. >> all right, good morning. welcome to our rules committee meeting of thursday, july 14, 2016. i am kaet tang, chair of the committee, to my right is

eric mar and to my left is erica cohen. i want to thank jim submit and jessie larson. >> please silence all cell phones and electronic devices. completed speaker cards and copies of any documents to be included in the file should be submitted to the clerk. items eye. >> please call item 1 ?oo? item 1 is a motion confirming the mayoral reappointment of darryl honda to the board of appeals for a term ending july 1, 2020. >> my name is darryl honda, i have been serving on the board of appeals for the past 3 1/2 years. i am a mayoral appointee. kind of nervous. i do -- funny, i'm not -- on the other side here.

i really do enjoy the work that the board does. i am very passionate about what we do. i'm sure you are aware, we deal with a variety of cases from food cart to taxi medallions. we're often called the tree stewards of san francisco. in the time that i've been on the board for 3 1/2 years i was voted in vice president for the a year and a half and now currently sit as the president. in the 3 1/2 years that i've been there, i believe i've missed 3 hearings so i have somewhat, 98 attendance rating. i enjoy being on the board because i feel it's important to the city. we hear, because we hear a variety of cases and as you know as supervisors, the public is very passionate about their opinions and how they approach and how they feel. some of the cases before us are easier because just out of a matter of law or by permitting

that determines the outcome. there are some that have been boiling in front of us for six months and the first time they meet is in our hearing room, so often times we became mediators and become parents and usually punt the case over having them, you know, negotiate. in the 3 years that i've been there i believe i bring a certain value to the board being a long-term resident of the city. also, a long-term small business owner and in 20 years as a realtor i've been able it negotiate with people and the public. i'm here today for reconfirmation -- i've been nominated for a second term. i do love what i do and i'll keep it at that. if you have any questions? >> all right, thank you for your service on the commission. i do know that it can be very

challenging there, we see a lot of our residents have to go through that process. are there things that you have seen over your past few years of service that you feel like could be done differently or improved or you feel like the board of appeals is pretty much run the way it should be, any thoughts on that? >> i believe the board with our 5-panel body is extremely efficient. our executive director, cynthia goldstein is in the gallery today, she runs a very tight ship. she's gotten 5 stars from us all 3 1/2 years. but yesterday was an example that we had 4 hearings in regards to the mobile technology for phones and because of article 25, our hands are literally tied. so the public comes up, they are very passionate about these machines in front of their buildings but really there's nothing that we can do to help them. i mean, the parameter of

how we vote has been laid down already. >> yes, i think all of us have experienced our neighbors who have been upset about that. supervisor cohen has a question. >> yes, thank you, good morning, everyone. so, mr. honda, can you talk to me about some of your accomplishments and the things you have done as a commissioner. >> as a commissioner, when i came on the board, as you know there's three -- there's two supervisorial appointees and three mayorals. even though we don't have the same opinions we generally, we're very respectful and i think i'm part of that team building. as far as what i've done, because i've been in real estate for 20 years and in a small business for 20, a lot of the cases that come up when someone buys a house and they are trying to improve or

there's an in law in there and it needs to be removed, because of that background i believe i bring a certain value to the board. >> so in terms of leadership, how do you incorporate community feedback in your decision-making process? >> well, i mean, as you know, when the public comes up they have very specific wants and desires when they come before you. and the main part besides, i mean it's three part. one is attending, two is going through the material so you are prepared for the hearing and then even when you're at the hearing the oral comments actually add that as well so it's important just to listen. there's times where after reading the briefs i have made a decision or i am leaning one way or the other, then after the oral comment you see a different aspect of it. >> it's true but also, much like you, we sit in a quasi

judicial function as well and have opportunities to hear feedback, not only from our constituents, from all over. but i think it's important to always remember that the people who show up are the people who actually have the luxury to show you and to wait for hours and hours and be there. and there are also voices that are not in the fortunate position, child care, maybe, don't have the resources to get across town, and don't have that luxury and their voices are important and it's important for them to be heard too. so it concerns me when people make a decision based on who is in front of them and the feedback they are hearing at the present time. it's like an emotional decision. when you are making a decision do you do outreach to get opinions that are not in your face, that are not organizing, that you are not turning out and doing the

emails and coming. frankly, these are communities of color that don't have the resources and don't have the luxury of making themselves available for hours and hours. it's not just the board of appeals, it's the planning commission, the police commission, it's a lot of things. so it's really important to pay attention to these sgrat voices, i believe, that are critically impacted particularly when you are making decisions on the look, the feel, the shape of a neighborhood, businesses that are coming in and out, paying attention to gentrifying forces. how do you do that? >> there are people that have the time and the luxury to sit 6 hours and 9 hours, they don't have parents at home they have to take care of or cook dinner for their kids. but then you have to look at the material before you, at the board we're not allowed to take comment

from people prior to hearing a case. so we had one recently, apothacare, which ended up being a 3-hour hearing with two hours of public comment and on that particular case, you know, in the 10 years i've been on the board i've never had the amount of outreach that i had on that. but it wasn't from -- it was some from neighbors, it was some from attorneys, be from the permit holder, and when you get there you have to decide, like yesterday's hearing, it was almost like they were paid consultants that were there to testify. and that's when it's my job to kind of wade through that and see is this in the best interests of what's in front of us. >> sure, i understand. those that can pay consultants or lobbyists are obviously well-heeled and can afford it. i represent a constituent si and a very serious concern

where people don't have that luxury of lobbyists and again afford that time to show up. so i'm giving you some advice, and that advice is to always be measured and fair about -- not asking you to break the rules, but i am skg you to be mindful of with a gift it is to live in san francisco, to own property and to make these types of changes to different pieces of property and it's a gift that not everyone in our city has the ability to reap the benefits from. but are still just as much impacted by the changes in the neighborhood. and when you are making decisions i really want to encourage you to look things through a social justice lens, even an environmental justice lens, and paying attention to those people otd southeast of san francisco that still will be impacted. an impact can be interpreted as transportation,

cost of living, there's many different ways, i'll leave it to you to determine case by case what exactly the impacts are, but when outreach that comes to you is still outreach nonetheless and should be seriously considered. thank you. >> thank you. supervisor mar. >> i just wanted to add, i appreciate supervisor cohen's suggestions and comments but i know that darryl honda and frank fung come from years and years and decades of community service. i think darryl's lived in 6 different districts, i know him as a parent struggling with his family but also all the community service that you do that's listed in your application. but i just wanted to thank you. i think you are one of the best examples of a people person, you even list on your resume' the work as a paper boy to all the different things you have done as a realtor, but the small business work doing just about everything for so many years in the sunset, i believe,

where i first met you, is tremendous. i think you have that listening ability to and the down to earth approachableness that makes you i think a really good commissioner as well so i'm strongly supportive of your reappointment and looking forward to hearing from mr. fung as well. >> thank you very much. further comments apblds questions? at this time i will open up public comment thank you for your presentation. any members of the public wish to come and speak on item 1? francisco, please come on up. >> my name is francisco decosta and i represent (inaudible) there are going to be 3 candidates coming here that belong to the board of appeals. the board of appeals is like a board that

adjudicates and each one of them brings different talents to the appeals board. the gentleman who i've never been introduced, he knows me, i know him, mr. darryl honda, one of the things that he brings to the board is his own personal fight regarding health right and you can see that. he may be shocked to hear that i'm speaking on that and i haven't even, i don't even know him personally, but it's that type of compassion that i'm interested in. politicking, i have met many politicians, i have met kings and queens, governors and generals, i served 3 generals. and i don't much care for that.

i care for any candidate who comes here whose place is to adjudicate, to listen to the constituents and be fair and just. and if there's an element of compassion in that, that's what i'm concerned about. thank you very much. >> thank you. any other members of the public who wish to comment on item 1? seeing none, public comment is closed. so, colleagues, i also would support the reappointment of darryl honda to the board of appeals. for me as our public commenter spoke about, i think that fairness is incredibly important on these issues and commissioner honda has certainly been very willing to at least listen to a lot of the issues that we have when it concerns poor residents but i totally understand what supervisor cohen was getting at as well. again, i would be happy to support his reappointment. >> supervisor cohen. >> thank you, i'm going to be

supporting darryl honda's reappointment today, really a lukewarm support but nonetheless support and i hope he heard my message today. thank you. >> if we can get a motion. >> i will move we reappoint darryl honda to the board of appeals. >> all right, we will do that without objection. congratulations. item 2, please. >> item no. 2 is a motion confirming the mayoral appointment of frank fung to the board of appeals ending july 1st, 2020. >> thank you, welcome, commissioner fung. >> thank you, supervisors. speaking on my own behalf, i am seeking reappointment to the board of appeals. i've probably been there extremely long period of time, i've seen the changes that have occurred at the board not only because of the charter changes that have affected the type of

permits, the type of issues that come before us, but also in terms of how we go through various cycles of types of issues that have come before us in terms of where the city is. the interest i have is to continue to try to bring not only the understanding of the law and all the various types of departments and permits that we deal with, but i think also to provide some level of equity in that discussion. the issues that we face many times are not only just between institutions and individuals with the city, but also between individuals with each other. and that's the thing that we need to continue to work at. i believe that i bring a mediation type

of quality to that and we struggle with it but it's something that we work very hard at and i seek your support. >> thank you. supervisor cohen? >> thank you, good morning, mr. fung. how long have you served? >> this will be my fifth term on the board of appeals. >> so this is your fifth term and terms are how long? >> terms are 4 years. my initial first term was, i was a replacement candidate and i was appointed by diane finestein. >> yes. this is actually difficult because i like you and i think you've done a good job but i think 20 years is a very long time. what do you think about the future generation having an opportunity there? >> i'm totally in agreement with that. >> after you? >> perhaps. or maybe i should say this will be my last. >> i think you've done a good

job. i think you've been fair and i believe, if i'm not mistaken, you are one of the more seasoned voices on the body, meaning that you served longest? >> i'm also the oldest. >> well, i didn't want to say that, but okay. >> i think there's some value to the wisdom you'll be bringing to the body. >> thank you. >> supervisor mar. >> i wanted to add to supervisor cohen, i think supervisor fung to asianinc, your support of women-owned business and your support of people with equal and equity is amazing, the work to schools to all kinds of community service. you are an example of the kind of statesman type person like you were saying that can help mediate and bring people together so i'm strongly supportive of your reappointment. >> thank you. given your long tenure to the -- on the board

of appeals i know we have been through some tough challenges, you were there when we were trying to do good and trying to build a public library and we met with some opposition there and now it's an incredible resource. i saw how you took the time to see what was going on, you didn't discredit what the community was saying but took the time to go out and see what was going on, not just for that but not other issues as well. at this time i'm going to open up item 2 for public comment. if anyone wants to speak on item 2, please come forward. >> hithere, my name is gabriel medrina, when we were part of the coalition the board of appeals voted against our appeal, they granted their right to bring what was really formula retail into 16th and valencia. frank fung listened

to our community, he used his long-term seasoning and community experience and actually helped us appeal that and successfully block jack spade from moving into the mission and as a result we were able to protect more community-serving businesses at mission so we definitely are supportive of frank fung and really agree that he is a statesman that can bring people together and really are happy that he is continuing in service. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> so mr. frank fung is that institutional memory and he will tell you some cases that came 15, 18 years ago and remind the others really what's happening to our city. and there are certain positions

when you adjudicate what's important you have experience. i worked for the army, i worked for the national park service and the national park police. when i worked for the park service i was involved in a lot of landmark and historical buildings and i see when there are some tricky questions or there are some tricky situations, mr. fung is the only one that they can refer to, to kind of find solutions and adjudicate those type of tricky questions in a very meaningful manner. so it's not such dispositions, you know, that they are talking about need a lot of experience. it's like good leaders who show the way, know the way and go the way. so it's not meant

for novices or people who need to learn things so that they can be fair. fairness doesn't come just like that. you have to go to trials and tribulations, you have to have the ability to have a good mind, but most important, you have to have spirituality. you could be a politician, you could be an advocate, but if you are spiritually bankrupt it doesn't mean you have to be a holy joe but if you are spiritually bankrupt you will not be able to adjudicate. i see that in frank and i appreciate it. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. any other speakers on item 2, please come on up. seeing none, public comment is closed. colleagues, may we have a motion? >> i move that we confirm the appointment to the board of appeals of frank fung. >> second.

>> we will take that without objection. congratulations. item 3. item 3 is a motion approving or rejecting the appointment richard swig to the board of appeals ending july 1, 2020. >> welcome, commissioner swig. >> i'm rick swig, thank you very much for seeing me today, supervisors. i have served on the board of appeals for a year and a half, i was a fill in for a predecessor. my prior experience on this commission was on the redevelopment agent si, served there about 5 years, maybe longer, sometimes it seemed like a lifetime, and served as the president of that board for a period of time as well. during that time it was an amazing experience, it taught me to love my city even more and the neighborhoods that

are the core fabric of this city and learn about the importance of listening to and supporting the citizenry of san francisco. and especially in some neighborhoods like supervisor cohen's which are notoriously underserved and underheard. i've taken that experience into the board of appeals and applied the same fundamental core values of being sensitive to the local citizenry, the people who come up in front of us with their issues on a weekly basis to try to resolve those issues in a fair and just manner and i'd love to continue serving a full term now in that process. thank you. >> thank you. supervisor cohen. >> actually i did have questions but he touched on, he answered my questions in his presentation so i'm happy to

support you, commissioner swig. it's interesting you are here again, i was just thinking, weren't you just here last year, but you answered that again, a year and a half. this is for a full term. >> yes. >> thanks for your dedication. you do a lot of work for the city and i do want to acknowledge that you definitely listen to neighborhoods, underrepresented neighborhoods or people who have less access to resources and i appreciate you for that. >> thank you. >> thank you. supervisor mar. >> thank you for your service, commissioner swig. i want to say i love that you were raised in the richmond district as well. i had a question about conflicts of interest. you are a consultant with different hospital --. >> hotel. >> hotel entities, i mean, but there's different real property in tobacco and alcohol companies so i'm wondering how you deal with potential conflicts that might come up on the board. >> first of all i've for the most part retired my consulting

at the end of last year. i still retain some ownership in two hotels which are not in san francisco so i have a family business which has been in san francisco since 1945, i sit on the board of that family business although i don't take an active day-to-day role in that business, primarily real estate. and my semi-retirement, let's call it -- you never retire -- allows me to spend more time doing what i really want to do, which is community service, including this. >> have there been any times where you have had to recuse yourself from a vote because of conflicts or perceived conflicts? >> there have been times because of the 500 feet, things like food trucks that come within 500 feet of my family business, which is about as serious as it got. >> thank you very much for your service. at this time i will open up item 3 for public

service, if anyone wants to come frd and speak on item 3. . >> i would like to say that darryl honda, frank fung, mr. swig that i know pretty well and mrs. lazarus, who is not here but who is the chair, they complement one another. i monitor this issue because i have to report to the chapter what is really happening to san francisco on many levels and as i have said, the thread is that this candidates have to have the ability to adjudicate and preferablely adjudicate with compassion. but there are also issues that come before them that are tricky because they are linked with latest

technology or they are linked with high-powered attorneys who can create scenarios that are very, very complicated. and the board which we have the privilege of going before is a board that exposes sometimes the corruption on many levels that's going on in this city, which we pay attention to. and you know the board of supervisors in the course of this meeting later on we will be addressing what happens at our board of supervisors. but it's all connected. but i would like the board of appeals and the candidates that came up today, all of which i support, that they serve this city and county of san francisco and more the

constituents and be fair and just. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. any members of the public who wish to speak on item 3, please come on up. seeing none, public comment is closed. supervisor cohen. >> thank you. i have a quick question for mr. swig if he can come back. i want to ask about his perspective on design on buildings, particularly interested on your vote against was it 75 howard? >> yes. >> what are your thoughts around design? i understand you had issues. >> the issue there is that my feeling is that building in particular was not in keeping with what for years the planning department and the city has tried to do by not creating a wall along the embarcadero, thus destroying an esthetic that is so important to the core value, aesthetic of

san francisco. and i felt that the building did not set back adequately like buildings on either side of it have appropriately and that that building will be something that will stick out, in my view, not positively in the future. >> okay. i admire you being able to be that lone voice, that dissenting vote. sometimes it's difficult to cast. >> thank you, i have no other questions, madam chair. >> at this time do we have a motion from colleagues? >> sure, i'll make a motion to move commissioner richard swig for reappointment to the appeals board. >> again, this will be a motion to approve then to the full board. we'll take that

without objection. thank you. item 4, please. >> item no. 4 is a motion confirming the mayoral reappointment of riched hillis to the planning commission for a term ending june 30, 2020. >> commissioner hillis, welcome. >> thank you, supervisors, and thank you for considering my reappointment. i've served on the planning commission now for 4 years so this will be my second term and i was thinking about when i was here before 4 years ago and certainly a lot has changed in the city as a result of the economy, in development pressures. i think when i was here before we were still discussing things like development and fee deferral for projects and obviously it's a much different climate now. we've seen unprecedented growth in demand for housing so a lot of new challenges have faced us at planning, particularly those around affordability and

displacement and how our planning code works and how some of these relatively new planners like market octavia in eastern neighborhoods are working to manage growth. we are obviously faced weekly with issues of affordability, the need for housing and particularly the need for affordable housing. i know you grap grapple with it too at the board of supervisors. often it comes down to whether we build a project or shouldn't build a project but i believe the solutions are more complex than that and i appreciate you tackling many of the issues and giving us as planning in neighborhoods and citizens the ability to help shape those issues. i looked back over these past years, some of the past 4 years, about some of the issues we faced that i think will make an impact on alleviating some of the concerns about gentrification and affordability, things like the adu legislation that gets

continually kicked around but i think is important in providing new housing units within the built environment, increasing the (inaudible) advocated strongly for at planning but doing it in a way that still allows for projects to be built, preference for affordable housing, short term rental legislation, density control in areas like fillmore so we can add more housing and affordable housing in those areas, the new affordable housing incentive program that you, chairperson tang, led. we passed interim controls in the mission district that would give us more leverage to require more affordable housing or increased replacement of pdr uses, but certainly there's a lot more to be done up front and i'm hoping the planning commission could take a more active role in helping you solve some of those problems in addition to just kind of

opining on projects project by project and certainly i think there is more that could be done. we do have to take a candid look on how some of our neighborhood plans are working and are they doing what they are supposed to do. i think we need better and more consistent funding for affordable funding. i think it's generally done linked to market rate projects but are there better ways, things that generate more revenue to build affordable housing. i think it's critical. i have advocated for on the commission, i think it's a great way to provide units at rates cheaper than us building them, protecting the tenants in those spaces and we'll be faced with the central soma planning that could do things that we could apply to the rest of the city. this is not the same regarding projects, this is generally what neighbors are passionate about and brings

people out about projects, new projects fit into their neighborhoods, their chain stores, people are passionate about their neighborhood which i think is great and i try to get out to all these neighborhoods and meet with the neighbors and walk the sites because i don't think you really get a great feel for what's going on unless you are out in the naipbd. the planning code is a blunt instrument. people are building in a blunt context and trying to fit that in, into an already-built neighborhood. better attention to design is something that's important and something i've pushed for but i realize there continues to be great concern about how the city is changing. i realize the city will grow and change but encourages all to do it in a thoughtful way that's acutely away of the physical context and the cultural context that exists here. i mean, i moved here over fwepbt -- 20 years

ago, my wife asked me this morning why i wanted to do this for another 4 years. i don't particularly enjoy reading eir's, haven't made any new friends, probably new enemies as a result of this because you've got to make hard decisions but i'm passionate about the city. i think it's a wonderful city, it does things right. it could do things better and i'm hoping to continue to be part of that. thank you. >> thank you very much for your service, commissioner hillis, i think the planning commission, as you allude to, has been tasked with very challenging, almost solving for social problems through zoning in many, many cases but i have just seen how your past and current work experience has really just been so incredibly important on that particular commission. even if i have seen that maybe you have taken a vote that maybe i would have gone another way it doesn't matter because you are being very fair and you look very thoroughly at all the details

and i think you have been a wonderful addition to the planning commission. supervisor mar. >> yeah, i just wanted to also acknowledge your work with our office of economic and work force development for the city. i think a lot of the major big improvements have been because of your hard work and many of the other folks in oewd, but what you have done at ft. mason to welcome arts and community groups is very important. i like that you are thinking big and visionary in how the city can develop in ways that are equitable to don't displace people as well. i know the chain stores versus small business issues are one that i feel are very important for our city. i know you look at them very carefully as well, but i did want to say that one thing that i got a chuckle in reading through the list of tremendous accomplishments is you were an intern on david letterman's show way back in the 80's and that just cracks me up. i don't see you sitting into the

david letterman type sense of humor but i'll try to picture it. but thank you for your service to the city and i'll be supportive. >> you know, my job at ft. mason is one that i'm also passionate about as we struggle in this city to provide space for arts organizations. we at ft. mason take that mission seriously and have tried to open up our space and provide more space and i think it's something we could do more at the city level, akin to what we do for supportive housing and providing space, with a nonprofit such as ft. mason, there's nothing better than a nonprofit actually owning and operating and being able to control their space. you have the free market to be able to serve those constituent sis so thank you. >> thank you very much. at this time i will open up item 4 to public comment. i have cards from commissioner

richards, who is here as an individual, and any other members of the public who wish to come up for item 4. come on up. >> it's an honor to be here today to support my colleague, commissioner hillis. speaking as an individual, although i am on the planning commission, when i heard that commissioner hillis was up for reappointment i was ecstatic that he was reappointed. i have to tell you, he's one of the best commissioners we have, he has san francisco values, he knows how to translate those values into action and quite frankly when i came on the commission nearly two years ago we were kind of like the crazy aunts and uncles and it was assumed we would be saying yes. because of commissioner hillis and others we are now elevated to higher policy issues. working on density he can

quitd, displacement, pdr, evaporation, for lack of a better term and also taking a look at some of the plan areas and seeing how they are delivering in terms of what they said they were going to do. so i absolutely 100 percent support his reappointment and i would be ecstatic if you supported it as well. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> i did fill a card, sir, right? so what i want to say about richard hillis is i've known him for a pretty long time and i got to know him better when he was working for mabel tang in the assessor's office. i watched the

commission for a long time. what i want to say to richard and to the planning department is that we need to address quality of life issues more boldly and i think one of you supervisors served on the bay area air quality management district so you know what i'm talking about, dangerous particulates. we can build but we need to bear in mind that whatever we build has to be built in an environment that is conducive to good health. so it's totally unfair to our infants, our children, our youth, our young adults, our seniors, those with compromised

health, if you don't pay attention to that component. and i know more or less it's linked to a health issue but the planning department has to pay attention to that and as one of previous commissioners who spoke here said since he came on board and johnson and richard are on the commission the dialogue has become more vibrant but i would advise them, focus on quality of life issues and i support his candidacy. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. any other make-up who wishes to comment on item 4, please come on up. >> good afternoon, supervisors and listening audience and reviewing audience. i'm here for historical reason. yes, i support you. but i will also be watching. i want to give some comment, i don't have that much time as one of the

originators and creators of the city, bet you didn't know that,ase on the case, i'm not here to get on the case but i want to say i supported him on the planning commission in my opinion, ace on the case, has been very detrimental in their passing, the history going back to 1848 of the urban renewal. that issue is still at hand and everybody wants to push it under the rug because right now we are insignificant. going out there, we are insignificant. we in the danger zone and the planning commission has the power to restructure and look at what they okayed 20 years ago. here we are in 2016. what does this mean? me, ace on the case, i am driving the car ?t czar of

the out migration. be aware, be on notice, when i create discovery channel i am going to use it for the people and let them know. they say, ace, you are not a reporter, give us some breaking news. pow, ace is back on the case, i'm going to be reporting anything and everything that affects african american's mere existence. but madon't what they call it now, or newsom, i'm the czar, get in the car but don't get in the way. i don't need your permission, i'm on a mission. >> thank you very much, any other members of the public wish to spaek on item 4? colleagues, can we get a motion on item 4? >> i will make a motion to

send a positive recommendation to the full board for the reappointment of mr. rich hillis to the planning commission. >> second. >> all right, we will do that without objection. congratulations. item 5, please ?oo ?a item no. 5 is the first draft of a charter amendment to authorize san francisco residents who are not united states citizens but who are parents, legal guardians or caregivers of a child residing in san francisco to vote in elections for the board of education at an election to be held on november 8, 2016. >> thank you, supervisor mar is sponsor of this charter amendment so i will turn it over to him. >> i want to thank supervisor campos, avalos, cohen and wean wean for being co-sponsors as

well. we're here on a charter amendment that our grass roots coalition of immigrant parent leaders and youth leaders are leading as well. we call it the immigrant charter measure that allows noncitizens to vote in board of education elections regardless of immigration status. it authorizes san francisco residents who are legal voting age and who are parents, legal guardians or caregivers for children in the san francisco boundaries, called the sfusd boundaries, and allows them to vote for board of education candidates regardless of their residency as u.s. citizens. i wanted to say we have a majority of the board of supervisors and a majority of the board of education that are in support and i wanted to thank president matt haney for

being with us but also vice president walton and commissioner sandy fuher and we anticipate there may be unanimous support as well. before we hear from a number of speakers that assemblyman chiu helped champion a similar nature with many of us and i think the united coalition that we have this time, we have a very strong empowerment vehicle to pass this in san francisco in november. this grass roots coalition that is based not only in the mission district with many parent and youth leaders but also chinatown to the bayview but it's city-wide. i wanted to give a special shoutout to the youth coalition and vote 16 as we expand voting rights in many areas of the city and i

wanted to give special thanks to mission and also chinese for affirmative action for championing this a decade ago and their work on many different issues. labor and immigrant rights are intertwined, it's not only (inaudible) we also wanted to thank groups that could not be with us here today, moharis unitas, san francisco organizing project, parent voices of young children and many others from the immigrant rights movement and civil rights in our city. the number of speakers that we

have today will come at the public comments but i wanted to ask if we could have a short powerpoint presentation from the coalition and i'd like to ask gabriel medina to come forward. and once we open up, madam chair, for public comment, we'll have a couple legal and academic spearers including ron haduk, an expert on immigrant voting rights at san francisco university and lisa wrietsman ward from stanford university who is a professor and runs their immigration clinic as well. >> thank you, supervisor mar and thank you, rules committee, supervisor cohen, thank you for co-sponsoring. this is as we went to public school together, this is a great way to kind of further the rights of families. >> to those who don't know,

gabe and i played in orchestra together. we've got quite a history. >> so thank you very much. it looks like we have this up. i'm also hear joined by my colleague leticia consueles who works for the mission possible project. this is really the immigrant parent right to vote. my mother is an immigrant, many of our families are immigrants, and we want to make sure they have the same right to vote to affect change in their schools as every other family. we know we are part of a federal initiative, the united states department of education, the mission promise neighborhood initiative, which is a wrap around services cradle to continuum that involves a school model drektdly in the school. we know when schools, family, community groups work together

and support learning our theory of change is that integrated schools, schools with support, you will have strong families, you will have strong letter children that perform academically. as supervisor mar alluded to, it's the same measure as 2010 really building on the foundation that was built in 2004, 2010, to really further affirm the right for parents to voetd in the public schools. . >> so we wanted to take a little bit of time to talk about why should non-citizen parents vote and bring up that at least, it's estimated at least 1 out of 3 children in san francisco public schools have an immigrant parent so that is why it would suggestly impact the parents in this community and over 80 percent of our mission promise neighborhood schools are latino and it would highly impact a lot of the parents that we serve and work with every day.

we know that parental participation is key in improving schools, particularly low performing schools. we recognize that civic participation in the household increases academic performance and knowing what is going on in the community and seeing and growing up with a parent who votes, a parent who is engaged civically, really impacts children's ability to do that as well. moving forward we have seen that students with involved parents are more likely to earn higher grades and test scores, enroll in higher level programs, be promoted, pass their classes, earn credits, attend school regularly, as well as graduate and go on to post-secondary education. so i wanted to mention that all of these are important reasons why we should feel inclined to support this initiative and not just as parents and as

immigrants and as people who serve and work with parents and immigrants. i work in the sunset district, i do not have children, but i feel it is not just our opportunity to work with immigrants but i feel it is our duty. >> so why now, why 2016? we expect a high turnout this election, there's a longer track record of success for this initiative in other jurisdictions, we have a strong amount of support and we know that immigration is going to be a key issue in 2016. as a result we know that for our community, we're very in touch with our clients and we're very active in trying to mobilize the vote. in california we expect 94 percent of california's registered latino voters to cat a ballot in this election and we found a great amount of support in

these supervisorial elections where we think all people running for the board of supervisors whether incumbent or a new comer would want to champion this measure. the track record over the last 3 years, several cities and towns, new york and chicago, illinois, have passed laws allowing noncitizens to vote. the u.s. supreme court has repeatedly said citizenship is not a requirement to vote. charter cities such as san francisco to provide for the manner of electing its school board members. so we did a poll on this, we found there is over 55 percent support and nearly a 20 percent margin of support versus opposition so there is strong community support for this measure. and just as far as what's going on, we know that immigration and urbans have

taken a lot of attacks so this is a way to further affirm and empower them. we know from making sure that sanctuary city is not just for protection, it's really so full involvement of people in our community. we know that the presidential campaign will talk a lot about immigration and, you know, given the supreme court docket doppler ruling this is a great way. as supervisor mar mentioned, thanks to him, supervisor campos, and we appreciate with both the policy side and the community side, we think we can further this measure to make sure that we have full rights for immigrants to vote. so we thank you very much. >> thank you.

>> thank you. i have a quick question. >> supervisor cohen. >> thank you very much, madam chair. to either one of you, what is the voter threshold you will need, (inaudible) majority? >> can we open up to public comment. >> absolutely, i will turn public comment over to supervisor mar. >> i have a number of cards, i wanted to first call up lisa wrightsman ward from stanford university, (calling names). >> thank you, supervisors march, cohen and tang for hearing this issue in rules committee today. i am an attorney and lecturer at

stanford law clinic. i am speaking today in my personal capacity. i understand specifically when there's talk of a law that expands or protects the rights of individuals who are not citizens questions of scope and locality may arise and as an immigrant rights attorney who deals with the u.s. constitution and federal immigration laws on a daily basis, i want to make sure that i am confidence such a ballot measure in no way contravenes the federal constitution or federal immigration laws. san francisco as a charter city has the ability to amend its local school board election lawness a manner that would allow for the enfranchisement of more voters. i believe this law, this ballot initiative, is of critical importance at this time in order to move our city forward in the face of uniphobic and racist attacks

around the country at large. it communicates as a city we are invested in san francisco residents and we blaefrb all parents, irrespective of immigration status, should have the right for full involvement in their child's education. involving parents who will have been here for years to come whose children may have or will reside here for years to come who may be citizens or will become citizens in the future, allowing them this right to vote means they will have greater right to invest in their community's education system and to take part in the institutions that educate their children. as a final point i would ask that when this measure passes that a coalition of immigrant rights come together to make sure the ordinance is done in a way that protect privacy and also assure there are not

erroneous votes which could be an impact on immigration status. >> (calling names) if the parents are not here the youth could come forward. >> legal low, supervisors, my name is eric call and i'm a youth is candidate. as was said in the presentation, one in three of sfusd has immigrant

parents including many households in my neighborhood, which is chinatown. all of my friends have non-citizen parents and i do too. before my mom was a citizen, she had no say about my education i was receiving. although my mom couldn't vote she helped me on my school work and other school-related stuff. passing the amendment would be significant because it will allow them to participate in conversations that will lady to engagement of both students and their parents. the youth commission unanimously supports the charter amendment. >> thank you, commissioner burnic. >> good afternoon, supervisors, rules committee, as you know my name is anna burnic, youth commissioner and former chair of the civic

engagement committee. as you probably know i've been strong in helping with the vote 16 initiative which we greatfully have been able to get on the ballot for november and it's also my first election so it will make it even much more special. for this measure i strongly for it because i believe that any type of parent, regardless of their citizenship status, should be allowed to have a say of how they want their children's education to go, even if it should not matter whether they were born here or not. thank you. >> thank you, commissioner burnic. i'm going to read a couple more names. joshua

arcee (calling names) next speaker. >> thank you, good afternoon. my name is lucia and i work for meta and the mission promise neighborhood but i want to come forward and speak as an immigrant who is a new voter and also who sees san francisco as her home. when any parent becomes more involved the community as a whole benefits. educational studies confirm there is a strong correlation between parents' participation and improvements in local and student outcomes. i am a testament of that. my mom made me attend many school board meetings and pta meetings against my will in translating for her and speaking out on her behalf and seeing this as a little girl not only reinforced my, the importance of education that many of the immigrant families instill in their children, but also taught me

the importance of civic engagement and i think that's very important. we have seen the impact it has had in new york, we have seen what happens when there's full involvement of our parents. they have impacted decisions to upgrade facilities, reduce class size, implement innovative afterschool programs that impact their children's growth. i think it's important to realize when we involve the parents and when we give them the tools for kids to succeed, we all succeed. thank you. >> thank you, lucia next speaker. >> hi, good morning, board of supervisors rules committee, my name is cecilia golleano, youth commissioner. i am also a child of an incarcerated parent. i am here to suggest i

come from a family of immigrants, i myself is an immigrant. when i was a student in high school, college didn't cross my mind. when my father was incarcerated, everything fell apart. my mother barely knew english. back in honduras my parents didn't finish high school. when my teachers failed me, they couldn't understand the hardship i was going through. i didn't have anyone to talk to or my parents because they weren't allowed to vote in city politics. we were always worried if the rent would be paid because me parents couldn't go to work without papers or our parents could be reported to ice. these are

challenges of many immigrant children who have immigrant parents. with this we are scared to go to college because we can't get the pell grant or informed what our options are to even attend college. the lack of information of college in general was an obstacle for my family and i because we were afraid of being exposed as immigrants in a country that was built by strong immigrant hands. i know for a fact it could have made a huge difference in mine. supporting us by allowing this charter amendment. i am someone who is going to be your future lawyers

and doctors. we are latinos united and we don't give up. >> commissioner park. >> hello, my name is joshua park, i am going to be a sophomore at ball high school, i am going to be the mission commissioner in the upcoming term. i have grown up in the city my entire life and i have seen the city grow and change and i think that this initiative is about the changing city. i think that this, this initiative will help bring a better, more organic feeling in these public schools by allowing immigrant parents to vote. i have grown up in the sunset my whole life, which is full of immigrants from china, korea and other nations around the world and i think the people around me deserve a vote. i will urge you to support this movement. thank you. >> thank you, mr. park. mr. arcee >> afternoon, supervisors,

joshua arcee with local laborers 261. i want to thank you, supervisor mar, for being our champion so many years and bringing it back. third time is the charm. at the laborer's union, we are 5,000 members, 3,000 here in the city and county of san francisco, we are san francisco, marin and san mateo counties. we look at this issue, we are union that comes from the immigration rights movement that in its nacence led to the founding of our union. we have members who will benefit who have children who are in the public school system or eligible, which i think is one of the great things about this. it's a strong thing for our membership. as well for a second reason we are calling upon all of our brothers and sisters in the

labor movement to join with us to do so and moving forward as you do this at the board but because this is a key part of the path that we are forging to where we ultimately must go against the lack of will from the republican congress, against the tide of anti-immigration rhetoric out of washington, dc we need to move forward with the building blocks of comprehensive immigration reform and this is an important step along that path. it is putting us on the same playing field, it is fully constitutional as attorney lisa weitzman ward testified, i want to get to know her, i think she has some amazing things to say. she's my wife, full disclosure. we are raising children in the heart of the mission, our oldest boy is about to start public school, we want it to be known we are all voting on the same school board candidates

and it's going to be a great thing. >> thank you, mr. arcee >> good afternoon, eric guatrero, latino culture district. we think about businesses and preservation but we also work with a lot of the residents in the area, a lot of the families in the area. what we've been seeing and hearing is a lot of our families are under a lot of stress lately in the mission for the last couple years. they are fired, displacement, a lot of families are feeling very disempowered, kind of helpless about their family's future. it's important for them to be empowered in the education of their kids. those folks who can speak for their children and having them be more

involved in the community, it creates a more unified community overall in the district. thank you. >> thank you. i called a couple names, let me call ace on the case and also sylvia johnson as well. teresa, please come forward. >> hi, my name is teresa imperial from manilatown heritage foundation. i am a board member of the organization and even though the manilatown heritage foundation stands on the struggle of i hotel, we know the history of i hotel is predominantly for the tenants right movement, sparking the tenants right movement here in san francisco. but at the same time that movement is built by the immigrants. and during those times in the 1900, the 1920's, there were so many

anti-immigrant laws that disempowered or really the main goal is not to have the immigrants any power, any voice in any process at all. and this balloting issue, it's very exciting because it at least gives a voice to immigrants and with manilatown heritage foundation also other philipino organization that we affiliated with, we see a lot of philipino immigrants here in san francisco in the schools and i know that they will have a lot of voice, a lot of say, if they will have opportunity to be, opportunity to be part of it. so this is very exciting and we support this. thank you very much. >> thank you, miss imperial. next speaker. >> hello, my name is sylvia johnson. i been living in the view as some of the teachers,

they are very good and i love them all. they need to let some restrictions, some new discovery in the schools like they did when we was in grammar school. it's not fair for them not to let them people that need restructuring in schooling on my part because we have already too many deaths because of this and it's to where some of the courtroom hearings that they had, because i was sick and i tried to go to them, i called them up and i think a lot of them court hearings that need to be giving some of the money back because i wasn't there and there's a lot of things that i needed to talk

about for our children and our republicans who are immigrants because we have some untold things that is reversing because of a lady that looks like me. i'm not going to be blamed because. people working in the police department on this because this is where our police department is exposed and where the children (inaudible) have been killed.

>> the main reason and the purpose for those families making sure that their children good to the university and they break the cycle of pauft when -- cycle of poverty when they have more opportunity. they see they getting involved in the school but it's not enough and something that i want to mention here is that we need to make the elected officials accountable, particularly people who make decisions about the budget, how is the programming at the schools and what is for everyone. we want

to see our schools in any immigrant community being the best and they have to be able to decide who are those people who make those decisions and this is the most important part and i want to say thank you to supervisor mar for being in this to the and for all the supervisors that are supporting the right for immigrants to vote. because we pay taxes and we are productive in this society, we have the right also to decide what is best for our children. thank you. >> thank you. i wanted to thank commissioner david from the youth commission for being with us today and the whole vote 16 activists and leaders as well and former immigrant rights commissioner kathy cole for being here as well. i already called ace on the case and one last call is david ronald lee. >> the students who are gathered here, this is very important that they have the

right that non-immigrants have a right to vote in the board elections much like we have people like chanel williams at city college who came up the ranks to tell this city and you know with city college we had the city attorney supporting us. and what we see in the san francisco unified school district, there are reports out there that the district has not been kind to those who are physically and mentally challenged. and with elections and the students really representing their concerns and hopefully the board of supervisors and the

representatives at the state level -- you see there's a misnomer that the san francisco unified school district is somewhat connected to the city and county of san francisco but they get their funding from the state. so in the bayview, for example, now it's out there that 25 percent less school enrollment. and we need to factor in how best we really focus on the immigrants. we have heard some young youth here some are immigrants who have articulated as best they could, they are our future leaders. so they will learn early on how to speak up and how to fight for their rights and they have the support of

the malok maloney tribe and i represent them as a tribal liaison and can help them in whatever way they want to. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. ace >> supervisor mar, you might be the person in my category of giving a star to supervisor that i could consider doing something that's community driven. so you got a stamp of approval. you doing a wonderful thing. >> thank you. >> immigrants, let me just speak on that. immigrants, i'm very much in support of that. i'm a family man, people don't know it, i'm not a father, grandfather, i'm a great grand father. my kids got kids and my grandson got kids so i know what it is to have children who need a voice because i know what we need. we came to this country, my family immigrated as slaves but now we have something called out migration so i'm in parallel with this movement and of course they need to vote and of course the young youth need to vote so i'm

very much in support of this, supervisor mar, you got my stamp of approval. i got a couple more minutes here, wow. i'm very much for, as the speeblgers -- speakers before us, it's important for them to be here. they need to have a voice just as much as the youth because we in a new era and we have no time for errors. what i mean by that, misguided leadership, failed effort and the most egregious thing that i'm not going to tolerate in my community and should be city-wide is undermining the community. what i mean by that, if you have a community-driven project like this and undermining should be recognized and identified and the people know. i just want to give you the stamp of approve, supervisor mar, you have the first of the annual. if i can help, please let me know. >> thanks, ace, next speaker, mr. lee.

>> thank you. i speak about a lot of things all the time to the board. now, see, she's wearing red. to me that's fire. the people i want to speak to today about rlt fire department people that that have to go in and put out the fires. >> so we're speaking about immigrant. >> buildings and immigrants in the structures that get pushed out because sometimes it happens because of fire. >> we're not speaking about fire, we're speaking about immigrant parent voting ballot measure. >> being able to do different type of things on the ballot measures. >> okay. >> what i was trying to speak about was different people that are displaced around the city and how are they displaced sometimes. >> but that's not the agenda item that we're on. >> well i thought you were discussing different things on the ballot measures and things that are pertinent to what

causes people to be moved. >> not at the moment, sir, sorry. >> okay, then i guess i was just speaking for the fire department and that's all i was speaking for here today. because they --. >> that's not the agenda item. if you could wait until it comes up on the agenda then it doesn't disrupt the item we're talking about today. >> i apologize because that's who i was speaking for, the fire department today. sorry, have a good day. my bad. >> with that, madam chair, i see no other speakers and i think we can close public comment. >> public comment is now closed. supervisor mar. >> let me say thank you to everyone who came out to speak, the parents, the youth, some non-immigrants, many others, the academics and the legal experts as well. i wanted to say that commissioner park made a great point that we are a

changing city, constantly changing, with different waves of people coming in and out but we are also an inclusive city that looks at the rights of people. this measure as we play it on the ballot and as voters consider it in november would really help improve the schools and i think people have made that point very clearly that parents want to participate, they want that voice. and this is about improving 100 percent involvement in san francisco schools from parents. i think other speakers mentioned that families benefit from this as people get engaged in that process. schools benefit as people are more involved in their schools and it also is about democracy in san francisco that democracy benefits as more people have a say in the different issues as we elect the school board members but also hold them accountable as well. i also wanted to add to that

as miss weissman ward mentioned this is legally defensible and for most of u.s. history, immigrants have enjoyed the ability to be able to vote and it's only since the 1920's anti-immigrant sentiments that it wiped away those rights. san francisco can now stand with new york city and a number of towns in maryland as they are raising issues of not only youth voting but also immigrants for having more of a say. i thank supervisor cohen and avalos and chiu for joining us. >> thank you, supervisor mar, for all your work on this. i know it's not if your first time trying this issue so i want to be supportive of your

effort today, thank you all for coming and glad to see my youth commissioner here, commissioner park, so with that, supervisor cohen. >> yeah, thank you, i'm super excited about this and i want to put forward a motion to move this with a positive recommendation to the full board. >> as a committee report. >> thank you. >> for consideration july 19. before we do that we will go to the controller's office first. >> good morning, natasha newhall, controller's office. should this pass it would cost the department of elections a minimum of $160,000 to register the eligible people and train the poll workers. if we do it by absentee ballot only it would reduce the cost.

>> we have had meetings with the school district to go through a lot of different implementation issues as well. >> supervisor cohen has made a motion and a second so this will be a committee report for consideration on july 19. all right, thank you very much, everyone. now if we can call up item 6 and 7 together. >> item no. 6 is a second draft of a charter amendment to amend the charter of the city and county of san francisco to create office of the public advocate and set the public advocates powers and duties, authorize the public advocate to review the administration of city programs, including programs for transmiting information to the public and to receive, investigate and attempt to resolve complaints regarding city services and programs. item 7 is the same title as item 8 and madam chair, i might note sponsorship is incorrect on the agenda and should be the same as item 6. >> okay, great, thanks for

that clarification. i will speak to item 6 and 7 very briefly so both items actually are the exact same thing. there were a couple amendments supervisor mar and i had supported on top of what was submitted by supervisor campos, even though i don't support the measure itself would make the measure better. one would set term limits on this city-wide elected official which is probably something i think most people would agree with here, given there has been a lot of arguments made about the power of incumbent. there was the ability for the public advocate to appoint two department heads and i know both those departments and the issues they

deal with are very important right now. however, just randomly deciding on two departments for this person to be able to appoint makes no sense. there's no end to it. so i think supervisor cohen's amendment removing that ability makes sense. lastly there was an amendment about the time, the gap period in which current elected official could run for this particular office. so again i think that both amendments actually help make the measure better and certainly i do want to correct that i know there was some representations in the newspaper that were trying to hold this i item up in committee. we are not, it is going to move forward. it just doesn't have the amendments i think the sponsor wanted but this is a legislative process

and that's why we have committee and that's why we debate such things. we intend to move forward item 6 and 7 to the full board as a committee report for july 19th. with that, colleagues, do you have any other questions, comments, supervisor mar? >> i just had a question. item 7 is just duplicated, could we just table that one? >> it sounds like there is no desire to table one so we will have both versions. supervisor cohen. >> i have no idea what to expect on friday. as you know we are going into a special session friday at 5.15, so i would like to see both measures go to the full board as a committee report and i'm going to reserve my comments on these items for friday. i'll be conserving my energy. >> i just wanted to say that i am pleased that it's moving forward. i think the amendments were made over the

objections of supervisor david campos and i believe in decorum and support for colleagues, wishes that they move things forward but i understand supervisor chair tang's comments her belief that it makes the ballot measure better but i disagree with that and i'm supportive of supervisor campos' position that they do not make them better. >> i want to support the quorum as well but i think we have seen history play out where we have had measures amended over our own objection so it's only past practice here. in any case, items 6 and 7 are before us, i'm going to open up 6 and 7 to public comment at this time. any members of the public who wish to speak, please come on up.

>> sylvia johnson. there's a lot of things that haven't been answered, a lot of questions that you got. i'll move to my answers and i do appreciate supervisor tang, they are very good supervisors and i think some of the things she put in hearings that i missed so i can answer some of those questions that might be answered, i think this is where a lot of mix-ups have been going on with issues. i can get this straightened up because of not being inclined

to be in these meetings and i been sick and very disoriented because of this illness. i almost dieed a number of days ago, i didn't get nothing from doctors for pain and it's been going on all my life. i can answer a lot of these questions, haven't been answered and i'm sorry i was sick and things have not gone right because i didn't get this all straightened out. this is one of the reasons they made me go to prison and go to tr for six years and it's unfair for

anybody to be put this way in 2007 because i went to washington, dc and they had chains on me. >> any other members of the public wish to extent on items 6 or 7, please come on up. >> supervisors, any amendment, i'm talking about a process, any amendment that comes before this committee, the rules committee, has to be, the process has to be followed. now i know that somehow on friday this matter is going to be held at a special meeting but, you know, at the last rules committee which we were watching it was said that today some deliberation would be made and this is high level politics. because there are a

few supervisors who do not want any changes. they want to keep the status quo. the other thing is when you have an amendment, charter amendment, i with like to address this to the city attorney, we need to have the material. because if you read this material that you can get from the clerk of the board you see the unions, some of the unions who want to maintain the status quo. and i will personally state to you that the last rules committee, the discussion that was held here, how certain elements were introduced without thought process. we want to challenge

other candidates that they should be up and coming. when you are a supervisor and you don't do your due diligence and just try to interject and topple somebody's amendment who has spent a lot of time, i think that's wrong. so i think the city attorney should speak to that and also speak to the constituents gets the materials here, especially when it comes to a city charter. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. any other members of the public who wish to speak on items 6 and 7? seeing none, public comment is closed. if i can get a motion to send these two items to the full board for committee report for july 19? >> i'm sorry. >> deputy city attorney. just a procedural point here, the full board at tomorrow's special meeting will be considering a motion that would pull these items out of committee, that portion of the motion will essentially be moot if the committee votes to send

them to the full board then we will recommend the board amendment that out of the motion. the motion on tomorrow's agenda also calls for a committee on the whole on the public advocate and the board still could vote to hold a committee of the whole on this measure next tuesday, but it no longer would have to do that because you are sending these measures out. just wanted to note that. >> clarify that, thank you. >> and for the clarification, the motion for both 6 and 7 or just 6? oh, i'm sorry, the motion for the committee of the whole. >> i'm sorry, the motion --. >> that's submitted already. >> the motion for the committee of the hole is just item 6 and the motion to pull is just for item 6. people who show up to testify on item 6 will also be speaking on item 7. >> so your recommendation is should we just continue the

motion, we obviously know what's going to happen. all right, so and then actually let's go to the controller's office because i don't know if we had presented the revised cost estimate. >> natasha, it has a minimum staffing requirement of 4 positions, a would cost a minimum of $800,000 annually. there's a city policy that would recommend an additional 22 members of staff, that would cost between 2.3 and 2.8 million dollars annually. >> thank you. supervisor mar. >> i just wanted to make a motion that to make things less complicated and they are just identical items that we just table item no. 7, it's like a duplicate copy of item no. 6 and i don't think it's necessary. so i move that we

table item 7. >> i think we should do a roll call vote. >> why don't we just take action separately on item 6 first, okay, and we can see if there's a motion to send that forth to the full board as a committee report for july 19. >> on the motion to send item 6 to the july 19th board as a committee report, supervisor mar, no. march, no. supervisor cohen, aye. supervisor tang, aye. we have two ayes and one no with supervisor no in dissent. >> all right, so that item will move forward to the full board as a committee report for july 19 and item 7, do we have a motion or do you want to make a motion? >> move to table because it's redundant and it's the exact same thing as item 6. >> okay, do roll call then. >> on the motion --. >> sorry, supervisor cohen. >> the motion that passed, this last one, was to move 6

and 7, correct? >> it was just 6. >> okay, thank you. i'd like to make a motion --. >> supervisor mar has a motion pending right now to table item 7. roll call. >> supervisor mar, aye. supervisor tang, no. supervisor cohen, aye. we have two ayes and one --. >> so you want to table? >> no, i do not want to table. oh, i'm sorry, can we do that again? i'm sorry. item 7, to table item 7. >> another motion to table item 7, supervisor mar. no. just kidding, yes. supervisor cohen, no. supervisor tang, no. we have two no's one aye. >> do we have another motion for item 7. >> i make a motion to move

item 7 to the full board -- did item 6 have recommendations? >> as a committee report. >> send it as a committee report with a recommendation. >> thank you for the clarification. >> did you get that, derek >> why don't we do a roll call on item 7. >> on the motion to send item 7 to the july 19th meeting as a committee report, supervisor mar, no. supervisor cohen, yes. supervisor tang, aye. we have two ayes, one no, supervisor mar in dissent. >> so 7 will move forward to the full board with a recommendation for july 19. all right, we can call item 8 please and now we are joined by supervisor peskin ?oo ?a item 8 is a second draft of a charter amendment to create a housing

commission. >> supervisor peskin. >> good afternoon. i want to thank all of you for working with my staff for working on this charter amendment while i was out last week. as i understand it, last week amendments were introduced based on feedback from city staff in anest to build a stronger charter amendment. as you all know, after discussions that my office had with the city administrator and the real estate department we removed oversight of those functions that did not specifically pertain to affordable housing development or development of the surplus property ordinance at an earlier rules committee meeting on this item and that is the status of the file that is before you today. i understand staff took the feedback of both supervisor cohen and chair kevin carol with respect to the overlap of the work force functions of oewd oversight and as a result staff attempted to move amendments at the last rules

committee to explicitly remove those from the commission that's proposed under this charter amendment and i would like to propose those amendments again today. the specific scope of the commission has been intentionly left broad but i think there's a strong policy rationale for why the charter should car of out any (inaudible) this is ultimately in keeping with the charter amendment's central focus, creating a commission that would provide a vision and strategic plan for housing and neighborhood development in our city. i also want to thank lisa pagon from oewd and various stake holders as well as supervisor avalos with respect to establishing a strategic plan particularly in neighborhoods struggling with

economic development opportunities. additionally housing stake holders across the city have asked for a similar process with respect it a strategic plan for housing. with this in mind i will also offer an amendment with respect to the commission would be tafrked with adopting an overall strategic plan for housing and community development once every 5 years which the board could modify before adopting via resolution. if the incoming department of homelessness could adopt a strategic plan for dealing with homelessness in 90 days, which would clearly benefit from long-term planning given the crisis we are all facing and dealing with. supervisor avalos also offered feedback with respect to the way our city family currently vets development agreements and collateral community agreements and i know i am not alone in my concerns with how the city has dealt with these concerns and

negotiations previously. again without being too prescriptive, given that chapter 56 of the administrative code already sets forth procedures, i think there is a desire by public servants to provide input much earlier and really have a transparent and collaborative process for veting with the board and the public. to that end, i would like to offer an amendment to strengthen the development agreement process by providing an opportunity for the director to present a work plan highlighting potential development negotiation opportunities and giving this new commission the option to provide guidance. with respect to the mayor's office of housing community development, funding approvals this office received a lot of feedback from housing organizations and staff that we should include language that also is more prescriptive with respect to setting out a process for the commission. for example it makes sense to keep the loan committee process

intact and ensure the committee meets weekly during the nofa process. i have heard generally from stake holders involved at all levels that this process could and should be streamlined. that said, after consultation with the city attorney it doesn't seem like this level of prescriptive detail should go into the charter but rather should be something the committee operates under. the commission will have the discretion to work rt department head to ensure the best practices are implemented and a streamlined process adopted without micromanaging their process. finally, after requests for more flexibility and avoiding potential for conflict, i have added one additional at large seat for the board of supervisors and one additional seat for the mayor which would have experience within the fields of homelessness and/or

supportive housing. the intent was to loop in the newly formed department of homelessness and recognize not only the mayor's work around supportive housing but the necessity of having a voice from that department nr oversight of our overall housing agenda. thank you to the community members and city staff who have offered feedback throughout this process. i want to stress again this charter amendment is designed to be flexible and allow cooperative relationship between the directors and the commission with respect to how they run their respective departments. there has been talk for years that would help steer the planning and community development functions and frankly i think we have pulled together as comprehensive a measure as possible without micromanaging day-to-day functions. i look forward to dealing with concerns not covered by the

measure, policies and priorities. i know city staff are also here to support a separate set of amendments that have been proposed by the mayor and in the spirit of opening up a space for further negotiations i am proposing that we duplicate the file and use one of those as the vehicle for the mayor's amendments which i have distributed to all of you, i have also distributed to all of you the amendments to the original file and would ask for your support in forwarding these two measures to the full board without recommendation. >> all right, and of course i think first we would need to have someone duplicate the file as well. >> yes, i would respectfully request that. >> i move to decide or duplicate the file. >> all right, so thank you, supervisor peskin, thank you for allowing i guess another option in terms of your proposal. i know you weren't here for the last couple of hearings where i made comments that i agree with a lot of the

intent that you had in your measures requiring strategic plan, requiring an ordinance to create a competitive selection process, requiring annual work plans to be shared with us and discussed and even voted on by the board. i think those are all really great components that i actually do support. i think, yes, there could be process changes so that we can better understand our city's vision for housing and so forth. in terms of having an actual commission that needs to oversee that, that's not necessarily something i agree with but again the individual components, i do. so i'm really glad to see, i'm not sure if it's the mayor's proprosal but it's things i have provided and put on in our public hearings in the past. i don't know in any other colleagues have questions or comments. maybe at this time we'll open up item 8 to public comment. so if anyone wishes to come forth, please come on up. i think i have just one

comment card here, randy shaw >> thank you, randy shaw supervisor, you weren't here two hearings ago because i heard you talk about all the feedback you got from (inaudible) the tenderloin museum, the black cat restaurant, i could go on and on. the local two's, painted ladies, all were funded by invest in neighborhoods and a parade of people came down saying why they didn't want a commission over this and why they thought it would be counter productive. you should take invest in neighborhoods out, that would solve a lot of

problems. we all understand what's happening with the realtor's ballot measure and the mayor and not wanting to blink first. i think the problem with that, it's not progressives versus moderates in this one, it's smart versus dumb. we should not be messing with the invest in neighborhoods as a bargaining chip. you want to do the other stufr with the housing people and they're into it, that's their business. that's not my world. but this is too important and the reason it's so important, i recruited 826 valencia to open at tenderloin and what's the first thing they said it me? will there be any city money i can get. and i was able to contact amy cohen and sheefrs able to say, we can make it work. a commission would have approved it, i have no doubt, but the assurance they needed to move forward was there. it's working great now, let's take invest in neighborhoods out. thank you. >> thank you very much, next speaker, please. >> sylvia johnson. the way

the management can be called is building houses, you know, for

better permanent (inaudible). >> naipk thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> supervisors, i'm john of the (inaudible) group. i haven't seen the amendments the mayor's office is going to propose, but my concern is not to include the public process and all the workings of the office with regard to housing development, developer selection, programming and prioritizing funds, defining rfp's, what kind of housing should be built where, setting the underwriting guidelines, what are the financing requirements that the city expects, the asset management guidelines, all those very important rules now are all created in their own office somewhere on mission street

behind closed doors. there is no public participation, there is just nothing. nothing. i mean if you have the ability to raise the funds you can ask for a hearing at the board of supervisors, but, heck, can we do that on dozens of topics every year? no, of course not. that's what commissions are for. for many years the redevelopment agency created, did everything i just named in public, brown act meetings, fully advertised in advance, memos on the record 72 hours prior to the meeting, all those things a commission provides as a matter of routine which opens the whole process up to public participation as well as being negative. but you start to input what is important. i have no idea why the mayor's office wants to keep doing all its business in secret, in the dark without benefit of all that public input and community input which would strengthen

their programs, produce better projects and in the long run greatly improve our city's communities and just a general atmosphere in our town. thank you. >> thank you very much. any other member s of the public who wish to speak on item 8? seeing none, public comment is closed. i just wanted to see, given there are two before us, i think i see todd rufos and (inaudible) before us if you can just comment? >> todd rufos, as i said to the committee a couple weeks ago, oewd believes strongly in public view and transparency but we had concerns about the public commission and how it would impact on the speed of our ability to deliberate on our mission, ability to serve work force clients and over the

past several weeks as supervisor peskin mentioned over the past several weeks we have worked with your offices and suggested potential amendments to purpose peskin's proposed commission and these are what i believe supervisor mar will be introduced in one of the files. as part of that and i will defer to supervisor mar on the introduction of what those amendments are, but we would welcome obviously the opportunity to come before the board and present our 5 year strategic plan and present the board on our work program periodically every six months and these address our primary concerns with the commission. they increase opportunities for us to share in addition to all the amount of engagement and transparency we have today but still allows us to implement our mission in a nimble and

expeditious way. that said, on the proposal even with amendments, the comments that i shared last hearing two weeks ago still stand and we have serious concerns about the proposal, the proposed commission and our ability to implement our mission to move grants forward in an expeditious way. oewd still has 23 million in grant funding that would be faced with a 3 month delay in our ability to move that money out and grant that money to projects and we remain deeply concerned. >> i was wondering, to supervisor peskin, because the bulk of the concerns have to do with the mayor's office of housing, i'm not saying i'm supportive of the measure

overall, but there was a provision in the amended version that departments have suggested where oewd reports to the board at least once every six months on the current activities, lists a description of all development agreements and a description of the proposed objectives in negotiating those development agreements. i'm just wondering, and i apologize, i haven't spoken to you about this in advance, i'm just thinking on the spot, we could put the oewd, i just feel like oewd should not be under this commission at all but there are things you want to see at the board which this would achieve, this provision that you have an amended version. >> so, supervisor tang, i'm not sure exactly what you are saying. the amendment, yet to

be made amendment of the duplicated file which has been suggested by mayor's staff clearly provides for oewd and mohcd to report regularly to the board of supervisors twice per annum including but not limited to setting up strategic plans. the first version is really the traditional commission concept over two functions in government that as one of the speakers said i think would benefit from more community and stake holder interaction and participation in the light of day and the notion of having that only apply to the housing side and not to the invest in neighborhoods side, with all respect to my friend, mr. shaw, i think doesn't make sense. i think they are part and parcel, it would be very nice for those

all to be housed in one place and quite frankly as this 23 million dollars is allocated i think real community participation in that process would benefit it. there are any number of instances, and i'm not in any way assigning intent or political intent where quite frankly i see some of these invest in neighborhood grants and it's kind of mind-boggling. i am not talking about the ones that mr. shaw referenced but i am referring to other ones that, quite frankly, there are better uses for this $10,000 and that $10,000, i mean they make one community group or another community group feel good but they are not really necessary to making the city a better place. yes, it's nice to put lights on poles and what have you but they often are used to pit neighborhood groups against one another. i think if we had that in a commission where the public was there helping them

refine the process and come up with guidelines that is actually what makes government work real well. i think the planning commission is where so many problems get resolved or folks you heard earlier in this meeting, the board of appeals who bring people together and listen to the public, i think that is a function that, while i would love to have that function at the board, it is so time-consuming and there are so many details, yes, it would be lovely to have a high level twice a year review of what's happening. we can call a hearing at any time and get that information but i think if we're really going to make mohcd and oewd functions that are embraced by the community and benefit from public input i think this is the right way to go but i want to open up a space for negotiation, maybe we take this in steps over time. i think forwarding these two items to the board as

discussions continue between my office and the mayor's office is the right way to try to figure that out. the notion of having commissions over mohcd and oewd are not new ideas, these ideas have been kicking around as long as i've been kicking around this building and maybe its time has not yet time. maybe we should take the baby step that the mayor is suggesting but why don't we continue that conversation in the days ahead. >> all right, i would just say in response to that, i mean in an ideal world, having that process play out and again i'm focusing my comments on oewd, really, great. if it was fast pf paced moving we could have that commission oversight and the funding could be doled out in a timely manner, great. but we all know that's probably not going to be happening and i think jeopardizing a lot of great community projects that come as a result of that flow through at oewd, i'm not

willing to jeopardize. supervisor pes pels. >> i also want to add there's one function within oewd and that is the development agreement function that even if we were to he had mr. shaw's admonitions as it relates to invest in neighborhoods i think we still want to have that level of public oversight and interaction and scrutiny that a commission brings relative to development grants. >> sure. and again as mr. rich mentioned at our last meeting when they do start negotiations there is a piece of legislation that has to go before the board of supervisors that kicks off and authorizes the start of that process. and i think that we can do more to maybe augment that, but that certainly, i think, provides public notice about the fact the city is about to begin negotiations on these. >> i think i wrote that. >> great, thank you, supervisor peskin. that's a great tool that you provided us. all right, so thank you, mr.

ruffo >> if i can just add on the average, this is something i shared at the previous meeting two weeks ago, i am proud of the level of engagement, community outreach, transparency that oewd engages in across the department. as i mentioned at that last meeting, 500 stake holder meetings and on the commission side oewd presented at at least 56 meetings. this is in addition to board oversight of oewd's budget. >> i guess at this time does director lee want to comment on the department's version here?

>> also mayor and director's office of housing. i think todd has spoken about the concerns both of those have about the commission. i would like to, as i've said at the previous hearing on this item, the projects that the mayor's office of housing funds go through the commission, go through the board of supervisors, through its ground lease process, through the bond issuance process, goes through the planning process. sometimes it goes through ocii, it gos through various bodies where concerns can be raised. the notion that we have to have a commission to hear about these projects does add additional oversight and the question we raise is whether that helps us do the work of the office, which is to create

affordable housing expeditiously for the residents of san francisco. what we said earlier in the discussion about the commission is what problem are we trying to solve here? we have plenty of opportunities to discuss all the projects of the mayor's office of housing. i think in terms of the amendments being proposed, provide some additional level of oversight that perhaps was not available under the previous structure but the question for me is does this really help me do the job that i'm charged to do, which is to create affordable housing as quickly as possible and the commission does not do that. it does not give me the powers that i had at the redevelop the commission to move quickly and even, as the supervisor knows, supervisor peskin knows, that had its own issues and its own struggles but it had more powers than the powers that you would provide this new commission. so we're currently not

supportive of the notion of the commission in part because i just want to do my job. i just want to create that housing and anything that we are missing that we can provide the board, we would be happy to do so. >> okay, thank you. so at this time let's go to the controller's office really quick for the updated cost estimate here. >> we actually haven't updated our costing information since we last provided it to the committee. >> so it still stands at approximately $190,000 annually to fund the new city commission. >> yes. >> all right, supervisor mar. >> let me just ask supervisor peskin to clarify. so i've divided the file. >> xli duplicated the file. >> duplicated the file. and i am going to make a motion that in version no. 2 that in these amendments that came from your work with the different departments be amended into that second version. >> and that the first version

be amended as the red line that i distributed to you per the words that i spoke to those are the amendments that were offered last thursday with some slight, slight changes. >> first version had the red line changes and the second version was the changes that were made today. >> supervisor cohen. >> i have some questions i just want some clarity on. all of this is in an effort to get the realtors to support the measure. is that what i understand? >> to the extent that the realtors' measures, which, quite frankly, i think move the

departments that we are talking about in this matter backwards rather than forwards, the realtors have turned in their measures but as i said earlier, this is a piece of public policy whose time i think has come. and that, as a matter of public policy, with or without realtor measures this commission, this level of oversight makes sense as to have a body that has charter powers to have that transparency i think is the right public policy thing to do. i was hopeful that the realtors would not be doing things that make folsom's life difficult. >> fair enough. have you talked to the realtors? have you met with them or are you speaking with them through the mayor? >> i'm not speaking --. >> you are not speaking to them at all? how do we do this in a more efficient manner? you want them to pull it, so

why don't we just --. >> just to jump in, i'm not sure that can be done at this point. >> that's true, it's past the deadline. but it doesn't preclude us from having a conversation about what would go to the voters in november. >> deputy city attorney john gibnor, the realtors submitted both measures already. the department of elections is counting the number of signatures to determine whether those will qualify for the ballot. the proponents of those measures cannot pull them off the ballot at this point if they have qualified. the board, using city resources and members of the board using city resources may not urge the voters or proponents or the campaigns one way or another so in terms of this hearing, the board can't use this hearing to

urge the realtors or the proponents to do anything in their campaign at this point. >> perfect. i understand that, thank you. it's just been, i've been left with the impression rtion conversations that we have had, that leverage is trying to be created to get things put on or to be pulled off the ballot and i think the purpose that i'm looking to get a better understanding is at what level has the discussion even happened. i think the point, you've made my point and i think supervisor peskin has always acknowledged it at well, there's been no real meaningful conversation to move anything. granted, the deadline has come and gone, probably, i would imagine, by design. so here we are to deal with amendments and to tell the truth you heard in some of my other comments that i don't know, maybe it is time that we put some oversight over

some of the departments. i think where i'm a little bit struggling is how do we, how do we put a commission over a department but require them, require the commission to only have responsibility of half of the department's function? >> which half are you referring to? >> i believe you are referring to the oewd portion, i am guessing. >> that is the portion i am referring to. >> well, what we have set forth is a commission that would oversee oewd, which is an independent department. it's actually technically not a mayoral office, it is actually, mr. ruffo is a department head, i mean yes he reports to the mayor but he is not in the mayor's office. >> all right, so i suppose this matter is now in the body

of the committee. we can --. >> well, why don't we, i'll just suggest we have, supervisor mar has duplicated item ate. now i think you made your motion but we didn't vote on it. the motion for that, i guess i will second that and can we take that without objection, then? >> yes, we can take it. >> all right, we will take that without objection. so now we have those two versions. >> so i move that we move them to the full board without recommendation. >> so they actually have to go to a committee of the whole or to a special meeting. for the time being if chair tang is

willing to do a meeting on monday, we could put this. >> we already have a rules committee meeting planned for july 18th, we can send item 8 and the duplicated version to the special july 18th meeting. so second that and we will take that without objection then. >> thank you. >> item 9. >> item no. 9 is an ordinance amending the campaign and governmental conduct code to prohibit city-elected oh fises from establishing candidate-controlled general purpose committees. >> thank you, supervisor peskin. >> thank you, chair tang. and did you call items 9 and 10? >> i'm sorry, let's call 10 as well. >> item 10 is a motion ordering submitted to voters an ordinance amending the campaign and governmental conduct code to prohibit city elections officials from establishing candidate controlled general

purpose committees, at an election to be held on november 8. >> as you know i have a long history of working on campaign reform and closing various loopholes and today these two items pertain to a legislative proposal to ban elected officials from establishing candidate-controlled general purpose committees. in the opinion of finance advocates whose body of work we drew upon creates at least a theoretical possibility for the formation of ethically suspect quid pro quo relationships between campaign donors and elected officials who control these committees. this grew in part out of the 2013-2014 civil jury report which found san francisco officials at all levels have (inaudible) the focus needed to

maintain accountability and anti-corruption needs greater oversight from this body. among the types of committees discussed in that report were general purpose committees. general purpose committees under the california government code may be established to collect money that can ultimately be spent for or against any candidate or ballot measure. unlike when someone donates to a specific cause, a specific campaign, for instance in supporting or opposing a ballot measure or in support or in opposition to a specific candidate's campaign for an elected office, when you are donating to an affordable housing bond measure, for instance, or get a specific candidate for office elected and there's a nexus between the dollar that you are spending and the idea or measure that you are supporting, that nexus is lacking with respect to general purpose committees. absent any idea how your dollar is being spent, the

principle purpose of your con trib because to a general purpose xhut committee is to create a special relationship with the candidate who controls said committee. furthermore, since there is no campaign contribution limit we are establishing a loophole that allows candidates to establish a war chest that can be used as a soft money slush fund. item 9 on the agenda bans elected officials from holding these candidate controlled general purpose committees. further it allows any candidate who controls one of these committees and is then subsequently elected to office to (inaudible) such money within 90 days of assuming

office. miss pelham is here to address any questions. turn to go item 10, which is an ordinance directing the matter be placed on the ballot, this is something i put in place that if for any reason the board, which requires a 2/3 super majority, to make any khaifrpbs changes we believe the board can and should pass this through the legislative process. i have no intent to unnecessarily put this on the ballot and would be happy to remove this measure once we approve it at the board of supervisors and with that i am available to answer any questions and/or hear from members of the public.

>> thank you. any questions or comments? okay, great, then let's open up items 9 and 10 to public comment if you wish to speak on this item please come forth. >> hello, sylvia johnson. i have to agree with you that oce needs a band. this is probably why all these houses really haven't been, you know, in process, being able to control the money situation and to be able to, you know, say our piece. the enforcement with these police officers telling people that don't have no freedom is not one of the ways that we are going to have peace. this is all assault

war. in order to get some candidates probably don't understand some of the processes. in this current war we need (inaudible) because this is where we have real misconduct and some candidates, you know, are some mental status and not in real actual periods and we around the world are making all these positions we cannot deal with a lot of these issues. there is no

sense to a lot of the issues being put in and for our peace and harmony is not the situation and doling money out has a lot to do with that. >> thank you very much. any other members of the public who wish to comment on 9 or 10? seeing none, public comment is closed. now let's go to the controller's office? . >> we estimate this will have a minimal effect on the cost of government. it will fold into the cost. >> i don't know if the committee wishes to hear from executive director pelham but she is in the audience if you wish to hear from her. >> i have the letter i received and i don't have any additional questions on the

motion. thank you, though, for the offer. colleagues, we can take it together 9 and 10. >> i move that we forward both these items to the full board as a committee report for consideration on july 19, 2016. >> seconded and we can take that without objection. all right, so item 11, please. >> item no. 11 is a motion ordering submitted to voters amending the planning code to require consideration use authorization for conversion of production, distribution, repair, ipbs stues lat community use and arts activities use in replacement space and affirming the planning department's determine nailtion under seek yeah at an election to be held november 8. >> if you don't mind we will take just a 5-minute recess and we'll try to contact april. thank you.

(brief recess). >> thank you, everyone, welcome back from our recess. we were on item 11 and we have april ang from supervisor kim's

office to present. >> our ballot measure today is intended to provide some guidance around i think what is an issue for san francisco as a city. there is much concern about the loss of space for jobs, particularly for working class jobs and maker jobs. there is concern about the loss of nonprofit space and there is also a concern about the loss of art spaces and these are the types of uses in san francisco that makes san francisco so great and so unique. it really is the character of our various neighborhoods and i think these are the types of uses that we as members of the board have been trying to identify ways to help support and subsidize through the nonprofit displacement program, through arts, community arts

stablization trusts and some other initiatives that have come out of supervisor cohen's office to cross-subsidize pdr space so we can have affordable pdr space. so it's not just space for these types of uses, it's space that it would be affordable and these are the types of uses that in this current real estate market are finding it very, very difficult to compete with office rents that are $70 a square foot, these are nonprofit organizations and arts organizations and job spaces that cannot compete in that mashet. i think this was an issue that was identified in the eastern neighborhoods planning process 5 years ago. one of the two goals of the eastern neighborhoods planing process was to preserve our space for jobs for blue collar jobs if recognition that this is an

area where eastern neighborhoods was an area where there was a lot of industrial space, the economy was changing, and there was a desire to preserve these spaces when there were higher and better uses for the space like housing that was in competition with the land in these eastern neighborhoods areas. the second goal for eastern neighborhoods was to increase affordable housing, land for affordable housing. and i know that this board has been committed to increasing affordable housing and identifying ways to increase affordable housing, the board unanimously allowed for prop c to go on the ballot which was passed 68 percent by the voters last year and so i think in keeping with that assessing the

eastern neighborhoods plan at this point now and having policies and initiatives to support the increase of affordable housing, this ballot measure and this policy is in an effort to continue to try to offer a solution to make sure that the spaces in eastern neighborhoods really are intended to protect these 3 types of uses again that can't compete in the market. and we are just coming upon the 5 year eastern neighborhoods monitoring report for how the city has been doing towards those goals and i know the eastern neighborhoods cac will be reviewing this report on monday formally, but i think this is something that has been on the top of minds of everybody, how do we preserve these spaces in a way that's

affordable. so the intent with this legislation is to offer an h to how to ensure that as the neighborhoods develop that we protect these types of spaces while still allowing flexibility for the planning department to consider these new initiatives if it was intended to strengthen the underlying goal to preserve pdr and so i wanted to offer some amendments based on the current draft that is in your packet today based on some feedback supervisor kim has met with various stake holders, both people who are concerned about pdr, stake holders who have projects in the pipeline, the department who is implementing it, the supervisors who have,

who are in geographies that our legislation would be impacted and so basically in terms of our amendments we wanted to really focus this in on eastern neighborhoods and make sure that the geography for these replacement requirements, which is what we're calling for, is replacement requirements and a process if there is a change of use that is occurring in neighborhoods, to be limited to eastern neighborhoods. our original version of the legislation had a requirement all across the city and after some conversation with the planning department and stake holders we didn't want to unduly burden places where there may be current vacancies and this would possibly make it more difficult to occupy

places, especially along neighborhood corridors. so the first change is really to ensure that these controls apply to the eastern neighborhoods plan areas of mission area plan, show place square, eastern neighborhoods, western soma, central waterfront and in spaces where there was a prior use of a pdr, which is a place where there is opportunity to do manufacturing type jobs, institutional community use or an arts activity in a building that is identified to be -- i'm sorry -- but not limited to demolition of a building that's not unsound. so this would be a requirement for any change of use or demolition. and we've put a minimum size threshold

for pdr at 5,000 square feet and for institutional community use, which is the current planning code for nonprofit activities at 2,000 square feet. and in the sally pdr33g, there would be a requirement for a one for one replacement. the idea is these are places where pdr is a primary use and we would want to do one for one replacement. i think of particular concern for people is umu and the mixed use zonings where pdr was allowed as well as housing and wanting to ensure that there is some balance in those areas, i think the most recent eastern neighborhoods monitoring report has identified of the 3 million square foot loss for pdr space over the course of the eastern neighborhoods plan, about 1

million has already been lost and we're, we want to make sure there's balance in the future to preserve these types of spaces. and so there would be a requirement to provide point 75 replacement in those zoning areas. now, if the property was replaced off site that replacement requirement would be increased to one for one. the idea is we want to incentivize replacement at the current site rather than making it off site. and then finally i think on the top of people's mind is not just to preserve the current spaces that are pdr, nonprofit or arts use, but to make sure that these spaces are also affordable. we want to create an incentive. so if you are, if a project is

willing to rent these spaces at 50 percent below whatever the commercial real estate price is, the requirement, the replacement requirement would be dropped by.25. so, for example, it would mean in an umu where the requirement is point 75, if you are, if you are proposing to do affordable space that that requirement would be dropped to point 5. one of the issues that was identified, that was of concern, was to make sure that the replacement space didn't, that would be a net new and it wouldn't be in an existing pdu, institutional, community or arts space. and then finally i think there has been some discussion about some exemptions and a desire to see

some exemptions for certain types of uses and certain areas in the city. so, for example, any property under the jurisdiction of the court that has been a redevelopment plan and/or is contemplated to be part of our city's open space through the recreation and parks department would be exempt from these requirements. also properties that are undeveloped or vacant where there's not a pdr use, those would be exempt from these requirements, like if it was just a patch of dirt. any project where pdr use, institutional community use or arts use subject to conversion after june 14th, we didn't want to create a disincentive for future property owners to not rent to these types of spaces,

pdr, institutional, community use or arts activities. any public transportation project would be exempt as well. i think one of the feedback that we received through this process is that perhaps this might hamstring the department and the board from acting in the future in terms of the nuance that is desired by neighborhood and by various communities. and so the board would be allowed to amend this legislation if there was initiative to promote or better achieve the underlying goals of protecting and enhancing pdr, nonprofit and arts uses, or after 6 months -- 60 months, sorry -- after the

next eastern neighborhoods monitoring report comes out if this is something that has not been successful there would be an ability to amend this legislation further. i think some of the things that we did not include as amendments after the first round of feedback that we've heard from stake holders is around the grandfathering and the effective date. and that's something that bee want to turn to look at. i am thankful to supervisor tang for angendizing this i believe for the monday hearing so there will be an opportunity. i hope that you will accept these amendments and then have another opportunity to have another round of amendments over the next couple of days. >> thank you for the presentation. supervisor cohen. >> thank you. good afternoon, thanks for coming to represent

supervisor kim. i just have a couple questions. in your opening remarks you mention that the intent of the legislation is to protect and so i guess my question is really focused, why don't we just go through this through the legislative process? why do we need to bring this to voters? >> i think the intent is this is an issue that's been identified as a desire to preserve pdr space. it was a stated goal of the eastern neighborhoods plan. i think there is a fear about the aggressive nature of development that's happening, i think there's been a lot of new office and housing proposed but there isn't anything clear directive as to how to achieve balance. >> have you taken this proposal and made a presentation to the eastern neighborhoods cac >> no, i have not. i know this is something that they have been thinking about in terms of just receiving

numbers, even prior to this monitoring report about the loss of pdr >> i don't necessarily know that i agree this is something they've been thinking about. it's got a letter that i want to read in the record and this is from chris block, who is the chair of the cac says dear committee person, i have been chair of the cac since its inception 5 years ago. i respectfully reiterate comments that my colleague bruce huey, and i will read bruce's comments later, has outlined and i want to emphasize his conclusion in asking you to step bk and use all of our hard work over the past 5 years culminating in the soon to be released monitoring report before deciding on where the most effective steps are. i also want to read into the record an email that was sent

thursday, july 14th, from bruce huey, who is a member of the eastern neighborhoods c ac he writes i write to ask you your consideration as an enabler in the community process on issues around pdr within the eastern neighborhood boundaries. i am the vice chair on a 19-member all volunteer citizens advisory xhut at the invitation of those on the board and the mayor. we meet once a month for two hours for up to two to four hours of prep time prior to our monthly meeting. this ballot measure has never been introduced or presented for consideration to the cac the pdr ballot initiative comes up at the wrong time. the eastern neighborhoods citizens advisory committee is drafting its final report on the impact of pdr from the eastern neighborhood plan. this report is due out this summer. you would be better served to wait

until this community process is finished before taking steps. this ballot is one size fits all and will most likely have a negative impact on my neighborhood, which is dog patch. each neighborhood within the each neighborhood is different with unique pdr drivers and factors. each neighborhood in the eastern neighborhoods cac should weigh in on next steps and be a sounding board on the implications of the ballot initiative and this has not been done. the pdr ballot initiative disregards the legislative process that has worked to engage the community in conversation around pdr with each neighborhood that is part of the eastern neighborhoods. i ask that you reconsider the next steps with this initiative, step back and await the 5 year report and work with the eastern neighborhoods cac to enable the community process to outline the best next steps.

so i think it's important to really frame this conversation because you are coming to the rules committee with a request for amendments and a request to bring initiatives to the voters. there has been much speculation on the amount of initiatives to the voters and whether that will create voter fatigue. i'm not here to offer a judgment on that. but what i am here as an elected member of the board of supervisors that has worked with supervisor kim and we've been successful in passing pdr protection legislation that we take a moment to pause and be thoughtful about our approach. i believe the most effective and efficient way to go about this is through the legislative process as legislators and i worry a little bit about bringing something so technical to voters, not to insult voters that they are incapable of understanding pdr and a different planning and zoning code and all that great stuff

that we love to talk about, but it's almost like we are shirking our responsibility. if we can't get it done, fine, we will let the voters decide. i have some remarks, supervisor tang, if i can continue. the pdr is something i have been working on during my entire tenure on the board of supervisors, most notably protecting it. not only just me, but it's something that i have inherited. supervisor sophie maxwell, my predecessor, was a fierce protector of pdr however, i have a number of concerns about this measure we're going to be discussing today, particularly the way it's currently written. i have expressed it to supervisor kim in her office and also have some critiques to the amendments that have been presented today. i believe that these replacement requirements are really simply just too broad and too blunt of a tool to

apply everywhere across the entire city. and not only across the entire city, but everywhere in the eastern neighborhood. what makes the neighborhood so beautiful is that it's independent and they are rich and unique and i think that is what we need to begin to focus on, how to preserve that uniqueness. i also have a serious problem with the process that the measure has gone through. it's taken nearly a decade of community meetings in order to establish the eastern neighborhood and that's not to say that the eastern neighborhood plan is without flaw. i certainly have some issues with the eastern neighborhood plan itself, but we have created a citizens advisory committee to oversee that plan and the establishment of fees so it's incumbent of us to work through that established vehicle. from my perspective, very little community outreach has been done in the measure and i

think the letter, the emails that were read into the record reflects that sentiment. this item has not been presented to the neighborhood organizations that work on development issues in the plan areas, particularly the ones i represent. i don't know what happened in the mission, i have no idea what has happened in soma, but as it relates to show place square, as it relates to dog patch, as it relates to lower potrero hill there's been zero discussion. there's been very little conversation even with my office as a colleague on the board prior to this being introduced and, quite frankly, i'm a supervisor that represents a very large significant portion of the eastern neighborhoods and a large portion of the city's pdr space. so from my perspective

it just doesn't seem ready. i have a number of concerns that i'd like to take a moment to begin to outline. i've also expressed them again to the sponsor's office so it shouldn't come as a surprise, more for the edification of those in the audience today as well as those watching at home. first of all i don't think we should include pdr2 and the m category and forgive me for being super technical, but this is what we do. this exists, these two sdig you nations exist in the same bay and really frankly nobody has been able to give me any reason and why they should be included in this proposal. i believe we should exclude the portions of the eastern neighborhoods area plan that i represent, specifically potrero hill, show place square and the central waterfront. as i mentioned earlier, no one has taken the time to discuss the proposal

with the neighborhood, i know i personally haven't and now people are awakening and are expressing some concern, i'm sure this will be reported in some of our public comments. additionally i think the issue if these areas are fundamentally different from those in the mission and the soma. in the central waterfront, for example, we are seeing a significant amount of new pdr development which is a good thing with the development of pier 70 and the rehabilitation of the old bethlehem steel buildings which is notably not what is occurring in the mission. the second key point is i don't think the requirement that replacement space be new and either on site or in the same area plan, i don't believe that that really makes sense for the neighborhoods that i represent. so what do i mean? we know that new space will always be more expensive and this mer err only encourages

the development of new space. second point is we can do our best to incentivize affordability but we cannot impose commercial rent control requirements. in additional requirement of replacement in the same plan area is extremely limiting. it's extremely limiting. we have had a few examples of tenants who wanted to real estate locate from an umu area or someplace like the bayview where they would prefer to be near more heavy industrial and industry uses or that they have found replacement space just a few blocks away but it is technically not in the area plan, thus making it impossible for them to move. so fundamentally i think these issues are something we can solve legislatively through interim controls and/or an ordinance, i'm happy to discuss

either way. i'm going to stop here. i have a series of questions that i can go on, supervisor tang, or if you want to go to public comment or if there's other presenters here, i want to not dominate the conversation but i want to emphasize i have very, very strong feelings about this. >> thank you, i understand. i have a number of concerns that were discussed yesterday. >> i think i would like to hear from public comment first and then i would love to ask more questions, supervisor cohen can ask questions of our planning department staff as well. >> thank you. >> at this time if you are here for this item, which is item 11, please come on up. i have three comment cards but of course even if you didn't submit one, please come on up. david meckle, mohammed (inaudible) and tim cohen. a

couple more cards here, eric medina and mario >> thank you, supervisors, david meckle, california college of the arts. first let me say i agree entirely with what supervisor cohen raised, that there are better ways to do this than through ballot measures. seems very inflexibleand blunt doing it that way. i realize this is probably aimed at for profit real estate developers, probably aimed not so much in our neighborhood, in the potrero showplace, but i want to remind you that it is in competition with some things and i'll give you an example. we are in the process of developing affordable student

housing two blocks from our campus and we worked for the past year with save the hill, potrero boosters, the merchant's association. >> supervisor cohen's office. >> yeah, everybody. and what we have shaped is a project that will contribute to the neighborhood, that will have the kinds of uses in it that the neighborhood wants, so we a year ago signed a master lease with a developer and have been developing this project so it can have, for instance, a cafe in it or an arts supply store. these are not pdr uses. and we've designed the building to vent the cafe and all that kind of thing. so our pro forma for this project, since we're going to master lease the entire building, also relies on these retail rents to subsidize the affordable student housing. i think i agree entirely with

supervisor cohen, we have great structures, the neighborhood cac is a very thoughtful group, i think we should go about this a different way. >> good afternoon, chair tang, my named is mohammed naferi and i am managing partner at access group. i want to thank you for this item propose the for the november ballot. in 2014 access development group began working on a residential project on folsom street. it is located next to the children's park and across the street from cesar chavez elementary school. it currently has a 20,000 square foot commercial storage yard and we would be replacing it

with 117 affordable apartments. under the current requirements we would be required to reserve over 15,000 pdr site. the existing storage is an anomaly, it requires large truck deliveries and pick-ups several times a week if not several times a day and is not compatible for surrounding uses. in fact it doesn't even work with existing uses that have been trying to relocate. the initiative should give policy makers and decision makers the ability to determine where pdr makes sense. again, over 15,000 feet pdr is required for us on a

residential block next to a children's park and across the street from an elementary school does not make sense. go through a couple things just so you understand where we are, on october 20, 2014, we submitted our environmental environmental application. again, that was almost two years ago. so i want to thank you all very much for taking this time to get to this point and hopefully we can move forward. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors, tim cohen on behalf of the housing action coalition and i'm afraid that this might be a textbook example of the pitfalls of bella fox planning and we're afraid this one, passed in its present form, would certainly come back to haunt us. we see something on the back of the envelope calculation that this could threaten a thousand units of housing right out the gate. requiring projects that have used certain

financial projections does not make sense. the planning department has analyzed this issue in department. in the 7 years since the eastern neighborhood plan was adopted about 25 percent of the total pdr space in the mission projected for conversion under the eir has been converted to other uses. similarly the amount of pdr space converted to other uses is about 34 percent. this is entirely consistent with how the eastern neighborhood plan is supposed to work. our understanding of pdr and how it's defined and what policies would be most effective to protect it have

undergone enormous change since the neighborhood was adopted in 2009. many of the pdr uses we want to preserve were not around 7 years ago and may not be here 7 years from now. this is an issue that cries out for legislative solutions and solutions that might appear attractive today quo become quickly outdated and it would be better to hash this out with the planning department and the data we have. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors, my name is sarah carlinsky, i am senior policy advisor at spur and i would like to associate myself with the comments of supervisor cohen and also the comments of chris block that the supervisor read into the record. we had an opportunity to review this ballot measure and it's really important that with incredibly

complicated land use planning that covers such a vast block of the city that this be done through a legislative process. i participated in many of the hearings, i taught myself how to knit and knit an entire scarf through the eastern neighborhoods process, which was great for me, but the point i'm trying to make is there's a lot of debate and discussion and that's what i believe this ballot measure would really benefit from. so i urge you very strongly to say, you know what, this needs to actually go through the legislative process and not be put forward to the voters at this time. in our letter we outlined a number of concerns and many of them have been echoed and i'm sure will be echoed further. obviously the key one is that this should be done legislatively. the second piece is the aspect of this covers a huge number of zoning

designations and all of those zoning designations when they are actually applied in neighborhoods are applied dichtly and look differently in different places and this measure should take that into account. the measure did not allow for the process of evaluating the needs of pdr businesses over time. again, what might work right now might not be what's necessary or needed or desirable five years from now. for some projects this measure creates requirements that may not be feasible to implement. i don't know if anyone has actually studied a prototype of having so much pdr built within an existing building and what that would look like and if it's viable. lastly, i want to comment on neighborhood commercial districts. a number of neighborhood commercial districts do include a component of pdr and whether replacing those businesses with pdr or adding a restaurant or doing some of the other things

that might be more desirable in a neighborhood commercial district would be precluded from this measure. again i urge you to encourage the supervisor, the sponsor, to put this forward as legislation. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please ?oo 92 hi, my name is gabriel medina, i am the policy manager for mission (inaudible) as many of you might know the mission in our latino community has a 20 percent unemployment rate in the mission because a lot of our sites for those who do not have college degrees or english language proficiency have been displaced. we lost over a million square feet of shape and the mission has become a business model to basically try to exploit those sites for market rate housing for haupblg profits. we came to this body to ask you for a moratorium on the units that were coming down our throat and had displaced a

third of our population and over a year ago that's occurred and we still have not gotten legislative solutions. so we're asking you to give us a voice to take this to the people because the people will support us to make sure we don't have a des maition of our population. i know supervisor cohen you did support us on that measure and we appreciate that, but we have not gotten legislative solutions since that. so we have had a displacement crisis and this neighborhood plan was intended to proat the time and enhance industrial and nonprofit arts and union jobs but we have lost so much of this space that we've seen and it's a result of the high unemployment rate. the en cnc has overseen the loss of this loss of one million square feet of space. we have 1500 market rate projects coming down in the last 15 years, more than 46

cities in 101 bay area cities of abac, we built more than 46 cities just in the mission district. we have 2,000 more. the ultimate result has been displacement of our population, we're asking for protection of our jobs, we're asking for protection of our lands. >> mr. medina, you mentioned not having legislative report. does that mean supervisor campos has not been helpful to you. >> i think we need a measure on the ballot that basically reaffirms we can have solutions to proat the time our jobs and protect our population. >> a lot of our housing when we were talking about votes taken at the board of supervisors really had to do with residential housing, it didn't have much to do with pdr space. i'm talking about the --. >> it was -- sorry. >> that's okay. >> it was a moratorium on

market rate development that supervisor campos put forward. unfortunately what happened with these pdr spaces, they are being converted to luxury houses. we are trying to give an opportunity, these pdr sites are typically low rent sites but they have been basically speculated on for years. >> i will ask that you 2 continue the conversation outside. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, mary eliza here, i'm actually speaking as an artist, i think i may be one of the only one or two here, which gives you an idea why we're here and why we're taking this to the voters. the artists are disappearing

to the city. there have been more of them moving out than moving in and for some time. i'd like to speak on two things. eastern neighborhoods, this is not about the eastern neighborhoods, this is about the entire city. the entire city is hurting from the lack of curl tuerl development, the lack of artists to work in the city and stay in the city, they are all moving out. the displacement of artists is as bad as any other group in the city. there's no real new art being developed, what's the latest hit song you heard coming out of san francisco, how many decades ago was that? we used to have, like, six a year. it's really gone down. the musicians left during the last dot com boom. >> actually, we have a fantastic hip hop artist from bayview hunters point. >> we will let our public speaker continue. >> can i have a little more

time? >> yes. >> i just, i want to keep going here. that's just the eastern neighborhoods, that's the san francisco artists. i also want to speak on, we're talking, there are people here talking about having schools, art schools. we have art schools. we are graduating artists, what's going to happen to them when they are done? they're not going to stay here. there's nowhere for them to be. they're going to come here, spend a lot of money on education and have housing when they are here but when they are no longer students they have no place to work. they have no studios. what is the end game here for those people, thousands of people thank you. >> thank you very much. >> good afternoon, my name is eric with the latino district. we're here to support the charter on this. you may not know the cultural district was set up to preserve arts and

culture in a small area *flt mission because of the mass displacement we have been having with our residents, our businesses and our artists. there's 3 large developments coming into our area that include large umu's. this is a great opportunity to preserve those spaces to the artists who contribute to the art and culture of that area. we also have lost a lot of our jobs in the mission. like gabriel mentioned, it's up to 20.8 percent of unemployment for latinos in the mission and these are jobs that were held in places like pdr, gas stations, car washes where they are developing luxury homes so we need to be able to balance this off as quickly as possible to make sure that we don't continue to lose those jobs that we need in order to pay, which is basically not much.

plus, of course, to continue the work for the latino culture district we need the artists, we need that space to generate revenue for the city. (brief pause in captioning).

. >> even the assurance of being live. i ask, this is not in

order for our children being born and we do have children being born here, you know. and this is not, you know, in our areas that we have, you know, to build and better arts, you know, doesn't make any sense at all. there's no reason for it at all. i think these artists that are building and reproducing their businesses should be considered in all these matters and this, to my precise level which i know a lot of houses have been leveled ever since 2007 and what is that building process? does that mean that they're going to

make the buildings in 2007, all the buildings that fell down and, man, we got lots of reasons in this. >> thank you. i have one more speaker card, scott quaker, again if any members of the public wish to speak just come on up. >> thank you, supervisors, steve quaker, i did snit a letter. i want to go through a few points. i think we all agree there's a need for the pdr sector in san francisco. the problem with this legislation is it hasn't been evaluated that it's going to be effective and do what it's meant to do. it's very far-reaching and it doesn't balance these goals and other goals such as affordable housing goals in the city. i think that points out the problem with having this be a ballot measure that can't be amended except by the voters. there hasn't been any analysis done yet whether it would be feasible to develop projects

with 1 to 1 replacement or point 75 percent replacement, particularly with these buildings that have 40 foot height limits to replace pdr space and ground floor in new buildings, would eliminate two floors of a building, you end up with only two floors of housing if you could even build it. the measure also covers far more of the city than it needs to. the eastern neighborhoods do have pdr protection zones. the legislation also covers the c3g district which is north of market in the tenderloin. it makes no sense for projects in downtown which makes no sense because of traffic and other uses for this there to be industrial uses covered. i did point out in my letter just in my office alone there's 7 pipeline projects which are beneficial projects, all of which would probably, if covered by this ordinance, would not be built, hundreds of

units of housing, nonprofit clinic, city office building, all of which have been in the pipeline for months and years. if this legislation is going to go forward it needs to treat fairly projects that have been in the pipeline for a long time. for all these reasons i urge what other speakers have urged that this be legislatively dealt with, there's no reason for this to be on the ballot as a planning code amendment. >> thank you, next speaker, please? >> good afternoon, thank you. dear supervisors, i wanted to echo some of the comments that have been made and i appreciate the comments from supervisor cohen and some of the comments from the letters she has read from community members. i think if you have heard from the audience this is a very complex issue. you have community members that represent certain neighborhoods that want additional pdr protected. other communities may see things differently and i think the main issue with the

ballot measures proposed are process, feasibility, fairness. this issue beckons a legislative solution, one that involves all stake holders whether they are community members, developers, the cac, members of the artists community, everybody needs to be involved. it's a complicated issue and it hasn't been. this is now potentially in front of the voters using a ma chete approach on something that needs a scalpel. we have a project in the dog hatch, 108 units that would 18 units on site. with this requirement, given the 4 story height limit, we would essentially lose half the units, we would totally have to redesign it, probably scratch the project as conceived. it's unfortunate that we have to balance these difficult issues but it is something that i think, as i mentioned earlier, would really require a thoughtful process, a

legislative process, and not one that can't be undone when it goes to the voters thank you. >> thank you. would you mind stating your name on the record. >> sorry, jason wallace. >> the hard truth is the eastern neighborhoods plan is a failure. when it comes to protecting pdr, the arts activities in the city which was clearly its promise all through its long drafting process, nearly 10 years, it isn't doing it. the report is out, the draft is out. we have it. a million feet are gone, a million feet already laucht and what's in the pipeline is going to take even more. that was not anticipated in the plan to happen so quickly and so pervasively. what's going on is a massacre

of art spaces in the city, a massacre, and a massacre of blue collar pdr businesses. they are being closed down, they are being pushed out. what these neighborhood plans have turned out to be is a blueprint for luxury housing development in the mission and sought of market and dog patch. that's what it's doing. just go down the street and look. it's there right in front of us. that's what we got. people are saying, oh, yes, we need to do legislation, we need to do plan, we need to do process. i've been coming here to city hall for 46 years and i've heard that promise over and over and you know what actually turns out? a lot of talk, a lot of process, a lot of meetings and token results, results that don't really deal with the problem strongly. the only way we ever get strong results that really deal with problems is take it to the voters, put it on the ballot and then we get a half measure at least out of the legislation. but otherwise i

mean quite honestly, call for legislation, everybody knows it's a delaying tactic, pressure's off, it's bs we got to put this on the ballot, we'll vote it and then if you want to worblg on it some more next year we'll work with you. >> thank you, next speaker please.