving this great city.

Since we last appeared before you in February, we have been working without pause to understand what happened and to prevent this type of event from happening again.

Today, we will share the findings of an independent expert investigation into the direct cause of the event.

We will also outline the immediate and ongoing actions we have taken, both proactively and in response to this report to ensure that a similar event does not happen again.

Joining me today are Jake Ziggelman, Regional Vice President for the Bay Area, and Raj Beasla, Senior Director of Substation Engineering and Testing.

Jake has 20 years of utility experience, and Raj has nearly 40 years of experience at PGE and is a leader in the engineering space.

I will now turn it over to Jake.

Okay, thank you, Sarah, Chair Dorsey, and members of the committee.

For more than 120 years, through earthquakes, wildfires, and major storms, PGE has had the humbling privilege of serving this city.

We know the enormous responsibility that comes with this privilege.

Last December, many of our customers across the city lost power, some for up to three days.

Simply put, this was unacceptable.

All of us at PGE are committed to doing better for San Francisco families and business owners.

Immediately after the outage, we commissioned a detailed investigation into the outage cause so we could make sure that we did everything we could to prevent an event like this from ever happening again.

To that end, we engaged Exponent, a nationally recognized industry expert in electric engineering and electric systems to conduct an independent review.

Last week they provided a report on the cause of the event.

Acting with full transparency, we have provided a copy of that report to the city and regulatory officials and have posted it to our website.

While the report is a critical step for our improvements, we didn't wait to act.

We took immediate steps to strengthen the local grid in the days and weeks following the event, and we are continuing this work today.

As Sarah mentioned, we are grateful for the continued partnership of the city and county of San Francisco, our local first responders, and the community groups and supervisors who have engaged with us throughout this process.

We know that we still have work ahead of us, and we are not done yet.

We are committed to following through on all of the items raised in the cause report and continuing to work with Exponent to investigate and evaluate the factors that contributed to this incident.

Next slide, please.

Thank you.

Beginning in December, Exponent conducted an extensive review of the cause of the mission substation fire that caused the outage.

This review included forensic evidence testing, asset and communication log analysis, and a full operational history audit.

Their task was to identify the direct cause of the fire and recommend steps to reduce the risk of it happening again.

Exponent concluded that the December 20th event did not result from a single direct cause.

Rather, the event most likely occurred due to a failure of an insulating board from a combination of environmental, physical, and design factors.

While the report is quite technical and detailed, I will summarize the key issues.

Exponent found several contributing factors: equipment design, building ventilation, weather, moisture and contamination, and heater design.

First, the building's open design along with a specific weather pattern caused high humidity inside of the substation.

This building design, which has been used since the 1940s, allows equipment to ventilate and provides a safe path for heat or smoke in the case of a fire.

High humidity and low temperatures created conditions for condensation to occur on the back of an insulating board, a protective piece of equipment.

The cubicle heater, which might have mitigated this moisture, was configured to not be energized per standard so as to avoid equipment damage from excess heat when the adjacent circuit breaker is energized.

In the presence of this moisture and contamination, breaker arms made contact with the insulating board.

This resulted in electric tracking, a condition that allows electricity to flow where it shouldn't.

The combination of these conditions led to an arc flash, which led to the fire.

During regular inspections prior to the outage, our teams did identify and resolve issues at the substation.

These inspections and our response followed industry practices.

We did not see any indication that these issues would combine and result in an incident of this type or extent.

At the same time, there were conditions identified in the report that were unacceptable to us.

While we don't yet know the extent to which they impacted the outage, we have taken corrective actions to address those conditions and are enhancing our inspections with the help of this new information.

Exponent will conduct further testing to assess how issues like contamination and moisture may have affected the failure of the insulating board, and insights from these tests will help will help shape future standards.

And to be very clear, while we had not encountered this specific combination of circumstances before, we now clearly understand what happened and are pursuing all avenues to keep a similar event from happening again.

This includes sharing our findings with our regulators and other utilities so that they can also take preventative measures.

We are also continuing to work with Exponent to learn more about these different factors, and we will share further findings as they become available.

As I mentioned earlier, we did not wait for this report to take action.

I think you can change slides now.

Thank you, Julia.

We are taking a series of immediate and significant actions to improve local reliability, resiliency, and service for our San Francisco customers.

These actions also address the key findings in the Exponent report.

First, we have completed more than 3,000 enhanced inspections across all 31 San Francisco substations, including drone inspections and stress testing of key equipment.

Going forward, we are conducting more than 300 additional transformer and breaker tests, more than 3,000 infrared asset inspections, and updating training and inspection processes for all San Francisco inspectors.

Second, we have serviced all 31 substations and completed more than 1,500 priority maintenance upgrades.

This includes additional weatherproofing for all 16 indoor substations in San Francisco.

Finally, we've strengthened monitoring and situational awareness across our electric system.

This includes continuous temperature and humidity monitor monitoring at all indoor substations and proactive daily fault recorder monitoring.

We are also installing new sensors on circuits, deploying new cabinet heater thermostats, replacing priority relay cabinets, and have digitized and shared substation plans with our public safety partners.

Along with preventing another similar incident, this work is expected to meaningfully improve day-to-day reliability for residents, small businesses, and essential services throughout the city.

Next slide, please.

I want to reiterate our commitment to San Francisco customers.

Serving the city of San Francisco is a privilege, and it demands the highest standards of safety, reliability, and accountability.

We have heard from customers, community groups, merchant associations, and local leaders, and we know we can do better.

That includes continuing to work with Exponent to learn more about this event and applying insights system wide to strengthen reliability broadly.

We will continue to engage transparently with regulators, elected leaders, and the community at every step, and we'll share additional information as it is available.

We look forward to continuing to partner with this committee, city leadership, and our customers in pursuit of our shared goal, delivering safer, affordable, and reliable energy to every person in this great city and county.

Thank you, and we welcome your questions.

Okay, thank you, PGE, for that presentation.

I want to be direct about why we are here today at PG<unk>E's request.

This committee continued our hearing from February to give them more time to conduct a root cause analysis.

We extended that courtesy because we needed to know not just what failed inside one cubicle, but how a seemingly isolated fire at one substation cascaded into a citywide blackout.

This is what today's hearing was supposed to be about.

Instead, this focus, this report focuses narrowly on the immediate cause of the outage rather than the root causes of the event.

There is a difference between asking what failed and asking why it was allowed to fail.

So while PGE's direct cause report explains what physically failed inside the cubicle, it does not explain why losing one cubicle took down service to 120,000 people.

It does not explain why restoration took three days for some customers.

And it does not explain why neighboring substations could not absorb missions load.

We need to know what management and oversight decisions allowed this to happen.

We need to know whether the same conditions exist at other critical substations in the city, and we need to know what PGE intends to do about it.

So today, this is about continuing the work.

This hearing was scheduled to do and decide whether or not we need to continue to further look into these issues.

Thank you, Supervisor Wong.

Um, as a wong raised um, I share a similar concern about uh understanding it's helpful to know that some context into why the breaker failed, but it's not explaining why uh it cascaded into 120,000 people losing power.

I'll let Supervisor Wong kind of dive into that uh next.

I'll have to dive in a little bit more into the what you did talk about in the report, that's in the scope of the report and what you didn't say in that context.

So you mentioned that a breaker particularly failed.

Why did this particular breaker fail?

Given you're saying there was general humidity and moisture concerns in the entire building.

Why did this particular one fail, or was it just random chance?

Supervisor, thank you for the question.

Um I'll let Raj jump in and provide some more context and technical colour, but um to start the the report did not find that the circuit breaker failed.

That was not uh a cause of the fire and the subsequent outage.

Uh what the report concluded was that there was no single factor that led to this outage or the the event.

Um it can it was rather a combination of factors coming together all at once that uh led to the deterioration of the insulating board, which again was was uh and the contributing factors to that were uh combination of mechanical, environmental, and design.

The breaker failed though, right?

Caught fire.

Want if you can address this.

Yeah, so Supervisor Mammoth, the breaker did not fail.

Okay.

Breaker in the cell did not fail.

Breaker at the time of the this incident was in open position.

So it was not carrying any energy or anything.

There's a board behind as you saw that we racked those breakers in and out.

The board is in the back of it as noted in the report that insulating board with the factors there was a breaker arm making a contact with the board, which was putting electrical stress on the board, and there was contamination and moisture that got in back of the board and ended up creating electrical arc, which is the direct cause of that.

Okay, so to clarify the circuit board failed.

The insulating board insulating board failed.

Yes.

Okay.

There's many insulating boards in the facility.

Why did that particular one cause to catch fire?

Well, one of the factors is that there was a contact of the board with the breaker arm.

So breaker arm, which is energized at 12,000 volt, was uh contacting the uh so that was completely random.

Yeah, so these insulating boards are uh electrically, you know, uh designed to handle the stress, you know.

They are uh what we call is uh have a very high resistive value, but that was contact was there in addition with the moisture and the contamination that as noted in the exponent road uh in the back of the board, created uh the conditions that ended up creating electrical arc.

So you had an inspection of this site a month prior to the incident, and the inspection revealed that there was damage to the insulator plate already.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

So if you already knew the month prior to this event that there was damage, why was that plate not removed and replaced immediately?

So our crews uh based on their skill and experience, they are able to evaluate whether that board need to be replaced or not.

Yes, there is a small part of degradation on that board that was there before this incident, but at that time they cleaned the cubicle, they cleaned the front of the board, and they deemed it okay to energize it back.

Would you say it was not okay then to be not replaced?

Well, then it did fail.

It did fail because of the moisture and the contamination in back of the board, and that is not visible to our crews while they're performing the service or doing the inspection.

So you're saying the fact that this happened a month prior was not cause enough for you to believe it would cause a fire, but it still did.

If I could, if if I could jump in, supervisor, thank you for the line of questioning.

Um stepping back a bit, the the report concluded that there were no failures to act on previous inspection findings.

The inspection standard at that time is aligned with industry practices, and like Raj mentioned, we do we enable and empower our frontline qualified electrical workers to use their best judgment and their knowledge and experience to make that determination.

And based on the inspection standards at that time and being aligned with industry practice, we would not have expected to see any indication that this combination of events would come in.

I'll reframe the question.

If you replaced the board, I understand that it's not industry protocol, but if you had replaced it, would that have minimized the likelihood this would have caught fire a month later?

You want to comment?

In hindsight, hindsight's 2020, but would that have fixed the problem?

Yeah, as you said high side is 220.

Um we can't say that if we would have replaced the board and same contact and same um conditions that led to the condensation of back of the board would not have happened.

We can't say that.

And I think if I if I could add what the report was very clear about is it was this combination of factors coming together that caused this.

We have since taken a number of steps, as we mentioned, to mitigate those conditions from from being possible in the substation between the humidity controls and monitoring, the temperature controls and monitoring, the heating thermostat that now controls the cubicle heaters.

Um we have taken the appropriate steps to control the environment inside of that substation as well as I think I hear that I think it just doesn't to the common person when you hear that something caused something similar happened the month before, you would expect to be changed, and it doesn't take a sophisticated degree to believe it's troubling to have water near commit equipment carrying 12,000 volts of electricity.

So I would hope that that could have been addressed.

So on that issue, you're saying it's multiple factors.

Um that was just one of them.

Uh what measures are specifically been taken to prevent the water accumulation in the basement from happening?

I see the multiple factors that clearly is one of them that keeps coming up is the humidity and condensation.

What are the specific measures you've taken to make sure this doesn't uh you don't have this humidity and water accumulation again?

Yeah, as I mentioned in the opening, there's an there's a number of them.

Um installing dehumidifiers, installing uh remote real-time monitoring for both temperature and relative humidity, installing thermostat controls on the heaters themselves to manage the the temperature and the moisture levels, um, and what else am I?

Yeah, so Supervisor Mammood, we as uh Jake said we have installed uh temperature monitors and humidity monitors in all of our 16 indoor substation in San Francisco.

We have installed space heaters and de humidity fires to address any uh low temps and uh humidity concerns at and we are working with the engineering firm to take a look at the environmental conditions inside all of San Francisco substations so we can put proper controls in there, whether it's at VAC, whether it's heating, whether it's humidity uh controls.

So we are that doing that as we speak now.

That's helpful to note.

Yeah, there's another substation in my district on Larkin Street.

Are the same changes you're making at the at this substation?

Are you making those same changes to every substation in the city?

We have 16 indoor substations in the city.

Uh there are total 31, out of which 16 are indoors.

Each indoor substation, we are making these changes.

Have you already made the changes or you're still in the progress of it?

We have put the uh humidity and temperature monitors in all of the 16 substations.

We have put that, you know, temporary heaters, dehumidifiers in all of them, and at the same time, we are engaging with, as I said, with the engineering company to evaluate the environmental control in all of the 16 substations and going to make the corrective actions as suggested.

Understood.

So I think you're making these precautions now.

Um, and again, I think it would be not to reiterate that this fire happened on the same day of the same month, twice, years apart.

Clearly, there's some seasonality or weather conditions that happen recurring on a recurring basis around this time as an anomaly or not.

Can you commit to me that the next time we get to that same date in December that the lights aren't gonna go out again?

Thank you, Supervisor.

I think it's important to context contextualize this a little bit.

The the previous fires that you're referring to were caused by very different things, completely unrelated to what occurred in December.

Um we have taken the steps to and remember the December the mission substation has been completely reconfigured.

It was uh essentially rebuilt back in 2010.

Those previous fires were unrelated um and exponent uh didn't find that any of the the issues related to the previous fires had anything to do with what occurred in December.

Um so we are we are focused on moving forward, we're focused on taking all the mitigation steps that that Raj has already mentioned.

As he said, we've already we've already deployed a number of those mitigations and have more on the way.

Yes or no question.

This happened on the same date, years apart.

Can you commit to me that the preventive measures that you're taking and the improvements are not going to cause another fire on the same day of the same month or any day of the year again?

We can commit to you that we are we are taking the the findings of the report very seriously and are committed to taking action on all of the recommendations to prevent this combination of factors coming together to prevent the to that cause the fire and the outage that we are taking steps to ensure that is not possible today and will not happen in the future.

So you're making your best effort, but you can't guarantee to me that this is going to definitively cause this not to happen again.

As I said, I we are we are taking we are we have taken it very seriously and we're we are doing everything we can to ensure to understand the findings in the report, learn as much as possible, have already deployed a number of of steps to correct that, and we'll ensure that what caused this fire will not cause another fire.

Okay.

Lives are on the line, and we hope you continue to do more to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Okay, thank you, Supervisor McMahon.

Uh I have a few questions as well.

Um six weeks before the December 20th fire on November 2nd, 2025, PGE performed an inspection in the same cubicle that later failed.

That inspection led PGE to remove the circuit breaker that was there and replace it with the particular circuit breaker that ultimately caught on fire.

Is that correct?

So supervisor, we want to uh reiterate the breaker did not catch fire.

So breaker that was placed in that cell, as per the exponent report, had no role in the fire.

From the reports during that November inspection, PGE found condensation and hard water mineral deposits on the equipment along with burn spots and warping on the insulation board inside that cubicle.

The same insulation board that this report has now identified as the most likely direct cause of the December 20th fire.

Is that accurate?

So yes, that is accurate.

But our crews at that time were working in that cubicle to perform a service on that breaker.

While they were performing service, they saw the condition of the existing breaker and they saw the moisture in the cubicle.

They cleaned the moisture, they cleaned the backboard, they looked at backboard, and they at that time they deemed that it was okay to replace the breaker with another breaker that was past the mech service that and they re-energize the cubicle.

Okay.

There's moisture and condensation on the electrical equipment.

So you know, seeing burning spots and warping on the insulation board, I I would think that would be a big issue and this very concerning as as well.

I'm and seeing moisture, that just seems on a a on a board for uh electrical board.

That just seems very concerned.

Maybe I'm not using right technical term, but anything with condensation and electricity that brings up red flags for me.

Yeah.

Yes, so uh we we acknowledge moisture is a concern in any electrical equipment.

And then the response was to swap out the inspected breaker rather than replacing the burned and warped insulation board.

The solution was to wipe down the front of the board, just the front, however, the back of the board, the side facing the equipment that ultimately caused the fire was never inspected or cleaned.

Is that correct?

So insulating board, uh, the back of the board is not visible because it faces the energized pieces of equipment.

So it cannot be seen.

And uh industry practices, you look at the boards, clean the front of it, clean the cubicle, and uh and if it if it is, you know, deemed uh based on the skill experience and training that it is adequate, the crews will uh leave it in there and re-energize back.

Did it occur to for PGE to check the back of the board though?

I supervisor, as as Raj mentioned, that's not part of the inspection standard aligned with industry practice.

And again, but if I could step back a little bit and speak to the report and the can some of the conditions that it identified, um, that there's no doubt that's that the the report identified some conditions that were unacceptable to us.

We own that, we are accountable for that, and we need to do better, and we are doing better.

We are we know that uh some of those situations needed to be mitigated.

We have taken the steps to to improve to improve those conditions and ensure they are not present.

Um, but we know that some there were some conditions found that just were not acceptable to us, and um it's our role and our accountability to ensure that they don't happen again, and that we are improving the resiliency and the reliability to customers in San Francisco, okay.

Um, but PGE saw what was classified as water damage.

Is it industry practice to investigate or identify the source of the water that was the uh problem before putting the equipment back into service?

So crew did uh as noted in the report look at other places, and at that time they made a decision to wipe the cell, wipe the back of the board, and they uh see that yet they mitigated the conditions, and at that time they uh decided to uh you know to place the breaker and energize back.

Okay.

According to the report, mission substation is ventilated with unconditioned outside air.

The air inside the building has the same humidity as the air outside.

So when it rains in San Francisco, would you say it's reasonable to expect that the moisture could enter the substation and that condensation could form inside?

I can maybe I can start here and Raj can jump in.

Um, Supervisor, you're pointing to a design that has been in place for many years.

Um I think one of the important things to to contextualize here is again this was a this was a combination of factors come all coming together at once in a way that that there was no indication for.

Um this substation has been operating in this configuration with this particular set of equipment since it was rebuilt in 2010, and so it has been exposed to all manner of San Francisco weather patterns for for the last 15-16 years.

That said, we know that the level of moisture in the building was not acceptable, which is why we've taken the the number of steps we have to ensure that that moisture uh does not get to problematic levels.

Yeah, what one thing supervisor, I want to mention it.

We have heaters inside the cells, and we have a setup where if one of the breakers inside the cell is energized, that heaters don't operate as Jake shared in his opening comments.

Those are there to address any moisture and mitigate any humidity concerns.

We definitely are learning from this incident that moisture happened in the back of the board.

As I can tell you, in my last 40 years, I have not seen moisture on an insulating board start to track and create this incident.

Definitely we learn from it, and we are making improvements, and we are making changes to make it this type of incident not happen again.

Okay.

Outside weather aside, one of the ways that you manage condensation in the building depends on the ventilation system actually working.

On December 20th, the system was not working.

The four basement supply fans that move air through the substation were non-operational.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

The supply fans were one of those conditions that were not acceptable to us.

And one an important thing to remember at the at the beginning, you know, relative to your opening comment, Supervisor Wong, we still don't yet know the extent, if any, to which the state of those fans contributed to this event.

So we know that there was moisture present, and we know that that was a contributing factor to the deterioration and the tracking on the on the insulator board.

But there's more work to do with exponent, which we are undergoing right now to better understand the extent to which uh the the state of those fans actually contributed to this outage.

Okay.

But in the meantime, again, I think it's most important to reiterate that the controls that we have put in place, the temperature monitoring, real-time temperature monitoring, real-time relative humidity monitoring, the thermostats that are being installed for the for the heater uh mechanisms inside of the cubicles, all of those controls and new tools are designed to manage the environment and manage the moisture in in the indoor substation such that this combination of factors can't occur.

Just for the record, some of the problems in the report are not new.

PG<unk>E's own maintenance records document broken fan belts on basement supply fans in December 2023, August 2024, and October 2024.

More than two years of documented issues and failures.

The report work order was not completed until January 2026 after the blackout.

Is that accurate?

That's correct.

Residents really expect basic reliability.

I would think that would be enough to trigger replacements and I mean moving forward, what specific threshold will now will lead to replacements.

Um I'm gonna I'll ask Raj to talk a little bit more about our enhanced inspections and some of the maintenance protocols that we've now put into place.

Um, but I do want to uh respond to one thing you you said, Supervisor Wong, and and that is that um it's what I said at the outset essentially that based on the inspection standards at that time, there was no indication that this combination of factors was going to present itself in a way that uh would cause an incident like this.

So there were no indication or warning signs that would led us to have behaved differently in that period of time.

Our qualified electrical workers acted uh to the best of their ability and knowledge and experience and and did what they thought was right with the information they had.

Somebody mentioned it earlier.

Hindsight is is very easy.

Um, we know a lot more today than we knew then, and we have taken a number of steps to get better and address those items.

The report also says that filters should have been cleaning the air entering the substation and they were saturated with water and not providing filtration.

So on the day of the fire, the ventilation system designed to move air through the building and to keep the dust and other contaminants out of the substation was not doing the job as designed to do.

Is that correct?

I think that's uh that gets back to what I mentioned previously, Supervisor Wong, in that um there were some conditions in the substation that were absolutely unacceptable to us.

We wouldn't have seen the combination of factors coming together to have a warning sign of an event like this.

Um, but we are focused on what we've learned and implementing all of the tools and solutions that are preventing this from happening ever again and the conditions from existing, and we are we're focused on moving forward and improving the reliability and resilience for for this city.

Okay, so you know, from what I'm learning through the report and hearing the the building had uh was full moisture and the the roof and the the building was letting water in and the ventilation system that was supposed to monitor the ambient conditions in the building had had issues for for many years, and these were known issues.

Um it seems like the incident was preventable with all the multiple multitude of factors that came together.

Um effective maintenance and inspection procedures should have identified these problems and mitigation measures should have been implemented.

The I don't think the cost of the repair should have been borne by PG<unk>E ratepayers.

And I I think that there was a um quote recently from the CEO uh that mentioned even in a well-maintained home where the owner has done all the right things, routine inspections, timely repairs, and proper upkeep, uh roof can still have a leak.

And I don't think that this analogy holds when we can't call a well-maintained home when the ventilation fans have been broken for uh for years, and uh when uh there's been uh issues of dripping for such a long time, we we can't say that we can't uh foresee that so I I think that a lot of these factors could have been preventable.

Um I so next I would like to ask our fire department to oh actually sorry um I'd like to I I see that supervisor Sauter is on the queue and uh want to pass it on to him now.

Thank you, Supervisor Wong.

Thank you, Chair Dorsey.

Um a number of questions as well.

Um so we've heard about this circuit breaker number 56, which was removed from service on November 2nd, 2025 for suspected water damage.

Um, and we heard that after that the board was wiped uh to get rid of that water.

Why did you not at that time launch any sort of investigation into where that water came from?

So crews uh are trained to take a look at uh you know the water intrusion into it.

They did look at the you know the sources of the water that there's uh that that's what report also said they not only look at that cell, they look at every other side of the air, and they determined that at that time they the appropriate action was to you know wipe the cell clean, wipe the board clean, and um and you agree with the actions of the people who did that and didn't actually investigate it.

Those actions were at the time of the that uh mechanism service were appropriate as per uh in our standards and industry practices with the crew state.

Will you be changing those standards or practices?

Yes, supervisor, absolutely.

As we've been sharing, we're learning a lot from this incident, you know, and we are looking at uh as I say in my career.

I was first time seeing something that uh moisture getting on an insulating board and the conditions getting there.

That is not only a learning for us, that's a learning for the industry that we will be sharing this with it.

Yes, we are taking actions to mitigate humidity, mitigate temperature, testing equipment in San Francisco.

We're not limiting ourselves to just test this.

As Supervisor Mahmoud was asking, we are testing every other piece of equipment in these substations, like transformers, switches, and other things.

When we talk about three thousand inspections, uh uh Jake mentioned, it's not the three thousand inspections uh off breakers.

We are looking at a piece of system.

I yeah, I appreciate that.

I just I think this is really important because you know we're hearing that there's or there's a presumption that we're hearing that there's no warning signs, but I mean this is clearly a first warning sign uh a month before the incident.

We're talking about early November.

When you find water damage, uh I would expect that to be taken seriously.

I mean, if if I find that uh something in my kitchen is is wet, something in my apartment is wet, I look for the source.

And it seems like your crews simply wiped it and went on with their business.

So I think that was a clearly a first warning sign.

Can you tell me about these basement fan supply belts that were broken on three different inspection dates and why those were not fixed?

Supervisor, I again one of the conditions that not acceptable.

Those fans should not have been in that condition.

We need to do better, we will do better.

Um as I mentioned previously, we don't yet know the extent to what what the extent to which those fans or their condition, their state contributed to this event, that more to come there.

Um nevertheless, those fans shouldn't have been in that condition.

We own that and are need to be better about it.

Presumably that would help with the with the moisture and humidity, though, yes?

I mean, well, yeah, right.

Yeah, so that is uh still to be determined as the exponent report noted, whether you know those fans will uh, what is the what is the purpose of those fans?

If you don't know what they would do, why do we have them?

What are they meant for?

So we have uh fans, we have multiple places we have the fans in the building.

There's a fans on the top of the building that are exhaust fan that were providing some ventilation and circulation in the building at the time of the intent.

The fans in the basement bring the uh outside air in, forced into the basement, and from basement the air goes inside the switching room where the meta the where the switch gear is where the failure occurred.

So it is to circulate the air, as Jake is saying, Yes, the fan should have uh been repaired.

We definitely are learning and taking an action on that.

So the fans are for ventilation, ventilation clearly a cause here.

So the fact that these were broken on three different inspection dates, again, uh I think that's pretty clear that that was a factor.

What um how much does it cost to get a new fan supply belt?

Um if if we could just back up for a second, um, do you want to address the the report did not conclude that ventilation was a cause?

We don't yet know to what extent the the state of those fans contributed to the incident.

The moisture was a contributing factor, we've taken steps to mitigate that moisture, um, and we'll continue doing more work on.

Is there a relationship between moisture and ventilation?

The extent of that relationship is is what we need to determine.

There is certainly a relationship.

What what would the cost be for a fan supply belt to be replaced?

Well, uh there are uh multiple issues that were identified with the fans.

Yes, the fan boats are noted as broken, but uh again, as we said, we take um those fans seriously.

They uh we should have acted on it.

Um but at the same time I'm saying is that there are fans in the building that were providing when uh air circulation the from uh the fans on the roof.

So I think it finally was repaired in January 2026.

How much did it cost to repair this?

I mean, a fan supply belt.

We don't have that detail here in front of us, but we're happy to follow up with you on it.

And how about uh, you know, finally installing uh temperature monitors, through uh thermostats, dehumidifiers?

I mean, I'm astounded that that isn't standard practice, especially in a in a site like this.

Um is that not industry standard?

I mean, to not have those basic monitoring capabilities.

We have not had these in the past, as we have operated at many of the San Francisco stations, and many of our industry peers uh do not have these.

And as I stated, normally to uh mitigate any moisture humidity concerns, the heaters inside the cells, and or the working mechanism, how we set it up is supposed to address that.

I mean, I have a dehumidifier in my apartment.

I think every San Franciscan does.

It's pretty common knowledge in San Francisco you need that.

Uh I have a thermostat.

Um it's again, it's remarkable that a $35 billion corporation doesn't have that.

How much did it cost to put these in finally?

I I don't have the cost in front of me.

Uh but um, I mean, you can get them.

I I would hope you would go even above this, but you can get them on Granger for 250 dollars for a thermostat, 150 dollars for a dehumidifier.

Um it's remarkable that you you don't have this.

I think, you know, and uh you've continually used the word unacceptable conditions, and I think that's accurate.

I I would I would say uh it's a house in disorder.

I would say it's conditions that are sloppy.

Um what else in these facilities is a mess?

I mean, there's a you're saying after 40 years you've never seen this combination uh result, um, which you know I understand, but if if the if there's moisture, if there's not things that are being monitored, uh there's certainly other components, other environmental factors that are that are out of whack in these stations.

I mean, what else is not well maintained?

The report, the the exponent report pointed to this combination of factors between environmental um and design.

Uh we're taking those recommendations seriously.

As I mentioned, a number of conditions that that were unacceptable to us and the enhanced inspections, the real-time monitoring, the accelerated maintenance work, um is all is all part of our plan to ensure that those conditions don't exist uh and that the subs all of our indoor substations are in good working order.

Do you think there is a direct cause of the event?

What direct cause of the event uh, as we're saying is the combination of the factors listed by the exponent uh between electrical contact uh between the arm and the board, the moisture and the contamination.

Is direct cause the same as single cause?

The there's uh there's a there our definition of direct cause and how this report was built is actually on um page Roman numeral seven in the bottom footnote of the report.

We're happy to read it to you.

Um in non-engineering terms, uh, the way I I tend to think about it is that the the direct cause is addressing what caused the incident, what and a bit of the how.

The subsequent work, the ongoing work with exponent will get to the rest of the how and the why.

Because I I just think you know, we have communication here from PGE to the members of this committee saying they're the report found there was no single cause, which um the report itself states that there's most likely direct cause of the event is surface breakdown of the incident insulating board, and then it goes on 70 more pages to tell us about that direct cause.

So I'm concerned about the communications again implying there was no warning signs and the communications implying that there's no single cause when it seems very clearly from reading the report um there were.

How about the eight recommendations that were made?

What is the status of each of those?

When can we expect them to be completed?

And are there certain recommendations that um you disagree with or you won't be adopting?

We take the recommendations that exponent has provided very seriously, and we intend to act upon all the recommendations that they that they have given us.

And Raj, do you want to comment on some of many of them are already completed?

Yeah, so supervisor, uh, we take these recommendations from Exponents seriously, and we already have started to implement uh quite a few of them, like installing uh humidity control monitors, temp monitors, and start to create the right environment inside these uh uh control rooms.

We are going also above and beyond as I said uh we are going to test all the breakers inside all of San Francisco substation.

Uh we are doing we have done already as uh Jake shared partial discharge monitoring that tells us if there's something wrong inside our switch gears.

We are doing thermographic testing in we are testing our transformers, make sure they are there's no issues uh as that may create an oddge or may uh create another uh incident.

So we we have taken steps to you know minimize the risk and and have have been working to mitigate any things we have been finding in that.

And how would um either committee members or members of the general public track your progress on these recommendations?

Will you be posting these online?

Will you be the including them in shareholder reports?

Where does this go from here?

Thanks for this for the question, Supervisor.

Um, you know, the exact sharing mechanism we haven't necessarily thought through, but from the outset of this event, our commitment has been to being fully transparent.

So we will figure that out and find a way to share it uh appropriately.

Good.

I hope so.

Thanks.

Okay.

Um now I'd like to turn this over to Deputy Chief Rabbit here from the fire department to present.

Good afternoon, Chair Dorsey, Vice Chair Sauter, Supervisor Wong.

I'm Patrick Rabbit, the deputy chief of operations for the San Francisco Fire Department.

Um here to comment on the exponent report.

The fire department has read the investigative report provided by Exponent regarding the power outage on December 20th.

Um we do have a few comments that are more narrow scoped uh related to an emergency response, first responder response to the substation.

Our first concern the arc occurred at 104 PM at the Mission Street substation, and San Francisco Fire Department was not notified through our dispatch system until 216 p.m.

Uh one concern of ours is a delay in the reporting of the actual arc in that cubicle.

Um page 17 of the exponent report details the arc flash event, uh which also include includes a photograph of the subsequent fire there.

Um we have spoke at great length already with PGE and the committee regarding ponding and consent condensation.

Uh, that is a serious hazard for any first responder entering uh building with high voltage.

That's detailed at great length in page 23 of the report, uh, as well as noting the environmental conditions uh that we do experience in the winter months, long dry months, and then a rain or weather event with higher humidity and higher temperatures.

Um ventilation shafts were mentioned with unprotected openings to the elements, as well as the air intake pits on the northwest and southwest elevations, allowing precipitation or condensation uh to build and collect drain weather events.

Um, for HAPS, uh we noted a lack of an interior drain system or a sump pump system to remove any accumulated water.

And the report noted presence of water in the building from the rains that we experienced on December 31st through January 6th, the week of long rains.

Page 24 of the report found that the supply fans, which we just touched on with PGE in the basement were non-operational at the time, and page 25 is mentions that the ventilation is unconditioned, so there's no control over the temperature or moisture content.

As the report mentioned, leads to the air having similar properties as the outside air related to the temperature, humidity, and changing of the dew point with that, which could lead to condensation on electrical equipment.

And also we had a comment regarding the lack of technology in the alarm systems and mappings led to a delay of entry at the time of the incident on December 20th.

At the previous hearing, we did talk about updating building plans with PGE and maps which would detail access and egress for first responders, fire alarm control rooms, utility shutdowns, elevator machine rooms, and especially going forward with Massy plans who actually detail a lot of our commercial high rises here in San Francisco, and that way it would be available not on paper, but on a tablet or a um mobile data terminal in one of our apparatus.

I would like to commend PGE for making a lot of these improvements that I just mentioned, some of our concerns.

I think a challenge for us all as residents wherever we live, as well as in our agency here is deferred maintenance on buildings and to prioritize any building that houses executive staff, their frontline staff, field workers or substations that may be unstaffed to have the same type of maintenance requirements and keep them keep keep these buildings in service and safe, not just for their workers and first responders to respond to to provide resilient uh electrical power to the residents of the city and county.

Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Chief.

My one question for you right now is based on this incident.

What are the most important changes PGE still needs to make and what should they have done better?

Right now, our concerns related to first responders and an emergency response to any type of incident, medical or arc, uh a fire after an arc event.

It seems like a lot of the building improvements, the humidifiers, temperature controls are being implemented in all their 16 uh substations.

Um I would also like to commend our relationship with PGE, with our liaison in the department who's been doing it for over 10 years.

Mike Thompson with our PGE's uh public safety specialist, Jim Wickens been working with us for years, and we have been focused on substations with Jim Wickham and Mike Thompson since this incident.

So there's been a tremendous collaboration on education and training uh between our agency and PGE since then.

Another one that's uh we thought about just now is uh did the uncertainty around whether the building was de-energized affect uh the fire department's ability to move quickly and safely.

There was we had to confirm through the uh with PGE to make sure the whole building was de energized, yes, and it did delay and and they have to actually be safe too and confirm the power is often the building is de-energized.

So that will always take time.

Colleagues, any questions for fire?

Nope, not for me.

Uh, um just just real quick to reiterate um uh approximately what time did you get a call about the substation?

Uh through our dispatch, we received a call at 2 16 p.m.

on December 20th to the PGE substation on mission.

Okay.

So over an hour after the arc flash is when you got the call.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

I have some questions for PGE if in relation to the fire department.

For PGE, why did it take more than an hour to notify the fire department about the incident?

Thank you, Deputy Chief.

Thank you for the question.

Supervisor Wong, I believe we addressed this at the first hearing in February.

But it we, as you mentioned, these substations are uh not staffed with personnel 24-7.

Um and so our qualified electrical technician as soon as they arrived on site, they notified our control center of a fire, and the fire department wasn't notified.

Okay.

What occurred in that over one hour period before fire was notified?

Uh our first responder was en route and uh arrived at the substation.

Okay.

In February, PGE testified that as soon as it identified the issue, it sent qualified personnel to the site and that the person arrived within about 45 minutes of PGE first becoming aware.

So there was awareness that there was a fire, but there was a lag time to notify uh fire after personnel had already arrived.

Can you explain that?

As I mentioned, the the process is um as soon as there's any indication of a fault or an issue in the substation uh that will trigger an alarm or and will have a qualified electrical worker dispatch.

That's what occurred.

Um I believe they were dispatched within single-digit minutes from um that first warning.

And as you mentioned, they uh traveled to the substation uh safely made entry, and once they were able to determine that there was a fire in the building, they notified our control center and the control center notified the fire department.

Okay, the fire was caught on camera.

Did any remote monitoring catch it before personnel arrive?

I'm sorry, can you the fire was caught on camera?

Did any remote monitoring catch it before personnel arrived?

We we had alarm an alarm that um occurred simultaneously to the the first outage that was uh that was monitored by our control center, which is what triggered that dispatch.

Okay.

If there's suspicion of a fire, I mean typically somebody would call the fire department and instead of waiting for somebody to come first.

Why did PGE wait until somebody came in before they notified fire?

What you're what you're raising uh is something that we have looked at and we have uh retrained our control center operators to uh notify fire immediately upon the the very first alarm as opposed to waiting for that qualified technician to arrive.

Fire department says that when their crews arrived, PGE could not provide any actual information about where the fire was, its size, or what exactly was happening.

However, PGE's own monitoring systems had alerted PGE to the event in real time more than an hour earlier.

So how is it that PGE did not have more info immediately for fire?

Again, I think the important thing is that our electrical worker had to make safe entry.

Uh and then in order to really fully assess the situation, uh, we had to de-energize that substation for first responder and firefighter safety.

Okay.

Um the fire department says that PGE asked to borrow fire department breathing apparatus apparatuses, but the fire department denied the request because there is no agreement, no precedent, and no knowledge of PGE's training levels.

How does PGE plan to adjust these shortcomings?

Thank you for the question.

Stepping back, as Chief Rabbit mentioned, and we're by the way, we're very grateful for the ongoing partnership with the fire department.

We have always had a strong partnership on joint trainings and live action drills.

We're strengthening those those actions even further.

Um I believe in mid-July, which is now we've added uh substation specific uh drilling into that exercise.

So we very much value our partnership with uh with the fire department um and uh their expertise in five in fighting the fire so that uh we can safely re-enter any of our facilities in the event of a fire and and get to work restoring our customers.

Okay, and about five more questions.

Um this is for related to infrastructure resilience and system vulnerabilities.

Um how does PGE prioritize the equipment replacement?

Is it age-based, condition-based, risk-based, or something else?

Uh it's a combination of factors.

It's based on uh asset health, reliability, performance, um, various risk profiles, um, so it is a it's a combination of of multiple things coming together to determine what uh what gets replaced.

Anything you want to add?

Okay, uh PGE saw moisture water-related conditions, burn marks, and warping six weeks before the fire.

What threshold would have required immediate removal or replacement of that board?

So we are, as we say, we learned a lot from this incident and uh we are revising our standards.

We, as Jake mentioned, we are training our personnel to learn from this incident.

So we are taking actions to how we will address this in the future.

Okay.

Seems like the procedures need to be changed because if the procedures allow burned warped or water damaged equipment to stay in service at a critical substation, then the procedures are the problem, not the weather or the equipment, the procedures.

And San Francisco shouldn't have to wait for the next blackout to find out whether the problem was fixed.

Um for redundancy and resiliency.

Um did PGE identify mission substation as a single point of failure before December 20th.

If so, what redundancy was in place to prevent its loss from cascading?

If not, why was it uh not identified given that the mission station serves more than 100,000 customers?

Uh thank you for the question, Supervisor.

Um the local grid and really any any electrical grid is uh is an interconnected grouping of circuits and and San Francisco uh is is no different.

Mission substation is one of those critical nodes in that system.

It's one of our larger substations that is the source of power for other substations, uh smaller substations, uh, specifically in this case on the west side of the city.

Um there is redundancy in place uh as we mentioned, the we we de-energize the entirety of this substation beyond just the damage section, and that was um that was directly to support safety, first responder safety of of firefighter personnel and our own PGE employees.

Um that that large initial impact uh was driven by the de-energization of of the full mission substation for safety.

And then over the course of the event, we were able to restore 80% of our customers within 13 hours, and then all but um you know four or five thousand um by Monday morning, and they were all restored through various sources of redundancy, both within the substation and outside of the substation.

Okay.

When the mission station went offline on December 20th, the surrounding substations did not have the capacity to absorb missions load.

Is that correct?

And if so, how many other substations in San Francisco have the same exposure where a single failure may not be backed up by the surrounding grid?

Thank you.

Again, the the local grid is this interconnected grouping of circuits.

We do have several larger substations that feed smaller substations, and mission substation is the direct upstream source for uh both station K in the Richmond and Station N in the Sunset.

And again, over the course of the event, we were able to restore customers through redundancy and and find other ways to provide power to those smaller substations.

Does PGE believe San Francisco's grid as currently configured meets modern resiliency standards for a dense urban area where a single substation failure can take down service for more than 120,000 customers?

Thanks for the question.

Um for context, the over the last 20 years, PGE has invested over three billion dollars into the local grid uh in San Francisco.

700 million of that has been directly into substation.

So there's been there's been a fair amount of investment over the last two decades into the system.

Um this large incident in December, notwithstanding this was incredibly disruptive for our customers.

We recognize that disruption and the frustration that it caused.

Uh, if we if we step back and look at San Francisco reliability uh just from uh from a data perspective, um, San Francisco has better reliability performance than many metro areas in California, including Los Angeles, San Diego, and Sacramento.

Um, and that's when you include major event days, major major impacts like we s like we saw in December.

Um it also has better reliability performance than other metro areas across the company, uh, across the country, uh excuse me, like uh Tampa, Houston, Seattle.

Um, so again, not to minimize at all the the event and the incident that happened in December, that was uh, you know, one event like that is one event too many.

Um but if we step back and and look at the the overall reliability performance of San Francisco relative to other metro areas, um, it's it's as I described it.

On fire suppression equipment, the fire department said that there were was no current CO2 unit for this type of incident.

Firefighters had to line up multiple CO2 extinguishers outside the entrances and grab ones as they entered.

Is it correct that COT units are not installed to combat these type of incidents?

Uh the CO2 unit is uh is a SF fire apparatus.

It's it's not a PGE apparatus.

Okay.

And then stepping back for a minute, um, you mentioned that the report did not explicitly conclude that the ventilation caused the fire, however, the report did conclude that the approximate cause of the equipment fire was the combination of moisture and surface contamination that accumulated on the insulation board.

However, on the day of the fire, the filters should have been cleaning the air entering the substation.

Where they were sub saturated with water and not providing filtration, and thus doesn't keep the dust and other contaminants out of the substation, correct?

That's correct.

Okay.

Does PGE intend to provide a root cause report?

Yes.

Okay.

Excellent.

Okay.

Um for my close on on this is uh today to what we received was a direct cause report, but San Franciscans I think would want a full root cause analysis.

We know what physically failed inside one cubicle, and we still need to know why that failure was allowed to happen, why it affected more than 120,000 customers, and whether the same risk exists elsewhere in San Francisco.

Even this partial report is troubling.

Six weeks before the fire, PGE saw moisture, hard water deposits, burn marks, and warping in the same equipment area that later failed.

PGE replaced the breaker but left the damaged insulating board in place.

The same board is now identified as the likely direct cause.

The report also points to deeper problems moisture, ponding water, compromised filters, failed ventilation, and known maintenance issues inside a critical substation.

Then when the fire happened, PGE waited more than an hour to contact the fire department.

Firefighters responded quickly, but were forced to operate with limited information, inadequate mapping, and uncertainty around shutoff capability and insufficient fire suppression equipment for the risk inside that building.

This was just not just one unforeseeable equipment failure.

It was a breakdown in maintenance, monitoring, emergency notification, fire preparedness and system resiliency.

San Franciscans deserve the full root cause report, a public corrective action plan, clear deadlines, and proof that PGE has fixed these conditions, not just at mission substation, but across every critical substation serving San Francisco.

A single fire at one PGE facility should not be able to throw a third of San Francisco into darkness until PG<unk>E can show what failed, why it failed, what has been fixed and what remains at risk.

This hearing is not done because the full root cause report is still outstanding.

I believe this hearing should remain remain open.

And so with that, I I move that we continue this hearing to the call of the chair so this committee can return this matter once PGE provides the root cause report.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um Supervisor Wong, and I want to express my gratitude to um you and to uh Supervisor Machmood for calling the hearing and for your leadership um on this issue that is impacting or impacted neighborhoods uh throughout San Francisco.

Thanks as well to Vice Chair Um Sauter for his thorough questioning.

Um this continued hearing has been an important opportunity for us and for the public um to understand the causes and impacts of these outages as well as the findings um and next steps being presented by PGE today on behalf of the committee.

I want to uh express our gratitude to PG<unk>E for returning to continue this discussion and for providing additional information regarding the outage, the response efforts, uh the work being done to help prevent similar incidents instances in the future.

Thanks as well also to the deputy chief and everybody at the San Francisco Fire Department for your work on this.

I know this committee intends to continue to closely monitor this issue and to hold PGE accountable.

Our constituents deserve reliable infrastructure, uh, clear communication during emergencies and confidence that meaningful steps are being taken to prevent outages like this from happening again.

Um and I think I have no questions.

I see no one else on the roster.

Mr.

Clerk, uh, may we at this time invite up public comment.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Public safety neighborhood services committee will now hear public comment related to agenda item number two.

If you have public comment for this item, please come forward to the lecture and at this time.

Looks like we may have a speaker.

If we have additional speakers, you may line up to speak along that western wall.

Uh good afternoon, supervisor.

My name is Lian Chao.

I'm on behalf of I'm speaking on behalf of Chinese uh Sunset Chinese Kaujo District as well as Wami School.

Um, since the uh December, January power outage, uh Waime school did submit the uh payment and was uh promptly reimbursed by PGN Yi, uh which is good.

But however, that doesn't say that we condone the um power outage through the Western as well as the Chinese holiday seasons, which is terrible.

But have a say that we want to actually um address about the sunset Cow Toural districts, which is we be working with um monolingual uh committee, uh as well as residents within the highly affected areas in the both of residential house as a commercial corridor and urban street.

We find that the similar actually with other report is that the lack of Chinese uh or even other language support um on the both on the update informations on the outage as well as so reimbursement on the process.

Now, Mame School as being the longest 50 years bilingual school in the Sunset area.

We want actually all for the partnership with the uh PGE to actually improve the uh cow troll in linguistic competency to make sure that immigrant committees and business corridor in a way that will be accessible, respectful, and actually proactively prevent things that happen like this um in the future.

So we want, as I said, we want to and encourage that we will like to punish you with PGA.

Thank you for your comments to actually oh, thank you.

Um, so that improved the committee.

Thank you.

Let's have the next speaker, please.

Hello there.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

I am Vanessa Pimentel, and I am reading this comment on behalf of Masood Samari, president of San Francisco Minority Chamber of Commerce Foundation.

Since the December 20th outage, PGE has shown a real commitment to helping merchants recover.

Their continued presence in the community along with the support they provided has made a meaningful difference as small businesses work to rebuild.

Following the outage, PGE stepped up in ways that directly supported local merchants, their in-language claims assistance, multilingual outreach, and small business workshops help many navigate an incredible stressful situation.

PGE has been a responsive partner throughout their this recovery process.

The in-person support and resources they offered help rebuild trust and reminded business owners that they are now navigating this recovery alone, and we look forward to continue partnership and collaboration to ensure small businesses have the support, resources, and responsiveness they need to recover and thrive.

We also urge city leadership and PGE to continue working together in good faith to make this work for residents and small businesses with a shared commitment to accountability, responsiveness, and stronger coordination during future emergencies.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Do we have anyone else who has public comment for agenda item number two?

Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Public comment on this item is now closed.

And we have a motion on the floor by Supervisor Wong to continue this hearing to the call of the chair.

Mr.

Clerk, may we have a roll call on that motion?

The motion offered by Member Wong that this hearing be continued to the call of the chair, Vice Chair Sutter.

Solder I, Member Wong.

Wong I, Chair Dorsey.

Aye.

Dorsey, aye.

Mr.

Chair, there are three eyes.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

The motion passes.

And Mr.

Clerk, may we please call the next item, item number three.

Agenda item number three is a resolution supporting California State Assembly Bill 1837 introduced by assembly member Mark Gonzalez, which will authorize the use of video imaging to enforce parking and stopping violations in transit-oriented lanes, excuse me, transit-only lanes and bikeways indefinitely.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

This resolution was introduced by our colleague, District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill.

I understand his legislative aid.

Mr.

Roses, the floor is yours.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Dorsey, Vice Chair Sauter, and Supervisor Wong.

I'm here on behalf of Supervisor Cheryl to talk about assembly bill number 1837, authored by assembly member Mark Gonzalez.

Specifically, this bill extends the sunset date for our ability to enforce parking violations in specified transit-only traffic lanes and at transit stops through the use of video imaging.

Currently, our authorization to use video imaging for parking enforcement expires on January 1st, 2027.

This bill extends that authorization to January 1st, 2034.

With its passage, AB 1837 will continue to empower us to use this successful technology to curtail double parking key in key transit only lanes, increasing the reliability of our public transit system.

And San Francisco has always been a pioneer on this front.

In 2007, then Assemblymember Fiona Ma passed Assembly Bill 101, which established the first pilot program in the state to allow for video imaging parking tickets in transit only lanes.

Following its passage, S FNTA found that transit delays were reduced by as much as 20% during that pilot program.

And this success has continued throughout the state.

We've expanded now in the state to Alameda Contracassi counties in 2016 and Los Angeles County in 2021.

So as more counties adopt this program, we continue to see the fruits come to bear.

Counties are generating millions of dollars in revenue, transit lines are more reliable, and double parking is significantly deterred.

Thus, committee members, supervisor show is proud to support this extension of this successful technology so we can continue to reap its benefits, and we respectfully ask for your support.

Thank you, and I'm here to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr.

Russis.

Vice Chair Sauter.

Thank you, and thank you to the district two office for bringing this to us.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you, Vice Chair Sauter.

And I don't see anyone else with questions or comments.

So, Mr.

Clerk, can we invite up public comment on this item?

Do we have any public comment for agenda item number three?

Mr.

Chair, there's no one here.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Public comment on this item is now closed.

And I'd like to make a motion at this time to send this item to the full board of supervisors with our positive recommendations.

Could we have a roll call on that motion?

On the motion offered by the chair that this resolution be sent to the Board of Supervisors with a recommendation of Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee.

Vice Chair Sauter Soder I.

Member Wong Wong I.

Chair Dorsey.

Aye.

Dorsey, aye.

Mr.

Chair, there are three eyes.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

The motion passes.

Congratulations to the District 2 office.

Mr.

Clerk, can we please call item number four on this agenda?

Agenda item number four is a resolution recognizing April 6th, 2026 as the 100th anniversary of United Airlines and its central role in San Francisco's economy and global connectivity.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

I don't believe we have anyone in the chamber to present on this item today.

So I'm gonna step in and uh, or do we?

Let's open it and then close it.

I'm sorry.

You're discussing opening and then closing public comment.

Oh sorry.

Maybe I maybe I'm jumping the gun.

No, this we're on item number four.

That's right.

Yeah, I was just gonna present on it.

Okay.

Okay.

Um so I don't my understanding yeah, we don't have anybody here to present on this, but I did want to pinch it for President Mandelman, who authored the resolution.

Um, this is a simple, straightforward commendation item recognizing United Airlines' 100th anniversary and its long-standing partnership with San Francisco.

Umited's hub at SFO is critically important to our city's economy, supporting jobs, tourism, conventions, and San Francisco's role as a global business center.

Um having United's primary West Coast hub located at SFO gives San Francisco an enormous competitive advantage and strengthens our connectivity to the world.

We also recognize the thousands of union workers and frontline employees who keep these operations moving every day.

Under CEO Scott Kirby's leadership, United has continued to invest in innovation, international growth, operational reliability, and sustainability, helping position the airline as an industry leader.

I will also say, as a member of the LGBTQ plus community, how much I appreciate that United was the first major U.S.

airline to fully recognize domestic partnerships in 1999.

For well over a decade, it has regularly received perfect scores on the human rights campaign corporate equality index.

United was the first U.S.

airline to offer nine by non-binary gender bookings options and MX honorifics in its reservation systems in 2019.

United has also maintained an LGBTQ plus equality resource group called Equal, and it is historically marketed to LGBTQ travelers far earlier than many of its competitors.

And United has been a major sponsor of San Francisco's LGBTQ pride parade and celebration year after year, going back to the 1990s.

So thank you, United Airlines, for your support for our city and for its diverse communities, and congratulations on 100 years of service and for your continued investment in San Francisco.

And with that, why don't we open up uh public comment on this item?

Do we have anyone who has public comment for agenda item number four, Mr.

Chair?

Well, the comment is now closed.

Um, I'd like to make a motion at this time to send this item to the full board of supervisors with our positive recommendation.

On the motion offered by the chair that this resolution be recommended to the Board of Supervisors, Vice Chair Sauter.

Dorsey, aye.

Mr.

Chair, there are three eyes.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Uh, we the role the motion passes.

Mr.

Clerk, do we have any further business before us today?

There is no further business.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk, and thank you, everyone, for your participation.

The meeting is now adjourned.