okay we set we set okay welcome everyone to the Thursday December 7th 2023 meeting special meeting of the budget and oversight of public elections Committee of the San Francisco elections commission the time is now 6:37 p.m.
so to um let's start off with our our introductory script um and it's been a while since I've done this uh secretary Davis do you begin or roll call First okay commissioner Jon here commissioner haon Crowley here and commissioner m here is
here okay thank
you now for the
land okay I guess I'm wondering do we need to say the um you know the minutes of this meeting will reflect that that whole um statement there I think it's okay we just follow our agenda and we would do okay um commissioner L would you like to say the Land Management to start the meeting the San Francisco elections commission acknowledges that we are on the unseated ancestral homeland of the ramush alone who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula as the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their Traditions the RAM shalone have never seated it lost nor forgotten their responsibilities as take caretakers of this place as well as for All Peoples who reside in this Trad 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 ramitos community and affirming their Sovereign rights as first people okay thank you commissioner lolski so I want to announced that because we do not have any agenda items that relate directly to the department I have excused the director from attending today's meeting and that's allowed by the our bylaws okay so let's move on to agenda item number two general public comment public comment on any issue within BC's General jurisdiction that is not covered by another item on this agenda okay we don't have any comments in the room secretary Davis is there anyone online there's no one online okay thank you so let's move on to agenda item number three approval of minutes of the previous meetings discussion and possible action to approve minutes for the April 10th 2023 BC meeting okay for this item I I made the mistake of not um preparing the minutes before I posted the agenda because um at the last meeting we had actually prepared two two draft minutes but we didn't review them at that meeting so unfortunately um we can't review those minutes but we do have minutes for the last meeting and um these were posted very late but it's relatively short so I thought I would just give give each of you um as much time as you need to just review what's there it's just um you know two two pages two sides of two pages
can you added
that
not a line for some reason
sorry
while um commissioner loli is is getting um connected to the internet I'll just want to make the point that the um the texts for the Motions that we adopted at that meeting are are copied from the um the committee report that we presented to the commission um at the commission meeting after the boek meeting so so I think that at least those parts we've all seen before
okay
okay
okay okay so
um uh Commissioners does anyone have any comments or questions on the on the draft minutes okay let's open it up to public comment on this item seeing no one in the room commissioner or secretary Davis there
are okay then let's um uh do we have a a motion to approve the minutes motion approve the minutes okay um secretary Davis can you take the role okay um commissioner Hayden crowy yes commissioner J yes commissioner La yes unanimous motion appr April okay great so and then we'll make a note to um return to the other two minutes at the next meeting and though I will not be here at that meeting okay um agenda item number four proposed commission policy regarding right writing a letter to the appointing authority when a commission vacancy occurs discussion and possible action regarding a proposed raal Equity related commission policy for the commission to write a letter to the relevant appointing authority in the event of future commission vacancies to help ensure the commission is as diverse and broadly representative as possible okay this is an item that um something that we have actually done um multiple times in the past but we've never had a formal template that was adopted by the commission and I know um president Stone has an interest in in formalizing certain things to make it easier for us to kind of you know just do things as we're going along and um this uh the so what I did was I prepared a a template letter that's basically matches what we had previously sent and I just highlighted the parts that would need to be changed whenever there's a a vacancy so um Commissioners have each of you had a chance to review this letter M and are there any uh suggestions on it or tweaks or or does it look okay to to
you I just have one comment in in the sentence in choosing your appointee we urge you to consider the diversity of San Francisco and help sure ensure that the commission is as broadly representative of the population I would just like to say could we think about we urge you
to consider that the commission reflect the diversity of San Francisco to help ensure just a small tweak yeah sure I mean I'm very open to whatever wording um is here it's I think it was just what we had had previously but do you want to just restate the the proposed working so in choosing your appoin to we urge you to
consider the to reflect the diversity of San Francisco so in other words we want the commission to reflect the diversity that lives in San Francisco how about what about if it's um we you kind of merge it with the second part we urge you to help ensure that the divers you have or the commission matches that it's something yeah do you want to I just that yeah did when do you
need do you want to or right now right now oh
okay I just think that it's it's important to to say that you would like to reflect the diversity of the city and not we urge you to consider the diversity of San Francisco but more of you want s the commission to reflect what the diversity is of San Francisco and represent more um so how about if I make a proposal what if it says in choosing your appointee we urge you to skip the first part and say help sure that the commission reflects the diversity of San Francisco and is as broadly representative of the population as possible I like that okay okay um commissioner Hayden Crowley would that adjusted language be okay with you okay so would someone like to make a motion that we adopt the um this letter template um or I should say recommend to the full commission that the commission uses this as a template going forward I we do it okay we have a motion second we adopt the template a second okay and we have a second from commissioner laly so um let's take public comment on this item secretary Davis are no comment okay and seeing no one in the room and can you take a roll call vote on this motion commiss
yes yes yes okay great the motion passes unanimously so let's move on to agenda item number five process to conduct future annual performance evaluations of the director of
Elections this is for discussion Poss action okay for this item what I did was I basically took where we left off at the last BC meeting we had we had voted to um you know start the process earlier basically um in June to finish in July and then we also at that meeting expressed his desire to have a like like a checklist or timeline of what we need to do leading up to that and you know working backwards as early as March so um what I did was I I took the process that we had the commission had adopted before and I kind of modified that to match what we had um talked about at bopc and I also Incorporated a few things that you know ideas I heard mentioned um by Commissioners during various
meetings so um I I thought the way we could structure this discussion is first let's start out or actually
um actually my apologies I actually want to change the order of of the um the agenda items I want to I actually want to talk about agenda item number six first and I'll tell you why it's because agenda item number six is going to be a little bit simpler and I think it number five will be a little bit easier if we if we do number six first so um I'm going to switch to agenda item number six process to conduct future annual performance evaluations of the commission
secretary okay so this item is an item that President Stone had requested that we we discussed today and at least as long as I've been on the commission I don't think the commission has ever done an evaluation of the secretary so I prepared a um a draft process for evaluating the secretary and not sure I see it here here it is yeah so so this this is basically um a simplified version of what we're using for the the director and I thought we could um approach this discussion in two parts let's first we could talk about the the timeline of steps and then after that we could talk about the the actual questions in the evaluation forms so um let me just kind of review the um the steps at a high level um I thought well for the director we talked about doing that in June July for the secretary because um the president serves from January to December it might make sense to do the the secretary evaluation around December because that's then you'd have a Year's worth of the president who had overseen that secretary and um and then two months before that meeting the um the president will ask the secretary to complete their self- evaluation and then that way for the following month the commission will be able to receive that self- evaluation and then the commission would have a month to do its evaluation of the secretary and have that ready for the December meeting and then so at that December meeting the commission will have the secretary self evaluation and all the commissioner's evaluations and then they could you know discuss that and then after they agree on a on a combined evaluation um the process would basically be done so I want to give um each of you you know as much time as you need to just review the steps and um once you've had enough time let me me know and we can just talk about if anyone wants to make any tweaks to the
steps
o
looks good Mr hden Crowley uh I would just um uh suggest um that uh you that these evaluations the final one is filed with both the director of elections um as well as the um DHR you speak oh I'm sorry I would just suggest that Mo this closer okay I I would just suggest for um any evaluations that we do whether it's secretary or director of Elections or anything else that we are final evaluations be filed with the department whether that's the director of election are their HR person because a lot of departments have an HR person and also with DHR DHR should have a file okay sounds good would do you want to suggest the wording or just more just general okay and then what about the DCA you think we should include that as well
or I'd ask the DCA um but yeah and and also anything like this where has the DCA looked at it um no but I think we could in our part of our motion we could say pending the DC everything yeah I mean this is not going to be final anyways until the commission approves it yeah so um so after the commission approves it then it should the DCA should see it well I mean is it necessary for them to see the evaluation of the secretary no I'm not talking about that I actually I I I don't know if the DCA needs to see the evaluation secretary I only think that the DCA needs to approve the process oh the process got it the process um because um the secretary could tell us this but she's probably a member of a bargaining unit and so there may be some issues around that so we need to be respectful of that good point yes so um I think what we could do is we could you know a motion might be we could recommend this to the commission for approval provided that the you know DCA is you know subject to approval yeah subject to approval by the
DCA so um yeah so so this process will only become formal once the commission approves it and I think the DCA could review it before that of course um are there any other did you have any suggestions uh no it looks good okay um Okay so we've got that suggestion this is good suggestion let's turn it over to just review the the form and for this one and this is really just something I I took a crack at myself um I thought the questions the self- evaluation form questions could be a little bit different from the questions that the um the Commissioners would let me just say a few notes about this because the president's um role in with the secretary is very different from the commission I thought that their questions could be a little bit different because they're interacting you know day-to-day whereas Commissioners are just you know interacting much less frequently and um so I thought it would be good for the president to say um what what they've been prioritizing with the secretary and that way that the commission the rest of the commission will have a better understanding of what the secretary is being asked to do and then um so the and then beyond that the questions are basically you know sharing how how people um you know feel that the secretary has been doing on different aspects as far as the uh self evaluation it's um you know similar that the secretary could share um you know how they're spending their time you know what they feel like they've been doing well and what how they can improve and then also a couple questions there giving the secretary an opportunity to to um you know say what challenges they've been having or any um you know thoughts or or suggestions they have so let I'll let um again just let you have time to look this over and once you had enough time just let me
know
for
for
e
finished okay so does anyone have any comments or suggestions on the on the evaluation from
questions no I think it looks good okay okay great um so then let's let's um open this up to public comment president or secretary Davis okay would someone like to make a motion that we we um recommend this to approval or for you know recommend this to the full commission pending approval of the DCA a motion that we um recommend list for approval to um the full
commission I'm sorry what you're not sure if we do I said I motion oh okay that we present this to the full commission for approval yeah with the recommendation with a recommendation yeah from the DC from the DCA or well provided the DCA approves provided that the DCA approves okay legally because I think the DCA could have two weeks yeah and then would that come back to us um no I think probably when it I mean it could be it could but I mean if there are no changes it probably just go directly to the commission I think okay I'll second it okay great um so since we've already discussed this um secretary Davis would you take the roll call vote on the
motion yes commissioner
yesion
yes okay great motion passed unanimously moving right along so um and also because we have a meeting next Tuesday there will be time for um for discussion well we'll have time to report to the commission what we decided on today okay and I'll put it in writing with with the changes that we talked about maybe you could get the DCA to review well if she has time sometime some things some things take longer yeah you gota put that I I'll I'll I'll at least send them to her so she could start
you um great so let's move on to um back to item number five discuss or process to conduct future evaluation performance process to conduct future annual performance evaluations of the director of Elections okay so this um so this process is similar to the one we just discussed for the SEC the proposed process is similar to what we just discussed for the secretary but it has a few different additions to it because um you know it's it's a more involved process well most most importantly the time is different it starts
um July well we we can discuss that but yeah it State States here that we're going to have the discussion in July and then um there's some more steps in ADV you know before more steps than went into the secretaries evaluation process so I have here that three months before the meeting we'd kind of a meeting where we just finalize any details and this would give us an opportunity to decide if we want to do anything like extra you know we've talked about you know requesting certain information about you know you know turnover in the in the department um actually I did want to maybe include a change in here I know commissioner L you had you you had emphasize that we should probably focus on the the non-temporary employees for that we also Al talked at the last bck meeting about doing an anonymous survey um do we want to have the previous performance evaluations access to those while we're doing the evaluation and in the past and I just included this as an option we've we've invited Department employees into the close session to get like another perspective which we stop doing I ask a question
um when employees were brought brought in was it h how was that conducted like what was the process um like leading up to it or the actual like how did was there an announcement that any employee could come yeah I think what happened is the I think the president selected one or two employees to come and I'm not sure if they maybe like randomly picked among the the different division heads or maybe they asked the department for suggestions and then um so it wasn't and then the president would reach out to them individually and ask them if they would be open to it so no one was forced to do it okay just curious I just wanted to get a sense and so so that would that would be the kind of thing okay this timeline would give us an opportunity to talk about extra stuff um you know maybe we want to give ourselves more than three months in advance I know one of you mentioned maybe or both of you mentioned we might want to start in March how long did the last one take took a while it seems like it just took forever yeah I I have a question about employees coming in is it depart is it department heads or like because it's one thing to have people who directly report
to the director yeah as opposed to people who don't have that much direct contact so is it possible to focus on on departments like the director of of voter services or you know yeah yeah in the past we we would always choose one of the division heads okay yeah and we could we could even write this here I think you should yeah I think it should be yeah and again this is this would be like one of the optional things wouldn't be required um
so and then one of the other oh and actually I think we actually discussed doing starting the actual evaluation discussion in June to finish in July so we might want to make that edit here but um yeah but at the last BC meeting we had talked about maybe starting preparing in like even earlier like in March oh I think you would have to yeah I mean because you're looking at doing a lot of stuff here and I think you were talking about doing about dedicating one meeting to it for the preparation or no for the evaluation evaluation well yeah I mean at the least I think yeah yeah but yeah like have no other agenda items oh I see well we could put that in there yeah we could put that in there but I think you know if you were to do this I think yeah I think you need a timeline what you want to accomplish with each meeting and back it out yeah well this this this timeline does do that it's um it doesn't it doesn't have the thing about that the evaluation should be completed in one meeting but we could we could write that if you want to well I think that they have all the the feedback from and feedback from the Commissioners and we a decision yes in that meeting and then I guess the followup would be whoever the president is putting it all together but the idea would be that you'd have get all the feedback I think in June with the president then having it in July does that make
sense so yeah because you just don't want it to go past a certain point you really don't because you just don't well we could we could put in here that it should be finished by July but are you suggesting that there would be two meetings like in June that commission would no discuss I'm suggesting that in June the meeting would just be dedicated to evaluating the um the director but and no other agenda items shocking I know but right well I meant I was I was more talking about like if you're saying the president would prepare the evaluation like based on everyone's yeah without having a discussion as a group no everybody would discuss it in June and then or you saying and then we would discuss it again after she's after she has after they have put something together so we need another we need another meeting to discuss what we discussed well I was or the evalu the written evaluation well I was thinking if the if the president were to synthesize an evaluation we'd all have to agree to it would you want to review that yeah because you would want to make sure that a bias isn't reflected right yeah so so I don't so maybe May is when we all start we all come together and and uh discuss it and then and then the president goes back and brings brings the May would be the meeting then that we would dedicate to evaluating the director June would be an agenda item where the president presents her or their evalua their synthesization is that a work synthesized form yeah something um and we would vote on it and then there might be tweaks right I do like the idea of having one meeting that's that's dedicated to this where it's the single agenda item so that we can really spend a a you know enough time really getting it done and making sure it gets done yeah because it just went on and on because it it went and I I think it was unfair to the director yeah and unfair to you know the the whole department the agenda I mean just gone on that yeah we can certainly yeah we can certainly but we can have the certain things that have to get done before then kind of backed out and checked off at as like an agenda item at each meeting meeting yeah yeah and that probably would start in March because you're probably looking at like okay March we'll get the forms out to everybody or what or I mean not to the direct you know you know what I'm saying all the things that you've added yeah I mean if we wanted to do like the anonymous surveys that could take you know a few months to even organize that well it depends on the technology I mean if you you know there are a lot of um online forums that you know synthesize the information it's very easy to look at I think if we if we use the appropriate technology um and you send out the surveys to all employees and specify a certain period of time um like for my head of school there's a survey that the Board of Trustees sends out to every employee with VAR with questions and you you answer the questions they use a lerc scale and then there's space for comments and and you're done and there's a specified period of time for you to complete it if you don't complete it you know right yeah okay
um okay and then that sounds good so and then also just to just to just double check on this I added a number six where we haven't really done this in the past but you know give the director an opportunity to um okay you know speak the Commission in close session with the commission that's something that if they wanted to share anything privately would this be prior to the evaluation uh this would be in that that big meeting I think of the the one meeting that we're dedic okay I like that idea fine okay you might want to bring their mea
rep yeah yeah I don't think we need to include that but yeah yeah um good I just say again um this has to be subject to right the um this DCA and um he is in a bargaining unit he is he is Mea and um I also I did have a conversation with DHR about the 360 and the gal said um they do do that but but there's a cost and of course yeah uh yeah with with so that's just one thing I would just say with all of this we just have to be mindful because right now all of the departments were asked to cut 3% and then addition I know I know of another department head today said they were asked to cut 3% and then got a phone call today asked to cut another 10% so yeah so thank you for that reminder commissioner Hayden Crowley that that we have to be mindful of the budget um I have a question like even though you know we may not be able to afford it you know the next time we evaluation done would you like to add like 360 review as under number two as another possible when when budget allows what budget allows yeah okay so it's called 360 review and then say when I've never done it I'm yeah I'm pretty sure that's what it's called commissioner laaly is way more uh well versed in this kind of thing I'm a okay okay it sounds good so um so so far the suggestions I've heard are to um we would have a a dedicated meeting in May then and then in June we would review the synthesis and then for the the preps we would work backwards from may just update those months and then we would um [Music] also
um and then add the 360 review as an F letter f as a possibility is there anything else on the timeline people ahead okay let's let's turn over to the forms so this case is a little bit easier it's the self- evaluation form has the same questions as the form that the commission would fill out and for this all I did was I took the existing questions that we have been using for the past several years and I um I copied them over but what I did differently and this is based on some feedback I've heard from other Commissioners is divided into two groups like one is operations and the other is policy policies and under operations there would be like an overall r rating on the operations and then for policies we would basically list the the commission's current policy priorities that we choose each year and then for each of those policies the commission would evaluate you know the director um so we kind of separate before there's kind of a tension like how important are the policies versus the operation now we just kind of keep them separate and then um and then there's a third category called overall where just it's sort of more free form you know overall assessment vares for improvement so does anyone have any is that okay with people or did anyone have any tweaks on that oh I like I like this format okay great great I think it's helpful to have that policy part um separate and then look at the operations because those are important those are important pieces okay yeah I think that may have been coming from commissioner Parker at one of the meetings I think so yeah um commissioner Hayden kley did you have anything on this or no I I've said my what I think okay well great great this is um moving along um okay so it's amazing what happens when there's only three of
us um so secretary Davis would you take a public comment on this item see if we have any commenters have no comment okay and there's no one in the room all right so would someone like to um make the motion on this one let um I move that we um uh recommend the evaluation process with the changes that um we discussed pending the dca's review great second okay so seconded by commissioner Loli and since we have no further discussion secretary Davis could you take the roll call
Vote
yesion Yes Yes okay so the motion passes unanimously
all right wow that was that was fast so let's move on to the next item adjournment the time is now 7:21 p.m and have a wonderful evening everyone the meeting is aded and what
he yeah that's another story do you want to adjourn the meeting with the gavl oh sure
