. >> all right. good afternoon. welcome welcome to the our special san francisco full board of supervisors meeting of january 7, 2015, i want to welcome everyone to the new year and hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season we have frank 1y0r7bd well, to our chamber >> supervisor avalos supervisor breed supervisor campos

supervisor cohen supervisor farrell supervisor kim supervisor mar supervisor tang supervisor wiener supervisor yee madam president you have quorum. >> thank you ladies and gentlemen please join me in the pledge of allegiance and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> madam clerk any communication. >> yes. madam president we have one he means on december 16th at board approved a tension he extension which expires january 13th we're in

corresponds communicating the third declaration recommended to the rim fire pursuant to the administrative code chapter 7 and this matter will be placed without reference for january 13th next week. >> thank you and now let's hope into it please call item one. >> a motion approving or rejecting the mayors reappoint to the retirement board for a four-year are term ending february 19th 2009. >> supervisor avalos thank you colleagues for coming to hear this appointment this has been a channeling appointment i guess for all of us we have commissioner on this san francisco ploys san francisco board that comes with a great deal of financial matters and

has been on the sf for the first already and has come with her experience working with her own firm recent ethnics complaints that have come down that swirled around providing controversy around here reappointment and i didn't feel it was important that we look at these as there are some real issues that are part of ethnics complaints we should have pause and scrutiny at the board before making her reappointment this has been actually very, very challenging for me because i want to honor the work that someone massachusetts has given already to 0 sf and many, many hours of the commission meetings interaction with the public and

taking time out of her work to do this it's been very uncomfortable to question some of the work she's done i've had issues that are important i've been work with the retirement board an particular in devesting from fuel fuels we pass a resolution in 2013 that was urging the retirement board to defying vest from fossil fuel companies since 2013 limited work moving forward and yet my office is part of engaging with the retirement board to see if we can move to some level of effort in that area of defying development for fossil fuel the board approved i think devesting

from companies in the country of russia they have a terrible human rights board when it comes to lgbt and to look at that issue and we've not seen the board who actually has the responsibility over the retirement board to make those decisions and there's been concerned about the board investment in hedge funds i think the public is here to discuss as well that gives us controversy for the provisions that the retirement board has taken on positions that are not just about when passing jordan on but the entire board i think singling her out is not all for the members when all the members of the board shared the responsibility in making sure

that the policy issues we put before the retirement board get carried out you know as we would like so i've actually had two conversation now with the paskin-jordan talked with her before the full board meeting and sat down with her yesterday as well and actually enjoyed my conversations with her and felt that she's you know very, very charming person someone who has a great deal of expertise as i said in financial and investment 345er9s before the retirement board i think someone who really is you know in a good place to serve the city as well there are a few remaining issues that i would like to be able to discuss and with ms. pasadena

jordan here today, there are issues we've discussed already but i would like to see if you know i'm actually fairly comfortable supporting her continuing on the retirement board based on my conversations with her but i'd like to see if there's you know a greater level of effort we can have from her and the other members of the retirement board system to look at the do i vesting issues over this hedge funds so ms. psa kin jordan have her come to the podium i'll be interested in her thoughts and the colleagues have comments certainly we're here them before hearing from ms.

paskin-jordan and i'd like to take out objection to have her take the floor after supervisor avalos. >> i want to thank her for being here and all the members of the public who have come out to speak on this item both in favor or against the appointment for me process is important i want to thank my colleagues who supported my motion for a special meeting to provide this nominee the opportunity to come and speak i don't want to prejust any issue the matter of progress the way it works once the mayor makes an appointment a window of time during which the board has an opportunity to raise questions or concerns and that appointment goes before the

rules committee for those kinds of questions to be raised in this case though the mayor made the appointment and preceded to swear in the individual without giving the board the opportunity to have the item heard at the rules committee where the questions can be raised so what happened or didn't happen it's important to respect the process to make sure that any questions that arises are discussed only and so i look forward to hearing from wendy pascal jordan about the specific ethnics questions that have been raised and everything i know of her she is a hard working ethnical person but we have a responsibility to make sure that the members of the public not just this board but members of the public hear a

response to the ethics questions that have been raise in that spirit and intent i look forward to hearing from you thank you. >> thank you with that ms. psa kin jordan. >> i don't know if any of you because i'm up for reappointment maybe i should address my background and maybe address some of the issues is that a good idea? so i'll go back i think i'm a prod shall of my parents i can give you a background how i look at life and why i do this i was raised by two parent who did not have college educations my mother was an orphan and went

through dltsd in here life raped thank you the age of 8 and fled into the united states and started her life at the age of 14 she started working hard as a immigrant and became a buyer at the store and rose up and gradually became the woman she is which is somebody that can golf in the 90s and ride saddle and ride a harley my father was a machinist he was a jewish kid that grew up in chicago beaten up plenty of time for his religion and both in their third married from that background i was raised in public schools never had private schools in my education i'm the

ine imi infamous school hillary swank did a film on in long beach graduated went on to stanford to send myself through stanford became the first woman lifeguard in la county there are a thousand men and myself i had to push against obstacles in the 70s and the la fire was part of the fire department that was my background i had to do everything on my own and in many cases in a world dominate by men and my parents led with a good work ethic and with the history integrity my grandfather was

walter and banned from unions not able to get a job that was my grandparent is background a tough background that made my understand how to work and achieve and get ahead i ended up going to stanford i worked as a lifeguard on the beaches i did bay watch and paid my way through school i had a lot of student loans and went to law school and making an income of three or four thousand dollars a year i know ended up being housed in moderate income housing and had a lot of student loans went to law school and

business school and worked in the investment area thirty years ago i retired to start the mature fund areas in wells fargo bank and moved up to a manager securities a tough firm so my background has been in investments and i've also served the community i've been on the board of planted parenthood and with the first fundraiser with sf general and numerous other boards when i had the opportunity to come into the retirement board i said no, because i thought that was so much work it is so hard it's controversial and you have a lot of wealthy on our shoulder these are retirees

and current employees and the stock exchange is a tricky area i know a lot of things that work and don't work i feel that's one the contributions i've made to the san francisco retirement board i've also served on barking let me see global index fund one of the largest indexers in the world i was brought and mentored his mother and sisters were famous as the women in the 189 hundreds and brought me into a couple of boards paying boards and this is now, one of my only non-for profit boards it takes the most time for all of them

there's a lot to learn and know and a lot of meetings to go to as far as the hedge fund area i can start with that as an area i didn't vote to move ahead on hedge funds my vote was actually to slow down the process i asked the chief investment officer to come back to the board with exact managers he would want to use because there's good hedge fund and bad hedge fund managers the hedge fund lots of 2 thousand percent in 2008 the pension lost one percent so we don't want to be closed-minded to you but also worked in that area and understand there's a lot of pitfalls >> there's a questions the cap advisors invest in hedge funds.

>> we don't invest in hedge funds direct we use a very low risk hedge funds of funds manager in order to hedge little portfolio so i have experience with that grew up they're small not the kind the pension fund uses. >> is there motorbike in our work as the advisors work with hedge funds through the intraerd that has a conflict of interest. >> if there's one as i have a history of saying if there's a conflict you i've also taken the side i'd rather leave and leave the committee and let them vote on that i have a history on the board think outside the box one of the reasons when i was

brought up into the board i asked the city attorney those are people who buy municipal bonds and their smaller they can't get into the products that many of the products that actually, the city can but if there's a conflict i have them there's been times voting on a bank stock i stepped out. >> so right now i believe it's been rfp p auditing out with the trust have the capital advisors have relationships with the trust. >> i work in the trust department it's different way different marathon san francisco works with the custodian area and a the securities loend area however, i've told staff years ago if there's an issue with the

trust i would like to recuse myself. >> so, now you that the rfp is going anti i believe the trust has employed to other trust is that that something you'll recuse yours from. >> i would like to recuse myself only in a rare six i actually have worked so i've spent so much time on the trust side of the bank i just again, i've felt it would be better and safer everywhere safer not to vote explicit mean i can't make comment and votes on the issues in the trust but their areas again securities lending and custodian areas it is exactly oppose than the area that handle the blue haired ladies in the

bank and so we talked yesterday as well about the requests we've been making the board and through through our engagement with community members in my office directly with the retirement board around fossil fuel and we've spoken as you mentioned you've been supportive of studying the issue perhaps there was a vote that actually was about engagement lovely one and level two you know efforts for the retirement board which were certain levels of efforts looking at defying investment can you explain why level one level two. >> fossil fuels i should tell you my background i've spent a fair amount of time in the environmental area

i've actually worked with conservation and traveled around the world drive a prius it's an important issue i've hit hot spots and gone into african to have micro loans i've been involved in that area the reason i actually study i sent the motion to go to level one on top of that i asked the staff to look into number one what the environmental foundations are doing that we have two of the top environmental foundations in the bay area the gordon foundation which my husband worked at and i'm sorry to interrupt we have minutes in the meeting you voted against supervisor cowen's motion to implement level one and two

engagements you voted against that but you approved the motion to study why you choose to study versus the actual engagement. >> engagement because it's important as fossil fuels have many, many degrees of harmful areas than fossil files as you and i talk i talked about i'd like to take the steps like maybe coal and things like that i think accident board needs to understand the research rather than going out owe and not being prepared to advocate and vote on proximateize which is level two have the board become more knowledgeable in that area i have for san francisco attended conferences in that area i just got back that f from one to understand the pension fund are

doing in that area none that i know of have gone to level 2 so starting at level one is prudent i stektd the motion to go to level one so i have - >> to study level one. >> no. >> actually, we pulled up the notes you haven't read the notes correctly i've seen them verbatim and when it came to a vote on february 9th you weren't present at the meeting according to my notes and february 9th vote was on level one engagement which - >> colleagues. >> can the director speak. >> i have to make known we have folks from the retirement board so if folks have questions dork housing authority.

>> there was a vote in october to study it and special meeting called in which the lady was present and seconded the motion if covered the carbon vote under the boards social policy one meeting in which not a successful vote of the board to engage and special meeting in february which she was he present and in fact seconded the motion and voted in favor of the motion. >> okay. thank you i have in my votes different from that but. >> i think on the main point the intent is that i've actually made extra efforts to attend and be involved in that it's an area

that was per mixing i went with another person the kennedy are big advocates we were other n out in boston with the pension fund i was telling supervisor avalos it was disstressing to people hadn't step forwarded in the pension like new york and areas like that and gone to level two or three so i feel we need to find out why that's the case but i would vac advocate that i think it's a good idea and again, you don't move forward rationally you need to have beneficial results you can take little steps and move forward and we couldn't be at the for front of that. >> i'm hearing from staff you were not present at the

february 19th meeting to be able to second the level one you may have seconded the vote for studying that's my original question and my staff is bringing the notes i want to make sure we're accurate about what happened i'm trying to work on the original notes that came from the minutes from the sf meeting so i feel like what i've been told put before me is accurate. >> there was one special meeting yes, we're 56 that with the commission secretary a special meeting at the health commission. >> i actually didn't attend that meeting i was out of town i wanted to attend that meeting. >> so we'll confirm that with a confirmation. >> i wanted to attend that meeting they asked for our president and do for a date and once he had a quorum he decided

to move forward but i tried to get at that meeting. >> thank you, my questions director hugging i hugh you would verify the information before you present at the full board i would image i'm a little bit - >> we're confirming whether or not it was seconded by the lady if she was not at the meeting it wasn't to engage at a level one so the information we're having that verified she was not in attendance. >> again, i actually there was an original meeting at our board it was a while ago i remembered standing up and saying i'd like to go to level one but really

like to move a step forward and find out the environmental foundations are doing if they're not doing it we need to understand why if we have a $17 billion foundation the biggest in the world we need to know why a that's why i advocate to understand why it didn't maple we demanded take a step forward but i'm not against doing the process and moving forward in the process. >> i appreciate that i do want to make sure that the work that the sf has already done towards deinvestment can continue and you're able to take some leadership to a greater stent so folks on the commission have taken as far especially with

your expertise that you have and the relationship i have in the that the firms are looking for investments as well. >> that's something you can - >> yes. i think the other thing that i did do at the meeting one of the greatest investment experts is jeremy an advocate of trying to understand fossil fuels and their impacts on the world we have that particular fund in the portfolio and which is called grants of may 0th he has done a good job of pointing out areas we have the responsibility to work harder the dirty air fossil fuels didn't mean we have to go across the board but start somewhere i did that in the

public session. >> but one of the things the reasons we looked at fossil fuel deinvestmentivestment but take in the fossil fuel you know search and development the cost of producing some of the hard to get to fuels would skyrocket or have great volatility in the market we're seeing across the globe in o peck to the producers in the united states there's conflict moving on to when the prices change we've seen the prices of oil has gone down between $50 from $100 and seeing the market look you know a investments go down because of the vital in the market