Elections Commission Special Meeting

Monday, February 14, 2022

In this page:

    Overview

    See below agenda item #1 for a PDF version of the agenda and for the meeting minutes approved at the June 15, 2022 meeting. See below the remaining items for the agenda packet documents.

    Meeting recording (Duration: 1:40:31):
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAvc-GV1GDs

    Also see after the agenda for an embedded version of the video with transcript.

    Agenda

    1. General Public Comment

      Public comment on any issue within the Elections Commission’s general jurisdiction that is not covered by another item on this agenda.

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

      Attachments: City Attorney Memorandum Regarding Public Meetings and Findings Motion, Draft Resolution of the San Francisco Elections Commission; 45th Supplement to Mayoral Proclamation; Letter from Mayor’s Chief of Staff

    3. Department of Elections’ Budget Proposals: Fiscal Years 2022-23 and 2023-24

      Discussion and possible action regarding Department of Elections proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2022-23 and Fiscal Year 2023-24

      Attachments:  Budget Memo and Forms

    4. Approval of Minutes of Previous Meetings

      Discussion and possible action on the Commission’s draft minutes of January 19, 2021, and November 20, 2019, regular meeting minutes.

      Attachments: Draft Minutes

    5. Open Source Voting

      Discussion and possible action on open source voting, including the pilot submission process.

      Attachments: Submitted Plan with Attachments

    6. Commissioners' Reports

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

      Attachments: Fox News Motion; Judge’s Decision; Letter from City Attorney; Letter to Secretary of State; Letter to District Attorney; Letter to Board of Education

    7. Director's Report

      Discussion and possible action on Director’s Report.

      Attachment: February 2022 Director Report; Racial Equity Progress Report

    8. Discussion and possible action regarding items for future agendas
    9. Adjournment

    Date & Time

    Monday, February 14, 2022
    4:00 pm

    Online

    Event number: 2487 204 7833
    Event password: H4pz2w97khp
    Join the meeting

    Phone

    Access code: 2487 204 7833

    Meeting recording (Duration: 1:40:31)

    Transcript:

    hi everyone i am filling in for uh president bernholtz today so uh welcome to the february 14 2022

    regular meeting of the san francisco elections commission this meeting is being held by

    teleconference pursuant to the governor's executive order n2920 and the 24th supplement to mayoral

    proclamation declaring the existence of a local emergency dated february 25th

    2020. uh martha can you please take the role

    and read the the procedures for the meeting thank you madam vice president

    the minutes of this meeting will reflect that due to the covet 19 health emergency and to protect commission

    members city employees and the public the meeting rooms of city hall are closed however commission members and

    staff will be participating in today's meeting remotely this precaution has taken personal to the various local

    state and federal orders declarations and directives commission members will attend the meeting through webex video

    conference and participate in the meeting to the same extent as if they were physically present

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

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    elections.commission at sfgov.org thank you madam vice president

    uh you're muted becca i'm sorry sorry i will officially uh call the

    meeting to order and martha can you please take roll sure vice president chapel

    president commissioner gerdonic

    commissioner mogee here and commissioner dye here

    okay with four commissioners we meet forum great so i think first agenda item

    the general public comment do we have any callers from the public

    plenty of callers but i don't oh i do see one hand raised i'm gonna meet you call her you have three minutes to

    comment can you hear me okay yes we can mr paul

    thank you why yes it is david pillpow i just wanted to publicly welcome a new

    commissioner uh die and uh if it's not too much to ask maybe she could take a

    moment or two and introduce herself to uh all of us and tell us about her wonderful background that's all i have

    on this item thanks very much

    and we do have one other call it's dr jefferson uh you are unmuted dr

    jefferson and you have three minutes to comment uh yes thank you well i i want to know

    if this is the right time or uh to make this comment it's just an update about the um

    uh the halderman report that we've discussed at the last two meetings and i didn't know if you wanted that update now or

    uh later in the uh in the hearing

    i think we're covering that at agenda item seven i believe that's when we're talking about

    that report so if you wouldn't mind waiting no i don't mind at all that's what i want to make sure of okay okay

    great thank you that's all for now okay thank you

    okay uh piers is all oh no i'm so sorry um mr turner has his hand raised

    okay mr turner you have three minutes to comment the flame run

    i gotta do this one

    mr turner we can hear you i'm sorry i didn't mean to raise my hand

    and i was waiting till the next agenda item thank you

    no no problem thank you thank you okay uh i think if it's if it's okay now

    probably is an appropriate time for commissioner diana to give us a little bit of an introduction

    um i'd be happy to thank you very much um i'm excited to uh be on this commission

    with you folks i am uh

    probably a democracy nerd just like the rest of you if you're serving on this commission

    if you've heard of me before it's probably because i spent 10 years on the

    very first california citizens redistricting commission i concluded my service in

    2020 have spent the last several years

    trying to [Music] educate the public about gerrymandering

    and the electoral process and redistricting i've also

    done a lot of work with rank choice voting advocates and

    those who are advocating for open primaries and i also

    uh ran an election for the city and county of san francisco as a poll inspector

    back in 2012 where i discovered um how very complicated it is to run an

    election so i have a great appreciation for director armstead and his job and all of

    the dedicated people who form the department of elections so very pleased to be here

    in my day job i run my own strategy consulting firm and

    work with a lot of high-tech startups as well as social enterprises that's a

    little bit about me great thank you commissioner dye just in the nick of time as well you're joining

    us glad to be part of your quorum thank you okay so next agenda item uh

    discussion and possible action on resolution on continuation of remote election commission uh meetings

    and i think this will be our last remote meeting i don't believe we've

    re-read the resolution in the last couple meetings so uh assuming we don't need to do that

    here as well can i get a motion to adopt that resolution

    second i move that we adopt the motion click it thank you

    okay then public comment uh

    i believe it's mr pelcell it is david philpel again um so i have

    no objection to uh the motion and i think it's fine uh i appreciate the 45th

    uh supplement which i was just reading through which is complicated and the mayor's office still has not posted the

    45th supplement on their website um anyway um

    i would suspect that there are a number of uh practical

    and perhaps somewhat complicated issues about going back to in-person uh

    meetings at city hall and hybrid with public participation

    etc so i'm sure that behind the scenes that'll get worked through in the next

    month i'm happy to provide whatever assistance i can in that regard

    so that we're all safe and able to participate if that's the direction that the city and the mayor

    and the health officials are going in um but i'd i'd rather that we get it right

    and and be safe uh then rush into the thing but whatever

    whatever is so ordered will be so ordered um anyway uh did i say enough i think i did thanks

    for listening thank you mr

    i don't see any other hands raised okay then i think we can take a vote

    okay vice president chapel yes commissioner gerdonic

    yes commissioner mogee yes

    and commissioner die hi okay for the affirmative the motion passes

    all right okay next agenda item department of elections budget proposals for fiscal

    years 22 to 23 and 23 to 24.

    uh we had our pack meeting a couple of weeks ago where we went into

    the documents that were provided in the packet in a bit of detail with director arts uh

    i think commissioner jerdoneck do you want to give any thoughts or comments from that meeting

    um sure so we had a a really good discussion um

    all of us had a number of questions that we talked about director ernst and um

    one of the things we talked about was the increased poll worker stipend and we also talked about one of the

    questions i had was around the um dominion contract

    and um but yeah we didn't take any vote or anything

    but um it's a good discussion yeah and i'll just supplement by saying we we dug in a little bit about

    the budgeting around the special elections um and it sounds like we're

    kind of covered from a budget perspective on on what's anticipated to date um so that's not causing any

    identified challenges so that was helpful um any comments from

    the commission based on that hasn't that wasn't on bookpack or for director arts

    yes so i had um a couple of things to ask about number one um dark turns did

    you have any updates because i know that versions are that are posted are revised

    right so yes commissioner george so the um we did add for the pork or stipend we

    added the next fiscal year uh so instead of waiting for the second fiscal year to

    potentially initiate an increase in the poll worker stipend uh we added the next

    fiscal year uh for the start of the poll worker skype increase uh we haven't resolved yet the

    the tax implement implications of the stipends for this calendar year but we

    still wanted to give the poll workers potentially an increase in pay for for november

    also the the sheet counters that were in the original memo for around 22 000

    that's been removed we couldn't find sheet counters that we wanted to purchase then also there's one less health

    service selection uh from 70 75 000 in the memo and also in our in our forms

    than the information that bulpeck reviewed then also on the commission requested

    the table which is now on page six to have some extra rows

    in relation to the approving not approving the domain contract and when

    uh the the bid processes negotiations and implementation time frames would

    occur so that those are the changes most the the big changes i guess

    um in the in the memo and also in the forms in relation to what bullpec reviewed a couple weeks ago

    okay yeah thanks for the the changes you made um especially the table that i had

    requested but i did have a few um wanted to get a little more clarity on the dominion

    contract just because i was thinking about a little bit more um do you know like about when you'll be

    introducing that resolution to the board like approximately what month do you think

    uh no at the top of my head i don't because i want to fold it into the budget hearings ideally

    so i don't i guess maybe april may somewhere in there

    okay and then um just to kind of be clear is there any reason we can't

    like renew it one year this year and then next year we could renew the second year is there any like downside to doing

    that well it's just the timing of it uh so if

    we so if we renew it this year for one year essentially we're renewing for 20 20 23 to

    2024. so that means that you're gonna say something

    no so that means that after we come out of the the the presidential primary in march of 2024 we're going into the presidential

    election november we'd also have to be implementing a voting system and so

    ideally i like to get past the presidential election if we're going to bring a new system into san francisco

    what what i mean is um is there any reason that the second year can't be renewed next year

    i mean it could it could it be for planning purposes it's it's nicer to have you

    know more time than not then also in 2025 there are no schedule

    elections in san francisco so that that's a better time frame to to bring in a system to you know do the

    bidding process get the contract done and then bring a system in

    okay and then lastly um if i know during the committee meeting you

    had said that you wanted to request two years in the resolution that you were going to be drafting for the board

    and then if and then you said it was sort of up to the board if they wanted to change it does that mean that

    the committee members would have to like request an amendment from two years to one year if they

    wanted to i could even i could we could even draft the resolution so where it's a one year or two year

    choice that the the board makes i mean that's easily done oh that would be helpful yeah because i i i do think that

    given everything that's been happening around open source voting with the pilot and then a lot of the information about

    dominion you know regarding the you know the

    security report that's coming out of georgia that we don't really know much about and also um the fact that we still only

    have one vendor that's available to san francisco i think if we postpone renewing it

    until for the second year until next year i think we'd be incentivizing new

    vendors to come forward and it would just give us more options but um

    but yeah okay um that's all i had thank you

    and then just if i can so so that so the the the the the numbers

    in the memo are changed but also the numbers and the forms themselves have changed to reflect the

    the changes i just mentioned about the po worker stipend uh which is 186 thousand dollars being

    added to the next fiscal year there's our 22 thousand dollars being removed for the the sheet counter and about i

    think it's 75 being removed for the health service election so just so you know

    that's helpful any other questions or comments for

    director arts or director ants anything else you want to add no that's that's it thank you

    that's a good question so i know bill pick thank you so much for everyone for meeting um ahead of time

    and you know reviewing the budget did you come i just heard that there was a discussion but i wasn't sure if there

    was a recommendation made or did you not make one

    we didn't we didn't make a there was no resolution or action taken at the meeting i think in

    general and and commissioner gerdonic let me know if you disagree it seemed like based on our discussion the the

    budget seemed appropriate seemed thoughtful i don't think we raised any significant issues other than

    kind of the discussion about the dominion contract that we've continued here so i think in general

    you know my takeaway was that the recommendation is that we would approve the budget

    director arms i have a question and i know i'm johnny come lately so i i don't want to disrupt anything but just

    um ask someone who has you know been a poll inspector in the past i'm kind of

    curious i you know totally agree with increasing the poll worker stipend especially in the face of difficulty

    recruiting new poll workers i'm curious have the number of poll workers

    been reduced [Music] at any of the

    polling locations or the number of polling locations if they've been consolidated all given the

    um kind of the massive switch to vote by mail in this budget

    um and just in operationally in general uh

    in the budget uh the number of polling places has not changed although might change after

    redistricting occurs uh but we still we're projecting around

    four poll workers per polling place in the past we projected five okay uh there's an average number

    uh operationally we have less polling places for this february election because we could consolidate under state

    law by the nature of the types of elections we're conducting tomorrow then also if it's april uh general

    election for 1817 we can also consolidate the number of polling places so there'll be less

    polling places for for this election than also potentially for april but also we've we've

    uh reduced the number of of re recruited poll workers for february potentially april down a 3.5 or so

    and then for for june we'll go back up to four and we'll have a full complement of polling places

    okay yeah that's helpful it's just uh i know that my personal behavior as a voter has changed yeah and you know i

    strolled by my polling place and it was you know like crickets there so

    so i support you know increasing the pay for the people who are working but it doesn't seem like we need as many so

    that that sounds consistent with what you're doing so thank you um and i just want to clarify um

    viva's um question um at the bopec meeting um we were not

    or they were not required to um make a decision or a resolution um the meetings

    that meeting and this meeting are for the public's input um regarding the agency's budget um so there's no

    you know it's just basically so the public can come together and and give their opinion so thank you

    right so we actually don't even have to do we

    is today the deadline is i thought that was why we're meeting today or today's the deadline for the public

    engagement process yes we were required to have two public

    meetings so this is the second public meeting okay so there isn't any decision that needs to be made today

    i think so actually because we have to submit this uh next week to the controller's office we

    have to put this budget into the system so we are taking an action today yes

    got it so this is our last meeting yes plus we're taking an action today

    got it right did i say that right yes okay just want to make sure we're doing the

    right thing yeah yeah fresh you are commissioner johnny did you have a

    comment i just wanted to clarify so we do we do need to like you recommend the budget today as

    for approval okay got it yeah okay so then i guess at this point uh

    unless there's any other comments or questions i think uh do we have a motion regarding the

    budget i could make the motion to

    up uh to approve or yeah i think it's at this point we're just going to approve so yes

    it would be the final approval of the agency's proposed budget yeah what difference

    um i approve um i make a motion to approve the um department of elections uh fiscal

    years 2022 23 and 23 24 um budget proposal

    great thank you uh do you have a second a second

    wonderful okay now moving on to public comment

    i will go ahead and unmute the first caller

    david bill pill i support the motion thank you

    thank you mr bill bell and mr turner you are unmuted

    good afternoon commissioners and good afternoon to our newest commissioner thank you for your public service

    uh just wanted to mention a few things because i i'm a little bit confused but that's

    okay as far as this motion goes um is there the opportunity to make sure

    that the public is represented to the extent that we are not renewing the

    dominion contract prematurely that we're not exercising that second year option

    because in the public's opinion there's a great disconnect between the conversation going on here

    and sort of akin to that uh movie that's come out lately called don't don't look up i don't know if

    anybody saw that but the the public believes it's imperative to expedite the open source systems and

    to phase out the dominion proprietary intellectual property systems so

    when we talk loosely about well we'll just it's more convenient for us to do it a little bit later so that

    we can get you know uh ourselves in order before the 2024 election

    presidential what we're trying to do is get the systems that are causing the the

    unrest out and bring in modern technology systems that may quell

    the civil unrest that we're seeing around elections right now so that's the idea and what we have at stake here is

    it's not just talking about san francisco county we're attempting to set precedent right now within the state of

    california which will hopefully set precedent for the rest of the united states so

    these aren't casual decisions about the timing so we are very much hoping that

    we send a message to dominion and steve bennett who refuses to come my understanding in front of this

    commission um when he calls the operation at city hall a well-oiled machine

    and that he's in control of it and that the this commission doesn't know anything about elections and that the

    people of san francisco don't care about elections we don't want to send a message to that

    type of operation that that's okay because it's not okay so we want

    dominion out of our county as and it's just not them it's people that are selling these insecure software systems

    regardless of the georgia report we know that the science tells us dominion can

    never be brought up to a satisfactory level for security whereas these open

    source systems meet the standard that we're looking for in the new world of technology so we are poised to do great

    work here we we would appreciate it if if uh director arts would pay strict

    attention to the conversations that are occurring and not push the board toward

    exercising that second year option prematurely thank you very much

    thank you mr turner you have another caller caller you are unmuted you have three

    minutes to comment yes this is greg pennington from san francisco and i was a volunteer for the

    california clean money campaign i circulated petitions at many san francisco events and i can tell you that

    the support for open source voting was overwhelming there wasn't a single

    person that didn't want to sign the petition in support of it the 2024 election is a critical election we have

    got to get open source voting in place as quickly as possible i ask you to

    please only renew one year on the dominion contract to allow the possibility that the open

    source would be ready in time for the critical 2024 election and then if it

    turns out open source wouldn't be ready in time then you could exercise the option for the second year of on

    dominion but i'm telling you as a grassroots activist the people of

    san francisco very strongly support open source voting please help make it happen

    as soon as possible and please only renew dominion for one year at this time thank you

    thank you mr pennington uh there's another caller

    caller you are unmuted you have three minutes to comment good afternoon this is jim soper from

    the national voting rights task force first of all i would like to welcome commissioner guy to the commission

    i've been coming to these meetings since 2005 and i'm

    i'm delighted to see that the commission is getting stronger over the years i think that the commission would be

    wise and the department would be wise to extend dominion's contract by just one

    year because for example one we have not seen the holderman report yet

    and everything i've seen so far about it is it's not good and that's a report

    about dominion secondly the bay area urban strategic

    area initiative should be issuing a report within half a

    year a general survey of what's needed in the bay area for

    uh security uh we haven't seen that yet the open source project should have a

    pilot going hopefully in november and we need to see what happens with

    that pilot before we start committing to contracts with other uh other vendors

    and finally uh yeah the dominion representative has been invited to

    appear for the commission and he hasn't shown up yet and i think somehow the commission needs

    to send a signal that he needs to communicate with the commission and not just the director to answer some

    questions that are somewhat unsettling so we have a lot of things coming in a

    lot of information coming in this year and i would encourage that we

    not commit to a two-year contract unless it's necessary

    thank you thank you mr supper and we have one more caller

    caller you are invited you have three minutes to comment uh hello good afternoon commissioners

    and a big welcome to commissioner dye um i'm trent lang president of the california clean money campaign a

    non-partisan nonprofit organization focused on fair elections um we worked very closely with board of

    supervisors president shimon walton on his legislation for a pilot program uh for the open source voting system this

    november along with commissioner judonic and others uh we delivered over 2 000 signatures

    from san francisco residents who support open source voting to mayor breed and uh

    nearly 11 000 signatures from across the country asking mayor breed to sign the legislation so the pilot could go

    forward this november um so we were very excited that the board of supervisors unanimously passed

    the legislation and of course the election commission uh supported it and mayor breed signed uh president walton's

    pilot legislation as our petition said it will help lead the nation to more transparent accurate and less costly

    elections this exciting development i think is why

    another speakers have spoken to this is why we need to

    ask that the dominion contract be only renewed for one year

    not to because we'd like san francisco to have the opportunity to use the new open

    source voting system in the presidential election if it's proven in the pilot project and certified in time

    there have been literally years and years of work by this commission by supervisors by uh uh

    open source advocates and everybody else in the legislature even

    with city attorney true then assembly member chu and senator weiner

    now we're finally about to make a major step forward and potentially have a certified system ready in time for the

    2024 election it would be a travesty it'd be an absolute travesty

    for this department of elections to ask the board of supervisors to do a two-year

    renewal if there's uh unless it's absolutely necessary and therefore below

    the opportunity to have the open source system if it's ready if it's ready uh uh

    for the 2024 presidential election we've been working on this all for years um uh please i don't know if you need to

    make a caveat to your current budget resolution uh or or

    something of that nature to show that the commission would like to ask the supervisors for a one-year renewal

    i would like you to hopefully you could consider that given all the work that you've done to get us to this to this place thank you very

    much thank you we have um alec bash mr bash you are

    unmuted you have three minutes to comment thank you very much

    um alec bash i worked for the city for 30 years at the planning department but have

    worked on national political issues for 20 years after that and

    first i want to amend commissioner dye for her work on the california redistricting commission

    and her appearance now on the san francisco elections commission which is wonderful

    to have that statewide representation here uh and it is something that we would

    hope would at some point be extending to the rest of the country i'm getting incredible backfeed on

    everything i i say so i hope that it's coming across more clearer as you

    uh are hearing me speak i'm here to speak about the

    one-year extension of the contract other than two years because i think it is

    very important now that we have a pilot program underway for the election

    this year it would make total sense to have the results of that program before

    we commit to a two-year program to the second year of the program

    for many of the same reasons that other people have said if there is an opportunity to go towards open source

    something that i and many others have been working on for about 15 years in the city it would be

    very helpful to be able to proceed with that once we know that we do

    once we have a viable solution for that so i just want to offer those thoughts to you and urge you to go with the

    option for a one-year extension of the contract with the opportunity to review and

    extend for a second year if that's the inappropriate and following the results of the pilot

    program we i do understand that the pilot program does not mean that that would be a party selected by the city

    but i think that the results of that program would be would help inform the city as to whether it is feasible to go

    towards the in an open source direction thank you very much for the opportunity to comment

    thank you there's another caller at the end of the list but i can't tell

    if this person has everybody's um given a comment i'm going to unmute them oh

    okay their hand went down okay so we have no other callers

    great thank you martha thank you i think for the clarification of the commission

    we did address how the in our voc meeting we addressed how the dominion contract extension

    would flow into the budget and my understanding is that the budget is not the way that we are

    approving one year versus two years on the extension that happens separate from the budget

    and that the budget that's been proposed is dynamic based on that decision and

    kind of contemplates either scenario but director arts or

    commissioner javonnick let me know if i've mischaracterized our discussion from the beaupac meeting

    um well i know it's it's discussed in the memo but yet director ernst can you

    confirm that the budget as it's currently drafted does not

    go either way on that decision doesn't commit to either direction on that

    the so the 2.1 million dollars in the for the contract amount is is

    inputted automatically into the budget for the department and so

    so yes the the budget does include 2.1 million for both years of the available options

    it's not something the department inputs it's something that the the mayor's office for the city might be the controller's office

    inputs because that's the potential length because six years seven years was the six years of the potential length of

    the contract so for budgeting for forecasting purposes the controller's office inputs

    the entire potential length of the contract into the budget system but if the board were to approve

    a one-year contract actually the board the 2.1 would probably carry forward the next year

    unless the board were to not approve the second option and then that money would be

    would potentially be pulled out of the the department's budget for dominion but

    then new months would that would have to come in for a new system but so the 2.1 yes it's in our budget it's something

    it's part of our budget it's not something that we input if the board were to not approve both when your options then

    the money would come out in relation to dominion but then more money would come in in relation to the next system that the

    city uses okay but i mean in terms of the resolution that the department presents

    to the board it doesn't say you have to

    request two years or you have to request one year right it's just is it silent on that point

    for the approval of the options um well for the resolution that you're

    going to be submitting in april or may asking the board to renew the contract right

    is the wording on that resolution locked down within the budget as

    because you said earlier that you could make it as a question as one or two to the board

    right so the resolution is separate in relation to the budget okay yeah

    okay that's that's what i want to confirm thanks and in fact any open source system would

    likely be less than the 2.1 million so you know if the budgets you know

    allocate you don't have to use it on that presumably it's it's just uh allowing for the money for planning

    purposes and and i think to clarify for

    all of the the folks who took the time to comment it sounds like the appropriate venue for this

    would be to express your opinions at a board of at a board meeting when this resolution

    comes up for discussion and a vote

    i i think dca flores stop me if i'm wrong

    if we do want to talk about the dominion contract extension i think we'll have to

    add that as an agenda item for a future meeting

    yes so this so this um action item is for

    [Music] the budget proposal um so

    i would imagine that if um because the attachments are the budget memo and the forms so if you wanted to

    discuss the dominion contract separately i would imagine that it would have to be

    re-calendared to another date because there the public has no way

    how the agenda is worded now the public has no way of knowing that the dominion

    contract would be discussed and and and a separate um

    a separate um kind of like motion would be made regarding the dominion contract this

    only discusses the budget proposal and so the budget proposal as a whole is what you should um be discussing and

    making um a decision on today got it so i think remember the members

    of the public your comments are heard i think we should plan to address those at a future meeting with a set agenda

    point are there any concerns with the commission now for how that dominion

    contract impacts the budget or do we feel comfortable taking a vote now

    okay so comfortable i think it's it's basically a placeholder it sounds like the resolution that

    director arts would prepare with the commission's input can be

    discussed at a future meeting great okay uh secretary delgado can you take a vote

    yes sure vice president chapel yes commissioner donick

    yes commissioner mulgy yes and commissioner dye aye

    okay with four of the affirmative passes great thank you everyone

    moving on to the next agenda item we have approval of minutes of previous

    meetings these are discussion and possible action on the commission's draft minutes

    of january 19 2021 and november 20 2019

    regular meeting minutes do i have a motion

    so move thank you a second

    a second thank you okay public comment

    i will unmute the first caller here on youtube you have 10 minutes

    thank you david pilpel again um so a couple of uh issues here

    uh i believe it's um just a an oversight but the january minutes on both the

    agenda and on the website refer to january 19th of 2021 the minutes are correct in 2022

    um it's either a legal or policy issue as to whether you want to take action today

    or out of an abundance of caution put it off for a month i don't think it's going to matter in the grand scheme of things

    and i'm not sure that i had any substantive concerns about um how they

    read on the 2019 uh minutes which apparently took some time to

    uh sort out um with the transition of commission secretary and all that i was

    not at that meeting i did notice at least a couple of uh things that ought to get fixed under

    on page one item three member two of the open source voting

    technical advisory committee i believe that's rowan coutu and i believe his last name is not

    spelled correctly it is k-a-t-t-o-u-w

    [Music] um and perhaps giving his first name would

    be useful for the record i always think that the first reference to a person should have their

    full name uh and then the only other substantive thing was on page three item five under

    the director's report i i suspect that director arts reported expecting to

    certify that the november 5th 2019 election the week of november 25th 2019.

    um i may have some other uh stylistic suggestions that i'm happy

    to convey to secretary del video if you approve uh today um

    on the rest of this i think the it appears that there was a closed session and the closed session doesn't

    indicate what time it started and ended and who was present in the session and that could probably be cleaned up as

    well anyway um as i say i'm happy to communicate um all of that to the secretary doyle video offline but thanks

    to her presumably for going through the effort to reconstruct

    this from more than two years ago hope those comments are helpful thanks for listening

    thank you mr popo i think those are all very helpful comments they sound more

    typographical in nature unless someone disagrees are we

    okay approving them with the motion kind of subject to those changes

    i have a uh are there any other public comments before i say anything

    don't believe so no i don't see any other hands raised yeah i i actually didn't even realize

    until um the last gentleman spoke that this was actually for 2019. so when when i looked at the um

    the november the 2019 minutes a question i had which may be correct

    uh for item three um it the topic says open source voting

    but then on the first paragraph on the next page it says that director gurule

    gave an update on ranked choice voting pilot project

    was that open source or was that a ranked choice voting

    unfortunately predates me yeah so uh commissioner jordanic

    yeah that could probably be clarified but if my memory serves there was a um directorans could speak to this but

    there was a pilot ranked choice footing risk limiting audit that was using open source

    software so correct directorance right so i mean we could clarify that it

    could be okay and then uh just a

    couple of stylistic things probably should mention congress member nancy

    pelosi i think the normal way that we refer

    gender neutral and then you would be speaker

    this was yeah 2019. um

    okay dca4s are these i just want to make sure these enough comments that we should be

    looking at these and then approving them in a kind of corrected form or

    yeah i think that um it it becomes difficult i mean martha was looking was hearing a recording from

    two years ago not being there herself so um it's pretty difficult to redo that

    when you're not there present so i think that it has become more than

    a typographical so i i would my suggestion is that anyone that has edits to the

    minutes um including the ones that were given by mr pilpel earlier that we redo

    these minutes and we come back at the next meeting ready to approve them okay

    so do we withdraw the motion you would just yes you would withdraw the motion um you take a vote to withdraw the

    motion and then the motion is withdrawn okay

    uh so i guess martha can you take a vote to withdraw the motion sure are we withdrawing the

    motion for both of the meeting minutes

    i i believe it's just for the um november 2019 uh minutes um

    the other minutes i think were were just strictly i think it was strictly date

    yeah so should we vote on that one first yes taking public comment and then

    actually um withdraw the motion um completely and this is why i may be a consideration for the commission is um

    before taking public comment um don't make a motion um so that you don't have to redo it

    once public comment happens that's just a policy um decision that you should make

    but it's my um recommendation that just hear public comment first and then make a motion and then uh you know you can

    vote um there's no there's no requirement in the brown act that we make a motion and then take

    public comment okay noted okay so

    uh commissioner mogi i think you which you'll have to withdraw your

    motion okay i'll withdraw my motion

    okay and then we vote on that you need a second

    a second just so just a point of order is it necessary to

    actually vote on withdrawing the motion if the person who put the motion forward

    voluntarily withdraws it it's a good question

    it's it's a it is a robert's rules of order kind of question but it doesn't hurt to to do this process just in case

    we should have done it um i i don't know it off the top of my head personally but um

    it doesn't hurt to make a motion to withdraw so that you can start clean

    i second the motion i was muted when i raised my hand thank you okay and i'm assuming we don't have to

    take public comment to vote on the withdrawal that's great okay no

    martha we do not have to take can you can you comment for okay

    no because you essentially just took public comment on this on this agenda item um you're just withdrawing that

    motion okay so vice president chapel how do you vote

    yes commissioned your doc commissioners yes

    yes and commissioner die hi okay before the affirmative

    the emotion passes okay then in deference to dc84 flores is comment

    let's take public comment because i see a hand before we do anything else

    okay oh you're on music

    sorry it's uh david don't patel again i guess i was confused about where we are procedurally

    i think in terms of robert's rules he probably didn't need to vote on i think a member can withdraw a motion that's

    made and it doesn't require whatever anyway um if that was on the 2019

    minutes then i would still suggest that the january minutes have the

    uh incongruity for lack of a better word uh on the agenda and the minutes that one

    says 2021 the other says 2022. so my suggestion is just put off both sets uh

    it will be cleaned up by the elves at work at night to do these things and we'll be properly back before you uh

    next month that's my thought thanks for listening thank you mr culpel

    uh i think that makes sense unless anyone objects that we can push them to the

    next meeting

    sounds like a plan okay so we are not taking any action on that agenda item

    so then moving on to item number six open source voting discussion and

    possible action on open source voting including the pilot submission process

    um director arms do you want to give any kind of initial

    comments on on the document that's been provided in the packet the submitted

    plan and the attachments sure so last monday and the 7th i submitted the

    documentation secretary of state's office applying for a pilot program in san francisco

    with using ballot marketing devices from voting works

    and the secretary of state's office for the november 2022 election and the secretary of

    state's office indicated that they received the application and they'll review it and get back to me with any questions

    and so that's where things stand right now great

    any questions or comments from the commission

    um yeah just again director ernst i think what you submitted looks excellent thank you for all the work you did on that i

    know it's um looks like a real big job um to put that together

    um my one question is can you um i know we we had the draft as part of the last

    agenda packet i was wondering if you could maybe comment on anything that was different in the draft

    or maybe there wasn't anything substantive uh

    so as far as the uh the i guess the body of the application

    there is an extra section i did fix some language here but there's also an added section

    about requesting to use full manual tallies of the ballots used rather than trying

    to implement risk limited auditing just because the the number of ballots involved probably won't really register

    for a risk limiting auditing uh scope then um

    also added to the application is the secretary of state's office i think

    about two weeks before the deadline can't uh sent another form that voting works

    had to complete which is attachment nine uh the application for approval of

    voting for a voting system so they so voting works had to itself

    submit an application on its system to the secretary of state's office for reviewing approval

    in relation to the pilot program occurring in this november's election so i guess those are

    the two substantive changes to the application from what you saw in january

    okay thank you

    director i have a question and this is very helpful thank you for

    providing it i guess just taking a step back to you and the department what does success look like

    with respect to the pilot program and how is that kind of being evaluated and

    and defined at the end of the day once once this pilot plan has been executed

    i don't know i i mean essentially we would explain my instant answers we'd

    expect the system to work with the components and to work as expected to conduct an election for people using

    those ballot marking devices then when those ballots are scanned for the for the results to be scanned

    and reported correctly and that's so the the scope of the

    program is two belt marking devices in the city hall voting center then a a balance scanner in our computer

    room so there's a small number of items so basically that the

    that the components operate and that the system can can uh can scan and report

    the results appropriately make sense

    is there going to be so there's kind of the voter experience which it sounds like we expect to be

    similar to the standard uh dominion systems uh and then there's an election you know

    administration kind of experience as well

    so i guess uh kind of as a follow-up to vice president chapel's

    question you know what what would you want to see from kind of an elections administration

    piece that you're kind of running two systems in parallel you're checking for accuracy

    but is there kind of easy use features or other things that

    the department of elections is going to be looking for

    this is uh i mean as far as usability that's the voters would give us that feedback so that's not something that we

    would like i don't think judge hey we're we're looking for the system to operate the way it's expected

    i mean that would be our you know our perspective on the pilot program so um

    so i mean if the system if voters have frustrations using the system or if the

    justice i mean i'm not trying to anyway cast aspersions on the system just or if the the scanners didn't scan

    they got jammed a lot i mean whatever i mean those are the that's what would catch our attention on

    on this pilot program and then of course getting any feedback from the voters on their experience

    is there a um is there a way to collect that feedback

    uh we can provide uh forms to the voters if they want to complete forms uh indicating their experience with the

    system sure it seems like in order to capture that

    data we have to ask the question so yeah we're kind of a long way from that

    point yet so uh i think as we go through the application process with the state

    uh one of the criteria is that we have to indicate any sort of issues with the system so that's something we have to

    collect on the department side um and i'm sure that on the voter side both voting works especially voting

    works want to get you know feedback from from the voters that we can collect as well but yeah i don't know what the

    steps are between now and when all that would happen though we're still waiting on the state to give us some feedback on

    the application okay thanks

    this should we take comments from members of the public at this point unless there's

    any other comments from the commission

    okay let's move on to comments from the

    members of the public okay uh mr turner i you are being unmuted you

    have three minutes to comment uh hello again commissioners uh i guess

    at this point we just want to make comment that uh [Music]

    the great work of this elections commission is again appreciated i think for

    um the sake of the new commissioner we should state that this work initially started

    uh with a fellow by the name of alan decker in the year 2000 coming out of sacramento and resulted in

    a demonstration of an open source system in 2004 that was covered by the new york

    times so you can imagine the the the

    lag that's felt by the pioneers of this work uh it's been

    you know over 20 years now that the answer has remained the same

    if we want to increase voter confidence and make sure

    that as director arn said the ballots are being scanned and uh recorded correctly

    the only way we can do that is with these open source systems the current systems are not capable of that and that

    is just the unfortunate reality it's nobody's fault that we've been sold overpriced systems

    that don't work for the for the act intended

    that's just what happened we're all doing the best we can with what we've been dealt but now that luckily voting

    works has shown up um we're not in that position where we're trying to convince the government to

    build the system out which is the predicament we were in previously so lo and behold now we have a system that is

    that is available and it's not like this is the first time it's going to be used

    i'm sure everybody's aware it's already conducting elections in

    mississippi so even though now we've got the extra issue of rank choice voting

    my understanding is this is not rocket science for these open source pioneers

    and that this mission is simply accomplished it's just a matter of political will

    it hasn't been the fact that we can't do it or the technology isn't there

    it's really been the politics that have stood in the way and of course i'm sure everybody's aware that microsoft and

    these vendors they hold a big hammer within the political arena so

    this is tremendous work again that you're doing i think we have kids met in

    san francisco where where we started this effort so many years ago with tom

    amiano and folks like that leading the way that now we have a progressive

    secretary of state a forward-thinking secretary of state and

    uh the president of our board in san francisco and you election commissioners

    and all the supervisors all on the same page at the same time which is fantastic

    so as long as we're brave and hold the line and don't backslide and don't allow

    the vendors to come in and manipulate the environment however they might do it and believe me if they can they will

    because their goal is to hold the line in san francisco and not

    allow this to move forward by hooker by crook and i think if you see the statements of steve bennett you'll

    realize what you're dealing with here so you have your work cut out for you and again the public applauds your efforts

    thank you very much thank you mr turner

    i don't see any other comments do you martha no

    okay no i do not another hand traced okay

    do we have any action to be taken here i i haven't heard one in our discussion

    but i don't think there is but may i just quickly um make a quick comment um

    director arn's i just wanted to say thank you for i know that you know there's there were

    um it was a team effort but i really appreciate the application to be submitted i know that it's a really busy

    time of the year um and i and you continue to kind of you know meet our

    elections policy on top of making sure uh we have like back-to-back elections and back actually

    um happening and so i appreciate it and i'm looking forward to things you know continue to move on as we heard from the

    public commenter like i do honestly believe that it does take um

    for these type of efforts happen it just is sometimes the political will and also from you

    know the department as well um and i know oftentimes that there was some will

    um politically but not a full support and i and i do agree that you know i think

    this is the right timing for everything to happen so um i'm really looking forward to the next steps and i know that we have a lot

    more to go um but i think this is the right step forward so thank you

    and just to add on to that um i think it took three tries for the um independent

    redistricting to pass in california so that the timeline of decades is

    it's not unknown for innovations and our electoral process

    and director ernst a funny story is that i was first exposed to ranked choice

    voting as a college student at uc berkeley where we use

    preferential proportional voting which is a little more complex form than than sacrament than we use here in the city

    and in fact an algorithm was written to automatically count the votes and do the

    ranked choices and uh and a bug was found because it was open source you know

    written by students in the in the computer science department and as a result all the

    candidates insisted that the votes be counted manually and so

    all the candidates would go into the acc chamber and watch these boats

    be transferred manually in piles all night until the vote was completed and that

    was what was necessary for people to feel that the elections were transparent and

    the candidates were confident that the vote was right and i think we're a little more sophisticated than that

    but uh i think that you know getting there might be a little painful but it will result in a lot

    better transparency for our

    elections okay thank you if there's no further comments i will move on to the next agenda point

    item seven commissioners reports discussion and possible action on

    commissioner's reports on topics not covered by another item on this agenda

    meetings with public officials oversight and observation activities long-range planning for commission activities in

    areas of study proposed legislation which affects elections there are a number of attachments in the

    packet so i will open up for for discussion on the commission

    mr mogee thank you i saw the letter um i just

    want to provide a quick update i actually um i really appreciated uh president bernhard sending in the letter

    and i also heard um directly from the district attorney um he actually

    reached out to me personally to thank for my service um and he is actively looking for someone to

    come on board actually asap um he has couple folks in mind but i think they're just going through the the vetting

    process at this time and so hopefully um you know there won't be any kind of like

    there there won't um be any delays in terms of my appointment but i'll follow up with him

    um you know after as well um to let him know that you know um

    it's about a month from now that we would have our next meeting and we would really appreciate someone to come on

    board and so um you know it's commissioner die welcome um i know that

    um it's we're literally switching off i'm gonna be stepping off as as you step on i'm really excited i think that this

    has just been you know really great commission i've shared this with others as well um

    that you know i think that we've we've learned to like have very efficient meetings um and also

    being having very a you know active body that's very engaged and being very mindful of each

    other's uh personal time as well to make sure that we don't

    you know really push for very very long meetings unless they're they're needed i

    think it is a lot of credit goes to the department um you know director arn's for running

    such a great department and you know we don't really have to have to like get too much in the weeds

    of everything and so i think this has just been such a great opportunity to work um

    to serve on and so i just wanted to say a quick thank you and then um welcome and also

    um that hopefully there will be um a replacement for me or my the new um

    appointment coming very soon

    thank you commissioner mogi for that update that's helpful that's uh making me hopeful that we won't be

    down to four people for the next one that'll be great and thank you sincere thank you for your

    years of service to the commission uh i i got to watch you as president when i

    first joined and it was uh very illuminating especially now that i find myself struggling through today so

    thank you um doing great you're doing great

    you should see my first meeting so thank you all right commissioner jerdonek

    yeah i also want to say you know thank you again commissioner mogi it's been a really pleasure serving with you and

    good luck to whatever you're off to and um i guess this is kind of the second time

    we're saying goodbye because we last last month too and then welcome commissioner dye

    excited to really have you on board you're very um a lot of expertise and i think we're

    really going to benefit a lot from you um in terms of the commissioner's reports i

    wanted to just draw attention to the um the documents under the halderman report section

    there were three documents they added just in the past couple days that were forwarded to me

    that i guess you can kind of look them over but i wanted to say that i think david jefferson is um going to be

    speaking during public comments so he can kind of give an update because it's a little bit technical

    what's been going on and then i also wanted to ask um i haven't personally spoken with president

    bernholtz but does anyone know if she received a reply from mr

    bennett i i haven't heard unless secretary delgado you received an update

    yeah no i didn't get any update and uh she was aware that you know that this

    would come up still no update no response okay and i also want to mention um

    maybe commissioner dies being modest but in addition to this letter of appointment in the packet i know that um

    city attorney two also issued a press release about her so i encourage you to go to the

    city attorney's website and check that out it's under the news section so

    and there's a nice picture as well yeah i didn't realize there was going to be all this pomp and circumstance but i

    appreciated it it shows you how grateful we are to have you joining us

    yeah well i decided for your last meeting and it sounded like you were going to have difficulty meeting core

    i'm so glad i could go any reason so we're glad to have you

    okay uh and thank you uh commissioner jodonick for calling attention to the report um

    i do see that david jefferson is uh raising his hand so perhaps we can

    take public comment and he can provide us an update on that i will you are unmuted dr jefferson

    uh thank you very much um you'll recall what we're talking about is the report

    by alex halderman that is a declaration in a federal lawsuit in georgia

    uh furling v raffensberger uh professor alderman is a computer scientist and he has

    studied the dominion voting system uh the image image guest voting system

    used in georgia and also in san francisco and has uh

    and he did so at the direction of the port and found severe vulnerabilities uh in that voting system and i had asked

    uh the elections commission um to uh to call for

    uh a copy of that report so that you could um

    you you could examine it to see if it applied to to san francisco and uh you uh had um

    president bernholtz write a letter to the secretary of state asking asking her to sort of take over this issue because it's more of a state level

    issue so i first i want to thank the commission and president bergholz for for writing that letter to the secretary

    of state uh to weber uh asking her to investigate this report and perhaps to intervene

    uh with the court to ask for a copy of that halderman report

    i hope if you get a reply and if you think it's appropriate that you either make the reply public or

    at least let me know about it um because i'm anxious to know whether the secretary of state

    uh is is going to act on uh your request

    i just want to give you some updates some news about what has happened since we last met um i believe i reported to

    you that uh um i know i reported you the state of louisiana had uh filed an intervention

    with the court asking for a copy of the halderman report because they use

    dominion image cast machines and the judge denied that request

    uh i believe i also told you that fox news uh had asked for a copy of this report

    uh the judge hasn't ruled on that yet but what i have learned is that they were not requesting just so they

    could make a news story out of it they were requesting it as evidence to be used in the lawsuit

    the the multi-billion dollar lawsuit filed by dominion against fox and fox news for a defamation

    so if the judge granted them access to the halderman report it would be for attorney's eyes only it would not be

    made public but as i said the judge has not ruled on that request from fox news

    um somewhat uh surprisingly georgia's secretary of state raffensberger who is

    the target of the lawsuit asked the judge and also made a public statement calling

    for the haldeman report to be made public so now somewhat surprisingly both the

    plaintiffs and the state of georgia are in agreement on this report that they would like it or at least the redacted

    version of it to be made public still the judge has not done that presumably the reason the state would

    like the report to be made public is that it uh it's come to the attention of uh the press and and the public the

    existence of the report and so um uh secretary of state raffensberger in

    georgia would like to be able to demonstrate just how far off base the

    criticism that professor halderman is making uh is and he can't really do that if the report is

    is secret that's that's my guess as to the reasoning i don't think he actually said why although he did claim the

    report was quote off base the last uh update i want to mention is that

    the federal agency cesa the cyber security and information security agency of the department of homeland security

    expressed interest in seeing the halderman report so the judge gave professor halderman permission to send a

    copy to them which he did cesa subsequently last week wrote to judge

    totenberg recommending that holderman's report not be made public even in redacted form

    until cesa has a chance to review it and then work with the vendor to come up with appropriate mitigations and get

    them tested and presumably certified and fielded now

    sisa didn't say how long that would take but they did say that they would have a better idea in about 30 days or so after

    they've done some technical evaluation of the haldeman report uh the judge has not

    uh ruled on or accepted um caesar's recommendation but assuming that the

    judge does that this means that the there could be a

    an exceedingly long delay presumably in either the

    main or redacted version of that report becoming public uh which circles around to the original request i made of this

    elections commission that it asked for the republi the report to be made public

    so anyway that's just uh an update on the action of that

    about that report and again i want to thank the commission and and the president for

    sending the letter that you sent to the secretary of state of california

    thank you dr jefferson uh martha can you uh

    on our next call mr turner is next mr turner you're unmuted

    yes uh thank you commissioners i just wanted to comment on it on a couple things on this issue

    um certainly the uh community appreciates the efforts of

    mr halderman uh but i think it it deserves stating that uh there's

    really no breaking news here um he may have

    found issues attached to one particular model of voting machine that might be

    some new model of dominion systems but the fact is

    just so we're clear all the systems that are currently in use except for the

    open source systems that are being utilized in mississippi are similarly

    deficient the deficiency starts with the certification process

    being broken and that is per the father of the certification process

    roy saltman so i think it behooves us to start at the certification process and understand

    that nas ed and the folks that have been giving stamps of approval on these

    systems along with the itls the independent testing labs

    there's a certain deficiency that is in existence at the processes inception

    right right at the certification point so a lot of this conversation is again 20

    years old and we're talking about now proving up halderman

    and his assessment of the system but we know that these systems are not appropriate

    as sort of a blanket stipulation regardless of the model type the problem

    is of course that they're running on proprietary software that you can't see

    and so you're faith-based at that moment and of course that's the beauty of the

    open source system so i don't think we should get completely into the weeds we just need to understand that we are

    operating in a vacuum here that's 20 years old and that the real

    conversation has to be how quickly we can move the new systems forward we don't need to have conversation too much

    about the difference between the two systems we have to take the current systems and

    throw them in the dumpster and then bring the new systems that we're lucky to have available and bring them in as

    quickly as possible all the rest of the conversation should just be pointed at

    the the new systems and implementing and doing all that tough work the old

    systems are obviously have left us in a very dire situation

    that is further exacerbated by the fact we don't really want to talk publicly about how dire

    the situation is because that further erodes public confidence so that's why you get groups

    like the little hoover commission couching it in terms like let's make a good system better

    because we don't want to tell all the voters that the current systems are at a

    level two out of a one to ten because you know that will lessen voter

    confidence yes the new systems will come in at perhaps an eight and that's better

    than a two but we we really i think should move past that part of the conversation where

    we're talking or trying to analyze the current systems let's just stipulate

    get them out of existence as quickly as possible i think the damage they've done

    to the united states is self-evident and again uh the last part i just wanted to

    comment the audacity of the vendor's rep rep steve bennett to make the comments

    that the people of san francisco don't care about elections and that this elections commission doesn't know

    anything about elections i think that mr turner yes i'm so sorry we're past

    the four minutes i'm sorry thank you martha that's fine thank you okay

    thank you we have one more caller caller you are

    unmuted you have three minutes to comment thank you good afternoon again this is jim salper

    from the national voting rights task force i want to connect two things here

    one is this whole demon report about dominion that is

    not being released uh i do know professor holloman he's

    serious and he's dedicated and meticulous and i take any indication that there's

    things that are not good very seriously and the public needs to know what's going on

    and this connects into open source most of the conversation about open

    source is about getting a look at the source code which is a good idea since

    we know in the past that somebody with 23 convictions

    for embezzlement program the diebel machines but it goes beyond that we need access

    to just about everything that's going on inside those machines the the log files the databases

    everything including the source code in there everything we don't want to uh

    give people hints as to how to hack the scene but there's a lot that can be shown to the

    public that's not there and both of these issues the alderman report the dominion

    system and open source they're all tied together and we will continue to support open

    source and encourage the secretary to uh approve the pilot project for next

    november thank you

    thank you mr soper martha do we have any other callers no that was that was the last one

    okay great thank you to the members of the public for your participation and your comments

    uh any further discussion amongst the

    commission okay great and we'll move on to the next agenda

    point uh item eight the director's report discussion and possible action on

    directors report director arms oh thank you committee chapel so i'll

    take any questions on the report but then also one attachment to is the racial equity progress report

    the section that the commission needs to complete that's an ace section a7 that's why it's attached and

    i thought i attached also the election plan for the potential april election but i didn't

    uh so we we haven't drafted it and i'll send it out after speaking to martha she can send it out to the commissioners

    so we'll have to review the election plan for the potential april election

    at the commission's uh march meeting i can say that there's not

    there's nothing that's been removed from the elections process uh from the february the current

    election tomorrow in relation to the april lecture we're not taking away any services so

    we're actually adding more services for april so i i i apologize for for the omission i thought i said everything

    but i didn't but i could take any questions on the on the director's report

    no questions okay

    you uh we're speechless that's oh very good but i do want to thank uh commissioner

    mogi for her time on the commission it's been a real treat to have you a part of this collections commission

    uh certainly one of um certainly i think a great

    participant in the elections commission process and the elections process and uh certainly it's hard to see you go

    where she could stick around longer but certainly i wanted to say that everything that you've contributed to this point certainly has hit a mark down

    here at the department so we thank you for your time and wish you good luck everything going forward so

    you well i'll still be doing my delivery drop off tomorrow so i'll see you tomorrow all right very

    good and good luck tomorrow i'm yeah i know it will it'll go really

    smooth and i've already heard great things and thanks again for another great report yeah we are definitely

    speechless it's always like you run things so smoothly for us so uh thank you for always making it so easy not

    just for us but for the public and really appreciate everything thank you and i mean i've got to say i've got a

    there's a great team people down here in the department though too so it's certainly not me doing it thank you

    great uh any public commissioner jordanic so this um the

    racial um equity progress report there's

    if there's an action item for us is that something that we would agendize for a future meeting or um

    was that meant for us to do today i guess

    i guess a good question is there anything that we need any action that you need from us on that director arts

    is that something that we have to we have to i'm sorry to interrupt but uh yeah we have to include that in our

    report uh to the right department racial equity so yeah i think we do need something

    from you i don't know how you're gonna i don't know i don't know i guess you have to agenda and go through that process but we just need a

    product from the commission okay is there a deadline on that

    uh march first so

    uh so i don't know um maybe city attorney

    can i make a suggestion is that when i did it last time i wrote

    in like the report and then i did present it to

    the commission but it seems like we're kind of off the timing um so that's where i would kind of need

    dca flores to advise us or if we're allowed to make that recommendation to the president

    to actually just like you know at least make the initial report to meet the deadline um because i just remember i did the

    first initial recommendations um and then submitted it i don't know i think we had a little bit of time um so we

    were able to get the commission to approve it but i remember drafting the recommendation piece

    um yeah so yeah i was gonna i was gonna recommend that we delegate

    it to uh president bernholtz to complete otherwise i don't see how the deadline

    is gonna be made are we a lot i guess that was our quest my question is are we allowed to

    do it without the full commission's approval to submit the progress report

    uh do you just a point of clarification this is my first uh go around with um

    racial equity uh plans and progress reports um do you remember if the commission made a decision um at the

    last time um this was submitted so we had a couple recommendations i

    think that you know in terms of from a racial equity perspective

    of you know um making sure that we diversify our our boarding commission um and it was

    very broadly speaking and i know and then um the other one was to make sure that we

    do um do a landing acknowledgement but i know that's been more commissioner

    bernoullt's and commissioner zhang did um were actually speaking with

    you know to see if we if the land acknowledgement was the accurate like way of doing the land acknowledgement i

    know there's been a couple conversations so i feel like those were the recommendations that were made and then we

    basically assigned others and i think because it was my transition from president

    onward i think commissioner bernholtz has been the one that's been taking it on so it's unfortunate we're kind of

    ballin telling her right now what she's supposed to do when she's not here but like i do i don't know maybe i'm saying

    this out of like context but i do think that she was the one that was supposed to take it on because i took it on when

    i was president to do the actual recommendation so um i don't know if other folks remember the

    conversation i guess it wouldn't be mostly commercial or dramatic if you do recall but um i feel like the president was

    supposed to just kind of continue to monitor and yes track

    if i wasn't wrong i'm not wrong i mean yeah so um i mean

    that being said and because it's just a progress report um that we

    have to report to the office of racial equity i i would

    i don't think that it is outside of president bernholdz's duties to to do that um task

    um unless anyone on the commission feels otherwise um you know it sounds like that was the

    course in the previous uh reports and i know that you know this has only been probably what like two

    years since this legislation was enacted so we don't have a lot of history on it but if that was the way that um it was

    done in the past then there's you know there would be no issue with continuing to just allow the president um the

    discretion to do it

    yeah yeah sorry i just i just wanna one thing i want to add is that yeah i do think that the

    we did even try to attend meetings to understand what our role is we have very little

    even you know over

    like whether it is have you know we could encourage our um appointed bodies to think about

    diversity and whatnot but like we we it was like it's just this this the work that the department

    has to do versus like the role of the commission has always been a little bit kind of tough because we really have

    very little control over um because we're not going to mandate the operational side that's on the

    department and we'll we'll just review any progress reports and then

    from the commission side we actually have very little that we could do so we can always just encourage it and i think that's what we decided to do was

    you know um see what maybe other commissions are doing and seeing if that's something that we would want to adopt but outside

    of that i think it's very minimal so if commissioner i mean if president bernholt can update it in that

    way i would recommend that to be the process and i think i just submitted it directly to director arn's of our edits

    and he just combined it with his report so from a process perspective

    got it and i assume that there's easy access to the

    report that you did at the start last year so that loose uh president bernholds can kind of

    leverage that okay so if we're say uh dc84 is of course

    saying that that's kind of within the scoop that scope of the president's role i think that means we don't have to

    take a specific action on this is that right

    no i mean unless the director wants to present um the progress report um and just

    discuss what's in the report just so that it could be heard in a public meeting i mean i know

    that he submitted the report um as a document but i don't know for lucy's context um if we wanted to

    discuss it at all it's up to you all i think i think the report that was submitted is

    just the blank form to be completed so i don't think there's some anything substantive for us to discuss

    so i think yeah so i think that um you know it's it's hard to you know president burnholz isn't present um so

    it's tough to say do this but you know that's within her um responsibilities

    are within therefore it's not tough so um so yeah i don't think it would be

    inappropriate to just proceed with um you know we'll ask uh president burnholz to take care of this um item

    okay and and i will support her as needed since i'm on this meeting and who knows

    uh kind of what her her schedule will be so can i um is it possible director

    arn's for um at least a commission to see your progress report because i'm looking at

    the attachment and it's just a blank document is what i'm looking at right now yeah ours isn't done yet either but

    certainly we can send it to the commission yeah i think it's it's just always helpful so that there's like at least

    continuity and if we do need any alignment um so i think commissioner bernholtz can see what kind of progress

    has been done on the department side as well

    that sounds good

    uh any other comments on the director's report

    um or a racial equity progress report

    okay and i believe no public comment

    so you can then move on to the next agenda item

    number nine discussion and possible action regarding items for future agendas

    i i have i have three of them

    i think the dominion contract renewal will be agendized as an item

    we have revisiting the meeting minutes for january 2022 and

    november 20th 2019 and then we have the election plan for

    the april election that will be submitted prior to that meeting

    anything else

    mr gerdonic maybe this could just be under the director's report but maybe the um

    the racial equity progress report that was submitted could be just detached so the public can see that

    as well as what we we submitted

    okay thanks okay any public comment

    i don't see any house raised no okay then uh thank you everyone for your

    patience uh thank you commissioner moby again welcome commissioner dye i will see you

    next month uh this meeting is adjourned at 5 41 pm

    bye thank you hi that's nice working with you bye commissioner

    bye everyone okay bye

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