assistant through a rally held at city hall. i have to say some of our people have a much better challenge crossing the streets. i was grateful that i wasn't alone and i had a guide helping me through that process. last of all i have some sad news. our councilmembers sarah bridget has submitted her resignation. that is effective earlier this week. she sends her regrets. she had hoped she would be able to come speak to you today but she had a prior commitment of her own. she hopes to see you at future meetings. i wish to thank her for here service and

advocacy and dedication. i know she will be missed. that concludes my directors report and thank you for your attending. >> thank you. we move to item 7. action team, cochair elections. an ordinance with the mayor's disability council bylaws article 3, section 1. this should be two cochairs to serve as officers of the council. and we'll be staffed by there months. the present election will be filled with vacancy due to cochair james resignation. >> so i would like to ask a question before we go with this team to the council. being seeing that last month this item

had a motion and then voted on and then asked for the mayor or an investigation. i have to report that we are going to have a meeting with the mayor's office and this team and what it's about. i'm asking the council do we go on or do we wait? i'm asking all the council because of what went on in last month's meeting. i do not want to be ostracized anymore. i'm asking for a group decision on this.

>> are you saying that it was tabled? >> yes. it was voted on and tabled. >> i'm not changing it. i don't want to take it off. i'm just asking the council do we go on? >> i want to ask a question, something that is tabled, does that mean we don't go forward? >> if i can provide a little clarification, at the last meeting there was a vote taken to not hear the item at the last meeting. that has only been upheld for the last meeting. there is nothing to prevent you from having an election at this meeting based upon that vote. >> councilmembers can i hear from you, please? >> according to the bylaws, we

are supposed to have elections to have two cochairs. so whether the motion to table it but we do need to have an election today because we have not had two cochairs to serve on the council. whether we vote on it today, that's a decision of the council so that's where i stand right now on it. thank you. >> denise? >> thank you, we did discuss this at great length at our last meeting and we did hash

out some details and we agreed it's best to have cochairs so the responsibility doesn't fall on 1 person. according to our bylaws it is time to have that election. we can address any personal sidebar concerns away fwr this meeting. we need to discuss council business and get this election going. thank you. >> any other council members? >> so far away. okay. so, i believe that we have gone without a second chair for by my account, 5 months, that's in violation of the bylaws. we really should have an election today to get back into accordance.

>> okay. let's go with elections. do we have anyone -- appointing themselves who would like to be a cochair? or would anyone like to nominate themselves? role and? >> i nominate chip to be council to the cochair. >> anyone else? excuse me, do you accept that nomination, chip? >> yes. >> is there anyone else that would like to nominate someone or yourself? >> i believe by procedure you would want to hear a second to that nomination.

>> i second it. >> seeing there is no one else nominated, excuse me we have a public comment, please. >> members, i'm bob. i spent seven 1/2 years on the sunshine ordinance task force and i also was an officer off the city's ethics commission for 2 years. i'm looking at your agenda. there is nothing in here about approval of the minutes of the past meeting or the previous meeting. why i'm raising that is there is differences as to what was the decision made at the last regular full council

meeting, was it tabled or was it tabled for that meeting. you don't have your own draft official record as to what the decision was. you have conflicting oral statements. i'm asking you to keep that in mind that you are proceeding without minutes and the lack of minutes also raises other questions of what else you did on didn't decide. whatever else also was discussed at the executive committee meeting, may help inform your thinking. but it doesn't over riedde negate or modify whatever was decided. right now we have heard differing opinions as to what was decided. until you

resolve that, yes, you don't have a cochair as is required, but there may have been some problems with the decision last month and you don't yet know that according to your own records or your agenda which doesn't provide any information. you know, i'm not offering thoughts about yes or no on a vice-chair election today. you don't have the record as a basis to know what was the decision. thank you. >> to the chair, could i comment? we don't actually produce minutes for the mayor's disability council but the meetings are televised and can be watched on play back. i think if anybody were to do that to watch the play back, they would see that there was a motion that was made to take an

item off the agenda at the last meeting and that that motion did pass to take it off the last meeting, but that it wasn't necessarily binding on future meetings and in addition to the televised proceedings we also have captioned notes which are a word for word description. so i would feel confident that the council has the authority to move forward on their agenda today. >> as cochair, i don't know which way to go but i'm going to proceed with our meeting and move on to chip has been elected or should you say would like to be cochair. well, there is no one else here to vote. i

guess we still vote, i guess? >> also, did you want to provide your councilmember with an opportunity to speak to the council before the vote? >> yes. and i want to apologize because i'm very confused and i'm new at this. so we will learn though and we will move on, thank you very much. >> yes, i would like to preface my comments by saying that we are all learning about the proper rules of order and we are trying our very hardest to live by them. there has been some confusion and discussions but i this i that carla was absolutely right about the intent of last meetings motion and i don't believe the word table was actually ever used.

anyway, i want to say that nobody is trying to undermine the procedures of this council. with that said, i would hike -- like to see us move forward as a council, more unified and more active in nature. along those lines i have been working hard on the housing resolution with staff and council members and members of community based organization and government agencies. so i have dived in head first with respect to this. it's an indication of how i will behave in the future. so thank you for the nomination. thank you very much.

>> we need to pause for the camera. thank you. >> we will proceed, i guess upon the investigation. i don't know if that's tabled or what you do with that word. but it is what it is. do we have ballots or do we do it secretly? >> we have to pass out ballots for each of you. after you have voted we'll collect them and tally them here and report on the results. be patient with

us. we'll be moving on with the meeting very shortly. thank you very much.

>> the results of the election are that chip is our new cochair of the mayor's disability council. congratulations. >> seeing that we'll move on to discussion item no. 8. an addendum to the bylaws. discussion about consideration of bylaw amendments that will increase the efficiency of the mdc work and encourage consistent member participation. some potential changes include amendments to

article ii, section 4. would you like to read? >> okay. thank you, mayor's disability council. notes the language is provided in bold and italic. article ii section 4. a council member is subject to dismissal if that member is absent for three regular meetings out of a series of 12.

a councilmember is recorded absent if not present for at least 51 percent of a meeting. article ii section 4, proposed language. attendance required. attendance at regular mayor's disability council is a required official duty. if he or she is absent from three scheduled regular council meetings out of a series of 12 or 3 executive committee meetings out of 12. a councilmember can only be marked present if he or she attendance a meeting via conference phone or bridge line. a councilmember is reported absent for at least 51 percent of the meeting. thank you. >> so, do we have a motion to

-- chip? >> okay. i think that we've discussed this item previously. i don't know if we need a discussion today. but i would like to say i'm in favor of making these changes to the bylaws and i will put a motion on the table that we approve them as read, the changes as read by denise. >> is there a second? >> i second. >> do we go into a vote? discussion. is there a discussion about this item? yes. councilmembers? public?

>> folks, i'm bob. you are putting yourself up for a lot of problems with the way this is worded. i don't want to go back. this also includes under the previous action. under the sunshine ordinance, a person is able to comment on each item. i already had mine. you cannot take secret votes. you didn't even give the numbers. you cannot take secret votes on any action item except litigation. button this item, if you make attendance at the executive committee meetings mandatory, there is no difference between

the executive committee and the full council. there are some that work full time jobs and can't attend this meeting but can attend the 4:00 session. which is according to the sunshine ordinance, if you have a meeting of the whole body, it must be noticed, and any discussion taken as a decision of the whole body though you call it executive committee. you call it committee as a whole. you can have people forming your opinions with their input, councilmembers who attend the so-called executive committee meeting which the full item will be heard at the council. this is in art fully worded, that you are opening up yourself to problems by saying that attendance at executive

meetings is mandatory. i'm glad that you are looking for some attendance requirement, but executive committee meeting becomes co-terminance at the full council. i suggest this really needs to be better drafted so you don't run into problems. thank you. >> to the chair may i make a comment on process? >> the council has always held elections by secret ballot. the council is being consistent in their voting today with how they have always held their cochair elections.

>> in response to participating in the executive meeting, we do really encourage the council member to participate and the public. we as part of a meeting we talk about our previous council meeting and brainstorm future meeting items. so, we do encourage more participation at the council meeting and also at

the council, too. that's the whole purpose of it. thank you. >> thank you. >> seeing there is no more discussion, we -- sorry. >> john paul scott here, deputy director for the mayor's office on disability. i participate in a number of national standards making groups that operate by roberts rules of order. one of the things that we do in the accessibility committee that drafts the national building code is vote on excused absences. there could be conditions, health conditions or special conditions where a member might not be able to attend and they petition that

body to have an excused absence. i think it would behoove those with a disability acknowledge that we might have a condition where we need a reasonable accommodation. also under roberts rules of orders there can be an amendment to a motion. the motion can still proceed on at the meeting with an amendment. someone just writes down that section and bring it bake later in the meeting so the cochair assigns someone to draft that language if it needs to be that precise and they can bring the item back or write it now and make it a friendly amendment. >> councilmembers? would you like to comment to his suggestion? derek?

>> i just want to thank the public comments as well as carla as well as john paul with comments. my view on that is that if there is some confusion or if there is a way that we can better lay thought language that we can discuss today and/or on the advice of the deputy director possibly just work on this more maybe on an executive committee meeting and bring it back next month. i'm just wondering how councilmembers feel about this. >> this is july in a. the executive committee meeting

makes it coincide like a full council meeting. i can see problems with that. however, nothing prevents this body from making attendance to any committee of the council and committee of the council mandatory. >> just a minute. the camera needs to be adjusted. thank you. >> are we better now? >> yes. >> so i could propose if you instruct me to redraft the language, to be that attend -- attendance at regular mayor's disability council and one of it's committees is required official duties. which means that different individuals can choose to attend different committees, but they must

choose one in addition to the regular meeting. councilmember wong participates in physical access, excuse me, councilmember zarda are in the disability disaster preparedness. so there is some sort of participation in addition to the full body meeting. and you can amend it that way. but, it is up to you. that's certainly an option. >> thank you. councilmembers? denise? >> we took all these things into consideration what you just heard from other councilmembers and the public. it was brought up under our leadership development some of the concerns and since that's where we really craft the agenda for the meetings and getting presenters, this is why we wanted some sort of number

in place . in the combination that we can't make it for whatever reason, we have an accommodation such as the bridge line. for example, if someone can't make it because of the bart strike, they can participate that way. we include that as part of participation even though the physical body is not sitting in the chair. we understand somebody maybe can't be for other reasons, medical, work can't, but at least provide other options. this provides a guideline so they can be this and participate in council business because we all want to hear from each other. that's all i want to say. >> thank you, denise. i would like to say too i thank the public for their comment and thank you john paul scott for your comments too. those were things we didn't hear when we

discussed this and we have discussed it lengthy. i would like to go with joanna, maybe go back and finish what she said. finish a little bit of the writing of this and maybe bring it back to the next executive meeting. or did we vote on it and it's gone or put amendment to it. excuse me chip. >> i would respectfully remove the motion and that would allow us to do whatever we want. i just want to also say to john paul that we did discuss with people on the council that had disabilities and might need extra time off and while we didn't make it explicit language there was no intention to force someone off the council to take each meeting to take the case on