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