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
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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