May kaugnayan Elections Commission

Elections Commission Regular Meeting

Wednesday, January 18, 2023

In this page:

    Overview

    See below agenda item #1 for a PDF version of the agenda and the remaining items for the agenda packet documents.

    Meeting recording (Duration: 2:56:51):
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aU2sRou2Es

    (Also see below the agenda for the video with transcript.)

    Agenda

    1. Call to order and roll call

      A member of the Commission will state the following (from the adopted 10/19/22 Elections Commission Land Acknowledgment Resolution):

      The San Francisco Elections Commission acknowledges that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone, who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula.  As the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramaytush Ohlone have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory.  As guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland.  We wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors and relatives of the Ramaytush Community and affirming their sovereign rights as First Peoples.

    2. 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.

    3. Discussion and Possible Action on Resolution on Continuation of Remote Elections Commission Meetings

      Attachments: City Attorney Memo Regarding Public Meetings and Findings Motion; Draft Resolution of the San Francisco Elections Commission

    4. Election of Commission Executive Officers

      Discussion and possible action to elect a new Commission President and Vice President, per Commission Bylaws Article V, Sec. 1(B). The procedure will be as follows:

      The Chair of the meeting will open nominations for President. Any commissioner who wishes to nominate a candidate will state the name of that person. If that person agrees to run, then that person is nominated. When there are no further nominations, the Chair will close the nominations and call a roll call vote in which each Commissioner shall state the name of the nominee for whom he or she is voting. If a nominee receives four or more votes, that person is elected President. If no nominee receives four votes, the Commission may have further discussion, and proceed to another vote. This process shall repeat until one nominee has received four or more votes. The same process will then be used to elect a Vice President.

      Per the bylaws, the terms shall begin immediately at the conclusion of the meeting.

       

    5. Redistricting Process Initiative

      Discussion and possible action regarding the Commission’s potential recommendations with respect to the San Francisco redistricting process, including historical background and the proposed project plan.

    6. Director's Report

      Discussion and possible action regarding the Director’s Report.

       

    7. Move to SF.gov website

      Discussion and possible action regarding the new citywide SF.gov website and the move of the Elections Commission and Department of Elections websites to SF.gov.

      Invited Speaker:

      • Amy Martin (she/her/hers), Project Manager, Digital Services

         
    8. Process to Conduct Annual Performance Evaluation of Director of Elections

      Discussion and possible action regarding the process to conduct the Annual Performance Evaluation of the Director of Elections.

    9. Possible Closed Session Regarding Public Employee Appointment/Hiring: Director of Elections

      Discussion and possible action regarding appointing the incumbent Director to an additional five-year term. The Director of Elections’ current five-year term expires at 12:00 a.m. on May 21, 2023. The Charter requires that the Commission appoint a Director for the next term at least 30 days before the expiration of the current term. S.F. Charter§13.104. Portions of this item may be held in closed session pursuant to California Government Code§54957(b) and San Francisco Administrative Code§67.10(b).

      a)    Public comment on all matters pertaining to this agenda item, including any comment pertaining to the Director of Elections’ appointment and/or whether to meet in closed session.

      b)    Vote on whether to hear Item 9(c) in closed session. (Action)

      c)    Discussion and possible action regarding appointing the incumbent Director of Elections to an additional five-year term (in open or closed session, per the Commission’s vote).

      d)    If closed session is held, reconvene in open session. Report action taken in closed session as specified in California Government Code §54957.1(a)(5) and San Francisco Administrative Code §67.12(b)(4).

      e)    Discussion and vote pursuant to Sunshine Ordinance §67.12(a) on whether to disclose any portion of the closed session discussion. (Action.)

       

    10. Approval of Minutes of Previous Meetings

      Discussion and possible action to approve Minutes for the September 21, 2022 and October 19, 2022 Elections Commission Meetings and to review Minutes for the December 12, 2022 Meeting.

    11. Commissioners' Reports

      Discussion and possible action on Commissioners’ reports on topics not covered by another item on this agenda: meetings with public officials; oversight and observation activities; long-range planning for Commission activities and areas of study; proposed legislation which affects elections; update on Commission Secretary hiring process.

      Attachments: Job Posting for Executive Secretary I - Elections Commission (1450) (web link)

       

    12. Elections Commission Section of the Department of Elections' Racial Equity Action Plan and Progress Report

      Discussion and possible action regarding Section 7 ("Boards and Commissions") of the Department of Elections' revised Racial Equity Action Plan and Section VIII (“Boards and Commissions”) of the Department’s Racial Equity Progress Report for 2021, including possible additions and status updates.

    13. Agenda items for future meetings

      Discussion and possible action regarding items for future agendas.

    14. Adjournment

    Date & Time

    Wednesday, January 18, 2023
    6:00 pm

    City Hall, Room 408

    1 Dr. Carlton B Goodlett Place
    San Francisco, CA 94102
    View location on google maps

    Online

    Event number: 2490 058 9640
    Event password: vote (use 8683 from phones)
    Join the meeting

    Phone

    Access code: 249 005 89640
    Event password: 8683 (for phones only)

    Meeting recording (Duration: 2:56:51)

    Transcript:

    okay welcome everyone to the January 18th 2022 regular meeting of the San

    Francisco elections commission I'm the president Chris turdonic the time is now 607 pm and I call the meeting to order

    this meeting is being held in person at City Hall Room 408 one director Carlton be a good luck Place San Francisco

    California as authorized by California government code section 54953e and mayor

    breeds 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 vote by video members of the public May attend the meeting to observe and provide

    public comment at the physical meeting location listed above or online

    in addition to participating in real time interested persons are encouraged to participate in this meeting by

    submitting public comment and writing by noon on the day of the meeting to

    Chris Dot jordanick j-e-r-d-o-n-e-k at sfgov.org it will be

    shared with the commission 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 opportunities to speak during the public comment period are available via phone by calling 1-415-655-000

    zero one again the phone number is

    1-415-655-0001 access code two four nine zero zero five eight nine

    six four zero again two four nine zero zero five eight nine six four zero

    and then following typing the access code you

    press pound 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 3 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

    and sure you are in a quiet location before you speak commute the sign of any equipment around you including television radio or computer it is

    especially important that you mute your computer if you're watching via the web link to prevent feedback and Echo when you speak when the system message says

    your line has been unmuted it is your turn to speak you are encouraged to state your name clearly as soon as you begin speaking

    you have three minutes to provide your public comment six minutes if you're on the line with an interpreter

    you'll hear a bill 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 3 again you'll 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 inside panel is showing

    by clicking on the participants icon make sure the participants panel is expanded in the side panel by pressing

    the small Arrow indicator in the panel you should see a list of panelists followed by a list of attendees at the

    bottom of the list of attendees is a small button or icon that looks like a hand press the hand icon to raise your

    hand you will be unmuted when it is time for you to comment when you're done with your comment click the

    hand icon again to lower your hand when her three minutes has expired staff will thank you and you will be muted you

    will hear your line has been muted public comment instructions are also listed on on the final page of the

    agenda okay um Commissioners please make sure

    your microphone is unmuted so that you can State Your Presence at today's meeting after your name is called

    so we will proceed with the roll call attendance

    vice president Stone president commissioner bernholz here commissioner dye here

    commissioner Hayden Crowley here commissioner levolsi president commissioner Parker here

    and I commissioner jordanick I'm here so we have everyone in attendance we

    have a quorum okay so next under agenda item number

    one so a member of the commissional state the uh our land acknowledgment and I've asked commissioner Hayden Crowley

    to say the land acknowledgment for today Mr Eden Crowley thank you president

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

    Raymond ramitush alone alone who are the original inhabitants of the San

    Francisco Peninsula as the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their Traditions the Rhema tush

    alone have never seated lost nor forgotten their responsibilities as

    caretakers of this place as well as for All Peoples who reside in their traditional territory as guests we

    recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional Homeland we wish to pay our respects by

    acknowledging the ancestors and relatives of the Rhema tush community and affirming their Sovereign rights as

    first peoples okay thank you commissioner Hayden Crowley and then next we have another

    announcement I'd like to welcome a new commissioner Michelle Parker who was sworn in

    um yesterday January 17th and was appointed by the Board of Education and commissioner Parker would you like to

    say a few words about yourself sure thank you president jordanick

    um yes I was disappointed yesterday I'm really excited for the opportunity to serve San Francisco

    um I have been lived here in the city for about 25 years I have three children who have were born here and have gone

    through our public schools here in the city and I've been very active in our public education community over all of

    this time served in a lot of different leadership roles chairing different committees for the school district oversight committees and at the state

    level with the State Department of Education um been a long time advocate for civic uh

    Civic engagement and helping to encourage families all over our city to do that

    um professionally I work as the executive director of education for KQED our public media station here in the

    city and I'm really happy to be here thank you very much welcome thank you

    okay so now we will move on to agenda item number two general public comments public comment on any issue with any

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

    and then vice president stone is going to be Manning the microphones like uh like last time

    I have one person on the line Mr Turner I'm going to unmute you and

    um I've just submit the request and then you will have three minutes

    I've unmuted you can you hear me yes if you could project a little bit

    that would be helpful okay great thank you uh good evening Commissioners welcome to a new commissioner Parker and

    um I also wanted to apologize um for my mispronunciation uh of one of

    the Commissioners names uh previous uh I thought I heard Woolsey but I did not

    and so my apologies um uh just by way of reference uh I've

    been working in the open source voting system space as an advocate I'm an election analyst and I worked with

    Christine Pelosi uh speaker uh Pelosi's daughter

    um putting open source software into the California state democratic party platform

    um so uh by by way of reference again I've worked with the reason I thought I

    heard Woolsey was I worked with Jim Woolsey the former director of the CIA and we were in a movie together called

    the real activist which I think some political figures in San Francisco are

    in as well if you get a chance to see it um let us remember that it is true that

    the best practices for Mission critical systems include open source for the

    Department of Defense NASA the Air Force Etc this esteemed commission has led the

    state and Country on the issue of Open Source voting and we applaud your efforts and hope they continue uh open

    source paper ballot systems are now available for piloting in San Francisco and New Hampshire just had a successful

    pilot and now they've joined Mississippi interestingly ahead of California in the

    pursuit for a higher level technology for elections so we we hope the

    commission takes all necessary steps to expedite open source moving forward we

    know we've had some blocks on the political side Aaron peskin has has not

    been uh our Ally on this however the Board of

    Supervisors historically has passed 11-0 um all motions toward directing uh John

    Ernst and the department to move toward open source systems so this battle has been going on for about 15 years now and

    we're just hoping that this commission continues the effort it's a very difficult effort it is the third rail of

    politics for your previous efforts and look forward to the future thank you

    thank you Mr Turner I I have muted you um and I will lower your hand call in

    user three um I have just requested to unmute you

    um I will uh you have three minutes when after you begin

    can you hear me yes hi I just want to call in at the outset

    of a new commission welcome new commissioner Parker I'm happy to hear that you have experience in the

    commission realm um I want to kind of talk about how

    the elections Commission in San Francisco seems to be dominated by a single issue discussion

    about open source voting and while I think that is valuable point

    I think some of the Advocates who are given a huge amount of space and time to

    to speak on almost every agenda item uh really are are are causing some serious

    doubt about the security of Elections both in San Francisco and recently in

    Alameda I saw a uh interview with Mr Brett Turner uh as

    he was discussing the Alameda issue with ranked Choice voting and he's essentially insinuating

    that Dominion is not a secure system and that people are pulling the levers behind the scenes uh

    this is a really dangerous allegation for someone to be given the the space to

    make because as we saw this week in Albuquerque New Mexico there was a

    targeted attack on on People based on false claims of election fraud so I just

    want to you know uh advises commission as it goes into the new year to really kind of accept

    that open source is one thing but it is not the only thing and it is not

    um it it it's just not the answer to all the problems

    and it's really dangerous both in so many ways to insinuate and listen to

    this um idea that Dominion is doing something bad or any other system that's not open

    source is a danger um I would also hope that the commission

    can look to maybe different leadership this time around as the

    the commission uh was was not getting

    the best attention uh Nationwide and internationally in the last session so please consider those things

    as we look toward a productive uh future thank you

    thank you I've unmuted or I've muted you and we have no more

    um hands raised okay so uh next item agenda item number

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

    so we have our usual two packet items we have a memo from the city attorney and also

    the the proposed resolution I move we adopt the resolution second

    okay is there any commissioner discussion before we take public comment okay seeing none let's take public

    comment we have no hands raised okay any further

    discussion before we take a vote okay seeing none um

    vice president Stone yes commissioner bernholtz yes commissioner died

    aye commissioner Hayden Crowley yes commissioner Lebowski yes commissioner Parker yes and I president

    Jordan include yes so Western passes unanimously

    okay so let's move on to agenda item number four election of Commission Executive officers discussion possible

    action to elect a new commission president vice president for commission bylaws Article 5 Section 1B the

    procedure will be as follows the chair of the meeting will open nominations for president any commissioner who wishes to

    nominate a candidate will state the name of that person if that person agrees to run then that person is nominated when

    there are no further nominations the chair will close the nominations and call a roll call vote in which each commissioner shall State the name of the

    nominee for whom he or she is voting the phenomena receives four or more votes that person who's elected president if

    no nominee receives four votes the commission may have further discussion and proceed to another vote this process

    shall repeat until one nominee has received four armor votes the same process will then be used to elect the

    vice president and then per the bylaws the terms shall begin immediately at the conclusion of

    the meeting okay so let's start with the um opening the nominations for president

    I'd like to make a nomination um well let's commissioner I'm just

    going to go to commissioner Hayden Crowley first and then I'll go to you next yeah you're hidden Crowley thank you um I'd like to nominate vice president

    Stone as our next president I think that she's done an a great job in uh EX in

    um facilitating uh and building a new relationship with our executive director

    and I would like to see us headed more in that direction where we're working closely together as the year goes on and

    so I think that uh commissioner Stone would bring that experience and commitment to that position

    okay thank you commissioner Hayden Crowley um do you accept the nomination yes and

    thank you okay so we have one nomination uh commissioner bernholz

    that was my nomination so no need thank you okay

    so are there any other nominations for president

    okay seeing none so I will close the nominations and we'll call a roll call vote and you know as the instructions

    say you just State the name of the nominee who for whom you were voting okay so let's um

    go through vice president Stone commissioner Stone commissioner

    bernholtz commissioner Stone commissioner Dyer commissioner Stone commissioner Hayden

    Crowley commissioner Stone commissioner lavosi commissioner stem commissioner Parker commissioner Stone

    and I also vote for commissioner vice president Stone

    okay so vice president Stone your elected Council congratulations thank you thank you everyone hope I can make

    you all proud okay so so next we proceed to vice president

    so if anyone would like to nominate Canon for vice president you just State

    the name of that person I'd like to make the nomination

    okay uh I'd like to nominate commissioner Hayden Crowley for vice president

    okay commissioner Hayden proud you accept the nomination um

    yes okay thank you so are there any other

    nominations I would actually like to nominate myself for vice president

    um and let me just explain why I I served as president for the past six months and I was very happy to serve

    there's a lot of things that we're working on and um we're very busy but I would like the

    opportunity to you know continue the work that I started and supporting vice president Stone now president Stone

    and um there are kind of a number of initiatives that I would kind of like to continue handing

    over to her I I agree

    um I I sorry this is uh I guess president-elect Stone uh I I think

    everyone would be I think commissioner Hayden crowding Crowley would be phenomenal I also support

    um but I support like president jordanick um because I'm president-elect he's

    president um because one of the things that I think would be

    valuable is continuity and stability um I know it's been a pretty challenging

    several months um and because um president jordanick only did serve

    for six months I do believe that we well there has been a lot of turmoil I do

    believe we've built very good rapport in our ability to have conversation and

    um yeah I think we work well together I that is not anything about commissioner

    Hayden Crowley it's just in support of um what president jordanick has already

    shared

    okay is there any other um discussion

    actually I also realized um Deputy City attorney Flores I forgot to take public comment before the first

    vote so I'm not sure what we should do for that

    okay well I guess what I'll do is I'll take public comment before our next vote but um

    I'll just take public comment right now actually do we have to do it before the vote

    well that was my understanding but um but I'm hearing differently from even though it's not emotion

    okay

    business per se it's just Journal says that you've established for

    minus

    I'm also being told by someone that the public is unable to hear you uh DCA

    Flores just to provide the public a little bit of Intel as to what we're just talking

    about it we are discussing when we should take public comment

    um yeah if I mean if yeah you've already done the president

    um nomination and acceptance um so I think at this point if you want to take public comment now

    um you know it's just you're following the bylaws it's you're not you know uh building new policies or anything

    that the you know that the Public's gonna have you know uproar about so um I think

    that at any point that you want to take public comment on this item you should only do it once

    um so if you want to take public comment now I think it would be appropriate yeah I would just just out of caution I'd

    like to take public comment now um even if we're technically allowed to do it at the end but um

    so let's open it up to public comment

    absolutely

    I'm unable to see bear with me for one moment we're having some technical difficulty

    oh move the wind around

    are you able to are you able to navigate it and I'll just do the timer

    um well I think so

    okay I see one public commenter on the on the phone I'm gonna unmute you this

    is Mr Turner uh hello uh yes no uproar from the

    public on anything that I can sense so thus far um just wanted to

    um put in a good acknowledgment for president Stone I think she'll be able

    to carry forward with the good work of uh president jordanick now president-elect Stone and

    uh also to say that commissioner Hayden Crowley I'm sure can get up to speed

    very quickly um there is a tremendous amount of volume

    um here and so that is applauded by the public as well one thing I did want to

    mention was since it was mentioned that there has been a lot of turmoil with the international press and and

    such um the public feels as though that was a

    bad uh press moment where the Press was actually off kilter and reported some

    things that weren't necessarily true and That Was Then exploited uh by everyone

    from Tucker Carlson on down the line so that's actually a badge of honor for

    this commission to take fire from the the hard right like that and um again

    your efforts are all appreciated thank you for your time

    thank you Mr Turner you're now unmuted and lowered your hand

    as of now I don't see additional hands raised

    okay so is there any further discussion before I take a vote

    let's go okay so commissioner

    um so I think both of you would be fabulous but I'm just I just have a question for commissioner Hayden Crawley

    uh I I think that you know we have an opportunity to kind

    of um Institute some good processes and structure for the elections commission

    and I think that will take some extra effort by our leadership and I'm just wondering

    if you're up for that because you had some you've expressed concern about the

    amount of time maybe that this has taken and I'm just curious well I wouldn't

    have thank you uh um which should be widely recognized excuse me yeah go ahead commissioner

    Miss commissioner Higgin Crowley I would not have accepted if I wasn't up for the challenge

    um but that being said um what I was kind of actually hesitant is

    I wanted to see if there were other people that were interested in the process because I'm not sure I would

    have accepted if I had seen that there were other people I'll just be candid

    um I'm willing to do whatever it takes because I made a commitment when I um agreed to serve on the commission but

    um I understand if that president jordanick has perhaps a longer term commitment to

    the commission than I bring to the table as I've only been on the commission since October but

    um I would as I said I would not have accepted if

    um I wasn't willing to do the work okay thank you anyone else

    Mr President soon yes thank you um this is Vice President Stone I

    um appreciate that question that was previously presented to

    um commissioner Hayden Crowley I think I'd like to hear from the

    um body in terms of folks who uh did not nominate

    um and what your priorities are because I just

    to share a little bit of context about what I think is important if it's

    helpful is then I mentioned this a little bit is I think there are a couple things that

    are important one is uh trust um and trust with the commission trust

    with the Department trust with the public and government and I think being

    able to build support for the work that we do is crucial and the other part of

    that is I think just kind of building some stability and that doesn't necessarily mean

    specific individuals that's just how do we make this commission operate in the

    best possible way for the long term and that goes side by side with trust and so

    I'd like to understand how the body members of the body feel as it pertains

    to the two nominees in their ability to do those two things

    um and and um yeah to follow through on those um I I recognize that that's a little

    bit untraditional so I understand if that's not uh folks's interest but that

    is an interest of mine so thank you see

    any any commenters or uh

    Australian probably yeah at this point because of your strong desire to be vice president I'm

    going to withdraw my nomination because I will look to serve at another

    time when I have more experience on the commission but know that I'm willing to

    serve and I would not have accepted had um

    uh had I not been willing to make that commitment but knowing that your

    commitment has a longer history I see to you okay thank you commissioner

    okay so is there anyone else okay so let's proceed to a vote and just

    as a reminder to State the name of the nominee for whom you are voting uh vice president Stone

    um uh president or commissioner Jordan uh commissioner bernholds

    commissioner Jordan commissioner died Mr jordanick commissioner Hayden Crowley

    commissioner jordanick commissioner levolski commissioner danik commissioner

    Parker commissioner Giordano and I vote for commissioner Giordano as well okay

    so that um so that means I'm elected vice president

    so um

    so thank you everybody so just as a reminder for the bylaws these terms will

    begin immediately at the conclusion of the meeting okay so um let's move on to item number five

    redistricting process initiative discussion 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 I'm going to turn this over to Commissioners Diane levolsi and we had

    begun discussing this at the last meeting and continuing today

    thank you president Jordan so um you have in the packet the exact same

    document that was in the packet for the December meeting and what I was hoping

    for was just a little feedback from the rest of the commission uh this was

    intended to be kind of an executive summary of all of the recommendations

    that we heard from our various speakers for the past six months um you know uh some of them were

    overwhelming in their recommendations and you know others only so you know

    chose to comment on selected aspects but uh what I wanted to know is is there

    a desire by the commission to have a couple of more educational sessions to

    do deep Dives on some of these different aspects so that we can set up additional

    experts to come and address the commission

    um some of the things that um you know kind of

    I wondered if the rest of the commission wanted to spend a little more time talking about our for example

    the rank criteria and the fair Maps Act and you know what some of those

    different criteria mean for example or does everyone feel pretty comfortable

    with these different aspects and would we be ready to start soliciting proposals from the public on

    what they'd like to see for San Francisco okay so commissioner burnholds has a

    comment thank you uh president jordanick and thank you Commissioners die and lavalsi

    um for all of the work you put into this so far I spent a fair amount of time with this document

    and um I'm very impressed with the synthesis that the synthesis that you've

    been able to do I do and I agree with many of these recommendations

    um I guess if there's a topic that I would need more information on

    um before moving forward our um they don't have numbers so uh the one

    that headline transparency and the one that's headlined uh selection criteria and process

    um I'm it's unclear to me from all of the uh

    people we've heard from on the selection Criterion process uh

    how what that application process winds up looking like what the impact on the

    commission would be and how uh bans on conflicts of interest are

    um determined and enforced so that's one area and then number the second one under transparency I think this is

    um a very good set of recommendations what I'm not sure are

    um wait maybe it wasn't transparency I'm sorry I think I've got the wrong thing

    so um the ban on ex parte Communications and acquired disclosure

    um also just sort of questions the uh about enforcements of that and how that's actually

    carried forward so um other than that I the only other overarching question I have which would

    be I believe appropriate for whatever discussions you're planning for the commission is where if anywhere there

    are recommendations that are mutually exclusive contained within here or that

    have implications to some recommendations of implications for others and I wasn't able to quite

    figure that out on my own so that might be just a part of the next conversation we have but again I want to thank you

    for the amount of work that went into this and if there's any more detail to be gathered on those two questions that's where my interest lies thank you

    thank you commissioner bernholtz anyone else commissioner Mr hidden Crowley

    um thank you president jordanick and thank you both um commissioner die and

    commissioner lavalsi I concur with commissioner bernholz on the tremendous

    amount of work that you've done and the thought that you've put into this and of course all of the input that we've

    received from the public which I haven't even been privy to all of it since I was late to the game but against I come back

    to sort of a practical assessment at the end and there's a few things that I would do

    right away is I think you could sure you could have more meetings you could get more ideas and so forth but I think if

    this is to move forward you need to get somebody to write it and typically that would be the city attorney's office but

    I don't know if that's something that this commission does but it's kind of

    like you gotta you gotta throw it up against the wall and see what sticks and I do think uh you you need to move

    forward on it and and that's the time to get the input is once you have a draft

    because you've got lots of ideas here and we could collect ideas till Kingdom Come I mean I thought the stipend part

    isn't in here there's a few other things but who cares what you need is somebody to write this for you and then see what

    sticks and then we would get the public input on that document the second part of that is and I think it is it is uh

    crucial is uh that uh concurrent with doing that and you get

    the public input and so forth is you're building a coalition with the public to a certain extent you've already done

    that because I well regardless of what this commission votes on it I don't think the commission's the one that

    should be lobbying for this at the board level trying to get that sport unfortunately we

    right now I don't know how much standing we have with the board so I think that

    um if this is something that we you know because the already a tremendous amount of time and thought and energy has been

    put into this and um I I think that for our best bet we

    need to find key people who are invested in this but also have strong

    relationships with members of the board and with the mayor's office to put this

    forth to make this go forward um because those are the folks that the

    board and the mayor will listen to and without them if it's us it's it's I'm

    sorry it's DOA it it just is I mean we we need to be smart and strategic about

    this if you want this to go forward so um that's my two cents thank you thank

    you commissioner Hayden Crowley always appreciate your pragmatic approach um just to give you

    kind of what our thinking is on this right now because we are not

    um uh I mean this is something that will be voted on by by people so hopefully we

    get the Board of Supervisors and hopefully the mayor to put this on the pallet

    um what I think our appropriate role is is that we would endorse

    um you know a set of recommendations and bless it

    um but I think the responsibility um should actually come from the public

    and so uh and and I have

    to express that to the folks who have a vested interest in this and and we're very upset with the last process and

    they are taking the ball and running with it um so the expectation is that you know

    when we're done with our educational staff which might just be one or two more sessions that we would have a

    public hearing and invite proposals from the public and

    um I'm aware that people are actually working with the good government groups

    that we heard from uh Asian wall caucus common cause like Women Voters to come

    up with a joint proposal to make our jobs easy to to give us something that

    we can react to as a body and also solicit that from the public to see if there are aspects they want to

    tweak or whatever so that is truly a collaborative effort that hopefully we all end up with something that everybody likes that that everyone can go forth

    and work with the Board of Supervisors and mayor to get it on the ballot and let the people vote on it so that's what

    I'm envisioning as a process rather than us drafting something or asking the City attorney to draft it is that

    you know they already the community Unity map Coalition already presented some key

    priorities and they they told us they're still debating it themselves that they what they want to propose to us

    so that's that's what I'm envisioning as a process so that we don't we're not the ones saying this is what we want that we

    actually hear from the public what they want and then we might disagree with some of it right and you know there's

    some nuances here that I have in my questions comments saying where I think we'll need to have some discussion about

    it because they're sometimes unintended consequences and what have you and we might have different point of view uh

    and then we endorse a package basically that then goes to the Board of

    Supervisors and and the mayor and they may have you know edits and whatever and

    then it'd be it so that's something that's a very collaborative and process that involves uh all the parties that

    are concerned about making sure we have a fair process in San Francisco so just a smack

    you have not spoken yet go ahead thank you um and I definitely would like to

    um hear all the sides of things so um uh thank you for the work on this I

    really um I also want to apologize for the way that I postponed this conversation

    um that was um not that was not in the best way so I did want to apologize for that for the

    last meeting to the whole commission um the the feedback I have and I went I

    went through it and I actually I kind of went back and forth of sending written feedback or just talking about in person

    and I think I will provide more like I I did a bunch of detailed feedback that

    I'll provide um offline and make sure that it's included um publicly for everyone but there were

    a couple of high level things that I thought of um the first is I really

    appreciate all of the questions and comments um that were posed I think those were

    extremely valuable I think the big takeaway I have is actually

    quite similar to commissioner Hayden Crowley um which is I think I left um reading

    through it and providing all my feedback to just wondering you know what is the output what is the end goal of the this

    um initiative like this project um and I think you uh commissioner die just walked through some of it I think

    something that might be valuable is uh documentation or or

    just a high level outline of maybe the process that was just um explained so it's we're you know next

    steps this next step is potentially having more questions answered

    um than asking for proposals to be developed then having special meeting

    then um you know how it's presented to uh you

    know all what you described and the reason I'm interested in that is because I do think um in line with what

    commissioner Crowley said that it would behoove us to have a plan for working with the supervisors and the mayor as

    soon as possible even if we don't have you know something something kind of

    tied up just to begin that process um and the other thing I would say is I

    think there are a lot of questions still outstanding that would

    make it uh difficult at this point at least on my

    end as someone who would be voting on anything to make a full recommendation on anything so I agree that having a

    full draft of the proposal who if whether it's the city attorney's office or the Coalition themselves I think we

    can discuss that but I think seeing all of the like the actual

    kind of procedures and processes of what we want redistricting to look like and

    what we're actually putting in front of voter what we would be putting in front of Voters to vote on

    um would be helpful um because yeah so I'm I'm kind of uh going on and on but I

    think um this is extremely helpful I will provide more detailed written feedback but I'd love to get a sense of what the

    final output would be and how you want to get there I guess if that makes sense thank you

    I'm sure he's probably um yes I'm sorry just a moment this year for us yes uh

    just um point of clarification um the city attorney's office doesn't

    normally draft legislation for commissions um and uh I don't know if it would be

    proper because we wouldn't know what what exactly you want on the legislation so any requests that's why my thinking

    is let's accept a draft from Good Government groups and let's respond to

    it and let the public respond to it and tweak it because I agree I don't think

    that's normal yes uh if you're also thinking of going that route I mean the public can also go

    the voter initiative route as well if they're going to do the work they might as well just run with it um so but

    whatever it is I will be here to help you if it's possible

    okay commissioner Hayden Crowley that was actually a thank you president jordanick that was actually the question I was able to ask because so much of

    things that I've worked on in the past has have to be run through the city attorney's office so I was thinking well maybe maybe not a ballot initiative

    um but I would ask director Arts when ballon initiatives are submitted to the

    Department of Elections for consideration do they have to be vetted by attorneys

    no no there's nothing in the law that requires a charter Amendment language to prevented by attorneys it would have to

    be a title and summary that the city attorney's office would draft but as far

    as any sort of uh prescribing prescribing of uh or adhering to current

    law I don't I'm not aware of even the secretary's office during the title and summary giving that sort of advice

    um in our in the department certainly doesn't do any sort of review of the of

    the text of a proposed measure we're we're we administer the the process of accepting

    and then reviewing the signatures when they when the petition is submitted so the answer is short is no there's no

    requirement that it'd be vetted or signed off by any sort of legal advice

    okay all right thank you um and then just a reminder um the initiative process would be

    wonderful but it's expensive and it takes a lot of time and you simply need a majority of the board as supervisors

    the last I asked this question because I I actually miscommunicated at a meeting I thought you needed at least nine

    supervisors in fact you only need six supervisors and of course you want all of them but it's a lot easier to get the

    majority of the supervisors to buy in on this and vote and remember they're not

    this isn't going to affect them because this is going to happen 10 years from now but

    uh so I think they particularly if if it is brought to them by value you know

    people in the community who they have relationships with who you know they have maybe votes with that kind of a

    thing um that they would be much more interested and inclined to listen to

    something that right now I they probably aren't all that interested because it doesn't affect them and it's 10 years 10

    years is so long I mean there's so many huge problems right now so getting their

    attention is going to be very challenging but if you get the right people in the community to do it and you

    can probably get six votes and and that's the way I would pursue it

    okay um I was gonna wanted to make a comment myself

    um and this this is you had asked if there were any topics that you thought people

    would like to take a deep dive on and early on in our meetings about the redistricting

    reform um I know I had a particular interest in one topic and maybe other people did but

    um we had decided early on to kind of limit the scope of what we talked about just due to our own time constraints and

    bandwidth and um it would just we we have to limit ourselves and even though some of these

    other reforms could potentially you know address these things too so I was

    wondering if um if it would be possible for us to maybe

    um consider inviting someone to talk about the topic of of

    um you know the idea of having a like a charter committee that meets on a

    regular basis like every 10 years or some kind of a Citizens assembly like

    um I know well Portland has the charter committee that meets every 10 years and kind of like what we did 30 years ago

    with the elections task force basically some kind of a body that would be more

    equipped to look at some of these issues that we ourselves didn't have time for so that way you know in addition to our

    own recommendations we can also make a recommendation as to how to structure your body that could

    look at some of the other things that we we may not have had time for and then we could um

    you know make suggestions about how those the composition of that body

    could be selected probably very similar to how members of redistricting test scores

    should be selected but I mean I could imagine inviting someone that was participating in the

    Portland process or um I I think there may be some citizens assembly happening in California or

    another state but point of clarification are you saying

    just so I understand um president jordanick the are you talking specifically about

    redistricting um like the committee every 10 years would be thinking about how to amend the

    chart continuously amend the charter in the context of representation or are you talking I just it sounded maybe a little

    bit broader than that and I want to make sure I'm really clear on what you were saying yeah so it would be sort of I

    mean we could discuss it but it would I think my understanding is that in other some other cities they have after their

    redistricting process they have a charter committee that meets to kind of look at issues of democracy and

    representation kind of more broadly than what we've looked at and they could look at things like

    you know um you know proportional representation or um

    you know just different ways of organizing the government that would maybe be broader than what we've looked

    at but it would be limited more to you know kind of governmental

    representation commissioner Hayden Crowley president jordanick thank you does the grand jury

    do any of that right now um I don't

    I don't recall seeing them cover that topic I know the elections task force did that which we heard and you know

    they spoke to us about that but that was 30 years ago okay um my concern with your request has to

    do with the Practical um approach of getting the supervisor's

    attention for a limited scope I think if we bite off more than we can chew and

    and and I I feel like while you're so well intentioned here I feel like we're

    already kind of how do I want to say this uh doing more

    than maybe what are what our our Charter amendment allows us to do so so right

    there we need to be mindful of the fact that there's going to be people out

    there that are particularly given the most recent events that are going to say what are you doing

    so I do think that we need to if we want to be successful with what is in front

    of us we need to limit the scope of it in order to get people's attention and

    be successful if you if you put too much in there I guarantee you it won't pass

    it just won't well I mean it could be also you know

    just an advisory body that doesn't require a charter amendment I mean the the type of body that I'm suggesting

    but um I had a question clarification

    um commissioner Wolsey are you asking for a body in addition to the task force and would that body be a body that would

    review what occurred after um registering process or look at things

    all together different so I just want clarification so it would be a different body okay and

    it would be um I guess they could kind of review how things went but it would it would be to kind of like

    propose broader reforms around democracy and representation

    got it whereas the redistricting task force would be strictly about what the lines should be okay so I I guess

    my I have a similar concern is are we going outside of the scope of our

    responsibility as a commission so I think I think that's a question we should ask

    um and to commissioner Hayden Crowley's point if we want to get this passed we do need to be narrowly tailored and

    focused on how we do it but I but I also think if it's not outside of the scope of this

    commission it would be a good idea to look into those into some kind of body

    that would look into that but maybe that if it's within the scope of our um responsibilities that could be

    something that could happen after we get this passed that would be my recommendation but I I

    appreciate what you're saying but I I think we should be clear that what you're suggesting we can do

    and two if we can take one step at a time get

    this passed and then um create a body if allowed to to look at

    some of the issues you're talking about yeah I mean I guess

    I mean one I mean one thing that the topic that I'm

    suggesting could be a lot easier because it wouldn't require a charger Amendment and it could happen in parallel to

    a charter Amendment where so um

    I mean in terms of like is it in our scope I mean I saw ourselves we were saying well we don't have time to look

    at these issues and we just you know didn't look at those issues but I feel like you know it would be sort of a natural

    things for us to say is given that we didn't have time to look at these issues we would recommend

    that you know there there would be a body that could look at these um because I think

    I think they are in scope for the elections Commission because it's about how do we elect our representatives and

    we're trying to represent the people in the diversity um but I know we just didn't have time

    got it thank you vice president Stone thank you um

    I hear that I think I I guess I go back to the question of

    what problem we're trying to solve for um and I think I think

    I'm not going to restate what my fellow Commissioners have shared about the scope because I I share those sentiment

    but I think just remembering what our what what we're trying to solve for and I think

    um maybe just reframing why we would be doing that what what the need is to do

    that um might be helpful in thinking about the scope you know I think the reason that we started down this path to begin

    with was that there was a lack of public trust in

    the process as it was standing and you know there were mistakes made and on in

    so many ways and that was a problem that as a body we chose to try and solve

    um and so I guess my question if we were to explore that and I think we we should

    just maybe hold off on it for a little bit is what is the problem that we're trying to solve for if that's something

    that we would be um if that's something that we would be considering as a body

    well I think I mean there's a couple like one of the one of the contentious

    points of redistricting is that when you have a district and you can only elect one person or sorry you can only

    have one representative of that District the district might have a great diversity within it and it's it's kind

    of inevitable that there's going to be a lot of conflict but if you have consider alternative

    election systems where you elect you know multiple people from larger

    districts proportionally then you could number one it makes the particular boundaries less important so it could

    reduce the conflict about redistricting but also would guarantee that when you

    have an election using that method you would be a lot more likely to be representing the

    diversity of within that larger District so I think it would be an alternative

    way of solving a lot of the things that [Music] um you know problems that came up most

    recently but but just using a more General approach and um

    but it could also be complementary uh commissioner day thank you so um so I

    hear what you're saying uh president jordanick but I agree with the sentiments of uh some other

    Commissioners here that I do think we need to focus if we're going to to get this particular proposal across the

    Finish Line I do think it's within the scope of the elections commission to

    look at better systems of representation and to the degree that we feel like we

    don't have time to you know deal with that in the scope of our normal business that I think it

    would be within our mandate to to spawn and

    advise everybody like the elections task force of 30 years ago to study it in Greater detail

    and to to to present us with a recommendation

    um so uh so I agree with the sentiment I just I think that we just need to kind of

    follow through with the limited scope that we all agreed on for this redistricting initiative first because

    we do want to get this on the ballot uh in 2024 and well it sounds like it's a long time away

    as commissioner Hayden Crowley has pointed out we kind of needed to start yesterday and you know we need to get at

    least six supervisors behind it we need to get a very specific proposal to them

    so they can get behind it and so there are a bunch of stuffs that need to happen and

    um so I so I agree with you I think that that's something we should do I just think that we need to do this for us so

    um so let me just summarize what I've heard um I heard from commissioner bernholtz there are a couple of issues that she

    would like to understand more deeply and so Commissioners levolski and I will talk about how to

    um you know bring some experts in or provide some more uh information on that uh at our next available meeting

    um I heard from vice president stone that we should document the process next

    steps so we'll do an update on our redistricting initiative document with

    looking forward what we estimate our next steps to be um and uh and from president journic I

    think we can look at this issue of whether we can take it on ourselves after we get this across the Finish Line

    uh and or spawn uh an advisory body to to look into it further because the

    elections task force remember only existed because the elections commission was not yet created now that the

    elections commissions exist I think it's fully within our purview to look at those issues if we decide we don't have

    time I think it's reasonable for us to to ask an advisory task force to advise us

    so that we can take those issues on any other

    thoughts on this before President Jordan won't we have time if you set this if if you pass this redistricting initiative

    because you won't you won't be worried about anything and I think to your point president

    jordanick um the example that you gave I actually made notes to that effect about the

    diversity because it's it evolves so but so I do think that I mean that's a

    question that I haven't I didn't bring up because this is stuff that should be hammered out by the communities they

    need to figure out how I mean because just in my District Four which I was part of District Seven got moved into

    four but that my district has changed a lot and so

    um you know how it was originally District Four was originally a voting rights District I don't know what the

    status of it is all changed and so I think that you have to build that into

    any kind of proposal to um kind of anticipate that things will change

    demographically and how are we going to address that and that has to be built into that and I guess again from a

    practical standpoint and I hate to just kind of lay it out on the line but here's the thing if if this was if we

    were trying to get this on the ballot and we still had supervisors that were going to vote on this that were going to

    be affected by it I think they would vote against it nobody wants to have power taken away from them but see this

    isn't going to affect them because 10 years from now they're not unless of course somebody runs again after seeing

    because none of those supervisors not even the most recent recently elected ones or the mayor will be in those

    positions and if if you have people out in the in the um

    in the communities that are their supporters that they have good relationships with that are touting this

    as good government and you you have those supervisors understand that I mean we're not taking power away from them I

    will say that if you have a committee that wants to analysis analyze something

    and and and do more with the charter and I I don't quite understand exactly what

    you mean that's taking power away from the board and they're not going to go for that they I mean it's just that simple they

    we just don't they they don't like to have power taken away from them and we

    do not have the power to do that sorry that's just

    okay any further discussion before we take public comment

    okay let's take public comment in this item

    we have no hands raised okay um commissioner Stein we'll see was

    there anything else you'd like to mention before we move on yeah just if anything else comes up before the next

    meeting you know if you have written feedback you want to provide or additional afterthoughts

    um please share them so we can build it into our schedule and our planning for any further education but uh if not I

    think we can move to hearing proposals from the public you know maybe maybe in

    March April something in that time frame and then we'll have something that we

    can throw up against the wall and have specific reactions to and get down and dirty and some details

    okay well thank you very much for both of your work and um

    to be continued okay so let's move on to agenda item number six director's report

    discussion possible action regarding the director's report okay thank you I can take questions on

    the report itself but just a couple of extra items so and now I meet out of the ranked Choice voting

    um uh results reporting over there so what happened was that Alameda set up

    their ranked Choice voting to where uh in the Dominion system where the First Column uh if it was blank he was left

    blank when the ranked Choice voting algorithm was applied and that's a setting issue it's not a

    voting system issue so the voting system actually worked the way it was programmed the way it was set up for that election

    um and I know there's there's been conversation open source would have solved this but it's not again it's not

    a voting system it's a setting issue and then what we do in San Francisco is that

    how we set up the ranked Choice contest is actually at the top of the results so

    if you look at the ranked Choice results you see the settings for how the system

    will calculate or tabulate the votes so that that's one way that we provide

    information to the public that the ranked Choice part of the system is set

    up to uh to operate correctly then we also uh post the cast vote record on our

    on our website so every time that we issue results reports we we include the cast vote record uh so it's not that's

    just every time that we that we post ranked choice on Election night but also anytime we do results in election night

    that every day thereafter that we should results we post a cast vote record I saw that commissioner jordanick was

    referencing some Tool uh some that the ranked Choice voting Resource Center I

    guess has it's not approved but I guess it's a tool that people use to check ranked Choice contest so that CVR file

    is actually what you would use with that ranked Choice voting Center resources Center tool but the system operated

    correctly it was a setting issue in San Francisco the settings were correct the

    results in San Francisco are accurate there's there's no concern on my part that any any vote any contest or any way

    wrong or that the results should be different so I just want to put that out there first then the second item both

    Commissioners die in stone sent me the letter from Professor Holderman from the

    University of Michigan about potentially someone finding out how another person

    voted I mean the scenario is rather remote I mean I understand I understand

    how theoretically it could happen and I can go into more reasons why it's for

    it's remote but I did contact Dominion after I received the letters of the letter and the Dominion has actually

    submitted an upgrade to its system to Secretary of State's office and part of

    that upgrade is uh is a is a fix to this situation so even though it's remote

    that what Professor halderman uh alleges could happen uh would

    that that particular function functionality or reporting I guess it's a reporting issue uh uh will not be uh

    present in the system after goes through re review of the Secretary of State's office so uh so going forward there's no

    concern as far as uh you know current results reports I mean we've already

    posted those the and no one's come forward to me saying that anyone has

    been watching the counter at the at the polling places and uh so I I don't I I

    we're not going to remove the report the results reports from previous elections I just don't I just don't think there's

    a real concern there as far as at this point especially we're past the elections

    um so those are the two items that uh that I would bring up and I can take any questions on my report from there

    uh Commissioners does anyone have any questions for the director vice president Stone I just had a very quick question that I thought could be helpful

    with the actually the re like in the context of thinking about redistricting um about the voter Outreach I know

    shocking that that is what I'm I'm asking about but um I was wondering if there are

    um I guess I was just wondering how the feedback from the from the public or

    voter Outreach is organized um and it doesn't necessarily need to be something you share now but perhaps there's some

    Intel that the department could also provide in the redistry thinking about redistricting and how to manage Public

    public feedback because I imagine that the department has

    um a pretty like robust way of managing that um that input so I don't I don't

    know if you want to respond now but also you could just share it at a later date too there's no rush

    um but I know that you're working on it based on page three um

    yeah page three you said the the 2023 voter outreach program lost through

    um August 2023 the first phase of it so um thought it could be valuable but other than that I was excited to

    obviously see the focus of the communities that you guys are working on so thank you

    thank you commissioner Parker um yeah I think I get to benefit from

    being the new person here and ask some things that maybe others already know but um I also was really curious about

    the voter outreach program I'm excited to see the the groups that you'll have

    specific targeting towards and was um just curious now or at a later time

    um of course coming from the education field I was curious about the same soon to be voters and what kind of Outreach

    you're looking at for those 16 and 17 year olds what kind of Partnerships I assume that all of these have

    Partnerships involved to reach these specific populations but I wondered if there's just more you can share

    so we provide information to the school district and we also contact the school see if we could get closer to an

    election then we also have a high school ambassador program so we actually go into the high schools and then we

    actually we've been rather successful too and it I think going into 2024 will

    be as successful if not more so with our high school ambassador program where we actually engage with students who want

    to come into the department or usually they come in the department or we go we can we go to schools we also bring them

    to the department and we you know we we give them uh just background and

    registration the process registering people what happens when people get registered about voting and

    then though the ambassadors then sort sort of like peer leadership so then the

    ambassadors go back to the schools and then they engage with their peers and try to get them registered try to get

    them informed about voting elections then we've also had people come through the department so we'll give tours

    they'll come through and we'll all stand up and you know give our spiel about our divisions and what we do and

    um and so so it varies but there but there in every and also uh the highest the the schools are one of the primary

    locations we have for polling places and so we have an ongoing relationship with the school district so it's not just

    like we just show up to tell you what you know we want to start our high school ambassador program so we have an ongoing relationship with with the

    school district with with their administrative Personnel we also do with the principals at the schools some

    schools are more responsive than others but then also then that next step to

    engage with the students would be our high school ambassador program

    all right thank you thank you very much commissioner hidden cover thank you

    president jordanick I'm director Arns I was looking at an item D the budget and

    you have to cut your budget what is that going to look like

    yeah it's always tough with elections because you know we're going to the presidential cycle so now we're also not

    having an election November 2023 and so we know we can assume that March 20 and

    March might change we don't even know what the primary is going to be but right now the the primary schedule for

    March and we can assume that more measures of local measures will be on that ballot and then we also know that

    this this was it 14 16 16 14 I can remember a change to allow for State

    measures the proponent opponents to be listed with each measure and then also

    the look The the counties can also opt into that so potency San Francisco could

    adopted to having the proponent opponent listed on on for each measure uh so just on the state side we you know we expect

    a 50 increase in space just for the state measures and we expect a lot of a lot of measures locally since there's no

    election in 2023 uh with that with the reason I'm saying all this is that it's hard for us to cut

    you know so if our expenses are going to increase uh

    because of the type of election and then they're going to increase even more because changes in law but basically we

    have to just lay out where you know where we are making efficiencies uh and then that'll be in the memo that we

    present uh to the commission I think the end of next week and you know we're trying to make

    efficiencies on hiring how we hire people so we can spend less time uh the managers aren't putting as much time and

    bringing people in and getting them prepared to undertake their responsibilities but as far as election

    costs no they're not going to go down we can't cut elections costs and for presidential cycle they're going to go

    up and that's going to be a conversation we have with the mayor's office prior to our submission of the budget it'll be

    also a conversation with the board's budget analysts when we submit to the board and it'll probably be a

    conversation we have the budget hearings as well but it's hard for us especially going to presidential cycle to actually

    hit these these Target reductions that are put forward by the mayor's office we will try to find efficiencies and try to

    hit the five and eight percent reductions in certain areas but again the overall costs are probably going to go up for the Department yeah the second

    thing is just a um the self-interest of the commission I

    don't since I'm new I don't know what our budget is as part of the Department of Elections do we have a budget

    it we we have a this is um uh vice president Stone we have a line item that

    covers our secretary's position so we have no other budget that is other than the secretaries well there actually are

    three line items in the budget for its dental costs uh it's it's maybe a few thousand dollars for like paper and and

    things like that um but uh so but no you don't have like uh any

    sort of uh line item for uh laptops right

    I got that other commissions do yeah but but uh

    um yeah but certainly the commission could put forward proposals uh for

    expenditures for the upcoming fiscal year or years that we can include those in the budget and then if then also

    you'll have to provide some sort of substantiation right for those costs and we can bring those forward to the mayor's office and include those costs

    and our conversations when we review the budget prior to submission see where the efficiencies are going to

    come in okay so that's something though as because I'm new to this process we as a

    as a group talk about that okay because we probably need to identify where we might need budget and even if we have no

    hope we should still ask we should always ask because then we could come back next year when downtown is

    populated again and the tax receipts are huge we can always wish

    your vice president Stone yes um I just wanted to respond and also

    follow up on a question and then ask um follow-up ask the director a question and then I have a third

    um comment about the budget um so we actually had as a commission talked a

    little bit about budget having an independent budget and I did begin I

    actually spoke with um DCA Flores and russie about who to

    speak with about that so I had begun the process um but obviously the last several months

    on this commission was our focus and time was elsewhere so I think it's great

    that there's appetite for that and I I very much support it it actually goes to

    my my point my third point so I'll just go straight to that which is um understanding the timeline of when

    things need to be presented um because I was looking at you know we

    have to have two meetings to review the Department's budget 15 at least 15 days

    apart and if you look at our schedule we would have to have a special meeting to

    review the budget or bopek and so I propose that we call a bopek meeting in

    addition to the February 15th meeting where we can do the the full review but hopefully bopek

    could do a view and perhaps commissioner Hayden Crowley if you are interested in participating in bopek you could also

    come have some additional thoughts around what could be included in a ask around

    budget so just wanted to throw that out there that we should think about willpec and then I wanted to ask the director a

    specific question about just point of clarification when you said

    um that the counties can cop that can opt in to 14 16. so what is that like

    who Ops how what is the process of opting in is that you know kind of sole discretion of the department is that the

    supervisors how is that determined yeah so the board would have to actually opt in to having the proponent and opponent

    listed on the ballot measures local ballot measures sorry would you mind repeating that so the board would have the board okay okay

    thank you that's all okay are there further

    questions I took turns I have a couple questions um thank you for commenting on the

    Alameda County situation and I agree with your comments you know it was not a problem with the Dominion system it was just a how they had configured it but I

    was wondering um and I've been following that pretty closely but um just relative to how

    you know that our department works how are those configuration files set up

    is that usually like us you know a County staff person or is it does the Dominion come in and configure it for

    you or is that something that you that's done on Election night or is it set up in advance do you have any idea yeah so

    Dominion takes the definition of files and sets up the election so you think it's something that they

    set up for the county over there do you think or no the cop Alameda actually sets up their own election so they made

    that choice okay and then they do it in advance of the election is it of course that's so

    ballots are created after the elections are defined I see

    um but I mean in terms of how the RCB is tallied is that that's part of the

    election definition yes but it's also a setting okay so that

    is something that could have been changed so we actually ran because one thing

    that so we actually one thing I came up to in Alameda is that they did what's called single

    elimination of candidates and ranked Choice instead of simultaneous elimination and and we actually do

    single elimination as well the charter requires simultaneous elimination and we changed it years ago actually part of uh

    from the commission uh ongoing series of of meetings and comments uh we we

    probably should issue a simultaneous Elementary report but we so we even though we uh we had the right settings

    we we uh we did check to see if simultaneous and uh single elimination

    created different results and they don't it's the same math I mean it's just the same votes but that was one of the issues that was coming up and I'll meet

    at the time that we checked and my point is it's a setting and so we're able to toggle on off on off so even though we

    even though Dominion defines our elections they set it up that's something that we check ourselves and

    that's why I bring up that on our website when you look at the ranked Choice results you can see the settings

    for the ranked choice tabulation and those are all the settings that and the one with single elimination versus

    simultaneous that's one uh that Alameda changed and then

    however what's different with Alameda is is they selected a report version so

    this goes back to reporting actually so Alameda wanted the reports to look differently and this goes back to you

    know what the commission was talking about and I you know I heard that was being risk averse around these reports

    uh but they they wanted the reports to look differently and they wanted a better report and again the the setting

    that they chose was for the Minneapolis uh version of ranked Choice it has a different report which Alameda wanted

    but Alameda didn't realize my understanding is that that setting for

    the mini because the Minneapolis ranked Choice voting is different than San Francisco ranked Choice voting which is different and Alameda is more based on

    San Francisco ranked Choice voting so when the report was pulled from the

    Minneapolis ranked Choice voting approach it created a different tabulation method essentially so that's

    what happened in Alameda uh but yeah they they could have and they if they had posted the castle

    record then they potentially so much potentially could have caught then you

    mentioned I saw that you were quoted talking about this tool from the ranked Choice uh resource voting whatever it is

    and uh you know if people are using that and then they they could pull ours for instance on Election Day they could have

    pulled alamitas if it's been posted um so does that answer your question yeah and then just one one follow-up on

    that um I know one of the things that the Board of Supervisors over there has been talking about is they wanted to

    they're requesting a recount of some of the races over there and they mentioned wanting to bring in a

    like a a registrar from like a neighboring County with experience in ranked Trace voting so I'm wondering

    have they reached out to you no no okay um and then secondly I don't want to

    get into the the halderman stuff just because it's um you know that was only a few days ago but

    um did the Secretary of State Contact you before the election because it I guess Alderman had contacted the

    Secretary of State well in advance of the election contact me personally no I mean

    the department um not that I'm aware of okay okay all right so yeah that's all the

    questions I have yeah thank you um thank you also for the the information in section five that we had requested

    that's very helpful um the uh you know relating to our document

    oh okay yeah is there any anything else before we move on to public comment

    okay let's take public comment on this item

    we have one hand raised Mr Turner you are unmuted and I will you

    have three minutes thank you Commissioners and again for

    the sake of sort of framing here um I want to associate myself uh with the

    work we were doing over in Alameda right now with the NAACP who has been quite helpful as well as the Southern Poverty

    Law Center who has continued to support open source voting um we just want to make mention of a

    couple things that I don't know Mr Ernst I don't want to say that he's made a misstatement but no one said that open

    source would have necessarily solved the Alameda setting issue but certainly it

    is conceivable that having a more modern system over there um could have avoided that problem with

    settings um the problem is when you have a corporate vendor involved you do run the

    risk of what we're seeing with the Alameda situation and and they're not being good oversight and controls over

    the system so obviously uh resip's a locator you had a situation where it was

    one person announced as a winner one day and one person another person the next so

    um obviously we have a problem it's not to be deflected or minimized and it is a

    similar system this raises the issue certainly in the uh opinion of most all

    uh election experts you should not have ranked Choice voting on top of a

    proprietary system if you're going to use ranked Choice voting you necessarily should have a an open source

    general public license system and that's just the science on it uh I know John uh

    you know advocates for proprietary systems but Dr halderman is a very high

    ranking scientific expert on point of National Security and he's called out

    the issues with the Dominion systems we're not saying that to inflame the public or try to get them not to vote or

    participate we're trying to have an adult conversation um with the commission that has so much

    ability on the subject matter so thank you for listening to that

    um we're we're just um recognizing the Oakland situation we're

    not saying that that is going on in San Francisco but since the systems are the

    same with Dominion it does make sense that we take a look at what Dr Holderman is Holderman is saying and that again we

    try to expedite moving toward these better systems as far as the innuendo by

    an earlier caller saying that you know this has something to do with New Mexico or something I I think hopefully that's

    just naivete um certainly everyone that I've been associated with in my 15 years

    associating with this commission has been very uh cordial and and we

    appreciate that tone uh carrying on so thank you all very much and give your three minutes has just stopped

    okay there are no more hands raised okay public comment is closed are there any

    other comments before we move on okay great and thank you again directorants for your report

    all right so let's move on to agenda item number seven move to sf.gov website discussion of possible action regarding

    the new Citywide sf.gov website on the move of the elections commission and Department of Elections websites to

    sf.gov okay so today we have an invited speaker um Miss Amy Martin and she is a project

    manager with Digital Services and she and I have been in touch with I want to say September at least since

    October on um basically talking with me about moving the commission's website to their

    new platform and um originally the The Hope was that we

    would be moved by like late October but um you know there's just been so much

    going on and we wanted to wait until after the election but I'm going to let um Amy just speak to us about

    this project and not just relative to our own website but also the department's website and I want to thank

    you for being here today and also for your patience and waiting for the item so

    thank you Amy

    um I think we need to turn it on maybe

    Susana sounds good okay thanks everybody um as president journonik said my name

    is Amy Martin and I'm a project manager with San Francisco Digital Services we're a division of the city

    administrator's office here in the city of San Francisco uh excuse my speaking with a mask on today I share my home

    with a very toxic creature called a preschooler and I don't want to bring any of that in here for you

    um so I'm here to talk to you today about moving the commission's website onto sf.gov and I have a very short

    presentation about what sf.gov is and what this means for your commission's website I'm sure you're all wondering

    also what happens to the information that is on the old website and I can show you a little about that too let's

    see am I sharing it looks like I'm sharing my slides now great the public can see it as well great

    that's great um and then as was said we are also beginning the process of moving the

    Department of Elections site to sf.gov as well so I can talk a little about that so our um our commissioners familiar

    with uh sf.gov the website I know we spoke a little about it in the hallway before yeah

    um so we're going to talk a little bit about it um the way sf.gov began is that the City

    and County of San Francisco traditionally have had many many even a

    couple hundred websites distributed across multiple platforms and over the last few years my department Digital

    Services has begun the process of unifying them on a single platform which is sf.gov we work on the principles of

    accessibility and inclusion those are really core to our mission design of sf.gov it's the most accessible and

    inclusive website the city of San Francisco has it's fully accessible to the most uh most recent standards

    designed for mobile devices including older devices and browsers because we know that

    mobile accessibility doesn't mean that just the latest iPhone user can access your content on phone we want somebody

    using a really old device that probably doesn't work very well to be able to access it as well we asked people and we help people from

    departments write content in fifth grade English that's obviously a difficult standard but we help people with it and

    we get as close as we can sometimes we offer human translations to Spanish Chinese and Filipino we have pages that

    load quickly for people who live in data poverty so people without good data plans who do not have access to Quick

    loading pages and we organize information into topics so that people who are not familiar with the city's

    organizational structure can still find the information that they need security and updates are taken care of

    by us not by me fortunately by someone who is an engineer and Digital Services

    does everything to keep sf.gov safe and operational um it's fully it's we're on Drupal 9

    which is a switch from your uh your current platform which is Drupal seven fully support and secure and we're

    hosted on Pantheon and monitored by New Relic so why move to sf.gov now

    um in November 2022 or right around that time Drupal 7 reached its end of life this is just the phasing out of an older

    version of the product and Drupal 9 is the version of the product that we are that we've been moving people onto it's

    the back end of our CMS for sf.gov um and so we maintain all the security

    updates and going forward with that so we needed to move everybody off of the Drupal 7 platform in 2022 uh to

    comply with security for the city so we moved um about 60 city and county agency

    websites onto sf.gov last year from the Drupal 7 platform so it was a very busy

    year um also in November 2021 the city passed the digital accessibility inclusion

    standard which requires City websites have a plan to follow the rules within that standard by March of this year and

    there's a link to the standard within this presentation I won't go into all of it here but um you can read about it

    afterward it has rules around uh fifth grade reading level language plain language writing on websites

    a human translation where possible and see

    um and websites being accessible in design as well so your site is moving as part of that

    effort and Department of Elections is also moving as part of that effort as far as what it means to be on sf.gov

    for your staff for people who will work on the site for the commission it's an easy site to edit and update you'll have

    clear usage data and Reporting and you'll have ongoing support from Digital Services with constant improvements

    since we're a team that's part of City and County of San Francisco you don't have to worry about Contracting with a vendor or anything like that for San

    franciscans it means human translation is accessible it's written at a fifth grade reading level or close to it and

    it's usability tested so it's centered around the needs of the people who live in the city

    so we can take a look at your website as it's going to look on sf.gov it is just

    newly published which means that it's available to look at by the public but

    it's not currently connected to anything so people won't be able to Discover It independently so you all will have a

    chance to look it over before the site actually goes live for the public and I'm here tonight to answer questions you

    can see a kind of a side-by-side comparison from the old site to the new site here and this will be in your slide

    deck too for you to look over later and then this is what a meeting looks like from the old site over to the new

    site I really like the meeting pages on the old on the new site I think they are a nice change also now that you're

    moving over to the new site your site will continue to evolve with sf.gov you will get all of the upgrades that we

    make when we make them and all of the new functionality that we add you'll have access to those case in point we're

    moving what we call public body pages so for commissions committees all of those are moving to become agency Pages by the

    end of this month which means you'll have additional functionality you can add you can add a news feed if you want

    when that happens you'll be able to add events and you'll be able to add some spotlighted links things like that so uh

    president jordanick and I have talked a little bit about some of the additional things you'll be able to do so you'll be

    able to add some interesting stuff to your website okay and now I can show you a quick demo

    if you'd like uh while I pull this up does anyone have questions

    is there Mr Hayden Crowley do we have so is

    someone a digital Services doing all this for us uh well the way the process works is

    that we teach your staff how to do the work and we do some of it so we

    typically will onboard people from the Departments and we offer trainings right

    now people from Department of Elections are going through a process of user research and uh doing uh we're doing a

    user research our user need Workshop tomorrow for example it's a much shorter process when it's a commission because

    the content tends to be more straightforward than for a department so commissioner or president jordanick and

    I have just met a few times over the last few months and I've explained how the process works he attended a training

    a couple trainings I think and got login permissions and then was able to create most of these Pages himself so I did a

    few and he did a few Mr President's done yeah I I had a

    question about that I was unclear as well so I appreciate that question um and after reading through the process

    the that the department is going through to transition their website I just wanted to understand I mean because it's

    clearly a I mean I think it's it's at seven phases spanning the course of six

    months um and so how many of those I mean because obviously there's what

    pre-engagement whatever there are many steps here um the that all of these steps including

    kind of user assessment and understanding how um after it's transitioned

    whether it you know doing an assessment of its efficacy and so I guess my question is

    based on where it stands currently how many of those stages at the department

    obviously significantly bigger undertaking uh but we you know we have been in operation for 20 plus years so

    we have a lot of stuff on our website um how many of these stages have gone been

    done for um Us and how many are still to come and then how much of that will be done by

    our staff which is zero and how much of that will come from Digital Services

    that's really good questions uh the process for moving a public body like a commission or a board or a committee is

    fairly condensed from the process of moving a department and the reason for that is the way we organize sf.gov is

    around Services provided to the public and so when we think about setting up a

    new website whether it's for a department or a division of a department or a public body we think about what

    services they're providing to the public and that tends to be where most of the discovery and the work work needs to

    happen that we're carrying out in those initial phases and the phases where we're doing research and user testing

    things like that so with a site like Department of Elections there's quite a

    lot of Discovery work to do because we want to be sure we really understand the user needs they actually have done a lot

    of that work over the last few years so we have like kind of a background to start from because they've been doing

    user testing and their staff have been really involved in the website it sounds like that's great to hear yeah so um so

    we have a really good platform to start from but there is still quite a lot of work to do around building up the

    services that will live on sf.gov and how we're going to structure those whereas with a commission or committee

    or a public body we typically know the service that is being provided and that is the the discussions that you have

    here the decisions that you're making the transparency of having your meetings posted online and having your materials

    available online and so we have a pattern that's fairly well established for putting those together and for

    presenting them on a website and so it is typical with a commission or a

    committee that we would do a quick review of the website and make sure that there's not like a service you offer to

    the public like um I'm thinking of one uh commission that

    there's the um a group that I've worked with is the shelter shelter monitoring committee and they offer a service to

    the public which is that you can file a complaint with them about a shelter and so that was a public body where we did

    have to actually write a service for them and so we did a little more investigative work at the beginning for that but typically with a public body

    the process is fairly straightforward because we have a really well defined path so a lot of the steps that are

    outlined for a department like Department of Elections um we don't need to do for a public body

    does that answer that question yeah the only other piece of that that I um would love to know is just how much more needs

    to be done and how much of that what percentage of that will have to come on US versus like oh good question I don't

    think you're going to have more development work to do around the site um from here the agency page conversion

    that I mentioned will be automated and that's going to happen before the end of this month so you should see those changes coming up

    sometime before the end of January and then you will have more options to

    add features to your pages we will offer some instructions to

    content leads we call them so president jordanick is the content lead for the site right now you could add other people you could switch the role if you

    wanted to but we will offer information about the options that you have to add features to

    your site once that once that new functionality is available but you won't have to do that I don't think that you

    will have to do anything else with your site aside from continuing to add your meeting materials and Records to the

    site going forward thank you

    Mr Hayden crowland um president jordanick I've unfortunately you do know my position on this situation which is

    that um I do have a lot of experience with sfgov and with doing a separate website

    and having certain work with the city and my my issue is this is that we are a

    seven-member commission that is a volunteer position and I appreciate that

    president jordanick has done all of the heavy lifting here but I don't think it's appropriate at all and this is

    where we come into the budget situation because I know of other commissions that have staff that are doing that so long

    term this isn't a viable solution it's not something you can solve but it really isn't a viable solution because

    if president jordanick's term ends in a year who's going to pick up the pieces here

    is it going to be our commission secretary where are we going to go with this so this is a really serious question there's also a question

    when you have something like this and president jordanick's doing the heavy lifting here I'm just going to put it

    out there this is a uh the the employees the City

    and County of San Francisco are 100 unionized and these are often protected

    positions so when that kind of thing comes up it can be an issue that we are

    doing the work of a Civil Service employee so we need to keep that in mind

    and when the city imposes these kinds of deadlines on us as a commission to

    deliver this they also need to provide a budget for us to do this because we are volunteers thank you for again president

    jordanick but again I really feel that we need to as a commission anticipate

    these kinds of asks and budget for them and if there is no budget we need to say

    you know we don't have the budget for it do I by the way and I I say this in the

    in kind of a tone that I I I I don't mean it to be I know it's a little Stern it's just my

    I'm rattled by it a little bit but the fact of the matter is I think sfgov is a

    great website and I have from the beginning and when I did do the sheriff's website we couldn't go live

    with sfgov because you weren't evolved enough there and I'm I'm sure the sheriff's going to have to go on the

    sfgov website and that's going to be real fun but I had I wrote all the content so I had to do all that fifth

    grade stuff and worked with you and and it was fantastic it really was and I think it's the way to go I absolutely do

    but I think this commission needs to be funded to do it as are other commissions there are commissions that have staff

    that have that have contracts when they don't have staff they have contracts with outside vendors to do this work and

    so we just need to you know not be like this orphan out here doing all of our own work when we're volunteers it's not

    appropriate it could get us potentially in trouble and we need to to prepare for

    the future because president jordanick is the one that's doing this and he will not be here in another year

    but thank you for your work okay

    um was that a question or no it's a comments so I'm gonna turn it to commissioner bernhold she has her hand

    up thank you I just wanted to um second the comments of commissioner

    Hayden Crowley I I agree with everything she has had to say this commission needs

    that person who can be in charge of the website and um

    just a big second every everything that was just said thank you

    Mr Dave and just a pile on I think the the question should be discussed at OPEC

    and not only upgrading our commission secretary position to someone who could

    handle all the digital services that we need to support our own transport

    transparency um and it may also mean having more than a

    half-time position so I think that's something I would love for bopek to discuss

    okay any other comments um Amy I had one thing when you do the

    demo I was wondering one of the interests that Commissioners had was in providing more information about the

    commission membership sure and I was wondering if maybe you can show them

    what it makes available yes it's although we're not using that feature quite yet but

    yes I can do that uh let's see in fact I'm gonna

    I can go back into the presentation I have a sample agency page that has a really nice setup for that

    I need to find it

    great I was looking on the sample site and you

    know we're clickable we could actually provide bios because right now all it says who appoints us so there's

    candidates there yeah and I was going to say too um as you have your discussion about Staffing and who works on the

    website um feel free to reach out to us if you need more information about what the um

    the skills are to work on sf.gov because a lot of people think that it's Technical and that you need to have

    skills in Drupal and our Engineers actually take care of all of that it's more about content and I would say that

    if you talk to any of the other commissions who have a commission secretary and they're maintaining medium minutes and records that that that's the

    it's roughly about skill set okay

    so I will go back and show you your site first um so this is a very again this is the

    public body Page look I'll show you in a second the agency page that this is going to become in a week or two but

    right now this is very simple it has the title of your commission has a very brief description this brief description

    also shows anywhere that this that your page is linked from another page on sf.gov this brief description shows

    along with your title and that's why it's very short right here below you could have a little information about your meetings this can

    contain anything that's relevant to all of your meetings together below that you have links to your

    upcoming meetings and then to your past meetings and each meeting will get its own page and I'll show you the a meeting page in

    just a sec scrolling down a little further there's an about page and that is where all of

    your documents related to your committee work are now housed I'll show you that too there's the subcommittee page for

    each of your two subcommittees one of which I believe is not currently active um but may but maybe in the future and

    so they each have a page of their own and they operate similarly to the page we're looking at now

    going down further their commissioner profiles right now you have

    all your positions failed so you don't have any vacancies that's great um you these are very simple very basic

    profiles right now but you can fill them out you could add pictures if you wanted this is the city and county CL which

    displays by default but there is there's a lot of room for customization here

    and then this is the link to your archive let me show you this really quickly so as part of the move process

    to sf.gov we archive the older site that the department is moving from and so

    basically what that means is we make a copy of it we use a product called archive it and that's from the internet archive this is used by a lot of

    government agencies and universities so it's essentially it's an exact copy of

    your site and it should also capture all of your documents so all of your previous meeting agendas minutes

    everything like that is available here so we can take a look at the past

    meetings go back and we can open an agenda

    and then any PDF documents where docs things like that should load in here

    that's a cancellation notice not the most exciting but there it is forever so

    we do plan to maintain these permanently as well right now the link is set up a little

    bit a little bit oddly on your site it's just sort of linked as an archive once the agency page migration is complete

    again within the next two weeks or so you will have a more consistent

    presentation on your site this just it's a link to the agency or kind of going back up a little bit I'll show you

    the about page

    this has the information that was on your previous site about your commission and I I think I tinkered with it a

    little bit to try and bring the reading level down slightly and also reorganized a little um just to make it closer to

    that fifth grade reading level I don't think it's all the way there but it's it's pretty good

    um and this is all of course editable you can make changes anytime you want and then these are the resource pages

    that are linked from this page and they hold all of your all of your key documents and these are

    all PDF files that are uploaded here so that's where all of your files are organized now

    going back to main page and we'll look at how a meeting is set

    up

    I can show you actually the meeting yeah so this is actually today's meeting

    this is just in a different format and this is how I've been following along with today's meeting so um you can have

    at the top you have the title and then the date and time on the right there's this sidebar that shows date and time and then the location and it also has

    the information on how to join the meeting there's a nice clear button to log in and then there's the phone number

    with the access code it's really nice that's great and then the agenda you

    would do have the option to just upload a PDF of the agenda but the the process that we recommend is adding it in these

    stacked out numbers so that people following Along on a mobile device will be able to see all of the steps

    and you can scroll through you can add the uh the documents for each of the

    agenda items to the directly to that item so people can see it as they go along through

    this is actually how I've been following the meetings I've been sitting in the audience this was actually pretty quick

    compared to the other system in a lot easier too at the bottom of the meeting there are

    these um we call these accordions um and these are collapsible fields where you can have all the um the

    required information for your meetings um it will not give you a nice script to

    read from at the beginning of a meeting I was noticing that um but you will have all of the required

    information in here and it's not getting in the way of people who are just looking for it was the first agenda item

    what are we going to talk about at this um and then I see the oh the commission packet information is here Ascension

    ordinance all of those things are right here at the bottom and that's repeatable for each meeting that you set up once

    the meeting is over there's also a place actually down here around the this accordion area I noticed that you do

    your you do your meeting recordings on YouTube and we can actually embed a YouTube video right on this page

    it's awesome for the meeting recording

    and then the last thing I'll show you is that right on your past meetings page

    you can use a filter to find the meeting you're looking for and you'll notice that there are not a lot of past meetings here because there weren't very

    many moved over people using the filters will also notice that and they'll say how do I see these meetings they will

    find this link here that says see archive meetings before this month and it takes them straight into the archive

    okay and then I can show you a quick sneak peek at the agency page

    this is the page for the San Francisco penguin commission doing very important work out there you'll be able to add

    things like an alert Banner this is how we've set up an announcement for a vacancy on the commission we've added

    this is called a spotlight that's not important for right now but um this link actually goes straight to a transaction

    that's on the mayor's office page that is where it guides you through submitting your name for a mayoral

    appointment to a commission so it just directs straight to there

    you'll also be able to add links up here if you want to direct people specifically to some other important

    information and then the rest of the page there are some additional options that you have but it looks uh it looks similar to how it was before

    I mentioned the archive link would look different at the bottom this is how it's going to look once the page converts

    it'll say archived website and then there's a link

    Perfect Tour can you show the People Too on that version

    the which one the how the link works yeah the people oh the people yes

    so these are it's the same profiles or the same basic profile setup but these do have a little bit more detail in them

    I will show you Clarissa bubbles who works in the fishing industry um oh she doesn't have much of a bio on

    here but she has her picture there I think some of these other people have more information added

    yeah this person has a full bio added you can do that these things are these are never required but you do have the

    option if you would like to add more information I'm sorry all right

    yeah it's a nice way to personalize your page and make yourselves um a little bit more approachable for

    people who might be following along

    just ask one yeah commissioner partner um this looks so awesome this looks so

    so easy to navigate compared to a lot of current Pages um I'm assuming this is happening but

    I'll just ask anyway I see your um with the accessibility priority you're using the most current wcag

    standards right so screen readers can use these sites and yes okay yeah right

    we do um Commissions in particular but not only commissions tend to use a lot of

    PDFs and so we do um we do kind of caution people about PDFs sometimes you just have to use them

    meeting minutes agendas there's often there's a pdf version then you might make a page version but we do tell

    people that PDFs often are very difficult with screen readers and so we will always work with you to find a way

    to make a PDF into a page on sf.gov that's the way we prefer to do it it's

    much much easier for a screen reader to navigate an HTML page than it is for a screen reader to create a PDF even if

    the PDF is an accessible one there are ways to make your PDFs more accessible too and we'd be happy to talk to you

    about those if you're interested I guess that is that is tricky okay

    thank you so much

    so just to kind of add to what you're saying so basically all of our existing content is still accessible via the

    archive but we can add anything on to the new site that we

    want to if we want to make it you know bring it over okay

    I'm not sure if I sorry this is um commissioner Stone I

    um just wanted to ask an apologies if you did show us this um but just all I think it would be

    great to have organized some and not necessarily I don't know who would be responsible for this versus of Digital

    Services versus our staff um but um I would love to be able to have

    things organized around our annual the president's annual reports

    um accessible so that for example when we have new Commissioners people can read the you know the last 20 years of

    annual reports to know what the commission has worked on over the last 20 plus years

    um and yeah I think things along those lines would be really valuable so it's easily accessible

    um and I think we can all agree it's not accessible now so um I don't know if that's already on there but uh if it's

    not I I would love to request that be included um yeah we haven't talked about that

    specifically but we could definitely help with that thank you yeah

    okay so um are there any other questions for Amy so basically the plan

    um was for the switch over to happen within the next couple weeks and um I mean this

    would be under President Stone um but I think that

    I think any commissioner could get trained on using the website and I think

    the commission would be free to you know I know we've talked about things like adding topic pages on things like

    redistricting or racial Equity or whatever it was that we wanted to to cover

    oh but you're yeah so continue sorry about that oh no problem this is this is almost done I was just going to say uh

    Department of Elections site as we said has begun moving um we're anticipating

    fingers crossed a launch around early May and that's to free up staff time

    before the next round of election work begins and right now they're working with Digital Services on user research

    and content development that's it it's so nice to meet you all um I spend

    a lot of time with computers so I'm really happy

    thank you yeah thank you anything else feel free to reach out

    great thank you okay yeah thank you again Amy

    so let's um open it up to public comment on this item

    there is no I'm sorry there are no hands raised okay so um was there anything else

    people wanted to talk about on this before we move on to the next item

    okay seeing none so I I neglected to mention earlier in the meeting that I wrote it at the top of the agenda but um

    our goal was to complete by nine tonight and then to to basically have an overflow meeting

    you know that we can decide to have which is already reserved for the 31st

    so let's move on to so we've got 15 minutes left hopefully we can

    you know get it all done so yeah so let's move on to agenda item

    number eight process to conduct annual performance evaluation of director of Elections discussion and possible action

    regarding the process to conduct annual performance valuation of the director of Elections

    okay so for this item I basically attached the the form that we've been

    using for the past several years it's it's kind of been reformatted a couple times

    but I thought I would just describe to you the process that we've used for the

    those years and I know commissioner bernholtz was also a participant so um she can chime in as well but

    basically um we have this a form that has different categories and then has a square for

    each category and then an overall score and um the way we've done it is you know

    director director Arts would fill out the form as a self-evaluation and then each of us as individual Commissioners

    would fill out our own evaluations of him and then

    the commission would after we've completed the evaluations the commission would meet together in

    closed session where we would share in advance of the meeting all of our you know

    the evaluations we've filled out together and then together with the director of self-evaluation and then we

    would discuss that as a group and then we would um you know it could potentially take

    more than one meeting we've we've had years where it was only one meeting in closed session here we've had years

    where it was like three meetings but then basically the goal would be to come up with a collective evaluation you

    know based on everyone's feedback and then we would um and then that's

    provided to the director um going back a little bit further we've we've done we've tried other things like

    we've invited um employees of the department a couple of employees where we would interview them

    in closed session just to learn more about the department we had stopped doing that we I think we did it two or

    three times and we we stopped doing that but but um I mean theoretically we could

    have any kind of process we want but but the simplest process has been you know what I described to you where we would

    you know fill out this form and then we would meet I guess I'm guessing it would be the next

    during the next month um does that make sense to people

    um you know just open it up to discussion commissioner Hayden Crowley I'd like to make a motion that we accept

    the um first process that you described where director Arts completes his

    evaluation and that the rest of us complete our evaluations and then we come together at the next meeting and

    review that second it sounds great okay

    or your next uh scheduled meeting our next scheduled meeting is that okay will

    we be meeting the appropriate timeline or will we be is or are we somehow not

    fulfilling our obligation well I think what this year for us was getting out is that

    we we have a potential meeting on the 31st but also we have a regular meeting in February okay I would say that it's 8

    15 and we're doing really well on this I'm hoping that we would be meeting in February I second that specific

    promotion okay um all right so are there any is there any discussion of that before we move on

    to public comment or die so so director Arns has not had a chance to

    fill do a self-evaluation event right unless unless he's been working on

    it on his own but I don't remember what we were going to do yeah no I just wanted to make sure that he has actual

    time to do this yeah well let's this is a good time to ask about that yeah so I

    know that you have a budget coming up and everything assuming we approve this process this time will you have time to

    you do your self-evaluation by the next regular meeting yeah I can get something

    to you um I mean more time would be good but uh if that's the timeline that we need to

    hit then we can hit it okay can I suggest an amendment to the motion I'm sure the vice president's done so

    um I then suggest that perhaps we provide

    the director additional time as needed and if that is submitting by the next

    meeting for us to review and then have a separate or sorry our own evaluation

    um uh in March I guess the question is would the direct sorry this is an

    amendment to the motion that's now becoming a discussion I apologize um my

    um well it I know I think what I'm trying to get at is

    you know he's that extra time would that be seven days prior to our February 7th or February 15th meeting or

    um would it be better to have until the February meeting and then we wouldn't really you know we would basically would

    have seven days to review it or is the additional week needed so that that's the deadline that we then you know

    discuss in March so I guess that question is back to the director

    usually I provide it when requested so

    would it be helpful to have like in terms of needing more time or wanting more time seven days prior to February

    15th is very soon so is that sufficient time or would it be yeah preferred I

    could write something up then I maintain my emotion my second

    I would just say you have a full record of everything you've done with these uh monthly meetings things I I don't think

    this is going to be re Reinventing the wheel just to comment shouldn't be too much of a heavy but

    yeah Mr Parker yeah I just have a question

    um I don't know what's common for other directors of departments I mean becoming more common in a lot of other workspaces

    are these 360 evaluations and you said in the past there's been you've perhaps interviewed

    um staff members but clearly you are our only employee you know as a commission and the kind of environment that a

    director is creating in their own space you know where they're managing their own staff matters right and how their

    staff sees and so I'm just curious what maybe some of the practices if any of you know of other directors of

    departments in the city how that has worked um and ways that we can gather feedback

    that we are not privy to as Commissioners you know we don't work for him we don't have that experience every

    day and I do think that experience matters and is there some best practice on how to do that for a commission

    overseeing a director uh from what I understand the department heads report to the mayor so I I would

    assume that that most department heads do I mean this is an unusual situation because we because this position and the

    whole interaction and the way we were our appointed was created by a charter Amendment um so the mayor and the mayor's staff I

    would assume would be the ones that would evaluate that but any kind of like fee employee feedback and things like

    that when there are issues that goes in front of civil service that's all public record as well as DHR any kind of issues

    that come up go through DHR and um our matter of record I don't know if

    they're publicly available per se but um uh I I that's a quote that's a question

    that you can you know I mean that we couldn't release things to the public I don't know what I guess what I'm saying

    is I don't know if they would be available to this Commission in detail if they would have to be redacted I just

    don't know the answer to that but that is how um you know department heads

    evaluate their employees and I assume that the um

    although the electeds like I'm looking at the DCA um are uh she's evaluated by her elected

    correct or your supervisor yeah that's how it goes commissioner Lucy yes

    I just want to want a clarification for your question was your question um about

    actually having us having access to employees under

    director arts and what the environment is like from their perspective um

    perhaps it's just it's more of a um there there are certainly

    deliverables that we ask for right of the director and there's sort of the

    output that we're evaluating as a commission and that is critically important and how the um you know what

    other metrics can be used to say that this is this is going well or not so not

    even just issues that people might have but there might be very positive feedback that's good for us here because we just don't have access to the

    information I just am wondering curious how that kind of information could be shared with us as we do an evaluation or

    is that actually not as appropriate because we should only be evaluating on the specific metrics we have as a

    commission and have already set out and goals for the director got it thank you commissioner Doug yeah so uh so I was

    going to make a similar comment in the private sector 360 degrees degree reviews are pretty common yeah

    um and there are I don't know what the practice has been in the city

    um with other oversight commissions for example but you know we've gotten some feedback uh in the last few months from

    John's direct reports and I'm sure that all of us can take that into consideration another thought and a

    method that has been used in a lot of the companies that I have worked with or advised is to set up an anonymous Gmail

    account that you make available to employees of the department if they want to then you give them some structure

    because you don't want people to say whatever but and you give them the opportunity to log in and and share

    their feedback and it's something that you know allows them to retain anonymity

    but only employees have access to it so we know there's not

    random people you know putting some stuff so I mean these are some things we could consider

    um on the other hand I'm not a fan of dragging this out for for months because it's supposed to be

    an annual review and it should be you know good reviews should be prompt

    right and so the 12 months have finished so

    um but you know what same thought so I don't know if there are standard ways I

    don't know if that's a question we can ask DHR on how to get uh employee feedback

    foreign yeah I I do think again

    um There Are Rules around all of that and um particularly as I said before this is a

    highly unionized Workforce um even director Arts I believe is a member of mea correct right so he's in

    his Union and um so we have to whatever we do we have to

    tread very lightly or we'll all be in front of the Civil Service Commission and my husband will have to recuse himself because he can't judge on me so

    um I just would say that you know and they're just rules around everything in

    city government right uh just a City attorney

    aren't there rules around everything with with the employees and so forth yeah I think that the process that

    um you used last time and that was used the time before is the same one and it's been vetted I think that in the interest

    of time maybe using that process is the safest way to go if you'd like other processes vetted

    um by the city attorney's office we can do that but it's not going to be um on February 15th

    yes I I guess my point was is I was just saying that because you were talking about getting feedback from employees I

    just said there's rules around everything in the city government and that we would have to tread very lightly

    because uh we would have to make sure that we were um complying with all with the rules as

    set forth by DHR except for by civil service and so forth and we don't even know what those rules are we have a very

    we have a unique position in this government process because we were created by a charter we are an island

    unto ourselves so I don't even know if the rules exist for us well it doesn't appear that way so anyway yes sir yes

    yeah I wanted to comment commissioner I think you make a great point because this is a topic that's come up a lot in

    past years I know today I was counting back in 2018 we had we we had seven I think consecutive

    meetings where we were trying to kind of reevaluate our process of doing the evaluation and because people had

    expressed interest in things like you know can we do an anonymous survey and you know can we have set goals the one

    year and then we evaluate him the next year against those goals you know use metrics and people reference the 360

    review unfortunately after that process we didn't really wind up changing for

    whatever reason our process but it was definitely something we we invested a

    lot of time in but um I think it would be worth doing that you know but I think it would take

    take some time to come up with something new but

    um thank you for all of that and uh you know maybe it's something that we could think about for next year it sounds like the timeline is perhaps too short to

    consider something a DV you know deviating from standard process so thanks for the conversation

    yeah I just have a quick question thank you you said earlier that that in the past

    we did um interview or speak to employees was there a specific reason why that stopped

    yeah I think it was because um I think there was a sense among I'm not

    going to say it was Universal but I think some Commissioners felt that it was an uncomfortable situation

    because they were being you know just the environment so we wanted to see is there another way we

    can solicit feedback was it a closed meeting yeah okay there is also there is I and I apologies

    I did miss some element of this conversation so um for a moment so you may have already said this

    um I think you may have been saying that but I do know that there are specific rules around how we interact with the

    department and we really should be interacting with simply the director and

    so I imagine I wasn't on the commission when that happened but I imagine that that was part of it and I wonder if in

    the future um as commissioner Parker mentioned we could find a way that isn't violating

    those rules but I do know that that is like a pretty like I think it's outlined

    in our bylaws yeah so I don't know if that helps um add any context yeah and I mean before we had we

    had had our process vetted too so we weren't breaking rules back then but thank you

    okay so um let's take a public comment on this item

    and we do have a motion on the floor as well um there is one public commenter and Mr

    Turner I have unmuted you you have three minutes uh thank you and uh again uh

    congratulations to the commission for moving forward here uh I I appreciate

    the daunting nature of this task at hand and it is fairly awkward

    um even for myself as we try to walk a fine line here and make sure that no one

    is inspired in any strange or unusual way because no one is saying that uh

    director Ernst is not functional or that he is a bad person in some way he's

    um in our opinion uh those that advocate for better systems he's uh another

    victim of of bad technology that's occurring um that being said uh he has been less

    than Worth right with this commission uh and uh the folks at California clean

    money did not take lightly the letter that they published um and and gave to the the commission

    that had a list of indiscretions and transgressions by the director it does

    not please me to say this and and the articles that have come out in the examiner that complain of the

    relationship between uh Mr Ernst and the current vendor uh sales rep Steve

    Bennett um you know have been noted so uh you know we've been hoping that uh Mr Ernst

    moved forward with the secretary of state and the pilot for open source but I I don't think he's going to do that

    under any circumstance and it smacks of of a problem that needs to be

    um it need it needs to be just openly uh discussed so for those reasons I hope

    you do your duty I know it is unfortunate and awkward as volunteers

    um but I would look to that letter uh presented by the folks at California clean money they they do great work and

    the you know we we're this is a nonpartisan issue but this is different than most places because of course we're

    we're a lot of us staunch Democrats trying to work on this issue it's not

    the same as somebody mentioned about uh other territories where you have Republicans going after Democrats this

    is the reverse so thank you again for your time thank you

    we have no other public commenters okay so are there any um

    any other discussion or people clear on what the motion was okay so let's uh

    take a vote on the motion pull up the um

    list here if I can find it

    well you're looking for the motion no I'm looking for the question names yeah it's just easier for me

    I want to restart this release date of motion you restate the motion well would you

    mind it was your your emotions did you want to restate it oh I'm sorry

    I didn't uh I restate the motion which is that we I moved to accept the process

    as outlined by president jordanick at the beginning of this conversation where

    director Arts completes the performance plan appraisal report

    and shares that with us seven days prior to our next meeting which is February

    15th and that each member of the commission do its best to complete the department

    head strategic plan and performance plan appraisal report I just say that do its

    best knowing that some of us are fairly new to the commission so it will make it a little bit interesting to complete the

    performance appraisal but anyway I know that we can do it so

    um that's the motion and I believe it was seconded by vice president Stone yeah

    okay so everyone's clear on that okay so um

    let's pull this up here all right sorry no it's okay and the

    list is there if you want it okay uh vice president Stone yes commissioner bernholz

    yes commissioner die aye commissioner Hayden Crowley yes commissioner Wolsey yes commissioner

    Parker yes and I because Richard I vote Yes okay the motion passes unanimously

    okay so I will circulate the form I think the date needs the year needs to

    be updated on that I'm not sure I have access to the original document but maybe someone can

    with acrobat can modify it and then also for people that are newer on the commission you know you do your best

    with the evaluation and we can also share information at the next meeting

    as well yes commissioner um I would think commissioner Parker would be exempt since she was not a

    commissioner During the period if the evaluation

    um well I think it's really up to I mean up to commissioner Parker as to whether she

    wants to fill it out I mean no one's obligated to but um it's we also don't have to put her on

    the spot right now so yeah I mean I don't DCF first did you want to respond

    to that or no she I mean I think it's not a requirement that you guys complete the

    evaluation um but she we do have to participate if you come to the meeting you have to take

    a vote as required by the charter or or ask the commission to excuse you

    from voting uh in which case they would all vote to excuse you and if you're excused then you don't have to vote but

    for the most part everyone that's here has to take a vote unless they are asked to be excused

    okay I'm commissioner Hayden crawler do we need to do we have a date that we

    always buy do we should we all have it in and give it to you what's the process yeah so send it to me

    um I would say the date that director's deadline would be our deadline as well

    and then I'll be sending it to president-elect Stone

    good point yeah so um good point the president and so as far as you know

    the when we send something like this electronically we just send it to commissioner Stone and then is the is

    there an issue for Sunshine at all something like this I think maybe for the time being

    um you know we we our office is provides legal advice to you and this is not legal advice per se but um since you

    have no secretary maybe just to make things simpler just send these things to me okay

    me and you can CeCe DCA Brad Rusty but otherwise let's just make it simpler in

    that aspect okay and then I'm sure president Stone doesn't mind and then we'll have attorney-client privilege

    um well these things have close like these things per um state law when

    you're evaluating an employee oh if they're not public materials

    Okay so anything else okay so let's move on to the next item

    agenda item number nine possible closed session regarding Public Employee appointment hiring director of Elections

    discussion and possible action regarding appointing the incumbent director to an additional five-year term the director

    of Elections current five-year term expires at 12 a.m on May 21st 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 13104 portions of this item may be held in closed session pursuant to the California government code 54957b

    and San Francisco Administrative Code 6710

    okay so let's start with a public comment and all matters participating to this agenda item including any comment

    pertaining to the director of Elections appointment and or whether to meet in closed session

    we have one public commenter Mr Turner I've unmuted you you have

    three minutes yes thank you again very briefly if the commission is going to interview

    employees of the election Department um it would sound like a good idea to do

    that anonymously um there is obviously intense political pressure surrounding this particular

    issue and the climate that I think demands anonymity for anyone that does

    want to speak their mind although that isn't expected so thank you

    thank you there are no other commenters

    okay Papa comment is closed so let's um

    I guess we need a motion to move into closed session

    if someone would like to make such a motion I don't think we need to move into closed session I think this is pretty cut and dried I I you have to oh

    we do yes we can't just vote Yes make a motion and vote okay I move we go into closed session

    okay a second second okay moved by commissioner Dan seconded by commissioner bossy okay any commissioner

    discussion of the motion okay seeing none so um commissioner Hayden Crowley

    I'm just gonna go and oh okay what do we do yes I don't have the

    agenda no I do have the agents so we're voting on the motion now

    to move into closed session yes so actually I'm gonna go back to the original order

    vice president Stone no no commissioner bernotes

    uh yes commissioner day aye commissioner

    Hayden Crowley yes commissioner lavosi yes commissioner Parker yes and I

    president Jordan yes the motion test is was it six to one yes

    okay with um vice president

    Okay so now we are going to

    um move into closed session so we need to clear the room I'm going

    to put the the video into um practice session which means the

    public is not going to be able to hear anything yes um you have I mean you can ask him any

    questions if you want well so

    um so let's so we're going to move into closed session on I'm gonna

    um

    okay so um the time is now 9 25 PM we are

    reconvening into opens I'm actually going to wait for commissioner die to return if people don't mind

    so for members of the public better listening and we're just waiting for um

    everyone to return um someone took a break

    is it so cool yeah it's cold

    last time it was so hot last time it was freezing

    uh yeah do you need a scarf or a coat S

    I don't think anything no he doesn't need to come back but does

    how do we inform him of this that's awesome

    why don't you tell me something are we are we back live okay so no

    okay so the time is now 9 26 p.m we're we have are reconvening into Open

    Session um I'm just following letter D here well in closed session we voted

    unanimously to reappoint director Arts to a another five-year term

    and now we proceed proceed to letter e discussion vote pursuant to Sunshine

    ordinance 6712a on whether to disclose any portion of the closed session discussion would someone like to make a

    motion notion that we do not that we do not disclose any portion of

    the closed session beyond the vote second okay so moved by Vice President John

    seconded by commissioner livosi is there any discussion of the motion okay seeing none

    um vice president Stone oh yes commissioner bernholz

    yes commissioner die aye commissioner Hayden Crowley yes commissioner labosi yes commissioner

    Parker yes tonight president vote Yes as well um my apologies DCA Juarez um did I miss

    um use stating the vote on the record yes yeah it was

    so it was unique you said it was unanimous 7-0 so the the motion on to not disclose any

    portion because unanimously as well so

    um and then vice president Stone

    even from the director happy to okay great okay let's anything else so let's

    move on to well actually um foreign so that closes agenda item number nine

    at the last meeting we had said that we will not meet past 9 pm we've we're half

    hour past that we have uh four more items and to me that means

    that we should have an overflow meeting on the 31st if we're going to respect what we had

    decided before but we can talk about it um does

    commissioner Hayden Crowley I believe these are very minor items so I think that we can finish it but that's up to

    the rest of the group I'm okay continuing but I don't want to

    force anyone okay I know I am often the one who feels feels that we shouldn't go

    late um and so I'm happy to keep um you know I'm happy to agree on that I think

    perhaps we could just hold ourselves accountable by saying another time so like by 10 o'clock we cut we reevaluate

    and if we're still going we have another conversation about it just so we're holding ourselves accountable okay

    sounds good thank you all right yeah thank you so we have the aspirational goal of 10 pm

    all right so item number 10 approval of minutes of previous meetings I'll skip the description

    so I just want to so as part of the packet we have two draft minutes these are

    the minutes that two of the minutes that were before the commission at the last meeting but commissioner die did a

    wonderful job of revising them to make them more accurate um the meeting the minutes for the last

    meeting I was not able to start but vice president Stone graciously volunteered

    so she's currently working on those a commissioner died do you want to say anything about the draft minutes that

    you prepared um or revised I tried to make it as accurate as possible

    I think there are only a couple of minor typos at this point I would move to approve both the September 21st and

    October 19th minutes second okay as fast as possible so let's take public comment

    on this item I see no hands okay public comment is

    closed so any discussion before we take a vote can I just ask a clarifying

    question since I did not attend those meetings should I vote Yes yes

    there's some history there yes okay yes there is okay

    um vice president yes commissioner bernholz

    yes commissioner diet aye commissioner Hayden Crowley yes commissioner Lebowski yes commissioner

    Parker yes motion passes unanimously you know what

    I my apology to see it first I'd like to clarify that you could have asked to be recused

    um because you weren't there but that would have taken a vote by the commission to to allow you to recuse yourself so the

    easier choice just to vote trusting that everybody reviewed accidentally

    yeah okay let's move on to agenda item number 11 Commissioners reports

    okay so for this item um well why don't I turn it over to vice

    president Stone you can give us an update on the elections commission secretary position yeah I'll make this super fast

    um basically we opened the position based on what I shared in our previous

    meeting and we had zero applicants um so I have I've worked hence why we

    don't have a secretary today um I've been working with DHR on

    um on uh getting um sorry we now have it reposted as you can see uh the additional pieces there

    are two additional updates that I want to share one is that commissioner Hayden Crowley provided some really phenomenal

    feedback about the job description to help make it a little bit more enticing

    um and I I have been working to incorporate that feedback so hopefully that can help and the other big thing

    that I wanted to share is I've been in conversation with the director about potentially what process we could go

    down to have a a a classification change for the secretary so that we could have

    a secretary either you know full-time or at a higher experience level to be able to provide

    us more robust um support on the commission and I think

    the basically it's just going to require a little bit of bureaucratic maneuvering and I am glad

    to have the director support and helping me work through that and also jhr

    because there are several steps I cannot promise that it will happen because it will require additional funding and as

    we discussed earlier cities in a serious budget crisis so um I do believe

    we have a strong case I don't believe that the amount of money is really gonna fix the 600 million dollars kind of

    shortfall um but you know I I just want to set the right expectations so both parallel

    paths one is trying to um increase the the um to uh I told you I'm not good late at

    night um to go at a higher classification level and the other path is continuing to try and make the

    existing classification level and job posting more enticing to really qualified candidates

    commissioner Hayden Crowley um thank you vice president Stone uh we had this

    discussion yesterday but I'm just going to bring it up I'm commissioner Parker one of the things that we talked about

    was that this could potentially be an uh is the way that it's the position is structured right now it's a part-time

    position 20 hours um one night a week and there's some questions like would a person get

    overtime if they have to work more than 20 hours so some things that like that have to be resolved but it's a mostly

    remote position except for when they come here and I think it's actually a great position from for a parent and

    with your contacts is there a possibility that we could you have a a

    list serve or something where you could post it for absolutely yeah okay so we'll leave that too when it's updated

    send it to me I'm happy to send it out yeah okay yeah but I think we should just post it as

    many places as possible I don't think we should assume who's best for the position um there are many different types of

    people who have different Lifestyles and um people who may want a second job

    um so let's just post it as many places as possible yes agreed um thank you for all of that uh actually

    one of the things I realized after Consulting with commissioner Hayden Crowley is that we I actually want more

    transparency into the lists where it's been being shared and at this stage I don't have that and so that is

    um one of the things that I have based on our conversation I realized I want more transparency into and so we can

    evaluate where is it going another amazing suggestion um was uh because the department has a

    very robust listserv of you know poll workers who work part-time we should be

    tapping into that um absolutely so I think it was a great recommendation so um I think all of these things are are

    really valid and if you have other ideas I welcome them um either an email or text or um

    yes I would just say anybody here who has access to a Lister because you know

    with people that are interested in jobs let's get it out yeah because it's a it's a too much of a tiny universe here

    yeah I agree I have a question so that job posting it says it was posted on January 10th and you're accepting

    applications or we're accepting applications until January 20th which is Friday yeah one of the things I have to

    do what you had asked me to do offline so I'm happy to answer it in public which is that we will extend that yeah

    could we extend it for like like two more weeks maybe I mean okay

    just to give people time I mean I think we we're gonna have to right like yeah you know I think we have no voice we

    need a secretary and then and then and then you're gonna revise the posting you

    said like yeah I think we're gonna yes uh we'll keep it currently posted

    but we'll work on making updates while it is posted because I think they don't

    those two things don't go in conflict with each other is it commissioner yeah I have a question so does since it is a

    halftime position does it qualify for benefits yeah it does it's not in there she's going to ask it yeah that

    definitely needs to be added because yeah did he say that DHR guy I didn't mean that oh the only reason I know this

    is because uh I was looking at possibly coming back at half time can you get anything oh I was looking at possibly

    coming back and I looked and it said that when you worked 20 hours you get benefits but it should be confirmed that

    is yeah that's fabulous sitting benefits are fabulous and so I think yeah if we get it on more places

    we have the opportunity to track someone who is interested in the work that we do we do and could really make a big

    contribution and only do it in 20 hours a week that's pretty also DHR has job fairs

    I know that you've got one coming up in February I'm sure that it's included in that that's why I want the list because

    I don't know all the places yeah they've got one going on I know at the um botanical garden or whatever it is out

    at Golden Gate Park in February um these are all great suggestions in the interest of time if you have other

    questions or thoughts just shoot them over via email um because I think this is pretty administrative and I'm happy to take it

    all on I actually just one more important thing that might be worth mentioning is like so the process will

    be you know you're gonna screen the candidates and then bring back a couple to the commission to interview or

    um well what we had discussed um oh yeah happy to happy to share um as it pertains now

    um given how urgent the need is um we had discussed that I would be

    vetting the candidates and that the officers would interview and potentially

    hire if we want to have more commission input we can definitely talk

    about that I just thought that the priority would be moving as fast as possible given that we've been without a

    secretary for a long time but I'm I'm open to if folks feel differently and you want to have them

    all come in and present um so I'm glad thank you for bringing that up

    um yeah I just I don't know if if that's something

    I mean should we talk about it or just I I mean I just want it to be something

    that the commission's comfortable with that's all whatever I'm not preventing as much when we come to it

    I say let's move okay that's awesome the one or the thought

    um I think this person will be very involved with building out our new website and so that might be really

    attractive to someone to be part of that creation so maybe isn't the website

    already built yeah you know what but I mean content yeah and design can I just

    say

    well though drug what uh the the hard part actually is the writing the content

    the fifth grade style but they have a program to to do that yeah so but but I

    think for a lot of people this is like a marketable job skill to say that you've built out a website even if you didn't

    do the engineering but you know the point is that you were the webmaster and so I think that's an attractive thing

    they're happy to add it thank you all for coming back um also if if let's say we do move

    forward you know if anyone does have concerns about it being that process that we just described please also feel

    free to share like what your criteria would be to make sure that you um you

    know for example I imagine there might be some insight from commissioner volsi from a Dei perspective in the work that

    you do um and uh I I welcome that

    right okay so are there any other um reports under number 11.

    so let's open it up to public comment in this item just double checking

    there are no hands up okay great so close public comment let's

    move on to item number 12 elections Commission Section of the Department of Elections racial Equity action plan and

    progress report okay this is an item that I I discussed

    briefly at the last meeting and basically um a reporter had reached out to I believe all Commissioners

    independently um they had found a document on the Department of Elections website that was

    the Department's basically their progress report on racial equity

    and that document was a large spreadsheet something like 60 pages

    and the um the section on the commission was basically it looked like the

    commission had made no progress on the racial Equity goals that we had established back in December 2020.

    so it looks like the document was posted without

    um basically reflecting any of the work that the commission had done so I thought we could discuss

    I mean I don't think we're going to do it today but the so the idea was that we would discuss whether and how we should update

    this document so that it it accurately reflects um you know the work that the commission

    has been doing so far so I was working on a memo that sort of

    was sort of just laid out the history of this document and how it came to be and and how it was updated

    and um and then also like some of the progress we've made and I did not finish that

    document um vice president Stone has been um working with me on that document

    so that's something that um we're going to continue working on together and bring back at a future

    meeting um vice president did you have anything you want to see okay thank you but I did

    include the um basically the the different parts of the document that was

    posted online so you can see what the reporter was looking at and compared to the original version

    that we had seen in December 2020 yes commissioner crooker I'm sorry I'm looking I know that I saw that but I'm

    looking on the packet page on the website and I'm not seeing it can you

    direct me where to find it because it's I just refreshed it it's not showing up but I I swear I looked at it earlier so

    but it's weird you know it's a it's a it's a just try putting a question mark after the URL and then it's a quirk

    just manually typing a question mark yeah because I didn't see it yeah

    it's let's see um yeah that's weird that's too bad I

    saw it before we might even have a printed version because John made a copy either yeah well I think okay yeah

    there's one yeah yeah yeah yeah wait a minute what is

    that yeah oh that's it oh yeah yeah yeah um a parent

    I did that and then I added the question mark oh thank you president jordanick I

    have a quick question about this just um so so

    the Department of Elections posted this on their website they all the Departments have to do this right and

    there's this piece where the commission and he left it blank so my question is is who's doing this for

    I'm sorry yeah is he doing this or does he have somebody that works for him that does all this well so

    go ahead so there's well there's the commission part of it which was supposed

    to have to do but I'm who's doing his part like who the reason I ask this question is because whoever it is

    whoever it is should have contacted us yeah so my the memo that I was drafting

    was going to lay out you know the interactions that we've had around these documents but um

    unfortunately direct currents isn't here today but I know the answer to the question do you know what I'm going to

    ask no I know the answer to her question oh go ahead um which is that he the department has

    their own racial Equity team yeah and they they input all of that stuff okay

    so they they say probably didn't even so because I've done this I did this with

    the sheriff's I did this exact same thing so yeah and we have a we had a

    racial Equity team that did it all I did was edit it that was it but anyway I I

    guess going forward we just gotta improve communication that's a big thing

    why don't you finish so well it's not it's not the information is not here

    today because the memo is not finished but we did have meetings where we actually talked about what to

    you know the information to provide but I think some of the steps might have gotten missing

    but but basically I think what we can talk about at a future meeting is you know are we able to update this document

    and if so what would we like it to say and maybe we can even modify our goals you know to

    have a better discussion than we had before so um

    but that's kind of like the nutshell version of of this topic and um

    commissioner died yeah I I wonder if we can refer this to bopack to dig into the

    details because you know that was the LA the last book I think we talked about D.I substantially

    so I think it makes sense it's a great yeah well vice president I

    I just wanted to respond to that so the I think what I was thinking about

    um in the context of the document that uh president Jordan and I have been working on is

    um that that could be a resource for a subcommittee because basically

    um you know president jordanick has a history before I was on the commission I know that when I joined the commission I

    growing up like every single meeting um and I think that

    we didn't necessarily know where like where we even fit in in this document

    um and I think like I said like president jordanick is working on or has already basically drafted that whole

    process but I think with that Foundation of here's the history of that here's where it stood in the last year here's

    what we have accomplished even though like in spite of not knowing about this document what we still achieved on our

    own proactively because it was important to us and so I think what I hope for is to be able to have

    that all drafted and then share it off to a committee and say Here's the context you know maybe now we have room

    for real goals because I think bopek was really focused on what should our goals be what's important to us and I hadn't

    even seen this document until the reporter reached out to be honest with you right um I didn't even know this

    document existed if you look back on the packet from bopek because I was I think I was

    um like I think it was my agenda item or whatever um you'll see what I did know existed

    and it wasn't this I read the whole um like mayor breeds

    um uh initial memo and the city plan and a bunch of stuff but I never knew about

    this and I and in spite of that we had done a lot of work as a commission just because we thought it was important and

    I think that's part of where I think unfortunately some members of the press

    mischaracterized would actually happen because there's a lot we've done on our own fruition without even knowing that

    this document was there so we want to make sure that that whole history is there and also the work we have accomplished is there

    do you think that's fair president jordanick based on you know one one thing um and I'm going

    to make this extremely brief because I really want to hit that 10 o'clock um

    the last time I asked John he does not have a director of communications so usually the you know a department

    will have somebody that handles that and so that you've got that one person to go to and I know that it says in our bylaws

    we should be dealing with John on everything but there has to be somebody else that catches this kind of stuff

    I mean that was kind of my job and and so it all you know usually most

    departments have somebody that catches this and wouldn't catch that the

    commission part was empty and we should go talk to the commission and see what they have you know that's all I mean it

    fell through the cracks is what I see well and I don't see that as the

    commission's fault I see it as that that that the department put up their thing it didn't bother to contact us

    we were contacted yeah we were contacted oh well I stamped reps it's I I mean

    it's a it's a deeper discussion I guess at bopek you can discuss it but but it'll be like a refresher just bring

    everyone up to speed and then decide how do we want to move forward yeah I think let's do that okay

    okay sorry I misread that one okay so let's um

    let's open it up to public comment just right now and then we can touch base if there's anything else but

    um you commentary I just want to double check refresh it there are no hands

    okay so were there any final thoughts before we move on

    to the next item okay great so let's move on to agenda item

    number 13 agenda items for future meetings all right

    um I mean I I'll just mention a couple things off the top of my head we have the um

    you know the annual performance evaluation we have the commission annual report for

    the last year I it's going to take me at least a couple months so I don't think we should plan on discussing that next

    month but um budget yes the the budget review

    redistricting yeah the redistricting commission secretary

    well is are you um is this for the 31st meeting or the 15th we don't have we're

    not going to have a 31st done okay great

    um you do need a second meeting for the budget though yeah I I'm planning to call a bopek meeting I

    just want to make sure I know who the members will be and so I will work offline on that but I I had spoken about that earlier in

    the meeting I just said that we'll we'll call the OPEC meeting um to be 15 minutes sorry 15 days before

    well thank you February general meeting and then this this racial Equity thing can be after

    the bopek discusses it I imagine any other ideas people have

    okay so let's open it up to public comment on my agenda item number 13.

    there are no public commenters okay so um any last ideas

    otherwise we finished with plenty of time to spare eight minutes it's um 9 52

    p.m that was worse the meeting is now adjourned have a

    wonderful rest of the night everybody

    English (auto-generated)

     

     

     

    View transcript

    Call in and make a public comment during the meeting

    Call in and make a public comment during the meeting

    Follow these steps to call in

    • Call 415-655-0001 and enter the access code
    • Press #
    • Press # again to be connected to the meeting (you will hear a beep)

    Make a public comment 

    • After you've joined the call, listen to the meeting and wait until it's time for the item you're interested in
    • When the clerk announces the item you want to comment on, dial *3 to get added to the speaker line
    • You will hear “You have raised your hand to ask a question. Please wait to speak until the host calls on you"
    • When you hear "Your line has been unmuted," you can make your public comment

    When you speak

    • Make sure you're in a quiet place
    • Speak slowly and clearly
    • Turn off any TVs or radios
    • Speak to the Commission as a whole, not to specific Commissioners

    Make a comment from your computer

    Make a comment from your computer

    Join the meeting

    • Join the meeting using the link above

    Make a public comment 

    • Click on the Participants button
    • Find your name in the list of Attendees
    • Click on the hand icon to raise your hand
    • The host will unmute you when it is time for you to comment
    • When you are done with your comment, click the hand icon again to lower your hand

    When you speak

    • Make sure you're in a quiet place
    • Speak slowly and clearly
    • Turn off any TVs or radios
    • Speak to the Commission as a whole, not to specific Commissioners

    Commission packets

    Commission packets

    Materials contained in the Commission packets for meetings are available for inspection and copying during regular office hours at the Department of Elections, City Hall Room 48. Materials are placed in the Elections Commission's Public Binder no later than 72 hours prior to meetings.

    Any materials distributed to members of the Elections Commission within 72 hours of the meeting or after the agenda packet has been delivered to the members are available for inspection at the Department of Elections, City Hall Room 48, in the Commission's Public Binder, during normal office hours.

    Cell phones, pagers and similar sound-producing electronic devices

    Cell phones, pagers and similar sound-producing electronic devices

    The ringing of and use of cell phones, pagers and similar sound-producing electronic devices are prohibited at this meeting. The Chair may order the removal from the meeting room of any person responsible for the ringing or use of a cell phone, pager, or other similar sound-producing electronic devices.

    Disability access

    Disability access

    The Commission meeting will be held in Room 408, City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, San Francisco, CA. The meeting room is wheelchair accessible.

    The closest accessible BART station is the Civic Center Station at United Nations Plaza and Market Street. Accessible MUNI lines serving this location are: #42 Downtown Loop, and #71 Haight/Noriega and the F Line to Market and Van Ness and the Metro Stations at Van Ness and Market and at Civic Center. For information about MUNI accessible services call (415) 923-6142.

    There is accessible curbside parking adjacent to City Hall on Grove Street and Van Ness Avenue and in the vicinity of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness Avenue adjacent to Davies Hall and the War Memorial Complex.

    To obtain a disability-related modification or accommodation, including auxiliary aids or services, to participate in a meeting, please contact the Department of Elections at least 48 hours before the meeting, except for Monday meetings, for which the deadline is 4:00 p.m. the previous Friday. Late requests will be honored, if possible.

    Services available on request include the following: American sign language interpreters or the use of a reader during a meeting, a sound enhancement system, and/or alternative formats of the agenda and minutes. Please contact the Department of Elections at (415) 554-4375 or our TDD at (415) 554-4386 to make arrangements for a disability-related modification or accommodation.

    Chemical based products

    Chemical based products

    In order to assist the City's efforts to accommodate persons with severe allergies, environmental illnesses, multiple chemical sensitivity or related disabilities, attendees at public meetings are reminded that other attendees may be sensitive to various chemical-based products. Please help the City accommodate these individuals.

    Know your rights under the Sunshine Ordinance

    Know your rights under the Sunshine Ordinance

    Government's duty is to serve the public, reaching its decisions in full view of the public. Commissions, boards, councils, and other agencies of the City and County exist to conduct the people's business. This ordinance assures that deliberations are conducted before the people and that City operations are open to the people's review.

    FOR MORE INFORMATION ON YOUR RIGHTS UNDER THE SUNSHINE ORDINANCE OR TO REPORT A VIOLATION OF THE ORDINANCE, CONTACT THE SUNSHINE ORDINANCE TASK FORCE:

    Sunshine Ordinance Task Force
    1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
    Room 244
    San Francisco, CA 94102-4689
    Phone: (415) 554-7724
    Fax: (415) 554-5163
    Email: sotf@sfgov.org
    Website: http://sfgov.org/sunshine

    Copies of the Sunshine Ordinance can be obtained from the Clerk of the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, at the San Francisco Public Library, and on the City's website.

    Lobbyist Registration and Reporting Requirements

    Lobbyist Registration and Reporting Requirements

    Individuals that influence or attempt to influence local policy or administrative action may be required by the San Francisco Lobbyist Ordinance (San Francisco Campaign and Governmental Conduct Code sections 2.100 – 2.160) to register and report lobbying activity.

    For more information about the Lobbyist Ordinance, please contact:

    San Francisco Ethics Commission
    25 Van Ness Avenue
    Suite 220
    San Francisco, CA 94102
    Phone: (415) 252-3100
    Fax: (415) 252-3112
    Email: ethics.commission@sfgov.org
    Website: sfethics.org

    Last updated January 27, 2024

    Departments