president chiu: colleagues, we are back in open session. welcome to the board of supervisors meeting for the 27

of september. there was a motion supervisor kim had made the was seconded by supervisor campos. he clerk reminded me we need to make sure there is no objection to going into closed session. there was not and we were in closed session. now that we have come out, could i ask for a motion that we do not disclose information we discussed in closed session? motion passes. that is item 35. why don't we move to item 36, which has already been read? item 36 is the legislation proposed by supervisor farrell around tapping of the amount of public matching funds -- capping the amount of public of matching funds.

supervisor kim: this was a very important case that we need to understand. it was important we have the discussion today. for members of the public, three months ago the supreme court issued a ruling striking down the financing law which allows publicly funded candidates to receive additional dollars of of an enumerated expenditure ceiling when a privately funded candid that exceeded that ceiling. the majority opinion was clear that it was not the amount of financing dollars but how it was provided. they argued this "shilled 1st amendment rights" and allowed the pocketed kennetts to benefit. the court held that the

presidential public financing system was constitutional. in that stated the policy was created to reduce the deleterious influence of contributions to our electoral process and to facilitate communication by canada's to the electorate. the court recognize that large, private contributions may result in political quid pro quo and weaken confidence in our political system. the court declared that it does not infringe upon first amendment values. the justice clearly stated in her dissent that the majority holds that the sec and the state system, the system that produces honest government, working on behalf of all honest people, clashes with the constitution. it seems the we have this very case coming to us in san francisco. questioning and a weakening of

the public financing laws that we have put into place. while i understand my colleagues who put this forward in to avoid litigation and pay attorneys' fees, they want to further weaken democracy. i feel we did not fully examine our more comprehensive amended which would eliminate the trigger element of our public financing laws. but also make reforms that would strengthen our original intent in trading public financing laws. which is to decrease public perception of opportunities of abuse for deep pocketed contributors and insure the integrity of our electoral process. supervisor farrell: colleagues and members of the public, to read it -- to reiterate for last week. this has to do with the supreme

court's recent decision regarding arizona as public financing laws. i would like to thank mr. st. croix for advising us on this matter. earlier this summer, the u.s. supreme court struck down part of arizona as public financing laws. that part is very analogous, virtually identical, to san francisco's laws. the purpose of this legislation was to make sure we were in compliance with the supreme court. i appreciate supervisor kim's objection, but this is to -- but this has been decided by the supreme court. we are not here to decide it. it is that president we have when we say idyllic -- when we say ideology is more important. we are being reactive to the

u.s. supreme court. that applies to us here at the board of supervisors as it does everywhere else in this country. scores of other jurisdictions are amending their laws and, just to reiterate for the public, arizona, connecticut, florida, hawaii, maine, nebraska, north carolina, west virginia, wisconsin, albuquerque, and particularly in new haven connecticut. these jurisdictions all amended their finances and had them struck down by a court of law. we need to too to avoid a lawsuit. we are playing roulette with taxpayer dollars. i appreciate supervisor kim enter comments, but i strongly disagree and urge my colleagues to support this.

we can support any future law as we would like to, but right now let's make the change. let's get in line with what the u.s. supreme court has already decided. supervisor wiener: i am a strong supporter of public financing. i supported the extension of public financing to make oral campaigns. at the time, there were those who were against them. i support the supreme court decision. my personal view is terrible and representative of a terrible trend of the decade and this court. with that said, we are faced with a choice. i know that we will come up with a good way to amend our public finance law in the future to try to address the challenge that the supreme court has thrown our way. now our choice is, what course

to we take in terms of protecting taxpayer dollars from being socked away in attorneys' fees? we have gone down this path before. our general fund is so depleted and funds are so scarce and we have so many services that we are dramatically underfunding, i cannot vote to keep this aspect of the system in place. i will be supporting this amendment as proposed. supervisor cohen: thank you. as many of you know, i was elected with a publicly financed campaign. i believe the spirit of this and the intent of public finance -- of publicly financing candidates is to help candidates such as myself. they have a dream and an

aspiration to serve, but they do not come with big pockets, big friends and come from an economically disadvantaged position to the table. i understand and respect the spirit and intent of this legislation. it is very hard to cast a vote today. i am going to be voting in favor of this item that supervisor farrell has put before us. but begrudgingly. because it is the law and the supreme court has issued a statement. it would be very selfish of us and irresponsible for us not to take this into consideration. i do not believe that we are in the right financial climate to

challenge the supreme court, even if that -- if that is even possible. it would be irresponsible of us to hemorrhage good public dollars to fight this case. it is an interesting dilemma we are in. i will be supporting this legislation. thank you, supervisor farrell and supervisor elsbernd for putting this forward. it is difficult for some of our other members on the board to summit because you understand the intent as to why public financing was created. but thank you for your leadership on this important issue and protecting our city and finances. president chiu: supervisor wiener, did you have another comment? supervisor campos. supervisor campos: i do not want to delve into the specifics of what is a very complicated issue. it is important for us to make sure we are in full compliance

with the u.s. supreme court and san francisco will make sure that happens. it is not about whether or not we are going to do that. it is about the best way to do that. for me, it is about making sure we proceed expeditiously but proceed in a way that ensures the we have considered all options that are legally liable. for that reason, i will be voting no to that. -- i will be voting no today. supervisor kim: i want to clarify my position. i concur with supervisor campos. i wanted a little more time and wanted to come up with a more comprehensive amendment that would abide by the supreme court ruling and would be constitutional, but would also further our intent of protecting the integrity of our electoral process. i am not here to stand up to the

supreme court. i disagree with the ruling, but i understand that we need to bring our laws in line with what the supreme court has deemed constitutional. i think we could have had a different set of reforms in front of us today. supervisor farrell: i appreciate that. that clarity. but are you saying we are going to delay or gamble with taxpayer dollars? that is something i'm fundamentally unwilling to do in the face of the supreme court having decided that our laws are not in line with their decision. i appreciate the banks this has caused. we have a rich history of public financing that has benefited a lot of us on the board. however, it is gambling tax payer money. especially in light of our budget, hundreds of millions of dollars in deficit for the next year's.

to me, this is an egregious mistake if we go against this. president chiu: i am going to reluctantly be voting in favor of this legislation. the supreme court has spoken. while i disagree with that decision, it is the law of the land. that is the basis for my vote. that being said, i will and many of my colleagues will join in asking the ethics commission to expeditiously consider, advise, promote other options to help strengthen our public financing system in the wake of this decision. to make sure we can strengthen the system in ways that we know will absolutely pass constitutional muster. i look forward to working with mr. st. croix and others. any other discussion?

is there a motion being made to continue? are we taking an up and down vote on this? why don't we take an up or down vote on this? supervisor campos: no. president chiu: aye. supervisor chu: aye. supervisor cohen: aye. supervisor elsbernd: aye. supervisor farrell: aye. supervisor kim:ano. supervisor mar: aye -- no. supervisor wiener: aye. supervisor avalos: aye. clerk calvillo: there are 7 aye's and 3 no's.

president chiu: this required eight votes. the motion does not pass. supervisor elsbernd: to those who voted no, i would like to continue the item for a couple of weeks to give you that opportunity. supervisor kim has sat through three hearings in the last couple of weeks ago we have yet to steer -- yet to see any actual options. i would like to see that move forward so we can save the city some money. if we let this die, it would be very derelict in your duties. why don't we move to continue the vote until two weeks? you can come up with the elixir that every other city in the country has been unable to come up with. but at least you can try to save us some money. president chiu: there is a

motion to continue. clerk calvillo: we would have to continue this for three weeks. supervisor elsbernd: do you think you can come up with the magical elixir in three weeks? supervisor kim: i appreciate the motion. i actually looked at mr. st. croix to see if that would be enough time. supervisor elsbernd: i will just withdraw and hope you can come up with something on your own. president chiu: is there a motion to rescind? i would certainly make one, but i want to -- where are we? supervisor elsbernd, have you withdraw your motion? i am sure the naysayers know

what they're doing. i will leave it to them. supervisor wiener: we all know this will not be fixed in two or three weeks. it has to go through the ethics process, through the committee, through this board. it is a lengthy process and not something you're going to want to rush. you want to do it the right way. supervisor elsbernd: supervisor mirkarimi was not here. there were only three people who voted no. perhaps supervisor mirkarimi will vote yes. if he votes yes, we will not have to have this, so i vote to continue it for one week. president chiu: i have one question for our attorney. could be a menace to include other aspects of the public financing?

or does anything have to go back to the ethics commission? maybe we could ask our outside counsel. i think i know the answer to that, i think it is no. >> if there is a substantial change, it has to go back to -- president chiu: supervisor farrell has introduced this in response to the supreme court case. we have legislation to deal with that. if we are making a change under the same subject matter, to make our system as constitutionally tight as possible, would that fall under a change we can make your at the board without going back to ethics? >> i do not have the exact text,

but i understand it has to start at the ethics commission. perhaps you could make a suggestion to the ethics commission and then it comes back to you. >> if you're going to make changes, it has got to be adopted by a super majorities of both committees. it does have to go back to ethics. the way the wording is, ethics is suppose to acts -- act first, but there is nothing to keep both bodies from acting simultaneously. the only thing that would have to happen in ethics, is a final vote by ethics before it goes to the board. president chiu: when is the next meeting of your commission? >> october 19, which is a

special day because our normal day is -- supervisor avalos: any way to have a special meeting? >> i would work to pull a special meeting together if it were necessary. i am sure the ethics commissioners would be as cooperative as possible. just a caveat, they are 5 busy people scheduling meetings. supervisor wiener: i am not going to fight this, but i have not heard what the proposal is. this has been percolating around since june with a huge process. i would think that if someone had the great idea for how we change the system, that would have come of already and probably would have been packaged with this already.

i do not think anyone wanted to amend this without a replacement, if a replacement existed. has the ethics commission come up with a day -- i have not heard any of my colleagues or anyone say that there is some sort of great idea. >> of all of the solutions we analyzed, this was the one that maintained the integrity of the three purposes of public financing and also addressed the issue of the trigger. supervisor wiener: supervisor farrell's proposal? >> right. the other solutions did not work. there were rumblings that something else would come up. i have not seen anything yet. it is still possible. supervisor campos said maine is working on something that will fit within the framework.

they are not done yet. supervisor wiener: i do not know. this is a little perplexing to me. there is literally nothing on the table in terms of this is something you can substitute it with. if that might happen in three months or six months, who knows? i guess we are not making a plea to the three of my colleagues who voted against this. i just do not understand why we would reject this, given what we know of the state of the law, the lack of a current alternative. there are a lot of smart people involved in this process who will think of one if one exists. we know what is before us right now and what is facing us right now and the severe risks that are facing us. i just do not understand.

supervisor farrell: to add to that point, no other jurisdictions, and there are a lot of other jurisdictions, have come up with a solution. this has been around since the summer. no other jurisdictions have come up with a solution. to think we are going to implement something in one week that will stymie a lawsuit and save our taxpayer dollars is a dream. i am all for finding a long-term solution to this, but right now it is fixing the problem at hand. president chiu: supervisor cohen. supervisor cohen: nothing. president chiu: there is no motion in front of us to rescind this vote. supervisor elsbernd: i will make the motion to rescind or one

week and hear from supervisor mirkarimi. president chiu: seconded by supervisor campos. any objection to the motion to rescind? without objection, this motion passes. we will continue this meeting to october 4. supervisor elsbernd: would it be advisable from the city attorney to continue the closed session item to next week so he can get whatever briefing he might need? president chiu: we ended the closed session. he was with us during a good portion of it. he had chapter duties and had to leave. supervisor wiener: there was a fire with about 25 units or something like that. president chiu: the motion to

continue has been passed for one week. thank you to our outside counsel and the head of our ethics commission. why don't we move back to the four-o'clocks special order with regards to west portal's community benefits meeting. clerk calvillo: the return for the voting was 48.92% and the balance voting against it was 51.08%. there is a majority protest. president chiu: the opponents have prevailed and it would be in order for us to entertain a motion to table. supervisor elsbernd: i will make that motion, but before i do i want to say a few things. unfortunately, matt rodgers had to leave. i would like to publicly

congratulate him for showing real leadership in the corridor. leadership that had not been seen in decades. a really great job in public service. i am very disappointed for him and all the merchants who supported this because this did not happen. i would say to the naysayers, a lot of misinformation was put out there and i really hope those who said they opposed it but actually support the concept do not sit back and run away from the issue. i hope they step forward and try to make this happen. this is absolutely critical to the future of that corridor. it needs to happen. with that, i make the motion to table. president chiu: is there a second to that? seconded by supervisor campos. if we could take that motion without objection, the item is tabled. onto our reference counter. items 37-47.

clerk calvillo: these are being considered for immediate and unanimous adoption. they will be enacted by a single roll call vote. unless a commissioner -- unless a supervisor request discussion. president chiu: would anyone like to supervise -- separate any items? rollcall vote. supervisor campos: aye. president chiu: aye. supervisor chu: aye. supervisor elsbernd: aye. supervisor kim: aye. supervisor farrell: aye. supervisor mar: aye. supervisor wiener: aye. supervisor avalos: aye. clerk calvillo: there are ten ayes. there is an imperative item

declaring september 27, 2011 to be karen bishop day in san francisco. president chiu: supervisor mar has made a motion to adopt. seconded by supervisor avalos. any public comment on this item? with regard to motions of the commendatory of finding, could we do that without objection? those motions are made. could we take the underlined item and to do that same house, same call? without objection, this is passed. clerk calvillo: today's meeting will be adjourned in memory of mr. jerry palsman. president chiu: is there any other business in front of this body? clerk calvillo: that concludes the business for today.

president chiu: ladies and gentlemen, we are adjourned.