FIERCE Committee (Elections Commission) Meeting

people can hear us okay I don't know how we're going to do that how are we going to do that

do we know anybody who's watching uh okay so this one is like yeah

all right get my script

I'll give it up to you guys for running the show here so we we are becoming

experts we could be City Hall technicians at this point

is it believe me it's getting faster we are getting better closer down time okay you guys

got all the credit it is 602. um and I will time okay

planned announcement when I get to that yeah I just need to find it okay uh

let's see it's on the agenda which is also be there

okay we're ready to begin uh welcome everyone to the August 24th

2023 meeting of the San Francisco elections commission's Fair independent

and effective redistricting for Community engagement or Fierce committee meeting I am the chair Cynthia dye the

time is now 603 and I call the meeting to order

before we proceed further I want to briefly explain some procedures for participating in today's meeting

the minutes of this meeting will reflect that this meeting is being held in person at City Hall Room 416 one Dr

Carlton B goodlit Place San Francisco California 94102 and remotely via WebEx

as authorized by the commissions May 17 2023 vote members of the public

May attend the meeting to observe and provide public comment either at the physical meeting location or remotely

details and instructions for participating remotely are listed on the commission's website and on today's

meeting agenda public comment will be available on each item on this agenda each member of the

public will be allowed three minutes to speak six minutes if you are on the line with an interpreter

when providing public comment you are encouraged to state your name clearly once your three minutes have expired

staff will thank you and you will be muted please direct any of your comments

to the full body and refrain from directing them at individual Commissioners while providing public comment

while providing public comment remotely please ensure you are in a quiet location when joining by phone you will

hear a beep when you are connected to the meeting you will automatically be muted and in listening mode only

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time interested persons are encouraged to participate in this meeting by submitting public comment in writing by

12 noon on the day of the meeting to elections.conmission at sfgov.org it

will be shared with the commission after this meeting has been concluded and will be included as part of the official

meeting file thank you all right let's do roll call

Commissioners please verbally State Your Presence at today's meeting after your name is called

uh I am sure die and I am present commissioner levolsi president commissioner Parker

present with three members present and accounted for this Fierce committee meeting we are

ready to proceed is there any way we can check to make sure the public can hear us just because we've had those problems in the past

yeah it's a good idea so um let's see who we have on online

uh we would like to confirm that uh

members of the public can can hear us okay

um okay I've just gotten a text

from one of the members of the public who says they can hear us fine great excellent wonderful thank you for

checking commissioner Pucker uh so

with that commissioner Parker would you read the land acknowledgment yes

the San Francisco elections commission acknowledges that we are on the unseated ancestral homeland of the ramai tush

aloni who are the original inhabit the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula as the indigenous

stewards of this land and in accordance with their Traditions the ramay tush oloni have never ceded lost nor

forgotten their responsibilities as caretakers of this place as well as for All Peoples who reside in their

traditional territory as guests we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional

Homeland we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors and relatives of the ramaytush community and

affirming their Sovereign rights as first peoples thank you commissioner Parker

okay with that uh let us move on to item

number two general public comment public comment on any issue within

fierce's General jurisdiction that is not covered by another item on this agenda

and I have Mr burdell

uh good evening Commissioners Alan berdell uh District 8.

um I uh I want to point out a few things today the um

the name meeting I think it was May in May uh commissioner jordanick

uh he he mentioned that uh is this me

he mentioned that um uh

the uh the committee that he had sat on

years ago it was the state legislation committee it's directed by the San Francisco administrative code and they

make recommendations and endorsements or opposition okay or neutrality about

legislation that's pending before the state legislature legislation like 1248.

okay that's what he brought up and um I think it was April and you know

that's because everything that was being discussed or on redistricting just felt

kind of weird to him right felt kind of weird and I think it felt kind of weird to everybody

because you had Crowley you had commissioner Parker you had

commissioner

hide it

that's my comedy okay sorry about that we appreciate the technical things okay

but the the point I was going to make it feels strange to everybody because this

is an overtly political process that we're going through right now

um this commission I've looked through and I've printed out pages from several websites

you know you assume a policy making an authoritative oversight of public

federal state district and Municipal elections in the city and county of San Francisco

okay and and more broadly you're in charge of free and fair elections in San Francisco

okay but that doesn't mean that you're in charge of making a judgment about

what is fair or unfair with regards to supervisorial representation

where is that pointed out that is such a broad overreach for this

committee and this commission to take and that's why everybody felt so strange about it look back at the tape look at

the YouTubes question after question and even one time the district attorney

was asked by Crowley can we do this

can we do this and the district attorney had a three assistant district attorney had a three uh word answer

well it's elections adjacent thank you Mr vardel yeah yeah and that's it all right

appreciate your comment yeah um thank you do we have another public comment

anyone in the room uh let's take a look at our attendees and see if there's anyone

raising a hand you do not see any hands

uh there's there's one oh yep there is one thank you

let's go ahead and oops

hi this is Lauren gerardin with the League of Women Voters of San Francisco can you hear me yes we can hear you

fabulous um I I have an odd view on WebEx this this meeting so I'm uh even I am

fumbling a little bit to deal with the technology today um but um I just wanted to

um thank you for having this meeting it's really exciting to to see your commitment even meeting in August I

think really demonstrates uh just a wonderful passion for

um looking at redistricting reform um and uh ways to make recommendations

that can help San Francisco have free and fair elections um and you know seeing the elections

commission and us at the subcommittee um being involved is exactly where we

think the city should be um with this process so thank you for doing that this is the right body to be

considering uh these recommendations um and we really look forward to the

next steps in the cross process thank you thank you Mr Arden

all right any other ah we have one more public comment

all right with the Voting Rights and redistricting

program manager with California common cause uh we appreciate the time you've taken to judicious

judiciously study the issues related to redistricting but we also want to

emphasize that we remain available to serve as a resource and to provide technical expertise on how to set up a

truly independent redistricting Commission in San Francisco thank you

uh thank you for that offer okay

any more hints okay seeing none I am going to close

item two general public comment and move on to item number three

approval of previous meeting minutes apologies that this got uploaded a

little bit late but um I just up there I want to thank commissioner lavolsi for slogging

through the video and drafting those minutes for us

um any edits or clarifications on the

minutes looks good okay so with no objection uh

we will approve them by General consensus

uh and I'll open it to public comment if

anyone has a comment on the minutes for July 31st 2023 we're trying to keep up with our

meetings no public comments in the room

just checking to see if there's any public comment online

and I see none so I'm going to go ahead and close out item number three

and then we can move on to the main event which is item number four

uh discussion redistricting initiative discussion and possible action on recommendations for changes to San

Francisco's redistricting process so as noted on our web page the fierce

committee is a temporary committee whose purpose is to advise the elections Commission on

finalizing best practice reforms to improve San Francisco's redistricting processes and we've had several

committee meetings now to try to make some progress on getting to recommendations just to quickly recap on

May 31st we had a panel with good government experts and a past redistricting Task Force member to

assess the potential impact of pending State legislation on June 26 we met with

a panel of former rdtf members and just last month on the 31st with a

former 2020 California citizens redistricting commissioner who also provided Insight on possible

reforms for Los Angeles I want to point out that all those videos have been posted and we encourage

you to view them if you did not have an opportunity to be with us during our meetings

in addition Dr sarwani was kind enough to provide the slides from her

presentation last month and that is the first item for this agenda item in the

in the packet foreign the second attachment are the draft

talking points that we discussed for the end of the meeting and we promised we would post them for

everyone here I'd like to take a moment to see if I was able to accurately and succinctly

capture our discussion debate it back and forth on what to include what not to include so

Commissioners any edits or Editions

not from me no I read them and they are um

pretty much everything we requested so thank you commissioner die okay great excuse me chair die

so I was um actually really happy that we had discussed this because some of you may have seen the article that was

published last Friday in the chronicle and I found this very helpful when the

reporter surprised me at my desk and called me and so definitely relied on

our discussion to respond to his questions I personally was very impressed that he

managed to also interview assemblyman Brian who is the author of the lead

author for both ab1248 and ab 764. as

well as supervisor Melgar so he really did his homework any Reflections or thoughts

on on the article or no I mean I think it was it was pretty

fair and I was glad to see you also reached out to members of the public um to also um be quoted there and people who

participated in the last redistricting effort so you know seemed like he got a lot of different voices which including Mr burrito so right I think it was quite

thorough yeah I think so uh and just to mention since we're talking about uh the

state legislation both ab1248 and ab 764 I believe are

currently in the state Appropriations Committee so it's making its way through

um I've been trying to keep up with amendments I did see it was amended 1248

was amended uh uh but it would as far as I can tell it

was just a broader definition of District so it doesn't apply to us we're very

clear about what districts are but I think it was actually maybe intended to scoop up more jurisdictions that maybe

don't call them districts so um so that was the only change I saw I

don't think it's relevant to us so I think uh we're you know largely moving forward

um the third item in the packet that I wanted to point out is a new report from

California common cause with their recommendations for Los Angeles so as you recall Dr sadhwani was part of a

group of academics that had put out their set of recommendations and now

common cause has put out their set we're not going to explicitly discuss this

tonight but it may be helpful background for our main topic and as a follow-up to

Dr satawani's presentation last month but um

uh tonight's topic is a big one commissioner Parker has worked exhaustively to synthesize many of the

materials that we've gathered since June 2022 including the pending State legislation and good government reports

into a presentation that walks through each of the major reforms this will

hopefully help members of the public who have not been following our discussions over the past year plus catch up on the

key issues um our goal tonight is to identify the ones on which we largely agree uh versus

those that might require more discussion or information to come to consensus

the former category could provide a list of preliminary recommendations for the

full commission to begin considering at our next meeting as I'm sure our fellow Commissioners will have questions for us and we'll

need time to digest as well as for the rest we should try to identify where we don't think we have a

specific recommendation or might recommend some acceptable options or

characteristics where we don't you know have a specific idea so with that

um commissioner Parker take it away sure let me know if you have trouble sharing I think oh I tried sharing right

before so hopefully we're good hopefully it will work okay um

okay do we need to I think we need to switch

the clerk we see yeah

yep there we go we just need to move that um the timer thing

yeah okay so they can see the deck

and it be minimized or something

there we go great

okay um so um

as you said should I I put together a deck that would help us walk through these various areas that we've been

discussing in one way or another and I'm hoping that it helps us to consider all the questions that we should be asking

when we're considering making any changes to the existing processes and some of those would require a change in

the city's Charter and some of them are just recommendations that could be done right by ordinance or just a practice or a process the committee adopts

um and forgive me I'll be looking at some notes on my slides too while I'm managing two different screens here

um so first I'm going to set us up a bit and provide some context for folks who are new to these conversations I know

some people go back and watch the videos they don't necessarily listen live and so this will be context for some of

those and then we'll go through seven areas pausing after each one of those areas for conversation

as a committee before we move on to the next one and I think you know as you said we're hoping to see where there's some general agreement where there isn't

so we can work through some of the issues more deeply or just let the commission know and later the Board of

Supervisors which areas will be really critical for bringing forward to the public for more input

um that we think that that's that's just something they should tackle

okay so a little bit of context here so we've shared these things before just

bringing this again for newcomers San Francisco was a Pioneer in independent

citizen redistricting and has now fallen a bit behind in best practices we've had a few presentations that are pretty

interesting to go back and watch to give a little bit of history on that I have independent in quotes here because we

are officially an independent um body here in San Francisco but it's not doesn't follow all of the um the

components of what is considered independent because there are political appointments there but I'll talk about that more in a minute

um also everyone involved in recent redistricting agrees that at least some improvements should be made we mean all have agreement on exactly what those are

but everybody agrees there should be some improvements and then also as we've discussed the commission the elections

commission is responsible for ensuring we have free fair and functional elections in San Francisco which does

require Fair districts so we get there

um so here you'll see a couple of existing pieces of legislation

um the fair Maps act this was passed in 2019 this was the most significant and

comprehensive overhaul of the local redistricting process in State history it was inspired by the California

citizen redistricting commission it does not apply to Charter cities so because

we are a charter City in San Francisco we are not obligated to comply with the vermaps act and we didn't and we don't

but I am going to refer to this legislation throughout our discussion of redistricting reform components because

it was so significant and it also led to a lot of inter independent redistricting

commissions throughout the state and because it along with a recent report about its effects thus far

provide many best practices that local jurisdictions including San Francisco can look to there's also a report I've

linked that report I've linked to at the end of this deck um anybody can take a look at we've we've heard it before in

Prior commission meetings additionally AB 764 that is under consideration the

state legislature attempts to enhance the fair Maps act after evaluating progress thus far since it was passed

and as I was mentioning there have been some past presentations if you're curious about San Francisco histories of

redistricting you can listen to Stephen Hill's presentation from the November 15 2022 elections commission meeting

um in 1994 prop L created an elections task force which actually is a broader scope than our current elections

commission does when San Francisco is moving towards District elections and that task force apparently faced really

similar challenges to San Francisco's most recent redistricting task force

um Professor de Leon from San Francisco State drafted some initial Maps the task force selected one they put it on the

ballot prop G got 56 percent of the vote in 1996 and went into effect in 2000 and

one piece of advice that I appreciated from Professor de Leon was to not be

stuck in the fly paper of old ideas that there are better ways for us to give representation for voters today than

before so some things they maybe didn't think about or know about when they were first drafting this so we were leaders

in San Francisco and we look to best practices time moves on and we learn

more um so lots of things did work in the last iteration of the task force the current

one and there are ways we can improve so you'll just see reference here to the San Francisco city Charter and the

elections code if you want to go and look that up online you can do that easily um and that

um that code focuses on composition selection process line drawing criteria and timing and not some of the other

components that we will discuss and the state legislation under consideration ab1248 you've heard us

talk about both of these a lot um but especially 1248 it requires All Counties cities

including Charter cities school districts and Community College districts with populations over 300 000

to enact legislation establishing independent redistricting commissions before January 1st 2030 or they will

fall under the default structure and process that's described in the bill and if that bill passes and is signed by the

governor of course we would be required to fall under the structure and processes if we don't enact our own

legislation to create our own non-political independent redistricting commission and additionally if it passes

San Francisco would not be able to downgrade to or do lesser restrictions than what are in that bill

um AB 764 provides enhancements to the fair Maps act that was the 2019 act to

correct some of the issues that we're seeing throughout the last redistricting cycle

so and then that question why now this is actually these two points are pulled from the talking points that we agreed

on at our last meeting um and that is that the public has a recent range of experience for just with

redistricting that allows for Meaningful Community engagement and input so there's a recency to people's memory and

perhaps if we were to wait six or seven years before we had the conversation people may not have it as fresh on their

minds to give meaningful input there it is also as we've talked about can is some people had very dramatic and

negative experiences and so it can be hard for some people and we do acknowledge that and then the other reason is because it takes time to run a

fair and Democratic process the commission wants to allow the city adequate time to prepare a new independent redistricting body and

support agencies to plan and Implement a fair process um

if it uh even if the legislation is passed at the state level even if it's

generally good legislation we may have some things we want to make slight variations on as we prefer to meet the

needs of San Francisco so it's good for us to be doing this work now so that when we know what happens with that legislation we we have the information

we need for the Board of Supervisors to then decide how they want to handle amendments to the Charter

um and we know from The Chronicle article that um the chair die was just mentioning that

um supervisor Melgar has suggested that she's looking to write um a charter Amendment for the November

2024 ballot um so we do know that as well

okay so we're going to walk through various components of redistrict Reform and discuss them as we mentioned

um these areas that I have divided this up into get divided up slightly differently depending on where you're

seeing them there's a lot of different reports and legislation organizational recommendations and such they're generally in the same division but they

may be slightly different and I also just want to note that some of the aspects of this won't need to be written

explicitly in the charter and that the Board of Supervisors can work with the city attorney's office to determine

which ones those are you know should be in a charter versus should not be you know should be in an ordinance or should

be um processes and you know and hopefully with all of the documentation that the

next task force will have they will have good recommendations for for process

okay so so these are the seven we'll be looking at um we're not specifically discussing the

type of body because we already have the preferred independent type the the other

General type of body that that jurisdictions have is advisory

which is uh I know a body who's been appointed by the legislative body to then make recommendations but then that

legislative body actually makes the decision so that's an advisory body and we have an independent body so the independent body actually makes the

decision um but our redistricting task force members are appointed by a combination of elected officials and non-elected

officials as opposed through a process that vets refuse qualifications and ensures that there's no conflict of

interest and because of that what we have in San Francisco is also referred to as a political appointment process

and that's what um best practices generally advise against and it's why legislators in

California have intervened and not Exempted Charter cities from the pending legislation

um and you'll see you can again refer to that Chronicle article where assembly member Brian talked about

um some of what was motivated him um to to draft the current legislation

there was also I just wanted to note another article this week

um that came out um it was it included a white paper that was commissioned by the organization

together SF and it was written by The Rose Institute it also recommended a non-political appointment process for

their districting task force when looking at governance in San Francisco moving forward so that was interesting also to note so these seven areas are

composition of the body the selection and removal process commissioner qualifications and restrictions

redistricting line drawing criteria funding commission processes and timing

okay so here we are moving to the meat of the thing um I just wanted to note you'll see as

you can refer to this slide deck later and hopefully it's helpful for lots of folks who aren't able to join us

um I know it's helpful for me to put everything in one place there's I used several different acronyms just to save

some space and so you'll see what those are here um for reference for irc's the

redistricted task force rdftf the Board of Supervisors BOS the CCRC is the

California citizens redistricting commission and FMA is the fair Maps Act

okay so the first one um composition so just to give you a general description of what you'll see in each of these

slides because there's it's a template that I used right so it's a um you'll see two slides for each area

the first one includes the topic and a central question related to that topic

to consider and often you'll see in this yellow box quotes from reports that have analyzed redistricting efforts and

effects sometimes there's a statement reflecting a general goal and then the the larger part of the slide is going to

have a list of key questions across lots of sub subtopics within the big topic that help us consider variables maybe

pros and cons of a certain approach um Etc so that's what you'll see on this

type of Slide the first slide for each of the areas um so for this one composition is how

many people and who should serve on the task force and I think generally what we're going for here is the Task Force

should be a size and composition that allows for the the body to be productive and also allows for a range of

experiences and expertise that are representative of San Francisco's communities so that we have maps that

are drawn that advance that rule of one person one vote that is required of us

I'm you'll see here on the right what type of composition so questions to

consider should there be representation from each voting district would that in Courage or discourage members to

consider the whole of the city in math drawing should members be a combination of geographic and at large and if

members are at large how many should there be the next subtopic representation if

there is a random element to the selection process how can adequate representation and diversity be achieved

what diversity factors should or could be considered could a stipend enable those

excuse me of lesser means to participate and what amount would be meaningful enough to have to make a difference

there with the voting threshold this is something related to process later on that we'll talk about but in regards to

composition how will the number of members affect the ability to reach um whatever the

voting threshold might be and then the last area is alternates is should alternates be selected how how many and

do they serve as non-voting members um one note on the

um the stipend question is that it could be a means-based

um way to do a stipend it could be consistent with the be the jury program we have here in San Francisco so that is

something we consider there so then this second slide for each of the components in this deck I'm noting here

um what the existing law is both at state and local levels so current San Francisco law and then the the current

state is the fair Maps act and then in between those two columns you'll see recommendations or you see pending

legislation and then you see recommendations in that recent report that evaluates the effects of the fair

Maps act thus far and what is the most recent recommendation from the the

recommendations from the most recent San Francisco redistricting task force and then what the current California

citizens redistricting commission does if you refer to a prior chart compiled

by commissioner die it's it's labeled summary of redistricting reform recommendations

it's linked in our project plan document you can see references to other orgs and presentations that the commission has

heard I'm not including including those here it gets very full if you try to include all those but I wanted to get

the basics that are law really reputable reports let's just keep it kind of let's

just keep it there but I wanted to mention that because you might find that that's also a helpful reference to go to

um and then also I wanted to note that good government sponsors have Incorporated all the recommendations that have been included in ab1248 and ab

764. so starting with this chart here current San Francisco law for the composition of

what we call the redistricting task force most other places call it an IRC

an independent redistricting commission or just redistricting commission we have nine members of our body there are three

members selected by each appointing authority there is uh no requirements

regarding diversity representation and we do not have alternates on our body the pending California legislation for

ab1248 if the local jurisdiction does not have an independent redistricting commission

it requires the same basic composition that the California citizen redistricting commission has and that is

um an eight plus six um I'll explain that in a minute but there's 14 members and it does not

require the partisan affiliations and it does include two non-voting alternates

that does not on the California redistricting commission and the fair

math fact has nothing related to composition neither does the report related to that the recent redistricting task force here

recommended that there should be alternates and they should meet the same requirements as members have to meet and

they should be selected before the first meeting of the of the task force the redistricting State commission has

14 members eight are selected by Lottery after they go through a vetting and qualification process and then those

eight select the last six um they are required to have five Democrats five Republicans and four no

party preference or independent and they're supposed to consider in the selection geography race ethnicity and

gender they do not have any alternates so I want just a couple other notes before

we go into discussion on this particular component for the eight plus six that 14

in ab1248 and in the California commission you'll see in some places language referring to districts but of

course we have more than eight districts in San Francisco um and so this is what's really intended

with those eight is to provide Geographic diversity not to mirror if the existing districts because there are

different numbers of districts in every local jurisdiction and it's also not to imply that the the IRC or our

redistricting task force would only represent their District they're just generally representing the diversity of

the electorate in that jurisdiction um there's there's a section you can if

you go into the language of 1248 you will see the details of how it would work with um cities who have more than

eight districts it's written there if you're curious It's in section one or 23006.81 that's where you can refer to

it um this this a plus 6 method is a combination of random draw and commission appointment that's generally

how people talk about it it's considered a gold standard and the California there's a there was a ppic the public

policy Institute of California report about 10 12 years ago maybe that says

that the California citizen redistricting process was largely successful in meeting the mandated goals of a non-partisan and transparent

process with the leveling of incumbent influence that was considerably lower than in previous redistricting efforts

the final map survived legal Challenge and the commission's work was regarded positively by a majority of Voters

in ab1248 those two alternates are non-voting and they don't count towards Quorum requirements

um and they are required to meet this um to the same terms that of Officer qualification restrictions standards of

context as the other Commissioners um do on the body um and what we have heard also just for

the the California the state redistricting Commission we have heard from some of the members

of those commissions and they generally strongly suggest that there be alternates but when they the body was

first created it's just likely the sponsors of that act just hadn't thought of it um but generally we have heard from

existing members they would really like to see alternates so um I will pause there that's the first

area

so um so I feel like alternates are one of the no-brainer things that we could

probably agree on everyone we've heard from agrees with it the redistricting

task force members past California CRC members I definitely am one of them

um all of us were dreading what would happen if something happened to one of

us because it would have been such an expensive and lengthy process to go back and and you know vet someone and choose

someone new from the pool and uh

uh as it was that was actually one of the first decisions we had to make is that somebody immediately dropped out and our first action was to replace the

commissioner um so uh I think uh it's exactly what

commissioner Parker said it just hadn't been thought of at the time that the voters First Act passed so we didn't get

it at the state level but almost every new IRC has alternates

and I don't know about you guys but I certainly don't want to have to you know sit through eight hours of public

testimony again um you know with members of the public demanding that we yank people and us

having no way to replace them uh it just seems like alternates are a

really practical idea and two seems like a good number

um it's the same number that Long Beach who we heard from uh they had two

alternates you know they're essentially hot standbys that uh just like a jury jury has the

jury you know juries have alternates too they right you know don't count for Quorum but they sit there and they

listen to the deliberations they're ready as a hot standby essentially if something happens and it just seems like

smart planning

I I would agree I think it would be it just makes sense

um to have alternates um I wanted to ask a question what

internal discussion about the number

um and the process that the California citizen redistricting

[Music] um commission had of

selecting a certain number by Lottery and then those would select the

remaining I'm a little uncomfortable with that I would prefer that

all of those who are sitting on the commission go through the same process

so I I can address that um so I think you know when the original

sponsors of the voters for Sac put put the ballot measure to California voters

you know they went through a lot of compromise to come up with something that everyone could agree on and put forward as a ballot measure and there

were those who um you know the argument for random draw is

basically to completely take politics out of the process right but the challenge with random draw is that it's

it's random and you can get you have real problems with

representation and diversity if you do it entirely randomly and so

um so I'll take you back to the presentation we heard from the former chair of the Michigan IRC

now Michigan went with completely random draw they did not trust anyone in government they said none of their

elected officials were trustworthy none of the agencies were trustworthy therefore we're not going to let them vet and

select we're going to just let citizens apply and and then we're going to and

they're going to meet some basic requirements but then it's just going to be random draw and if you recall

uh what we heard is that that um so even in their case they realize that

would be a problem with diversity and so what they did is they took the demographics for the state of Michigan

and they took the actual pool they got and then they waited the pool based on the demographic

you know representation of the state and that's kind of how they dealt with the

diversity questions so they said okay we've at least waited the pool to reflect the the demographics of the

state and now we're going to randomly draw um so it addressed it a little bit they

they got a reasonably diverse group um but the challenge was they got people

who um were there for a paycheck and were not actually interested in engaging in the

process so because they didn't have any qualification criteria that was significant

and so something that commissioner Parker has pointed out is all these components what we're trying to look at

them separately because it's a lot right and we're trying to look at them they're kind of interrelated so

um so we're already getting into the next topic of selection and and qualifications but they're they're they

are interrelated so um so basically the eight plus six was a compromise

so basically about half or selected by random draw and then the feeling was

that those eight are then invested with responsibility to make sure that the full body is representative and so what

happened in my year in in 2010 is out of the first eight

um a majority of us were from Northern California which already is like wacko because most of the two-thirds of the

population is in Southern California and then um half of us were were aapi which is

also totally off from the demographics of of California and so uh so we knew I

was part of the first date we knew that our responsibility was to pick people from Southern California in the Central Coast which didn't have much in Central

Valley which didn't have much representation and also to make sure that other uh race racial and

ethnic groups were fairly represented so that that was our that was our

challenge we also were shy I was going to add uh there's one other diversity factor

that the CCRC has to consider which is socioeconomic status and so we also had

a um as you might imagine with such an exhaustive um vetting process we were a little low

on the low income folks in the pool and so that was um something else that we

considered as we looked at the applicants and then what happened as we heard from Dr sadwani at our last

meeting what happened in the 2020 CCRC is they had no Latinos none in the first

eight which again she said was almost a statistical impossibility and she explained that that's because the

legislature is empowered with strikes just like jury strikes right and they removed a lot of Latinos from the pool

and that caused the random draw net you know they randomly did not get any in Latinos and so they realized their

challenge was to make sure they had adequate representation for the latinx community

so so it's basically a compromise between like taking political

interference out you know and also ensuring that you have

um right good representation and so that that is why and it you know lots of good

government groups spent a lot of time negotiating with each other to come up with that compromise and it seems to have worked pretty well

for the State of California I appreciate that I'm still concerned

that in San Francisco I think it's very different when you have a situation

that's where you're looking at the state um but I could

I'm concerned that that even if we were to follow this model there are

communities that would be left out and so because the demographics are shifting in

the city so that's that's a concern of mine of how what recommendation could we present

that would be fair but also make sure that we

aren't excluding unintentionally other communities so I'm I'm a little

concerned about the uh the six the eight and the sixth

so let me suggest we defer the the the selection process to the next one

because I want to let commissioner Parker present that and let's just talk about the number because perhaps

um kind of the question that we're asking for um so we only have nine

and the CCRC has 14 and uh you know I I looked around and anyone

else can check this as well um several of the of the reports that

we've included in our materials there are some appendices that show like how all other jurisdictions do it so I

just pulled a few because I think they're relevant to us so the crcs 14

LA County mirrors that structure also has 14. Sacramento

has because it's one of the newer ones it has 13 plus two alternates

um Berkeley has 13. on their IRC do they have alternates uh

they don't because they're a little older so like I said all the new ones have alternates um Oakland has 13 plus two alternates okay

uh and then Long Beach who we heard from they have 13 plus two alternates

so all the ones that you know that we might look at as analogs they have 13 or 14.

so I kind of feel like that's a proven structure in terms of number of

commissioners and if your concern is about greater representation and diversity I

think more yes so I think nine was a little on the small side

You could argue that 14 might be on the small side for a state as large as California but

um I like the quote that you picked commissioner Parker because it's so true it's like at some point it becomes too

large and it's unwieldy to to manage all the opinions and everyone has to have a

you know a turn of the mic and um so 14 I kind of felt like was at the

upper limit okay of you know being able to work well together as a team

uh and as it was you know we realized and I'm pretty sure the 2020 CRC did the same thing we we

you know did have committees to trying to break things down so we can have discussions in smaller groups and

then bring you know do the homework and bring it to the large group as much as our committee is doing

um so so I I'm actually pretty comfortable with 14 we can talk about the eight plus

six in The Next Step but um I wonder I wonder how you guys feel about that

can I ask a clarifying question commissioner um I'm sorry chair die

when you say 14 are you saying total including our tenant alternate oh no 14

plus two fourteen plus two okay thank you I mean I'm just looking at our

cities across the bay and you know Long Beach is a smaller City uh they have 13

plus two um so in LA county has 14.

so it seems like that's a good number I'm consistent with what we're seeing and other jurisdictions uh and I I just

think alternates are fabulous idea I mean we were we were lucky we only had to do it once

and it was like right at the beginning of the process we had to immediately replace the commissioner but if we had

to do it like you know six months in a month before we were going to turn in the Final maps and we had to catch

somebody up because there was no provision for anyone in the finalists poll to be watching us and keeping up

with all of our decisions it would have been a disaster I think I mean so I think I like they do the hot standby

like they're they go to the meetings they're listening they're not voting they're not counting against Quorum but

they're up to Snuff so if somebody for whatever reason personal emergency

or it's removed for some reason there's someone who's knowledgeable up to speed with all the decisions to date and can

really drop in and you know be immediately you know activated and able to engage

so makes sense is that are these things if we're comfortable with it then we can

can I say a few things sure yeah um I I think that the alternatives are um

there's I think there's pretty pretty good consensus across recommendations and and honestly when I look at which

recommendations feel important there are a lot of you know best practices now that recommend that but also that our

own most recent redistricting task force wishes that they had alternates that also matters to me so um I think that's

a good compelling reason so I don't want to go more into that um and to provide one piece of

clarifying information then we can talk about it more in the next but the within those four plus the eight plus six

things um the six aren't randomly selected they are from the same pool of qualified

vetted candidates and so that you know helps a bit there but um and as far as

some of the key questions that I had on the prior slide um the the idea of representation from you

know geographic representation versus at large I wonder if that's something to talk about um I do think that geographic

representation in San Francisco is really important um I am not because we have 11

supervisor districts that feels like a lot and I I actually think that the

diversity in the last redistricting task force was actually really good you know and that was nine

um and so you can but I think they were pretty successful in the diversity there amazing because it was three different

appointing bodies um but I I like the idea of forty I like

the mix of geographic representation and just let's fill in the edges like I like

the idea of that of having a combination of geographic and and just filling in to

make sure that the group is representative of the the general um City

um and and I do think that if we go higher than that I think it will be hard

to meet a threshold like I worry with you know LA City for instance you know if they're moving up to like 21 or

however many they're going to have on their cities um that's a lot um to try to to reach thresholds so

um that is that is where I am the the other thing that I

um this is is slightly moving into the other the next area but the one other

thing that I find sort of appealing about a divided uh you know the a plus six type idea is that one thing that I

liked about our current San Francisco process is that it is Diversified you know like it is there's not just one

body doing the appointing right like it's there are two um political bodies and then well there's

there's the mayor is the Board of Supervisors the elections commission so there's a bit of diversity there and and

it feels like there's something similar to that in an eight plus six idea where there's this random like it's qualifications and then a random

selection and then that body is choosing the next but there's there's a slightly different approach to getting both of

those bodies that is nice in my opinion of having some

it's it's not like there is a power in the random selection for the first date but it's a bit of diversity of power

that is or influence that can you see what I mean like there's a bit of a parallel to that that I like

um so anyway those are my thoughts yeah and I think again like the thinking

behind the random draw was to to limit the political influence in in the selection process

um and then the idea is once you've picked eight you Empower them to fix the diversity problem

uh and you know I I think uh what commissioner Parker said is really

important if they're uh like we heard a an early proposal from

the unity map Coalition and they had originally said they wanted someone from every District supervisor Royal District

um which is a problem because if you only have 14 and 11 other slots are taken right then you know and you know

what if you get you know uh you know 11 white men right and then you have

three left to diversify and you're not going to get something that looks like San Francisco

uh so so that I thought was problematic and actually that was in the original

version of 1248 it was like one for every supervisorial District so it would

have actually mirrored exactly what the unity map Coalition had proposed

and uh that was actually one of the reasons I didn't like 1248 originally because I thought that was a real

problem uh so they that was one of the first amendments so by the time we

started discussing it as a body we had already fixed it so uh I was happy about that

um so I I think um uh the important thing is to know that

the the district thing is a proxy for Geographic

diversity right and it's not an intention to have

um redistricting an IRC member who is representing their District we

want you know 14 members that represent all of San Francisco and are willing to make hard trade-offs to make sure

other districts not just the one they happen to live in get a fair shake and

so so the challenge I think Miss Cardenas from uh who spoke

earlier had encouraged us to think about other ways to capture that local

geography diversity and uh I just haven't thought of any like I

thought of neighborhoods because San Francisco has very distinct neighborhoods I think the province I think we have a lot of neighborhoods and

then people are always inventing new neighborhoods if you look at the latest real estate map but I think that would

be worse because that would that could exceed 14. so um but if you if you had a chance to

peek at the latest report from common cause on their recommendation for Los Angeles they actually talk about seven

regions in LA so which I thought was interesting right I

I think the regional piece would be much more interesting because I'm not a native of San Francisco but I've lived

here almost 24 years and I'm amazed at native people who have not been to other

parts of the city oh yeah Middle Earth because I always get lost there

so it's neighborhoods would I you know I

yeah I've just met too many people who haven't we're not that big of a city yeah and I

feel like I've had the time to explore almost all parts of it and there are people who are stuck in their

neighborhoods and so I think that could be um I think that could be problematic so

regionally I think would be much more interesting but do you know what the regions are like but so they decided

that was going to be the next thing yeah so my question is like I'm not you know I I learned a lot about Los Angeles from

being on the CRC but um even I'm not sure if I could name what those seven regions are but I bet

you an LA native could and so that's you know if if if we were comfortable

dividing San Francisco into regions I think that would be a great and

creative way to specify it rather than using districts and because I think it has implications that we don't want

people to draw conclusions because I don't I think we need to be really clear that when we say the first eight are

from different districts is not because we're trying to preserve existing districts or make sure only eight get

represented but we're just trying to make sure there's Geographic diversity

um and I think that that's you know just seeing wherever we we land that the recommendation you know we

could probably just speak for an hour uh you know just on this well that's true not yes

um but it's um but I think that just the recommendation can be we want Geographic

diversity in if we were to go with something like an eight plus six as a recommendation that we would like to see

Geographic diversity whether that is dividing up into actual regions or whatever process that you would want to

put into that the Board of Supervisors wants to put into the charter like that's fine we just want to make sure

that it's a geographically diverse and not super body and that is the recommendation it's not yeah something

more specific I I actually um I like that um I like not tying it to existing

districts because you know you might get a situation where people are from different districts but they're across

the street from each other and that isn't this that doesn't actually fit the geographic diversity that we want uh so

so I like that um actually could you go back to your previous question slide because I want

to see that um I think that uh you know for the same

reason we shouldn't use the term at large because of course

but if it's six they're also going to be from a place and we're not trying to diss their place and and whatever their

neighborhood is but uh so the way we always refer to in the CRC we just call it the first eight and and then the the

selected six right so we just it was a two-stage process and you were picked by a different process but uh all of us it

was very clear to all of us that like for example there were two of us from San Francisco and both of us are really

clear we were not representing San Francisco I mean of course we know San Francisco so we right we you know make

sure to share our knowledge about San Francisco but we were representing the state of California and we want I think we want

our IRC to care about San Francisco as a whole and about all of its residents and

not just their own District right and there are different kinds of you know diversity and representation that come

up there's Geographic I think in San Francisco I think is really important to have that Geographic because the

experiences are different depending on where you are in the city but there's other kinds of representation like

um if there are if you um have special needs you know and you have

disabilities like that's a certain rights type of representation that we might want to consider you know that right that the body might want to

consider different language representation you know immigrant stat you know all those kinds of things

um will be really important to um well there's so many there's no way actually

this is one thing that I wanted to say earlier because I understand that concern of want to make sure there's adequate representation and

um and the reality is we will never be able to have people who can represent every

experience in San Francisco and so and I think that's where it comes in when we segue into you know the next the

upcoming components is the is the criteria the qualifications you know and and hoping that you are finding some way

to find folks who are going to be thoughtful and considerate and inclusive in listening to the public who are going to bring those experiences and depend on

and engage and invite the public to share those experiences that are impossible for 14 people to hold for an

entire city well you know we had to do it for a state right it's it's impossible and I think we have to

acknowledge that's impossible and find the best process that we can

um that will also bring in folks who will be thoughtful and and consider and

invite those other experiences to show up in the process right and I I also I agree with you commissioner Parker and I

also think that understanding that it's never going to be perfect and that it's not going to be

a perfect body that represents every single experience I do think it's important to make sure that the process

allows for it to represent as many of those varied experiences as possible so

here's a thought um so the way it was done at the CRC is there were

four specific diversity factors that were called out for the state auditor to

use in ensuring that quote unquote that the finalists were representative of the state so one was gender

the second was race and ethnicity the third one was geography

and the fourth was socioeconomic status because that I think is one that

encompasses a lot of different kinds of diversity and and when I used to

um uh travel around to other states and talk to them about uh about us and and

the model of independent redistricting we had in California I would also point out we had lots of other diversity we

had huge age diversity so I think our youngest commissioner was 32 and the oldest was 76. so we had generational

diversity um I would say we had both Farm worker and you know farmer

we had that um we had uh folks with a lot of private

sector experience and social sector experience um you know we had a stay-at-home mom

uh so uh you know we had military

veterans um you know we had uh people with different

kinds we had lots of we were very overeducated actually but we had lots of different kinds of uh functional

expertise so so so there were I think the question here

is are there a couple of key diversity factors that we would want to call out spell out and then encourage as part of

the selection fashion which is the next thing we'll talk about that these the vetting and selection

Authority choose as much diversity as possible to Encompass a wide range of

experiences that would represent San Francisco so it's a thought

like the state comfortable with those four I personally

like those four I think that gives the opportunity for the selection process to be as Fair as

possible and then like I said um this again was not part of the state

thing but you know we had you know lgbtq members that happen naturally in a body of 14.

um I'm trying to think we had anyone who

who had a disability I think someone might have been someone might have been

dyslexic if I recall and then we had language diversity so that was another interesting thing we often I know the

last rdtf had this issue with not having interpreters at some meetings we have that same problem where we couldn't

always get the right language at every public hearing and so we had Chinese we had Spanish we had you know we had a lot

of language diversity um and we had people who were first

generation versus later generations so that was another kind of diversity and

that was that was all natural diversity that happened with just those four factors right so

I like those so um so I hear us generally having some

agreement on some Regional and geographic representation on the body and I'm just curious with the number you

know of people where where we sit there I'm comfortable with 14 we can talk

about whether it's eight six or seven seven right it was later but I'm very comfortable with 14 and 12 minutes yeah

yeah and yeah I think that's a fair

um number and then because you have

um stipends as part of representation I uh I think there was

very broad agreement that there should be a stipend I I think it's interesting to consider

whether it should be means tested or by application something that either allows people to

ask for it if they need it or um let's see

um Gwen Craig who served on the very first redistricting task force that said you know she said in September of 2022

at a panel that she agrees with the stipend but she believes it should be modest

um I don't think we need to decide on a number I think that's something the Border supervisors can figure out I

agree but I think saying that we agree there should be a stipend is an important thing as part of our

recommendation as part of the education that we've received over this

year that was something that I think pretty much every group agreed on so I I

agree I don't think we need to get into the weeds but we definitely I think it should be a part of the recommendation

and there's more when we get to the funding area we can talk about it more too but it's certainly related to this

as well right um and then let's see what else you have is a question

um so the voting professional is just to keep in mind that when you have 14 then

that means that the a majority and a super majority will be higher which I think is good

um you know I I think that one of the things that I heard from Dr sidewani which was very

much reflective of my experience on the CRC is that we were constantly thinking about how we were going to get enough

people on board and that's the reason we ended up deciding to work by consensus so that we knew we had everybody along

the way agreeing and so that we wouldn't be stressed out at the end but I feel in the last day we

couldn't get our you know mature super majority both so I think

um uh so I think keeping that in mind I'm still good with

14. all right

should we go into the next one sure

um and I'm just going to acknowledge I know this is a lot to take in as the public and so hopefully you're taking notes so you can share all of your

comments with us when we get there uh or send us emails later if you don't have time in like the time you have

um so this next uh area is the selection removal process this is probably one of

the most complex areas to discuss where people have a lot of different opinions and so I've broken it into four

subsections here the first one is Outreach and recruitment

um this is uh this quote here in the yellow boxes from the 2017 report on

California local redistricting commissions says a commission that lacks diversity may miss important Community

perspectives and even struggle with public legitimacy of significant constituencies feel they were not

adequately represented in the process so some questions to consider here what kind of both General and targeted

Outreach in recruitment can be done to ensure a large and representative applicant pool what city agencies might

be effective Partners in reaching a pool of candidates representative um to the language question that came up

before how many languages should Outreach be conducted in right we have some standard languages that the city does all its business in but we have

many more than that are spoken in the city and then also recognizing that on the flip side of that is that if any of

them are selected then those Services need to be provided continually if you have somebody whose first language is

not English to ensure those services are there should they be needed what

procedural steps might be unnecessary and act as barriers to people completing applications for example is submitting

paper applications too difficult for some people to participate or having to complete a form 700 those are examples

because there are places who require both of those and they have seen fewer application submissions than other

places who haven't required some of those types of things so that's why I look noted those as examples

and then this other question is um Can requirements be put in place for the vetting and selection body to report to

the public on its recruiting efforts right so that you know who did they reach out to how many what was the you

know just so that there's some transparency to how the recruiting was done um and so a few a few notes here just

from some of what's been happening around the state Long Beach who we've heard from I think

has done a lot of great things did extensive Outreach and actually I'll just say about Long Beach too is there's

so many parallels to San Francisco San Francisco Unified is constantly looking to them because they have a very similar demographic very similar size

um they have there's there's several things that they are doing that there's a lot of similarities between our two cities

um Long Beach did extensive Outreach to recruit Commissioners including public service announcements in four languages

Citywide utility bill inserts to let people know about it right because everybody gets a utility bill really

clever print advertisements in local and ethnic news outlets notices in Housing Authority newsletters billboard ads

presentations at City events and through Partnerships with community-based organizations and the Long Beach census

complete count committee Sacramento created an Advisory Board of diverse stakeholders to help advise with

recruiting so they had an Advisory Board to help with that process the city also successfully partnered with a state

auditor to have the auditor notify State commission applicants residing in Sacramento who were no longer under

active consideration for appointment to the state commission about their opportunity to serve on the Sacramento

IRC and in a survey of how applicants had heard about the Sacramento IRC 12

percent of them stated that they received the information through the state auditor because they had applied for the state commission and that was

the third highest source of applicants overall for Sacramento so the state auditor would later provide the same

service to other jurisdictions upon request and that is actually something that is written into one of our state bills that the state auditor should be

required to share that information so that people who are interested have another opportunity to serve um

recommendation in that local redistricting report that that quote is from um says that uh IRC jurisdiction should

adopt and devote resources to an IRC applicant recruitment plan that includes both General strategies for reaching a

broad number of eligible residents like the utility bill inserts and targeted strategies to rep to reach

underrepresented communities like reaching out or partnering with community-based organizations who work in those communities right the

California local redistricting project for example has a detailed list of best practices jurisdictions can take in

recruitment jurisdiction should also evaluate and eliminate unnecessary procedural steps that act as barriers to

people completing their applications like the things that I suggested like the form 700 disclosure just as part of

an application right um and the other thing I just wanted to note some considerations we might want

to have is is not us as a our body but San Francisco in the redistricting

recruitment process they consider partnering with Community groups who do Outreach think about incaution because we have some groups who are both c3s and

C4s so C3 meaning a non-profit non-political organization and C4 is has

a political arm and so we do have some of those groups across the spectrum of political engagement have both in San

Francisco might want to be cautious about partnering with those because they have a political arm um in doing the Outreach to make sure it

is is really you know a Civic civically minded folks as possible without being you know reducing I should

say reducing political um influence um and then next to the Chart here uh

there are there's nothing written into San Francisco law about Outreach and recruitment

um they're pending legislation 1248 requests it requires that they request

assistance of community groups to get large applicant pools reflective of the diversity um 764 requires a plan for community

outreach there's nothing related to this in the fair Maps Act but the report recommendation does

suggest that bodies invest resources and make careful plans to recruit recruit

that large diverse pool no recommendations regarding this from the recent redistricting task force here and

then the state commission the state auditor is required to do extensive Outreach to build that large diverse

pool representative of the state and that's as specific As It Gets in San Francisco we had about 35 applications

received that we are aware of and there was overlap within that group most of those applied to the elections

commission and then if they weren't selected they applied to the Board of Supervisors um there were in the Outreach plans

there were Flyers emailed with the standard City Outreach tools some CBO Outreach as well I think there were

actually a couple hundred cbo's that the um the Consultants worked with to to push

this out but that is 35 applications um so I will pause there on this one

because this is it is a long and complicated area of the four subsets but this is the first one

yeah it's pretty fistful when Long Beach got 400 and they're half the size of San Francisco [Laughter]

so I mean I think because there isn't anything in the law there were very limited efforts to do Outreach and I

know that we've heard from some folks who monitor the process they were all also criticism on when the Outreach was

done uh I think it was done before there was even a website and so

I know that for example it was printed in the voter information pamphlet so if you could have found it on page you know

250 maybe you would have seen it so uh so I loved what Long Beach did very

creative I thought um and and I

mentioned repeatedly that if this step isn't done first then all the other

stuff doesn't matter if you if you don't build a big pool and and you you want to

have this really restrictive process you have nothing to start with you'll eliminate all of the candidates right

I sorry I like the idea of the utility bill I

also like the idea of also looking at

how many people pay their bills online and having some kind of process that is

you know something they can click on on the because I don't get a utility bill

we pay everything online and that's becoming increasingly common

and that could save money as well um but I really like the idea of the

utility bill I also think the DMV

um that being a place where that application could be as well

um most people need an ID most people go in when you renew that could be a way to do

it as well um I don't know

I know that at one point the Department of Elections sent every register voter

information about an election coming up um so if there could be a process of

sending information about it with the website already created like a

a flyer that says are you aware that this is something you can apply for here's the website a little information

about it to every registered voter yeah just like they do for um uh being a poll

worker right right yeah so that I mean certainly I I think piggybacking you know we want

them to do all the standard City stuff too right but I will say that um what

happened when uh for the first time round for the citizens uh redistricting

Commission yeah the auditor as I said they're a bunch of accountants they didn't know how to do an Outreach campaign and so

they ended up spending a million bucks on a PR firm and that was largely ineffective by the

way right and so they spent a bunch of money it didn't have very good results they ended up with a pool that was like

80 percent white male and Republican uh it was actually really bad they were required to publish I you know I like

that you pointed it out publishing statistics and how they're doing so when that came out like how

unrepresentative forward was you know there were everybody like was all up in arms and that kind of galvanized a lot

of groups to to get organized and you know encourage good people to apply

um and what happened in 2010 it was so bad that the Irvine Foundation as I had

mentioned before you know put their own money up put three and a half million dollars up to fund

um you know certain Community organizations that were grass tops organizations to go out and make sure

that the resources were available to a certain unrepresented communities to make sure that they have the resources

they need to to get out to potential candidates and to help them apply and to make sure they got through the

application process I went through that process um I uh I think eight of the 14

Commissioners uh went through that process that we found out about it through a community organization even

though they were like apparently running ads um and you know publishing things in

newspapers through the pr firm I was completely unaware of it until

three days before the deadline when I got a flyer that was put out by one of the aapi organizations that's how I

found out about it and so I do think engaging Community organizations is

really important in advocacy organizations that are not politically I I think that's a good point that you

brought up commissioner Parker but I would say that the groups that the city

usually contracts with to do Outreach I mean we have a long list the city does this for a lot of different purposes uh

think about uh the public health campaign for covid for example so and we know who these organizations are and I

think the key thing is um requiring the Outreach that a

comprehensive Outreach plan uh be implemented like we don't have to tell them you need to do utilities they they

need to come up with that right right but the point is they have to do this kind of Outreach um you know at some point

uh you know significantly in advance of when the commission needs to be seated uh because

the other thing is people have to see if they have the time right if they're going to make this kind of big commitment they they have to evaluate

whether this next year is a good year for me to you know do my public service

um so I think you know kind of doing it early um and and requiring a comprehensive

Outreach strategy that engages uh you know and leverages existing City

infrastructure to do Outreach um and requiring that

that they you know create this is this is the way

it was stated in the California Constitution they were required to build a large and diverse pool of candidates

that were represented the state and I feel like that language should apply to San Francisco I mean 35 is just

embarrassing yeah I I definitely think that a comp in our recommendations I

like the language a comprehensive Outreach plan

yeah with a goal to expand

the number of applicants and to seek to build this large data to build this real

large diverse pool yeah I think the language is is well but but I really like the idea of a comprehensive

Outreach plan because that gives guidance and you

can't just do one thing you it has to Encompass as

many different components as possible I think um

yeah I like the idea that the recommendation um it said it is something about the city

must have a comprehensive Outreach plan I like the idea that they are going to be required for report and the

recruiting efforts there's there's an accountability to that that when people know they have to talk about it they're okay we're gonna have to publish this

let's make sure we're really doing a good job on it um and it's transparency and I think we

need to do that to build trust as much as we can so I I like both of those ideas and then you know aside from that

giving some suggestions like you know Long Beach and maybe maybe there I I don't open utility bills

anymore I do all of mine online but they're um but there are maybe equivalencies or the public library you

know people go and check out books or you know or on uni um you know on like

the muni uh the uh inside the bus inside the bus you know but also in the um and

outside then outside why can't I think of the word where you stand to wait for the bus the um bus stops yes

it's been a long week um bus stop you know in those um those

little stations were you know having something there you know there's there's I think there's a lot of places where a lot of people do go really regularly it

would be nice to see so this could be just shared you know it's like these these are things that have worked but

it's you do it like your responsible for doing a plan but here are some things that apparently have worked well in

other places so um I I like that idea I'm wondering also

just the um if there's anything that resonates with us around

unnecessary steps um I do think I think that we all when we we all want so much

to be inclusive and we want to be you know and we um

and we want to reduce the political influence in this process and you know there's all these things what we want and we end up sometimes making things

really complicated overly complicated or making the requirements so stringent that people just like you know what your

average person doesn't want to fill out the form 700 just to apply for this you know it's a lot it's confusing even when

you're uh sitting at City officers we all are and have to you know file these things it's uh that that's not

unnecessary in my opinion agreed and it does suppress it and and that that was actually something that I

know that uh aapi organizations talked about that the financial disclosures really suppressed applications from aapi

applicants and I I remember I kind of like fight the bullet I'm going to

completely lose my privacy if I do this because also the applications were open to the public

um but you know that's something that actually is a test in my mind because if you're not willing to be comfortable

with that then you're probably not going to be willing to be completely transparent in all of your transactions

but I do agree I I think form 700 should be required once they're a finalists

Maybe that's a different yeah that makes a difference if you're like get to the top

40 then then maybe that's when the that's the requirement but uh yeah for the initial application

and and that was true so in my round 36 000 people applied because the

application took like five minutes on the internet and it was just checking for the most basic conflicts of interest

like have you been continuously registered voter and have you voted in the last couple of Elections and you

know and with their address and you know so they can figure out where you were and you know basic demographic information it was literally five

minutes and so I thought oh great you know I was really worried when I got this brochure and I said oh my gosh I only have three days to apply and I went

to the website I'm like oh this is really easy and then the supplemental application came after that but

but the point is the initial pull they had 36 000 and then by the time the

supplemental application which is like where it got really when we had to start writing essays that immediately reduced

it down to five thousand but the point is you want to start out with a really big pool you want to engage people you want people to be excited about applying

and you want it to be easy um I actually want to make one other thing I I think it's you know it's good

to require some things and will narrow I I agree with a lot of what you just said

um the other thing that I think is probably important for like I think maybe in a recommendation with an

Outreach plan is also an education plan about why this matters you know what

what does the redistricting task force do um what's its job and why is that

important to everybody who lives in San Francisco and so it might be might help them right like why would you even want

to do this which I would hope that would be part of it maybe it's just it's worth some something we're saying is that education on what the point of that body

is yeah the role they play is important people excited about applying so I agree we can add so so the way it was in in

for the state is that the body itself was responsible for educating the public

about why they should come and give public testimony basically why should you care about redistricting and why did you come

and tell us about your communities but I think there's a little bit of a pre-education piece that you're talking

about which is why would I even apply right so I I think it's implied but we should be explicit that you know part of

the Outreach needs to include um I I think of it maybe a little like

when they recruit for the Civil grand jury and they you know they you have to like

understand why is what is a civil grand jury why is it important why should I play so at least answering some basic

questions I think that that would be key commissioner Parker and I think it would be really key to make sure

underrepresented populations um got that education because yeah

I I think people get upset when they see what happens but they didn't know that necessarily

they could have been a part of the process so I think a particular focus on

underrepresented populations um people with disabilities

um um all the groups that we Target in the

Department of Elections think about right exactly well that that goes to the initial question that I asked which was

um General and targeted Outreach right there's there's you there's both there's like let's reach everybody and there's

and we want to make sure that those voices who typically underrepresented um under recognized you know uh or get a

special balance you know having both directed in general well I was really struck by Dr sadwadi Who is you know

highly educated and she talked about how she needed like three Taps on the shoulder before she

replied right and and we've talked about that you know before uh like why can't we get

you know better representation and it's like sometimes people need to be asked

and they need to be asked not once not twice three times to kind of motivate them to okay I'll

fill out the application like enough people have tapped me on the shoulder and said I'd be good at this that I should do it

I want to just put a little pin in for us to remember in a little bit later is to to do good Outreach like this and to

get in utility bills and in bus stand you know bus stops and things like that cost money and so it's something that

should also be considered in sort of adequate funding of the effort absolutely absolutely I think that's that's really important and that that

was some of the issue this time there was inadequate funding for this whole effort

foreign just look back to the questions and make

sure we addressed everything yeah and I know we may not address all the questions on it we're just like

let's get us thinking questions um but but they're helpful to refer to yeah no okay if you could go back to the

previous slide and let's just look at it real quick I think um so I think we agreed that we

that they should do General and targeted Outreach so that we have brought agreement on that

um I don't think we need to nominate the city agencies as much as to say to

leverage the existing City infrastructure because obviously Department of Elections does a lot of this stuff right but you know the

Department of Public Health does too so I think you know we can give a couple examples but I don't think we need to

specify because those City or agencies that do the stuff they know who they are

right um and on languages

again I might thinking here is maybe we rely on what are the standard languages the Department of Elections uses

like not create something new it's like there's a reason the Department of Elections came up with that list let's follow that

um

and I don't know if we need to be specific about these barriers but to say that we

want this to be uh and an application process that is easy and accessible to

as many as many people in the city as possible

I think the examples are good

and absolutely on the record reporting I would say regular reporting to the public on the progress of building the

pool and who's in the pool even Michigan did that Michigan the secretary of state had a website where she would update it

I don't know how often she did it but on a regular basis they would say how many they had what part of Michigan's they

were from and what the what the demographics look like for the pool and that way people were able to track

um like where they needed to like in Michigan it was the U.P the Upper Peninsula like they didn't have enough

applicants there right my home state yep you know right so they they were

definitely people watching the dashboard maybe we should call it a dashboard but it should be regularly updated uh online

online so people can watch like right how many people have applied how many

people have expressed interest um yeah I like it yeah

right let's move on uh all right next area is qualifications

and restrictions um so what qualifications will ensure that people have adequate skills to perform the job and be independent from

political influence this is another quote from that local to registering commissions report that says while

critical to creating an impartial commission reformers and policy makers should resist the temptation to adopt

overly strict eligibility qualifications that tighter the objective criteria especially for smaller jurisdictions the

harder it will be to recruit enough quality applicants to fill a commission speaks a little bit to our last conversation

um so here are a few questions I'm suggesting here is what is standard

criteria and what is overly or unnecessarily restrictive and then these

next two bullets I think are important distinctions which qualifications and disqualifications can be objective where

eligibility eligibility can be verified without exercising any personal judgment so no bias right so examples of those

might be did they vote in the last two elections right so they're they're paying attention they're they're

participating um did they contribute more than or did they contribute like the maximum allowed

to a candidate like in San Francisco it's 500 so did they did they max out to candidates you know something like that those are subjective nobody has to I

mean those are objective not subjective um and then which subjective qualifications are necessary to

determine suitability for the task force for example the ability to be impartial or last time we talked about

um good communicator in whatever way that is determined can they communicate are they can are they collaborative

right like those kinds of things those are subjective um and they would require the selection

body to exercise some independent judgment so question how would you do that in a way that is less likely to be

biased because it is subjective um should there be a required number of years of residency

um and if so how many so again not to be overly restrictive for instance Long Beach requires a year

um you'll see in a second the state commission requires longer than that to be in California right or actually I

don't know if it requires a residency it's not it's a number of years you've been part of a party party affiliation

um and then how can diversity of how can diversity of representation equity and inclusion be considered in these

qualifications and restrictions um and so moving to our chart

San Francisco law there are no guidelines about who may be a member of the task force there's no standardized

qualification criteria or bans or on conflicts of interest um pending California so AB 1248 says if

there is no existing IRC um so this is if you have to fall into the requirements through this bill you

must be a resident of the jurisdiction you must have a history of Civic engagement a demon demonstrated

analytical skills ability to comprehend and apply the applicable legal requirements for the for the job the

ability to be impartial appreciation for the diverse demographics and geography of the local jurisdiction

there are also some free during and post-service restrictions and the alternates must meet those same

qualifications understandable right if they're going to maybe have to take that seat

um and so some of the examples of restrictions for service um are no elected or appointed you can't

you the person who's applying or your spouse can not be an election or

appointed um in a point of position um or an officer or an employee of a

political party um you cannot be staffed to electeds you

cannot be a lobbyist you can't have made more than 500 contributions to candidates in the past eight years I

think that's annual but I don't remember exactly um members of IRC the one you're

currently in service you cannot endorse work volunteer or contribute to candidates after service you can't there

are some there are some also requirements around Post Service I didn't write those down they are they are available

um it's usually like you can't run in the jurisdiction that you just mapped um within a certain period of time like

you know a couple years or a few years what was that in the state is the state it's 10 but I think there might be

others that are like five okay it's shorter okay like in the next cycle or something

um and then also 1248 says you can't have everybody in the IRSC registered with the same political party places

like San Francisco that have a large majority of one party they would still require at least one person not be of

that dominant political party um there were no recommendations around

this as I already mentioned in Fair Maps or their report wrecks the recent redistricting task force here said that

we should consider minimum qualifications and restrictions um like those that the California redistricting

commission has we should also consider restrictions on Persons connected to for-profit and non-profit entities who

are receiving City funds those were in their report their report

um and then the California redistricting commission has a distinction you're required this is different than we've

seen in other places you're required to be a continuously registered voter with the same party for the last five years

you have to have voted in two of the last three gubernatorial elections

um also need to demonstrate an ability to impartial possess relevant analytical skills understand California's diversity

in demography and then there are standard selection criteria uncomplished of Interest Financial disclosures and

the during and post service restrictions similar to what I just talked about with 1248 um

it's like 10 years of yourself or a family member not being an elected not legislative staff candidate staff party

officer lobbyist and it's two thousand dollars plus for donors donations

um a note on residency some local areas like Long Beach do lean towards that

simple residency it could be something we want to consider just a simple residency requirement because we also

have one of the lowest voter registration rates in the Bay Area here in San Francisco and so

we might want to consider a simple residency requirement and that's that's it for that

commission yes I like the idea of residency as opposed to registration to vote

um I also think that that residency piece should not be too long we are a city of

transplants um we are a city um I don't know I

I like the idea of residency but I don't think it I don't think it should have to have been resident for like 10 years right

I also uh like residency as opposed to voter registration uh we are

um a city of immigrants and at least one of the uh our speakers

on our rdtf members pointed out that he would not have qualified right right so

um you know I think there are um people who just haven't become

citizens yet right now I do want to point out why it's different for the CRC

and that's because the CRC draws maps for Congress and so that's why they're

partisan considerations that I think are completely not applicable to local jurisdictions and I don't even want to

get into that um and I think that because at the time

that CRC was put into place it was pretty revolutionary and I think they wanted to draw a pretty high bar and so

that was the requirement for having voted into out of the last three gubernatorial elections and you know so

one of the things that we used to joke about is that there were certain gubernatorial candidates who would not have met the requirements to be on the

California citizens Street District commission so that is restrictive uh so

this continuous registration with the same party that was again to deal with the partisan concerns for congress which

I don't think apply to the local jurisdiction so I think in keeping with the idea of

not being too restrictive I think residency is sufficient um

how long it should be so I've been thinking about this on on it's been

pointed out uh by the city attorney's office that most commissions if they

have a residency requirement it's not longer than a year so a year is pretty standard consistent with Long Beach the

argument I would make is that um you want people who know the city right

you want people who appreciate the neighborhoods and so can you get that in one year like I said I've been in

Residence City for a long time and like I said there's still parts of the city that I consider Middle Earth because I always get lost and I don't know that

part of the city that well so but on the other hand I wouldn't want

to eliminate young people who just moved here and who maybe because they're

curious they have traveled all around the neighborhoods so I kind of feel like

we ought not to be too restrictive on The Residency requirement but think about it for the subjective

qualification right because there's one that we're talking about like appreciation of the city's demographics

and diversity and that could be understanding of the city's neighborhoods as well is kind of

Incorporated in that so I kind of feel like uh I mean yes would I prefer someone who's

been in the city at least three years or maybe even a little longer maybe but that doesn't mean they know the city

right right so if you could prove to me right you know in the subjective

criteria and we can decide how they would prove it but if they can convince the vetting Authority that even though

they've only been in the city for a year that they have visited its neighborhoods and they they appreciate the different

parts of the city and the distinct character of different neighborhoods and communities

um I don't think you would have to be longer than a year I think having at least a minimum of a

year I I personally don't want to get too into the weeds in this in the recommendation I would prefer that we

have a minimum um and then let um the waters and maybe say we don't

want it to be too restrictive as well so we could say minimum of a year which has been

standard practice in other redistricting commissions but we don't want to be too

restricted so maybe make a recommendation of that more than

five yeah I like that and I'm just noting here in the report we have from common

cause for La they just say be a resident they don't have a time limit so we could

we could also just say that although then people would argument argue about Carpet Baggers right people move into

the city to to try to with their politics so my gosh can you imagine if somebody moved to the city just to be on

a registered if that seems very unlikely I think it's unlikely but you want to

avoid the accusation of that but it's a possibility you're right San Francisco it is San Francisco so I think I think

something like a year is I think a year it's not too bad I think back when I moved here but I moved here uh 24 years

ago I immediately started getting involved and going in

neighborhoods and there was elections and going to debates and

you know wandering the city so I think there are lots of people who do that

because that first year you're so excited yeah um you've moved somewhere different so I I I really don't think we

need to have more than a year but I think to keep our recommendations focused on

being fair being Equitable and being inclusive I do think we need to say we don't recommend that now I'm saying five

years I don't feel we have to agree to that but I do think we should recommend that we don't think it should be more

than a certain number of years um I think that I think five years might

be a little high um but I think you know a year I think is

good there's I I do like this General again I don't know how you necessarily

document this or approve this but this general idea of an appreciation for or an understanding of you know kind of the

diverse demographics or geography of an area I'm curious how that might be shown

demonstrated in some way um but I guess one thing I just want to

throw out there is that um I I think it's very helpful when people have an understanding of kind of all the

pieces of the city and sometimes we get people who think they understand all of the areas of the city but they don't

really because they don't actually get into those communities and talk to people affected by things happening in those neighbors so they think they have

been because they have a favorite restaurant in that neighborhood right and you know so like we should be thoughtful about that but also the

experience of people who move to the city and so maybe they're a year and they're like oh my gosh I am so frustrated with X Y and Z and that

relative newcomer perspective is is also really important you know and I think

adds something when we talk about diversity of experience that we don't want to exclude folks who are still

fairly new and may not know all of the neighborhoods of the city um but they may have a really important

perspective to offer so I like the lower you know end of that just to be able to

be inclusive of all that and and people who I've seen plenty of folks who think they really know the city and

you know if they just have a favorite Bakery I still admit I get lost in some parts of the city and I've been here a

long time but so so what I'm hearing is that uh we're in agreement that it

should be residency and not voter registration I think that's actually the most important thing yeah yeah because that excludes what do we agree 21 of the

population right there and it's mostly marginalized folks communities yeah so so they should be a resident are are we

in general agreement it should be a year minimum minimum year yeah yeah I think

so and then uh not more than three

I used to have like a strong opinion I think that just being able to talk about the rationale for why it is only a year

is probably the most important part of okay right I think and just to let just to give you some color on that because I

had to write an essay about this and I'm not suggesting we require an essay but this is how they did at the state level we had to write an essay to show how we

could demonstrate our understanding of California's diversity and uh uh and so

all of us wrote about our travels through the state and our experiences and like some people had lived and you

know different parts of the state we had one commissioner who had literally visited all 58 counties and he talked

about that um and so it so it can be demonstrated is what

I'm saying right so we wrote about it and then we were interviewed about it so

so I so I I think that's good uh yeah I think that's an important one for a city

that has as many as you said it's the city of transcends and we have a lot of immigrants and we want to be inclusive

and the newcomer perspective is valuable

um great what else yeah I just flip back to the question slide I wonder if we want to talk a

little bit about um where we are seeing or thinking about

um objective criteria subjective criteria there are you know

these these recommendations um you know in current legislation you know that are very aligned with with

some of the state Commission um so I think the um

I think we want to I like the way that it's stated in the LA report here they

call it disqualifying conflicts of interest and those are usually objective

um you know uh so I think that's probably a better way to say it because you know a

year of residency is also objective um but the subjective part would be how how well do you know the city right so

there's an objective piece and then there's a subjective piece the um

I mean I personally am in favor of all the conflicts of interest because I understand the reason behind all of it I

mean if you have been you know paid consultant or a staffer

for elected official or been a candidate or you know you're part of what Dr

sedwani called the political class and we don't necessarily want those folks on

this Commission um and I think it's the same idea if you've been a registered lobbyist you're

part of that group as well and if you're a major donor um you know you're yeah part of that

class as well so I think the disqualifying conflicts of interest are

pretty straightforward uh all of them you know make sense to me it's the

rationale as to why people uh who are insiders essentially political

insiders why they should be excluded from this and that was something that really

struck me from our last rdtf panel that uh I think it was Mr Lee who talked about

how the pressure they felt because they he said basically all of them were

politically connected was the word he used and that

you know familiarity caused people to ask for favors yep that's

so you know so I think the disqualifying

conflicts I like the way that it stated it's like it's a conflict of interest and that disqualifies you and those tend

to be objective uh and if uh

uh and if your spouse I was just gonna say I think this the spouse piece should be for all

of those disqualifiers what was that you said the if if you're if you are the spouse of a lobbyist if

you are the spouse of um a political consultant someone who's run

for office um exactly

um and for the CRC it was actually you your spouse and your direct family

members so if your daughter isn't obvious you know or you're

um and so I think I I've said to people that my application was like 27 pages long and

most of it was familial relationships because we had to certify

that our brothers and sisters our mom and our dad and you know and my spouse's

you know parents and their children didn't have these political connections

um it was a little challenging right because I actually had to call the state

auditor's office and asked how to answer some of those questions because you know my partner was not that close

to her family and we had to like kind of verify it and and

they said well believe it or not you're not the only one in this position

but um the point is you had to you had to certify it and say that you know I don't

have any direct family members and neither just my spouse who fit in these

categories and was there a Best to the best of your knowledge

yeah I mean you had to certify on your application so now they did check they

um I mean as part of their vetting they did their best to check okay so uh I will

tell you that they they absolutely checked everyone they called to to the degree that they

could they they discovered uh they checked the information you provided and they they tried to well they try to vet

it that's what their job was I mean they're Auditors that's the one thing they're really good at

um one thing that I am curious about is um I think some of these make sense and

I think there's always there are always people who are in the who have had these kinds of um experiences you know

recently who will be very fair because that's just their nature and I know that the the intent here is try to remove

uh political influence from the process curious about the length of time you know this eight years is what suggested

in 1248 it's 10 years for the state commission so I'm curious what length of

time there are clearly other things people can do that are political but this you know if there's objective

criteria so I'm curious about the length of time and I'm also curious and I don't know the answer to this I you know I did

do lots of research but I I haven't looked more you know when we talk about this idea of what is unnecessarily

restrictive um because it can result in fewer candidates and things like that I'm

wondering about that in relation to this this uh that kind of standard list that you were just going through so length of

time and what is overly restrictive and I just don't have examples at the ready of local jurisdictions where actually we

did that and it was really hard to get candidates like I don't I don't know that I don't know if either of you have any examples well um so I think the

rationale for the 10 years for the CRC is just it's one census cycle

so after one census cycle there are new maps anyway and so that way you

eliminate any any conflicts um I think our post-service restriction

was that we couldn't um you know we we continue to serve until the next commission comes

on and so that is 10 years and by definition that means you can't run in the in the maps you just drew in the

districts you just drew and I think that you could also just state

that that you can't be a candidate you can't run for supervisor in other words

District or yeah or mayor so it could be any um Citywide or district office or it

could just be a years it could it could just I you know I'm not sure where the eight came from except I'm thinking it's

two terms but it's I mean maybe I mean but that's not a

standardized there's no eight-year terms like there's locally there's probably four right you know it was most common

yeah maybe maybe it's if people but there's not term limits for some offices you know city-wide offices some like

School Board office like there's no term limits so it's kind of an interesting I mean that that may be the rationale behind

um behind in a year I'm not sure just just curious if that feels long or if it you

know just just curious um so I think the rationale for you know

one census cycle and you're going to have new districts anyway so so that's the 10 years

um like I said I'm not the only thing I can think of for eight is that it's maybe two four-year terms and that's maybe what the thinking is behind it

I like the census 10 years you the maps will be different in 10 years

and that's not restricting someone from being on the commission it's restricting

them for their activities after that's post so I think that's very different

so if someone is thinking of running is planning to run then they know this is not for me

because I'm I'm thinking about this well there is a 10-year

there is a question on length of the term right because that's not exactly here but if the length of a term

generally of a commission is seen as until the next census in case

something were to come up right like they they serve on the commission for 10 years

until the next commission is set um then a pro-service almost seems like

well is that even necessary if the term is actually until the next census will uh you know I think it's one or the

other and I think for budgetary reasons that local commissions tend to disband after they've completed the maps and

they're less likely to get sued and have to redistrict I think the reason that we were on the hook for

10 years is you know we always have these valid

initiatives remember the one that was going to split California into six we would have had to redistrict if that

passed it because we were we are the redistricting Agency for the state um I think that's unlikely to happen in

a local jurisdiction level and so most of the jurisdictions like I know I've tried to reach the

Sacramento IRC members and they're just unresponsive because they've been disbanded uh so I think most of them

last for like three budget years you know to do the Outreach and Recruitment and then they see it and then there's

some stuff afterwards if there's litigation and then after that they are usually disbanded so I think it's it's

either you have something like that where they serve until the next ones are appointed or you stipulate that they

can't run for office I think I'm a little uncomfortable with stipulating um that they serve for 10 years I think

that's that's a that's a burden for most people um and that to I I like the idea of

perhaps having a period of time after the map is drawn and everything is set

but I think 10 years is too long and I think having it clear that

you draw this map and you can't run for 10 years really make someone who is

potentially thinking about running in the future it takes them out you make a decision

do I want to run for office but I think that serving 10 years is is

I to me it makes sense at the state level

yeah it doesn't at a local level I agree Cisco at the state level we're actually

a official state agency right so that's different um

so so were you asking commissioner Parker about pre-service restrictions because

for example if you're a major donor it's within within the past

eight years or whatever yeah I was just asking because it seemed like well that's that's could be you

know what if you were more active you know eight years ago like that it's kind of a long time you know to have been

involved with something and you might have been completely removed from it for quite a while you know it's

um it seems it does seem that being an elected being married to an elective

Staffing an elective those things like that are happening while you're applying like that feels that makes lots of sense

yeah you know um and eight years prior that might feel

a little long like that's why I'm just curious like why they would think that far back when it's very possible you

have not been you're not an Insider anymore you know if you did it several years ago maybe two or three years like

that puts you fairly close but eight years feels a little long for pre-service requirements yeah I I see

your point but I I think it's the same idea as if you were involved in part of

the political class in the past cycle then

you know that there were certainly a lot of people I know who wanted to apply for the CRC

who were very sad to realize that they were immediately taken out by the the conflict of interest criteria so a lot

of the people who wanted to be on this commission and really motivated me on it were part of the political class which

you would expect right because they're interested in this kind of stuff um and that that's the whole point you

know they wanted ordinary citizens they wanted engaged but but not political I

think the ordinary citizen piece I think that eight-year requirement

[Music] um gives us the possibility of having more ordinary citizens gives us what the

possibility of having more ordinary citizens who are not a part of the political class if you say that if we're

sticking to the eight years prior um I mean we could make a recommendation

that it be that it should be five to eight years but that there should be

some requirement that we don't get into a situation where

we have people who have an ambition

politically or or agenda agenda

yes that's the word I should have used thank you agenda um because we want it to be

as independent as possible so back to what you were saying I'm

thinking about what you said commissioner Parker I think the thing is even if you're not that active anymore

and you were active eight years ago you still know there's people I think is that especially in the city yeah I mean

you don't lose those connections even if you yourself are not an active anymore so

I think the idea of going back that far is to

basically if you had an agenda and you were planning to get on this IRC you

know I think we are thinking very high up people but yes I understand what you're saying right it's like how long

could you plan that ambitious of that right how long would you plan that right so you probably wouldn't plan it for

eight years you might plan it for five like you make it your record really clean for five years but it would

probably be hard for you to keep up for eight so I think that's the idea I think that's the reason why it's so long

because that just automatically eliminates people who might have designs to to get

on this and and you know have an agenda so I personally am comfortable with it I

you know I think it's important to have a looking back one um and I think the looking forward one is

very obvious so that's very clear the post-service one is I think very obvious

um but yeah and I think in a city the size of San Francisco that we could absolutely find a very

qualified pool of folks who are not just totally in the weeds in terms of the

politics of San Francisco I think I think that will be essential and by having the

pre-qualification looking what have people done in the last eight years you're more likely to get or or

I'll repeat you're more likely to get ordinary citizens and you're less likely to get people who are a part of the system

because that's that was what was so upsetting last time

so and let's see if we're trying to be because we're not requiring citizenship

right we're only requiring residents so ordinary residents ordinary residents

yes um I I generally think the idea that you know that you're not an elective you

don't staff on Election if you're not a lobbyist you know those you're an officer of a political party I I am comfortable with those kind of

pre-service requirements um and I would say for a length of time maybe it's to be determined sort of

length of time whether it's eight whether it's five like some length of time makes sense to me for those like

I don't know I could maybe be persuaded on the longer end but um but those kind of basic things do make some sense

because of the you know kind of The Insider nature of it um just because not even that people can

be bossed around by others but they may actually just have a personal perspective you know that they want to do I think I think it makes some sense

um you know to have some of those restrictions for pre-service um and

and the post service you know not running in the district that you just um Drew

um but that makes sense to me um is just very simple

um I I will say as a side note we do not need to discuss this but I'm so curious well so then what happens with the

Department of Elections when you're filling out I'm going to run for office is there a disqualifying you're not allowed to check this box you know where

you want it and we're not going to let you run and file papers just curious how that is actually monitored in the future

um but that we don't have to talk about that um and then the during service I actually think kind of what standardized

um you know not endorsing working for candidates um volunteering contributing like those

are the same things we're required to do right on the elections commission we are not allowed to donate to work for

endorse we're not allowed to do any of that so it seems those are very straightforward and required of people in positions

um like ours and so that feels also very reasonable to me right right okay I

think we've covered all of them I think we're comfortable with certainly five

plus years I think and then we can talk about whether it should be eight or ten but

um for the pre but we definitely agree but there should be a look back period yeah I think we should I

to commissioner Parker's point I think I understand what I think you're saying

about um eight years and I think perhaps we should say a minimum of five our

recommendation is a minimum of five um because the board of supervisor is

going to do what they want to do but I think making it clear that there should be a

standard a standard minimum a minimum standard um

okay let's go ahead and move on yeah moving on okay powering through it

all right so vetting and selection another doozy um

okay so here is this idea this question of how Commissioners or here task force

members we are actually pretty unique that most like I think I already said that most call them Commissioners and it's a redistricting commission but we

are a task force how should Commissioners be selected and which body or agency should bet and manage the

selection in the promise Affair Maps they did a lot of research on ircs

throughout the state and said that irc's whose members are not selected by incumbents and meet certain

qualifications to ensure impartiality we're more transparent more engaging and receptive to public participation and

more likely to draw maps that kept communities hold and legislative bodies were there's there's lots of interesting

examples if you read some of these reports about what has gone wrong sometimes when that

is not what's the case um so there are a couple of different selection types political bodies

politically appointed bodies are appointed by elected officials non-political is selected through a

random process and by qualifications or and or through a non-political body or

agency so in San Francisco as we've mentioned already and I think everybody probably who's listening to this knows

we have a combination here both political and non-political and so

again the big question here is what process will build public Trust

um and what selection Authority or authorities would San Francisco voters trust and has or hat will have the

resources to run a vetting and selection process and which selection requirements would reduce conflicts of interest we

actually just went through that so I'm not going to read through that again but we we sort of just covered that and then

again just want to note that there are some things that belong in a

charter and some things that don't you know so that's just another thing to consider and again I think what we're trying to do here is to eventually

arrive at some recommendations that they will just then work with the city attorney's office and decide which

things need to be in a charter and which things will just be handled outside of and with the agency who runs the process

or you know be given to the next task force to then use in their best practices or be determined by city

ordinance that doesn't have to go before voters um so that's just I just wanted to note that again

um and then here for our chart in current San Francisco law as you know

it is equally distributed appointments by the mayor three for the mayor three for the Board of Supervisors

three for the elections commission ab1248 would require a non-political

selection process they have several options listed um and that selection entity if if

ab1248 passed and we just fell under it the selection entity would be prescribed by our board as supervisors and the

order they have a priority order for those um and and for the bodies that we

actually have here in San Francisco that order a priority would be the ethics Commission

um any committee or commission that has a holistic view of the local jurisdictions governance processes including but not limited to an

elections commission or a charter review commission some cities some Charter cities have that and then next would be

a panel of three retired judges and then next after that would be the Civil grand jury and the main idea listed in that

bill is that we reinforce public confidence in the Integrity of the redistricting process there's no

recommendation or no requirement in the fair Maps act the report about the

effects of that fair Maps act suggests that we do require independent

redistricting committee commissions that we prohibit political appointments we

require the state auditor to inform applicants not selected for the state

Commission of the opportunities that might be there in the local IRC and that

last little bit that I just mentioned is included in AB 760 24.

um the recent redistricting task force here in San Francisco recommended that San Francisco consider using something

similar to what the state commission selection process is without the involvement of election officials and

reinforces the independence of the task force they said we shouldn't leave the

redistricting task force vulnerable to potential conflicts of interest that was from their report

um and I think they also wrote in there they um San Francisco's process should

be removed from real or perceived political pressure um and then

the redistrict the state redistricting commission has the selection process that is run by the state auditor's office

legislators we talked a little bit about that process before there's 60 of the most qualified applicants or what it's

narrowed down to and then legislators are able to veto up to 24 applicants out

of that pool of 60 before that random selection process happens and then as we

all know this eight plus six we already talked about that we don't need to talk about it again um that is that is it

[Music] so now that I've had time to think about it commissioner liposey how are you

feeling about the eight plus six

I think if the selection process for those eight is as Fair as it can

possibly be I would be comfortable with um but I would but I would like to see

some parameters and guidelines that are stated for that

eight to select the next six so that those would be the diversity factors

that we talked about I think the the four factors that you outlined are good are really good it was gender race uh

Geographic and social economic status yes I think those would be great

um and then and then of course you could encourage the vetting Authority which is going to be the big question in this

section um to you know consider diversity broadly right to include other

characteristics but they must look at those four which is kind of the way it was done for for the state level

um

yeah I think the big question here is the is the vetting and selection Authority I oh God yeah and I I feel

like we had some good discussion last meeting about the possibility of

um splitting the responsibility from the kind of Outreach and recruitment in the

application stage from the actual decision Betty and selection piece

whereas at the state level it's all the state auditor and as I've commented before a group of

accountants and Auditors are not necessarily best suited for some aspects of that task

uh I mean they were super good at doing the final selection and making sure the

pool was representative and I mean they're they're accountants they followed the

letter of the law for that they were very good at that not so good at the Outreach and recruitment piece and they

really really had to rely on supplemental assistance with Community organizations to do that part

so I really like this idea of splitting that

responsibility with you know some agency I don't know that

we need to specify a specific one but I can think of a couple of candidates that might be really good at the Outreach

piece I have a question commissioner Parker you mentioned the most important part of money

would and I as up for discussion because it's something I'm thinking about and I'm not sure but it came to my mind

immediately when you talked about splitting it if we had two City agencies

splitting that responsibility the selection process the vetting process could that help

do we think that would I mean I I don't know what I mean

there's one pool of money for the city you know whether it goes to one agency or another or split between two it's all

still the same pot of money so I don't know um they're

I mean one thing that I would say just from just uh one one report actually we recommend people read if they have not

yet um if you go to the most recent redistricting task forces report it is

ginormous it's like 100 Pages it's not just the task forces report but it also

includes you know all of the maps and there are many other comments from specific members of the task force and then there's this really large city

clerk's office report and and when you read that and you'll see it up in some upcoming slides

um the clerk's office made some recommendations around around establishing like an actual division or

department for this um and and suggest some staffing that would make it work and acknowledges like

if budget is tight minimally here's what you should do that we did not have and we should at least do this and so there

is there there could be I imagine um you know if there was a temporary

body that was set up whether it lives with whatever body that it's going to live under whatever the the selecting

Authority might be um if there is a temporary division of that that were to manage that

and then you were to try to disperse roles within the process they could

coordinate all that because the one thing that I I always say I'm concerned about I don't think it's impossible but

I think I have concern about is one of course making things too complex but but two is that we have passed

legislation in San Francisco before through ballot measure asking City agencies to coordinate with each other

and so much like sometimes it kind of happens and sometimes it doesn't like

I'm thinking of the you know like I was um involved with some of the work with the

the Children's Fund and you know in all the school district measures like you know 10 plus years ago and

like they don't meet and coordinate the way that they should and that was aspired to right and so I just I I would

want to make sure that if there were multiple agencies within the city doing uh managing different aspects that they

are coordinating because whoever is doing the Outreach and all of that like they're gonna have to be coordinating

somehow with the group who's then going to be doing betting and selection so while um in an aspirational way like let's

rely on the strengths of different agencies let's also be realistic or if there's a separate division that gets

created as recommended by the city clerk they could be the coordinator who says okay it's our job like it's written here

in our job description we are supposed to call the you know the Health and Human Services Agency and we're supposed

to call the United Department of Elections and we're supposed to you know whatever like it's just it's like it's part of their Charter as a temporary

division to do such things you know maybe that could could help but that's in in reading everything that I've read

in their report in particular like that would be my reflection that's helpful thank you

so if if I recall correctly um when we heard uh from Angela calvio

the city clerk talked about uh the report and answered our questions I

think she was talking mostly about what happens after the um commission was established because

that was split between the Department of Elections and the city clerk's office and they were like internally trying to

hand things off and neither of them got a budget augmentation so they were both juggling

um you know limited funding and and existing staff they didn't have you know an augmentation

but I think we're talking about before right yeah but they still I think yes no

no I think that's right that's right there they were mostly commenting on that process because yeah no I think

you're right about that um and if the city is going to allocate funds to really establish and support it

would make some sense that that body also is involved or at least coordinates some of the pre-work as well you know

they don't have to but it could be a way to make sure it is coordinated and

resourced resourced most importantly so what happens at the state level is the state

auditor does all the pre-stuff and then once the first eight are chosen

and we choose the final six uh and we're seated as a body

then we're on our own that's what happened to us is that we became an independent agency and all of a sudden

we had to do everything ourselves we had to hire our own staff we had so I'm not recommending that at the local level uh

it was it was actually very difficult because we were the first commission and

there was like no blueprint for how to do it and you know

we didn't have money we didn't have staff I mean it was crazy but what I've seen um from some of these

other cities like Long Beach is that certain cities agencies are tasks to

support the commission once it's formed um

so in our case it was the Department of Elections and the city clerk primarily

and then the City attorney for legal advice whereas at the CRC we we had to hire our own general counsel we you know

we had to hire on staff and our own executive director and and we had to set up a whole new state agency which I

think is completely impractical at a local level right but I think um I do want to distinguish between the

pre you know the preparation proceeding versus once they've been seated and I

think for vetting and selection we're very much talking about who is a trusted agency or agencies

to you know build this large diverse pool that's represented of the city and

[Music] um apply the criteria

the both objective and subjective criteria uh in a transparent way that results in

selecting the 40 most qualified um so that everyone is confident oh they

did a good job they they picked 40 people and we're looking at these people in their backgrounds and

yeah we'd be comfortable with 14 of them you know coming up with our next District maps

that we think they could be fair we think that they understand the city we think they could interpret census data

and understand what it means to comply with the Voting Rights Act and right we

think that they pick good people that that's what I think we're we're scrappling with who should that be and

the whole reason that we've been struggling is we're not sure that we want it to be the ethics commission and part of that is because the ethics

commission itself is a politically appointed body I mean that is the question that came up we talked with them with our rdtf panel

they were like well who appoints them that it was the first question that they asked and like are they are they really

uh going to do a good job and would they be trusted um so

so I think this is difficult I don't feel like we need to provide an answer I think that this is one where we could

say we really careful consideration we really encourage you to get good you

know Community input in this process but I I feel like we could minimally

define characteristics right and we could maybe nominate some

possible candidates even if we don't have a strong opinion on which one it

actually is right like I think there's some obvious candidates for the Outreach and

recruitment piece of it and maybe some good candidates for the vetting and

selection uh but we could we could let the Board of Supervisors speak to the community

and get some get some input on that like should it be the

you know should it be the equivalent of the state auditor at the local level which I think would be the city

controller um you know some places it's the Registrar of Voters which would be the

Department of Elections um so I think we can

define characteristics and then suggest some candidates that may be acceptable

that they should vet that they should validate with um Community input yeah I mean I think

the community input is going to be essential yeah because I feel like we've like batted this one we're around a lot

and we haven't quite come to a strong conclusion I think it's a hard one to answer it's given

and given many factors yeah it's it's a difficult one to answer and so I think

our recommendation um should be like you said some of the criteria

that We Believe would be part of having a

vetting agency that would that we believe might potentially do a good job do a good job in that the

community would have confidence in but there must be Community input in that

choosing because I could see that being the thing that

rubs many people in the city the wrong way so it's we're grappling with it because

it's hard it's hard and the process that we have had but that's the nature of why

we need to change the process that we've had yeah and

that's the one thing that could just make it all go really really South

I think this is a huge kicker um I I you know I sort of recalled um in

the memo from the DCA about um the the city attorney's office about

ab1248 also listing as the controller as an option I I thought that was in there

but when I was reading the bill language I didn't see it as an option and so I don't know if that's there um and it doesn't we don't have to

whether or not 12 48 passes we don't have to choose anything we don't we don't have to choose it so regardless if

it passes or not um but there I think I agree

um that we need public input on this you know if there's some you know nobody's probably going to pull this but there's

probably not enough people who know and can do but but getting public input will be really important on what is the trusted agency

um and I think it's probably a good idea to find some characteristics you know that they're you know

as far as you can be in city government you know removed from political influence you know something that's nice about the controller's office is that it

is a 10-year job right it's like there's something about it that's like they're not waiting for like that's what happens

that's what you do whether if somebody doesn't like like that's just that's how the job works right and so and they're

not an elected official um but I think part of what the point you were making earlier that's really important commissioner Lucy is that you

have to adequately resource that agency whatever it is because

if we were to recommend going with the kind of the eight plus six process if it

has a qualification then random selection and all of that like that takes some time to do the vetting like

that is some time and I'm I would guess the controller's office would not be super happy to be hearing that they are

being would be recommended here but but when I try to think of offices that are generally trusted and

seem sort of neutral um that seems like a good one um and so I would want to at least put

that on the list of options to consider saying we wouldn't ask you to do that unless we also resourced your department

to do it because they can't do it with existing staff they have too much else to do we need them to do their jobs

um and perhaps they could be the coordinator of we have some other agencies we should partner with on

Outreach and you know because maybe that's not our you know skill set in the controller's office but I don't know if

it is there might be people who are but um anyway that that is I would suggest

that that's at least on the list of um possible selection bodies and we

should they should get public input on who that should be and defining even just two or three

characteristics of what that body should be so included trust you know perceived trust right

like the the public generally perceives them as a trustworthy body yeah um

the perception matter well that is what trust is it's perception so yeah trusted

um that so I I want to say something like it leverages um uh

infrastructure or skill sets that uh

the agency or body has in other words like this is

the reason why I I'm I really like this idea of splitting the Outreach piece from the

from the vetting and selection because I do think they're different skill sets so something like leverages existing skill

sets um I think would be good or leverages existing City resources

across agencies or something like something like that yeah um

and

and then I think we can provide a couple of examples that might work and you know

and suggest that that the that the board you know validate it so I think controller is one

of them I think I'm and I'm trying to think about characteristics as we think about examples that we think might work

so I think you know the Registrar of Voters has been stipulated and other other places

um so in in that case that would be the Department of Elections right and it

makes sense because our director is you know not elected uh he's not appointed

by an elected official he's appointed by an independent body the elections commission so he fits that category of

you know not being appointed by an elected official so I think the apartment elections is a

possibility and also they have you know a ton of experience with Outreach

right they're constantly trying to register people to vote and and they're

familiar with all these different communities so I think there's like a natural

um fit with skill set um

and then there's a the group that advises on Outreach is it called osea the the language assistance

[Music] yeah they're small

they're really small so they might be a consultant to one or the other

mm-hmm I think it needs to be a big

yeah I think it needs to be adequately resource I mean they should get an augmentation but I think it should be

already you know well resourced and that's one of the reasons that I'm not nominating us

I mean unless something radically changes for the elections commission no which is not going to happen it's a joke

right we're sitting here doing our own tech support I mean we're having to write our own minutes I mean that it's just not gonna it's not gonna work right

and I'll just name it like our commission is also working on building trust with the public so you know I

don't think it would be named necessarily yeah yeah so I mean for all those reasons we're not nominating

ourselves right and if we're making recommendations I don't

that's yeah no yeah so I think there are multiple reasons to not recommend ourselves right

but if you look at the list of options how do we feel about a civil grand jury

or a panel of judges I don't know I see lots of debate on

panel of Judges people who think that they might be political and people who know yeah I think I see debate on that one I don't have a strong opinion but

um I think a list that is that gives examples because I mean this is a hard

one and I don't think like you said I don't think we should try to answer that but I think a list of agencies

that have like you said the skill set and the resources are and the staff yeah

that's key what about um uh agencies that could run the vetting part so what happened in vetting

for at the state level was you know we've we've filled in these long applications which we would

probably make it less you know create fewer barriers right but whatever

the application process is they would have to look at the results of those applications right

um and then for the subjective criteria they would have to evaluate it somehow and for us it was a combination of

essays the actual in the actual application and interviews so who do you think could run that kind

of a process well don't we think I mean whoever is going to be doing the select like that is the the so if we're talking

about for instance the controller or the Department of Elections isn't that the body who's doing the vetting and selecting that's different from the

Outreach well I'm actually thinking I was thinking of the elections for outreach because that is oh I think I

think elections could do Outreach I agree with that um but for the vetting and selection it seemed like I thought that that's what

we were just um the list we were just coming up with was for relax vetting and selection

you know the Department of Elections might be good for that too I mean they hire tons of temporary elections workers

and have good processes generally generally are trusted you know as an agency yeah

so so I still I think they could could do it um

um

so some people have suggested the city clerk uh just because they run processes

I mean they do it for the Board of Supervisors so that is the that's the negative right they're doing it for the

right for the voter supervisors but the questions with this with the staff be trusted to run an impartial process

and and run it maybe I mean they could test you know the Board of Supervisors could test it out you know what do you all think of these yeah add their own if

they have others that they get input about and then I I just wanted to throw out one that was a little weird which is if

you look at Long Beach they have a very interesting selection body it's it's it's odd right

it's like somebody from a non-profit and something that's a law student I mean it's a very interesting yeah it's like a

panel of like kind of a representative panel who does it or something yeah yeah so I think something like that could

work I think that's a nice recommendation yeah like I could see

that the Board of Supervisors could it's interesting and I can imagine it's

called I mean I I haven't watched their presentation um but

I think what can get complicated is if you um if you stitch together people from different agencies there's not a natural

working rhythm in processes that exist within that group they would still have to get Staffing to do it because they

all have other jobs you know so there still is a staffing element to it and it processes all of them and they don't

they don't have a standard of how they work together and that's not necessarily a bad thing right you know but if they're involved somehow in the

reviewing if there was some you know but I wonder if if more appropriate for a body like that is helping to establish

the exact criteria for vetting and selection you know so that it's just you know kind of dispersed in that way but

um that would be my concern is like they just don't have systems and processes together as a body if it's like one person from each other but I feel like a

panel of Judges is the same thing yeah right yeah you would still need to staff them so a panel of anything I think

um that's not living within a single City agency would have that same issue yeah

for efficiency and transparency

uh an agency as commissioner Parker said

that it has a history of working on complex

issues is is really important yeah and I think that's one of the reasons

the controller comes off because you know they have to write the nonpartisan budget analysis and and city clerk and

you know all those things yeah suggestion yeah okay all right so trusted

um you know leverages existing skill set could maybe

um good at processes and systems something like that yep yep I like that and that's maybe that's a good enough

basic set yeah I think so um because really that's what we're defining is that they have to run a

process and run it well so they you know we're going to give them criteria they have to be able to vet these people

against this Criterion come up with a good process for it Okay so

so that's a agency selection authorities um we've already talked about the

pre-juring and post which is so they would have to follow that

basically they would have to be able to follow whatever that list is and what we found out is the one of the reasons they

picked the state auditor is that they do investigations and so they literally investigated all

of us like I mean I don't think all 30s well

actually for all 36 000 they had to check and see if we had actually voted it in the last and number of Elections

and if we were continuously registered so so they did that kind of surface vetting and they got it from 36 000 down

to 29 000. and then those 29 000 were invited to write the essays and do the

familial relationships and all that other stuff and then they had to check that and so uh so yeah they basically

investigated us so that's that's something to think about too invest best investigations or ability to

you know that's what vetting is right right um

okay ready to move yeah um before we move to the last area of

the the selection and um removal the removal is the last one I

hate to bring this up right here because I know you prefer to do public comment at the end of all this but given the

time I wonder if after this section we want to pause for a little public comment and then do another block of

public comment if we decide later but just because it's so late for people I just I wonder if we might do that yep

before we move on and I'll say I want to check in with both of you too on how late you want to go tonight because we

could break this up into another session so the downside is we have to find another date and find a room

so that's the downside but the upside is we could go home in a reasonable hour

um I wonder if um if I wanted to float that I mean I I actually I um I'm really

appreciative of the in-depth discussion I think we we've done this to some degree but to start to move towards what

might ultimately be recommendations is is really good to have the conversation and if we do this for all of them we're

going to be here really really late tonight yep um and so I wonder if maybe

um what's the next one after this um I mean we could we could stop after this winter stop after number four and

then pause and then find another time in a few weeks to continue um and that I think still fits in a

we'll still be waiting for information about AB football 48 and you know so I wonder if that's something we could do I

I think that might be a good idea because I think we've you know I was just sitting here thinking we've gone

through a tremendous amount of information and this is absolutely fantastic commissioner Parker thank you

so much um I do think we need to give the public some time to digest yeah

um I know we're all three busy but I'm more than happy to try and find some time in my schedule because there may be

questions that come up if we have another session about what

we've talked about what we've already talked about and after removal

we're going into we would be going into four which is redistrate line drawing

that's a whole nother so I I actually like the idea of splitting it of

splitting it and I also like the idea of allowing public comment because we we

have um and we've lost people we had seven and

now we're done four right so I think yeah I I still were in person yes yes

yes but I'm just I'm also I'm noticing that the majority of our participants

yeah um are on WebEx and I remember looking and say oh wow we have seven and now

we're down to four so I

you know I I I mean we welcome immediate reactions but we also want people to go

home and think about this exactly and maybe write some thoughts up uh and share that with us before the next

meeting so I'm willing to go ahead and see if we can find another room and another date

um you know before our next elections commission meeting is what the 19th 20th

the 20th before the 20th see if we can find another date and hopefully another room and try to get through the rest of

this so that we can at least forward a partial list and show the progress we've made because I do think we have

agreement on a lot of things and we we want to kind of maybe pipeline it a bit for the full body because they're going

to need to absorb it and discuss it and think about it and you know that we

don't want them to do it in one session either right so I think forwarding the ones that we have come to

agreement on and letting letting the rest of the commission ask us questions

and think about it and if they're comfortable with it moving it Forward knowing that we have many more to go

through still so that it can be done over several meetings instead of like having a

marathon session where it might be like drinking from a fire hose [Music]

then we could potentially just kind of think about after the holiday what our calendars are like

yeah I mean I think I think it's it'll be it would be good to let the commission you know whenever we can find

another time to meet and continue doing this um it's good give all for all the things

you all just said and whatever we move forward you know with the commission I think being able to share like we're

seeing some consensus here's where we're starting to gel a little bit we wanted to share our progress with you I'd

prefer not to get to recommendations because I really do I mean you all know this already like I really do prefer that we have the final 12 48 because I

think it implies it has an effect and I think being able to show here's where we're finding some consensus here's

where we're finding like there's just some rub and we probably aren't going to get to some consensus on but we might have recommendation on characteristics

like just sharing that General here's where we are right without formal recommendations even if there's only a

few I I prefer not to get to formal recommendations just sharing like here's where we are generally on these issues

like a short report on that I think could be very useful to them again to process it yeah yeah so yeah and I um

and we have a little more time now which I think is great so um so yeah I I think we don't want to go

too late tonight let us get through this next session and and we'll stop for public comment and let's plan on another

date and I'll see if I can find a room okay okay all right so we'll see if the

screen advances on the WebEx it's really slow I have noticed

um so we're on to removal maybe you'll get there

um there it is there we go all right so this is maybe the shortest

slide um on this section and this is uh this is this quote is from a report a

few years ago from the League of Women Voters um the the bigger organization not just

here in San Francisco um it says in addition to ethical rules of conduct States should have clearly

defined removal procedures for commissioner misconduct these procedures should spell out the process through

which Commissioners found to have violated ethics rules can be removed and replaced that's just one reason right like that's just a thing about removal

so um the questions here to consider are what actions should constitute possible

removal often the things that you see written in different bodies or reports

is neglective Duty so maybe they just aren't showing up they're not doing their job right

um gross misconduct well let's gross misconduct um or inability to discharge um duties

so something happens right people get sick something happens with their family they just need to step out

um so there there are many reasons why people leave um and then the question a second question

is should removal of members occur at the pleasure of this the appointing or selecting Authority or by the task force

itself and of course the at the pleasure idea is is pretty aligned with political appointments which best practices have

been guiding us all to move away from um and then and then I just added sort

of a a statement you know this was not a question but pre-vetted and qualified alternates

um should be in place and ready to replace should that kind of situation arise

um and then the the chart also simple here in current San

Francisco law the pleasure of the appointing authority um the ab1248 recommend or has the same

thing written as this the California state commission has but it also adds

inability to discharge duties as an option um the the state commission has neglect

of Duty or gross misconduct um uh or of course the disqualifying information that they find out in that

initial vetting process but the ab1248 ads inability to discharge duties and

then in 1248 if someone is removed they are replaced by one of the alternates chosen by the body

um there's no recommendation on this for fair Maps or the promise Fair maps

report or by Our Last redistricting task force here in the city um and then I already read what the

state redistricting commission says which is removal is only possible due to neglect of Duty or Christmas contract

gross misconduct or disqualifying information and they must be replaced with an alternate from the finalist pool

so that that group that final group of their 60 24 could be removed by your legislators and kind of vetoed right and

then that remaining group and then there's 14 chosen from that group and whoever's left like that's who they get to choose from

um as an uh that's the finalist pool who they choose the replacement from which I'm sure we should I could talk about

um because they did have to go through that and I want to also point out that the the state commission itself is

empowered to do the replacement it's not the auditor who did the initial selection process it is the commission

itself who's empowered to replace the um the commissioner who has been removed

because they just couldn't do the job or because they did some stuff that was really bad um because the commission is independent

so would we want to consider something like that because we are looking at an independent task force here would we

want to also consider that the task force should decide that there is some issue that needs to be solved you know

not whoever does the selecting process and that's open it up for discussion I

like the um

date as well as the pending legislation which

is added that if something I mean you you have to give people the opportunity if

they find because sometimes you sign up for things and then you realize oh my

God I actually can't do this and and I I think to to require someone who finds

themselves in that situation to stay on would just be unfair um

so um but I do think perhaps within a certain

amount of time I don't I mean if you've if you just select yourself that you say

this is not possible for me um yeah I mean I I think that people need to have the ability to to resign

for that reason and that's what happened uh it happened actually right at the beginning

uh and the commissioner who stepped down who was one of the randomly selected

ones said she realized she had a commitment that was coming up uh that would be right in

the middle of our line drawing the most intense period and she decided it would be irresponsible for her to stay on and

that it was better for her to step off before you know we started getting into it rather than to step off in in June

like after we published the draft Maps or something like that so uh so I thought it was very

responsible of her and I don't think we ever found out what the reason was but I have a feeling I think that's okay yeah

you didn't we didn't know what it was and we didn't need to know um we speculated what it might be given

that it was like a timing in the future so we could we could kind of guess what the reasons might be uh but I think the

most important thing is that we were empowered as an independent agency and commission to make that decision on how

to replace her and who to replace her with uh potential and

if we had alternates then we would have just been able to say oh it's one of the alternates but because we didn't have

alternates all of us had to read 28 applications and that's go through the

the 90-minute interviews you know it was actually a lot of work

um to uh review all the remaining finalists in the pool uh and then you know and then

we had to agree on it uh with a super majority vote uh you know who who it should be

um so so that's why I'm still really big fan of alternates so that work is done

by the vetting and selection agency that we have the hot standbys ready to go

and then whether you know we have two and whether the whether the IRC flips a

coin or has a debate and chooses one versus the other I think it's up to them

because the whole idea of course those those guys are qualified they've already

been vetted and they've been watching and participating in the work even though

they haven't been voting so it's just a matter of picking one of them so uh so to me I think this is very

straightforward I think the reasons are appropriate neglect gross misconduct or

um inability to discharge Duty and then disqualifying info so in other words if something comes up afterwards it's

basically like fraud right if you if you certify that you know you know that none of your direct family

members were X Y and Z and then they find out after the fact you have some yeah that's you know

brother that you didn't talk about um that you didn't actually qualify yeah then you that's you should be removed

because then you should not have qualified in the first place so that to me makes sense that's essentially like fraud

um and you know I will mention that this situation did

come up in discussion with a couple of us on the CRC uh about a particular

commissioner and ultimately we've declined to do it because it would

have been so disruptive to have to replace someone so I think

the power of having alternates is that if you really think that a person is problematic on

the commission that you actually feel confident you can actually do something about it right whereas we were

like oh my God if we do this it will be so disruptive and can we just live with

this person I mean that's that's why I'm such a big fan of alternates

makes sense in some ways alternates should have been part of the removal slide right because I think it's a big

case for like things come up you know even to your question commissioner levisi about well should there be a

timeline you know time frame when people I think that's what you're asking you know when people would

um say they're unable to fulfill their duties someone might get have a serious

health issue you know in the middle and like you can't predict something like that right you know

um that you have to suddenly take care of and of course that's going to be your priority and you never can predict those

things you don't know when it's going to come up and so and they may very well just resign and so there's not a removal

or just you know the committee you know the voting to do anything but they may resign and so that is again for me the

case of having alternates is for those unexpected circumstances but also if there is something you find out that

like this is very problematic um that the the committee itself is empowered I do like the idea that the

committee then truly is into attendant you know and they get to decide they get to decide they're doing the work as long

as we have alternates I think that helps them to not have to go through a million applications but you have alternates and then Empower them to

um to replace um to determine if there has been an alternates give it gives everyone on the

commission the sense of relief if something happens because you said that there was this constant worry and so to

know that if something comes up and I can't

fulfill my commitment it's it's not going to be burdensome to the entire right project because the job is not to

vet candidates for the job is to is to do the work do the work and draw the lines

yeah and draw the map so um I think it would be really important to have alternates and

um I I like so far I you know I I think you know

gross misconduct Express misconduct fraud is fraud um and the personal ability to say I

can't do this anymore yes of you know whatever reason and we don't have to know what it is

okay I think there's good agreement on that so it's a good stopping point sure

I think so okay um we got through a lot and there's still a lot to get through but I think

we got through the most important category because I think this is the whole thing that's hanging us up is this political appointment process and so

um and there are still meaty you know ahead of us I just want to know you know I mean there's the line drawing criteria

which I I don't know I mean there I think there is some you know definitely some discussion there but um also

commission processes I think there's a lot of substance in that as well oh yeah so I just wanna

we do have some pretty substantial um topics to cover next time yes all

right well with that um why don't we open it up for public comment and

um like I said we we know that this is a lot but some quick reactions

um as well as any topics you'd like to learn about or feel like you'd like to

bring to our attention three minutes max okay thank you Alan burdell um

it's just one thing first of all under current law for the s San Francisco redistricting task force the removal uh

of them uh this slide said it's at the pleasure of the appointed Authority just make a footnote

on that make a footnote and say where that information is coming from what you're referencing because there's a lot

of dispute around that claim um and then the other thing is we just

heard and I hope you guys will play this back play back the tape play it back soon

because we we heard uh commissioner lavosi just talk and say uh you know

there should be Community input around the betting and selection um and distinguishing that between the

other 90 that's been generally agreed upon according to uh commissioner die

where in May you uh made the closing arguments to your fellow Commissioners

at that meeting as they were preparing to vote to authorize this committee three times you made the point that the

uh 90 of uh of this issue is generally

agreed upon but we have to hash out that final 10 percent so

are we to know that 90 of this has been sort of agreed to and and worked out

uh and then just the 10 needs to go to be

discussed at the Board of Supervisors so why does 90 why can't the public

Community input why can't the public have input on the other 90 and Parker

just said the same thing um getting public input is important to finalize in The Trusted agencies so

enough of that final thing elections commission has lost public trust so it might not be a

good selecting agency well let that comment sink in for a minute because you're asking us through 1248

to have a agency like this commission let this commission be a selection

agency at the moment this agency has lost public trust well what are we

supposed to do when we've selected through a charter amendment to have a

agency like maybe the ethics commission or the Planning Commission or some other commission that might get roiled and uh

bad publicity and loss of public trust well we're stuck with them but we can get rid of a mayor we can get rid of a

Board of Supervisors that is the main reason why I'm here opposing this it is

the heart of the reason why I'm opposing 1248 but I'm also opposing the process

the elections commission has no right to be here in doing this and I'll expand on that later but thank you

thank you Mr verdell let us see if we have any public

commenters online

okay

Mr Arden you are unmuted hi yes thanks this is Lauren gerardin

with the League of Women Voters of San Francisco thank you for taking this time

and apparently the time at a future meeting as well I agree it's getting late to talk about all of these details

um you're being incredibly thorough I I don't think that you're skipping 90 I

would that that's I think that's a misunderstanding of a previous conversation

um and I understand where that comes from because you know this is It's hard to know all of the complexities but the

six main areas that you you've outlined really do cover the the bulk of what

will need to be considered um should San Francisco decide to take up a charter Amendment for redistricting

reform um so far I don't think you'd miss any significant or meaningful points I think

this has been very well thought through thank you for making it very organized I

do understand the challenge of getting this information down to a concise little bit it's kind of impossible

um and and uh I at some point I will share things that we have written that are

much longer um so I I think this is great um and I think you know giving the

public time to take a little time and think um about what they've heard tonight is

is a really great public opportunity not everyone can be here at a meeting tonight and giving people the time to listen to

the recording write up their comments to you email them to you so you can spend the time to listen to them it's hard to

explain everything we might think about these issues in three minutes I am not even going to try to attempt to uh to

talk about all of the things that you've talked about tonight but I really recommend to anyone else listening out

there that uh you write to this committee and you tell them what they think and that's a great way to share your public comment thank you very much

thank you Mr Arden any other

comments I seeing none I'm going to go ahead and

close public comment for this item and we are on to uh

returns onto our next topic which is uh items

for the next meeting which I think is obvious we will try to get through the rest

we'll try to get through the rest of this deck um I wonder um chair die if just thinking about I

mean we can talk about structure when we're setting the agenda but um I wonder if it would be useful to split

it up um so that we just say just to refresh it we're not going to Hash through the

whole deck but like we covered these topic areas if you have some comment based on watching the last one on those

three big topic areas now is the public comment time so they can just process share and then we can move on to the

next true great idea I wonder if we might consider doing at least that I mean these are so substantive I wonder

if even blocking them into two and then I mean you already know my feelings yes I do I do and I'm hoping because

um just because I knew this was going to take a long time but I was actually skeptical we would get through all of it

tonight that that I think is why requesting that people think about it and actually write

it up because there is so much I think I actually doubt people will be able to get through it in three minutes and so

uh if they want to come and present to us that's great but um I think writing down their thoughts

and and posting it for us to post it as written public comments would not only

be more valuable to us so that we can you know kind of refer to it uh rather than just trying to catch everything in

a three-minute you know verbal comment um and they can highlight a few things if they want verbally but I actually

think for this kind of a thing written public comment is going to be more valuable much for for us to for us to

take that in but yeah I I think that's fine I I mostly wanted to give people time after this meeting to think about

it and for people who didn't attend the meeting to watch the video before we take public comment because

otherwise there's only one chance right totally I I agree with all of that I wonder I I do think that it gives allows

people more freedom to write do written public comment and I really really encourage people to do that and I'm

wondering if there's just some way because one of the benefits of the verbal public comment is that other people get to hear it they can watch the

recording they can hear it and when people send us emails there's not an easy way for them to see what people are

sharing with us and I think that's part of the like important transparency of this process and so I I'm wondering if

we can think about if there are ways if we receive public comment by whatever time we'll just attach it to a

subsection of our agenda of like we received you know 10 emails or 20 emails ahead of time just because I think

including the public in this conversation is so important um so how can we accommodate both making

sure the public hears the public comment right not only us we do need to hear it like that's why they're giving it to us

but I think they also share it sometimes to the public is hearing what they're thinking so I wonder if there's a way we

can think through getting written public comment in the agenda for things received with uh with President Stone

and see what we can do but yeah let's see what we get um so we will try to get through the rest

of this deck and see where we are on that and uh

the main thing is we'll need to find some dates so we can do that offline and I will need to try to find a room so we

can do that offline as well and why don't we take public comment on item

five and see if anyone has a different idea on how we should spend our next

meeting uh just checking to see uh if there's anyone on

the line who has a public comment

seeing none I'm going to close public comment for item five and this meeting is

adjourned at 9 13. thank you both for hanging in there and

thank you for our members of the public for joining us