practiced all across the country, we can look at other places where it is and what the temperature is like in terms of the public acceptance, which is an issue here in san francisco or may or may not be an issue, but i think it is something that may be worth exploring. the kinds of trends we are seeing elsewhere as well, just as a comparison of san francisco, and maybe there are possible growing pains that places that an act rank choice voting have in their natural maturation process, and i think it is worthwhile to compare side-by-side what is happening in san francisco just as a point of comparison and contrast. commissioner campos: thank you, commissioner. commissioner pimentel. commissioner pimentel: i think it is a good idea to see if rank choice voting has confused citizens who might not understand. has it decrease turnout or

increased. i think it is an opportunity to see how it has affected residents of san francisco. commissioner campos: great. i welcome those comments. that is one of the reasons i wanted to have this item because i do think that these are the kinds of things that we can do, and i think that one approach might be to simply give direction to staff to continue gathering what is available and may be to compile some of that information. depending on where that is, at some point, we also have the ability in our funding, if we need to hire any experts to shed light on some of the data to do that. staff could definitely come back to us with a more specific proposal on what that would look like. commissioner avalos: i would recommend that we move forward on that.

again, i just want to reiterate -- i think it is worthwhile looking at how many places around the country do have rank choice voting. it would be useful to have as a comparison. i think that is part of what the attack on rank choice voting has been in san francisco -- that it is not a very common thing, but we have had it almost 10 years, and i had never really heard those comments until last year. the stakes seemed to be a lot higher for a lot of people last year, too, so if there is a way to normalize with the process is, by looking at what is done elsewhere and how common it is elsewhere, i think that would help give us some perspective. commissioner campos: thank you. before we go to staff, i wanted to -- i do not know of staff has any comments or anything to add. >> more than happy to study whatever parts or aspects of

elections are going on. i think this is something initially we could definitely do internally with staff, but one of the things -- i did do some preliminary looking, but the one thing that i think would be needed is the department of elections over the last few years has -- at least with what they have available on their website -- has changed how they report numbers, so it might be useful to see if they have the old files and we could do a comparison. in some cases, they have under voting and over voting mixed together, and in some cases, they have them separated. if there's a way to determine with previous elections, if they still have the numbers behind them, to put an together. commissioner campos: to the extent that there is very specialized expertise that may be needed, i would trust that you would come back to us and let us know if you have hit a point where that is the case and

where we need to authorize, you know, the hiring of anyone else, of an expert. ms. miller, anything to add? >> no, i think we have directions from you. i would add that part of the direction is also what commissioner avalos was saying with the issue of consumer acceptance or potentially consumer education, whether or not that is necessary. we will add that to the list of things to look at. commissioner campos: i think that is a very important piece. the consumer education peace -- i mean, the voter education peace that is related to the question commissioner pimentel raised i think is an important one. we have heard some argument that this is, you know, keeping some voters from participating. the whole point of rank choice voting is to increase voter participation. in some of the service, the polling that was done actually

shows that there has been a pretty good understanding across the board, but i think that being able to have specific data or information on that issue would be very helpful. >> right, and we will look to see whether there are studies out there and let you know. commissioner campos: before we act on this, why don't we open it up to public comment? if any member of the public would like to speak on this, please come forward. >> good afternoon again, commissioners. eric brooks. i deeply apologize for being a serial public comment, but this issue is due to the heart of me, as a green and a lover of good democracy. i would wholeheartedly support the direction you are going. i would also add we should study other countries like australia. they have had rank choice. canada has had a little bit of it in british columbia. it is not limited to the united states. just to bring this down to why

this is so important to lafco, we are in a situation where we may be at some point in the future appointee a municipal -- setting up a municipal utility district that has an elected board. it is conceivable that our cca will form relationships with other cities -- san bruno, east bay, even marin county in the future -- and we would need a joint powers board that, hopefully, would be elected. things like that and the broadband issue that i raised -- we could end up setting up a democratically elected communication's board. this really is a big deal for lafco, especially to the extent that any elected boards like those would have oversight over issues that have to do with ratepayers, which is primary when you have an elected body. i think this is a perfectly natural direction for lafco to

go and wholeheartedly support it. thanks. commissioner campos: any other member of the public who would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. colleagues, this is an information and possible action item. could we have a motion directing staff to pursue this item. commissioner avalos: i would like to make the motion that staff pursue some analysis of rank choice voting, here, locally in san francisco. what are the trends? what do we have in terms of services for public education? a measure of how successful that has been. if possible, looking at trends elsewhere around the country and -- i do not know if we want to look elsewhere globally, but i think the country is useful. also, something else to add, perhaps, if there is controversy around financing of rank choice voting in other places, we could

elucidate what that might look like as well. it might be different in other places. i think it is with developing a broader perspective of it as well. how does that sound? commissioner campos: great. commissioner pimentel: i would like to second the motion. commissioner campos: we have a second. i assume there is clarity in terms of what we are asking. if we could take that motion without objection. again, thank you, colleagues, for your support. i think it is good to move in that direction. >> item 7, goals and objectives for 2012. commissioner campos: this is an item to provide the commission an opportunity to talk about our objectives for this calendar year. one thing i would say is that we will have a new commissioner coming on board pretty shortly. i think by our next meeting.

i do not know if this is an item where people want to engage in the discussion now or if it would be better to wait until we have a full complement to the commission. one of the things that i want to say is in terms of the objectives of lafco from my perspective, the main, i think, objective, at least has to be right now to make sure that we have an effective and successful community choice aggregation program and that not only includes, you know, the contract that is before the board, but that is also on parallel tracks a robust buildup, and i think that has to be the priority of lafco. that said, i also think it is important for us as a commission to think of different ways in which we can be a part of a discussion or review of issues of importance to the city. the issue of voting and rank

choice voting as an example, but i think there are other areas where lafco can also weigh in. as a share, and would welcome any suggestions or proposals that members of the commission have in terms of things that were -- that we are not working on, that we are not looking at that maybe we should be working on and looking at. i think that is important for us to think outside the box of what we have been doing in the last few years. commissioner avalos, anything to add? commissioner avalos: i am thinking we could initiate the conversation now. perhaps we could open up again when we have a larger number of people. commissioner campos: commissioner pimentel, thoughts or comments at this point? no? why don't we open up to public comment? any member of the public that would like to speak on item 7. >> eric brooks again.

this is the opportunity i will take to talk about what i mentioned before, and that is public broadband. i am sure that some or all of you followed what happened recently in washington, d.c., are around the "online privacy act" which would have sent to the internet -- censored the internet. it looks like thankfully, that has been beaten back. if you look over the course of the last decade especially and even since 1996, we can see that corporations are making more of an effort every year, and no matter whether there is a democrat or republican in office, to get more and more exclusive control of the internet and keeping the public walled off so that it can charge high fees and decide what content we see on the internet. a few years ago, myself and some other organizers with a coalition called public net, one of whom is bruce wolfe, who i

recently spoke to around this, got through to lafco, made sure that hearings happened to stop what was going to be a monopolization of our local wireless service in san francisco, and part of that discussion was -- if we are not going to do this city wide wireless, what are we going to do? during that discussion, it came up that the obvious answer and much better answer is to do city-wide fiber optic broadband. at least start with a citywide luke that people can hook into with wireless and eventually build broadband out to every single home. if we do it right and use revenue bonds, it would not take a lot of tax money to do that. i e-mailed some of you, and i could e-mail it again, a study that was done early in the decade about the possibilities and how to rollout fiber optic broadband in san francisco. based on the conversation i had

with mr. wolf and based on what a lot of us have been observing with corporations really moving hard in this last year to get control of the internet from various corporate angles, i do not think -- i know i have been kind of quarterly bringing this up, but i think it is time for us to start really hitting this again. i do not think we can wait much longer. i would urge you to agendize this session so we could talk about the possibility of fiber optic broadband as a public system so we no longer have to deal with just getting our service from comcast and at&t, which, from personal experience, has been held for me. i am sure some of you have probably had problems with those sort of duopoly carriers as well. there will be a key component with how we build howcca and --

how we build out cca and smart birds. i think it is time for lafco to take this on. -- smart grids. commissioner campos: any other public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. we will come back to this in a future meeting so that once we have a fuller discussion, we can take action in terms of adopting a set of goals and objectives. commissioner avalos: i had been looking at fiber and -- i think looking at fiber and broadband is worthwhile. i just do not know if we can bet that within our year, given our timeline and scope of work, but i think it is a worthy thing to look at. we can continue the conversation when we have a fuller contingent of people here. commissioner campos: i think that makes sense. commissioner pimentel. commissioner pimentel: [inaudible] in with maybe in october, closer to the end of the year?

commissioner campos: ms. miller? >> i think what we will do is keep it on the agenda for our next meeting so that our newest commissioner, we can talk a little bit about if there is any additional point of interest or subject matter. then we can talk about timing. we will have a better idea then, i think, about timing, for some of these issues, particularly the voting worked -- voting were--voting work. commissioner campos: as we come back to the idea of setting goals and agendas, the staff to think about the timing of when these agendas could be taken up. maybe you have some suggestions for us in terms of how to plan out, you know, the different things that come up, including the issue of fiber, which i think is actually a very good one. commissioner, anything else? if it is ok, can we have a

motion to continue this item to the call of the chair? i will make sure that we put it on the next agenda. we have a motion by commissioner avalos, seconded by commissioner pimentel. we will take that without objection. please call item 8. >> item 8, executive officer's report. >> there is no report. we can move on. commissioner campos: public comment on item 8? seeing none, public comment is closed. if you could call item 9. >> item 9, public comment. commissioner campos: public, not at -- not on the agenda but is otherwise within the jurisdiction of the local agenda agency commission? public comment is closed. item 10. >> item 10, future agenda items. commissioner campos: be on the items we have identified, any future agenda items you would like to bring up? is there any member of the public who would like to speak on this? seeing none, public comment is

closed. last item. >> item 11, adjournment. commissioner campos: meeting adjourned. i want to thank everyone for coming up to the meeting. we look forward to our follow-up meeting cca -- on cca and setting up a joint meeting with the public utilities commission. again, thank you to the members of the public, to puc staff, lafco staff, commissioners. thank you, madam clerk.

>> is my pleasure to introduce our first speaker. in addition to making it possible for us to use this beautiful ballroom for the dedication ceremony today, he made great contributions to the dragon dance you just saw performed moments ago. i felt very under-dressed after seeing him.

please welcome mr. palermo. >> happy new year! [applause] i would like to welcome everyone to the hilton financial district and the u.s. postal service stamp ceremony. we are honored to share this opportunity and proud to be part of the dedication ceremony. happy new year, everybody. [applause] >> thank you, jeff. i am pleased to introduce the honorable edwin lee, the first asian-american mayor in san francisco history. he was appointed unanimously as the successor mayor by the board of supervisors in 2011 to fill the remaining term of mayor

news who was sworn in a s lieutenant governor. mayor lee won the election and will serve a full term as mayor. prior to his employment with the city and county of san francisco, he was the managing attorney for the san francisco asian law caucus. he worked there from 1979 to 1989. he was born in seattle. he was born in a previous year of the dragon. he is a summa cum laude graduate of bowdoin college and san francisco school of law. please help me welcome san francisco's mayor. [applause] >> thank you. happy new year.

[applause] it is my delight to be here. i want to add my thanks to the u.s. postal service. i look forward to this every year to see the postal officials delivered the artistic beauty of these stamps. this is the fifth stamp set the we have enjoy. thank you for being here. i really enjoy the camaraderie of everybody on the stage. he represents a much of what we're proud of in the city reduced represent so much of what we're proud of in the city. -- you represent so much of what we're proud of in the city. it was in the earlier years when we started the tradition of designing the stamps. claudine, thank you very much. [applause]

tommy ing, officials are here today as well from the u.s. postal service. thank you very much. to my good friend who will follow me. we were law school roommates at berkeley. he is also a dragon. we have two dragons in the house. he is now the federal judge for the ninth circuit. he is enjoying himself. i know that. he fought hard for that judge ship. we're so happy to see him there. you should have been there during our law school years having two dragons in the same house. it was a hot house. [laughter]

anita and i have done all of the traditional things. in the last two weeks, we have clean our house. we have done all the things we're supposed to do. we're getting ready to host the new year. what a wonderful year this will be. it is a year of the dragon. it is the most powerful of all the zodiac animals. it also represents with this city is all about. it challenges us to make sure that we take the risks and meet our challenges head-on. we do not fear change. we make those changes. we are bold and innovative. we will innovate our way to solutions. that is what is wonderful year of the dragon will mean. i am so proud to a been elected your mayor of this great city.

it is not just the chinese new year. it is celebrated through the vietnamese and the japanese, korean communities, the african- american and latino communities. they're all here in this room joined by many different agencies, including our school district. norm is a new member of the school district board. thank you for being here. [applause] so many of you have joined in looking at the stamp. it is artistic and rich with heritage. the art director is here. thank you for being here as well. there are so many students. i want to put forth the theme of education. we have an opportunity to

educate people about the themes of our culture. we can unite the city and bay area as much as we can in celebration and in the boldness and innovation that the dragon calls for. we will need it because so many things are happening. this is the time we take on the challenges before us. the art history of this design is so rich and intricate. i have seen the others, but this one is really special. you have done a great job. thank you very much. [applause] and so it is that i want to welcome everyone on this very prestigious day. earlier, we had members of the board of supervisors. everybody wants to do something

special on chinese new year. i understand that david chiu has officiated a marriage for one of his staff. we will now have many dragons running around. [applause] there are so many other things happening today. it is wonderful. i could ushave used more red at the game last night, but we will move forward. thank you to the postal service and all of the groups. individuals have stepped up like jeff and walter and so many individuals stepping up and using their own time and efforts. the parade in the events leading up to it are about the community coming together to utilize our time, talent, and resources to celebrate and reinvigorate the

city. [applause] >> thank you, mayor lee. i am pleased to introduce judge chen, a graduate of the university of california at berkeley and also the law school at berkeley. he was appointed a federal magistrate for the northern district of california in april of 2001. after clerking for a district judge and court of appeals judge, judge chen practiced as a litigation associate. in 1985, he joined the american civil liberties union foundation of northern california. he worked on a wide range of issues including free speech,

employs privacy rights, police misconduct, and discrimination. in august of 2009, he was nominated by president obama's to the u.s. district court. on may 10, 2011, he was confirmed by the u.s. senate as a district judge. he told me a few minutes ago he gets the last word after his college roommate. please join me in welcoming our dragon judge, judge chen. [applause] >> thank you, steve. it is an honor to be here. it is a double honor to follow the mayor. i have never had the mayor as my opening act. [laughter] i really am pleased to be here. mayor lee is right.

we go way back. we have known each other for 37 years. the mayor is only about 48. [laughter] we do have a lot in common. maybe that is why i was chosen to come after the mayor. they say two heads are better than one. we're both in dragons. we're both water dragons. this is the year of the water dragon, every 12 years. you can kind of gas how old the mayor is. [laughter] if you subtract 24 from that, you will get my age. [laughter] not only do we share the name ed, we have parents coming from the same part of china. we went to the same law school. we share the same address for a brief period of time. we worked in many of these same agencies. we both have beautiful