CPUC Workshop - 2021-02-04
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California Public Utilities Commission
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 3
So this poll, please complete it. And so we so, Nicole and I know who is here. I'm not seeing it. Is it there?
Speaker 3
Oh, okay. Okay. While that poll while you're filling out while you're filling out the poll, let me introduce myself. My name is Liz Podolinski. I am a policy analyst in the safety and enforcement division of the CPUC.
And my position there is to be a policy adviser to the director of the division, Lee Palmer. Nicole, do you want to introduce yourself?
Speaker 2
Sure. My name is Nicole Cropper. I am Commissioner Resch Offense Assistant. I do a lot of different things. And I'm also helping out the office of the commission with our voting meetings and whatnot.
And a lot of my role is to help implement the environmental justice action plan.
Speaker 3
Okay. Thank you. So the goal of this session is to brainstorm some potential new action items for the environmental and social justice action plan update. The action plan has nine goals, like incorporating equity into decision making, increasing access to programs and services, promoting workforce development opportunities, and ways to participate in the CPUC processes. Specifically for this session, the goal that the commission has on safety is enhancing enforcement to ensure safety and consumer protection for ESJ communities.
And, the goal, again, is to brainstorm ideas of how how there could be some new action items with safety as the goal, increasing safety. We hope to make this, as interactive as possible this session. There are a few ways you can participate. You can give a verbal comment or ask a question. You will click the hand next to your name in the participant list list, and I will call on you and unmute you when it is your turn and you can speak.
Speaker 5
I mean, I have to get to everyone, but I will do my best. You can also leave comments in the chat.
Speaker 3
And then there is an email that you can also send your and anything you'd like in the email, which is esjactionplancpuc dot gov. And we will try to move as much as we can from the chat box in the discussion. Nicole will be the one to monitor the chat box. And we will be see be saving, the chat so we can, record your feedback. And just before we start, a reminder that this session is being recorded so that we can save all the feedback and comments.
So, Sean, what do we do about the virtual poll? Does it just stay up or is it over? Can we end it now?
Speaker 3
Okay. And then we get I I can see some results? We can some results? Yes. Great.
Mhmm.
Speaker 2
I have the results here. Liz, if you go to the polling section of your Webex, you should be able to see them. But I'll go ahead and let you know who we have. So it looks like we have about nine PUC staff members. We have one policy or advocacy organization, a couple of utility representatives, about three state agency representatives, two people from the local government, and five people who indicated other who are attending this session today.
Speaker 3
Okay. Great. So what I'm going to do is, first of all, describe many of you probably know about the safety and enforcement division of the PUC, but I'm going to do a little introduction of what SED does and so we could we can think about how we could integrate PSJ considerations into SED's work. So SED, safety and enforcement division, oversees the safety of electric and communication facilities, poles, wires, natural gas infrastructure, like pipelines, and propane facilities. And I also wanna say that I'm looking at another screen with my script, so I'm kinda looking back and forth.
SCD has three branches comprised of utility engineers, analysts like me, investigators that focus on ensuring the safety of utility infrastructure and reducing utility caused wildfires. The way FCD does it does its work is it performs safety audits of electric and gas infrastructure. It conducts investigations on incidents and it appears in safety proceedings. The three branches are, like, electric safety and reliability branch. So they're looking at the electric infrastructure, the gas safety and reliability branch that deals with gas system.
And then the newest branch is the wildfire safety and enforcement branch. And it enforces public utility wildfire safety and public safety power shutoff violations. WSCB, the wildfire safety enforcement branch, is the lead investigator for utility incidents relating to wildfire PSPS events and other aspects related to wildfire events. The way SED works is it does audits, investigations. If SED or an engineer, whoever is doing an audit or investigation, a violation, SED has the authority to issue citations with penalties against utility operators who file any public safety safe public safety public utility safety codes and other requirements.
And the authority SED has is from general orders, public the public utilities code, or a CPUC resolution. For example, recently, the CPUC, the the Gang's branch cited a mobile home park operator for violating general order 112 F, which requires a mobile home gas operator to conduct a gas leakage survey every five years. The last survey this mobile home park operator conducted was thirteen years ago. That's a violation. It has a penalty.
The electric branch cited and penalized an electric utility for failing to properly mark underground facilities, And it's resulted in an injury and the SCD's authority for that citation and that penalty is general order 128, which applies to all underground electricity supply and communications systems that the CPUC regulates. So here's some kind of generally looking at SED and how ESJ fits in is. General orders do not include ESJ considerations currently. Therefore, SED audits, SED investigations don't include ESJ considerations. However, the CPUC can modify general orders.
It can modify resolutions to include those considerations. So today's brainstorm is like, what would those considerations be that would go into these different general orders? Another issue is that SED doesn't have any environmental engineers currently. So this would be something that would require training. So the engineers that do go and audit would be able to conduct an environmental audit.
In addition, just, there are some safety considerations that other state agencies may be better their that state agency is better suited to consider a concern such as emissions from a power plant that affect air quality in a neighborhood, the Air Resources Board may be the state agency that would handle that, not the CPUC. So this is a brainstorming session. What kind of e e ESJ concerns presently involve safety? What would an ESJ audit look like? What would the engineer be looking for?
How could we direct an auditor inspector to do such an audit? So at this point, I can open it up. That was a a pretty short introduction. If you have any other questions, let me know. And I think that's that's it.
Speaker 2
I'm looking at the participant list right now, and so I'm checking to see if anybody has their hands up at this moment. And, again, the question is really how do we what ESG concerns presently involve safety?
Speaker 2
Not at this moment. No. I'll let you know when there are. But if you have any comments on that, that would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Speaker 3
So I yesterday, I listened to the wildfire safety breakout session, And there was a lot of I looked at the chat, and I listened in about how these PSPSs are being managed by the utilities and disabled people, people that need electricity to live, how would those considerations be handled by the safety enforcement division since we do have one of our branches, the welfare safety and enforcement branch that does deal with the public safety power shutoffs through our issuing of guidelines. The last set of guidelines or the new set of guidelines was last approved by the commission in June. And one of the issues I heard was notification of people so they have enough time to make plans. And that is one of the guidelines that is out is is in the in the PSPS guidelines is there are certain certain people are alerted in order based on, like, medical baseline individuals. They are one of the the first to be alerted that there could be a public safety power shutoff.
Are those adequate? Are those what how there have been a lot of there have been some issues, with how the utilities have performed their PS or executed their PSPS events. How could the SED improve the safety of Californians in PSPSs?
Speaker 4
Out a sorry. I sent out a request to unmute them. William, you could there you go.
Speaker 5
Alright. Thank you. Appreciate the opportunity to provide some feedback. I I think, you know, through the social justice, lens, I think it's gonna be very important for the safety enforcement division to define their, SLAs or service level agreements associated with their activities. I think part of what will help us understand it, the degree to which there is equity in terms of your role, will be to understand, what, what your responses are within various communities.
And so, you know, what I mean by that is if there is a, you know, safety issue detected, by your division or a member of the public, you know, what is the expectation in terms of turnaround time to be able to address that, what is the pathway for those things to get resolved. And then as you measure that, you'll be able to understand the degree to which you have, made progress within communities that are disproportionately, disadvantaged. And but without sort of that baseline in establishing your, the service level expectations for your work, it will be very hard for us to sort of look through this lens to understand, you know, how we're advancing environmental and social justice without understanding sort of baseline measurements for how you all gauge success.
Speaker 3
So can you give an example of something you're talking about? Like, some some there there's obviously a safety issue with some sort of piece of infrastructure and how quickly it would be it would be addressed or handled or repaired or made safe. Is that is that what you're talking about?
Speaker 5
So so let me give you an example of that. So if, you know, a member in in in the community saw a a safety issue and had a concern about how that would affect their community, and they made a call into the PUC or they provided a public comment at one of, one of the meetings. How what's the expectation from the safety enforcement division in terms of that response? Is your expectation that you would be responding to that within twenty four to forty eight hours? How is that response time in, San Francisco different from your response time in Sonoma County?
Understanding, how that relates to the response time of the utilities. I think part of that also has to do with other attributes in terms of how you respond and, you know, the reporting that goes into that and the resolution process. I think without that type of information about sort of very specifically about what your expectations are for service, you know, it'll be difficult to measure how well you're doing in one community or another. Are those differences just related to staffing? Are those issues related to, other issues that might fall under the lens of of environmental and social justice issues?
You know, I think, you know, another way to sort of look at that is, you know, look at the proceedings, for which, SED is most engaged and try to understand how, public participation is, is measured. Right? So, is there a public participation hearing? How is that structured? How is the input within that public participation measured and seen and processed through the proceeding and, ending up with the commission in terms of their decisions.
I think these are the types of sort of access issues and equity issues that really, need to be at that objective, measured in that objective measured way. Because otherwise, I think, you know, part of what we end up doing is is talking, very broadly about social justice and environmental justice, in very aspirational terms and indicate that we, you know, have an intention, which I wholeheartedly know that the the commission has, to sort of move that forward, but without really having an understanding about how we measure that. And so similar to how we measure other things within the PUC in terms of utility progress, I think it would be great to be able to use those same types of tools to measure how, the CPUC is moving forward.
Speaker 3
Mhmm. Do you you have an example of I mean, not an example, like, an idea about increasing public participation or, like, yeah, increasing it, getting it in different communities in these proceedings.
Speaker 5
Yeah. So I think the first step for that is that, you know, in my mind, there should be no proceeding where there is not a public participation hearing of some type. And I think really taking a look at what is a public participation hearing, how can that be approached in different ways, because I know that, you know, there are a lot of time pressures under certain proceedings. But how do we just not sort of bypass the opportunity to engage with the public? So, you know, as an example, there are wildfire mitigation plans that are very important to, to the public in terms of how they're gonna be able to afford insurance, how they're gonna feel safe in their homes.
And so to think that we would move forward through those types of proceedings and not really engage the public to really understand in a very measurable way what their input is and look at that as really a counterbalance to what we're doing in terms of gauging what the utilities, are doing, I think, will largely miss the mark in terms of environmental and social justice. And just going out and sort of having, you know, two minutes at the podium to speak your mind, or, you know, writing a a comment, on the proceeding page and having no knowledge of sort of the process or how that's going to be evaluated, I think is is a hindrance. Right? So if I'm gonna, take the time to sort of craft a a letter to have included in the proceeding, I'd like to understand how that's gonna be evaluated, how I can really, be constructive, right, in terms of that feedback. And I think the more that, SED can really communicate about your criteria for evaluating that public comment, you will be, able to garner more public comment because people will feel confident that that comment doesn't just sit, you know, sit on a shelf, but it's evaluated with a very specific process.
And I think that that will go a long way both in terms of of, transparency and public awareness, but also in terms of just overall safety because, you know, the commission and SED only has a certain number of folks, right, who can do the monitoring and who can, do that actively. So the amount of which you will be able to engage the the public as partners at looking at safety issues and informing the commission or utility about those safety issues will really have to do with how well the process is defined and where people see an opportunity to engage in the process. So I would say that there really needs to be a very specific, methodology and process defined where this is how SED does business in this way, in this circumstance, in this community. One, two, three, four. Here are the areas where we're gonna be able to have public engagement.
Here's how that public engagement will be evaluated, and here's how it rolls into our overall decisions. So I think thinking through the arc of that methodology will really help to advance, you know, social and environmental justice through that lens, through actively engaging with the public.
Speaker 3
Hope that helps. Yeah. No. That's good. I I know in public participation hearings that they're required in rate cases and mergers.
Okay. Thank you.
Speaker 2
At this time, we don't have any other hands raised, but well, I would like to follow-up on your comment. You said, you know, having kind of a baseline framework was important for us to, you know, be able to understand what we need to even be enforcing or with safety measures. Do you have and this is open to all the participants actually. Do you have specific, like, should we be looking at? Like, what are the safety measures that we should be looking at that we're not currently considering?
Or what are the current environmental and social justice indicators that we're not currently considering?
Speaker 5
Sure. You know, I think there's a a large overlap with, sort of the the progress that that, the commission is making around things like the wildfire mitigation plans and social and environmental justice. Right? Because part of that, overlap has to do with, you know, if folks aren't safe in their homes, you know, they're not getting, the type of environmental justice that they need. Right?
And so if we're not working towards climate change adaptation, we're not getting towards the social justice that we need. And if we're not doing those things in an equitable way, we're not achieving that. So I think part of what this is is really, identifying and measuring risk. Right? So part of what what I've been sort of advocating for through that lens is a real, scientific measurement approach to how much does a tree limb and a line increase risk?
Right? And so measuring risk, so having risk reduction ratios at every point of the process, understanding the infrastructure and what contributes to risk. How does that risk different differ is how is that risk different within, particular communities? Right? And so how is that different within an urban environment versus a a suburban environment versus a rural environment?
And and looking at those things, in that way, both serves sort of the general, thrust of of, safety enforcement, but also, manages to get at a more granular level to understand environmental and social justice issues. And so, really, I think the key is, setting those expectations, measuring all of those things so that you have the tools to understand, the scope of the issues. You know, I think, in terms of which I you know, I keep sort of hammering home. I think it's really important, particularly with how you engage the public that it's measured. Right?
And so, part of this that we just know and it's to to no one's fault, right, is that we have a huge amount of resources on the utility state on the utility side, financial resources, legal resources, advocating for positions. Right? And so if we're going to try to have decisions that also include, a a good amount of public participation, we really need to understand, okay. Somebody walks to the podium in a meeting and they provide two minutes of public comment. How does that two minutes relate to, the particular proceeding?
How is that measured? Right? What makes a a two minute public comment turn into an action for the commission? How does that weigh? And and so each and every communication vehicle, right, would have sort of a different metric for how, and a different methodology for how that is weighed and how it makes its way into a proceeding.
But, you know, part of what's clear, right, is that individuals there's a a lot of, needed in in most cases bureaucracy for engaging as a party in a proceeding. Right? But it might be easier to go in front of a podium for two minutes and trying to understand across those various ways that the public engages, how all of those things make its way to the commission's desk is, is important. I'm sorry. I'm I'm Great.
Speaker 2
No. That's okay. I would like to mention that we have commissioner Roshchoffen up the line. So
Speaker 7
you. And thank you, Will, for for those comments and the others you made earlier this morning. I wanted to throw in another question for the group, or get some feedback. Some folks may be aware, others may not, that PUC has recently adopted an enforcement policy to guide the exercise of our enforcement discretion and to set forth policies for all of the divisions that are under the PUC in taking enforcement actions. And this goes for investigations, penalty settling cases and so forth.
One issue that we haven't finalized and that we're starting to work on is the guidelines for when we approve supplemental environmental projects or mitigation projects in lieu of penalties. Other agencies have formal policies for when they think that's appropriate and how much of a penalty should be mitigated. How much has to mitigate the affected community, what the nexus has to be between the actual violation and the remedial measures that are taken, issues like that. These types of projects are often championed by environmental justice communities, because they feel like it's the money can be spent more effectively in the communities that have borne the impacts of a violation and then the money goes typically, if there's a fine, it goes to the general fund that states treasury. So I'm wondering if any if anyone has had experience with these projects in other contexts and other agencies, or if anyone wants to could give some feedback on this general notion that we're we're we're gonna be working on.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Commissioner. And I remind folks, if you would like to make a comment or respond, please raise your hand and we can get you unmuted. In the chat box.
Speaker 3
So, commissioner Rexhaven, I have a question. You mean kind of like a mitigation like CEQUA has? Like, they can mitigate, like they can do certain things and the penalty goes down?
Speaker 7
It could be. It could be. It's not in the CEQUA context list so much. It's more that if you agree to, for example, pay for this environmentally beneficial project that will reduce exposure to certain pollutants in the community, part of the part of all the penalty may be waived. Okay.
It obviously has to be in addition to what a utility or the regulated entity would otherwise be required to do to comply with the law. But in the context of safety, it could be there's a violation related to failure to follow certain wildfire safety mitigation rules that you do a project in the community that's affected in lieu of paying a penalty. That goes beyond normal compliance obligations.
Speaker 7
If you're if you're if you're a if you're a a transportation network, a ride sharing company and you you are operating, some of your drivers don't have the proper licenses, you would do extra education about safe driving or do extra measures to promote safety beyond what you required.
Speaker 2
I do have a couple of responses in the chat. If I can go ahead and read those. Matthew George says penalties are either to drive behavior or reallocate resources. And he also says, so if remedial acts or some sort of specific performance can benefit the agreed community, both goals will be accomplished. And again, that's from Matthew George.
Then we also have a comment from Yvonne Chee, who says examples of SCPs that benefit disadvantaged communities include installing air filtration devices, schools, communities, centers and residences excuse me, to reduce the community's exposure to air pollution, monitoring groundwater quality from infiltrating storm water to detect harmful contaminants, providing regular health screens for affected communities or providing community members training to enable them to identify environmental violations and to notify regulatory agencies of those violations.
Speaker 7
Exactly. That's Ivan's comment is a much more specific and helpful illustration of what some of these projects could consist of.
Speaker 7
We'll be evaluating this over time. So we certainly we certainly welcome people's perspective. In normal course of our regulatory work, we do bring enforcement cases and those are subject to decisions of public review and the public can certainly comment on aspects of specific decisions in that way. But I think it'd be helpful to, if people have thoughts about the broader policy to hear from them over time. And there's a yeah.
There's some more information in the chat about the Air Resources Board supplemental environmental policy.
Speaker 2
So at this time yeah there were no other comments or hands raised regarding the commissioner's question so Liz if you'd like to move on to the next question
Speaker 3
Well, one of the questions what and Will Abrams, you said, like, as far as safety concerns, one thing I was thinking about is as far as collecting data on monitoring the electric infrastructure, and sometimes electric infrastructure, I'll I'll say well, not electric, but communications infrastructure, may you know, have some problems. And would it be worthwhile to find out if, that infrastructure is cleaned up, let's say, quicker in some areas than other areas depending upon what who that community is. You know, do some communities get quicker service than other communities? And that may be something that the SED could possibly some data gathering and promote or collect and see if there is some sort of correlation. So that was something I was thinking about that as something to kind of outside the box because that is a safety concern.
I know that there have been a lot of incidents involving pools. And the other thing I was thinking about is one of the things that SED does is conduct audits of generation plants. And the engineer goes through a checklist and is looking for certain things. That list could be expanded based on it would have to go through a tuition procedure, but it could be expanded to include environmental and or social justice concerns about how you evaluate a power plant. Does anybody have anything any other ideas, any comments?
Speaker 2
At this time there are no hands raised. There's no comments in the chat about that.
Speaker 3
So this is a brainstorming session. If you don't, there's no like answer going to happen here. It's kind of like SCD would, you know, wants to involve, you know, the public in in in in going in in moving this forward.
Speaker 7
Well, there's an interesting comment in the chat, maybe Nicole you can about using CalEnviroScreen.
Speaker 2
Sure, so this is from Yvonne Chi and she says, do you look at CalEnviroScreen census tracks and environmental indicators to determine which communities are considered vulnerable and disadvantaged? SCD can designate the census tracks that score at the highest 25% for environmental burdens As the communities in need of enforcement actions, maybe those communities can receive more safety audits. Perhaps the penalties for violations in these communities could be higher. Perhaps those communities can get quicker service.
Speaker 3
Yes. And so we do I'm familiar with the CalEnviroScreen. So what would have to be done is what are we looking for? What's happening that in that community or what's happening in California? And how do we look at the use the CalEnviroScreen to see if that problem is being solved differently in different communities.
And so what would be interesting is to kind of have some examples of what those safety issues are. I mean, there are a lot of safety issues. So would it be holes that are falling down? Would it be you know, are the wildfire behaviors different by the you know, what you know? So what we have to do is what's our objective?
What are we looking at? What are the safety issues that would be good to use the CalEnviroScreen for?
Speaker 8
ahead. I want to I'm working as social services. I I have an idea regarding the concern safety concern because, well, you see in my in my village, we don't have we need we we have raised concern to the the the mayor already for to create a sidewalk for the for and the safety. We need the life for for when the evening, when the people come back from work, no no sidewalk for the for the handicapped person. For disabled person, there is a big concern regarding safety.
So we we suggest to create a sidewalk to put the stoplight at the corner of the Alpine And Navarro Avenue and put life to to along the the road so that to have more secure. That's all.
Speaker 3
Some of those safety issues are not something that the CPUC could or SED could deal with. I guess one is lighting for I I I assume I a road would be done by either the city you live in depending upon who or it could be done by a utility. And in that case, yes, the CPUC does have some jurisdiction. But I don't know what city you're talking about if if the lighting is who who who provides lighting?
Speaker 8
I I don't know exactly because I just raised my concern. I don't know how to to con to deal with the city or the mayor or the governor. I don't know. Sorry.
Speaker 2
So there is a response to your question, sir, and it says keep on your mayor and then it also says city, the city and county will usually take care of your local street lighting issues.
Speaker 9
And I this is Okay. Sean. And this this is Sean Simon. I'm an adviser to commissioner Rexhaven. I think the comment actually does raise an important point, which is the the impacts that were discussed in the workshop are really far reaching and are and varied, I don't it's good to know them and identify them and deny them, define them, but I don't think they need to be ultimately be defined.
Really, to Vaughn's point about the data collection is a really important piece with regards to communities and other socioeconomic factors to have that be part of our process, separate from focusing on jurisdiction or what the right outcome is, really just developing our systems that incorporate the data. And there's a lot of crossover in this discussion with the with the earlier session on data where I think, could be brought into our safety work.
Speaker 3
Yeah. I I I agree with you, Sean. What I my concern is we just don't wanna collect data. We wanna have some sort of focus on what kind of data we want and what what's our objective? What's our goal?
That that's that's kind of so it's it's it's more focused than just collecting data. I mean, the CalEnvirus screen has a ton of data. It's, like, amazing. But what's our objective in using it, and how how can we best use it by having a goal of what we're looking for or looking at?
Speaker 1
Hi. Sorry. I wasn't sure whether I needed permission to unmute. But I think one way of honing in on, you know, the data that needs to be collected is potentially to you know, whenever and I'm not I'm not familiar with how it works. But, whenever there is a a violation to sort of document where that violation is happening, you know, the socioeconomic makeup and the racial makeup of a community in which it is happening.
And then just to collect that kind of data over time whenever there is, you know, some CPUC action that is taken for for for the public. And then maybe that data collected over time can help in on, you know, the issues that are frequently cropping up for some of the most vulnerable communities, and then do later target those issues in audits and in enforcement.
Speaker 3
Thanks. That's yeah. That would be a great data collection project. Yes. One of the things that SED is focusing on is mobile home parks and prioritizing those mobile home parks that are more disadvantaged than other other mobile home parks as far as making sure the infrastructure works and that it's it's safe.
And so as far as what, Yvonne, you were saying is where these violations happen, you could even say in mobile home parks, you know, what kind of violations are they, and where are they they happening the most? And I I think we may have that data because we do do audits every five years and then put the layer of the EnviroScreen on that.
Speaker 2
There is a question in the chat, from Matthew George who asks, are we working with HCD to identify parks with violations in other areas? So are we currently coordinating with HCD for that information?
Speaker 9
So, where the piece the PC does work really closely with HCD on a on a in a couple ways. Part of what, I think, Elizabeth was talking about was a program that we have. It's called the mobile home park utility conversion program. And so in the up until 1980, mobile home parks were done by master meter. So the the gas and electric infrastructure is all managed by the mobile home park owner.
And the both the materials and then the upkeep of the systems is not always on par with what an investor on utility has the resources to do. And so this program covers the cost to to replace all of that infrastructure with utility infrastructure, and that program prioritizes based on safety risk. And HCD so it's a bit of a shared jurisdiction there. So, we have a long standing relationship of working closely with HCD. That's not to say there are other areas where we can collaborate and we are working through agreements to work more closely with them.
That's a really important point.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Sean. Elizabeth, I'm just going to note, we have about four minutes left. So, if it's okay, I'll go ahead and summarize the takeaways from this session. Thank you. Those can get back to the main session.
So basically, just to bring it back to the issue of safety and enforcement and environmental social justice communities. We heard from Neil Abrams, who said that establishing baseline service level expectations is really important to be able to even know what we are, like, what information we need to gather. We also heard that CalEnviroScreen can be a great data collection tool. And it should be a part of our safety enforcement work. For instance, when there's a violation, we can document where the violation is occurring and over time, we can compare it to what is happening in the region, the socioeconomic situation of these locations, and can help open issues for vulnerable communities over time.
So, that looks like a broad overview of our takeaways. And I wanna give folks one more opportunity if they have any last minute thoughts to go ahead and chime in.
Speaker 6
Yes. Hello, Nicole. This is Ivana Bodin. I'm with Abstadence, Stockton, California.
Speaker 6
Yes. Thank you so much. Please give me a minute. I I I just wanna know if there are any work done in the minority community as far as educating them in regard to social justice beforehand because this is new for us. It's new for me as well on this program.
So I'm just learning and trying to digest what everybody else is sharing informations and from the commission as well. So I I just want to know if anything has been done or reaching or educating in the Asian community at large or in any county or any statewide that you know of?
Speaker 2
Thank you. Off the top of my head, I can't answer that question. I do know that we definitely have relationships with different communities based organizations, and we do educate them on our plan, our programs, and whatnot. I can't speak to your specific community, but I certainly encourage you if you would not mind sharing your contact information. And Sure.
Either myself or one of our other members can reach out to you, and we can definitely provide that.
Speaker 6
Is this It's our first year, probably just short term grant that we got. Just we tried to implement it in a way that I have not been instructed very well. So I'm still learning as I goes and until I know what we are doing in order for me to educate the community and hoping that the grant continues long enough so that we can carry on these missions and to educate these minority groups or disadvantaged or underserved community. And I'm hoping that there'll be a long term solutions and long term programs that we can at least justify the needs and be able to hear the voice and concerns and also to educate and to raise awareness and also to how do we approach them to collect data from this minority who does not speak the language or the language disparities or the language barrier. And I know that the commissioner trying to reach out to some organized base organize community based organized on stations.
However, how how do we be able to reach out and further these these programs or projects or this endeavor to educate people about social justice and and environmental safety and think of this nature, which is relatively new for the Asian communities.
Speaker 2
Absolutely. So I'm putting I put my email, my personal or not my personal work email at Mhmm. In the chat. I'm also putting the email address for the environmental social justice plan. And we can definitely if you would like to reach out, we can respond directly to your question.
Liz, I'm note that it's one fifty five. Oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker 10
Hey, Nicole. This is Pilar. I just wanted to hi. Sorry to interrupt. This has been, a good conversation, but I wanted to reach out to Sang So, just to follow-up on his comment on sidewalks and streetlights.
Your your local government, Sang, has a Department of Public Works. I'd recommend reaching out to the Department of Public Works at the local level, and they should be able to support you through SB one funds to to get sidewalks and streetlights accomplished for your community. Thank you.
Speaker 3
and conclude. Okay. So thank you all of you for your time, your listening, and your feedback. And, we will be considering your comments when we update the ESJ action plan and take some actions. But feel free to submit additional thoughts to esj action plan at c p u c dot gov.
And thank you very much.
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