Rules Committee forwards PUC appointment after nominee highlights water, energy and equity priorities

The Rules Committee considered the mayor's appointment of Francesca Vier to seat 1 on the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and forwarded the nomination with a committee recommendation after a public hearing.

Chair Chris Daly opened the special meeting and the clerk read two competing items: a motion to confirm Francesca Vier to the PUC, seat 1 (term ending 08/01/2012), and a motion to reject the appointment. The person invited to speak as the nominee (addressed in the hearing as "Miss Peter") described her interest in the role and emphasized climate and environmental priorities. "I think that climate change we are seeing is a serious, serious issue," Miss Peter said, adding that the PUC should focus on water and power and pay particular attention to how disadvantaged communities will be affected.

During questioning, Supervisor Tom Ammiano asked about a PUC proposal to take an additional 25,000,000 gallons per day from the Tuolumne River. Miss Peter said she did not yet know the detailed specifics and urged careful review, noting conservation measures—such as fixing leaky toilets, showers and faucets—could reduce demand. On PUC watershed stewardship (noted in the hearing as about 60,000 acres), she said the commission should act as an environmental steward and consider renewable-generation opportunities on agency land.

The committee also asked whether low-impact development stormwater guidelines in the wastewater master plan should be applied to existing properties; Miss Peter said she would support broad application where feasible and expressed interest in wastewater recycling as technology allows. On the power side she said the city should pursue more renewable, resource-based power at reasonable rates and combine that work with efficiency programs and community aggregation or public power.

Public comment included support from Grant Willison, who said he favored the appointment and urged an emphasis on water and energy efficiency. Francisco de Costa, identifying himself as director of environmental justice advocacy, urged that PUC seats require technical and infrastructure expertise and familiarity with environmental review. "What we have here is a situation shadowed by dirty politics," de Costa said, and he noted the scale of planned infrastructure work, saying of the clean water project "it's more than $4,000,000,000." No direct response to that allegation was recorded in the hearing.

After public comment, an unidentified committee member moved to recommend confirmation of Item 1 as the committee report and to table Item 2, the motion to reject. Chair Daly called for objections; with none, the committee forwarded the nomination without objection and tabled the rejection motion. The clerk closed the agenda and the committee adjourned.

The committee record shows the nomination was forwarded with recommendation and the rejection motion was tabled; the transcript does not record a roll-call vote or named vote tallies.