about interest in the long-term condition placed on our competitive or not competitive bidding process or is it on stipulating conditions on those exact contract before us now? >> i think that two things answer to that. we are looking at a comparison. we're not prejudging any kind of policy issue or anything like. that we're simply looking at a comparison of how this election process occurs in other jurisdictions as compared to others. and then there will be a section on barging and then there will be a history of how san francisco developed its process and out of that there will be some recommendations, i believe, from the consultant, we're requesting that, as to are there areas that you might want to consider as policymakers for further analysis or for discussion on a particular condition with the current contract or maybe looking at a longer term issue.

i want to be hesitant about the longer term because i know it deals with charter issues and things like that. and we're not looking deeply into the legality or any of those kinds of issues with the charter provision other than reviewing it, what it does and what its history has been in the development of your process for selection of a provider. and services that you've received. i hope that answers your question. vice chairperson mirkarimi: yeah, just in part. the timing of this, though, if the study is out by the 14th, when would we come back to review it? >> well, we have our lafco hearing, i believe, is set for april 25. if we don't have an sfpc joint hearing, the idea would be that i wanted that available for public review a sufficient time prior to our hearing. but it's available publicly at

that time so we can set our hearing depending on what hearing we want to have any time after that date. i was thinking in our next regularly scheduled meeting. vice chairperson mirkarimi: so it sounds like there has to be some kind of negotiation between us, lafco and the budget committee. two months from the time that this was postponed puts us up into early to mid april. from budget committee. and i know that budget committee would love to entertain this before we get into the significant depth of our budget process which are hits the ground in april -- may. i think we want to avoid that process. >> so the chair and committee members are aware, i started to have a discussion with superviser chu's office about doing a joint meeting with us and then on this very subject, we probably do it during one of the regular budget committee time slots that they already have, since we know their members are available and we know you are on that committee. so we're looking at doing a

joint meeting so we can have a discussion about this item and move that process forward in a time-sensitive way. vice chairperson mirkarimi: would it be a special meeting? >> it would be a special meeting for us. it would be one of their regularly scheduled meetings. it would be done jointly. vice chairperson mirkarimi: but it sounds like it would have to be pre or post the meeting. but pre or post? >> depends on what the budget committee schedule looks like as far as being able to schedule it. vice chairperson mirkarimi: that's the trick i'm trying to emphasize here. that you don't want to front load so many meetings that put the budget into may. you want to avoid that as much as possible. >> we're talking with the budget committee about some time in april that it would happen. i just don't know which april meeting it would be before the report is done. and perhaps as maybe of the budget committee you could help us determine which one that would be. >> we're very mindful of the timing issue which is why we tried to move expeditiously and

we will continue to work with the budget committee to make sure that it happens as soon as possible and in way that is actually helpful to their deliberations. >> and it may be, i don't want to put the consultant on too much paranoia here, but we may actually that have that report done a few days earlier, so we may -- what we can do is offline, we can work with scheduling the hearing. chairperson campos: colleagues, unless you have any questions, why don't we open it up to public comment. any member of the public who would like to speak on this item? you have an opportunity to come forward. seeing none, public comment is closed. this is not an action item, it's simply an informational item or do we need to ratify the contract so -- with we have a motion to ratify the

contract? motion by commissioner pimentel. we take that wex. madam clerk, can you please call item number six. >> item number six, consideration and approve of s.f. lafco budget for fiscal year 2011-2012. >> before you have a budget that is presented that gives us our statutory amount that we're allowed to ask the city and county for. as a reminder, according to state statute, the amount that we requested last year, they have to give us again or the amount that they gave us last year has to be given to us again this year unless we state otherwise. it is staff's recommendation that we move forward with requesting the same amount again so we have that availability in the future, but given the city and county's current budget situation, and

our reserve accounts that we have available to us, we actually can go another year without accepting the actual money itself, but this reserves the amount available so future years we have that available to us. chairperson campos: commissioner pimentel. commissioner pimentel: ok. so say lafco wanted the reserves money. what would be the time frame for them giving it back? have we ever crossed a situation where they could say that we used the money for something else and then not be able to give it back to lafco? >> every budget cycle, the way the city and county works, every budget psych that will they allocate, they're going through the cycle right now just starting it. they will go through that budget cycle and then starting the fiscal year which is july 1, the same fiscal year as us, so they would go through the process, they have to according to state statute, allocate the money to us. what will happen and what has

happened in the past, i think it's three or maybe four years now, with the city and county being in the budget situation, we have told them, thank you, on july 1 we basically say, thank you for the money. we're not going to need the actual dollars this year, we reserve the right for that money but in the future we want to come back and we will potentially reserve that right in the future. so technically july 1 they hand us the money and we give it right back to them and they understand that will be coming so they budget it accordingly. commissioner pimentel: but once we give it up, we give it up. we don't get it back. for that year. ok. chairperson campos: as i understand the process, this is the first of two hearings which has to be approved by may 1 >> sn >> yes. the first budget, the draft budget which you approve today has to be done by may 1. the final budget has to be done by june 15. we're getting ahead of the game but wanted to help doo that because it also helps with the city and county's budget if they know that they can count

on us giving the money back, that helps them out. chairperson campos: and right now this is a hearing, there's no action to be taken today. >> you need to approve a draft budget which you can do today because there's action on the item. chairperson campos: ok. colleagues, any other questions for staff? why don't we open it up to public comment is there any member of the public who would like to speak on item number six? seeing none, public comment is closed. colleagues, any questions or if we can have a motion to approve the draft budget. motion by commissioner pim entell. seconded by commissioner mirkarimi. can you please call item number seven? >> item number seven. presentation of awards for the clean power s. -- cleanpowersf photo contest. >> this year, as you know, have mentioned in the past, we did a

photo contest to try and help promote the clean power essence program. we worked -- it was le led by lafco staff but p.u.c. did give assistance and a hand where needed. we ended up getting 28 entries into the contest. we narrowed that down to five and then the general public had a choice in who they wanted to see the winner. just as they will have a chance in who their electrical provider is. so today we were able to get our grand prize winner, it's a student, but today is an inservice day so she has the day off and was able to join us. we'd like to call emily up to join us -- us. she was the person in the picture and the submitter of the photo and then her brother was the person who took the photo. he also submitted one but his wasn't put into the finals. so on behalf of our -- of the lafco program we wanted to present her -- chairperson campos: could we see the picture? >> do i have the picture available. give me one second.

chairperson campos: it's very excite . -- exciting. >> this is the photo. it is in golden gate park. it is the water pumping station that's in golden gate park. it's a wind mill structure. it's a beautiful photo. we had some great photoses. we have been talking with some folks about potentially trying to get art in the stormfront program and maybe getting some clean power photos put into those places that will promote the program as well. on behalf of cleanpowersf we want to present a very -- we had a great prize pack. the biggest part, i think, is the $100 gift certificate to

prints which donated this to us for the top vote, you can print up any photos you want and they have great photo services. so present that to you. as well as two tickets to the san francisco zoo, two tickets to the explorer toum and two tickets to the museum of modern art. and then jodi, which are these little things where you can put your camera and they bend in various ways so you can get odd shots taken with them. also donated this. but all the finalists get one of these as well. we had a great prize pack available to all of our folks. so i wanted to get that and our intern will get a photo. if you want to come up, we can get a photo with our grand prize winner and the photographer of the picture.

>> and one other quick things. one of the things was to help bring awareness also to our facebook presence. we've had about a 10% jump in number of fans that liked our facebook page. during the course of this contest. so i think from that perspective it was also very successful. one final thing, we found one of our new interns in the photo contest as well.

she submitted photos and was so excited. she's been doing great work for us as well. i want to thank everyone who participated. we also gave everyone that entered, the s.f. environment gave us great tote bags. everyone got one of those. want to thank everyone for that. chairperson campos: thank you. commissioner pimentel: you can put the winning photo on the website? on the facebook page? >> the winning photo has not been put up on the cleanpowersf website itself. li talk to the p.u.c. about making sure that happens. but it is up on the facebook page, it's been posted there for some time. chairperson campos: i think we should publicize it. it's amazing to see the level of talent at such a young age. you can only imagine what's going to happen just a very short period of time. so congratulations to the winner and to all the participants. and thank you, staff, for the good work on this matter. thank you, mr. freed. colleagues, why don't we open it up to public comment is

there any member of the public who would like to speak on this? seeing none, public comment is closed. why don't we motion to file this item. vice chairperson mirkarimi: yes. chairperson campos: file. without objection, madam clerk, -- clerk, you can call out item eight. >> item eight, executive office report. >> i have no report for this meeting. chairperson campos: thank you. is there any public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. madam clerk, you can call item had nine? >> item nine, public comment for items not on the agenda. chairperson campos: is there any member of the public who would like to speak on any item that's not on the agenda but within the jurisdiction of lafco? seeing none, public comment is closed. you can call item number 10 >> item number 10, future agenda items. chairperson campos: colleagues, any future agenda items? any member of the public who would like to speak on this

item? seeing none, public comment is closed. madam clerk, next item. >> item number 1 1, adjournment. chairperson campos: we are adjourned. thank you all for your time and enjoy your weekend. there are so many ways that the internet provides real access to real people and resources and that's what we're try to go accomplish. >> i was interested in technology like video production. it's interesting, you get to create your own work and it reflects what you feel about saying things so it gives

perspective on issues. >> we work really hard to develop very in depth content, but if they don't have a venue, they do not have a way to show us, then this work is only staying here inside and nobody knows the brilliance and the amazing work that the students are doing. >> the term has changed over time from a very basic who has a computer and who doesn't have a computer to now who has access to the internet, especially high speed internet, as well as the skills and the knowledge to use those tools effectively. . >> the city is charged with coming up with digital inclusion. the department of telecommunications put together a 15 member san francisco tech connect task force. we want the digital inclusion program to make sure we address the needs of underserved vulnerable communities, not communities that are already very tech savvy.

we are here to provide a, b and c to the seniors. a stands for access. b stands for basic skills and c stands for content. and unless we have all three, the monolingual chinese seniors are never going to be able to use the computer or the internet. >> a lot of the barrier is knowledge. people don't know that these computers are available to them, plus they don't know what is useful. >> there are so many businesses in the bay area that are constantly retiring their computer equipment that's perfectly good for home use. computers and internet access are helping everybody in the community and people who don't have it can come to us to help with that. one of the biggest problems we see isn't whether people can get computers through programs like ours, but whether they can understand why they need a computer. really the biggest issue we are facing today is helping people understand the value of having a computer. >> immediately they would say

can i afford a computer? i don't speak any english. how do i use it. then they will start to learn how to do email or how to go back to chinese newspaper to read all the chinese newspaper. >> a lot of the barrier still is around lack of knowledge or confusion or intimidation and not having people in their peer network who use computers in their lives. >> the important thing i learned from caminos was to improve myself personally. when i first came to caminos, i didn't know anything about computers. the second thing is i have become -- i have made some great achievements as an individual in my family and in things of the world. >> it's a real issue of self-empowerment where new immigrant families are able to communicate with their families at home, able to receive news and information in their own home language, really become more and more connected with

the world as well as connected even inside their local communities. >> if we value the diversity of our city and we value our diverse neighborhoods in the city, we need to ensure that they remain economically viable. equiping them and equiping residents in those areas with jobs that will enable them to stay in san francisco is critical to that. >> the important thing that i see here at caminos is it helps the low income community, it helps the women who wouldn't have this opportunity otherwise. >> the workers with more education in san francisco are more likely to be able to working that knowledge sector. where they are going to need that familiarity with the internet, they are going to find value with it and use it and be productive with it every day. and half of the city's population that's in the other boat is disconnected from all that potential prosperity. >> we really need to promote content and provide applications that are really relevant to people's lives here.

so a lot of the inspiration, especially among the immigrant community, we see is communications with people from their home country but we as much want to use the internet as a tool for people to connect within the local san francisco community. >> i think it's our job as public educators to give them this access and give them this opportunity to see that their efforts are being appreciated beyond their immediate reach. >> you have to blend this idea of community network with computer equipment with training and with support. we can pull all that together, then we've got it. >> it's as much about social and economic justice -- in fact it's more about social and economic justice than just>> he. 9 judge terri l. jackson. the court is now recruiting prospective civil grand jurors. our goal is to develop a pool of candidates that is inclusive of

all segments of our city's population. >> the jury conducts investigations and publishes findings and recommendations. these reports them become a key part of the civic dialog on how we can make san francisco a better place to live and work. >> i want to encourage anyone that is on the fence, is considering participating as a grand jury member, to do so. >> so if you are interested in our local city government and would like to work with 18 other enthusiastic citizens committed to improving its operations, i encourage you to consider applying for service on the civil grand jury. >> for more information, visit the civil grand jury website at sfgov.org/courts or call

>> welcome to "culturewire." since december 2005, the museum

of the african diaspora, known locally,moad, has presented programs that celebrate and explore the culture, history, and art of people with african descent throughout the and added states and throughout the world. the director of cultural affairs recently met with the museum director. to learn more about the current expedition, textural rhythms, constructing the jazz tradition, contemporary african american quilts. >> welcome to "culturewire." today, we are at the museum of the african diaspora, which is celebrating its fifth anniversary occupying one of the premier cultural district in the world, the yerba buena cultural arts center in san francisco.

joining me is the cultural art director. tell us what moad's mission is. what does it do? >> the museum of the african diaspora showcases the history, art, and cultural richness that resulted from the dispersal of africans throughout the world. we do that through compelling and innovative exhibitions, public programs, and education programs. our goal is to celebrate and present for appreciation to our broad and diverse public the controversial energy contributions of people of african descent to world culture in all aspects in all areas, including politics, culture, economics, education, just in all aspects of cultural forms of expression. >> one of the fascinating things since 2005 when the museum was established, is that it has become clear from science that all of humanity originates

in africa. how does that influence the education programs or presentation here at moad? >> obviously, being able to attenuate that, and there is a sign at the door that says, "when did you know that you were african?" our point is that we share a common dna, and it connects us on a number of different levels. this institution is an institution available to everyone, a resourced for everyone. >> you have both permanent and temporary exhibitions, right? >> we do. our temporary exhibition program is one that we are restructuring. i have been here now for about a year and a few months, and as a former curator, i'm very interested in this aspect of developing the visual arts program. part of what we are looking at is using the four core seems that define our program --

origins, migration and movement, transformation, an adaptation -- as a framework for our thinking about the kinds of exhibits we present. >> we want everybody to come and see the permanent exhibition. there might be a special opportunity to visit with the current show that you currently have, which is constructing the jazz tradition, which is a very striking exhibition of quilts. >> it is a compelling exhibit on a number of different levels. visually, it is compelling. in terms of the subject matter, in terms of the approach to materials, it is so rich and diverse. it is a colorful show, a show that is deep in content, and we know something of the history of the "'s tradition within the african-american community. it is a tradition that came from africa, has its roots in africa, but during slavery, this was a combination of things.

one was a way to be able to communicate with each other, a way to create beautiful objects, and a way to create functional, utilitarian objects for the family and community. the other part that makes it so interesting is the focus on jazz. there are two attritions being celebrated here. certainly, the tradition as we know it -- these are not traditional quilts. they have their roots in traditional aspects, but what you will find in this exhibition are works that include materials on the surface, new processes, copying, and putting photographic images on the surface. you will find packets sewn onto the surface, so the methodology from traditional " making has changed from how traditional quilt makers use the medium. >> our visitors can visit the web site, which we will be showing on the segment, so

follow the link to the website, and get all of the latest information about all these events related to this exhibition, and, of course, you guys are very active. throughout the year, with all kinds of special programs. >> yes, we are. this is what i'm so excited about. >> this may take us off track a little bit, but a couple of things i wanted to highlight is that the creation of moad is one of the flagship creations of the redevelopment of san francisco. it is housed inside -- what is the building? the regency, right? >> the st. regis museum tower. >> the st. regis museum tower, which is one of the development projects that was promoted by the redevelopment agency is what allows the city to -- and the development agency to give form and establish moad in the yerba

buena cultural district. now, we are looking at governor brown oppose a proposal, which means that in the future, it he is successful, they would not have had the rebel the agency to promote these economic and cultural projects. it is something that has relevance today in terms of public policy today, what is going to happen in the future if we do not have a redevelopment agency to promote this development. >> yes. moad is the result or culmination of a public/private partnership that included the redevelopment agency and former mayor brown, and included the developer of this area. we had an opportunity to develop, create important cultural compos