. >> good afternoon, today is january 14, 2016. welcome to the rules committee of the san francisco board of supervisors. my name is john avalos, the chair of the rules committee. joined to my right by supervisor katie tang, who is the vice chair, and will be joined shortly by supervisor mark farrell, who will be sitting in for supervisor malia cohen. is supervisor cohen going to need to be excused for an absence? let's have a motion to excuse supervisor cohen. we will take that without objection. the clerk of the board is derrick evans and today's meeting is broadcast by sfgtv staff, thank

you for your work broadcasting our meetings. mr. clerk, could you please call -- do you have any announcements? >> yes, mr. chair. please make sure on silence all cell phones and electronic devices. speaker cards and any documents to be included in the file should be submitted to the clerk. items acted today will appear on the january 16 board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. item no. 1 is a motion appointing supervisor aaron peskin to a term ending january 31, 2017, to the golden gate bridge, highway and transportation district. >> we don't have a representative from supervisor peskin's office. i do not see any issue with these appointments nor the next one. any member of the public who would like to comment on the appointment of supervisor peskin?

>> through the chair i'd like to make a motion then to move forward this appointment to the full board with recommendation. >> we will take that without objection. thank be you for your motion. >> item 2 is a motion appointing supervisor peskin for an indefinite term as an alternate member to the san francisco bay conservation and development commission. >> another appointment for supervisor peskin this one as an alternate seat. seeing no member of the public member come forward. >> item 3 is an ordinance amending the administrative code to modify the composition of the graffiti advisory board and provide sunset date.

>> good morning, supervisors, connor johnston, legislative aid to board president london breed. this legislation is simple and for some reason i have a lot of text in front of me so i will talk fast in the interest of time. in 2014 president breed wrote legislation to completely overall san francisco's graffiti policies. we created a new way to track civil offenses and bring civil lawsuits against the worst serial offenders. on a practical level we got all the city departments that deal with graffiti to start working together on combating graffiti. we part nrered with the mta, city terk, rec and park and of course the graffiti advisory board which is a 25-member board that is critical to the cause of graffiti enforcement.

she wants to help the gab to be as effective as possible. the graffiti board's (inaudible) as you might imagine it needs some updating. currently 1gab member is spoeszed to be appointed by the department of parking and traffic, which hasn't existed for 14 years, and does not have the board of supervisors's standard language about sunset. this will bring the advisery board's admin code up to date and help them continue to combat our efforts to combat graffiti. as president breed says legislation is not always about writing new laws, sometimes it's about fixing old

ones. graffiti costs san francisco $20 a year, it hurts residents and business owners who are often forced to clean up the crime that they have fallen victim to. thank you, supervisors, for supporting president breed's legislation in 20 fern and on her behalf i would ask for your support with this legislation today. i would also like to thank the great jim mercasio who i haven't seen be today and our district 5 appointee to the gab, melora green, who is a great advocate. we are launching new more humane efforts to combat graffiti in san francisco and i'm thankful for your support and i'm happy to answer any questions. >> thank you very much, seems pretty self-explanatory, especially how legislating is often renewing old laws. i appreciate that remark. we can go right to public

comment. any member of the public who would like to comment? >> i'm jim mercasio, would like to thank connor, president breed and yourself, connor and president breed for introducing this ordinance that is much needed and thank you for taking it into consideration. the board is fully in support of this revision. they feel that this additional one seat, the revision to this one seat, will help members who are not eligible for any of the other seats but would like to take part in this graffiti advisory board. this would be a perfect opportunity for them to do so. i'm also available if you have any questions for me. >> thank you. any other member of the public who would like to comment? seeing none, we will close public comment

and motion to approve. >> i'd like to make a motion to send forth item 3 to the full board with a positive recommendation. >> very good, we'll take that without objection. next item, please. >> item no. 4 is a hearing to consider appointing two members, terms ending march 19, 2018 to the child care planning and advisory council. there are two seats and two applicants. >> i'm not sure if both applicants are here. great, both applicants are here and first up would be gretchen am he is. >> thank you for considering me for this position. i just wanted to let you know i've been a member of -- resident of district 5 and a member of the child force for 20 years and am happy to join this committee to

share my expertise. currently i'm working at san francisco state teaching childhood educators. last year i taught in a preschool in district 5 in west addition so i understand what the families are experiencing, i would like to extend an invitation for you to speak at our leadership class because i know you are attending there. i like to bring, i feel like one of the things i offer is an ability to look at the system across multiple lenses and i'm really interested in helping cpac, i just finished my doctorate and i'm excited to help move the neelds for children and families in san francisco. >> great, thank you for all of your work in early childhood education. it's been great effort and you pull a lot of

people into your practice as well, not just the families that receive care. i'd be delighted to actually come to your class so you want to i invite me. >> i will. >> thank you as well for your work of helping to establish the office of early education. >> thank you very much, appreciate it. >> next up is dolores terrazas, welcome. >> good morning and thank you, supervisor tang apblds supervisor avalos. my name is dolores terrazas, i have been in the field of early education for probably 35 years. i served under mayor brown and before that tenure i was a fellow in washington, dc in the department of health and human services office of child care and head start. i run the mission head start program and i have a center in the

excelsior district. >> at the coleman building? >> yes, and one in china basin, one in bayview and 7 in the mission district. i am sort of over 450 children, babies and preschoolers. i am an advocate of family engagement to ensure that families are part of our strategy along with their children and have had the opportunity and the privilege to work with families that have a real desire to ensure that the children succeed. so i am really open to any question that you have about my background and opportunity to expand this issue in other forums of our city and welcome you all to visiting us. we do have high quality rankings in the quality rating improvement system in san francisco and we

can show you what it should look like. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. >> and thank you for your service. >> thank you very much. >> we can open up this item for public comment. any member of the public who would like to comment on these appointments and seeing none, we will -- oh, please come forward. >> hi, i'm lisa gibson and i'm a member of the cpac when we educate children it bears an investment in our city. we believe these educational leaders will make a difference, so thank you. >> thank you very much. any other member of the public that i haven't seen? okay, we will close public comment and i think we need a residency waiver. >> i think that would be seat 9, yes. so i'd like to thank the applicants, of course. luckily we have a very easy

choice for us, two very qualified candidates for two seats so i'd be happy to appoint gretchen ames and dolores terrazas with a residency waiver. >> we will take that motion without objection. so i know we have a long agenda, especially for our last item. we have our charter amendments, what i'd like to do, i want to make sure mark, supervisor farrell, is coming in. his flight just landed and he will be here in about half an hour. i would like him to be part of the discussion on both charter amendments and i think we'll skip over items 5 and 6 and we'll hear them after

supervisor farrell comes in. we have a lot of applicants here who are here for item 7 and what we'll do is we'll hear applicants for item 7 and then when supervisor farrell comes we will intervene with the charter amendment items and then come back to item 7 after we hear fully the charter amendments, okay. and so, mr. clerk, if we can please call item 7 ?oo ?a item 7 is a hearing to consider appointing 3 members terms ending august 31, 2016, to the cannabis legalization task force. there are 3 seats and 20 applicants. >> okay, 20 applicants, 3 seats, our work is cut out for us today but i want to thank everyone to applied. there will be 17 people who will not

get their names forwarded but we want to make sure we give everyone an equal shot. for these seats since we have so many people, this is what we did for the last group of people, about 35 came before us in december, we gave them two minutes to do an opening pitch for their personal appointment then we ask questions of some of them. depends on how we ask our questions, but if people can find their time, we're not going to have the alarm go off in two minutes but if you want to be for the sake of brevity in your presentation aim for around two minutes would be helpful. i have a list of names of people, some of whom are listed as being here and some not. and if you are not, a person's not here yet they will get a chance if they come later today to make sure that they are heard.

so we'll go in the order that i think they were listed on the agenda. first listed is janet griggs, welcome. >> thank you, supervisors, i'm here to make a case for why i should be on the task force. the two seats that i am being, i am interested in, are either small business or business. and my background in the city is i'm one of the larger employers in district 10, i own case catering. we employ over 500 people a year. we started as a small business and have grown to be a big business. i own tout suite pastry

company. it started in 20012 and we're navigating our way through being a start up but we are very happy with the response that we get. we are a retailer in the full sense of the word and understand what it's like to try to be a business, a retail business, in san francisco. my background in case catering is probably more interesting in terms of the hospitality industry that i have served and i have been involved in. queso, which is the sponsor of the fairy plaza farmer's market, i wasment -- was president of that board for over 6 years. that klud many interests including farmers, sellers, food activists, people from the public including architects and often there were diverse points of view. the objective for the fairy

plaza farmer's market was to keep it a viable organization that served not just the residents of san francisco but also the businesses. and i have to say we were very successful because we have learned how to serve our many top flight restaurants in san francisco, those chefs come and shop at the market on tuesdays, thursdays and saturdays, helping to support our farmers in california and especially in northern california. so from a business standpoint i have the tourism background which is going to come into play in this particular issue of legalization of cannabis, especially on the catering side because there will come the inevitable which is large events, we serve many of our

major corporations here in the bay area and just like they like to serve liquor at their parties, they are going to be interested in doing the same with cannabis. those are some regulation that is we really need to take a look at and being very thoughtful about. i would like to have some impact on those issues. so if you have any questions for me, i'd be happy to answer them. >> what kind of input do you think would be most favorable that you could have on the task force? you talked about these --. >> first of all my age. i think i come from 4 decades of being in business in san francisco, understanding what the variety of points of view are, and being able to build consensus. i'm a native so i think one of the things that i think is really important is to understand that in san francisco, san francisco is not the same, it changes just about

every 20 years and you, i think there's always a challenge to bring people along to advance along with the change that is, i think, typical of san francisco mentality. the regulations that we're talking about, i think primarily we have to be concerned about protecting our children. my awareness of what's going on in colorado is that the black market has not been wiped out for marijuana and unfortunately that is the main source of children's access to marijuana. we need to address that so that we provide a proper environment for cannabis use. so that's where i think my focus is greatest. >> great, thank you. and what do you see as a source of

information about what's happening in terms of black market in colorado, where have you --. >> my brother is a resident of colorado and owns property there. he has cannabis grove tenants in his buildings, he's very tied into the community there that guides education and that's my source. and also you can go online and it's pretty obvious what's going on there, unfortunately. >> yeah, okay, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> next up we have duncan ley mr. ley, okay, we will come back to mr. ley, see if he comes in later. he is not confirmed to be here or not attending, it looks like.

ryan hudson, mr. hudson? tariq alazraie no? david hua >> here. >> hi, thank you, supervisors, for having me. my name is david hua, i've been a resident of san francisco for the past 9 years, i've been building technology in the start up space in that time. also been a cannabis patient for about 4 now. i'm the ceo of meadow. meadow builds technology in the cannabis industry. we started about 4 years ago, now we work with 35 different collectives across california, primarily our focus is building a seed to sale platform for california. our strengths in organizing,

we started the california cannabis delivery organization with about 30 organizations, we brought them to meet the legislators. we helped create the 10b license type when we're really excited about. at the local level we've been able to organize meet ups and education events, even hosted some sf task force meet ups for preparation. what we aim to do is highlight some of the challenges that are ahead of us and provide solutions with technology and go from there. that's all i got, thank you. any questions? >> thank you. you were here in december as well. >> yeah. >> anything changed in your outlook? >> 2016, let's dwo. it's a big year. i'm here and i'm ready to go. >> one of the things is that a lot of people from december to

today, there was a discussion about a lot of people who have been looking at the task force are already part of the industry. >> sure. >> and whether it makes sense to have people who are not part of the cannabis industry to be on the task force. what are your thoughts about that? >> personally i've been involved for the past two years now, but before that i've been in tech. what i'm trying to do with our team is bring the technology perspective. san francisco is largely driven on tech and i think we can streamline a lot of these processes, put things in place that help compliance, not only at the local level but the state level as well. >> great. okay, thank you. >> thank you very much. >> next up, kelton finney all right, michael nolin.

>> morning, supervisors, thank you for having me here today. i guess i'm pleading my case as well although everyone i've heard so far sounds like they have the same like-minded to help better serve the community as well. i have over 100 employees here in san francisco, i helped develop 3 or 4 different businesses here including purchase real estate and revamp buildings and create better opportunities for the community, work with the friends that are in forest, help teach tree conservation to children, plant trees. i did come back in december. as far as any changes, i do see the opportunity of people who have already been chosen on the platform and knowing that i've worked with them in the past on the cannabis care council that there would be a great opportunity for us to continue to move forward to make it a success for san francisco. >> great. were you in a tie in december? >> no, i wasn't. i got that from my sister-in-law for

christmas. i figured why not wear it, thanyou. ties, cuff links and shoes. >> anything to add about what your perspective, how it would be different from anyone else who has a small business background whos applying? >> because i've also been in the cannabis industry here in san francisco as the green door, knowing the business inside and out, working with other collectives, i see that there's a great deal of assets that we can utilize to help better the community. with recreational use coming out we have had fiona ma from the board of equalization come speak to us about what happens for the future in recreational use and how they would be able to tax and regulate that. therefore, we're looking at different locations and other businesses that would be able to utilize that opportunity for the patients and any tourism that might be coming in, how we can tax that and help repay the

city for bringing in for revenue. >> okay, thank you. >> thank you very much. >> any thoughts about how that revenue should be dedicated? >> yeah, i believe there should be a percentage allocated directly to san francisco just because we'll be the ones that are working on that and we're the ones who will have to generate the ideas and how it can work out to be both a win-win for the city and the state and the residents. >> alex aquino nick lanza james asher. later we'll call more names. henry carnilowicz, who also presented in december.

steward rrhoads, thea selby, i think she was xektded to be here later. >> she's on her way back from berkley. >> if you'd like to --. >> sorry. >> are you ready to go? >> i'm ready to go. off we go. sorry, i just --. >> you want to catch your breath. >> taking my child to have his dorm at uc berkley for the first time. >> how exciting. okay, maybe a two-minute presentation, why you are interested in the task force. >> okay, thank you very much, my name is thea selby, thank you supervisor tang and chair avalos for listening to me today. i am here to ask for your approval for seat 13 or 14, which are the two business seats that are available, and

i'm here largely because of some life experiences that i have had starting with living on haight street which is the home of three different mcd's over the last 7 years or so. i have raised my kids there and know how important safety is and the importance of making sure that the cannabis, whatever the legalization is, is good for families as well as for the cannabis industry. secondly, i'm a business person, i have my own small business and i do have concerns about the cannabis legalization going mostly towards the big box and the marlboros of the world and i want to make sure, like we do with high speed rail, that we have a portion of this that's also set aside or that we think deeply about making sure that small businesses can profit from this as well. then as a co-founder of the lower haight merchant association i know how cannabis, that has revenues

that are literally sometimes 10 times what a normal business might be, how that affects the rest of the neighborhood. we have had great relationships with the mcd's that have been there and they've been great community leaders and partners and we've also had one bad experience and i want to make sure that we are good for the community, good for the retailers, good for the other merchants and then clearly that we think of the right way to spend the money that we'll be having. there's going to be a lot of money, it's a new pot of money, we lost a significant amount of money from pop -- proposition 13 and that money went to education. i'm on the board of ccsf and i'd love to talk about where the money goes and could it go for education. i am backed by letters of support i hope you saw by merchant devon trulick from the san francisco chamber of

commerce, from regina traes, who is with the office of small business, from amy chan, from two other members of the board of trustees at ccsf and i would love for you to consider my application. >> okay, thank you very much. seems like you were quite prepared for your presentation despite coming right in the door and going right to the podium and we spoke yesterday, so i'm pretty aware of your interests, your expertise and interests. so we'll have the next person. thank you. okay, chase chambers? sabrina matlin. brian wallase. jacob cross, not attending.

elliot beckelman. sharon golden. jennifer garcia. okay, this is getting to be a pretty easy day. >> good morning, supervisors, thank you. my name is jennifer garcia, i am organizing business republic with uncw 648 here in san francisco. as i mentioned last month, we have been recently assigned the cannabis division and i am playing some severe catch-up. as a union rep and working for retail workers here in san francisco we are very concerned about the workers. we're concerned about the workers in all industries and with retail we have a population of --

retail is primarily made up of minorities. over 13 percent of blacks and 17 percent of latinos are below the poverty line. 1.3 million women working in retail live in or near poverty. san francisco has been, thankfully, a proving ground for many worker friendly policies. myself personally, before i worked for the union, i have been very involved as a worker-activist with many groups and many things with the san francisco sick leave and also most recently retail workers' bill of rights, different things i have supported. as a union worker i have had 9 paid sick leave but

i still thought all union workers should have sick leave and i went out to support that. i'm glad san francisco is a proving ground for policies that move across the state and then across the nation, sometimes slower than we would like. as i have been working and learning about the cannabis industry, and i am more than just san francisco, i have been attending board of supervisors meetings so there's a lot of knee jerk reactions out there because they don't understand. as the union we are very, you know, against an underground economy or things that would make it harder and force things back into an underground economy because underground economies are not good for workers. they don't provide vacations, pension, and especially underground economies allow for workers to be exploited and abused with

little or no recourse for them. if done right we think the cannabis industry can help workers have stable jobs and the importance of the standards for health and safety. uncw, we want businesses with high community standards and we want sustainable jobs in our community and that comes with good legislation. i sat in as a public member with the inaugural meeting yesterday of the task force. i would be -- i'm excited and proud of what has just been formed and i think that labor is very important to have a seat at the table to address the issues across all of that. a big thing that i found in talking with some workers and advocates, there's a lot of women and women of color, there's a lot of -- that are in small businesses, underground

gray market things that would like to come out of the shadows and there are extra obstacles that face those people. some of it is sexual abuse, different things, terminators that i'm learning about, i'm reaching out to that group of workers also to try to get a big picture so i hope by being appointed to the task force if i am so picked i would love to bring a labor perspective into all the moving components that i see happening. there's a great group of people already appointed and i'm very excited about what's going on here and how labor can be a part of this conversation and as usual san francisco can set the standard of how overall businesses, communities and workers should be treated. >> thank you for your presentation. what do we see in terms of unionization in colorado, washington, washington, dc >> there is actually present

also with the uncw, we are everywhere in the united states and canada. i'm not sure of the numbers of organized, signed up for that. again, the legislation on the state is for labor peace, that just allows us to talk to the workers. it's a democratic process, the workers get the right to vote and decide if a union is what's best for them in their particular situation. >> but in those states where we have recreational use of cannabis and stls -- there is a police officer racial of -- proliferation --. >> it is not as strong as we would like. when cannabis came in the last 20 years a lot of people liked the union as far as it brought legitimacy to them. i'm a business, i have

workers, things like that. as it becomes more common and not so taboo, business is business. so we have to do what we always do, which is advocate for the workers, meet with the workers and do our jobs. so in colorado i'm not sure the percentage of -- i do know the uncw is out there and is actively --. >> very small part of the market. >> yes, and even here we have 4,000 unionized cannabis workers here in california. so we have a big job ahead of us but, again, we want the workers to have that option to have union representation if they so choose and to have better working standards and a quality of life. you know, we want to be business professionals no matter what we're doing, whether it's safeway or a cannabis sgepbsry. >> very good, thank you. i don't believe anyone else has come in the room on this item

but if you are one of the applicants, i called all the names of the applicants, even the ones who were not confirmed to be here. if you're here as an applicant for the task force you are welcome to come to the podium now. otherwise i will open up public comment now for this item for any member of the public to come and speak on the applicants. i have one card, jennifer garcia. >> i'm sorry, i didn't know if i needed (inaudible). >> okay, very good. please come forward. >> good morning, i'm peter strauss and i'm here to urge your support of thea selby for this appointment. i worked with thea on the lower haight and also the merchants organization which is somewhat

unusual in that it represents both home owners and renters as well as merchants. i won't repeat thea's qualifications but the issues related to cannabis particularly in terms of the medical cannabis dispensaries on haight street have frequently come before us and thea has been very useful not just as a mother living across the street but also a small business person being able to illuminate our discussions with the operators of these dispensaries. it's been an on and off issue in the haight and that gives her a lot of experience with issues related to cannabis as it becomes more acceptable and more part of our society on an ever-more legal basis. we also brings an extreme amount of energy, i'm always

struck by thea's energy that she is able to bring so much enthusiasm and commitment to all of the various things that she's involved in and i'm sure she would bring that as well as her intelligence to this appointment as well and i urge your consideration of her application. thank you. >> thank you, mr. strauss, next speaker, please. >> jim lazarus, san francisco chamber. look forward to working with advocates on this legislation and certainly second the support for thea she is an advocate of the local business level as well as city wide and statewide. we work closely on transportation issues but also small business issues and i think she would be a great representative of that community on this body. thank you very much. >> thank you. any other member of the public who would like to comment not? and seeing no member of the public come forward, we will close public comment and want to thank all the applicants for putting themselves out for the task force and those who are here to present as well.

i actually would like to support thea selbie and jennifer garcia, thea for seat 14 and we're filling two seats, right? and jennifer garcia for seat 20. >> so through the chair, you know, i apologize that i missed the first round but i do have, i looked over all the applications and have seen kind of cross-section of who's on the task force already and appointed and kind of what i feel would round out the rest of the committee. again i do want to thank everyone, i know there's a lot of interest in serving on this and it's a really exciting time to be part of the discussion on this. for me i would agree with supervisor avalos on seat 20. i know we only have two applicants there for that seat, but i want to thank jennifer garcia and be happy to support her in her efforts on the task force for this.

i also am very supportive -- i'm surprised we agree on all this, this is great -- i would like to support thea selby to one of the business seats. i think she brings a balanced perspective for a neighborhood that has been impacted by mcd's through the years, supporting the businesses as well as understanding neighborhood concerns at the same time. i think that neighborhood perspective is a good one to bring to the task force. and as for the third seat, i am a little torn between a couple candidates here. really there are two that stand out to me. i know that duncan ley is not here today but i am very aware of his efforts, he's even supported projects in the sunset, i appreciate him being not in our district, even, all the work he's done bringing small business and the private sector together i think is a

really good perspective to have. i also liked janet griggs, she brought it my attention in chatting with her yesterday just how it is that industries like hers, where she is in catering, you know, have to adapt to a lot of the changes that are coming and maybe there will be rules in play for certain large events that she works in. so i throw that out there, i don't know if you are in agreement with any of them or if we need to wait for supervisor farrell for a tie-breaker but those would be my recommendations. >> i could, i like those two candidates as well. i think we would have to have thea selby for seat 14, duncan i think is eat 13. i like janet griggs

too. the only thing is she's not a resident of the city and if we have residents who are qualified i think that would be helpful, that would be better. so i could support duncan ley for seat 13 and move thea selby for seat 14 and jennifer would need a residential si waiver as well. >> through the chair i am fine for all those applicants. maybe i will just make a motion then to appoint duncan ley to seat 13, (inaudible). >> that was with the residency waiver for seat 20, yes. >> thank you. >> we'll take that without objection. thank you. and congratulations and thank you everyone for your interest in the task force. we do have to take a short

recess, no more than 15 minutes. there are some moving parts on the charter amendments that are not yet ready and i apologize for the inconvenience, people who have been waiting, but in 15 minutes we will resume our meeting. thank you. . >> good afternoon, we are back from recess apblds i appreciate people's patience. mr. clerk, could you please call item no. 5? >> item no. 5 is a charter amendment second draft to amend the charter of the city and county of san francisco to require an annual base line appropriation for park, recreation and open space fund based on city spending for park and recreation purposes in fiscal year 2015-16 and to modify the recreation and park department's planning obl gaises at an election to be held on june 7, 2016. >> thank you, i think the

author of the charter amendment will be coming in as we speak. >> okay, thank you, chair avalos and supervisor tang while i was slightly delayed here. we're on item no. 5 and this is charter amendment that i had introduced last fall to create additional funding stream for rec and park department over the next 15 years. i will just say and keep my comments brief and not to reiterate too much of what i said over the past number of meetings, but as our city continues to grow the use of our parks continues to be at an

all-time high. as our recreation and park department is continually working very hard to fix the nuts and bolts of our rec and park department and our assets and our operations i do believe that that department does need additional resources. as chair of the budget committee over the last 3 years as the general fund has grown we have seen the general fund support for rec and park department stagnate and i do believe fundamentally that our rec and park department, not just because i grew up here in san francisco using our rec and park department as basically second parents growing up but it is the great equalizer here in san francisco and truly cuts across quality of life for every gender, every age group, every demographic, potential segment of our city and is something we should be fully supporting. to remind everyone, this process that we've undergone to get to the language where we are today has been almost a year in the making at this point in time. i want to thank

a number of groups from the parks alliance to prosdak prozac to get their input not only on language but also their idea of where potential funds might be used for going forward. we received a great a input and also of course want to thank our rec and park department for all their input and support over this period of time ux as well as members from the mayor's office. it's been an amazing process so far. we're not over by any means. i am introducing a number of amendments and i want to go over them briefly. whether we have additional amendments going forward, this charter amendment will have to

sit at the rules committee so i think there's ample time to have additional comments going forward. first are a set of amendments to meet equity concerns regarding park funding levels. i think the concept of equity as we've talked about not only in the city of san francisco but here in the rec and park department, i do want to recognize supervisor avalos for his commitment on this issue. it's something not only do i support, i know all my colleagues supports, the rec and park departments, the mayor office supports and we're happy to have those in here. for the first time with these amendments we're going to dmrapbd the department use a set of (inaudible) in low income neighborhoods and disadvantaged neighborhoods in san francisco compared to those services that exist across the city as a whole. and following approval of the commission the rec and park department will submit these equity metrics to the mayor and the board of supervisors.

to further address equity concerns, the operational strategic and capital plans that our rec and park department uses to guide not only their yearly operations but also their long-term visioning, will consider all the equity analysis and metrics described above and they must do that and submit those to the mayor and the board for their review. we're also making an amendment today that will allow the department's capital plan to be submitted to prozac for approval. as we've talked to prozac over time that's one thing they have asked for at different points of time, greater input into the process and that's something that obviously we want to encourage, and that after approval the capital plan be submitted to the mayor and the board for review. lastly, there's always been a conversation i know well as our rec and park department and thankfully because we have a wonderful partner in the parks

alliance, philanthropy is a big driver of what we can do in the rec and park department. i know the alliance is going to be having a big drive in the tue tour and we want to be sure we can address the needs there for equity basis certainly in all four corners much our city. there's different ways to get about that, different ways that make sense. what we're going to do is authorize the creation of a new equity fund to accept private donations. it is completely voluntary but we will use to support any deficiencies that the analysis of the metric shows over time. from my perspective these really do strengthen the amendments, i want to thank everyone, it has taken quite a bit of time and we want to be very, very careful as this is

charter language and i think a lot of the conversation here we want to be as accurate as possible because as we all know, if you want to change a comment in the charter we have to go back to the voters so we have to be careful what we do. this is the result of input from community advocates, from colleagues of mine, from park supporters throughout the city of san francisco as well as the different organizations so i want to thank everyone who's been involved so far. these amendments are here, mr. clerk, we can -- there for your review and happy to entertain any questions about them. but colleagues my ask today would be to approve these amendments and i think we can take the next steps at the next rules committee meeting as they come. >> great. thank you, supervisor farrell, and i do appreciate your work on this chart er amendment, creating a

base line. i think it's sorely needed especially as you mentioned our general fund has grown yet we haven't seen a commensurate growth in the general fund support for our rec and park department, especially compared to other departments. our general fund has grown, you know, part of that is from our economy and revenues are in from our tax base, but it's also grown because we've made steps to actually increase our tax base as well and i have been part of that over multiple years. i authored in 2010 an increase to the real estate transfer tax for commercial property, over 5 and 10 million dollars. since then it's brought in hundreds of millions of dollars additionally to our budget. that's not just budget growth from the years of inflation but it's actually new

revenue that's come in. i also added money to our budget in, when we approved the gross receipts tax by year 4 will be bringing in $32 million additional dollars every year. so i actually have been very concerned that we have seen our budget grow and we have seen new revenue sources come through and we haven't made the commitment to rec and park that we really need to. when i was budget chair back in 2009 i added about 3.1 million dollars to the budget to help shore up the department from a loss of staff that were being planned so it's something that's really important. our parks are the great equalizer in san francisco. there's not, there are very few residents who don't in some way or another touch upon our parks, yet our parks are the great equalizers but our parks don't serve equally people in

different parts of san francisco. just recently we had the controller's report that shows there are disparities in how our parks are served. gifren that there are different ways that parks present themselves in different parts of san francisco, in district 11 we might have more open space than people have in district 6 but there are also very few other services that we have in san francisco where the parks make up the difference. so while we might have more green space, that green space often isn't at the level it needs to be. so, to me, it's important that we build in some level of equity about how we serve our parks and how we serve the different communities that are in our parks. i like the language that's been discussed, i like the talk about equity but i really think there needs to be some language that has a backstop, that has some real operation about how we can actually move our resources in a way to fill in holes in our equity gaps in san

francisco. and so while i feel like the language that's been presented and we've talked about is a step, a big step, in the right direction, i don't think it gets to where exactly we need it to go and so i can accept the language that we have today. i'd rather not vote against it because i do see it as a step in the right direction, but there's other language that i do want to add in that gets a little bit more, without detail, some greater level of specificity about what the department needs to do and that the board of supervisors should approve the equity reports that come before us. i'm not saying that the board of supervisors will tie up the rec and park budget. that was something i had considered that we tie up the rec and park budget based on our approval of reports. to me it's just adequate enough to actually

have the reports that talk about what the vision is for the department to look at gaps in service, gaps in capital, and what plans they have to fill those gaps. that, to me, is adequate level of reporting and if i feel that that level is adequate and it's a good transparent public process then i can approve that and i don't have to hold up the rec and park budget. but that language is going to be important for me to have in this charter amendment and i've asked the city attorney based on the conversations i have had with supervisor farrell that get us a little bit closer to what i'm asking for. so that language is not available yet today. so i can approve the language that the city attorney has approved that's come from supervisor farrell's office, but i do want to add in other language which is actually going to mean we will have another -- because supervisor farrell has language that he's adding today, we will have another rules committee but then i'll have the language i'm

going to add as well and if that language is approved it's going to mean another rules committee meeting. for me to give my full support, to put my name on this charter amendment, i'm going to want to see some added language. that's something that's going to be really important to me and i feel like i represent part of san francisco that has seen the reports that have come out of the deficiencies and inadequacies of service in our district compared to other districts and that's not to, like, barb rr the department in any way, there's huge limits to the service that the workers give to the rec and park department, but it's really how our city works overall to serve communities that are often underserved. so i don't mean it to be a threat but i do want to make sure that we have a thorough presentation of what could be before us in terms of language to improve this

charter amendment and get it to be something that i think will be worthy of broad support at the board of supervisors. supervisor tang. >> thank you very much for your comments, supervisor avalos and supervisor farrell for the additional amendments that you have proposed. last time that this item came up before us i had actually discussed with director fergin and his staff the desire to see more language in the charter amendment about equity and making sure there is a very conscious blend that we consider as we are talking about the department's budget and so forth. so i was happy with what we had come up with last time around so to see supervisor farrell i think provide even more on top of that i think is great. i think that i haven't seen any language, i know you don't have language ready yet, supervisor avalos, about what further you would need but i think that, for me, it is sufficient that we have maybe

additional requirements in terms of what we'd like to see maintenance plan folded into the plan presentation, for example, and during the budget process i feel that is a huge opportunity for us to drill down during our hearings on what it is that, what our priorities are, where we feel like there may be inequities. i know that there may be desire to see more beyond the budget process but i think that that's exactly what our job is with every department in the city and make sure when we're doing allocations that it's going to certain areas, certain needs. we wouldn't be doing our jobs if we didn't fully utilize the budget process to do so. all that some say i am appreciative of these amendments that were made, i know we have to have another hearing but i would be supportive of it with these

amendments. >> thank you and i do appreciate your comments about the budget process but if we have a report that's before us, that even has our approval, it gives us some guidance about how to make changes to the budgets the mayor presents to us. it gives us the added ability to practice our role of appropriations. supervisor farrell. >> thank you, supervisor avalos and supervisor tang for your comments and i failed to thank supervisor tang earlier for her existing co-sponsorship and i want to thank you for being a huge park advocate, as well as supervisor avalos, i fully acknowledge that as well. i do want to ask, with the amendments i introduced, there are a few typos that the city attorney will be able to use the record to do the corrections thereto. >> deputy city attorney john givner, just echoing supervisor farrell's comments that every comma is in the right place we

had someone go through again and we caught a few numbering issues. page 3, line 18 and line 22 there's a subsection 1 and subsection 2 there, those should be subsection a on line 18 and subsection b on line 22. page 9, line 8 there's a section 3 that should be section 4 and on line 18 there's a reference to h1 that because of the amendments should be h2. if the amendment passes today we'll make those corrections and submit them to the clerk. >> thank you, mr. city attorney, i appreciate that. mraps after public comment we can incorporate those. if there's no other comments or questions, supervisor avalos, we can move to public comment. >> sure, i have a number of cards and if you want to come up more or less in the order your names are called, jim lazarus, matt o'brady.

>> good afternoon, supervisors, jim lazarus on the board of the parks alliance. appreciate the work that's gone into this as a former member of the recreation and park commission i'm certainly well aware of the department's trials and tribulations over budgeting, especially in light of two recessions during the last 15 years and the fact that the department's budget really never recovered certainly from the first recession in 2002-2003 and maybe to some degree recently from the great recession of 2008-2009. but this charter amendment is really, as i raed it, more about stability and assuring that the department's revenues track more closely the up and down of the city's general fund

and that our services to residents of san francisco and the recreation side and our maintenance of parks don't take an unfair hit during the down times. i think regarding oversight, i know that may be one of the remaining questions, there's clearly a role for the mayor and the board of supervisors to review operational plans, capital plans, if not within the budget process which you normally do anyway, but to see these new reports that would be coming out from the commission and prozac. i think the real question is, i would hope that the authors of this and supervisor avalos, any further amendments, would consider treating this department the way other departments -- there are other departments, the library and others, i think any review of actions of the commission and the department should be in conformity with how other departments are treated in the charter. thank

you very much. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors, matt o'grady, ceoof the parks alliance. we have already been through a number of aspects of this, particularly the fundamental impact this would have of preventing and protecting the department from further disproportionate cuts to its budget in any future downturns in the economy. but it also provides for stricter accountability which we also strongly support. equity, this has become perhaps the issue of the hour. the parks alliance core values, statements of why we exist, include equity as a fundamental core component. our values include that we want to ensure that all of our parks remain

clean, safe, fun and welcoming to all san franciscoans, all san franciscoans. because of that value of equity we strongly support the amendments that have been brought forward here to strengthen this charter amendment, to ensure that the improvements that this amendment generates through our department will have a solid positive impact on all of our neighborhoods everywhere it's needed. that said, we also need to be very mindful that this is a charter amendment and we need to be really careful with how we do it. we need to ensure that we strengthen the equity components of this without unintentionally hamstringing the department or cause undue burden of how the department can fulfill that mission of providing clean, safe, fun parks for all san franciscoans. thank you. >> thank you very much. next

speaker, please. >> good morning, supervisor avalos, my name is phil arnold, i speak to you as the former assistant general manager of the parks department and a member of the parks alliance. i had the experience for about 10 years of trying to balance the recreation and park department budget. that was my first career here in the city. i know how extraordinarily difficult it is to try to maintain and balance a department's budget of that size when the resources provided to the department are so variable year after year after year. so i urge you, while you fine tune the wording for this charter amendment, to keep your mind on the big picture, why this originally came before us and you which is to try to provide a stable and predictable source of funds for the recreation and park department which will grow as the responsibilities of the department are growing. and

that really is the key. i respect and appreciate all of the amendments that have been brought before you but i hope that you will be able to come to resolution on the amendments so this item can go forward so the stable and predictable funding for the department can be insured. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> thank you very much. next speaker . >> ?oo we are heading a $20 million project to renovate golden gate park and it's important that money be coming forward to support the center once we renovate it, so we are very supportive of this. our hope is that once the center comes from something from good to great that it will support tetis throughout the city so we

would like to offer our support now. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> good afternoon, supervisors, i'm kelly nice, i would like to add to what my colleagues said. i would like to point out in the two years we've been talking about this, with a lot of community input, equity comes up in every conversation we have. we have donors who will make a gift and make sure there is a corresponding gift to be equitiable. that is important, we are happy to have that in the language. but on a negative point we got into this to take some of the politicalization out of the process. our goal in this was to take some of the politics out and again we would encourage you it keep those out

of the process. i know you all feel strongly about making our parks better, that's really what this is about is making our parks better. thank you for your help, we appreciate what you are doing. >> next speaker, please. before the next spreeker i will read more names. rosemary cameron, jean boarches, linda lightheiser, dennis muscovia >> supervisors, my name is ken weber, i'm a serving member of the parks alliance board. i also happen to be the executive director of the zinga dot organize organization which is an independent 501c3 charity at the heart of which is the drive, our charitable mission is to bring play to all,

particularly in san francisco. in fact over the past 4 years we have either built or been part of building more than a dozen new playgrounds and play spaces in san francisco. i would say probably all but one of which have been in a district or a neighborhood that i think we would all agree is considered underserved. so we're very focused on and concerned with issues of equity. we are appreciative that you all are taking this issue up as you have. we are in support of anything that stabilizes and makes more sustainable and equitiable for the department funding for parks and open spaces and we are also fully in support of equity components and would hope that the way that those are administered, chartered, would strike a balance between their importance and the ability of

the department to do its core work and to do as much of it as possible. thank you very much. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> members of the committee, my name is rosemary cameron, i am a 40 year resident of san francisco, a lifetime parks professional and a proud member of san francisco parks alliance board of directors. as you know for well over a year the parks alliance has been working in pursuit of increased, dedicated and predictable funding for our recreation and parks department chl we have a world-class recreation and parks department and it's critical that it has additional funding for maintenance and operations of our parks. adequate and stable funding for the system will go a long ways towards ensuring equitiable funding throughout the park system. every day we see the impacts of our growing population which actually includes families with

children. you don't have to look far, literally in every corner of our city to see how critical our neighborhood parks are to children, parents and truly everyone. these mini oasises are critical to keep (inaudible) thank you, supervisor farrell, for your leadership in crafting what we believe is a very reasonable solution throughout the proposed charter amendment including the specific amendments that you discussed today. we clearly are in support of those. we know that if it is approved by san francisco's voters and we have every reason to believe it will be enthusiastickally supported, it will provide rec and parks with sustainable and stable revenues to address those

critical maintenance issues throughout the system. as it's drafted with the amend thes we believe that it has important provisions that will ensure that the department prepares an annual operations plan to direct expenditures to meet the highest priority maintenance needs throughout the system ensuring equitiable distribution where the needs are greatest. so we are highly supportive of supervisor farrell's charter amendment with the amendments presented today and we urge you to vote to move it forward to the board of supervisors and give it to the voters for their support. thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors, again my name is christine raher and i'm a very proud member of the san francisco lawn bowling club that has been around in golden gate park since 1901, thank you

john mcclaren. our club is also a partner of the san francisco parks alliance and we fully support the park funding because of three things, including the equity issue. i am a 67-year-old bowler and wleefrb -- believe it or not, one of the younger members of the club. i stress active because as equity is discussed, please count our 70-year-old average 100-plus members with regard to that. secondly, our gardener is the most important part of our club. he keeps our 3 greens in great shape and works cooperatively to mock sure they are in good shape. did you know, supervisors, our greens have the potential to host the

u.s. national lawn bowling nationals? we have actually been asked to do it this year but our greens are not yet in that condition but we have done it in the past. finally, no. 3, in 2015 we lost our members maureen and kathy. kathy was the first woman president of the lawn bowling club and since my last testimony on december 10th we have lost another member, zelda, so speed is a real issue to our club. so please move on, thank you very much. >> thank you. the election can't be any closer than today. >> thank you, supervisor, jane bojiages from district 10, san francisco parks alliance policy council. i just want to support the proposal that you are looking at and let you know that we live in a district that is experiencing great population growth and so having

better support and stable support of the parks is very important and having the stability is really critical. so thank you. >> thank you very much. >> good afternoon, supervisors, my name is linda lighthiser and i'm a resident of district 11, a 46 year resident of san francisco and i've been involved with parks since the day i arrived in san francisco. as to that, i have always volunteered and advocated for our parks. i currently serve as the district 11 representative of the san francisco alliance parks policy council so i am able to interjekt into that body a lot of the needs and concerns about that council. i am happy with the progress we have made on all the amendments and all the concerns because, as a resident

that came in dead last in the controller's report, we feel the need to have strong language that will help us make sure that these things will take place and i appreciate all the efforts that have gone on between the committee members to make sure that these things are addressed. i'm also aware this has taken a long time, but i know that our people want this to be done right and i am into the long mall and i want to see this on the ballot in june and i want to work to make sure this passes. thank you. >> supervisors, my name is ara kelly, i live in district 8, i am here to support you for this great work you have done in leadership. supervisor farrell it is really important because we have a growing city as you know, and our parks are incredibly important to the service to us. i want to also touch base with

us, the word that you used, the great equalizer. if you look at a equalizer i'm sure all the parks would agree with you. but i think a greater equalizer is open space. if you have a neighborhood that has no access to open space and parks that is a diminishing enjoyment if you have to go walk the dog, play with the kids. i hope you will pay attention to the roads plan of our city and support independence of funding the open space fund of our city because i think the city needs to commit and recommit its several to the rose plan and provide open space to all citizens of the city. so we can't actually

cheat the equalizer beyond just services and picking up trash in parks, actually having true access for parks in these spaces. >> thank you very much, next speaker. before the next spreeker speaks, i will call a few more cards. ken weber, deseligman. >> good afternoon supervisors avalos, tang and farrell. thank you for this opportunity to address the charter amendment for base line funding for parks and recreation. this is my colleague janet gamble and we represent supervisor farrell's district 5. it's bordered by steiner, scott and jackson streets. this was originally a quarry and was filled in to capture the panoramic bayviews. alta plaza

was designed by john mcclaren himself and we consider it a jewel in the system. we draw visitors from all over because of these vistas and the well-designed sports courts that were underwritten by private funding in a campaign 10 years ago. but like so many other parks, alta plaza's parks have been severely underfunded. sfr and p will undertake an extensive renovation project this year. there will be excavated, engaged a landscape architectural firm, held multiple community meetings and

developed an exceptional master plan that has achieved a historic review by ceqa. now the friends must launch a major capital campaign to make the master plan a reality. in brief, what i'm saying is we're 12 acres, we have one gardener and if we are successful in launching this master plan and getting it implemented we need the funds to maintain it because all our effort will be for naught if they aren't. we will strongly lobby our community for support of this balance ut measure and we thank you so much for your consideration. >> thank you very much, next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, my name is

dee seligman, i am the president of the forest alliance. the first relates to suggested text for maintenance of trees, the second item relates to suggested text for environmental and design guidelines and the third relates to suggested text for specificity for unspent set aside funds. in regards to the first item i'd like to suggest that the following language be added to page 8, line 18: the operations plan must include specific funding for the deferred maintenance of all park trees that could be considered hazardous if their maintenance is deferred beyond the normal 7 to 15 year cycle. there is nowhere in the current draft language to alow kite new money to rec and park racials to

maintain our park trees. the forestry unit is funded entirely from operations, it is not from the capital fund. tree maintenance belongs entirely to urban forestry and operations. the second point of suggested text is to state on page 10, line 20, rec and parks guidelines for open space and renovations for parks and open spaces should be adopted by the rec and park commission. we suggest the commission because it is the commission that is tasked with representing neighborhoods and communities of interest and they should be the ones who do the final adoption, not the rec and park department itself. and the third item we'd like to model the specificity of unspent set aside funds and the controller annually reporting the amount left over for unspent funds on the library

system. thank you very much. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> it's now good afternoon, i am nancy werfel, once again i urge you to require the charter amendments specify what the $3 million in the base lane appropriation will be used for each year. since rec and park states they have 1.7 billion dollars of deferred maintenance on the books i want to see this very serious backlog tackled on a pay as you go basis. we can start right now to fix what is broken in the parks if we demand that the new money be

directed that way., $125,000 for security systems and lighting, $250,000 for erosion control and retaining wall replacement. worst of all the original budget did request 1.1 million dollars for urban forestry but the final budget shows zero dollars approved, nothing for tree maintenance, zip. over 14 million dollars for every thing else except caring for our 100,000 trees. how shameful is that? supervisor avalos, i wish you would listen to this. this ballot measure already faces an uphill battle because

the mayor has required 1.5 percent reduction in departmental budgets partially due to, quote, voter adopted base lines and set asides that he has stated. since the measure is asking to approve a new base line please give us something that we can support that shows specifically how the money will be spent. don't let the people think the new money will just be a slush fund. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors, rachel norton with the san francisco parks alliance. i want to actually just commend you on today's amendments and on the work you have done in committee. we have impatient, we're chomping at the bit to get this on the ballot, but i think that the committee work really has improved a lot of the language. the amendments today regarding equity i think are really important and fill a need in the amendment. so thank you

for doing that, thank you for pushing for that language. and i think that we continue to want to see this measure balance really improve obviously protecting the rec and park budget and balance improved accountability with streamlining their operations and really giving them a way to get the work done. i think the plans as described in the current language in the amendment really will accomplish that, particularly with new equity metrics incorporated in them. we have some real teeth built in there that if they don't do the work that they lay out in their strategic plan, in their operational plan, that you, the board of supervisors, can take real action on their budget and make sure that they do the work that they say they are going to do and keep their promises. so we feel pretty comfortable with the accountability and the oversight that are in that plan, we feel we have a real

role on going as the parks alliance to hold them accountable and make sure the board holds them accountable, we think the language is good, there's been a lot of improvements made and it's time to move this amendment forward. thank you, have a good evening. >> thank you, any other member of the public who would like to comment and seeing none we will close public comment and i want to thank everyone for being here and for their work looking at this measure and making improvements on the measure. i do appreciate that the word today is equity and i do appreciate that we've gotten to a committee meeting where that's been addressed with some amendments and explored as thoroughly as it has been. we didn't have the language in the measure to begin with and so if he's something that had been considered early on, i do appreciate that but i really

appreciate the change in language. as i said i don't believe it is as strong, the language that we have around equity, is as strong as it needs to be but i will accept today the language that we have and i still hope to make stronger improvements on it, on the amendments we have today. there is an amendment i didn't talk about that i would like to make and it was one i referenced before and that was extending the open space fund another 15 years. and i do have amendments i'd like to add to supervisor farrell's amendment, i don't think it would take very much to actually put together and i thk it's already been contemplated by the city attorney and that is to extend the annual set aside and base line appropriation for 15 years to fiscal year 2045-46. that

will be language to add in the subtitle of the charter amendment and then on page 2, line 4, this is regarding the annual set aside, it will read the city will continue to set aside from the annual tax levy for a period of instead of 35 it will be 45 years starting with fiscal year 2000-2001 and including fiscal year 2045-46, then later on that page, line 20, we're changing 20, 30, 31 to 2045-2046. on the next page on the top, the first line,

changing 2030-2031 to 2045-2046 and then on line 13, changing 2030-31 to 2045-2046 and that will be my motion on amending. is that something that we can do today? >> yes, you can do that today. of course it requires another hearing. >> right, we already have a hearing based on supervisor farrell's language. >> thank you, chair avalos and thank you to all member s of the public who came out to speak today. i appreciate that and the on-going conversation and the months and like i said i probably at this point a year of solid work let alone contemplating this for much longer. thank you to all and look forward to the continuing conversations and i have the amendments that i put forward

to supervisor avalos and his amendment i appreciate that. i think there is, between extending an additional 15 years or keeping it 15 years as is, i think it's certainly a different perspective from different park advocates and different groups and the theory on keeping it at simply 15 years right now is it allows it to finally tie into the calendar of the existing open space fund and that the, long after we're all gone from city hall, maybe i'm just speaking for myself, over a decade from now it will have a conversation of being able to have a real total and complete discussion around parks funding into the future and, you know, i can see both sides of this equation but that's certainly how i feel today, that this is the best approach. you know we've talked about this quite a bit over the past 12 months so i

appreciate you, chair avalos, your amendment, it is not something i would be supporting today but i appreciate both sides of that equation. i think it's a simple difference of opinion among different park advocates but i am not in a position to support it. >> you are not in a position --. >> i am not going to be supporting the amendment to extend it another 15 years. as i mentioned, we've gone around and around on this issue, i've come to appreciate the reasons for having it simply stay at 15 years and extending it to 30 and again i acknowledge both sides of that discussion but from my perspective i think right now i would like to see it as is. i'm hoping to continue those conversations but, again, from my perspective, talked with multiple different groups, i think it makes sense to keep it

as it is right now. >> thank you. supervisor tang. >> thank you. i think i was one of those who signed on pretty early to this charter amendment and with the understanding that it would be for this particular time period. i would like to see how this charter amendment plays out over the course of the years we have originally designated before saying we would go further than that, so i think at this time i would support it as the original time frame proposed. >> okay, so let's have a roll call vote and you have a motion on the floor as well? >> i don't have one yet. we can do one on yours or we can put one forward. >> on the motion as stated by supervisor avalos, supervisor tang, no. supervisor farrell, no. supervisor avalos, yes. there are 2 no's with supervisors tang and farrell in dissent and one aye. the motion does not pass. >> thank you. is there

another motion? >> yeah, so i'd like to make to approve the amendments as i submitted earlier with the oral amendments to that that our city attorney, john gibner, put forward earlier, and then a motion as part of that one motion, motion to continue this item to the next rules committee meeting. >> okay, we have a motion, seconded by supervisor tang. we'll have a roll call vote on the motion before we vote on the motion i really feel like i have been very, very flexible with my time and my consideration of this charter amendment. i don't really feel that that's been as reciprocated in the process and i would say that's been throughout and i'm ready to vote. roll call, please. >> on the motion as stated by supervisor farrell to amend and continue to the next rules committee, supervisor tang, aye. supervisor farrell, aye.

supervisor avalos, no. we have two ayes and one no with supervisor avalos in dissent. >> okay, so this item is continued to the next meeting. >> next rules committee meeting. >> thank you, next item, please. >> and no. 6 is a charter amendment first draft to amend the charter of the city and county of san francisco to provide a runoff election for mayor between the top two candidates selected through rank choice candidates unless one candidates requires a majority of votes, require provided that the president of the board of supervisors serves as acting mayor until an election is held to fill that mayoral vacancy and provide the board of supervisors shall appoint a interim supervisor until an election is held to

fill that vacancy with the interim supervisor being ineligible to compete in that election, with the election to be held on june 7, 2016. >> thank you very much. i really don't want to talk too much about this measure. what i want to do, more than anything, is to make a couple amendments and then continue it to our next rules committee meeting. the reason why this measure has come forward and why i brought it up before was that i think that we really have an issue of separation of powers here in san francisco that leads to our work as legislators being highly politicized and constrained and i want to make sure that we can actually have a separation of powers that could really be, lady to us being better legislators and also separation of powers that is more democratic. when we actually have thousands of people take

part in electing representatives to work on this wud we are living up to the principles of democracy and when we have a few people make an election of who serves on the board of supervisors we are limiting what democracy is about. so i want to make sure that we are being as strong as we can and live up to the values of san francisco, despite our charter somewhat being a reflection of those values i don't think they are carried out the way they really need to be and we see that our elections get highly, our elections are political things, right, they get even more mrit -- politicized and we get a city more divided when there is a single power behind a single candidate with a large amount of money behind that candidate trying to assert that income bepbs si that isn't quite as fair when you have an open seat

and people don't have the value of that incumbent si when they are running for office. to me that's important that lives up to what san francisco is about and why i brought this legislation forward. so what i'd like to do today, this charter amendment is about filling vacancies on the board of supervisors and a vacancy in the mayor's office. it's also about rank choice voting and extending rank choice voting to actually eliminate rank choice voting and having a runoff for the mayor's race. i want to actually divide into two different measures this charter amendment. we'll have two charter amendments. one is going to be on the rank choice voting process, which i will divide out into a separate charter amendment and continue to the call of the chair. i do not intend to move forward on changing the rank choice voting but there's a charter amendment that's drafted if someone wants

to pick it up and run with it, fine, but i really want to focus today on filling vacancies on the board of supervisors. the other amendment i'd like to make is to keep right now the way this charter amendment that is on filling vacancies is drafted is that the board of supervisors would select someone to fill a vacancy until the next special election. that person would have a term limit that would last until the election is certified but would not be allowed to run for that seat so there would be an interim supervisor. instead of having the board select, i'd like to keep it with the mayor selecting the person who will serve as the interim supervisor who will not be able to run, his term will end at the end when that

election is certified and the new replacement supervisor comes in. so i don't think it's a very difficult amendment to make and if, i'm not sure if mr. gibner, if you have your copy of that and you could read into the record? >> attorney john gibner. i have a written copy, basically the concept here is duplicate the file and amend both, one of them you are amending out all the references to the rcv measure, rcv measure plus runoffs and the other you are referencing out all the references to the vacancies. in the appointment following vacancy measure you would be amending to say if the office of a member of the board of supervisors becomes vacant because of death, resignation, recall, permanent disability or inability to carry out the responsibilities of the office, the mayor rather than the board shall appoint an individual

qualified to fill the vacancy under this charter and state law to serve as the interim supervisor. the mayor shall appoint interim supervisor within 28 days of the date of the vacancy as opposed to the 14 that was in the initial proposal and other than that, substantively there are no other changes. >> great, thank you. that is exactly how i have it written here. and then the other thing that i'd like to, there could be changes that i might want to contemplate next time we have this heard and that is related to the office of mayor and the vacancy there. right now the way it works is that the, if there's a vacancy at the mayor's office the president of the board would serve as acting mayor until the election is certified. and in this case the person who is serving as the acting mayor and president of the board would have the

ability to run for the mayor's seat. we tried to make it as clear as possible, as conforming as possible, but there are a lot of moving parts. i don't think there's any perfect way of doing this but we want to make sure we have that separation as well as possible. so i'm contemplating some changes there, but i haven't quite made those. but the one i really want to make is that we maintain the power of the mayor to appoint, but appointing someone who will serve until the election is certified, will not be able to run and then whoever succeeds in that election will be the person to serve. okay? and we will go on to public comment. any member of the public who wants to comment please come forward. i had a couple cards but they are under a pile of paper here on my desk. you want to come forward?

>> thank you. nancy werful. i want to thank you, supervisor avalos, from the bottom of my heart for what you have just told us. i am a witness to the tragedy of what happened when ed chiu got thrown in jail and we were left for 4 months without any information from the mayor. a group of leaders of district 4 met with the mayor privately and pleaded with him, we need representation. we are paying taxes and we are not supposed to be without representation. when are you going to appoint somebody? there was no answer. i don't even remember how long afterwards he finally did appoint carmen chiu, less his heart, that was fine, but we were left with nothing and there was no contact. if some neighbors had not reached out to him and drug him into a private meeting he would have just -- god knows how long we would have wasted time without having anybody we could talk

to. there was nobody we could appeal to. thank you and i want to make sure this is on the record because there are lots of us that remember what it was like not to have a representative. this is an elected form of government. this is democracy. we were not served. you are now serving us for the first time. i can now tell you personally how important it is. this has got to go through. i understand you have amended it from 14 to 28 days. that's it. no more length of time without having representation and, yes, i like the idea that we have a clean referendum for people to elect people that do not have the incumbent cy only because it negates people from wanting to run. people have told me i would, but i can't fight an incumbent. thank you, you're on the right track and i appreciate it. thank you. >> thank you very much. actually before the next

speaker, director orenz is here -- thank you for being here. >> thank you, supervisor avalos, farrell and tang. my name is david carey and as an advocate and educator i'd like to commend supervisor avalos for his suggested amendment and for the changes he is making today. in general i think it's great that san francisco could make sure when there is a vacancy that voters have a voice in how that vacancy is filled and limit the time that an appointed supervisor, office holder, is in place. but probably more importantly i think it's also great that these two concepts of the runoffs and the vacancy filling are split and also that supervisor avalos is choosing not to pursue the idea of our rcv, rcv has served san

francisco very well and will continue to do so and i hope we keep it. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> supervisors, jim lazarus, san francisco chamber of commerce. i think my biggest concern with the charter amendment as it's been redrafted today is it continues a situation of dual office holding. i don't think an extensive period of time for the president of the board of supervisors to serve also as mayor, as i read the charter amendment or the remnants of it as it's divided, really makes a lot of sense. you are going to have a situation for 4 or 5 or 6 months or longer, because the alex with the approval of the department of elections, the mayor and the board of supervisors, could extend more than 180 days until you consolidated it with a regular election. so as i read it you could have the president of the board of supervisors serving in two capacities and being a candidate for the office of mayor for an extensive period

of time. i think that's a fatal flaw in that portion of the chatter amendment and i would urge you to reconsider. >> it's something i am still looking at, trying to find what a good solution is going to be for that. i do realize it's a lot of responsibility and probably not, runs counter to what we are trying to do concerning the separation of powers, completely. >> thank you, supervisor. >> memorandum -- members of the rules committee, good afternoon. today i am speaking as a member of the public. in addition to serving in the elections commission i have also been a polling place inspector 15 times over the last 8 years. i have modified my comments since the amendments but i want to thank you for not going forward with

the proposal to reinstitute december runoffs and that's all i want to say. thank you. >> thank you very much, are there any other member s of the public who would like to speak in public comment? seeing none, we will close public comment. supervisor tang. >> thank you, supervisor avalos, for i think the change, i think that was indeed two very different topics so i do appreciate you separating the two issues out. i think most of my comments will be very similar to i think it was last year or the year before when this measure also came up before us. this measure and this proposal sounds good on paper, but it really, i think, has a lot of holes in terms of practically speaking how it will work out. i'm not just speaking as someone who has been in that role where i was appointed and then also worked for someone who was appointed, but really just in terms of examining what would happen. i've said this before as well, but our current system is not perfect but it certainly has

worked. in doing my research i know that in the past history there have been 24 mayoral appointments to fill board of supervisors vacancies and there were actually 5 instances out of those 24 where the person that the mayor had appointed had lost the election and there are actually not that far away. for example, in 1978 there was someone who had lost and appointee, 1992, 1999, 2012 and recently one of our colleagues lost an election who was a mayoral appointee. i know there is a lot of concern when you are the appointee that it comes with this power of the incumbent but some of the elections have shown it actually is working. frankly speaking, i know the mayor wouldn't want to hear this, but being a mayoral appointee comes with quite a bit of baggage. when people say, hey, you are the mayoral

appointee, it's not a good thing. it tends to put people against you. i also come at this from the perspective that in my situation i actually had to run for an election within 7 months the first time, then i had to run again, i had to run twice within two years so there were certainly two opportunities for people to come out and, you know, potentially run against me. and all that saying as someone who, again, grew up in the neighborhood i represent, who worked for almost 6 years for the neighborhood that i represented from my predecessor yet still this issue, i think some people are uncomfortable with the fact there with the fact there are appointees one of the issues i had you have someone the mayor is going to appoint until the next election occurs. it could be 4 months, it could be

longer, obviously shorter than two years under current laws. where are we going to find someone who quit their job with the understanding with the restraint you cannot continue to run for ofrs in the future, that's very undemocratic for us to say. you are not allowed to run for office, if you decide you like and you would do well at, no, you cannot run. practically speaking it will be very difficult to find someone to fill in for that short period of time and to be held actable to the constituents. why would someone feel like they have a responsibility to serve their constituents in that period of time? they may have a good relationship with your predecessor, you may not, to have a relationship with your constituents, that you should be responding to them, where is the accountability

there? i don't see that. for me when i knew i had to run again, i felt a huge responsibility to serve the constituents so that's one of my concerns. staffing, not only is it going to be difficult to find whoever it is to fill in as a supervisor, where will you find the staff to go and work for just a couple months to fill in. that was difficult for me to ask people to quit their jobs and come work for me and face the uncertainty of elections coming up, twice. so i just, you know, i think that again our system is not completely perfect but there have been instances where elections have shown that, yes, a mayoral appointee who is serving on the board of supervisors can actually lose elections and sometimes when this do win elections it doesn't mean because of the power of the incumbent. maybe in instances like sean he

ellsberg who did great work in the community and people like they should continue. that's where i stand, still the same place as last time when this measure came about so i still feel uncomfortable with the measure even in the stripped-down version. >> thank you. well, all i'm asking today is that we make amendments and continue this item. i think there's a million arguments you can make in any way about it. we're talking about trying to create a new pathway for how we fill vacancies and you can find different arguments to say why we shouldn't. i don't think there's everybody a difficulty in filling a legislative aide position on the board of supervisors. there's a line of people really looking to do good work and i think also the work that a legislative aide does to do well on their job can have a huge impact on their career. so i would say the

same thing for the person in question, the supervisor wants to do a good job and doesn't want to be a lame duck supervisor even though they are not able to run for election once they have served the people of this city. and i don't think it will be any difficulty finding someone to qualify. especially probablyhe person that is, the people who are most, have the greatest chance of being selected to serve as an interim supervisor would be a legislative aide. i think there are legislative aides who would step up to that occasion and know how city hall works and knows all the con tents of the supervisor's office and the event of that person being appointed for an interim term. but i do appreciate your consideration of this legislation, supervisor tang, and in no way is this to call

upon yourself as a supervisor, you do tremendous work for a district, representing the people in your district, you come with a great deal of expert and knowledge and experience and there is no reason why you shouldn't have been elected to serve your district and i don't want you to in any way think that this is something about you or about your ropl on the -- role on the board of supervisors, it's more about the separation of powers between the mayor's office and the board of supervisors. so i have a motion to accept the changes that were discussed today and hoping colleagues you can support that and have the item continued. >> motion made, i guess. >> we can take that without objection. so just to summarize, the measure that is about filling vacancies will continue to the next rules committee meeting and the

duplicated file that is about rank choice voting will be continued to the call of the chair. we'll take that without objection, thank you. mr. clerk, do we have any other items before us? >> there are no more items, mr. chair. >> we are adjourned, thank you. (meeting adjourned).

. >> i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> i'd like to call roll. >> please do. >> commission president loftus is excused. commission vice president is excused. commissioner marshall is excused. commissioner dejesus, present. commissioner mazzucco, present. commissioner mazzucco, you have a quorum. also wuls is (inaudible) representing the department