Budget and Finance Committee forwards grants, contracts and $40 million housing bond package to full Board

The Budget and Finance Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Jan. 22 forwarded a series of grants, contract amendments and a $40 million general obligation bond authorization to the full Board with positive recommendations, most by unanimous 3-0 votes.

The measures included: a $410,000 retroactive grant for the City Attorney's worker protection team from the California Department of Industrial Relations; a $9.5 million amendment to AECOM Technical Services' contract for construction management on the Hetch Hetchy Mountain Tunnel rehabilitation; roughly $496,000 from the James Irvine Foundation awarded to the Office of Economic and Workforce Development for worker-owner cooperative capacity building; a $750,000 Metropolitan Transportation Commission grant for Visitation Avenue bicycle and pedestrian improvements; a $750,000 Department of Health Care Services grant to the Department of Public Health to support MATCH (Modular Approach to Therapy for Children); new citywide contracts for mailroom services with Pitney Bowes (not-to-exceed $23.55 million) and integrated pest management with Pestech (not-to-exceed $15.5 million); a $23,400 donation to the Police Department Mounted Unit from the Margaret Living Trust; authorization to seek $1.5 million in Pro-Housing Incentive Program funding for a senior housing project at 976 Mission; and an amendment to a MOHCD loan for a 100%-affordable family housing project at 2530 18th Street.

Why it matters: the actions advance several major infrastructure and housing efforts and keep state and philanthropic funding flowing to local programs. The mountain tunnel work supports a century-old Hetch Hetchy conveyance that serves about 2.8 million residents and businesses across four counties. The bond authorization would fund preservation, rehabilitation and seismic safety upgrades to existing affordable housing and is paired with loans that projects will repay to offset debt service.

Mountain tunnel contract amendment: The committee heard the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission project manager explain that Amendment No. 3 to the construction management agreement with AECOM Technical Services increases the not-to-exceed amount by $9.5…