exciting opportunity for us to get this project under way. thanks. commissioner campos: is there any other member of the public that would like to speak on this item? public comment is closed. these are informational items. to clarify, is there any action that is required of us at this juncture? great. if you can call item no. 4. >> update on study on the voting process including ranked hoyas voting for the local offices in the city and county of san francisco. commissioner campos: we want to thank puc and lafco staff on the previous item. this is an item we discussed in

a couple of prior meetings and directed staff to begin their work on a study of the voting process by including ranked joyce voting. -- rank choice voting. >> jason fried, lafco staff again. we have gotten most of the data that we needed to the system right now, we are continuing to refine or review the information that is available to us. over time, what has been available has gotten much better. some of that information isn't as a parent horas clear. we're trying to look at ways of comparing -- have there been any patterns with rank choice voting, are they good or bad? we are doing data crunching in the system. we also have the opportunity to

sit down and talk with people about rank choice voting. there was a study done in 2004 and 2005. there is hope that we will get an updated version of that study. this number-crunching, i have a very talented in turn that can help with a lot of that data crunching. he has been able to utilize that. commissioner avalos: it has actually been very noisy in your corner of city hall with all the number crunching going on. like cereal or something in there. i was at sf-state a couple weeks ago, there was a teacher there, a professor that was to end all the work looking at doing a lot

of research eight years ago. >> he is one of them, both of them put together the 2004-2005 report. i talked with both of them individually about what work they have and what work they currently are doing. >> colleagues, any other questions for staff? i have a brief question in terms of the next step, what we expect to see by the next meeting? >> i am hopeful we will be able to start talking about basic numbers and basic discussion to show you what information we have right now. in areas where there is something more detail. but the next meeting, i am hoping to have a more presentation -- to show what

impact this has had or has not had and the city. commissioner campos: but don't we open it up for public comment. >> i was rushing to get this to you in advance of the meeting. the purpose of this is to replicate -- and the mayoral

election, communities with higher proportion of pacific islander residents and older voters with progressive communities are more likely to make errors on the ballot. 1.2% of people made an error that can in validate their ballots. in some precincts, the figure is almost 10%. the highest concentration of voter error, there is a geographic component that i think is interesting and merits further research. we also look at the ranking behavior.

only voting for one candidate, we find precincts with higher concentrations are more likely to not use the full complement ranking. i wanted to share their research has been out on monday, so forth. and also to encourage you to look at putting forth further research on ranked joyce voting. -- rank choice voting. i think we can do a pretty good job of slicing and dicing the numbers, making it correlates strongly to the characteristics of the people actually voting. those of you that are interested, there is a demographic breakdown. [chime] commissioner campos: commissioner avalos has a

question. commissioner avalos: i will wait for you to finish. >> the next step is to talk with voters and a number of ways. from my view, lead to a survey research like san francisco state. we need to do focus groups with modeling will populations and to see if they are less likely to vote generally. there was a valid designed to figure out of there are ways to develop disparities. commissioner avalos: it is very interesting information. a couple questions, what invalidated the ballot in your study? >> an overvote. rank two candidates in the same

column. we distinguish between voters that cast overvote. if they cast an overvote, it would have gone to your column. we distinguish between those that were invalidated because they voted for someone in the final round and they cast an error. the margin is different, 1.3% of voters had an error on their ballot. i think 1.1 have a ballot that was invalidated. commissioner avalos: you actually counted a valid error is different from invalidated ballots? >> or we do both because the advocates underside do it differently and we want to be completely transparent and consistent. we wanted to talk about both

ballots that were invalidated, so we weren't taking sides. commissioner avalos: is it any different in terms of the severity of the error? someone who voted for the same candidate once and no other candidate. >> and those are treated the same by the department of elections and for our study, we treated those the same. if the voter was to vote for one person in column one, too, and three, it only goes to one person wants. we can argue whether the voters made a mistake in doing that, and the report that the only preferred one. commissioner avalos: if a voter voted for a candidate in one column, that is not considered an error?

>> no, just a bullet vote. one thing that happened in this election, almost a quarter of voters ranked someone other than himself and as a result, the ballot would be invalidated. but they only vote for one? the vote for two or three? was if home exhausted without all of those different dimensions? >> you did mention a voter voting for one candidate wants only, that was marked horn of the, but it was not with any kind of value? >> one of the things that we try to discern because of patterns, roughly 9% of voters only voted for one candidate.

we make no judgment about why voters did that. it is geographically concentrated. there could be many reasons that voters would do that. was that the candidate saying only vote for one? what caused voters to behave in such a way? commissioner avalos: that is great because i think is useful to note, that is a choice. if you choose only one, that is the choice you have been re -- in rank choice voting. commissioner campos: thank you very much. we appreciate the information and look forward to reviewing what you have come up with. is there any member of the public that would like to speak on this item? for the record, we have been joined by commissioner mar.

colleagues, any questions for staff on item number four? we look forward to the continued work on this. commissioner olague, we will come back to this at the next lafco meeting. please call item 5. >> consideration and approval of the budget for 2012-2013. commissioner campos: i will turn over to lafco staff, mr. fried. >> the budget is presented before you in the packet. we believe we have enough in the reserve account at this point, if need be, to return funds to the city and county of san francisco that we should reserve our right, we have the ability -- once the city and county has

given money to us, the city and county does not have the ability to lower the amount. they can raise the amount a time they want, but they can't flourish without lafco's approval. with the city and county having financial issues, time has been spent on a different pot of money. in future years, we need the funding source for and will have the funding source back. so the staff recommends doing that once again. commissioner campos: think you very much. any comments or questions on the budget? commissioner schmeltzer: i want to say that the process has worked well, there hasn't manhattan real -- the money wasn't there prior to it being adopted and this method has worked well in order to work

hand-in-hand with the city of san francisco. commissioner campos: i completely agree, it makes sense for us to make sure that it can work wherever possible. and that that funding is available. why don't we open it up for public comment? anybody wished to speak number five? seeing none, public comment is closed. this is an action item. is this the final vote? >> this is actually the first --

should we leave it as is? commissioner campos: i think it is important to highlight its. it might catch the eye and be more interested -- it might be helpful. >> we have a section called "what's new." i will put it there. commissioner campos: if we can have a motion to except the 2012-2013 lafco budget? seconded by commissioner schmeltzer. can we take that without objection? done. call item number six. >> authorization to amend the agreement with miller and dolan to extend the term to june 30, 2013. >> fason fried, lafco staff one more time.

the contract for miss miller's services will be expiring. this is a continuation of her contract. for whatever reason, the contract has gotten off of the calendar or budget cycle. staff is recommending that instead of extending it for one year and have it, and not point in time, we are recommending that we extend it through the end of next fiscal year that will mean that contract will be a 16-month contract in total. over that 16 months, over the last year, we spent $88,000. most of it has come out of the cca fund for her legal services. we're asking and the contract itself is for 125,000. we're asking to keep it under $125,000, continue that and

added into the system. for 16 months, we will need a little bit more. it should work out a budget early -- budgetarily for us. commissioner campos: i did think it was important to make sure that the contract are based on the fiscal year. i think for purposes of accounting and budgeting, it makes more sense. that is the reason we are doing it this way. commissioner schmeltzer? commissioner schmeltzer: thank you. again, now that we have worked with miss miller for a number of years, first in her role as providing legal counsel, the prior executive officer in the interim position that i think she has held for three years, i think she has done a very good job, a very capable java. >> i will definitely agree with

that. one thing that i appreciate about miss miller aside from the expertise is that she is very mindful of the fact that we want her to be efficient. we are certainly very appreciative of that. why don't we open it up for public comment. seconded by commissioner mar. without objection. call item seven? >> authorization to amend the agreement with the dalessi management consulting, to extend

the term to june 30, 2013. >> this is another contract that has come up and expired. sfpuc utilizes him with the model. the expertise is definitely well worth it. the initial amount by $25,000 over the course of the last year -- we want to extend it through the fiscal year the same we did with ms. miller's contract. we're looking at full budgets and everything else with it. but we are not going to look to extend any extra money than what has already been allocated. we do need him, it is good to have his services available. the sfpuc has asked to bar him,

so out of cooperation, we have authorized that. commissioner campos: why don't we open it up for public comment? any member of the public that would like to speak on this item? public comment is closed. motion by commissioner avalos, seconded by commissioner schmeltzer. without objection. thank you. call item eight? >> public comment. the members of the public may address us for informations within the jurisdiction and are not on today's's agenda. commissioner campos: any member of the public that would like to speak on any item not on the agenda, please come forward. three minutes. >> eric brooks, san francisco green party and our city. commissioner olague, the other commissioners will have heard this a couple of times already.

i want to say in public for your benefit. another issue that organizers and i have worked with at that lafco worked on many years ago is to ensure that the future of communications and francisco becomes a public utility and not controlled as it is right now by comcast, at&t, and entities like that. the reason lafco got involved was because of the dubious attempt earthlink and google to take over wireless internet services in san francisco as a private monopoly, a duopoly thing. right now, we are doing a lot of work on community choice. as soon as that work gets done, based on what we are getting from the fcc, even under obama, we have moves by a very massive

corporations to take control of the internet. advocates that have been working on that are pretty afraid that if we don't move soon to set up a public broadband system in san francisco that covers the entire city, we will get preempted from doing that by corporate takeover. as soon as we get community choice put to bed, we need to jump on that right away. commissioner olague, i wanted to make sure you got that message. commissioner campos: any other member of the public that would like to speak? public comment is closed. >> item nine, future agenda items. commissioner campos: colleagues, this is an opportunity to discuss or introduce any other item that you would like for lafco to consider as we move forward. why don't we open it up for

public comment. seeing none, public comment is closed. item ten. >> adjournment. commissioner campos: meeting adjourned, and i want to take this opportunity to wish a happy birthday to commissioner pimentel. she makes me feel very old and we wish her a very happy birthday with her family and the middle -- and little laurie. meeting adjourned.