Elections Commission Regular Meeting

1. Call to Order & Roll Call

welcome everyone to the October 19th 2022 regular meeting of the San

Francisco elections commission I'm the president Chris jordanick the time is now 604 pm and I call the meeting to

order this meeting is being held in person at City Hall Room 408 one Dr Carlton be

good that place San Francisco California as authorized by California government code section

54953e and mayor breed's 45th supplement to her February 25th 2020 emergency

Proclamation it is possible that some members of the elections commission may attend this meeting remotely in that

event those members will participate in info by video remember the public May attend the

meeting to observe and provide public comment at the physical meeting location listed above or online instructions for

providing public comment are on the agenda in addition to participating in real time interested

participants and writing Facebook

meeting

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thank you thank you president jordanick the minutes the minutes of this meeting will

reflect that this meeting is being held in person at City Hall Room 408 one Dr

Carlton B Goodlett Place San Francisco California 94102

it is possible that some members of the elections commission may attend this meeting remotely

in addition to to participating in real time interested persons are encouraged

to participate in this meeting by submitting comment and writing by 12 pm

on October 19 2022 to martha.dogadillo at SF

gov.org it will be shared with the commission after this message after this

meeting has concluded and will be included as part of the official meeting file

public comment will be available on each item on this agenda each member of the public will be allowed three minutes to

speak comments or opportunities to speak during the public comment period are available via phone by calling

415-655-0001 again the phone number is

415-655-0001 access code is

2496-995-5133 again 2496-995-5133

followed by the pound sign and then press pound again to join as an attendee you will hear a beep when you are

connected to the meeting you will be automatically muted and in listening mode only when your item of Interest

comes up dial Star three to raise your hand to be added to the public comment line you will then hear you have raised

your hand to ask a question please wait until the host calls on you the line will be silent as you wait your

turn to speak ensure you are in a quiet location that

um can you hear me can anybody hear me Lucy

[Music] okay candy can you hear me now in the public

oh Lucy can um

so much I do the Hat

I'm sorry which microphone is being used for

um oh it's this one it's always this one

they still can't hear me um oh they couldn't hear you okay

now okay

okay thank you I'm sorry about that I'm sorry to the public um I I don't really cat couldn't tell

you what the solution was but I hit everything on the panel um so

when your item of Interest comes up dial Star three to raise your hand to be

added to the public comment line you will then hear you have raised your hand to ask a question please wait until the

host calls on you the line will be silent as you wait your turn to speak ensure you are in a quiet location

before you speak mute the sound of any equipment around you including television radio or computer it is

especially important that you mute your computer if you are watching via the web link to prevent feedback and Echo when

you speak when the system message message says your line has been unmuted

this is your turn to speak you are encouraged to state your name clearly as soon as you begin speaking you will have

three minutes to provide your public comment six minutes if you have an interpreter you will hear a bell go off

when you have 30 seconds remaining if you change your mind and wish to withdraw yourself from the public

comment line press star three again you will hear the system say you have lowered your hand when a phone is not

available you can use your computer web browser make sure the participant's side panel is showing by clicking the

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indicated indicator in the panel you should see a list of panelists followed

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hand icon to raise your hand you will be unmuted when you when your when your

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comment click the hand icon again to lower your hand once your three minutes have expired

Steph will thank you and you will be muted you will hear your line has been muted public comment instructions are

also available on page six of this agenda thank you commission president Jordan

okay president jordanick vice president Stone

commissioner burn holes here commissioner die and commissioner levolsey

and commissioner is it Hayden Crowley Hayden Crowley

thank you with six in in attendance we meet quorum

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okay so let's move on to um item number

comment on any issue within the elections commissions General jurisdiction that is not covered by

Technical Difficulties

so I'm still hearing that someone had all of the Commissioners voices are

terrible and that's true that's what I'm hearing also

all I have all the needs all the microphones on what were you suggesting I'm sorry that

didn't turn off um

yeah I'm gonna call

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[Music]

thank you

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it was not before oh that's so weird because I thought the

ones for the car because yeah can you talk into your microphones

no no we want to say can you let me ask you know what hold on for one second please

I know how to ask

yeah so members of the public we are working on getting this um issue taken

care of if you if we can ask you just for a few more minutes of

um patience I apologize for this

one

yeah yeah I'll be up here I don't understand you're supposed to

give up understand contact

if anyone is online and can hear me can you please tell me if you can if you

heard when the Commissioners just spoke put Lucy you're a panelist no we can't

hear the Commissioners you still cannot hear the Commissioners no

please oh my God

no no still tell me about it yes well

yes it is

oh my goodness okay you can check it out for us we'd really appreciate it I'm

sorry okay thank you

foreign

[Music] um

the white background with text yes foreign

[Music]

thank you so you could say well

she's like okay

but I had been to uh

we're down there and put Battery Street California oh

right now oh come up there up on the hill on Nob Hill I didn't know that okay

oh okay yeah like early 2000s because we used to go out to Austin ceremonies

yeah yeah yeah they just gave him like

that the Santa Clara yeah so this is one of the things you got

one right there

okay um any members of the public if you can

tell me if it's working we need to testing testing one two testing

commissioner speaking that can be heard yes Mike said he can hear us

probably awesome this one please I know I said you're famous

in the final version the word version okay everyone

um thank you for Media Services to uh help us sort out the issues so we are I

believe our audio is is functioning correctly now so um secretary dolcadillo can we move on

to item number two general public comment public comment on any issue within the elections commission's

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

so do we have any members of the public uh we do have one hand up and it is Mr chairman Mr Turner I'm going to

and you have three minutes to comment good evening Martha can you hear me Mr

Turner you're unmuted can you hear me hello

that Tech Guy lead hello I can hear you

hear me Martha can you hear me okay

Martha can you hear me hello Martha

they can hear him but we can't

I'm Mr Turner if you could hold on a moment we are um we are not able to hear your voice so

yes test one two test one two this one I knew it okay

Mark Martha can you hear me now okay okay

thank you let's just wait for the media to get

here um Daniel

what did he do came in and we looked at it

it's like you guys are a mess I'm not Stephen here

and a magnet

it's

go ahead

um

thank you

[Music] okay thank you

the yeah you know

foreign

so um

okay thank you everyone for your patience we're still waiting for the um the other people to get here to um help

spread out uh why we're not able to hear that members of the public online

is

thank you so much okay thank you okay thanks you need to go do something

oh no yeah

your speaker hello I see what you're saying

thank you

appreciate the ideas

there's some audio sorry I was reading the news

no it's not about San Francisco

how embarrassing

all right

would you mind turning off the audio on you there because I think there's an echo

they can't hear us no they can hear them there's no there's no once the someone

is um

and there's an echo as well it's for the Republicans under my login

um very nice

Even in our self-service

thank you um can you on you unmute Mr Turner

I'm with Mr Turner yeah I know

we could get an echo hello Mr Turner yes can you hear me oh you can

hear you now and can you hear me I can I I think I can hear everyone is there an

echo okay perfect is what I hear no Echo currently

yeah there we go but now we're going to be looking at me

the whole time yes there will be slides don't worry no

you can put the speakers no because he's standing here the

speaker will be standing over there

you're talking about the presentation yes

I think can I switch it back and forth no I can

hey well because I'm fine just all that sort of here then if you want this one

yeah right there on the same thing

we didn't sleep well done but let's do it well I don't think

I'm sorry and sure enough like turn off your video on your yeah

[Music] just on your own speaker as well it's like maybe you need that just a little

bit different yeah that's why I have new gear and music you should you should stay for a few minutes though seriously

yeah thank you you're not supposed to meet that one or else they won't be near you or you won't be able to hear that

okay okay just okay um uh we're online

the balls time we're here to tell us today okay Mr

2. General Public Comment

Turner you have three minutes to comment I apologize and thank you so much for your patience and everyone else who's

been tuned in thank you very much for your patience thank you Martha can you hear me

yes we can great thank you and no we don't get mad at the people that are

trying to facilitate we do take a a kind of a look at at the vendor maybe that

provides the system and perhaps we should take a look at that moving forward as it seems to be recurring

um but thanks to everyone for uh being here tonight I wanted to welcome the new Commissioners and just give a little

background framing um as some of you uh know certainly and and

hopefully all of you are aware um we have been focused for the last uh 15

years on moving forward open source voting in California

um there are some Heroes that have been involved uh just for to to frame the

issue a fellow by the name of Ronnie Duggar back in the late 80s uh started

speaking to uh the federal government about the issue of software and then

more recently uh from UC Berkeley Henry Brady and a fellow by the name of Alan

Deckert really moved the issue forward um in the year 2000 there was something

called the decorate design created which was an open source ballot printing system Alan Deckert was a worker in uh

for the elections office in Sacramento at the time and that design that

appeared in 2000 is still the state of the art that is what Dominion now calls

their ballot printing system um and and so that design was actually

uh 15 20 years old when when finally it became implemented the

election system security Arena uh just to be blunt is is a cesspool uh for

activism I've been an activist in this space I started off being a

anti-nuclear activist and then my second issue I've had in my life has been

election system security and we predicted that our inability to show the

loser that they clearly lost in election could could cause civil unrest and I

think we saw that in 2020. 30 seconds the

issue of Open Source voting has now been moved forward by New Hampshire and

Mississippi so we're it but this work comes out of California and specifically

San Francisco we haven't been able to move California but New Hampshire and

Mississippi are now implementing the open source systems so we hope we keep

Focus here and keep trying and thank you Mr Speaker I'm sorry we've hit the three

minutes point Thank you thank you

I don't see any other hands raised

I don't see any other hand phrase for comment okay then we'll close public comment and we will move on to item

3. Resolution on Continuation of Remote Meetings

number three discussion possible action and resolution on continuation of remote elections commission meetings

so for this item we have the usual um Memo from the city attorney as well as

the draft the proposed resolution so do we have a motion

motion that we approve or adopt the resolution second

okay is there any Commission of discussion okay seeing none let's open it up to public comment on item number three

I don't see any hands raised okay so then uh take a roll call vote

okay president Jordan how do you vote Yes vice president Stone yes

commissioner burn holes yes commissioner died aye commissioner levolsi yes and

commissioner Hayden Crowley yes okay six in the affirmative it passes okay great

4. Approval of Minutes of Previous Meetings

let's move on to item number four then approval of minutes of previous meetings discussion possible action to approve

minutes for the May 18 2022 elections commission meeting so for this item we have two packet

items we have the the original draft minutes as well as some suggested edits from commissioner died

well commissioner would you like to say anything about your edits yeah I just wanted to make sure it was reflected in

a minute that uh then commissioner Stone and I then commissioner Shapiro and I

were tasked to develop a plan for the registration initiative

commissioner Hayden Crowley uh I won't be voting on this since I wasn't at the meeting but I did have a question about

it did you mean to delete what was there and replace it I'm looking specifically

at item 10 where it looks like you deleted a couple of sentences regarding what the

DCA um exchange was and then added what you

rep uh the um added the paragraph on that this did

you mean to delete this or is this an in addition to uh I I use track changes so let me just

quickly look at what I did since it's been a while since I looked at it um but probably

I did intend to replace it let's see

item 10.

oh those were just Extra Spaces I was just oh just spaces okay I'm sorry because it looked like you were I

couldn't tell yeah I apologize okay so you're just looking to add yeah that that's the main okay and I

think clarified a couple thank you okay um wc24s so this is issue of abstaining

has come up in the past and my understanding is that people are not allowed to abstain is that

yeah so under the sunshine I was I was just looking that up right now actually

um I do believe that

um there are certain exceptions and if the um

the by a majority vote of the members uh you may excuse a member from voting on a

matter for any reason so you may excuse um so it's your priority what you want

to do next yes so we have the option of um entertaining a motion to permit

commissioner who didn't Crowley to abstain or we can um or you would need to vote require that

okay can I restate why I'm abstaining sure I was not present at the meeting so I don't think it's fair for me to vote

okay I have a question we're voting on a herb

standing on this matter only well if someone wants to make a motion we would yeah it would just be for this

one item does anyone have any concerns with this

otherwise I am happy to know my emotion that we allow commissioner

Hayden Crowley to abstain from the program minutes discussion

thank you sorry okay so we have a motion in second so um

before taking a vote we need to take public comment on this item as a whole take a public comment on the

item as a whole

can you hear me now yes great uh it's David pilpel I'm having

computer issues as well it's not just you guys it's everyone um so a couple of things welcome to the

new commissioner hello um on the the question of abstentions uh

usually when a new commissioner joins um that person reviews the the minutes

and just is and generally votes on the the minutes with the understanding that if the

majority of the the body believes that they are a fair representation of what

happened then that's uh good enough whether or not a member is present at a

meeting one generally uh votes it is unusual in my experience for a

commission to excuse an individual commissioner from voting on a particular item uh even something as as minor as

minutes simply because they join the body they're you know there's a normal transition of members and new members

generally just vote on the minutes at the first meeting if they were not present before that meeting on the minutes

themselves I noticed a couple of quick things on the continuation Pages the top

uh has the June date I believe these are the main minutes and not uh the June

minutes so I would correct the continuation pages on item four uh I

think it's clear enough that no action was taken on the uh April uh and I think

also the February draft minutes but just so that it's very clear that the only action taken on item four at that

meeting was to approve the January minutes on item six I would make more

clear reference to the June election by adding the word election at the end of the item whether it's a direct primary

election Consolidated General like whatever that always has the the word election at the end of the thing and on

item 10 if I can pull that up quickly one moment

yeah wrong way darn it um please give me a moment and I'll have it

um on item 10 there was something oh on on

my public comment introduction of Charter amendments at the Board of Supervisors for the November I would insert 2022 election and I'm uh and and

just one more thing not on the minutes but on the previous item because I couldn't get in in time uh there's a

typo in one of the paragraphs towards the end uh should be the elections commission and it says t-h-e-e and um I

think you can make just a minor type of fix t-h-e thank you very much for listening

yeah commissioner Kelly in the interest of not extending this uh discussion any

further I would draw my request and I will vote on the minutes thank you

okay um so do we need does the motion need to be withdrawn as well just for it to be

by the person that made the motion yeah just go ahead and withdraw the motion yeah okay so the motion has been

withdrawn so um on to the minutes themselves oh and there are no other members of the

public there are no other members of the public who okay so on the minutes themselves do we have

further discussion or emotion a motion that we make the typo changes

offline but approve the minutes as it stands that's amended correct yes

okay and then do we have a second second by commissioner died okay um is there

any additional discussion before we take a vote on this motion okay singing none secretary Delgadillo

okay okay yes vice president Stone

or die aye commissioner Lee volsey yes and commissioner Hayden Crowley yes okay

with six in the affirmative the motion passes okay great so let's move on to agenda

5. Director Selection and Hiring Process

item number five selection hiring process for director of Elections position discussion and possible action

regarding the selection hiring process for the position of director of Elections the director of Elections

current five-year term expires at 12 a.m on April 14 2023.

the charter requires that the commission appointed director for the next term at least 30 days before the expiration of

the current term SF Charter section 13 104 the commission may decide either to appoint the

incumbent director to an additional five-year term or to engage in a competitive selection process in which

the incumbent director May participate okay so for this item I just want to

make a few comments before we get started so I'd like to begin this item just by responding to a comment that was

made by a member of the public at the last meeting just by saying I want to emphasize that with this item there's nothing bad or

out of the ordinary going on this is a normal process that our City's Charter says needs to happen every five years

and the reason we're doing it now is that we were advised that it's normal to allow at least six months in case we

want to have a selection process and the last time our commission discussed this topic which was five years ago

our commission wasn't told until February which did not allow us to have

um you know a choice in the matter and I also wanted to comment on the date

there was a little bit of a confusion about the date that director ernst's Germans and it was originally on May

21st which was how it appeared five years ago and then um after the last

meeting I learned from direct currents that he thought it was April 14th but but it's back

it's actually still May 21st so there's no change with the um

the date there so just kind of working backwards 30 days from May 21st

that 30 days before May 21st is basically six months from today just so

people have an understanding of of how much time remains so for today's

item the purpose is primarily for us to learn about the selection process you know what the process looks like what

sorts of options we have and to give ourselves a chance to discuss that and we also have an invited speaker that

will help us in that discussion and I also want to thank Deputy City attorney Flores as well as Deputy City

attorney Rusty for their advice on this topic and I did meet with them yesterday

just to kind of understand more exactly you know the types of things we're allowed to talk about

and I want to say one more thing about the packet item before we open it up to questions and introducing our speaker

and that is um we have a nine page document which outlines the rules for the the hiring

process for the director and the last four of those pages are it's um about

removal for cause which does not apply so it's it's more just the first five pages of that which are relevant for us

so um before we move to our speaker and secretary Delgado can you promote him to

a panelist I already have Okay so I want to give the Commissioners a

chance to ask any questions before we get started with um his presentation

okay so um he is I see okay so I do see Sean

and he is already promoted Sean you can present well let's

we're going to wait just a moment before he starts speaking but um

we're just kind of sorting out the the technical

yeah yes yeah I'm here you can I I can hear you hopefully you all can hear me great

um so Sean just we're gonna just take one minute just to give um the commissioner has a chance to to like

maybe ask questions about the general item before we get into your presentation so um

does anyone have any questions or comments about anything before we get started

okay I did want to just say one thing for commissioner Hayden probably since

you weren't at the last meeting we did also ask director arnt if he wanted to be reappointed and he said yes just so

we're all on the same page thank you okay so um

(5) Invited Speaker: Shawn Sherburne

I want to thank um DCA Florence and Rusty for arranging for our speaker to attend and I want to extend a very

you know appreciative thanks to um our speaker Mr Sean Sherburne and he

is going to be giving us a brief presentation over WebEx and then we'll have an opportunity to

kind of talk with him and ask questions so thank you very much Mr Sherburne and

would you like to get started certainly good evening Commissioners

president Jordan thank you for inviting me um and uh just before I get started

we'll will you be running the PowerPoint on your end of Martha or should I run it

on my end or is it even necessary I think if you could share your screen that would be ideal

you you do have you you have control right now to share oh I'm I'm gonna get

fancy here so yeah and your slides are also a part of

the packet and they're available online for people or at home for all technology as well uh paperworks uh but it looks

like I got the slides up and running um again good evening Commissioners uh Sean Sherburne I'm the assistant

director of Employment Services with the Department of Human Resources and I have

this opportunity I'm grateful for it uh to be able to uh walk you through uh the

city's process for an executive recruitment and so uh with that being said

um just want to reiterate you know the role of the commission um is to conduct a recruitment process

to identify candidates for the director position um what's unique about the Department of

Elections say versus other other department head positions is this

role is governed by a specific set of Civil Service rules rule 114 I'm sure

many of you are familiar with this I've worked around these rules for a

number of years came to the city in 2012

and have had an opportunity to go through several iterations of this as

well as a number of executive searches with other departments as well so I come

to you with a little you know with quite a bit of knowledge around around this front and so really Your Role again you know

identify candidates will interview and evaluate those candidates and then select a director seems pretty simple

but it is a very complex process and it is one that we very much subscribe to

wanting to have an executive Search firm that would help the commission help help

DHR help me navigate this process with you all uh

with that said though there are options if the commission decided it did not want to

move forward with an executive Search firm however most other commissions and

Boards do elect to use an executive Search firm those firms will have a a

wide Network that they can tap into they'll have resources to conduct stakeholder group meetings including

with this group individual meetings with Commissioners with the community and

with other stakeholders um they really an executive Search firm

is really going to have the ability to enhance the diversity of the candidate pool by tapping into that Network

like I said they come with a Rolodex of candidates and I I can't underscore

enough also the confidentiality of candidates is also something because they're not a

department of the city they help promote the confidentiality

but they also help promote a sense that this is a process that is being

conducted by an entity other than the City and County of San Francisco at least an entity

supporting you all I put on the slide that it takes about 16 weeks so about

four months this is from the start of the process to actually

selecting somebody I'd say it more likely than not we've seen these take

about six months to nine months can using this as a starting point to

actually having somebody in a chair um obviously those timelines can be

can be narrowed a little bit based on you know what kind of uh Outreach the

commission decides they would like to take how long the job would be posted how many steps in the process and then

also again because this commission's role is a little bit different in the fact in that at the end of the process

you all are selecting the the director this is very much unlike other commissions where they

select a group of finalists three three or more and then refer that group to the

mayor's office that step doesn't happen here uh so it'll shut some of the time

that we have in this process but um about six months is uh is a good uh

estimate even on an aggressive time frame and you know why is that

um you know from this point once the commission decides whether they want to um bring to bear an executive

recruitment firm um we have a group of five firms already uh we would solicit proposals from them

uh they would meet with you all um you would select the firm they'd help

put together a candidate profile who you all want very much what I've seen with

other commissions as they will meet individually with Commissioners and then collectively as well to get a sense as

to what this body is looking for in a director they will of course then do the

Recruitment and Outreach they will tap into their own network their own Rolodex of names call people solicit names from

you all and from other constituent groups they'll review those candidates and then present them to you all they

will do screen Downs based on factors that this commission feels is prudent

you know is it a certain amount of experience is it experience in a large municipality is there an education

component is there other factors working with certain systems and processes

that they will weigh into those criteria and then interviews vetting the

finalists and then moving forward with an offer for the

selected candidates and I said just a few minutes ago we already

have free five pre-qualified executive search firms that can support uh this

commission um and we would move very quickly uh on that front if that is the uh decision

this commission would like to make as to moving forward with an executive Search firm

and that's I promised it would be a short presentation uh and indeed it is

uh so just because it's short uh on this end um doesn't mean that it isn't a long and

laborous process to get there but it's one that we will do in partnership with

the commission so happy to answer any questions

I have a question thank you for your presentation um my the number one question I had

which I think I may have mentioned in the last meeting or if not I intended to um should the commission end up going

this direction would director arnst also go through the exact same process or would it be simply

based on us just com uh vetting the new candidates that were vetted through the

either the recruitment firm or your department so the commission has a a choice

obviously they can decide to do another five-year term with director Arts the

other option is if they decide to go through an outside firm of course director arms could also uh put his name

in uh into the process as well so he would have to apply just like any other

candidate yes understood yeah commissioner in Crowley yes um

thank you again for your presentation what do these uh executive Search process

what do they typically cost and is that a cost that's incurred by the commission

it would be a cost incurred by the commission um I asked our managing deputy director

earlier today depending on how many elements the commission wants to have in

their process and how much Outreach including how much uh they would like to spend on uh advertising probably about

thirty to fifty thousand dollars um and how many of these

these contracts has the city undertaken in the last year and what and can you

tell me if you say there's a three I'd like to know what the average ramp up

time was between the first day that the decision was made to contract with an

executive Search firm and then when the individual was hired

yeah and I'll work backwards in answering your response uh that's where I got that six to nine months number

from this point where a decision is being made to having someone in the chair was about six to nine months

um I'm sure you all are aware we've had a number of department head uh transitions over the last couple of

years so we have tapped into this network of executive recruiters quite

extensively uh there are five other

departments that are actively seeking executive directors and department heads

at the exact same time so I am I jumped from meetings like this to

other meetings with other commissions as well uh the two that have already met

with us have already decided to move forward with executive search uh firms for the exact reason that they want to

engage stakeholders they want to have a robust Recruitment and Outreach effort and they

want to bring forward as many candidates as possible in this into their process

thank you um are these typically structured as

retained searches then as opposed to contingency searches

well I'm not can you can you reframe that for me a little bit I'm not sure what that sure

um I don't know if this is the thing in the public sector but in the private sector there are contingency search

firms and retained search firms so retained search firm there's usually

a flat fee regardless of whether the search is successful or not and a contingency is

based on whether we like the candidates um

I'd have to to look into to that aspect a little bit more I think what I've seen

from prior executive searches was that if we didn't find a candidate there would be a

contingency and I think this is what you're speaking to that they could go back out um it's all based on a fixed cost

um so but specifically each contract is going to differ and this that would be an important element to evaluate in

looking at the proposals that we got like we said we have five pre-approved vendors those event those vendors

hopefully each one of them would put a proposal in and that is one thing that I

think because you brought it up and and because it's important that we need to evaluate I have not seen the instance

where we've had unsuccessful recruitments so that's why it's a little bit of a challenge for me to uh to

answer that um but yes I do know that those elements are covered uh in the contracts in the proposals what happens

if I just I can't speak to what this specifically would be because they differ by vendor

yeah just to clarify usually contingent search firms you that you might engage

with multiple search firms at the same time which is probably not the way that it is done in the public sector but

yeah we would pick one one vendor okay I do have I'm sorry I have one more

question um does it often does it happen where you off how often has it happened in the

last year or two where the city has conducted these executive Search

contracts and selected the internal candidate

um so the two that I worked on recently it

was a split one they selected the in an internal person

um actually they selected a commissioner to be the to be their department head uh

and the other one um came from Washington DC so

um I think more often than not we are seeing uh candidates come from internal

uh uh and you know internally in the city either from that department or from

elsewhere um I I'm just thinking I'm trying to think

over the last year when we've had department heads a lot of them have been folks that have moved into interim roles

and then ultimately um were hired permanently

um we have a number of examples of that um but I I think you you see the news as

well uh as we've had department head turnover and transitions over the last couple of

years um you know you you know the puc director came from uh from internal from

the city attorney's office public works as an interim uh director right now

um and then I would say that the other four recruitments that were

that I'm uh speaking with Commissioners about um I have not gotten a sense from them

uh that there are um uh internal candidates I think they're even

um uh going to be challenged to find uh interim folks

thank you so I have a just a couple questions

um so in the Civil in these

civil code rules one of the one of the

sections says um

the names of the candidates who meet the requirements of the job announcement shall be placed on the list of qualified applicants in the order of their scores

there must be a minimum of three qualified applicants so

um how would that work is it would like the DHR um they would evaluate

the candidates against a scoring um rubric or and then can you see a

little bit more about that yeah so uh I I work uh and uh in DHR so obviously I'm

much more familiar with our Civil Service rules um and so

this is you know it's not necessarily analogous to an

eligible list where we would see you know 100 people on a list and rank order because folks took a test

um this is uh very much um you know either you know either the

executive Search firm or uh or DHR will work with the commission to set up uh

scoring rubrics or criteria um just generalizing here it could be as

simple as a management test that already exists um that I as an HR professional would

recommend that your candidates take we've done this for other departments that yields the score it

could be scores that you all provide as part of an interview process those

scores would be tabulated and that would be the rank order I think the thing that you hit on that was most important here

is that in order to fulfill the requirement under this section of the Civil Service

rules it has to at least be three qualified candidates if it were going to

be less than that you would have to go to the Civil Service Commission to get their approval to move forward

with less than three people but I don't imagine that would be the case here I

imagine you would have multiple qualified candidates

so just to follow on um for clarification would it be the

commission that is doing the scoring or DHR that's doing the scoring

the criteria correct we provide the criteria of the scoring of what we want is that correct

so I'll I'll just highlight again those two one is you can take a stand we can push

forward say a standardized management test that we already have we would handle that the other option is

an interview um I would say most commissions most boards would either as a whole interview

candidate or they would select a um a subset of Commissioners to to do those

interviews until there's a finalist um I haven't seen too many instances where the commission or board has asked

other people to conduct those interviews on their behalf um

but you know these are all discussions that would be iterative with the commission about how they would like to

evaluate candidates uh obviously an executive Search firm or DHR would bring

forward ideas I've highlighted two of them management test battery could be one uh interviews could be another how

those interviews are conducted is really um going to be a decision that this

commission would make so so it's up to us basically it just wanted to clarify that yeah we would

help uh you know the executive Search firm or DHR would help in creating

interview questions uh filtering those through uh through the commission you

know making sure that the questions you want to ask are in there and then help uh put together some scoring rubrics

around that so that we have some consistency on that front uh that's going to be standard with any uh

executive Search firm as well okay uh thank you and then my second

question is um one of the topics that has been of interest to the commission especially this past year is is racial

equity and I was wondering if you could maybe talk about some of the ways that the city uses the hiring selection

process to advance the city's goals in that topic yeah and and so

as we go through the process um either again with the executive Search firm or

with DHR anyone who participates and has a role in The Selection process will

need to go through the uh the city's implicit bias and hiring training or

managing implicit bias uh this is true for other commissions I've worked with that have gone through this process

we're going to look at interview questions um uh in you know any one of the executive

search firms are going to have a plethora of questions that will help

assess the candidates um efforts around diversity equity and inclusion which are going to be

important for any uh any candidate at this level

um so all of these things are going to be brought forward making sure that the process itself is as inclusive

um as possible bring forward as many uh candidates as possible and as diverse a

candidate pull as possible and then making sure that as we evaluate the candidates that we have a Dei lens

on that as well so all of those things would come to bear in this process

okay uh thank you I see commissioner bernholtz has her hand up Mr burnholds

thank you president jordanick uh thank you Mr Sherburne free presentation I have two questions how often is it that

a commission or a board that has a director who is um

in place and interested in continuing uh in place uh do they go through this

process is this a common thing or an uncommon thing and my second question is should we

choose not to go through this process uh could you just briefly describe the process by which director Arts would be

offered another contract yeah um I I think you you've set the table for

me on this one this is truly unique to this commission most uh most other instances this this sort of uh

discussion or process would take place because a department head uh has been uh

resigned left separated or um uh their commission or the mayor has

let them go this is truly unique uh for this and to be because of the term that

is applied to uh to your director that it is a five-year term subject to

Renewal and that gets at the second part of your question which is uh the only thing the rule really prescribes is that

you give the current director at least 30 days notice before the end of their

term as to what action you're planning to take whether it's to renew the contract for another five years I'm

sorry renewed the term for another five years um or

um you know if if they're going through this if the commission decides to go through this uh executive recruitment

process um I I would say that the current director would would understand that the

commission is is looking uh at all options at that point but really it's

that 30 days before uh the end of the director's term that um that I think is

what you uh will probably need to take the most notice of and and I know the city attorney's been working with you

all uh to make sure that we stay honest uh uh with those timelines

thank you I just had a follow-up question on that

quickly uh so you said that what's unique about this situation is the

element of the term and the that is subject to Renewal so just so I

understand other commissions and department heads don't have that same five-year term subject to renewal is it

just they serve it okay okay so if it's the pleasure of the appointing officer

it's not a term at all yeah it's not the length of the term That's Unique it's the fact that we have terms subject it

could be a three-year term a four-year term or five years thank you for clarifying

foreign are there any other questions

okay so why don't we um do commission server preferences to

whether we open up for public comment or or um discuss things a little bit more

before we do that okay let's let's open it up to public comment this is item number five

commenting on selection and hiring process for direction for director of Elections position

you're unmuted can you hear me now

yes great uh David philpel again um sorry still having technical issues

so I appreciate the presentation and the discussion I am aware of uh at least a

couple of other uh searches underway I was just uh advised the other day that

the uh director of the ethics commission is leaving and so I'm sure that's uh

creating uh more work for um Anna and Brad in the elections and ethics team

the city attorney's office but I'm sure we'll get through all of that um

uh president jordanick made reference to a nine page memo I don't know if that's an old memo or a new memo if uh that's

uh public or not if it's possible to make that public uh that might help the

rest of us out in the world here um I can't remember and I apologize for that if there was a 2005 Memo from Julie

Maul about the director selection and how all of that works I could go back

and check my old Julie Maul file but I think the commission definitely

has some choices to make about what direction to go whether or not to Simply

offer the position to director arts or to engage in a competitive selection

process um and that's entirely

up to you um I mean it's it's been said before if director Arts is good enough to do the

job and crazy enough to take the job then maybe you should you know jump at that before he changes his mind but

that's entirely uh up to you I think uh regardless of the status of that nine

page memo I think it would be incredibly helpful uh both to you and to the public for the City attorney uh possibly with

DHR to lay out um very clearly which of those selection steps even if it is unique to this

position are appropriate in Open Session and with public comment like the desired

qualities and all of that and which things are absolutely uh in closed session I.E the names and the interview

and probably the scores um so those are my thoughts at this

point about the director selection and I suspect that this will come back to you more than once in next six months or so

I hope that helps thank you very much for listening

um Mr Turner uh you are commenting on the selection and hiring process for

director of Elections position you're unmuted and you have three minutes to comment thank you Martha can you hear me

yes we can thank you uh thank you uh to Mr Sherburne for the presentation I'll

go quicker this time for my three minutes the uh public encourages strongly uh an executive Search firm to

come in and and provide a competitive selection process for reason stated that

racial Equity aspect is obvious and some others we've uh though this is a

nonpartisan issue I myself have put open source voting in the platform along with

my dear friend Christine Pelosi in the California Democratic party platform so

we're hoping San Francisco moves forward with some better technology that sets

precedent for the United States and follows New Hampshire and Mississippi toward better technology we haven't had

much luck with John Ernst it's not John's fault I think he's a good person but uh you know we've had this

relationship with one particular sales person Steve Bennett and there's been a

tremendous amount of negative publicity about Steve Bennett the representative currently for Dominion a previous for

Sequoia that has made public statement that people in San Francisco don't care

about elections that were ignorant and that John and the department is Dominion's well-oiled machine so with

all the negative publicity in the Press we think it is beneficial to have a an

executive Search I know of many people many women some women of color that

would like to be considered for the position and it's no offense to John I just think it behooves uh everybody to

open up the process and let the process begin so thank you for listening

okay is there anyone else I don't see any other hands raised I'm sorry okay thank you Mr Mr Turner um just on Mr

Popo's comment um the nine page document I was referring to was the the only

document that was attached to this item you know prior to the edition of the slides it was the um the Civil Service

rule 114 article 7. so um that that is available for people to be online

so um yeah Mr Sherburne I'm just going to give

the Commissioners one more opportunity to ask questions while you're here um

and then we'll we'll um move on but um I do want to thank you again for you know taking the time to be here for

us and it's very helpful and we appreciate you know the information that you shared

with us thank you so anyone else okay so yeah so we will

um I think the the question portion is completed so um you know thank you again

Mr Sherburn okay so as it stands um I think the plan

was for us to have another closed session um next month

and then I think we will probably have this this same item again

um if if we you know depending on if we make a decision we'd want to have the ability

to you know continue to discuss about the process

so um given Mr sherburne's estimate of timeline and given Where We

Are with the deadline don't we want to start sooner rather than later if we want to

give ourselves options well yes so we that's something we can

talk about right now um so may I jump in on that or were you

gonna sorry go ahead I interrupted again go ahead well I was just going to say that we do

um we can discuss that now it's just that if we have that discussion we would need to limit ourselves to to um

points that are not related to um you know director insta's performance just kind of in the abstract

but um but yeah that's we we can certainly talk about that now but um

so can I can I jump in on that um so I why see the value of time we have a very

big election coming up and I think that should be our top priority and also the

if we're going to have it be a search and the director who's already indicated an interest in being reappointed would

have to then go through that process in the midst of the election and preparing

for the election and then the weeks after the election I don't think that's I personally don't believe that's in the

best interest of the department I would prefer we wait until November

I wholeheartedly agree with that comment I I have a practical comment

does this uh commission have an additional 30 to 50 000 sitting around to invest in this

no no Mr commission actually has a budget

yes so that's um actually

is Sean still around or Mr Sherburne

um yeah do you would you be able to speak to that like um

like you know where would the money come from I guess is the question right I mean typically

with other commissions and Boards it's because the position is vacant so you

highlighted uh a couple other commissions ethics being one of them uh they will have a period of time probably

about six months where they will not have that director position filled and that's typically where they

um will fund these um these efforts it's the attrition

so in other words you're saying that the director's position is vacant and so

they're not paying out salary and they're saving on that salary and in that salary they're investing

okay and we are in a unique position where I do think the Integrity of

Elections is couldn't be more important and I don't

uh if there's if there's I'm not privy to what that's gone on with this commission

but I've not heard just based on the little bit of research I've done that there's been any significant

objection to director arns's performance so there is that I mean

I I I would hate to become the object I understand what the public comment has

been with um Mr Turner is it and his interests I

do think that there is a separate and commissioner um Hayden Crowley my apologies um to interrupt you but um oh

perform I get it excuse me and I apologize no worries um I just wanted to

um stop you before we go into territory where we're not supposed to during Open Session yes um so uh any evaluation of

the director's performance or comments about the director's performance should be reserved for closed session

um and not during Open Session and so I do think that

um there hasn't been a decision has not been made to reappoint or not appoint so I think that is what would happen at the

closed session next month I apologize rookie mistake thank you

so I just wanted to um respond to uh vice president Stone's

comment I completely agree but there's uh the groundwork as Mr Sherman pointed

out of finding an executive Search firm that all that takes time

um so I'm a big believer in preserving options

um I I think that um uh this commission this body has not

um undertaken a competitive selection process for 20 years

um and it's uh it's actually unusual the the what we have uh I think Mr Sherman

was saying if we have this Unique Kind of uh situation in San Francisco most

registers are actually elected and so it's actually unusual that there's this five five year contract in the first

place um and uh I just think

in in consideration of the city's you know racial Equity plan that it's

important to open up and consider the possibility of uh

encouraging other candidates who could occupy top spots

and I think this is completely independent of performance so

so again I would just be mindful of the discussions you're having

um because you have not made a decision whether to appoint or not a point

um and this I think was supposed to be informational um well we we have the

we have the option of discussing it as long as we don't I mean this is my understanding for me yesterday but

um I think what

I mean we just need to be careful not to discuss anything related to Performance but um I think

my understanding is that we can we can discuss the question as long as it's not

infringing on that area that's that's what I heard from you

yesterday I think the the question is whether to

engage in a combative selection process or not yeah yes and I think

you should be done should be doing that once you've made the decision to a point

or not reappoint I think it's part of the process of determining if we're going to appoint or

not reappoint though I I know we got into this a little bit last meeting but

I do think that those things are not independent they're not like mutually exclusive

well they could be it's it's my point because sure we could I think that's

what I guess you're to your point it could be happening in parallel is my point right I guess one question I

wanted to pose is just what is the goal um and what what problem are we trying

to solve for because if it's racial Equity then I think we should talk about that and and look at look at our the

policies of the department and look at Equity from a perspective of who's voting and who's turning out and

registration and are the policies that the department are implementing aligning with the needs of the communities that

are often marginalized in our elections I I think if it's you know we and I'm sure I have lots of blind spots but

that's just what I'm thinking at the top of my head if the other goal is more about

um wanting to have a competitive process because it's Unique um and having more opportunity and

competitiveness I think that's a different that's a different goal that's different problem and so it might be who of us as a commission to determine

what our what our goal is in determining this process because in determining if

we're appointing or reappointing because it is a huge undertaking obviously financially and time wise and I think we

just have so many priorities is this the top one or is this the top three one I'm

just I'm not saying yes or no one way or the other it's just something I think we should discuss as a commission

um oh commissioner bernholds you have your hand up I was simply going to say I think it

would be highly irresponsible for com for this commission without any funds to

announce an open search uh one month prior to an election

period

so my question is it seems to me that uh given that we

have a unique process here because of the kind of commission that we are

that the question about budget is a very real and practical one

I would assume it would come from the Department of Elections if if the department of if DHR is not going to

fund it which is what I understood for Mr uh Sherman

is that right this would come from from the Department

yes from elections because we do not as a commission have

an independent budget is that correct yeah that's correct

commissioner Brownells says I would add that that is even amplifies the

inappropriateness of this would be to divert funds from the Department's budget which is woefully underfunded and

we need that money much more for outreach to communities uh about voting

than to position this asserts like this when we really have no dedicated line

item for it uh would and to push it to do it before an election uh when we then

be calling on the department to divert funds would make this amplify the degree to which this is an appropriate in my

opinion I have a question um are we we are exploring so I think

it's a valid question for us to ask where the money would come from if we were to do this

the decision hasn't been made and so as a new commissioner I was going to ask that question where

if this decision was to be made where would the money come from and excuse me is is the budget such that it

would allow this process to go forward without harming the process of Elections

for the city in County that's the information I would like to know but we're exploring is my understanding

so um my suggestion because commissioner Hayden Crowley

um clearly wants to talk about John's performance oh no I don't um well

I'm saying that uh in order to make a decision John's performance is tied to it and so this discussion should be

reserved for closed session where all Commissioners can actually put input into what they you know speak

on what they want to speak on without being stopped by the law the brown act

um so that is why my suggestion is um speak on this during closed session

as it is tied to director John Arts performance

question about budget and money and where money would come from which should be in closed session

um no that could be during Open Session but um you know it it's almost like you all are having little mini

um discussions because we can't fully have this bigger discussion about appointment or not because it's we have

to discuss um Dr arnt's performance and that can only be done in closed session

so so actually we've talked about budget and we've talked about the possibility of opening up a selection process I

don't think anyone's been talking about or direct drivers performance so I

inadvertently flirted with it and I did not intend to do so so and I was only looking at it from

my lens is a first always very practically driven and a budget is

Paramount and that's a good question based on on a lot of what um

commissioner Stone brought up mentioning the other priorities and this is my first meeting and I'm talking way more

than I ever thought I would although I don't know it's somewhat predictable but anyway um I I did I did read over a lot of

I read over the materials I read over the the election plan I've listened to your last meeting and you and the group

has a lot of priorities a lot of priorities a lot of things on the table so I actually do think that that's

something that could come up in the closed session in the context of all of this what and and that our commissioner

Stone articulated so well we have to figure out as well as commissioner

burnhold we have to figure out what is the most important we can't do it all um so

um that's you know that that that I think is something that needs to be

um hashed out fleshed out whatever may I just add um thank you for you

finished right I am finished thank you um I also just was thinking as you were

talking about this element of let's say we do move forward with the

process hypothetically let's say director arnst did not

uh receive the offer we received a different candidate hypothetically let's

say proposition H goes through and other things change legislatively legally that

have enormous implications for the department and we have an entirely new director right after those things are

passed that are we are bound to actually Implement and I know that proposition H

has enormous implications if it is to be passed or just daily administration of

Elections so we would have that person unless they're intimately familiar with

that exact process there would be onboarding into the department and

um and implementing these processes I think it's just another consideration of

thinking about the implications around right now it is not necessarily anything

to do with the like weather makes sense to go through the process or not it's more just a

consideration that we haven't brought up at all so um I think there's always going to be

another election um we only have this responsibility every five years

uh so I think it has to be one of our priorities at this time because it's a

unique time once we're past a certain window it won't be possible for us to make a

different choice and I'm also concerned that um

this discussion about budget is that the implication that we would always be

locked into a decision because we have someone in the job that doesn't seem

like if we're an oversight commission you know we ought to be able to again

look at our options for for the good of uh the city and and for the good of our

elections regardless of uh if there's someone in the job or not so

it's a unique time and I'm just concerned about how much time we have to do it I think we could push it for one meeting but I think we would have to

decide whether to move forward or not no later than the next meeting and my

concern is there's a there's some upfront work just to like figure out the executive search firms and it feel like

that's something that maybe could be started sooner rather than later

my personal feeling is that we you know

there would be an investment no question but is an investment that hasn't been made in 20 years

and so if you look at it that way it's not that much it's a lot less than

searches in the private sector I can tell you that much I guess I mean one of the things that's

running through my mind is that you know the charter was written to have this process every five years and

it doesn't make sense to me that it would be written there if it's not something that

could actually be done like practically so you know um

you know why why would they have this process here where it's if if a commission actually tries to to do the

process it's not um you know it's it's not meant to be used or something

um I I did try to I talked with or you know former

commissioner um Becca Chapel back in June to see if we

could start discussing this because I was concerned that if we didn't have enough time and um you know got pushed back

um some months and I I I I just don't what I guess I don't

like is that if if it's sort of like the circumstances are are forcing one decision to be made and we don't

actually have a chance to to kind of um like

just discuss it on its on its merits and um I mean

you know 75 percent of counties in California the elect that are registered every four years so

and and then all those counties it's not a case where the person's not

replaceable so I think even even in counties where the director is doing really well you

know the voters can they re-elect the person and um I think in um direct currents case we could you

know select direct currents again so it's not you know engaging the process as the

charter has outlined is not um saying anything

[Music] um it's not about the current Department it's just we're we're doing a process

that was prescribed in the charter and we haven't done it for 20 years and I think it it could be useful to um

to go through the exercise and to see um

you know you know if it makes sense as far as the budget issue I think that's something we

could look into um between now and the next meeting um I know there's a lot of money in the

city and um I mean I you know 30 to 50 000 doesn't seem like

much to me relative to you know other things that we've worked on

but um I do think that you know based on what Mr Sherburne said you know it takes

six to nine months we're already at six months now if we um lose a month without doing any

any more leg work were um it's almost like we're making the decision today

and without having had a discussion so I think it would be good if we can

like allow ourselves to um at least explore you have the chance to

yeah explore or discuss it in a way where we're not you know limiting ourselves for the next

meeting but uh we don't have to make a decision today but I have a question this is for

um attorney Flores excuse me um being a new commissioner I just want

to make sure that I'm um this question is appropriate are we allowed to have a

special session between our regular meetings to to have a

discussion and exploration

yes you can always call a special meeting um it has to be

um I believe it's 14 day notice um yes I believe it's some something like

that but I can get back to you but yes you are always allowed to call a special meeting um if I could get that information about

what the rules are for that yeah in a few minutes but you're definitely allowed to call a special meeting

um the time frame I can tell you in a few minutes okay thank you for a special meeting does it need to have uh

unanimous consent to have that special meeting because I imagine we have to vote on if we would have the special

meeting which is what we did for the last special meeting I believe a um a quorum I mean is enough

a quorum of the seats or of the filled positions currently of the seats

so for you it's seven seats so it'd be four thank you

and just a confirmation that it you can schedule a meeting sooner than 14 days

my apologies 14 days is just when you want to change the regular meeting location that you have

um but since that wouldn't be the case it would just be a 72 hour notice uh

required by the brown Act thank you thank you

so um can we assign President jordanick and Vice President

Stone to at least start the process of

looking at what Mr Sherburne has in terms of executive search firms looking at budget

issues I I would be happy to help with that I think in general it might be worth a

conversation on the commission about our budget in general I'm just thinking about budget because us being

us pulling funds from the Department I think probably we all would agree it isn't ideal

um and if we can in some way ahead of the future budgeting process propose an

independent budget that we can as a commission utilize and prioritize I

think that could be a larger conversation of value as well I would just like to make a comment I I

think the reason I asked the question of turning Flores is to see if this was a possibility because I I think it would

behoove us to make a decision before that work goes into effect

the only concern I have about the special meeting which is I asked about voting is that is given

how much is like it's the election is in what two and a half weeks three weeks

and personally I'm really focused on that and I understand the concerns regarding

timing and I I'm actually very supportive of those concerns but I I personally feel that my responsibility

is to the administration of the current election more so than the this topic I

am happy to help explore and support but if we were to vote on having a special meeting I think I would probably vote

against it and so just to clarify under the mayor's

emergency declaration the um you are able to call a meeting within

24 hours um like we did for in April so

thank you

so I mean so there's sort of I mean there's a

couple of things I'm hearing like number one is I I know some people are saying

they don't think we should make a decision until we've we've had a until a later date maybe after the election but

I'm also hearing people say that if we want to even have the possibility of doing this there's certain preparation

that we need to start like basically now but um and is there a possibility we

could do some of the preparation now just so that we don't yeah um like rule out the possibility in

the future you know depending on what we decide um in terms of the election I know that

um Mr Sherburne if if you're still there I'm not sure if he is what would be the

earliest that um the candidates would need to like apply if if we were

um you know to start the process in the next month or so

the earliest job candidates would need to apply yeah oh

um that really would be determined by whatever action this commission wants to

take and how they want to engage uh a search firm like what efforts they want to do I mean a lot of commissions are

going to want to meet uh with uh with the executive Search firm talk about

their interests you know in coming up with you know what are the what are the what's a candidate profile going to look

like so it could I mean it really depends on how iterative this commission wants to get with an executive Search

firm and then how long they want to post a job for and then we can always you

know I think in every effort you hope that you know if you have it open for two three weeks that you'll get a

sufficient number of candidates but the reality is I've seen a number of executive Search efforts leave those

jobs open for people to continue to apply for a month maybe six weeks so I

mean all of that that before even the first candidate can apply is probably at least a couple months out

I would think yeah and I think the other thing is

um and uh commissioner lavalsi may be a better expert on this than me but I I've been

involved with a number of executive searches and one of the key things from a Dei perspective that is always

emphasized is to make sure to to leave it open for some period of time to give people an opportunity to think about it

and apply so I would be in favor of

not cutting it off after two weeks having at least a month

I again would like to um ask that we

decide if um I agree with the Commissioners who brought up the point that

it would behoove us to wait after the election um but we've just heard the rules that we

can have a special um meeting and make a decision and I think

that a decision needs to be made at some point sooner rather than later but I I

do agree it should be made after the election

okay so um

so I guess I guess maybe what we could do is um we could have our closed session

in next month's meeting which will be after the election and in the meantime

I mean I can take it upon myself to do some research into the budget issue to see if if um you know what options

there are there and which will help inform our decision next

month yeah it's a clarifying question Commissioner of Elsie when you were saying special meeting but after the

election or we need to make decision after the election or sorry that you

think we should potentially do a special meeting but you agree after the election is the notion that or is the idea that

perhaps because our next meeting isn't until what November 16th 16th that and

the election is what two weeks before two no one week before that yeah

um is the I mean is the idea that it would be Nest like a special meeting prior to our general meeting so that

going into that general meeting we've already come to a decision or did you were you not I just want to make

sure I understood what you were saying I think what you're saying is a possibility I'm I'm trying to urge us to

to move forward and make a decision I think

we've we've discussed it in my opinion enough and I I want to engage in a

fruitful discussion where a decision can be made cut it thank you for clarifying

okay so um I think we can push it one more meeting

but not but not yeah so

okay um I think we we know what we need to do now um

is there any last comments before we move on to the next item

just a moment I think um GTA Florida is just for um scheduling purposes I mean you can

have a closed session and an open session item at the next meeting I mean that's possible too so we don't have to meet right before

Thanksgiving okay so thank you everyone thank you

again Mr Sherburne for all your help so let's move on to item number six

redistricting process initiative just

we already took public comment on this item right

yeah um so

okay I guess sure we can open up public comment one more time on item number five

people want to hear more

thank you Tess Welborn um 18 points uh remember that the election is not over it's not certified

for some time after the election uh it's really easy to push aside uh

diversity and Equity issues we've all been there and um

this is maybe not the time to do that but it's okay you could decide to start the process of looking into the search

and so on without having to make a decision about going forward completely you can direct your HR department to

start pulling up search firms and qualifying them

um and you can also as was mentioned uh see how proposition H does

um there may not be an election next year but maybe there will be based on

some initiative or something like that um I personally have objected uh to

civil service and the idea of a six-month vacancy and the failure to do transfer of information and history and

um the loss of knowledge that happens when there is a vacancy period but there

isn't there are issues about that with civil service and of course you can seek additional money from the mayor's office

um I don't know where the open source system is but that may be part of it and I'd point out that you have a number of

new members so I think there's a lot of things in the mix here that I just

wanted to um emphasize or call to your attention thank you

okay thank you I do have two hands raised okay and I'm

sorry Mr Turner you

and I will clear everyone okay so we're good that I there are no other hands

raised okay um

6. Redistricting Process Initiative

so let's move on to item number six redistricting process initiative discussion of possible action regarding

the commission's potential recommendations with respect to the San Francisco redistricting process including historical background in the

proposed project plan okay so I'm going to turn this item over to commissioner dye who has been leading

on this topic thank you um so today uh we are moving on in our

monthly series of learning about redistricting in San Francisco and elsewhere and how we can do it better

and I have invited several guest speakers and I'm going to

(6) Invited Speaker: Angela Calvillo

invite our Clerk of the board Angela calvillo to please come forward thank you for

waiting so patiently my apologies but it's very hard to predict when we're going to start certain items

um Miss galvio had the um uh somewhat unwelcome job of supporting

the redistricting task force uh and did write a report which is posted for the public here and she kindly agreed to

also provide some verbal commentary for us so whenever you're ready

thank you commissioner die members of the commission president jordanick Angela calvillo Clerk of the Board of

Supervisors uh it is my pleasure to be before you you are quite familiar with

the report as commissioner die mentioned it is on the redistricting task force I think that's the 2020 census Dash

redistricting Dash task force website and the clerk of the board has a report

there this is for the public under um uh section c or appendix C and for

anyone who wants to hear more about the thoughts of the office of the clerk of the board please I refer you to that

eight page report but yes I was invited here tonight to to provide some brief

remarks over uh some of our recommendations I I do want to say that

at the outset and that the members of the public and the organizations that work with the public actually contributed a lot to our

unfolding resource resourcing of the task force and they informed our report

so I just want to tell you how valuable their uh advice their criticism was to

the to the process over that eight-month period and uh to begin with it was our

very good friend uh the director of the uh elections John Arts who was staring

down the barrel of four elections and asked us to do more than clerking this time because we clerked the last task

force ten years ago he asked that we would then run the competitive process for the Outreach consultant

um there seems to be now as I feel rested and our report is written and

it's all in the rear view mirror that I can see that because

10 years ago when the when the uh task force met technology was not where it is

today and so the ordinance that we crafted with the help of the city attorney's office did not contain a lot

of some of the the work that technology can do better than the manual work

uh that we I think we we did a lot of that this this time and so there was a

natural tension between wow the ordinance that we wrote um

was sparse in terms of who did what and so uh as the clerk and my team would

come to the redistricting task force meetings to try to provide some clarity over what they could do what could be

next uh what options were there was just so much to get to overload of

information and so perhaps some of you who have watched those meetings you

could see where we were bringing information about what needed still to be tied down uh that just sort of

sometimes went to the Wayside so for our recommendations there are

five categories in our report which I don't want to belabor any of these

recommendations because of the hour if you wanted me to review them with you I certainly could or we could just jump

right into your questions that were most important to this body that I could help

answer at this point why don't we switch to questions I'm

assuming all Commissioners did their homework here it was a very interesting report I'll start so you came up with a

with a number that it costs the clerk's office do you have any guess if you

added the cost to other departments uh what the true cost would be

I um I'm truly only familiar with what with what our cost was what it could be

in the future uh or that would forget that part of it because I don't want to

guess I mean obviously what costs today is going to be exponentially different

10 years from now so um but we did have Partners like osea the office of of community engagement

and immigrant Affairs we obviously John Arts brought a lot of resources to the table as well we utilize the resources

of building management and the sheriff's department in addition to providing some meals from

our department um and I'm sure Eileen McHugh who is

here and as is my assistant and was right by my side every single hour of the redistricting task force probably

could mention a bunch of other departments who assisted us like sfgov TV and it was of course done during a

time when we had to do both in person and remote and so there's a lot of you

know it's typical that you don't have 10 computers sitting around that then you can loan out or hot spots that you can

loan out um and uh repo Repro excuse me that's

our City Printing Company they printed the house signs and the um a lot of our posters and some of our our paperwork

when it was large capacity needs for printing um so we we put up um 600 and something

thousand dollars as you could see it a lot of the management uh that went into this task force they're all on salary so

we never counted the the comp time or the overtime although there were hundreds of hours of that

so um and as you can see I am recommending High management positions for this work because you are working

with department heads you do need responses immediately and you do need to make you need somebody with judgment to

make split-second decisions so that the public can be served the members can be served uh technology can be utilized in

a way that um is in at two o'clock in the morning and you need to get the sound system up and running because it

somehow got knocked offline but um yeah we we found money in our department

we did not ask the board for money because we knew we had um some funds in our department that

were programmed for a completely different project but we reprogrammed it for this project because covet happened

and we we didn't need to utilize those funds to do that project anymore which was a very unusual uh budgeting

experience for us so we were very lucky

uh I just want to commend you on the report I was an extraordinarily comprehensive and I I'd see that it's

addressed to the redistricting task force but how is I mean there's so many

different recommendations in here that are all really important and valuable how will these get executed going

forward beyond our recommendation to perhaps endorse that I mean do you do what will happen I mean it's 10 years

from now in terms of getting funding from the board and the mayor it's quite possible that none of us in

this room will be here in 10 years so I'm I I would recommend that the

elections commission if I could be so bold to put this on your shoulders should codify some of these necessary

requirements to protect the Public's right to know the communities to get the appropriate scope of services

from the Outreach consultant so that there is a wide

there is a wide understanding that the consultant that you choose is going to

bill you a little bit differently than the consultant who build this time around that you know that

there's a lot of delicate intricate details that we're happy to share with

you uh once you've gotten something written we're happy to work it into it in a way that makes sense that doesn't

tie the hands of a future department or Board of Supervisors or commissioned

elections commission but that does put out some sound wave forward because a

lot of the time that went by that was not utilized for redistricting was kind

of it was unfortunately um time past worrying about certain details that perhaps you can solidify going

forward

this wasn't a question it was more just to reiterate something I had said to you Offline that I wanted to mention the

public that um I I personally want to apologize for any trouble that the you

know that is included in this report of your staff and the bandwidth and the labor and the overtime hours that you

specifically just articulated were not incorporated into funding for redistricting and I I can't speak for

everyone but I imagine we all share a deep amount of gratitude for you and your team well thank thank you thank you

kindly we very much appreciate being able to do the work we love doing

this work unfortunately a lot of it needed to be ironed out more so in advance and we

learned and hopefully we will put it to good use so the public doesn't have to

experience that again either yeah thank you so one of the the feeling I got after

reading your report was that you know you had the registering test Force

members that were requesting all these services from you and you guys were scrambling to try to

make it so um so you know my question is about

accountability right because they were in a position where they didn't have an independent budget they

didn't have their own staff they had to rely on your team and many others to do

things so one of the thoughts is do you make them accountable you know give them a

budget and their own staff and their own responsibility for hiring Consultants or

or not because just to give you an example at the state level at the CRC we

had all that right we had a budget we were responsible from day one from Hiring Our Own executive director and

all the staff uh and if we didn't have enough money we had to go beg for more

right so we were accountable for our own budget do you think that's the model to use here or is it too much to ask at a I

think the model that there is a I think a responsibility that the

commission director arance Clerk of the board's office uh the sheriff can lend

all of the agencies that participated in this past redistricting task force

we can look at the reports that they together perhaps we all could Round Table I mean

I'm not I don't that I think I did my time with the redistricting task force so that's the

I have a lot I have a lot of work to do still in my department but I think it is incumbent about the

reason why I'm here today is because I feel a responsibility to making sure the

next process is improved now that we know so much I don't think they knew what we knew what we know today the last

time around technology is so different demands of the city are not so different

but they're louder and so they're some of them are different sure but we can't lose this opportunity as I

think what we need to do is make it the best do what you can what we can to put

out some of the breadcrumbs and sort of minimize the work of the task force and have some of it

spelled out in advance so that they need to focus on what they need to focus on hearing from the public

understanding the community benefit that the housing where the special benefit districts are sort of get the lay of

every district and the agencies and the housing and the historic nature everything the zoning all of that stuff

so that then they can feel like they're making the right decision and leave the administrative stuff or iron it out as

much as possible in advance okay

other questions for Miss cablio did you have a chance to look at the

budgets from the uh the common cost provided I see that the budgets were not

uh um San Francisco was always different

but looking at those budgets they were much uh they weren't as much as they're not using as much money to fund their

redistricting task force I don't think it was ever expected that anyone would use as much money as we

used for the redistricting task force this year I don't ex I don't think to be honest

and Frank I don't believe we thought the Outreach consultant would bill for the

things that were built for uh which did bring up the cost

um uh but once we once we onboarded the Outreach consultant

they were surprised the amount was so low because typically doing Outreach tabling and doing you know the the full

gamut of Outreach was about a million or three million

um so and just on the Outreach consultant um we we got turned down from every

single consultant who worked with uh the city we literally had to beg a consultant to

do this work but no one wanted to do it for a hundred thousand a hundred I think we put 20 of our own up and eventually

some more but no one wanted to do this important work for such little money and

so maybe that is uh what we really need to think about what that scope of services at the very

least should be right and just for everyone's information

Outreach was not part of the budget in the previous cycle if I recall that's correct yeah so

excited any other questions for the clerk

thank you thank you so much for your time thank you for waiting we really appreciate your work

all right we have a second set of speakers um from the um San Francisco Unity map Coalition

um Mr Fernando Marty will be doing most of it I think

and we also have um Emily Lee is a hot backup if necessary

um they uh uh we have posted the the presentation

that they made to the redistricting task force previously so hopefully everyone had a

chance to look at it when uh vice president Stone and I had

originally talked about this we felt it was important to give this Coalition a chance to speak

since they did um a lot of work to get speakers to participate in

the redistricting task force meetings

yes okay then we can do it this way too and hopefully we'll be able to share

some slides soon

and while we're waiting for that I just wanted to highlight a couple of the other

um attachments so one was uh the ordinance that was

passed by the Board of Supervisors officially putting the redistricting task force in

place there were some minor changes and additions including requiring Financial

disclosures and emphasizing that they serve at the pleasure of their appointing authorities okay that were

different from 10 years before presumably and then just a couple of comments on

the um the information that was kindly provided by common cause on the redistricting

budget data This was um in response to some questions from

commissioner bernholtz about the cost of these independent commissions uh so they

did it attempted to get some numbers from a variety of different jurisdictions I

added some detail here about which ones are independent I will note I I'm hoping

people that paid attention to the to the big mess at the city of Los Angeles

where they spent quite a bit on their advisory registering commission and then

the city council ignored that in favor of gerrymandering on their own

um and that was a 1.5 million dollar budget although it did not break out from census

so the challenge of trying to do an Apples to Apples comparison here is that

as you heard from Miss kelvio sometimes salaries over time is not

counted I did want to point out the city of

Sacramento's budget they had a special budget Outreach

budget where they actually gave grants to community-based organizations

so that's a model that might be interesting and and we do that in as a

part of regular elections I know that director Ernst and his Outreach Department do that exact same model and

it's definitely a best practice right yeah and I think that

there's a lot that we do well in the Department of Elections that it would seem like we should just borrow for a

redistricting process and possibly piggyback on since uh it's being done anyway

um so those are just a couple of comments and then the other thing to note uh the City of Long Beach notice

they had a three-year budget that's pretty typical with an independent commissioned because there's a recruiting and vetting budget and then

there's the actual operation of it that may span over two budget years and

with that are we almost ready well it's not coming up for some reason while you're doing that uh commissioner die

may I ask a couple of questions about what you just brought up sure the ordinance was extremely helpful actually

I hadn't read through that with the updated changes so I really appreciate you including that obviously I've been

working with Bellevue on this um she asked us to put it there well it's great because I hadn't I hadn't

seen those updates and even though you know this was the first time I had reviewed that one question that is

probably uh obvious is were the task force members

informed of the ordinance with the amended updates that were adopted in

2021 or 2020 whenever that took place perhaps uh Ms kelvio can answer that

yeah or or DCA Flores

DCA Flores no problem I was just asking if the with

the ordinance update that were that was updated I think in 2021

um with the changes for redistricting task force members were the task force

members informed of the newly adopted changes so the ones that commissioner

die had specifically called out for example conflict like exposing uh sorry revealing

Financial disclosure were those components the new additions provided

clearly to the task force members I assume the answer is yes but I just wanted to make sure we have that sorry I

I'm having trouble understanding your question um so the charter contains

um basically the provision for the redistricting task force like how how it

comes about um there were no changes or yeah this is the ordinance

this is an order supervisor's path in June of 2021 I think Miss kelvio might

have the answer okay there was a financial disclosure section I wasn't involved with that ordinance so I

thought um um Angela calvillo Clerk of the board that

ordinance came into being because I requested that our role be codified so

that the Board of Supervisors would uh there's a charter section 2.117 which says Angela will do the clerk of the

board will do all these things and anything the board tells her to do and so I just wanted them to make sure that

they were aware that we were going to be working on the redistricting task force and uh uh Andrew Shin the DCA at the

time actually put in some other updates and the director aren't you might have asked him to add a couple of things as

well but I believe the task force was informed about that because that was

something that I felt responsible for and so in my presentations early on I

believe I've probably spoke about it in public in addition to providing it to them uh in an email and I have

Eileen is checking that out right now we could certainly get back to you on that to confirm thank you

(6) Invited Speakers: Emily Lee and Fernando Martí

all right well Mr Marty great thank you so much Commissioners my

name is Fernando Marti and I'm working with the community Unity map Coalition

and thank you so much uh for taking the time to listen to us and thank you

Angela for all the work that you did I think um we couldn't have done any of what we did

with the redistricting Task Force if not for that support oh I'm sorry I'm so

sorry I'm lost right yes um I was trying to have you come up here we go okay

um so I'll just keep keep going and hopefully we'll we'll get this resolved um

I was involved uh uh 10 years ago with the redistricting uh in a very similar

process of bringing together Community organizations from across the city to

develop a legally conforming map that responded to the communities of Interest

this time around San Francisco Rising Emily Lee is here and other organizations came together to do a

similar process um with I think some very different results as many of you uh heard uh saw

in the news um and oh I see I see the share button again has popped

up so it's because I'm I'm logged into three computers and I really apologize I

have pinned it down to which one it was and what I was trying to do was allowed you to be seen also okay that was my uh

that was my goal all right and apparently it's just I will keep going

um so the the Coalition brought together uh over 50 organizations representing uh

communities from every single District um in the city and we attempted to do

something that was uh to create a map that we could present to the

redistricting task force that kept the communities of Interest together and kept cultural districts together uh as

you know this was a very challenging process um each uh two of the districts had to

uh um shrink tremendously district 6 and District 10. several other districts had

to enlarge and we had a legal limit of five percent uh that we could go from

the mean and using that rubric we were able to create

um a map that was both legally conforming and that protected those communities of

interest in those cultural districts there we go we can't see it but okay

um are you seeing it the presentation no okay I'll keep keep going because I know

I think I know what I'm saying but how about yeah I wasn't that's what I was gonna say

share my screen no okay oh okay

thank you sorry you want me to put it back on slide we're experiencing what I think the

redistricting task force experienced over and over again which were these these same challenges hopefully you all

are not going to be here until 5 a.m um to finish this and I think one of the things that was really important in this

process and you heard a little bit from Angela about uh the challenges around the Outreach process is that we did our

own Outreach um we turned out people we had folks coming to to these meetings at a

particular meeting in April we had over 200 people that came to the meeting to present uh a testimony in support of

this is when there were four different Maps being presented um one of the maps uh was not

um the the unity map that we were hoping would be taken into consideration but it did accomplish many of the goals and I

think one of the the challenges was that uh the redistricting task force did not

at any point actually say let's look at this map the community members have

presented that actually is legally conforming and it was the only map that um uh you know other community members

many community members came out presented maps of their District this was the only version that really said

we're going to look at all 11 districts and present present something I don't know just what page do you want me to go

to here because I can't let's oh here we go um let's just stay here

um just say next when you want me to move okay great thank you um

so this is the map that we presented uh what you see in green are the areas the

very small areas that had to shift in order to re retain that five percent uh

uh plus or minus of uh the mean if you can go to the actually the previous slide

um just to show you sort of one of the organizing principles was looking at

cultural districts um oh now we're back at the beginning

and and

yes can we go back one map well this is page two so the title slide is

oh right that's it's different from what I've got here so never mind um let's jump forward

um because actually with what I had sharing pretty much feedback on this or

no yeah I think that's what's not happening okay but that's it's not going to be possible to share what's on you

I'm about to send it okay great may I ask a question yes uh oh were you about

to jump back in I just while we waited to get the presentation up how long did it take a to build the Coalition of

folks to participate from all 11 districts and be how long did it take to

devise this Unity map that gained all support obviously under the legal

um pretense of what was required for the districts themselves right I think we

started having conversations in December um back when the test the redistricting

task force was being put together we're like oh we're going to have to recreate this thing again from 10 years ago uh a

lot of the relationships already existed um so not just through SF Rising but through other Allied organizations

um but that was the work in January February March and in 2021 of 2022 yes

yes so December 2021 was when these conversations began

um so that by the time um March came around we had a map got it

that we could present to folks thank you the timeline is helpful oh perfect

um and you've got I think that's it if we could jump uh forward and another one

and so this is just a list of the 40 organizations that endorsed uh the the

map and work together um representing organizations from across the city if we could jump to the

next slide uh as I said there was you know there was times when we had over 200 people that came and I'm just gonna

uh quote a couple of um I was trying to pull up today

um some of the numbers um some of the task force members were actually keeping count of the commentary

so uh Jeremy Lee uh um and if folks remember one of the key

pieces was a discussion around um whether the tenderloin should remain

as part of District Six should it be moved uh Jeremy counted that um in the

course from January to the end of March the tenderloin was named in public comments 73 times 62 of those speakers

spoke to maintaining the tenderloin with Soma zero at that point had said that

the tenderloin should be moved out there were other communities that we were very concerned about if you could move to the

next slide um I already talked about those were the ones that needed to shrink and some that

needed to grow the next slide um one of the things that was really key

for our members and for the the communities that we were talking to was the cultural districts many of whom did

not many of those districts did not exist 10 years ago um I believe uh the Little Saigon uh and

the Filipino Heritage Cultural District already existed 10 years ago but many of these were organizing struggles that had

happened over the last 10 years to ensure representation of those particular cultures uh and that was a

key organizing piece for uh how do we maintain those and simultaneously

maintain some of the relationships the relationships that existed in particular uh with the transgender Cultural

District the Filipino Heritage Cultural District and the leather and lgbtq districts as as one maintaining

representation um go to the next slide and so that's that's what I had showed earlier

um those were the major boundaries that we had suggested um in in pink

um in um on April 2nd which was one of the those

big meetings that went to uh three or four in the morning uh when there were

200 people uh waiting to speak uh Task Force member Michelle Pierce kept a tally uh of the map that was closest to

this was just map 4D 118 uh supporters and only 23 supporters for one of the

other Maps um at you know late in in the day there was a vote eight to one for maintaining

that map 4D and then a couple of days later as folks may remember there was a reversal at 3 A.M

um where the task force went back on what it had said um and I think you know without saying

whatever was happening uh it raised a lot of questions a lot of bad press about what was going on behind the

scenes and how those decisions were made um if we could go to the next slide

so given that you know as we looked at what was was happening

um our kind of suggestion was how do we change this in the future and whose

responsibility is it to change this in the future and I think uh it's a different thing than um what the clerk

of the board was talking about uh that is similar to to what what Angela said I think that this is perhaps the body that

really needs to talk about what's going to happen nine years from now or eight and a half years from now when uh this

is going to start uh the next census happens and this process starts again so we could go to our our next slide

um so what was very clear from us is there could be improvements around transparency around the appearance of

conflict of interests and around how we include diverse voices and really listen

to those voices um in the process and make sure that part of this really uh as as part of the

charter maintains uh um the communities of Interest intact so we could go to the

next slide so we just wanted to present as uh the initial suggestions of the

discussions that we've been having we have continued to meet as a coalition to say what would this look like differently how do we take from the best

practices and this is I know that this is an ongoing discussion uh the commissioner die has brought to hear I

think you've all heard from common cause and and from other kind of good government agencies how to do a better

process unfortunately we have a charter that was created before a lot of these

best practices went into effect and we think that now especially you

know once this election is over and you have a little bit of time to breathe that while this is still fresh on

people's minds is when we need to make those changes to our Charter so our

first priority is how do you get a qualified task force and that includes both the composition so how do we have a

task force that really represents the diversity of communities do we have at least 11 members on a task force that

represent the current 11 districts so get that breath so you don't have let's

say two folks from Russian Hill and nobody from the tenderloin sitting on that task force

um we should probably have alternates uh we should probably have a way to ensure that we have underrepresented

communities and we should probably have some minimum qualifications to ensure that there's no conflict of interest

um meaning were you an elected are you planning to be an elected who is redrawing those

boundaries those sorts of minimum qualifications that most other cities already have in place

um the second item around this is what's the selection process I think a lot of what made uh at least the appearance of

conflict of interest was that we had elected officials naming the members of the task force other cities have an

independent auditor an elections commission uh there are examples where there is a randomized process in which

someone like the elections commission can oversee uh but they're you know you pull pull

pull from a pool of qualified candidates through a randomized process that

ensures that representation so that's our first priority our second priority is a fair mapping process

for us the Integrity of communities of interest and of cultural districts was

primary because there wasn't a Clarity in the charter

some task force members thought it should be exact equality of every single

District could be the re the way you do it you know zero deviation we think we

need more clarity in this how do you rank these different criteria um as long as you are maintaining the

federal and state requirements around the legality of the map um and transparency I think we heard a

little bit earlier about um you know how uh the maps may have been changed what were the decisions

what was the thinking how do you justify this um particularly when you're hearing so

much public input in a decision is made that is not reflective of that public

input um and how do we ensure that there's real consensus on that final decision

oftentimes you get a you know a majority you get one person who's becomes the

Swing Vote and everyone's putting pressure on that one person um which is you know is likely to happen

but how do you get something that really ensures a consensus um and then lastly

um the last last slide was just there there's other considerations that we haven't talked so much about internally

within our Coalition but we certainly think are important um one is around the timeline you know

you don't need to wait till uh you get the census data that tells you that you need to um change the the maps to be

able to start putting together a task force to do uh all of that Outreach that needs to happen a robust Outreach to get

qualified members on board one of the most difficult things in this process is that we did not have a draft

map for the public to look at until very very late in the process and that was very different from my experience 10

years ago so we don't have deadlines on the on on the charter for that we only have a

deadline for the very final final map needs to be in by this state um and lastly I think back to uh what

the clerk of the board talked about some Assurance around support funding

training for the task force members many of whom maybe have never been involved with the Roberts rules award or running

a meeting or understanding the mapping process I know that last month you all talked

about for this commission you know is there an opportunity for stipends or reimbursements what does that look like

for trying to get a working class people of color who have families to sit on

these uh task forces that might be running until 5 a.m or 6 a.m the next

day and I think that is it for my presentation there's our contact

information um I have I am working now with the unity Coalition Emily was involved from

the very beginning which is why both of us are here to answer any questions because I was not as involved

thank you so much for allowing us this time thank you thank you so much Mr

Marty and I know um from seeing this at the state level how difficult it is to draw a legally

compliant map that takes the entire area into account

um you know when I we heard testimony at the state level there were tons of people who are very happy to tell you

what their little area should look like and like damn the rest of the state right but actually trying to figure out

the trade-offs so you can you know address your concerns and hopefully address the concerns of other

communities it's actually extraordinarily difficult so that's why we wanted to make sure you had a chance

to to speak about this uh I have a bunch of nerdy questions but I wanted to see

if I wanted to open up to my fellow Commissioners first I also have questions that surprise no

one um thank you so much this is really helpful and I think what's so insightful

about your presentation which I hope I don't believe I've seen I read this ahead of time so if possible to be

distributed if it would be great um but I think what's so remarkable is

the sheer volume of communities that were Incorporated uh not just from each

district but also so many different communities of interest that we're able

to participate and the reason that I asked the question about the timeline is how many organizations did you say 85

organizations 50 50 organizations it please it's just

85 were surveyed and like gave us feedback and influenced the kind of

mapping process and then 50 plus organizations actually endorse the final Unity map thank you

um just being able to achieve that and have that in that you know four month period

um puts into perspective the process that took place on the task force

amongst just the members of the task force so one of the questions I have is

you talk you gave recommendations that are actually very helpful and kind of

validate where I think a commissioner die has already kind of been kind of shedding light on this issue from her

own expertise but one question that keeps coming back into my mind is beyond just this element of transparency and

the structural components of membership on the task force and how they become members of the task force how do you

what do you think are the ways that the task force could be held accountable to

community input knowing these numbers of you know I think you had said something about 75 endorsements or a certain uh to

keep the district six together right not separating these communities of interest and zero against so beyond just the

transparency of how decisions are made let's say they happened in the light how what are the ways to hold accountable to

the communities Beyond ensuring that the task force members are representative of those communities and that they are

being talking about these things in the open um

I think one of the things is providing Clarity in the charter language around

both the criteria and the role of input um so you know being able to say in the

charter your task as a task force is to prioritize these things and to prioritize Community input

um it is I think is is key right I think that right now the way the charter is

written it simply says here's a number of factors that you need to look at

um and and I think that then creates a lot more of squishy sound so the explicit we have

talked definitely about criteria and the ranking of criteria but the explicit

codification of community input as a top priority in that ranking so that the

criteria ranking is called out in the charter amendment is what I'm hearing you say right great that's it and then

you know an explicit justification for anything you know who knows you know

District Six might have twice as many people in 10 years as it does today and

and so there might be some hard decisions to be that have to be made um

some of the decisions that happened there was no justification that the

public got about why they went against what had been done before and so I think

also having that Clarity that you need to justify these things if there's something that you know maybe this criteria at some point is infeasible

while still maintaining the five percent and we need to understand why

thank you so um actually one of the

more contentious arguments we had on the California citizens redistricting

commission was in fact about the uh the population deviation

um and a lot of organizations urged us to keep the same deviation we had in our draft

Maps which we had set at plus or minus 2.5 percent or five percent and we

tightened it for the final map and a lot of people were not very happy with us about that but the justification

for the will of the commission ultimately after we argued about it for a long time was that we had very large

districts right a State Senate District or some million people so small deviations a lot of people but in San

Francisco and uh you know by legal precedent

there's usually a lot bigger deviation allowed for legislative maps for example

even at the state level um usually up to 10 percent is considered

rule of thumb so I'm curious if you have a position on whether we it should stick with five

percent or we should allow it to be um more more what legal precedent has

allowed for smaller jurisdictions I don't know that we've talked about going beyond the five percent but I

think you know one of the things uh that that was clear to us is neighborhoods in

San Francisco vary so tremendously by the size of the neighborhood so I think

a Mission district has 50 000 people you know that's a small City in other you

know in other places um and so I think though you know being able to have that that give and take is

really important if we're going to maintain those communities of Interest whole um and to mean and the other thing I

think that that we found in our conversations is there's relationships between those communities

um that are long-standing uh that make sense in terms of representation right

uh some of it has to do with perhaps building stock right you've got a bunch of sros it used to be uh 20 years ago

the division between the Mission District and South America happened at 17th Street

and that was for for population reasons but it was also because the residential

hotels start at 17th Street and go into South of Market and into the tenderloin

so all of those considerations come into play um in terms of maintaining those communities of

interest and so that exactness of population doesn't doesn't quite fit in

there's a so I would be interested for your coalition to discuss this a bit

further because that is you know a lot of people criticized us at the state level for making our population

deviation so tight we had strategic reasons for doing that we were the first commission we wanted it to be kind of

very clean um but like I said um you know legal precedent for local

jurisdictions is much broader 10 I've seen 12 sometimes at the local level and

it's not an issue because you're dealing with smaller numbers so you might only be talking about you know 20 people or

100 people it's not it's not a lot of people at the state the size of California we thought it was a lot of

people so that's why we made our deviation type so that's one question I'd like you to think about um I'd like

um Miss calvio had mentioned benefit districts now you guys mentioned cultural districts we heard you that is

something that's special to San Francisco that would make sense for us to call out distinctly if we agree

um because that's like I said and only in San Francisco thing um what about benefit District site you

didn't mention benefit districts do you see those as different as not as important are they they say they're not

what came up in the organizations that were talking to each other so mostly these were communities of color and

other underrepresented organizations that came together to form those

um yeah I don't know I don't have a comment on on the benefit districts but oftentimes there's an overlap right

there's a tenderloin benefit there's actually a south of Market benefit District um and so those things might

might just be natural overlaps I think a lot of those are around commercial districts and certainly when we talk

about communities of Interest those commercial strips are kind of at the core of a lot of those communities of

interest it's a it's a different lens and it may not be appropriate so I was just curious

um and then uh the panel of former redistricting task force members that we

hosted last month uh when we we asked about decision making uh thresholds uh

and the idea of consensus which you mentioned in your presentation or a

super majority a joke was made that they might still be talking about redistration today if that were a

requirement so do you have any other thoughts on that requirement for consensus you know I I think part of it

is um I think our experience this year was

because the first draft map came so late in the process um they didn't have a lot of time to

actually go back and forth between a 4A and a 4B and a you know whatever it was

um if there is a a process in which the

first draft map starts earlier there is more time to reach consensus that doesn't mean they're going to reach consensus but I think part of the

challenge was they didn't have the time to listen to the different communities uh and and to really pay attention

um in order to reach consensus okay so I'm hearing a couple things I'm hearing

um earlier draft map deadline which is we've heard that from many other groups

um making it a bigger Task Force if you have 11 districts represented that's

already bigger than the nine member task force we have and um it sounds like you're fond of the

idea of randomize selection so so the good news fellow

Commissioners just after commissioner levolsi and I discussed this we're going to

try to ask some speakers for next month's meeting who actually had

experience in a randomized process because that would be very different for San Francisco and maybe be able to share their

experience they're definitely pros and cons for having a randomized process it's certainly a lot cheaper process

but it doesn't allow the kind of vetting that that would be required in another process

uh other questions or the community Unity Coalition I just

said okay is the goal after you collect all of this testimony and experience is to

recommend policy change possibly in the charter Amendment yeah

okay and that would that be something that you would take to the border is that something that you're looking at a Grassroots level but probably uh we've

talked about taking to the board or the mayor I mean hopefully by the time we've gone through this process there's enough

consensus that we need to change it and fix it so um but yeah there are obviously a couple

of different and did you get much have you uh are you aware of much feedback

from the board or the mayor on this particular position have they given any direction on it have they commented on

it not at this point right now we're just going through an education right right

but they're obviously aware of the pitfalls that occur during the process but they didn't comment they didn't say

we got to change this or anything like that I think that there are several members

of the Board of Supervisors that felt strongly I also think the mayor felt strongly and I think

part of the reason that commissioner dye and I had initially collaborated on this was that

many folks had said and had asked the elections commission as a neutral body

to look at this issue when because the task force is appointed by the mayor the

Board of Supervisors and the elections commission and understanding the political implications of all of those

bodies we are the neutral one the partisan body and

um also what commissioner dye has as you can see tremendous experience with this

being able to kind of think through who we should include from like a thought

leadership expertise perspective but also you know how to think about criteria generally and we've there is a

project plan as well I think that commissioner die and commissioner bolsey

are going to be updating that but we should also plan to maybe we can just have that as a recurring attachment on

the packet item as this continues but it has more because it we didn't necessarily determine decide that this

would end in a charter Amendment we kind of it was more of an exploratory process but I think what commissioner die if you

don't mind me translating is saying like the hope is there's enough consensus based on how many

speakers have kind of started to say almost the exact same thing

um that perhaps it could lead to a charter Amendment well it has to translate to votes at the Board of

Supervisors as I say I'm always looking at things from practical standpoint so it's always good to have a fallback

position with your community groups if this is something that you possibly want to take at a Grassroots level and put it

on the ballot sure but I do think that you have to look at it that way because you're investing an awful lot of time and it's not to say that it isn't

worthwhile because I think it is tremendously worthwhile but I do think that you have to have a plan for how you

can implement it because it would be a shame to invest this kind of time and public feedback and so forth and not

have it go anywhere and when you're dealing with politicians as you well know these are the systems that got them

elected so it's hard to change sometimes you think it is easier but sometimes

it's not I will say even if let's say like I think that's very very very fair

I think what I'll speak for myself and that let's say

it doesn't necessarily we don't necessarily have a plan in terms of what

the communities can do or or if the Board of Supervisors is willing to vote on it with the super majority that then

wouldn't get vetoed or all the political implications of that um I do think that what is one of the

biggest concerns for me throughout this process when we had the special hearing when the community members came to us

and asked us to have a special hearing back in March is that the communities

felt silenced they felt that their feedback their input was not being listened to and so even if if this

exercise doesn't land in a charter change I think giving the communities the opportunity to provide

recommendations and having it on record I personally still find Value in that oh absolutely but I also think there's an

opportunity for the communities to make it a charter Amendment yes definitely yeah definitely

our our hope is to go ahead please thank you so much yeah I I think you know

coming from a coalition of folks who both were very involved in this process and have been involved in Charter

amendments and in ballot measures um I think one of the things that's really important for for us is uh to

hear from you all your recommendations um if this is going to go either through

the Board of Supervisors or through a signature petition to have not just

um you know a common cause League of Women Voters um you know advancing Justice ourselves

but have the official body that oversees elections say these are the five six

seven uh reforms that are needed um would would be very good right I

think that's that's what we're looking for you all as as the experts who've been hearing you know both the comments

from the community who are reading the newspapers and then have been getting all this advice from

um folks who've been on the previous task forces and so forth um to say these are the things that need

to happen um and then we can figure out how to make them happen we've got eight years nine years uh to make it happen uh

but I think yeah I think the other thing on the urgency is just sort of what was

in the news around San Francisco's election but more recently around what was going on what's been going on in Los

Angeles right that that we need to make sure as a city that that never happens here

um and that's part of what I think we're trying to to do with this Pro these improvements thank you very much so I have a question

um on that a follow-up to that are you um have you been a part of any conversations with board members or do

you know if there's any appetite there for doing some kind of we've talked to a couple and there's there's interest we

haven't we haven't been doing the rounds I think we're waiting for for this process we do know that there's interest

you know from from a few of them so I'll say that all right thank you sure

other questions um any feedback

um in terms of uh timing on this I so part of this original plan uh

it was to try to get get through this educational process hold public hearing

you know next month uh to get specific proposals and then you know hopefully

decide what to do whether it's a charter Amendment whatever our path forward what we as an elections commissioner wants to

do um we may have extra time because of proper age so

uh there's an argument for taking a little more time for this uh like I said

I'm I'm pretty excited that I'm going to be able to get a couple of speakers next

month from voters not politicians who are the ones who put the ballot measure for that

reformed the process for the state of Michigan uh they basically copied the

California the gold standard but they made some important tweaks including randomized selection so I thought it

would be very interesting for for us to hear why they changed certain things about the California model

um and hopefully one of their independent redistricting Commissioners and then also I've already gotten a

response from the chair of the City of Long Beach if you'll recall from Alice

Miss Alessandra lazana's presentation from common cause a couple months back the City of Long Beach was held up as

one of the most successful independent redistricting bodies this past cycle and

they have alternates which is also something we don't have in San Francisco so I thought it'd be interesting to hear

from them to to give some feedback um if we have a little more time we can

obviously get more input any thoughts in terms of

from the Coalition standpoint in terms of urgency I mean technically like you said we have eight or nine years to get

this done but we don't want to lose momentum either well hoping that probably H passes and we have more time

I think that the question is if it does not pass right um that there would have to be a uh a

process if it goes to the Board of Supervisors for the City attorney to start drafting language for a charter

Amendment and that's going to take some time um and I think you know when we saw the timeline that you had prepared as part

of the the plan uh it seemed very ambitious um you know moving quickly to have

hearings in November to have perhaps an action by you all in December or January

um but I think that's that's probably what would be needed if prop H does does not pass so that then

um and frankly I don't think that um I don't know who would be prepared to

do a signature campaign for on November 2023 election at this point

um so it would probably have to go through the Board of Supervisors and that's a toll you know counting the

votes and you know along with getting it drafted um but if prop H does pass then I think

having that time to really bring in all of the the best practices and the

expertise I think one question for you all as uh elections Commissioners is

um would you know we talked about a Rand possibly a randomized process if it's not a randomized process and we're

trying to take it out of uh the electeds uh having a direct sort of say on the

task force is would the elections commission who now selects three of

three three be that appointing body and if not then

is there a randomized process that kind of takes on that role and I think

we would also be interested in your thoughts on other bodies that might you know potentially be selectors so for

example um in Sacramento it's the ethics commission um and the County of Los Angeles it's

the registrar right so they're you know a bunch of different appointing bodies

that are you know not elected officials so there's more discussions to be had on

that I think that we do see you all as perhaps the most

nonpartisan of bodies that already have that expertise on elections and how this

works so that's been our starting point right

uh if there are no other questions I want to thank all of our speakers who've waited

a long time to speak we really appreciate um your presentation and the work that you

did during the redistricting cycle is absolutely amazing the number of speakers that you galvanized and as

someone who is familiar with how difficult it is to get people to engage

it's really incredible for the underrepresented communities that that your Coalition serves so thank you thank

you thank you so um we have not taken public comment on

this item correct so let's let's do that now let's open it up to public comment on agenda item

number six redistricting process initiative okay so we do have two

um persons whose hands are raised and I will start with Mr

how did you oh yes yes in person commenters go first sorry about that

Tesla born again and I was a member of the um Community Coalition but I'm speaking

for myself here on a couple of points I think that having alternates

will be useful having 11 members or specifying maybe one member per District

in case of the abundance in the future of we need to have 13 districts or

something like that um I look forward to um

uh clarifying what the task force member's responsibilities and Duties are

so that we don't have a task force member say but it's my duty to my family to include visitation Valley in District

10. uh you know things like that just you know are inappropriate

um so there's a lot more suggestions I know that the Coalition can offer and I

really appreciate your openness to moving this process the sooner the

better in some ways but it does take time and if we do have a little more time but let's not put it off for two

years our memories can fade other priorities can come up so

I really appreciate and thank you for putting this elevating this to

uh or importance now thank you thank you

anyone else we do have two callers online that are um wait that have raised their hands so

Mr Turner you're commenting on redistricting process initiative you

have three minutes to comment s thank you Martha can you hear me yes we can very good and thanks to the

speakers um for the great presentation and for making their way through the technology

issues um uh I just wanted to point out a few uh phrases that I heard from the

speakers who who uh so eloquently stated their position and and I think it is the

position of the public um they mentioned transparency and they

mentioned conflict of interest and they mentioned outside

interference and when I earlier tonight bluntly referenced uh Cesspool I I

didn't mean to over speak but I think we can all recognize that there are

predispositions occurring here and um this is not science like our issue of

the technology this is this is something that is very gritty and and it's

appreciated that everybody is putting their time um into this to make sure that the

people are properly represented and and again we get back to these Equity issues

there's always going to be money concerns and there's always going to be another election looming so these are

what we call throwaway lines that are used to get in the way of of progress

for the people and sometimes it takes courage and fortitude and so I just

wanted to say on behalf of the public thank you to the speakers thank you

okay so we do have a caller J Lee you are commenting on redistricting

process initiative you're unmuted and you have three minutes to comment

uh good evening Commissioners my name is Jeremy Lee I was a member of this most

recent redistricting task force um I will not provide my opinions on any

of this I don't want to color your process um but I will just say that I am

incredibly encouraged by the discussions that I'm hearing and just want to say you you all are on the right track

um and I also want to just give a huge thank you to uh clerk calvio who was

just an amazing leader throughout this entire redistricting process her and her

staff just went above and beyond so uh just want to say thank you

okay next caller is you are commenting on redistricting

process initiative you are unmuted and you have three minutes to comment

hi good evening uh this is Dan today from the legal and voters San Francisco I just wanted to thank everyone who

presented tonight um I also want to add about um how

um you know in thinking about possible you know reform is to also think about

what's going on on the state level possibly and how there might be possible State reform I think some of something

to consider about what happened this print cycle is how San Francisco was exempt from a lot of the really great

reform that came about from the fair map pack they came in a 20 that that got

passed in 2019 2021. um I think one of the things that we the

San Francisco wasn't able to um there was a um you know

a criteria on map drawing on the uh Through the Fair math fact that

unfortunately we were exempt from uh by uh election codes

um section 21621e that basically um we that said that we unfortunately

had something in our Charter uh that made it so that we were exempt from you know using that criteria which you know

other jurisdictions like Long Beach use um in this current cycle and I think

something to consider is to also think about well what are we exempt from that

maybe we can try to make ourselves unexempt from you know in order to get

some of the you know nice uh reform from uh that happened on the state level thank you

I don't see any other hands raised

okay thank you to all the speakers um close public comment

um vice president's attorney do you have a comment or oh I don't think that the

public is able to see us anymore um

based on my personal tech support [Laughter]

okay so I think the what happened is the webcam laptop was shut down is that

no it looks so actually um I I was thinking we could take a five

minute break after this item so maybe or can they hear us at least yes yes why

don't secretary why don't why don't we work on this during the break and then okay

let's just finish this item so um commissioner died was there

anything else you wanted to address before we move on uh no I I have my plan for next

month and I'm hoping for our page passes okay well although yeah

well um well crazy we have more time yeah great so let's um let's move on to the next

item but but before we do that let's take a five minute break um it's it's been three hours since 6

p.m and then um so be back here at 9 13.

yeah um president jordanick yes commissioner I'm going to have to

step out I've been spiking a fever uh so if you're taking a break I will uh

leave the meeting at this point unfortunately um feel better yeah we wish you we wish

you well and thanks for um yeah thank you for two very important presentations and I'm sorry to miss the remaining

agenda commissioner bernholds man just um add one thing before you jump off obviously

I I'm really sorry to hear that but if there are items especially as pertains to agenda 7 which was mine but I want to

encourage if you wanted to put something in writing or anything just so you don't feel that it's

you have to be excluded from the conversation I welcome that as well thank you I am very much uh regretting

that I won't whether we won't get to those I was hoping to take a break after them but um yeah I thank you for all of

your work on those issues and I I hope it's a productive conversation

thank you commissioner bernholds um so let's take a break now for five

Short Break

minutes oh

perfect Tuesday

okay

okay

motion to restrictions

but three year old kids in front of

foreign

closet

foreign

two

foreign

foreign

deserve okay

what would it be okay yeah

foreign

foreign

foreign

testing

oh yeah yeah okay um

I wish there was a way to test the audio before we start the meeting but um

I will just okay the the time is now 9 20 p.m we are

7. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging, Justice Initiatives

resuming the meeting after a short break and for the record it was 908 PM when we

took a break started taking a break so um in Secretary Delgado it looks like

one of the members of the public is not muted on the in the pianos or

okay so let's move on to agenda item number seven diversity Equity inclusion

belonging Justice initiatives discussion possible action regarding Dei

BJ initiatives for the commission and Department of Elections including a proposed resolution of land

acknowledgment to be read at the beginning of each election's commission meeting okay so um on this item I'm going to

turn it over to vice president Stone and vice president Stone I want to thank you for all the work that you put into this

I also want to thank commissioner bernholz for the work that she did on

this um who had to depart from the meeting um so vice president Stone yeah

to want to thank her work on this I um she really

handed the Baton after initiating the the work uh I put

primarily everything that I wanted to say in the memo so I'm hopeful that it

was uh valuable to folks mostly because I wanted to be able to provide some

context about land acknowledgments what they are um also the context of the ramaytosh

lone people um the original inhabitants of this land and also be able to explain the previous

conversation around land acknowledgments for the elections commission and be fully transparent about why it stalled

which I believe had come up when we first talked about this more recently I think it must have been in our April

meeting um and so I tried to be fairly objective with what the concerns were at the time

um and uh and if anyone has any questions about that I welcome them but

the big thing I just really wanted to call out is that bless you

um is that I in collaborating with the association of

the ramayana alone and with the American Indian Cultural District in San Francisco bless you

um one of the most important takeaways and I included this in the best practices

um uh page is that a land acknowledgment is not just a land acknowledgment it's

an entry point for continued conversations collaboration and

partnership with the community and so this is more of a first step it is not

the end um and uh we have started to talk about different ways that the elections

commission can be supportive um but should any folks be interested in

um learning more supporting more I think it's going to be something that we should continue to commit to as we

commit to I hope um acknowledging the land in every meeting

um and that is was by far the biggest takeaway I had from our conversations so that's really

where I'll leave it I'm hopeful the memo was informative and if anyone has any questions I welcome that otherwise I

would love to motion we approved the resolution as drafted

I'll second it great okay so we have a motion in a

second um does anyone want to make any comments on the anything on this topic

okay let's um I'm also supportive let's open it up to

public comments this is agenda item number seven

two persons excuse me with their hands raised um caller you are going to comment on

diversity Equity inclusion belonging Justice initiatives

you are unmuted and you have three minutes to comment uh great I'm back on the computer it's

David philpel again I'm I'm sorry I stepped away for a second and I heard there was a motion but I didn't hear what the motion was can you just restate

it very quickly the motion was to adopt the resolution

that was attached to the packet got it okay so on the uh resolution

um I read it carefully um I thought there was at least one typo in the italicized paragraph the third

line uh indigenous stewards of this land I think that should be and in accordance

with their Traditions um so that's just a typo I have concerns

about the last few words of the italicized paragraph um I would probably end it with

relatives of the uh Rama Community period because I'm not sure what

affirming their Sovereign rights as first people means and what the implications are and I think that was

the concern of commissioner Jung last year I also had concerns about the

fourth paragraph the whereas it says acknowledges that the city and county was founded on unseated territory and

continues to participate in the Erasure and exclusion of the uh issues of Ohlone

peoples I don't know what that's based on and I don't I'm not sure I would

agree with that in general terms um and I'm sorry the the resolution

speaks to the beginning of commission meetings but it doesn't say anything about committee meeting so I'm not sure

if this but also buy the BowTech or any other committees that this commission might establish if you do adopt this I

would review it periodically I would probably not amend the bylaws to require it but I think it can just be a practice

that you adopt by this resolution in general terms if I have a moment here I

I really think that this raises other concerns for me and possibly for others I I think frankly all people have

Grievances and history and when you start down a process to acknowledge this

particular concern it doesn't address any other grievances

in history that people or communities um have and so I'm I'm just concerned

that we could spend a lot of time on 30 seconds everyone's thank you on everyone's grievances uh

and history and I'm not sure um if that helps if it does great

um if this land acknowledgment helps move us somewhere great um but I I as I say I'm just concerned

about the the various other grievances in history that we all have on various

issues that's all those are my thoughts thanks for listening

so we do have another caller oh Mr Turner I you are going to comment on

diversity Equity inclusion belonging Justice initiatives

you are unmuted and you have 30 seconds three minutes to comment thank you Martha can you hear me

yes we can thank you uh this seems to be a recurring theme tonight and I'm very

proud to stand in the tradition of my family heritage and completely support

this resolution um as it is written uh with whatever typos Mr pillpal may have mentioned but

certainly the substance is beautiful and proper and I want to thank you and I

feel proud to be able to chime in on this particular issue because this is unusual for us on the technology

security side to to be able to make a a nice sweeping comment but we stand as

the public in complete support of the resolution thank you

okay thank you yeah no other colors with their hands up

okay so is there any uh additional discussion before we take a vote

may I am sure uh

that's why I really appreciate the thoroughness with the typos and I absolutely can address those should we

um move forward with the resolution I also would recommend should uh I would

love to hear what the other Commissioners think to include this on in bowpack so I appreciate that addition as well

um and I also agree at reviewing it periodically would be valuable and I would recommend in collaboration with

the ramay tush alone and the American Indian Cultural District to ensure that

the language still aligns with their current um perspective uh I will say I did call

I did respond to those concerns regarding uh sovereignty original people

in my memo um and though they're just to reiterate

those are the the strong Sentiments of the community that those are

specifically words and sentiments that should be incorporated in the land acknowledgment and it has been vetted

and approved multiple times by the city attorney's office by multiple city city

Deputy City attorneys by our current Deputy City attorney by the Board of

Supervisors that languages used and most importantly I think

it's important that we invest in grievances for many communities that have been harmed this

is just one initiative of hopefully many more that we prioritize on this Commission

okay anyone else okay secretary Delgado you want to take

the roll call vote excuse me okay president your daughter how do you vote Yes vice president Stone yes

commissioner guy I commissioner Lee ballsy yes and

commissioner Hayden Crowley yes okay with five in the affirmative in passes

okay great and um just there was one other packet document for

this item and I just want to just mention for one minute my I was supposed to research commissioner compensation

and you can see a table I included and the compensation range it ranged from

no money to like 25 50 100 or 200 per

meeting or some some databyte per month but just to give people an idea

um so there's that and then was so is there any other um thing you wanted to discuss during

this item one question I had regarding compensation thank you for putting that together uh were there any other

uh considerations or components I believe commissioner dye had brought up in our bopek meeting that

um you know exploring other avenues such as travel costs things like that so as

to not be direct directly compensation do you know if those are

um are those are maybe not necessarily outlined

um per se but for example do other commissions have budget that they could put toward supporting Commissioners yes

so I I did not research that I I did the documents that I looked at I did come

across the health insurance benefit that we're familiar with but I don't know if um there are other like reimbursements

or anything cool it might be something if and we can talk about this down the line as we continue to talk about

compensation or other Equity initiatives um sorry

oh oh no um I you know if we do start talking

about having an independent budget that is just for the commission maybe that's a line item that we consider

incorporating of travel costs or technology costs as we were talking

about earlier um not necessarily something to act on now but I definitely would love to continue that conversation

as a commission uh I I have familiarity with some other commissions and travel costs are not reimbursed there are

stipends that are given out health insurance is the big one that's that's a huge thing it is huge

um and that is a big incentive for people but uh to my knowledge and I know of

several people on commissions travel costs no other out-of-pocket expenses are reimbursed

okay good to know so any other discussion

8. Director’s Report

okay so let's move on to agenda item number eight directors report discussion and possible action regarding the

director's report okay director Ernst thank you for um your report and I know you have a

there's another panics you had to the report that covers

your um improvements you're making to the results reporting did you want to say anything about your yeah I just take

any questions the commission had okay anyone questions I just want to thank

your your team for responding to some of our concerns but you're like especially

I know that there's going to be a transition to a new website but I think it's uh right that

put the effort into making the changes for the November election which is very important well thank you

yeah thank you for the the changes recurrence I I did have three questions

um and one of them's related to the results reporting during the bopek meeting I remember that you said that

when you're looking at possible ways you could address some of the the suggestions you had said that you had

met with some vendors and do you can you share the names of those vendors

a vendor is societal s c y t l vendor

okay so they're they're ones that have a results reporting web page that the counties use and then are you continuing

to meet with them right now no okay and then um on the and then on the

requested information thank you for adding the additional information to the report at the end there

um I don't know if how other Commissioners feel but if if if there's like no

items to report I don't you don't necessarily need to take up the space in the report at least from my perspective

but um but um one thing I wanted to clarify though was

um it says that there is no legislation that related to open source voting and

internet voting but was there any election related legislation okay and then my last question was on

the um on the contract extension that we had discussed earlier this year related to

Dominion has that gone to the board yet but I think I said previous meetings the way

that the resolution is drafted the the extension does not go to the board so I

essentially signed the contract as the attorney's office will sign the contract OCA will sign the contract and the

vendor will sign a contract but does it require board action the Dominion extension correct

oh I okay I never knew that okay so um so then how what is the status of that

then you I'm waiting for the vendor to get back to us on a draft I I did the term for one year so I see okay so it

does not have to go to for board approval correct okay when did you learn that several months ago okay

all right um okay so those are all my questions

um anybody else yeah I have a few at first I just wanted to elevate

something that I'd also shared with director Ernst um I had the opportunity to

um Shadow prisoner Legal Services as they registered and distributed ballots

um to uh currently incarcerated folks in San Francisco in one San Francisco jail

facility and I wanted to elevate this to the public and to the rest of the commission that it was extremely

organized it was very well um they the department very well

supported prisoner legal services to ensure that they could carry out this

Duty and are continuing to expand how they partner together and I just think

that that's a really phenomenal partnership that um you know if we're talking about equity and policies continuing to

support other departments that are already doing this work and offering them resources

is really really invaluable so kudos to director arnst in the department on that

I was really really happy to see that um one question I had about that actually on page four

um there was a mention about oh and I yeah it was more just about the move to

the videos um for um uh currently incarcerated folks is

that in exchange for posters and flyers ahead of the red like for the registration process

um are or are there posters and flyers in additionally I didn't ask while I was on site so I'm just curious well the

videos are supplemental yeah because potentially the literacy rates are yep

the I also just want to say that PLS said that was great as well okay um I was just curious if there were also

posters um and then the other question I or actually I wanted to also say that I was

happy to see the expanse expansion to working with other groups that are

supporting the homeless population I know that there were a couple of times in your report where you

um had expressed that the department is trying to encourage Community groups to

basically ask for more events with the Department have you

gotten feedback on that have you you know and yeah have you gotten feedback on that and or how is that going yeah so

we hand delivered materials of 200 over 250 uh organizations I think it's 256

and since we did that around starting around two weeks ago I think we have around 35 40 responses as far as us

going to the sites going to an event tabling providing information to people

who are attending the event that's great um thanks for sharing that and then about the results reporting

um I actually wanted to pose this to DCA Flores because I had a fair amount of

like word like a few not a fair amount but a few wordsmithing changes that maybe are a little nitpicky

but also are just to make sure that things are clear am I allowed to do that knowing that that does get more into the

weeds of what the department does if I want to make like if I want to provide specific feedback about what they've

done foreign I think if it's within the parameters of

your duties as allowed okay so how about I try sharing them and if that's not

allowed you can cut me off I mean yeah sure I mean if it's it

General oversight of the department I think you know it's pretty broad so okay so I I will volunteer that I

that director arnside shared an initial draft of this for me and I had made some collected you know

observations on on possible word choices and you took some of them and didn't

think all right so um okay well one thing that I do think is valuable for as

a commission and also just as sharing the result in reviewing your results reporting I think there is

um um there is some value in potentially making a few words very clearly defined

so received versus counted versus returned versus cast um and I got I we even got confused I

think it's a commission not maybe not the last meeting but in a recent meeting and so if there can be like very clear

consistency um and I'm happy to share where I saw that but also as a commission just being

thoughtful of what we're saying when we say counted versus received versus

return versus cast um and then the other thing that's nitpicky is on page four about precincts

reported I'm wondering if we could adjust that just to

um make it a little bit more clarifying um about that that being the in-person

election day polling place precincts reporting so that when it says 100 reported

uh precincts reported it's just those who submitted it's like the two percent of Voters who didn't vote by mail

um either in the mail or both or uh Dropbox um so I'll share that email and then the

last one is on page seven as it pertains to the ring Choice voting um

that I I also felt that there could be maybe some additional Clarity around the where

it says the table below shows only First Choice voters not all rankings and perhaps adjusting it to something more

clear such as it only reflects the total First Choice votes each candidate has received and not indicative of the

ranking results just so it's clear what First Choice votes means

um and then the other um the other component is just can we also include the link to the

um webinar the info webinar on ranked Choice voting so if people are confused about what this means they can easily go

from this page to be able to learn about what ranked Choice voting is um other than that I'll just share my my

thoughts via email but thank you so much for doing this so curious vice presidents don't I I had

suggested to director arms one of the suggestions he didn't take for me was to completely suppress that chart because

my feeling is that um yes and and just just have sorry

suppress the table and just include the link to to the um to the Browns and

that's because in a ranked Choice voting election it doesn't matter what the First Choice

votes are only matters so confused by it I have to tell you yeah I really was so I just so you can hear a little more

feedback director arms yeah um it makes more sense because in a ranked Choice voting contest the First Choice votes

don't matter unless someone hits a majority and by elevating that table it

implies that it has some meaning which it doesn't until someone hits the

majority but maybe it's even adding the what like I loved how on whatever page

that was there was a note that said

um the percentage like the threshold that needed to be reached perhaps even

just a little mention of that um you know what I'm saying similar to

the ranked Choice oh that's an idea um where is it oh page six where it says this measure requires 6 66 and

two-thirds percent affirmative votes to pass so perhaps it we have something to that effect oh I like that I think you

used to have that jackpot maybe I think you did I mean this is something I look at every single time

yeah I think you did I I like that actually because then it's actually completely consistent with the other

ones with the measure and so just say a candidate must you know receive 50 plus

you know plus one to win I know you did and the bottom chart is what I've always

looked at and it makes total sense to me this one really threw me off see get rid

of that table I do think though yeah we're gonna have to keep it because people are used to seeing the first choices yeah and also the first choice

Drive whether a contest goes into the ring Choice method so not all contests

will go into the right choice I just think the way it's worded we can we can change the wording but we have to keep

we have to keep that table so I think if there's a threshold language we could put in there we're gonna look at that

because it's not just only First Choice posts this table shows the first round of First Choice votes isn't that what

what it shows or is it the total first choice right but if there's a majority of the First Choice then you don't go to

the second round but but is this but it's still a ranked Choice voting what you're showing though is this is round

one but the algorithm is not applied unless there's not a majority of First Choice I know but from a from a voter

perspective I don't I don't like that's more information I don't need right I just need to I just

I just know this was a contest where I ranked my candidate so as far as I'm concerned it's a ranked Choice voting

contest regardless of whether the algorithm had to go to round two or not right so it's back to like I don't need

to know it's called a short report because nobody else knows what that means from a voter's perspective this is a ranked Choice contest right but even

even a one choice ranked Choice contest there is no right choice it's just just

one candidate that you're voting for so if we just have the table with the

reallocation of votes there's you wouldn't see anything because if that candidates one book that candidate wins

right so the summary table is actually what drives the result not not the ranked Choice table

I think so I see what you're saying is this a summary of where you are in the

count or is it a summary of the first round that's what's confusing to me

the first choices so where it says Board of Supervisors district one ranked

Choice voting contest this table below shows only First Choice votes not all rankings so I I guess where I was

confused was was this was this where the contest stands

based on the ballots that you've counted correct okay that's what's not clear

because I thought now wait a minute is this is this just the first round or is this where it stands based on where

things through through County and that's what is missing that piece

that's all I mean it's it's great table but I just needs to be clarified I think

just merely adding the threshold and just changing like a couple of words so

the table below reflects the total First Choice uh votes each candidate has

received or maybe we change it well ballots counted and it's not yet indicative of the total ranked Choice

voting uh ring Choice voting ranking results like I think there and I can I'm

happy to provide I've actually drafted like three different versions of this so I'm happy to provide that and we just

add the sentence about in order to that one candidate must receive 50 or a

majority of the vote in order to secure the win otherwise it moves to phase two

but I I think the table is actually important because you know for folks who understand ranked

Choice voting it yes it is more clear to look at the one chart below but for the

maturity of people who are still confused and there's a lot of community input on this about ranked Choice voting

I do think there's value in maintaining this so long as to everyone's point it's

just clear of what it actually shows um so I'm happy to provide some examples and if you want to review those

um of what I'd recommend we change the language to I'm happy to collaborate there's always the ballot simplification

committee I mean this is the kind of discussion that it's good for a committee meeting

because um for people that are interested um but I think

I mean we're we're free to say whatever we want today but yeah I don't feel like it needs to be a committee meeting I

think it's just language to help clarify for the public what it means um and if if folks disagree and they

don't like what you know not that they don't like but maybe they have thoughts about what we've since proposed or perhaps what

I've proposed definitely share that and I can so I I love the idea of adding a line that just makes it

clear you need a majority which seems obvious but in a ranked first voting contest it's not obvious so I I like

adding that and then it's symmetric with all the others I love the idea of linking to an informational video about

ranked Choice that's that's like a no-brainer um uh I will admit that this was one of two

options I gave director Arts to try to clarify what this table really means

um and I understand what you're saying now director Arts that you know if it's if it's you know an uncontested you know

contest yes the the it won't go to the algorithm because you know the first Bell be it right

it'll be one round but I guess the point I'm making is that from a again from a lay person's point

of view I don't really you know need to know if there were 13 Rounds or if it was around one round it

was still a contest where I was asked to put my choices and it's different from other choices for other contests where I

you know just pick one right so I think

um I think it would be good to get some

feedback of why that what I mean clearly your team feels the stable is important

um my feeling is even if it was uncontested you could still have the link to

one round right so then it would then it would it

doesn't matter right and you've already clearly stated that they need a majority and it's very clear that in one round

they got a majority anyway I defer to you and I I encourage

vice president Stone to send our suggestions as well okay cool and then I

imagine your team can just review the feedback that we provide and yeah we're getting a little short on time though

we're making changes to this page to be honest so send me your language we kind of go from there yeah the page is

already up I don't know if anyone actually looked no it's it's already implemented so that's great it's

fabulous yeah thank you I'm sure Terence I just want to back on

the question about the contract extension I I'm still processing what you said but we had a number of commission meetings where we were you

know debating this resolution and throughout those meetings we we were sort of under the impression that the

board had to vote to approve the the extension of the contract so what

changed to so that you understood that you no longer needed to get board approval so

the resolution that was drafted when the board approved the original contract granted the director of Elections

authority to extend the contract and then were you always aware of that or is it I don't really realized until later

in the process okay I I'm fairly certain I told you I think I said at a commission meeting as well

okay well I don't I don't remember but it's I I understand now so appreciate the information

okay um so so let's um if people don't have

objections let's open it up to public comment on this item so um this is agenda item number eight

directors report

caller I am going to unmute you and you are commenting on the director's report

three minutes to comment great it's David philpell again it's late I feel like this meeting started

four or five days ago um I will try to bake all of my comments

down and then that's it for me for tonight I didn't say anything about uh compensation earlier

um so I'm sure we'll discuss compensation and benefits another time that's fine um really great that work on improving

the results reporting uh director art and the staff trying to get it right

taking your feedback uh all that to the good clarify I mean this is really good

stuff on the results reporting can't say enough um about that um I still on the other hand I don't

like the sf.gov platform and the website and the sansara font and the white space

I'm not a fan of that but if you have to go to it because of the Digital Services

strategy and whatnot then so be it but I really hope that the new website

continues to be intuitive so you can find things easily and it contains all

current confidence there's a lot of content buried in the department's website that's all good stuff and I

really hope that none of that gets lost as an example the mayor's office recently transitioned from the old

platform to the new and they only carried forward some of their content and the other part is archived which is

very difficult to work through and it's not all there and it's just a problem so I do really hope that the department

keeps all of the content puts it in a good place makes it readable and accessible and yada yada I'm happy to

provide additional technical comments to Department staff thank you for listening

I hope I'm done for tonight and we'll do more next month thanks again

we do have Mr Turner on the line Mr Turner you're you're going to comment on the director's report you're unmuted and

you have three minutes to comment thank you Martha can you hear me yes we can thank you

um yeah I'm in a bit of shock I uh think I communicated with you offline earlier

that I just got out of the hospital for a heart surgery and so my my team here

in the back is telling me I should remain calm but to hear um John Arts now say that he has the

authority to go around the uh the um

board and also the commission and contract with Dominion is disturbing at

best I'm trying to keep it together at the late hour but um this is just another another point to

be made we have to open up this process to um considering some new people uh to do

a competitive selection process here um I appreciate it I'm sorry Mr Turner

you have to remain on the subject it's the director's report if you have a comment on that please I'm addressing it

directly he he just mentioned that he has the ability to extend the Dominion

contract and what I'm saying is that that that is inappropriate um I don't know how long he's had that

information he mentioned that he told president jordanick previously that that

was the case uh the public has not been apprised of that and we're upset about

it if you want to tell me what to say I'm glad to say what you think I should

say but if unless you have something else to tell me I'd like to continue my public comment

I was just stating that we can't that you you have to continue with the topic at hand I don't know who that was

talking by the way because on the platform whoever talks it just always

comes up Martha as speaking so there's no way for the public to tell which commissioner is speaking that's just

something I want to mention um but I will continue and hopefully be giving my time back

um Mr Ernst mentioned seidle that he's talking to seidle that's Paul Allen's

company partners with Bill Gates from Microsoft we see Microsoft is

controlling this environment controlling the Dominion company also as as that's

the platform Dominion is on top of and we see again this outside interference

recurring and controlling this environment so the public wants to move

toward better systems but we're hearing Mr aren't say he has the ability to lock

Dominion into place without regard to the commission or the Board of Supervisors we want to investigate that

how long when did he know that why didn't he tell anybody now he said that

he did tell people we reject that until proven otherwise and with that I want to

just say we believe the vendors are controlling the conversation here and and we object thank you on behalf of the

public thank you

this is Deputy City attorney Flores I just want to remind the members of the public that um your public comments should be

addressing the agenda item I believe that we had a open such an item about

the hiring and selection process of director Arts so any comments about the

hiring and selection process of director orange should have been addressed at that agenda item so um you know it's

pretty late so we welcome all the public to comment on the agenda items at hand

thank you I don't see any other hamstrings this is

secretary Jacob I don't see any other hands okay thank you we'll close the public comment

so if there's no other comments from Commissioners let's move on to agenda

9. Commissioners’ Reports

item number nine commissioner's reports discussion on possible action on Commissioners reports on topics not

covered by another item on this agenda okay who would like to start on this item

I'm so sorry I just wanted to respond to something am I allowed to just respond

to the public comment s okay um well just based on the feedback

perhaps and I'm not even doing this right now perhaps it would be beneficial to the public for us to State our names

before I speak so this is Vice President Stone just so folks know who is saying

what okay so who would like to um go first on

the commissioner's reports otherwise I'm happy to go so I've actually got a number of things

um I'll try to be quick but um for starters I think you may have seen that some sunshine requests came in a couple

weeks ago just because it was in the news about the the resignation letter is about

commissioners and um on that topic I just want to mention that something that might be of interest

is that um we had a former commissioner commissioner Jung who had um

not responded to a sunshine request and then a complaint was filed against him

that went to the sunshine ordinance task force and then the complaint was found valid and then a couple weeks ago

he had requested a re-hearing and the Sunshine ordinance task force then

agreed with the request so they're going to do a re-hearing and I'm just mentioning this to you so people can be

aware that you know we should always be very um you know look for these emails that are requesting information because

in some cases they do um send those to the sunshine ordinance task force but you should be complying

um anyways um but on that on that item I I did want

to um I I was following the discussion at the sunshine orange task force and I wanted

to ask a question that relates to it um in the in the um

agenda packet for that item there was a a long I think it was like a 250 page

document that I saw and one of the pages

um so the sunshine owners task force had requested director Ernst to search

commissioner former commissioner John's emails and I was wondering direct Lawrence

could you just explain to us how does that work like in terms of searching uh

commissioner's emails do you have access to the emails or or do you have to get

I don't have access to your email uh but when it says commissioner John was had

resigned from the commission uh and we had not in the account had not been

closed the department is the only entity that can access those emails in response

to a sunshine ordinance uh request otherwise I don't have access to your emails but but after they leave then you

can it would actually correct okay all right and then next clarifying question about that yeah

so does does it have to be just so I understand a formal request given to access the emails in order for the

Department to then ask like access them or is it at the

discretion of just so I understand well all your emails are public record right and so it's just a matter of who's going

to provide that public record uh since commissioner John I don't think I I I'm

not sure if his account was closed to his access or not at that point he might have thought it thought that it was uh

so since the uh since the sunshine request came to me then I responded to

their request by looking at his emails otherwise I don't I don't look at I don't have access to your emails uh and

I have to have a formal request someone can't just call me up and say hey what emails do they get on in July 5th you

know it's not how it goes but um if there was a request for records

for sitting Commissioners I would forward that to you and you have to respond to it so thank you for

clarifying okay so then yeah thank you Dirk Terence um on the next thing

um I did post on our website the the list of regularly requested information that we approved at the last meeting I

did make the out of the additions that vice president Stone had you know pointed out during the meeting

as part of the motions and she was able to review that I know um vice president Stone she did mention that you have

other suggestions on the document on stuff that wasn't mentioned at the meeting so we can we can revisit that

document at a future meeting to um look at your additional suggestions

um another topic is I've mentioned before that our commission's website is getting

they're asking us to switch over to the new SF gov um

platform it's a newer version of Drupal and they were saying that we needed to

complete that by mid-november and so I I have been

working you know meeting with them every couple weeks and I have access and so

the current plan is that for the next meeting we'll be able to see a preview of that and then we could

activate the switch over um you know sometime in late November or

so and I think um the other thing is

um related to this they're doing this for all departments in the city including

the drug the Department of Elections and which director Ernst mentioned in his report and Digital Services who is

managing this transition has asked me if they would if they would be able to give like give a presentation at one of our

meetings so they could we could learn about the accessibility and usability

improvements that they're they want to introduce because this is an effort that director

ernst's department is going to be involved in so it would give us some insight into

that process and then the next item is I was invited to participate in a meeting by Stephen

Hill with um the Registrar of Alameda County Tim Dupuis and his deputy

director Cynthia Cornejo I think her name is and there was also a member of the League of

Women Voters in the East Bay and basically during that meeting um

the interest was in and I was more of a kind of an observer I wasn't a part of this but the registrar told us about the

changes that they're making to their website around results reporting specifically on ranked Trace voting

because they have a similar issue where the Dominion system that they're using does not

um report ranked Choice voting in the way that it used to and he he told us that they basically

developed a system in-house where they're they're going to be generating that that rank Trace footing grid and

they're going to be um displaying it integrated in with their their election results kind of

what we were um discussing with director Ernst at the bopek meeting so I I um and he told me

that he's I'm happy to share the code with director Ernst and um you know work

with him provide any information but um so this is kind of like what the open

source advisory committee did in their proof of concept but this is something that Alameda County then also

implemented on their own in their own way so um that's just another alternative

for improving the results reporting and then the last thing I want to

mention is that um I know that we've had Iraqi onboarding process for

some of the new Commissioners and I know um you know all of you all of us so I

just want to let you know I do take responsibility for this just as the President right now so um I'm going to

be a little bit more involved just to make sure that there's a lot of touch points with

different entities within the city and sometimes things get hung up or it's also kind of complicated because

the process can be different depending on who appointed you so um I just want to let people know that I'm going to be

more active in that just to make sure that things are smooth for people so um would it be possible to also like

as folks work with you on that um provide some element of documentation

because I think what was challenging and I don't know if that already exists maybe Martha excuse me secretary

Delgadillo could speak to that just because I think one of the challenges to your

point is the relationship that is non-existent between like the ethics department and then the HR department

and the appointing authority and obviously all those stakeholders but having some documentation of that

process I think would be helpful and I'm happy to help with that too yeah so I I did work with secretary Doug on that

document I I was updating it with with her to add more detail but um there can

always be improved more and I don't know as a body how if like it should be a

public document or if we can circulate a privately I'm not sure but um

we can certainly um keep that option open even like a checklist everything right it's what's a

sequence of steps kind of um and it's hard because each step might

depend on the other and things have to happen within a certain time oh yeah so yeah

so um so that's that those are all the things I had to report I know it was a bunch of

things but um will the um the folks you spoke with from Alameda and how they were doing

ring Choice putting is the are they going to I'm sorry if I missed this since it's late um collaborate with the department

or present some of those insights to us um or what is like a

is there a helpful takeaway so I will probably share with you some

screenshots from that their page but I also did tell director Ernst about the meeting I had and and he actually told

me he he met with him shortly after so I think they must have independently got in touch with each other

so um but that's a more long term it's not for the selection

cool answer your question yeah okay um

can I ask you a question were you just talking about a checklist for onboarding yeah oh okay I'm sorry it's getting late

yes I was kind of it's not getting late it is um you know you might want to check with some of the other commissions and see if

they have that and you could just crib from that would be just a suggestion so you don't have to reinvent the wheel

yeah yeah um it's a good idea

okay um so if unless there are other anyone else's things to report we can open it

up to public comment I was just going to report that I that I had met with prisoner legal services and

I had registered folks to vote in I think it was cj2

um and also um helped deliver ballots

um which was really helpful um and then I also met with a couple of other community groups

um including folks who um who work with formerly incarcerated

and particularly with sorry folks who aren't were formerly incarcerated and

who recently had voting rights restored so I think it was perhaps 17

that changed this where Parolees are now eligible to register to vote

um and a lack of a work was it 17 or the most recent the most recent 17 I

thought um so mostly what I just wanted to share um is that it I've started to kind of

try and understand the needs of those Community groups and also

um understanding the confusion around how often our rules change as it

pertains to elections so it's just really informative and happy to share more if people are interested but wanted to elevate that

um I just want to add that I have a long history with personal legal services not really along but I worked with them when

I was in the Sheriff's Office Nick gregorado said Melinda and I helped promote that whole loading

um uh program with Nick and um that program goes back to my candidacy who is

the sheriff that was there for 28 years and he um was the one that actually has

helped establish prison and legal services he was a poverty attorney and then he became sheriff of San Francisco

and prisoner Legal Services is unique to this country that we don't have anything

that no other no other jurisdiction has anything like it they help people in the

jail with other legal issues that come up as a result of their incarceration such as being evicted from their homes

Child Care things like that and so voting the voting rights has been a long-standing program which director

arts and his group have facilitated for many many years and then this year they've added the the

voting boxes and and are seem to be doing uh even more but it's been a really successful program and has been a

standard for the for the country so there's information on it on the

sheriff's website so at sfsheriff.com I wrote the information

well then I probably learned from you

that was all mine okay great um so let's open it up to public comment

on agenda item number nine yeah okay well let's move on to agenda item

10. Agenda items for future meetings

number 10 agenda items for future meetings um

let's see website transition yeah I'm just trying to think if there's

anything that we didn't mention um previously so um go ahead reviews

yeah well actually there's there's something I I want to say about that um

I guess I could say now so Mark I'm secretary dogadio asked me just to let

people know that she's actually this is her last meeting today and she said some medical issues that she needs to to take

a break for and I just want to say I've really enjoyed working with you secretary Delgado and I'm going to miss

you you know thank you

yeah so thank you glad you're taking care of yourself

yeah so um

so um but I think in terms of a future

um meetings I know one of the things that um that we could discuss in and say

December is the commission's budget and that's come up in a couple different

contexts and this is something that I don't think we've the commission has ever done basically is there anything

that we should be asking for as a group that we might need um

you know just even even earlier today for genetic number five we saw that there was there was something missing

um but um

and so there were a number of things that came up earlier in the meeting I'm just trying to I'm blanking right now but

if um

um if anyone has any suggestions but oh let's well people are thinking let's open it up to public comment on agenda

item number 10. from the line and color you are

commenting on agenda items for future meetings you have three minutes to

comment all right well it's David philpel I wasn't going to say anything but you saved the worst news for last so this is

the last meeting for Mark oh no

could I move to authorize a medical leave of absence for some period of time if you've got it so she can come back I

mean oh all right whatever we got to do what we got to do continuity of government all right thank you for your

work thank you for your service for the people I really appreciate you thank you Mr Coco

and we also have Mr Turner on the line and Mr Turner you're commenting on

agenda items for future meetings you are unmuted and you have three minutes to

comment thank you secretary Delgado can you hear me yes we can I just on behalf of the

public also want to reiterate Mr philpow's uh appreciation thank you for

your kindness and your your ability uh you'll be missed

um other than that hopefully we can bring back open source voting for future

agenda items um I think it obviously is the I think most crucial part of this commission's

work moving forward to set precedent for the State of California we know Los

Angeles isn't going to do it they attempted with a 300 million dollar budget that went down the drain we also

could possibly agendize what effects outside interference and Corruption are

having within our Arena here and these would be a couple suggestions and thank

you again all for your time in this late hour thank you thank you for your kind words Mr Turner

okay everyone so um seeing no additional comments um

The Time Is Now 10 18 p.m and thank you everyone for sticking it out it's been a

long night have a wonderful rest of the night meaning is adjourned good night