Hi all, First a quick update. As expected we could not stop Maxwell's CT resolution from escaping the Land Use Committee on Monday. SFPUC staff spouted the same extremely clever and deceptive illusions that they presented to the SFPUC Commissioners, but the Committee members (Maxwell, McGoldrick and Sandoval) bought it. Infamous Health Dept. Director Mitch Katz was also on hand to claim with the SFPUC staff that the CTs would vastly decrease pollution, and he justified his statements in part by describing plans to both use street cleaners to suck particulates off of the streets, and to also buy pollution credits to technically offset the CTs' NOX emissions! Recall that this is the same sort of evil nonsense that Katz spouted about the Lennar construction site. Dr. Katz is fast becoming public health enemy #1. Katz and the SFPUC's Barbara Hale described these measures as resulting in a total zeroing out of of the pollution from the CTs. SFPUC Assistant GM Tony Irons claimed that the SFPUC's plan was to -never- turn on the CTs and to only have them available for emergencies! Looking at the JPower contract term sheet, that statement is clearly, blatantly false. Yesterday, Tuesday Oct 30, Maxwell's resolution went before the full Board of Supervisors. Sierra Club, Our City, the SF Green Party, and APRI did extensive lobbying and succeeded in really shaking up the issue; and we came one vote away from getting a one week continuance on the resolution. Michela Alioto-Pier, Ross Mirkarimi, and Chris Daly stood strongly on our side, and in the first continuance vote Tom Ammiano, and Gerardo Sandoval had been sufficiently convinced to doubt that they sided with us on that vote. Throughout the hearing, Jake McGoldrick totally betrayed us and repeatedly threw softball questions to the SFPUC staff and strongly pushed for the CTs. Then, something shocking happened. After a very long hearing of several Supervisors asking tough questions of the SFPUC staff and being dealt the same extremely clever lies that the Committee had heard the day before, the Supervisors then prepared for a final vote. Mirkarimi and Ammiano first introduced an amendment to the resolution which mandated that Mirant be guaranteed to close before the CT's would be turned on. Then, at the very moment the final vote was about to take place, Board President Supervisor Aaron Peskin suddenly announced from his podium that he had just heard from the Mayor's office that, AT THAT VERY MOMENT, they were completing negotiations with Mirant corporation to 'guarantee' that the Mirant plant would be shut down when Cal ISO released it from RMR status. Peskin went on to state that Mirant would be signing the agreement in about '27 minutes' AFTER the Board vote. Based only on this verbal hearsay by Peskin, the Board then took up the final vote, and Ammiano and Sandoval abandoned us on that final vote. This enabled the Resolution to pass 8 to 3 and sending a much stronger pro CT message to the SFPUC Commissioners for today's meeting. During the preceding dialog, SFPUC staff stated that the resolution needed to be passed that day, because the State Department of Water Resources had recently sent the SFPUC a letter saying that it would back out of its agreement to buy the electricity from the CTs unless the Board of Supervisors showed immediate support for the CTs. (SFPUC staff hadn't mentioned one word about this in the Land Use hearing.) This letter puts high pressure on the SFPUC Commissioners to approve the finalized JPower contract today. The upshot of all this is that we who are in leadership on this campaign need to be in Room 400 today to strongly urge Sklar, Hochschild, Normandy, and Cane to stand firm with us and continue demanding another alternative to the CTs, especially if the Mayor was telling the truth and Mirant has agreed to close. Our key arguments will likely best focus on Normandy's remaining three unresolved questions (assuming that Mirant has agreed to close) - - Will the City have the power to mandate that the CT plant will never be turned on except in the case of peak power emergencies? - Are these CTs the best option for -today- when there are likely other completely non-polluting alternatives available? and - How much will the CT plant cost the City? (And can we use that money to build an alternative solution instead.) (At this point the CTs will cost the City at least $60 million, up to $190 million total if we have to buy the CT electricity that PG&E has refused to buy, and $230-$500 million if the City owned alternative that was put back on the table is chosen.) The SFPUC staff claimed on Monday that Commissioner Sklar -will- be at the meeting, however after reviewing all of the hearing videos, I believe that this is still unclear. So we especially need to be there to demand that the vote be postponed until Sklar is present, if he is in fact out of town today. Here are the details again for the SFPUC meeting: *AGENDA SPECIAL MEETING * Wednesday, October 31, 2007 *2:30 P.M. NOTE DIFFERENT DAY/START TIME* City Hall, Room 400 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place *ORDER OF BUSINESS* 1. Call to Order 2. Roll Call *CLOSED SESSION* 3. Public comments on matters to be discussed in Closed Session. 4. Motion on whether to assert the attorney-client privilege regarding the matters listed below as Conference with Legal Counsel. THE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION WILL GO INTO CLOSED SESSION TO DISCUSS THE FOLLOWING ITEMS: 5. Conference with Real Property Negotiator -- Pursuant to Sunshine Ordinance Section 67.8 (a)(2), Govt. Code section 54956.8: Property: located at 25th Street and Maryland in San Francisco, California. (Hale) Negotiator for the SFPUC: Barbara Hale Negotiator: JPower. 6. Conference with Legal Counsel -- Pursuant to California Government Code Section 54956.9 (b) and (c) and San Francisco Administrative Code Section 67.10 (d) (2) Anticipated Litigation: As defendant. (Ambrose) FOLLOWING THE CLOSED SESSION, THE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION WILL RECONVENE IN OPEN SESSION. 7. Announcement following Closed Session. 8. Motion regarding whether to disclose the discussions during Closed Session. 9. Staff presentation, discussion and action related to matters addressed in the SFPUC Resolution No 07-0137, including the proposed San Francisco Electric Reliability Project (the Combustion Turbines (CTs) and related facilities), the JPower agreements and leases, and any related agreements, authorizations and permits required from other City Departments or federal, state or local agencies pertaining to this Project, and adopting findings pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act. (Leal, Irons, Hale). ADJOURNMENT of the Special Meeting