supervisor tang? >> i second the motion to amend and also to send it on to the full board, item 8. >> so you are the tie breaker. >> as i said, i don't believe that this is the ideal situation and if i had a choice, we wouldn't be talking about this. but if we are going to implement laura's law, as i think is going to happen here, i would rather do it with the amendments. with the amendments i will support it. >> so the motion -- i will withdraw my motion. supervisor tang would like to -- motion is to pass it out of committee with a positive recommendation. so without any objection, motion passes. thank you. (applause). >> mr. chair, you need item

no. 7. >> for item no. 7, madam clerk, i'd like to make a motion to file item no. 7. >> yes. >> do we have to vote? >> yeah. >> so we need to vote. >> so i made a motion, is there any objection? seeing no objection, motion passes. . >> can we take a quick break? >> we're going to take a quick 5-minute recess before we get started again. (brief recess).

. >> thank you very much, we're going to resume our meeting at this point. madam clerk, can you please call item no. 6. >> item no. 6 is a charter amendment for the november 4, 2014 election to require the (inaudible) to call a special election to provide the president serve as acting mayor until an election is held. >> we're joined by supervisor avalos right now and i'd like to turn it over to him. >> great, thank you, chair yee and colleagues, thank you for hearing this item again. we had heard this item on thursday where we had made an amendment of the whole and what we have before us is a charter amendment that is strictly about the balance of power between the mayor's office, the executive branch of government, and the board of supervisors, the legislative

branch of government and how we fill vacancies in each. this charter amendment will actually strengthen the separation of powers in san francisco government. in middle school we all learned about checks and balances, the separation of power between the executive and the legislative branch of government but the separation of powers breaks down when there is a vai kaes -- vacancy in the office of the mayor and the board of supervisors. when there is a vacancy in the mayor's office, the board of supervisors unilaterally appoints a new mayor. this charter amendment proposes a simple solution to this hole in our separation of powers, it will allow the voters to elect new officials. it will seem rather

novel, in fact in most around the country, as mr. fried will show us, do not have this blending of the branches to fill vacancies. the most egregious example is when governor rod blagoyovitckh was convicted of bribes for the appointment of a u.s. senate seat. he was recorded saying i've got this and i ain't going to bleep give up anything for it. i believe a series of recesses in our meeting rooms or back room

meetings tainted the process. vacancies on the board of supervisors are much more common. there have been 23 appointees to the board of supervisors since the 1960's and when an appointed supervisor runs for office with the power of incumbent cy, they almost always win. the board of supervisors term limits can create an incentive for supervisors to look for a new job before their term expires and the mayor's unilateral appointment power creates an 1817 tif for the mayor to tantalize supervisors with another job. at one point willie brown had appointed a majority of the members of the board who were an extension. that is a majority of the board of supervisors were tied very closely to the executive branch of government under willie brown.

when frank jordan appointed his niece to the board of supervisors he appointed supervisor door is ward to award to fill the vacancy for miss conroy. agisto was dismissed 6 weeks later and ward lost her election for allegedly spending taxpayer funds on an election mailer. (inaudible) this short of horse trading and back room

dealing is making is why cynical are so cynical about our electorial process and our elected officials act will restore public faith and ensure that voters are given the ability to choose the mayor and their supervisor without any special interest intervening in the back rooms of city hall. so today i have a brief, i have jason fried presenting a lafco report presenting the issue how vacancies are filled in other jurisdictions around california and around the country and he'll present some of the findings that we have here today just for context of what's before us here today. mr. fried >> jason fried, lafco member. we looked at how vacancies are

filled for all elected offices, san francisco being the only charter city/county in the state of california we kind of are an island of ourselves as far as being able to compare to anyone else because there's no one else like us. nationally there are other city/county mixed together, we took all the chartered city counties and how they appoint their elected officials, how vacancies get filled, for california-wide offices as well as california and nationally most populous. in total we looked at every elected office, in total there were 192 offices in 31 different jurisdictions that were looked at. last thursday when i was asked by the chair of our commission, supervisor avalos, to take simply a look at mayor and board of supervisors, once again we consider board of supervisors and city council in this study to be one and the same because no other county in san francisco has a mayor, so you need to find places where there's a

mayor and a city council working together. so just for those positions, mayor or city council, in some places they have different places so i just took councils, two of the charters in this country do not have information because they do not have information online. there's two smaller counties in california that are not incorporated in this study but we incorporated all the other city counties in california, the 7 incorporated city counties nationally, that was a threshold, i think it was 50,000 people. there are a lot of city counties in alaska that are so small in their incorporated jurisdictions we didn't include them. top 10, in total you get 16 because some of the california top cities are

also national top cities. for board of supervisors the way they work is two are replaced by the governor when a vacancy occurs, the governor of california replaces them. in three of them the board of supervisors has the ability to replace but if they don't act within a certain time frame, between 30 to 60 days rk the governor steps in and does the appointment. >> that's 5 counties out of how many? >> 10 counties in total that are in this study. there's 10 that had their information online. then the other 5 counties use a combination of either special elections or appointments. the special election, in three of the cases there is a special election depending on how much time is left in the term of office. in most cases, this will be a common theme that you will find throughout when we're looking at other jurisdictions as well, normally about a year in most places. if you have a year or less left, when tended, when

there's a special election they will allow . in other cases the board of supervisors were given a certain number of days and could call a special election and in one of those cases if the board didn't call for a sfetion election or appoint somebody then the governor would step in after 45 days. so you have variance there how it works but about half do some combination of special election or appointment depending on how much time is left and certain actions taken by the board of supervisors. we then went to the mayor's ofrs and how those vacancies get filled. in total the city council or the appointing body in two cases there was an appointment that they did. in 9 occurrences there was an automatic special election process that was put in place then for the remainder of the 21 jurisdictions that we looked at, which is 10 of them, there is some sort of combination of a council or

a special election getting called and in most cases there was some sort of in the interim someone was put in place so there was a mayor. some mayors are part of the city council and in some places they are completely separately elected but there was either a mayor pro tem or president of the council or somebody who would be put in the place of mayor in the interim until there was the special election occurring. very rarely do you see that position actually remaining open until the special election occurs. then we did the same thing for the council seat like the board of supervisors and what you get there is you get three appointments where the council appointments. in one of the cases, and i'll get to that in just a minute, the mayor is part of that process directly. you have 7 places where you have special elections occur and then the remaining 12 jurisdictions that we looked at had once again this combination of depending of how long was remaining, the council could appoint or there could be a

special election. there were four things i wanted to pull out specifically and that being chicago the mayor makes a nomination to the city council there and the city council determines whether or not to approve the appointment. in honolulu where the council can have the ability to appoint or take action and if they don't take action and the mayor steps in and is the one that then is authorized to take action for them, those were the only two instances where you could find a city council/board of supervisors type situation because honolulu is one of those combined city/counties, all the others the mayor is not involved. you then had oakland and san jose, which both had the ability to make an appointment. you called for a special election and in oakland's case depending on how far away that special election was, you could have

somebody temporarily appointed to fill the seat. san jose is the same thing, they just had the general rule that council if they wanted could fill that seat but it wasn't mandatory. that is jueft -- just the basics of what we found in the study a year ago. >> was los angeles part of the study? >> yes. >> so when there is a vacancy the mayor does not have appointment power? >> correct. >> does the mayor of los angeles serve as well on the city council? >> i didn't get exactly into what level of -- some mayors are part of the city council, some aren't. >> i don't know how they handle that. >> i didn't get into that for the study so i can't tell you directly. >> thank you, appreciate it. if there are no questions we will go

to public comment. >> hello, supervisors, nice to see you again so soon. i am stella babbett, nothing has changed since last thursday, the sierra club still likes our elected representatives charter amendment. as i mentioned last week, the committee voted unanimously at the may meeting to support it in concept. once the final language is ready we can start the process of full endorsement. i don't have anything new to add. thank you again and please help put let's our elected on the november ballot. i don't know exactly how to give this, but that would give voters the ability to decide if they want voters to decide who to represent them, to put it sort of simply, sort

of complicatedly. thank you. >> hello, supervisors, tom toantano, i am here on behalf of the club who at our meeting last tuesday unanimously endorsed putting let's elect our elected officials on the ballot again, not the measure itself but just letting the voters decide whether they want the opportunity to elect our officials. sf's current system for fulfilling vacancies would make james madison furious. have the mayor appoint supervisors and supervisors appoint the mayor and bestow the advantage of

incumbancy (inaudible) what do they want the chance to elect their own elected officials. this will increase transparency in city hall and something i think we all know is important, restoring voters' faith in the government. this takes decisions out of the back rooms of city hall and into the hands of the voters. on behalf of the harvey milk club i ask you to let sf voters do what they learned they should do in middle school and decide whether they want to elect their own elected officials. >> hiagain, i'm lisa marie, i'm standing in front of you as an executive board member of the harvey milk club and as a queer woman who cares deeply about who is

making decisions for me about resources and how resources are distributed in my city. and i stand in front of you representing many many people whose voices don't often feel represented by our elected officials and it's super critical for me and my communities to know we have the opportunity and the ability to take part in deciding who it is that will be representing us, who will be making decisions that will impact our lives and it's fascinating to know there are people who oppose this, that there are people who don't think we should be able to elect our elected officials. i have the feeling those are not folks that have walked through the world in ways me and my communities have walked through the world. i thank supervisor avalos for putting this forth as many of our most marginalized communities

absolutely support this. >> hello, my name is patrick connors and i'm speaking on behalf of the league of pissed off voters. in 2014 the league didn't endorse anybody on the ballot and while that type of grandstanding might seem par for the course for the league, it also speaks to an election with an entire ballot of unopposed incumbents which we found to be pretty lame. it's a sign of an unhealthy democracy that we don't even have a choice. the city wide races on that ballot have no term limits and receive no public financing so we're stuck with career politicians until they decide to move on. even if they are okay at their jobs, it's still problematic. this business of the mayor appointing his buddies who then go on to win unopposed races is troubling. the fact

the mayor unlaterally fills out our legislative branch, the lack of checks and balances creates temptation for unethical deal making. these vacancies are not common, but they are problematic. elections would not be costly, especially given their infrequency. we must strengthen powers of san francisco elected government. this legislation will ensure voters are given the ability to choose their mayor and their supervisor. personally i don't see why there would be opposition to this proposal. is there a legitimate reason for the mayor to retain this power that does not reek of politics? elections are democratic, they give the power back to the people, back to the neighborhoods. let's let the voters elect our elected

officials. thank you. >> hi, my name is sam merlot, i'm a resident and president of the harvey milk club. i will say that i think san francisco as a small relatively small and fairly affluent city state on the edge of the peninsula should be able to model these democratic processes and if this city can't, i don't know which city in america can. >> i'm bob planthold, i am here on behalf of friends of ethics. we are people who are either former ethics commissioners, ethics staff but have a variety of other good government type work experience such as on the board of appeals or several grand juries or

sunshine ordinance task force. what we haven't heard said i think is going it need reminding. it is the board of supervisors that's the policy making body for the city. the mayor is the chief executive officer. so when a mayor appoints over half of the policy makers, that's a problem. the analogy is to look at private enterprise. companies whose chief executive stacks the deck of the board of directors often lack competent executive oversight. they can get into trouble. that's the analogy with the way this system can happen now. i'm suggesting let the people decide right now. do they want things to go as they are? so be it, if that's the case, don't deny people the opportunity to have a truly fully independent policy making body, the board of

supervisors. thank you. >> any other public comments on this item? seeing none, public comment is now closed. supervisor avalos. >> thank you, just want to thank all the members of the public for being here and want to urge that we can move this charter amendment forward to the full board with or without recommendation i would be okay with. i think it's important that we actually provide an opportunity for the voters to decide how we want to participate in filling vacancies on the board of supervisors and in the mayor's office. i think this is a reasonable thing that really lives up to our democratic ideals as a city. and just want to reiterate this is not about any particular supervisor or to question the qufrtions of any one appointment that's been made recently, it's really about having a process that lives up to our democratic ideals and values. we were making this on the pathway of

doing this charter amendment back a couple years ago when lafco had done the study on vacancies and it was really about having a stable way we can move forward on filling these vacancies. my experience on the board, especially when it came to making the appointment of the interim mayor was one i will never forget and one that i felt didn't live up to what san francisco is truly about. i really feel we can do something better and putting the right to fill vacancies in the hands of voters i think really, will really help in that process. so colleagues i really hope to have your support. >> supervisor tang. >> thank you, supervisor avalos and of course everyone who came out to speak. i made a series of comments last week, so i will not repeat those. but i will say is that for me especially as someone who has gone through now, i am going through two elections within two years, i feel this charter amendment is a little bit of a misnomer

because i am sitting here as an elected official. i would challenge people if you do want a democratic election that we get more people to come out and run, run against incumbents, don't be afraid to do that, that's how we will get a more democratic system. as an official who went through two elections, people will have that opportunity to and will have an an opportunity to as you did the research on the time frames when it should occur, i am open to but i think that currently as people who are appointed they do have to runny lex -- run election at least 120

days. people should absolutely be challenged especially if there are incumbents in place. with a special election, we already struggle with voter turnout so we are essentially saying with voter turnout for a successor, we are willing to have a lower voter turnout to select who will be the next person in office, whether it's the board of supervisors or the mayor's office. that's something i want people to consider and hasn't been brought up. voter turnout i think is crucial. we saw very low turnout in june in our primaries even though there was a contested race, low turnout in november as well when we had to go run to fill the remainder of our predecessor's terms. the current system does allow opportunities for incumbents and appointees to be

challenged in multiple ways and i want people to take advantage of what our current system actually allows. >> supervisor campos. >> thank you, let me say i think voter turnout is important but it's interesting that that gets thrown out depending on what the issue is. if that is really the true motivating actor then let's all agree we should move the mayor's election to a presidential year because that will ensure that there is the largest voter turnout possible. and i guarantee you that there are people talking about voter turnout in the context of this proposal that will not support that for obvious reasons. i do think that we have to recognize that the current system does require appointed supervisors to run for election. but i think that not all elections are equal and i speak as someone who had to return as a

non-incumbent and then had to run as an incumbent. and i will tell you that it's really hard to sit here and say that, you know, that there is no difference if you haven't gone through it, but having gone through the process of running for an office without the benefits of incumbancy i can tell you it's a very different experience. when you haven't had the opportunity to say that you serve in that seat that there is an added level of convincing that is required on your part including the fact, by the way, that by virtue of not being the incumbent you don't have the benefit that incumbents have including the benefit of an established fund raising base. so i do think that there are

differences between running as an incumbent, whether you are an appointed incumbent or not, and running as someone where there is no person that is on the ballot that is currently filling that seat. and so i think that what i appreciate about this proposal, and it's actually something that i think that it's credit to supervisor avalos because i actually think there are more examples in other jurisdictions where there is a vacancy in a legislative body, that the legislative body itself decides who fills that vacancy and that in many places where there is a vacancy on the city council it is the city council that decides. i'm glad that in this case that was not the choice made, that it was actually given to the voters. because i actually think that that is the more appropriate approach.

because that way you are trying to, as much as possible, take politics out of the mix so that it's not a power struggle between, you know, elected officials on the board and the elected mayor but it's actually just left exclusively to the voters to make that decision. i really appreciate that and i think that it's really hard for me to understand the opposition, though i respect that there are different perspectives on this one, but having run in two different elections i can tell you that there is a real advantage when you are running as an incumbent and i am glad this proposal takes that advantage away and levels the playing field so voters have an opportunity to decide for themselves who gets to fill that vacancy. thank you. >> thank you. i think what i've heard is arguments on both sides of this discussion and that we're