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Committee forwards SFPUC AMI contracts after debate over procurement waiver and local participation
Summary
The Budget & Finance Committee forwarded two AMI-related items for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission — procurement and lease-purchase agreements to start installation of an advanced meter infrastructure for ~180,000 meters — while discussing a procurement waiver, required contract protections, and local-hire commitments.
The committee heard a presentation on the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission's Advanced Meter Infrastructure (AMI) program, which would replace roughly 180,000 manually read water meters with wireless meters and provide high-resolution hourly consumption data. "This new program will provide high resolution hourly consumption data," SFPUC presenter said, describing benefits including quicker leak detection and lower operating costs.
Budget analyst Harvey Rose told the committee that while the AMI program is an "excellent project," Section 2(c) of the proposed ordinance would ratify prior PUC contracting actions and approve variances from Chapter 21 of the city's administrative code (procurement). Rose recommended the Board treat that proposed waiver as a policy matter; if the Board wanted to exclude the variance language, he suggested converting the ordinance to a resolution and removing references that would bind the city to the vendor agreements.
PUC staff said city attorneys recommended the ordinance route so that enhancements to contract protections would be binding. The PUC cited protections negotiated with the top-ranked vendor, VSI Meter Services, including a $25 million performance bond, liquidated damages provisions, and stringent acceptance testing. The PUC also said outreach showed no single local firm could deliver the integrated AMI services and instead negotiated strong local-hire commitments: a minimum 50% San Francisco resident hire rate for construction crafts and at least $150,000 in local spending on soft services.
After limited public comment, the committee moved to send items 2 and 3 to the full Board with recommendation while keeping the ordinance intact; that motion was taken without objection. The full Board will consider the contracts and the procurement waiver language in its final vote.
