they gave their health and well-being to. this is not an example of san francisco's values. this is not the way we treat those who sacrifice for the greater good of this city. this will end this practice, the legislation that you advance will insure that every firefighter and police officer while they're fighting for their life won't have to fight for a check and their families who are left behind in the event they don't win that battle won't be left to start over again and be left in economic distress. we witnessed a dramatic increase in the job related cancer that many firefighters are circuming. new chemicals that mass camacho raid that's in our furniture and clothing. a flat screen computer in every room that releases deadly

toxins. our cancer foundation has led the way in research and prevention to mitigate this to ourselves and the efforts of tony, our president, he really has become the national figure head on this, and he's been inspiring and amazing to work with and we need to back up the work that he's done and insure that all the firefighters that he's advocating for, again, aren't left economically damaged once they give their bodies to the city san francisco and we've taken effect to call this abby's law. >> if you can tell us about that? >> he's one of the -- he's been an advocate for cancer and his cancer has returned and he can't come here to speak, but we're going to speak for him, and hopefully we're going to deliver this

legislation for him and know all of his efforts hasn't been in vein and the woman who we talked about was anice who spoke at our rally at the steps of city hall and a month after her testimony she received a letter saying that her pension -- disability pension was denied. she's been told by the state that her cancer is job related and she's been told by the state board that her cancer is job related and she can't come back to work. what you're doing is critical for the firefighters of san francisco and i hope this goes through and i'm sure it will. thank you very much, supervisors. >> thank you for sharing your perspective. next speaker. >> president chiu, and supervisor tang. my name is mike. i'm a

letter tired san francisco police officer. i'm in my 41st year. i represent police officers, firefighters deputy sheriff's and other employees from the appeals board and the city's retirement system. i have noted an extraordinary difference between my representation of the deputies sheriff's and the san francisco police officers and san franciscos before the retirement board and that's because deputy sheriff's by virtue of being apart of the retirement system -- they join the same presumption that we're asking the board to give to our firefighters and police officers. i would like to bring to your attention, there's three types of retirement systems in california. the 1937 county's act which applies to 20 counties in california. the public employees retirement system which applies to the vast majority of public safety

officers in the state of california and small independent systems such as ourselves. for 20 years, firefighters and police officers who are in public retirement system have received and obtained what we're asking in fairness inequity that police officers and firefighters receive. when you say president chiu this is a city of saint francis which year accurate and you're proposing your legislation to protect those who protect us, also quite accurate, what we're really talking about financial protection. but the financial protection is emotional protection. as they protect, as you say supervisor we'll be protected. thank you for entertaining this legislation and i'd like

president oconner [inaudible]. thank you. >> thank you mike he will. thank you for educating my staff and i on the complexity of our state and various retirement systems which i'll say to supervisor tang, overly complicated creating an establishing different standard and we have deputy sheriff's that enjoy one starts, but our police officers and firefighters haven't been able to enjoy that. thank you. next speaker. >> good morning, president chiu. supervisor tang. my name is lawyer mac. i'm a 51 native san franciscan. i'm a husband, and father to two teenager daughters in. in 2001 i was diagnosed with stage

one colon cancer. in 2011 my rectum was removed and i was given a bag while i recovered. in january of it 2012, a biopsy revealed that my cancer has spread. my cancer was now stage 4. since that day, you can imagine the different emotions that not only i have experienced and had to deal with, but also my wife, and children. anger, disbelief, depression, anxiety are these emotions. i ask myself, why me. when i entered my profession, i knew it was a stressful job and i needed to take care of myself. i ate well and exercised and kept a well balanced of friends. my

doctors were shocked, not only of my diagnoses but how it progressed to stage 4. genetic testing revealed nothing significant. i think about the countless hours working traffic controls and responding to car, house fires and walking through poorly renovated hotels that were poorly renovated. and walking through areas that produced drugs. i think about the times i worked in a bes tuesday building for the better part of 10 years while assigned to the narcotic division. it took me 2 years to accept my diagnoses. i'm currently in remission and enjoying each day i'm here. but the reason i'm here today is not for my

personal benefit, but for my wife cindy and children. and i'm the sole provider for my family and i'm here to provide. what about a year from now. the legislature before you had passed will give me another option on how i live the rest of my life, but it will give a since of comfort knowing my family and children will be better take care of once i'm gone. aside from my family, there's nothing i enjoy doing more than serving the citizens of this great city. the legislation before you is important not only to me and my family, to all families of police officers and firefighters that serve this city. i respectfully ask that you pass this legislature that's before you today. >> thank you for sharing. next

speaker, mr. donahan. >> good morning, my name is dan and i'm a proud member of the firefighter. firefighters local 798. i have served san francisco, i served on the san francisco democratic central committee, 2002, 2004, 2006 and i certain under mayor gavinson from 2005 and 2011 and i'm devoted to the county and city of san francisco. i was born here, i work here and i have and will continue to have every intention to continue to serve just like you folks serve your district and the city and the county. on june 12th, i suffered a seizure. on june 18th, i had brain surgery to remove a brain mass later to learn it was grade two -- i'm one of the

lucky ones. i'm a cancer survivor and i have a new perspective on life. i look at things differently. i look at my health and my family and i look at politics differently. shall it return and i hope it doesn't, because of this ordinance my family will be taken care of. i'm one of lucky ones. this is for firefighters and police officers are here at the right time. today, and hopefully next tuesday the category will change. the importance of this legislation is really big, really significant, and it's going to help people that have lost hope, that have given up, that need assistance, so please move this important legislation forward to the full board. thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. dan and i want to take the leadership for their legislation. any other members of the public that would like

to speak. i would want to acknowledge supervisor -- supervisor breed wanted to be here and her aid wants to say a few words. >> she did want to be here for this item. she had an emergency and i think she is on route here, so hopefully she'll be here shortly. on her behalf, i want to say thank you president chiu for bringing this forward and thank you mr. oconner. she was a firefighter before she was on the board. the men and women behind me and their colleagues, they risk their lives everyday on the job to protect us and the least we can do is protect them when their service makes them sick, so i would just request that you add supervisor breed as a sponsor for this legislation and thank you again. >> thank you, and i want to thank supervisor breed for her co-sponsorship. with that, unless there's other members of

the public that wish to speak. madam chair, i think public comment is closed. >> thank you for your service and for sharing your heart felt testimony with us. i'm just surprised it has taken this long to make it to our board. so with that, would you like to thak a recommendation for a deposit of recommendation to the full board. >> absolutely. thank you all of you, not just for your service, but for your work with my office to move this forward and i want to thank my aid who is watching this. this is her last piece of legislation she's working on and hopefully to all of our points, this will get done quickly. and i want to thank all of you who shared your perspectives and your stories. these are difficult topics and i think it is important for the public to know what all of you

have had to go through as you have been protecting us and i do think this is so important that we get done and i very much appreciate this being brought to my attention but for that, we have so many heroes within city government that may not bring this to our attention, but because you have, we're able to do something about it. i do want to say and i think it was something that tom oconnel mentioned, in addition to the work we're doing, we have so many new toxic chemicals we find in our central 21 communities and i hope to work with our firefighters and our police department to do whatever we need to do to prevent future cancers by going after new sources of toxic chemicals. i think that's the next front and i look forward to that work, but with all that, again, i want to thank you for your leadership and thank the retirement system and the

budget analyst and yes, madam chair i would like to move this forward with full recommendation to the board for its consideration shortly. >> without objection. so moved. >> thank you president chiu. and with that, madam clerk, can you please call item number 2. >> resolution authorizing the mayor, or his designees, to cast assessment ballots in the affirmative on behalf of the city and county of san francisco, as the owner of three parcels of real property over which the board of supervisors has jurisdiction, that would be subject to assessment in the proposed property and business improvement district to be the lower polk community benefit district. >> resolution authorizing the mayor, or his designees, to cast assessment ballots in the affirmative on behalf of the city and county of san francisco, as the owner of three parcels of real property over which the board of supervisors has jurisdiction, that would be subject to assessment in the proposed property and business improvement district to be the lower polk community benefit district. >> thank you, and again, our sponsor president chiu, i would like to turn it over to you. >> thank you madam chair. this is a simple item. a number of months ago, we moved forward the preliminary legislative work to establish a community benefit district in the lower polk community. those and those initial pieces of legislation will move forward. this will authorize the mayor or his designees to cast assessment ballots in favor of creating a community benefit districts for those

parcels of property of which our city has jurisdiction and given that that declaration was something we did closely in conjunction with the mayor's department hoping we can do that, and i know we were suppose today have a couple of city staffers to present and i'm speaking for them and i ask that we move this forward with recommendation to the board as well. >> this has been long time coming so i'm happy to support your efforts here. i'd like to open it up for public comment. seeing none, public comment is closed. would you like to send this forward? >> with positive recommendation. so moved. and madam clerk, is there any other item before board today? >> that concludes our business -- would you like to -- >> i apologize, we'll need to excuse supervisor breed from our meeting today. >> happy to excuse her. >> without objection. supervisor breed is excused and with that, our meeting is adjourned. thank

you. >> good afternoon, today is friday, june 27th, 2014, welcome to san francisco local agency formation commission, my name is supervisor john avalos and i am the chair of the commission, joined to my right by vice chair london breed and my left by far left is far right, far left is commissioner

mar, and commissioner campos, and with me is lisa miller and we are also broadcast today by sfgtv staff. thank you for your work and madam clerk, do we have any announcements? >> please be sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices speaker cards to be submided with the clerk. >> okay. very good, just to go through today's agenda. we are going to go into a little bit out of order after our minutes, and we are going to go to our appointments item number six we will move up to after our minutes. let's go to item two. >> approval of the lafco minutes from the may 16, 2014. >> any comments or questions?

>> motion to approve the minutes? >> we will hold that motion in abuy ans and seeing no member of the public coming forward we will close public comment and we have a motion from commissioner breed and seconded by campos and we will take that without objection? and let's go on to item number six? >>consider appointing one public member and one public (alternate) member, terms ending february 22, 2018, to the local agency formation commission . >> okay. thank you, madam clerk, and so colleagues, we have up two seats, one public seat and an alternate, and i think that we have the ability to appoint both today and i hope that we can do that. and commissioner campos? >> thank you. i just want to note that without talking about the individuals and i know that we

have incredible, two incredible applicants. i think that they are going to do an incredible job. but i want to just note that for me, i don't really see that much of a differentiation between the two seats in the sense that i really believe that the historically that the two individuals in these seats have worked together and sort of in a team effort to make sure that the public's view and concerns are taken into account and so i think that it is important to really note that because i think that there is not really any difference other than at times, depending on who is here, there may be a vote or not, but one person can take, but every one of these individuals, is you know, a full part of this body. and commission. and it is exciting to see two pretty impressive individuals

apply. >> thank you. i would like to have the people who are interested to come forward and present themselves and open up the public comment for that? and the applicants can come forward and if you want to come and support the applicants can speak afterward and first up, we have cynthia crews. >> i became an activist when i was 16 and my home town of jacksonville, was home of three sites, and the drums of dyoxin leaked into our soil and our well water and our streams and our parks and they spewed

toxins in our air and protesting it was the first taste of working for environmental yus. and i felt that same intolerance here in san francisco in the face of similar injustices and when i joined up with the pissed off voters with the grassroots organizer i learned that the only way to move the discussion forward was to jump with both feet. clean power sf has been attack under many fronts, pg&e, and we have been in the site together for a decade or more, and from early partnerships on the first pca legislation to green gorillas against green rush and we have been fighting to make clean power a reality. and i know that clean power sf is important to all of us and it is imperative that this be

number one on the agenda. and it is also important that lafco maintain gender diversity and san francisco is under represented by women of all levels of government, and as the activity haves spoken in support of clean power sf on the commission of the environment and the puc, cac, we published an open letter entitled stop the shell shock, more like stop pg and e bs. and this burns real action against climate change and the limits of corporate funded think tanks. and i'm not applying to it because i want to use it as a stepping stone for my next move, i am a policy wo nk and it is a independent agency and not to the board of supervisors or the mayor, it is an important agency, and it is a research powerhouse, they are

doing the work, and paving the way for progressive legislation and i am further qualified on the basis of my work on additional topics of research, how jurisdiction fill vacancies between election cycles and the voting in the city and county of san francisco, and i am excited about the future projects and exploring the loose fears of service reviews and increasing san francisco ininvolvement. and right now, our fight is to get clean power sf implemented and it is top of mind for me, and i will fight for it like i fought for clean water and clean air in arkansas i will fight for clean power and i ask you for your appointment today in seat six, thank you. >> thank you very much. thank you for your presentation, miss crews, any comments or questions? commissioner mar?

>> i would like to thank miss crews for applying and you have quite a few letters of support from community organizations and individual leaders, and i think that you are going to be a tremendous member of this commission and i did want to ask, there has been a traditional and historic divide between the grassroots and the communities of color and environmental justice groups with the main stream movement and the organizations and i am just wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you as an organizer and activist look at those contradictions. >> i think that the environmental movement has left behind a lot of people. and i think that i understand how that feels from a social perspective. i grew up in rural arkansas in a trailer park, and those types of environmental injustices that i feel that these are similar to the communities of

color that feel the same. >> i don't think that i know how every person feels and i certainly would not say that because i had a hard childhood or i grew up in an area that was forgotten, that i know exactly how people feel. but i think that listening and being em ep emp athetic is something that i would want to do. >> thank you for your answer. >> and i really appreciate all of the work that you have done behind the scenes over the years. and you know, environmental work and looking at green power sf and that is something to take into a lot of consideration as you are before us today. and so very appreciate your presentation, and if there are any questions, we can go on to the next candidate. >> thank you. >> i just want to make a quick point about his crews. one of the things that i think

is really remarkable about this applicant, besides the passion and the knowledge, is just a level of community involvement. you are everywhere, and i think that it is really important for the person who represents the public even in one of these seats to really be out there, and speaking with folks, and i think that is really an important piece of what we want to see, and i think that we have not seen, i think, the level of engagement that, i think, that we want to see, and so i am excited about that piece because i think that, you bring a great deal of strength on that point. >> thank you. >> xh commissioner breed? >> thank you. >> and thank you for being here today and miss crews. and i wanted to ask a question that you know, i am particularly struggling with as someone who cares about moving clean power forward. i know that there has been a lot of debate around opt in verses opt out and many of the

advocates including i think we had a discussion about this, that you support, and opt out, rather than opt in and i know that some of the arguments is that it will be a more successful program if it is the ability to opt out verses opt in. and one of the arguments that comes from folks in my community is the fact that they feel that they, and that a couple of things, number one, it might impact seniors who do not completely understand the process in general and it might impact the limited, english, speaking individuals, because it mighting a little bit complicated to figure out whether or not they should or should not opt in or opt out and so i just wanted to hear your take on what solutions you might propose on how we can basically bridge that gap in order to make sure that we put together the best system in order for clean power to be a success for those who might experience challenges if we put

together a system that requires people to opt out. >> sure. >> i know that there are a lot of eyes on opt-in, verses opt-out, especially with the 2145, that was debated. i think that there needs to be a lot of education and we are lucky that the shell contract ex-spires because it means that the budget has changed and so, money that could have been, or that would have taken more to implement clean power sf, can now be put ward education and i think that education is the key part of teaching people the different between people of opt in and opt out. and i don't think that we should make it hard for people, so that people can do it for paper verses have to go on-line and i think that we theed to take into consideration, the people's access to the internet

and the digital divide. and i think that, i would say community meetings. and i would say that the out reach to the communities and then, in areas where, the district supervisors target as areas of like, clusters of people that, you know, maybe in a certain building, or neighborhood, that is even smaller, than what would be in a neighborhood committee, i think that having people go to them, and say, this is the process, here are the forms, we will help you form them out, right now, if this is not going to work for you. >> and i think that we also need to be smart about not-to-exceed rates and i mean that is really, where i think it, or sort of the rubber hits the road is not the exceed rates are too high, then it is going to make it hard for people, but if the not-to-exceed rate were actuallies, you know, and not a big difference in terms of you know, can you find cheaper

power than pg&e that is where you are really going to see the people not opting out because the rates were so quite reasonable. >> thank you. >> great, thank you. and thank you for your presentation. and next up, is ed lindo. >> thank you for considering both. if you look at my resume and my application and you may have a question of what have you done with environmental justice, and that is a fair question. my heart lies in san francisco. and i live here and i am a native and i grew up in vernal heights and i went to middle school with a lot of friends who grew up in bay view hunter's point and there are a lot of issues there and surrounding environmental justice. for me what you are doing today, pushing clean power sf is an issue that effects our community of color