eastern neighborhoods in less than a decade. they should have been completed prior to the land use plan, because what those two to move forward in haste. what i am seeing is the task force is not representing the citizens in our community. a small amount of people are represented the nonprofits that will be on the receiving end of the community benefits. that is all that counts. getting enough crumbs to nonprofits and not involving the neighborhood to make sure the problems are anticipated beforehand and then resolved. when you have three folks at a meeting, that is a red flag. this board needs to be getting a handle on that. thank you. and nothing against the applicant, but we already have urban planners on these bodies. they basically agree on the context, so there is no real discussion on how the city planners may or may not be getting it right. supervisor kim: thank you. we have gotten several requests to have a hearing on attendance of the various commission

bodies and also some of the viability and relevance of all of our commissions as well. are there any comments on this item? may we have a motion? >> moving forward with recommendations. supervisor kim: thank you. we have a motion to move forward with recommendations to the full board without opposition. thank you very much. madam clerk, please call item number 5. >> charter amendment, amended charter to allow an amendment to or repeals of initiative ordinances and declarations of policy. supervisor kim: thank you. our colleague, supervisor wiener, is here to speak about this charter amendment. supervisor wiener: thank you, madam chair. i am submitting an amendment, and i have distributed it. i will hand it to the clerk.

this has been a really productive process and conversation, and people will recall that two weeks ago i agreed to remove a voter- initiated the initiatives. in other words, signature-drive initiatives, recognizing that that is, in many ways, the most pure form of democracy. voters to get in their own hands in place something on the ballot. it has already been removed from the charter amendment. we have had a lot of conversations about people being concerned about particular ballot measures, and there has been, of course, a suspicion about -- what are you trying to go after, even though i have consistently said that i do not have any agenda and in terms of which ballot measure to try to amend or repeal. but i am wanting to be sensitive

to those concerns and also put my money where my mouth is and when i said that it do not have any particular ballot measure that i am somehow targeting. so this amendment makes the charter amendment purely perspective. it will take effect january 1, 2012. so it will only apply to measures adopted by the voters that have been placed on the ballot by the mayor or the board and adopted by the voters on or after january 1, 2012. so that is my amendment, and i have been it -- i have given the world that any amendment to a charter amendment is an automatic continuance. i request that the committee continue the item until next thursday, june 23. supervisor kim: i have no issues with that, continuing to thursday, june 23. we have a special rules

committee next thursday at 9:30 to hear the redistricting task force and our pension reform bill. any opposition to continuing this item to that date? without opposition -- we will be doing that. move to adopt all the amendments. at this time, we will now open it up for public comment. please approached the microphone. two minutes, please. >> i am i psittacine and trying to understand this -- i am a citizen, and his return to understand this. since 1950, there have been 64 ordinances and declarations of policy. they are covered under this proposal. some of them are the section

prop g, and prop f. there is really a need to make it streamlined. there's no knowledge of what that means. i just want us to tread lightly. i know scott has been working on this and try to make it work with the people. i am not a politician or anything. i am just a person that is concerned about this. and i have to say that our rights existed before their work governments. the government did not have the power to grant us our rights. so please tread lightly on what we vote on and what is repealed. i mean, i feel that the people of san francisco are very intelligent, and they do not mind looking at propositions and things. no, government is messy, and it

is ok to be messy. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you. is there any public comment on this item? >> supervisor kim, supervisor elsbernd, supervisor farrell, supervisor wiener, my name is calvin. i am with san francisco information clearing house. i am still at a loss to figure out what public policy we are reforming here. the record is fairly clear. the supervisor's ordinance sites basically two reasons. one, regularly placed the initiatives before the voters through this process. two, this cumbersome system encourages more and more initiatives. the largest number of such initiatives were 31 years ago. the record does not indicate

that there has been an increase in initiative ordinances. in fact, in november of 2000 was the most recent time in which there were even more than a handful of such measures on the ballot. so i am really trying to figure out what public policy is being pursued. i am very thankful that supervisor wiener has made the two amendments that he just made, which have addressed a number of concerns. but i would like to ask him to make one more amendment, and that would be to -- 109 of these measures, 53%, have been placed on by the board and the mayor. why don't you just simply raise that level? why don't you just say that it will take six supervisors to put an initiative measure on the ballot, including those coming from the mayor? that will deal with 53% of the

initiative measures. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you. >> that afternoon. mark solomont -- mark solomon again. there was a political scientist the came up with a thesis in the 1960's as a is a public participation in the market sea increase called "the crisis of democracy." it was too much to murder see that the leads from being able to govern society and get things done. they wanted to keep the vietnam war going. we are seeing that being brought to bear here in san francisco. during barbara coughlan's administration, public speaking time was 3 minutes, and she was a conservative. we saw the city attorney referendum -- have the right of referendum. the bar was raised for recall. we saw another issue where we were seeing the bar be raised towards initiative as well. we are seeing elected officials

saying i want you in that voting booth once every four years of voting for me and then getting the hell out. we need to look at parity. are we seeing anything coming back at us for giving up our right to be heard? if this measure goes to the ballot, great. if the board thinks is that much of a problem, eight boats put the initiative in to advance. then it goes back to the voters. the sovereigns of democracy had the final say on this. we're finding out that no matter how wonderful your educational pedigree is, that is no indication of actually meeting the needs of the voters. i think supervisor wiener has run for office saying, hello, i really hate you and do not trust you and i will overturn your rulings, and if he said the, the outcomes might have been different. we need to get to the point where government is of, by, and for the people, and we realize that it is a good thing. it is the future. when we saw government corrupted and the turn of the previous century, that we have a referendum and recall. and i was talking about when

they raised the bar to put the measure on the ballot with four signatures about three years ago. that also is moving the bar away from the people and towards elected officials. i am not seeing any positive outcome to this. supervisor kim: thank you. is there any other public comment on this item? please approached the microphone. thank you. >> get afternoon. my name is rose, part of the jordan park apartment association. what this is really about is about checks and balances. instead of having my face on the video, i will put a little picture up. it is about checks and balances. i would really like people do understand that. i understand we have to try to get rid of some of these, what they call, cumbersome little things in government. but since we do not know exactly which ones and we will not be told, we also will not know the

actual true cost. the cost of some of these, what is considered savings in government, trying to fix the process and everything. so if we have this on the ballot for the voters to decide, we will not really know the true cost of the savings, because we d which ones are going to be effective. that is my concern. thank you very much. supervisor kim: thank you. is there any other public comment on this item? supervisor, welcome back. >> thank you very much. citizen at large. [laughter] i have gotten a little larger. about 5 pounds larger. [laughter] it is tough to get to the gym these days. supervisors, please reject this. do not send this out of this committee. do not reject the fundamental principle of our culture. the consent of the government.

i do not care whether it is prospective. i just heard it might be perspective. or whether it is retrospective. i do not care whether it is in speci -- inspective. this is an assault on our democratic process. if there's anything sacred in our culture, it is the will of the voters. when i was a supervisor, there was something i opposed the past. when it came time for implementation, i said even though i opposed it at the ballot, the voters voted for it, voted for the implementation. i said, that is what the voters voted for, so i will not reject it. much like today. i may have a disagreement with an item as a citizen, is a person who lives in san francisco. i think the will of the voters is sucker said. and to -- whether it is six, eight, three years, 99 years, it

contradicts the very heart of what it means to live in a democracy. i think what you do is take this and put it in the trash bin of ideas that should be set aside. i think it is an idea that does not belong in a city like san francisco. i do not care if 99 or 100 jurisdictions, 20 states, web -- whatever mistakes they are making about what is going on in terms of our position in this culture of america in the city of san francisco, they need to say when the voters to vote for, if you do not like it, what do you do? go back to the voters. supervisor kim: thank you very much. >> thank you very much. supervisor kim: supervisor wiener has a question. supervisor wiener: if i recall correctly, the ban on tic's that the voters rejected and then the board adopted that ban, overriding the mayor's veto.

do you recall? >> i do not recall passing that same ban. on my tombstone, it will say mctic forever. it is something that was a piece of legislation. it was a different piece of legislation. it had to do with reduced equities and kinds of ownership. it opened up the possibilities of certain kinds of ownership and that is a different piece of legislation. we can look at that with more detail. i will come to your office and we will dig up the legislation. supervisor wiener: i invite you to do that. they may not have been identical to an american election is that the voters explicitly rejected a ban -- my recollection is that the voters explicitly rejected a ban. >> are you saying that the board

was then empowered to take something that did not pass by the voters and then be able to do something or not do something? i think you are saying legislation, and i had the list of everything going back to 1968, legislation was actually adopted by the voters. you could call it miner or small or ancillary, whatever language you want to use. isn't that what you're talking about? >> -- supervisor wiener: i was just responding to your statement about the will of the voters. what i am trying to say is it is always a little more gray around that and less peer -- less pure than it might be portrayed. i look forward to talking to you about it more. >> thank you.

i will come to your office and we will look at the list. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you for being here. >> thank you for being here, too. supervisor kim: thank you. is there in the other public comment on this? ok, seeing none, public comment is now closed. we have a motion -- >> [inaudible] supervisor kim: second. without opposition. we will be continuing this item. supervisor winner, thank you for attending our rules meeting -- supervisor wiener, thank you for attending the meeting. we want to encourage members of the public more interested in this issue to please contact supervisor wiener and discuss it at his office before this comes to the committee next thursday on june 23. thank you.

before we entertain a motion to convene closed session, is there any member of the public who wish to speak on items six through eight? seeing none, public comment is now closed. colleagues, may we have a motion to convene into closed session? seconded, without opposition. we will be convening in closed session. we ask that you leave the committee room while we do so.

supervisor kim: thank you.

we're now back -- 0h, sorry. supervisor kim: -- >> we met in closed session. i understand the committee will move items 6, 7, and eight forward with recommendations. supervisor kim: thank you. without opposition. question disclosed. madam clerk, is there anything else on the agenda? >> no, madam chair. supervisor kim: if there is nothing further, this meeting is now adjourned.