a quorum in these bodies. i would like to thank you, linda, for that work. i'mthat concludes my presentati. chairperson kim: i have a couple of questions. i appreciate the work the clerk's office does to monitor and keep track of our many advisory boards, the task force commissions, etc.. we can do this with groups that have met -- have not met for four months, but some have not met since 2006. i wonder if there is a way to speed up the process. i am sure there have not and other groups that have been working in the past year. i am sure some of it is and administrative issue in terms of the capacity of your office. but are there ways we can make

this more up-to-date? >> there is. recently, the board of supervisors passed legislation that would require the board to place all its appointments and vacancies on the city's main website in addition to our own website. what we are doing in our office, instead of doing the act on an annual basis -- to do not a full maddy act review, but to do it on a quarterly basis, where as these things come to our attention we will collect them, try to maintain what a reason is they are not meeting. if we find they are not meeting, certainly we could submit that to the city attorney earlier than annually. that could come to you on a quarterly -- it is certainly something we could talk about the time frame. chairperson kim: thank you. it was the cover story for "the sf weekly" this week, the number

of boards and commissions we have. we do not actually know the number of task forces and committees we have. catullus how your office is able to keep track and monitor, so that boards can keep track of them. >> if it is a body that is created by the board or the board tracks appointments to, that also includes appointments they approve from the mayor. we are monitoring those. there are 96 of them. linda spends a lot of time doing that. i cannot speak to the executive branch of government. i am not sure what the process is. we have a dedicated staff member to do that, in addition to her duties as the royals' staff. >> thank you. -- chairperson kim: thank you. any questions or comments?

do we have a motion to move items four through nine? >> i just wanted to stay -- supervisor elsbernd, you were an aide to supervisor hall when the board will was created at the time. chairperson kim: thank you. at this time, we will open up for public comment. >> ♪ on your mark, get set, and go now follow all the rules and you'll know you'll make your dreams come true making it all come true your task dreams come true has dreams come true for you you're going to do it good now

the city's going to shine, and how you're going to make your rules dreams come true you do it today make it happen your way make your task dreams come true for city me and you ♪ chairperson kim: thank you. for members of the public, there is a photo exhibit -- mr. paulson, what is the name of the hotel? it just is kicked my memory. >> ccr. chairperson kim: the civic center hotel. there is a great photo of mr. paulson and residence. >> a whole selection of them. they did some good art work there. a good project. chairperson kim: it is beautiful. i encourage citizens to go check

out the photos. it is on mcalester between jones -- thank you. >> ♪ come see about our work thank you ♪ chairperson kim: public comment is now closed. we can do that without objection. we will move item four through 9 to the full board as a committee report. madam clerk, can you please call item 10? >> itunes four through 9 are not scheduled -- items four 29 are not scheduled to be heard this week. chairperson kim: we will move them forward without objection. >> item 10, ordinance amending

the elections code to establish a process that permits voters to receive the voter information pamphlet and associated materials by electronic means instead of paper mill. -- mail. chairperson kim: i believe we have a representative from supervisor mirkarimi's office here. >> my name is ted walter. chairperson kim: thank you for being here today. >> you are welcome. the legislation that is before you would require the department of elections to establish procedures whereby voters would be able to opt out of receiving their voter information pamphlets through the mail, and instead could receive them through e-mail or access them on the department of elections website. the benefits of this are severalfold. that our environmental. they also would save the city

potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars at each election. we have a couple of amendments we would like to make. i think they have been circulated. chairperson kim: yes. we have them in front of us. could you read them into the record? >> the first one is the findings. it is lengthy. i can talk about why we added them. chairperson kim: briefly. >> the other thing we are adding -- the department of elections up the procedures shall provide visible notice to voters about these confidentiality provisions and circumstances win voter information might be disclosed. the findings were related to that amendment. supervisor elsbernd: this is an opt out? sometimes we like to do opt ins, but this is an opt out. >> this is an opt out to

receiving the pamphlet by mail. they would be opting in at the same time to receive by e-mail. supervisor elsbernd: but if you do not take action, you will continue to receive it. you have to affirmatively do something to no longer receive it in the mail. >> correct. chairperson kim: any other questions? can we adopt these amendments without opposition? >> thank you. we have the elections commission and the department of the environment here to speak about this. chairperson kim: ok. why don't we have them come up and speak. >> this is gerard gleason with the elections commission and david osmond with the department of the environment. chairperson kim: why don't we take mr. gleason first, if you just speak briefly. >> thank you for allowing me to

be here today. just for background, i worked as the associate director of conservatory. we work on the environmental impact of pulp and paper on the street. in 1999 through 2002 i worked to produce the ballots and reduce the boater information pamphlet. i have been the core supervisor of the elections committee. mr. osmond is a former colleague of mine at conservatory. it is like old home week for me. i will allow him to explain the environmental impact and savings on this. frankly, there is going to be tremendous potential for taxpayer savings on this. there is a lot of redundancy in the ballots with people getting vote by mail and then the sample ballot. i want to address a very narrow

focus. i appreciate that the supervisor's staff has discussed about an issue the election commission has been concerned about. this is the fact that people would have to get their e-mails to have this work. there is an issue in that in the california elections code -- it is very broad. anybody has access to this, even though they say it is restricted. anybody who wants to contact somebody for political purposes has access to the voter data base in san francisco, which is available for 75 cents. it is a major reason why people do not provide phone number and e-mail contact information on a voter registration card. the fact that it is optional speaks to the fact that this would happen if it was mandatory. there have been an explosion of vote by mail ballots. we have situations where people

send in their ballot. they forget to sign and it comes in days before the election. they do not have an e-mail or phone contact in the department. so those ballots are not counted. we have a serious issue of people's votes not being counted. we had an op-ed in the chronicle about this issue. we did to the elections commission go through the channels we were supposed to go, through the legislation committee. we never heard back from either of them. we never heard back from the mayor's office. my personal characterization of that is we were stonewalled. i appreciate that supervisor mirkarimi's office has put this issue on the notification that there would be disclosure that goes beyond what the assembly bill that allows this does. on the voter registration form,

it says this information cannot be used for commercial purposes. once this material is out there, there is no control over it. there are data mining operations which go out and take the 75 cent list and sell it for $14,000. you guys can figure out the rate of return on that. anyway, i will leave these documents here for you to review. what i ultimately hope is that somebody in the city goes and champions this in the state, the we have an additional opt out, that people can give their e- mail and phone number on their voter registration form but ask that it be used by the department of elections for administrative use only come up for contacting them for voter registration or their ballot. i think it is a simple proposition, the same one pot

reborn has to live up to. i know it impacts people who have campaigns, but the issue comes back to votes are not being counted. chairperson kim: thank you. mr. osmond, if you could be brief, i only have -- >> no controversy. i will talk for 30 seconds. deputy director from department of the environment. from an environmental perspective, this is a no- brainer. 240 tons of paper can be used to produce a single voter guide. even if we use 100% recycled newsprint, that is 300 million gallons of waste water and 75 tons of solid waste. obviously, if you eliminate even a percentage of that, not only is this a financial savings but an environmental benefit. it is an opt out, not an opt in. you have to be pro-active in order to not receive this.

the last thing i want to mention is the 350 tons of co2 in the production of one voter guide is the same as the annual emissions from 280 residences in san francisco or 2,500 barrels of oil. there is an environmental benefit from our perspective. we strongly support this. chairperson kim: thank you. at this time, we will open up for public comment. two minutes, please. >> thank you for finally having this hearing. i would just show my evidence. this is the last election. i don't vote three times, but myself, my wife, and my mother. i usually know what is going on in the city and do not even read these. it just makes common sense that if we can ban telephone books from coming i think we can do this. i would be happy to work to help with fixing the

legislation so that the e-mails do not go out to unintended -- so you can opt out of having your e-mails in commercial places. i urge support of this. thank you. chairperson kim: public comment is now closed. supervisor elsbernd: do you have anything you want to say? i move this forward with recommendation. chairperson kim: i believe we can do that without opposition. my apologies for not calling you forward. we move this forward without opposition. thank you, everyone, for being here. if we can go back to item one, i was just waiting to hear from folks interested in real estate development. i would like to take a motion to move forward for september 9, as suggested earlier, without

opposition. >> would you like this item to be sent to the board with the committee report? chairperson kim: yes. we will move forward maruura blitzer for seat 9. is there anything else on the agenda? >> no, madam chair. chairperson kim: meeting adjourned.

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>> you catch up to people you know from the past. you know. went to school with. people that you work with at other jobs. military or something. kind of weird. it's a small word, you be. like i said, what do people do when they come to san francisco? they ride a cable car. >> california line starts in the financial district. people are coming down knobbhill. the cable car picks people up. takes them to work. >> there still is no other device to conquer these hills better than a cable car. nobody wanted to live up here because you had to climb up here. with the invention of the cable

car, these hills became accessible. he watched horses be dragged to death. cable cars were invent in san francisco to solve the problem with it's unique, vertically challenged terrain. we are still using cars a century old >> the old cable car is the most unique thing, it's still going. it was a good design by then and is still now. if we don't do something now. it's going to be worse later. >> the cable cars are built the same as they were in the late 1800's. we use a modern machinery. we haven't changed a thing.

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name of james junior elected mayor of san francisco in 1912. he didn't have a city hall because it was destroyed in the earth wake of 1906. construction began in april of 1913. in december 1915, the building was complete. it opened it's doors in january 1916. >> it's a wonderful experience to come to a building built like this. the building is built as a palace. not for a king or queen. it's built for all people. this building is beautiful art. those are architecture at the time when city hall was built,

san francisco had an enormous french population. therefore building a palace in the art tradition is not unusual. >> jimmie was an incredible individual he knew that san francisco had to regain it's place in the world. he decided to have the tallest dome built in the united states. it's now stands 307 feet 6 inches from the ground 40 feet taller than the united states capital. >> you could spend days going around the building and finding something new. the embellishment, the carvings, it represents commerce,