shelters, they say they would like smoke-free housing. >> thank you very much. thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i speak in support of supervisor campos' resolution on taxi credit card fees and urge you to vote for it. the san francisco labor council has adopted a similar resolution. they did basically the same thing. these fees are unfair to thousands of low-income workers, the city's cab drivers.

there is a disincentive for drivers to take credit. that creates inconveniences' for the public. it creates safety hazard for drivers. it is a bad thing all around. it also does not make any sense. fees of 5%, far higher than other merchants pay. the mta, why they're doing this, one excuse is that it is being done in other cities. cabdrivers are powerless everywhere. you may have heard this from a cab company owner that drivers actually make more money if there is a back seat terminal in

their cab with a tip prompt. the person that is saying that is a paid consultant for one of the providers of the equipment and the services. it is baseless. thank you. >> hi. my name is john. i am a san francisco taxi driver. i still like the people over there. i am a san francisco taxi driver. i just wanted to echo what he said. i know the resolution for the credit-card fees. i hope you will support that. to make taxi drivers rent their cabs from a cab company is like making a kid pay the property tax. i hope that you will support the

resolution. i would like to address the issue of taxi availability. there is the concern, why is it so hard to get a taxi cab in san francisco? one is that there may be a shortage of cabs during certain times of the day and evening and certain times of the week. that is the key. it is at certain times. that is why we would talk about the issuing of more taxicabs. you have to think about cabs that are flexible enough to operate part-time. i know you are not familiar with my proposal for the mta board of directors, but making it really short and would allow taxicab drivers to own their own cars. it would give taxicab drivers more flexibility to service the time that they choose.

consumers would know the times they would be. they know the business and they know where it is at. the other thing is that cab companies are against centralized dispatching and technological advancements that would allow people to flag cabs from their smart phones or home computers. they are highly specific car rental services. they are not there to serve the public. >> my name is david. i am a san francisco taxicab driver. thank you so much for putting up the resolution for allowing the cab company is charging 5% on the drivers, which is totally

unfair. by regulation, drivers have to take credit cards. why do the drivers have to pay for their cars? if i do anything on my own, i have to pay for it. i have to obey the law. it would cost them extra money. please consider that. i am so glad that the supervisor came up with the resolution. the supervisors came up with this at the last meeting. we need more taxis. instead of adding more taxis, we can use the resources that we have to eat fish and play instead of scattering around and making it a better fleet and a better service for everybody.

there will be a lot of ideas that could come up. thank you so much. >> members of the board of supervisors, i am from san francisco open government. i am talking to the board and i am talking to the public who is watching the proceedings on sfgtv. instead of focusing strictly on the podium, i think it should be viewed to show how does respectfully the majority of the board tree public comment. some walked out before public comment is over. some are so in tune to that they are not paying any attention to the public. this is supposed to be a country where everybody has equal

protection under the law. other people have unequal access to you. they have it -- they can get 10 or 15 minutes of your time. for the people in this city that are not that powerful or rich and they want two minutes and you watch people get out of their chairs and they go out to take a leak, showing the disregard, disrespect, disinterest, whenever you want to call it for what the citizens have to say to you. you are denying people access to their representative in city government. i made two calls to my supervisor. in each attempt i said, could i get five minutes stocks could i get five minutes to talk about something? you get an aide that says no. they do not care what you want to talk about.

the answer is no. between now and november, every citizen out there in sfgtv land should come out and observe public comment and see the respect it would give to you if you were here. >> good afternoon. i am peter, director of a users association. the library two weeks ago became the first and so far only department that was found by the ethics commission to have violated the sunshine law based on a referral from the sunshine ordinance task force. in this case, the sunshine ordinance task force has found that the commission president violated a member of the public's rights by making a comment by telling her to shut up and sit down at a library

commission meeting two weeks ago. the ethics commission decided that because of jurisdictional questions, they needed to send a letter to the mayor, essentially recommending that the library president be sacked. this was an important step. the library commission president presided over the last meeting. for two years, the library commission has never once uttered a word about this matter. they have never discussed what the sunshine ordinance decision was. last thursday, nothing was on the agenda again and nothing was said about that violation. i think that is pretty shocking. continuing with the library commission and the library's

apparent disinterest in how they're treated and how the library may have made administrative proposal to change all of its materials to the same length of time for borrowing the same number of renewals, basically, everything is the same, which is not. >> mr. president, supervisors, i am pretty upset about what is happening. washington is a budget train wreck. you know it is going to go badly. i am upset that president obama's own fault goes completely on known. the voters did the only thing that they could do to relieve stress in voting republicans to congress. they said in a contest between

political ideation and reality, reality always wins. i see that we are making the same mistake in the homelessness policy and we have for some time. gavin newsom's positive contribution will remain completely overshadowed by unable to being able to get sustainable services. we cannot supply a hotel room to every indigent that wants one. we have not been able to meet that standard ever. as we work through this in a methodical way, what will probably come out is something that looks suspiciously like the premier -- before san francisco model. >> next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors.

i represent the san francisco taxi drivers. in the last three months, we have had three protests in front of the city house. there were two hours of honking around the city house. police were called in. there are 7000 drivers, at 3511 san francisco. 3500 drivers in san francisco with their families. they are well organized this time. historically, this is the first time they will vote in favor of the people. i am doing all of the work together with these drivers.

the drivers of the taxis have the cab company president and then when she came back. $1.5 million that the cab companies are paid for credit card fees. that was taken off. now the drivers are paying $4 million to the cab companies. our credit card fees were built in. a gift from her to the cab company for $4 million. a gift from my friend who is also like a paid consultant for the company. to benefit that question, she is putting in a second credit card machine.

please stop this situation. >> are there any more -- other members of the public who wish to speak? general public comment is now closed. colleagues, why do we not now go to our adoption without committee reference calendar? >> items 46-54 are being considered for unanimous adoption without committee reference. if a member -- once discussion of the item, it will be called separately. >> colleagues, would anybody like to sever any items? supervisor campos: item 47. supervisor elsbernd: 54.

if week to take a roll-call vote on all of the items except 37, 47, at 54. supervisor chu: aye. supervisor cohen: aye. supervisor elsbernd: aye. supervisor farrell: aye. supervisor kim: aye. supervisor mar: aye. supervisor mirkarimi: aye. supervisor wiener: aye. supervisor avalos: aye. supervisor campos: aye. president chiu: aye. >> there are 11 ayes. president chiu: these resolutions are adopted. >> the move meant to urge the fda to ban all tobacco products.

on item 46, supervisor chu. supervisor chu: no. supervisor cohen: aye. supervisor elsbernd: aye. supervisor farrell: aye. supervisor kim: aye. supervisor mar: aye. supervisor mirkarimi: aye. supervisor wiener: aye. supervisor avalos: aye. supervisor campos: aye. president chiu: aye. >> there are 10 ayes, 1 no. the next is to reconsider the abandonment of shifting credit card merchant charges to the city cabdrivers. supervisor campos: colleagues, i would ask for your support of this resolution which urges the mta board of directors to

reconsider its decision to pass on to cabdrivers' credit-card fee is when a person pays for the credit card. we heard from a number of taxi drivers today. i want to note that yesterday the taxi cab advisory council voted against passing these fees onto drivers. taxi drivers had only had a 1 25 cent per rise increase in the past five years. we have seen the price of gasoline double. that is not saying anything about the larger economic issues that we have been facing. what we have been talking about when we look at passing this fee to drivers, we are asking them

to incur a 5% pay reduction. for a lot of reasons, we believe that is the right approach. it is not fair to pass on this fee. i want to speak about the impact this has on consumers. when you pass on these kinds of fees to drivers, the costs start refusing to carry passengers that are going to pay with a credit card. it is not a good position for a good experience for the consumer. what this resolution calls upon is that the mta reconsider the matter and it brings all of the players to the table so that it can be more fair and a

reasonable doubt -- outcome can be attained. supervisor mirkarimi: related to this particular item, last week, i asked to be a co-sponsor. could you please identify me as a co-sponsor? supervisor chu: thank you to my colleague for bringing this forward. taxi issues are difficult and complex to understand. i wanted to explain why i would be voting against the resolution. i think it is a good one. the mta board was intending to take action if they had not increased the wait time. to increase the mileage by 10 cents for every one fifth of a mile. they can increase the drop rate by 40 cents.

that is the reason i will not be supporting this. i believe the intention of the mta board is to offset what that cost would be. president chiu: any further discussion? roll-call vote. supervisor chu: no. supervisor cohen: aye. supervisor elsbernd: no. supervisor farrell: no. supervisor kim: aye. supervisor mar: aye. supervisor mirkarimi: aye. supervisor wiener: no. supervisor avalos: aye. supervisor campos: aye. president chiu: aye. >> there are seven ayes and four nos. president chiu: given that this would have required eight votes, this resolution is not adopted.

>> may i just make a quick comment? i know that this did not technically pass. it is important that the majority of the board of supervisors is on record asking be mta to reconsider its decision. >> why do we not now move to item 54? >> item 54 is an authorization of proposed arguments submitted to voters at the consolidated general municipal election. >> colleagues, you have two items that have been distributed to you. this has been photocopied and passed out to all of you.

the first amendment looks a little bit more formal. it adds to the opposition language. the three petitions that have been cemented. they have been cemented on pension. the initiative on the banning of male circumcision -- circumcision. the components are going to be people collecting signatures. the second part is the hand written scratch attempts to achieve the goal of simplicity and efficiency. you have a number of people being the official components. everybody needs to sign the forms. all of us consign them. the burden of the one person assigned to collect all of the signatures and all of the forms.

what i have done is i have gone through and listed who is going to be the official proponent of these ballot measures. this is the pension proposal that we all have voted for. since this came from the board, there was a thought that they would collect all of the signatures. page two, line 24, having b. mayer be the official sponsor of the sales tax. that is to have supervisor wiener be the official proponent of the street bond.

this is the official opponent to the pension measure that has been filed. this would be charged with collecting everyone's signatures. these are initiative measures that to my knowledge, unless any of you want to volunteer, have no opposition. this is the charter amendment that all of us voted for. the sales tax, which all 11 of us voted for. as well as supervisor wiener's ordinance with the campaign and governmental conduct code. that would just take that language out of this motion. i suggest that we strike my name. so the supervisor farrell can be the lone opponent to the street

bond. page eight, line four. i would volunteer myself to be the opponent to be initialled amendment. line 13, in regards to demolition. this is depending on how you read it. i would like to be the official opponent of the park a initiative as it is a big project in my district. page eight, line nine. supervisor farrell, i would like to put forward his name. page eight, line 24, i would like to put forward supervisor wiener's name as the opponent to the ban on supers -- circumcision. i would ask to move all of this forward. >> i understand that the status of some of these measures are

still unclear. i would suggest that we continue this item for a week so that we have a chance to understand and then we can make a final decision next week when all of these measures are clear. supervisor cohen: supervisor elsbernd, i am concerned, how did you come to select farrell and wiener to be your opponents? >> let me start in my district. the demolition ordinance that i've heard in the committee hearing, the sole reason it was put on the ballot was this. on the park measure, i have been very involved in creating the campaign committee that will hopefully defeat that measure. i was very involved in the rules committee hearing where we have had a significant discussion on the measure.

rather than talk about who else will do it, i have not heard about the supervisors involved. supervisor farrell has been doing a lot of work outside of the building. supervisor wiener at large the did the leg work. this does not mean that you do not sign the ballot measures. you bear the responsibility of doing all of that leg work. this happens after we are on recess. typically, if you have more than two, three, or four people, the odds that all of us will be in this building in august when these are duke is slim. it makes it difficult when we have to get everybody's signatures. it is far more efficient to have

just the it one that is responsible for everything. >> i did not want you to take my question as being disrespectful or challenging. it is like it happened. i was unaware when these things were happening. thank you for clearing that up for me. >> i will add to my motion that we will continue the item as amended. >> if there are folks amongst us, many of you would support if you wanted to be the lead proponent for these measures. you should look at the latest draft and come back, hopefully before next week so that we can get some feedback. any further discussion? supervisor elsbernd has made a

motion to make the amendment as he described them. is there a second? can we do that without objection? without objection, the amendments are made and this item will continue to next week. why do we not now move to the items related to the health care security ordinance? we can call items 44 and 45? >> they can confer with or are receiving advice from the city attorney. this is amendments to the security ordinance. item 45 is something that has been called from the committee that provides only the amounts paid or to revoke a bleak committed to pay to providing committed to pay to providing health care services shall keep