SFPUC Commissioner
Appointed in 2003 to San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission, overseeing the city's water, power, and sewer systems for the city and surrounding region.
My appointment to San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission came through a quirk of city politics. Mayor Willie Brown was out of the country, and Supervisor Chris Daly, serving as acting mayor in his absence, used the opening to appoint me — the first environmentalist named to the commission.
That was a meaningful place for an environmentalist to land, because of what the SFPUC oversees. San Francisco's water does not come from anywhere nearby. It travels all the way from Hetch Hetchy, a dammed valley high in the Sierra Nevada inside Yosemite, down more than a hundred miles of pipeline to the city's taps. The commission was responsible for that system, along with the power and sewer infrastructure serving San Francisco and the surrounding region.
Sitting on the commission meant helping decide how a major city sources its water and power — infrastructure choices that shape a region's environmental footprint for decades, long after any one commissioner is gone.