the meter, without doing an economic impact on the income of taxi drivers, you're doing a disservice to the city and county of san francisco. most cabdrivers' a very big fees to cab companies have they get virtually nothing back except a taxi with four wheels, brakes, a radio, and that is is. if you want to increase the meter, you can start a pension fund medical fund and the union for taxi drivers. they will have the same rights that 29,000 other employees in the city have. as of right now, they have no rights of all. i thank you. >> the next speaker?

>> it is like christmas for the drivers today. they will be very happy, and you finally give them something that is a great tax to you. they would be really very happy from the bottom of their hearts. during the town hall meetings, the back seat terminals are so far and there. 150 cabs will be stocked in a determination will be made. it has proven to be false, and the statement of the cab company, they will sue.

we're saying to look into this matter. some inspectors want to a lemonade heehaw -- eliminate the limos from the city. thousands of these days and days out, we're standing there to distribute a violation. city employed people cannot go on and put any such thing as propaganda. these are the flyers for the board members, and they should stop distribution. the last speaker,

[unintelligible] >> dan hines. >> members of the board, once again, i am president of national veterans cabin, and the number of the taxi advisory council. i wanted to take this opportunity to give you my personal assessment of the program. the pilot program has more than met its goals. have a financially viable exit now. opportunities have opened up for drivers on the waiting list. there are more than a thousand that wish to purchase medallions. the city has generated substantial revenues through this program. lived in fortunate enough to have competent and conscientious oversight.

the work that both groups have done has been truly outstanding. has the opportunity to sell is currently closed to anyone not in the pilot, i would ask this board to formally request a specific recommenda way to transition from the pilot program to a continuation of medallion sales on an ongoing basis. this recommendation that is the one that chartered responsibility should be given priority over other items. other items are brought and i think this should be a primary issue. i think the representation, it should be held by someone who

has purchased a medallion. chairman nolan: that will conclude public comment. one more? you know how it works? you are supposed to indicate you want to speak. >> it would be helpful if you turn them at earlier. >> there is a lot to talk about, but i want to focus on a few things. before it purchased the cabinet earlier this year, i was very familiar with the taxi system here in san francisco and wanted to give you a couple observations as to why i think our system is flawed and why we have very bad availability to the public. first, let me give you the facts. right now, we have a cab company with major dispatch services, and have about half of the medallions.

we have different color schemes popping up, so we have about 31 different cap companies right now. half of them are at companies that have no dispatch service whatsoever. the burden of servicing the neighborhood call fallen half of the medallions we normally have. you have to meet service demands and neighborhoods, you have to pick up orders and that is the first thing you can do. you have to make sure that they are servicing the neighborhood, not just half of them. we have a situation where i have hundreds of orders that i can't fulfill, and dozens of drivers waiting to go out. there is no love lost between the other cab companies and myself. the one thing that unifies the other major cab companies is that we will be out of business soon because the standards have applied.

the standards in this industry are so low that i have never seen the level of exploitation of i have -- as i have seen now. the giants are operated by individuals. the proliferated and operated it least 30% of the medallions. one of the things the city must do is create standards and enforcement to make sure that the neighborhoods are matt. 31 cab companies with only half of them actually servicing the neighborhood. that has to change. chairman nolan: anybody welse -- else want to speak, let us know. two speakers. ok. >> be medallion pilot program should be stopped.

it should be brought back and issue to the drivers. i will tell you why. you are having the cabdrivers pay defending on what you choose. $200,000 goes to the [unintelligible] don't think that is fair, the cabdriver's like me that have been driving a cab for 23 years and have been on the waiting list, the medallion that higher

earnings and deserve. when i'm driving a cab, my feet get sore. i will be unable to drive a cab. for us, don't you think it's like changing the rules in the middle of the game? issue medallions under the leading less. if any new medallion is issued, it should go the drivers on the waiting list. use l 6 and in the hands and you get $225,000. under this proposal, you sell one medallion and you get more than $225,000. [chime] chairman nolan: next speaker. >> i am a member of the taxi

advisor a council. of like to take issue with the claims a couple of previous speakers that a new constitution, that anybody is trying to kill the pilot program. i don't know of anybody that has that in mind. there are people on the pilot program who have for it any kind of discussion of fair system to come out of this. there are a lot of us still concerned with people on the list as the last speaker just spoke, they spend their career trying to get their medallion and planning of with all of this stuff. we put up with a lot of stuff. the are a lot of us the lead to discuss a possible future

program that would be fair, and presented as a compromise solution. the pilot program was a small number of medallions and we will sell and evaluate the effects of drivers. there are people on the committee that feel that the purpose of the pilot program is just to transition in the total transfer ability. my understanding is that we're supposed to be of value leading it, finding the problems, and suggesting a fair way to continue like a dual system where of medallions will be issued to drivers have made a career. i don't think that should end. it doesn't mean we are trying to kill the pilot program. i think also of the flyer that as a vindictive fet earhart is not propaganda, is an

explanation of the way bi thinke of the money that you guys are spending to disseminate truthful information. chairman nolan: next item. >> you have concluded regular items. chairman nolan: is there a second? we will go to closed session. thank

>> the san francisco cons tri of flowers in golden gate park is now showing a new exhibit that changes the way we see the plants around us. amy stewart's best-selling book, "wicked plants" is the inspiration behind the new exhibit that takes us to the dark side of the plant world. >> i am amy stewart. i am the arthur of "wicked plants," the weeds that killed lincoln's mother and other botanical atrocities. with the screens fly trap, that is kind of where everybody went initially, you mean like that? i kind of thought, well, all it does is eat up bugs. that is not very wicked. so what?

by wicked, what i mean is that they are poisonous, dangerous, deadly or immoral or maybe illegal or offensive or awful in some way. i am in the profession of going around and interviewing botanists, horticulturalists and plant scientists. they all seem to have some little plant tucked away in the corner of a greenhouse that maybe they weren't supposed to have. i got interested in this idea that maybe there was a dark side to plants. >> the white snake root. people who consumed milk or meat from a cow that fed on white snake root faced severe pain. milk sickness, as it was culled, resulted in vomiting, tremors, delirium and death. one of the most famous victims of milk sickness was nancy

hangs lincoln. she died at the age of 34, leaving behind 9-year-old abraham lincoln. he helped build his mother's casket by carving the woodallen petition douche the wooden petition himself. >> we transformed the gallery to and eerie victorian garden. my name is lowe hodges, and i am the director of operations and exhibitions at the conls tore of -- cons tore of flowers. we decided it needed context. so we needed a house or a building. the story behind the couple in the window, you can see his wife has just served him a glass of wine, and he is slumped over the table as the

poison takes affect. a neat little factold dominion about that house is actually built out of three panels from old james bond movie. we wanted people to feel like i am not supposed to be in this room. this is the one that is supposed to be barred off and locked up. >> the ole andersonner -- oleander. this popular shrub is popular in warm climates. it has been implicated in a surprising number of murders and accidental deaths. children are at risk because it takes only a few leaves to kill them. a southern california woman tried to collect on her husband's life insurance by putting the leaves in his food. she is now one of 15 women on california's death rowan the only one who attempted to murder with a plant.

>> people who may haven't been to their cons tore or been to -- do serve tore or their botanical garden, it gives them a reason to come back. you think let's go and look at the pretty flowers. these are pretty flowers, but they are flowers with weird and fascinating stories behind them. that is really fun and really not what people normally think of when they come to a horticultural institution. >> "wicked plants" is now showing at the san francisco conserve tore of flowers. unless next time, get out and play.

hello, and welcome to the department of elections ranked-choice voting instructional video. this video is part of the department of elections' ranked-choice voting outreach campaign and is designed to educate san francisco voters about ranked-choice voting. today we will learn what ranked-choice voting is, and who is elected using this new voting method. we will also talk about what the ranked-choice ballot looks like and how to mark it correctly. finally, we'll see how the ranked-choice voting process works and show you an example of an election using ranked-choice voting. so, what is ranked-choice voting? in march of 2002, san francisco voters adopted a charter amendment to implement ranked-choice voting, also known as the instant run-off voting. san francisco voters will use ranked-choice voting to elect most local officials by selecting a first-choice candidate in the first column on the ballot, and different second- and third-choice candidates in the second and

third columns respectively. this makes it possible to elect local officials with a majority of votes, more than 50%, without the need for a separate run-off election. in san francisco, ranked-choice voting applies to the election of members of the board of supervisors, the mayor, sheriff, district attorney, city attorney, treasurer, assessor-recorder, and public defender. ranked-choice voting does not apply to elections for local school board and community college board members, nor the election of state or federal officials. ranked-choice voting does not affect the adoption of ballot measures. when voters receive their ballot, either at a polling place or as an absentee ballot in the mail, it will consist of multiple cards.

voters will receive cards that contain contests for federal and state offices, as well as for state propositions and local ballot measures. for ranked-choice voting contests, voters will receive a separate ranked-choice ballot card. the design of the ranked-choice ballot card and the instructions to rank three choices are new. the ranked-choice ballot is designed in a side-by-side column format that lists the names of all candidates in each of the three columns. when marking the ranked-choice ballot, voters select their first-choice candidate in the first column by completing the arrow pointing to their choice. for their second-choice, voters select a different candidate in the second column by completing the arrow pointing to their choice. for their third-choice, voters select a different candidate in the third column by completing the arrow pointing to their choice. voters wishing to vote for a

qualified write-in candidate for any of their three choices can write in a candidate's name on the line provided and they must complete the arrow pointing to their choice. keep in mind a voter should select a different candidate for each of the three columns of the ranked-choice ballot card. if a voter selects the same candidate in more than one column, his or her vote for that candidate will count only once. also, a voter's second choice will be counted only if his or her first-choice candidate has been eliminated and a voter's third choice will be counted only if both his or her first- and second-choice candidates have been eliminated. we have talked about how to mark the ranked-choice ballot. now let's look at how ranked-choice voting works. initially every first-choice vote is counted. any candidate who receives a majority, more than 50% of the first-choice votes, is determined to be the winner.

if no candidate receives more than 50% of the first-choice votes, a process of eliminating candidates and transferring votes begins. first, the candidate who received the fewest number of first-choice votes is eliminated from the race. second, voters who selected the eliminated candidate as their first choice will have their vote transferred to their second choice. third, all the votes are recounted. fourth, if any candidate receives more than 50% of the votes, he or she is declared the winner. if no candidate receives more than 50% of the votes, the process of eliminating candidates and transferring votes is repeated until one candidate has a winning majority. in this example, we have three candidates: candidate a, candidate b and candidate c.

in this example, we have three candidates: candidate a, candidate b., and candidate c. after all the first-choice votes are counted, none of the three candidates has received more than 50%, or a majority of the first-choice votes cast. candidate a has received 25% of the votes, candidate b has received 40% of the votes, and candidate c has received 35% of the votes. . because no candidate received a majority, the candidate who received the fewest number of first-choice votes, candidate a, is eliminated from the race. voters who picked candidate a as their first-choice candidate will have their vote transferred to their second-choice candidate. of the voters who picked candidate a as their first choice candidate, 15% chose candidate b as their second-choice candidate and 10% chose candidate c as their second-choice candidate. these votes are then applied to candidates b and candidate c and the votes are recounted.

we see now that candidate b has 55% of the votes and candidate c has 45% of the vote. candidate b now has more than 50% of the votes and is determined to be the winner. thank you for watching. we hope that you have learned more about ranked-choice voting and who is elected using this method. you have seen the ranked-choice ballot, learned how to correctly mark it, and learned how the ranked-choice voting process works. if you have any further questions about ranked-choice voting, please contact us at: department of elections, city hall, room 48, 1 dr. carlton b. goodlett place, san francisco, california 94102. call us at: 415-554-4375. visit our web site at: ww