Overview
(See below the agenda for the video with transcript.)
Agenda
- Call to Order and Roll Call
A member of the Commission will state the following (from the adopted 10/19/22 Elections Commission Land Acknowledgment Resolution):
The San Francisco Elections Commission acknowledges that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone, who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. As the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramaytush Ohlone 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 Ramaytush Community and affirming their sovereign rights as First Peoples.
- General Public Comment
Public comment on any issue within the Elections Commission’s general jurisdiction that is not covered by another item on this agenda.
- Approval of May 17 Meeting Minutes
Discussion and possible action on previous Elections Commission meeting minutes.
Attachments: Final May 17 Meeting Minutes
- Director’s Report
Discussion and possible action regarding the May 2023 Director’s Report.
Attachments: May 2023 Director’s Report.
- Commissioners’ Reports
Discussion and possible action on Commissioners’ reports for topics not covered by another item on this agenda: Meetings with public officials; oversight and observation activities; long-range planning for Commission activities and areas of study; proposed legislation which affects elections; others.
Attachments: Robert’s Rules Reference Guide (Stone); DVSorder and Dominion Contract Memo; Past Support for Open Source Voting Memo; Department Website Memo (Jerdonek).
- Closed Session
Discussion and possible action regarding the annual performance evaluation of John Arntz, the Director of Elections.
a. Public comment on all matters pertaining to this agenda item, including whether to meet in closed session.
b. Vote on whether to meet in closed session to consider this agenda item pursuant to California Government Code§54957(b) and San Francisco Administrative Code§67.10(b). (Action)
c. CLOSED SESSION. Closed Session is held pursuant to Brown Act section 54957(b) and Sunshine Ordinance section 67.10(b) to discuss the performance evaluation of a public employee. (Discussion and possible action)
d. If closed session is held, reconvene in open session.
e. Discussion and vote pursuant to Sunshine Ordinance section 67.12(a) on whether to disclose any portion of the closed session discussion regarding the public employee performance evaluation. (Action)
f. Disclosure of action taken, if any, that must be disclosed pursuant to Brown Act section 54957.1 and Sunshine Ordinance section 67.12(b).
- Redistricting Process Initiative
Discussion and possible action regarding the Commission’s ongoing redistricting process initiative.
Attachments: Elections Commission Bylaws – Updated April 2023 (Stone); Memo to Elections Commission Regarding AB1248; SFEC Redistricting Initiative Project Plan v6; AB764 Fact Sheet; FIERCE Advisory Panel Charter (Dai & LiVolsi).
- Agenda Items for Future Meetings
Discussion and possible action regarding items for future agendas.
- Adjournment
Date & Time
6:00 pm
Online
Event password: MayMeeting (use TBA from phones)
Phone
Access code: 250 8055 3610
Event password: TBA (for phones only)
For Global call-in numbers: https://sfgov.webex.com/sfgov/globalcallin.php?MTID=m197d9b46acb287128562bae307ffe220
Meeting recording (Duration: 2:24:32)
Transcript:
so welcome everyone to the May 17 2023 regular meeting of the San Francisco elections Commission I am president
Robin Stone The Time Is Now 607 pm and I call the meeting to order
before we proceed further I would like to ask commission secretary Marisa Davis to briefly explain some procedures for
participating in today's meeting
okay checking microphone yes yes okay you can proceed thank you when
joining by phone you will hear a beep and when you are connected to the meeting you will be automatically muted
in listening mode only to make a public comment dial Star 3 to
raise your hand and when your item of Interest comes up you will be added to the public comment line you will hear
you have raised your hand to ask a question please wait until the host calls on you the line will be silent as
you wait your turn to speak if at any time you change your mind and wish to withdraw yourself from public
comment press star 3 again you will hear the system say you have lowered your
hand when joining by WebEx or a web browser make sure the participant side panel is
showing by clicking on the participants icon at the bottom of the list of
attendees is a small button or icon that looks like a hand press the hand icon to raise your hand
you will be unmuted when it is time for you to comment when you are done with your comment click the hand icon again
to lower your hand in addition to participating in real time interested persons are encouraged
to participate in this meeting by submitting public comment in writing by 12 pm on the meeting of on the day of
the meetings at elections.commission at sfgov.org it will be shared with the
commission after this meeting has been concluded and we will include as a part of the official meeting file
thank you president Stone thank you secretary Davis again this
meeting is starting at 6 10 p.m secretary Davis will you please proceed with item number one commission roll
call Commissioners please verbally State Your Presence at today's meeting after your name is called
president Stone present vice president Jordan pure commissioner
bernholds commissioner burn holes
commissioner burnhose has an excused absence thank you commissioner die here
commissioner Hayden Crowley here commissioner levolsi here commissioner
Parker commission commissioner Parker will be
um late but joining us momentarily thank you president stone with the members
president and accounted for you have your forum thank you and thank thank you everyone
for your patience um with these technical difficulties at some point we will get it sorted
um so I appreciate everyone holding off on that um and with before we move on to
the next item uh commissioner dye has graciously agreed to State the elections
commission's land acknowledgment resolution thank you president Stone
the San Francisco elections commission acknowledges that we are on the unseated ancestral
and working on their traditional Homeland we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors and
relatives of the ramayush community and affirming their Sovereign rights as first peoples
thank you commissioner dye that closes agenda item number one now we will move
2. General Public Comment
to agenda item number two general public comment public comment on any any issue within the elections commission's jurist
General jurisdiction that is not covered by another item on this agenda secretary Davis are there any public
commenters great we'll give everyone a
3. Approval of Previous Meeting Minutes
okay we will move to agenda item number three or close out agenda item number
two and move to agenda item number three approval of previous meeting minutes discussion and possible action on
previous elections commission meeting minutes specifically we'll be talking about the April 19 2023 draft minutes
and it's just a quick reminder before I open it up um for the commission discussion we
don't need to take a full vote on any edits that are suggested it's just a
general consensus so are there any comments
commissioner die yes just um one correction and a couple
clarifications on page three there's a word missing in the second
full paragraph BP journalik move to adopt the dress
lights and author vice president Stone to make appropriate Relevant Word changes
ah I believe that was sorry I'll let you complete all right and then
um a couple of clarifications on page
5 for the redistricting process initiative I wanted to address one of the
attachments so I propose a sentence
commission after this would be in paragraph three
after the first sentence about ab1248 add a sentence commissioner journalik
suggested that we defer action on the draft letter to the Board of Supervisors requesting their support for ab1248
until the dca's complete their legal memo on the same
and I have this in track changes I'll be happy to send it to Marissa afterwards and then
the next sentence I wanted to clarify
uh that the vote the decision not to vote in
March 15th was for a commission committee
um not not the advisory panel that we were proposing so I would propose changing
the elections commission opted not to vote to establish a commission committee
in the March 15th regular meeting and then a final sentence at the end of
the paragraph commissioner die clarified that the proposed good government panel
was an alternative approach to address previous concerns about limited commissioner resources and would only
include herself and commissioner levolsi
and I will send it to you thank you yes [Music] I think you commissioner died does
anyone else have specific comments
um this is President Stone I don't agree with a couple of the clarifications
um specifically surrounding the quote-unquote commission committee which
I believe will be discussing later this afternoon the commission specifically
voted not to form any sort of group panel committee whatever we call it and
so I'm happy to agree to adding the word commission committee but it doesn't
change that the commission did not vote to form any sort of body
and we can table that discussion until uh like we can re revisit those meeting
minutes if we'd like after agenda item number seven but I I don't agree that that was what
had happened and I also don't agree with the final sentence about the good
government panel I've I've rewatched that discussion at least three times and
I don't don't agree with that so I'm happy to provide alternative suggestions
after reviewing commissioner dies feedback and provide my own kind of
wordsmithing in response and that we can then discuss at the next regular meeting
which I believe is in June and then just to clarify the word the word choice on
page three I had a feeling this might cause some confusion and I actually used
the words though I know I'm a stickler about not being a transcript I use the
words appropriate rather than appropriate um and I had a feeling in fact when I
reread the minutes I was confused myself so I'm happy to change it um the language that was used was to
have President Stone appropriate changes the changes or something to that effect I can't I for some reason can't pull up
the exact line but I'm also happy to change it so I just wanted to clarify why that was in there but I don't mind
making that change um so if everyone is comfortable with
that um and commissioner died if no one else has comments we can also come back to you for a response um but I will provide
I'll review your uh proposed changes I will provide my response to those and
then we can revisit it in June does that does that work
let's let's wait to see if other folks have comments I was there
okay commissioner die yeah so my only concern is that I may not
be in attendance in June so which uh
you know we could we can discuss it beforehand that's fine um I'm happy to email it to you and where's that right now
um yeah so I my apologies commissioner die
I I had just that I just um I was not attempting to do it while
you weren't here I just completely forgot that you had mentioned that so um
we can also discuss it in July I don't think it's pressing unless you have strong feelings
okay so we will postpone it until July when commissioner die can participate in
the discussion
um DCA Flores were you going to say something else okay great
um any other comments pertaining to the approval of the previous meeting minutes
okay let's move to public comment then
I don't see any hands for public comment great thank you secretary Davis and
thank you commissioner died for your feedback that will close agenda item number three and we will move to agenda
4. Director’s Report
item for the director's report discussion and possible action regarding the May 2023 director's report
um I will with that I will hand it over to director Ernst thank you president
Stone I'll take a question I'll just uh one item that I'll provides more
information on as we did meet with the mayor's office on the on the budget and there will be more cuts to the
Department's draft budget that uh the the commission reviewed previously and likely the cuts will be around the grant
fund Monies to community groups to assist with the march in November 2024
elections um I don't know the final numbers yet but it'll be a significant reduction in
the in the grant monies uh the monies that will be allocated the department at least from through the mayor's office in
March will be intended for the Outreach around crossover voting so
people who are nonpartisan voters who whose affiliation is nonpartisan they some political parties allow the
non-partisan Affiliated voters to cross over to vote for the contest and of
president of the parties and usually it's the Democratic uh I can't think of the libertarian uh American dependent
and there's one more Peace and Freedom the Republicans in green do not usually
so the Outreach will be around that topic for March and that's where the grant funds will be allocated I think
from the mayor's office through a discussion and then for November the
grant monies will be towards non-citizen voting for The Board of Education
contest in the November 2024 election uh primarily then of course we have the ranked Choice voting uh as well and then
we did uh with the assistance of the city attorney's office uh prepare trilingual legislation uh to submit with
the budget that the mayor will submit with its budget to the board and that
would be on an ab1614 that's the legislation where the proponent and
opponents for local for State measures for sure but for the local measures uh
counties can opt out so this trailing legislation that we've with the assistance of the city attorney's office
uh we'll submit to the board in in conjunction with the budget uh we'll
seek for the board to pass an ordinance that would uh um what's the word
uh remove San Francisco from having to uh friend proponent opponents on the
ballots which would actually increase the the length of the cards by probably
a card for election which is just the cards alone it's like another 500 000 and so part of our budget cut will be
the trailing legislation to remove for potentially an extra card per election as we go forward and I think for the
rest I can I can just take your questions so on the on the director support thank you director Ernst
open it up for commission discussion yes vice president jordanick okay thank
you Derek Terence for your report um I just have a couple questions um
regarding what you just said with respect to the the proponents and opponents was that just for the the
local ones that you'd seek removal from The Ballot or or were
you also going to request the state to in the legislation so for the legislation requires the
state measures to have the proponents opponents still listed on the ballots but allows counties to opt out of that
requirement for local measures for local right so so the training legislation is seeking the board's vote to allow San
Francisco to opt out by printing a printing proponent opponent our names on
the on the ballast for local measures okay and then my other question was in
the past we've sort of discussed the idea that some of that information is in the voter information guide
the voter information pamphlet that would normally be printed on the ballot
correct yeah is that is that the case like all of the information that would would have been pronounced about will be
in the voter information guide in the format that would be put on the ballot normally
you know the format on the ballot would be limited to 125 characters and I think
it expands 135 for other languages but so in the what information pamphlet
you've got the official proponent opponent arguments and also the paid arguments so at the bottom of each
argument is a listing of the authors and also within the arguments there's a listing of the supporters of the measure
or argument so it's not the same format yeah I guess what I mean is like if the
ballot requires like the top three or something I don't know what the it is but would would that
you know that condensed form be visible from the voter information pamphlet too or so the proponents the
names of the proponents and opponents will still be presented in the voter information pamphlet but they won't be
truncated there will be no abbreviated names or organizations there'll be the
full names organizations so it's actually a better listing of information in relation to the about local ballot
measures then what would be print on the balance okay all right thanks and then my last question was around the the
website this kind of two related questions but um
one is well they're both around the the archiving of the older site and I know
you said your um looking at alternatives to the the archive tool
and um one of those was
um to keep the old site live in a read-only format is that do you know how long they're
going to keep it live for no we and yeah I don't it hasn't happened yet so right now I I think only
archive it is is the is the archive for our old site I'm not aware of it was
actually transitioning and having the the read-only uh format yet and I don't know I don't know uh
no I don't know I can't give you any time frames on it right now okay so are what are the other options you're
considering aside from the archive at any well there so so essentially make
the old site read only and it essentially would it would live in SF elections and then the links with
see the thing is the links would go potentially to the new site uh from the
read-only and if we are and then the links would also go to the archiving site if it was not if the information
was not on our on our current site so it sort of be a gateway to the old and new sites
okay and that's just something you're exploring right now yeah all right that's all my questions thank you
thank you vice president jordanick
commissioner die yeah so um in the meeting with the
mayor's office uh you said it was ghostly gonna hit the grants and then working on this printing savings
um the other thing you mentioned your report was uh staff salaries was the other proposed area for cutting so is
that going to be oh they're attrition yeah uh yeah so there's no salaries
themselves are not being uh discussed as for any kind of reductions or or cuts at
all uh is the position so in the city even when departments
have authority to hire into positions uh come budget Cycles if
there's not someone already in those approved positions they become potentially uh attributed and they come
they become attrition they're called attrition savings so even though departments have the permission they've gone through all the steps to have
authorizations to hire someone into the positions uh to save money the the the
city will not allocate funds for those positions in the next fiscal year and those are called attrition savings so we
will have attrition savings uh for this next fiscal year and we had some
discussions with the mayor's office on a couple positions we had a couple retirements that occurred in the
department and those so those positions became vacant right at the time at the but the mayor's office were looking at
our budget and the mayor's office thought that those could be attributed classifications or positions in a in our
in our budget uh but we've had that discussion with the mayor's office that those those positions will not be part
of attrition savings uh we can find savings from from other positions and also since
uh in in the city when when a position becomes open towards the end of a budget cycle the funding usually isn't a full
Year's funding it's a like a three-quarter or half depending on the on the timing of the hiring cycle so
we'll probably have three-quarter funding for those two positions where two people retired the last few months
so so I don't expect there to be any real hit to the department as far as positions are concerned for Christian
savings good so I just wanted to make sure you had the staff that you needed so
um great and then of course I was um pleased to see the results of some of
the preliminary results from the go green campaign I was curious for the
for the Thousand or 20 or so who responded to the campaign do you
have any idea what was the most effective
the email yeah the email was the moment we had the most responses on on that
mass email we sent to those and we have email addresses for around 50 of Voters
we don't have email addresses for all the voters okay great thank you
uh thank you commissioner died anyone have no
um this is President Stone I had a couple of things that I wanted to say or
ask um it was an interesting question that commissioner die brought up about the most effective message because I was
I was actually really impressed even though maybe a thousand voters doesn't seem like a lot I think a thousand
voters in a month is a pretty big number um for folks who've stopped the postal
delivery delivery of their voter information packet so pretty cool
um the I did have one question about the grant funding so an apologies I I this
may have been my misunderstanding um so does that mean that there would be a
reallocation of grant funding or is that separate from the one that you uh speak
about in the for formerly incarcerated folks in the director's report
um how do those two things relate to each other they're separate okay that's what I thought okay
um that was that makes sense um and then this is a question that is unrelated to it's not unrelated but a
question I have just because it's been a uh kind of national concern recently I
just wanted to understand if the department is using the electronic registration information center Eric
no we don't uh and there and that is that there's so there's there is legislation I think in Sacramento that
that that's I don't know where it is in the in the process but uh for the California to join Eric but in
California uh registered the the information of record comes from the Secretary of State's office it doesn't
counties themselves don't generate the official voter information records any longer so the state would need to join
Eric for that to become part of the official voter registration information
know what thank you for sharing that do you know why the state isn't currently a part of doesn't currently use Eric
no and I I don't I don't want to Hazard yeah I don't know the yeah that's fair
um well there it has been a lot of um there have been a lot of issues across
the country about folks leaving Eric and so it's just of interest to me that
we're not we meaning San Francisco but we as a state are not a part of it so
thank you thank you for um clarifying and then the only other piece which is more just an observation
than a question was um the Instagram poll which I did see go up because I do follow the department on
Instagram and I think that's interesting even though obviously I don't know how many people participated in the survey
that given the age demographic of folks who are on Instagram and use Instagram
that you know more than half had who participated in this poll who followed
it um indicated that they wanted to maintain print I think that's just interesting that the commission might
continue to keep in mind um though I really I do appreciate the element of that multi voter households
because I think that's a great compromise so um I just wanted to
call that out thank you thank you for this report
um were there any other comments from commissioners moving right along let's take public
comment
there are no public commenters for this agenda item okay
okay it's unusual um all right well let's close agenda item number four
5. Commissioners’ Reports
and move to agenda item number five Commissioners reports discussion and
possible action on commissioner's reports for topic topics not covered by another item on this agenda meetings
with public officials oversight and observation activities long-range planning for commission activities areas
of study proposed legislation which affect elections others um and so I have a couple of items but I
will hand it over to the other Commissioners first and then I will um I'll go into to mine so
um vice president jordanick I see you have attachments we'll start with you okay thank you president stone I have
four things to mention first I just want to let the commission know I haven't forgotten about the annual
report for 2022 and that's something I'm going to try to finish that this summer and have a draft to present to you
sometime this summer and then yeah as president Stone mentioned I I did attach three memos to
the packet now I just want to review them very quickly um the first memo is around the
department website and I noticed that some things um about an RFI from 2015 were weren't
carried over but I noticed that that information was put up I guess in the past few days so thank you direct
Ernst for for putting that up so people can ignore that memo um
and then there was a second document where I because a lot of the commission is new I wanted to kind of
present an overview of the support for open source voting over the past several years and this this document I have
shows a photo from a rally that we had in 2018 where London breeds Scott weiner
uh then assembly member David Chu Malia Cohen Christine Pelosi and Mark Leno
were all at this rally and holding open source signs and then the document also
has some excerpts from resolutions that the board and the commission passed back in 2014 in 2015
asking the department to collaborate with other organizations on an open source system
and there's also a quote from former Governor Brown from 2021 in support of Open Source voting that was in San
Francisco at KQED and then there's also resolution from 2016 from the the Democratic County
Central Committee that was in support that was unanimous resolution and then the the last memo is
um it's another member about the DVS order privacy flaw and at the last meeting you might remember that I found
there's a state law that looks like Dominion was required to notify the department within 30 days
and at the last meeting I'd asked if our contract has any language around this and I I did review the contract and they
found that there is language saying that Dominion has to comply with the law
and then it has some information about what we can do in response and basically we can
our contract permits us to you know seek them to like fulfill aspects that
they're not complying with and then I have the experts and experts in the contract but George Curran so I
was wondering if for the next meeting you could maybe you know look at the information that in that memo and from the previous
meetings and and let us know if there's anything that you could do you know in response to this
you know for example I think at minimum Dominion could provide the notification that they were supposed to provide us
over the summer just confirming that there was this vulnerability and then maybe also assure us that going
forward though they will notify us some time but um just basically you know just to
let us know um if you're going to be doing anything in response you know basic because this
contract language is in there um or or if you're going to do nothing just
just to let us know but um so that's that's all I have to report
um yeah so thank you thank you vice president jordanick
did other commissioners commissioner Hayden Crowley um I just have a question about the
Dominion um contract memo uh and um thank you
um commissioner georgonik for your extensive research should the DCA be
weighing in on this
um yes vice president jordanick yeah at the last meeting I did ask the
wcd attorney if if they could look into it so um
but I don't know if I didn't remind them since the meeting but I would still be curious about it
commissioner Hayden Crowley thank you president Stone I I think that
um before uh director Arts provides
I I think whatever you decide but I do think that the DCA needs to review the
information that you compiled um commissioner giordanoch
um before we move forward I think that that would be very important to have the legal
assessment for better for worse
DCA Flores um I don't know if you want to do about anything
um just to clarify I don't know what type of legal assessment I could make um if there's if it's been determined
that there's a breach of contract then the remedies available uh which is what um vice president
jordanick asked me to look at and I saw that he posted the remedies available on his uh memo so I didn't think it was
pertinent to bring it up since he already mentioned it um but yeah if there's a breach of contract there's a determination that
there's a breach of contract those are the remedies available um we are not in a position to make that
determination um and so the commission is also not in that position to make that determination
um and um just a quick reminder that contract entering into a contract administration
of a contract uh monitoring of a contract and anything having to do with
Contracting is within the um sphere of what the director of Elections does so
um truthfully like the commission couldn't take any action on this contract per se it's and if the director
wants us to um wants to discuss this with us we're open to provide getting
any assistance possible thank you DCA Flores
vice president Jordan yeah so that's kind of where I was I was just asking if director Ernst could you know at the
next meeting just tell us what what you're thinking on it is
so yeah thank you thank you vice president jordanick and
commissioner Hayden Crowley um commissioner Heidi Crowley was at it I I'm still confused because when I I
well I appreciate commissioner Jordana putting out the remedies uh commissioner interdonic with all due
respect you're not an attorney that's why I think it's important that the DCA uh that that go through the DCA that's
just my uh I'm not an attorney but that's my assessment
so thank you commissioner Hayden Grady Point Crowley point of clarification
um my understanding based on the kind of back and forth here is that vice president jordanick drafted drafted
these remedies and it seems as though DCA Flores can validate affirmed that
those were the available remedies okay um but that also re-stated the role of the Commission in
Contracting in the nuances of our Contracting relationships is that accurate DCA
Flores okay for the record DC floor is nodded yes that's president yeah
commissioner Hayden Crowley yeah I would I would assume and hope that director Ernst would consult with the DCA you
know before getting back to us but it's I think what dcfr's point is that
you know she's available to assist whoever needs assistance but and that and the stuff I wrote is not official
it's just my own interpretation but yeah it would need to be confirmed
thank you um yeah commissioner die
yeah I just um had some good news to share and it's the reason for my potential absence for the
June meeting I I was recently uh was
awarded a fellowship to attend Harvard Kennedy schools program on for senior
Executives in state and local government so that's in relation to my capacity as a
elections commissioner so I will be in Cambridge for three weeks in June and
hope I will learn some skills that I can bring back to the elections commission
um I would will also be asking uh an agenda item
eight if the elections commission would consider rescheduling
uh the June meeting to the last week of June if it's possible and I understand
if it's not um because I prefer not to miss the June meeting but right now it's smack in the
middle so thanks commissioner dye congratulations
um and I guess we'll discuss that in agenda item number eight um in terms of the meeting anyone else
have comments okay I have a handful
um so I know everyone loves to talk about Robert's rules um but let me kind of
contextualize this a little bit so um I
um I continuously get feedback from Individual Commissioners about how late our meetings go uh I do believe we've
made improvements but to continue making our meetings run more smoothly fairly
productively I think it's going to require all of our participation so there are a couple ways I'm I'm trying
to approach this the first is that I may begin actually I am going to begin using
time limits for certain discussions where appropriate so for example today I
will be asking that we follow time limits for the closed session in
addition to the redistricting item and it is not targeting the director nor commissioner sovulsi and Commissioners
and commissioner die it is solely looking at Agenda items that are particularly lengthy and seeing how we
can streamline them a little bit and I will make sure going forward as that happens that I
will announce publicly and I will also ask secretary Davis to support and I'll talk a little bit more about that
process later uh second uh after re-watching our past
meetings as I mentioned earlier I think we are starting to get the hang of Robert's Rules but I do think there are
ways that um we can still mitigate some inefficient back and forth so
specifically I wanted to call out page three of that document
um obviously everyone is familiar with the fact that meeting participants should
obtain the floor before offering comment and make sure that they're recognized
and then there are additional rules on that going forward you know getting
called by name uh and but Pages three and four and
specifically number six on page four about debate
I would recommend folks remind or refresh their understanding of that uh
specifically you know the details included there that each member has the opportunity to comment before any member
can comment for a second time some members May Seed their time to another commissioner so let's say uh I've
already spoken and vice president jordanick doesn't want to speak he can say I seed my time to president Stone if
I wanted to repeat that again not to pick on you either vice president jordanick
um but I I'm hopeful that that will help kind of streamline things
so for moments when it is fair to interject out of this debate process
please you can also refer to page five for Rules of Order excuse me point of
order point of information slash clarification point of privilege so point of order I will use I have used in
the past I will continue to try and use it when a rip interruptions become disruptive I'm going to try and not be
you know too authoritarian about that but I think it also can be disruptive
when we're just constantly interrupting each other which does sometimes happen when we're talking about something
that's important to us uh and then point of information clarification can be used I think you
need information you know you want to clarify something or you want to provide a clarification about something such as
what just happened point of privilege is addressing the physical needs of the meeting room so for example we talk
about our discomfort with how cold or hot it can be insect here sometimes but the idea is that these Point requesting
points of something should be brief and not lead to more back and forth back and forth
um so the last thing I just wanted to mention about this is that these these rules apply to all discussions including
when we have our own agenda items so let's say sorry vice president jordanick
to pick on you again but let's say you wanted your own agenda item on open source voting you will be recognized to
introduce the topic and the comments and share more about it but once you've introduced the item or once a
commissioner is introduced an item the discussion process should follow those same rules of debate so that means that
if vice president jordanick unless it's in terms of a point of order or point of
information Etc we'll have to wait to respond to
questions or comments until everyone has had the opportunity to either speak for
the first time or seed their time so I know that this can be difficult when
it's your agenda item but to the best of your ability I think that will help us run our meetings more efficiently I also
can update this document though I know no one really loves it um to specifically state that this is
kind of the rules of debate when it's your own agenda item as well are there any
specific questions about that yes vice president jordanick yeah thank you president stone for you know compiling
all this together um one question I have is when if say like someone is
speaking and they want to ask someone else a question does does like the person speaking get decide if they want
to if the person can answer or is it does it go back to the president and the president has to recognize the
thank you for that question so the the
if there's a point if someone is at requesting information um
actually let me ask a clarifying question what are you saying the person whose agenda item it is if I'm going to
pick on you again if it's your agenda item and you or someone another
commissioner is talking about something and you want to ask that commissioner a question or can you put it into a term
so I can understand yeah well just in general like maybe like in the Jenna and
the in this agenda item when commissioner Hayden Crowley maybe has if she had a question about what I just
said and then it was her turn to speak and then she said oh can you answer this question can I
answer does it need do you need to recognize or how does that work probably better to recognize folks in response so
commissioner Hayden Crowley could say and I honestly don't even remember how life went down so I'm just pretending
that it happened the way it is in my mind um but commissioner Hayden Crowley can say you know point of information or
point of clarification and then if you vice president jordanick wanted to respond to the question that
commissioner Hayden Crowley had presented you would raise your hand and I then as pres as president
um parliamentarian whatever would say yes vice president or Dominic but if it becomes a back and forth between
Commissioners that's when I think it becomes going out of order of debate process and that's honestly I'm glad you
brought it up because that is often in our previous meetings I think where we end up kind of um
having longer conversations so in an effort to try and streamline uh our
meeting not streamline but have shorter meetings I think it could be more more productive to or efficient to do it that
way but if folks have strong feelings against that I welcome your feedback sorry that was long-winded thank you
I have a comment and question I have to be honest with you I'm uncomfortable
with what I feel to be a level of control of our discussions
that I don't think is based in anything that's absolutely
necessary yes we have had long meetings but I think what has been wonderful and
Democratic about those meetings is that we have all had the opportunity to speak and to say what we think
and yes it is important for us to have decorum since I have been here
I have not seen a situation where we've had a lack of decorum and I would like
to remind you that it is these types of rules that were used in Nashville to
silence people and so I want you to just think about what
I find to be an extreme level of control as opposed to
what is actually happening here so yes we've had meetings go on for a long time
and I think you've done an excellent job in keeping us on track and our meetings
have been shorter but I'm very uncomfortable with
the level of what I feel to be extreme control in who speaks how they speak and
I'd like to ask DCA Flores if this is something we are required to do if there needs to be a vote on it and I would
feel more comfortable if we if we all agree and I'm the only descending vote that's different but I I
feel this is a level of control that makes me uncomfortable um with how we do things because since
I've been here I haven't seen a situation where decorum
has gotten out of control and so I understand your desire to
streamline our meetings I appreciate it and I think since you've been president we have streamlined but to say who can
talk when they can talk I'm uncomfortable with that and so I just want to make that clear
thank you commissioner volsi I appreciate the feedback and I wanted to provide a few areas of clarification
first of all these are in our bylaws to follow Robert's Rules so I'm just simply
following the rules I'm not trying to control and I also have not suppressed anyone's voice this is simply just to
allow everyone the equal opportunity to speak once and you don't have to speak if you don't want to
these are the these are the Robert's Rules of Order I'm happy I feel as
though I've tried to be um
I've tried to use the structure of Robert's Rules while also
um not being overly controlling with how they're used my observation and from
other Commissioners is that there is a lot of interrupting and I believe commissioner lavosi you yourself have
shared that you felt that you'd been interrupted a couple of times so I'm trying to create a
um I'm trying to establish Fair rules and
if you feel after we work you know continue to try and adopt to these rules
that the commission that are within the bylaws um and you feel as though I am in effect
controlling then I will I welcome that in practice the
final thing I'd like to share which I can understand the sentiment behind your concern regarding Nashville but that's
actually not what happened in Nashville and it's
I take what you're saying very seriously I actually went and saw Justin Joe's
speak four days ago in person um and I'm very very familiar with what
happened and I I can commit to reflecting on your concerns and I also
welcome the feedback that if you feel that you've been silenced or if you feel that folks have been silenced
while we're working through these rules then
I will listen to that feedback I've always been open to feedback um it is not an attempt to control or
silence and I have not controlled nor silenced anyone um I I feel pretty
um I feel like I've tried to be fair I think there are many people who have interrupted including myself and I want
to hold myself to a better standard as well
I have a question for DCA floors sure
yes thank you so your bylaws adopt Robert's Rules of
Order and it says at the discretion of the president um unless otherwise
um directed by the charter um you shall use Robert's Rules of Order so are we required to use all rules it's
at the discretion of the president okay and so there's no vote it's just at the discretion of the President right okay
Commissioners commissioner Hayden Crowley um I just uh I appreciate what everybody
is saying here I um as someone who interrupts
I like the fact that we are restoring order here and I'm not interrupting as much
and I really appreciate that because I think that there's a lot of back and forth and while that is great in a in a
in a conversation we're in a commission meeting and these meetings quite frankly for my purposes just go way too long and
I just appreciate the fact that we're following a system that has worked well
for other commissions and other bodies the Board of Supervisors follows it and
I just think um if we could give it a try and I appreciate all the thought that you've put into it and the research that you've
done as well as your considerations to commissioner levolsi
um I just would like I just like the idea of letting everybody speak first
and then if somebody has something more to say but the back and forth tends to
go on and on that's my observation and extends the evening when and then and
then I just think that we that I'm not even making sense anymore but it makes sense I I I like the taking insurance
thing period end commissioner thank you commissioner Hayden Crowley commissioner die
thank you president Stone so a couple of comments um I think time limits are a good idea
and very reasonable as long as it you know announced in advance so that
um you know uh Commissioners whose agenda item it is can you can plan around that so I think it's a great idea
um as someone who you know was part of a body that used Robert's Rules of older
uh to run our meetings uh I would just say that we use it as a guide uh and not you know that
again it's like your discretion if it makes sense for example the idea of handing handing
it over to someone whose agenda item it is for example and not having to go back
each time I think that's a reasonable way to go that's something that the CRC
did um so you know I do think you know Robert's Rules of Order has worked well
for hundreds of years so there is a lot of thought behind it but
um it's supposed to help it's not supposed to constrain it's supposed to help and
so I think as long as you keep that in mind then I think that's fine
um and then one last comment um uh as as uh as I learned recently
uh there are some stronger requirements that our Sunshine ordinance requires so
for example in the minutes while Robert's Rules says we don't have to say what people said actually the sunshine
ordinance actually requires um a brief summary I believe
for example we have public comment so so you might want to just like annotate
some things here if there's a a stricter requirement by the sunshine ordinance
so that's one place that I think there's a a little bit of a conflict that
there's a stronger requirement by the sunshine ordinance for transparency reasons
thank you commissioner die
um yeah so yeah sorry vice president
Jordana um I well I like I like to see everybody happy about things when when it's
possible but um I think because I I listened to it commissioner
levels he said and um I I want to try to see if there's some
kind of common like ground or something but like I think
from what I in interpreting I think part of the um the reason this was sort of
spurred on by some people interrupting other people and which which when you prevent people
from from being interrupted it allows them to speak so I think some of it was motivated by allowing people to speak
but at the same time it shouldn't be used to suppress people from speaking too so um
I'm wondering if there's like I don't know how to
um reach a place where we're all happy completely with with um
what we decide on doing but like is there are there certain scenarios you see where
with the rules that people could be prevented from speaking or under commissioner level C or
um is there certain aspects of it that you're not comfortable with I I would like for us as a group to agree if
possible to what is that time let it limit what's a reasonable time limit I think that's what
um concerned me the most because I know that sometimes sometimes we may have
difficulty articulating our thoughts or we are still
um thinking about what we're saying and so I want that time limit to be reasonable
um I think I'm the commissioner who speaks the least so I have watched and
listened and there have been moments where um other Commissioners have interrupted
and I think it is important to keep decorum but I'm concerned about
constraining um
other members commit ability to speak and I'm concerned that
our desire to end meetings early um could get in the way of everyone
having a voice by the way I like going to bed at a
reasonable time as well but I also like hearing um
because I feel each of us bring certain skills and experiences that are helpful
to discussions thank you commissioner levolsey and
um vice president vice president jordanick was there more you wanted to add no thanks
um okay I
I appreciate the feedback everyone's given I also appreciate those who are willing to own how they participate
um I think that's always a hard thing to do um and as I stated previously
commissioner ovulsi just wanted to share this with you because you had brought up the initial concerns I will always
welcome your feedback and thoughts about if things aren't working correctly and
if you feel that they're not being fair and so this is I this is this can be an ongoing
conversation that we have I the idea is to make the whole body
operate better I think we all have nuances in our own particular identities there are Health Equity components to
having our meetings run very late as well that I'm trying to be considerate of
um which I've mentioned in the past and so I want to make sure that I can do my
best to accommodate all of those while still being productive I can understand
the concerns about the time limits but I also have found found that that's also
helped us for some folks actually participate better by not being so exhausted that
they aren't you know operating in the way that they necessarily want as well so there are many ways but um control is
not the intention if that is the impact I welcome that feedback as we go along
and that's not just a commission ovulsi that's to everyone um
okay are there other comments or questions about that specifically
okay um there were a few other items that I wanted to mention
um I'll be our uh secretary Davis shared
a an email with the commission earlier with a um asking folks to participate in
a survey asking uh for asking Commissioners to Prevail provide their
availability for the retreat I want to give everyone a good amount of
advanced notice including the public so if you can complete that by next Thursday that would be great we'll of
course follow the all the good government guide on Retreat site visits and Gatherings to make sure we're
complying with um public meeting requirements
um and then more but more details will follow
a couple other things I did share the racial Equity slides that we had worked
through in the last meeting I did share the specific edits with commissioner labosi offline got her blessing
um and I shared those with the director I did want to also mention specifically commissioner dye had asked about changes
that I request that the director make in his document which I also
also shared with the director as well so I wanted to follow up on that um
so that's been updated additionally a member I believe folks although it may
have just been vice president jordanick myself and commissioner Hayden Crowley I'm not sure if other folks are included
so I'm gonna just quickly reshare it here but a member from a professional
Exchange program uh partnering with the state department who is interested in
um having a conversation with the elections Commission on the role of volunteerism in Civil Society asked if
the commission could meet and have a conversation so vice president jordanick and I believe myself will be meeting
with them next next week to have that conversation and we'll be
sharing that um we'll share what we learn it may just be vice president Jordan
um and the last piece that I I want to
share is that I'm going to be taking the information about the proposal from OPEC
regarding website demographics and incorporating some of the conversations that we had last time I had wanted to
share some visuals about how other groups or boards share their demographic
information in a nice aggregated way but learned from vice president jordanick
that some things may not be as feasible so I'm actually going to be working with digital services to understand how we can do it it may just have to be listing
percentages but that is something that is on my on my list
um I think that is all does anyone have any
other comments or points that they would like to make
okay let's move to public comment
Brian Turner Mr Turner once I unmute you they'll have three minutes
okay
you should be can you hear me yes okay great your voice by the way before
um I came on was a little a little distant just just so you know I could hear it but it was in in the background
more than usual um okay thank you uh Commissioners uh for your attention tonight
um back at the beginning of this particular agenda item um there was conversation
uh regarding uh director Ernst and um one thing I think we're seeing is is a
uh sort of a cat and mouse game with some of the uh information that's to be
available uh consistently regarding open source on the website
um so that that should be uh noted um also
um regarding this Dominion contract I think uh uh commissioner jordanick made
it pretty clear this is not some sort of a fringe issue
or Democrat versus Republican issue
um this work was initially done here in San Francisco um by nonpartisan groups and then
um supported completely by the Democratic party um Christine Pelosi David Chu
everyone in the political Arena I don't think anyone was against it because it's
just common sense that you don't want a corporation in control of your election software and I think we learned
that in 2016. so it's not just a 2016 verse 2022 issue either
um so um I think uh the commission would be well served by getting a uh the
attorney's opinion on this I know it's a tough one for David Chu because he's
previously supported open source and it appears now that we're just putting in
complete control into the hands of John Ernst to his shown a predisposition
against open source and for this proprietary
brand that we've had for so long thank you for your time tonight and your
attention to this issue thank you
okay you're now back on mute and there are no other public commenters
thank you secretary Davis and welcome commissioner Parker we are just about to
close agenda item number five on commissioner's reports given that we
haven't closed the agenda item wanted to welcome in case you had any comments or anything you would like to
add before we move to the next agenda item um thank you president Stone
um no I just I appreciate all the work that everybody did when I reviewed all those ahead of time so I don't have any
questions that I needed answered thank you okay thank you commissioner Parker okay
um we're going to close agenda item number five and move to agenda item
6. Closed Session
number six closed session discussion impossible action regarding the annual performance evaluation of John Arns the
director of Elections first we're going to take public comment on all matters pertaining to this agenda item including
including whether to meet in closed session so um secretary Davis would you mind
taking public comment I have excuse me here's a public comment Brett Turner Mr
Turner once I unmute you you'll have three minutes
thank you Commissioners um on behalf of the public at the risk of
being redundant we just want to mention our disappointment in the director's performance
um the the biggest issue we see right now in the United States is
restoring voter confidence in the election systems and make sure making sure that we retain voter confidence in
the election systems um transparency is a part of that effort and uh this uh particular commissioner
has blocked efforts toward transparency um for the past 15 years it's been going
on again I refer to it as a cat and mouse game um unfortunately he's the cat in the
American public appear to be the mice and and so we have to just tender
objection uh his relationship with Dominion is inappropriate I'm sure it would be
inappropriate no matter who the vendor was um but we're just suffering through and
I know it's there's been a level of Competency regarding the election the
elections but um this is not tolerable the the the is his uh insubordinate Behavior around
the voting system contracts his relationship with the Secretary of State the disinformation
misinformation and and in general um disregard for for the commission uh
we never brought Dominion in front of the commission when they were in the newspaper disparaging the county and the
commission and now we find out that they're in uh violations that they're in
violation of the contract thank you very much for your time
thank you
okay I see no other commenters
thank you secretary Davis we're now going to move to 6B a vote on whether to
meet in closed session to consider this agenda item pursuant to California government code 54957b and San Francisco Administrative
Code 67.10 B and we will move to a roll call vote
will somebody second that oh we don't need a second okay thank you
president Stone yes vice president Mr Donna yes
commissioner burn holes commissioner dot i
commissioner Hayden Crowley yes commissioner levolsi yes commissioner
Parker yes okay
um this does pass for a closed session as moved by President okay thank you
thank you directorants um we're going to take a seven minute break to figure out
the tech around the closed session um but
we will re-convene in closed session after we've completed it okay
the time is 8 25 pm and we are going to
reconvene um and move to
item 6E discussion vote pursuant to Sunshine ordinance 67.12 a on whether to disclose any
portion of the closed session discussion regarding the public employee performance evaluation
would anyone like to make a motion
vice president jordanick I move that we disclose no portion of the quiz session
discussion okay
um so we don't need to take public comment because we already did so secretary Davis would you mind moving to
the roll call Vote Yes uh president Stone yes vice president you're done yes
commissioner bernholds out commissioner die will return to commissioner die okay
commissioner Hayden Crowley yes commissioner policy
yes commissioner Parker yes
vote Absentia commissioner die stepped out so I think
we can call the vote we have a majority we still have a majority so that passes
to not disclose okay should we okay
excuse me here she comes okay there we go how she wants to vote
about that and closer one okay sorry um my apologies
um secretary Davis will you call commissioner dies vote
um there was a motion to not disclose a portion of this meeting um how would you vote
um I thank you commissioner die and thank you secretary Davis so
um we have voted to not disclose any portion
of the procession and we have now closed agenda item number six
7. Redistricting Process Initiative
and we'll move to agenda item number seven redistricting process initiative discussion and possible action regarding
the commission's ongoing redistricting process initiative um so there are a handful of attachments
and I'm going to hand the Baton over to Commissioners die in the bullsey um I did mention that I would try and
set a time um it won't be stringent we can set the 30 minutes and then see where we're at
set another 15. if we want to extend we can extend um before we start the clock though as to
not take away from the actual discussion I just wanted to ground the conversation because there was a fair amount
happening offline and online and there was a lot of um my consultation personally with the
deputies of the attorneys so I wanted to share and there are also some folks who were present or not present at meetings
so I just wanted to share some of the historical information pertaining to
some components of creating an advisory committee or task force or group
um just to get us on the same page and these are not specifically to my
opinions these are the um this is just kind of a recap of what happened over the last several months
and then the second piece is some of the considerations or questions that I think we've kind of gotten Tangled in in the
last few meetings and then the third is some of the insight and direction that
the W City attorneys have offered the commission and so I wanted to kind of share all of that to ensure
we're on the same page and I'm being transparent um so at the March regular meeting the commission discussion
discussed options for how the initiative could and should proceed including the idea of an advisory task force or
committee or informal group the commission ultimately decided that more information would be necessary to
consider establishing a body and the commission unanimously voted to have Commissioners redraft the die in the
policy redraft the project plan and incorporate feedback from the discussion and present a proposal for next steps at
the April meeting as discussed in that meeting and also offline the commission bylaws require a
majority of vote to establish committees committees are also inclusive of three members of the commission who are
participating in the initiative work which has been reiterated and discussed over the last couple of months I know
that as an aside I know that there was some discussion in the minutes about
the March meeting so if there's a difference in opinion and how I presented that commissioner diet welcome
that um at the April regular meeting the commission
um discussed that and learned that the Advisory Group had already been formed
and the there were several Commissioners that expressed in addition to the DCA
expressed that there was some surprise and unpreparedness to have that conversation several Commissioners
including myself did State though that it was kind of water on the bridge but wanted more information and transparency
about what the body would entail and asked the Commissioners leading the
charge Commissioners Diane lavosi to present a document that describes the
committee's proposed deliverables outputs governance and transparency considerations we actually voted on that unanimously after the last meeting
uh a meeting was scheduled for this advisory body to be held prior to or a
meeting with the advisory body to be held prior to today's meeting after a consultation with the dcas regarding the
sunshine ordinance and brown act I personally asked for the meeting to be postponed
um and asked the commissioner commissioner die and commissioner volsi to seek commission's vote on formally
establishing this committee to ensure that the body could comply with state city laws or state and local laws and
then in addition to the commission bylaws so some of the areas that I believed had come up as questions and
considerations over the last several months that I think have caused that I I've been striving to kind of untangle
myself and thought I would kind of lay it out for everyone that I think can help clarify some of
the discussion going forward first is how the committee has been referenced versus how it operates so I know there's
been conversation about whether it's a committee or a task force or a group or a panel if it's external if it's
informal if it's advisory versus a policy body if it's advising a single Commissioner versus the entire
commission when is it considered sanctioned by the commission those are
all things that I I believe we kind of had come up as considerations
and the second component of this is how the rules that we follow so specifically
implications around the sunshine ordinance and the brown act what is a passive body versus a policy body what
is the role of one Commissioner versus two Commissioners versus three Commissioners and also what is the
codified process that are that are included in our bylaws for establishing those committees and the final piece of
that that I wanted to add myself is just the commission consensus so as a
democratic body I think we all agree that the consensus and action by the commission is very important and that
when we agree to things making sure that if we're not clear on what those things are re-watching the recordings or asking
for clarification um I think those things we can all agree to so those are the things that over the
last several months have gone on and I think have caused some confusion and so I asked the deputy study attorneys to
provide some insight ahead of today on how we can move forward knowing that some of this had been kind of confusing
and um they provided three kind of way three different paths that I wanted to share
after kind of untangling some of the things that we just um we just talked about and again this is not getting I'm
not opining on Direction This is specifically just the direction that we
could go um the there are three paths so first is
the commission could vote to establish a formal committee um uh which is by majority vote is not
unanimous majority vote can establish a formal committee and that committee would have to follow the brown act
Sunshine ordinance all public meeting requirements um and including obviously what's in our bylaws and it would be considered
sanctioned by the commission so it wouldn't be external to go to the commission other Commissioners who are
working on this initiative even if they're not in some of those meetings would still be considered part of this
body it would also include you know using or resources of the of the commission including the secretary and
establishing agendas meetings meeting minutes Etc option number two is uh one commissioner
uh to hold a passive meeting uh and have a passive meeting body with the folks
that were originally slated to be incorporated into The Advisory Group or
its advisory panel so what does that mean in practice so the idea is that the group would solely advise a single
commissioner as opposed to the full commission and the meetings must follow passive meeting rules which are a little
less stringent significantly less stringent than what a formal committee would have to do so specifically and the
dcas can share more detail on this but generally made in public in San Francisco strive
to give notice but not required to take public comment the important thing to note about option number two here is
that both Commissioners cannot work on this at once it would have to be one commissioner holding that passive those
passive meeting bodies and then the path number three is that again one commissioner works alone to
gather information through one on meetings with individuals subject matter experts and then develop recommendations
as the commissioner based on that input that is then provided to the commission for consideration so
um I think that's pretty straightforward but happy to answer some some um some questions on that and then there's
one last kind of bucket of things that I want to share before handing this over which is just consideration so a couple
of things that we've talked about as a body are what's happening at the state level so ab1248 which I imagine
commissioner Stein lebowsi will also speak to today although don't want to assume um is currently as we know on the
assembly for floor at the next hearing date is in the Appropriations Committee
tomorrow and importantly the legislative session closes in September and then Governor
Newsom has 30 days to potentially veto an important piece of that is that the governor has vetoed a similar bill in
the past um and the important consideration that I wanted to call out is that there are
different implications for what San Francisco would have to do as we all know from the document that came from
the city attorney's office if that passes or doesn't pass second
piece is kind of the criteria that we're using to evaluate this initiative and kind of how we want to proceed so
transparency access to the public of some of these discussions you know we did vote last month to make our meetings
more accessible what does that look like for certain other areas um and then resources we've talked a
fair amount about not just you know ours as a commission and the agenda time and the secretary but also the advocacy
organizations that we would be asking to support this initiative and their resources
um and finally the goals and what what what is it that we we want to achieve
and the path to get there so I realize that is quite a lot I didn't want to in again opine on my opinion but I did want
to share a recap I wanted to share the learnings based on the confusion and some of the questions that had come up
in previous meetings and share that with all of you transparently in addition to
sharing what had happened offline with the full commission for their consideration so
um like I said I didn't want to start our timer and suppress the other components of this topic but I can take
any questions otherwise I will hand it over to Commissioners die and Commissioners liberal and commissioner
level C okay are there any were there any
questions okay go ahead commissioner die all right so
um very quickly I just want to review what the uh attachments are
um all of you received my little what's new uh thing but for the benefit of the
public uh the first item is illegal Memo from our dcas uh with their analysis of
ab1248 the second item is a minor very minor
revision of the project plan uh which just adjusted the the start date by a
month given that we didn't have the meeting last month and also replacing the work committee
with panel it was advisory panel in a couple of instances and
you know Fierce Committee in a few instances so we just change it all to advisory panel and then finally we
changed the the header on page six just to clarify that the communications plan was something we would hand over to the
board which was some of the feedback we got in the March meeting um
and then the third item is a fact sheet for ab764 which is companion legislation to
maybe 1248 it basically codifies some of the other recommendations that came out
of the fair maps report that all of us took a look at so it's a one-pager we're
not going to discuss it today I'm just posting it early for potentially discussion later and then last but not
least is the requested document that summarizes what our
intended purpose was for this advisory panel and operation of course we
prepared this and posted it before I was advised earlier today by DCA
floors about the the fact that only one commissioner can be on a passive meeting
body so um so just to clarify and
reinforce what president Stone said uh the where we had left things at the last
meeting was that this would be an informal body we were informed and we
were told that we could have whatever meetings we want as long as it was informal and not a not a commission
committee but after the meeting
um I was contacted by the dcas to clarify that in fact under the sunshine orders we're considered a passive
meeting body and so uh and the rest of the events transpired
as president Stone said so we held off on actually meeting um the only thing I wanted to say is
that the advisory panel was proposed it was in Project plan version five we had
not met officially we had only informally met to introduce people to
each other just so that they knew who else had volunteered to sir and so we were waiting on approval from the full
commission to move forward so having said that I'm going to turn it
over to commissioner levolsi to run through the content of the two-pager on
the charter and take any questions so thank you commissioner died commissioner
levolsi thank you commissioner die so
this group the intended purpose
um is to make sure that we have the information we need to
really come up with an effective plan and also to make sure that
we are hearing from voices in good government groups that are that have been doing this work for a tremendous
amount of time and also to make sure that we're hearing from diverse members of the community as well and so
the goal is to to make sure that we understand that this is purely advisory
this is not a group that is a making policy this is a group that would be informing us on best practices and then
that information we would bring to the full commission the other goal is
because time is of the essence we would like to make sure that the information
that's given is from reliable sources such as as you can see this is a blue
ribbon panel of people who have a tremendous expertise that many of us don't have and
our first meeting was really just as commissioner and I said to come up with
his name and for us to know who we are and and know a little bit about our backgrounds and at this stage I I'm
assuming everyone has read it and so next stage would be to move forward as
to whether we'd like to create this Advisory Group my understanding is now
that only one of us could meet with this group and that's
something that we would have to think about as far as our schedules
um as people who have other responsibilities outside of the commission I
my feeling personally is that there isn't a need to create a committee
because of the short length of time that we were considering to meet
um but that's of course up to us as a as a body to just to decide so
um I think if there are any questions I think the mission and scope are here and
and that's what our goal is and to make the the meetings publicly
accessible um we would just want a space in City Hall
just to make sure that whoever it is of us who's who is doing
this has the technology and it's also you know safety um as far as where they are and where
they're located is there anything you wanted to add commissioner died
yeah I mean I I will say that um you know thought is we're kind of 90
there with ab1248 regardless of whether it's passed or it's vetoed by the governor it's model legislation
and it incorporates most of the best practices that we've been discussing for the past year
uh really the the thing that differentiates San Francisco and the reason we got caught up in the 1248
discussion and the reason they they did not exempt Charter cities this time is
because of our political appointment process and that is the is the main
thing that we wanted this group to kind of discuss because we also have a higher
than average number of Supervisors and so uh kind of the the cookie cutter
approach that 1248 has may not completely work for us and that's what
we wanted this group to discuss so so I think originally our thought was
this group would meet you know once maybe twice um so it was intended to be a very
short-lived Advisory Group uh to just help us tweak the last 10 percent
and then we would come back and present the recommendations the pros and cons
what the options are what were less bad options etc for the full commission to to debate and decide on so
um so that that was the thinking of of having this uh external volunteer group
kind of do the heavy lifting of of hashing through that last 10 percent I
would just oh um commissioner Hayden Crowley in the
interest of time because um I do have to leave at nine uh president uh Stone
um went through three different ways that this can move forward and I
think number one is probably off the table number one which is the commit the committee the commission
would be involved in this process um I'll and I'll jump in there as a point of clarification so option number
one is to have more than one commissioner participate which at it just based on
the document that um based on the document and there's a
there are a couple of lines in there that um say this that it would be this body
advising the commission not commissioner that it would be advising or to inform
decisions of the commission that that would be a committee that's not
um but that is not a um by virtue of it being more than one
commissioner and operating with two Commissioners and informing you know
stating as it being a informing the decisions of our policies that would be a committee
does that answer your question uh yeah I the number two was um having a
uh one person on this commission uh but having an advisory in a public setting
and number three was to have an advisory just among the advisory and the one
person I'll clarify that so option number two is
um is to have one commissioner oh I I'll I'll say it and then if I get
it wrong you can clean it up um is to have one commissioner do The
Advisory Group that would not be required to follow the same rules as a
committee um but in that regard it would be advising the commissioner who would then
be advising the commission and then the third option is let's say commissioner levolci or
commissioner die individually meeting with the individual
members so miss you know commissioner Louisville c meeting with Mr Arden
individually and then using the information gathered in fact DCA Flores
gave a really great example of this to me when we spoke which is that like how I
um presented all the information from the secretary for the secretary higher position I found you know I pulled from
HR I pulled from here I pulled from there and then presented the commission with options to consider rather than
meeting as a group if we meet as a group with one commissioner that would be option number two does that clarify I
think I like that last one or do I I don't know the less complicated yes commissioner die yeah so actually
the last one's off the table because neither commissioner levolves you nor I have time to meet individually yeah
that's not happening yeah so so what I think Mr levolsi was proposing is that
we take the charter um and we take one of our names off and
just make it clear that this advisory panel is advising whichever name is left
um so because the whole reason we wanted to do this was to reduce the burden on the commission and you know commission
our limited commission resources including our secretary um you know for seeing three of us to
have to meet uh so that we could be more Nimble in between meetings and kind of get this
get this done really quickly and be able to advise the commission uh so I had
originally requested a commission committee because it hadn't occurred to me to do it in some other way and
actually president Stone was the one who suggested about you know having Community groups and that's how we came
up with the advisory panel idea so I am leaning towards option two which
looks like this Charter except one of our names is hacked off and wherever it says advice the commission we change it
to advise the commissioner so this is President Stone
um I I appreciate what you're saying and I
also appreciate why you want to do it this way the concern I have is it's not
just about chopping it off right you know if you and let's say commission let's say you commission or die are the
member to hold those meetings if you are then working with commissioner labelsi and also working with commissioner
Parker on this initiative you've in effect created the committee so
it's not just a matter of the document it's about how it's and that's why and I
knew it was I know it was long but that's why I talked about how the name of what we call it and how
we're referring to it is ultimately kind of irrelevant if it's operating as a policy body
um which in effect you know if you're having those meetings and then Consulting with commissioner levolsi or
vice versa or whoever my understanding and DC Flores can interrupt because it took a while to
untangle this myself I had a lot of questions I think we all did in the last meeting but my understanding is that
would be that would be a committee do you say flores is that correct
for the record she said yes um does anyone else before we just jump back in does anyone else want to um
want to ask a question yeah jca Flores there is a section in San Francisco law
about passive meetings that you can all read section 67.4 it's in the admin code
and I mean it says it's essentially what a passive meeting body is is
um advisory committees or other multi-member bodies created in writing
or by the initiative of or otherwise primarily formed or existing to serve as
a non-governmental advisor to dot dot dot a member of a policy body
that's why if there's two of you then it can't be a passive meeting body has to be a committee let's be a committee okay
thank you thank you um yeah uh vice president jordanick yeah
I had a question that was well two questions one is about this committee idea and then another one that's less
that's on a different topic so I'll do the other one first but um you know since the last meeting we
got the legal memo and also I appreciate all the information that all of you provided it's been very helpful to
understand the options but um so since the meeting we we got the legal memo and it was very useful but um is there a
reason why you didn't bring back the draft letter for this meeting because the um the committee did The Advisory
panel didn't meet and and the whole point was to was to get their take on it as well so oh so so you wanted to have
them review it before the commission reviewed it the draft letter to the Board of Supervisors well it's been posted it's been public
also present Stone um point of clarification we in the last
meeting the commission also said that we would postpone until we would postpone that right until
postpone the um letter to the soups until we had the analysis or are you saying once we got
the analysis well I was in it shared with the yeah I yeah I guess my question is um is
there a reason why now that we have the legal memo we're not discussing whether to approve the letter or not it's fine
if we don't but I was just curious occasion I can also take the responsibility for that um if you don't
mind commissioner die had asked me what I thought um about including the letter I
specifically said I knew that we would have a lot to talk about in this meeting and that it might be too much for us to
tackle all of that or not too much but that it could be considered um maybe too much to tackle so I can take
ownership of that okay thanks and then my other question was and this is to clarify
um so it sounds like we're leaning we're being forced into the option of making this an official committee you know
which is fine um but I just wanted to clarify
if two people makes means it would have to be a committee and then is there another part of our bylaws that say if
it's a committee it has to have three people so then we that was just an option so a committee per year bylaws has to
have three people right so it under the passive meeting rules there can't be two
people that lead a passive meeting body so that's why there's not a middle option of having two people and have a
committee one or three yes I mean I I should clarify does it have to have three Commissioners or just for a
committee per your bylaws your bylaws say three members okay so that's and
then if it's a committee there would need to be a third commissioner editor yes okay yes and point of clarification
on that as well because I meant to say this explicitly but for example working
with commissioner Parker on how to work with supervisors on this is also by
virtue working as a committee um so that's why I presented option
number one even though I know it is more resources and um you know my I have presented in the
past not wanting to use those resources I wanted to present it as an option because we are kind of already operating them
did other people who haven't had the chance to commissioner Parker commissioner will see
no um I would just like to say that I think at this point given
resources given time um given our schedules the the question
for the commission is who's available because I think what
would transpire if we were to go the route of one commissioner there would
have to be a trade-off between myself and commissioner die because there are sometimes I'm going to be available due
to my work schedule there's sometimes she's going to be available so that's not an option yeah
um because our schedules in order to get the work done within the timeline one of us is not available that entire time so
at this stage it we should move forward to form a committee my question is does
a formal committee Can it have a um a short timeline that it exists yes a
committee can sunset at any time but I just want you to remember that a committee everyone on
the committee that you're proposing to have this they have to appear in person all the rules of the brown act apply so
no remote participation you have to have a 72-hour notice period from agendas and
you also have to give the public an opportunity to comment at your meetings and so and that would also mean that the
secretary has to attend these meetings uh we normally are our office does not
normally staff committee meetings so Fisher die
so if we were to have a commission committee and we wanted to include the
folks we had invited to be part of this advisory panel um would they
not be official members of the committee then they would just we could invite
them to attend because one of the things we promised them since they're donating their time is that they wouldn't have to come in person
right because it adds a lot of extra time if they have to come in person
yeah DCA Florence
because I'm concerned we're creating conditions that this group cannot meet
um yeah I'll have to do more research on or just get more information from my
office um because you're bylaws do not state that but I mean
could we have them all be invited guests as opposed to being on the committee again I'd have to you know I'd have to
get more information from my office to determine if these folks are going to be
committee members and if they don't have to be committee members
um foreign yeah I just have to go back and check
um what is required at this point for guests if they're not part of this committee commissioner we'll see you at your hand
up uh it's not a question it's more of a statement I think it it's it's obvious that there that this is
falling Within some gray area in some ways and how we
um at first designed it and so the goal is not to obfuscate the rules but was
really to really make sure that we could get it is very hard to get a panel like
this to come in as we stated earlier time is of the essence and we felt that
that there would be trust that we would convey the information in a way that
would be clear and concise and then the the rest of the commission could make a decision but I think if we move
towards a committee then we really need to think about the timeline and what's
realistic because it's not most likely going to be possible that once you um
DCA Florence have this information if you come back and say
it has to be in person with everyone involved then that's going
to change the dynamic and I know that that's just the way it is but then we we
would have to think about what what are ways that we could pursue this which is of extreme I will speak for myself
interest on our parts um and I would just remind us I was not
on the commission um when there was the but I did read and
see what was happening and so our goal is to make sure that we have a redistrant commission that doesn't
have political influence
um yes um so this is President John I I haven't really asked questions or shared yet so
if it's okay I'd like to jump in um I have a bunch of thoughts
um and I appreciate the discussion and learning a lot about people's opinions and thoughts on how to proceed
one of the questions that I keep coming back to is why we need this group it's
not that and what I mean by that is not that why don't we need these individuals they're phenomenal obviously
um incredible and many of them have come to present to us in over the last year and
so you know I I guess my question is if we've had
redistricting agendaized almost every single meeting for the last year where we've had these wonderful individuals
members of the community these good government groups all come and present to us every single meeting and we've all
listened and discussed and debated for like I said about a year now
is there a reason that you know we can't you know whether it's both
commissioner die and levelsi or one or the other whatever
just put together the recommendations at based on what has already been done over
the last year and ask the um amazing
panelists to come invite them to speak remotely at a commission meeting based
on the recommendation that you know perhaps Commissioners level see and I
put together based on what we've already learned in the last year I guess that's a part that I'm still not sure about and I'm sure
there's a reason why I just don't really know what it is um and so I'd love the answer to that
um and I think that would also help move us forward right um if let's say Commissioners die in
level C hypothetically offline in the next six weeks I do that is not an
actual number I'm just saying like you know I don't want to assume to know your schedules but let's say you know in the
next six weeks you were able to put together recommendations of based on
everything we've heard and also obviously commissioner Tai has extensive experience in this area that then the
commission could review that final recommendation and we invite those folks to come and present when you present
those recommendations I guess I'm not sure why that couldn't be potentially like why we why we couldn't do that
um and I think one of the reasons why
I brought up resources before without wanting to opine at my opine is that the
resources of these organizations is that they have already given their time to us in over the last year
um in addition to that Community I I recall I wrote down in from our past
meetings that commissioner die you had mentioned that you had asked other community groups
um I think you specifically mentioned SF Rising you also mentioned having spoken with members of the African-American
community in San Francisco like Community groups and latinx communities and they declined to participate and so
that I think kind of stuck with me as to why because their resources you know
thinking about their resources so I that that kind of stuck with me and it's making me think you know we have so much
information we've had Community groups come and talk so I'd like to kind of come back to that point
um and then there was another question I had that was more of a point of clarification from for commissioner
point of information um that I was wondering about when you said almost there with ab1248 and what
you mean by that um you said help us tweak the last 10 percent I wasn't clear on what that
meant exactly so if you could just explain because in the last meeting you
had said that the first thing you asked the group to do and this is quoting is
imagine what it would look like to adopt these bills and what it would mean to strike all the provisions in the charter
um and so is that I guess my question is is that are they already working on the
recommendations and you want to be able to meet to get to the 10 I think I'm getting confused about what you're what
you're referring to when you say that so I guess it's a is the alternative just you the two Commissioners working on it
and B can you clarify um what you mean by 90 10 okay
commissioner die sure um so if you recall I had already put a
summary of all the recommendations we've heard from all the speakers uh back in November uh so that's been posted for a
long time there were still open questions if you recall that I had you
know put in the right hand column that were questions I had because they're not
the recommendations were not specific enough for San Francisco and I should
point out with you know with the exception of the League of Women Voters of San Francisco
all the other ones are State organizations and they've been looking at legislation like like a b 1248 and
764 that could apply to every city in the state of California and like I said they're not dealing with
things that are specific to San Francisco like the fact that we have so many supervisors right so they have
proposed in 1248 a standard a standard commission what it should
look like and how it should behave and what the world should be and a lot of the general recommendations
and best practices are consistent with what we've heard that there's consensus recommendation on but
um the parts where we kind of stick out like the fact that we have so many
supervisors their standard their standard format and they may not work
that well for us right and so that's the the the last
that's what I mean by the last 10 percent that's where I really wanted to get these big brains in a room and have
them hash it out with make them think about San Francisco and hash it out with us uh because I do think that we'll take
thoughtful discussion um I you know am very aware of the
limited time we have at regular commission meetings and I did not want to impose that burden on the full commission which is why I suggested a
committee in the first place so that we could hash it out like do all of the thinking through this and you know give
our best recommendation to the full commission with pros and cons Etc so that's the I think I addressed both
of your questions yes thank you for clarifying that makes a lot more sense
so I have a little more information I got in touch with um Brad
um Deputy City attorney Brad Rossi and um so he did say that um he confirmed
that you can create your committee um to do the redistricting work however you wouldn't necessarily have this group
like you wouldn't say hey here's our Fierce group to help us you could invite these folks to the meeting
um to hear what they have to say but they wouldn't be part of the committee um yeah so they wouldn't be like a body
that advises you you could just invite them to come and share their thoughts but you can you know you wouldn't invite
them to every meeting and have them Vote or like they have no authority over the committee right but they could attend
they could attend like any other like any other citizen of San Francisco or
resident of San Francisco or a guest speaker yeah as an invited guest speaker so yeah so
really the whole design of this was to unburden the commission and to let this group of experts kind of do the heavy
lifting and think through the last that's what I meant the last 10 percent that the specifics where the standard
you know the standard form may not work perfectly for San Francisco
um so that you know so that we can hand it over the Board of Supervisors and let them take action before the standard
form is forced on us so that that was the thinking thank you for clarifying commissioner
die I actually think that's really helpful and um might I recommend or ask that in
whatever the next Pro whatever you deliverable you put together is also just maybe mentioning that like what's
been done and saying why it's why it's important because I I personally a lot didn't remember all that so I think it
was a helpful reminder so thank you vice president jordanick I think you had your hand up yes so um I've you know I've
been listening to the discussion it's um I feel like there's got to be a way to
let this group meet to you know to come up with the recommendations but is there also a
scenario where these five people could just meet on their own and then
you know it seems like they're all interested and then come up with recommendations and then just give them
to us or is that also a passive meeting body or if if it doesn't even have any
Commissioners on it and then that that way it wouldn't be um you know
you wouldn't have the scheduling conflicts with between the two of you or is that
responsibility
I mean that would be difficult considering the heavy role that both two Commissioners have taken in this group
um but any member any person who lives in San Francisco or I guess Mr Turner
doesn't live in San Francisco but anyone that wants to opine on anything about San Francisco I think can come to your
meeting and and do so like anyone right so these people can all get together and
come up with something and say hey San Francisco commission elections commission this is like a really great
idea we think you should back it um I don't see any issues with that
um but I you know again it it would be like if you'd want them to advise you
then that's where the problem is at well I
I appreciate um vice president jordanick your suggestion but this group would be doing
this at our behest even if we're not there it's at our behest so it wouldn't
that that would be violating the rules because we're we're asking them to give us best practices for our
unique situation in San Francisco based on their knowledge and experience so
it's not a random group coming together it's a group that we've asked to come
together so I don't think that would help thank you for vocalizing that correctly
that's what I was trying to say um and and something like this did happen I mean during redistricting like on their
own a group of like 100 orgs came together and drafted maps on their own right so
at this point there has been a request already by this body so I think it would be too late to say hey go do something
on your own um so so there's a phrase for it but you can't undo the you've already crossed
that line again yes we'll see so we have to decide
are we going to have a committee or are we going to do some of the suggestions
that Commissioners president Stone excuse me is suggesting
I mean I think that's or or you some of the things you said that we might want to consider
which are we've come we've have information that that has been brought together can we have
um these members come and provide that information to us directly was that not
something that you suggested thanks for asking um no that what I meant what I
was asking commissioner died to clarify kind of what the difference would be between what we've already gotten and
what the body would be offering um I was just saying initially I had
said there were three paths to the committee the passive and whatever based on the considerations that we had all elevated over the last several months
that I think got us into this entangled process um did that clarify no okay absolutely
yeah um commissioner Parker I saw your hand up um yeah just
um before we just I mean I think I know what direction this conversation is heading but I do
just have a clarification question um the passive body um option if there was one commissioner
leading that then does that also um would that mean
because if that was the direction to go that no longer could that commissioner then be having any conversations with
anybody about this because it would turn into like a Serial meeting essentially of some sort yes okay it
would turn into an unsanctioned commitment unsanctioning so so that would all have so all
conversation would have to take place here so no coordinating behind the scenes it's anything like that it's so
it's either a committee where people Commissioners can talk to each other about this or it's
excuse me one commissioner leading a passive meeting group
um and then comes back to report back on that to this the full commission and that's that's where the communication
happens yeah that's part of why sorry this President Stone just to answer that
that's part of why I know I gave this kind of like long thing but there's so many of these considerations of like
well what happens if this and I I mean the amount of questions that I've asked the dcas about this
um trying to re-listen to some of our meetings yes I have a proposal
um which we you know we can talk about in terms of the things that you know what we some of
the things we've talked about are individual Commissioners time so commissioner will see commissioner die
both have um have expressed that you know needs to be assured it can't be just one
commissioner um understandably um the other thing we've talked about is the commission Resources with the
secretary and everything associated with that and then the third are some of these other considerations around
numbers of Commissioners and who can participate so I have a proposal um that perhaps we consider establishing
a committee a formal committee um that can determine when it needs so
let's say it's commissioner dye commissioner Parker and commissioner levolsi but you could maybe meet you
know once once as it could be a short-term commit commission a committee
it doesn't have to be like you know a long term could be a short-term commission yeah where you have a
conversation about things you want to do and that way you know you can work offline you know commissioner Parker can
go off and work with and do some of the supervisor things and then report back to the committee
um Commissioners die and levelsi can be responsible for doing whatever offline or I guess you couldn't because it'd be
a quorum so one of you but have that beat in terms of the resources
um you would have to follow the meeting requirements for yourselves we could you could invite the other folks to
participate remotely as guests to your idea commissioner die and then the third
component of that be we can debate this not have the commission's secretary take the minutes
and do the agenda meaning but have the committee be responsible for the minutes and the agenda and
um uh yeah the minutes and the agenda and the uh
I think that's it now my brain's getting foggy so that's that's a seems like maybe a mix of some of the
things commissioner yeah it seems like um in order for this to the burden to be
shared we have to go the committee route and if that's the direction we're going
I would ask commissioner Parker if she's willing
um and also uh we already have a date which was hard fought to find another
date that all these people could meet um so if we do that I would ask
um the commission secretary's assistance in helping us find a room
um but that's what I was going to say that date may have to change because there's
a lot of meetings is it next Wednesday yeah there's a lot of Wednesday meetings so if you cannot meet at um City Hall
then you you can't have a meeting so so it has to be City Hall can't be up any
other people no that's for Passive bodies for committees you you're essentially like a mini elections
Commission um looks like commissioner died finished and then I'll hand it over to sorry
about that no no come on go ahead commissioner die um
yeah and then there's the other issue that I'm going to be out of pocket for most of June so
which is why we had said offline to commissioner
levolsi that if it's a passive meeting body she's gonna have to step up because I can do one meeting but I probably
can't do them after that vice president jordanick
yeah I think um I think there's a possibility that in DC4 as you might know but there's
conference rooms that are smaller than the hearing rooms well I think I know when we had the
advisory committee for the open source some years back we met in the smaller conference rooms and there's they're
like rooms that are Maybe a fifth of the size of this room or a third then those might be more available
than um like 408 and 400 so
um I I agree there this is a really big building there might be tons of rooms
but the other thing you know you have to post the agenda through 72 hours beforehand so you know if you missed
that deadline you can't meet so I don't think the agenda is the issue
um and we can meet in a closet because there's only going to be three of us everyone else is going to be remote
so it's just an issue of whatever requirements there are to record or live
stream the meeting yeah you have to live stream the meeting um and you can't meet in a closet
because the public is not going to be able to fit so I know so it has to be a
room accessible to the public thank you
I was just going to say uh commissioner died the the technology and to
commissioner uh vice president giovannik the technology piece might not be available in the other conferences
conference rooms of streaming the meeting
you know I don't know what conference rooms you're talking about but it's it sounds like all of the technology we
need especially if the secretary is not going to be available would be in a room
like this and not in any other conference rooms point point of congregation we might be
able to help with that we might be able to meaning like if it's a small room you could set up a
WebEx you know we could help set up a WebEx okay and you could just do it on one of your computers
um pretty pretty easily vice president Jordan yeah that's actually what I was going to say I was going to say as long
as you have a laptop in the room you could just put in the center and then people can hear you and you could okay
that's doable so it seemed presence down here um it seems like really the the big
thing is just ensuring that you could get a space in City Hall for next um Tuesday and we would appreciate help
with that oh yeah I um commissioner commissioner bossy sorry
I'm tired um I I think before we move forward or
have any other discussions there's a proposal for committee um but we haven't
I don't think we've given commissioner Parker a time to think and consider
this proposal so I I think we should maybe
allow time for for commissioner Parker to to decide that and I I I'm assuming you
don't want to just decide that right now to be fair to you
commissioner Parker uh thank you I appreciate that um I mean I wasn't sure how all of this
was going to go um go down um the the main I mean as with everybody
else you know the question is always with capacity and so my question for you
all would be is is how often would we want to meet um some of you know I I'm on my chair a
couple of other things that are all winding down in the next month or two and so I'm you know finishing those things up if there's not a lot of
meetings related you know if there's a couple of meetings I can probably do that I will be in town those that that
is possible but if it was something like we're wanting to meet you know weekly for a period of time like that might be
challenging for me to be a part of um and majority for a committee would be too and so if there's one I couldn't
attend then so be it you know yeah exactly but otherwise I'm I mean
obviously trying to help in ways that are appropriate and that I can and so
what's up commissioner diet yeah um so uh so I like I said I'm gonna be absent
for most of June so two out of three of us would have to be
available uh and then um I I wonder if it'll be helpful for
everyone if you would just share the update um you know that you you've been working
with our potential legislative Champions and maybe it's appropriate just to share what the progress is on that and
um do you want me to show that I mean do you want to I don't know if you wanna to consider this taught this question right
now about committee or if you want I mean I'm happy to share some updates on conversations I'm having whatever is
appropriate for the order of things I'm open to what the body wants um
one thing I would also like to note just as an aside um which may be more of a question that
I would want to pose to the committee if it's formed is also
you know I shared a little bit about the what's happening with the assembly bill but
um I think it would be helpful to also understand the
the approach to this the assembly Bill like how the commission is thinking
about that um and whether some of this should wait until you know
the legislative session has gone through obviously maybe not the letter um in support but
um if that passes if it won't pass kind of what's the process of that I think that would be a
helpful just keeping an eye on what's happening with that legislative path I mean I was looking I was quite literally
looking at the legislative path earlier today um and reading some of the differences
and there's so many steps that it would have to go through but um just keeping an eye on it at the
state in addition to the the local kind of work with the electeds
would be great so but otherwise I'm open I want to hear what other people think
about talking hearing the update I'd be interested to hear the update vice president
okay commissioner Parker please go ahead um yeah so um as I shared last month
I've had some conversations with supervisor Mirna Melgar and supervisor Matt Dorsey
um we we know that President Aaron peskin is interested and willing to be
one a sponsor and um and both supervisors Dorsey and Melgar
are also willing um there there is some discussion about who will be the lead because they want
to make sure that they are not standing alone because they all have a lot on their plates but they are all supportive
um and so I think I'm feeling there's still some final I think conversations that need to happen there but in general
um there is uh support for this and willingness to move forward especially
if it's done as a team they are all super supportive of the idea that we move this forward in whatever it looks
like because we don't know what the actual measure will look like yet even though we have some general ideas of the
broad Strokes um they are interested with the the
strategy that we've talked about before about trying to get all of the supervisors on board because that just
by doing the heavy lifting now it's a lighter lift for everyone later um and then also the mayor and I have
had some initial conversation with the mayor's office as well to try to bring them along and let them know what's
happening what's coming forward to ask for also advice and questions and things that they might have so that again we're
starting to lay groundwork even though we don't know the specifics yet that everybody feels included in the process
so that there's more likely a strong Foundation of support whenever it
actually comes to fruition so I would say those are all generally moving in a
good direction and that that is a good approach for us to continue to take is to bring everybody along with and ask
for questions and suggestions along the way so that it has a better chance of
success and we all are not having to worry too much by the time it actually makes it to the ballot
I move that we form a redistricting initiative committee
that will uh follow the
um bylaws public Brown act Sunshine all the
public meeting requirements but seek to use its own resources to
actually establish meetings and minutes agendas those are details of the motion
but um work on its own independently and find a
yeah work on its own independently and it can be a short-term committee as well
so the motion let me just restate it more clearly is to establish a formal committee that operates independently
and then will provide updates to the commission based on its its progress all
appropriate laws
I have a question about verification um is there an option to have the
Secretary of available or is it you would prefer that we the secretary is never available for this committee
meeting if this committee meets um the idea was that we had discussed as a
group the use of the resources of the secretary I mean as it stands right now
full full transparency secretary Davis is already working at full capacity
um and so that would mean it would pull
um some resources so perhaps maybe we try um without and if it's becoming too much
we can talk about reallocating some resources but I'm open to the conversation about full transparency yes
secretary Davis was already working at full capacity of her hours
president jordanick yeah just one question is there a proposed name for the committee the fears oh Fierce okay
so the fear is going to be so sad if we couldn't use it of course fierce
committee or or Fierce redistricting initiative
committee yeah well that's you're saying it twice right
let's just call it the fierce committee okay I mean Commissioners die levelsi and
Parker do you like that you're the potential members of the committee so just their opinion
so um uh I think we need a second and then once yes of course once um you have
that going um the president formally appoints the members so you don't vote on who's going to be
on the committee the the President's duty is to appoint the members and to appoint a chair of the committee
the the motion though is about forming the committee right so I just wanted to
make sure before if I need to amend the motion um it sounds like Fierce is
the motion is to establish the fierce committee the president will appoint members as
per the conversation do I have a second to that motion second thank you commissioner Parker so
let's take um public comment yeah Mr Scott to say so let's take public comments
see any public comment hands raised
great okay um secretary Davis would you mind
calling the Roll Call vote for the motion to establish the fierce
committee yes
yes I feel like I have to roar or something
I but only because we retain the fierce name
yes yes
great thank you secretary Davis and thank you all I know this is a difficult conversation and I also just really
appreciate commissioners in their patients and hope and hopefully
their open mind is definitely not seeking to be obstructionist I want to make sure that all the law and I feel
really excited to hear what comes out of all of the work that you all do together so with that let's move to Let's close
agenda item oh actually were there any other comments questions or okay
um we'll close agenda item number yeah DCF presence
no but it doesn't where does it say that we have to do that right now do we have to do it right now no
functions yeah yeah so yeah we have to decide
yeah um Okay cool so we're going to close agenda item seven we're gonna move to agenda item number eight agenda items
8. Agenda Items for Future Meetings
for future meetings a discussion and possible action regarding regarding items for future agendas so
um commissioner dye had asked specifically about this about the June meeting so I will hand it to her
yes I would like to participate in the June meeting if
um it is possible for us to reschedule it to the last week of June
um if the commission is open to it and if
not I understand I have a question um yeah commissioner almost so we're talking about the 28th
oh two um or or the 21st okay
and um yeah so
it doesn't have to be any particular day but if there's a day that
most of us can make it um Ben
or oh sorry vice president you're noticed I
can make any day that week okay commissioner Parker yeah I I believe
that I will be around it would be available and and frankly when I look at my calendar that might if we did the
20th might even work better for me because I have a big work thing that on the 21st in the afternoon that might build you know bring me right up next to
our meeting time so okay yeah um commissioner we'll see did
you have any I am available the week of the 26th
either um the only date that I can't meet is the 29th
great um so thank you I
I believe I can do the 28th um I obvi obviously we need to get the input of
Commissioners Hayden Crowley and commissioner burning Holtz but um given that they're not present
um I think we could probably move forward with that I will look into it
um personally I would love to keep it on a Wednesday just for continuity if everyone is okay with that
um of our regular meetings and that way it's only just a week um so
I will look into that secretary Davis and I'll look into that and get back to folks the email
the other thing I wanted to mention is that in lieu of one of our meetings this
summer we will do the retreat but that means either maybe our July or August meeting
we won't meet so folks can keep that in the back of their mind and we can talk about that
at the next meeting as well was there anything else
folks would like to include okay
it is 9 38 p.m oh I was so close
um and now we'll move to public comment hit the gavel in the hand
there are no hands raised by the comments great closing agenda item eight and now it is 9 38 still and this
meeting is adjourned
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