FIERCE Committee (Elections Commission) Meeting

 

I think we are ready to begin

you ready the codes don't work just FYI okay well we'll do the best we can

all right welcome everyone to the July 31st 2023

meeting of the San Francisco elections commission Fair independent and effective redistricting for Community engagement or Fierce committee meeting

I am the chair Cynthia dye the time is now 603 and I call the

meeting to order before we proceed any further I want to briefly explain some procedures for participating in today's meeting

the minutes of this meeting will reflect that this meeting is being held in person at City Hall Room 401 Dr Carlton

B goodlit play San Francisco California 94102 and remotely via WebEx

as authorized by the elections commission May 17 2023 vote members of

the public May attend the meeting to observe and provide public comment either at the physical meeting location

or remotely details and instructions for participating remotely are listed on the

commission's website and on today's meeting agenda public comment will be available on each

item on this agenda each member of the public will be allowed three minutes to speak or six minutes if you are on the

line with an interpreter when providing public comment you are encouraged to state your name clearly once your three

minutes have expired staff will thank you and you will be muted please please direct any of your

comments to the full body and refrain from directing them at individual Commissioners while providing public

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

comment in writing by 12 noon on the day of the meeting to elections.commission

at sfgov.org it will be shared with the commission after this meeting has concluded and will be included as part

of the official meeting file thank you and now we'll do roll call

Commissioners please verbally State Your Presence at today's meeting after your name is called

uh commissioner Diane president commissioner levolsi present commissioner Parker here with three

meeting three members present and accounted for this Fierce committee meeting we are ready to proceed

okay uh great so uh with that may I ask

commissioner levolsi to read the commission's land acknowledgment

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

who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula as the indigenous stewards of this land and in

accordance with their Traditions the Rama tashaloni have never ceded lost nor

forgotten their responsibilities as caretakers of this place as well as for

All Peoples who reside in their traditional territory as guests we recognize that we benefit from living

and working on their traditional Homeland we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors and

relatives of the ramataj community and affirming their Sovereign rights as

first people thank you commissioner levolsi moving on

to agenda item number two general public comment

public comment on any issue within fierce's General jurisdiction jurisdiction that is not covered by

another item on this agenda is there any public comment from anyone

in the room

yes sir sorry

it's double check the mic is on yes thank you commissioner Parker

okay go ahead yes there you go okay great

okay awesome to be here today um thank you guys for being here hope you guys are doing well my name is Gabe

schreier I am a resident of D1 and a lifelong resident of San Francisco

and I'm here to comment today generally about some of the written materials put

out by the League of Women boaters just to sort of double check currently in their website

uh is the written material that sort of explains their position uh with regard to this redistricting initiative

included is the following statement the San Francisco office of the City attorney said that the city will need to

amend the charter to be in compliance with some of the requirements if the state bills pass or if those State bills

don't pass we'll need to amend the charter to improve our redistricting process

this statement includes a link to the memo the office of the City attorney dated to April 24th

um to the members of the elections commission this memo was written in response to the commission's request for

a written analysis of Bill 1248 at the state so I've read this memo uh I think

Allen over there has read that memo too and I'm I hate to say I'm a little bit confused

um so the City attorney many times trying to find where it says like if those

State bills don't pass we'll need to amend the charter to improve our City's redisticking

process and that's that's that sentence is just not included in that City attorney memo of the elections

commission and so I just sort of want to find out where that comes from uh you

know I know that sometimes stuff can get lost or a little bit jumbled but I just want to keep things straight and make

sure that sort of what I'm reading is totally up to Snuff and

um you know the positions of the organizations I support and also um you know what you guys are trying to

say because I'd like to know that too and so I would just want clarification on that

and I would hope that you guys would be able

to provide that additionally I'd like to point out that throughout the contained written material

uh you know the writers say over and over again that the time to act on redistricting reform is now I've just

you know it happens every 10 years I'm not in totally sure why it's this urgent

I feel like you know there are some things that everyone here would like to change about redistricting

I just want to know why we have to sort of rush into this and if we possibly could you know maybe perhaps get

something to say just on record maybe we'll take a little bit more time

all right so I'll have to say thank you guys so much thank you Mr schreier and uh hopefully we'll

um maybe perhaps be able to address some of your questions in the main item

good evening uh Alan Burr Adele here I'm from District 8. uh and I'm here to talk

about the draft letter of support that you guys put together for 80 12 48.

that you'd like to have uh sent to the Board of Supervisors the second paragraph on page two it reads after a

seven hour hearing the commission allowed its appointees to remain to finish their task which was finally

completed two weeks after the deadline and with a bare majority of the final uh vote on the final map

and so the question is under what Authority did the commission allow these

task force members to remain that's that's an important question under what Authority did the commission

allow these task force members to remain so Deputy City attorney Flores can you

please look into the election commissions bylaws and tell us where exactly in the bylaws it describes the

election commission's Authority to allow members to stay on the task force or to disallow their continued

service I suspect there is no such provision in

the bylaws will you see that this wild claim to Authority is removed from this Draft before it goes out

this isn't just an exaggeration of your Authority this is a complete misrepresentation of it and you're

making it uh to the legislative body that we directly elect

and of course the commission doesn't stop there you continue to deride the redistricting task force as you

complained that they went two weeks past the deadline and with only a bare majority approving the map but this is

most likely the result of the meddling and interference that came from this Commission you have to understand that

claiming in this memo to the Board of Supervisors that you have the authority to allow or disallow the redistricting

task force to serve at the pleasure of the elections commission it paints a broad picture here of the election

commission's inflated sense of what its role is 12 months ago you said the objective

here was write a memo a simple memo to the Board of Supervisors to suggest some

improvements to redistricting and to maybe make some a recommendation of a shorter Amendment

and that simple objective is snowballed into a full-blown lobbying effort that's

personally carried out by this commission at the Board of Supervisors our problem with redistricting isn't

with the appointing bodies of the mayor's office and the Board of Supervisors our problem seems to be with

our only supposed non-interested and non-political appointing body which is the elections

Commission a body that's being used as a tool by a highly political highly

interested League of women's voters Asian La caucus and common cause

how things look from my side thank you Mr Wardell all right uh let's see are there any

uh you know

Let's uh take a look here

oh

a second um are there any hands in the

I do not see any hats from any of the attendees so with that I'm

going to close public comment

yeah I'm trying to stop my timer for some reason I won't stop

all right so I'm closing item two moving on to item number three

approval of the previous minutes discussion and possible action on

previous Fierce committee meeting minutes and we have the minutes from our

previous two meetings were May 31st and June 26 posted

and I want to see if uh there are any edits to these minutes from my fellow

Commissioners or if they look fine no edits no edits no edits

okay and uh ER president Stone's reading of Robert's

Rules we don't actually need to vote on this if there's General concurrence so we will open it up to public comment

any public comment on approval of the previous minutes no one in the room

let's just double check there's no one online that would like to make a comment

I do not see any hands so with that I will close

public comment on item number three and move on to the main event

redistricting initiative discussion and possible action on recommendations for changes to San Francisco's redistricting

process and

you have a couple of comments here uh

before we begin as noted on our webpage the fierce committee is a temporary committee whose purpose is to advise the

elections Commission on finalizing best practice reforms to improve San Francisco's redistricting processes

our May 31st meeting featured a panel of good government experts and a past redistricting Task Force member to

assess the potential impact of pending State legislation on our Fair City

in response to the public our June 26 meeting featured another panel of former

redistricting task force members who shared their thoughts on ab1248 and 764.

updates to the state mandates for independent redistricting and the fair Maps Act of 2019. for those

of you who missed our previous meetings the videos have been posted and we encourage you to view them

we are in the process of transferring the content from our archived website to

the new website platform but in the in the meantime you may download the last item the latest

project plan for the redistricting initiative which now includes direct links to the

educational sessions on redistricting best practices we began over a year ago in June of 2022.

as part of our continuing effort to educate ourselves and the public we thought it would be interesting to hear

from someone involved in reforming local redistricting in an even larger Californian Charter Charter City Los

Angeles I'm delighted to welcome Dr Sarah

sadwani who served as a road as one of the rotating chairs of the 2020

California citizens redistricting commission and is also part of the University leadership team of the LA

governance reform project in Dr sadwani we are fortunate to have

not only an academic expert in voting rights but a Statewide redistricting

practitioner who created the electoral districts that we all voted in last year

and a local redistricting advisor all rolled up in one person

please refer to her very impressive bio posted to this agenda item as we get her

slides up for a brief presentation so uh Dr sadwani I am hoping that you

are able to share content I would love to share content I do have

content to share I don't know how do I do that from WebEx so at the bottom of the your screen you should see a share

button ah got it sorry I'm more familiar with zoom

so I appreciate that it's actually very similar to zoom so okay great it says that I have to set it

up and in my

um oh dear this might be a problem because it uh

looks like it's not allowing me to make changes

in one second do you have a Mac I do yes

it comes up with a screen that shows that I need to click the box for the Cisco WebEx meetings but it is not

allowing me to do so okay let me just uh

yeah yeah did you um did you email me the presentation by

any chance I didn't I certainly could it looks like I might have figured out what I might need to do hang on one second

and if not I will email them to you and honestly it's only a couple of slides so it I can also do it well here we go got

it I think so okay meanwhile I'm hoping that as a panelist

that you are automatically able to share because I do not see where I can make so yeah we are less uh all of us are

less familiar with WebEx as well it looks like

as I might need to meeting and log back in um that's okay we will wait for you you are

our main event okay shall I do that uh if you yeah if that's what it's

telling you you have to do yeah I'm seeing okay let me do that and we'll see

if fingers crossed that it works I'll email it to you also just in case um that still doesn't solve the problem

right that would be great and meanwhile um just for the benefit of the public we

do have a couple of posted items in addition to her bio there's an article

that she wrote as well as a link to the interim report of the LA governance reform project

which has their their recommendations for Los

Angeles at this moment and meanwhile I will

see if

all right

okay are you back I am back let's see if aha now I can do it all right

perfect see if that works thank you for bearing with me

uh through these little technical difficulties that we're all very accustomed to after

the many years of coved believe me it happens at every single meeting unfortunately are you all seeing the

slides no no uh we are seeing our screen but not the slides

what screen are you seeing your we see your desktop uh-oh this is

Commissioner of all say I let's see I don't even oh here we go there you go

stop that let's see let's try again

you might have to pick a particular window yeah I have a couple windows open are you seeing slides now yes yes thank

you go for it perfect wonderful okay great um so I keep presentation super short and then

I'm happy to um you know answer questions or or even

have a conversation um of course I served uh as the redistricting commissioner for the State

of California so um you know love having conversations about redistricting if you have more questions about our process or about

some of the work that we're doing in in Los Angeles um commissioner die of course mentioned

that I uh did serve on on the redistricting commission I also tend to wear many hats

um I'm I am an assistant professor of politics at Pomona College I study voting behavior uh particularly of Asian

Americans and Latinos voting rights public policy and public opinion I serve

as a senior researcher and aapi data and I also have a podcast for spectrum news and I called inside the issues and you

are welcome to to uh join along and subscribe we actually talk quite a lot

about redistricting in Los Angeles and what has led said to the impetus for

reform here in Los Angeles which of course I'm sure you've probably all heard a little bit at least about the

leaked recordings from last fall which was really um you know kind of the the mo gave us

the momentum to do this work um but I think it was something that has been on a conversation for a very long

time that you know a conversation that gets kicked kicked down the road because it's easy to not think about

redistricting when it only occurs once every 10 years yet if you don't do something about it now probably no one's

ever going to bother doing anything about it um so I wanted to start off and just just

recap some of the what we see as successes of the California citizens

redistricting commission from 2022 of course there were many successes of the

2010 uh redistricting commission which I think some of you might know a whole lot about

um and would love to hear your stories as well uh for uh the 2020 commission we

wrapped our work at the end of 2021 actually I probably should have put 2021.

um we collected throughout our process nearly 40 000 pieces of community input

we largely worked on a consensus model navigating you know conflicting

testimony and priorities that we would hear from all different parts of the

state of certainly from San Francisco as well um but of course you know we're working

with you know nearly 40 million Californians and of course there's going to be conflicting testimony about how

people want to see their their lines drawn we also successfully navigated the covid

pandemic it meant that for us we had a very different model

for the commission even when we wanted to go in person and go do a you know a

so-called road tour or Road show of the Commission in order to go see different

regions of the state and to meet with people in person we were dealing with county by county variations in terms of

restrictions on meetings and ultimately it came to the conclusion that it was just impossible to really try and have

meetings in person with the constantly fluctuating and changing scenarios that

were happening various surges that would happen right as we were about to try and have public meetings so there was a lot

for us um to to navigate in addition to a census delay we were also very involved

in advocating for a full on Broad census we were seated just prior to the

completion of the census data and as you might recall the president at the time was was attempting to put a number of

restrictions um on the the Census Bureau including trying to identify

undocumented immigrants which would have a significant impact for the State of

California so we did a lot of advocacy around that as well um in terms of the maps themselves I

think all of the Commissioners would would really point to the fact that we

significantly increased the opportunities for representation

Latinos Latinos of course have been one of the fastest growing um communities in California for many

decades um and uh when we looked at the state and the number of majority minority

districts that were drawn under VRA circumstances um we thought there's probably some more

work that needs to be done here we did extensive analysis of voting rights

considerations throughout the state and significantly increase the opportunities for Latino represents representation at

all levels of governance that we were drawing at the same time we were able to maintain or expand opportunities for

Asian American representation and and maintain um maintain opportunities for African

Americans and what you would often refer to as Coalition districts we also you know by many accounts well you would

argue that we expanded opportunities for lgbtq representation of course that's not covered under the Voting Rights Act

per se but we received a significant amount of testimony um from lgbtq communities throughout the

state and we're very cautious to draw in ways that were respectful to some of those boundaries

um I think the key component that we're all very very proud of for the the CRC

is that we ultimately adopted our maps with a unanimous vote so in this day and

age of hyper partisanship that we see throughout America the United States and

and certainly we also see here in California I personally very much feel that it was

something really incredible to be able to have a Statewide body with individuals from all over the state to

have five Republicans five Democrats and four Independents or no party preference individuals come together and be able to

pass something unanimously I think is something pretty special and in the end we didn't have a single lawsuit brought

against our Maps we had one frivolous one halfway through the process it was thrown out by the California Supreme

Court really it was seen as something trying to delay our work And Delay the maps to

remove the authority from from the commission it didn't succeed and we didn't face a single challenge

um of our maps and that is certainly something that I think all Californians should really be proud of

um and certainly something that that folks in other states are looking to to understand how to how do we do that so I

wanted to talk a little bit about how we did that and also some of my own Reflections on um both as a commissioner

but also as a political scientist about what is unique and special about the California

process I know that my colleague Russell Yi was here with you uh not too

long ago so I'm sure he covered many of these topics as well so I'll try to be brief in that but I did want to share

some Reflections that I think are crucial to the establishment of independent redistricting commissions

and certainly some of these components we've used uh in our efforts to try and and draft

recommendations for the Los Angeles City Council in the development of the

redistricting commission there I shared with commissioner dye also a an article

that I wrote that flushes out these these um um these recommendations and kind of

larger points um so hopefully you've all had a chance to see that and if not happy to share

that with you all so what are some of the keys to Independent redistricting

um one of the things that I had to Grapple with the most was from naysayers the minute we were announced as

Commissioners for myself of course it's a two-step process of being selected to

the to the commission I was uh

which comes from a list of applicants that was fine-tuned and honed down

through multiple stages uh through the state auditor's office which you all no

doubt are familiar with that process and if not I'm happy to answer questions about that um but from the get-go there were

naysayers it was very apparent that there were plenty of people both here in California and outside of the state who

wanted us to fail who wanted the commission to kind of go down in flames to not to pass maps and have that

Authority essentially go back to the courts so that a special Master could redraw the state and one of the common

tropes that we heard is that an independent commission can't do redistricting because redistricting is

inherently political and you know I grappled with that uh concept quite a

lot um is it inherently political or is it instead inherently Democratic right

um at the very core uh of our our constitution is the concept of one

person and one vote but what good is your vote if you're gerrymandered into a

district where essentially your elected official is choosing you and you don't

have the option to choose an elected official who represents or reflects the values of you or your community

um so for me you know when we think about whether or not it's inherently

political yeah it is it is inherently political because ultimately what we're talking about is power as a political

scientist that's the number one one piece what is political science it is

we are chains and people who are who have something to lose are naturally going to

be against such uh such changes um they don't necessarily want the

people to weigh in and have a say about how the lines will be drawn and who will be able to uh to draw those lines and

that's something I'm thinking a lot about in some of my research moving forward as well um so then the real question is if

you're going to have a commission you have to remove as much of the Politics As

okay it's a key to Independence and so how do we do that we have to have things

like inherent transparency it has to be baked into the process in Los Angeles

what we saw was there was a commission it was a political commission and I'll talk a little bit more about that

distinction in just a moment um and yes they would have to uh report

if they had ex parte Communications with with council members why are they having

those conversations at all um I think that's a key question and just noting this is I've actually looked

through all of the data of all of these these um uh conversations that were that were

recorded as you know as ex parte Communications we know that they happen we have no

sense of what was discussed there did they bump into each other in the hall and just say a friendly hello and they

they uh you know the commissioner put that down as an ex parte communication or were they having substantive

conversations uh about the nature of the redistricting process it's really hard to know right so in in you know in

rather than having such a process that's so murky ban such conversations

certainly at this level we took that very seriously we did of course have

some conversations with the legislature with our attorneys present regarding the census delay but we saw that as outside

of the the redistricting process and instead really thinking about the timeline and how things are going to

happen um a rigorous fair and transparent

selection process that includes selection criteria I want to point to this

because California is unique in having specific kinds of criteria that we have

essentially baked into our Constitution that was in the ballot initiative that the voters of California passed about

what we look for in a commissioner other states don't necessarily operate that way in the state of Michigan for example

uh you can simply uh apply and then there's going to be an automatic

um Lottery of those applicants what that suggests though is that you might have a

whole host of people who threw their name in but weren't really serious about wanting to be on a commission or who

weren't vetted in any way so you could have extremists on either end of the political Spectrum you could also have

people who you know threw their name in but really can't make the kind of time commitment

um uh that is required to serve on a commission for example uh at the state

level the initial application stage there was nearly 20 000 applicants but

once we were required to write essays and get letters of support from our friends or colleagues uh that number

dropped down significantly I think down to about five thousand right so 15 000 people that threw their name in for an

application which in the state of Michigan would automatically be drawn out already removed themselves from the

pool when they realized oh I have to put in a little bit more effort here um I think another real key when it

comes to the actual redistricting and line drawing process is having ranked redistricting criteria the fair Maps act

which was already passed by the state of California uh has established such ranked criteria that are based on those

being used by the state's commission and those very simply I think Russell may have talked a little bit about those

things like like um equal population adherence to the Voting Rights Act adherence to

communities of Interest Etc I'm happy to talk more about that if that's if that's something of Interest

and then finally deep Community engagement right at every stage of the

process both the selection committee at the at the state auditor's office as well as

the commission itself took very seriously our mandate to engage the public given extra time because of the

census delay we were out there doing doing um briefings with folks in educational

sections sessions about what is redistricting and how can you get involved because ultimately people have

no clue what redistricting is I often talk about in addition to all these other hats I wear the biggest hat that I

wear is as a mom of three kids school-aged children if it weren't for my job and my general interest in

community and politics I probably wouldn't know a whole lot about redistricting and I certainly wouldn't

be paying more attention that much attention to it so go out and talk to ptas and go talk to to business groups

that are out there or Kiwanis clubs or whomever Boys and Girls Clubs right there's all sorts of ways that that

Californians gather and it's incumbent upon these commissions to go out and

make sure people know what's at stake and how they can get involved and what I write about in this article is what the

key difference is is that Commissioners on truly independent commissions are you

gooders right we're not political operatives we're folks who probably have

never had our name smeared in the media before that we're going to learn real quick what it feels like to have that

happen to us we are folks who are not beholden to political parties or to

Consultants or to fundraisers or to to other other political interests that may

want to try and sway us if we're beholden to someone it's probably to the communities we live in right it's it's

to walking into the grocery store and having your neighbor say how could you draw the line like that they're like

this is this is our motivation is to be seen as successful

um so I really feel like the switch to an a truly independent redistricting commission is a shift in the model of

who's doing that and really bringing forth folks who want to be there who

want the commission to succeed and finally I just want to talk very briefly about our work here in Los

Angeles of course as as I mentioned um at the top of this this conversation

um You probably all familiar with the tapes that were leaked this fall they were pretty crass pretty ugly

um but for me what I thought was interesting was there wasn't a whole lot of the redistricting conversation that I

actually found that that shocking and that's because a lot of those conversations happened at the state's

commission they just happened in public right so take away all that crassness

that we heard and the same kind of conversation and jackieing for power between different communities all of

that happens right different political interests that are out there including current incumbents are going to try and

weigh in on the process no matter what of course they're going to try to save their own districts but the conversation

around it is going to look very different uh when that conversation is actually happening in public with a

group of people that you know don't necessarily care if so and so gets re-elected

um you know after this um this redistricting cycle we've had plenty of

assembly and senators from the state legislature say I'm not going to go back right for me personally that's that's

not a problem to me right if you want that seat my personal feeling is then you should go out and fight for it and

make sure that you're representing people and be responsive and reflective of those people it's an honor and a

privilege to serve and to represent the people so take it seriously some of the the key components to our

efforts to to reform in Los Angeles Los Angeles does have a commission my understanding it's somewhat like the

commission that exists um in San Francisco it is as political scientists what we would refer to as a

political commission it's a bunch of appointees um so everybody gets an opportunity to

put someone on the commission that the commission tends to be fairly large um large commissions tend to not do so

well because there's so many dynamics of the various individuals that have to go into it and ultimately they're beholden

to the politicians who put them in place in the first place so they are there at their at their behest that is a

political commission by definition States like Virginia and Ohio also use

this model both of those States their political commissions went down in flames they were unable to pass Maps the

courts had to get in involved special Masters were called essentially those

commissions failed um because the model is just not great an independent Commission on the other

hand as we've discussed is really trying to select a body of people who are independent from the politicians who who

uh ourselves you know would have a self-interest in this process and who are independent from the special

interests that also might have um such interests Los Angeles is a

charter City much like San Francisco I know it's one of the individuals during public comment

um asked a question about Charter cities um in Los Angeles we recognize that

changing the charter even if the um 1248 or other other bills moving at the state

level were to pass it's a real question of whether or not this is Charter cities

have to comply with that ultimately elections for the for Los Angeles are

are governed by the charter of the city and therefore after these leap tapes a group

of us Scholars um and I think you all have the link to the LA reform initiative

um and if not I'm happy to share that with you all uh got together and said we're going to need ballot language

we're going to need recommendations based on Research based on what's unique about the city of Los Angeles what the

needs of the city of Los Angeles are and so we came together to to develop a set of recommendations for the city uh for

the people of Los Angeles because we really recognize that even if this moves forward at the state level ultimately

Ellie's going to need to pass something and we think that the time is now we are working you know rapidly to try and get

this on the ballot by 2024 political momentum is real

um you know when when this Falls too far out of people's memories there's just not it's just not going to

happen in addition by passing it now hopefully in 2024 will also have it'll

also allow the city and whichever agencies ultimately will be responsible for the selection process and housing

the commission to actually gear up and and plan for it there's going to need to be additional Staffing right we're going

to need a whole plan on how to actually operationalize whatever is is ultimately

approved by the voters we're actually in a process this summer of of doing some

uh both polling and focus groups to better understand what it is that the voters want and would be willing to

support some of the recommendations I should note that there are other coalitions of Advocates that are out

there we are a group of Scholars that came up with our recommendations we are we really saw ours as just a first step

to start a conversation to be able to provide some of the best thinking from

from throughout the country in terms of some of the research on redistricting

we do propose a commission that structured that would look somewhat different from the state's structure the

state structure of course is partisan in nature right as I mentioned five Democrats five Republicans four Independents we propose a nonpartisan

commission the local elections are nonpartisan in nature people do not run with democrat

or republican on their names uh you know when they're on the ballot um and so we propose a nonpartisan

commission that does not look at at democrat or republican as a as a key feature at least as a selection feature

certainly we might want to know that when people apply but not necessarily as the only feature

um we also recommend a 17-member council we went slightly larger than the state's

commission largely because of the sensitivity uh around ensuring um diverse communities and diverse

voices would have a seat at the table we didn't want to go too large because again we're concerned that that

ultimately these commissions only have about three months from the time census data is released to actually pass some

maps but we also want to be really sensitive to the fact that that there's a lot of conversations in in Los Angeles

right now about diverse voices and ensuring a seat at the table for as many possible communities as possible we also

suggest broad broad eligibility to serve the state's commission requires people to be voters right to be

registered to vote being registered to vote however also requires that you are a U.S citizen

um Los Angeles is home to a significant amount of immigrants and we did not feel

like that should be a barrier uh to participation in this in this process for Los Angeles we also suggest

alternates we have seen other uh commissions really um face some

significant difficulties uh when a commissioner decides that they cannot serve um I think common cause and others are

also pushing the um concept uh that at this point just having some alternates who are a part of

the process much like you often would see in juries who sit through all of the deliberations and should they be called

upon they can kind of move up into um into a voting position as needed and

we were also very specific to identify some options for for various city

offices and the ethics commission that the commission that a redistricting commission might be connected to of

course someone has to run a selection process and someone has to help an independent

commission get started when we first got started we had two

recent retirees who assisted Us in figuring out how State Contracting works

and and how to get our badges so that we could get into our office and to even secure office space for us there are

some nuts and bolts that have to be worked out for these commissions and so therefore we we lay out some options but

given the fact that we hadn't had conversations you know with the L.A County Registrar which might be a great

option so to run a selection process we didn't want to call upon them only

um because we also recognize perhaps the city clerk could play a role or perhaps the ethics commission so we identified a

number of different bodies that are permanent within the city or the county

that could potentially Place some of these roles but we didn't want to you know put put too much pressure on any

one of them at this stage but of course we would need to figure that out for the for a natural ballot initiative in

addition to um to the independent redistricting commission as you might be aware the

city of Los Angeles has faced a number of various scandals encryption so in addition to an

independent redistricting commission we also have recommendations that we developed through this La governance

reform project around Council expansion as well as ethics reforms happy to talk about that if that's of interest but I

really wanted to focus in terms of the independent redistricting commission stuff and that's all I have I'm happy to

take any questions or or engage in conversation fabulous Dr sarwani that

was very helpful and I think covered all of your roles you actually answered some

initial questions that that I had about some of the recommendations that you folks made that

slightly differ from the CRC structure and process and you explain those so

thank you for doing that uh I have one initial question

uh related to one of your slides I I just want to be clear then under

your definition then that San Francisco's redistricting task force would be considered a political

commission is that correct from everything I understand about the San Francisco commission if you have

appointees from members that that the commission will

ultimately be redrawing on behalf of and that is by definition a political

commission right and of course San Francisco has been criticized for its political appointment process and at our

last meeting we heard from uh several former redistricting task force members

that they were in fact encouraged to draw safe districts and felt pressured by their poising authorities and and

other elected officials uh your colleague uh Russell Lee stated at our last meeting that a selection process

focused on impartiality was key to the crc's success yet some San franciscans are skeptical

that we can find impartial people to serve on the task force based on your experience do you agree

you know I I was skeptical actually going into the process and I can still

remember very early on right after I was selected taking that

slightly aggressive not aggressive but um you know I was very skeptical of my

colleagues right I really didn't know you know what persuasion they were from or you know

um if they would want to work across the aisle you just don't know that and because of covid we did not have the

opportunity to even meet in person what I learned however um

was that I honestly I feel like the the commission process was was quite

incredible um because we really did have a group of

as I call them do-gooders right right that that yes that want to be impartial

that want to um give Community testimony the benefit of the doubt

um who could also be critical for sure um we didn't always

see eye to eye in terms of how to achieve a goal but we always kept the same goal uh you know amongst the

commission which was passing Maps right and really striving to work on consensus

to get there right to work out issues you know if we had an issue in Orange County let's work it out before we move

into other parts of the map because if we don't figure out Orange County where it's going to send a ripple effect throughout the rest of of our our map

right um so I really do actually think that

um that that the selection process the the the the

um the multiple layers of selection really did lead to a host of individuals who I

mean I think we might be criticized by some as being somewhat moderate right that that we didn't have extremists

extreme Republicans we did not also have extreme um Democrats we you know are really

liberal folks like I talk about this a little bit in the article that I wrote um it was a field of moderates

essentially right that we we believed in the same things just maybe perhaps uh how we would get there was somewhat

different but people really brought with them a sense of listening to One Another don't get me wrong temper is flared at

times it's a fairly stressful job as just especially when you have Community input

just you know sometimes people screaming at you um but I think actually as as Community

testimony flared um as Commissioners it actually made us closer despite being Democrats and

Republicans we actually didn't think about it that much um uh at a certain point it wasn't

something that that plagued us uh day in and day out because I think everyone came to the table

wanting to engage with one another and I honestly I think it's one of the most incredible incredible processes I've

ever I've ever been a part of where you find individuals who who operate like that that's not necessarily the case in

some of these other states um and actually we have a albiana panel

um on August 2nd if anyone is interested I'm happy to send information where we're also talking with folks from

Michigan who I'll share a little bit about the Michigan process as well Colorado Arizona of course is is highly

contentious um so be largely because they're institutional structure how they're established is very different from from

the process that's used here in California it's why California is often referred to as the gold standard

um for for independent redistricting yeah that was very much my experience as

well I thought that my my colleagues were and

also an incredible experience although we did not quite get to the unanimity

that you did so you guys know did us we did actually hear from the uh a former

chair of the Michigan independent redistring commission and she did point out

the flaws of their non-selection process they're completely random process they

ended up with a couple of folks who we're clearly just showing up for a paycheck and and did not did not engage

and voted against all the maps so um great I would like to now open it up

to my fellow colleagues and I know that they have some burning questions commissioner lavosi I had already motion

to me so go ahead Dr satswani thank you so much for this presentation it has been extremely

helpful and a education on the process that you were involved in my question is

out of a concern I have with the application process

um yes you want to have people who are engaged yes you want to have people who

understand but I'm concerned that sometimes the application process is

such that the commission may become full of people who only have

phds JD's I have a JD I have nothing against those degrees however not

everyone who doesn't have a graduate degree is not intelligent not interested

not capable and many people who don't have those degrees have not been given the

opportunity so how do you think you can have an

application process that weeds out people who are just signing up just for the sake of signing up but it's not a

barrier to people who are intelligent engaged interested but may not hold a JD

or PhD yeah I think that

I think that you know of um the the you know the first eight are

selected through random selection and then we select the final six um and so this issue certainly came up

and was one that we grappled with in fact and saying do we need more lawyers on

this commission the first commission had a whole lot of lawyers including folks who had once worked in

Mall death and advancing Justice when it was about in other places uh maybe we need more lawyers and we actually came

to the decision no we don't we're good we'll figure it out um so we only had one person with a JD I

yes I had a PhD Russell I think he also has a PHD but there were certainly folks I believe that don't have advanced

degrees um the question that we were asked to write on has nothing to do with our

degrees but instead had to do with how can we demonstrate our critical thinking

um I think there's a lot of folks that don't have advanced degrees who who uh

have all sorts of ways to demonstrate in their critical thinking my husband doesn't have an advanced degree but uh

you know he's the an entrepreneur right so I think he has an amazing critical thing you're probably better than I do

um so I think it's a about folks who are just able to communicate that they have

generally kind of some some cognitive skills that they would be able to look at a map and and kind of think

critically about it that's really the the basis of it um in fact I think some of my colleagues

were annoyed that I knew about the Voting Rights Act they were like hey you don't get to own this Sarah I was like

okay I know I know I go um so so if anything I think it's you

know we really did believe like hey anyone should be able to serve on this commission and and our job therefore was

to ensure that our materials would speak to a wide audience so when we went out

and did uh Community engagement sessions it had to be for a broad audience it had to be in multiple languages

um you know I I do think what ultimately happened for us was that if you look at

our demographics um we don't have anyone that's that's you know very low income on the on the

commission I think that that is a function I think that's a problem um we should have folks but I think it's

also a function of the amount of hours that it takes the stipend that is

received we did receive a per diem for days worked um but that's not necessarily enough to

live off of it's not a full-time salary there are no benefits that go along with it so if someone is it you know works

with on temporary employment or something of that nature or in a part-time fashion

um it could potentially be challenging to serve on the redistricting Commission

because it they might not be able to make ends meet so I do think that the per diem peace plays a role in all of

this at the same time you don't necessarily want Commissioners who feel like oh I'm going to get rich off of serving on an independent redistricting

commission it is short-term and not a permanent position so it is a fine

balance but I agree I don't think it I don't think it should have to um require a PhD and my understanding is

other political scientists who applied were often removed from the list feeling

like they They Knew Too Much I think I kind of snuck in at a unique moment I

had actually just finished my PhD in 2019 when I applied I didn't have a lot

of my research published yet it was peer review takes a very long time so I had things in the pipeline but it it wasn't

out yet um so you know I think I kind of snuck in under the radar to some extent and

I'm I'm curious if I were to reapply not that I'm going to but if I were I don't know if I would I would make it through

the selection process at this point because my understanding is other political scientists who have applied

didn't make it through through the process I just have one follow-up do you have

any having um have this experience do you have any recommendation thoughts

on how excuse me other than the stipend how are there ways to get low income

community members to be a part of this because that's really you you hit the

nail head that's really my concern is that we have people who have education who have experience

who have jobs who have means making decisions for everyone else and rarely do we have people who have the lived

experience of what it's like to live on a budget to not have much money to not make ends meet be a part of these

conversations and to me that's not inclusive so what are some of the ways or do you have any thoughts

where we could actually change that yeah I think a couple things right so

one the per diem I think some sort of compensation is essential

um again I don't think anyone who's doing this work is trying to get rich but we have bills to pay for myself even

though I had a full-time job I was working a whole lot of nights and weekends it was very helpful to have the

per diem to help you for child care um I think that so some sort of compensation for sure I kind of have

this question about service on any commissions right um Do cities have stipends that people

who are going to serve on commissions who are lower income can they apply for such as some sort of additional support

for their service given their income I think that that could even apply Beyond redistricting commissions right I don't

know of such such opportunities but I don't think some sort of system like that would be a bad idea like why you

know and looking in for example at the city of Los Angeles can low-income people serve on the ethics Commission

you know maybe we want them to right um I share your concern um that we want to have a broad array of

folks to serve on on on not only redistricting commissions but also others and so perhaps there's something

that we need to be thinking about more broadly but but redistricting commissions could be a way to push this

conversation to have additional compensation specifically for folks who are lower income

um to to to help make ends meet if they're going to provide this service to cities or the state

um in addition I would say Outreach I write a little bit about this in the

piece that I wrote um I was asked multiple times to apply

um a colleague of mine asked me I was getting solicitations from non-profit

organizations that we're running support uh you know support sessions to support

people who wanted to apply to help them figure out how to write their essays and what to say

um there were articles in the L.A times that I that I read about how there weren't any you know the the candidate

pool wasn't very diverse it was predominantly white men um and I thought okay maybe I should do

this right so it took three different hits before I actually put in an application um and trust me along the way I had a

plenty of other things going on so I was like oh am I really going to write all of these essays and I I did and I'm glad

that I did um it's not an easy process but that I think speaks to the need for outreach if

you want a diverse set of of candidates to serve then there has to be diverse

Outreach to get those candidates and I think my experience Alone

um shows shows that to some extent right three different hits I had to get to three different times I had to hear the

message apply in order to actually go out and do that so if we want to have diversity if we want to have low income

folks serving um who's going to go out and talk to folks to actually get them to apply who's going to support them in that

process to say no no you can do it we think it would be great right

um you know are there grants being given to non-profit organizations perhaps to do

some of that work um I think Statewide there has been in the past is there some way to to

yeah in fact during our cycle the Irvine Foundation put three and a half million dollars in to do a lot of that community

outreach and when we kind of did a survey of the of the 2010 CRC about half of us came

through that process where we had support from Community organizations to either help with the application process

or heard about it for the first time from a community organization so that

kind of intentional Outreach was pretty important and was supported by philanthropy the first time

I also wanted to mention in San Francisco we do have a program that we've been doing for jury San Francisco

juries to ensure that we have diverse juries right that supports

low-income folks to get additional financial support if they get chosen to

be on a jury so San Francisco actually does have experience with trying to make

sure okay that low-income community members can participate

in our in our system uh commissioner Parker I'm sure you have

some questions and perhaps I know you've asked questions about the stipend in the past

um yeah thank you very much for this presentation um and actually I just like comment before

I have a question is I think um related to the Outreach that's necessary

to recruit diverse members to a commission is you know is making sure that

um there is Outreach to lots of communities in the process itself right

to make sure that even because no matter how many members you have on a commission they will not be

able to know all the experiences of people and so it'll be so important for whoever that commission is to have the Staffing and support and to be able to

have really robust Outreach during the process

um to gather all of the and put and you know maybe be trained in making sure that they're receptive to that input

right that also seems like an important part um question

um I had a few things when I was looking at your interim report for this La reform project

um I noticed that um that the report said that in you know you all have recommended a 17-member

commission and there was the initial process with the 10 but there was some

debate on the how to select the final seven and there was not agreement and I just wondered what was the debate and

why weren't you able to reach agreements I think that there's they're amongst

some of the members they have there was um a lot of concern at the state level

when the first eight were selected through random draw of which I was a part that there were no Latinos selected

um two thoughts on that and then I will answer your question more directly about

what the debate was um one you know I I don't know if you recall but in my slides I said a mostly

transparent selective selection process the one part of the selection process

that is not transparent at the state level is that once the state auditor's office has developed a list of

candidates that list goes to the leadership of the legislature and

Democrats and Republican leadership get to confer and remove names from the list

I forget exactly how many names it is I don't know if Cynthia you you wrote six

per leader so 24 in total really

goes behind closed doors and removes a whole bunch of names we don't know why that happens we don't know what their

selection process is um and it was in that process there's an

um a report from the Schwarzenegger Institute that looked at this in Greater detail it was through that process that

numerous Latinos were removed from the list which ultimately got us to a place where

there were no Latinos selected in the random selection process which was like a statistical anomaly I think it was

like a 0.1 chance or something like that of not selecting any Latinos and we hit

it right um and so I think that there's some who still are very concerned about that

notion ultimately the first eight of the state's commission worked very hard to

ensure that we selected Latinos as well as East Asians because it was myself and

another South Asian woman who were selected so that was something that we

made I made very clear when when we first started needed to happen

um and ultimately we did that being said it is a process that's left up to those first eight personally

I think because as we talked about because it ultimately Commissioners are these do-gooders who are most responsive

to communities and not to politicians um that uh that Commissioners tend to

want to do the right thing um we were flooded with testimony um about how there were no Latinos and

how they were about no East Asians um and we worked to remedy it

um in particular on that point how so one or two of the members in particular

felt very passionately that they did not want the first 10 Commissioners to

select the final seven um and so we left it the language the way that we did because of that I

however of course among the of the belief that the first 10

um should have that responsibility that in fact they would be the best people to

do it because if you push it back to the city ethics commission those are all

appointees from politicians so who's going to end up in the final seven if

you push back to whoever what other another selection agency

I don't know what what's going to govern how they choose right do they need to go in from city council to get their

funding figured out maybe um so maybe they're going to pull strings for for a council member

um you know then that the public isn't really going to know about it won't be transparent so for me

um I voted on that one a hundred percent that the first 10 Commissioners selected should be the ones

um selecting the final seven others didn't didn't agree with that

um thank you um and I can imagine there's well I'm curious if they had a different suggested process for the final seven

and also wondering um you know to help

um institutionalized institutionalize a process that that would be inclusive that would kind of pull those values on

how do we select those others what sorts of things feel really important to us representing whatever the geographic

location is um that that you know maybe there's some way to suggest I I don't know exactly

how you would do that um but but did they suggest a different process for those final seven or no

no they didn't they said whatever the selection body is they should check it

um I take issue with that because I think any other selection body potentially has

has hidden hidden interests um so I think that leaving it to the

first Commissioners to figure out the Commissioners are going to be most responsive to the testimony that they

receive and I can tell you at least for the city of Los Angeles we have a very engaged

um electorate so if you ever tune into an LA City council meeting my goodness gracious there's plenty of public

comments so any if the first 10 are selected they are going to hear from the

people of Los Angeles about the kinds of individuals they should be selecting it will be for them to to discuss and and

and debate but then that discussion and debate is public if it bounces back to

an ethics commission if it bounces back to some other City agency how will we know

um what process they used to to determine um those other other seven Commissioners

It ultimately could become a political commission again some sort of mixed system which is what they have in Colorado they have half political and

enough independent and it led to a lot of of issues between the Commissioners thank you

um and actually just sort of a follow-up to that um and you talked a little bit about

this especially as you were talking about wanting to um for LA and I know this is La it's not

San Francisco but you know just talking about your La recommendations um you know wanting to open it up to those who may not be registered voters

but you have there's also another listener interim report of both objective and subjective criteria and I

wondered you know I'm seeing here um for those who you know in the public

who are listening who may not be looking at this report the objective criteria is adults over age 18 residents of La at

the time of service and preceding three years disclosure of political donations amount to be TBD

and the subjective is letters of recommendation or some other evidence of community engagement and it excludes

candidates for commission appointments who are folks like um I'll just read through the list

really quickly and then my question for you Sarah is just you want to say anything more about why this is the list

you landed on because it's a little different than it sounds like what is for the series The CRC um the excluded candidates are current

elected office holders former elected office holders former candidates for office city employees non-exempt it says

civil servants can serve appointees are not eligible political appointees by mayor council member other La elected

official registered lobbyist campaign staffers who are paid and then spouse or close relatives to any of the above so

do you have any anything that you can share about why that's the list of criteria and why it's a little different

from CRC yeah we were really thinking it's actually not terribly different from CRC

there are um certainly there's there's disclosures of campaign donations and disclosures of any family members that

are um serving in office or who have ever ran for office

um all of that has to all be disclosed though it may not be disqualifying

um we really recognize that in Los Angeles there is a political class of

individuals um people who serve on a commission with the hopes of running for office one day

people who get appointed who then want to move up in in some other capacity we

are trying to take the politics out of this process so if folks want to run for office one day that's fantastic but you

can't draw your district and then go run for office you can't draw your district

and then have your wife or your partner go run for for office and we wanted to

make that very clear that we want folks who are engaged right if you work at a

non-profit organization of course we want you to apply if you work at the

Jewish Federation absolutely right if you work in South La for sure right if you're an environmentalist definitely

but if you're already on that path of the political class and kind of seeking The Climb

um that's that's going to keep the politics in the in the room and I think one of

the real differences is that in Los Angeles is a big place

um it's not as big as the state of California though I'm from LA County we

were drawing all over the state and parts that I've never even visited before and I had hoped to visit but we didn't because of the pandemic when you

go down to the city level it's much more people are much more closely connected

um to the the governance structures um and that was something we wanted to be very mindful of and to have a number

of of prohibitions um to ensure that that

um we're keeping the politics out of the process to the greatest extent possible Right is it inherently Democratic or is

it inherently political the politics is always going to be there so how do we insulate this commission as much as

possible from the politics that that exist okay thank you

um my two final questions I'll just share them both with you and um and the first one is uh when in one of

the conversations we've been having uh in this committee on the commission is who is the right appointing authority

um you know here in I mean every city is different right like I'm not going to pretend that La is you know the same as San Francisco

um but it's it's hard to decide what that trusted Authority might be here and

um as I'm sure you're aware ab1248 um you know one of the the first listings there would be the ethics

commission which San Francisco as you also have referred to does have that body and there is there are some folks

who think that might not be the right appointing position uh appointing authority and and so my question to you

is because there were some there's a section of the governance reforms related to the ethics commission down in

La um I'm wondering if there is something in all of that research you all have

done that has identified characteristics of a trusted um appointing authority that might be

interesting for us to consider our City attorney has interpreted ab1248's implication on San Francisco that the

ethics commission would be the appointing authority should that pass and and we fall under that so that is my

first question is there anything that would help what are characteristics of a trusted appointing authority and then

the last one is just have you had any response to these recommendations so far since you all published this last month

um that you might have to share and that's it um in terms of appointing authorities we

left it open as I mentioned because we didn't want to put any one at one um

Agency on the hook uh we actually have quite a lot of reservations about the

ethics commission not that we have problems with our ethics commission we actually think it's it's doing a great

job and some of our recommendations are to strengthen the ethics commission But ultimately those are appointees of the

council president of the mayor of the of the um controller of all the elected

officials in in the city um so we can see that there could potentially be problems with that that

being said I think that the permanent staff members of our ethics commission

are very professional have been our our predominantly lifelong public servants

and so one of the things about our ethics commission is that I think ultimately it would be the staff that

does it the commission itself might need to just oversee that process but I think if the staff were the ones to do it it

could see that being okay because those are our lifelong folks and they have been there typically

far longer than the Commissioners themselves um I we also point to some other possible

options the city clerk they I believe are appointed by the mayor that's

probably okay right the mayor um is not being redistricted

um and so therefore much like the governor appointing the state auditor

is at least somewhat removed and then they can identify staffers who actually do the selection process that's how it

operates at the at the state auditor's office they have a panel of three one Democrat one Republican one independent

and they host all of these public meetings to review the applications and to host the interviews Etc we also for

us identify the the Los Angeles County Registrar um that's of course a county level body

um but they are they are the ones who um have the the selection process they

run the selection process already for the Los Angeles County independent

redistricting commission so they're already doing it so is it possible then and they run the elections for the city

of Los Angeles so is it just possible for them to to run that selection process and potentially even use

candidates from both pools if you live in the city and you want to want to be a part of an independent redistricting

Commission maybe you could be in the pool for both County and City I don't know I mean I think there's a lot of pieces to work out there there also has

to be will from some of these agencies to take it on and we recognize that there's some politicking around that

um so we've certainly had a very robust conversation but I think again it's really about selecting an agency where

you can remove as much of the Politics as possible and I think an Ethics Commission in the

case of Los Angeles could be okay but there might be some better options as well your second question I'm so sorry I

didn't write it down can you remind me that yeah sorry I have all these questions the public response been to the

recommendations in the interim reports so far particularly related to redistricting yeah you know there's not been a ton of

response to the independent redistricting component because at this point pretty much all Advocates

um want an independent commission it's just a question of like what are the finer details of how we set it up I think

there's been a lot of folks that love the idea that it's residents um and not uh based on voter

registration um you know I talk about it like I have uh documented students who are fantastic

and fabulous and have lived in Los Angeles their whole life they would make great Commissioners

um but currently can't serve in many capacities so um we've definitely had a very positive

response to that I don't think people buck and I too much at the the 17

members versus 14 members I think people generally feel comfortable with it because the the real key coming out of

those recordings was this simmering tension between racialized communities

so whatever can help us get there I think is generally viewed quite

positively and at this point there's not a lot of approach back to the idea of an

independent redistricting commission we've heard far more about our Council expansion proposals

um than uh than the redistricting Commission because in general everyone's

pretty much on board that we need one it's just a question of what are the the finer details and I think the way we set

it up we you know as as noted right we didn't identify one agency right so I

think there's conversations to be had about where that would actually um lie

thank you you're very welcome any more questions

I have um I have a question uh so the the California commission has a special

super majority requirement for Final maps and other key decisions the 2010 CRC achieve close to a

unanimous decision for the on the maps and of course your commission beat us and did agree um

[Laughter] this requirement affect how you worked

uh with your fellow Commissioners throughout this process

the commission shifted throughout the process

um we had longer than your commission did because you all fought to get us extra

time and we had which thank you but thank you very much um and we faced the census delay

um so we had a lot more time together though our time was not in person

um we got to know each other through some of the adversity we faced

um we had some staffing hiccups along the way and we had to find a new new Chief Council we had to find a new

executive director um I think those experiences actually brought us closer together as a

commission um in trying to sort out the uh the the

census delay right um you know those were those were big

questions that we had to ask ourselves and and I think um you know being I don't want to say

completely inexperienced but but relatively so certainly for me I hadn't sir some of the members like served on

school boards and such things I had not um you know sometimes I think

as individual Commissioners we struggled to just land on a final decision on things

we would talk about it and talk in circles and talk in circles and talking circles um and so sometimes it was challenging

to get to bring the whole group to a point and say okay this is what we're gonna do

um you know but I I um I think over the course of time we

really developed strong bonds I mean I feel like I have 13 friends for life

um that uh in the end of it it wasn't that hard

because we had been committed to work on consensus while we were drawing

um we knew otherwise that we would constantly be circling back and circling back right that there was ultimately

communities of interest that we couldn't keep together in an assembly map but maybe we could do it in the Senate map

right or maybe we could do it in the Congressional map and so so we had to make those compromises but I think we

all came to it um truly everyone brought a lot of professionalism to the process and truly

a real desire to complete the work completed on time to do the best job we possibly could for the people of

California to be responsive to the testimony that we received and to weed

out the more political testimony and you know the more the testimony that was more political in nature which became

very apparent um at especially as the process continued and to talk about that right

we just talked about it openly I don't think Sam locardo really cares about about about splits in San Jose I think

he wants to run for for congress right so so I think we bonded in in many

ways and I think that was was key um because when it came down to it we

didn't have any questions about whether or not we were going to really get maybe

there was one commissioner that was on the fence because there was one community of interest that that wasn't kept together but ultimately it we

didn't we didn't have a lot of concern about passing the maps once we actually got through most of the process we knew

every everyone was really coming along on on that train

um and and for the this localized one that we're that we're um suggesting you know for the city I uh it would be

nonpartisan in nature so I think a majority vote would would be fine I think the super majority model for the

state's commission is is really essential because of the varying parties um that are that are on the commission

yeah so the state we had a special super majority as opposed to just a super majority

um and I agree with you at the at the local level it's non-partisan and there

shouldn't be a special super majority um but there is some question about whether it should be a super majority or

not because uh we heard from members of the very first

redistricting task force which is back in you know 2001 2002 uh as well as the

most recent one that there was a a 5-4 faction that you know voted together

um all the time so there were a lot of 5'4 votes all the way through and

um so that was the reason I was asking you the question because it's very interesting to hear you describe your experience because it's so

much it totally Echoes my experience we also had a commitment to consensus

throughout the process we rarely took votes unless we had to we moved together by consensus

and as a result uh you know we also we're not concerned about passing the

maps eventually since we were kind of bringing everybody along and airing any disagreements and working through them

as we went along but if you know you have the vote the

question is do you have motivation to to work toward consensus anymore

yeah yeah and that's I think that's a fair consideration yeah

so um great I think we've talked about a number of the

issues we've talked about in a previous that we had questions on any anything else you can think of or

no or we can let our guests go she's been so generous with her time and

dealing with all the technical issues so yeah so we really uh really appreciate

your time and sharing the breadth of your experience with us today you are

welcome to stay on and listen to any discussion but I totally understand if

you would like to go back to your go back to your evening so well thank you so thank you so much

for having me it's it's really been a pleasure really fantastic questions that were asked and please let me know if if

you know other questions arise in the future I'm happy to be available too great thank you so much Dr sedron you

have a good evening take care all right so

um any thoughts or Reflections that you'd

like to talk about based on the discussion

no questions I um appreciated the information her

thoroughness and the presentation and it's food for thought and I hope members

of the public will um go back and watch this who are interested because I think she gave us

some really important information I did appreciate her thought about the

appointing authority potentially being staff of the ethics commission I think

that's an idea that it I don't think it is an idea that

resonates with me and that I think could be something that could work here in San

Francisco since there are questions so I I appreciated that and I think

we have to really think about Outreach and the commitment to diversity not just

racial diversity but economic diversity particularly in a city like San Francisco

which is losing its middle class there are lots of things and and

it's easy for it to become stacked with people who have a particular experience

it is very important that low-income people be a part of the process because they're we have low income people who

live in the city and so they should be a part of the process so I would I would like to know more I would have liked to

have heard a little bit more about how we do that but I do like her idea which

you informed me about our jury system which I think people who are at a

certain income range maybe they don't get a stipend people who are at a lower income range perhaps they get more

um that's what Equity is yeah everybody gets what they need not everybody gets the same thing so

um I found it very informative she's obviously very enthusiastic about the work she did and I read the article

thank you for passing that on and the article is posted for the public too yeah I think that um

I'm interested to hear what people think because it was just recently published

so I'm interested to hear what others think on that yeah just to respond

um uh I did think of one more question that I'm now going to have to email her uh I

was I thought of it while she was talking and then I forgot to write it down but for example when we heard from Long

Beach they have a very interesting selection process where they have I think it's um one judge and one Lawson

yes and one yeah so it's actually um you know a kind of a mixture of people

from different walks of life and expertise yeah and they form the

selection entity so um and I think we need to practice using

the term vetting and selection entities that's right it's like we're getting away from appointing authorities

um so uh and I wonder if some combination of

um you know people representing different agencies approach to the city uh would my might be you know the best

thing for San Francisco because we are having challenges even Among Us

having a strong opinion on whether it's one or the other and I I think there's also maybe some value in thinking about

uh are there different agencies that are assigned different parts of the

process like I could see for example there are certain agencies that are much

better at Outreach particularly to marginalized communities and maybe there would be a

different agency that's responsible for the Recruitment and building the candidate pool as opposed to the vetting

as opposed to the vetting and selection because for that we need an agency that can run a process

you know that's demonstrated they can run a process that's demonstrated they can run a process if they can follow criteria that they can vet people

against that criteria um and and choose the 40 most qualified

right if we were to follow the state legislation and that may be a different

set of skills that's a really good point and so I think we don't have to limit ourselves to just

thinking you know who's the one right that maybe we can be a little creative

and think about who has the best skills like we've talked about how Okay the

elections commission's nonpartisan that's already a step in the right direction but we don't have the Staffing and the resources to run a process right

right that it would be difficult for us but the Department of Elections run stuff all the time right and they do

Outreach all the time there are a couple of agencies the elections being one of them that that's

an example of one that could work one that could work for outreach in particular

another thought that I had this is something that I brought up when voters not politicians approached me about what

to do in Michigan and they said yeah we want to copy California but we don't like your

we don't like your selection process because we don't trust anyone we don't trust anyone in government no one we

don't trust anyone to to be the selection to be the betting uh Group which is why they have none other thing

but that's like they went way on the other end of things and so you know yeah

there should be some process ground I think um I like the idea of

I mean that's Innovative what you're what you're proposing is to think instead of thinking as we do tend to

think in cities there's one body that needs to do it having a body that is or

having a split responsibility in the process I think could be very valuable as well as

um improving the responsibility too right and and also making it more Equitable in

the sense that you have um particularly one group that would be

a part of the Outreach to do the Outreach and making sure that communities and and and stating we are

making a concerted effort to build the pool build the pool in a way that it has

not been built and to make sure that people who traditionally don't participate in these processes

participate and one of the other things so we had the same problem at the 2010 commission

with everyone was you know pretty educated right and in

fact the the California state auditor actually said to us you know we were required to look at these different

diversity factors and we really tried but when you have all these requirements

you end up getting certain kinds of people I mean I often described it as as

applying for graduate school right I mean writing all these essays getting letters of recommendation

um you know filling in this very complicated application I mean it's no wonder we went from 36 000 to 5 000

immediately when and that's a barrier it's a huge balance barrier right yeah and so so when I was talking to the

folks in Michigan about what could they do to encourage people who you know

didn't have the advantage of a fine education and yet we're still you know involved in their communities and would

be great commissioners engaged yeah my suggestion then was take out the essays I said make them make

them videos right because it takes or make that an option yeah I mean it takes a certain

level of Education to feel comfortable writing a set of essays and I think

that's a barrier and if people can communicate verbally that's that's all

that's required on the commission is that you communicate you listen you're a good listener you can listen to the

public and the community and understand what they're saying and that you can work with your fellow Commissioners to

come to hopefully a consensus but to come to a decision right and and you

know and have the critical thinking uh abilities to provide a rationale for why

you're proposing the map look one way versus something else and be able to communicate and discuss this with your

fellow Commissioners it does not require you to write a graduate level essay and so I felt like that was a barrier that

was unnecessary in the California process and so that was my recommendation to folks in

Michigan if they wanted to broaden the pool right is to not require written

essays to give people the opportunity to do video essays instead to talk about to talk on

you know anyone can make a video these days and talk about why we should believe they have the ability to be

impartial right what are the examples of critical things I mean instead of having to write which I think is a barrier I

mean how many essays did you have to write I think we had to write 5 we had to write one each on each of the

requirements the ability to be impartial uh an ability to the critical thinking

skills uh understanding of California's diversity

I mean they weren't long but they were still essays yeah I mean if anything I

think the application limited how long they could be uh right but the point is I think there were and then one about

your background and why you wanted to be on the commission and I don't remember what the other one but I think there were five essays and then there was an

optional sixth one and of course because you know because I'm me I wrote the sixth one too but my point is that it

was right it is something that attracts a certain kind of person it will feel like a barrier to other people and and

people with a certain skill set I mean it's just that's just the truth um and and I think we do as a society have

a bias towards people who have education as being more intelligent and being more capable and maybe more seriously not not

everyone but I think generally that's a bias we have absolutely so we tend to

listen to people who have graduate degrees Yeah so I think the idea is great I think I I like the idea of a

combination um I applied for Fellowship that I finished in April it was a academic a

school Academic Year fellowship and part of the application process was video and that was not comfortable for me so I

thought it was because I'm much more comfortable right writing an essay and

you know but it could be an option but it was it was a requirement to do both

and I think it was good for me just on a personal to kind of get me out of the

analytical part so I think there's some value to I do think there should be some essay I

don't think it has to be five um but I do like the idea of video because we are in an age of

people being able to articulate and voice their opinions via video and that and I think that's something that should

be valued so I definitely think that that's an idea that that would would be

beneficial and knock down some barriers for people who may not have considered

it well and also her comment for Los Angeles that they are only requiring a

residency like for a certain amount of time rather than being a voter for a certain amount of

time um I think that's interesting in San Francisco we allow you know

um in School Board elections right we allow non-citizens to vote in School Board elections

um not all of the members of the last redistricting task force were citizens in fact so that would be consistent with

what we've always done in San Francisco so I think that is absolutely something that you know we should think of to

broaden the pool in San Francisco um yeah I I think

um we could probably spend a lot of time talking about um how exactly how the selection process

works but maybe when we get to recommendations eventually there is just some component of that that suggests

um a way to um options uh for if there is some sort of

a talk about your critical thinking skills or whatever that it's not necessarily essays it's other ways to

demonstrate that you have the ability to make an argument and to communicate with your fellow Commissioners that's really

important and there should if there is that level of selection criteria because I know there are some who don't like

just the completely random right because then you just don't know what skills that you're going to have so if you're selecting skills that people might have

it's the ability to communicate with other people that's really important and right like not everybody can not

everybody's good at doing that in writing or wants to but they're very effective communicators and so finding some way to get that I think just having

some kind of a statement could be useful um just to also just related to the

um the selection agencies and things like that I I have had several folks suggest

to me that which I think is is really fair is that you know San Francisco has

a um a partially political appointment process right now right if there's two

of the appointing bodies are political um in nature and then one is

um one is not but the thing that's good about that is the diversity you know that it's spread out it's not just one

appointing body you know and so it's just an interesting idea of having

selection multiple selection and if you can find a trusted selection

body or agency then maybe that's not

necessary but that that trust thing and so sometimes diverse diversity or

collaboration and you know agencies helps with trust for people because it's not localized just to one

um so it's you know it's an interesting they consider I think some folks have made that suggestion of the state legislation as well

um and so the one thing I would caution is that uh you know I like the idea of using different agency strengths in in

working out this vetting and selection process and I also am wary of making it too complicated you know like yeah

well the state process is cool and our city is not always good at coordinating its agency's responses and work doesn't

mean that we shouldn't expect it but I just think we would just be careful about not making anything terribly complicated

um but collaborative sure if they're like two agencies that could work together that could be interesting so yeah I think I would like to I'm

sorry Cynthia I'd just like to add to commissioner Parker's um

comment I think another skill set will would have to be a good listener

um and really emphasizing that because it's about listening to the community

it's about listening to the community and it's about listening to your fellow Commissioners as well so I think that

would have to be I think that should be something that should be a recommendation along with the ability to

communicate yeah it's interesting uh this was in the catch-all uh category of

relevant analytical skills and I think that when the um this the state auditor

was the one who put together the specific regulations on exactly how they were going to to

you know to choose uh and they were looking for analytical skills in terms

of understanding data right because you have to look at census data and you have to be able to interpret it and draw

conclusions from so they were thinking of that but then they realized when they watched

us how important the teamwork piece was and the collaboration and the ability to

to you know to listen to each other to to be willing to the impartiality piece

was the willing to change your mind kind of part but um so I noticed when they started

recruiting for the 2020 commission this time they added the teamwork piece and other stuff to the list of relevant

analytical skills because of course that's key it's it's it it actually was very very important but the fact that a

totally different group of 14 citizens you know went through this

process 10 years later and had very similar experiences is a little bit like

encouraging to me you know that they um they face some of the same challenges came up with some of the same Solutions

and of course not a competition but they did beat us and they it did get a

unanimous decision um okay um

I think that's uh any other thoughts on this I wonder if I would

just like to say thank you commissioner die for um bringing Dr saswani

um I that was fantastic and and extremely helpful so thank you yeah and I hope it's helpful to members of the

public too to provide some perspective on this uh I wanted to provide a couple

of updates uh as we've met we promised to monitor the state legislation while

we continue our educational efforts so both ab1248 and ab 764

are making their way through Senate committees they've both been through at least one and they're on to the next one

I did want to let the public know that the League of Women Voters and I met

with president peskin and supervisor Melgar last week to answer any questions

they had about the elections commission's work today and

um and and the and the state legislation and we provided all the same information

that has been provided to the public you know links to all of our past educational sessions and testimony from

from experts uh and they will be working with the city attorney on drafting specific

legislation on which the public can provide input during their process and

they're committed to do a community input process to consider all these different

possibilities any updates from you guys since the last

committee meeting I would say they only update I have is a

personal update um our last fierce

committee meeting I suggested that we stop we take a pause and that we get

more information from the community and that we wait to see what happens with

the state legislation I've been on vacation for the past two and a half weeks from my day job and so I've had

some time to relax and reflect and I want to move forward

the more I think about it the more I understand

part of the reason that I had that reaction to be completely blunt and

honest was some of the reaction that you experienced and the direct

statements about you being a racist some of the statements that we as a

commission needed to Garner trust after our vote to open up the process for

director arts and I got a little I got a little nervous and I realized that this

is very important to fairness in elections fairness and

representation and that it is absolutely our purview as members of this commission to make

recommendations to the legislative body the Board of Supervisors to move forward

with this the time is now because the current

Board of Supervisors do not have a vested interest in the outcome

and that's the most important piece and that my fears I'll be honest being the

only black commissioner it's easy to insult black people and

black women and so I've I felt a little fear but I've thought about it and

this is really important and this is a place where we can make a difference in

making sure that this city represents all communities

um and when you I did a little history of our district elections and what happened and why we moved from district

election at large and I think there's an agenda

um from other groups to kind of attack us and I want to say to you

commissioner die that um I've got your back and I am so happy and

grateful that you asked me to be a part of this process and we'll deal with what comes but I think

we need to move and we need to make these recommendations ultimately obviously it's up to the people

um in how they vote it's up to the Board of Supervisors based on our

recommendations but we need to move because time is of the essence and we

don't have 10 years that's a myth we need to put

the process in place to have a independent redistricting task force in

the future so I just wanted to publicly state that to you as committee members

that I I want us to move forward I want us also to educate the public to

continue to educate the public and I want us to hear from as many different

voices as possible from the public I don't know how else we can do that

I don't know if we have the authority to put our information in other places so

that we get more opinions from the public there are more people interested and we're hearing

from a few I welcome those voices but they're a minority so I'd like to hear more so I definitely wanted to to make

that clear and I hope that makes sense thank you thank you commissioner lavalsi

um any thoughts before we take some I think I think public comment for the site yeah maybe just a question a couple

questions um so um commissioner die when you said that um

supervisor present pestkin and supervisor Melgar are going to be working with the city attorney to draft legislation when you met with them did

you let them know that the commission doesn't have recommendations yet as of yet and so do you know what they're

moving forward with um well I I believe they're going to

you know look at 12 48 and 764.

um I also recommend that they look at the Long Beach measure DDD

as a potentially model legislation

um I don't know what their time frame is we just wanted to make sure that they had enough time to think about it

and to plan for a public input you know process

we were you know we we shared that there are some items that I think

are probably no-brainers um I don't see San Francisco getting rid

of a Citizens body for example um but uh you know for example this

question of a vetting or selection Authority is very much an open discussion

uh which I don't think they know the answer to either

so um so I think that they're just kicking it

off to start drafting something because they just need to get the ball rolling

if they want to consider an early date in 2024 or if they want to take more

time and I'm like I said it's their process right so but

yeah that's kind of where they they left it that they wanted to get the ball

rolling and start talking to people and thinking about it

okay um thank you and then um commissioner lavalsi so I just want

to make sure um when you were just sharing what you where you have arrived over these last

few weeks so so you're saying you don't think we should wait until there's a result with ab1248 before making

recommendations to the board okay and that um close perfectly into my

question that I wanted to ask after your question with commissioner Parker is

in your meeting commissioner died did they say they wanted a timeline or some

some to some guidance from us or within a certain period of time I think they would love to have guidance from us but

I think that they were very clear that they also don't need it guidance from us uh but it would be appreciated yeah I

mean they know we've been studying this for over a year so obviously they'd like to know if we came to any conclusions

um but you know if the full commission you know doesn't feel ready right you

know they have a schedule that they want to work with you know so I think to

preserve all options they wanted to get the ball rolling

um I don't know what they will decide in terms of the actual timing I think that

you know they wanted to be able to think about all these things and I'm sure they'll be having a lot of discussions and then

they will have a public process that allows everyone to come and speak to them and and and

help them decide what is best for San Francisco uh

but I think as you most eloquently said yourself commissioner Parker I mean

everybody agrees that the the process could use Improvement so on that there's a lot of agreement

so uh and I think you know

I think this was brought up uh at our last full elections Commission meeting the reason that that we don't have as

much time as we think uh for example just to tell you what happened in California the voters First

Act was passed by the voters in 2018 and it took multiple tries to get it on

the ballot so you can only imagine how many years good government groups

had to work to actually get it be to be to be a ballot initiative that we as

voters voted on in 2018 and then the California state auditor

was a bunch of accountants right was completely surprised that they were they

were chosen as the vetting and selection Authority and all of a sudden had to learn how to do PR and an Outreach

process and all this other stuff which is why I think we can think more critically about who actually is more

naturally like you know has those skills that we could do better

um and they took 18 months to draft the legal regulations

and then they took another eight months to run the selection process right and

then we only had seven months to actually draw the lines that's because it took so long for them

to go through the bureaucratic steps of how to interpret the Constitutional Amendment operationalize it put staff in

place you know hire staff to do things that accountants were not naturally

designed to do um and I think we have to account for the timing will take our Fair City to

implement anything though so anyway

um like I said uh I think it would be a shame if we didn't

feel ready to make recommendations after spending so much time in a pretty methodical process that a time that has

exceeded the length that the redistrating task force did their job at this point

um but uh it's also really important that people understand we are not trying

to rush this we have been taking our time we are trying to make sure that members of the public who have not been

engaged with us for the entire year have the ability to catch up right why we are taking a pause that's why we are working

really hard to try to get the links on the website and we at least you know have it in a place that's much more

available it's very unfortunate that we had this you know website platform switch in the middle of this that it

made a lot of our previous content not so available so we we want to answer any

questions that right the public have so that um that they understand the rationale

for this right and I think that's that's really important that we've done a lot

of work there's a lot of work to do and that as a body that is

policy making body recommendations to the Board of Supervisors on this particular

type of um regulation is I think very much

something that we can do um well appreciated

they were very clear to say that they didn't need right they didn't need enough recommendations that they also

believe that there is room for a lot of improvement in the process but that they can leverage all of the work that we

have done regardless okay and either way for their own timeline reasons they

wanted to get the ballroom well because you know until you know anyone can have

a real conversation it's not unlike redistricting I mean we didn't get really useful actionable Community input until

we put out draft Maps right and then people threw Tomatoes right and then we got very very clear you've got the line

wrong move it over one street I mean then we got very you got three feedback feedback and I think we've been talking

about you know these these reforms at a conceptual level until

we see what uh our what the legislative

body wants to put forth as a first draft they're not going to get very specific

responses either so I think they're trying to do that so that they can start having that conversation

uh but you know we will continue to do everything we can to support the public

and being able to participate actively in that community and prep process that they will run and I think that's our job

is to make sure people are informed enough and understand

what's behind each of these reforms what it's intended to accomplish whether it has accomplished those things

or not in other you know another jurisdictions uh and whether it's

something that they believe therefore would work or would not work in San Francisco right and I think that's the

kind of actionable feedback that would be useful to the Board of Supervisors as they try

to draft something uh why don't we take public comment now

and then we can talk a little bit I know we've talked a little bit about

commissioner Parker raised a point about um

probably discussing some talking points so that our role as a elections commission is really clear versus the

Board of Supervisors and also you know why we're taking why we took this on

um and uh we've all started to get some media inquiries so we just want to make sure we're on the same page right in

terms of representing what our committee does and what the status of our work and timeline that we see ahead okay

absolutely uh and the full commission of course is on recess for for August

we can continue to um uh to have another meeting again for to

bring the public up to speed to address any questions that they have uh but the full commission won't be able

to move on this until September anyway which I think will work really well

because I know there's more committee meetings at the Senate before it gets to

the senate floor so the timing might actually work out perfectly in terms of the Senate being done with their peace

um on or around the time that we will be meeting as a full commission right and I

think for us to come up with a with a timeline that

we could reasonably agree upon and whether

the commission as a whole agrees on making recommendation I think that's something we

yeah I think it's going to tell well anyway because I think that the Senate has to be done with their work in in

early September or second week of September somewhere around that it's I think it's right before our full

commission meeting so we will know how the Senate has acted so at that point we

will know how our legislature has so we will know how the Senate has acted we don't know if the governor signs or

vetoes right right and so there would be an opportunity should the full Election

Commission want to to take action before the governor signs or doesn't sign

of okay so why don't we take some public comment right now uh on this agenda item

and then we can we can go over some talking points after this so with that

um the public commenter in the room

Mr Birdo we would love to hear what you thought of the presentation today and in

particular if there are specific items that you would be interested uh topics

you might be interested in hearing more about in the future good thank you

um let me start my timer here so I know how much time I've got we have a timer uh

there we go um thank you for having the guest from La uh

um a couple of things uh you know the the thing that jumped out at me is is that

she talked about political momentum being real that's what her comment was political momentum is real and she said

that because she said Now's the Time now is the time to capture that political

momentum so let's all just understand that that's why we're on the time frame

that we're on it has nothing to do with supervisors uh not being they're not

voting on this who will be in office in 2030 there's a number of reasons why that's not a case can't make it right

now I've only got three minutes but I'll be making that case with you uh commissioner if you if you like

um and another another uh thing we hear from uh the chair uh is

the argument that we have this looming um imposition of the boilerplate from

the 12 48 uh how that's going to take away

our flexibility to craft our own uh redistricting rules and you know

that's that's nonsense too but I've got to just use the word nonsense because I only have three minutes here I'd love to

have a conversation with you so if that sounds harsh pardon me for that um

but we saw today again that it's the political momentum and that is short-circuiting

uh process uh and people talking we can't have a forum of me and a few other

people we're not doing that I can't give you uh the kind of delivery that we had

today from your guest in three minutes here it's just uh it's there's a bubble Happening Here and

you're not letting your bubble get penetrated and it's hurting this community

um another note that I made it's just interesting we're using

political momentum as a reason to urgently expedite the de-politicizing of

redistricting I chew on that for a minute that's what's happening here okay

uh and also finally um it was the speaker put uh the process

that we have here in San Francisco in the same bucket as the process they have down in La is far different down there

they've got 20 plus council members that each individually hand pick a a

um uh advisory uh commissioner each of them have a hand-picked one and so

there's 20 or 20 so advisory they draw the map they turn it into the council

and the council kicks them out of the room and then they draw their own boundaries that's what happens down

there we don't have anything like that up here we have nothing like that yet it was conflated

um and that's not fair thank you thank you Mr burravel

uh let me check if we have any commenters online I see a hand

um great uh Mr Arden go ahead

yes wonderful thank you this is Lauren gerardin with the League of Women Voters

of San Francisco with you at every meeting as we have been for this whole process

thank you for having what a what a wonderful guest um so much great best practices and

Lessons Learned not just at the state level but also in Los Angeles

um you know there's so much that San Francisco can benefit from that other body that other jurisdictions have

learned um and you know the league has also been thinking about a multi-department

selection body served by staffers at those departments so I like how aligned

we are um there are agencies that were in

departments that were deeply involved in redistricting that immediately come to mind they most of them are mentioned in

the final report that the redistricting task force put out there even if they are not a part of the vetting process or

the selection process they could certainly help with Outreach or even in just helping other departments scale

their efforts identify resources language translation of things

um a lot of things that went wrong with with redistricting could be better in the selection process with the right

bodies involved and yes uh you know if you're looking at requiring people to be

registered to vote the elections commission decided to not require that during its process it was part of the

discussion the recordings out there and that is uh something the league supported them and supports now for for

various reasons um and a much longer time frame um the league we are looking at the timelines

and you know that myth of 10 years um thank you for pointing out the myth

um we don't know 10 years looking at the Timeline very carefully as we have been doing um depending on when we actually start

the selection process when the bodies have to start allocating resources and budgeting for those resources and staff

people budgeting could need to start as early as 2027.

um possibly 2028 depending on when that selection process starts and possibly earlier there's a lot of machinations to

the budgeting process that are not uh clear to even those of us who watch the process from outside

um and that's just four or five years from now um that's hardly a lot of time for

legislation to get passed by voters and then as has been discussed for all of

the planning to start happening in the Departments that we'll have to take on this glorious task of finding our our

next independent redistricting commission members um and you know if anyone has any

questions about anything that the league has uh said online or here we have an email address we welcome questions the

email address is redistricting at lwvsf.org you can also find that on our

website we are volunteers so it make it take us some time to answer questions we

wouldn't want to pick any of the task forces time answering questions that people have of US during your meeting

thank you so much thank you Mr Arden

all right and is there anyone else

I do not see any other hands so I'm going to close public comment for this

item but we uh fellow Commissioners can continue to discuss a couple of

um a couple of common talking points on how we talk about uh

this item I have thought about this a little bit and

I thought it might be easiest if we let me propose a structure

and see what you guys think that we do what why who how

uh when and why now set of points

and have one or two points under each one do you think that would be I want to

keep this simple and hopefully very clear

uh I like that structure I like that

structure um so that's I think they would answer most

questions yeah that's that's what I was thinking is like have enough talking points that it would cover most

questions that the public or the media might have uh

so for what we're talking about best practice

structural and process improvements best practices for independent or

independent redistricting yeah

capture that

okay about to die

um and I think it we may want to be specific on

what the improvements are intended to do I think it'd be useful to mention that

we want future redistricting task forces to have

qualified members representative of the city's demographics

and free of political conflicts of interest that's something we feel comfortable

I mean in in Broad Strokes I think so I think that there's the uh my understanding of this process

from the beginning has been I mean it's laid out in there in the plan right and the way that you interested introduced

it even at the beginning at this meeting you know is sort of a succinct is that our job as a committee is to determine

recommendations for improving the redistricting process which there's some you know in um implied you know

Independence to that um uh for San Francisco and bring those to

the full elections commission who will vote on recommendations to refer to the Board of Supervisors and like that's

sort of the simpleness of it so I would say probably somewhat simple because we could start to get into what are actually recommendations on the

components redistricting Fair um which I think there is a I think there's a general feeling definitely on

our commission I would feel as fair to say is we want it to be an independent process independent that feels fair and

then beyond that there's you know um while they might be very straightforward and we probably will all

agree on that on some of those anyway you know probably not getting into recommendations in the description I agree all right so so we're good with

independent um and then if we move on to

why um I felt there are a couple things that are important to say one is to

acknowledge that San Francisco was a Pioneer I mean San Francisco was 10 years ahead of the state

in establishing a citizen's body but

but it doesn't adhere to most of the best most of the established best practices

uh and that I think commissioner Parker was very eloquent that the last elections

committee commission meeting to talk about that it is it is part of our mandate to ensure right free fair and

functional elections um can I make a recommendation I think to

commissioner Parker's point I think you may be staying in that lane

um and I I hear and and agree in many ways

that you know San Francisco being the city that we are Innovative but I don't think

that that should be a part of this these talking points I think it

should be along the lines of it's part of our purview to ensure fair and free

elections we can take out the yeah I I like the historical context because I I

want to acknowledge the fact that San Francisco was actually San Francisco is not La it does have a

citizen's body um but it's not necessary so if we want

it to be briefer I think stating that as part of our mandate that we believe Fair

representation is not possible without Fair districts

that are inclusive of everyone but that's part of the free and fair

part of our mandate and the other thing under why and well

actually I would just say the general um I think redistricting including our San

Francisco redistricting task force the Mandate was to get to one person one vote like even simply saying something

like that you know it's just it's simple it kind of encapsulates I agree you know it's not controversial I think not in

San Francisco right that we want one person to have one vote in the city and that that is why we think it is relevant

to the elections commissions um perfume um to come up with some recommendations on

best practices okay um do you feel like it's necessary to to

note that this initiative was conceived in response to

public concerns about the redistricting task force this a year ago or not not necessary in

in our talking points yeah because it's not like we just decided to do this one day it was actually because the public

came to us and said do something okay go ahead go ahead yeah okay

um well so so here's some thinking that I had when I requested us to talk about this um this item was we do have the

redistricting plan document that does give it a lot of context it does and so I don't know that we necessarily need to

repeat that I think that what might be most helpful is that I get calls and

emails regularly saying where are you on the what are you doing and what are your report when they right and so they they

uh they're asking they don't we don't have to so we have the contacts there and so I in my mind these talking points

are a little bit more about what what we started with is that you know this like our we we see our role as determining

recommendations for improving the redistricting process um the independent redistricting process in San Francisco and bringing that to

full elections commission who will then bring it to the Board of Supervisors uh recommend that to the Board of

Supervisors and you know that we believe in our purview because free for professional elections that sort of

thing but than getting to the and also actually within that I think clarifying

um we said what our role is maybe also once again stating what we do not think our role is because people I still get

questions on that people think that we are writing the legislation and we are writing a city a charter Amendment and

we are not and we need to make that very clear that that is not what we see our job is and that once it's handed off it

is no longer on our plate we we do not want to we cannot all of those things that's good to clarify so I thought that

would go under who I was just going to say the rules and so about it so what I

was going to suggest is something like the elections commission has a forum to discuss and recommend appropriate

reforms to our legislative body the Board of Supervisors and will continue to inform the public so they can

meaningfully participate in shaping any final reforms that's what we see our role is and then we can say the San

Francisco elections commission is not a legislative body right what we are not and is making recommendations to the legislative body

is and or would like to make recommendations is

limited to um and making these recommendations we're

going to do some wordsmithing after this I will try to capture all of this and then we can we can word Smith it

um but so that's under who so we got what why and who now

and then how um I would propose that we say because

the redistricting Task Force recruit was created by Charter Amendment any changes must also be made by amending the

charter because some members of the public have made comments asking why are we pushing a charter Amendment well it's

because there's no choice that it's in the charter so the only way to change it is to amend a charter so just to be

clear that it has to be through the charter amendment process there's no other way to deal with it because it's

already in the charter right I would just be clear and and keep it succinct yeah to that

um and then uh also under how a majority of the border and some of this is in the

this is also in the project plan so help me make it shorter a majority of the Board of Supervisors can refer our

Charter Amendment to the ballot for approval by voters and then this is something that was in

we don't need the second sentence if you feel like it's covered in the in the project plan that the elections

commission chose this route because the Board of Supervisors is better resourced to run a public input process

say as opposed to mayoral referral or um or because of the they're the

legislative body or we don't need to say anything about it I I just threw that in there because

there are multiple paths for a charter Amendment and I I don't think we need that level of detail I don't know what

you think commissioner Parker I think that it's in the plan already it isn't a plan so I think we maybe just pulling it

out okay repeat it okay um but along with the how um something that I was wondering maybe

um could just be again a succinct sentence just saying that we have been in will continue to identify best

practices from those who have been close to an impacted bypass redistricting efforts as well as from field experts

like the how are we getting to those recommendations you know just a sentence and and could

also say I have written in my thoughts to share was and members of the public elected officials and colleagues can

review those past presentations by going to the hyperlinks in the plan and there's a hyperlink and just go there that way we're not being repetitive in

these right points good idea to seek um and have the excuse me commissioner

Parker just want to be clear and have the hyperlink to the plan in that statement right no talking points okay

correct could you repeat it again we will continue to seek uh sure um I can also I typed it out I can also

send it to you um we have we have been and will continue to identify best practices from those who have been close

to and impacted by past redistricted efforts meaning task forces in the community yeah as well as from field

experts all members of the public elected officials and colleagues May review past

presentations on this topic via hyperlinks in this document which we would hyperlink okay to the latest screen you will email that to me

fabulous okay so that's uh three points under how and then when just to be super

clear uh the charter can be amended as early as 2024 and then I thought we

could add if passed ab1248 would require elimination of San Francisco's political

appointment process by January 1st 2030. so that's the bound do we want to

because we because that legislation is going through its process

um and we don't know what the outcome is going to be I'm not sure

I said if passed okay they've passed and signed I don't know

um I want to sorry we could add another bullet on the web I'm just trying to think of the status of it right

I have a couple of thoughts but I what I do think is important to say is the timing of a ballot measure related to

this is up to the Board of Supervisors very good not us right and

um making that clear but I and and I'm wondering also if you were thinking chair die that

um like I think there are some other when in Timeline things that people want to know about not just when something will go to the barter but the the I

can't even speak anymore um to the ballot yeah but there's other thing moments in our process people want

to know about yeah well I think part of our timeline was actually a little confusing

and you know we had tried to put a timeline together which again was just a

proposed timeline because it's up to the Board of Supervisors but it at least tried to indicate some steps like that

drafting has to happen first and that the board has should we add some those

steps are different from a timeline or when yeah because there's so how a

bill becomes law kind of documented from the Board of Supervisors that we can we can link to but again that's the

board's process not ours so I don't know that it's our responsibility to do that

um so I think I think that that is we could put we could put that but I think that the important message there is that's up to the Board of Supervisors

you know and I think we were talking about putting the um the timeline in the appendix to make it clear like that's not our timeline that the board is going

to do that but what to go back to what like what our committee's job is that is

to come up with recommendations so I think that should be part of our the when is our job is the recommendations

right it's not the getting it to the ballot our job is the recommendations right and so maybe that's a thing we

need to focus on here and when yeah when should we are our recommendations and

are we I'm not sure we're able to but I'm not sure we're able to answer that right now but I agree we should answer

it at some point but um but I think also we should to commissioner Parker's point

s narrowly tailor that to our recommendations yeah will be

whenever whenever we feel ready to vote on it well but but I think we sorry go ahead

go ahead I think we need to be specific because I think that that's really important for the public

and since these are talking points to the public we need to be specific about

when we think that might be or say that we don't know but we will have a timeline or a a time for

our recommendations yeah maybe we can shoot to answer that question at the next meeting because I

think that we can or we can uh do you mind if I share my thinking about these

next couple months um I I might be in the minority here at

this point um but I when I'm thinking about the timeline of our work

um to me there's a bit of a we heard from the public and we wanted to slow down the process to include more voices

we're realizing some people are just joining the process they didn't know it was started a year ago so there's so that is happening to educate folks and

us um in that so that we can make responsible recommendations um and then also you know in my opinion

we do wait to make recommendations until after AP 1248 and the reason why I think

that there are lots of things that I support in that bill and that we likely all support in that bill and the reality

is is the bill passage or not not passing has direct implications on San

Francisco and it seems impossible to know I mean they're slightly separate like recommendations can exist

regardless of State legislation I recognize that and

if it passes let's just say it's amended in another senate committee and then it passes then we'll see that but we have

to see what the governor does and if it does pass we understand from the city and turn the city attorney's analysis

that it will have implications on San Francisco and so what would go to the ballot and what we might recommend exactly to the ballot is just it's going

to be different depending on what happens with that bill I mean we could make recommendations but we'll probably

have to we might at least maybe not have to but might have to change them

um and so in my mind it makes a lot of sense to continue developing our recommendations on

um individual components of redistricting reform be working on that parallel so that when we get to the

moment when we know what's going to happen those 12 48 we can say and hey you know most of these are in

there and it's passed and so we might recommend that you

write you know amend the city Charter to be compliant so that we don't have to exactly follow 1240 but it's mostly

there and then we'd like to suggest this one change or or whatever but it is

um so in my mind we're not making recommendations to the commission and therefore the Board of Supervisors until

there is a determination on ab1248 and that in the meantime in late March or

March I don't even know what month we're in so in late August that we would have another meeting

um and start to walk through every component right and that we talked about this and you know just going through kind of issue by issue here is here are

the here's the component here's some ways to think about it here's how past redistricting task forces in San

Francisco have thought about it here's some other presentations we've heard similar to this chart that commissioner

die has already developed but a little easier to understand and read and to discuss and that we take public comment

on each of those items as we go through so that we're like oh everybody's in agreement on X Y and Z we are not in

agreement on these and so at least we've identified where there's not agreement and we can work on those and then the

next time we meet is after we know what actually happens with the bills so we can make a final correct that's my thinking yeah so a couple of thoughts I

don't think we're really that far apart because I think the timing is going to end up working out anyway I I think that

um commissioner Parker suggested this and this will be for the next agenda item on

agenda items for future meetings but uh the idea of walking through you know

with the public one by one on the major reports I think that is worth doing I

think it's um helpful review for those who've been following along and for those who are new to the process it will

help them understand what is the thinking behind each of these reforms what is its intent

has it accomplished that intent in other jurisdictions you know what would it

look like in San Francisco so to give people a chance to to to slowly walk

through each major set of recommendations and and what the uh major reforms and what the intent behind

it was I I think um the only um

uh slight difference I might have with commissioner Partners I don't feel like we need to have a comprehensive list of

recommendations I think it may be possible for us to agree on kind of the no-brainer ones and I and

in prop probably this next meeting um be able to identify those there's

some that everybody agreed on like for example in the last meeting all the redistring task force members

and the good government panel agreed on having a stipend right and then again broad Strokes we

don't have to decide what it should be that's up to the Board of Supervisors but being able to say that we got no

pushback on this that everybody agreed on a stipend and that that's something that we could recommend I think it's

okay we if we do a partial list you know and kind of go

right as we you know because there are some that are certainly deserve more study and clearly the choice of a of the

structure of of a of a vetting or selection Authority is something that we may actually decide

we don't know what the answer is we're going to maybe make some general recommendations like maybe it should be

split responsibility for different phases of the process we have some thoughts on possibilities

but hey you Board of Supervisors you need to take public input and figure this part out right I think actually

it's completely reasonable that we don't recommend on certain things because we honestly don't have a strong opinion on

it or don't feel like there's a critical mass a strong feeling that we want to push that forward

right and there are probably some that are in between right I I agree with both

of you and I have and I feel it's okay to have a partial list

to have some things that we agree on and I understand question Parker your

your idea of things could change based on

the results of ab1248 and ab's

764. however I also think

we can make recommendations make those public have the public know what our

recommendations are and that we could update them and amend them based on the

results of ab1248 AB 760. so I think it's okay to

move forward with recommendations based on the year and a half of or the year of

um information gathering listening to the public

informing our colleagues hearing from our colleagues

I I think we can have a partial recommendation list as commissioner

Parker said the Board of Supervisors has decided that they're going to move forward so

they aren't necessarily waiting for this legislation to to have an in-game per se

there they're moving forward so I think I don't think we would be in a situation

of not doing well that's not what the word I

want to use I think it would be in a situation where we have those recommendations there and just because

they're out there doesn't mean they can't be adjusted updated and I think

once there if we have those recommendations before um the final results of the legislation

we can come back and say this is what we thought here's what the legislation is or isn't and therefore these are updates

at this time I think that's okay and I and I think we are all saying the same thing but in our in our different ways

so um so I think what we should say is that

we'll have another meeting in August to kind of walk through things uh I think we're actually pretty agreed

on that uh with uh moving toward coming up with

a set of recommendations which may not be complete right and that has to have the approval

of yeah you know Elevate some reforms that we believe

there's broad agreement on so that we can spend more time

engaging with the public and providing more um

expert testimony if necessary or just more discussion about the the pieces

that are not as clear right because I I think it would be helpful because otherwise it's just it's

a lot right if we can identify the stuff that okay everybody said yes to this like let's not beat a dead horse and

continue to discuss it unless we've owned the stuff that like the vetting Authority that really deserves more

discussion and that we can acknowledge we may not even be able to come to a

conclusion on because I think that may be true and I think that's okay

um you you both might remember in the last elections Commission meeting I actually had a similar perspective that

we may not have um agreement and you know recommendation on every item so I do agree with that and that part and

like I said part of my thinking was if we were to meet and start to walk through those we could identify those we

we can see how it you know if we were to say we are going to start walking through and begin to narrow

um you know where we need to do further exploration to make recommendations you know that that I'm comfortable with

because I do think that's where we'll we'll land um but I I I do think that the assembly bills are

a big piece of having any final recommendations um preliminary

um so yeah um anyway

okay I'll work on some weird thing here um may I say something I think

um we as a commission need to have further discussion because there's not a consensus and that's fine

um but I think we are in the process of developing these talking points and they need to be

something that we agree with and so if commissioner Parker feels we need to develop that piece of when

better then let's let's we we can spend part of our next meeting in August doing that

yeah I think that's that's before we I mean we've agreed on everything else

so if it's just one bullet point I'm sure we can we can work that out um

and it may be more obvious after we have that meeting too where we are it may be

I mean uh you know like what I'm comfortable with is that is saying we are going to meet in August to start to

make our way towards those recommendations like I'm I'm comfortable with that um I can't say that I would

know for sure you know think that we have recommendations I don't know if any of us can say we would for sure recommendations after that meeting

um you know to me there's an acknowledgment that that there will be implications like it's important to acknowledge for us as a committee it is

important to acknowledge there may be whatever happens with those bills will

have implications on San Francisco and we want to make sure we're considering that in our final recommendations that I

think is the point that's right I think that we can agree on that point absolutely

um and that yeah I do think that that affects final recommendations

um for sure it's hard to um debate that

um so yeah so that that timeline you know if we can agree on that I think we can

and and and be clear about the the other timeline with a charter Amendment like

that is in the Board of Supervisors court that is not ours our job simply as a committee is to make recommendations

um so okay uh I think I captured it and I think we actually have agreement which

is great like I said I'll try to word Smith a little bit more but I think I've got the gist of it uh I will say that

most of the Amendments that I've seen are um lately have been

minor tweaks in timing and changing the size of the jurisdiction that would fall under it none of which affects San

Francisco the big changes they made they actually made early which is on the structure of

the commission and moving the randomization to the first eight so I

haven't seen any really substantive amendments that would affect us at least

that I've seen obviously that could change okay and then the last one I thought

would be um why now and I think commissioner lavolsi's Point

uh that none of the current Board of Supervisors will be up for re-election

in the next redistricting cycle so there is this idea of having in between late

you know that nobody who would vote on this would have a vested interest in the

outcome at this point I actually um we've talked about that before but I just want to um like I understand all

the different arguments on timing like I find myself on various sides of them at different times you know I was like well

you know it's fresh in people's mind and so we're able to capture people's you know the freshness it's also really raw for some people so the flip side of that

is also true um and this this idea of um you know people not having a vested interest

while I see theoretically that is true we also have a current supervisor who

already sat in office and then was reelected and last time we had another supervisor who just left office and went to be re-elected so it's not entirely

true so I'm sure that that's necessarily the best argument a lot of people who could pull that off maybe but it's

happened twice in the last several years so I don't know that that's necessarily the best argument because it has

happened and it could totally happen again during the next redistricted possible yeah in here I I agree with you

but I also would like to and I would like to say that that is a unique situation

and as the speaker from the um Her Name

Escapes Me from the league of Voters talked about Miss Dorado the the time it's also about making sure that we have

everything we need so that when redistricting happens yeah we are in

more compelling we are in a good place that's I mean from from my perspective

let me try the uh try this wording and see if it captures that I said um we can

why now we can Leverage The public's recent experience with redistricting regardless of whether it was raw or

fresh it is recent to consider Community input for reforms

to allow adequate time for planning and implementation of the new process

the point is you know we don't want to do this when people are not engaged and they have no input right so part of the

reason to do it while it's fresh is that people

remember it right and we had thoughts about it and they might share them with

us or with the board and therefore be part of shaping what

the new process should look like but of the other pieces I I think that it needs to be more succinct in the sense that

we're we're talking about making sure that the next redistricting task force

has everything it needs to create a fair process so maybe I should

separate this point because I think that's the community input point is is separate about the time

right the time to make sure the next one's successful and I just want to add one more point I think it's important to

say that when you're talking about why now because the argument has been that

we have plenty of time right yeah the the important thing when it

comes to our purview is fair and free elections that takes

time that takes time to develop a process that will as you said allow

public engagement allow us to put the resources the mechanisms things in place

to make it that I think that's that's really important to say from my perspective we'll be prepared

um to run a fair process okay so I want to separate out the

planning and implementation and tie that to the next redistricting task force ability to be successful and

run a fair process uh I do think the fact that

people just went through a redistricting cycle and have been educated about it and have perspectives about it that they

would want to share with the Board of Supervisors I do think that's an important point because you know

by 2025 the people who were involved in this process may not you know be around to share

their perspectives and other people may have to be educated from the beginning on what is redistricting again good

point and so I do think if we want this to be a process that that is built with

Community engagement that has the Public's input on who should the vetting body should be

that you need people who know enough about it to have an opinion and the concern with waiting till the mid decade

is that you know the people who went through this last process and were engaged and

are coming to give public input may not be around and so if you want Community

input I think you need to do it when people are engaged and so I think that's

part of the freshness argument right um I think that that you know I mean

it's possible that they wouldn't be here I think maybe a way to again sort of acknowledge that we have heard a a wide

range of input about this um maybe it's just acknowledging that the experience ranges from positive to

negative you know whatever it is whatever your experience is it is that's why you've watched an experience I did not put a positive or negative right

maybe it's the range of recent experience maybe that's the way to describe and acknowledge that people have had varying experiences some people

were comfortable with it some people really didn't like it you know some people felt represented others didn't and so maybe it's just the range of

experience as a way to just acknowledge what we have been hearing from people right I was trying to be neutral I agree

I think we we don't I think it's uh commissioner Parker excuse me commissioner diet I think it's

getting a little bit into the Weeds about who will be here who won't be here that's something we can't determine

um you know something could happen with us as far as being here so that's not

really um I think as relevant as the experience and the experience the

experience is why we're here yeah okay so we got one point that's really about

the fact that the public has had a range of experiences with recent redistricting and can therefore engage in in providing

input um a second point about allowing adequate time to you know operationalize

a new redistricting task force to make sure that they are prepared to run a fair process

uh and then I'm happy to take you know edits uh like I said I will try to draft

this and then we can we can tweak it as needed but um uh

I do think that the situation that you're talking about um

that there are Unique Individuals that were able to pull this off in terms of of actually being having a vested

interest but uh I mean if you're comfortable with the con I mean under

normal circumstances none of the current Board of Supervisors will be up for re-election in the next redistricting cycle it is a uniquely clean time to

reform I hear you but I still think that that's something I I think we should stay away from I mean one it's a unique

experience I I just don't think it's as compelling or as relevant as we want

to make sure we have this in place and that we take the time to do it

in the most effective way I hear you okay both but I just I just don't think we need to go down that road because

it's very clear who we're talking about and I think we need to stay away from that so are you saying that we I want to make

sure I'm clear do you want me to not say anything about the fact that it's it in fact average mere morals you know

would be unlikely to have a vested interest in this next process or I mean

I I to be honest um commissioner died like people that that is something that the legal voters

have shared on their website like they'll see that in other places you know and if we want to focus on um you know what we've been saying in this and

so if we stay true to this is we want a good process right and so and so maybe it's leaning into the process knowing

that if people are interested in this they're going to find that another that that case in other places and we want to focus on process okay that's fine so

let's go ahead and and not bring that up we will let other voices talk about that

but that is a I hear you other people have made that

argument I totally get it and at first I was like yeah no totally and then I'm like wait a minute this is just greater

than much greater than zero chance in this city it's just is okay you know all right other than that

District so so um if uh if you guys are comfortable I

will attempt to clean this up a little bit I've been taking notes for the whole thing uh if you want to send me the the

couple of notes that you have I'll try to make this succinct and then we perfect go forward on it

um if I can just make one more comment um and I was when I was thinking about this I thought well maybe it would be

good to sort of formalize and you know and vote on what these talking points are they're not finalized and detailed so maybe that is not really where we are

but I do hope that we can what my hope is is that um we have heard and I think all of us

are taking notes um on the the core of what these are and that we agree that

when we are speaking on behalf of the committee and the commission this is what we were saying yes if we have a

personal opinion we need to disclose that it is a personal opinion and that is not the representation absolutely absolutely I think we need to be really

clear with each other about that and I just want to make sure when we do the minutes that like this is reflected it's in the minutes that we're just agreeing

to do that as part of a we're gonna um that trust building thing and

transparency that we're trying to do at the public we've had this discussion we all have you know agreed on tonight

we've agreed to edit I think it's a reasonable and I think we come back in our next meeting with the final version

and go over it and make sure we agree if you're comfortable I'm too happy to do a draft we'll post it we'll discuss

it at the next meeting and do any additional tweaking sure and if there seem to be significant

tweaks ahead of that if you send it to us we can always post our tweaks together yeah yeah absolutely absolutely

not a version that sits out there for you know that doesn't feel representative so okay great well with that and we've already taken public

comment um let me bring this item to a close and uh take public comment on this or no

no we already took public comment on this on this on this item so you can

email us yeah I mean for free um okay so we're moving to agenda item

five which I think is um stick around actually Mr verdell it's

agenda items for future meetings if you have a public comment we would um love any thoughts discussion impossible

action regarding items for future agendas so I just want to say I

think we have agreement we're going to do a walk through and in uh second half

of August so again for the benefit of members of the public who've joined us early who've

joined us late it's going to be a review for some but to walk through each major reform

and make sure everyone understands the rationale what the intent was and pros

and cons and I think it'll be very helpful for everyone to kind of go through that together

uh and as part of that you know we'll have some discussion on whether we can

winnow it to the ones that are more controversial and then focus on that uh so with that let me open it to public

comment because I think that will take all of our time at that next meeting and see if any members of the public would

like to suggest other agenda items for future meetings topics you'd like us to cover

um we welcome any thoughts on that or not or not or or you can call it a

night you've been here with us all evening you can call it a night as well or you can think on it and email us too

all right great I appreciate that let me thank you thank you Mr burdell um let's see if we have uh let me just

double check and see if we have uh anyone raising their hands

I don't see any hands raised okay I'm going to close public um

public comment for this final this last item and we are adjourned and the time

is 8 58. thank you all

and with that let me turn off the recording