service that you have carried out and the transition from a fragile economic situation to the current day. to be able to provide balance in this hearing i think is very important and to make sure that we all know that it's not a one-sided issue that we are confronting here. i'm sue an landers and a top manager at a major non-profit at stanford universe and the associate director of the matter lutdz king project and research institute. the two issues i want to raise with you to me are very bottom line issues. it's sort of reminds me of the fact that when i started graduate school in 1992, i had

to remind my male colleagues in the graduate division why woman's history was a legitimate form of study when it had been in the field for 20 years. i said you are not an ungrad. that is not an under graduate question. that's one of the reasons why we are still here. we are grappling with very bottom line-up issues with pride. when steps are taken, what are the outcomes. and again it's very basic management driven principles. so first of all, stability. i'm not kind of person and property bho goes with phraseers form of communication which is basically i'm length. i really, my expectations are higher than that. what i want to hear is

i'm responding. i'm engaging. i'm reciprocallying. those of us who are members, we wanted to know more, joey cane has been instrumental at moving behind-the-scenes to try to work with the board that he thought that was going to be friendly and responsive as well as reviewed bylaws and procedures and practices with very little return. >> if i may ask you to finish your statement. >> i'm on the runway to wrap up here. basically to a lot of steps have been taken but to what end, all the meetings, trainings, retreats and consultants and the huddles

that the board has gone to and what is has come in all of this . where is the involvement of the community, transparency, democracy and accountability. it takes a heart, soul and conscious. this is what i present you with. >> thank you very much. next speaker please. >> hello board members. thanks for your time. i'm going to troo i and be brief and try to

say things people haven't said with regard from a rather unique perspective from having been a labor union activist for years. i also work with bradley manning support network as well as the pride accountability coalition that came together around this past year fiasco. it was a from esh entrance to an event that i had long insist to the corporate drunk and street party and hadn't been around it for a dozen years. i'm not opposed from it happening. but i just basically stayed away. coming and witnessing this years behave of the board was a real eye opener. i can say that even in some of the knockdown drag out balance -- battles that i

participated in i never witnessed such arrogance and disrespect from a wall of resistance towards community input. it really makes me sad, all cynicism aside that mr. plant chooses to codify his arrogance. he was a terrific fundraiser. i had just about come to a grudging respect for him before his resignation for that set of skills which is something that many of us could never have done. he was a great fundraiser. that said, his total arrogance and the lack of ability to deal with people, to have him codify that into racism in a city that still suffers egregious daily examples of the most vial

racism and segregation is beyond the pale to me. it's really sad to me. this was not about anything other than that earl's terrible behavior during these last 3 months. thanks again for this meeting. hopefully we can continue to work this out. >> thank you, sir. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon supervisors. thank you very much for hosting this meetings. every time since the voters commission has met i have been at that meeting. i share no not in pride but our commitment to our veterans community. i'm equally committed to the lgbt community

in san francisco. i have lived in san francisco for 26 years. this is my home. i have lived in no other place sense san francisco. in 1986 i attended the first san francisco pride organization. i'm a past board member of the organization and in the past 6 years coordinated with our veterans and the american allegiancelegions. we are the ambassadors for our disabled as well as our viep vooips. i'm deeply upset about this organization. this management has led our pride organization to a disaster. we've seen night violence and shootings and this needs to be

addressed. it's totally appropriate for the city of san francisco to hold the host body in any event fully responsible for those that attend the event. there are many ways to do this in the future. i suggest get the cameras. as we all know the heinous violence before the pride, the only reason that person was apprehended was because of the cameras provided. for the pats -- past 3 years it's been more violent. earl plant nominated one of the candidates up for board election and that should not be appropriate in any non-profit organization. i'm glad lisa was here. she's a very beautiful woman. if you

put one hat on top of her head it would be magnificent. she has decided to take a leave of absence when board of pride while she accepts the interim director ship of pride. congratulations to lisa. she has not given herself a rise. i would like to throw the issue of raise, since early plant and his quote to the racial politics of personal destruction. i would like to share as one latino there is not a single latino on this board of directors, i can't remember the last time there was a latino in this board of directors'. you can ask this through your current president and the in interim lawyer, when was the last time there

was a latino on this board. hello, my name is jaime cater. i'm a political activist. i live in the east bay. i see on page 3 of your agenda it says the government's duties to serve the public reaching a decision and full view of the public. commissions, boards and council to conduct the people's business. this organizationen insures that this business is conducted boo before the people and city operation is open to the people's review. i know the sf pride board and everything associated is not a city agencies but surely they can get an example of this what i just read on page 3 of your

agenda. i'm concerned that this position in the pride board is called ceo. my this is considered in a private association. my mother lost her house to a private bank as a person called ceo.

>> hello. i have spent the last 20 years and also directed hiv programs using chinese medicine. i'm here because what brought me to the meetings to again with was the whole thing that happened around bradley manning now known as chelsey manning. i felt what i was reading was so wrong to me that i decided to speak up. people weren't interested who were running the show. that is what is most important is that this is a member driven organization. theoretically that's how it started. the whole thing began because of people's oppression. people don't join to get this because they are oppressed. what came

was contentious out in the street saying we need to be acknowledged. what happened? we started to get a little bit of acknowledgment and stop -- acknowledging everybody else and we come to chelsey manning and this whole process and we decide this isn't good enough we are going to throw the rules out. they throw out a lot of rules, they throw out the bylaws. they just keep throwing out what doesn't work for them. i want to say one thing before i go on in the negative. i have had extremely positive experience with lucky gutierrez. extremely. he's been professional. every time i have e-mailed, called, he's

answered. there are real problems in the board, the board is trying to maintain itself and they forget that there are members, that there are rules and there is reasons for rules and that's so we can all be actually involved but what's starting to happen is manipulation. there was a discussion and we were told there were 12 board members, now there was 10. that was heartbreaking. i was hoping there were 15. the secretary cannot get the meetings out because she's too busy. they need more help. to turn this around again the manipulation. one last thing. i know people bring up this whole idea about

contentious. continue getting contentious until you get it right. doesn't mean you have to be disrespect, but it doesn't mean we haven't to prevent ourselves from speaking up until they hear us. >> thank you very much. is there anymore people from the public who would like to come and speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. >> i want to ask a couple follow up questions to the president of the board. >> yes, supervisor. >> thank you. it really does concern me some of the things that have been said in public comment. let me begin with some of the vendors and contractors, the fact that people have been

involved in these events are saying some of the things irrespective of the individuals comments. that is a concern that so many people that have been involved that are saying things. i'm wondering if you have any thoughts or response to that? >> you asked me earlier. the overall production is created by many different people. our contractors have a great role in the production and as well as our cochairs. i being one of them. one thing i will do, i took a lot of notes this afternoon and i will definitely share this among my current board as well as the board elect once i'm there and it's being determined on sunday. i think i definitely there have will have to take this back and

share with my fellow members of the board. the concerns and comments made this afternoon. unfortunately i don't have. >> i appreciate that. the one thing i would say in respect to the specifics, the fact that he is the coming out in this form is good and bad, it's good because we want people to come out and speak up. but as an organization, you don't necessarily want involvement by the board of supervisors to know what your vendors and contractors think. if there are concerns that they have, whether they are right, legitimate or not, you want them to come to you. so that is a real concern for me.

supervisor wiener? do you have something. >> not a question. >> okay, then the last question that i have is with respect to the election and the number of boards members that are being elected, number of seats, how does that happen from going from 12 to 10. that is a ledge concern. i'm wondering if you can talk about that because if elections are coming up shortly i know i would be worried about that. >> the election coming up with the board as well as our legal council as to how we came up with the no. 10 directors. we

wanted to be able to have 10 individuals and also appoint more later and identify individuals who had the skills to be able to fill. but in terms of how it went from 12-10 , >> i don't know if your legal council can talk about those things. i don't think he can because it might be attorney-client. let me make this point here and i will turn it over to supervisor wiener. this is just me, i have a simple mind just making this point. i would think that if you have the ability to have 15 board members, as an organization i want to have as many board members as i could because you are volunteers, and

the more people you have, the more work that you can do. in my experience with every single non-profit that i have worked with is that the issue for many of them is that they can't get enough people who want to be on the board and they are dying to have people on the board. if you have the ability to have 15, i personally would have 15. it's your choice but i don't know why you would limit yourself to 10. if you have more people that want to be involved. the more people that are involved, the better it is for the organization. that's just simple me thinking. i just want to put that out there because i don't understand how that happens. >> i understand. >> supervisor wiener? >> thank you. i'm not going to express a view on the side of the board. i think there are

boards of 10 or 12 or 14 that just function 15. but i do want to say that some of the issues that we heard today and this is general comment, you don't need to -- thank you. in terms of that there are outdated bylaws and procedures that should have apparently been updated a long time ago, haven't been. we have the situation which has been resolved thanks to a lot of hard work but probably shouldn't have happened in the first place to have significant turnovers of executive directors which is not just recent thing but happened in the past as well. we see problems and apparent low moral among contractors who make the actual parade and festival work

every year. and to me whether the comments whether the structure, it's a challenging organization. whether you talk about an organization that is responsible for really this public trust, ensuring the pride parade and festival happen every year. i respectfully disagree with miss oliver in terms of anyone's role in commenting on it and having a strong view on the governance structure. this isn't just a private thing. it's not about a private entity and how dare you suggest that they should merge or a

different group should be responsible for the parade. this is a concern and should be a concern of the elected representative of the community as well as the community itself. i think it is an open question in terms of the governance structure because we want to make sure that this parade and this festival continue to get strong and are not jeopardized or weaken the structure that are some of the problems that i have outlined and outlined during the hearing. i will say, i know there is an election coming up and that will be conducted pursuant to the organization's rules. i have no idea what the result will be. that is what it is. i actual low don't know that even if there is some sort of change of leadership in the board, m in my mind i'm not

convinced that it will address any of the governmental situations that exist. for me whether i or anyone else favors the incumbent director, this is about structure of this organization which i think a reasonable argument can be made does not necessarily serve the critical need of -- insuring the parade. we need to continue to have this amazing iconic and unique institution in our city. >> thank you. supervisor wiener and again i want to thank all the members of the public who

have come out to speak about this item. i also want to thank the members of the pride board, president of the board, the general council and their acting executive director for being here today and i want to thank the members of the public, of our community who are involved in doing this and i also appreciate from the vendors who shared their experiences. what i want to say to be completely fair what we heard here was in many respects was a mixed bag in the sense that there was the positive development on the issue of the finances of the organization and i think we need to give credit where credit is due and we are grateful to the board and the staff that worked so hard to make that happen. i think it's something we should be very proud of and lisa williams who made that happen.

but there are comments that i heard that there are issues that remain around governance, around transparency and around accountability and when you hear from these vendors that are largely responsible for the success of this event when those concerns are raised. it is very troubling to me. it's very troubling to me that it seems that it took this forum for these concerns to come out. i think that's a scene of something. -- sign of something. i don't know what exactly. with thatten mind is what i would ask that we continue this dialogue. my hope is by the time we have a follow up hearing that we can get more specifics about some of the things in the report that unfortunately i know for a lot of reasons we couldn't get today that will provide that

opportunity. i hope there are other things we can discuss including some of the issues that were raised today by the vendors and also some of the issues raised by other members whether you agree with the comments or not. that there is even an impression that there is still compliance with rules and regulations and that there is no accountability or transparency. whether it's true or not, the impression itself is a problem. i think we owe it to ourselves and to the community to get to the bottom of it. i'm a big fan of brook oliver and i believe a lot of the stuff he said especially around the city to providing more resources for this event. i agree with you professor wiener that we have a responsibility in city government to get this right. it not just criticizing but also putting our money where

our mouth is and i'm committed to making this happen. thanks everyone and thanks supervisor wiener. can we make a motion to call this to continue to the call of the chair. we'll let you know when the next hearing takes place. >> mr. clerk, do we have any further business? >> that concludes the items on this agenda. >> meeting adjourned. >> >>