Elections Commission Special Meeting

1. Call to Order & Roll Call

okay welcome everyone to the December 12 2022 special meeting of the San

Francisco elections commission I'm the president Chris turdonic the time is now 602 pm and I call the meeting to order

this meeting is being held in person at City Hall Room 408 when Dr Carlton B Goodluck Place San Francisco California

94102 as authorized by California government code section 54953e and mayor

breeds 45th supplementer February 25th 2020 emergency Proclamation it is

possible that some members of the elections commission may attend this meeting remotely in that event those members will participate in vote by

video members of the public May attend the meeting to observe and provide public comment at the physical meeting

location listed above or online

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

submitting public comment and writing by noon of the day of the meeting to elections.commission at sfgov.org it'll

be shared with the commission and will be included as part of the official meeting file public comment will be available on each

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

public comment period are available by phone by calling

415-655-0001 again the phone number is 415-655-0001

access code

is 248-552-44272 [Music]

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the instructions for public comment are listed on page six of the agenda

okay Commissioners please unmute your microphone so that you can verbally State Your Presence at today's meeting

after your name is called uh vice president Stone here

commissioner bernholz here commissioner die here commissioner hadron Crowley here

commissioner lavosi here and uh I commissioner jordanick I'm here

so we have all members president which means we have a quorum and a friendly reminder to fellow

Commissioners we request that you mute your microphones when not speaking to avoid audio feedback

during the meeting okay so we are still on item number one and as we did at the last meeting a

member of the commission will state our land acknowledgment so I'd like to ask commissioner levelsi to State the

acknowledgment today yes the San Francisco elections commission

acknowledges that we are on the unseated ancestral homeland of the romitash alone

who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco peninsula

as the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their Traditions the Ramat ashaloni have never seen it

lost nor forgotten their responsibilities as caretakers to this place

as well as for All Peoples who reside in their traditional territory as guests we

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

acknowledging the ancestors and relatives of the ramataj community and

affirming their Sovereign right as first peoples okay thank you

2. General Public Comment

okay so let us move on to the next item item number two general public comment

public comment and any issue within the elections commission's General jurisdiction that is not covered by

another item on this agenda so um members of the public can come

forward if um to the podium if they have comments

okay for general public comment item number two

okay and um today vice president stone is going to be managing the the comments

on the phone so any commenters yes we currently have three

um three call Four callers and um I will start by unmuting uh Roman

Roman I can't I'm so sorry I can't uh pronounce your last name but I'm going to unmute you at this moment and you

will have three minutes

you are now unmuted I'm actually calling in regarding the

agenda item um regarding uh Jones Arns

um uh reappointment and so um this is what I'd like to say

unfortunately three minutes is not enough time excuse me um that is on the agenda for

number five uh but I thought public comments also applies to a new agenda item or the

general public comment is just for things that are not covered by another item on the agenda

okay I guess we'll wait until number five then okay thank you

I have Dave Baker I am I just requested to unmute you and

you now have three minutes

these San Francisco voters my friends and family included were not particularly familiar with the elections

Commissioners Bill recently when the story broke of their elevated blunder at the November 16th meeting to help the

public understand the true gravity of the commission's recent decision shed some light on the body itself I will now read a statement that was printed in the

San Francisco Examiner by the former elections commission president Viva Mogi who served on this commission from 2017

to 20. sorry um excuse me that item is covered by number five so um

this is just for general public comments on items not otherwise listed on the agenda

okay oh I I okay I will hold my comment for item

number five okay

um uh Mr Patel we you are

up you are now unmuted you have three minutes

yeah remind them remind okay yes just a reminder that this this is general

public comment on uh items that are not included on the agenda today

you're able to hear me yes awesome so thank you so much

um I wanted to talk about uh from the last meeting there was a few conversations about open source voting

um I believe it's not part of the agenda item today so I would love to share some information on that

so after last meeting I looked into the city system and it seems like the vendor voting Works who was on the call

last meeting might have been a little mixed up so voting works is currently

only registered as a bidder and not a supplier and not 12 be compliant with

the city and of course the city is open to getting them up to standard up to code

um while the commission wants the uh wants the city to work with this

vendor it seems that it's not possible until they become a compliant vendor for the city just like

anyone else um voting work still has a way to go

um of course the controller's office can help them uh since the commission is very interested in working with a specific

vendor to bring open source to San Francisco we should also look at the credibility before San Francisco becomes the sales

case for this vendor voting works is currently certified in Mississippi as we all heard where their

largest county is only 166 000 voters compare that to San Francisco which is

huge or almost four times as much um also the same state that doesn't offer

any additional languages such as Chinese Spanish or Filipino nor do they offer

ranked Choice voting to their voters this is stuff that we offer to our voters

um what information do we actually have from language and accessibility groups upon the system

we would love to know that I think the voters should know that I think the commission should look into this as well

thank you thank you Mr Patel you may now lower

your hand uh Mr Baker you uh still have your hand

raised just this on an agenda item or on a topic other than the uh items listed

on the agenda for today ah there you go okay uh caller number five you have

three minutes to uh speak on uh general public comment for items that are not

currently included on today's agenda you are now unmuted

caller number five good evening my my name is Natalia kuzina and I'm one of the managers who

signed the November 14th letter sent to this commission during last week's Board of Supervisors meeting I learned that

the president of this commission Chris jordanick suggested to supervise the pestkin because we wrote the November

14th excuse me the sun this is covered by agenda item number five

so all right thank you

when that happens me jump

um

caller user number five I see you're still unmuted uh is were you speaking on

the topic of agenda item number five or yes I'm just about to do that

um agenda item number five Is On The Board of Supervisors resolution of intent to not appropriate funding for

executive recruitment services and urging reappointment of incumbent director of Elections were you speaking

about something related to that matter or something different

I was speaking about President jordanick's comments that he made to supervise the pestkin

is is it about the board of supervisor's resolution

can you hear me I was speaking about the comments that

President Chris jordanick made to supervise the pestkin I think we should wait until agenda item

five because we're that is in the context of their resolution if you don't mind okay thank you thank you so much thanks

there are no other callers

okay we'll move back to the commenters in the room

you have three minutes

thank you thanks Commissioners my name is Brent Turner I'm here uh tonight uh

representing some folks that couldn't be here a lot of folks that couldn't be here uh namely uh we have a good

representation and uh uh sponsorship from folks that are known

nationally in some locally the Harvey Mount Club the a lot of Democratic party

clubs a grand majority of them the the open source work that we do is in the

California state platform via the good graces of Christine Pelosi

and others that help put that forward and Southern Poverty Law Center I just

want to make mention the Equal justice Foundation many others

that support this open source work so the reason I'm naming them is because when we hear

things from people that may appear to be representing the public

that want to in some way lessen the efforts or denigrate some of the

pioneers of Open Source we always want to make mention that that usually comes from a business interest because of

course we know open source is flying in the face of some heavy business interests so I just wanted to mention

that to you and appreciate your work again I know it's not easy and there's a tremendous amount of political pressure

right now but I want to applaud your previous efforts over the past 10 15

years of pushing for transparency and election integrity and and also uh you know

standing through these last few weeks with its intense pressure from the white right-wing press internationally uh to

uh you know try to denigrate this commission you've done great work I hope

that you continue to do it and thank you again for your efforts thank you

thank you um there are no other commenters okay

3. Resolution on Remote Elections Commission Meetings

thank you Vice presidentstone so let's move on to item number

item number three discussion possible action resolution and continuation of remote elections commission meetings we

have our usual draft motion

and resolution I'm overly approved

second okay so we have um motion before us is there

any commissioner discussion public comment on this item item number

three no no public commenters okay seeing none

any uh remaining discussion before uh actually I take that back we have one

call in um uh commenter and this is on discussion on agenda item

three discussion and possible action on resolution and continuation of remote elections commission meetings

um user 17 I have unmuted you and once you begin you'll have three minutes

it appears they [Music] um have signed off so

okay so let's close any commenters close public no other commenters so close

public comment on this item any uh remaining discussion before we take a vote

okay then we'll take a roll call vote vice president Stone yes commissioner

bernholds yes commissioner died aye commissioner Hayden Crowley yes

yes and I commissioner kiordano vote Yes so the motion passes unanimously

4. Approval of Minutes of Previous Meetings

okay let's move on to item number four approval of minutes of previous meetings discussion possible action to approve

minutes for the September 21st October 19th and November 16 2022

elections commission meetings okay so for this item we have three

draft minutes documents before us I know it's a lot of documents for one meeting

but um we do have them all out there for us to review and um the first two minutes documents

are um minutes documents that I revised from

our prepared by our former commission secretary and then the latest

for the last meeting our minutes that I prepared myself so um

I'll just open it up to comments from the commissioners so president jordanick I want to commend

you on your job summarizing the last meeting it was a lot of detail

um I personally had a number of sentences I just didn't understand in

the previous two meetings and I would like time to take a look at that and and send in some

revisions so I'm going to propose that we defer voting on The September and October meeting minutes unless my fellow

commissioners have a different idea I do have a few substantive changes on the

November meeting minutes but mostly they look fine to me with a couple of minor

typos that I will separately consider so I'd like to

um move to approve the November 16th meeting minutes with a

couple of revisions let me just read through them really

quickly um on item number three add commissioner

Stone's name on item number four I think it's important to point out that part of

the reason the draft minutes were not ready was due to the unexpected departure of our commission secretary

the previous meeting just so the rest of it makes sense

and then moving on to

the the public cart comment regarding the registricting initiative I was just

going to add second to last paragraph the public comment from Lauren Jordan

from the League of Women Voters she had also suggested

um to keep 2024 as a goal for introducing reforms

is that under item item eight it's I actually under item five and it's this

it's the last public comment and then for item number seven and

Direct in uh director arms report um he talked about two measures

um so one was about adding proponents and opponents to the state measures and

local measures and then the second one was Proposition h which might result in six or seven card

ballots due to the election consolidation

so just make that the second measure yeah that was important yeah and then increased costs which could

potentially increase costs and and uh mailing handling and all a whole bunch

of other things um an item uh number eight

I just wanted to clarify that I had thanked commissioner Hayden Crowley for her ideas on advancing the redistricting

initiative not in redistricting in general and

[Music] um and then under item

nine uh just a note that the last public

commenter had actually identified himself as a department employee and I believe he actually gave us names and we

should try to put that in there I wrote something down but I'm not sure

it's right so we ought to be able to check that so those were the only substantive changes I had

but again fabulous job at capturing the substance of our discussion and of the

public comments can you thank you commissioner and I

anyone else or do you want to hold this over to the next um meeting because there's

you wanted to take a look at at uh well I only made a motion on the floor yeah there's a motion on the floor to approve

November with those specific edits so if you agree I'd love a second uh yeah sure that'll all be written down

right that's all of the changes okay yeah I I um I've moved

I I provided the second I second Goofy

okay there are additional um is there any discussion on the motion

before you take a public comment okay so let's take public comment on

this item yes we have two public commenters on the

approval of minutes or previous meetings call in user 19 you are uh I just sent

the unmute and once you begin you will have three minutes

uh good evening I am sorry I wanted to comment on your

next uh number five the number five issue I did

not want to run this one so I'll wait my turn to uh discuss the reappointment of

John Arts thank you thank you okay on Mew you um

I am now placing you back on mute and user call in user 16 you are now

commenting on agenda item number four approval of minutes of previous meetings can you hear me now

yes excellent David pillpal um I I think I followed the uh suggested

edits from commissioner die it might help given the number to see uh

marked revisions but it sounds like they were just clarifying and uh not uh overall a

changing substance so I'm pretty sure I don't need to see them and they will be in the adopted minutes I did notice two

things on the September minutes and wanted to call those uh to your attention even if you're not approving uh September tonight on page five of the

September uh minutes uh let me go there

okay uh the third public comment Tess Welborn is t-e-s-w-e-l-b-o-r-n

um unless she wants a different name but that's the name that usually goes by

um and on Page Six um

I believe my public comment no where wait a minute

yeah my public comment on item nine uh David pillpo made suggestions on the

planned switch over for the no no it was somewhere else

you know right sorry not my public comment on item nine president jordanick

reported the first bullet he's engaging with San Francisco's Digital Services team a department that is in the process

of switching City websites uh to a new system or platform it's not just

commission uh websites It's All City uh commissions and departments so I think that substituting City for commission

would uh read better um those are the only things I saw I didn't see anything uh big in the

October minutes and as I say I've got no objection to the changes to November to the extent that they're clarifying

changes thanks for listening thank you I've unmuted you and

um Mr Keeley you are commenting on agenda item

number four approval of minutes of previous meetings and I will unmute you

now when you begin I will you have three minutes

oh yeah just a small thing from a from last meeting for the minutes we briefly

discussed revisions to new laws that are going to require the Departments to potentially go past our five ballot card

limit just wanted to be clear that neither of those were technically propositions one was local measure H

propositions only come from the state level so that was a local measure not a proposition and the other one was State

Assembly Bill 1416 which was not something that the voters directly voted

on but something that was signed into law that originated the state legislature so while we're being specific on the minutes probably good to

have that stuff in there so thank you very much thank you

and we have no more public commenters

to a vote uh so that causes public comment on this

item so let's have any additional discussion on on the motion before we take a vote

so I would like to amend my emotion to um reflect the last callers

clarification this was for I believe the director's report item number seven uh

so the first was a b I didn't catch the number but I know we

have it somewhere director Arns what was the

16 14. okay 16 14.

and measure measure h

okay so with those additional changes

is that okay with you so you're amending and your amended resolution you're making emotions yes to amend the amended

resolution well as long as it's okay with you we haven't voted out yet so so the second you are amended

your amendment to your amended resolution got it

okay so we have the emotion was amended uh is there any additional discussion

before we take a vote on the motion okay seeing none

vice president Stone yes commissioner bernholtz commissioner die

aye commissioner Hayden Crowley yes commissioner livosi yes and I

commissioner Jordan yes so the motion passes unanimously okay so we will bring back the um the

earlier two minutes for the next meeting and then the the November ones will be posted with

the um the changes so let's move on to agenda item number five Board of Supervisors resolution of

5. Board of Supervisors Resolution re: Director of Elections

intent to not appropriate funding for executive recruitment services and urging reappointment of incumbent

director of Elections discussion and possible action regarding the Board of Supervisors proposed

resolution of intent to not appropriate funding for executive recruitment services and urging reappointment of incumbent director of Elections file

number 221-210 okay so for this item the um the Board

of Supervisors um well supervisor peskin introduced a resolution that is attached to the

the um packet

and also I included a transcription of supervisor peskin's comments that the day that he introduced the resolution

so um and he graciously uh postponed the board's vote on the

resolution for one more week to allow us to have the discussion we're having today so originally it was before the

board at last Tuesday's board meeting and currently it's scheduled to go

before the board at tomorrow's meeting so uh during this site and we have an

opportunity to um you know if we like we can can um

you know communicate anything to the board before they take a vote on that resolution

so I'd like to make a motion good I move that we agenda is renewing

director John arnt's contract at the next regular meeting in January 2023

pending the or basically on on the basis of the fact that we will not receive

funding and I would like to move forward with that immediately at our next

meeting and also commit to the commission working with the Board of Supervisors moving forward on any

related Partnerships pertaining to funding um in the long term

I second the motion thank you I have a comment can you reconsider the motion

from the last meeting does that make more sense that's not my motion it's not what's on

the agenda item unfortunately okay

can you um can you restrict the motion yes it was definitely a bit jar uh clunky so I move that we agenda is

renewing the director's contract at the next regular meeting January 2023 and

also commit to working with the Board of Supervisors moving forward on funding in these processes in general in the long

term please

um it sounds like you'd like to consider John aren't his contract slash

reappointment or in a closed session item so if we could label it as such

just consider John arts's contract slash reappointment in closed session at the

next agenda meeting thank you I will amend my motion to reflect what

DCA Flores just said and I second the amended emotion because it actually would Encompass quite easily

the proposed agenda item for this meeting which I submitted to president jordanick but which he uh did not

include on this agenda so that agenda item may already uh exist and be ready

to go for January

so can I just ask a clarifying would this basically be the same agenda item that we had at the last meeting no it

would be the agenda item that I submitted to you earlier Chris that you didn't include

why it's not the same as the last one it's not about pursuing a search or

opening the position it's none of that it's about continuing the appointment of

director Arts okay I guess my my more specifically

I'm asking with the with the agenda item include

revisiting the but like currently we voted that we're

going to do a search so we would I'm saying would we also consider we you

know reconsidering that position as well as part of that discussion uh so it needs to happen and that's not in the

motion that was made and it wasn't in the agenda item the search is dead in the water there's no funding for it

there's no need to consider it uh so my motion is specifically around

moving forward with renewing the contract we have all explicitly stated that we have not voted on the contract

uh and so I think that or rather I stated that my motion is to agendize

incorporating a closed session discussion about the contract and move

forward with renewal given that uh the Board of Supervisors resolution is that okay do you see it for us

I tried no worries so I would refrain from moving um the latter piece moving

forward with the reneologist you want to have a Personnel closed session agenda item to consider uh the contract John

Arthur's contract whether or not you're going to renew or not that's where you would discuss it in

the closed session agenda item got it

finished Crowley do you see Flora's uh question do we need it this just seems

like a non-sequitur to me do we need to make any action on the on the motion that we that's already there that or is

that I know that it's quote unquote dead in the water but it seems like there needs to be some sort of subsequent

motion I don't know you you need to clarify that I think

if it's um easier cleaner for the commission um you could um rescind that vote but whether or not

you can act you can schedule a closed session item um to discuss the reappointment slash contract of director

Arts is separate than that selection process um because

nothing binds the commission to the selection process especially

um you know you don't have funding or there's no help or you know whatever however many reasons there might be

nothing binds the commission from going forward with the selection process I would ask that we not over complicate

this I think let's just follow what DCA floor has said let's

move forward with you know we have a second on my motion let's discuss that specific motion and

vote on it take public comment move forward do you mind restating the motion since

you dropped half of it yes DC employers helped me um if I get it wrong but my motion or my

amended motion is to agendize the discussion a closed session discussion

around the director's contract which could be incorporating a renewal

potentially

essentially if you look um at the agenda item from

last month it's essentially the same agenda item from last month except this

time we'll be actually voting on his contract oh I'm sorry uh I thought last time was

a um a closed session about his contract as well have been

didn't take action on that so essentially it's just a closed session item on the reappointment slash

contract of John Arts simple as that correct thank you

does that clarify yes oh thank you you're welcome I also had included a

commitment to work with the Board of Supervisors going forward uh on the um

on as actually as it pertains to if you look at the attachment one of the

attachments in the packet item um uh supervisor peskin specifically said

it's incumbent on this board to work with them in good faith and also to acknowledge that in five years time they will need funds to do such Recruitment

and search that we as a matter of policy intend to fund that in five years time and so in several of his

supervisor peskin's comments he expressed a interest and desire to work

and for us to work better with the Board of Supervisors from a process perspective and I Incorporated a

commitment from the elections commission to do so in my motion

so vice president Stone um you beat me to the punch I was going to to make a motion that would ask the

Board of Supervisors to um consider automatic funding

to allow the commission to to do its work in five years

but let's discuss the motion that you have at the moment my only concern about agendizing it for uh the next meeting is

that we are actually supposed to do the the annual review at that meeting and I'm just wondering

if you know it needs to happen at that meeting or could happen at the meeting

afterwards because we actually have until April so I'm just wondering if there's a particular reason that you

want to force it in January I don't see any reason why we need to put the director or the department through a

delay to this foreign

yes in response specifically to the commissioner dies last comment I think

it is incumbent upon this commission to rectify the Damage Done by the previous

decision as quickly as possible it is pure hubris to put it off

to think that director arens isn't being recruited by the any one of the 2000 jurisdictions in the country that have

lost their leadership and it is the purpose of this commission to support

and oversee the Department of Elections not to damage the reputation of the commission

the department the director the staff to unite the public and the elected

leadership around the the poor decision-making

and lack of process that led to the prior decision I actually think had we been

able to agendize this issue correctly we'd be able to take action now which is

absolutely our responsibility to clean up the mess we've made

and so everything else should be put off until we get out of

this chaos because it's actually even more hubris to presume

that having done what this commission has done that anyone in this city this Media or

the voters would take seriously any other decision we might choose to make

so not have only have we inflicted damage on the department we've made ourselves an an unreliable

untrustworthy body and until we fix that all of the work

we've done on other issues is out the window I strongly urge

us to move on this motion and to take action to rectify the situation as quickly as possible

should have happened today it's unfortunate that it cannot

I just wanted to jump in on one thing that I is not necessarily in response to

commissioner bernhold so it's something that I've been wanting to say to

each of you to the public and to the director and the department and really

just the city which is that I think we can all work to give everyone a little

bit of grace and patience and just calmness and kindness I recognize that

we all care very deeply about elections in this city and sometimes we're not

going to agree and sometimes we make mistakes and sometimes we're gonna face

heat but we still have to work together and we still have to demonstrate that there is such thing as decorum and I

think I would encourage all of us to think about that in the new year as to how each of us can work together

understanding that we may disagree and we may make mistakes we are all private citizens trying to do our job as

volunteers to the best that we can and it is okay if we make mistakes and we I

agree 100 also must repair harm when mistakes are made but also give each

other Grace in that process and I would ask everyone to consider that given the

level of vitriol that has been directed at each other and individual members

there is a lot of conversation about what San Francisco is supposed to stand for and I

agree that there are times when we may go against what is not not always what

some people who have strong opinions may feel but we can still treat each other with respect and I really would ask

everyone to consider that in um in how we work together going forward

and as we continue to repair uh the the relationship thank you

okay are there additional I'd like to make a comment all right um

one of the

obstacles to equity has always been doing what we always do

my vote was not in any means

to say that director Arts was not doing a good job I appreciate your work as a

public servant and the city of San Francisco and what you've done for the city

my vote was to say that we should look at who else is available

and if we are going to as the mayor of San Francisco has asked us to do

to consider racial Equity that we are to look at the possibility

and I do take um issue with saying that we damaged this department

as Commissioners it is our purview to open the process

or to renew and so I would really like for us to

remember that if there is going to be progress in the city that calls itself a

liberal City that we need to look at the processes and procedures that keep certain people

in positions over extended long periods of time so once again

I appreciate and thank you tremendously Mr arts for the work you have done but

it is not against you by voting to open the process

at the end of the day if we had had the funding and we had pursued the process my vote would be for

the best candidate if that's you or another candidate so I

really want to ask everyone as commissioner Stone has said

to be calm and to ask questions before

judging and to understand that if we are

going to have Equity that means we have to do things differently and not

continue to do what we've always done and I want you to understand Mr Arts

from me commissioner lavalsi there is nothing personal and I appreciate your service to the

city of San Francisco thank you

thank you commissioner novosi yeah

commissioner died and Lucy is but commissioner burnhold sets her hand up as well yes

uh thank you commissioner lavalsi um took the words right out of my mouth

um and director arms I I sent you a private note about this

um I think that we did the right thing a majority of the commission voted on this

it is something we discussed over three months it was not a quick uh discussion

it was one that we undertook seriously

um because we take our independence as a commission and the mandate to make sure

that We are following the charter and that means ensuring that we have

checked to make sure that we have the best person as the leader of this

department and while I think many people believe that

they know the answer already the reality is that we have not even looked and under Civil

Service rules we are not supposed to provide any kind of preference or favoritism

for an incumbent that is just the rules of civil service

so my vote for this was also not personal it was about process

as most of you know I serve for 10 years on a commission which was about good

process and let the results come out the way they can have the process be open and

transparent and allow public participation and let it be independent

and I see this as in the same vein that we are following the Mandate that the

voters put into place when they created the elections Commission

and uh when the voters chose to make the

head of the elections Department a civil servant with a five-year contract

and it gave the elections commission the sole Authority to open a search

and in its sole discretion to not do the search and simply

reappoint and for me and I know for the majority of the commission who voted for the open

competitive search this was about making sure it was done once in 20 years

because it hasn't been ever done before and making sure that we did it early

enough that it would be a fair and Equitable process not only to other candidates

but also to director Arts himself whom we explicitly invited to participate

knowing that in fact perhaps he might be the best candidate at the end

um and to have a look at that process and to

allow others to compete is that is fundamentally what Equity is

about it is not about any kind of um

like I said preference or favoritism or any kind of special uh qualification

that's not related to Talent it's about equality of opportunity

and it will also would have been an opportunity for the city to look at

building a pipeline to think about succession planning or much as we've enjoyed director arts

service over the past 20 years um he's not going to be in this role forever

and it would be a chance to see who else is out there

potential pipeline for other positions potentially in the department

and possibly for a future director of Elections

so to me this was simply about uh making sure that City

had a look at the full breadth of talent out there

as I said recently on a radio program in 20 years you know children have grown

grown up and gone to college it is a long time it's time to look

and so that is the reason I believe the majority of the commission supported this motion I do differ with

commissioner bernholtz's characterization that it was a bad process like I said we discussed this

over three meetings over three months not everyone agreed but a majority of

the commission did agree and that is democracy

you think you commissioner died um commissioner bernholz you have your hand up

I just want to comment that a good process would have actually involved securing the funding identifying and

alerting everyone in due time three months is not due time we did not do the

process well the Board of Supervisors and the resolution um that was put forward and supported by

the full board points out all the ways that the process was was flawed

so I think what we have learned I hope is that there are better ways to do this

and that they are pursued in the future can you thank you commissioner bernholtz

yeah I do want to say a few words about the process because you know as as president of the commission this is um

and also the longer serving commissioner this is something that I I take responsibility for

um one of the challenges of being on the commission is that a lot of the processes that you know we need to

follow you know we don't necessarily have continuity on the commission and in this case it's something that

you know we learned bits and pieces about this process you know every five years I only first learned about even

the end date of director ernst's term after being on the commission for four

years it was on our agenda at the February 2018 meeting which was two

months before the April deadline back then so going into this year you know knowing

that date I um I met with the former president the first week of June

to let her know about this was coming up in the year and I asked that we put this on the agenda at the June meeting

um I I thought I had a commitment from her but then I I received an email

um that they were gonna not have it in June and she agreed with me that she did not

want us to wait for the last minute to discuss this um after that you know we we had some

turnaround the commission and um I was also informed by staff that

this type of issue is very unusual to

put it on the agenda more than six months in advance of of

the day of the deadline so what I did was I put it on the agenda

in September which was seven months in advance which was you know a month in advance of what staff was advising me

so I I thought that you know I was being generous with the amount of time that we were allowing

ourselves to discuss it you know the before our our first meeting that we discussed it which was

in September the vice president Stone and I met with the representative DHR to

learn about the selection process and in talking with that individual

we did not learn anything about a need for funding so going into the September meeting even

at that point we did not know that we would need money um so our commission only learned that

we needed money during the October meeting which was you know that's late October

and then um you know we had a couple routes to secure that funding we could go through the mayor's office or we

could go through the board of supervisor's office and so um in the first week of November I was

got an introduction to the mayor's budget office through DHR and I requested a meeting with the mayor's

office um to meet with them before our November meeting and I was only scheduled to meet

basically the week after Thanksgiving which was after our November meeting

after our November meeting and we made our decision then the mayor's office

wanted to meet sooner so then they scheduled it before Thanksgiving and

and um so I learned the Tuesday before Thanksgiving at the mayor's office would

not provide the funding and um so then and then on the same day I learned about

the board resolution so it's I mean based on the knowledge

that at least I as an individual had going into this process I I I can't really see a way that I

could have known about this you know a couple years ago that we would need to um

it's it's very challenging to learn about the process and um

you know even even just trying to meet with the mayor's office it's not it's not easy in terms of approaching the

board I thought it would be premature to to um

you know ask for money before we've even made a decision so I think there's there's a question there

you know I think um you know why should we ask for money if

we're not even going to move forward with the process but I I do think that it is a

was a challenging process I think we learned a lot this time around and it's going to help us a lot in five

years and um but I just want people to understand a little bit more about the

background and what I knew at various points in time

thank you for clarifying yeah

um I I think that it is difficult for a

Citizens commission that has had as much turnover as we've had this year

um to know everything about the process uh

a majority of this commission was appointed this year and so we had no history

of how to do this given that it had not been done before

so all we had was uh the information in the charter which

gives gives us this mandate um and

as president jordanick pointed out many of us didn't even realize that

it was a budget item that we had to somehow

Supply and that's also what many of us learned that in fact the commission does not

have an independent budget it would need to get the money elsewhere so

um as president jordanick pointed out we actually moved as quickly as we could

with the information that we had learned just in time

so unfortunately that made it a crunch

because we had just also learned from DHR that ideally we would have about six

months to run a search so uh

I wanted to note I don't know if it makes sense to do just do this as a separate motion

afterwards but I did want in response to

commissioner Hayden quality I did want to respond to the Board of Supervisors resolution

uh and uh see if we can remedy this for the next Commission

because one of the things is that each commissioner's term is five years it's

supposed to be staggered we should not have had this kind of turnover but the reality is that very few Commissioners

actually serve out their full five years so it's a good likelihood that this

group of citizens will be entirely different by the next five year contract period contract renewal period

so I think it's incumbent on this commission to try to clear the way and make make this easier

on our future selves

quickly um we have a motion so any new motion I think needs to come later

so that's all yeah I was going to ask if that was a motion or just an ask to amend mine yeah I was going to say I

don't know that it makes sense to to amend yours because I think it's too much yeah I actually would like to

respond um if it's not emotion if it's just a discussion then is it is it just a

discussion at this point Okay so uh I recognize the sentiment behind that

and but I I disagree um for a couple of reasons

one is that I just I don't think that it is going to work within the commission's

favor to try and pass emotion to change the Board of Supervisors resolution I

think it is in the commission's best interest in the short and long term to

re to um as I put in my motion to work with

the Board of Supervisors and commit to working to the board with the Board of Supervisors going forward

as it pertains to budgeting whether it's an independent budget that this could be

a part of in five years but just having a larger conversation and a relationship you know you had mentioned or president

jordanick that you know we are new and I think a lot of us are new

um and I think or the long term with the commission being

able to have not just this one moment of resolution but rather a more longer term

relationship with the Board of Supervisors is probably uh in the in our

best interest the other thing I would say is um I hear the element of not going to

necessarily be Commissioners I just don't think that that's a reason to uh

to try and pass sorry Oh I thought someone was speaking um

to pass uh emotion here that would

basically ask them to amend I don't I don't anticipate them changing their uh resolution either way

we have emotion so let's stay on topic well it was a discussion about whether

or not we were going to amend mine and I was just explaining

okay is there any addition uh commissioner bernhold says put her hand up

commissioner bernholtz thank you a couple of things to commissioner dye's

last comment I actually very much see and understand commissioner Stone vice

president Stone's motion to be a response to the board's action otherwise

we couldn't be talking about it now so that's how I view this at it which is as

a direct response to the board's resolution so in my mind that purpose

has been solved I want to um clarify what I meant earlier about damage

because I feel very strongly that that this commission has done damage

um I think we've done at a minimum we've distracted at least a dozen professionals from

their daily jobs at the department they've taken time to address US they've wrote written to us they may well be on

the phone here they've presented at the Board of Supervisors meeting none of that is what they are supposed to be doing

um as part of their jobs and yet they've been taking the time to do it so there's damage there

I think we have brought upon ourselves both on inaccurate and unwanted

attention during a time of national crisis in election Administration

and I think that is true damage I think we've damaged The credibility of the commission quite significantly and I

think for uh my colleagues who have worked so hard and so well on issues of

redistricting this may welcome back to bite us there and that is a a serious concern

uh to me at least um and quite frankly I think as uh

it was supervisor peskin I believe who referred to the specious arguments

by some of the Advocates and perhaps some of the Commissioners that were being made about the relationship

between the bodies I think that too is unnecessary damage and I think we

should take this seriously um finally I I too the procedural comments

and questions I agree completely with this and in fact I and other Commissioners have tried

both in public session and in the closed session last month to point out the procedural and structural challenges to

having a group uh which has been an incomplete group of volunteer citizens trying to oversee

a Civil Service hiring appointment along with other challenges that this commission faces in terms of the

secretarial role in others and I was told in no uncertain terms to shelve those concerns so yes they're real

concerns we should attend to our own business in fixing those perhaps documenting making sure there's a

training process making sure there's a manual of key dates for future Commissioners to know this will happen

but I very much see and understand vice president stones to be the response

to the Board of Supervisors resolution and if it isn't then once again we're out of order in what we're doing on this

agenda item thank you just to add to that thank you that is

actually what I meant so in response to commissioner Hayden Crowley that's yeah

just she said it better than I did

okay is there any additional discussion before we take public comment on this item

okay let's do you still have your hand up commissioner bernholtz

okay so let's take public comment on this item let's start with the members of the public in the room

hi good evening um you have three minutes on agenda item

number five Board of Supervisors resolution of intent to not appropriate funding for executive recruitment services and urging reappointment of

incumbent director of Elections okay so on the timer it says two minutes can

that be reset please two minutes

I'll give you a 30 second um my name is Deanna Mitchell I work

with the San Francisco Department of Elections I'm a long-term part-time employee

I've worked for and with John for 15 years our department

four of you are new here I don't know how many of you have lived in San Francisco but before director

Arts took office the city Department was chaos it was

corrupt it was dirty it was messy it was sloppy it was not respected

I really appreciate that you take the time to honor the ramatasha Indians the

alonis but I do not appreciate the lack of respect

for this man who has given 20 years of his life cleaning up the department

getting it in order putting together a staff that works well together and

respects each other the um the whole like

you focus on Equity but it wasn't Equity it was racial equity which felt like

you know I'm on the racial Equity committees at our department as a part-time employee because I care we all

care our department is made up of all gender we have women in upper management

we have all ethnicities we have all we're not

ageist here I am here I stand we um are so open and fluid and to be

treated like this this is my personal feelings here I mean I have a list I could go down but I only have a little

time I just like you're new I get that I think it came

out of the gate running we're gonna do this but I I have to ask is it really

about racial Equity is it more about Open Source voting is it are there

underlying things here that are really what's happening because if it is

if you guys are really on about racial Equity I'm just going to say you're playing one-dimensional checkers

this is not impressive this is not like I appreciate your volunteering your time

and stepping up and but like who do you report to because this is

this is like a debacle here and I think you've gotten pretty much

cleaned out upside down and backwards from our city

um from our city government agencies from like press around the world now a

lot of like trashy press did you really want to bring that to us because that's

where we're at um you know like 20 years of his life

every election on Election morning we're all there at 4 30 in the morning I leave

almost at midnight to go home he leaves to go okay he leaves to go to the pier

to watch the process of the ballads he is so Hands-On that's three minutes

thank you I did give you a 30 second Mark but maybe I thought you had seen me but I guess not okay so

um I appreciate the time here we're like coming after work and I think you guys

have a lot to learn and I will stop but I'm going to finish first the thing is is you should know that it costs money

to hire somebody else and and please get paperwork in order

for the future thank you so much we appreciate it so welcome thank you thank you so much

hi there if you could give me 30 second warnings yeah and I'll say it verbally yeah that's what I did

so uh about 17 or 18 years ago I wasn't that into politics but I got involved

with the League of Women Voters and I've always been interested in good government and a fair election I think

that's so important for our rights and I really like my rights and so I started

getting involved in open source voting and I started coming to these meetings 17 18 years ago you don't remember me

because you weren't here but I was I've been here 25 years I remember the ballots in the bay I remember those

fiascos and we did get some improvements maybe you didn't get an open source voting but our ballots are now online

where people can look at them and they can check them themselves they can use open source they can use whatever they

want to check those ballots and this is from Humboldt County who found an error with their closed Source voting machines

by doing that and that's something John Arts put in place now I haven't been that involved but I have been watching

and I do know what's going on with our elections in this city because I've been a poll worker about 15 times have you

guys asked to ask questions 15 elections I've been a poll worker I've been an

inspector because I feel like you need good people at those polls to make sure our elections are run well

so as part of the League of Women Voters I did a vote by mail study I came in and

we got an appointment with John arts and we sat down and we looked at the vote by mail process and I went wow

they've got their together their stuff together and I've always been impressed I've been proud of our

elections Department I've been proud to be a poll worker it's not perfect but our training is good we do the best we

can I've been proud of it I've always gotten a lot of respect from the department and I've always trust

director arts and the process because from the time I started paying attention he was the director is he the best man

for the job maybe maybe not but I think he's doing a really good job and if

somebody's doing a really good job I don't think it's time to look for their replacement in fact that's demoralizing

that's what what's happening to the sfpd right now and they don't even want to do their job do we want a department that

doesn't want to do their job because they've been demoralized I agree with what director bernholtz has said that

this needs to be cleaned up and fixed as soon as possible director aren't should get an apology that's my opinion

um the reasons in the Press are ludicrous for this going on I'm sorry it's a waste of our city budget fifty

thousand dollars for something that's not needed you have 30 seconds just to say you

don't understand the process is to say that you also don't understand one of the major roles of your position on this

commission I understand your volunteers but that's a question that should be asked if this is something that needs to

be done back in the day when I was attending these these meetings regularly and Brent Turner remembers me from way

back then and speaking out in favor of Open Source and good governance and good of Elections I remember his his contract

coming up and it was renewed and there was nothing there could say so anyway thank you very much I want to ask that

you reinstate John Ernst and approve his contract for the good of the city and to ensure whatever you need to do is

get better morale they take care of our Election Department because they do a good job thank you thanks

you have three minutes good evening Commissioners my name is Leo Samuelson I work with John arts for

five and a half years I still currently work for the city and the department outside of high school I'm a born and

raised San Francisco I've never heard anything about the Department of Elections in terms of being in

newspapers and things like that outside of election results which of my understanding was great up until

recently until I heard of what was help happening uh with the with

the whole Contracting process um and sitting here tonight listening to uh

the Bella commission president um talking about how he didn't know about the process

um he should have figured that out sooner rather than if because it felt reading

it in the newspaper hearing about it in the SF standard in the chronicle SF Gate in all the all the local Publications

as a lifelong resident it it demoralized uh it seated the trust that I had in the

in the elections Department that had grown you know being a part of

it no longer being a part of it but knowing that under John Arts it was in a steady hand and he he knew the process

and all the staff that were there so yes I agree with commissioner burnholds that

it did create damage in the public perception of both this commission and

the department itself I seek my time thank you and I just

wanted to mention I fully support the reinstatement of John arts and renewing his contract thank you

you have three minutes okay please give me my warning I will my name is Carla Kincaid yoshikawa I was at your meeting

last month I was at the board meeting last week and I'm actually uh

still mind boggled um I listened to everything you say I don't think honestly that you

you have to be so apologetic I think there have been mistakes made on all

sides and what I've learned in what I read um or heard at the meeting your meeting last month and since then is Mr

director Arns has also made some mistakes he over exceeded his authority from what I could understand agreeing to

contracts that he was not supposed to he was remiss in not notifying the board

and not notifying the commission and so it sounds like there's bad communication

there have been some breakdowns here and the thing with breakdowns and failures is that we learn really really well from

failures we learn really really well from mistakes we don't learn when everything's going well so I will give

you another mistake when we went to the board meeting last week I heard several

people say several times that open source had nothing to do with your

decision to consider a search and as one of the people who stayed here last month

and still after 10 o'clock until you went into closed session I don't

appreciate that because the only reason I came here is because I want open source moving forward here and it's been

stuck in San Francisco for over four years I've been working on it for going on five years and it's going nowhere and I

want to know why I want to know what happened to the money that was allotted for it in in 2018 1.3 million by the

board what happened to it nobody seems to know and we're not going anywhere

anywhere with it when director aren't spoke at the meeting last time about Dominion he spoke glowingly about things

it could do that I went that is not a big deal for example the ranked Choice

voting I was using software in the 1990s doing correlational analysis on my home

PC doing a ranked Choice voting for a coder is a piece of cake and I since

have confirmed with my friends who work in software that yes that coding is a piece of cake

uh the ability to make digital copies of every ballot that has been around for 30

times my husband worked at Xerox when docutec um or docus yeah docutec was first

rolled out and that was a breakthrough but that's over 20 years ago that is also not wonderful technology we want to

know why open source is not moving forward here in San Francisco which if

any place can do it it's here and they did it in LA they're doing it in New Hampshire they did it in Mississippi why

are we stuck here and that's what I lay out to you and and please if that's what

you told the board that open source had nothing to do without both their choice I'm offended okay your time's up thank

you

okay you have three minutes I'll let you know and you have 30 seconds left hello my name is David Schmidt and I'm the uh

volunteer who uh coordinates for California clean money campaign here in San Francisco on

behalf of the California clean money campaign uh we want to tell the commission that we believe you made the

right decision in November on starting an executive search this would have given other individuals a chance to

compete we are disappointed that the elections commission will not get the funding for this search

but we hope you'll take up super supervisor peskin's offer to assure

funding for an executive Search every five years going forward as supervisor peskin has suggested in

his newest newest version of the resolution this will ensure that San Francisco will

have the best person for the job also we we urge the elections commission

to pass your own resolution that you will do an executive Search every five

years going forward regardless of any issues with the current director

and finally we hope you will continue to push for the development of an open

source voting system that will be more transparent more secure and lower cost

than any proprietary system including dominions thank you

thank you

Mr attorney you have three minutes thank you again commission my name is

Brent Turner I'm here on behalf of the people I work pro bono I've been doing this for 20 years free of charge it's

been quite burdensome in my life but not as burdensome as a friend of mine Rina

Evers who's the daughter of Medgar Evers who has blessed our work toward open source and not as burdensome as other

people have had their lives affected by these kinds of issues I see the

commissioner Woolsey who shares a namesake with former CIA director Jim Woolsey who also advocates for um the in

the immediate movement toward an open source system because this is a national security

crisis we're in so it's I appreciate the people that have worked for John coming forward and saying he's a good guy and

all that but this is a little bigger situation because there's bad people around the world that take shots at our

infrastructure that have to do with our technology people some people think maybe Russians or

Chinese or North Koreans and hackers that can penetrate the current systems

because nobody really knows what's going on inside the systems because the code is proprietary so this is all simple

stuff these this shoot the messenger sort of a style the false outrage and

indignation by commissioner bernholz makes me think because of her Association previously with the open

source election Technology Group that was involved in the 300 million Los Angeles County debacle she should

probably recuse herself because when you are either working for a proprietary interest or working with people that

purport to be open source but really aren't because they really are kind of proprietary people dressed up like open

source people you see the mud that we're in on this issue it's the third rail politically so we don't want to shoot

the messenger we don't want any Scare Tactics obviously John Ernst isn't the only person that can do this job and

everybody across the country thinks their particular person is the best and John might be very good and I'm glad

there's no ballots in the bay but we need to move forward on some of these technology issues and we can't be

Hoodwinked or gaslighted into thinking that this commission did something wrong because actually you stood up for a big

civil rights issue there is some racism involved here and I think looking at his

replacement through an equity lens is more than appropriate so thank you for your time

thank you Mr Turner you have three minutes okay uh my name

is Jonathan auberg I work in the Department of Elections um there's a lot more going on in

elections than the voting software I mean we deal potentially with every voter every person and the closer you

get to dealing with people and places there's there's so much going on and

John Arts has just done so good with uh you know um

I I just always have a lot of respect for him because there's a lot I've you

know I've I've seen from the little section that I work in which is Precinct Services I just see that there's you

know he to know enough about all these different things to bring it together and make it work it's it's really

impressive um I I get that the commissions you know you're processed

and there's you know the learning that you're talking about and everything like that um

um so great but um the process there's consequences if it drags out too long

and and um I you know I just hate with Agency for for uh for damage should be done to

the department you don't want to lose this guy it's really good thank you thank you

okay we have uh no more commenters in the room it seems so we will move to

callers and uh user 16 you are

commenting on agenda item five Board of Supervisors resolution of intent to not

appropriate funding for executive recruitment services and urging reappointment of incumbent director of

Elections I will unmute you now and then you will have three minutes

you're now unmuted can you hear me now yes

great uh David pillpal I will keep it brief I will summarize to say that I

support the motion you could rescind the prior action or abandon the search uh

later if you in indeed do reappoint the incumbent uh director that

has the effect of abandoning the search you could formalize that by a later

motion in any event the you know what what do they say it is what it is I could talk

about the budget for this item or generally I intend to mention that when

we get to item seven under the director's report I think it's important to attend to this sooner rather than

later um I agree very much with the comments that commissioner burnhold's made if um

the item that she referred to had been agendized for tonight this could have been resolved entirely tonight

I believe fundamentally that the director's position uh is largely a

ministerial function and that leadership on policy issues and advocacy is

rightfully uh in the purview of the commission or the Board of Supervisors and not the appropriate role for the

director it's simply to implement the law develop and Implement uh procedures

that follow the law and ensure that people have the opportunity to vote and that their votes are counted that's all

it's that's enough of a task right there and he does a fine job of it I I think

very much that The credibility of the commission and the six Commissioners now

in office is very much at issue here and I hope you will listen carefully to what

people have to say and make a thoughtful choice tonight and at the next meeting

thanks very much for listening thank you Mr pillpo at uh call in user

five I am oh let me remove let me mute

um okay user five you are now unmuted and

you have three minutes good evening my name is Natalia kuzina and I'm one of the managers who signed

the November 14 letter sent to this Commission in support of reappointing director arends for another term

I support the board's November 29 resolution not to fund the search for a new director and to instead reappoint

John Lawrence for another term during last week's boards meeting I learned that the president of this commission

suggested to supervise the pestkin that we wrote the November 14th letter at the behest of director Orange

I want to make sure everyone here understands the commission's president's accusation is absolutely untrue and the

director Arts had no knowledge of this letter until after it was submitted to this Commission

I must say the elections commission president's accusation was very hurtful and an insult to the Integrity of

employees of this department his accusation also made me consider the possibility that the elections

commission president may have an unfounded and unfair animals story director irons

I'll leave it up to each of you to consider this is the case and if so how to factor that into your future actions

thank you thank you Natalia I'm putting you back on mute and

Mr Baker uh you are commenting on agenda number five

you I have unmuted you and you have three minutes uh hi thank you my name is Dave

grammar resident Glenn Park and a San Francisco voter I'm calling to express my support for the Board of Supervisors

November 29th resolution not to fund a search for a new director and instead to reappoint John Arts in the past several

weeks I've witnessed an extraordinary outpouring of support for the elections director John Arns today I stand unified

with the many many people in our community including the mayor all 11 Board of supervisor supervisors members

our state senator dozens of others sitting and former elected officials former members of the elections

commission the staff at the Department of Elections and thousands of other City residents who took to social media to

express their support if one thing has been made clear in the past weeks is that the public stands behind director

John ours in respects and Trust the Department of Elections what hasn't been made clear in the past few weeks is why

exactly the elections commission made the decision it made behind closed doors on that fateful November night was it

the director's performance was it open source voting was it because they thought there would be a better candidate than the person who has been

performing the job immaculately for the past 20 years or was it because they thought no one was paying attention if

you haven't noticed the public is clearly paying attention now and although your intentions remain somewhat of a mystery what we see is that the

commission did not exercise good Faith nor right action he made an unpopular ill-conceived decision behind closed

doors and we the voters of San Francisco will not turn a blind eye to that I support the director the reappointment

of director Arns and thank you and I see my time

thank you Mr Baker I um have now moved your hand

um uh call in user seven I am unmuting you to make public comment on agenda on

item number five you now have three minutes

hi um can you hear me yes yes

great thank you my name is Nina and I am also calling to urgently Point um during

our studio our director for another term and stop the search process and frankly

just a few reasons for that um don't really understand why we need to waste money and fix something that's not

broken I think the department has been functioning at this capacity fantastically

um under this director and um one main point um as someone who has a grandmother who

lives in um a low income um low-income building and many of her

friends who don't um speak English very well and things like that I've just seen such a great Improvement

um under this director where they have the ability for translators they understand how to vote they're able to

vote um all these things are detailey explained to them and generally speaking

just people with disabilities and senior citizens I think that it just it's been such an improvement

um for these people on a sense of voting um and it's just you know he's he's been

doing a great job for so many years and it's just really I don't understand why we need to find someone else and while I

can somewhat relate to some of the previous comments that we should be

um you know inclusive and things like that we also should appreciate people who are currently in the positions and

doing great jobs and not insult them by basically trying to replace them after

so many years of great service thank you very much just let's pause for a moment um

yeah well let's we'll work on that okay

um we're just going to take a brief pause to uh adjust the volume in the

room and then we will restart the general public comment

I don't know she can't hear

so she can't hear the public comment through the computer so I don't know what's the speaker's in

the room is it just the public commentary I think

it was just the public song members yeah you could hear it oh okay so it's

probably what if you are able to turn it up a little bit that would be great

it might have to do with a placement s

I think it's a lower level like there's an icon at the bottom

S I think it's the speakers in the room though it's not the computer if Brent can hear

it in the back and they can't hear it in the front it's probably the speakers

we don't know

thank you um Colin uh commenters just please bear

with us we're still working on the volume in the room I see you uh waiting so thank you

can you help us turn up the volume and then there's people certainly can't hear

well it's I think it's the colonies on WebEx it's not um

coming through the speaker it's very well I don't know if it's the computers or if there's a console setting we're

not going to fix this I'm trying with one of you

it's just going to take a few minutes yeah I don't mind that

well I don't know how to sit there I don't know um

foreign

you said everyone who came here we have individuals having died

perhaps

it is

well

did she just a comment to the Commissioners talking to each other we can hear you on

the mics

I'll tell you what I said Chris did a great job with the minutes he did

an awesome job I mean honestly if someone was touching the volume

also it was at several members were would you like to come sit up here you

know that you can hear but it should be louder

stay here and Mr Turner says

depreciate your efforts but I know it's the competing to get the sign on here

okay so the media Services person is going to call me back when they're able to get

someone up here but um but there's no immediate in the in the meantime let's continue with public

comment and the member of the public members of the public are invited to come sit closer uh should they be unable

to hear the public comment um there are chairs available and happy to push them around speak this time

okay um we're now going to resume public comment uh uh we have uh Carly on the

line who you are speaking making public comment on agenda item five Board of

Supervisors resolution of intent to not appropriate funding for executive recruitment services and urging

reappointment of incumbent director of Elections um I have unmuted you when you begin you

have three minutes

Carly you are unmuted

okay well we'll come back to you um Carly hopefully you can make it work

uh in the meantime we'll we'll go to call in user number five you are uh

going to be commenting on agenda item number five and I have just unmuted you

when you begin you'll have three minutes

we do something like that oh they're coming out all I do is

increase user call in user number five you have you are unmuted now you have three minutes

okay we will move to um uh Mr organizian you are unmuted now

and you have three minutes to speak thank you so far commissioner burn holes

has touched on the fact that voters and employees had feedback and haven't been

heard which is not good and it is damaging same uh it seems that the board

seems to not care I thought commission has communities best interest at its

core uh it does not seem that way um it's not only about the commission

um thank you commissioner bernholds for that truly touched my heart personally unfortunately three minutes is not

enough time to really cover why we urge you to airport in German Arts as a director of Department of Elections for

another term I'm a San Francisco voter and I'm also a minority member I'm also a Temporaries needed employee for City

and County of San Francisco serving our community for 18 plus years I believe that's 33 elections that I've worked uh

for the last 20 years Department of election assessor that San franciscans extremely well I know over the past 18

years I've seen our director transform our department from what I called wild west to be a reputable Department it is

today uh he has reached and he find every single corner of our department in the last 20 years direct directly along

with the restaurant management team gives us uh each and every employee an opportunity to perform their best Jordan

arnd supports and listens to our ideas he's thoughtful well-spoken humble

caring and more importantly Fair we have an equitable and a very diverse

workplace we care about each other like family during elections we spend more time with each other than we do with our

families again this wouldn't be without John arms he cultivated the culture of

care support and the place where employees do their best to address the University conversations about open

source I want to underscore that when the contract was signed line the minion systems was the only RFP submitted a

voting system is only one component to run an election please focus on what people of San Francisco employ Soviet

department and elected officials are saying John is running with Department exceptionally well and that needs to

continue John Arns is the best boss I have ever worked for as a San Francisco voter I have full trust that's inspired

from elections will continue will count my vote every election I urge you to reappoint John Ernst to be our director

for another term and stop research process thank you for listening

thank you okay this presented on the media person this year can we do it pause for a sound check absolutely

um we have uh several people calling in if you don't mind just waiting for us to do a sound check thank you

so um the member of the public that was having trouble is was it

I'm absolutely thank you for coming up a little bit

it's nice it was just that one time we did

I had trouble hearing that caller too

okay okay thank you very much for assisting us appreciate it thanks for coming with me okay we're going to resume

public comment on agenda item number five Board of Supervisors resolution of intent to not appropriate funding for

executive recruitment services and urging reappointment of incumbent director of Elections call in user 11. I

have unmuted you you have three minutes

call in user 11. I've unmuted you

okay we will we'll come back to we'll come

back to you then um uh Mr organizian we will move to your

comment I have now moved to uh unmute you

when you begin you have three minutes

you are unmuted

Darley organ organizian you are unmuted

you are unmuted you hear me hear me now we can hear you

now we can hear you okay perfect sorry for that um and I would like to start saying that

um I am a person of color and with a Latin background and I fully trust the department of election I am a young

Border in San Francisco and has a young border I can honestly say that the department of relation has done a great

job keeping me informed I think the department should continue to be managed by the director John arms for another

term so um I urge you to reborn John for another term and stop the search thank

you thank you we will now move to Jim s

you have three minutes you are now unmuted

okay well yep we can hear you my name is a National Voting Rights task force and

I've been coming to Election Commission meetings for 22 years

uh since 2005 so 17 years sorry

um the commission was elected in 2001 to set policy

four elections for the city in in County and there have been several policy

issues that have come up and I will repeat I am not speaking for the elections commission here just myself

uh there wasn't even a voting resolution that was passed on 20 in 2017.

internet voting well it was opposed the internet voting you don't want to vote in California is

against the state law section 19205. nevertheless and Mr Mr aunts knows this

banana voting was against the law that he was cooperating as early as March 2021 with the Bay Area Urban's therapy

uh urban areas security initiative to set up a process for electronic

submission ballots that means I mean I'm building and we get to fight that and we got that

uh pulled back but there was a period of four or five months where he was helping

this initiative and he did not tell his boss the commission

about it and that that's just a huge gap that's not very good

with respect to the open source issue I got here in 2005 supporting open source

I'm still with it the policy set by the commission

and by the Board of Supervisors set up a technical advisory committee they set up

a voting system's task force I was on the task force uh

and they just voted saying that the

Department should do a priority the voting systems that provide maximum level of security

Etc in other words open source here we are 17 years later we still

don't have it you have 30 seconds okay thank you and your talk of getting a

10-year contract close to 10-year contract for Dominion a private company

if you're giving a private company a 10-year contract you're not interested in open source not at all you don't want

to see it for 10 years and that's opposed to the commission the commission has set its policy with

the supervisor said back thank you so much for the things

thank you your time is up thank you okay next caller Tiff

I have unmuted you you begin you have three minutes

good evening my name is Tiff Lee I support the warts November 29th resolution not to fund the search for a

new director and to instead reappoint your arts for another term director irons has truly dedicated his career to

public services in San Francisco leading to the Department of Elections to become

a model for efficient and inclusive elections yet the elections commission

made an ill-conceived and shocking decision a couple of weeks ago but the

public saw right through it as all of us have seen in the days that followed many

people including city leaders a former elections commission at precedent

elections experts across the state of California former and president's employee of the

Department of Elections and City voters all United in support of director arms

it is clear to see how sincere and honest the support for director irons

has been I truly hope that the commission reversed their ill-conceived decision

and reappoint director orange for another term I also hope that the

commission considers how to find a way to rebuild the working relationship and sense of trust it once has with the

director and all the voters of San Francisco thank you so much for listening

thank you common user 17.

you have now been unmuted you have three minutes

call in user17 you've been unmuted

okay can you hear me yes we can hear you now you have three minutes

hello I'm one of the managers of the Department of Elections and a resident of the Richmond District first I'd like

to start off by stating that director orange had no involvement in the letter of support that we submitted to the

commission on November 14th second I'd like to reiterate my support for the

reappointment of John arance in the four years that I've been working at the Department of Elections I've had the

privilege of being involved in some of the many programs and services that our department offers to San Francisco

residents and voters under director Arts leadership to mention a few

our emergency ballot service allows any San Francisco voter to request for Department staff to deliver and pick up

their ballot at the voters convenience the incarcerated person's voting program provides all individuals at the San

Francisco County Jail opportunities to register and vote in every election we

also have a robust ballot review and outreach program that aims to provide every possible opportunity for voters

who cast their ballots to have their ballots be accepted and counted employees of the Department of Elections

strive to provide voter education registration and voting services to all

eligible voters in alignment with our mission to conduct free fair and functional elections under John ernst's

leadership we will continue to do so I support the Board of Supervisors

resolution that was introduced on November 29 not to sign the search for a new direct director and to instead

reappoint John Arts I hope that the elections commission listens to the voices of San Francisco voters and

reconsiders its decision from November 16th thank you

thank you Carly I see you are back I will unmute

you and hopefully we can hear you this time

you are unmuted

Carly you are unmuted

unfortunately we can't hear you and you are back now on mute

um we will move to call in user 21.

I have moved to unmute you you when you begin you'll have three minutes

hello can you hear me yes okay thank you I'll be very short my name is Mikhail I've been there

president of San Francisco for 20 plus almost 30 years from sunset uh I have on occasion worked as a Fed

for the elections Department of years ago I have worked in private uh

uh business and have had and owned my own private businesses and I can vouch

for the Integrity of the work that's been done over the years by the current

director region Allen I didn't know them very well I didn't know him very well personally but I

really appreciated the way the department was run under him over the years and I think it's ridiculous to

waste enormous time and resources of the city on uh trying to push him out

and replace him with you know with the you know with someone who would be kind of a cat in the back so someone who we

don't don't have much experience with so why fix something that doesn't seem to be effective thank you and I used my

time thank you um call in user 19.

I have unmuted you when you begin you'll have three minutes

good evening my name is Barney McKellar and since I retired from Levi Strauss in

2006 I've been affiliated with the Department of Elections in many different capacities

inspector field election Deputy recruiter trainer working boat by mail

I'll work to the one percent I'd like to tell you I I think I have

after 17 years a good perspective on John's management skills I'm a proud of

association with two organizations in my life one Levi Strauss a company who

pioneered equal opportunity a company who trained its managers in best

practices and customer service and I think I can give you a neutral perspective no one from the Department

of Elections has asked me to call in so I would like to he would hear me as a

neutral party I think John Arts has done a terrific job with his team

I also want to commend every member of this board uh for their volunteer efforts uh it is

a demanding constituency the voters to San Francisco and I empathize with your

challenges I also understand your Progressive perspective on future directorship leadership and I commend

you for considering it however in conclusion you can find a different person than

John Arts but you can't find a better person than John Arts management leadership and I've asked you to

reconsider for the next five years and thank you for your time

thank you um

Shane Keely you are unmuted when you begin you'll have three minutes

hi there can you hear me yes first off I want to start by saying that um

I don't envy the position this commission is in right now um I think that everyone has come at

this issue with the best intentions of heart at heart I mean I believe that not only from the people in my office that

are calling in but all The Advocates too um there were some Advocates who spoke with us after the Board of Supervisors

meeting last week and we don't think that these people want to hurt democracy we don't think that

Advocates are bad people we don't think any of the Commissioners are bad people I just think that the decision not to

reappoint is a mistake um I I think that when we talk about

finding money and how the Board of Supervisors isn't going to appropriate money for this I think having some money

set aside is a smart thing but come on like not knowing that there was

going to have to be some sort of funded search like that's something that they said in the DAR meeting months ago

and like I it just doesn't it's hard for me to believe that I mean not to say

that the commission is not acting about board I believe that that you all have been very truthful with us as we have been

with you but I I just that I don't understand that um I once again I want to thank you for

all of your support and I want to thank Commissioners or pardon me vice president stone for introducing this

motion I'm very supportive of that motion and thank you for your time

thank you Mr Keeley we have oh we have one more uh public commenter

let me just restart your minute and Mr Patel your three minutes uh you are unmuted and your three minutes starts

now hello thank you for your time once again uh while I understand the commission

wants to expand Equitable access quote unquote from one of the Commissioners for one of the newspapers uh for this

position um the message the commission is putting out is rather the opposite it doesn't

matter if you are doing a good job you just need to change the race every few

years and to stay in the same position and that's not right whether a person of color in a leadership position or not

should not be determined by their race does this mean the commission will not

value a white male applicants for this position since Sean held this position I'm a person of color I don't want to be

judged by my race that's what diversity is to me expanding Equitable opportunities is a

commendable goal if done correctly rather than focusing on one person in a high level position focus on what that

one person of power has done to expand echoid ball opportunities for their staff and its services offered to the

voters of San Francisco I understand the commission needs to work on their goal for racial Equity

there's other ways to do so so please don't use that as a reason to fulfill

your goal the department under John's leadership has done many strides just to highlight

a few uh what's a lack I guarantee you most of the commission members would not even

know what a lack is a lack is a language access advisory committee that meets multiple times throughout the year with

the Department of Elections this is a group made up of community benefit organizations

which reviews the Department's efforts for language access and suggests improvements another one being starting

an Outreach grant program which gives grants to organizations serving the bipop communities to share voting

information stuff like this is what the commission should be focusing on to expand their

efforts not removing the person who has made this happen for our city the commission if you go to the website

I wonder why it's only in English and there is nothing else in other languages the department is one of those

departments that every information made available to the public is in all four languages

and that's something that we are proud of and we would love for the commission to join us in those efforts

I'm glad that open source is not one of the reasons I'm glad open source is not one of those

reasons um for not um for removing John arts and I'm hoping

that you know we could come to a good conclusion with this together whether it be through the

commission the board or the voters of San Francisco but having open source on the back of the director of Elections is

not the right way to get this into our voting system thank you

thank you for those who have already spoken you

cannot speak twice and so I would ask that you lower your hand or I will have to lower your hand for you

um okay uh Chris Romero you have uh

three minutes I have just unmuted you

the director of Municipal Executives Association I did send an earlier email regarding

the uh reappointment of John Arts to the position of director

I do feel that well I will be attending tomorrow's Board of Supervisors meeting to support Aaron peskin's resolution

um I do belong to a disenfranchised community and I would tell you that people like me my family are more

concerned about being able to vote as opposed to the way that we vote and so this decision I have to agree has done a

lot of damage to the issue of racial Equity because it became an issue only because this department this commission

brought it up when it really was about open source voting so it asks that you reappoint

director aren't to his position and put aside you're able to work with him

over the next five years about open source voting so this is not something that is going to be set aside this is

going to be continuous conversation so again um we would ask me a would ask that you

reappoint him to his position and again is if this um becomes more of an issue we'll be

speaking tomorrow at the Board of Supervisors thank you

thank you um

call in user 18 you are unmuted

[Music] okay

yes we can hear you yeah [Music]

um [Music]

to be our director um I've been with the election department for over 15 years

[Music] tell you that this man is the most humble person I have ever worked with

we have every year that I've been there

he humbles himself to work with his employees excuse me there to help us out uh help the community he involved

himself I usually work in the processing center and John R will come in late at

night to help us there this is a man that does not need to be replaced I urge

for you guys not to raise this man he has done a lot for the election Department

and I really hope that you guys reconsider and you know re-electing him

he is the person that needs to stay in our department uh he has created a family Allah among all of us

and like I said she is a person that I love working with I have no complaint

with this man he's um very supportive he comes up all his

employees he's very spoken to people and everything [Music]

um I have had the opportunity to work along with him he does not understand himself as a

person that he has a highway he humbles himself with other employees at the same level

I have worked at different departments in the Department of Elections as a driver as a clerk at the vet and not

once have I ever seen that this man is not doing something he's always involved in his community

and anything that has to do with the election department so I really really

act Supreme consider and have them again serve

another term with us he is the man that you need there why single person that was North was

going on and have someone else to have to fall all over and everything is going to get the first person

uh thank you for hearing me and I hope that you guys reconsider him and leaving him with that we want him to stay with

us in the San Francisco crowns please thank you

um okay uh caller 15.

you are now unmuted

sorry apologies user 25.

I can read I promise you're unmuted

hi there um as an employee of the department I'd like to agree with commissioner burn Holt's comment

regarding the stress this decision to essentially remove director Arts from his position has caused me so what

commissioner jordanick died and the volsi's um I'm sorry their division their decision means to me is that it really

doesn't matter if you're hard working and demonstrating Your Excellence at your job then in this day and age if

you're too white you should lose your job to pave the way for others I'm half asian half white I've been literally

thinking about ways to Market myself as more Asian because you made me so

insecure about something I can't help the decision to reappoint or not reappoint should not be racially driven

uh based on the comments from some of the commission members that appears to be a driving Factor uh to remove

director art this can signal to other people to downplay their whiteness in fear of losing their jobs myself included I

implore you to not only apologize to director arms uh but to

fully supported in keeping his current position as director thank you

thank you and with that we have no further

commenters there was a question in the meeting about by more I had said

previously the last uh caller of course folks uh called in thereafter so now we

have no further callers and that is looks like there's one more

okay and now we have another one okay Mike glico you are unmuted

you have three minutes

yes we can hear you okay great um I just wanted to say that I think the

election commissioned in the egregious error inside the house uh director on

um I support the Board of Supervisors vote to not Fund in search for a new directors a new director which would

last The Experience John brings uh to his role as directly and a new director

who would like to discuss and support that John has already uh worked long and hard to cultivate some voters in San

Francisco I urge the commission to reappoint John on another term as director thank you

for your time

oh okay thank you um okay Carly I see you

um I see you in there as well I'm unmuting you and hope that we can

hear you this time

hello hopefully you can hear me now yes we can hear you your three minute Starts Now

thank you um I like many of the callers preceding me work at the Department of Elections

however unlike many of my colleagues I have not worked at the department or underdirector arts for decades instead

I've been here for about 10 months however as someone who has worked for other cities and counties in other

states for district and appellate court judges and corporate law firms I will say with confidence that I have never before witnessed at Workforce so humbly

dedicated to Service as those that work in the San Francisco Department of Elections under director arms you know

I'm an early riser and I get to work before most of my colleagues every day but do you want to know who gets there

who gets to work earlier than I do John Ernst and guess who's there every single day when I leave John aren't anyone who

has ever been a manager or is in charge of hiring any Department anywhere in the world knows the difficulties Associated

both with hiring and retaining employees for temporary Physicians especially however those difficulties are few and

far between at the San Francisco Department of Elections because everyone wants to work here and in my opinion

it's because of John the people of this city know there is a this is a great place to work and that's even more

obvious in the number of volunteer poll workers the department secures for each and every election especially during

covet but what's striking to me Commissioners is that the only people calling into this meeting that do not

support the reappointment of director aren't are people who do not live in San Francisco do not work in San Francisco

and are not registered to vote in San Francisco but instead seem to have a

very funny interest in open source voting please I I release my time

thank you user 28

if you've already spoken which I am not I'm not sure if you have but if you've already spoken you're unable to speak

again um I am unmuting you um for and you will have three minutes

hi uh my name is Sean Welsh I'm a resident of San Francisco for about four

years now and uh yeah I'm calling to just urge you all to reappoint John Arts

to be our director for another term and uh discontinue the search process so it might you know time here in San

Francisco I've been through a number of Elections and from my vantage point it's always been a smooth efficient operation

and uh given the reasons for the search it just seems that it isn't warranted and is a waste

of city tax dollars in my opinion and that's all I have to say thank you

thank you user calling user 12 you are unmuted

you begin you'll have three minutes

though yes we can hear you great this is Tim Mayer and I'm a San

Francisco resident for some 40 50 years and uh also sat on the San Francisco uh

voting task force and then uh in watching this process go on since it was decided unequivocally

that there was only one system for San Francisco and that was the uh open

source public owned software that Jim Soper sat on the uh

voting task force with me there and he said the same thing there wasn't any question about where we were going so

we've got a lot of misdirection it sounds like because uh this became

somehow an issue of uh about John arnst and uh since I've been

involved in this process it's never been in my mind that John Ernst wasn't anything but the best

administrator that could have come to San Francisco that being said we were

talking about that what we were talking about was someone championing the best system available which is not

proprietary you just can't have it with proprietary you have to have eyes on the

code it has to be accessed to the community and it has to be transparent

and well we just happen to have one with the greatest administrator

administrating you know what well this is basically

you know one of the worst kind of systems you want to have so nothing negative to say about John arnst ever

this is not about that this is about championing open source publicly owned

software let's not you know get all this distraction that we had oh my goodness

just ridiculous just having nothing to do with the issue the issue is a simple

one publicly owned um transparent open source software for the

machines so that somebody and and more even better A lot of

somebody's can actually have read the code look at the code verify the code

and say oh yeah this is consistent with what we ask our code to do this is good

thank you as long as we have something that's in a box and not

viewable by the transparent community that can take a look and say yay nay well we're just

in the dark and that's all we're talking about here all the rest of that stuff oh my goodness it's merely misdirection

and thanks for listening thank you

Val you have I have just unmuted you you have three minutes

for your time my name is Val and I have been working at the department for 18 years there's only been one constant

this whole time it's John arts in his continued push for improvement in all aspects of the conducting elections I

urge you to reappoint him I'll keep it short I just have one quote here and I really like knowing what to

do is wisdom knowing how to do it is skill doing that thing that needs to be done

is service and that is what John and all of us do at elections thank you

thank you if you have already made public comment

please lower your hand okay call in user 12

you are unmuted

were you asking me to unmute myself again um you have your hand raised

yeah I don't know how to unraise it no problem I've spoken thank you that's

what I thought thank you so much okay and that concludes our public comment

okay thank you to all the public commenters so Commissioners we have a motion on the

floor we can now continue to discuss the motion

um is there any comments I just wanted to make one comment and just extend my thanks to members of the public and

members of the department who have really participated in this process and

I don't remember which public commenter who made this comment but I really

appreciated it and I wanted to Echo it which is that we all equally care about elections and democracy and we all are

acting in good faith and I just I appreciate everyone who took time to participate in this process so thank you

do we have a second on the amended motion did Lucy second that yes okay

okay so are there any remaining comments before we take a vote okay seeing none let's take a vote on

could you restate the motion I'm going to let vice president Stone

restate it yes I will do my best um the motion is to agendize a closed

door session to discuss renewal of or the contract of the director and commit

to working with the Board of Supervisors moving forward

for the January meeting yes for the January meeting the Board of

Supervisors is not for the January meeting Ting but yes okay anything else

okay so vice president Stone yes commissioner bernholds yes commissioner

died I support this I would want to do that after we do the

the review process commissioner Hayden Crowley wait is that a yes you have to vote Yes it's a yes

okay we're doing that in January commissioner Hayden Crowley yes commissioner Lebowski

yes and I commissioner and Jordan yes so the motion passes unanimously

okay um commissioner die yes I would like to um put a separate motion

to take advantage of supervisor peskin's offer

um to make sure that we clear the way for future commissions to act and to avoid this kind of

misunderstanding of what is part of our normal five-year process

um so I don't know if it's best to do that as just a resolution from the commission

I don't know that it has to be an amendment to their resolution

but I'd like to move that the um commission asked the Board of

Supervisors to consider

legislation to automatically appropriate adequate funding for a competitive

search for the position of director of Elections every five years

um no later than one year prior to the 30-day notice period for Renewal so that

in the future what became very intertwined at this time is that we

can separate the search from the annual review process for the director

I seconded the motion

um Mr Hayden Crowley so there's a couple of issues here number one is that the

Departments do their budgets in a two-year cycle I don't know that there's automatic funding that happens

but I do know that when you're trying to do something like this either we have our own separate budget or we work with

the Department of Elections and so if that's the case then whoever is on this

commission and when we're meeting to discuss the budget we have to work out our budget every year and that I don't

know that you can come up with the I don't it's actually maybe that maybe I don't know if that

the city attorney's office can even address this but there is an issue that you can't

just I don't think that you can just do automatic funding in the way that you could do automatic anything in the city

you have to get approval for it in the budget process every two years and you

have to work with your department so so anyway I'm just saying that from a logistics standpoint it's it may make

sense for us to all vote hey yeah we want to do this but then the Practical implementation of that is something else

so I think we should do it within the boundaries of the process I I think this committee

needs to so I think with the process yeah so I appreciate your comments I always

appreciate your pragmatic comments I I think we learned at the October meeting that we don't actually have an

independent budget with the exception of the funding for a part-time commission secretary that's that's all we have

um it's it's managed by the commission correct president jordanick it's not under the Department of Elections

are you positive it is under the department yeah it is under the department I think so we we don't operate as our own commission it's

always through a department sorry president is there are you saying something I

think I mean that's been my experience so the the commission's budget is would

be a line item and is a line item in the Department's budget so if the commission

wanted to request that the department allocate fifty thousand dollars

um for you know when they submit their next budget they could definitely do that if you know you wanted to but

um the department doesn't control its budget at the end of the day it's the board and the mayor um who could tag any line item from a

budget so yeah so but at the end of the day the most sensible approach because all

commissions are under the department they oversee um would be to go that route first

probably but this commission you know can do what it what it wants to do

um at the end of the day so the budget you have to come up and work

with the Department of Elections and then ultimately get that approved by the mayor's office right but my motion is to

ask the Board of Supervisors to you know note this on a five-year schedule and

actually Four you know at this point um to well who's five yeah I guess my

point is is that we can ask that but I don't think that's the process um uh City attorney the process is that

every department does a two-year budget right and the board approves it and I don't think like in the same way that we

don't get automatic funding for it I mean you do like it's just different

again a policy question yeah um super supervisor peskin indicated he

would support this uh we should put it on our own schedule so that future commissions are aware that we should

look at it in that two-year budget cycle I love supervisor peskin but he won't be

here in five years and that's an easy out so can I say a couple of things just

saying I just think we should follow the process and we should vote on

resolutions that we can actually impact that's all

I just like to make a couple of comments on the motion um so number one when supervisor peskin

introduced his resolution um you know he made a number of comments talked about you know the process by

which we approached this and you know there's an argument about whether you know practically we we could

have done something different but I'll just read from his the the final part of his comments and so he says and

so I think it is incumbent on the sport to work with them in good faith and also to acknowledge that in five years time

they will need funds to do such Recruitment and search and that we as a matter of policy intend to fund that in

five years time so work in progress so I think given that this is

before the board tomorrow and supervisor peskin has already indicated in his

comments that this is something that he is open to making a board policy I think it would be

you know good for us to you know take him up on that offer and um you know to

because it is it is true this is going to be just it's just one part of a much larger process we have to work with the

Department we have to work with the mayor's office it helps to have the board support it will help us in four or

five years if the board had passed something like this we can look back on it so this is just one piece to a larger

puzzle and I know that also in his comments he said that he wished that we

had approached him a couple years ago so this is something that we would be doing four years in advance

and the last thing I want to say about the motion which isn't about you know the the budgeting process that

I think it will also help to show that you know having this money is not about one individual it's about

you know a process that the charter um delegates to the commission and by

having this as a as a standalone policy from the board it separates the process

from the individual and we would be making that clear you know very far in advance so I I like that it it kind of

sets things you know down now so we don't have that um misunderstanding

I just want to manage expectations and say those are Aaron's comments they're not in the resolutions is that may I may

I jump in May I respond um sorry I just I don't know if you had to yeah I just and

um so I think there's a fundamental question that we have to clarify together which

is even if we make a motion to ask the Board of Supervisors to do something it

doesn't mean they're actually going to do it so I don't think that it is it would behoove us to try and put all of

our eggs in this motions basket of um because you know I think commissioner

die you had said it helps to have the board support and I would agree and that's why I put my motion forward about

committing to working with them in a bigger way but I don't and the element

of approaching a couple of years ago he had said you know that this is a way to

approach the conversation earlier so while I understand the sentiment I I personally don't think it's the right

strategy I think that we should try to that the commission is not I mean sorry

the board even if Aaron peskin made that comment it doesn't necessarily mean that there will be an amendment and to the

resolution number one and number two I think it would be a better approach for us to

Simply restart the conversation rather than trying to kind of strong arm them

into which wouldn't be successful anyways into things going our way and the last thing I will say is as it

pertains to the budget I think we've talked about it on this commission that there is more than just the director

search that could go into a budget that would help ensure that this body is independent from the department and I

think that requires a larger conversation with the Board of Supervisors generally I don't think that

this motion will from a relationship perspective with the supervisors achieve

what we want it to achieve either with the funding or with future things such

as redistricting and others one question I wanted to ask for Clarity on from

commissioner die is you had said that you that the motion is about actually

let me change that will you re restate what your motion is exactly sure thank

you yeah um to request that the Board of Supervisors

consider automatically appropriating adequate funding for a competitive

search for the position of director of Elections no later than one year prior

to the 30-day notice period for renewal so it's simply a request that they

consider this I think it's important that we signal that

um we recognize the Olive Branch from supervisor peskin

whether he's on the board or not if they want to make us you know if they want to

make a statement of policy showing that they support an independent commission to do the job that they've been mandated

to do by the charter so that we can avoid the kind of media frenzy that you

know we've all been experiencing for the last couple of weeks I think it behooves us to put the future commission some of

us may not be on the Commission in another five years but it behooves us to put the next Commission in the best

possible situation and yes of course I agree with commissioner Hayden Crawley

that you know we are also going to put breadcrumbs everywhere so they know that it's on their calendar that they will

need to look at that two-year budget cycle beforehand make sure that money that they actually ask for the money and

that it's put in there um and the whole idea is that we set up the

Commission in five years to be able to do this as it was intended by the voters

when they you know created the commission back in 2001 that we should look at this every five years

I don't think it's necessary to make it a statement of policy that we you know

definitely do it every five years because I would want any future commission to have the choice of whether

they want to do a search or not because as we all discuss it's a lot of it's a

lot of work for a volunteer group to run a search and to find the money and to

put this into place so if at least we could you know set the stage so at least the

money is available and then they can decide whether they want to take it on right so I'm going to actually recognize

commissioner bernholtz if you don't mind the ocean she's had her hand up commissioner thank you president jordanick

um I think there are enough uncertainties about

the likelihood that such emotion would actually effectuate the money five years from now

that it's not the right strategy I actually think as a member of the

commission we should be making resolutions about what we will do not about what we want

from other bodies and I think rather than leaving breadcrumbs we should actually document and invest

in training for new Commissioners Commissioners in leadership to

understand the timing the budget the responsibilities such that the

commissioners three years from now would be informed enough to work with

the Department of Elections during its budget process to ensure that there was funding available for a search five

years from now since we work on two budget Cycles not getting into the weeds of this I really think given what we've

just heard from members of the public that we have now

graciously accepted the olive branch that was extended by the Board of Supervisors

but to go back to them with a request is a little bit soon we have not

repaired what we've broken We've Only Just Begun to repair what

we've broken so two things I would vote against such a resolution because I don't think it's the proper strategy for

ensuring the finance secondly I think it's really about educating ourselves to do this job better that's what I just

heard from the public quite clearly and finally as a taxpayer I'm completely opposed to tying anybody's hands about

any dollars five years from now and so I and judging from

uh what the chat box is telling us there are people out there saying that won't work that's not the way the budget

process works and besides the position is a permanent civil service appointment which makes it even more complicated and

so I really would urge us to be looking at ourselves and how we do our work and

not uh asking for money in the distant future

but putting in place processes and procedures that will empower the our successors to do this job better than

we're doing it thank you foreign

any other commissioners

okay so um then let's

take well so we'll take a vote on this motion

public comments and their public comment yes no we've already taken public comments there's a different motion do

we we've been taking public comment on this

motion we always take public comment once on each agenda

item we don't take it promotion that's how you've always done it

is that the correct way to do it dependency to the attorney as I um this is DC employers as I remember correctly

um commissioner die had stated the motion and um and

so anyways um the public comment is only once per agenda item and this motion is not any

different than I guess what you were already considering in this agenda item so the public already had an opportunity

to comment on this agenda item Chris

yeah I'm sorry did someone second it I didn't yeah so

um so when we did this at the state level we always took public comment before voting on a motion

so it's it's I I can just say I mean as being on the

commission for nearly nine years it's we've always

had the practice that we take public comment once on the agenda item and it needs to be before the first vote but

it's fine to have additional notes motions and votes after that because it's within the same topic area

[Music] um so I'm just going to be opening up you know just public comment that one time

that we we just had thank you for providing that history but

you're welcome so uh I guess I would just say that

you know I don't see this as you know an attempt a strong arm or

anything and simply that we agree with

what supervisor peskiness proposed and we support that kind of policy I'm not

so naive to think that that will make the match you know the budget magically

appear in five years there's a lot that we have to do to empower our successors

make sure they're aware of the timing of all of this and the ducks that they need

to have lined up in a row I'm not suggesting we not do any of those things I'm simply suggesting that we affirm our

support for the Board of Supervisors to make this a matter of policy to enable

an independent commission to act independently and and to give the future

commission the option to take the action and if you know obviously they choose

not to that money would just go back to the general fund so you know we leave it up to the

to whoever's on the Commission in five years to do this but again my thinking on this is to just try

to prevent the situation in the future it's quite possible you might have a

bunch of relatively new Commissioners in in another five years and we might be faced with the same situation and to the

degree that we can smooth their way I think this is you know one step we can

take in addition to many others including building the longer term relationship

with the board the mayor and other City bodies as needed so to me it's doesn't

preclude any of the other things that we ought to do all right question Crowley I just would

like to agendaize at a future meeting that we discuss how we're going to build

processes for um doing what the commissioner and I are

suggesting because I don't think that I agree with commissioner stone that this isn't the right strategy for how to do

it but I do believe that there is processes that are missing from this whole commission that we really need to

codify and onboarding on to reading the bylaws I mean really that

that's like commissioner 101. and that's just something that you know all the different things we need to codify it

and have it ready for the next the Commissioners and so that this isn't an issue I completely agree with that uh

sorry I jumped in I didn't look over here um but I completely agree with that I

with this is something we've been talking about for months uh on the commission um earlier in the summer about

onboarding and all sorts of things and so I think that's although we can talk about it in agenda item 10 about future

agenda items um I think that there is no doubt that in 2023 we must do that and I think we

probably all agree on that so I just wanted to make a couple more

comments about the motion um so I I did want to read a couple other part

of what supervisor peskin said at at um last week's meeting and he said some

more words about the idea of having a board policy and he said um but they might he was referencing

what we might discuss today and he said but they might say and I do think that this would not be inappropriate

that it is the policy of the sport of Supervisors to fund future searches so he's telling he you know he told the

public that he didn't think it would be inappropriate for us to um for it you know for us to ask that it be the

policy of the board to do that and he also said that in closing

so I think I would be willing with your support to perhaps accommodate some reasonable suggestions

so I think that I think it doesn't hurt for us to ask

and I think that certainly the board is in a much stronger position than we are so they could certainly say no but it's

just you know one step in a dialogue um they could tell us

you know that you know we we respect here you know we respect your requests but you know we like to discuss this

further with you which is fine but um I think it's worth us you know at least

suggesting to this to them given that he provided an opening um

the yeah so so that's all on that

oh yeah actually and there's one other thing I also spoke with supervisor peskin last week about this issue and

because I wanted to explore with him what does it mean for the board to pass a policy because it's not binding and he

acknowledged to me that sure like in five years a different board you know might feel differently but you know the

way these processes work in the city it helps to be able to point back on things and he also even suggested that

and he's a very experienced supervisor that there are things the board could do like

um you know request that the um this be part of the city's five-year budget plan

and you can they could ask the controller to do that so these are things that you know supervisor pestkin is well aware of and

um he's expressed some openness to it so I think it's worth you know taking him up on the offer and maybe they'll say no

but that's fine I think it's um it's just one step in a dialogue

I would like to make a comment we

we have the authority to review the director's position and to renew it

and to not renew it and I think it would be unwise after the discussion and after listening

to public comment for us to go to the Board of Supervisors with

nothing and I think commissioner dies a resolution helps in saying we hear you

we need to come to you we need to talk to you we need to build our relationship with you and we need to notify you when

we may do a search

I see this resolution as simply saying

please allow us to do that that does not hurt for us to ask I don't

think it's ill-advised I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time we can ask for this as well as

make sure that our embroidery process is better as a new commissioner we could definitely use that but I don't think we

have to because of the situation because of the public concern

just completely relinquish um all of our Authority and not move forward in a way that can allow us to do

what the voters said they wanted us to do which is to review his contract every five years and make sure that the money

is there so I see no problem with doing this and I don't think it hurts our

relationship with the Border supervisors to ask they will either say no or they will say yes

foreign so I'm slightly confused because the motion

that we all voted on was to commit to working with the Board of Supervisors I don't consider that nothing

um and I also would say that I don't know if you've spoken with members of the Board of Supervisors but I have and

I can tell you that relationship is is definitely uh fragile and I think it

would behoove us if there are other things other than this matter that are important to us that we consider and we

see the forest from the trees so it is not nothing to commit as a body

to working with the Board of Supervisors next year

on how to think about this more broadly asking them to amend their resolution

for automatic funding is not is not um it is in my mind not going to be

effective in this matter or in the relationship with the Board of Supervisors at large I agree that they

did extend the Olive Branch I simply disagree with the approach for how to

extend one in return committing to working with the

supervisors is something but we can also commit and ask for money

and they can say yes or no

and if we if we are here to serve the supervisors or are we

here to serve and effectuate our Charter and so we can work with them we can build a

relation with them and we can ask for money and they can say no so by me saying that we should not go to

them with nothing I mean we should build a relationship and while building a relationship we can ask

so that the next supervised the next commission is not in this position because the money is what's important

okay I'm gonna recognize commissioner bernhold super hit her hand up

okay Kevin Stone commissioner Hayden Crowley uh I think we need to commit to work

with the director of Elections because that's the budget process and um that's where the money is

allocated we work every commission works with their Department they don't do a work around with the

board that's just the way City Hall works

I will say I have been looking into commission independent budget

and so that is why I continue to say it is not just the Board of Supervisors

just the director there is a much bigger picture that we can explore

and I I there is potentially ways to look at it

differently but unless we look at those things and talk about those things as a commission I think we're narrowing

ourselves into something specifically and also asking for automatic funding

doesn't mean we're going to receive like that actually does anything I don't

think that actually does what we wanted to do well well the other piece of that is is typically the Departments submit their

budgets to the mayor right and then the mayor can pick and choose what of course

he or she wants and then it goes in front of the Board of Supervisors but the way we're set up is to go through

our department and I don't think there's been a history as far as I can tell of us having a

budget within that department and I think that we need to work on our relationship with the director of Elections on developing a budget for

this commission we need to identify what our needs are and we need to figure that

out because there is a process and we need to honor that process I I

understand what you're saying commissioner diet I understand what you're saying commissioner Lee Wilson I

I and as well as you commissioner jordonic but it ends up being kind of words and I get

that but I I just there is a process to everything and work like we're going to

be looking at you know uh uh a prop you know a redistricting reform

recommendations that we're going to be telling other people what they should be doing a process

so if we want to follow those processes you need to

follow the processes that are in place it's just I don't know if I'm even but

anyway and getting late so um yeah I mean I I agree

with everything you said commissioner Hayden Crowley I again I don't I don't see how this

it precludes that it's simply an ask and as commissioner levolsi said

they can choose to granted or not it's um

it's not even a request that they've amend their resolution it's simply a

request that they consider this

I think that part of building a relationship is saying what you're

you know communicating saying what what you need and we're saying we need this

every five years and we want you to think about providing it in the future

that's all that's all this is okay um also I just want to remind people

please do not use the WebEx chat feature um

it's not permissible in terms of the open meeting loss so can we call for the question

although commissioner Stone isn't here yeah we need to wait until vice

president Stone gets back before you take a vote commissioner bernaltz

um thanks for clarifying about the chat uh president jordanick I just uh that there are frequent no class for people

to identify themselves when they're speaking so all right thanks yeah I was just relaying

something that DCA Florence told me I I wasn't personally seeing that what she was referring to so I was who related to

DCA Flores there so we just need to identify ourselves when we speak from them

okay um well while we wait for vice president Stone to return I I'm in support of doing all the things that

have been suggested and I support you know asking the board to amend the

resolution I support working with the Department I support working with the board

and I think all of these things you know can work together and are part of a larger process

um so I'm open to suggestions I don't know

exactly how long vice president Stone will be away but um I Heard a suggestion to take a short break it's almost 9 p.m

let's do that let's take a a um a seven minute break how does that sound

it's seven minutes okay okay so the time is now 902 p.m we

are resuming the meeting after a short break so we have a motion on the floor and um

are there any additional comments before we take a vote

okay then I'll take the roll call vote by vice president Stone no commissioner bernholtz no

commissioner died aye commissioner Hayden Crowley no commissioner Lebowski yes and commission

aye commissioner vote Yes so the motion failed three to three

Okay so anything else on this item can I make one comment just to clarify

they weren't ballots in the bay they were allegedly ballot Lids Ballot Box

Lids in the bay just for just for the record

okay thank you okay so seeing no further discussion on

6. Review of the November 8, 2022 Election

this item move on to agenda item number six review of the November 8th 2022

Consolidated general election discussion possible action regarding the November 8th 2022 Consolidated general election

okay so for this item we have our usual for reports from the department and we

have a new report which is um very fascinating set

of graphs and um charts and I'd like to thank thank you director Ernst for

putting that together it's it's it's wonderful I think we're getting a view

of the election that we haven't seen before so you know so I appreciate the time you you put into that

um so and then there's also a memo that I

provided just some um feedback on my use of the Bell marking device so director

Ernst would you like to say anything about your the election

um yeah I think we did a good job in the election actually we it was our fifth election in the year and also we came in

it's kind of worried about people just being exhausted and tired of Elections but the the I thought that the people as

usual had just a lot of enthusiasm a lot of energy for the election for getting preparations in place procedures

materials and supplies then going into the election we had uh the lawsuit uh

the couple lawsuits actually that surprised me but we got through those and then going into election day itself

we had the the rain we had the wind and the rain and the cold which is a major concern

um but we had we had less pull workers in June than than we wanted then we were

worried about having enough poll workers in November that having the rain and the wind and the cold showing up right right

on Election Day I was concerned that the poll workers would somehow workers would

call in uh but actually they did we had very few cancellations that day which was again just a sign of this being a I

think a really good election and then we did mitigate any any uh water and puddles and lighting and

things like that in the morning uh and also in the evening as as in the

afternoon as well more in the morning in the afternoon just to get the workers where they could you know facilitate

voting for voters and also make the environment and their physical Comfort is as high as we as we could with with

what we had available uh mornings are always challenging just because you're starting fresh really

with people who might be showing up to a playing place for the first time people who aren't used to the equipment used to

elections procedures all the sites were open in the morning on Election morning but we did have I think one site where

we couldn't access the equipment so even though we were indoors we didn't have the voting equipment so we had to uh

what we call emergency voting we actually had to have people our folks set up uh

manual voting I guess there's there's no equipment but we got that place open we

had it open for us got the equipment out by I think 7 45 or so then once we got through the the initial

uh rush in the morning then it was a matter of just

providing extra Staffing to polling places getting materials out to the to the sites uh and then getting ready for

the for the close of the polls there are no major issues really throughout the day uh that we haven't

uh faced in the past and that's really one of the strengths of the department and the people the department is I mean

if things happen every election that's not that's not new uh but the response that we have to what happens on Election

Day that's I think what separates us from most other uh elections operations

to be honest with you I just I think the level of a response that we have two challenges out there for both the poll

workers and the voters then also at City Hall it's it's just really impressive the layers of support that we have and

the plan that goes into it um then after then we closed the polls

which is always a bit of a challenge as well because poll workers sometimes uh want some help with that so we have to

make sure we get people in position to support the poll workers on closing and then election night was was uh after the

polls close was fairly quiet we had some of users at the processing center in Pier 31 uh we did have someone removed

from the from the warehouse she was taking photos of the vehicles that the

deputies were driving to to uh to Pier 31 and then also taking pictures of the

uh the deputies I told Sheriff Miyamoto if that something down there was happening they interfered with with

their work or on the election to actually escort people from the warehouse so we discussed that prior to

election night um and because we had experiences the same person in the June election uh

causing similar challenges for the deputies and then uh we just had a lot of ballots

come back to us on Election night I think we had like a hundred and what 5 000 ballots come back to us on Election

Day election night and then another 18 to 20 000 come back to us after election

day in the mail with valid postmarks so we had about 125

000 or so ballots and it just takes a while to get through those I know that we had some close contests and people were wondering uh

you know when the results will be finalized it's just a matter of us getting through all the ballots to come back to us and in San Francisco this

will be more important even as we go forward uh with these multi-card ballots Five Card ballots it just takes five

times longer to count a five card ballot than it does a kind of a one card ballot you know so in in in April and February

we had one card ballots uh we were done very quickly I mean we we processed those uh then June we had what a two or

three I can't remember now two or three card valid and it's just a faster processing time now as we go into the

March Primary in 2024 and and then the presidential uh it's presidential

especially if we could update cards it's going to take forever to accomplish balance uh we have to do a lot of messaging around that right away

um so and then we just process the ballots there I think there's a lot of trust in the Department's uh processing

there are no challenges to our process we had very few Observers and by the

time I certified the election there really was no no buzz around the election at that time

people accepted the results people trusted the process and then I certified in the in the board we'll hear the the

other results tomorrow so um yeah so overall I mean it was a

very good election I really give the department a lot of credit for it's it's a it's a real strain on people to do

five elections in a year you cannot actually understand what it means to run five elections a year unless you do it

and the everyone here today they were part of that team and I certainly want

to you know set up my uh appreciation respect to their efforts and also the

folks in the department because it's a tremendous achievement that they that they were able to provide to the city and to

the voters uh so now we uh are looking at the

election considering what uh what lessons we can learn from this and what we can apply going forward uh we're also

you know getting ready for the budget season ourselves uh this week you know and what we need from to for the next

elections we'll include in the budget cycle but overall I mean it was it was a it

was a huge voter guide uh I mean from the very beginning really I mean from from the from the filing period

through the receiving of the of the the nomination information the Avail argument information

the development of the voter information pamphlet the development of the ballots uh getting on getting the vote by mail

ballots uh prepared and out to the voters uh getting the polling places located and organized getting them set

up getting the deliveries to the pulling places set up which ran very smoothly

um to the the poll worker recruitment which was tremendous the training of the pull

workers was done very well uh the the team actually had in-person training out

in areas where uh people that may not have transportation to City Hall uh

where they could have in-person training if they wanted to um then just you know just keeping our our

teams our folks our Personnel uh up to date and and organized people but we're communicating well and then you know

election day and just we had that rain we had you know everyone in the department showed up uh we you know

everyone uh was supportive of the poll workers and the voters and then just you know that that Crush of ballots that

comes after election day and just dealing with that initial pressure that you get from the media and from the

campaigns a little bit about when the results will be finalized just kept moving through that a very well organized very thought out Manner and in

the end so yeah I think it's a very good election I think it shows up in the in the instant report there's nothing

really in there that surprised me there were a lot of ballot jams like the 50 ballot jams in the and there's the

report which is a it seems like a lot but we processed like 177 000 cards at

the polling places even though it was a seven percent in-person internal at the polls so you know 50 jams is not a lot but

just when you when the jam occurs if you have to pull that card from the machine

through the the bin area it just takes time and it just delays when the next person can use the machine for

tabulation what we'll we'll try to recreate those instances now after now that I've

certified and we'll start that later this month maybe into January because if we have multiple multi-card ballots in

in March and then November 2024 then you know we're going to potentially see more

ballot jams we don't know how the weather affected we did do testing on the we actually make wedded cards prior

to election day anticipation of uh rain being an issued moisture being an issue

and we really didn't have these sorts of issues come up during our testing where we have had the ballot jam with

something else I think um so yeah I can take any questions but

just yeah I think the department did a fantastic job I think we had uh I think we provided a really good service to the

phone bank again well run um you know the email the responses that

we had I just yeah it was just it was just a really good and I just uh think we need to recognize everyone's

Department uh just despite what's going on elsewhere regarding elections in San Francisco I think this department really

delivered and I think they do it did a fantastic job and I want to thank them and I'm sure the commission feels the

same as I do so okay thank you very much director Ernst

Commissioners are there any comments questions that you have director

Elvis Presley Stone yeah um I want to Echo what director Arns

just said and say thank you to all of the members of the department and all of

the hard work I first hand got to observe some uh a tiny tiny percent of

the work that went on on Election Day and it was really amazing I think I had commented on it in our last meeting and

it's a testament to um folks in the department and I think all of you for your work

um I also wanted to comment on uh something I had expressed to director arnst ahead of the election which was my

fear around um things that could have happened to ballots things that could have happened

to poll workers um at the warehouse transporting ballots back and forth

especially given the political climate following a speaker Pelos former speaker

Pelosi's husband in San Francisco and my fears around um some of the

threats to National just National issues around violence and political violence

and I had expressed this to director arnsley said I'm not trying to be alarmist but and in fact the director

gave me a pretty robust explanation for the ways that the department Was preparing for that

and I think what we don't necessarily realize sometimes is that things are

easy or things seem more simple on the outside but there was a lot that went into it to ensure that it was safe for

poll workers for everyone and I also want to commend the department for that

because I I was very very nervous about what what could have happened if we see

what's happened in other counties in this country it's pretty amazing the

preparation that went into protecting the Integrity of the election one a question I had for the director is how

many people were how many election workers were there total for the selection just so yeah poll workers just

across like working on the election well we had around 2500 or so poll

workers and then we have around 300 people that work with the Department then we had around 110 depth sheriff's deputies

I think a similar number of parking Control Officers so

five the three thousand or more people total coming together on that day thank

you oh and also thank you for the the new report this is awesome and I look

forward to it being included in future elections as well

um commissioner Hayden Crowley just quick question um director arms you had said that I

think in the previous election and I'm I'm just doing this by memory here so I could be completely wrong but that it

was like um uh 93 of people were voting by mail and

that there was um but like something like 14 showed up day of with voting vote by mail and it

looked like that increased with the people that that voted by mail but showed up that day I'm just curious it

looks like it's a trend of increasing from the last is that because of covet or or what you mean the in-person voting

yeah yeah well it has the yeah at least for this cycle uh we had more in-person

voting for November than we did for June more in June than we did for February uh I wasn't making any predictions on

the amount of in-person voting that there would be versus vote by mail going into the election

um but we had a lot of a lot of day of Voters this election versus the previous elections and so that includes not just

people going to the polling places but also the vote by mail voters and that's why we had so many ballots to process on

Election Day for going after election day because people were just really waited

people more people waited until election day to vote than they had in the previous elections starting with

November 2020 election and so and this was actually I think the highest turnout at the

polling places we had since the presidential the November 2028 presidential election I think there

might have been 5 000 more on election day in November 2020 than it will be had for this past

election it's still a seven seven percent turnout at the polls which compared to the you know previous years

we still have up to up to 50 then but but yeah but this was definitely an increase of in-person voting uh compared

to the past several elections is there any I mean I just is do you see that as a trend or is there any reason for that

do you think or I I just you know I'm speculating I know yeah it's hard it's I think you know the type of election

always sort of determines the type of turnout you're going to get and also when that turnout will occur and I think

that this was a big ballot there's five cards on this ballot and people that was one message I was trying to get out with

the interviews I was having going into election days don't wait till election day to pop open your envelope because

you vote by mail envelope because that's that would just make people to potentially even vote so we really

wanted people to at least open the envelope and that's one thing I I didn't I'm going to take it aside our Outreach

team did a fantastic job this election we did we did so much it was just incredible every day those books were

going out two three times a day it was just very impressive um but we're trying to get the message out to open the envelopes to so people

weren't dismayed when they when they went to the polling places or when they when they voted on Election Day they try

to drop off their ballots so so yeah so the the size of the ballot and then just

the number of measures you know that also something that people are challenged with uh trying to understand

the measures trying to make their decisions if they wait towards election day from our experience that's when you

get the the late receiving of ballots and I think that that's what we experienced this election

and the number of judges it was you yeah the judge judge contest

right yeah okay thank you and thank you also to you department and also to the

Sheriff's Department for protecting the voted ballot yeah yeah yeah the sheriffs I mean I know that was part of the

charter member that actually created this commission is when the the sheriff's Sheriff had responsibility for

the uh security voted ballots but actually when when been a great benefit to San Francisco to have the sheriff's

office involved uh so closely and to have um have them also provide the resources

and and their abilities and one thing with the sheriff's office that makes it nice is that they're it's very easy to

get them organized just to support the election because you know we meet with their leadership prior long early in the

election cycle and then we meet with them throughout the election cycle but then they're able to organize their

deputies you know very quickly for election day to go out to the polling places and and also provide support to

us for additional security if we need that so yeah it's definitely a great benefit so thank you

okay um I have a few comments questions uh direct Ernst a few on the on the um

document of graphs one of the things I noticed is that the

the Dropbox usage seems to be going up over the three elections

and um do you think that's just because of people are

this is on page four at the bottom on the left you can see the yellow is kind

of increasing is that because you're um you think people are just becoming more familiar with it or have you just been putting

more boxes out or or um do you have any comment on that so the number of boxes is the same uh I I

looked at these numbers they're almost proportional to the turnout so I think as more people vote they more people use

the the drop-off boxes yeah well on the left it's the percentage is actually going up

over I think it's still proportional to the turnout getting bigger uh but

certainly people are are knowing they know more about the locations of the boxes they've used them

um so but also we had a lot of ballast drop off the polling places as well we still had I was like 60 000 ballast dropped

off at the polls which is a rather large number yeah 64 000.

um so on the chart about the that includes the

incarcerated individuals I know this is something vice president Stone had asked about so um

she had been requesting the formerly incarcerated is that something that you

thought about and is it is it um not possible or I don't understand the question it's

well there's a double star on footnote it says incarcerated accounts represent number

of ballots cast by voters in jail data on formally incarcerated voters is not available so I guess one of the things

that I think people are interested in was whether tracking like the rate at which people

that used to be incarcerated or voting yeah we don't track people generally and we don't track people who who have been

incarcerated so once they're registered and they have an address we just send them ballots but we don't keep tabs on

them based on the previously being incarcerated okay and then um the last thing on the

document is on the last page I was surprised to see that the number of remakes actually went down even though

there were many more ballot cards so does that was that because um

you know the processing was just a lot smoother or was there something in June where it was causing a little bit more

remakes this is on the last page at the bottom

the number of of remade ballots yeah so June it's higher than November so yeah

in June we had it was a three card ballot the fold

and the the fold with the uh uh with the stub

was such that when people pour out the stubs they were tearing their ballots accidentally we had to have we had to

change the the folds on the ballast going into November so there was less chance of Voters tearing their ballots

gotcha when they're tearing out the stubs from those ballots got you okay and then um two more

questions um there was an individual that reached out to me and was wondering about I know

after election day you take a day off from counting and then you and then you ramp and the day after that is when you

start up again and they were saying that it seemed that it was you're counting a

bit less than in previous years um and I was wondering if there was a reason for that like that first day

where you started counting after election day was it um yeah so since November 2020 we actually

haven't released results we released some like maybe two two three thousand votes but uh we don't process ballots on

Election Day so we actually stop our process and the reason we do that is we send out lists to the polling places on

Election morning indicating which voters from those precincts have already cast their vote by mail ballots so now that

everyone receives a ballot in the mail we know who's voted at the precinct uh who's in the roster so if we inform the

polling places of which voters have already cast their ballot then if someone goes to to a polling place

without their vote by mail ballot and their names on the list they can vote a regular ballot so they don't have to

vote a provisional ballot which means that those voters can have their balls tablet at the polling places and not

Place their ballots into another envelope and have us review that and so it also reduces the number of

provisional ballots that we have to process after election day I think we had nine thousand provisional ballots

this path to last action usually would have twenty to thirty thousand provisional ballots and so this so by

stop by not processing ballots on Election Day we actually provide the service to the voters to vote at a

regular ballot they're polling places we also reduce the number of provisional ballots which means we have less to

process after election day and then we just pick up the processing again on Wednesday and that's why Thursday is a

first day of results yeah so my question was like this this November the number

of ballots counted on Thursday seem to be like less than in previous elections

relatively Five Card ballot I mean it's that simple but it takes five it takes five times longer kind of Five Card

about than a one card balance okay and then my last question is I don't know if you had a chance to um look at the

document on the bmd that I prepared for this packet or or the one I did for um

the last election but um one of the things I would be curious about is

um of the things I observe like which of those things are under the Department's control versus which are are things that

you can't control based on you know the software of the bmd like I

know one of the things was when you're reviewing the your votes for the local measures it doesn't have the letter next

to the contest so it's just like you know it's

you know what I'm saying when you're um reviewing your vote on the local measures it just has the

ballot title but it doesn't have like a next to it or B next to it so it's kind of harder to know what it how it matches

up but um maybe if you could um

you know take a look at the document and just I would be curious to know which of the things are are

like how the department configures the Machine versus what's built into the

limitation of the machine that makes sense okay um so yeah those are all my questions

um you know thanks again for you know for your work on the election and for the enhanced reporting Mr day yes

um director Ernst I read out through the incident report and yes concluded it was

a cold and rainy day did you have a record number of hand warmer requests was a lot yeah

the only other thing that I noticed in the incident reports that I wanted to ask about

um I'm assuming the high school students go through the same training as any of the other poll workers because I noticed

there were a lot of requests for regular poll workers because they only had students and I'm kind of curious if

you know what was behind that I know when I was a poll inspector my high school students were the best poll workers

yeah there are a few there weren't a lot and no I don't I can't speak to each instance for those requests I don't know what the reason was okay

the only thing I can think of is I my high school students had to go home really they couldn't stay late and that

was the only consideration sorry

okay Commissioners are there any further comments before we take a public comment on this item I just had one other

question um about the voting in person on

Election Day one thing I I voted uh I dropped my ballot off but I checked out

one of the poll sites in my neighborhood just to kind of go in and say hello um and I noticed that a bunch of people had

brought their ballots from home that was our that were already filled

out but then completed like voted then in person and then voided their ballot

and only submitted the one that um was um from the in-person election day and

I'm wondering if you think that might be also obviously because of the length the you know the Five Card ballot but maybe

that's contributing to the uptick in um why people are voting more on

Election Day as opposed to let's say the last election where everyone is doing vote by mail is that ability to kind of

cross-check they're at home to um what they do at a pool site and they

just want to put on the poll site I don't know it's just a hypothesis I was curious about I mean they could use their vote by

mailbel as a reference ballot potentially uh but that's not anything

that I'm aware of okay in large numbers yeah okay thanks

okay let's open it up to public comment oh commissioner we'll see okay let's open it up to public comment and and

we're on agenda item number six review of the November election

[Music] bear with me one moment I'm just just want to make sure I give you proper time

okay um so this last election we did an awesome

job as usual and we're always complimented by the boss it's not me

it's you but he sets the standard so four of you are new here I don't usually

come to these meetings because I feel safe and secured our leadership and we're good so going forward it is my

hope as a voter as a San Francisco resident as a part-time employee at the

department that you will come to the table to work with the Department

because it shouldn't be adversarial I hope we just get past this Equity

issue opening up the hiring process which is valid you

know certainly but you don't you don't change the cook when the food is really really good

we run a highly functional Department if you

look at other departments in this city do many of them compare to ours

we are passionate employees we believe in our work we work hard at it we strive

through it and we have him to look to so I hope that you will study up on the

requirements when you put something forth because obviously you you have to remain on the agenda I

don't know on the agenda item because it is about the election it is about us all

working together here yeah so hopefully you will study up on what the bylaws are

if you want to put in the um hiring thing every five years you have a lot of

work to do on that but do it you know take do your admin like put things in place

so the next people that come on have something to work with because it doesn't really seem like you guys had

much to work with again if you wouldn't mind staying on the election pretty much done okay

um I I just wait I want to end with one more thing is since 2020 we've had seven elections

most of them most of them have been in the pandemic

a deadly pandemic redistricted we did a seamless job so respect and and work

with the Department not trying to turn it over in some way please

would you mind also helping when um if someone comes like I don't necessarily

know the appropriate man if they're talking off topic or not

okay no no worries

oh sorry go ahead you have three minutes starting now uh thank you again uh Brent Turner speaking on behalf of the public

and I'm not a um uh the employee of John

Ernst um but I appreciate the ones that are here the many many many many many that

have shown up his employees to to testify on his behalf

um and and I think it is a tremendous achievement that they got through the elections the public sort of expects

that I think um that we get through these elections and usually it's interesting because you

have Republican areas where I think a lot of the problems have come up and

they're attacking a democratic uh administrator here I think we have the

opposite which is unique so um you know we're in a democratic area

and and it's a nonpartisan issue but uh I you know uh we we have the reverse of

what you see in other territories uh so I think it behooves us to also

understand when we take the director's report into consideration um what part of course we want to

bolster confidence uh is the little Hoover Commission said let's make a good system better that way

we don't denigrate the current system um in the events but we recognize that

we can do better um I think that is obvious and we need

to differentiate between what Mr Ernst is doing and what the vendor is doing

unfortunately as Mr Einstein think we'll testify for himself he doesn't really know what's going on inside the

tabulation piece because that's happening on proprietary software and I would

bet my life that nobody in the department really knows what's happening with the tabulation process either or

who or what is really happening because only the vendor knows that under the current system which is why we want to

change that system so I appreciate John's great work on this past election it appears everything went pretty well

but we don't really know only some people that wrote the code for the

vendor that aren't really witnessing the events in real time only they kind of know what's going on and they might not

even know so the problem with the current system is anybody that says they know what's happening is is a liar and

that's the truth of the science of the matter that's why we want to move toward open source so we can 30 seconds we can

applaud John and I think we should for a job well done under the circumstance but let's follow the little Hoover

Commission as what they said to the governor don't pass go move directly

toward open source and if John won't Do It Let's get someone that can do it thank you you must remain on the

um we have no more commenters in the room and we're going to move to the

commenters on the phone Mr Patel you are unmuted you are commenting on review uh

agenda item number six review of the November 8th 2022 Consolidated general election you

have three minutes uh thank you once again um I really want to thank commissioner

Stone personally um it was great seeing you at the processing center

um I can't say I've seen any other Commissioners ever at the processing center after a long election day it is a long

evening for us as well and to see you there was really nice I'm

sorry you missed saying more action and the director joining us later that

evening but I want to use that message and you know

invite the rest of the commission come observe our activities either online or

in person I'm sure the director and us we would love to give you a tour of the

department we would love to talk about the processes that we work on um I think it's really important to

understand how the department works in order to judge what the department does and you know this could be part of the

orientation that you give to Future Commissioners build that in help them

experience what the department does um and for other people that are

interested um I'm also dropping the link into the chat um

that's it thank you so much thank you

uh um Mr ognazian you are unmuted you have

three minutes ah thank you I just want to say

that this was one of the most difficult elections uh for my team I work with Department uh

with this ads field election deputies who um are out in the field helping poll

workers at every polling place set up and run an election day and uh

this is I think the first election in you know in the last 18 years that we

had rain um that started basically the night

before and didn't stop until of the morning after as some of you probably know quite a few stats start

early we start around four o'clock in the morning and uh

um I tip my hat to every single fed in the field

um and I think the mission should know that uh field election deputy

job is a one day job you know in addition to training that they do and

any support that that they provide to other divisions throughout the election cycle but it's truly one day job where

they come in and you do such an important job and I'm tipping my hat so

every single fed in the field because even though it rained in last election

um in the June election in the morning and quite frankly it sucked uh it really

was cold and it was really wet uh this election um not a single fed as it was pouring

has complained about being wet or cold everyone showed up everyone had a smile

everyone worked the long day and delivered everything we needed to do and

uh again it's such an important role for a one day job

um where people come in ready to put in their 100 effort into what we want them

to do um I think it is about what you give out

you get back and in this case we give that to our people

um that do that job and they've done a tremendous amount of work with selection

under really difficult conditions um unlike many other elections we have

done in the past therefore again it's just a thank you to 30 seconds everyone and I want the uh elections commission

to understand that every single temp employee every single permanent employee

delivers every single time uh and for the last 18 years I can say they

have done an amazing job and again it's thank you to John for cultivating that effort

um every election thank you thank you

um calling user number 34. I have unmuted you

you have three minutes can you hear me now

yes great David Bill Pell again um so two points here I

disagree respectfully um with uh Brent Turner's earlier comment uh in my opinion we do know what

happened people voted their votes were counted their votes were counted efficiently and

effectively without controversy and we got results within 30 days as required

people one people lost some people were turned out of office others were newly

elected ballot measures passed ballot measures failed we got results system

worked so I believe we do know what happened um in summary I encourage the commission

to make a motion to find that this was yet another free fair and functional

election one of your core responsibilities under the charter and I think it went off once again in ways

that we would want pursuant to the well-crafted well-executed elections

plan thanks for listening thank you

I know more public commenters okay close up someone just up nope they

put their hand down okay no more bubbles okay we're done with public comment on this item

Commissioners is there any further discussion just for the record I've done two

ride-alongs on Election night and uh did a video on the election process prior to

my joining the commission in case that commenter wants to know about my experience right along with whom I rode

along with the sheriffs uh because they collect the voted ballot so

i i i and spent some time at the processing center as well great thank

you I'd like to move that it was a

brief fair and functional election second

any discussion on the motion seeing none

vice president Stone yes commissioner bernals yes commissioner died

aye Mr hidden Crowley's yes commissioner livosi yes and I commissioner

giordanoclote yes okay so is there any other

anything else people want to say before we move on to the next item um I I do want to make a point that

um uh while the Dominion system is a proprietary system there are many

features that allow us to check it including the fact that all ballots are

scanned and available for auditing uh so there are a lot of transparency

enhancements that have been added to um health and gender trust in the system

that we have it doesn't mean that their eyes on code but

we are doing the best thing by looking at the output and comparing with the input and we can verify that so

okay anything else okay let's move on to item number seven director's report discussion of possible

7. Director’s Report

action regarding the director's report okay direct currents um I think for your support is there

anything you'd like to say to on this item to introduce I'll take questions that this report we didn't I didn't

include any information on the calls with the monthly calls from Secretary of State's office in relation to the pilot

program because we had not had that call yet uh when I sent the the memo to the

commission we had the call on Friday last weekend last Friday

uh so but voting Works did not attend that call on either the commissioner

jordanick so it was the Secretary of State myself and then Natalie G from

board president uh Walton's office um otherwise

also I didn't put on here too since we're talking about the I like the up matching the outputs you know that's a

really good I like that uh but we also uh I didn't put it in here because it wasn't part of the official canvas but

we did uh do another uh use of the risk

limited auditing software which is open source for the ranked Choice contest was used a district attorney District Four

and District Six which we expected to be the closer races going into the election and that that's open source it's it's

it's it's online at the department of Technology uh designed an interface also

using open source code which will be placed on uh on the on the internet

um and the uh the ranked Choice the risk limit auditing uh reviews of the

city-wide contest for district attorney and then the two districts offices were supervisor in four and six showed that

the system did operate as reported so it did count the ballots uh correctly it

did tabulate the votes correctly it did report the results correctly again another another factor and that the

system actually does have check imbalances in place that verifies the information give it to the voters Beyond

just posting all the votes cast in the city on our website so I can take any

questions on the report yeah just regarding the risk claiming

audits um is that something that that you've been considering doing on an official basis I think doesn't state law

have a provision where you can do wrestling audits instead of the one percent manual tally yeah which we're

trying to get there so the first step was to use the uh the software package which we did in

2019 but then coveted interrupted a lot so this was the first election where

Department of Technology was able to commit resources to uh to develop the

interface and then we'll have some some feedback sessions to the department technology uh yeah maybe at some point I

don't know if it'll be the it won't be the March election I don't think in 2024 uh maybe the 2024 November election but

um we'll have to see I mean for all for all contests not just the there's Braintree spooning oh uh

I don't think yeah I don't think so I I think I think a blend of actually using doing the one percent manual tally and

also the risk limited auditing is is a better choice than trying to pull thousands of cards especially if we

have a seven eight card ballot uh November 2024 for the risk limited auditing so I don't have an answer

specific answer now I'm not trying to open up a a debate on this I just right now no we we don't have plans to do risk

modding on every single contest on the ballot okay it might it might be worth looking into that because I I'm pretty

sure it wouldn't require pulling thousands of ballots and there is a big distinction between

um you know using the state approved process versus what you're doing with the Department of Technology because you

would be using um you know you could officially do it in place of the one person manual tally but

you'd also be using one of the state approved Solutions so I don't know do you have plans to approve the department

of Technology solution with the state we may yeah okay okay

um thank you anything else

commissioner burn holds you have your hand up thank you and thank you director Arns I have a couple questions and then

um I also want to just flag for the commission uh in the director's report item three e

I'm sorry item Three G uh we will need to hold two meetings either a full

commission and or a bow PEC meeting uh in line with the budget process uh in

January prior to if I understand this correctly prior to January 27th so I

want to draw the leadership's attention to that um I also uh I'm curious about this phone

call with the secretary of state director orange will you provide us with more information about in that in the

January report then because of the timing or is there anything to share yeah I I can do both so the call we had

last Friday was very short uh so Secretary of State's Personnel was on on

the call I was and then Natalie G and you know the calls are an opportunity for uh voting Works to provide updates

on the development system I think generally but also specifically in relation to Apollo program in San

Francisco I did inform the Secretary of State's office that voters in San

Francisco past local measure h which moved all contests from November 2023 schedule election to November 2024

and so that the potential of a pilot program happening in 2023

um has ended essentially um and then Secretary of State's office

requested that we not have the call in January which we all we all agreed and

then also we the Secretary of State's office will put forward and I agreed with this that we end the calls at this

point because uh there's because the way that the calls were going and I I

mentioned this I think in the memo that I sent out uh that voting Works

essentially was trying to have this to to affect the Secretary of State's

regulations in relation to product programs where the Secretary of State's

office stated several times the purpose of the calls was for voting Works to provide updates on the development work

on this voting system so at this time I don't know I don't I don't think that there's a need for calls with the

Secretary of State's office because it's not about the regulations it's above voting Works development and there's no

pilot program right now scheduled to occur in 2023 okay thank you for that I

appreciate it it occurs to me that that's I think important for this commission to pay attention to given uh

the effort to host a pilot program with voting works at one point and then

um also the the the reality that they don't yet have the technology to support

either ranked Choice voting or non-roman alphabet languages so there's a

significant Equity issue um in the way that product is developing and any guidance that could be provided

would enhance our opportunities in the future um finally I had one other question for

you sir and it is about items 3A on the outreach program maybe because

you're used to the term barrier-free voter registration and poll worker opportunities I was surprised to see the

list of targeted populations not include people with disabilities but that may be just my interest could you just tell us

a little bit more about what's happening here it's a significant it will cover a

significant portion of the upcoming year I'm interested in this hearing more about the outreach program please

yeah so Outreach is that the the review of Outreach is not limited to those four

items listed in the in that section uh these are areas where people uh

potentially don't recognize or realize or have been given information uh

regarding their their ability to their rights to register and to vote uh and

this is something that we started to look at more closely in relation to our racial Equity plan in the department and

so we're kind of combining our racial Equity plan and some of our Outreach Topics in this one section in item 3A

yeah but we're not limiting our efforts on just these four topics or

just highlighting the areas where people potentially uh would need additional support additional information uh to

fully understand and exercise their the rights to to get registered and to vote

that's really helpful that that's actually uh quite commendable the department would be taking on that kind

of Outreach specifically to these population I mean these populations and others but those that don't may not be

clear on the on the law of the right thank you for that you're welcome thank you

Commissioners any Mr Cummins

so I did want to make one just response commissioner bernholster comment about

the those meetings with the Secretary of State um you know voting works

you know in terms of the development of those two capabilities they came to us offering to develop those capabilities

and um when it became clear that the pilot wasn't going to go forward their

position was that until they receive the regulations it's not

they're not going to start doing that development so it's not that

it's not that the pilot is not happening because the capabilities aren't there

it's that the regulations aren't not there I understand thank you I understand and

it's why I have uh tried unsuccessfully for a very long time to encourage

focusing attention at the state level um where the bottleneck is but

I think it's an absolutely critical capacity and not one that should be taken lightly and we should keep our eye

on the vendors who can actually serve all voters in San Francisco thanks president

okay so let's take public comment in the cinema if there are no further

discussion Hi Brent Turner again speaking on behalf

of the Southern Poverty Law Center and many others um today tonight

um I think there's a propensity here to Gaslight and I guess that comes from Big

Tech I uh previously thought it was good to mention that perhaps uh commissioner

burnholds should recuse herself from these matters because of her association with open source election technology I

think it would behoove the members of this commission to take a look at open source digital voting and open source

election technology and the role that they've played in this debacle around open source obviously we're not going to

get there San Francisco is not going to do open source because John Arts is going to be here for the next five years and he absolutely won't do it because

guess what Steve Bennett doesn't want it and Steve Bennett is calling the shots that's the rep for Dominion who says the

elections commission doesn't know any about elections and the people of San Francisco don't care about elections of

course that was all over the newspaper if I think something was going to hurt the feelings of the people in the department it would be that the vendor

that they're using is so uh callous toward the commission and toward their

uh their County um oset again has been recognized as a

disinformation agent within the intelligence communities I mentioned previous uh former CIA director Jim

wools he's interested in this and my interest in oset has led me to

understand that they purport to be open source but actually they are not there are some licensing issues that we don't

talk about here which get pretty gritty in the weeds talking about general public license versus other kinds of

licenses and it would benefit the elections commission to understand those

nuances when we talk about checks and balances risk limiting audits uh use of

spot open source software spot checks these are all part of a disinformation

campaign because again I think that Mr Ernst would testify that

he doesn't know what's going on inside the tabulation system because nobody knows and certainly nobody here knows

and if you know somebody that knows please let me know who that person would be because what we're failing to do is

is defer to the people that actually know what they're talking about that would be someone that has a high degree

of understanding regarding computer technology and specifically open source because that is necessary in order to

protect the United States against people that would like to do us harm so that's

why we're so adamant and keep coming back but let me make clear that no risk

limiting audit and no logic and accuracy test will provide Clarity on the inner

workings of the system as long as the code is proprietary so Mr Ernst I hope that we reach a conclusion here and that

you continue to conduct great elections but in the meantime thanks for your consideration thank you return

we have one caller on the line you are

commenting on agenda item number seven the director's report and I have now

unmuted you you have three minutes you

can you hear me now yes great uh David philpel again on item

seven the director's report um two things the budget instructions

which are referred to on page three of uh the memo item F

I understand that the budget instructions are coming out this Thursday uh December 15th I would uh

respectfully predict as I've tuned up my crystal ball that we're going to be looking at uh three digit million

uh deficit for the city uh for next year and it may not be in the hundreds of

millions it could be uh between two and 300 million in any event I suspect it's

going to be three digits and it's going to be massive and um so I would suspect that uh the discussion about the

future of the elections director is going to be a one or two day story and by uh Thursday night Friday we're going

to be hearing about uh service cuts and massive uh changes to

um what we can anticipate in the big budget fight next year at the board supervisors and all all kinds of uh

whatnot but I I do believe that that's going to provide even more pressure on

the city departments in particular general fund departments uh to cut back and trim and be more efficient and

whatnot so I think as we look to the budget process in January and February

either at Bill Peck or at the commission we're going to need to look very carefully about that and perhaps

only having one election in the 23-24 uh

fiscal year will help a little bit but it's still going to be it's still going

to be an issue um the other comment I had I I guess

buried in here also on page three at the top uh that March 5th is the

presidential primary election I guess I wasn't clear on that I thought we were still June and November if it was a

permanent change to move the presidential primary to the first Tuesday in March in um those years

to whatever that is super Tuesday or mini Tuesday or happy Tuesday or whatever I thought that those were just

one time changes and I didn't know that that was a an ongoing change but I would suspect that that date could also uh

change depending on how the primary calendar uh rolls out in the future but

if if March 5th is the current date then I will put that in my head March 5th and November 5th of 2024. those are my

comments on the director's report thank you for listening thank you there are no other public commenters

okay first you put a comment on that item is there any discussion before we move on

to the next item okay seeing none let's move on to agenda

8. Redistricting Process Initiative

item number eight redistricting process initiative discussion possible we vote on that motion

oh good point so oh no there was no motion that was the directory

I know it's like a little tired yeah and to hold you and everyone it's a discussion agenda item number

eight redistricting process initiative discussion and possible action regarding the commission's potential recommendations with respect to the San

Francisco redistricting process including historical background and the proposed project plan

so I will turn this one over to Commissioners Diane lavosi I'd like to introduce this item may I

ask something just quickly before you introduce it since the packet item was only added today would it be possible

and I'm happy to make a motion if we uh respond this so that we all have time to

read it until the next meeting because it's really important not basically personally I want to make sure I have

time to read through it so um I anticipated that and plan to just run through this really quickly with

everyone so um hopefully after the executive summary

you will feel comfortable because we're not introducing anything new this time

um based on commission's requests last time we were going to take a pause for

this meeting and just kind of review everything and uh commissioner bernhold said requested that we provide a

synthesis of all the recommendations that have been presented to the commission and I will tell you it was a

slog to go through this so I hope that um

uh it says complete as we could make it uh cross-referencing all the

recommendations that have been presented to us yeah that sounds wonderful but I would love the opportunity to read it

ahead of the next ahead of the meeting all of the work that you did and I'm just simply not able to do that

um at this point so I still I'm happy to make a motion if no one else is it

believes that I mean this is like the last six months of our meetings have gone until midnight and I understand a

desire to be brief but we can't keep doing this so I'm asking if we can

please move it to the next meeting and if necessary I'm happy to make a motion to do that

I would second such emotion so my concerns we have a lot on the

agenda for January and the purpose of this was really to get feedback from you

guys on what else you would like to see because we do have extra time because of measure H passing

so it was really to give us some direction from you folks on what

else you would like to see next so that we have time to set that up so

if it's okay we'll just run through this quickly I'm going to make a motion that we

postpone it until January I second the motion

okay so we have a motion on the floor um I need

discussion on the motion I just wanted to say I'm sorry it's not for a lack of respect I just I can't

think clear-headed this late at night I want to give it the respect and time and energy that you both deserve and I just

can't give you that right now I have a question um president jordanick is

if this notion passes is it possible to have it be the first thing on the agenda

um sure no anything's possible yeah yeah we can do that

um yeah I mean personally I'm

I'm happy to discuss it if people want to discuss it if um

we don't have to discuss the document if the concern is around the document I the one thing I would be interested in is

just I would like to have a discussion about you know just a higher level discussion

of how are we going to approach coming to an agreement or recommendations as a

group like is it something that one person is going to put together and then we're going to discuss that or is it more like we'll

each bring our ideas so um but

go ahead well sorry go ahead yeah um so again my thought was just to get

some general feedback because my feelings we would probably want to take a break from this for a couple of months

because we have you know the director's review we have the contract renewal issue we have the

budget we have an annual report I mean we have a bunch of stuff that needs to be done in the beginning of the year and

so um you know this was really to to help

commissioner levolsi and I plan a little bit to see if there's anything else that

this commission would like to dig a little deeper in so we can see if we want to have a couple more

educational sessions the thinking has always been that we

would have a series of public hearings and allow the public to present their ideas to us as as opposed to

us affirmative you know affirming some particular point of view until we've had a chance to hear from the public so that

that would be my proposal for the higher level process so I just a couple questions I

completely sympathize with um vice president stoned but I also really feel

that the two of you have put in a tremendous amount of work and I don't want to minimize that for one second

um what is the goal tonight and how long do you think it'll take the goal is simply to get feedback from

you on what else you would like to be further educated on other speakers you

would like um okay just so that the whole point was

to get to the commission to a point where everyone felt pretty comfortable with all of these different components

um and since the request last time was to kind of summarize the recommendation right just so we have a sense of where

there's like a lot of consensus around certain things but as I always say the devil's in the

details there are a lot of nuances in this I try to indicate that where there were some nuanced uh recommendations

um in fact no decision has to be made tonight you could go think about it and

and think about over the holidays and we could come back you know first thing in January you could give us some feedback

then I was just going to run through this with everyone so I had any questions that you know you could ask I

think if it's going to take five to ten minutes I think it's worth us just hearing and then we can come back and

provide input when we come back but I I think out of you've done a lot of work on this and I I want to honor that I

appreciate that I also think that we should be supportive of our commissioners who are not as capable of

fully participating through the remainder of the meeting and I really do respect the work that you put into it I

worked very closely with you on redistricting well before um commissioner volsi was on the

commission and this matters a lot to me but I think we should be considerate of

everyone on the commission and not just a couple and I I just think we've

already gone late we've we've gone late every single month for the last several

months and um I I you know you said yourself we do

have plenty of time but uh to do this and I just I I would ask that we try and

be considerate of all of our commissioners and their ability to

participate at this hour all right DCA floors I'd also like to point out that um your January agenda is

going to be really robust it sounds like um you're gonna have to do election of

new officers likely the reappointment they um agenda item also the if you want to

do on the same day the actual um what is it called John your evaluation

you also have to do the budget you also so so

um I I don't know if if people if folks can't hear this item tonight since there's no election and there's no

immediacy like this is not an immediate danger or emergency to hear

um you know if you don't want to be here for 12 hours in January maybe putting this off for a few months

um is another option as well oh so you're saying that in the context of

not talking about it tonight or January yes perhaps we should meet twice in

January we have to meet twice in January anyway

for the budget February oh it is

think too many exploitate a few days apart

[Music]

I just think if we're gonna if we care about Equity then we should care about all of our commissioners and what their

needs are and I don't think that us continuing to be difficult about the

needs of supporting our commissioner who has been sick and has stayed on these

calls super late I motioned it she seconded and this is us being supportive

of her so if we care about Equity we should care about our commissioner who is also facing health issues who asked

to Second this and asked for us to delay so I'm just I just I can't help but feel

frustrated that that we're even pushing back on supporting our colleague who is

sick I just I don't understand that

so I don't think we need to vote on this like if we don't like I said it's not necessary to make a decision tonight I

just wanted to provide some framing because I know it was posted late if

um this was done at commissioner bernholz's request if you

would rather just read it without the without the framing that is

fine can this commission meet twice in January believe me it's not something I

want to do but if we can put boundaries around and and identify the subjects because you just listed off like five

things we have to do it it just makes makes sense to me that we have a special meeting in January

so so that we can do some of those things as well as I mean just split it

up I support that um you may also do a bow pack meeting

um and a sign well I'm not going to go for three you know assign uh a smaller

subsection of your commission so that not all commit Commissioners have to attend the meeting

okay Okay so we um have a motion on the floor

um let's take I'll amend my motion to postpone for a special meeting and the

earlier of this of the two potentially January meetings that we incorporate uh

the redistricting uh overview and document documents recommendations whatever

so I'm sorry your motion is to request a special meeting as well

no my if we are going to move forward with this special meeting which I have two meetings so that we can accommodate

all the things that we have to accommodate in January and also accommodate our commissioners to prevent them from having to stay until you know

midnight or 11 pm that we move this to

the earlier of the or the the first of the two my apologies I misspoke um John

confirmed that um they will not be done with their budget until February yeah so you guys

you won't be meeting on the budget in January but you still have it seems like a lot of other things on your agenda

yeah I I and I would suggest okay so I mean

the way you do these things is your calendar it as soon as possible so we have a meeting I believe

um January 18th right so what we would want to do is it do it two weeks before

or potentially the week after I don't know how close but I do think

that we need to calendar it and have an understanding

and try and do it on a Wednesday can we review what we have so if it's not budget it's evaluation of the director

uh um election of officers

contract renewal redistricting and what else may I suggest that we had we discussed

this you know under the agenda items for future meetings well we're talking about it in the context of whether or not

we're going to move this item right well I think if I understood you you're saying that

you want to postpone this to the earlier of the one or two meetings we have in

January so either way we're going to be sure yeah Fair Point yes

Lucy do you or sorry commissioner burn holes um I amended my motion to push it

to the next meeting whether it's special or regular having it be the first of the

two are you looking for me to re-second that

if you're if you want to I mean I'm not telling you what to do is it really necessary for us to I mean

I don't I mean at this point we've talked as much as I think commissioner and I would have talked about the issue

my I guess I hadn't I didn't even know this was existed until late this

afternoon because it was posted today so you'll get no feedback from me today because I have not considered it yeah

and and I think I'm the only one in that boat but if you want to you know two

minutes to introduce it I mean I've skimmed it I don't need much introduction to it I just need time to think about it

yeah so the kind of feedback that we're looking for

um are what are the other questions and comments that might come to mind and

which of these issues do you feel like you'd like to dig deeper into

so for example there are some high level recommendations

uh for example for ranked criteria pretty much I heard that from every organization but the specific ranking

might be something that you might want to dig deeper into for example right so I think that there are like multiple

levels for each of these items some of them are relatively cut and dried and other than really the devils and the details and

they're probably some you know you might want to see more

and that's really what we're trying to get some feedback on knowing that it takes time to set up those speakers and

while we do have more time it's not as much time as you think because

it never is right because um if you know ideally we would get the

Board of Supervisors and the mayor to just support this and it would just go on to the ballot as a consensus thing

but um we can't count on that and if if there needs to be a signature campaign

there's never enough time so that's the reason I wanted to

set this up now says see what else we still would like to explore and then when would we ready to have

those public hearings and and hear from the hear from the public on what they think so does it make sense that we have a

second meeting in January I I would suggesting that we have that discussion under uh I apologize okay so that sounds

good so there was a motion and it was a second do we vote no I don't think the

commissioner bernhold seconded and I'll remove the motion um okay because commissioner die okay I

said she did not oppose it thank you

Okay so public comments I'm sorry public comment

yeah I was just gonna ask if there's anything anyone wants to say before we

take public comment okay let's take public comment on this item this is agenda item number eight

redistricting process initiative

I'm just playing up my timer okay um I don't know if Mr pilpel intends to

have his hand up for this one or if this is from before um you have three minutes I did unmute

you oh can you hear me now oh uh Mr pilpa will you actually would you

mind uh uh waiting until we finish the in person that was my mistake I'm happy

to happy to defer I Will Wait thank you thank you bear with us okay I very

briefly Brent Turner speaking on behalf of the public uh thanks to the commission for moving this forward as quickly as possible

um we understand everybody has to be here late at night uh some of us work for zero money and uh we're here and

ready for anything uh but understanding you can work this out amongst yourselves

we will say that uh out of respect for the people that work long and hard on redistricting we just want to make sure

that the same thing that has happened to open source doesn't happen with the uh

redistricting issue where it gets pushed back until a lot of the people involved

are deceased so um or transitioned out so um that's kind of where we are with some

other big issues we just want to make sure we're pushing forward even when it's painful thank you

thank you

Mr Popo you are unmuted and you have three minutes can you hear me now yes

David philpel again I hope I'm not deceased before this meeting ends so on my uh pending list in rough order I have

director hiring budget status of the commission secretary all those sets of minutes annual report and then the

redistricting task force initiative I'm not saying that it's not important it is but it's unfortunately left on the list

if the next regular election isn't as we heard until March of 24 the deadline to

introduced Charter amendments won't be until about September of uh 23

Etc I would I would respectfully suggest that you continue this matter to the call of the chair so that you can figure

out what your calendar looks like for January February March I frankly I think

no one is listening to this commission until you straighten out the director issue and that includes some members of

the public and the Board of Supervisors and I think you know your audience on

this one is just shrinking uh rapidly I think you've got credibility uh on this

uh on potential reforms on this issue but it really will take a charter Amendment and

um you know getting some of that trust back from the Board of Supervisors is going to take some time I don't I

wouldn't rush this I would get it right and those are my thoughts I would continue this to the call of the chair

thanks for listening thank you we have no more public commenters okay

we're completing public Con in this item Okay so so there is no motion

um is that correct yeah okay so um I'll just

you know turn it over to whatever wants to say anything next or is there nothing more done

I'll just say one more time I really appreciate the work that went into this and I I look forward to discussing it at

the next meeting okay is there anything else okay let's move on to agenda item number

9. Commissioners’ Reports

nine commissioner's reports discussion of possible action Commissioners reports and topics not

covered by another item on this agenda meetings with public officials over Saint observation activities language

planning for commission activities and areas of study proposed legislation which affects election and there's a new

item on here update on commission secretary hiring process the three attachments the commissioned

bylaws three articles specifically as well as the sunshine ordinance section 67.16

were items that commissioner Hayden Crowley wanted me to include in the packet and then that there's a memo that

I attached as well so who would like to begin on this item I I think commissioner vice president

Stone can give the update yeah sure um so the gist of it is that I've been

working with DHR on trying to fill Martha's position it's taken a bit of

maneuvering simply by the because of the nature of um Martha's leave there were a couple of

points of confusion around whether we would need a separate bad budget

rather than having two people assigned to the same budget but we were we did

receive about a week ago I think it was a week ago my mind is fuzzy right now but about a

week ago confirmation that we do not need um to go through another budgeting

process we simply just need to get approval from the mayor's office and then it will have to um go back to the

department which will be very easy but given the attention around the

elections commission um there I did have expressed some concerns about any delay in the position

getting approval from the mayor's office but have um been encouraged that there is a

chance that that won't be an issue and that it has been expedited we do have an interested candidate thanks to

commissioner Dai for um seeking that out it's really wonderful and I have been in

contact with that person what is great is that the position um once we found out that we didn't need

to secure a separate funding that person um sorry that role is exempt and

therefore it won't require as much as of a robust recruiting process

um and we can reach out to specific candidates they also have a list of uh

candidates that are kind of there should we decide to move forward with them so

my hope is that by the next meeting we have this sorted and I just want to say

thank you to again commissioner dye and the folks internally who have helped

move this along but um I think that's it any questions on

that thank you for doing that I think it's extremely important this is commissioner

uh Higgin Crowley speaking um I had attached a requested to attach

the commission bylaws with articles four five and eight in the sunshine ordinance

which 67.16 which requires that we provide minutes within 10 days of the

meeting as well as a reference to the responsibilities for the commission secretary not having the commission

secretary really puts out us at a huge disadvantage and makes you more tired

tonight because you're doing the public comment and our our president Chris

jordanick has done an incredible job putting the minutes together but it's not appropriate and one per and they

commit the the president or and vice president shouldn't be doing jobs that belong to somebody else that's also a

civil service position that needs to be protected and if this went on much longer you might hear from the requisite

Union that's involved if you're doing another person's job something that's out there that happens all the time so I

do think it's something that we need to address hopefully the mayor's office will work quickly on this perhaps

director Arts can help on that as well because that would be part of his responsibility to help us

and I will say the DCA DCA Flores and Russi also have

expressed a willingness to help move this along as well great thank you for your work of course

okay thank you vice president stone for your work on that are there any other um comments on this item

okay I I did want to just talk about a couple things um

first I I was contacted actually all of us

from what I can tell were contacted by a reporter who was asking about

our progress on racial equity and they referenced a document that was

posted on the department's website under the Department's racial Equity

section and this is a document that was posted back in April

basically providing an update on some goals that the commission had committed

to back in December 2020.

so the commission had committed to some goals in December 2020 and then this document that was pushed

on the department's website in April of this year was basically to provide was

supposed to provide an update on on not just the Department's racial equity

goals but also the commissions but if you looked under the the commission category in that document it basically

looks like we haven't started any of these racial Equity goals that we had committed to And the reporter was

concerned because it looks like we haven't made any progress um

but I explained to the reporter that we have made a lot of progress it's just not reflected in the document because

the information the document was just a copy of the original thing that was

submitted in December you know of 2020 so

um I think it would be worth us as a commission to um basically review that

document to um you know properly update it so that it reflects the progress we've made but

also secondly so that for all of us we can be reminded of and for people that

are new what what did we commit to back in December 2020 because to be honest

I'm not sure if I ever actually saw the document that um the final document that we had committed

to because we had delegated it and I don't know if we were actually given the result of that process you know with the

time the the timing of those goals

so that's one item and then um secondly I I touched a memo about an

ordinance that I learned about that was before the board in October and November it's on what's called a surveillance

technology policy and direct currents is that um

legislation that you are aware of yes this is a continuation of the

ordinance the board passed in 2019 and so this uh the ordinance that amended

the admin code which required Coy the committee on information technology to create policies and guidelines for

surveillance technology and so the um the the nest cams that we use for live

streaming our operations fell under surveillance technology so what the board did their

last October wonderful was is they formalized coits guidelines and

requirements for some departments so this wasn't something new something was a continuation of from 2019. okay thanks

for clarifying yes so just real quickly um you know it's part of the the things

that we were requesting of the of you during your reports I think it would be helpful for us to to um

you know learn about legislation like that you know anything that might involve the department

just so that um if we hear that it's before the board that would give us a chance to like look

at it and potentially provide the board with feedback on something that they're adopting so um

you know I don't know if that makes sense just kind of clarifying that what I what I think we would like to see

is is any pending legislation that's

going before the board that relates to the Department of Elections

you know so that we can at least know that it's happening

um you know and you could just like as a bullet just you know say this thing

is before the board does that make sense okay great great

um so anything else before we yeah just really quickly

um just as a matter of disclosure as you know the commission anointed me and

Chris as the media spokespersons and I've mostly kept the commission up to

date in our attempts to communicate with media which um clearly was uh not not as

successful as I had hoped on helping to separate uh the position from from from

the director um but uh uh just so the public notes

that um the the last interview that I did was a radio program and it is available on

the website of the NPR station kalw state of the bay uh

and the other meeting I'd like to disclose is that I was in fact invited

to meet with a supervisor peskin and he asked a lot of questions was

interested in the background and how we came to our decision made the offer about supporting us for

for the future the other thing that I thought I'd share with everyone is he made a comment that

the Board of Supervisors uh doesn't know us like other

commissions because in his words we haven't had as many forced interactions and so

to the point that uh vice president Stone uh made in her motion about

building a longer-term relationship that we have to be much more proactive about it because

there are no requirements for them to come before us nor for us to come before them and so

um I think if there's any lesson in in all of that it is that realization that

because they didn't know us this got played out in the media instead of in conversations so hopefully we can fix

that in the future okay thank you commissioner diet yeah

and just to just to piggyback on that you know even the ordinance I just mentioned that the board was

deliberating over this ordinance that affects election you know for three rules committee meetings and I think two

board meetings and you know they didn't come to us either so it's it's kind of

it's good to have these Bridges where we're proactively telling each other of things that are before us that might

impact the other so that's a point um well taken

okay um let's open it up to public comment on this item

Brent Turner speaking on behalf of the public um I would take exception with one thing that commissioner die said uh

that the media relations have not been successful I think drawing all this attention from internationally is

a sign of success I I hasn't bothered me

um when you have Tucker Carlson vilifying the the commissioned president

I think that's a good day um unless I'm mistaken so uh when we

talk about these Equity issues and all of a sudden I I don't even know I mean I

graduated law school here in the city I'm born and raised here and I I don't

understand really a lot of this because I thought we were a progressive Democrat

the Democratic County in the area the Bay Area so that's where I grew up I don't know how

this happened but now we have Tucker Carlson and and the guy from Mission local taking the good work of the

commission and spinning it into something that causes this all the people that work at the

Department of Elections to be paraded here and say and starts speaking in

defense of John I I think they're all missing the issue we know John is just as much as the rest

of us that saw maybe what happened in 2016. we're all sort of victims here of a

world gone mad the process has overwhelmed us and the technology has gotten away from us you're hopefully

going to lead on this issue and not let all this gaslighting move you and

meeting with Aaron peskin that's okay but you know peskin is a political

animal this is a technology issue that we're talking about here so I want to

make clear there's no vilification of John necessary when we talk about the

Medgar Evers family paying attention to this and the Southern Poverty Law Center this is all Equity the reason why we

want open source is because that allows people of color and women to move

forward under proper vote counting processes we're not sure that the corporations that are controlling the

voting systems they may have political agendas let's just say that they might or the fact if

it's not coming from them it might come from somewhere else so this is very adult conversation stuff and when we

talked about it it doesn't mean that we're denigrating the current elections workers we're just saying like the like

the little Hoover Commission said let's make a good system better and be adults about this I think we're getting off

track in a lot of ways and Joe Ashkenazi and Mission local and Tucker Carlson and

even the people that joined their position they shouldn't be allowed to control this conversation thank you

thank you no more public commenters in the room

we will move to um I believe it's Mr pilpel user34 you

are unmuted uh you have three minutes

can you hear me now yeah okay David pillpal it's getting late and I'm getting a

little testy I may be sitting here but I'm I'm sitting here stewing uh

partially in response to the previous comment and partially on my own here again I disagree in part I don't believe

we're all victims here I think some people are being more aggressive or passive aggressive uh here and trying to

uh find Opportunities or create opportunities I think I would urge the

commission to be careful about the non-interference provisions in the

charter um specifically language in Charter section

4.102 at the bottom the commission can certainly ask for

reports regular reports through its powers of inquiry and ask the director

to report on all kinds of things whether it's in the monthly directors report special reports you can have special

meetings you can do all kinds of things but in Practical terms the director any

department head but the the director has specific responsibilities to run the

department the day-to-day work of the department and has responsibilities as the department head and that includes

with regard to budget surveillance ordinance Kuwait purchasing all kinds of

specifics to actually get the day-to-day business done it is not just about care

and feeding of this commission and I would encourage you to be very careful about how much work you're piling on for

yourselves for others and again the reputation of this commission and of the

six of you is very much continues to be at issue sorry I'm getting upset about

this but thanks for listening thank you

um Mr Patel I have unmuted you you have three minutes

it seems like the pr the first commenters kind of misguided it seems

like the commission hasn't been talking about open source voting being the reason for John Arts

um that is fine um we're all learning together um and then comment two this is for

commissioner Stone um I think you're doing a great job by going to DHR for guidance for the

secretary role um I do suggest you

um look into uh taking this opportunity to model uh

Equitable hiring process it does worry me that there was a

mention of a candidate already recommended by commissioner die um this is not a good process if we have

not posted the job already and we haven't evaluated all candidates equally

so I do caution you um to please treat everyone who applies for this position equally and model the

good work that we do here in San Francisco

[Music] Goldberg I have unmuted you you have

three minutes

um hi my name is Jonathan Goldberg I'm I just wanted to uh reference the

um surveillance Tech ordinance that was brought up uh in Mr jordanick's memo um

during that exchange uh the the question that was initiated was

there was no legislation related to open source voting or Internet voting

but was there any elections related legislation and the director responded

no not that I'm aware of um the if you look at the surveillance

uh Tech legislation that was introduced uh at the board it is really sort of a

reporting mechanism for the Department uh to demonstrate how its uh surveillance Tech is being used and uh

it's not changing any policy per se um I didn't think that

director was misleading or um insinuating that uh that he knew of any

elections related uh legislation pending at the board um such an administrative

uh effort isn't necessarily something that that advances policy and

um I I don't think it's a significant uh bone to pick with it

with the director thank you thank you

Mr oganizian I have unmuted you you have three minutes

hello again um yeah I just want to say that I'm not for against open source personally I

just think that um using that and sort of uh you know

what was discussed uh two weeks ago and and in a meeting really uh bothered me

to record because again uh I'm sorry you have to stay on the agenda item of the

commissioner's reports and open source voting was not one of them okay I just uh you know uh the first uh commentator

as well as a you know continuation of talking about something that is not in

the agenda is uh being discussed by others and so that you know bothers my

ears because again if that's not the commissioner's consideration or part of

a report while we're talking why why are we talking about it and continue to talk about it even this late night this has

nothing to do with uh anything at this point and as I mentioned in my earlier

comment on action number five uh Dominion uh Services were we only RFP

submit it and so uh I don't understand why we're keeping we keep talking about

the same thing over and over again thank you

no more public commenters I would like to clarify um from Mr Patel's comment I know I

can't speak directly to him but I'd like to clarify for the public and the commission the job has not yet been

posted because we're still waiting for the approval of it to be posted and it won't be posted publicly due to the

specific type of role rest assured I am running this I am only following the

process that HR is um explicitly directing me to do and I

also will be working with um the dcas but everyone will be reviewed equitably

the dhrs the um uh basically said we didn't need to go through the open

recruiting process where we have to post it publicly but rather we can post it privately however if there are folks

that you specifically would recommend definitely don't hesitate to reach out

to the commission thank you

okay commissioner Hayden Crowley did we decide that we're going to do two

meetings in January no we were going to discuss that under agenda number 10.

yeah I I actually

kind of agreed with the public commenter about the the um the search for the commission

secretary I mean I think there's a good point that you know we've made the point earlier

that there are two positions that we have control over and um

I mean why wouldn't we want to do an open search for the secretary I think it it can be posted for just a couple weeks

it's not that it's not an open search it's that there is a select pool of candidates that they can reach out to

um that we can absolutely ask them to to participate in but we aren't there yet

because we haven't gotten the approval yet also there may be civil service rules around that where there's a right

of first refusal because there may be people that have not that are not in a position that are waiting for this type

of position to open up so they have to offer it to them by Civil Service rules they have to and those are people that

are within the city okay so and then the second thing is is that you can also ask them

um if if you if you're looking at maybe doing if in fact that you want to go to some open process which I'm not sure you

even can if there's some sort of I didn't hear you if you want to go to some big open process which I'm not sure

you can if there's a civil service rule in effect but the other thing you can ask because the need is immediate here

for an interim secretary I I have definitely asked for that I didn't ask for it ahead of today trust okay thank

you I just wanted to put that out there just as a way of continuing to meet sort of the goal of potentially posting this

but I would say so when somebody leaves a position um in the city for whatever reason they

have the right of first refusal often um based on their classification for

when that next position opens up so they the city probably has a list of people

that's exactly that they have to buy Civil Service rules

offer it to First yeah so they will be using that pool and also the person that

commissioner died the commissioner die referred so it is

open it just it sounds like it's not open because it's not like on some um list serve yes right but you you have

to you are obligated to follow Civil Service rules yeah I mean in the past

we've always the position has always been posted on a public website but um if you would like to take over that well

I I just doing exactly what they told me to do okay I just

I mean if we have a choice it would be nice if we can have it be um posted publicly for a broader

broader Outreach okay um are there any other comments on this

item before we move on okay let's move on to our agenda item

10. Agenda items for future meetings

number 10 agenda items for future meetings discussion possible action regarding items for future agendas

uh I just the discussion of the possibility of having a second meeting in January because there are so many

items to discuss and we would like to do so with prioritizing certain items for each meeting and with the goal of

perhaps getting out by nine this is

if we have two special if we have two meetings in January one being our regular one being a special and the

special comes at the late January couldn't that be one of the budget yeah until the end of January okay

the one of the two February meetings can be a committee meeting though right yes

yeah yeah but we could do the we could do Bow Peck in G in February to review the

budget as the first step and then regular

I I leave it to you uh president jordanick to figure it out well I'm happy to schedule a meeting in early

January I mean I'm happy to do that I do and just to um interject um again my

apologies um you also do not um I just checked in with John earlier

but you also do not need to do the um evaluation in January

you could do that in February since we're already late anyways

you know I understand so we could also do a separate meeting just

for redistricting I don't think it'll take that it won't take that long we're just looking for

some feedback so if if we don't take any

without in the absence of any feedback we're just going to have one meeting in January but if people want to have a

second meeting this is the time to I don't I really don't want a second meeting but and I'll give you feedback

yeah I'm happy to also give written feedback so let me ask you but if we do that now we have to comply with whatever

public um if we provide feedback it needs to be posted yeah okay oh for sure yeah all

right now happy I'm happy to provide written feedback before the next meeting as well so I can review the document that

um Commissioner of olesee and commissioner die put together so if if in the process of putting the agenda

together for January if it seems like it's going to be a long meeting then is that I'm hearing that you would want to have a second meeting your preference is

to have two shorter meanings than one meaning that goes past okay

can I just have a show of hands like are people available the two Wednesdays

before actually it's January 4th yeah I mean are people available on that

day January 4th yeah that's the um

what about January 11th no

I am I'm available did you say I would say that we have the

regular meeting and if it if we need to run over then let's go to the following week instead

of schedule in one week though it's very hard to schedule

like with the room reservations we'll schedule it now then we can always cancel

so you're looking at the 25th yeah so the 18th and then the 25th again

and hopefully we get our business done and we can cancel it yeah so I could do that I could schedule the meeting in

advance and then we could just hold it um are people available on January 25th

Wednesday at 6 p.m yes commissioner bernholtz thumbs up yes I am I think that's a good plan and

that way we can cut off at 9 00 pm and then if if we need to go beyond 9 pm we

move to the next week incentives for that I am not my best self at 11 PM

yeah well great um so are there any other things people

like to see on this item thank you all for collaborating on it I

know um it is tiring and I appreciate it

okay let's open it up to public comment on a generator number 10.

thank you uh Brent Turner if we uh are talking about future ideas uh I I think

one that would be really helpful um I I think we're failing to recognize

um expertise on some of these issues and no offense to this commission or to the

Board of Supervisors but with the exception of maybe Mr jordanick and I don't know who

else the president jordanick um I would say amongst the Board of Supervisors certainly no one has any

expertise on some of these issues so if we could bring maybe some people forward

and I could be helpful from the open source initiative maybe from the Department of Defense certainly maybe a

presentation from the people that voting works so they could we could get crystal clear on some of these issues because

obviously me saying it as a layperson communication fellow doesn't you know

hold the gravity that it should and I could just continue to repeat the same things but if we bring in maybe somebody

from the Department of Defense that's an expert on open source technology bring

in somebody and again open source initiative is a good group and and then I think uh rather than you know throwing

marbles under the feet or shooting the messenger of the voting Works people that are just trying to do good work and

share it with the county maybe we could bring them here to explain and then we could all be on the same page because

this thing of going back and forth and talking about the benefits or the detriments you know it's a lot of

misdirection a lot of disinformation so that would be my suggestion in the future is bringing the true experts

forward and not have this um competition of like who really knows what they're talking about because

um you know there's just a few people in this conversation that actually know what they're talking about and and when

it comes to the technology and the National Security issues thank you

thank you um Mr pilpel you are unmuted and you have

three minutes

yep great David pilpel last time tonight

in terms of canceling meetings or meeting schedules there although there's indication on the

commission's website that the regular meeting on December 21st is not

happening there isn't a PDF of a cancellation notice and in the absence of a commission secretary I would

encourage president jordanick to create a cancellation notice as a PDF to post

on the website to post outside room 48 and to send to the public library there

is a specific requirement in the sunshine ordinance that when a meeting is canceled or rescheduled that there be

prior notice if that's known in time to

give such notice I've said everything else I need to say tonight I'm exhausted

and until next year thank you all very much thank you Mr Popo

no more public comments the sunshine

um so just on the setting I would like to have given that we were allowing ourselves to have two meetings next

month I would like us to have the racial Equity discussion in January around the

um the goals that were set back in December 2020 I think it's important just because um

there have been two meetings so far where we haven't had racial equity on the agenda and it was something that we

were hoping to have be a standing item and also given that this is something that

um you know the the public was asking about I think it's worth us at least having a chance to see that and comment

on together so um

not seeing any other comments the time is now 11 01 pm

the meeting is adjourned have a wonderful night everyone