FIERCE Committee (Elections Commission) Meeting

welcome everyone to the September 5th 2023 meeting of the San Francisco

elections commission Fair independent effect and effective redistricting for

Community engagement or Fierce committee meeting I am the chair Cynthia dye the time is now 606 and I call the

meeting to order before we proceed further I want to briefly explain some procedures for

participating in today's meeting the minutes of this meeting will reflect that this meeting is being held in

person at City Hall Room 416 1 Dr Carlton B Goodlett Place San Francisco

California 94102 and remotely via WebEx as

authorized by the elections commission May 17 2023 vote members of the public May attend the meeting to observe and

provide public comment either at the physical meeting location or remotely details and instructions for

participating remotely are listed on the commission's website and on today's meeting agenda public comment will be

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

minutes if you are on the line with an interpreter when providing public comment you are encouraged to state your

name clearly once your three minutes have expired staff will thank you and you will be muted please direct any of

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

public comment while providing public comment remotely please ensure you are in a quiet

location when joining by phone you will hear a beep when you are connected to the meeting you will automatically be

muted and in listening mode only to make public comment dial Star 3 to raise your

hand 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 the public comment line 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're done with your comment click the hand icon again till over your hand

in addition to participating in real time instrument interested persons are encouraged to participate in this

meeting by submitting public comment in writing by 12 pm on the day of the meeting to elections.commission at

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

will be included as part of the official meeting file thank you

all right we're going to do roll call Commissioners please verbally State Your Presence at today's meeting after your

name is called I am the chair die and I am president commissioner lavolsi present

commissioner Parker president with three members present and accounted for

this Fierce committee meeting we are ready to proceed

and with that let us go to um

the land acknowledgment if you will permission yes thank you chair die

the San Francisco elections commission acknowledges that we are on the unseated ancestral home land of the Rama to

shaloni who are the original inhabitants of this excuse me inhabitants of the San

Francisco Peninsula as the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their Traditions the Rama to

shaloni have never seated lost nor forgotten their responsibilities as Tech caretakers of this place as well as for

All Peoples who reside in their traditional territories as guests we

recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional Homeland we wish to pay our respects by

acknowledging the ancestors and relatives of the ramataj community and affirming their Sovereign rights as

first people thank you commissioner levolsi all right

um we are going to move on to item number two general public comment public

comment on any issue within fierce's General jurisdiction that is not covered by another item on this agenda

hello awesome

thank you commissioner Parker

I'll sit here no yeah perfect uh good evening Eleanor Odell

um this weekend there was an article pointed in this standard by Annie GAO and it referenced this last meeting here

and I'll just read a little briefly she said that um uh the controller's office and the

Department of Elections were both mentioned as possible selection and vetting authorities

but one commissioner added that the elections commission then

ruled itself out because of a lot as she puts it any guy on the standards a lack

of public confidence and that's the reason why this commission decided to rule out the possibility of having the

elections commission as a vetting Authority or a selection Authority and I

thought to myself what what could have led to such a lack of confidence in this

commission and in the Department of Elections that could result in this commission

believing that it didn't have the confidence of the public

can you imagine a department of the city not having enough confidence in the public to be politically neutral it

should be the elections commission for sure but then I went back to April 6. and it

was 19 or 2022 April 6 and there was a commissioner at the time I don't know

who it was but I was listening to the tape and it was the meeting where you

all were considering whether to bring in the redistricting task force members uh to a committed to a commission

meeting the first question what is our and I'm quoting him directly by the way what is our Authority for taking this

action number two is there a failure of due process here if so that would require a

legal remedy but I suppose it could also be a political remedy if it's a political

problem if so and if it is a

failure of due process that would be a legal remedy and any political remedy wouldn't

this wouldn't be the place to handle a political remedy okay is what he said on April 6 of 22.

number three if this Commission does choose to take the action of replacement what will the process be

that's required and he wanted some comment after that to

say is this commission doing the right thing by substituting our judgment for their

judgment do we replace them in a way that's legitimate

and does that make things worse okay this is what this commissioner said number four the charter says the

deadline is April 15th just because there's a no civil or criminal penalty imposed for not meeting that

type this up thank you for your comment thank you let's see if there are any

any commenters online

I say hand raised yes uh you are a muted

hey good evening uh thanks for continuing this important process oh

sorry uh sorry so um I'm John say with the League of Women Voters San Francisco I want to say thanks for continuing this

important process to support much needed redistricting reform assignment consistent reserved Fair

elections and the foundation of fair elections is an independent redistricting process that prioritize

the needs of our communities not the needs of elected officials the league looks forward to hearing your discussion

tonight and is available if you need any assistance finding information on Independent redistricting best practices

thank you I think you must say

all right

seeing no more hands um I'm going to move on to item three actually we're going to skip

past item three because it was uh we're going to go ahead and treat this

as a continuation of the last meeting and do one set of minutes which of course means I'm volunteering

for that so so you guys are off the hook uh moving

on to the main event um uh

welcome back everyone from what I hope was a somewhat restful holiday weekend uh

I I know this has been um it's a difficult day for all three of us and I'm impressed that we all made it

right after holiday weekend so I want to thank you guys for agreeing to that uh

as I mentioned this meeting is a continuation of the August 24th meeting agenda where we didn't quite finish

discussing the key reforms under consideration to improve our local redistricting process we got about

halfway through and we intend to power through the rest of it tonight uh to distinguish between the ones which we

largely agree on and those that might require more discussion members of the public can refer to the final attachment

for this agenda item we will also be sharing uh this deck on WebEx for

um for those to see but before you launch into that I did want to draw your attention to Sunday's

New York Times article on the gerrymandering scandal in Los Angeles uh

our guest speaker from a couple meetings ago Dr Sarah sadwani was quoted in it

and um you know for me I think it really highlighted the problems with political

appointees where city council members were appointing bigger guns reappointing

their guns to square off against other appointees uh only to entirely ignore Community

input in the end and and the advisory commission's recommendations

um I also wanted to update everyone on the status of pending legislation

ab1248 and ab 764 the update to the fair Maps Act both have passed out of Senate

committees and are now on the senate floor um I will admit I only was able to kind

of glance at it before today's meeting they got out of committee on on September 1st so I didn't have a lot of

time to look at it but there is one significant amendment that I wanted to highlight in ab1248

which I thought I wanted to make sure everyone on the committee was aware of

and that is with regard to the selection body so it looks like it has been amended to

allow for more options so remember before there was like a precedence of

selection bodies that we would have to consider and the City attorney had

concluded that for us it would be the ethics commission now it's multiple choice so now we can choose from any one of

those and they've added more options so um anyone can go and just Google ab1248

and you will be able to find the ledge info

Dot legislature.ca.gov and you can look it up uh

so let me see if I can just find that section real quick

um the new Option they've also added is a panel consisting of one representative

from three of the following the ethics Commission

a committee or commission with a holistic view of the local jurisdiction addictions governance process the

controller City attorney City Clerk or city treasurers if these offices are not

elective offices a retired judge appointed by the chief

judge of the superior court of the county or and the Civil grand jury

of the county so that's a new Option so

I think that's really interesting uh I think we still agree we don't know what the right answer is for San

Francisco by ourselves but but that's that's very interesting and so it does look like it's going through very

thoughtful consideration by our state senators and there were some other

additional amendments um uh mostly from what I could tell you

know making sure that candidates for the California citizens redistration commission are um that are not selected

for that commission are forwarded to local jurisdictions as long as they give their permission so there's some

clarification around that on 764 there were also some uh

some revisions that were minor I don't um I think don't think most of them

reply to us but that was the big one so I just wanted to share that with you guys thank you I

don't know if uh my fellow Commissioners had any thoughts on the article or any other

updates before we launch into the slides

hello nope all right thank you for sharing them commissioner Parker it is Off to the

Races um before we we talked to the end of our last meeting if we maybe wanted to do allow a little public comment on

the first three items did you want to still do that in case people had kind of after thoughts after letting it sink in

that we had talked about that in our last meeting yeah uh and we did not receive any written public comments so

um we could do uh let's see so we did do

you want to just recap where we got to and then we and then allow a little comment and then get on yeah sure

um I could do that um hold on one side

I'll just share my screen real quick and go ahead and I think you'll want the clerk's PC right yes please

there you go is that wonder is there any way to make that fill the screen bigger or do you think that's kind of the best

we can do is there any way to make that the screen

fill the slide fill the screen more or do you think that's the best we can do

clinics hard to read If you're looking at a screen

and then I think be a full screen

full screen view yeah well that's better right a little better

um Okay so um very quick recap of what we did last time um

this was uh this is a oh there you go well yeah yeah thank you

um this was a deck that would allow us to to guide us through a conversation discussing discussing the various

components of redistricting form that have been discussed in kind of Reform initiatives and help us consider all the

questions that San Francisco could be asking should be asking as it considers making changes to the existing processes

here some of which would require a change to the city's Charter and so last time we just did a quick

review of some of the context um this is why we are considering the

topic um which is that San Francisco was a Pioneer in independent redistricting and

has now fallen behind in best practices and everybody we have spoken with who

was on the last redistricting commission including that last redistricting task force here in San Francisco agrees that

some improvements should be made and we on this committee are part of the

elections commission and we are responsible for ensuring free fair and functional elections which does require

Fair districts so that's why this is on our plate and then I did a quick walkthrough of

existing state and local legislation the city Charter the fair Maps act which doesn't apply to Charter cities but it

still is a pretty relevant document to refer to and also talked about some

history and previous presentations we've had at the commission and then talked a little bit about the state legislation

that commissioner died just referred to maybe 1248 and ab 764.

and and then why we are considering this now is there's a recent range of experiences from the with the public

that they have had that allows for more meaningful Community engagement before it's too far

out of people's minds and to provide some input for potential reform and also because it takes time to run a fair and

Democratic process we want to make sure there's enough time to prepare a new independent redistricting body and

support City agencies to implement a fair process before the next census so the components that we reviewed I'm

not going to go into detail about any of the discussion just to tell you which components we did review last time these

were the seven that we are going to review in total we went through the first three so those are the composition

of the body itself the selection and removal process and the commissioner

qualifications and restrictions and just to note well actually I'll

pause here for one second you'll occasionally see some acronyms throughout these these slides our DTF

means redistricting task force IRC is independent redistricting commission which is what this type of a body is

usually referred to in any kind of state level legislation or all the reports

that you'll read they refer to them as ircs the Board of Supervisors is BOS CCRC is the California citizens

redistricting commission and FMA is the fair Maps Act so we went through the composition and

you'll see that each of these slides there's a there's a general structure to them where there's a key question some

kind of a quote from a report or a key um note to be thinking about and then on the right there's a list of questions to

consider that let a lot of uh the conversation that we had on each of

these and then there was always a chart that happened on the second slide for each of the components that shows

what existing San Francisco law says pending California legislation that ab1248 and 764 the fair Maps act and

then a recent report that talks about what's been a result of the fair Maps act as it has been implemented in

various Juris jurisdictions across the state and the next column is

recommendations from the most recent San Francisco redistricting task force and then the last

column is the California redistricting Commission

um and the next one about selection removal process had four subsections

about Outreach and recruitment qualifications and restrictions betting and selection and removal

and then um just scrolling through those quickly thank you for your patience and then we

arrive at the fourth which we will pause for a minute and take any comment on what we discussed

last time

okay Alan burrito uh so I hadn't thought

that I would be commenting on this I'm glad to be up here though

um first of all the New York Times I'm going to respond to chair uh this

quote and information that they provided about sedwani and what they're going through down in LA

you continually try to tie what's happening down there this this board does uh this commission to what's

happening here and it's totally different they have 20 some council

members down there at each point a advisory person and you're right that kept letting people go to bring in

stronger advisors to then only ignore their advice when they close the door and Drew the maps on their own they've

got a terrible system down there it's got to change it's totally unfair

to we citizens who pass propel to have these three bodies do the

selecting and vetting of candidates we do it totally different than LA and

it's unfair to say that we do it in a similar way um

second thing 1248 or best practices we hear a lot about that today and

throughout this whole process best practices according to who it's a political matter we're talking

about here when we're talking about redistricting there is no best practice with this it's a political matter it's a

matter of political outlook on what a best practice is no matter how much you try to characterize it as a cut and dry

clinical matter of studies and data it's just not that and

then requires Fair districts your mission requires Fair districts the

mission of this commission which is to oversee the Department of Elections you require Fair districts in order to carry

out your mission it's not that is just not right

you don't require that to carry out Fair elections the elections are an event

that happen and you oversee the process of that event happening

Fair representation is up to the people to decide whether or not they're fairly represented in their recourse is to go

to their Board of Supervisors and give them the boot or give them the vote but you are losing your credibility here

by taking on this matter and that goes to the heart of why you can't even select yourself or nominate yourself to

be a vetting or selecting Authority this is why you're taking on for the past year and a half this political

matter it is political and you should let it go

and that's all I have to say about this item thank you Mr verdell thank you

all right uh let's see if there's any

public comment online um

the unmute okay you are muted

you say do you want to make sorry I sorry I forgot to lower my hands no

worries okay seeing no more public comments

um let us go on with our review

okay um so we are at the fourth of our seven components and this one is about the

redistricting line or the redistricting line drawing criteria key question here is what criteria will reduce political

influence keep communities of Interest whole and increase transparency um this the yellow box to the side here

is just sharing the definition of community of interest from the California state constitution for

reference um the Constitution defines a community of Interest as a contiguous population

which shares common social and economic interests that should be included within a single district for purposes of its

effective and fair representation some of the key questions that I've

suggested could be considered here are should San Francisco deviate from the fair Maps act criteria to accommodate

unique characteristics and if so how some examples might be cultural districts communities of interest

definition um the five percent population equality between districts just as a reminder we

are not required to fall under the fair Maps act criteria but it is a suggestion we could look to and that's why I've

asked suggested this question should San Francisco rank criteria in alignment with the fair Maps Act and the

California citizens redistricting commission requirements to prevent cherry picking to justify preferences

um you know of individual Commissioners Etc which criteria can be required to reduce

political influence for example some of the types that you'll see are no

incumbency protection so meaning that if you have an existing elected official in

an area you don't protect where they lived in order to let them stay in that District where they were elected into

you you don't consider where they live at all consideration of elected's political

affiliation for instance if you're if they are uh one political party and the

rest of the district is a different or the same in just trying to consider that um when drawing the lines

and then the last question here is what should be included in final reports of the redistricting task force to increase

transparency and accountability regarding adopted lines

um for our chart here so current San Francisco law

um the line drawing criteria is not ranked it is just a list of criteria

um we're asked to substantially comply with the one person one vote rule districts should be contiguous Compact

and recognized neighborhoods population variations are limited to one percent unless variations are necessary

um and what and to expand a little bit on that is if they are necessary to prevent

dividing or diluting the voting power of minorities and or to keep recognized neighborhoods intact

um must consider communities of interest and there is no prohibition on incumbency production protection I'm

sorry um let's see

[Music] um and then for the pending California legislation ab1248 relies on the fair

Maps act it does not define any new criteria AB 764 prohibits incumbency protection

and adds some clarity regarding communities of Interest the fair Maps act says that we're

practicable districts should be geographically contiguous keep communities of Interest

whole minimize division they should be easily identifiable and understandable by the residents and bounded by natural

or artificial barriers encourage geographical compactness and the districts must be substantially equal

and then the promise of fair maps report made recommendations to prohibit incumbency protection and discrimination

both um ranked criteria must be followed to the maximum extent possible unranked

criteria cannot be prioritized over ranked so if there are two sets of criteria you can't rank the you can't

prioritize unranked criteria over the ranked criteria and then I must also do

or they're suggesting that um the districts also do a gingles prong

one analysis and publish a summary of racially polarized voting analysis now just pause for a second when I read that

I was like what the heck is a ginkgo's wrong one analysis so I did a little bit of research for you all and which I will

share um section two of the Voting Rights Act prohibits the implementation of voting

districts as well as other laws and practices that result in less opportunity from minorities to

participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice for example section 2 prohibits red

searching plans that divide a minority group neighborhood into separate voting districts and thus weaken the group's

political power to elect a candidate who addresses their concerns this is sometimes called cracking if you've seen

that in various elections researcher gerrymandering articles you'll you'll

see that term section two also prohibits discriminatory electoral schemes such as

at-large elections that tend to dilute the voting strength of minority groups section 2 prohibits such practices and

devices because all citizens are entitled to realize the full power of their vote and have an effective voice in the political process so there was a

case called Thornburg versus gingles and the Supreme Court in this case established three criteria for proving

racial vote dilution under the Voting Rights Act so therefore violating section two and those three prongs are a

minority group must demonstrate it is large and compact enough to constitute a majority a majority in a single member

district a minority group must demonstrate it is politically cohesive and a minority

group must demonstrate the majority group votes sufficiently as a group to defeat the minority group's preferred

candidate okay so that's what those are hopefully that clarifies a little bit you can do

additional research if that's helpful um and then redistricting the recent

redistricting task force here in San Francisco did not have recommendations as a body around the line drawing

criteria and then the California commission has a priority order population should be nearly equal for

Congress and reasonably equal for State seats should comply with the Voting Rights Act

in contiguity respect Integrity of neighborhoods compactness and when

possible Nest to Assembly districts within one Senate District and there

should be no protection or discrimination against incumbent candidate or party

and that uh that is my summary for redistricting line drawing criteria

very impressive commissioner Parker it's actually jingles and uh uh yeah and we

on the California citizens redistricting commission had to learn all about racially polarized voting and and all of

that um but basically it's to prevent minority vote dilution in in summary and

uh the jingles tests are intended to

provide some um guidelines around that and

um one of the one of the challenges we had in drawing

uh districts that were compliant with section two of the Voting Rights Act in in Los Angeles in particular

is the fact that uh people are pretty spread out and mixed and so

one of the comments I made when we were looking at census data and they had a different color for each uh racial group

is that it looked like a Jackson Pollock painting and that's one of the challenges if they're not

geographically compact enough then it's it's hard to perform those analyzes but

generally that's not the case generally there are distinctive neighborhoods and communities where people live together

and then you have to consider them for the Voting Rights Act so that's just a little little background uh the way that

um that I explain the the rank criteria for the CRC is that we have six rank

criteria the first two are federal law so by definition all maps must comply

with federal law so that's population equality and um and for congress it has to be plus or

minus one person and then there's a lot of latitude for

state and local jurisdictions because we're much smaller generally the jurisdictions and so one of the

questions I had asked because the San Francisco city Charter

actually has very few criteria it has two basically one was on the population

and one was on on community input and neighbors neighborhoods

um is that uh there was actually a tight population deviation as commissioner

Parker pointed out one percent with the ability to go to five percent and

um actually case law allows much greater latitude 10

sometimes even larger than 10 percent have been allowed by Courts for local

and state jurisdictions because uh when you start talking percentages and the

absolute number of people is quite small you know right it's you know you get a

bigger percentage basically um the CRC chose to keep a pretty tight

population deviation but that's because our state senate districts are like a million people so you don't want to deviate by 10

percent so so that was one question I had because the current Charter actually

puts a tighter limit than case law uh and the question is should we because

the whole reason for having that Latitude is to you know get around physical barriers or if there's a

neighborhood or or a community you want to keep intact and you have to go deviate a little bit to keep that

Community intact and that gives you a little more latitude to do that um so the first two are federal law and

then there are State criteria that are ranked which is the contiguity the respect it's not only for neighborhoods

at the state levels for respect for cities and and and counties I call that kind of political geography so

um and and on a local level we're mostly looking at neighborhoods and communities

uh compactness and then the nesting doesn't apply to us obviously that's only at the state level as well and then

there's one prohibition which is not to consider candidates or elected officials

where they live the parties so it's basically not consider them don't discriminate don't consider them don't

protect them and obviously that's normally what we see happen in these situations because

gerrymandering is generally about protecting elected officials or candidates um interests or parties interests and so

so that's a way to break it down the fair Maps Act was basically copied the criteria from the California

citizens redistricting commission it adds some additional

comments here which I think makes sense you know making it understandable so other people understand why the

districts are drawn that way that they're bounded by natural and artificial barriers this was not

explicitly called out in our state constitution but it was something we absolutely considered so for example

we'd consider highways as an as an artificial barrier a river or a mountain

would be a natural barrier re I mean we actually we absolutely looked at topography you know because people live

in certain places and they don't live in other places and so that changes like the density of the population

um so uh that's just a little a little background on that

um but yeah the FMA pretty much mirrors the ccrc's uh criteria with the um

addition with um 764 which is intend to update the the

fair Maps act to explicitly prohibit in the same way the state does a consideration of incumbents

uh because obviously there was still some problems in this last cycle

so any thoughts on this

I think I've shared my experience that the the rank ordering really really keeps you disciplined

uh because you have to check every every district and check to make sure it

complies in order and I think I described after our first

draft Maps we had got we were so exhausted and trying to meet this deadline that we did

the nesting you know we just told our Consultants to put two together and you know just Nest

them for us and we found out we were violating the Voting Rights Act because once you get a bigger area

you've got to consider different communities right and so that is a very

clear example of being a little Cavalier going through the criteria we ended up trying to like

just do the nesting and we found out in the end we were unable to Nest perfectly uh

or at all in several cases because of the Voting Rights Act and so we had to go back to the drawing board

and refigure that we also found that we did our draft maps

with the with a bigger population deviation just see what we could do and

then we timed it for the Final maps and by doing that that changed the maps as well

because again that comes first so just to give you

guys the flavor of the interaction and I will say we we asked the

redistricting the two panels of redistrating task force members we had about rank criteria and

um they were kind of challenged to imagine it because they didn't have to do it but

um I think one of the criticisms of this last cycle was that people would cite all kinds of reasons

for drawing districts the way they would like you know I'm from this area and and

I I want to keep you know this neighborhood whole and what have you um and you know the question is

okay but what about another neighborhood that also wants to be whole you know how do you how do you

um break the trade-offs uh and so there's still going to be trade-offs

there's no question we we did that all over the state you know we had for us it was Criterion number four where we had

to balance City boundaries County boundaries neighborhood boundaries and then

community of Interest boundaries uh and they were all the same level so they're going to be trade-offs but

the clear thing is we didn't make that trade-off against contiguity or population deviation or Voting Rights

Act issue because those were higher right so we had to fix those problems first before we could make those kinds

of trade-offs uh and then we had to justify it in a final report and show that for every District we drew then we

complied with the rank criteria it sounds pretty

that was the accountability yes no that sounds really great I mean I do think we have to keep in mind that often

what when you when you look at things that have happened in other jurisdictions and in

other Maps or other redistricting it's trying to dilute

the vote of certain communities so I think wherever we can make sure that's not happening especially of a smaller

Community that's a you know a small minority in a in a in a city

um in a district I think that's that's where I would want to make sure

um that our recommendations are that the Board

of Supervisors really make sure that we the things in place protect particular communities that have

traditionally been the target of of diluting or dividing around the

population so for me that would be one of the most important things to make sure that that recommendation is there

and I also like that commissioner Parker included the definition of a community of interest because that's

a challenge because then anyone can define a community in fact we we had people come and tell us that you should

draw a district this way because I live here and I shop in that mall and therefore I should be in the same

district so there were all kinds of interesting justifications for why this

was a community of interest and obviously the commissioners

would take certain ones with a grain of salt and we asked people to provide evidence

like what makers the community what makes it a pop contiguous population

that shares common social economic interests right and you know is shopping

at at two malls does that make them does that mean you should have the same

elected representative right uh so we had

um you know we have people come from the league of conservation voters and

and explain why people living in a certain Watershed were a community of

Interest so they used environmental justifications uh we had people come and

show uh their church and uh and the

community centers around it um obviously we had census data for particular population so we could see

that um but uh people had to actually show us

that they were common social and economic interests they couldn't just state where a community of interest and

you know because we all like the color blue you should give us the same representative but I mean believe me people tried all kinds of different

justifications but you think having aligning with the state definition uh I

think is important so that we're clear right what what you

know constitutes a community of Interest so people um you know provide a historical

references um and uh economic data

uh to to show why

um you know people look at media markets there were all kinds of things but the

point was to show those common social and economic and cultural ties in many

cases any thoughts

yeah um so I

I mean I have a few I'll just share a few different thoughts here um

I think that I think it's it is helpful to align with you know a state constitutional definition and you know

things like that I think um we should

if we consider deviating from from state law we should ask ourselves why because there could be a good reason I think

that's one of the questions right is is is should we consider that there should be a good reason to not do that I think

sometimes we suffer from thinking we're very very special here um and and we do have unique interests

here for sure so um I just think we should just ask questions before we

deviate not just do it um and I think one of my main questions

related to these criteria when I'm looking at um for instance I'll move back to this

um the chart slide here um the fair Maps act which as you said

to copy the California redistricting commission and then there's these sort of recommendations

that were made in the promise fare maps that now 764 has included um

my question is why why shouldn't we follow those maybe not necessarily should we or should we create something

new but I'd love to hear if there's a reason we shouldn't do that you know if the public has reasons a lot of this

makes sense to me um given what the law is

um so that's so I'm curious about a is is there a reason why we shouldn't just follow the recommendations and what

exists already in the fair Maps Act and the new recommendations or the the additions to that through current

legislation um and then

um and then the other comment I wanted to make was around the

the equal size of districts and you know the one percent five percent ten percent is you you were bringing up if I recall

correctly and it's been now a few weeks a couple of weeks since I read the redistricting task force report

um and and looked at the maps and the distance you know the distance between those they

I'm not sure if there were any at one percent I think that we're all closer to three four right in kind of the higher towards five

as they were trying to um to draw those maps and it

it seems um it seems reasonable to have the one to

five ten just feels a little big to me that it leaves a little bit too much room to I don't know I mean I I think

that you know following these priorities um of criteria and then having up to five

percent seems seems to be reasonable but again I would really love to hear if there's a reason why it shouldn't be

that and you know one percent that seems very very difficult if you're asked to also be Compact and contiguous and all

those kinds of things that just that seems like a hard hurdle but if you can do it great if you can meet all those criteria so it just feels like as equal

as possible so that so that's the other thing I um that seems reasonable and I wonder if there's any reason not to be capping it

at the five um and hold on I think there was one more thing

that I maybe wanted to

um oh I guess the the last thing um was just around final reports

I do like the idea but I also get like very nerdy about stuff like this and I I

like the idea of of um you know and I'm sure that there

are some task forces who do voluntarily you know offer some of this they're not required to they do it you know it's just a measure of transparency in

building trust the community and I like the idea that final reports do include a rationale for here's why we made the

choices we do because not everybody can watch all of the meetings you know like that's just that's a barrier for a lot of people we have some it's wonderful

the people who are able to make it and it's not possible for everybody and so I like the idea that there is something written that we can then go back to and

refer to and and understand better um so I like that for transparency I

like that for just wanting to understand better so those are my three comments

I'll um I'll comment on a few of them so

my thinking is back to your point that we're not really that special

um is why not comply with with case law right as opposed to

artificially putting a cap and the way that state law is is that

it's it allows up to that kind of deviation but you have to justify it because at the end of the day

it's one person one vote so if you deviate significantly it has to be something

that will stand up in court essentially uh so

um and it's also as I understand it's a maximum deviation in other words the maximum deviation

from the smallest District to the largest District cannot exceed X so people get confused it's not plus or

minus 10. in other words okay um and and by

because case law allows that flexibility it means like one could be minus three and the other one could be

plus seven in other words so you know as instead of bounding it

plus or minus five which is awake the charter is written so I think that my

personal thought is it it makes more sense just to comply with with case law because that may change over time

and if for a reason you know the justice system decides to make it tighter then

it would just naturally we would just naturally evolve with that as opposed to

having some absolute number that's stuck in our Charter so so that was my

thinking on on you know the case law question and not having our own definition there

um in terms of um I completely agree with you on the final

report I have to tell you it really kept us accountable as one of the two Commissioners who had to write most of

that final report we literally had to slog through every district and say this

was an agricultural District this way you know we had to describe what that community of Interest was and and what

were the smaller communities of Interest we included so this included a small Armenian you know Refugee population and

this included right so that we could describe all of the different communities of Interest Who had

testified before us and that we were able to keep whole within a single District we had to justify when we split

cities and then where we split them and why um we had a large South Asian population

in the Bay Area that we couldn't fit into a single Assembly District and we had to justify why we split them and

where so stuff like that uh so it actually

required us to describe these communities of interest if that's what we were using to justify why we drew the

district that way um it wasn't always necessary for example in the northern part of

California which has very sparse population we were just able to put a bunch of counties together that were all

and agriculture or all in the Coast or but again we still had to describe why do we group those particular counties

together right and so uh so that was the one thing you know the

public comment that I made when I read the this last redistricting task force

report was that I was happy they did a report because they're not required to but they didn't actually provide any

rationale for why they drew the districts they did they just simply reported population deviation they

didn't explain why they did it so it was purely descriptive as opposed

to any kind of justification or rationale so

forcing the body to write a report that describes

how they created these districts and what communities of Interest are in them and who they had to split and why

I think provides an accountability mechanism like nothing else so I'm a big

fan of that I know that it took us a long time to go through and feel good

that we had actually done right by Californians all around the state that

we had complied this ranked order criteria for every single district and could justify it

and I know that there is obviously a rationale you know I've spoken with some of the redistricting task force members

and they had a very clear rationale that was you know justified by the kinds of things that are listed here communities

of interest and things like that so you know it does take it does take extra time and they weren't compensated I

understand that so I think that there's a little bit of a I think a companion to that right is the

recognition of the immense amount of work that it takes to be a part of a commission like this even if it's not a

contentious process you know it takes a lot of time and by recognizing that it might be also a little easier to make a

request like putting together a report with the rational that they already have they just

um you know just documenting it yeah and then the only other thing that I had

thrown out there that I was trying I was trying to think about why we wouldn't just comply with

state law um and the only thing I could come up with were things like cultural districts

like would that be something that we would want to protect in San Francisco

um and my thought on that is I don't know that we would need to protect them especially

like call them out but it could be used as justification as to why this is a

community of Interest right so you could say San Francisco recognized this area

as a Cultural District and that's part of the reason that we we believe this is a community of interest

um to give you an analogy um what some people did as they were

trying to justify their community of Interest they would bring us School District Maps or utility map I mean

other Maps right that showed they were in this District together to show us why it was a community of

interest and to show that there was precedent for recognizing an area right now

you know not all of those districts are made based on you know

population and electoral reasons right so why you might draw a certain kind of District may not be the right

justification but but it was just it's still justification right and and if you can make your case

to the commission and convince them that this is a reason why you know it it is a

a real community of interest um that's why you have people on the commission to to try to to make

those kinds of judgment calls and so so my thought is I was just trying to be

comprehensive when I would raise these questions originally was I was trying to think of anything that San Francisco had that was special

and that was one thing that I could think of but I also don't think it needs to be called out separately I think if

people want to use that as part of the justification and make their case to the IRC I think that it's it's evidence

right well I think the most important part is the report

establishes accountability and having to have the report

means that you have to justify what you're doing and I think that's

that's for me that's the most important part it it needs to be as commissioner

Parker said not everyone can attend this not every so having a report that outlines why certain districts were

created and why things change is going to be essential and so to me that's the that's the meat

that that needs to be there

do we um want to talk about any other I don't

know if commissioner navalsi if you have any other comments on any other areas related to this or if we should just move on to the next

um no okay just looking at the questions

um of course I am also also support the update

in 764 to have the the prohibition that we

had which is not considering incumbents candidates for office you know where they live or

political parties uh that prohibits prohibits yeah

I mean we actually deliberately didn't even look at where people lived we

deliberately blind blinded ourselves to that and as a result we ended up drawing a bunch of elected officials in the same

district so that's what happens when you don't look at it when you're not gerrymandering

okay yep okay

um the next area is funding um key question is what is needed to

adequately resource the work as well as decrease barriers to public participation

um the quote that I listed here in the yellow box is from the city clerk's office report that you can find at the

end of the redistricting task force report um and that is that in the future it is

a recommended that a department or division is established to provide a structure that increases the ability of

a team of individuals to plan and problem solve at a high level um the the main areas that we could

discuss here are stipends for members and within that what size stipend is

Meaningful enough to enable those of lesser means to participate and recognize all Commissioners for their time how can compensation be adjusted

over time without putting another measure on the ballot um budget to support the process how

much independent budget is needed to fund needed aspects of the work for example a mapping consultant Outreach

interpreters things like that again there are the city clerk's recommendations are very full and Rich

if you take a look at those and then generally what parts of funding need to

be included in the charter versus put in place by the Board of Supervisors through an ordinance and should there be

an automatic augmentation in subsequent redistricting processes because obviously things get expensive over time

um so the main questions um and then a couple of other notes um

the the Brennan Center who you'll see quoted in some of the reports um that I have linked at the end of this whole

deck I believe that this is maybe from the 2017 redistricting report

um said that with funding secure the commission may draw the district lines without feeling beholden to the legislature's power of the purse so some

of the recommendations here like funded up front not just later when you are happy or unhappy with the process right

like upfront allocate a certain amount of funds and then I just wanted to actually um read a little bit more excerpt from

the city clerk's report um so who said during the seven month process the entire leadership of the

clerk's office were committed to planning the critical administrative objectives of the task force the clerking duties were done by an

assistant clerk from the clerk's office who was still assigned to a committee at the Board of Supervisors additionally

backup clerks both remote and in person each had their regular Board of Supervisors duties to perform which is

extremely draining on Department resources and caused Focus to be diverted from the business of the board

the Board of Supervisors the clerk's office did an extraordinary job of stretching The Limited staff resources

on hand while executing hybrid meetings at the board that had already doubled the workload of the department

in the future of course that's a you know unique time we're at the beginning of a pandemic in the future it is

recommended that a department or division is established to provide a structure that increases the ability of a team of individuals to plan and

problem solve at a high level at the very least two clerks should be assigned to the responsibility of clerking the

task force with not much else on their plate given that meetings may occur on consecutive days of the week staff who

are assigned to the task force especially the clerks should also have an intimate knowledge of the city neighborhoods streets and districts in

order to accurately capture the voluminous comments and discussions on the various areas the clerks must be

able to articulate those concisely it must be remembered that supporting duties of staff are in addition to

regular duties and The Business of the city should not be disadvantaged

um and then on our chart here um current San Francisco law there's no

stipend for members operations of the task force are supported by the clerk of of the board and the Department of

Elections with limited augmentation in budget ab1248 would require a stipend the

amount to be determined by the local jurisdiction it requires provision by the local jurisdiction of in quotes

reasonable funding and Staffing of the IRC there's nothing related to funding

in the fair Maps act in the promise Affairs Fair maps report they do recommend that there are

required stipends and that jurisdictions invest resources in recruiting efforts

for large diverse pools of candidates and also fund Community benefit organizations or cbos to engage

underrepresented communities in local redistricting the recent redistricting task force here

in the city echoed the clerk's recommendations saying that the city should establish a temporary Department

to support the task force and its needs for example of Chief of Staff admin support media coordinator a sunshine

ordinance expert to manage requests because there always are a lot but at

least two clerks if funds are limited and that the board of supervisor should allocate funds at the outset

um and then finally the state commission has a stipend for members currently it

is 378 dollars per per diem um they're required it's required to

appropriate the state is required to appropriate appropriate adequate funds and they may hire staff and Consultants

and that's that's it so I I would add that it's a unique

structure um for the CCRC it's actually a state agency on its own which has some pros in

it and cons there's actually a lot of overhead trying to run a small agency at

the state level so um but

because we're completely independent we had to hire our own staff

uh once the um state auditor had completed the vetting

and selection process they're kind of like okay go to It Go hire your own people

um but we did have our own general counsel we had our own you know executive director who hired

all of the support staff and I think that's difficult to do at the local

level and so what but but unfortunately the current

process is kind of at the other three which is said okay we're going to give you help from the city attorney and the

clerk of the board and Department of Elections but we're not going to give them any extra money and so even though

this is a gargantuan test that happens only once every 10 years you're just gonna have to figure out how to do it

with the existing resources and I think that's that's what we heard from

um the city clerk came in and addressed us from from Miss felvio uh and it was

just crazy because of course uh as all of us know the Department of Elections had four elections running you know that

year too and so they were juggling things back and forth trying to handle it on top of the

exceptional workload for the Department of Elections so uh so I do think

consistent with the most recent redistricting task force it makes sense for them to have dedicated staff

they can still be supported by other departments but they need some dedicated staff

and you know part of the reason they were they were so late outside of everything else that happened during the

process is they they couldn't they couldn't get support from the city clerks to you know

get I mean the same problem we have trying to find a room um you know they were dealing with

clerks who had existing Board of Supervisors duties and so they couldn't schedule a meeting for several weeks uh

so and I think uh what the the promise of

fair Maps reporters pointing out is that you need a budget for outreach and what what happened I think I've

shared with you folks before what happened with the first CCRC is that the

state auditor had spent our entire budget before we were even selected

uh and that's because they had no idea what an independent process was going to cost and so they put in that line that

required the legislature to appropriate more more funds but we had to go and get it from them

um so so what we just remind you that we heard from the

the um the chair of the Long Beach IRC they

actually budgeted over three years so they had a three-year budget in the

first year was you know Outreach and Outreach planning and then

um then that Staffing up uh and setting up the body

uh and then the actual mapping process and so there are several

components and I do feel like this is too detailed to put in a charter Amendment uh even

the pending State legislation basically just says reasonable and adequate but we

could you know put some guard rails around it and and say that you know they must

account for you know Outreach uh and for

example that's a lot of what's in 764. is right is uh ensuring that a proper

plan is actually written and that uh that you know community-based

organizations and you know other organizations that

understand their local communities are consulted and involved in the

Outreach process to build that large competitive

diverse pool otherwise you're not going to get the the quality Commissioners out of that

so I think stipulating that

you know reasonable funding should include some dedicated staff I don't know how how specific we should

get um in terms of

specific roles I don't know if we have a strong opinion on those but you know I do feel like they at minimum

need dedicated dedicated clerks and if they're going to continue to be you know

partially supported by City departments those departments need augmented budgets that recognize this as a once in 10

years and a task and they can't just like figure out how to make it work with their normal allocation right

that's going to be a challenge um well looking at the deficit

um but I think um I like the promise of fairmax fair Maps

required stipend invest resources in recruiting efforts for large diverse

bull I'm not so crazy about fun cbo's to engage because

some of our cbo's have political missions and so but I think

being clear about a stipend I think we are we are asking citizens to do

something that's very important in the representation of all members of the

community and so I think where you put your money shows what's

important to you and I think asking people to do this without a Skype I think a reasonable stipend and I think

perhaps um it should be weighted you know if you're someone who has needs should you

really have a stipend this is a question so maybe looking at income levels asset

levels I I don't think that's unfair um and making sure that there is a

dedicated reasonable staff for for this work and

if at all possible any local agency that's tasked with assisting

should have an augmentation to their budget I mean to me that's just obvious right I mean there was some

augmentation I mean the Department of Elections got a budget to help hire the

line drawing Consultants the technical consultants and then I think the clerk

got a small budget for something as well but it was not nearly enough

interpretation limited language yeah language access so

so I think recognizing that uh this is a big undertaking and it cannot be done as

business as normal so I heard equitable stipends

the budget must include Outreach um there should be some dedicated staff

and uh any assisting City Department should happen

appropriate augmentation yeah

um I generally what we see on the these this this whole chart

um I think generally seems like a good idea like I I generally think okay the

redistricting we're task force uh the redistricting task force that just finished their recommendations yes that

makes sense they just lived it they know what's needed I think it makes a lot of sense to go with those the clerk also so

detailed in some ways I could imagine that our ultimate recommendations include read the clerk's report and you

determine what should be in a charter versus not because we don't want to you know some things are appropriate there some things aren't but

read those reports as far as recommendations those are really important um but also these other as you know as

commissioner volsi said This Promise Affair Max report Fair Maps I'm trying to speak too quickly promise Affair maps

report um you know and what's included in current funding or current legislation

that all makes sense um and and I would support doing that you know like a

recommendation could be follow these decide what goes in the charter what doesn't um my wondering the idea of Equitable

stipends um you know is is interesting and you know and I generally like that and like

I'm curious how much will that save is it you know

because everybody's putting effort in and so to me it's maybe there's some exploration of you know what would it cost to do that versus not

um because everybody's putting in a lot of effort you know and it's expensive people live here

um but if we were in a budget situation and we couldn't do it all then then yes like let's make sure that those who

really need it and couldn't participate otherwise yes totally I totally agree with that

um and the amount like some of the things that stand out to me which I generally agree with that we heard in one of our panels when um

uh Reverend Townsend was talking about and asked a question that I've thought about too is what's the right amount for

stipends you know because sometimes we we provide those and it feels good but

but what's enough to actually make a difference to someone who might not otherwise be able to participate sometimes I think of these stipends is

they're never going to actually make it's not a job you know it's not the equivalence of a job or a part-time job

even um however it can help with things like paying for your parking fees and your

Transit fees and your babysitting and um you know whatever else it takes to do

that job that would have otherwise been out of pocket it tends to help with that but that is a question for me is what is

the right amount because this is paying them per diem for the meeting days right not all of the days that you're actually

doing the job well so um I can I can share my experience at

the state level we had when why did it was 300 and

um it increased by the cost of living so that that was stipulated uh it was it

was 300 for working day and then we had to Define that and so we actually

defined it um that basically said either it was you

know a a day that we know we had to meet because sometimes our meetings were 10 or 12

hours right um or it was

um a minimum of six hours like if you worked one hour on one day and then

another hour another day that you could combine those um so

and there was also discretion as to what you claimed so you know we had

one commissioner who'd like claimed time for organizing his Finders

right and like most of the other Commissioners didn't claim time for stuff like that so there were certainly

some personal it was an honor System uh obviously it was very obvious which days we had meetings and some people had

to travel and some people didn't depending on what part of the state it was in but you know you couldn't charge for you

know more than the actual day right uh and then there was that stipulation if

you had to put in a couple hours here in a couple hours there that you could group it like a number of us had

Outreach duties so I did a lot of public speaking and you know that would be

maybe a couple hours one day and so in order to get credit for that the point was you couldn't just claim that you had

to do other work to get up to a minimum of six hours so that was the rule that we

came up with the 2020 uh CCRC didn't have that six hour kind of limit

and so again honor System but it did allow us to differentiate for example

um two of us who did most of the final report we could actually get claim time for

that because we put in a lot more time than other people so there were situations we had several Commissioners

who were assigned to deal with the attorneys because we had a bunch of lawsuits we had to deal with and so

they got to claim that time and I think that was one of the complaints we heard from Miss Gutierrez

from the chair of the Long Beach thing is that they they were only allowed to claim time meeting times and so she

would commented that as chair and the vice chair did a lot of extra work and they weren't able to claim that so so I

think uh you know providing some discretion to to let the bot the IRC

come up with rules for themselves to police themselves

um you know I think there was a pretty big variation in what at least on the

2010 CCRC what people claimed so there was a pretty big variation because

people put different amounts of time in right right and so um so I think allowing for that

flexibility is good as opposed to say just a monthly stipend which where

everyone gets the same thing um and I do I do really like the model

of be the jury because there's precedent in San Francisco for doing an equity-based thing and that's one that

you have to apply for and so there's that thought too is that

you know that if if you want to make it a means test you let

people raise their hand you know um you could do it the other way too

where you could opt out but I mean I think your point is fair

even if you have a good job uh you know you're still taking you're doing work

you're doing work and it's extra time and you should be recognized for that I also think that expenses should be

covered so one of the things that our our travel expenses were covered for sure

so we were able to you know claim standard State you know per diem

for meals and when we are traveling and things like that um you know there's not a lot of travel

within a local jurisdiction but one average of meals and or yeah if you have

a meeting that goes parking yeah you know I think and and sorry distributed

yeah that's good I think San Francisco those are the kinds of things that should be thought

about as a Statewide um

there's traveling long distances you know San Francisco is an expensive city

um it's an expensive place for child care for parking for food for for these

things so I think a a way to compensate people for those

things like if you're meeting all day yeah yeah you should be able to get food right um parking Local transportation will

transport I was just going to say maybe clipper cards with a certain amount um that allows for people to to be able

to use public transportation to get to meetings um yeah because that could be something

that could be done that you know we could avoid the parking in in some ways if if everyone gets uh yeah you could

just give everyone a Clipper card and and then say New you manage it right so I mean I think they're these are some

details I don't think we need to get into but I think right saying that reasonable expenses

um should should be covered I don't think it should come out of per diem uh

one of the things we really struggled with on on the ccrcs we had young

mothers on our commission and they had significant child care expenses and we could not figure out a way to expense

that under this state regulations and so that was one of our recommendations is

that you know future commissions figure out how to deal with that because we could not under the normal state

you know when we were just subject to all the normal State you know travel policies

we were not able to to compensate our commissioners who were mothers who who

had to get extra babysitters or really impose on their partners

I would be very curious if if there was any way for the Board of Supervisors

when they get to this to find out you know to do a bit of a poll or focus

group sort of thing you know to find out if there was no stipend would that count you out and then what

would be the right coverage is it that there is transportation child care whatever you know a stipend of 378

dollars per day you know something like that would that make a difference and would the answer be yes there might be

some people who say no and and to be um I mean to be realistic also the the

schedule that is demanded of a commission like this there are some folks who will never be able to

participate because they have hourly jobs that they cannot change at the last minute if the meeting goes longer than

it was supposed to or um if there's another meeting call the next day because the work wasn't finished like they there are some people

who will not have access to this kind of an opportunity and that that is real that's true and so finding other ways

for folks like that to participate in meaningfully give input of course is important and therefore funds to support

that kind of outreach are important that they can participate in an asynchronous Way by filling out a poll by doing you

know giving written public comment in an easy way you know there there are ways to include folks who are just on the

position to have a schedule that will allow for participating in a task force like this

um and there might be some people who are on the edge have the flexibility but have major caregiving responsibilities

not even small children sometimes with elderly parents you know or people who are chronically ill you know there's who

they care for so there are people and they have a lot to say and want to contribute so so not everybody will be

able to be on a body like this they it's just not realistic for some folks and finding the ways for them to still

participate if they can't so and commissioner Parker I think it it's I really appreciate you bringing up the

um Elder Care so I think any recommendation would be cons should

be to consider those extra expenses that people may need support in order and as you

said it's not going to be a body for everyone but for those who want to participate and have this the schedule

and ability but are encumbered by a responsibility of taking care of a loved

one be that a child's a spouse a elderly parent I think as a city we should

seriously think about supporting that okay so I think it's important to say

there's this stipend and then there are also reasonable expenses that you incur

in the course of this work yep um yeah because all of our expenses like I said with the exception of the

caregiving expenses were covered by the state and I will say that even though

we're spending a lot of time on stipends that was the smallest part of our budget the vast majority of our budget was for

litigation defense and um you know

everything else like I said the the state auditor spent we got we were

allocated three million dollars by the voters First Act and they had spent I

think four and a half before we even got started so that just gives you an idea how much

the Outreach and recruitment piece of it was I think our I think the stipends were

like maybe a million total or something it was not it was a very tiny part we

can do a cost benefit you know analysis to something like this too right is how does it decrease barriers and how does

it have a um create a better um inclusive process you know like all

of those things not even just like we're not even just talking about on the stipend side but adequately funding the process on the agency who is supporting

its eye you know in the clerk's office side all of that creates a a better engagement process for everyone to be

included in and and yes every time you fund something there's something else that doesn't get funded at the city

that's just the reality and so it's just deciding you know weighing those things

um you know about what's what's important and in the the scheme of a massive budget

this we're not talking a huge amount there's always trade-offs yeah yeah I mean it will cost some money so just to

reiterate since I'm the one who has to summarize this um what I heard was

um a reasonable stipend that uh Equitable stipend that that uh

allows for differential effort would that be a fair way to say it

um and also um related related Local transportation

meals and caregiving expenses that might

be incurred in the course of the duty and then

um just to reiterate that adequate funds must be set aside for outreach

particularly to underrepresent communities whether you want to fund we don't have to get into whether they fund cbo's do that or not that there should

be we have as we know plenty of departments in the city that do that regular kind of Outreach and there

should be some dedicated staff and any assisting departments should

have a budget augmentation yeah better

ready to move on yes okay this is just a small one

um commission processes um how can the commission be properly

supported and trained trans Did You Adventure slide oh I did it's not

showing yet there we go it's slow um how can the commission be properly

supported and trained transparent and inclusive of diverse public input

um this is a quote from the 2017 redistricting commission's report that says transparency and public

participate participate let's try that again um transparency and public participation

in redistricting are essential to drawing better District boundaries maintaining public confidence in the

fairness of the process and building community support for the Final maps the

areas we might consider training and support what training and preparation should the task force have

and when for example legal training Sunshine ordinance training Technical Training redistricting criteria training

best practices that may not be you know put in listed in the charter but are

just generally best practices on process what Staffing support and additional resources do they need to be effective

which we did cover that to some degree but that is certainly part of it um then including the public how can the

task force meaningfully include the diverse community in the process what additional resources are needed to do that how do meeting times and lengths

affect this drafting the map what should procedures for the mapping process be what works

and worked well and where can improvements be made decision making and voting um specifically here talking about the

voting threshold simple or super majority transparency what should be required in

the decision-making process to ensure transparency for example touched on this a little bit a written rationale for

maps what types of communication should be restricted for example ex parte intra

commission Etc and then missed deadlines what should happen if Final maps are not approved as required by the deadline

in the voting just to make a quick note on that decision making and voting line

um I'm just separating those there's a voting on business matters that's the decision

making just sort of the normal operations of the commission and then there's a voting on maps so somebody's

like the state commission had a special super majority because they had a different configuration than we would have here in San Francisco they had a

special super majority we'll just for here let's just go up super majority only for maps and vendor contracts

um as opposed to the regular procedural decisions within the operations of the

commission um and then to our chart current San Francisco Law requires a

simple majority to approve maps and says that they should that they shall make

adjustments as appropriate again I did it's okay I should just look at the thing to make sure it actually shows

up before I start talking yeah I did forward it I believe it's very slow

there you go okay current San Francisco Law requires a simple majority to

approve maps and then the task force shall make adjustments as appropriate based on public input at public hearings

that is all that the charter says about processes for the task force

um pending legislation for the state ab1248 prohibits ex parte communication

um the existing deadlines and requirements etc for legislative bodies apply

um they're required commissions ircs would have to publish a draft map seven days before a vote on those Maps there's

a minimum of three public hearings before final map adoption no incumbency

or political preference in districts which that's I guess that's repetitive from a different slide a quorum is nine

people and nine of the 14 um people that are would be part of the

that would be composing the IRC through that legislation nine affirmative votes is required for

any action so Quorum is Nine and Nine affirmative votes are required for any action nine off 14. in AB 764

there is a minimum one public Workshop required and five public hearings required

they must adopt ircs must adopt education Outreach plan by March 1st of

the year ending in one so for instance 2031 and other details that I did not go

into here because there's not room also the ab764 allows for remote and

in-person comment to allow more participation and also

oral and written public comments I just want to note this is not written here but they are available they are supposed

to be available on the redistricting commission's website so when the

commission receives any oral or written public comments they're required to be available to anyone to see on the

website I like that um I'll just say that really quickly um the fair Maps Act

um ircs must hold a minimum of four accessible public hearings make good faith efforts to include

underrepresented and non-english speaking communities uh so I would just

detail that means translation interpretation um they it requires to for the

commission to publish a draft map seven days before the vote same as this ab1248 does make all public comment available

if the map final map deadline is missed then the decision the final map drawing

goes to the Superior Court the promise Affair maps report recommends that there is an increase in

the minimum number of hearings and workshops from four so that's form Fair Maps has that four I just said that to a

minimum of six to ten hearings and workshops they recommend that ircs must provide

in-person and remote options for public comment they require the posting of all written

public comments and recommending requiring redistricting website be up for at least two weeks before the first

hearing shorten the timeline for publishing the video in minutes to one week from when

they were received or when when they were um after the uh

after the meeting happened um also recommending that the commissions the RCs adopt an Outreach

and education plan and also fund Community benefit organizations to

engage the community so this is very dense um hopefully you all are following along

um the redistricting task force here recommended that the task force draft

bylaws and tentative schedules and proposed timelines or I'm sorry let me

start again and they recommend that draft bylaws tentative schedules and proposed timelines should be presented

at the first task force meeting so presumably that means that the agency who is supporting the task force has

gotten that together as somewhere to start for the task force mapping

training should be provided very early before mapping begins um that makes sense

um meetings should begin earlier in the day and run more efficiently more robust Outreach into communities is needed a

clear scope of work with Consultants as needed there was a bit written there in the report you can look at and then also

they recommended that um methods are developed to protect members from attacks and threats and

also that members are shielded from inappropriate influence in the process

um let's see hold on I had some other notes here I just want to make sure

um as I was reading the charter I just want to add a little bit more clarity um

I already said there was really not a lot about processes in the charter um the one line says that they should

use public input and the simple majority is just standard unless it's defined differently so

that's just it's just standard right it's not actually listed there in the charter it's just standard unless otherwise defined

um to be clear about that um they did establish you know just out of practice not because it was required

or not required in San Francisco law the most redistricting task force did establish a lot of processes themselves

I think there was a lot of agreement early on um of the members on the processes they were setting up they

established directions in the beginning um for example electing officers adopting bylaws setting schedules

um getting briefed and trained they assign this is all in their report by the way and they assigned members to

lead particular areas work for example community outreach social media and website data and

mapping budgeting Community input management Etc they also relied on a consultant to

assist with Outreach and participated in this themselves as well they advocated for language access and they were really

frustrated when there wasn't enough budget to support more I know there was a lot of criticism about that and they didn't have any control they didn't have

the budget to have more they also reduced released a free redistricting tool for the public along with a

training video to help the public with map drawing they they held two

district-specific meetings in each supervisorial district and they iterated on maps with support from Consultants

including doing live drawing and then they also made some recommendations for future task forces when working with the

consultant as I was just referring to um so that's all in their report you can read about that if you like

um there are also a Civic Edge LED it was the consultant Tire to help with community outreach they had a little bit

in their report that is in the larger task force report document and some concerns that they received were around

meeting schedules um and collaborating with the community on what those meeting schedules should be that there are more languages needed

in interpretation and you know those in language meetings as well and and let's

see regarding meetings the task force specifically said that future iterations of the task force should consider

various methods of running meetings more efficiently while allowing for more robust participation including more focused public comment better

facilitation of discussion and action and they've been recessing until the next day if necessary

um so this is obviously means that the redistricting task force

um their processes are very dependent on Who was appointed and how they decide to work as opposed to something that's

documented and required in some way of them in um in an ordinance or in a

charter um and then um I'll just just note this the

California commission and then I have one other note as I was doing some of this research about those majority and

super majority thresholds so the California commission requires a

special super majority for maps that's nine of 14 and that means at least more

than or equal to three Democrats more than or equal to three Republicans and more than are equal to three others who

are declined to state or Independence and they are required to comply with the Bagley Keen act there is 14 days notice

for public meetings 14 days of comment on the first draft maps and seven days on others three days on the Final maps

for public comment they are required to conduct public Outreach and providing the public with mapping software

they're prohibited from ex parte Communications Commission records are public and they must publish a report

justifying the final map so the last note that I wanted to make around

[Music] um majority versus super majority so there's there's a lot of different points of view on this some folks think

that a super majority forces collaboration and creative problem solving to get closer to though not

forcing consensus and considering what's best for voter representation rather than personal preferences some think

that a super majority could paralyze a body and make it more likely a final map deadline would be missed thereby pushing

the decision to the court who hasn't just done all the work that the commission or the task force has done so

there are various points of view on those two thresholds okay that's

that's it thank you commissioner Personnel for

that very dense um explanation so maybe we can start

um with the voting threshold just says it it's very concrete

um so so my experience was the former that it

um it it really um created an ethos of consensus and

collaboration and creative problem solving when we saw that we didn't have the votes

um it caused us to really listen to each other so we could try to convince each

other so we would we could you know get that and then you know in the end and

that's why it was so heartening for me to hear Dr sarwani say that they essentially did the same thing where

they operated by consensus because that way you know by the end of the process that

you're going to get your nine votes um because otherwise

I will tell you there was one point in time when we thought

we thought that we were not going to get enough Independence because it was harder because there were only four of

them and we had to get three out of four um and we thought two Independents might

vote against the map and it was pretty stressful [Laughter]

so you know that that was why

working by consensus all the way through it similarly to how we're discussing

this among the three of us um it was really good because then you knew

you had it at the end and that's what Dr sudmani said that they were not surprised they had an unanimous vote

because they had worked that way all the way through um so

the comment that uh you know that would just cause them to miss the deadline that was a comment

from one of the former redistricting task force members and that was you know one of the

contentious ones and so they you know had those

battle Lanes drawn and I guess my concern for San Francisco is

you know even if we increased it to 14 plus two as we've talked about

um you know making it nine just makes it a a higher hurdle that they have to to get

people on board uh because I my concern is what we saw happen this last time is that you know

once you've got the five people who are always voting together they basically had no reason to listen to anyone else

anymore right and we want this body to listen to each

other and to listen to the public and to be able to be persuaded and to listen to somebody else's

judgment call and that was something that you know I knew on my IRC that we're going to be

fine because in our very first vote the vote Swank you know swung from you know

an even split to eight you know to

to you know eight or nine on one side and then a flipped because we were

having this very intense discussion and people were convincing each other

uh and I think what happens if you have a simple majority uh

and in this case where we had political factions it just means that you're no longer

protecting my minority right and so so I I like a super majority

um you know I think nine is not onerous out of 14. uh and it doesn't have to be

special because it's the local level but that means you need to convince at

least eight colleagues of your point of view um

you can't just steamroll over them right and so uh

I would say it just made a very big difference for us because we were constantly keeping in mind that we were going to

have to make a big vote at some point and we needed as many people along the way raising

their hands all the way through as we were going through 177 districts across the state right because you disagree on

one District you vote against the whole map right so so I can just share that experience

I I think when we think about um when we talked about uh the types of

skills that members of the uh admission would need

I think the consensus is really important because we we want in my

opinion we should be recommending that we Foster consensus that that you don't

have factions and if it's a situation where you have to

make sure as you're going along the way that you've got everybody on board you have to discuss it you have to convince

each other that will build consensus and I think it'll it'll make it

I think it'll give the community of San Francisco much more confidence

in the process and and I think I want to distinguish it from

you know that you want people who are just going to agree with each other because that was not the case we had we had Fairly

violent disagreements at some point but but the point was that everyone got

their say everyone got a chance to try to convince everyone else and then people were moved and they allowed

themselves to be convinced and in some cases I'll remember I

remember very distinctly one of the Commissioners who happened to be the youngest commissioner and she

you know was when she first spoke she was a little you made that comment you know that I

don't know I'm you know probably in the minority or whatever and and she convinced us to change our minds I mean

she moved the whole commission a totally different direction um and

and I think that's what we want to encourage is the ability to listen to

each other collaborate and instead of just disagreeing find a creative way to

solve it like we did what we called these like circular rotations of population

because you know everything's a puzzle piece they all have to fit together so once you you you would you know adopt

new borders to adjust around communities of interest in one District it changes

the borders of the neighborhood District right and so we would rotate move the

population and and rotate it through several districts to find the best combination that would

you know keep as many communities together as possible

because you know you're accommodating one Community it means you might be hurting another Community right so so

that was something we were very conscious of was um looking at where we could do the the

most good and and making those trade-offs to say hey

this is this is a better overall map it's not just a

us against them it's not that simple right so that's the creativity

that I'm talking about is you're going to have to make difficult trade-offs and

rather than just saying well I have the vote so I want it this way

you know it's like no you're gonna have to talk to me about it because I'm not happy with what you did to this community in in this neighboring

District how do we fix it right so that's what I would want to see at

the local level as well it's that kind of collaboration to like how do we fix

it um I I think what what you were just

saying um resonates with me and actually was kind of say something sort of similar is that I think that the the

qualification is not that you're somebody who's willing to be consent in

general but that you will come into a conversation um as a good listener as a creative

Problem Solver as a critical thinker you know as um collaborative you know those kinds of

things that are yes we've already discussed the last time we met our

um their subjective qualifications right of figuring out how to identify those

kinds of qualities and candidates but I think those are the kinds of skills we hope that this body has and is this as

I'm thinking and listening to you all talk and just thinking about all of these different points within commission processes it's also just striking me

that there's this full scope of all of these different components we're talking about that um sort of complement each other right

is that when you are creating a body that is um

that is that is compiled through a fair

selection process that has folks who have some sort of minimum qualifications

um you know and want to be civically active and when you're resourcing the effort so that you have an agency who's

running this process who can also support processes in useful ways you know when all these things are working

together they're complementary to result in something that is hopefully a process

that the public can trust because it is transparent it was you know and just the way that it is set up hopefully allows

for trust building so so yes I agree I also wanted to just

point out that I mean I guess what we're also talking about a majority vote if we have let's

just say because I think we did sort of get at least get close to saying maybe this 14 8 plus 6. um you know is a

that might be okay I know we discussed that you know of having the right um

kind of these minimum qualifications in place eight people would be a majority and then nine would be a super majority

so it's it's a difference of one person it's not a lot of us yeah no it's not

yeah and it does allow for you know

um minority to register discontent right uh

and what what the way we handled it uh on my our IRC is that

we we tended to not vote on things along the way with people who were unable to

convince move the rest of the commission they would say well I see that the will of the commission is is going this

direction and I'm willing to move on um and so that way

you know because our we clearly defined consensus doesn't mean

everyone agreed it means that people have been heard and every conclusion

they've reached a conclusion they see what the will of the commission is and they're ready to move on they don't have to be beat a dead horse and continue to

you know rail on it right and so um so when I say that we work by

consensus it did not mean that we all agreed yeah but it meant that people conceded that a super majority had

landed somewhere else after hearing them say their piece uh and they and and they

felt heard and they had put their disagreement on the record and then we moved on to the next topic

and that's that's how we were able to get through 177 districts because we didn't all agree right on everything

right and and just to clarify um my statement it's the skills are the ability to articulate

your point of view to listen um and to be okay with

we've all discussed it we've all heard our point of views and now we've decided on this

but I think you can only do that when you have you know that level of

um required the the super majority sorry I took a long day my words are escaping me

um that's to me that's fundamental for this to work especially in San Francisco yeah

and and we did have that bifurcation where we only we've only had that

special super majority on on maps and then it was uh just um it

was you know I think it was nine to make any decision but it didn't have to be that special super majority but again we all mostly

operated by consensus so mostly other stuff didn't matter anyway but I think

um you also said something that I think is really is also key is that

if it was if we did a nine if we recommended um a nine uh super majority it does

still allow for minority discontent right it still allows people to disagree and the process to move forward and

sometimes that I think not sometimes I think that is really important you know and for having

people to be able to you know document that and if that's not you know as maps that there there can

that point of view can be represented in rationale and that's I think an important part of

Community engagement in our Democratic processes and all of that and so that you know I think that's a really good

thing yeah majority rules but for you know right minorities have have rights

right and that is that is democracy right um okay so that's the super majority I

think we're pretty comfortable with nine um uh we've talked about the report before

uh ex parte Communications that is something that is consistent with what the

redistricting task force members requested in the written report and also in person in front of us about being

protected from political influence that was very clear um you know

uh if you're not a political appointee then you can't be summoned so that's part of

the independent selection process but um but in this particular slide we no one

was allowed to talk about redistricting matters outside of a public meeting

so um you know elected officials actually

came and addressed the commission they had to do it in a public meeting with the same three minutes or two minutes whatever it was

um that every member of the public got so there were no secret meetings basically

and if you did have a meeting you had to disclose it so I mean that happens people have a

conversation and I had friends who would start talking to me about their area and I'd say I'm

sorry you're I'm gonna have to ask you to put it in writing and post it on the website now because I'm gonna have to

disclose that I had this conversation with you so just please stop talking and write it up as a public comment and

submit it to our website right so that way everyone's hearing the

same stuff everyone's seeing the same written comments [Music] um

so so I personally am in favor of that I

think it was really important as um an insulation mechanism

I mean there were public officials I knew that did not talk to me the whole time I was on the commission

so uh I personally think it's a good idea

yes yes I know I I remember

very much the um representatives from the last

redistricting and the the pressure they felt and I think the the goal of this is

to to prevent that so having it being an independent body and a Prohibition on exported

Communications is going to be key to keeping it independent

so yes I agree yeah well they one of the recommendations from the task force also

was um to Shield them from inappropriate influence they they requested that I

think in some ways can make people's it I mean it can be complicated to have every conversation

about a topic in public like it just you know it's not an easy thing to do and it's a public body that has public

accountability and transparency is necessary and sometimes it's helpful when there are

um guard rails you know put around you that say like I I'm sorry you just have to bring it to a meeting like I just

have to have these you know it can Shield people in a way that can sometimes be appreciated and make the job a little bit easier yeah I mean we

could do like Outreach stuff right like I said I I was sent out to do a lot of public education

about what is redistricting how can you participate and all that but as soon as someone who says I want my district to

look like X then I'm like okay please put it put it in writing and submit it to our website you know so that I don't get called out

for having a discussion with you about your District right so

um so that's on transparency we've talked a bit about um the voting threshold

uh oh I was remiss there was one other thing in the Amendments for

um the state legislation they clarified the procedure if the

commission misses the deadline oh yeah and they put some teeth in it so

they did say it would go to Superior Court and they added a line saying that the court would be empowered to hire a

special Master to draw the maps this is in 1248 and 12 40 or so

it might be 764. um well but it's one of them

okay I remember I read this like 10 minutes before the meeting but there's a specific

procedure now because remember we weren't sure like what happens when you send a superior court then what

so now they actually added a line saying that the Superior Court would be empowered to hire a special Master to

draw the districts if the if the IRC fails to meet the deadline

and I I'm sure that was a logistics thing to make sure that the

maps are done in time that candidates can run for office so so that was a addition

uh amendment made uh September 1st some clarification on that

mm-hmm so I think that's a good idea because basically

what happened in our cases uh we lucked out that um the Department of

Elections had a little bit of wiggle room and they were able to to work with the redistration task force

even though they were three weeks late but if they had been a lot late

no recourse we have nothing

um I think that something again these things are all really interconnected is

um little talk I think it might be the next section is on timing timing and

that's also I think a really important thing here right because these are complicated they're just this is

complicated no matter which way you look at it it's complicated and by allowing the body enough time to do its work I

think it gets less likely that you miss a deadline um and if you support it with adequate

resources it's less like right like there's again the interconnectedness of a lot of these things

um I think can be helpful yeah I think you make a good point and

it has to be kind of a package deal it's in the same way you know talking about a super majority

without knowing how many Commissioners you're talking about is difficult right so that's why when I originally had done

my little tables I was separating these elements and then I would say only if this is also true right so

um so yeah it's kind of a package of of recommendations

um let's see the first thing you had was training so I I think there were a lot of

comments that this last particular registering task force in particular

um didn't get a lot of training that other ircs have gotten

um you know I train practically every other IRC in the Bay Area and

um I mentioned to to the city clerk that he had not one

but two former CRC Commissioners in in San Francisco and neither of us were

asked to train so um so I think just requiring that they

get training on certain topics is just common sense

and in a timely manner as I said they should get training on mapping before mapping starts right

which implies they didn't uh for the um

for the CCRC we we had required training on the Voting Rights Act and

Bagley keen and you know State hiring processes we had all kinds of training

and that that all happened very early

I think that this is um another instance where looking to the recommendations of the recent task force

here are good I think again they they know what would have been really helpful for them doing

um the work effectively and just requiring that there be some training and that the task force is

formed early enough to allow for training before they're having to hold public hearings you know

um around the mapping I think I read yeah mapping training should be provide

there was another list I can't remember where it was um might have been from the section I read from their report

um they did some of it and I think some of the some of it they requested themselves

but they they definitely needed some I mean how can you be a member of the public and be part of this process without adequate training so I think

they really did their best given the circumstance to get what they needed um and giving them a little support you

know behind them um through recommendations of please make sure you do this read their report ask see what they asked for and see what

is just even the list that I have here in the slide right legals I mean some of it's required right they're a city body

they're required to do Sunshine ordinance Task Force training or Sunshine ordinance training they're you know but the legal technical all of

those things well you know we all have to do that training right because that's because we're a permanent commission so

what I learned is it's often not required of of temporary bodies and so so yeah that so I think we have to

actually be specific make that recommendation clear oh I didn't know that okay yeah I I learned that recently

okay so so that's a challenge with temporary bodies that they don't necessarily get the training that that

even we get as a permanent commission so so maybe that's a the trainings that are

required a permanent commission should also be required of the task force there you go [Music]

okay

so I'm looking at your next thing including the public I mean I honestly think and I've said this many times

before that a lot of the challenge was they just didn't allow enough time and that's why they got so crunched at the

end so their own recommendation about having a suggested timeline

you know set up for them that is you know that was the nature of some of

the training that I did for the other commissions around the Bay Area and elsewhere was just giving them a sense

of what the timeline looked like and encouraging them to you know get

draft Maps out early and Etc so that they could come up with a

schedule that would work as opposed to just winging it right and then leaving themselves three weeks to draw the maps

which is kind of what happened uh and then that's why they had these Marathon sessions right so coming up more with

like an action plan for how back planning

how to get to where they need to be with maybe not with specific dates but at

least a timeline of of where they need to be so that they're not crunched at the end

yeah so I think that's um so that is something that could be

addressed through training and you know so basically what we offered when we were being asked to train these

independent commissions was was to give them the benefit of our experience and best practices

um but uh I think your next category is actually more explicit about actual

deadlines but I think but part of this including the public was you know understanding

that there it takes time for the public to respond to things I mean it took a

year before people noticed we were doing this process right so right you know

there there is um you know Outreach and uh engaging the

public you know once you've done something so you can even get the feedback and so

that takes time and they need to allow for that and so so I think

that is a key issue was making sure there's adequate time and that's what's behind the deadlines

and the in the state legislation like I said we had a very onerous notice

requirement 14 days I mean we Scramble now just to do our 72 hours for our meetings it's really long 14 days is

really long we literally had to just agendize meetings because we didn't know if we would need

to meet and we if we would miss the 14-day posting deadline we couldn't meet so we literally just that's long we had

to agendize meetings way out in the future just to make sure that we had a standard agenda that was posted that

would allow us to meet so 14 was tough um so they have seven for local which I

think is fair that seems reasonable um and the idea of you know if you post

a map I mean it takes people a while to say okay do I even agree with it do I

understand what's going on I mean that's why there's a requirement to post a map for a certain amount of time because

people need time to absorb and then react to it so I I think the deadlines that are

proposed in in the state legislation seem reasonable

like I said 14 was really long that seems excessively long but it's also for a state process you know when

you've got so many people I I just there's something about the size that I suppose could we make that

make sense we did 14 days this I will admit like the the concept of making

sure that there is time before an agenda a map or posted for the public you know

knowing like I have a very busy job so making sure that if I had 24 hours notice what I can't do it right like

there's just some things that aren't realistic and so I would need time to look at something

um and um you know and what is onerous like I

this is I I just don't feel like I have quite the I just don't have the experience of being on the commission to

say yes this is realistic or this would be realistic if you started us early so that the whole

process could take longer so we could allow for the seven days and the three days and all of those kinds of things and if we could extend the process in a

way that allows for that and um and still allows them to meet their deadlines then I suspect people would be

in support but I would be curious to hear from people who were involved if they do think that but that's my logic

says that yeah yeah no I mean if you look at this poor last redistricting

task force I mean they they were I think appointed right before the holidays and then the pandemic hit and you know they

spent a lot of time trying to figure that out and then and then they had an April 15th deadline right and so

you know they were just crunched on time the whole way through they were appointed late they right now well I

think that that the redistricting task force the last

three District task force is an example of why you need time because you don't know what's going to happen

um of course no one could have predicted a pandemic no however

um we don't know what's going to happen yeah we know that

the virus is still there so we don't know what's going to happen still happening it's still happening before you know so I do think time and giving

enough time to prepare for what potentialities we can

make sense foresee makes sense and I guess I'm just making that point

as I think that was their biggest challenge of being inclusive because they they

literally had to have these meetings and went to the early hours of the morning because they were hitting a deadline and they didn't have any time left

and so whether they were doing something you know

that was suspicious or not you know it was irrelevant I mean they just they just ran out of time so

so I think having having adequate noticing giving the public time to react

um that is how you are inclusive and requiring the Outreach

I'm not sure we I need to I just I'm noting that it's a question here and that there were some recommendations

from the task force around meeting times and when they happened and you know and things like I'm not sure that's

appropriate for us to weigh it on it's just right that's kind of in the weeds and that a commission should think of if

they are Consulting with a community on when works I have my own questions about

whether starting something in the morning would actually engage more people but I understand wanting to end before midnight and you know so I don't

know I I don't know that we should be weighing in on that level of detail I don't think so I think that's something

for them to decide I mean I know when we did public input hearings we tried to make them on weekends and in the

evenings because we assume most people worked and so we would try to vary them so that

there were some choices like if you can't come in the evening maybe you could come on a weekend so like I would

think that our recommendation should be engage with the community to find out the best time for the community exactly

that's right that's it so yeah I think that's something

you leave to the discretion of the body you know you choose good people and you

you know and you we hire critical thinkers like you said then you have them make a decision with

community and put it

anything else on this one should we cover why don't you go to the chart and see if there's anything else there it

might take a while to vote or maybe it just takes a couple clicks

well then it'd probably take you to the next slide

maybe if we stare at it like a watched pot I don't know I think you might have to

click it again um

uh maybe all right there we go okay yeah so

yeah so yeah the the rdtf also talked about robust Outreach I I will note that

they had real disagreements on the statement of work for the Outreach consultant and this was another

situation where they're an independent body but the Consultants were chosen for them they didn't have any say in the

contract and so then they disagreed with the scope of work and so

this is back to if this is an independent body they need their own staff they need to have some say in

choosing the Consultants and um you know

it was very clear a lot of things were outside of their control over the time right

right yeah there was a lot about that in their report yeah yeah I mean

yeah I could totally understand um I think they're ready to go the next one

yeah are you sure it's the last one all right we'll wait for it to load

um while we're waiting for it to show up on the screen um this is the seventh area timing

um when should the redistricting process begin prior to the deadline and when must draft Maps be produced oh here we

go okay great um so I will first just uh read a a

little clip from the city reports report or the city clerk's report

who says it would be advised advisable for the Board of Supervisors to introduce and pass an ordinance

establishing the task force at least six months to a year before the census results are released in April the

ordinance should include the member structure appointing authorities and and that they serve at the pleasure of those

authorities seat qualifications deadline for appointments attendance requirements

minimum number of meetings assignment of administrative clerking legal support language access standards and Outreach

directives including where the funding will be derived for each of these the earlier establishment of the task force

will allow the appointing authorities additional time to make their appointments and for the appointees to arrange their upcoming schedules since

the duties will require a significant portion of their time and energy this will provide the city attorney's office

additional time to brief appointees with the Cal California Ralph and brown act the sunshine ordinance and in general

the city attorney's good government guide to ensure adherence to rules and best practices the task force members

must be made aware of how much time will be required in their schedule would need to adapt to the task Force's majority

uh and then the two main areas listed here on the slide are seating the task

force when must the task force be seated to enable adequate time to thoughtfully and inclusively do their work

um which we've been discussing the city decided to form the task force earlier than standard practice so

and the city clerk recommends to begin even earlier next time so just to clarify that because we've said that

they got started late they got started late because the census results were result were released late where they

were earlier than standard practice is that once census results come out then the procedure is the Department of

Elections director then says here's what the areas look like there is an imbalance or not an imbalance in the

districts and so therefore we should you know establish a task force you know get

one going and to to do its thing and so the earlier is that the city decided to

seat the redestricting task force before the census results were out and before there was a recommendation from the director of Elections but it was still

as you've just said was late in terms of being able to get any what they really

wanted to done because I do think that their intention was to have a really good process that was inclusive and it's

you know the circumstances were such that you know it's not great so how can how my legislation helped them you know

to to have a process that they I think that they would want based on what we've read and heard uh

and then the second area is map deadlines what should the draft map deadlines be to enable adequate time for

Meaningful public input and collaboration and should the final map deadline stay the same

all right we'll wait for the chart to appear

um so we're going to tell Marisa it's not clear that this WebEx is better than the

other one yeah yeah there we go yeah last week it was slow at last time it

was slow too I was I was waiting sometimes for it to pierce so this feels a little slower than last time but it

was also slow last time so okay so here are current San Francisco law the task force is appointed within 60

days of the director of Elections report if the districts are not in compliance with the law we already have talked

about what compliance means in terms of size there are no deadlines for draft Maps there's only a final deadline

stipulated of April 15th in the year in which the related election will be conducted

um ab1248 would require that the IRC is established not later than 250 days

before the final map deadline you'll have to do the math um I cannot right now

um AB 764 the map should be adopted with a minimum of 204 days before the next

regular election after January 1st in the year ending in two on a Monday not a

Sunday um

so uh I also wanted to add that state legislation ties the IRC seating

deadlines to map deadlines rather than to census data so it's tied to deadlines I'm going to say that again the state

legislation ties seating deadlines to map deadlines not to census deadline

data deadlines just to set up so um and then I already shared with you what San Francisco actually did

um the fair Maps act says the boundaries should be adopted no longer no earlier than

um August 1st in the Years ending in one and no later than March in years ending

in two the Pharaoh maps report the promise for maps report

recommends that we revisit the 2030 redistricting cycle timeline in 28 or 29

and to change the map deadline to land on a Monday and not a Sunday I have to say I didn't read in detail enough to

understand the Monday versus the Sunday thing but it was in a couple of different spots although that's that's all tied together because we know AB 764

is meant to enhance or improve the fair Maps act so I'm sure that that's why those are both the same

um but I'm not sure why that's the recommendation but there's clearly a reason for it

um redistricting task force for San Francisco so that the task force should

start as early as the calendar and Charter will allow and before receiving census data

um and they also suggested recommending um they wanted to be able to prepare themselves informationally and with

training and that's why and the city clerk made the same recommendation in their report

um and I also want to um just provide again I know I'm quoting a lot from the city clerk's report but

it was pretty comprehensive so um here's another section um due to the covid-19 Health Emergency

that complicated the completion of the census the timeline followed was not the usual practice from years before in

anticipation of the delayed receipt of the census results from the federal government the city decided to form the task force prior to receiving the census

report in order to get the task force informationally ready to begin their duties normally the ordinance that

establishes the task force is introduced after the director of Elections report on the census results and whether the district lines are in compliance this

year the city decided to forego waiting for that report and move forward with the establishment and appointing of the task force beforehand

the clerk's office recommends that the establishment of the task force and appointments be made even earlier additional time to establish the task

force would provide more opportunities to review the duties established timeline for Action set expectations and

execute those requirements and additional demands the task force would be able to focus on the actual district lines and duties to accomplish that task

by the time by the time the census results are released so they're ready to do the the work once the census results

are available right the census results are released around April the year prior to the task forces April 15th deadline

to adopt a final map it would be advisable for the Board of Supervisors to introduce and pass an ordinance establishing the task force at least six

months to a year before the census results are released in April

so that is so if the deadline is April 15th and the census results are a year prior to that they are recommending that

the task force be established six months or a year before the census results so that is a year and a half or two years

before the deadline just to help you out with the math okay the ordinance should include the member structure well I

already told you that in a previous um so I'll stop there

um and then the state commission um the 2020 CCRC terms began one year

before the final map deadline and their draft map is due on June 15th

now I don't remember Dr sedoni thanked thanked me for that because we only had seven months to draw the math so we gave

them a full year um so I think one thing's clear it does

make sense not to make it census dependent yes and it does make sense to go backwards from the final map deadline

uh and I think the other thing is

starting this Outreach and recruitment process needs to start even earlier earlier right absolutely so like in our

case it we had seven months to actually do our job and they took eight months to select us just to give you an idea

[Music] um so so clearly it needs to start much much

earlier so I actually think that 250 days that's

in 1248 is not sufficient for a city the size of San Francisco

yeah I think it should be at least a year um and that's when they're seated so

that means the Outreach and the Recruitment and the vetting and all that stuff has happened the year before with education and yeah

so yeah I like it I like the year sorry a year

um for seating for seating yeah absolutely and then

we can get some input on how how long for the for the uh Outreach and vetting

but like I said eight months to select us well I think what's interesting just in

the city clerk's report again um just want to note they said

um six months to a year before census results are released so they're recommending a year and a half to two

years before the map deadline yeah so does seem reasonable to require at least a year but if the city clerk's office

who was managing a lot of this said 18 months to two years I guess I guess my question would be about that record

shrinks because people like I don't know if I'm gonna still be here in two years or or I don't know what my life's gonna

look like and you might lose people by the time you're drawing draft Maps like it's just a question because anytime you

ask people for that kind of commitment is How likely is it that you're definitely going to be using your two

alternates um you know which is why you want your two alternates obviously if you're going to have it's even more important if you

have a longer period of time the task force is in place and so that would be my one apprehension about super super

long although I really like the idea of having more time just what's the balanced strike where you start to lose

people who are willing to participate for that long so I wonder when they said

seated whether um

because the city clerk was working with our existing process and so it was not

anticipating any kind of Outreach and a long Outreach and recruitment process actually here let me give you a little

clarification I'm going to just read a part of this again so they said it would be advisable to introduce and pass an ordinance establishing the task force so

I don't know if they mean establishing that the ordinance should be passed 18 to two years 18 months to two years or

the ordinance to establish the task force where the task force is formed 18 months to tears I don't know which one

they actually mean it's a good question it makes sense because

it makes sense that it's the ordinance because the ordinance has to set out the budget and who's doing what who's on

second right it it puts it fills in all the details that are not appropriate to

be in the charter how much how much the you know stipend is and all that other stuff

because they can't take action until after the ordinance has passed so that makes sense to me that the

ordinance would have to be passed earlier than that two years it's going to give plenty of time for the recruitment to not wait yeah

um put a plan together you know figure out which department is going to do it right you know well we said ourselves

the whole reason we're trying to get this done sooner is to give them enough time because we think it's we Step Up

we've said it multiple times that you know like I said Long Beach said it was a three-year budget cycle they had

it in three different budget years to cover this um so I think seating the commission itself

I think if the if the CCRC can do the whole state of California in a year then

we have to be able to do San Francisco within a year right I think that's fair and

um and then we have to account back out and

Outreach and recruitment process and and and the and the vetting and selection

piece right it's actually Outreach and recruitment been vetting and selection then they get seated then they do their

maps and they hit the deadline so there's actually three parts right

and so um excuse me so an ordinance let's just yeah 18 months to two years

with a minimum of the task force being seated a year before yeah

I think that makes sense yeah yeah

you know appropriate funds for the Outreach and and do budget augmentations

I think that makes sense right and we do two-year budget Cycles so it might have

to be earlier for the ordinance even in order to account for that maybe

yeah but anyway we don't need to know that we don't need to know that that's for them to figure out but what we're

saying is that the the commission itself whatever processes need to happen the

Outreach and recruitment the vetting and selection have to happen in time to to let give the the actual IRC a full year

I think that's reasonable yeah I mean I think that

as much as we can make it clear that there needs to be a a timeline for all

of these things to and the goal is to give the um redistrict task force the the

opportunity to do their their job so here's an interesting question so the FMA

um requires that the boundaries be adopted by March 1st and in San Francisco we

stipulate April 15th in our Charter and it was because we had our own Charter deadline

that we were able to quote unquote miss the state that line because we had our own deadline and that's how the

redistricting task force was able to negotiate with director Arts how much

can we miss it by right it became a local negotiation it was because we have our own Charter deadline that is not

consistent with the state deadline okay um so that's I think a question like

should we have our own deadline or should we should be abide by the fair map stack

deadline I don't have a strong opinion on that this one is an earlier deadline

I think what I have a strong opinion on is they need enough time before whatever

the deadline is to do their job to get trained and do their job well right

but that's a question I think is should should we you know should we align with with the

state deadline I uh like I said I don't have a strong opinion on it it's just a good question maybe it's just a question

maybe it's just a question to share rather than to try to answer right now I agree

okay

and I do think that a draft map deadline must be specified that was what really screwed up this

last redistricting task force is there was no deadline for the draft map so they didn't do one on time

then it became too crunched at the end

so I am not seeing do does it look like

only the state Commission of of all of the things here have a draft map deadline

um I believe there is a draft map deadline for um

it's stipulated in one of the uh one of these uh state things is it maybe

I just missed it I thought I looked pretty closely at all that language but I might have missed it

yeah so just to give you an idea the draft map deadline for us was June 15th our final deadline was August 15th so

I think having a draft map deadline that's you know something like that three

months in advance because that forces you to to draw something

right it was two months before June 15th in August yeah June 15th yeah two months sorry

yeah so um we originally I think I've shared with you before we originally thought we

could do two draft maps and then we realized after we had all the tomatoes

thrown at us after we had our June 15th one and we realized we had violated the rank criteria and all that other stuff

we realized we were basically going to have to go back to the drawing board and we were not going to have time to put

out a second draft map and have more Tomatoes thrown at us and not have enough time to fix it and so we actually

got really criticized for that but I think it was absolutely the right decision because because we had to

really redo things um and the point that I made when I trained all these other

ircs and advisory commissions is get a draft mapped out early because until people see what you're thinking about

they're not going to have specific feedback for you right they're just going to talk in general and say keep my

community whole but what does that mean right right because I see that not until they see that you drew a line through their Community are they going to come

back at you say no you need to move that over three blocks right until they see something concrete people

the earlier it gets out the better earlier the better and so I think the big flaw with the city process is

there's no interim deadline there was only a final deadline and then there was

like no recourse if you missed it so um do did like Long Beach do they have a

draft map deadline to your recollection and do you remember when it was I think it was two months before or

something like this and what about the Hagen yeah um I didn't bring all of my written notes but uh I have a handy table that

compares oh yes Michigan and Long Beach and I think I think I yeah I put it in

there so yeah if it was there I put it in there yeah I don't have it handy with me right

now but I did try to compare them on that element

but yeah I think there needs to be a draft map deadline and

yeah at least two three months would be better but at least two months before the final so

that I think we can recommend three months and then let the body decide

but I think having a draft mat dead having a draft map deadline is that the request the

rest of the requests have a draft map deadline right and then let the body decide on I would say the timing of that

at least two months before the final map mm-hmm

but as early as possible because that's that's when you get I mean we had like a

lot of really nicely nice conversations in our public input hearings that were you know prior to census data and prior

to our drawing the draft maps of men it seems we had draft Maps out oh my God we got a flood of comments yeah and then we

had to go through and sort them and understand them and figure out how to fix it and that took a lot of time

that's why we realized we couldn't do a second draft lab well Okay so

anything else on that one I think those are the two important things it said that has to be seated with enough time

and they have to and they have to come out with draft Maps so yeah those are

the two areas yep um the last thing I oh look how fast

that turned I saw that I was like wow why is live switch

um wow something's happened I don't know what's happening um the last slide here is just a bunch

of hyperlinks to um to reports and documents referred to in this deck

um I have noticed since then of course but had already submitted this deck so I don't I there were some things I wanted to add like the current redistricting

task force report which by the way for members of public is very very easy to find if you just enter San Francisco

redistricting task force in your search bar it will be the first thing that comes up and the report is literally at

the top of the home page so it's very easy to find but I do regret I did not list this here

um and there there may be other things would have been useful but hopefully this is a good place to find the source

information for everything you saw in this everything you saw on this deck you

can find in these links um and so that is I think that was it

excellent okay so

um so I feel like uh we need to

summarize the things that we have broad agreement on [Music]

which I think was most of it really we have some questions we have some things that might be General recommendations

that maybe don't belong in a charter Amendment um but on some of the key issues I I

feel like we came to a pretty pretty good agreement on a lot of these items

and we probably just need to see it in writing for us to just read it over

and you know agree that that is what we all said

um and then we could actually vote on it and move it forward but I think we could

I'm not suggesting we meet again before the next commission me but we can certainly uh

report on what we discussed and you know short of having an actual official vote

where we believe we had agreement so

um I think what I'm going to suggest is that

uh we try to write up and circulate a

document that that documents where we believe we have agreement uh and then we

present that at the next election it's the next election commission meaning which is what the 19th the 20th the 20th

the 20th um because I don't have time to meet again before then I don't think you guys

see that um does that sound like a a good way

forward you have other thoughts I have a question so this are you saying you're going to write up

let's well with your assistance okay like I

said we all took notes right you know I try to repeat things so I think I got

where I thought we came out on but it may not be completely accurate so

so I think we can we can um have a share a document that we add to yeah and just

make sure that we get it right uh in terms of what we discussed

uh I'm gonna start on this anyway because I'm supposed to do the minutes so and the deadline

um for us to look at it review add make

comments would be when well president Stone likes to try to post

things a week before our meeting so next week yeah

possible to post it yeah ahead of time so yeah I think we may not be able to post it but I I want to make sure that

um you know even if we end up having to give a report verbally that it that we can summarize

quickly so that uh you know we don't all have to re-debate things then yeah I

think um having uh you know a report that if it's verbal and then follow because we

can even work on a written report all the way up until the meeting and then it can be posted after the fact as well

um to share a summary of the discussion I think identifying like you said where

there is General consensus where there are questions so that it's pretty easy to track so people don't necessarily have to listen to six hours of meetings

to hear all of it but there is summary points of here's where we think we are here's some outstanding questions and

here this is for you again I don't think we want to necessarily redevate those but it's not a formal set of

recommendations because we won't have had a chance to meet yeah we still have outstanding information we need you know

we by then we'll also know a little bit more with the the legislature yep you

know which will also be interesting so you know I'm comfortable with us putting together some sort of Rapport that's

like here's a summary of where we our discussions all right can I just ask

the clarification commissioner Parker a report to the full body commission okay

yeah and I think uh you know given that um uh what we've read in the news about

um uh our legislative sponsors that they are looking at November it gives us a

little more time uh to move on this so um we will know the

at least what the Senate has done with with the two pieces of State legislation by the

next elections Commission meeting uh and then by the following one we'll know what the governor has done right

right and I think if we can share with the full body at the next meeting

kind of uh where we are at because like I said I think there's a lot of consensus that

where the state legislation is going makes a lot of sense for San Francisco

um especially now that they actually are giving us choices for for Betty

um authorities as well uh that the timing might just actually be

fine it'll work out just fine and uh

and then we'll be able to take action right after after the next commissions meeting to formally vote on it and

if we want to tweak anything does that sound like a plan sounds like a plan and we may have some questions or

input from the commission at the next meeting that might also I agree yeah

okay any other comments before we open it up for

public comment no

all right let's open it up for public comment

um Alan birdell I'm just going to play something that kind of captures my comments about your presentation tonight

17th can you clarify

um what you mean by 90 10 okay commissioner die sure so if you recall I

had already put a summary of all the recommendations we've heard from all the speakers 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 um and a lot of the general

recommendations and best practices are consistent with what we've heard that there's consensus recommendation on but

uh 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 last that's

what I mean by the last 10 that's where I really wanted to get these big brains in a room and have them hash it out with

it make them think about San Francisco and hash it out with us uh because I do

think that will take thoughtful discussion um I you know and very aware so I just

wonder are we the big brains is that four of us here were the big brains right

and I think you gave a different version of really

what's happening here okay you promised one thing to president Stone but you've

delivered something quite different and it's obvious to everybody and it's disappointing and I feel

think that uh commissioner Stone should look back on

this and wonder uh if you gave her a straight answer chair die and I don't

think that uh that you did but thank you thank you Mr Verdon for

your comment um let's see we have uh

someone on the line hi even I needed yeah hi this is Lauren

gerardin with the League of Women Voters of San Francisco uh thank you for this great conversation

there's so many things that uh we feel that you're getting spot on

right and appreciate that there are a few things to try to keep looking at and asking more questions on um these are

complicated issues um and it's one of the big brains that you brought into one of your earlier

meetings to share expert input um I think that you've done a really great process of examining each of these

aspects getting experts to come in and discuss all of these things with you

over over a year um so I think this is uh you know a well-informed process one thing I did

want to point out um is the uh the question of the mapping deadline in the charter uh the league

feels that there should not be a mapping deadline in the charter in that San Francisco should use the states mapping

deadline and there's a very specific reason why it's because the City attorney during the last redistricting

process determined that the remedies in the state law for missing the final math

deadline don't apply to San Francisco because we have a mapping deadline in

our Charter uh there's you may what you can do is look at a memo sent to the

redistricting task of course on April 19th sorry on April 19 2022 and that

addresses this issue on page one um and so part of the reason things got

a confusing and delayed and messed up at the end um was because no one really knew what

would happen if the mapping deadline was missed because there's just no way for the state

um regulations to apply to us so if we our understanding is if we clear out the

mapping deadline from our Charter that will open San Francisco up to being able to use so many more of these great

things that are in state law and that will continue to be improved in state law through redistricting reform

um and we will um be in touch if we have anything else so we'll go back and listen to the recording but that was one

thing that popped off so thank so much thank you so much for that information

that was very helpful uh

are there any other public comments

I am not seeing any other hands so with that let us close public

comments on this item and we are on to agenda item five

um agenda items for future meetings so

anything else besides what we just discussed which is hopefully we can look at the package in

writing and take a vote on it uh going or tweak it as needed

um anything else that we would need to put on a future

let's think of anything

um nothing's coming to mind I think again once we give a an update to the

full commission later this month perhaps something will come up that they'll say hey I don't I mean obviously we've heard

a lot of information at this point and um so maybe we'll be able to answer questions but if there's something else

that they request maybe that might be but but for now I think it's just moving again towards recommendations as we

capture everything together get some input you know um

and then you know and then as you said we'll we'll know more about State legislation kind of soon so very soon

yeah so I don't have anything and I don't know when our next meeting would be maybe that's also just

well I think that probably will be based on the outcome of uh the election

commission the full body meeting and the comments that the other Commissioners

have so I I think at this point we probably should just wait to see when

another meeting would be um yeah useful for the public and for us

yeah my guess is it would probably be between

our next two commission meetings I will have very limited availability

between those two meetings I will be around for some but I will be gone for a little over two weeks and unavailable

okay yeah well it's going to depend on our availability for sure but we definitely want you at the meeting to

discuss this so uh let's see far how far we can get well I'll certainly try to

provide an update on the state legislation okay um and as you said we'll get more input

from our fellow commissioners um right

and let me open that to public comment for item five

discussion and possible action regarding items for future agendas any public comment

seeing none let me close public comment and

we are adjourned at 8 58.

thank you thank you all that was a good meeting it's good

all right again commissioner Parker

I think it's there thank you for that amazing report