Elections Commission Regular Meeting

want provide members of the public a brief update um it appears that there are some

updates to webinar the WebEx webinar system and so we apologize for all the

back and forth and the waiting what we've decided to do is post the panelist

password on the website um and so it is not yet up there it will

be up there momentarily and you will be able to use the past panelist password

to access the webinar and um at that time you can write a post a

comment in the chat asking to make public comment you will not be able to

unmute yourself secretary Davis will unmute you when it is your time and call

in your name accordingly but please stand by for just a couple more minutes while we put that past word on the

website it will mean that if you are attending virtually you will have to

likely sign out and then sign back in with the appropriate panelist password so I'll repeat all of this just bear

with us for a couple more minutes we do apologize for the change but we want to make sure that we've got you all the

access you need okay that's right okay sounds a refresh

okay for folks who would like to make public comment by using the panelist

password it is now available on the SF excuse me on the elections commission

website on our meeting page we'll give everyone just a moment to be able to

access that sign out of the webinar and then join back as a panelist so that you

can um so that we can Elevate you accordingly for public comments so we'll just give it about about one more minute

and then we'll go back to agenda item number four for public comment we'll

close out agenda item number four and then we'll go back to agenda item number two for general public comment

foreign

um within the agenda I mean just convinced yeah

women just like Circle okay for members of the public the one caveat with the troubleshooting the the solution that we

have come to is that you will have to provide an email address um we can

we can you may be able to use a dummy email if

you'd like to remain anonymous otherwise we do

we may have to um just ask that you provide your comment

via email otherwise because we do need to continue to move forward

yes I think I think she's going to have to add another new mattresses same

company this is but it's and if you do Maurice's email

address but it has to be through this

it's fine I don't have access to the idea

I can't configure the connection here

okay thank you everyone for your patience and

we do apologize for still continuing to try and fix this for you

foreign

this channel is compared to the media configuration and sir

I mean yeah so why don't we do like could be like we got one that yeah

oh so just I mean I was thinking we could just have like

you know SFS

oh I don't why don't we pick Easter roads folks wonderful

marriage here like right just a bit of Justice

and so on a great thing list and then just confident

so before I need to talk that they need to be able to provide an email address

fine we're gonna see if this works go back to the webinar income

and then in other words whether a dummy one works well yeah I did create one a

talking one myself for that example my current I mean it should work then right I mean

WebEx doesn't care if it's a real email yeah

can you go back to the public

but people form right there yeah or exit out of the chat

stand on tech support today I guess go back home the problem is it's

very hard for them to fix things in real time but it's also set up correctly

okay

all right great if um so we just need folks

I have no idea

I just assuming more more than the dummy can use more than once so attention I'll

just update the web series option

so let's see

thinking more than one person leaves the dummy email though I think so because I've worked on Choice become

commissioning us oh okay let's let's meet that member

difference

okay so somebody called in okay perfect okay

so just to give everyone yet another update uh you if you would like to make

public comment you may use the panelist password that

is currently listed on the elections commission website next to the agenda

item on agenda on today's meeting there is a dummy email address

uh that is SF example.com and you may use that to log in and uh secretary

Davis will uh call on you when you are

um when it is your turn to speak okay we appear to have a call in

wonderful and I'm going to unmute now it is uh just by a phone number so I am

unsure of the attendees name um

okay so I'm gonna give I'm going to unmute and give you three minutes

two three eight are the first three numbers after four one five and here we

go foreign

yes we can hear you oh can you hear me yes yes we can hear

you oh uh John say with illegal one voters San Francisco

um I I wasn't able to log in through the um

password that was given for the wood ducks this is what the call-in works

thank you very much so I suppose then for the purposes of

moving forward with public comment please use the dial-in going forward

oh but the only issue is that um it's on the website on the web page

number that's under online in the parentheses a seven

eight number instead of the five five eight number that's listed on the phone

if that makes sense yes thank you very much we are fixing that now we really appreciate your input

and we really appreciate everyone's patience and we especially appreciate secretary Davis's efforts to rectify all

of our Tech issues

okay do you um you still have a minute left do you have any public comment other than the tech issues

oh no I I didn't raise my hand for the um for the agenda item s

back on the uh the phone situation okay we appreciate that

okay thank you the password has been updated accordingly

so please just refresh the page okay let's go back to public comment there is is there an additional public comment

yes we have an additional public comment um here um I'm going to unmute Mike Stone

and you'll have three benefits that's my partner he's not making moving on it

then we have no emails and no um a dedicated support

no people have turned up as a panelists other than our original investor Turner

we sent him please put his email Mr Turner if you'd like to make public comment it appears that the dial-in

might be a better alternative

I think let's wait to give him an opportunity to give blood comments easy I wanted to

but then we should move on yes

yes okay but one more minute and then we'll move forward

now the link to the join the meeting takes you to a page that does not know allow you to enter a password

potatoes okay

um we're going to close out agenda item number four for members of the public who did not have the opportunity to provide public comment

um please accept my apologies that this has been so challenging um it is not for a lack of effort I can

assure you by everyone in this room we really want to ensure you have that opportunity if you had wanted to make it

weren't able to please don't hesitate to email us again it is elections.commission at sfgov.org and we

will ensure that it is included and that the members of the commission all have

access to your comments so with that we're going to close out agenda item number four we are going to go back to

agenda item number two and retake general public comment um on any issue within our jurisdiction

that is not covered by another item on this agenda secretary Davis can you let me know if

there are any public commenters we emailed uh one person trying to chat

and they would have to log off and log back on as a panelist but there are no comments in the comment

other than um people not being able to raise their

hand and no other panelists are on except for

the ones that we already acknowledged I'm also happy to read out my own personal uh my sfgov email which is

Robin Robin dot Stone s-t-o-n-e sfgov.org if you would like to submit

your public comment that way as well

okay I think we should close out agenda item number two and move to agenda item

number five uh Commissioners reports discussion and possible action on 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 affect elections and others

Commissioners I will open this up does anyone have a report they would like to share

vice president jordanick yes so I have um five things to report

so the um the US Department of state has an exchange program it's called the

international visitor leadership program and they reached out to president Stone and invited a few people to

speak to a number of international visitors who were observing elections in San Francisco

and they're mostly from Central and South America so um president Stone couldn't attend but I

I attended and I I spoke to them for about an hour this was a few weeks ago and just kind of answered questions just

gave them an overview of how elections pure work and secondly I've noticed a few bugs in

the USF the new commission's new website and the these are things that affect all

the different commissions websites not just ours so I've been letting Digital Services know about those issues

and so they're going to be working on fixing some of them like one of the issues is that meetings don't show up as

canceled so um that's um just something else

um thirdly this is something that director Ernst also mentioned but Digital Services let

me know that they're going to be rolling out a new method of um archiving The Old website and that's so

that we're not going to have to go back to the internet archives website it should be a smoother experience and um

that's going to be rolled out over the next I think six months but we might we might get to try it within the next few

months or so um I also wanted to just let people know I'm I'm still working on the annual

report and I'm just finding time to do that this summer and then the last two things are I

attached two memos to the packet today the first memo is related to a letter

that the commission sent to the Secretary of State back in January 2022

and it was a letter about a report on some vulnerabilities and dominions

voting system that was written in the context about court case in Georgia and this is a

report that was written by Dr Holderman who was also a guest at one of our meetings this year in February

and at the time back in January 2022 that report had not been made public so

um uh we were encouraged to um

contact the Secretary of State to find out if at least we could be learn about the contents of that report

so president bernholz wrote the letter for us after we authorized her

um but so the news is that just a couple weeks ago that report has finally been made public and my memo um

you know provides the link to the report and also a blog post that Dr Halterman wrote about it

and the last thing I want to mention is it's the second memo that I wrote which was about the um

the ordinance that is before the Board of Supervisors to opt out of ab1416

and I just wanted to share some information I learned about the ordinance

and also some materials that director Arns shared with the committee and for example there's a mock-up of of

what the ballot looks like with the labels that I don't think we've seen before and also I learned

from an article I found online how some of the other counties are handling the situation I know it seems like some of

the larger counties like la Orange County and um Santa Clara are all

staying opted into London the um the state bill

um and just the last I I do think it would have been

nice if we had had a chance to discuss the ordinance before it was introduced because I think there are some

Alternatives we could have explored and talked about it but it's kind of too late now but I just

wanted to at least share the information that I I found thank you

thank you vice president jordanick commissioner die

uh yeah I was just gonna say commissioner jordanick that I found the uh the report Dr halderman's

report very disturbing in terms of what's what's happening in in Georgia

and the fact that the software is not going to be updated of course director aren't sweet here in

San Francisco has have kept our software updated I'm sure right for the image cast

I'm sorry what was the question so if if you had a chance to read the I

have not yeah uh one of the comments in Dr halderman's report uh blog post about

it was that the uh secretary raffensberger had announced that Georgia

would not update update the Dominion uh software

uh until after the 2024 presidential election even though there were all these vulnerabilities that were found

yeah I hadn't read the report but the Georgia the the Georgia equipment and

software is not the same as what we're using San Francisco so it's not a true comparison of systems but I have to read

the report I I don't want to go into this any deeper than than that comment so right but it's our I'm sure it's our

your Department's policy that we would update software when there's a security vulnerability and it's pushed out by the

company we would we would update it right well yeah the updates go through

Secretary of State's office okay and so if the Dominion has an update for its system even if it was specific to a

county and we've had that San Francisco in relation to ranked Choice voting uh even even the county specific upgrade

would have to go after Secretary of State's office for review and approval uh and then once it was approved then we

could make the upgrade got it uh and I guess my other comment on

commissioner jordanick on on ab1416 there's some astonishing

percentage of Voters who don't read anything until they're actually in the

actually voting I don't know if anyone knows what that percentage is but it's pretty high that

percentage of Voters who don't read anything in advance but they go and they vote and they read there so I think that

was the intent of ab1416 is to catch those voters that that don't read the

voter information pathway especially ours which is extremely long so um I do think that's something that

uh you know if we could save a million dollars from printing the extra ballot

card I mean I'd rather see that that information is available to people there

and save the money on the printing at the voter information pamphlet which I suspect a lot of people don't actually

open so point of clarification uh commissioner die I just want to make

sure I understood what you were saying because I I yeah I want to make sure you're saying I understood what you're saying are you saying

that the cost you see benefit in a cost-saving measure being putting the

opponents and proponents on the card and not in the voter information packet

I'm not saying that we shouldn't put the information the voter information packet what I'm saying is we've been talking

about going green in the campaign that uh the Department of Elections is running and how much we would say by not

printing so many voter information pathlants of course we'd want to print a minimum number

get them out to the library and and the people who who actually read

it but I suspect there's a large percentage of people they immediately toss it and for those people

you know who only look at look at the question when they're actually voting on it those that information will be very

valuable to them so I was just saying that that would be a better trade-off to to catch those folks

so that's something that we might consider in the future as commissioner jordanick pointed out most

of the large Counties have opted in um I know in San Francisco from what we

heard from director Arts it creates a number of issues with that extra ballot card

including our sorting equipment and everything else so it's it's it is a cost big cost to us but

um we don't want to um do you know save money at the expense of

making sure that our voters are informed thank you for clarifying

just have a quick fun item as most of you know I spent three weeks

in Cambridge at uh Harvard Kennedy School uh attending their senior

Executives in state and local government program and that was um a fabulous program

uh it's I attended with 51 other public officials from all over the nation and a

few countries we had three Australians and uh one person from Ireland

uh very diverse group of officials for example the five of us from California included uh one of um Anna and Jamie's

colleagues in the city attorney's office uh me as an election commissioner I was the only elections commissioner out of

the 52 people a librarian from Hayward uh the elected D.A from Monterey County

and the new police chief from the city of Mountain View so very incredibly

diverse cohort uh and we studied everything from policy modeling to

climate change to State and local Finance community policing it was

incredible uh very intense ruling program for three weeks but I highly

recommend it there is a special Fellowship that both Luis Zamora and I

from San Francisco received that fund Bay Area San Francisco Bay Area Public

officials in particular so happy to share that information with anyone else

if you're interested I did immediately get a question about whether I would support compulsory voting because they

have compulsory voting in Australia and so that was like the first discussion that we had during introduction so you

can just imagine how um amazing the conversations were so anyway

just wanted to to share that and there were a lot of tools that we learned that

I hope to put to use in my work on this Commission

thank you commissioner die commissioner Hayden Crowley um is it okay for me to just address the

change of date that we have because I was not here for the last 25 minutes of the last meeting can I just talk about

that briefly absolutely I was also going to talk about it in my report please go for it okay thank you um with deference

to you commissioner die I'm certainly happy that you had a educational and informative trip that we're all learning

from um I just would like to go on record as I did at the beginning of last meeting and at the previous meeting or two

meetings where commissioner levolsi indicated she could not attend the previous meeting when we have scheduled

meetings at the beginning of the year I feel very strongly that we need to commit to them and stay on the calendar

people all everybody has different commitments that come up it is okay to

miss a meeting no matter how important your agenda item is and as you can see tonight

commissioner Parker is in here and I'm not sure if she would have been able to attend the meeting had it been at the

regularly scheduled time but this meeting tonight is coming up on the 4th of July weekend where many people are

gone it's not the most convenient the exceptions that I would uh um support

would be around the Christmas and Thanksgiving holiday to move around that

but otherwise we publish a calendar and I think it's in the Public's interest to adhere to that calendar and respect the

public in that I would just say personally I did leave the meeting a

half hour early last week last time because I had a commitment the next day I had moved a vacation that when I was

appointed to this commission I take my roles seriously and I paid a lot of

money to move that vacation and make sure that I attended the meeting and did not ask this group to change the meeting

date to accommodate me so while I'm I support what you just your

participation in the fellowship I do not believe that this commission should um

port a policy where we are changing our meeting dates because I don't believe it's in the best interest of the public

and after all I don't believe the Board of Supervisors does that so for their meeting dates and that would be the a

precedent that we would follow so thank you thank you commissioner Hayden Crowley

um Commissioners levolsi and bernhulse want to give you an opportunity to provide any reports should you have

anything no okay I don't see Henry's friend commissioner burnhall's

um I just had a few updates and then I will also provide yet another update on

our Tech issues or solves so I wanted to give a couple of updates

I'll speak to the policy about moving meetings in a moment but first I wanted to just share

that uh secretary Davis and I have been going through some very old file

cabinets for the elections commission that includes a lot of old meeting

documents from the last 20 plus years uh and so that is a a process that we're

going to be continuing to work on there's a lot of interesting material in there um but I wanted to just let everyone

know that we are going through those if people have specific interests in certain materials let us know there is

all kinds of stuff in there that we've only just be done to scratch the surface around but hopefully at some point and

not necessarily this year but maybe in a future budget cycle we could propose trying to digitize some of those records

one of the things that you know I've mentioned uh as uh uh um

in this role in the last year is that I think providing the public with insight

into the history of the commission and what we've done what we've accomplished um also why we were established I think

there's a lot of value in providing more access to that information some of which

is in those documents and so I just wanted folks to be aware that that is a project that is being currently worked

on and may take some time but um for whomever maybe the president in

the next budget cycle it's something I think we should continue to consider in terms of digitizing some of those

records and getting them on our website uh that's just kind of a brief update

the second update I wanted to talk about was around the policies as I did receive some feedback and I wanted to give some

transparency with folks about how I in the last and let's see six months have been approaching moving our meetings or

requests to move meetings uh for the um just for general knowledge everyone

being on the same page and also having a little bit of a discussion around it so

I Echo commissioner Hayden Crowley's sentiment that you know there are things

in our personal lives we all have very busy lives uh and it's okay to miss

meetings every once in a while um but the general process that I have followed is to restate some of that

which is you know it's okay to miss every once in a while giving a heads up it's important to be consistent for the

public obviously we do have an established meeting date at the third

Wednesday of every month in the same room at the same time time that we do try and follow that at the worst case

scenario if folks feel strongly about participating um in the meeting and want to consider

moving the meeting I have suggested that those folks who are requesting that ask

present it to the full body during the appropriate agenda item and

so um that has been the way we have done it I think there have been a couple of times where we haven't moved the meeting

in the last six months this past time there was a general consensus I think we

could evolve these policies or this policy rather but I wanted to give folks

a transparency into what that policy has been over the last six months for everyone not just commission or die

um and B I welcome feedback whether it's here or via email about that process the

policy and we can continue to talk about it should should that be of issue so I

will open that up um for discussion in just a minute the last Quick uh report I wanted to provide

which is actually related which is that we are going to have our regular meeting for July at our usual day uh third

Wednesday of the month in the same room we are not having our August regular meeting

um we are um we will be doing a retreat off-site details to come on that and then the one

other big update that I have shared um that I'd like to share with everyone is that we will be around the holidays

specifically is that the November meeting will remain the same on Wednesday November 15th but the December

meeting has been moved to Tuesday December 12th at 6 PM in room 400. that

will obviously be updated on the website but we did want to get ahead of scheduling a a meeting room for that

we've given that folks may be wanting to travel for some of the observed holidays

those are my updates I do welcome discussion about the policy or any other

questions I have so I will open the floor to other Commissioners for their

feedback

commissioner die yeah I just want to say that commissioner Parker was very apologetic because she had originally

said that she could make the state and there was a last minute you know trip so she apologized for having to miss it but

originally all seven of us of us could make it

okay if there are no further comments I think what we'll do as it pertains to the policy is should this come up again

let's just um or some someone reaches out with this request and it becomes a full uh

conversation of the body again let's revisit this policy if it should be an issue I do Echo commissioner Hayden

Crowley sentiment that consistency with the public is imperative so

vice president trotonic yeah thank you for your report president I just had a question about the

you know the the all papers are going through are they how far back do they go it's the oldest one to the first year or

is it more more recent than that uh this is President Stone the they're quite old

um from almost the establishment of the body there are quite a few documents um

that I actually thought you in particular might be interested in so okay great also just another point of

information is I think at one point in our history shortly after I joined I think the

commission secretary sent a number of documents to the city's archive so there could even be more but I don't know how

how one can obtain those as well but something else to think about

thank you vice president jordanick I appreciate that and we'll look into that uh commissioner levelsi this is commissioner volsi I have a question

um when will though there be access to those documents

you can have access those documents whenever you'd like okay so if I want to look at something I can just reach out

to you yes okay thank you absolutely no problem should be fun

okay um with that we'll move to public comment

with a brief note a update on our ever ending never ending rather struggle

with tech um but there are a couple of updates one is that um the call-in number we can

confirm does work so just a quick reminder that for folks who have decided to make join and want to make

public comment over audio you can use the appropriate call and information listed on the agenda and on the website

and press star three to raise your hand and secretary Davis will advance you

um additionally um if you do attempt to join as a

panelist with that solve that we presented earlier in the meeting

um you may you may raise your hand as well um and that way

um so for folks who are we're not at the beginning of the meeting when we were facing these issues you will have to

join as a panelist the information to do so is listed on our website

um so you'll have to leave the webinar and rejoin as a panelist you will be able to raise your hand as a panelist

and then secretary Davis will advance you and call on you when it's your turn but um thank you all so much for your

patience I really I really appreciate that including the dca's secretary Davis

vice president jordanick and the Commissioners members of the public everyone for your patience I recognize not ideal we're going to move to public

comment on agenda item number five Commissioners reports

I do not see any public comments on issue number five

okay thank you secretary Davis and for the purposes of uh of access we're going

to do this one more time we're going to move back to agenda item number two now that we have confirmed that our two

different workarounds do in fact work let's move back to agenda item number two general public comment on any issue

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

secretary Davis are there any public commenters for agenda item number two

no and if you call in as a panelist and raise your hand I may unmute you before

we recognize you so please stay on the line

you know comments great the last time we will close out

agenda item number two and move to agenda item number six fair independent

and effective redistricting for Community engagement committee updates discussion and possible action on

updates from the May and June convenings of the commission's temporary Fair independent and effective redistricting

for Community engagement committee and with that I will hand it to over to commissioner levolsi and commissioner

die to provide updates on the meeting from earlier this week

okay so the the fierce committee meant twice on May 31st and again on

um just this last Monday for about five hours total uh we did have technical issues as well

uh for both meetings since uh we did not we didn't have any staff and we were our

own tech support I just wanted to note in the May meeting we had issues with the audio uh room

audio being heard on the WebEx so we lost about 15 minutes if the

initial audio uh on the recording but fortunately commissioner Parker figured

figured out how to fix it before the main agenda item so most of the meeting is there that recording has been posted

uh in Monday's minute meeting there was an issue with folks on the phone not

being able to raise their hands uh or at least we weren't able to see them so we

found out after the meeting that several members of the public had wanted to comment as well as including some

panelists from our first meeting so apologies to them all I'm not sure how

we would have resolved the call-in uh saying we were able to take a lot of

public comment in the room uh and uh and

I don't think we had any commenters by WebEx uh I thought I would give commissioner levolsi a chance to make some initial

comments about both of our meetings and and thoughts and then I'm happy to do

some work thank you commissioner died this is commissioner levolsi

the meeting on Monday um my my thoughts and Reflections

um are mainly that this is something that I think would

allow our redistricting process to be something that would could be less

um strenuous less um

harmful to those who participate listening to

the members of the public who were on past commissions and their feeling of

feeling that they could not do what they wanted to do that they felt some

pressure I want to be clear not all of the participants who spoke to us on Monday had that feeling

um there was a lot to process um there were very engaged members of

the public who had thoughts and impressions and I will say that it's always

important and imperative to hear from the public I was somewhat surprised at

some of the personal attacks but as Commissioners we're aware that that's something that may occur

I left the meeting with a sense that

we should pause a bit and see what the current legislation how

that will play out but I do feel that removing

political influence from the redistricting process is the best way to

ensure particularly that um certain marginalized groups in the

cities who in this city whose population are dwindling are represented and so how

we do that is the question um a concern I had and that came up and

there was a discussion with several of the panelists about the vetting

Authority for applications if we were to go through a process that allowed people

to apply as members of their

the supervisory district and that's probably where

it would be the most difficult who is the authority in the city that the

community and people in the city would trust to that those applications I know that the city attorney's office has said

that it would be the San Francisco ethics commission but I'm not sure that

um does a large trust in that organization

as well so I left the meeting with a lot of questions and

concerns as to how we can have a redistricting

that is removed from political influence but

that also is fair and representative especially of smaller communities in

this city and I'm specifically thinking about the African-American and Latino communities

thank you commissioner volsi I just had a quick point of clarification when you

said something less strenuous and also vetting those applications are you referring to the state legislation or

just redistricting in general just so I know I'm I'm following what you're

tracking with you so I'm thinking in terms of we were to if

this Board of Supervisors was to write legislation it would be that

we would have a vetting Agency for members of the public to apply

and so what agency would the people of San Francisco have confidence

in so as opposed to how it currently stands where exactly okay thank you for

clarifying commissioner die yeah so uh let me give you a brief

overview the uh May 31st meeting uh since it was our first meeting I gave

a brief history of how the redistricting initiative uh came to be that it was a

response to a protest in front of City Hall in March of 2022 and that the

elections commission had been studying these possible reforms for over a year that featured at that first meeting was

a very diverse panel of good government experts plus the former redistricting

Task Force member uh so you'll remember these were folks from common cause the League of

Women Voters of San Francisco Asian Americans advancing justice justice Asian law caucus and then uh

Chima Hernandez gill who was on our most recent redistricting task force to kind

of provide the local reality check of what actually happened in the last

process and the the meeting was designed to help us answer the question of how well

ab1248 which is pending uh in the Senate right

now and ab 764 also pending in the Senate would suit San Francisco if it

passed and we struck all the language in the charter referencing the redistricting task force

or that we use it as a basis for a charter Amendment and then the second question we were

trying to answer is what happens if that legislation the state legislation doesn't pass where

does that leave us so uh the answer to the first question was that there was a pretty good

consensus among our good government experts that ab1248 would Implement almost all

of the key reforms that were contained uh in the summary of redistricting reform recommendations that we had

studied over six months or the latter half of 2022 and in fact

seatsake offered from the Asian law caucus said that it would probably get us 95 percent of the way

um would it be helpful if I do a quick overview of of what 1248 would actually

cover because I went through with a kind of a fine tooth comb um

is that question direct Mr President John is that question directed at me disconnected at the at the full

commission would it be helpful for me to quickly review what the provisions are for ab1248 and

um AB 764 or have you all read it

vice president well I just have a question are you um are we moving into

the discussion portion of the item or or are you still reporting on the activities still recording on it I I did

this overview for the public because I figured not everyone read these bills and details I did a quick summary of

what the key reforms are and I'm just wondering if it would be beneficial for the commission as well or if you feel

confident that you've read everything then I'll just move on

either way whatever other people want to do

what's your name I'm the same yeah I'm comfortable either way I mean

I I've read this a lot okay but it doesn't mean that I remember it all

right let me let me let me be candidate all right that's why I thought it might be helpful to just do a quick review it

won't take very long um so 12 48 is basically

um about creating independent redistricting commissions as you know San Francisco has one uh but uh because

of a clause at the beginning of the bill which states that political appointment of Commissioners has been found to

create potential conflicts of interest and opportunity for corruption of the redistricting process uh San Francisco's

redistrict task force would not qualify under this bill and we would be forced to create a different one

it requires that all these um this replies to all cities counties

including Charter cities uh it requires reasonable funding and Staffing for the

Indus for the commission and an open and competitive selection process from a

large representative pool whose number of applicants and demographics must be

made public so one of the things that we had talked about early uh early in in

our redistricting initiative process is the fact that we actually don't even know how many people applied

um you know it was a black box in terms of how many applicants applied through the mayor the only kind of open

well we know that there were eight people who applied to the Board of Supervisors and 35 that apply through

our commissions and there was a large overlap between those so uh and

demographics were not reported there were minimum qualifications to serve including residency a history of Civic

engagement the ability to be impartial analytical skills and appreciation of San Francisco's diverse demographics and

geography we have no qualifications currently for our redistricting task force members

there are pre-jury and post-service requirements because you don't want people running for the districts that

they just drew uh they're a conflict of interest checks uh including family

members so you can't have been a candidate for office a lobbyist a major

donor anything that would conflict you out from being able to draw a fair and representative districts there is a

vetting agency that helps select people from this you know large pool of applicants

and we've heard from the our dcas that the law would say for San Francisco that

would be the ethics commission and so there was some discussion about whether that would be right for San Francisco

if we don't create our own separate Charter Amendment a default structure

would be put in place and this default structure is based totally off of the California citizens redistricting

commission which has operated twice successfully now 14 members

plus two alternate so that is the new edition which is a big Improvement eight randomly selected from the 40 most

qualified applicants that the vetting agency would choose based on that standard criteria uh and those eight would have to come

from all different districts and then those eight would select the final six to balance out diversity so remember we

had the discussion about random selection versus uh versus actual

selection uh and this is something that I had been very concerned about and this

kind of addresses my concern that we have too many districts and if everybody was you know randomly selected we might not

have a very diverse commission at all um and then there's also stipulation

that they can't be from all the same party uh there's a ban on ex parte

communication so there's no political interference you're not allowed to talk elected officials are not allowed to

speak with commission members outside of a public meeting there's a minimum of 250 days before the

deadline when the task force has to be constituted one of the issues in this last cycle is that the redistrative task

force was constituted pretty late and didn't have enough time to to to do the public input hearings and draw

the maps uh that was something that our good government panel was a little bit

concerned about they said that even though that's a minimum that San Francisco is a big complex City and

probably needs to start a year in advance so they were concerned that that there would be

um you know that people would ultimate automatically default to the minimum and

not not take more time and they felt that San Francisco should take more time that and not have a rush process it puts

in a super majority of nine who have to approve the map so to build consensus and there's actually

a removal process that the the task force would monitor themselves so people

wouldn't be protesting in front of City Hall and coming in front of the elections commission to to have us remove them so that's 1248. uh so if you

look at all these things it hits almost all the elements that we had talked about before and ab 764 strengthens the

fair Maps act which we as a city were exempt from because we were a charter City we would no longer be exempt from

from that act if this passes uh this is designed to strengthen the fair Maps act

it requires a published published education and Outreach plan mapping tools and a public website so that

members of the public can follow the redistricting process it puts in ranked mapping criteria exactly like the state

uh it requires increased transparency a five-day notice for meetings seven days

for the final map and it requires publishing a final report which each of

our redistricting task forces have done which was not required but they have done it however the this stipulates that

the report must identify and explain why each neighborhood and or community of

Interest was split and that was not done and in any of the reports that I've seen it supports that it requires that we

support hybrid meetings accessibility weekend or evening meetings for more

accessibility to the public and requires a minimum of two public hearings before

draft map and seven afterwards and I think most of our redistrict task force

have actually done more than that but this is setting the minimum bar across the state and finally something that was

really missing when people came to us is it provides recourse if the commission

fails to meet the deadline so our redistricting task force missed the deadline they were not alone

um so in this case it stipulates that it would punt to secure Superior Court

so in other words if the task force fails the Superior Court would draw the lines instead and they would they could

hire a special Master to to do that both bills indicate that good local

redistricting is a matter of State concern so that's why Charter cities would no longer be exempt

um we did get clarification that San Francisco Unified would not be subject

to this because they do not have District elections so that's a stipulation

so that's a brief summary of the two bills and that is what all the good government experts said would get a 70

sorry 95 of all of the reforms that we've been discussing for the past year

um uh Mr Gill who served on the past redistry task force noted that he said

alternates were crucial to have backup plan uh we had some discussion about stipends

and what would be a regional stipend um for example The Long Beach stipend

was I think 200 per meeting uh and then

there was uh no consensus on whether the ethics commission was the

bright fitting body for San Francisco and so that's something that we would want to ask the Board of Supervisors

should they draft legislation to get input from the public on uh

the other thing was that the other question was what happens if if 1248

doesn't pass and we had struck all the language from the charter and Jen say from the League of Women

Voters had had opine that it might still be an improvement because San Francisco would

still fall under the fair Maps act which we didn't fall under before which has

the rank criteria all the transparency and other key reforms so she thought it would still be better for San Francisco

although subsequently we did get clarification from our dcas that if San

Francisco did not pass its own you know Charter Amendment and put its own uh

independent redistricting Commission in then it means and 1248 did not pass

forcing that default commission it would mean the Board of Supervisors would be the redistricting body although they

would have to follow the rank criteria the transparency the community engagement rules all of the fair Maps

Act however they would still be drawing the lines which my personal opinion is that probably

would not be acceptable since we've had an independent redistricting body for over 20 years uh

on the Monday's meeting uh was a very challenging meeting uh there

were uh as you know we had a lot of form letters that we received prior to the

meeting we had a lot of people in person who gave public comment uh but we did have a very rich

discussion because we had in response to comments from the first meeting

we had sent out a notice to all former redistricting task force members uh

there have been concerns expressed and the in the letters we received before the first meeting that we had only

talked to one redistricting Task Force member which as you know all of you know is not true since we had a panel last

fall we did only have one on the 31st but uh we had spoken to five total

redistricting task force members previously but we thought it would be a good idea and part of the reason we

didn't take action after the meeting on the 31st is that we thought it would be useful to get input from from other

redistricting task force members we had not heard from so I went ahead and gathered all the

emails I could keep keeping in mind none of them have sfgov emails anymore so we got

um everyone who served this past cycle almost all of the folks who served in

2011 and the chair of uh the very first redistricting task force and uh we were

fortunate enough to have three of them come to our meeting and then as a

complete bonus I also got Oakland based Russell Yee who's on the 2020 California

citizens redistricting Commission in one of the rotating chairs to

also participate via WebEx I know that many of us have said hey why don't we

hear from the California commission and it's because they were drawing 176 districts they didn't have time to come

talk to us but now they're writing their own final recommendations report and I was able to get Mr Yi to join us from

Sacramento he was at a CRC meeting but he took a break and joined us for an hour on a WebEx

and I asked him how they got a unanimous vote on 176 districts with a

multi-partisan body a census delay and a global pandemic and he cited three

things that helped them be successful he said one the impartial impartiality of

all the Commissioners which is one of the criteria uh the fact that they represented all of

California and not just work their hometowns uh the other thing was the rank criteria

which would also be you know it has been put in place for every other jurisdiction except for Charter cities

uh and then he said adequate Staffing and for those of you who remembered we had testimony from the city clerk that

Staffing was a real issue for the redistricting task force that they had no control over their own budget or

staff uh and he actually mentioned that in his hometown of Oakland that their

independent redistricting commission was three to four months late because of inadequate Staffing he said they had

like a half-time person like us like the elections commission and that's why they were so far behind

he also endorsed the use of alternates which of course they don't have at the state level

and he spent some time in response to a question from commissioner Parker discussing how well the super majority

requirement worked for them that it really worked to build consensus for them

uh and then we switched over to our three redistricting task force members we were fortunate to have in person from

the most recent task force uh Jeremy Lee Who was appointed by the Board of Supervisors Arnold Townsend who was

chair and appointed by the mayor and then virtually on WebEx the chair of the

2011 uh redistrative task force Eric McDonald who was also appointed by the Board of Supervisors

um unfortunately Gwen Craig who is chair of the very first redistricting task force had a home emergency and texted me

like five minutes before the meeting saying she wasn't going to be able to make it but we do have our own record from the September 2022 meeting

and you know the the testimony was

um really disturbing in many ways we heard um from their Mouse stories of of the

pressure that they were under um Mr Lee talked about how it Amplified you

know that they not only were getting pressure from their appointing authorities but because everyone from

that small group of people were pretty much you know political politically

connected and so they all had connections to people so they were getting pressure from all kinds of

individuals Reverend Townsend talked about the the focus was drawing safe

districts uh which is shocking as I I said that's

basically the definition of gerrymandering but that was the kind of pressure that this this body was under

um Mr Lee shared at the end uh which was particularly poignant that that he has

been on two different antidepressants uh since this experience uh because of

the trauma of being of serving and uh uh I found that disturbing as

well uh so I would say that

um and then we had um a little bit of contrast from Mr Mcdonald who had a

unanimous vote and a relatively uncontentious uh process but basically all three of them talked

about the importance of of kind of minimizing political

influence uh so strong support for that from all

of them strong support for stipend which is a question that had come up uh that that would make it more

equitable um

and trying to think what else to highlight from it

um but uh yeah

they were undecided on the proper vetting Authority that was something we asked them they're all San franciscans

like what do they what do they think the right vetting Authority should be and then the question they asked is how is

the elections commission selected right so they they said that you know we

need to take into consideration whether there's enough um you know

whether there's a the elections commission at the the ethics commission uh has political

influence in the selection and with that taint their vetting ability to vet and be trusted by the public and so that was

a the question that was asked who appoints them was the question that was asked

um Reverend Townsend had some really poignant comments about that he was

threatened for bringing up the African-American community um yeah when he tried to

um represent them uh as part of this process uh there was discussion of a pretty

um constant faction that there were five four votes on multiple things uh and

that it seemed to be um that certain maybe not all but

certain members of the redistricting task force had come in there with an agenda

um we did discuss also a little bit about the random selection process

um but yeah it's um we're working on getting the recording up I actually recommend that everybody listen to it uh

it was very interesting we had a lot of public comment afterwards and

and basically after that after hearing the public comment it was interesting

many of the public commenters said that they had they had you know different ideas after hearing

the panel which I thought was positive uh the discussion that we had as a committee afterwards was you know

whether we were ready to take action on it uh and I think uh I'm I'm channeling

commissioner Parker here that she said it was important that we uh you know

have the community's trust as we move through this process and that given that

you know that this legislation is still pending at the state level that it might

be useful to take a pause and see you know where that goes uh

so uh so that's kind of where we are right now uh I do agree that while we

have been on this journey for a year it's very clear that the members of the public who certainly

showed up at our meeting have not been and also since we switched over to this new website it's hard to find the

archived footage of of all of the expert testimony that we've had so I think it's

useful to try to bring people along I mean I think there's genuine interest in

hearing from all the expert testimony that we that we have been you know listening to for a year uh and you know

it's all there on our website if you can find it in the archive and so we I think it's incumbent upon us to make that more

available so that the public can can you know learn uh why we are proposing these

reforms uh and that it's not um because we want any particular outcome

that these are structural and process recommendations to remove political

influence and to insulate the public servants who have

you know for the last three Cycles have volunteered to uh to do this very important job of

trying to figure out what you know what districts would provide the best representation for all San franciscans

and the fact that you know we are basically causing mental illness

for those who serve um is is really I think a big concern

and something that we heard uh not only from Mr Mcdonald who chaired the

relatively smooth 2011 redistricting task force we also heard from Mr Lee Young Lee who also served with him that

the reason they were successful is that they were left alone men allowed to do their job so uh

so that's my summary which I will try to write up in minutes

at some point Thank You commissioner die um does anyone have any bald questions

or comments or Commissioners revolves C or commissioner

die vice president Jordan yes so just to confirm there was no

action taken at either of the meetings well the action was that we decided that uh we needed to take a pause and we want

to monitor the the status of the state legislation I will say that that it has

been amended a couple of times and the Amendments have all been good so we moved from

one of my biggest concerns was that there was random it had previously stipulated random selection for all

districts which with a 14-member commission would have left only three at large seats which might have resulted in

a not very diverse commission and so they fixed that so okay I just add to your question

and answering your question commissioner bullsey yes um the about

taking action one of the other reasons to pause at this time is to also allow

the public to get more information and to review and [Music]

see what information the committee actually brought to the public that was

also the other reason for pausing yeah thank you commissioner Lebowski vice president Jordan yes so

um are there so I know you said you wanted to wait and see what happens with the

legislation but are you um planning on proposing that the commission

um encouraged the city to take a position on either of the bills or or not or is that undecided well I think

part of the reason is that it's being amended so the bill is actually literally changing as we speak and so

um you know uh I think that the committee was hesitant

to first of all we didn't we didn't explicitly have a discussion about the letter uh because we were mostly focused

on on getting this uh testimony from the panelists uh that is something we could

take up at a future committee meeting and we also wanted to open it up to the

rest of the commission to suggest to us other uh

you know other topics that you might want us to explore

uh for example like I said we were it was just lucky that uh

Mr Lee Mr Yi from the 2020 CRC happened

to reach out to me because he's one of the final recommendations report authors and

he wanted to include some information about the 2010 COC and so he happened to

reach out to me and I said hey would you be able to show up at a meeting next Monday because that is the first time we've had

a chance to hear from this last uh Statewide commission which faced all the

same challenges as our redistricting task force with the census delay in the global pandemic and all that so for

example would it be useful to hear from CRC member Sarah saidwani who is very

involved with the reform efforts with the city of Los Angeles in fact they just published a report as you recall if

it were not for Los Angeles San Francisco would be the poster child for what went wrong in the redistricting

process uh so she unfortunately wasn't available I had asked her to be available and she

wasn't available on Monday just turned out but might be open to addressing the

committee uh if there are additional questions that we would want to ask like what we could learn from the state

process this fast time I'm just throwing that out as as an idea

we could spend another committee many meeting debating the merits of of uh of

of moving on that letter like I said we actually didn't have time to actually explicitly discuss the letter and whether to recommend to the

Commission on whether to take action on it point of order vice president jordanick

I don't know if you have like a list of questions do you want to run through the list of questions and then we can also hand it back to the Commissioners level

see and die so that they can just for the purposes of efficiency so we're not doing that like bouncing back and forth

yeah I do have a list of questions I think maybe four um okay if you don't mind just for the

purposes of moving the meeting along sure so um one question is what is the time

frame for taking a position on the state legislation um related to that

you mentioned that the legislation is undergoing a lot of amendments and my my point is that the point I want to make

is that you can also be supportive of the broad Strokes of legislation even if you don't know the

exact details um the third question is when you say

taking a pause just to clarify do you mean that the committee is going to stop meeting for a while or do you just mean

that you're going to take a pause and taking any positions but the committee would

continue to meet and then my next question was um you know I've also been receiving the

email and say I'm counting I think between 150 and 200 there might be some duplicates in there and one of the

concerns was that um saying that seven of the nine last task force

members were not involved in the discussion so I just wanted to know um like how many of the nine have you

reached out to and how many of those have replied and also um how many of

them are supportive of the idea of of looking into these issues

and I think those are those are all my questions thank you vice president jordanick for doing it that way

commissioner die yes thank you so so the time frame uh you know we're gonna

figure out at our next meeting so so you know like I said I think part of taking

a pause is making sure that all of the um educational material that that we

have reviewed as a commission that is on our archive website is something that we can make more easily accessible to the

public uh I know that uh we you know we had talked about putting up a page that's focused on this and that's under

you know behind a long list of other projects for the website so it might be as simple as um look for providing the

links directly in the project plan which is something I was hoping to do before this meeting but didn't have time to but

I I will try to do that as soon rather than later so we can post that and that way people can directly go to the link

instead of having to navigate through our archived website and figure that out and that the people have an idea of of

all the different groups that we consulted and what the topics are uh

yes we plan to keep meeting uh we're just trying to figure out what the agenda will be for the next meeting so

that's why we wanted to get input from you guys uh I I do agree that it's possible to

um be supportive of the general intent of a bill and not worry about the specifics and in fact

um reiterated that that is Our intention as a commission since we do not draft legislation it's just to indicate that

you know what reforms were supportive of and the details are are things to be worked out with the city attorney and

our legislative champions uh and then finally as I mentioned

earlier I got the emails for all of the past uh the 2021 redistricting task

force members so all of them received it um I also uh had pointed out to

um uh Mr casually who's one of our appointees uh who attended our first

meeting that I had actually posted as a public comment to the redistricting task

force that we were starting this process and had invited them to participate and

so they had all received it in May of 2022 to admittedly their SF

gov emails which they may have made I've actually checked and it was also posted as a public comment on their final

report so they they got that uh invitation over a year ago then I reached out to them

early this after our May uh 31st meeting and invited them as well as members of

the previous two redistration task force to attend and testify

I received a response from

uh not counting the older we just receive

that from the current redistricting task force members obviously Mr Jeremy Lee attended

along with the chair and Reverend Arnold Townsend

um Mr casel Lee one of our appointees uh was

unable to attend but he did respond to me uh Mr raynell Cooper from whom we've

heard before another one of our appointees said he would provide written comment

um I also invited Mr Lee tooth but he didn't respond to that um we heard from our other appointee uh

Ms sticker Reiner and she wrote a note but said she wasn't able to attend and wouldn't have time to review the

legislation and try to think of there any other

um those are the ones that I can think of off the top of my head I think there are one or two others who responded that

they just couldn't attend uh and then a few others didn't respond and obviously Mr

uh gill who had attended our first meeting so that's most of them actually

okay thank you and also you could edit as well if you want to

she answered the questions uh thank you vice president jordanick

and thank you commissioner dye um I'll open it up for commissioner burnhall's commissioner Hayden Crowley

do you have any comments questions or suggestions for our Direction

um I have a couple of comments I don't see commissioner burnhall's hand but standing by in case

um she does have a comment so thank you commissioners of ulci and commissioner

die for the robust update um the I don't have any you know in

response to your question about additional topics to explore just run my notes here

um I don't have any additional asks you know I think the commission has uh learned a tremendous amount over the

last year uh through this initiative through the folks who've come and spoken

to us um and I you know offline I had we had

spoken about this commissioner die I am glad to hear your idea about including

the links in the project plan because I do think uh while it's also great as um

in reference to vice president jordanick's Commissioners report about the archived Pages getting some cleanup

from Digital Services I think there will be value in updating the project plan with uh the links and the names and the

dates of folks who have spoken at the commission so people can easily access

those um and I really appreciate you putting in the effort to do that because I think

that's a good transparency measure the other additional piece that I just wanted to draw folks's attention to is

the demo from the dcas from the last meeting May 17th agenda item number I

wrote it down seven from the May 17th meeting it's a

memo from April 23rd also talking about um the uh the state legislature not

about updating the fair Maps act but talking about uh local redistricting which also provides some of a summary of

the legislation the other additional piece I wanted to mention is that I know commissioner

Parker wasn't able to join us today but I am looking forward to hearing her feedback and hearing her perspective I

really appreciate both Commissioners lavolsi and commissioner dies thoughts I definitely want to make sure I have the

opportunity to hear hers and then one of the last comments I have

is just my feelings that um I I do think that there's value in

seeing what happens with State legislation understanding kind of what will happen I

know there have been measures like this in the past that have been vetoed by for

a variety of reasons um and so I think they're

it may be value and kind of waiting to see uh what does happen

um and that doesn't so much mean you can't meet it's more just I think we've

done a lot and namely commissioner dye you've done a tremendous amount to educate

um I think it'll be great to give folks the ability to see all of the education that you've provided

um and so giving it time to see what happens at the state level and

um and then kind of regrouping as the committee is authorized to do to see

then kind of how to move forward that's personally where I stand on the matter I

recognize we are missing one Committee Member whose voice you know I'd love to hear and perhaps you know she can

provide some additional thoughts in writing and also in the in the July meeting so other than that I don't have

any um additional thoughts I I do Echo uh as I kind of woven into my comments I

Echo the need for rebuilding restoring public trust I think that's not just

about redistricting I think that's about just in general kind of what this body is for that we were created by the

voters that we are a non-partisan body and I think when we're trying to tackle

something as um as for lack of a better word contested as

redistricting and as intense and tumultuous as it was for all different sides which you've laid out in your

report I think there's value in the folks who are delivering you know some suggestions or reform being able to have

a level of credibility with the public um so I think we're all kind of on the same page and echoing that but it might

be valuable to think about that as as you prepare for the next committee meeting so those are my comments

um and I will leave it to anyone else for any follow-ups

okay um I don't see a hand raised by commissioner bernholds um if there are

no other comments let's move to from the comments

we're going to start with if that's okay yeah um so we're moving to public

comment on agenda item number six fair independent and effective redistricting for Community engagement committee

updates first we will begin with public comment in the room and then once that

is completed we'll move to um uh participants who have joined remotely

and then secretary Davis will you also ensure that the public commenters know when they're right when they have 30

seconds if you're ready I will um set you for three minutes and then let you know at 30 seconds

District eight I'm representing active eight SF um and that's

a-c-t-588sf.com thank you

um I'm reading from a page from the

2022 SF redistricting task force reported as a member statement signed by

Hernandez Pearson Lee and it's page 60 and it's the first sentence and the

conclusion it says uh redistricting is a fundamentally political process

and this really addresses the comments I heard from both of you who wrote Monday's meeting in several of you as

well um it's fundamentally a political process this is what they wrote and I

looked at the word fundamental we know what words means and see exactly what it means it's used

to make a dramatic statement while on the basis

whatever so we'll make sure your time is restored

just bear with us for a moment okay please continue and uh so that's what uh that word means so anyway that's

how important uh this line is here um if this is true what people do

uh if this is true what people do we not want to participate in this

fundamentally political process that's an important question I think if it's true and I believe it's true it's very

fundamentally and political process so the answer is clearly though because people who are fundamentally

right fundamentally now political people to be part of the process

so who did the uh this board this appointing volume they appointed a

public utilities lawyer they appointed a transportation planner they're playing a retired technology

consultant from CEO all very

form a data scientist yeah a financial asset manager and a board member at

Huckleberry youth and finally a reference in an NAACP Orno again so you

have six participants there all very non-political but then we go to the board supervisors

and deleted Women Voters how they describe but first the member

it's currently she's currently in political organizing

secondly

three to that point it's the Board of Supervisors executive director of the babies Community

Advocates and they are a political organizing group seeking environmental justice they've been out of 25 years

the last one is an employee of the Chinatown Community Development Center

highly fundamentally politically at the non-profit permanent Supportive Housing

provider completely different robotics we had six

members who were just regular people and we had three of them that worked thank

you yeah thank you and apologies for the technical issues during your comment and we appreciate it

[Music] if you wouldn't mind also projecting

into the microphone that would be great uh

the activists uh that was there uh last night's feeding uh I I'm shocked I mean

why is very very excited number one

after existing me yeah of course Angry Bird all stopped right

yeah it's the first batch female there's

unclear if there were 10 billion dollars

is still active and it was only after uh but she referred to as hundreds of

orange Bells but actually not performing how many of them are people personal evil figurative faulting her out that

she didn't even sleep together passport events itchy then big a real Attack to

reach the other half uh she was able to get it too

but one of them was a chair of the producing thousand words by the way oh geez should I start over

or that's okay um by the way is an elderly black person

and she just grossly misrepresented everything he said I mean

please go home and watch the recording please but to just highlight a couple things

um she says that he had admits to gerrymandering that

she said that the focus was on creating safe districts uh he was referring to public commenters

wanting to create safe districts for incumbents and she's

she completely glosses over the fact that Arnold actually calls Lee out when he talks about having an agenda

um he talks about having a political agenda Townsend says to Lee that night and I

quote I take offense to that just because you couldn't convince me to vote your way doesn't mean that I had an

agenda so I mean you know I'm sorry

uh commissioner levelsi for a personal attack but I mean this is the definition

of racism I mean this guy is not here to defend himself his comments were predominantly about his community and

your grossly misrepresenting what he's saying just like you're trying to get

this guy fired for being a straight white guy and do you guys remember last year when

she tried to kick three redistricting task force members off the task force for no legal reason she had some fake

person come from the ACLU fake person come from I mean Jesus Christ

this cannot be a fair independent whatever unless you send that you got to resign you

gotta resign I'm sorry all right thank you

we actually have people online let me unmute the first caller who has a number

starting with eight four seven

important

a mute I'm trying to unmute you because

when you unmute yourself caller 847

I'm going to go today okay there can you hear me now we can hear you I'm gonna

give you three minutes apologies for that uh hi this is uh

former redistricting Task Force member Matthew Costello from the uh from the

20th 21 to 2022 task force I was not planning on calling in tonight uh but I

could not contain myself after hearing the outright Collide from commissioner

died tonight she completely completely forgot to mention the email

that I responded to her that she acknowledged me that have been received

and I'll read that to you all right now hello hello alexan's commission I'd like

to perfectly common thing that we just became task force concluded in May 2 20 to 22. so none of us were checking our

government emails I certainly never received any communication that commissioner dot claims to have sent us

first off I'd like to express my disappointment is so late can you open

your website you've been conducting hearings for about a year on the subject of it and this is certainly the first I'm hearing of any of it furthermore I

am beyond confused as to why local unelected body of Elections Commissioners is looking into drafting the charter Amendment based on state

legislation that has not passed for one the elections commission is not allegedly in the body there's nothing in

the election commission's mandate that issues authority to draft a charter message in fact from your own meeting

documents the commission itself is admits that you cannot take a position on a measure one

person could say that is an appropriate way to craft a charter a message additionally we have no idea how the

legislation in Sacramento will plan out the timeline assumes that the legislation but that is no guarantee in

fact the government needs some veto similar legislation in 2019. actually have no idea what you see if

California will require of us but most importantly over the past year the elections commission has proven themselves incapable of making good

decisions for the City and County of San Francisco from the way the commission and Bears or see what the family of

nationally renowned elections directors on Earth the entire lack of Outreach to previous task force members like myself

to the elections commission's own inappropriate interference in the most recent recent searching process is clear

that the election commission has no you're not a legislative body please

focus on what your mandate is approving plans for the conduction of Elections thank you

okay Genty I'm trying to unmute you here thank you

there we go are you yes we can hear you I'll give you three minutes

you're ready uh thanks um hi this is Dante with

illegal voters of San Francisco uh thank you to the elections commission's uh

Fair independent and effective redistricting through Canadian engagement committee for their meetings and the invited speakers for your

discussion on redistricting reform and the members of the public for showing up your districting is a priority for the

legal woman voters and we support continuing the process our redistricting reform and all the work the elections

commission has done reform takes time and we need to ask before people forget about redistricting we can't wait nine

years or any time we should not wait for independent registering commission and

for independent redistricting commissions like California and Oakland they started their selection process for

commissioners before the census they started in 2019 and for the California citizens redistricting commission they

are still working on their final report and their fifth grade posted this month one of their recommendations is to start

this watching process and the work of the CRC four to six months earlier so that would be like what in 2018 our

Charter did not let us start redistricting in the factory field until the end of 2021 under our Charter we

can't start the redistration process until the central the census is published and not in compliance with the

federal and state laws our city supervisors who served in 2024 will not

be impacted by redistricting reform because they will be termed out by the time reform takes aside the longer we

delay the reform the likely to Transit city of Supervisors will have us in the reform outcome and having

invested interest in redistricting outcomes is the kind of thing that leads to gerrymandering also about my previous

Charter suggestion if I can refine my suggestion I think if we delete the first two paragraphs

um of the charter sections around redistricting we would then fall under

ab849 that was passed in 2019 which was a fair amount of fact

um like we would fall under the criteria because uh paragraph one is a section about how San Francisco can start

redistricting process only of her defenses and paragraph two is about the criteria itself in the charter and the

paragraph three that's the part about the selection of its task force so I think if we delete the first two partners of the um of the section in the

charter and redistricting uh we can be FML FM FMA compliant but we would still

have a political appointed task force so please double check with the DCA again

it is not too early to work on reforms the time is the act now thank you

um secretary Davis before we move to the next public commenter I'm hearing that it's kind of difficult to hear I don't

know if there if there's a way for us to mute while public commenters are speaking that might be

an option I know we tried to do a little bit but we do we do apologize for

um for the issues there okay we have no more public calls okay all right well I apologize

um thank you all public commenters we appreciate that are there any other comments before we close out this agenda

item good vice president Jordan yeah I just have a question for Deputy City

attorneys in one of the commenters Mr Castillo costume um you know was saying that because

we're not a legislative body um you know saying we can't do certain

things are like are we allowed to um you know I wouldn't say that we're

drafting an amendment but are we allowed to like ask the Board of Supervisors to put something on the ballot with that run

afoul of like um you know that what the charter says or

or does it I think you're allowed to board the board on any excuse me

thank you I believe you're allowed to work on the board on any

um item that you find sufficient um I know that you worked with the board to do open source voting so similar

um if you'd like to work with the Board of Supervisors on on any legislative action you're welcome to do so uh you

you just can't put um a ballot measure on the ballot on your own

and then and then if something goes on the Bell the commission would need to be neutral obviously at any point that

something is um goes on the ballot um then at that point uh we can't use

public funds to advocate for or on behalf of a candidate or a measure uh but once that ballot designation is made

that's essentially the cutoff for advocating for a ballot measure you can provide information to the public on the

ballot measure but it has to be neutral and it has to be unbiased

thank you

okay thank you um Commissioners die commissioner labelsey

commissioner Parker and absentra and public commentaries we appreciate your

input on this topic we're going to close out agenda item number six and move to agenda item number seven discussion and

passable action regarding the annual performance evaluation of John Ernst director of Elections first and foremost

we're going to take public comment on all matters pertaining to this agenda item including whether to meet in closed

session so secretary Davis can you let us know if there are any public commenters

I'm just I do not seems

no public commenters thank you secretary Davis um so we will now take a vote on whether

to meet in closed session to consider this agenda item secretary Davis please take the um the

Roll Call um I'm going to take a vote on this President Stone yes

vice president jordanick yes commissioner bernholz yes

commissioner died I commissioner Hayden Crowley yes

commissioner levolsi yes commissioner Parker is absent

so with six it passes yes thank you no problem so we'll move to see closed

session which will be held pursuant to around act section 54957b and the sun's right ordinance to

discuss the evaluation of a Public Employee um so for members of the public just so you are aware we're going into closed

session at 8 30 pm and we will um basically turn off uh video and audio

so we will return we will announce Upon Our return when we are back in Open Session

thank you sir

okay um commissioner burnhose will you just put

a thumb up if you can hear us I can hear you great

um okay the time is now 8 47 or excuse me 9 47.

um wishful thinking about um PM um and we are now in Open Session

um we are moving to 7e discussion vote pursuant Ascension ordinance on whether

to disclose any portion of the closed session discussion regarding the public employee performance evaluation

um do we have any motion do we need to make a motion or do we

just move straight to a vote sorry

thank you for meeting me so we're back into the translation sorry

I didn't even know how to respond so um

yeah I move that we not disclose any portion of the closed session thank you vice president Jordan

anyone else second second bat thank you commissioner die for the second

um so we're now going to move to a roll call vote on the motion to not disclose

any portion of um the contents of closed session

secretary Davis will you take the vote please president Stone yes sorry

vice president yes

yes I

commissioner Hayden Brown yes yes

great unanimous

thank you um so we will not move to nope we will

not disclose any portion of the um post session and that closes agenda

item number seven given that we've already taken public comment so we're going to move to agenda item number eight agenda items for future meetings

do we have any comments

commissioner Hayden Crowley when is the retreat yes I will send you an email thank you

you're welcome I have commissioner um is it possible to talk about our

goals for the next agenda meeting

um um BCAAs I hope so

sorry

no that that was a topic that was a Content info session

that's okay

it's okay no it's for the I understand um and we talk about the goals that we

would like to achieve as a commission I understand put that on the agenda I will

take that under consideration thank you commissioner ovulsi anyone else

yes um no we're working on that

and it I know yeah it will comply with all the

rules I'm very aware yes I am very aware I know all the rules working on it

[Music] um anyone else okay let's move to public comment

s okay the time is um 9 51 pm and I join this with me thank

you