Elections Commission Regular Meeting

wonderful we're ready to begin welcome everyone to the March 15 2023 regular

meeting of the San Francisco elections commission I'm the president Robin Stone The Time Is Now 602 p.m and I call the

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

Goodlett Place San Francisco California 94102 and on WebEx as authorized by the

elections commission's February 15 2023 vote members of the public May attend the meeting to observe and provide

public comment either at the physical meeting location or if you have fallen or online I'll briefly explain some

procedures for participating in today's meetings the minutes of this meeting morphe but

this meeting is being held in person at City Hall room 408 Juan Dr Carlton uh B goodlet

Place San Francisco Public comment will be available on each item on this agenda each member of the public will be

allowed three minutes to speak once your three minutes have expired staff will thank you and you will be muted when

providing public comment you are encouraged to state your name clearly as soon as you begin speaking you'll have

three minutes and six minutes if you're online with an interpreter in addition to the physical

meeting location opportunities to provide public comment are available via WebEx and phone details and instructions

for participating remotely are listed on the commission's website and on today at the end of today's meeting agenda

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

12 pm the day of the meeting to elections.commission that's sfgov.org it'll be shared with the commission

after this meeting has concluded and it will also be included as part of the official meeting file I will now proceed with item one

commission roll call Commissioners please verbally State Your Presence at today's meeting after your name is called vice president jordanick

here commissioner burn holes here

commissioner die here commissioner Hayden Crowley here commissioner lebowsey here commissioner Parker here

and I president Stone and present with seven members president and account

for we have a quorum commissioner Parker will now State the following or will now State the land

resolution from the adopted October 19 2022 commit elections commission resolution

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

aloni where the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula as the indigenous stewards of this land and in

accordance with their Traditions the ramay tush aloni have never seeded 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 ramayi tush community and affirming their Sovereign rights as first peoples

thank you so much commissioner Parker I just wanted to make one quick announcement about the agenda today

which is that we will be moving agenda item number eight letter regarding

security issues from eight to number five so it will come after the

commissioner's reports I just wanted to give everyone a little bit of a heads up on that and with that we will move to

item number two general public comment public comment and any issue within the election commission's General

jurisdiction that is not covered by any other item on this agenda

so we have uh one person with their hand raised

or Mr Turner Commissioners uh thank you for uh being

here tonight um I just wanted to real quickly refer to a couple articles I tried to have

included in the package for the Commissioners and I attempted to gather as many signature uh as many uh email

addresses as I could find to send over uh to um reports basically one being the

little Hoover report uh making a good system better which recommends that the

state of California immediately moved toward open source election systems and the second was an article recently

coming out in gov Tech magazine called our open source elections more secure

and I just want to read from that into the record real quick uh it says uh open

source activist Brent Turner previously served as Secretary for the California Association of voting officials and

communications director for open voting Consortium in contrast to The oset

Institute Turner advocates for providing open source election software under a an

agpl license that prevents them from being incorporated into closed Source projects He told gov tech for the U.S he

told govtech the U.S should ensure election systems are primarily handled by non-profits and governments that can

focus on Democratic goals rather than by vendors that need to make profit Turner

believes election officials can pull off adopting open source themselves in the spirit of the effort you have to endure

these growing pains in transitional pains for the good of the Democracy Turner said this is all doable this

isn't necessarily difficult there's a political will issue and a push by proprietary interest to create fear

uncertainty and doubt in the environment that includes within the procurement Departments of different governmental

jurisdictions my point here is that there is a group oset and I believe one

of the Commissioners is currently involved with them or previously that is pushing for a licensing scheme

to position themselves for monetary interests regarding the eventuation of Open Source election systems and for

those reasons the public requests that commissioner bernholz recuses herself on issues surrounding open source election

systems thank you okay thank you

there are no other commenters with their hands raised great so we'll close uh agenda item

number two and move to agenda item number three the director's report discussion and possible action regarding

the director's report March 2023 and I'll hand it over to director Arts thank you thank you president Stone

just I'll just highlight so this Friday is the deadline to respond to the RFP the department issued in relation to uh

people having their votes restored who were Justice involved so the RFP is

actually posted under front page of our website it's also on oca's RFP site so

we've we sent the RFP out to around 50 organizations I think

it's but again I just want to put out there that the the the the the time frame ends on Friday to submit if

someone if a group is interested in doing Outreach to these folks that's 100

000 totals in the hour in the in the grant uh no group would be eligible for

more than fifty thousand dollars so like take any questions from there on the report

uh yeah thank you for your portrait currents I just had one question on the

under Roman numeral 3B the office of racial Equity report and because this is

going to come up later for us but in terms of what the commission needs to prepare I know in the past there were I

think two documents that you posted as part of your update there was the um I think it was more of a narrative and

then also the spreadsheet are you going to be providing both of those as part of an update or just

so uh so the office of racial Equity is streamlining its process this time

around so it's that office actually sent a PowerPoint slideshow and so

departments and then also commissions will need to input their information into that that PowerPoint slideshow and

then the office of racial Equity will consolidate the the content from all the

various departments and commissions for presentation to the Board of Supervisors and I thought that I already sent that

to the commission if I haven't did I you did okay so then yeah so that's that is the document on from to which you'll

input your content okay and then will our will the PowerPoint for that week give you will that be just like a second

PowerPoint or would it be included into yours it'll be included in ours okay right all right great and if I've if

there are any questions and the details we'll just reach out to you thank you

commissioner Parker um thanks for all of these uh for all this

information I really appreciate all the specific voter Outreach the marginalized communities that you highlighted again this time

um and you know that I'm happy to see the Outreach to high school students I'll always be asking about that

um I was just curious a couple of small questions um one is yeah I was just going to say maybe I'll move that chair so I can see

you um I know that you said that the max grant

for 50k is 50k for those two awards for the RFP that's due this Friday is it

likely there will be just two organizations who are supported or is it are is it likely there would be smaller

grants to multiple organizations even though the max is 50. it really depends on the number of bids we receive and the

type of services those bids Encompass so I can't answer that question until we see until we see the bids okay

um and then uh one other note or question was with the high school

Outreach um have you all ever parted partnered with the youth commission or the student advisory Council on efforts to get more

students connected with that High School elections Ambassador internship program not on the Ambassador specifically we

have I think we've reached out to them initially I don't know if we've actually met yet we're trying to actually uh work

with them this time around oh great but specifically on the student ambassadors I don't think we have directly with

those two organizations those two groups okay they might be they might be good connections because they're so connected to so many of their peers across the

city um you know not through schools necessarily that might be useful um and then I just wanted to ask if

there's any way that any of us can be helpful in all of these Outreach efforts you know that you've you've listed here you know sharing with our communities or

those we're connected with um you know and the best way to do that

if you have if there are events if there's Earth you know that we could attend if there's if we can provide any

sort of information tabling uh if there's topics potentially that are

neutral that we can we can cover at an event that we provide information yeah that's kind of that we always want that

sort of information if there's a group that potentially we is new that we haven't had any contact with that we you

know would appreciate that so we reach out to them and probably try to establish your relationship so yeah and even if you even if you're

not sure if we work with a group or attending event or if we have certain materials just let me know and just ask okay and even the specific ones

like one detailed out here um if we want more information on those so that we can share those out with our networks um do we just reach out to you

for details do you like the contact info yeah I'm I'm looking through which ones specifically because I there were a

couple that I noted that oh I might like to send that out to some people that I know um I can't recall what it was

specifically um but just more details just reach out to you if we wanted to forward some of

the efforts that you all are doing sure okay great thank you

commissioner die thank you um to reach a little bit here uh uh

director Arts I enjoyed our little brainstorming session last time about the voter digital information pamphlet

um glad to see your go green uh campaign um

have you considered leveraging your high school ambassadors to help get the word

out since they're digital natives at this point now we're more focused on

the ambassadors uh providing information to their peers on on registering to vote and voting we're

not really we're not trying to add right now uh go green into those conversations

into that into that Outreach um we could consider it but right now the impetus of of that program is to

really get the young potential young voters registered and get them engaged yeah I think you know it might be a

really good demographic since they're already online and they probably think everyone else should be and maybe they

can come into their parents to be um and uh you're going to include in the

messaging like we talked last time what the the total cost the savings would be to to the city if if people convert like

what the total cost of mailing out the voter information pamphlet in paper form potentially we haven't we haven't

finalized to that detail yet potentially yeah we have I I can't say

for certain okay and then I think we had a discussion last time about um we were talking about voters getting

information versus per residence so right now if somebody

um uh I saw your report mentioned 300 000 email addresses so this is to individual voters so if an individual

voter says yes you know sign me up for the digital vote information pamphlet

does that still mean that people other people in the household will get a copy yeah so the state guide is per household

the local guide is per voter so another thought would be to include

messaging around you know you can opt in and someone in your house can still keep it in that way

you can kind of naturally get it down to per resident um and then I don't remember if you

answered this question last time what was your estimate on what percentage now have opted in for the digital voter I

think I think the numbers around say 30 000.

so out of 500 000 voters uh what is that

yeah okay eight percent it's not bad you

haven't really yeah without promoting it it's probably organically we've had previous times we've we've

outreached and try to give voters to to go to the digital book so it's not the first time we've done this

thanks you're welcome to anyone else

I had a couple of things um this is President Stone um so obviously I was very excited about

several components of this month's um report I just had a few specific

questions well I had one question about um the RFP that you mentioned which I

did you know full disclosure I did share with some Community groups that I knew um and was really excited to to read it

um I just was curious how many folks have applied thus far you may not know off the top of your head I I'm not gonna

say actually it closes on Friday so I don't want to ah there makes sense actually thanks

um so then just moving on to um the page three the the voter notification program so I had a bunch of

questions pertaining to this um obviously I think this is phenomenal

um we've talked about this a lot over the last several months or even the last year um and I'm also very glad to see the

multilingual full component of this um so the methods for notification there

were a couple things that I specifically wanted to call out one is just folks who may be housing insecure and to who may

not have digital access so there were a couple things I was thinking about as it pertains to the like the tool

um because that sounds really phenomenal the you know the yes no questions

um the link to being able to you know you get the notification card and then

you go onto a website and you answer a bunch of questions and says are you eligible um

I am curious if you are considering also doing a paper version of that that's like a tree of some kind like you know

one of those silly things like yes you go here no you go there um that can be distributed to folks like

the prisoner prisoner legal services and some of the Community Partners and same

goes for the notice cards as a kind of not so much personalized to

um hey Robin Stone you are did you know that you might be eligible to register to vote but more like a general thing

that people can may be eligible to vote and don't know

um so would those maybe more paper-based resources potentially be available for

Community groups and other departments um to distribute as well yes awesome

yeah and we can just email the templates um that's great because I do know a lot

of folks you know may not not may not be using digital you know using email and things

like that so anything that's printed you know that we can distribute would be awesome and then the other question I

had is um the oh about data so I know in the last

election in the primaries we talked about um how the you know this type of data we

didn't have access to yet um does this now mean that in let's say

2024 we will be able to see um how many folks were eligible how many

folks registered and how many actually voted is that something we would be able to review in you know in the new kind of

numbers that the commission had asked for prior to the primaries for justice yes

I think so yeah because we I haven't seen the files from the state yet I

think last week was actually the first time they were received the file if it wasn't last week's week before so

so I'm assuming those are discrete files that we could continue to pull data from

so I would think so okay cool um obviously if it's not feasible

you know it's not feasible it just would be now that we are you know now that the department is getting access to this

information I thought that would be um that would be great those were my those

are mine but I'm very very happy to see some of this stuff so thank you

commissioner Hayden Crowley hi thank you director arnson for your comprehensive report as always

um just a quick question about the department has been exploring the use of local city approved marketers to assist

with the reach of the go green campaign and future elections messaging is that around social media that you would be

doing or is that more comprehensive it'd be a common it'd be more

comprehensive okay right okay and so are you looking at issuing an RFP do you

have the it in the money in this budget or you or was it going to go in next year's or how's that going to work we would try to do it this year and we need

to know what options are available and what is possible right uh as far as vendors are concerned so I don't I don't

have a lot of concrete okay information to give you right now okay about that okay

um it'd be great if you could do it just for social media just to dip your toes in you know because if you don't have

somebody on staff doing that it's it's hard because and even if you do though that person gets pulled in different

directions so it would be great if you had a more robust social media campaign for those that are

that look at that sort of thing not me of course thank you you're welcome

anyone else I actually had one more question director Ernst um this is President Stone again I

was just curious how those in person the some of the Outreach team

things in the neighborhood um some of the uh fares and things like

that how that's going in terms of registration knowing that it's so far out um are you seeing folks register are you

getting actually some pretty good participation I'm just mostly just curious we hit some registrations uh we

don't I mean a lot of people that go to the fairs and then events are already

registered or they don't want to register and what the what the main thing is people have they have questions

about the process about the election that's really the main takeaway that people get from this more so than being

registered is just us being available to answer questions and provide information

you know consistently at those sites that's awesome

thanks does anyone else have any questions or comments for the director

okay very Swift um thank you director Arts we will CL we will now take um public uh comment on uh

the director's report

okay I do not see any hands raised

awesome I will then close out agenda item three and move to agenda item

number four Commissioners reports discussion impossible action and Commissioners reports for 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 election and others and I

will open it up yeah vice president jordanick so I have

a few things to report um for starters or actually had you already announced

the book no not yet but you can go go ahead okay so uh I guess the current

plan is for the boat pet committee to be meeting um

you know sometime soon so my current plan is for the the boat pack to meet before our next

meeting in April and one of the topics where that meeting will be to um discuss

the racial Equity update that director Ernst mentioned in the previous item and we can also start discussing other

topics like um things like how any website changes we

would like to have or um how to conduct our our performance evaluations in the

future and um on a separate topic I wanted to just say

one thing about our new meeting page one of the new features I just learned about is that the um when it comes to posting

our recordings on our meeting pages that the new sfgov website supports

um transcripts for accessibility which is unique to the um when you have a YouTube

video it actually displays the transcript alongside so if you go to our last

meeting you can see that how that's displayed there but you have to scroll down to the end of the agenda

and I also double checked about the topic of web page translations which

came up at the last meeting and I think the way it works is that automatically it will show a Google

translate version at the top which is I believe an auto-generated translation so it's not totally accurate but if you

would like to have um a better translation you could just manually request that and they kind of

do that on an as needed basis so um so that's a little update there and then

lastly I just wanted to mention some news is that in this past I think it was in the past week the city of Redondo

Beach was which is in Southern California adopted rank Trace voting I think the vote was around 70 percent

and one of the interesting things there is that they're um voting vendor voting

system vendors heart and or Civic who has recently submitted a system for

state certification so that could be the second voting system vendor in California that

supports hearing Trace voting and it's a little bit indirectly related to what's happening in San Francisco

because um in the past heart has been not been allowed to bid on our rfps maybe Direct

parts maybe you can um confirm this if it's true that because

they're based in Texas the city's not allowed to do business with them is that right correct yeah but I also read recently

that in the media the borders I guess reconsidering some of those laws around

the city Contracting um but it's not super relevant

um just I'm not sure if the board would actually change things and also they're not they're not an open source vendor

but I just did want to mention that to the commission so thank you awesome thank you vice

president jordanick I'll share

um a few items um this is President Stone so as vice

president jordanick mentioned we did call bopek meeting which for

um uh for folks that are not familiar that is the budget and oversight

Committee of the elections commission and vice president jordanick will chair

that committee for the year with Commissioners levoci and commission and

Hayden Crowley as members as well and I'm really excited to have them join and

be able to work on some of these issues that we don't have necessarily all the time on our one Wednesday a month

meetings including racial equity and obviously I've also broadened Matt in

many meetings to include diversity inclusion belonging and Justice so hopefully that can be incorporated as

well but also looking at some of the areas that we had prioritized over the

last year in addition to thinking about um upcoming priorities um the second was the website and then

the third is the was the process which vice president jordanick had already mentioned um but release one of the processes that

I've been kind of mentioning over the last few months um as it pertains to thinking about how

we operate um is that by the end of the year I hope to have a little bit of at least a

framework of some rules of order for our body so thinking about you know how do

we operate how what is the structure of things that we can have um a lot of these processes all in in

one place it may be ambitious to think that that can happen by the end of the year but um at least we'll we'll give it

our best shot um and then um yeah so that that's it as it pertains

to bopek the remote public comment as a city-wide issue is something that came up in

conversation in the last meeting so I did draft a letter that I had considered

Distributing to other commissions that also vice president jordanick had reviewed

but after following the Board of Supervisors discussions and reviewed the recommendations from

that came down from the city administrator's office ultimately I

think that where the city is in a good position to for people to follow those

rules and the Board of Supervisors it doesn't appear is to be focused on

making any changes that would apply to all commissions it really their focus has been on what they're going to do

within their own body so I ultimately made the Judgment call to focus on us and if it comes up again I will I will

raise that and welcome anyone else to raise that as well the last thing I wanted to just give

everyone a little bit of a heads up on is that I I'm I'm considering calling a

special meeting in the summer um I know everyone is probably rolling their eyes but um the idea is to have it

be not um not strenuous but more of a opportunity for us to have some time

together so usually um from my understanding although I've only had one summer on this body uh

there may be one month over the summer where the commission does not meet and whether it's that month or a

different one the idea is to call it something to the effect of a retreat and

something previous commissions have done especially in really kind of pivotal moments in the body

um and it's no secret that in the last year there's been a lot going on and so I thought this might be a good

opportunity for us to kind of do some do some casual bonding and also potentially

maybe tour the warehouse at Pier 31 with the director who I've spoken to briefly

about this and potentially talk about some other strategic priorities um

this is there is no definitive date I wanted to give everyone a heads up that this may happen and I would like to hear

from folks if there are you know weeks or months that absolutely won't

work I know we all have really busy schedules so um I welcome you to share those now

um or or offline um that's that works and obviously I will provide

um proper notice to the public and everyone here but you know it's March and the summer is many months away so

okay any last comments okay let's move to public comment

okay so there are two hands raised or three hands raised so let's take we

have a commenter calling by phone

so you are unmuted

and you have three minutes can you hear me yes we can hear you

great thank you uh hello to elections Commissioners and director Arts my name is Stephen Hill I've been involved in

the ranked Choice voting issue for many years um and the um the thing I wanted to

bring to your attention um we have a new project where we're going around

um getting input from any political leaders political organizations asking them how can we improve local democracy

um you know should we add public financing to things like School Board elections it's a whole big agenda not

just having to do with ranked Choice voting but one consistent message that I'm hearing from a number of different

organizations and individuals is that there are still quite a few people especially in different communities that

are confused by ranked Choice voting and when you dig down and ask you know what is it the confusion about

um I mean it used to be they knew how to rank they just didn't really know how the ballots were counted but now there seems to be a fair amount of confusion

um in some communities like if you put your favorite candidate three times does that help them if you put more than one

candidate in your first ranking does that somehow weight your ballot a certain way and so voters when they walk

in to vote are are just really kind of confused particularly I've been hearing that uh from some people uh in the

Chinese community and other communities and so what I wanted to bring to your attention is whether there would be some

way uh that the elections Commission in conjunction of course with director orange and his Department to do an

evaluation of how the educate what what is being done for educating about rank

shows voting I I mean we did a lot in the early years of ranked Choice voting and then um I think you know after the

initial few elections we thought okay we can let that go a little bit um and and I think now we have a lot of

new voters people who have moved to San Francisco don't know how ranked Choice voting works and it might be time to

just really re-examine what has worked for voter education what hasn't worked

what can we do better um you know the department has been doing a great job in many ways and and

so I think it's more a matter of like you know we've been using ranked Choice voting now for believe it or not almost 20 years it will be 20 years in 2024 and

it's just time to maybe look at it and see how can we make it better how can we

make it make sure it's it's up to date for for now rather than 20 years ago

um you know uh for example the Department's used to I'm not sure if it still does it used to do a mailing to

communities and of course when you do a mailing you reach a lot of people but you can only get so much on a postcard

with three or four languages so you reach a lot of people with the quality information is not so great but if you

give money to community groups the quality information and presentations is much better but you don't reach as many

people so what combination of mailings and Outreach to community groups is

really the ideal combination these sorts of things I think would be really good

okay and so and if there would be some way to have an

agenda item on this I'd love to be able to participate in some way and hear uh uh what everyone thinks about this thank

you Mr Hill thank you okay so we have

I'm just trying to mute okay we have um Mr Turner I'm I'm meeting you

yes thank you uh three minutes commissioner jordanick I just wanted to

uh second uh the caller in front of me uh Mr Hill and uh but but also with an

adjunct to that um it we we should also be uh educating

not only the public but also as the commission goes through changes it would

be great if um the Commissioners also were presented the up-to-date information about ranked

Choice voting um and also its interaction with open source software there are many experts

in the election system of community that uh want to make sure that if we are

using ranked Choice voting which obviously we are in San Francisco that it is not placed

um within a proprietary software code environment as we know that recounts are

more cumbersome in a ranked Choice environment if not impossible and so

you're completely Reliant upon the software account and we want to make sure that software is appropriate

software um back to the little Hoover Commission report if the Commissioners are not

familiar with that I think that's should be mandatory reading at this point along

with um the current information I'm regarding heart inner Civic which was

mentioned you know what what could possibly go wrong with a secret software voting system company out of Texas

um you know coming into San Francisco other than um you know obviously we're not going to

make the difference in 2024 with the uh Trump uh coming up for another election

but we want to set precedent for the United States and and get California in

order now we're seeing other states move ahead of California which has done

a lot of the work on the open source front regarding elections and now we're

seeing a New Hampshire uh moving in front of us Mississippi and and it to be

candid it's it's embarrassing that we're in this position where we still can't get ourselves together around this issue

in San Francisco like Los Angeles Bears a lot of responsibility if the

commission is also not familiar with what happened in Los Angeles 35 was

dedicated toward an open source project there at the urging of open voting Consortium and that 300 million dollars

went missing and again uh back to commissioner bernholz recusing herself that that was oset that came into Los

Angeles burned through that 300 million and a lot of people have cried foul and

fraud regarding that 300 million going south and Los Angeles still does not

have an open source voting system so um thank you very much for your time and

your dedication to democracy thank you okay thank you

okay so um if if any colors had their hand raised please raise it again I put one

down but I don't know if that was Mr Hill or not I don't

see any other hands raised I think we're

okay Panthers that will close out

um the agenda item number four commissioner's reports and so as I mentioned uh at the beginning of the

meeting we're going to move an earlier sorry agenda item number eight uh to

agenda item number five letter regarding security issues so discussion impossible

action regarding the DVS order privacy flaw affecting San Francisco's Dominion voting system and reporting of potential

similar voting systems security issues to the Department of Elections and I will hand it over to vice

president jordanick okay thank you president Stone so for this agenda item there were there were two parts to the

conversation that I wanted to discuss the first part is the um the idea of a

security.txt file which came up last month and then secondly

was the letter to the Secretary of State and some similar letters so first on the

topic of the security.txt and I attached to the packeted document that describes

what it is and it basically it's an internet standard that provides a way to

um publicize how security researchers can communicate security issues to an

organization like the department and I did check that in either the city's website sf.gov or the

department's website have one so um so this is something that the um the

department could set up um I I guess director Ernst the SF

elections domain is under the Department's control is that correct correct yeah and then the um of course

the city's domain is not under the Department's control so if we wanted the city's website to do it we would need to

talk with them separately so um I know just recently across the

bay on the city of Oakland was hit by a ransomware attack so um I mean I think it could be good

from a city-wide perspective so if we wanted to we could maybe um

discuss the idea of of also communicating with whoever's responsible for the the city's domain

but um and then secondly at the last meeting we uh

when I started the agenda item I had raised the idea of writing a letter to the Secretary of State and based on the

discussion we had and in talking with Dr halderman and director Ernst it's it's not just the

secretary of state that didn't inform the department about the vulnerability but there was also um Dominion who had

sent an advisory to the department which did not actually mention the vulnerability and also the federal

agencies the EAC and ciso the cyber security agency didn't notify the department so I

thought what we could do is we could um discuss the idea of sending a similar letter to to those two organizations or through

organizations so um I I mean partly I think it's important

for the federal agencies to know that if they have a process for getting this information down to the

local jurisdictions that in this case their process didn't work and if they don't have a process it

would be good for them to know that um you know it might be worth having a process

so um so I thought we could just maybe discuss the draft letters they were posted to

the packet on Thursday and then I did make a couple edits since then

um the most recent ones are underlined if people had seen the letters before that

so I guess you just open it up to commissioner Clements

commissioner die yeah I just um wanted to clarify with this who who

would be signing this letter since there's a reference to the commission authorized me

I I was thinking the president um okay

I think that's appropriate and then the other question I had is will you be snail mailing it as well as

emailing it I mean that's that's up to are you

asking me or okay that's up to us taking notes I missed you looking at me apologize I was I was thinking just for

ease we could just mail it or sorry email it but I think there's no reason we couldn't do both

but um it's it's certainly it's also what people have time for but

or whatever people prefer commissioner Hayden Crowley thank you commissioner um

pres president Stone and commissioner jordanick question there's a lot of

material here and um I am a little bit confused uh but

um it seems like this letter uh you have the questions at the very

end and I think then you have a bunch of stuff before

about our position on open source voting was that the agreement that that the

letter was going to talk about open source voting or were we just going to talk about the the questions that we had

about um the specific lack of notification

so I think what the last meeting I suggested the idea of drafting a letter

and this is what I came up with I thought that I mean we could take this letter as an

opportunity to educate the agencies about open source and how you know one of the advantages is that

issues like these would be caught a lot earlier and if people don't want to include that information we could remove

it but I do think it's a good opportunity to educate these

organizations okay but it's not what we talked about at the previous

meeting that we would incorporate that or did we did well we did we did talk about

with Dr halderman House it had been open source we would have caught that issue but um

we didn't really spend a lot of time talking about what the letter would contain the con well we I think we did

we did just say that you would talk that the letter would would address these questions which I think you've done a

very good job of addressing the flaws in the system

um I'm not totally comfortable with the whole open source issue I think I I understand your point completely

commissioner jordanick but um because I'm still somewhat new to

this commission I we haven't had a full hearing on open source unless you want

to count all of um uh the public comment we've received about it and I and you know I I I see

your point of view on the open source but I've not heard the other side at all and so I'm not sure also okay let me

just say I'm not sure that that this is what we agreed to number one and number two

um if you want to get your point across I recommend making it one page and going

straight to the very end on the elections commission with the questions because it just takes too long to get to

the point um it's just my experience that these are very busy people their staffers are

the folks that are going to read it we want an answer I don't think it's I don't I mean we'll be educating their

staffers I'm just going to tell you they're not going to read it if they read it they'll read these questions and

if we want to get to get a prompt response my recommendation would be to

give a brief um you know like the second paragraph is good

um I mean I don't want to pick this whole thing apart I because you've spent a lot of time on this and I I really

appreciate all the time that you spend on all of these things you're extraordinarily thoughtful but I do

think that my understanding is we agreed that you would write a letter that would ask about the flaws and my feeling is

that's what the letter should be and my recommendation is is that it should stay to one page

okay yeah I just in terms of agreeing I mean we didn't we discussed it but we didn't have a

vote or anything on on what it would include um I'm certainly open to

you know revising in the letters um if if we don't want to include those paragraphs about open source we can we

can remove them but it has been our policy since 2015 to support

open source voting so it's consistent with you know what this body has been in

support of but um in terms of the length of the letter I mean these are agencies that

have many many people working for them they routinely review very long documents on all kinds of subjects I

don't think it hurts to include more information in the first paragraph it does say the questions are at the end so

they could skip through that stuff if they want to but um and also part of this is for the public

record I mean it you know when people are seeing this information it's a chance for us to

educate people reading the letter on things that are important to this Commission

vice president jordanick I don't mean to be rude but I want to give other folks an opportunity to also jump in who

haven't had the chance to yet and then obviously I would love to come back to you as well did anyone else

um yes commissioner burn holes thank you I'd like to Second uh the

comment made by commissioner Hayden Crowley I think what uh commissioner johnik here has done uh and he's done it

very well um has uh

has actually led to a letter that might result in less attention not more

because it's too related but not similar sets of content and I would very much

agree that a letter that includes paragraphs one and two one two and three and the

questions is what we agreed to support at the meeting and

um the the information about open source is accurate important and a good

opportunity to educate but what it actually is is slipping into a document

agreed to do one thing a set of points and information that I think will simply

distract from that end um I also not not sure that uh

I there are comments in here which I don't believe this commission has

a has um in any way endorsed so I think it would

be better to just remove it thank you and thank you commissioner Sonic for drafting the letters

thank you commissioner burn holes

anyone else like to comment commissioner die

yeah I I personally don't have an objection to the inclusion of some of

this although I do believe something more succinct would get more attention so I I don't disagree with my

the previous commissioner's comments on that point um a suggestion might be

to um take some of the uh reference references to

um voting system standards for example which they ought to know

and and just refer to them by their code number and

maybe included as an appendix because you're really coding their own

code back to them and so that would shorten it

by quite a bit

um and then I also

think it would not hurt to put the questions up front

just to be real clear hear the questions that we're trying to seek an answer to and then here's some

background and we are referencing

the state's own code and just include it I mean include as an appendix maybe after the letter

so I think that would accomplish the goal of making it tighter

thank you commissioner die um vice president jordanick did you want to

respond I know I kind of cut you off earlier um I'm fine with all the suggestions

um you know I do appreciate that you know people are supportive of the

the idea of the letter in the questions you know I'm happy to remove the paragraphs that are

about open source um and then I can also move the

the references to the um the voting system standards to to an

appendix that that's that's information slowly in the Secretary of State letter yeah but um yeah I'm happy to make those

changes and I think it's clear which paragraphs

are about open source it's you know the ones starting incidentally and then on

on basically until before right before the questions start

and I can also move the questions up to the towards the beginning commissioner died yeah I mean I think you can still

reference open source because that is something that Dr halderman said and I think that point is

still valid but probably some of the more detailed stuff may not be necessary and

in in the interest of brevity could be could be taken out but I I don't think

it's wrong to make the point that if this were an open source system it would have been found

yeah well so I'm happy either way you know obviously

um I would prefer there to be more but I think because commissioner bernholds and commissioner Hayden Crowley raised the

point I would kind of want look to them to see what they would be comfortable with if it's mentioned at all

but um it's kind of up to them I think commissioner Hayden Crowley I I don't

feel like it's up to me I was just a recommendation but I I I don't

I hear you what you're saying commissioner jordonic that we have a policy of supporting open source voting

but the fact remains we don't have an open source voting system in San

Francisco So speaking to them about open source voting is not um we're not a first person

experience I guess is my point and then maybe that's what commissioner on bernholz I'm I just I don't want to even

say anything more because I think I I totally get what you're doing and and I and I respect it I just think we agreed

to a letter that would ask questions and we should stay on topic and I also think in my experience as a communicator and I

know people go through a lot of different you know read a lot of letters but I've read a lot of letters and I

just like people to get to the point because I don't have that much time in the day and that this is what we agree to that

would be my recommendation

so this is President Stone um thank you everyone for the discussion and I've been taking a lot of notes and

thinking about it um I want to just clarify also what

folks are if we're focused on just the letter to the Secretary of State

um because obviously there are other um recipients included in the in the packet

um and I I think that those that's a separate conversation that we should also have of

should we be directing who should we be directing these two um one way or another

um I at this point I'm not comfortable with as president with this specific

letter um just based on the conversation but also some of the language

um definitely does not align with how I would necessarily position something to

the Secretary of State state's office and so I would just want to be kind of clear about that one recommendation I

have that I would like the body to consider is um if uh and vice president

jordanick as well like your input on this if you want to based on the conversation we had here

um and perhaps you and I working offline um do another draft for the commission to review

um and approve before the next meeting I recognize that you probably want to move faster on this but

um you know knowing that we're not we don't have an immediate election coming up where we need to be immediately

concerned um I I thought that might be a good

approach where everyone can we could take the feedback redraft I can also

provide thoughts on you know tone of voice from me and so that we can present

an alternative to everyone um so there's that and then also I'd

like to talk just a little bit about the idea of um reaching out to Dominion

um because I want to be I want to be kind of careful about this and I would like to hear everyone's thoughts

um I I yeah I'd like to hear what people think about reaching out to Dominion I

obviously want to be considerate of the fact that while we are

um we do want to ask questions we also are and similarly with the Secretary of

State's office like we do also want to work with these folks um I mean Dominion is our provider and

um being thoughtful of how we talk to them and how that could affect the relationship with the director and the

department I think is in the best interest of the city and so I would like to hear what other people have

um to say in regards to that it's not to say that we don't reach out to them it's just being mindful of how so I would be

interested to hear what what folks think about that in addition to the proposal for the draft letters

what are your reservations to dominion and the reason for not

putting it in oh it this is present Stone um it wasn't so much the letter like not

writing a letter it's more just what I was exactly what I was saying about the relationship with the Department

um because they are our election system provider and we they are the only one

that we are currently working with and you know having those types of relationships and contractor

relationships we want to be mindful of a the impact on the director and the department and

their ability to work with Dominion if we're making sure we're not and I'm not suggesting that this would undermine it

but just being thoughtful of that um which I think probably goes to what commissioner dye had brought up at the

last meeting about having the director's input um but recognizing that there is a

relationship there that we have to be kind of cautious of um and um knowing that

you know relationships and contractor relationships are a give and take so it's less like reservations about this

specific letter it's just a consideration that I think hadn't been brought up that I'd like people's input

in and also um I invite Dirk Ernst if you have additional thoughts as well does does

that help yes okay thank you yeah thanks commissioner we'll see commissioner die

so first a comment on the election assistance commission and um

I do think it's appropriate to send them a letter as well because they are

responsible for these issues at a national level and they were also informed by Dr halderman and they also

did not inform the department so I think that's completely appropriate with

regard to Dominion I mean we're their customer and it's very reasonable for us to

expect you know software that it's not defective and I personally you know this

was the first time I actually saw the notice from Dominion which um I agree with with vice president

president jordanick's comment at the last meeting I hadn't seen it at that time but he commented that it was really

vague and I completely agree I mean after reading that note it would not have been apparent to me that I would

have had to do anything where I in director Art's position I I thought it was

deliberately obfuscated and so I think it's quite reasonable to

demand that a vendor be transparent if they have a bug you know let us know

about it let us know when you're going to fix it you know that's a very reasonable request and and don't put out

a really vague notice that I you know really don't understand what to

do right so you know to me this is a customer vendor

relationship it's not something we need to tiptoe around

um I will come back to you vice president jordanick at commissioner burn holes head um her hand up

thank you president Stone um I I on the letter to Dominion itself

I agree with commissioner die I also think there's some power in sending a

letter to dominion and noting that similar letters have been sent to the

Secretary of State in the EAC I think it's important to let them know the

degree to which we're paying attention to this um

so I just that's my comment thanks thank you commissioner Bruno's

commissioner Hayden Crowley I thank you president Stone I would agree with um

commissioner dye and commissioner bernholz um I think just um if I'm to extrapolate

from your comments I just think we need to be respectful of the relationship with um director Arts I think that's all

you were saying but I think it's totally reasonable to ask the vendor and keep director arms in the loop

thank you commissioner Hayden Crowley I'm oh sorry I also skipped you vice president Jordan I apologize okay yes I

I just wanted to mention because this may have been before you're on the commission president soon but I think it

was a couple years ago that the um the commission wrote a letter to Dominion it

was sent by commissioner bernholz this was in reference to uh

the a reporter that for the San Francisco Examiner quoted the dominions are sales representative at Dominion

saying something that was um disrespectful towards San Francisco

voters so then we wrote a letter to Dominion asking the representative to

explain and I think we may have invited him to a meeting or something so it would it's

not without precedent for us to send a letter to Dominion but that's all I wanted to share thank you a point of

clarification I voted on that letter so I was on the commission I do recall

great okay yeah no no problem um does anyone else

so this is present Stone again um I really appreciate everyone providing that input and glad there's

some general consensus um how do folks feel about the second question or it was really the first

question I had asked which is um the idea of um vice president jordanick taking some

of the feedback that we had had that we've discussed today potentially drafting a new version and working with

me offline on that new version and then presenting it for the commission's review and approval of the next meeting

commissioner Hayden Crowley I make a motion that we accept your suggestion to

uh work with commissioner jordonic offline following this meeting not directly

following this meeting and uh edit the draft and uh disseminate

it I guess to the commission prior to the next meeting so that we can are we

allowed to do that DCA or you'd have to make it part of the packet we would just include it as a package okay and then

would we be would we be voting on it at the next meeting or can we agree to send it prior to the meeting

um we I think we would have to vote on it okay unless unless your motion is if

unless we're going to make an amendment to your motion which is that why I haven't finished my mind oh okay well an

alternative so to answer your question we could you could also motion that the

body does not need to vote on it and just that there is interest in the vice

president and myself to uh work offline and and work in the interest of what was

shared today I would include that in my motion because I think that is the most

efficient way of handling this so let me restate the motion I I am moving that

uh president stone work with commissioner jordanick offline to

redraft the letter and distribute it to the commission following this meeting and that uh

we have the opportunity to provide feedback but that ultimately president

Stone and vice president jordanick will

make the decision based on our recommendations to uh agree on the letter and send it to

the Secretary of State and to Dominion so and to the various ccs so I have um

just want to make one point of clarification or point of information which is just that we won't be able to

have feedback provided to us outside of the meeting because of the brown act so

it would have to be either authorizing us to take what was shared today and

then giving us you know authority to draft it based on that or the two of us work on it and present a new draft that

would be voted on at the next meeting all right I'm going to put a lot of

trust in you [Laughter] know I just don't want to talk about this at the next meeting

let's just that's my motion that we get this done uh following the meeting

second thank you um just before we

um take public comment I just want to confirm with vice president jordanick that you agree to do that

um what was motioned which was that we would work offline to incorporate the

feedback provided today and then the commission would give us authority to

send the letters without having to vote on what those new letters are

you asking me yes um yeah I think yes I think that's good

okay thank you any other discussion before we move to

public comment okay let's move to public comment

okay so there are two hands raised it's unmute you Mr Turner you have three

minutes thank you Commissioners um because of my health issues I'm

unfortunately not um prone to attend uh meetings in the

future um with this commission um but I I do want to mention in this

moment that sometimes you just have to be brave and the conversations I'm

hearing here uh appear to be fear-based um Dominion has already said

uh that they think San Francisco voters are stupid and that the election

commission doesn't know anything about elections so it doesn't get much worse than that I I think you should probably

not be in fear of offending Steve Bennett and uh the folks at Dominion

um that that's my personal opinion on this regarding your letters yes send it to the EAC to sisa to the DHS they can

always be reminded um though they're very familiar with the battle between Microsoft and op open

source systems regarding commissioner Hayden Crowley I I would just caution

the Commissioners to not fall into the Trap that is set up here by oset to

remove any conversation amongst the Commissioners or on agendas regarding

open source um we this is the biggest issue in the United States right now how to secure

our election systems so that we have voter confidence and this we're spiraling downward here we're never

going to have public confidence with bad voting system software and San Francisco's had the ability to lead a

lot of people spent 20 years setting this up for you to do the right thing and for everyone to cower now is is

again embarrassing it's not what San Francisco county or city stands for

nationally we're supposed to be the beacon on the hill for democracy and and this is uh unfortunately I I just have

to say embarrassing conversation uh Professor halderman was candid and Frank

when he said this would not have happened in an open source environment um to to cower away from telling the

truth just plays into the hands of some very bad people that desire instability

for the United States that includes not only possibly inside interference people

that are corrupting this process but also outside interference folks in other

countries so please stand up be brave do the right thing consult your own consciences

self-educate on the issue of Open Source software regarding elections since

you're on this commission and you're in the hot seat on this and can show leadership not only to the county but to

the state and to the rest of the country so please try to stand up sometimes

you just have to be grave and and we're seeing this affectation of this

commission Mr Turner of corporate corruption and I applaud you for your

dedication to democracy thank you thank you thank you

um next public commenter the name is George you're you're unmuted

you have three minutes

hello yes we can hear you okay excellent um

I said uh a month ago um well I requested that

um you know I wanted to to take a look at Dr halderman's solution and I talked to Chris about this two weeks ago in San

Leandro um and then look and I just wanted to I said I would get back to you and I got back to Chris but I wanted to reiterate

to the the commission um it's a really good solution I I looked at it I don't really see any downside

and and I I had an election expert that I talked to he looked at he was very much in favor of it knows Dr Holliman

knows the credibility of his work so it's it's excellent because it does exactly what he said it it effectively

scrambles the order of the ballot records in the cast vote record database so for example

um president Stone well let's say that you have um you know you have you say the ballot

stuff so there's still a and you have four ballot stubs in an election you know and you wrote down the numbers you

can still look them up and the caspot record database but they might be for example the first one might show up in

line 1000 of the database and the other the next one might show up in line uh 23

506 of the database etc etc so it effectively scrambles the order which

protects gives a level of security um from people being able to reverse

engineer who voted when um which is which is what he was talking about but at the same time it's still uh

preserves the the transparency while while preserving privacy so that you

um uh president Stone can look up in the caspot record uh database you can still look up by the the ballot ID that you

have on your stub and uh and verify so can any citizen of Silence because verify that your boat was recorded the

way you cast it or for everything you cast it for so I fully support that and

I just want to go out back let you all know it and I want to thank the commission um for going to the trouble of inviting

um Dr halderman to present this excellent um first to make people aware of the

problem and also present what is an excellent solution thank you

okay thank you thank you

okay there are no other hands raised okay thank you um we are going to now vote on the

motion um on commissioner Hayden Crowley's motion that I present Stone will work

with vice president jordanick offline to redraft the letters based on the feedback shared today and grant us the

authority to send it to the three recipients included in the packet so vice president jordanick yes

um commissioner burn holes commissioner dye

I bet I think they're four recipients thank you

thank you commissioner diet um commissioner Hayden Crowley yes commissioner bolsi yes commissioner

Parker yes and I president stone m a yes so with all seven

Commissioners voting yes we the motion passes

great thank you everyone so is there any

further discussion before we close out this agenda item vice president I just wanted to see how

do people feel about approaching the city's Department of Technology about the security.txt would would that be

something that um like one of us should do just on our own or did we want to

um oh sorry I didn't see uh commissioner die yeah I nominate you Chris to go and

approach I believe his name is Mark matz metzman who's our ciso for the city of San Francisco I

think it's a pretty simple solution I'm sure he would welcome it okay and I don't think we need to vote

on that just I could just reach out okay and I just want to thank everyone for you know the discussion today and I

think everyone's feedback was very valuable so thank you Ms president Stone I would like to add

one one quick item um so there's been some conversation about

the open source voting obviously on this body over the last x amount of months

but also many many many years and so I I wanted to make everyone aware that one

of the items that vice president jordanick and I have been discussing is perhaps in that special meeting over the

summer we do a little bit more of a deep dive to make folks particularly folks who might be new to open source voting

to the policy but also just the system to be able to give kind of a full

landscape of of um of the policy in a longer format so

hopefully that should also be helpful for folks to kind of get up to speed and

then also perhaps provide additional documentation that you know should

Commissioners come and go that will be easily accessible for

um for the next body to to kind of pick up where we left off so I thought that

might be a value yes commissioner Hayden Crowley I think thank you president Stone I I just my just pet peeve we

don't have and I'm going to lose my train of thought because I'm tired tonight so I apologize for the fact that

I'm so tired uh long day at the office but um

back to what were we talking open source voting um we

swear The Retreat open source voting uh doing a work an overview of it

okay oh open source voting it's it's not the whole open source voting per se and

and learning more about it it's the actual power we have to do anything about it and that's a discussion that we

need to have with the DCA here because we can talk about it till kingdom come but we really have no money we don't

have any kind of authority um to do certain things and so we can

endorse it but we spend a lot of time on issues that we really have no Authority on and we're here till midnight and I

really do think that if one of the discussions we need to have at some point is particularly with the DCA

weighing in and maybe we need to hire Authority even in the city attorney's office what power do we have because I'm

seeing us drifting into areas and and we'll we'll talk about this as we go

um you know I think there's some overreach going on here and while our intentions are really good and admirable

at the end of the day we're I remind you we are the appointed body

of seven different electeds who all have different agendas and they were elected by the people we were not elected by

them and we have a certain amount of privilege and Authority but it is

contained and so we're spend a lot of time on things that at the end of the day I don't know how I mean I do think

that we need to have uh honest conversation about what we can really

what we really have authority over is what I'm saying because we are investing a lot of time into things that may go

nowhere because of the way that the bylaws are set up and the city Charter

is set up so that's thank you Hayden commissioner Hayden Crowley

is anyone else and I welcome that feedback

um okay so we're gonna close out agenda item number five um and with that we're going to move to

agenda item number six um possible closed session concerning the director of Elections 2020 2022

performance evaluation continued from February 15th and public employment

um sorry Public Employee appointment slash hiring of the commission secretary

um so first we're going to move to public comment and also um we're gonna move to public comment and all matters

pertaining to both of these uh both uh the 6D and 6E pertaining to closed

session

okay there's one hand raised Mr Turner I'm on meeting you

you have three minutes yeah thank you again Commissioners for indulging me and

I realize I am just speaking on behalf of the public but I do appreciate you bringing in experts like Dr Holderman

and also uh we would encourage you to pay attention to

um not only your own vice president here and his great working knowledge of the open source election system issue but

also the group voting Works who is the first in the country to actually deploy

an open source system in of all places Mississippi instead of San Francisco the

reason why I'm commenting at this point is because the regarding the director's

evaluation the um flaw in the ointment unfortunately here because he does to seem to do a

decent job administering elections um is uh director arnst director honest

his personally stalled the open source voting system

um uh deployment in San Francisco and the and the uh trial of the system by

providing disinformation to the Secretary of State's office and basically slowing everything down we

believe at the direction of dominion and of course that's why we talk about corruption

um Microsoft and dominion and the vendors and people that sell secret software with licenses uh proprietary

they they don't want open source anywhere in any conversation ever this

creeps into our own Board of Supervisors previously we had the luxury of people like Tom amiano who would stand up and

more recently Shimon Walton but it's a tough road and I mean just all hell

breaks loose upon the politicians to try to advocate for open source software and

elections it's the third rail but the reason it's important is we have to have public confidence in our elections San

Francisco is the best and the brightest in the country arguably if is probably

not going to completely happen out of Mississippi but Mississippi went ahead

and did the right thing because they they needed to in that moment we may not need to maybe we're okay hanging out

with Dominion even though they call it stupid and ridiculed the population of San Francisco but the fact remains if we

are brave and do the right thing sometimes you have to do that in certain moments of history like Winston

Churchill when he was fighting the Nazis you have to stand up to my Supremacy corporate control over elections and uh

I I Look to You to to again consult your conscience and and work hard to try and

figure this out thank you all again for your time okay thank you

there are no other hands raised okay

so we're now going to move to succeed vote on whether to meet in closed

session to consider item 60 and or item 6E pursuant to California government code

54957b in San Francisco Administrative Code 67.10 B

so moved um vice president jordanick

yes commissioner burn holes yes

commissioner die aye commissioner Hayden Crowley yes commissioner labelsey yes commissioner

Parker yes and I president Stone vote Yes so we are now going to move into

closed session and um return yeah it will take a minute just

to to move into closed session so thank you everyone thank you we are back in Open session at

8 39 PM um so we

we have to do G discussion and vote pursuant to administrative code

67.12a on whether to disclose any portion of the closed session um just regarding item 16 and E so

yeah I moved not to disclose anything in our closed session second oh um my apologies

um you are disclosed yes okay so and outside of what I so all provide provide

will rescind the motion for a moment just to disclose that the commission

will a be but but I need the review we're making

to be making a positional offers and then about the review continue on the item yeah okay

um sorry uh we I would like to disclose that the commission authorized me to

provide a conditional offer to um a potential um candidate for our commission

secretary so commissioner die would you like to make that motion again

uh I move that we not disclose um anything regarding our continued

performance evaluation of the of the director

second okay um uh vice president jordanick

uh yes commissioner burn holes yes commissioner die

I commissioner Hayden Crowley yes commissioner lavosi yes commissioner

Parker yes and I present Stone vote Yes so thank you all and and

um I really appreciate it I just want to uh we're going to close out that uh agenda item and I need to make another

adjustment to the agenda item which is we're going to swap uh the current item

seven with eight so we're going to go straight into the redistricting process initiative and I just want to say thank

you to our very patient guest speaker for um for waiting until we got back into

Open session we really appreciate it so agenda item number eight redistricting

process initiative discussion and possible action regarding the commission's ongoing redistricting process initiative and I will hand this

over to commissioner levolsi and commissioner die thank you president Stone and perhaps um

well um we're getting promoting our guest speaker to a panelists uh the the

bio for guest speaker Nicholas heidorn is in the packet while he has a very impressive

background the reason we invited him is that he is the author of two reports

that were included in the packet the one that uh was included in the packet last month the promise of fair Maps hot off

the press and then also the original California local redistring commission's report which was published in 2017 and

was included in the July 2022 commission packet we've asked him to

join us here very briefly so that he can give us some brief remarks but really

he's here to answer any and all of our remaining questions before we move on to

the next phase of our redistricting initiative so with that

can we make sure that Nicholas can be heard by us

are you there yes thank you commissioner die can you guys hear me okay

yes which is great wonderful thank you uh uh president and Commissioners for

having me it's a pleasure to be here so uh for the record my name is Nicholas hidor and I run my own consulting firm

and as was mentioned I recently completed a Statewide report on local redistening on behalf of the league one Motors of California ACLU of California

California common cause and Asian Americans advancing Justice Asian law caucus which I'll discuss very briefly

with you today as part of my background previously I worked for California common cause on local redistricting

reform including on the fair Maps act which is the main state law affecting local redisting and I also co-founded a

common cause and majority School of Law the California local redistricting project dedicated to studying local

redistan best practices um I'll try and limit my remarks to about five minutes if that's okay I'll

briefly go over some of the results of our recent study talk a little bit about Trends with irc's independent

redistricting commissions and then talk briefly about some proposed state legislation going through the process

now um so in terms of the study the promise Fair Maps which is linked to the agenda

came out in January of this year uh this was a study where I interviewed

around two dozen voting rights Civic and good government organizations across the

state to that were active in the local redistring process to hear about their experiences and in addition to those

groups also spoke with demographers resisting Consultants as well as local government staff to

kind of get a perspective really on a Statewide level of how local redistricting went so I do want to

emphasize that part well there's a small part of the report touching on San Francisco my view is really broad

looking and low reducing broadly and says more focused at that high level than speaking specifically to your

experience here in San Francisco uh the general findings of the report which are outlined in the executive

summary is that on the positive redistring was far more participatory and transparent this cycle than it has

been before those in part because of state laws requiring more transparency more public Outreach but also because of

remote participation which was used in many cities in response to the pandemics that allowed

people with family and work obligations to more fully participate in the process which is a good thing

uh also we saw much more group mobilization in the cycle as people become more aware of the importance of

reducing and how it has uh 10-year long impacts on the quality of representation at the local level

another finding more mixed finding that we saw was that the fair Maps Act created new redistration criteria that

really emphasized trying to keep communities whole and we saw some mixed results on that and some communities

these criteria did lead to Bringing communities that had been split and bring them uh together so that those

communities and neighborhoods would be more likely to be listened to in political process of Fuller representation but not in all

communities and in fact repeatedly what we heard is that incumbency protection

often thwarted keeping communities of Interest whole in spite of clear

criteria prioritizing keeping communities whole the states and really nationally there

was a rather prominent behind the scenes example of that with the leaked audio from Los Angeles's redistricting process

where people got seeing comments openly discussing or putting people's districts in a blender to chop them up to hurt a

political opponent as well as discussing how empowering certain communities are splitting them could impact the

interests of those incumbents and their allies uh another major finding I want to

highlight from the report is the the success of politically insulated independent redistring commissions or

ircs California is undoubtedly the national leader on redistricting

commissions independent redistration commissions at the local level inspired by the state commission we saw a huge

explosion which I'll go over next in the use of independent commissions the groups that were active this cycle

particularly those that were active in local resisting where incumbents control the process as well as where an

independent commission control the process really uh emphasize that the sense that

an IRC insulated from the flow process was much more deliberative much more

responsive to public comment and ultimately much more likely to adopt maps that were reflective of communities

of interest in particularly of communities of color uh no I don't want to overstate irc's

not Flawless redistricting involves very very difficult trade-offs and often uh

these tough decisions mean that it's it's pretty rare that everyone will be happy and indeed some of the groups that I talked to we're not always happy with

the decisions even of independent resisting commissions but one of the things that I heard in these discussions

is because the process was open deliberative there was often more trust and acceptance of that process than a

congress legislative process um finally just to to finalize the last

finding of the report we looked especially at advisory commissions which tend to be uh done through political

appointments uh as well as obviously some a small number of ircs have some

political appointees including San Francisco's and uh one of the other findings that came

through is that when political appointments are part of the process it diminishes some of the independence from

commissions it's particularly noticed in advisory commissions uh some of the leaked audio in La even emphasize that

people were directing their Commissioners how they wanted them to go on certain ways Commissioners were being

pulled in Los Angeles for not following the desires or sufficiently

advocating for the desires and comments and so the political appointment can reduce some of the hope of commissions

creating a more independent process it really allows communities to view the

guiding force behind how districts are drawn terms of recommendations the report has

a number of recommendations many large and and many kind of micro related to

the fair Maps act but a few to highlight uh one of the major ones is recommending strengthening the state fair Maps act to

prevent incumbency protection gerrymandering and to make that more expressed in state law another is to require independent

redistricting commissions politically insulated independent redistration Commissions in all large jurisdictions

in the state uh increasing the number of mandatory public hearings and continuing to allow

remote testimony in the future and finally extending the fair Maps act to apply to all local governments not just

cities and counties now briefly I want to discuss just two more things the trend of ircs and what

that's looking like in the state and then I'll I'll end by just discussing some State legislation so at the local

level as I mentioned at the outset we've seen the real huge explosion in the use

of independent redistricting commissions at the local level in the 2010 cycle there were only three ircs that existed

uh and that's counting San Francisco's and that whereas in this 2020 cycle

there are 22 cities and counties that had independent redistricting commissions so a huge explosion and that

includes Los Angeles County San Diego County cities like San Diego Oakland

Sacramento Long Beach so a lot of the major jurisdictions have shifted this last cycle to Independent resisting

commission and that's a trend that is highly likely to continue Los Angeles is

in the process of going through its own uh examination of creating an independent commission after scandals in

that City and there are three bills in the legislature to create independent

redistrant commissions for individual counties and cities at the state level there's also a bill that I'll touch on

later Abu 1248 by assemblyman O'Brien which would require old jurisdictions

with a population of over 300 000 to adopt ircs uh the popularity viruses uh is is also

evident just in how they fare at the ballot locally most ircs are created by Charter Amendment the 2017 study I

co-authored found of 17 ballot measures include either an advisory or an independent commission 15 of those 17

were successful and since that 2017 study there have been at least a half

dozen additional primarily independent redesign commission measures and I'm not aware of any of them failing and the

last point on that in terms of voter support or interest in this reform there is a 2022 poll so just last year by

Capital weekly which found that 90 of California voters including 90 of

Democrats and 86 percent Republicans agreed with the statement that quote all

local redistricting should be done by independent Commission uh in terms of where uh local reducing

and irc's are headed uh really modern commissions have started to follow a

pretty clear pattern and in terms of good government organizations there are also certain best practices principles

that have emerged at the top you see this reflected in state legislation and in most of the modern IRC Charter

Amendments have gone about some commonalities would include with no elected official appointments or

Commissioners using some type of independent process having qualifying and disqualifying criteria

for appointees to the IRC to try and ensure that they themselves have some

degree of impartiality and are unduly connected with an elected official or political faction

Post Service restrictions on Commissioners to ensure that drawing the lines are not kind of looking forward to

potentially drawing lines to benefit themselves and finally re-entry districting

criteria generally prioritizing keeping communities and neighborhoods whole uh has also been the Modern Trend as

opposed to just having a list of criteria actually indicating push comes to show which Criterion should dominate

now the last thing I wanted to end with and then I'll open for questions and I'm happy to discuss the recent report or

the prior report but the last thing is talking about ab1248 so as I mentioned this is proposed state legislation going

through the process currently what it essentially would do is set a deadline of March 1st 2030 for any jurisdiction

with the population over 300 000 to establish its own IRC and if a jurisdiction fails to do so then it

establishes a default commission so a state imposed default Commission on that jurisdiction

the legislation includes all jurisdictions including Charter cities and counties like San Francisco

uh if jurisdictions want to adopt their own commission uh if this legislation of

course were to pass there are certain requirements that that commission would have to meet that is specified in the legislation including an independent

selection process not including incumbents as well as some qualifying and disqualifying criteria as well as

post-service restrictions uh jurisdictions can go stricter than those but it does establish some baselines in

those areas so again uh thank you for inviting me to speak you know I I wanted

to also end with a little bit of historical context San Francisco was the

Second City to establish a commission as opposed to having incumbents to draw its

lines so at the time that San Francisco did it it was way ahead of the curve in

the almost three decades since then obviously a lot of other people have also moved to the IRC model and there's

been a lot of innovation in this space and different types of best practices

that has emerged so I think it's great that you are re-examining how reducing should go in San Francisco

and looking at these other models and I wish you luck in this examination thank

you thank you so much Mr hydearn I'm going to start with the maybe the obvious

question that's on everyone's mind given that all the recommendations that you talked about San Francisco does not comply with

um as if ab1248 passes would it require us to uh

I mean we're going to take action on this anyway but if we didn't wouldn't that law require San Francisco to put in

place all of those best practices recommendations that you talked about

yes but the law will also make some default choices for you and so some of

that you may wish to have more control over or you may wish to try and find what works best for your jurisdiction I

think perhaps maybe the most significant one is the default commission is a 14-member

commission and the way it would work is you'd first randomly select one person from each district so in San Francisco

with love and supervisorial districts you'd have 11 randomly selected members the final three would be selected by the

initial 11 and so you'd essentially have three commission selected members now that

that approach of random selection by district and then self-selection of the

final members is very has become quite standard in this model of IRC what is

maybe a little unusual is San Francisco has 11 districts and most other jurisdictions to do RCS have fewer and

so that means that your balance of random selection versus self-selection would be much more skewed towards the

random selection model versus the self-selection model and one thing I

would just highlight with that is the commissioner self-selection model is in

part designed to ensure that the commission as a whole will reflect the diversity of a whole jurisdiction and

obviously when you're doing random selection uh it's random and so you will hopefully get a random distribution that

is reflective of your jurisdiction but you may not and commissioner self-selection is one approach to remedy

that but that does require enough Commissioners for it to make a difference okay with that um I wanted to open it up

to other Commissioners who had questions remaining from our study of

this uh of best practices local redistricting here's this is this is the man he can answer your question

thank you thank you commissioner dial I'll take it from here in terms of moderating go ahead I'm commissioner

Hayden Crowley so much um

oh sorry

okay uh vice president Jordana yes so

Nicholas it's good to see you Nicholas and I actually know each other going years back so um Nicholas this is

um can't see me um so

um just to clarify commissioner dies question if if the bill passes

San Francisco would need to comply without any changes to our Charter it like sets a minimum or it doesn't

is currently structured the legislation says if you do nothing by a certain date and that's March 1st 2030 then the state

imposed commission will be created and there are the legislation kind of defines what that would look like but if

you act earlier than that you get more flexibility in designing how Commissioners are selected the number of

Commissioners there are still certain kind of minimums that the legislation

says would be required for an IRC and that includes no direct appointment by

incumbents for example and it also includes some of those minimum uh uh

commissioner qualifications and post-service restrictions but the the overall design number house selected

within those parameters can be done by the jurisdiction as long as you act before that date and again that's only

if the legislation passes yeah and then my next question is when do you when do you think

we would know as to whether the bill looks like it's going to pass like what's is it this year or would it

be next year um that that is a little Beyond me but I

will say it's a two-year session um typically uh bills can pass either in the first year or in the second year

where it's passed in the first year I think it's the session ends somewhere around September or October of this year

uh and then if it doesn't pass this year but isn't defeated it would also be possible it can pass next year with a

similar time frame okay yeah I'm just wondering if because I think the charter amendment that we're working on

we would want to complete this series so I think we would kind of want to make it so that it would fit with the bill if it

were to pass I'm not sure how we would do that but um those are all my questions so thank you for uh

being here and presenting to us this year thank you vice president commissioner Hayden Crowley uh does the

legislation in its current form have many sponsors uh yes some of the

one of them I'm not entirely sure everyone who's supporting it but I do know it is

supported by a good government organizations uh in building rights organizations I believe including common

cause and League of Women Voters well I'm actually more so it's it's in the

assembly right now or the Senate do you I I when I ask you about the

sponsors do you have many responses yeah so it's introduced by

something remember Brian and it's the principal co-author is Senator Allen okay and do you have many people on it

uh point of clarification so from my and please correct me if I'm wrong

um but I my understanding is that assembly member Brian is the chair of

the elections Committee of the Assembly of the State Assembly so he that I

imagine it's in is it in committee right now uh I believe it has been and I can

double check uh yeah it has been referred to committee yeah okay all

right thank you I I actually would love to ask a

follow-up question which I think maybe is part part of where you were going and this is President Stone

um and apologies if this is what you were already saying um but uh do you know beyond the you know it being

introduced by assembly member Brian um how much support it has in the

assembly um and specifically given all of the components of the of the bill

um that it would include you know they're pretty specific requirements how you know just thinking

about the two-year legislative process in Sacramento and what it would require

in terms of potential amendments on the floor um and then it would have to go to the

Senate State Senate so do you have a sense of the amount of support that

exists in the assembly and also the um if there's a sponsor in the state senate how much support there is in that

legislative branch as well yeah I

I primarily view myself as kind of an expert on on the structure of local

commissions so I'd probably prefer to mostly talk about that as opposed to speculate on the politics of it but what

I can't say is uh one of the co-authors uh Senator Allen did introduce a prior

legislation prior to the redistricting cycle which also would have required uh

counties I believe over 400 000 to create independent redisciplined

commission that did pass the legislature but was vetoed by Governor Newsom and

that was in 2019. so just to give information I think for members of the

public I think uh Folks at a commission were also in meaning to ask about the

governor's level of support for this as well but it seems as though um vice president jordanick you were going to

say something well I just had an idea and I'm not sure if um Nicholas would be

the one to answer this but like it would be possible for our County

to support this bill if we were um you know so inclined

but um I mean would that help I mean or is this not really your

your realm what point of clarification we as body if you're talking about us we

can't support anything no I said the county the state level no and we can't the board of students I thought that but

the elections commission no you can request the county to support the ability of it there's a process for them

assuming we clean our own house first yeah so um Mr heider do you is this

outside of your scope or or do you know if the bill it would be helpful to have County support the bill

uh I'd probably prefer to get my comments to my reports that's true okay

oh sorry commissioner Parker just a further clarification if you know sorry we're pummeling you with all these questions that are probably a little

more political in nature but um do you know are there any Appropriations associated with this bill good question

um um so I'm looking in ledge info it does say uh

it has a appropriation no fiscal committee yes um okay

is what let's legislative council is capable okay my apology sorry to interrupt but

this was not on the agenda um so

let's specifically sign me Jennifer this assembly bill it's part of the presentation

um and so just from the brief reading I don't know if this would apply to San Francisco because we do have an

independent redistricting Commission um so I you know I I'm not this is the

first I've just briefly glanced at it um so I do think that we should

perhaps go back to the agenda item which is our own redistricting measure or process that

we're discussing um and you know as just to briefly remind

um the body if you'd like the city to take a position on any legislative

action Statewide or federally you'd have to request that the mayor

um because she is the head of the city take that position not this body thank

you thank you DC Flores so I'll speak to the agenda since I drafted the agenda

um I think the line of questioning is specifically asking about the state bill just from the context of how that would

maybe inform the process initiative that we're going to talk about today um which I don't think we specifically

stated but at least my line of questioning is based on what's going to

be happening at the state level how that would affect the process initiative that is on the agenda today so just to level

set on um what that on that specific piece so let's just make sure that when

we're I guess asking these questions we put it in the context of why we're asking those questions if that's if

would that work okay um I mean yeah thank you for that

information that's helpful and for people who don't know why I would have asked that question is just we're in a it's a hard budget year at the state and

so I asked because it might give us some inkling to whether or not it has a chance of passing if there was an

appropriation associated with it but um that that's why and and for the same

reason you just said it's this could have some implications you know with us perhaps we don't know so much about the

details here but it could have implications which is why I'm curious

uh well I I my only comment is if this has been if this ends up getting passed

and the governor worked to sign it it would supersede any effort that we would make here

that's why we're that's why we're I mean obviously there would be criteria that that we might want I mean things that we

would want to do to refine but that the momentum would come from the state I shouldn't die oh so I so I believe Mr

hydearn had said that if you if you have take action before the the deadline then

you'd be given a lot more flexibility yeah so that's correct that's incentive for us to move on this

thank you for clarifying that because I missed that point um I know that commissioner bernholtz

had a couple of questions last time so I'm just going to direct them to you last time she had some questions about

um enforcement for transparency Provisions for example

and correct me if I'm wrong commissioner bernholtz if you want to weigh in I

believe you had asked about enforcing like you know prohibition ex parte Communications and

and things like that for Commissioners I'm wondering do you have any comments

on that uh that's a very good question I'm not

aware of any enforcement actions being having been done in any ircs around

exporte Communications um you know La had a pretty extensive

requirement for documenting ex parte Communications but I'm not sure if any

objections were raised or followed up on that um so sorry I don't have a great answer

on whether or not there's any models of enforcement in that regard

and then just channeling commissioner burnhouse bernholtz once more she had asked a little bit about were some uh

some of the recommendations were they dependent on each other or mutually exclusive you've already mentioned one

which is the requirement for random selection for

um for the the supervisors business they sorry the commission members who are from

districts versus the size of the commission and I had mentioned that of

course that affects a super majority vote as well can you think of any others

that where there's some dependencies or things that we need to think about

certainly I think if you're looking at like a random selection model will you just keep in on are some of the most

important elements um so who does the screening how do you create the sub pool what are the

requirements for the sub pool and then the random selection is done from the sub pool and you have a self-selection

to perhaps adjust based on what random selection gets those are very dependent in terms of other elements where

choices really depend on each other maybe I'll think of of some more by the

end of this conversation but none none immediately come to mind a lot of these requirements are often additive so

building on each other so uh lots of different protections for ensuring commissioner Independence there are many

different ways that you can do that most of them are not mutually exclusive but build on each other

okay um I think those are all of our questions comments

um commissioner die and Commissioner of voltese is there anything else you wanted to ask the speaker before we

stop taking up his precious evening

you know this is really an opportunity for everyone else if there was anything else these are last expert uh witness

here thank you so much we really appreciate it and again apologies that

it was so much later than anticipated we really appreciate you staying up and answering our questions

thanks again thank you very much and uh great luck with your process thank you thank you

um Okay so I know that we also should talk through

the initiative plan so um

no we can go straight to I mean we can go straight to commission discussion and then before the item closes we'll go to

public comment is that okay yeah sorry I'm not wearing my glasses is that okay

okay sorry I couldn't see you so I wasn't

yeah okay cool um so Commissioners lavosi and I did you want

to say anything specifically about the document before we talk we go into any

discussion yeah um just a couple of highlights as I mentioned the new material basically

starts on page four the rest of it is historical um and this timeline you know I

consulted with Board of Supervisors President Aaron

peskin I also consulted with City attorney David Chu on this timeline and

and that's how we put this together we

uh we are recommending targeting the March 2024 primary as opposed to the actual

presidential election because there's a concern and we've discussed it in this body before that there might be a

zillion propositions in the presidential one trying to hit the the very high

turnout election even though the primary is expected to be high turnout election as well and so and for not to get lost

that it would be better to to shoot for March and that also gives us an option

if we think it doesn't look favorable even though um as uh as Nicholas pointed out all of

these have seen great popularity among voters that they they almost always pass

um but if we run out of time or we're not happy with the draft and still need to

work out Kinks out at least there's a second opportunity um to go in front of the voters in November so the the timeline is the most

important thing it gives us you know

some you know not not a lot but enough time we believe to do adequate Outreach

and at least a couple of public input hearings to hear from the public what

they think about these uh different aspects of of best practices and

recommendations and then it gives the commission a couple of meetings

to discuss and deliberate and decide what we think the best package ought to

look like for San Francisco uh and then uh it would give the city

attorney's office enough time to draft the actual legislation they would be working with the

legislative Champion or champions from the Board of Supervisors uh you know there are a number of

Supervisors who may be interested in carrying this for us depending on what it looks like at the

end and so when we know what it looks like after the public input you know we will

you know find out who our champion will be and they will be the sponsor to work with with the city attorney's office to

actually draft the final language it has to be introduced at the Board of

Supervisors by September uh and then they will go through their

process and hopefully you know we get a majority of the Border supervisors to

refer to the ballot hopefully much more than a majority uh and as a

indicated later on we're actually recommending going through that route as opposed to asking the mayor or the

person in community organizations to to run a signature gathering campaign so

we think this is the best way to get broad support and um and engagement at the least amount of

cost and effort so uh so we put in here A bunch of

questions to kind of guide the out guide the public input

so items that you will recognize were in the kind of questions comments column on

the summary before that I think we could use some guidance from the public on what they think

um you know there may be more but uh you know we certainly welcome additional input we're actually recommending that

we form a temporary committee to kind of uh you know run the public input hearings

and kind of hash out you know what we would like the full commission

to consider as a group just to do um a lot of the heavy lifting

because it's kind of a tight time frame to stay on the schedule so uh so there are

I think a couple emotions that we'll need one is to approve this plan

um and one is to form a committee to actually do the public and problems I

think that's that's all that we need in terms of motions

any questions um I before that I just wanted to make sure Commissioner of OC did you want to

add anything because I know this was a collaborated collaborative got it she's got it all okay

commissioner um Ian Crowley so I I do have I've seen

this all at once kind of um I have a lot of questions

um so you spoke with supervisor peskin and he is number one I guess

is it is it within uh um DCA is it within our jurisdiction

to do this kind of work I guess because

I would think we're not resourced for this so like we're going to hire a

secretary is she going to have to go to all these meetings because I mean this

is a valid question um I can tell you right now I I'm on bopek and that's all I can handle we're

not asking you no but but this is a lot you're right it's a lot of heavy lifting so I I would want us like my first

response to this was what I've kind of been saying all along which is this needs to go through the Board of

Supervisors so I'm glad that you've you've had the conversation with peskin I and their resourced for hearings and

their resource for all the kinds of things that we're talking about doing here at this commission level I don't

know that there's precedence maybe um vice president Jordan can can speak to

that for us us shepherding something like this I mean it just seems to me like this like

we should be finding our Board of Supervisors Champion now and that's where it needs to go and I know we don't

want it to die like does it go there and then die but that's where the neighborhood groups come in and put the

pressure on because I don't know that we number one that we are that I mean like

is this outside our scope of work number one and number two

um for I mean for it to have the best I I just think it needs I I think it

belongs at the Board of Supervisors that that's and and so I would like DCA to to

weigh in and let us know if this is if if following this plan is within our

purview um number one and number two um you know where what what did peskin say about

this does is this what he told you to do and what did David Chu say

let's let DCA floors respond first I don't know what peskin said about this um

I wasn't at that meeting um so this is election related

um adjacent so if this is the course that the commission wanted to take you

could take it um in exploring what you could do but

the commission cannot itself put a ballot measure on the ballot

um and um our office would assist in drafting

keyword assist not right the redistricting plan

um we it's a collaborative effort so whenever we get a request to draft

something we work with the requester to get as much information about what

they'd like on in this legislation but we don't come up with the plan for you

especially if you have specific things that you want on the plan so as soon as this Commission

has identified a sponsor um we can discuss what our office can do

for this process thank you I'm commissioner did I just quickly

would you mind answering Hayden commissioner Hayden Crowley's question and then allowing other folks to also

give their feedback before going into absolutely okay cool yeah so just to answer your question

um what uh president peskin said he expects from us is a it's a set of

conceptual recommendations he does not expect us to draft it he said that's their job but he wants to hear what the

commission recommends and then they will take it on whoever the champion is and

that's you know that's why he said we need it by this date and you need to give the city attorney's office time to

work with us to draft something and then we need to introduce it by September and your boss

City attorney David Chu you know I just gave him a heads up that about the

timeline and was it right and he said yes and he he said you know thanks for letting us

know it's coming yes so just to clarify again we do not help draft until a sponsor has been

identified right um not before like

a sponsor has been identified and requests that we help them draft this

right thank you the request will come from the board um did you want to jump in did you have a

point if you want to I don't know if there's more to talk about related to um capacity questions but if we're

moving to different questions then I have a different question you can say whatever you would like

oh I'm sorry um I just wondered if there was more to talk about related to what you you post commissioner Hidden Valley

um I um in general like I I generally

um support this you know I think that it looks good to me I can unders appreciate you know questions about capacity

holding hearings and things like this but I think that um the list of you know uh where did it go

um you know who to reach out to and all of that if there's good partnership with folks On The Board of Supervisors and

other organizations who were in touch with I mean what we wouldn't want to be accused of is that people don't know about the hearings and so that's super

important um to do in the whole trust and transparency thing

um but I think you have a pretty good list of of how to get that out there and it certainly would be a heavy lift but

in general I um I think that it's they support a lot of what you have here

um and one thing I just wanted to clarify um because I recall from our last conversation about these hearings

um there was a suggestion of of having

Community groups bring forward full proposals at a hearing and what I'm seeing and I if this is what I'm

interpreting then I'm glad because I think this is good um is that I'm understanding this proposal to mean that the hearing would

just allow members to speak on individual pieces that they've heard at the different meetings that um that you

all have held like before I joined and all of that um and that they don't have to come with a full proposal that it's just speaking

to little pieces that resonate with them that they care about related to this list of questions so I'm seeing I'm

seeing you not um and I'll just add one more thing and then I can I'll I'll stop

um so that's the clarification that I uh that I had and then within that list of

um of topics to bring forward to the to the

public I wondered under operations and decision making if you wanted something

also more explicit about ways the public might participate in a redistricting

process because I see them mentioned you know the timeline the the draft map deadline in order to enable adequate

time for Meaningful public input and collaboration I see that um and there are a few things that kind of refer to it but I wondered if we

wanted anything more explicitly calling out how might the public be um involved in the process you know it's

just a prompt for people to think about when they're coming to give comment um and that's it for now

thank you commissioner Parker um I also would like to um share some

thoughts uh I I wasn't sure if other folks had things they wanted to

do that that did you have something nice present I'm sure done it well I did want to say something as part of this conversation but I wasn't sure if it's

on this document or not that's so I don't know if I should hold it off until afterwards or is it about this agenda

item yeah it's about the agenda it's just not on this the document so it's kind of in response to Mr

hydron's presentation but um if you mentioned the state bills and I was wondering if you know between commissioner died and commissioner

levolsi maybe like take a look at the state bills and see like for example if one of these

bills or all of them were to do 80 of the types of things we're thinking about

then it would be good to know that and maybe um if you know one of part of our

legislative plan can be going through the County's process to see if our account we can ask our County to support

when are all these bills I've been through through that process

at least once and there's something called the State Legislative committee that's combined of I think seven

different people from parts of the city government one of the seats is the mayor and so on but we could go through that

process to you know support one of these staples and um does that would that fit in or

probably after we get our own house in order like I said I think that um

you know we want to be one of those counties that fixes it before the

deadline in this proposed legislation so that we we have the flexibility to do

something that we think fits San Francisco uniquely that would be the pitch also to supervisors that we

want to be in control of our own train as opposed to having State impose it on us point of order

um I just want to make sure we're letting people finish if you don't mind I know I I don't mean to be a stickler

but I just want to make sure we're like everyone is having a chance to share what they wanted

um I'm sorry I don't mean to be a stickler I just in the interest of time because we could go back and forth on

every single point but I think everyone has to have a chance to like share their thoughts

so vice president jordanick did you have more that you also wanted to add um

no just just to see if if they would have time to take a look at the bills okay

sorry again I don't mean to be sickler was your hand up commissioner levelsey

okay um um commissioner die was there more you

wanted to say before I then pass it over to someone else who's spoken I do want to know would this new

secretary would you be relying on the new secretary and would that would that be part of her is she full time I mean

how's that work she's not full-time yeah so how I mean and then like some of your marketing

plan how does that all work so um we are hoping to Leverage The

Department's resources on that because they're already doing all this Outreach anyway they already have a database of

all these you know so so the committee would you know draft the information but we're really asking

the department to send it out

oh sorry I I I'm commissioner Hayden Crowley have you I'll just if you guys

want to have you had the conversation with director Arts about leveraging the Department's resources

we will okay so

um sorry um commissioner diversary organist or

commissioner Wilson okay um I commissioner bernholz you have not had

the opportunity to um participate is there anything you wanted to contribute

and not to put you on the spot no no I no that's fine I'm following it all and

it's all good okay um so I would like to share my thoughts

um so I have several but in the interest of

time I'll try and be kind of brief I I strongly agree with commissioner or vice

president jordanick about um looking at the state bills um and one of the things that I actually

let me take a step back I really appreciate a couple of things one the work that was put into this and two the

passion and conviction with which there is a belief that we should work on this and the commitment that we have provided

to this topic to this issue that is so important um to the city and to the members of the public so thank you for that I should

have said that up front um I strongly do agree with vice

president jordanick about looking at the state bills um and one of the challenges I had or

questions I had was about you know I I know commissioner die you said we want

to get our house in order first I think that's something we should talk about if that is what we want um and if that is what we all feel

um because it is an enormous undertaking to do all of this um and you know if we're going to form a

committee or vote on forming a committee if we're going to put that as a priority on the secretary on the department

um you know would we be potentially duplicating efforts that yes while the

benefits of flexibility might be there like let's talk about that let's weigh if that's even something we we believe

um and then my second point is is kind of tied to that which is I'm I am Gravely concerned about the

timeline I went through this um and I it's not to say that I don't

deeply value the the passion with which we should get this done but you know one

of the big things we heard from the League of Women Voters in the last meeting who is that is how much time

matters for Community input um and in fact I specifically recall

that um Lauren Gerard and the the person who spoke from the League of Women Voters

said that one of the one of the things that the redistricting task force failed on this year was not giving Community

time um the time to either do the Outreach or

um or even to sorry for the task force to do the Outreach but also time for them to respond and I think I actually

had I went back to my notes and there were a couple things that she had said that I just want to elevate you you know

that Community groups have different meeting cadences sometimes they meet monthly sometimes they meet every other month especially when trying to

coordinate between those two those groups also especially in an organization like the League of Women

Voters when mostly it's volunteered volunteers it can take even longer when it comes to newsletters with the Board

of Supervisors you know there's a very specific schedule and you would maybe miss one month and so you know just

looking at this schedule like really detailed you know the it's I see it as incredibly ambitious to try and have

public hearings next month at the end of next month based on even just hearing that from the main stakeholder from the

League of Women Voters and the only reason that I see that this time this

timeline is so expeditated from my from what I read and I'm sure that you have more thoughts is that it going on the

November ballot risks voter fatigue um and I don't personally I I'm one

member obviously everyone has different thoughts but I don't necessarily believe that that's more important than giving

time to community participation the other thing I will add is when I

went through the timeline in the process I mean I I there were a bunch of steps I felt Maybe

need to be included and I'm happy to draft um or not need to be but I would

recommend are included um so I I got actually I think commissioner Parker raised this I got

very confused actually between what the goals of those public hearings were

um so you know walking through the requests for Community output you know

what is that Outreach period what what are the what's the structure of the input that they provide how are we going

to maintain those records how are we going to review them before the public hearings and make sure they're

accessible to the public um and then after that review period ends like giving time for the commission

or the advisory committee to review it and then what is the Forum of the public hearings is it you know what's the

format what is the main goal is it to discuss what has been provided by

members of the public whether it's the full plans or just specific pieces of feedback and then we discuss it and ask

for input um and then after that you know once we get the public hearing I see that

there's another step of okay we've got we have this public hearing let's ingest the feedback that we had from the public

let's discuss it as a commission um and someone would then have to draft

that proposal um and then there's a whole there are all these steps around the amendment

process um that incorporates working with the city attorney's office and I believe and

this is another point that I'll come to in a moment you know working with the sponsors to do that

um including also the mayor's office um and so you know that step alone I

think has multiple steps and I do see that there were two months included for that um but then also the the process of the

bout measure so I just I and I'm happy to share this I hand wrote it just because that's how I tend to process

things but I can put this into a document um if it's if it's helpful but I think

what I am trying to say is I think that there's oh there are a lot of steps that

I feel I'm worried that with this this like very ambitious deadline we

wouldn't be able to hit and then we risk not having the necessary Community input

that we've been at people have been asking us to provide and the other thing I'll say is I I had

one like very specific thing that I would I think is important from the beginning which is I think we need to

figure out who that sponsor is now um and I'd be curious um commissioner died I'd love to hear the conversation

with peskin specifically because you know I'm curious as to why if he was supportive of the timeline why he didn't

say he would sponsor it um and so oh so he did say he would sponsor it so you already have he suggested others too

okay great Okay cool so I think the fact that we have a sponsor is definitely

something that's important I'm glad to hear that um and it sounds like you already have a

partnership I think being able to have that partnership has to be like embedded in every single one of those steps um so

I'm really really glad to hear that um and the other thing I just wanted to mention is when I was looking at

the um tactics um I

I had a very similar question and I don't remember who raised this um but I had very similar thoughts I

mean when I looked at that I thought I thought it was a marketing plan right like this is a cohesive marketing plan

like a landing page on the website um form to you want like I just made a list off the top of my head of the

deliverables you know a form to prefer the feedback to um for public feedback

advice or you know Etc tool to store all of that feedback to collect it to store

it and then be able to distribute it or disseminate it to um on that landing page a press release

compiling an email list developing the content for the email developing social content developing an

Outreach plan to Media groups personal invitations to Neighborhood groups to good government groups working with

supervisors I mean this is like a significant I mean so and the reason I say all this is in my past life I was a

marketer and this was my full-time job so I just I understand the desire to

have a an advisory committee but everyone has like that we're still a

volunteer body so who's going to do office work and I don't know if I would support asking the department to do that

for us so I just I I don't want to be a stickler but I also think that you have

done so much work and this is so important and I would hate to not do it

um with without the best that we can put into it so I I apologize I know I've

been talking for quite a while but I did put a lot of thought into your the work that you had already

um developed because I felt it was deserving of that so um with that I will shut up

um I would be happy to hand that over if you

want to respond to some or not all or we can also table it to the next time whatever whatever you would prefer but

if so I think the main thing is we would like um

you know General agreement on this direction we basically have built in the

possibility that we may need to go for November instead

which would just give us more time to do everything so what what I'm showing here is the the fast timeline in case we can

try to hit March for the reasons that I talked about um but it's possible we won't

because if we have feedback that we need to do more community Outreach and we need to you know have

more hearings than it means we won't make March right so

basically what we're showing is this is what it would look like if we tried to shoot for March understanding that if we

miss at least we have the ability to shoot for November

I mean November is going to be an even higher turnout election so the only concern about that is I mean in general

in general for these kinds of measures higher turnout is better because people tend to vote for it

um but uh but yeah there's the balancing issue of

they will have you know 25 other propositions to look at as well yeah

commissioner Hayden Crowley I would just see the the very last paragraph to me was the most important paragraph of the

entire document because it is the political strategy and

that's the most important thing that you do which is getting the sponsors and get and what are they going to do and so

forth and you know you're if I mean if it goes on the ballot

you do need a strategy around like who who's going to run the campaign I mean who are these neighborhood groups going

to raise money for it I mean who are you going to be your spot you know like you kind of have to have a political advisor

right off the bat that costs money and so I

I it's all doable and I hope you do it uh I it's like I'm doing this for a

client right now I just like it's going to take me a year and and I I mean it is

it's going to take me a year so I'm looking at it like thinking oh my gosh this is so much

um and that that that's my skepticism because I think it's it's a great plan but I also think that you need to flesh

out the political strategy in much more detail incorporate Robin's suggestions

as well and thank you for them I mean you've done a remarkable amazing job in a short period of time and given an

incredible amount of thought but I do think having the sponsors on board that's like the most important thing

because it's got to run through the Board of Supervisors and like if there's going to be somebody that's going to

carry it I guess from a strategic point of view you may probably I mean this uh

supervisor peskin's probably president peskin's probably not going to run for another office

so he's I guess I'm just being like out there but you you probably want someone

who could could get something out of this I mean I I you know that that will bring some bring

some some people to the table that will pay for we have that discussion but there's also someone who has the

capacity and the passion behind it is right and I so he did suggest other names but he said he didn't do it he

said he has he said he has the passion and the capacity for it he considers

himself a good government guy um uh uh I just and and he can bring in

money because you're going to need money for this and your neighborhood groups are going to need to I mean that's a

whole other piece of it but I would not I guess I guess my point is is that the

marketing to get the community group input so so important Robin's got that cut you know is is added so much to what

you've already done which is fleshed out which is just so much work but the whole political strategy that is

an entire other piece and and and that involves consultants and in a campaign

and all of that and like where's that coming from I guess that's gonna come from our sponsor because like I said we

are basically recommending a set of reforms based on what we've learned through this

educational process and based on the community input that have helped refine it and we are going to hand it to our

letters legislative Champion or champions and they're going to take it from there

okay so um I sorry did someone have a handle over here

um this is President Stone um I was just thinking based on what you were just saying commissioner die you

know what if and I know this might seem radical but what if I mean we focused the current

what if our Focus rather than you know our volunteer body doing all of this

work what if we presented the robust plan to a sponsor and say Here's the

path and we will support and help throughout the process you know maybe we identify the right Committee of the

supervisors a sponsor who's on that committee who can who has so many more

resources than we do and we just get deliver the plan we deliver the plan the

reasons why it's important here's what needs to be done and so there's pretty

much very little that they would have to do in terms of architecting what that

would look like I mean it's a recommendation from the elections commission to the Board of Supervisors we can identify I mean you could

identify a committee that you think it makes sense but then you know we're not

doing this like ignore I mean I think I think this this would be requires a lot of

resources I think we've talked about that that I'm not certain we all have like half the capacity or bandwidth to

do so what if we what if we adjusted to

have it be our Focus be delivering a plan and helping to

Shepherd the execution or implementation of said plan with a sponsor in a

committee like a subcommittee or committee that's a committee first I mean commission I

think that really that really is what we're planning to do and and if you notice we only suggested

um you know a couple of uh and we put some dates down a couple of public input

hearings mostly to refine uh you know what we might recommend because again

we're just providing conceptual you know we're not drafting anything we're providing conceptual high level

recommendations like no political appointments for example and again a lot of this stuff has already been laid out

as best practices in the reports you know even in 2017 if you look at there

were what I don't know 25 best practices recommendations of which San Francisco only only abides by like a couple of

them yeah the first one right we have an independent commission and then we have nothing else do it by population right

so so I mean so a lot of it has actually been

we just need to as a group agree that we agree with these best practices

um and get some feedback from Community organizations on

what might be some tweaks that are important for San Francisco so that we deliberately only propose a

couple of community input sessions to to again um

come up with a set of recommendations of best practices that we we as an

elections commission endorse so I'd like to respond to that this is present Stone because you were responding to my direct

comment and then also I I have cut off vice president jordanick so I'll hand over to him

I'm just going to be very honest I feel as though that was a Twist of what I said because I don't

agree I don't believe that we should that I don't believe that we have agreed to these recommendations and I

personally will not support them unless or until we have people from San

Francisco participating in the process and I I what I'm saying is even having the

hearings that you say we're just going to have these public hearings in my mind that's actually making something quite

large seem very small and you know you haven't even in this process that you want to do an Outreach plan so it's

either big or it's small but we can't have it both ways and I think what I'm

trying to say is rather than us doing all of this to determine to get these

communities participating to make sure that their space and transparency with

people who are held accountable as elected officials by their by their constituents have them lead to the

charge have them you know deliver them the recommendation of the plan not the

recommendation of how to reform redistricting it's we we've heard all

these things this is what we recommend the committee of the Board of Supervisors would do to to have a good

process for getting this on as a charter amendment I want to be very clear because I feel as though that got

changed in in after I said it and that is not what I meant I am not comfortable

saying that this is what I recommend because I haven't heard from Community groups Community groups haven't had a

chance to participate we they even told us in the last meeting explicitly that

they want more time like repeatedly said that we want more more and more time and

so I'm not personally I am not going to agree to going against that um so I just I want to be very clear

about that vice president jordanick I apologize I cut you off that's no problem yes so one of the things

I mean one of I I support the idea of a charter Amendment um and you know kind

of the general ideas I mean one of my concerns is I'm not it's not clear to me from the document how much of the tasks

are going to fall in the full commission versus like the individuals that are leading it

um because I mean my one of my concerns is we do have a lot of other things that we want

to work on this year like one of them is you know the the racial Equity initiatives

um there's stuff around the um the different department goals that we might want to set for the Department

you know having discussions about those um about

let's see oh and then like the director evaluation process that's something that took like

a year for us in the past and then or about like you know open source voting is a topic that we we haven't had on the

agenda for a while so I I would kind of like to have assurance that with whatever path we go forward we do have

like time and energy left over to to work on those things too so we don't

you know what I'm saying like just one more thing just to follow up and in the past when when open source

voting was something that um I personally was spending a lot of time on one one tactic that we did it as

a commission was we authorized like me and another individual to kind of like

do Outreach on behalf of the commission outside the context meeting so it wasn't

involving the full commission's time but we but they had the force of the commission when they're out in the

community I was speaking before groups and with members of the Board of Supervisors so that's the way to kind of

get the most best of both worlds of having the commission behind you but you're free to like do a lot in what

time you have

Crowley so there's precedence in other words you answered my question from earlier which was have we ever done

anything like this where we're out there in the community and what you're seeing vice president jordanick is we have

okay well that is reassuring because I'm questioning about the scope of work in terms of our bylaws and everything else

if this Falls within it but I guess too when you are talking about hearing more

from the community I'm not that is what the Board of Supervisors does they have committee hearings and they so a lot of

these people that would maybe come and talk to you are going to have to come again and talk to the Board of Supervisors because they're not going to

take your word for it they're going to have that those hearings so I just wonder are we building redundancy into

the process to a commissioner to a president Stone's point point is

um they they have the resources they're resourced for it I I just think the

political strategy comes first and also here's another thing that I just get

concerned about is we get promises from people that they're going to do this and they're going to do that and you go out

there and do this work and then September Comes and oh you know something else came up um

you know I I just and also they're off all of August by the way you know and then they come back and

there's something else but we really need to see how committed they are I mean we really need to have uh somebody

that wants to take this and run with it and I think we need to put do that first that has to be I think that has to be

the number one priority to do that first because you want it to be successful and

I would hate to see you be out there and and no I'm sorry oh you know

hasn't had the chance to participate so I I really appreciate your feedback because I think that that is

um commissioner Hayden Crowley a really important point because things do come up and people

say they'll do things and then when it comes to the date things change so I think that your feedback is is is well

taken and something that commissioner die and I have to

really think about yeah commissioner you've been very patient thank you yeah so I mean the reason they

need six months is because they will be doing these committee hearings and and presumably public input

um as well the reason we built in some public input for us is

to help us as a group refine what we would want to recommend to the Board of

Supervisors because again we're just recommending broad conceptual changes

for example you know one of the questions I have in there is like

who should be the trusted entity that does the vetting and you know supervises the random selection process I don't

know that we know and it would be good to hear from

you know some suggestions from members of the public to help us think about that and so the intention of these

public hearings and the reason we're not having a ton of them is because we expect the Board of Supervisors to have those what we're trying to do is refine

to help us as a body figure out what we want to recommend

to our champion so that they can carry it and and take it you know to the

finish line so that that's why we built in the community because I like I said I think we could debate some of the stuff

but I think on some of these items you know we really don't know and there may be a range of answers that are

acceptable um was are was there more oh no that's

that's commissioner Hayden Crowley just to that point they'll be doing it again at the supervised I mean we can make

those recommendations but to Robin's point I mean to the if I'm sorry president Stone's point

it's a process we're recommending that you do this there's also going to be a there's also obviously a template at the

state level that you could just like what he said I pointed that out 80 that

you could just like I like this is not a lot of drafting because people have done it before I I think you know I think

you got to see what you gotta see what who's gonna do it who's really going to do it and and can they because because

somebody who well I don't want to say anymore so

um so I mean I can obviously we're gonna have another conversation

um with supervisor peskin and others like I said he he had suggested some other names

um you know I had envisioned that again that we as a body

could endorse a package of you know these are the best practices that we recommend that you incorporate

it has the endorsement of the elections Commission and and then they're going to work on

whatever you know they're going to work on and they're going to have their own hearings and people will react to very

specific things that will be drafted at that point not just some high-level thing about no political appointments

right so so the thinking was that we we have a

couple of public input hearings just to refine our own thinking so that we can put forward this package and that we

will identify the legislative sponsor as we're doing it because it's actually we're talking you know end of next month

right so that's enough time to get the word out and say hey you know here are some questions we're

answering and if anything it will be the precursor to involve people

at the time the Board of Supervisors are ready to do full committee hearings so

it was never intended to be the only you know public input hearings

commissioner Parker um a few things um

uh let's see which one should I do first um with the timing um I recall the last one

I also had expressed some concern around timing and I what I also recall is that the feedback we were hearing from the

community at that time was around proposing an entire plan ready not not just weighing in on specific pieces of

it um I do think it's super super important for us to do so I agree with that

um and if we it it does make sense for us to hear from the community to come up

with some recommendations I'm just wondering if we if we didn't do any hearings as a um

as a commission then what would we hand as a starting off

point to the sponsor they might feel a little bit there there's some there's some Direction they would probably

appreciate because this is part of why we decided to own this here right as opposed to saying what a supervisor should do it they've got a lot on their

plate so it seems to me when I'm thinking of relationships that I've had with electeds in the past that they

appreciate some direction and so we have to have some way to come up with that direction and whether that is we all

just say actually we're just going to hand you this Fair uh this Fair Maps floor maps report here go but they're

going to say it's 80 pages long like can you just give me the the summary right so there's I think that they will want

some kind of direction from us and then they should take it from there in an ideal world like the best chance of this

thing passing is if you can get um if you get supervisor president peskin you know he's president of the

board and if you get a wide range of kind of political representation on the board and they are the co-sponsors right

and then when they bring It Forward you get the sign on of all of the you know the rest of them who are not in there so

you have 11 supervisors sponsoring this so when it goes on the ballot it

will say entire board supported by League of Women Voters and then there's very little money you actually have to

raise because every time we have a measure like that on the ballot it passes it passes because there is the

mayor the board so the work is the political work but that is that is the range you want if you see that on the on

your ballot guide it's done everybody will be like oh they all agree okay fine like that's it like

you just don't have to spend a lot of money like building a whole other campaign so that definitely deserves work and if uh it does happen though

where people will say I have other priorities I can't put a whole bunch of effort into this but if we can help build the Coalition so that there is an

entire board behind this um then it's going to be harder for them to say I'm not going to put it on now

because they're like oh this is easy everybody agrees let's have a win they want to win too they like having

everybody support something and so so that feels important so to sum up I I

think we do want to give some guidance to the board before the sponsor takes it and so I think it is good for us and

maybe this is too rush of a timeline and we need to just aim for November that might be realistic um but I do think we need a couple of

opportunities for the the public to just focus on this give us some reactions to things they've heard

um put a few links out for them to review so that we can say here's some guidelines you know just just a few just

to give some recommendations to get them started because it'll it'll be too overwhelming if we give them the whole 80 pages and plus it won't go anywhere

that that's my opinion so thank you commissioner Parker I just

wanted to add um I this is President Stone I did not

intend to say that I don't want to do this I'm more just have expressed can

like significant concerns about doing it in the short amount of time with the

resources that we have so I just want to clarify because I think I obviously have strong opinions always

um and I don't want that message to get lost in all the other things I said I I

genuinely believe that we can there are

things that we can do and I agree with commissioner Parker totally being able to hand them something and I don't

disagree that public hearings is the could be the way it's just

thinking about the fact that we're a volunteer body we would be taking away time

from or we be allocating a lot of time to this we have other priorities in

addition to thinking about our website and thinking about processes and you know preparing for the election next

year I mean there are lots and lots of things um and so thinking about all that and also yes the secretary I mean

I personally and ultimately like as president like the secretary is like I'm

accountable right and I don't personally think it would be responsible for me to

say to this new person coming in who we have so many things as a commission that

we need support from a secretary and I think we can all agree onboarding was a challenge so there are many things that we need

minutes need help organ organizing things that are in our buy lots that we

haven't done there's so many things and this person is part-time so I'm just you know as I'm thinking about okay we're

putting links on the website we're creating forms who's going to do that um and so it's not that I'm a naysayer I

want to I genuinely believe I mean I'm a huge supporter of trying to do this it's

just a matter of how um and how long and also following the

guidance that we were given directly from the League of Women Voters and

perhaps before we go further on um on this plan but if we don't make a

vote today um maybe you could reach out to to um to Lauren gerardin and some of the

groups who are working on this because I remember she specifically said she's leading from her side

um and ask does this timeline work for you do you think that this is enough time um and so I I think it's great I'm

really glad to hear that you already have a sponsor um but I think I'm concerned about this body having the

time and the bandwidth in such a short in such a short amount of time and there was one other thing I was going to

mention something we can hand them um

well anyways I I rest my case

um commissioner Hayden you're acting like an old person like

um now again I think I've lost my train of thought but actually what I would say

is that we do have a lot of other things and I you know looked at this and was

overwhelmed but I'm easily overwhelmed um I would say that when we talk about

Dei which is not something I'm even going to pretend that I'm good at

um I think this map this is part of Dei definitely and so as we talk about see

so I got it right [Laughter] see so I do think like if if you achieve

this this would be a major accomplishment for achieving you know

for supporting Dei and like this could go into our plan so um I I do think that but um and I

think that what everybody has said is I just want to say is very helpful so even though like I may say something but when

I hear your feedback like he changed my mind instantly and I agree with that person Noah so it's very very helpful I

just want to say each and every single one of you thank you for your input um and then I was going to say something

else oh I do want to just be like a broken record once again and say that

those sponsored things like after this that's what you have to do because we got to know that they're in place that

they're on board and that they want to hear from you and you can do your public hearings and then you're going to come back and to Robin's Point talk to those

other folks in the community but um again I just want to thank everybody for

their input I really like having my mind changed but then I'm always worried that you're going to think I'm crazy because

I changed my mind again but anyway thank you

yeah president Stone um I wonder if we can take some public input

and I'm sorry um you know again I just want to

Telegraph you know I kind of want approval in this direction like I said the plan the plan accounts for the fact

that we might have to hit November I just presented the most accelerated

you know timeline if we want to try to hit March

but yeah I'd love to get some public input on this um and on the dates that we proposed and

noting that these are just dates that commissioner labels that make and if we actually form a committee

which is what we recommend so it is not a burden on the full commission so that you know we're able to

you know make some decisions in a smaller group um and you know work with

legislative sponsors Etc then you know then we then we'll be kind of

in power to move forward right by the full commission to kind of push this forward a bit

the commissioner one of one more point of information I do believe that if you would access the Secretary of that

individual would be eligible for overtime I but that also depends on if they're

able to give that time yeah right yeah you know yeah for sure I mean I I could

definitely look into that but I again I don't know I'm not comfortable saying you know I

sorry this is President Stone um commissioner Hayden Crowley was there

more you were going to say no no I just I I just am putting it out there as a possibility for negotiation

you know because I know the whole thing is so overwhelming and it was the first question I asked because the resources

are real issue but if that's an option to offer potentially if that individual

that we were able to bring on has the time

um so this is uh president Stone I think before I could agree to

like our eye could vote in favor of that of this plan at this point I would want

to understand what the expectations are of the commission secretary and also the expectations of the advisory committee I

know I can't join that Committee in terms of my timing and so you know I think actually

um vice president jordanick I thought I think that's actually really help it was

a helpful suggestion to say you know what if we just give the two of you we authorize you to do what you need to do

I don't I don't know if we need to form another committee I mean I I can be convinced of course

um but I definitely am not I definitely want to know what the expectation of the secretary

would be um and yeah I I think maybe

in the um in in the next whatever if you want to share with us like maybe there's a

racy document so a responsibility like thinking about who's accountable for what um but you know as someone who's

managing the secretary I definitely you know I I'm just going to be up front for

her sake or their sake or his sake that that

you know there there isn't going to be a free-for-all like that this there have to be very clear boundaries and

parameters because she works for the you know the whole commission or he they

um they work for the whole commission and I after reading through all of this and

also the expectations on the department I I don't first of all I don't I don't think that we're allowed to do that ask

them to do things for us um we can't direct them to do things um

and second of all I don't think that yeah I'll just leave it there I don't think that we I think we have to be

considerate of who's going to do what but I also don't think we need a committee to do that I respect and Trust

the work that you two have already done I think I don't think it necessarily needs a third person

um but again I could be convinced commissioner die yeah I mean I think the

thinking of having a committee was just to add another commissioner when we do

public input hearings rather than just having the two of us

um oh one of clarification so you're saying the public hearings would not be

we would not hear them as a full body it would just that's why I was recommending a committee

because we if you notice we've suggested a couple of dates there already yeah yeah and I saw those that was based on

the policy in my availability um

so okay and and when we put this plan together you know we had no idea where

the secretary search was going to be so we didn't we didn't have any expectation of of that

but you know if there is a secretary sure we could use some help but you know but it has to be sorry present

Stone Point of information it it can't be like well we could use their help like I'm I'm literally saying

I I would need to know what the expectation is um yeah because we've talked to you about it okay

um like I said we didn't have any expectations since we don't have a secretary right now

um vice president actually this this is kind of related but would would either of you

um be open to handling like the website tasks for these hearings and like posting

you know documents from the public and stuff if the secretary doesn't have time

yeah yeah okay I just want your help to put the first page up

yeah um so in the interest of time I just

wanted to share one quick thing because we're already at 10 11. I will be postponing the next agenda item until

the next meeting so this um this that will be an open Agenda item

and we will talk about it in April um after we're done with this agenda item so I just wanted to make a quick

announcement um that everyone knows because I obviously am a proponent to not staying late

um so I'm going to practice what I preach here um Commissioners die in the policy is

their specific action that you like what is the final kind of takeaway that you

want to have understanding you know we have talked about this for more than an hour

so my original thought was to just get a emotion to you know agree on this

general direction so that we're kind of authorized to move forward on this and and take action

um our thinking was to have a committee so again that the committee could could

hold the public hearings just so that we have another commissioner available you know another

pair of ears for that if you don't think that's necessary

it sounds like there's been precedent before where we've just been authorized as a what a

task force or something or continue to work informally the way we have been

a little different commissioner lavalsi sorry okay I

I would like to for us to take some time to absorb the feedback that we've gotten and then really think

about um how how we're going to deliver this what

our capacity is um you and I and

you know it's I don't know if it's possible but could that be something that we could deliver to you or

how could we do that before the the next meeting I'm uh I guess from a brown act

perspective I probably can't um or one of us to live uh but if you

had worked on it it would be a serial um yeah we could I mean we could have a

uh we could consider a brief um special meeting if that's

um if that's with you I think let me see let me think on let me think

of that can I say something yeah I'm reluctant to ask for us especially I

know excuse me it's commissioner I love all sees everyone's time is limited yeah

so what I'm saying is perhaps we need to commissioner and I take this feedback

and think about it and come up with a plan that has incorporated this feedback

but I'm so sorry I'm vice president jordanick I know he had his hand up

yeah well I just wanted to clarify what I said earlier about I said the commission had delegated me

and another person to like work on an issue I think at that time it was more after the commission had passed a policy

then we had then delegated to people to kind of they had their marching orders go work with the board to implement this

so this might not quite be the same because here we're we don't know what the marching orders are yet

so um but also I I just had a question for this maybe for you DCF was

like I know there's a distinction between like there's there's a different kind of a meeting where you know it

doesn't need the same noticing requirements if it's you can have like a gathering where

that maybe you have an event where the public shows up you know provide feedback on something

but it's not like it's not considered a meeting that complies with the brown actors that

um I think if a commissioner wanted to meet with a community group they could

um but could two members do that or I think that that would

I'm looking at your committees and I think discounting more than two minutes no it

um if it's if it's three members so um yeah I guess two people wouldn't be a

committee but you wouldn't be able to post it like you wouldn't be able to say

elections Commission meeting or elections commission committee

um it would just be too it would just be like you on your own random time like

but I mean you want to go to be like announced on the commission website saying there's this book okay

you could go on your own though and like hold these Community meetings if you wanted to I mean what what I I think we

want is you know authority to to work on identifying you know the

sponsor and kind of nailing that down um and

you know that the general direction of this is is what the commission agrees to

I mean like I said the actual timeline May differ what we're presenting is

you know if we were going for March this is what we would need to do my concern is if we don't have the support of the

commission to move forward on this then we're going to lose a month and we there's no way we'll make it right so

this is um president Stone oh sorry were you done a commissioner die yeah okay um this is President Stone so I was

actually just thinking about the open source um task force and one idea might be in terms of

thinking about precedent maybe you form a task force with you know Lauren Jordan I mean I keep using her name but that's

just because she's she self-identified as the person from The League of Women Voters leading the charge maybe you form

a task force and ask her for other folks that she thinks should participate in that and it is you know YouTube plus her

plus maybe a couple of other community groups that you know come forward or you can do Outreach in that way and then

that's the task force and then you can have hearings together that's more of a joint effort and also have folks like

the sponsor you know them participate with the people who are on the task force who are their constituents

um that might be one route to also divide and also potentially find resource like outside resources

um that might be one happy medium oh yeah commissioner president

um Stone I think that was an excellent solution because not only is that um

a way to to involve the community groups without all of the uh rigmarole but you

can tell how late it is um but I have said from the get-go that you need to keep these Community groups

in your hip at in your hip pocket and and you know it's as important as we are

here at the elections commission to the Board of Supervisors well not as important as those Community groups and

so you know I I know getting our you know our official mark on things to give

them Direction well nothing's going to matter more than those Community groups those are the ones that bring the votes

and um I know I put things in such Stark terms but um but that that is an

excellent solution I mean to bring them on board as part of The Advisory Board I I really think that that's and that's

how you're gonna that's how you're gonna do this yeah well and that actually was kind of the plan is that you know that

we have the endorsement of all these good government groups and Community organizations and and work on this

together so um so I I like that idea like I said I I think

what I want from this body is just you know endorsement to authorize this

to move forward in this direction um so that you know we're not just acting on our own in our individual

capacities but we actually have the endorsement of the elections commission to kind of move forward and and try to to enact this you know plan with with

these with these excellent suggestions Incorporated

but like I said I I would actually recommend taking some public comment and just see what the reaction is

because I think we have people on well commissioner Hayden Crowley the interest

of time I would move that you uh put together a group of a an Advisory board

if you will that would take public comment that is not part of this commission that that you and

commissioner levolci if you so wish are part of that but that it would include

um probably two to three members of the community and if you can get your sponsoring supervisors uh who might want

to be part of this um The Road Show for lack of a better term that that that

you've moved forward to collect to collect feedback with the goal of

um then at a certain point bringing that process to the Board of

Supervisors with the feedback and that's where we'll go as far as the elections

commission making an endorsement of all of what that is going to look like we won't know until you've done that piece

with the community and you're sponsoring supervisors so we're not going to vote

on what that's going to look like until you until you have done you know you're you're taking a little

road show out yeah and again this might be a preliminary Roadshow sorry DCA Florida I'm sorry DCA Florence

you were going to say something yes I just wanted to clarify um to the commission that um if you decide to go

that route just a reminder that only those two Commissioners could be present

at the meeting at any point no other Commissioners could be involved in this process because then that would create a

committee and that meeting would essentially violate all the rules

commissioner die you were going to say something um no I mean I I think that's similar to

what we had planned um just with a committee instead so I I

think that's a a fine way to to move forward so is the

motion that the the commissioner die and

commissioner labelsey form a task force with incorporating members of the community

and good government groups um as a part of their membership to

discuss this plan just to make sure I understand the motion to discuss this plan and establish what the like

what the path is is that to get feedback from the community the goal would be

they they have the ability to hold a couple of of meetings if you will where

people can provide feedback to gather feedback from the community which will we will then hear at a later point in a

in a public hearing and then we can decide at that point where what we want our recommendation to look like as a

body as a body but we as a commission are not going to be putting resources

against your efforts your actions will be independent

of us so I would love to

hear some public comments and some named individuals are actually on the call yeah

I just put motion out there so sorry um commissioner livosia I think you had

your hand out okay um Can we is someone gonna second promotion or where's it gonna die

can I before you guys um make um second that motion I'm reviewing your

bylaws um I'm not quite sure you can create a

task force um there was one in the past the open

source sorry this is present still my computer is literally two seconds away from dying official right I got it

um vice president Jordan can share more but there was one in the past actually I mean it was actually just to

be honest it actually was a lot of work to have a tip this advisory we we had bylaws for the advisory committee and we

also had to do the same noticing requirements but it was just that there was only one commissioner that was

sitting on the body and we had like a whole application process we invited

members of the public to apply so it's it's probably going to be more work than just having a committee so I move that

we that Commissioners die in lumbulsi take a lot of what we just talked about

over the last hour and a half and maybe process it and tell us at the next

meeting I know I know you want to move forward but I think given that we haven't immediately found a perfect

solution um sorry that's a caveat to the motion just you know spending time to think

about the feedback and come back based on what you heard and tell us what you what you think makes sense based on like

resources and timeline and other input so I move that you that that feedback is

reflected upon in the next month and then a new draft proposal and also sorry one other

caveat is to say I don't think that that means that you can't also start working on some of this stuff in the meantime

that doesn't bind you from not starting to work on a lot of the things we talked

about it's just presenting what the what the plan will be at the next meeting so that's my motion sorry it was long

what happened to my emotion and it just died I second your motion after 10 the

president is done so so can we here's some public input

um yeah was there anyone else who wanted to comment um I just wanted to add that our office

is me specifically because I'm the DCA that comes to these meetings please reach out to me to discuss the options

for meeting outside of here absolutely yeah so that we're not answering these

questions yes yes as in real time like you know um so I would really appreciate

that so I'm here for you we will definitely seek your Council as

we move forward and um deciding on how we reach out to the

public and what meetings happen you also

um let's move to public comment

okay there's one hand raised this is Miss gerarden

you're unmuted you have three minutes when you begin speaking

hi can you hear me yes we can hear you I'm wonderful that's so weird as soon as I hit I meet you all went so so quiet

for the first time in over an hour um if this has been a great conversation

um thank you so much for having it thank you for all the shout outs uh tonight uh

I do want to clarify I am leading the charge with my fellow volunteer and the

League of Women Voters of San Francisco's advocacy chair Jenny say who is also observing this meeting and may

chime in um I wanted to thank a while ago but Nicholas heidorn for his thoughtful work

on the report and for being here tonight and thank him for including our

recommendation letter that we sent to the elections Commission back in May of 2022 in his report

um which is on I think page 75 or so um now there are things that we didn't

include that letter when it was released some recommendations for reform and that might be something we can update

um but tonight's conversation I've just been remembering the work that went into getting the ordinance to convene the

redistricting task force and how well let's put it this way the process with

the board took the time it took uh that it was not something that we seemed to

be able to hurry along they did act as quickly I think as they could but it it is a Time intensive process to get

things through the board um and I totally understand your feelings of overwhelm uh the

redistricting process that we went through was overwhelming for everyone involved

and I think one of the top goals is to make the redistricting reform process

less overwhelming so our next redistricting process is less overwhelming and

I think that starts with this process that you've been talking about here so it's a really worthwhile conversation

and the time that you're taking um I do think that means November is

most likely um given all of these factors um you know not that we shouldn't set

ambitious goals and then if have a backup plan I love a backup plan um one suggestion that the league has is

to consider requesting DCA to do a legal analysis memo of what parts of the State Assembly Bill might apply to San

Francisco that way you can consider that within the recommendations that you make

to the board part of the charter Amendment things that can be pulled out also you don't

have to recommend one thing if you have two choices that you're not sure which is the best for San Francisco you could

recommend it to your sponsor and that with the pros and cons so that might be

an option for how you go forward thank you and look at the reports that are already out there there are really great

recommendations that have been thought through other jurisdictions that have done this and you have mentioned uh not

copy paste someone else's uh legislation but look for inspiration from folks that

have already kind of gone through this so best of luck and look forward to

hearing more about this soon thank you thank you thank you Mr Jordan foreign

question

are there any other commenters um there is yes there's one more Henry's

that's um yeah okay okay oh it's I mean it's

okay um let's say say I'm unmuting you

good evening this is I guess I just wanted to build on top of

what Lauren has brought up and about how um yes this process can be over it well

actually will be overwhelming and I think maybe an other another another way

to think about it especially based on reading uh the report and what's mentioned about San Francisco within the

report especially on page Sunday 2 to 73. um I think is to understand what we what

what is the minimum that maybe we can do um and trying to make ourselves make San

Francisco more fair Maps uh more applicable to the fair Maps act and you

know regardless of whether ab1248 passes or not um kind of similar to previous Charter

amendments something like you know deleting uh the San Francisco Chargers

um they're fairly minimal but existing uh

mapping criteria might actually be helpful given that one of the issues especially was um you know mentioned the

report is that you know under a fair map the chart Charter cities you know may

use their own redistricting criteria instead of uh Fair math fact if the city has adopted comprehensive or exclusive

redistricting criteria in the city Charter uh but you know based on the

district's City attorneys report we we were exempt and trying to

possibly think of you know subtraction rather than addition might help us be

more fair Maps um more applicable to Fair math fact and also be able to um

not write ourselves into a hole again where we don't benefit from State reform in the future especially given that

there's um State um that there's you know State bills down the line that might you know impact

us and might actually help us something to think about thank you

okay thank you that is all the public commenters

commissioner die yes I have a question for you ladies um would you be interested in being part

of a task force yeah

are we allowed to address public commenters reference

oh that was my fault I she did ask me and I said let's finish the public

comments yeah that was my week can we let them respond

could you like to respond first um Lauren I guess okay Miss Jordan I'm on

meeting you so to respond to questions uh great uh thank you um I yeah this

this would be something the league would be interested in um we have a shared volunteer model so

just just a moment yeah foreign

so I guess sorry just just to clarify

um I'm sorry um members of the public um just to clarify where we were just

making sure we understood the rules of asking a member of the public a question so if you're hearing some Rumblings

that's what's happening or don't intend to be rude um so vice president Jordan I will hand

it back to you whatever you were gonna say hahaha did you already asked the question yeah

so I was waiting for your response and you had started to say the League of Women Voters yeah we okay yes the answer

is she said the League of Women we need a yes or no answer is the is the was what we're hearing from the city

attorney's office yes yes with the caveat of our own capacity and availability yes fair enough of course

thank you for everyone's patience

for the suggestion um that is a simple way that

we may might be a good suggestion to our sponsor who said we simply eliminate the rules that we have and then fall under

state law there are no questions

um okay is there any other discussion or was there any other public commenters no okay is there everybody else oh we have

to take about us we have to take a vote okay so we're what are we voting on what

is your emotion yeah but then we ultimately um I the question about the task force

oh no no sorry I told you I'm not good late at night um okay so we're voting on the motion

that um Commissioners will both see and die will take the feedback that came from

this discussion and um reflect on that and incorporate that

into an updated plan and in also in tandem perhaps start to make progress toward some of the goals that are

outlined in the um in the plan so let's run through the

roll call vice president jordanick yes uh commissioner bernholz

uh commissioner die aye commissioner Hayden Crowley yes

commissioner lavalsi yes commissioner Parker yes and I

commissioner Stone vote Yes so the motion passes unanimously

um let's just quickly move to agenda item number nine their agenda for future meeting so one item that has come up

that um I wanted to raise and I'll hand it over to commissioner lebowsi is the um is the timing for the next meeting so

I'll hand it to a commissioner that we'll see sure um I have a prior obligation that I cannot change uh

I will not be in the state of California on April 19th you just get an excused

absence yes so there was that's what I would like to know what what are my options oh

oh yeah so you can you can miss a meeting um the other question is you know being

open to moving the meeting a week based on folks is availability I at first when

commissioner Wolsey mentioned this to me I said I didn't think I would be in town but now I believe I will be but

um I think it would require everyone to uh per share if they would be available

to push the meeting a week and we would also have to look into obviously the room scheduling otherwise also one

absence is obviously an option as well okay

um our vice president Jordan sorry sorry I'm pretty flexible I can meet at all

other times thank you hi um commissioner Hayden Crowley

um I'm not that flexible I'm put all the meetings in my calendar and I I have a

new job and it's just difficult um but like I gonna be gone two weeks in May and I moved my vacation after I got

appointed to this and paid more on my airfare so I wouldn't miss the meeting because so I I do think that stuff comes

up and I may have to have an excused absence down the line and that's so there are times when I do think we

should talk about moving the meeting like now in December we should be moving that meeting yeah but it's nothing it I

just think stuff comes up for all of us and it's okay to miss a meeting sure that's all when you get an excused

absence but we'll miss you [Music]

commissioner Parker do you have any input that you would like to add

um you know I'm open to looking at other dates but if it causes someone else to miss the meeting then I say we refer to

our standard date commissioner Burger um I am flexible also trying to make

some plans so definitely would want to decide now because that would affect all of that

um I think so I am flexible um and I think in general for the public

it's good to keep things on the same predictable time that's my experience with public

meetings is that it's it's pretty helpful to keep them standard if at all possible

thank you yes point of um information or clarification of whatever

um it is in our bylaws that we hold these meetings at this time we do

basically I I had said that there are three options the way I see it is um you know we missed you know if we

have an obligation we miss a meeting no big deal um we can discuss it as a body or

um I think the other one was remote but that isn't an option so I do think it is

I agree um consistency is important but if it were easy for everyone maybe adjusting

but um commissioner burnholz I don't know if you had anything else you wanted to add

okay oh sorry I think I'm accidentally muted her

sorry um commissioner burn holes you may have been muted if you were responding otherwise no problem

can you hear me yes I have I'm flexible I have no issue with

the dates okay so um I it seems like I will have to make a

decision and I'm not going to do that in this moment but I will provide notice

um and I will probably ask uh from a non-uh from just Logistics of

planning the meeting I'll probably follow up with the body so in terms of agenda items for future meetings I

actually would like to I'd like to just kind of close this item

I think there is a process of I've been reaching

out if people have things they want to add I think obviously we'll review um we'll review some components of what

we talked about today as continued items but if there's anything explicitly someone wants to mention right now I think I'd like to just move to

adjournment just really quickly yeah annual report

um he it that will be discussed when um it's

ready yes okay let's move to public comment I got

excited sorry

okay there are no hands raised okay and with that I'm closing agenda nine and

first using that gavel yay 10 42 p.m this meeting is now adjourned thank you

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