>> good afternoon, everyone. this meeting will come to order. welcome to the january 24, 2018 regular meeting of the rules committee.

our clerk is alyssa summerall and i'd also like to thank samuel williamses and high -- maya hernandez from sfgov tv. >> items acted upon today will appear on the january 30 board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. >> great. thank you. thank you, ms. summerall. can you please call item number one? >> item number one is a hearing to consider appointing two members, terms ending november 30, 2018, to the ballot simplification committee. there are two seats and two applicants. >> great. we have two applicants, unless there is any initial comments from committee members. let's hear from mr. scott patterson first. if he is ok. great. please come forward. >> hello. thank you for having me here

today. i'm scott patterson, candidate for the ballot simplification committee. my family traces its roots in san francisco back to when they immigrated from italy in 1881 so we've been around for a long time. i've been a member of the faculty at san francisco state university as a professor of broadcast and electronic communication arts for over 20 years. for 10 of those years, i served as chair of the department. i've also been a member of the national academy of television arts and sciences which has brought me before you today. i'm currently serving as a governor in that organization. i live in the richmond district and my wife and i have lived there for well over 20 years and we're child-free. i look forward to any questions you may have. >> great. any questions from committee members? yes?

supervisor yee? >> i'm sorry. mr. patterson? >> hello, yes. >> yeah. could you -- i didn't get a chance to meet with you or meet with anybody in my office. so, can you just tell -- give a little more background, your background so i could get to know you? >> i'm trained professionally as a music recording engineer. i hold three degrees in the field of communication, ending with doctorate in communication from the ohio state university. i've worked professionally in television and in radio stations across the country. with wgbh in boston being the largest station at which i worked. i currently teach in the becca department at san francisco state university. it is the acronym we use because it is a mouthful. i teach courses primarily in music recording engineering and electronic media research methods which are the writing intensive courses in the

department for required of all students before they graduate to demonstrate their writing ability. >> mm-hmm. and what made you interested to be part of this committee? >> two reasons, primarily. i think voting is the single most important act that any member of a democracy can engage and i always vote. and i want everybody to always vote. and secondly, i believe that the ballot simplification committee work product is an exceptional aid in that voting process. i have had the opportunity to vote in elections in other states and the ballot that is prepared here is just superior. i think the work of the ballot simplification committee goes long way toward doing that and i'd be very interested in helping with that project. >> ok. sounds good.

and i -- i'm asking more about you, mainly because -- mainly because this is a very important committee, as you seem to agree and how we write up the initiatives and the ballot initiatives and these summaries and so forth is to make sure that our voters understand exactly what's going on and with no deceptions is really important for not only myself but probably all of my colleagues. i really appreciate, number one, you seem to have a very good background for this type of work and, number two, your willingness to even do this. thank you very much. >> you're welcome. >> thank you, supervisor. i have a few questions for you. so my question is less and your experience. i think you're really well-qualified. i just want to know about the commitment and make sure you're prepared for the level of

commitment that this requires. have you attended any of the ballot designation hearings in the past and are you -- >> i have not, no. i'm not -- i've read the website and the materials and seen the minutes of the meeting and i've participated in their work product. but i've never been a part of their process. >> right. so i mean, you have wonderful recommendation on behalf of the nominating organization. so, that's important. the thing that i know from speaking with ms. packard and the familiarity of this committee is that this is -- this can be pretty intense. we members of the board of supervisors and others often like to put a lot of things on the ballot. it just ends up happening. that's san francisco culture, as you know. so at times you might be doing 9:00 to 5:00 four or five, six weeks so this is a commitment and sometimes of about a month of your life without any compensation. so i just want to make sure,

since i didn't have an opportunity to meet with you, that you're fully aware going in, eyes wide open, at the level of commitment that this really important body requires. >> i'm prepared to donate that effort to the organization. i think that i understand that it's a lot of work. i've done a lot of writing. and writing takes time. and that it's a committee. and writing by committee takes more time. and i'm aware of that. my work schedule and other obligations allow me to have the time to spend to devote to this committee. >> great. i just wanted to make sure. i think eyes wide open is really important because the amount of time that this takes and the amount of intensity and the amount of scrutiny and the amount of importance of this body requires that level of commitment. so, if you're prepared to make that commitment, i think that the your background and qualifications are up to the task and you have, as i said, nice recommendations from the

nominating organisations. so i appreciate that. any other committee members have any other questions? >> no. >> ok. seeing none, i think what we need to do is hear from the second -- yes. the second applicant. and then we can take public comment. so, thank you, scott. if there is any other questions, we'll call you back up. >> thank you. >> ok. and so now let's hear from our second applicant, ms. betty packard. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon. >> and shall i say that i have chaired this commission for the last 15 years, been on the committee for now 21 years. i am very proud of this committee. i am very proud of the members on it. i am proud of the work that we have done. if you want a little bit of my background, i have 63 years of

journalism experience behind me, starting when i was very young, as a reporter for the "indianapolis time requests . i have taught journalism, both high school and college. i have been editor of four national magazines. when it comes to the print side. i've been a tv host. i've done a little bit of everything. which is interesting. one year i interviewed peter druker who said to me really creative people change jobs about every five years in order stay creative and i think that probably fits me, exempt when it comes to the ballot simplification committee. [laughter] >> and i know you were giving me a little bit of background. but if you could just talk a little bit about the level of commitment. i think that is important for the public to hear and some of the work that you do. >> well, by law, we have to be finished 90 days before the

ballot is -- before the election. and we usually work for two solid weeks before then. this last election, we had to work for three weeks because of the 25 measures on the ballot. what happens is, as a city attorney comes to us with a draft, sometimes we love it. sometimes we don't. sometimes we tweak it. sometimes we tear it apart. and sometimes we accept it. but in all terms, we wind up rewriting it into legible, 8th grade terms for the average voter. and then from what we do, we go to public comment, people tell us what they think of what we've done. then we go back and review it again. and then at the end of that period, we come up with a draft which is then available for appeal. and people always try to appeal what they think that they want.

and then we reschedule it in 72 hours plus so that it fits the sunshine law. and then we go through it all, the whole series all over again until we come up with a final draft and that is what's on the first page of the every initiative in the ballot handbook. >> all done within 90 days of election. >> it's done within two weeks, three weeks at the max. >> but all your work has to be done prior -- >> 90 days prior. which puts us sometimes in a problematic situation when the supervisors wait until the last week of our session to finalize something on the ballot and then it becomes -- >> ?raoel we don't do that. [laughter] >> oh, yeah! oh, yeah. and then it becomes lots of fun for us. and really intense and sometimes then we have to ask for a waiver on the sunshine in order to get it all in.

but that is how we do business. >> great. well, thank you for that. and as i said, thank you for your continued commitment to this really important committee. you've been on since 1997? >> '97, yes. it seems like i shouldn't even be that old. [laughter] >> ok, thank you. any other questions or comments from committee members? ms. packard? ok. seeing none, thank you, ms. pack ards. if we have anymore, we'll call you back up. we'll go ahead and take public comment on this item. any members of the public that wish to testify on item number one? please come ford want state your name. if you have any developments, you can hand them to the clerk. you have two minutes. >> good afternoon. i'm nancy warfel. i want to tell you what a tremendous public service this committee is and ms. packard is outstanding. i have been before her several times on issues that every verb, noun and grammatical structure has been examined and i cannot tell you how important

it is that the attention that this committee gives to the structure of the english language in order to be clear and accurate is important. even if the people that read the ballots don't understand what went in to put these words on the page. i want to say thank you. and i want to welcome scott over here. if he is successful. this will be the time of your life. we are going to put you through paces like you never believed the public was capable of doing. but that is what democracy is all action and i just want to say i love this committee and i wish it had more coffee, tea, doughnuts or whatever you guys want because you do a public service like nobody else. thank you. >> thank you. any other members of the public wish to comment on item number one? seeing none, public comment is closed. i'd like to entertain a motion to move this forward. >> sure. i'll go ahead and move that we

appoint scott patterson to seat one and betty packard to seat two with positive recommendation to move forward to the full board. >> to the ballot simplification committee. without objection, that item is moved and ordered. thank you. congratulations and thank you again for your commitment. ms. summerall, please call item number two. >> item number two is a charter amendment for the june 5, 2018 election, to eliminate the municipal transportation agency's jurisdiction over traffic and parking legislation, grant the authority to the board of supervise source and create a livable street, commission and department to manage park and traffic. >> hmm. great. thank you. this is my item. i'm going to go ahead and say a few words. so, committee members know this, but general public, just want to reiterate. we introduced myself and supervisor peskin introduced

legislation yesterday, which establishes a procedure for the board of supervisors to review certain m.t.a. decisions. and just to remind members of the public the genesis of that is, after talking to many of our colleagues and working with individuals in the public, there's a lot of general frustration about the -- what i want to call the neighbourhood issues. issues that are more relevant to our constituents in our districts. not to say that they're not city-wide issues. but they are issues that we hear about the most. for lack of a better term. so, issues that revolve around traffic calming, stop signs, parking, preferential parking, curb management, and these impact us and we hear about them, i would say, probably on a daily basis. and so i approach supervisor peskin and we started a dialogue about the history and the design of taking what was

the department of parking and traffic and the sfmta and merging it into one agency and removing any oversight or influence from this body. and i think that there were -- there was good intentions ins that movement. i think that the idea was to allow the experts and policy experts and policymakers and planners to take these policies and implement them without, i guess, political influence and i think some of those things have worked really well. but at the end of the day, i think what has happened, as i've said to you, we've been consistently bombarded in our positions about complaints and about the areas that we've referred to that we ultimately have no authority over. but we get a lot of the responsibility. so ultimately we move forward with an idea to keep one

commission for this agency, all the commissioners still would be appointed by the mayor so we're not getting into and rehashing old debates, but the commission would remain the same. their level of expertise would remain the same. but what we would do is we would create a department of livable streets. and in that department, there would be a certain level of authority that is described, as i've said to you, with regard to traffic calming stop signs, pedestrian safety, vision zero, curb management, bicycle lanes, all the things that are just outside of pure muni and the idea would be that muni could then focus on muni's core mission, which is a first class, world class public transportation system. in the interim, what we decided to do yesterday is access what is already in the city charter

and it allows for, through the legislative process, our body to create a review of certain m.t.a. decisions. with regard to the creation and elimination of preferential parking zones, the creation or elimination of parking metre zones, limitation on the time period for which a vehicle may be parked. disability parking zones, curb space management, private transportation programmes involving preferential parking or curb space management. so these are some of the things that we have interim authority over so we're going to move that legislation through the legislative process. hopefully my colleagues here will be supportive of that and we'll work with them and work with members of the public and sfmta on that. in the interim, we have decided to postpone our ballot measure and reserve the right to come back for the november ballot.

hopefully in the interim, sfmta has proposed some additional stems that they feel will be more responsive to the members of the public. they will be more responsive to our district offices. and they will be coming around to you and you to present this plan that they intend to implement to be more responsive to the needs of the districts. and so we want to see that and give that some opportunity. i'm going to actually ask tom mcguire to come forward and say a few words because they presented us with an interim communication and outreach and follow-up strategy. you don't have to get into the minute detail, but some words on top of the great work that dylan does in keeping our offices informed. but you have a new strategy and a new design on how to be more responsive to us. in the meantime, we're going to postpone our ballot measure and

give some opportunity to see this legislation, hopefully our board will pass that. and we will then begin having the opportunity to review some of the things that i've described. mr. mcguire. >> ok. thank you. tom mcguire, sustainable streets director for the sfmta where i oversee many of the functions and programmes that the supervisor described in his discussion regarding public and traffic regulation around the city. we appreciate the opportunity to say a few words about this whole legislative area today and some areas -- ways in which we think we can do better. we certainly understand that this proposal, as well as the legislation that you and supervisor peskin introduced yesterday, was borne out of real frustration with the way the sfmta is doing business, particularly at the neighbourhood scale, in terms of responding to requests around things like stop signs and safety areas. safety programmes.

it's our intention, as you said, to outline over the next 90 days for each member of the board of supervisors as well as for our m.t.a. board ways in which we can be more responsive, be more proactive, and also be more accountable to you and to all 800,000 users of the transportation system and what you'll see, as we bring out the details of that, will be more proactive community-based planning, an approach that we've seen some success with in areas like the western addition. [please stand by] [please stand by]

talk about community planning, an area where we've heard legitimate feedback is when we are going to implement the kind of projects that we're authorized and demanded by the voters in prop a and community forward and giving each supervisor's office and staff member access, to individual staff engineers and plannerrers who will be in a position to get to know the stakeholders and get to know the local issues so you're not asking a different. >> thank you mr. mcguire. e' ka p gp p e' ka pr b onl th c nly vo es th mun in 2001 t pl for in 2001 t pl for t star commission and department with sfmta to manage muni. mta is too big and too self-empowered to implement

their plan. staff says they want to get their input, when they receive it, they ask the m.t.a. board to approve their game plan. we learn that our ideas are margin liesed or i go -- marginalized. there is no way for us to appeal their bad decisions. m.t.a. has a one size fits all of improvements they force on us. we're not viewed as a residential community, we're a family, kids, and singles who all need to use muni to shop, to get to school and use the parks and go to church. we deserve better treatment from our public servants. thank you.

>> thank you, next speaker. >> i'm carl with the taxicab industry. i came to support m.t.a. -- or your ballot measure and open is it does go forward in november. i see the new ordinance is a stop gap. i know that the taxi industry is not included in having the checks and balance mechanism. i hope you'll look into tweaking it to include us. i do want to talk about traffic congestion in the city. for four years, we heard that california public utility commission has the jurisdiction over tncs, nordz in other words, lyfh and youtubeer. you have jurisdiction here in the city and duty and responsibility to enforce violations ever state vehicle

code against people who arew3ç operating illegally. to that end, it doesn't take sherlock holmes to see that all the vehicles with tnc has private place that violates the code. and 90% of the people do not have commercial insurance. whether the tax collector or the police department would start to enforce it, i think the city needs to make every tnc driver prove they have commercial insurance, otherwise, the city officials are aiding and a -- and abetting a price scheme. it murtz people getting taxis who are handicapped. people's insurance rates are going up. general hospital is paying for accidents where tnc drivers are

getting hurt. i hope you look into this. i think you can reduce the traffic congestion by doing so. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i also represent medallion holders. this proposed amendment is to take back the city streets. and the major problem that we have after m.t.a. or the city or everybody else has spent millions and millions of dollars in bicycle lanes, bus lanes, this and thatllk

you, yourself, have forecast the population of the aging is going to increaseñrç enormously inçe city.[vçgixñ they're going to need taxis. they're going to need assistance in getting in and out of vehicles which youtubeer is pro uber is prohibited. there is no physical contact allowed between the jers and drivers --çóqç passengers and drs+ers.ç a congestion naks this city for all vehicles -- tax in this city for all vehicles of hire. this congestion tax needs to be a substantial tax in order to bring the level of pricing of tmcs and p.u.c.s to an

economical level. the demand will drop and amount of vehicles will drop, but you have to be tough about this. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker. >> hello. i'm jody maderas, i'm the executive director of "walk us up" walk us up strongly opposes the ballot amendment to break up the m.t.a. into separate agencies. besides increasing bureaucracy, unnecessary process and contradicting the policies, it will put more lives at risk. walk san francisco is one of dozens of organizations and agencies working on zero traffic fatalities by 2024. in 2017 we started to see progress on our investments.

in order for us to move forward, we need more coordination within the sfmta, not a break-up of components of the transportation system. the most recent is the taravel project. this is an identifiable safety improvement project involving necessary coordination between muni forward, livable streets and parking. in order to redesign the street and adding boarding islands so they don't get off into the lane of traffic, parking had to be relocated. a group of well organized residents and businesses were strongly opposed to the relow case of parking and they had to reweigh it and making lives more important than parking. if a decision had been made separately from the needed safety improvements which is

what in charter amendment would be about, the boarding ieldz would not be possible on taravel. we need the agency to have jurisdiction over all aspects of transportation planning on our streets. without that, we'll see a slowdown in projects and the vision goals we're working on will be lost. >> next speaker. >> i'm joe crawford. good afternoon. i'm here today representing the san francisco transportation alliance, which is a group that is now forming. we're doing the drafting of the statement that will be out shortly. i want to say it's nice to be able to come here and support something, sometimes we're out there opposing, but the way that your chairman has described it, we believe fully in holding on to the existing board because of

a simple probable that occurs when you scatter these functions around different departments. i was here in those days, and it was a constant battle between public works and muni. putting it under one house makes sense. i think absolutely the muni should be elevated in stature and be more visible, closer to the board and close tort political structure. that might produce real advantages. and last but not least, you said you're going to look at what goes on in the next few months and take nur further action if necessary. that could have great effects. we'll issue a statement that deals with many of these items. , not bus stop by bus stop but functionality of the department. one thing we're a little bit disappointed in, we strongly agree there should be a different way of selecting the board. having it all from the mayor,

even if it's sub zero confirmation is not enough of a diversity of how you protect it. one of the things we're going to recommend is there be an independent, outside management audit of that huge 6000-person organization at least once every two years and that the results be published and they be paid attention to. this group is totally independent. we need it. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hi, i'm doug buckwalled. i right muni multiple times every day. sfmta has too much concentrated power. it is not accountable to anyone except the powerful groups who cooperate to elect our mayors involving corporations, real estate developers and not the

general public. because they don't have that accountability, they decide who they want to listen to and who they don't have to listen to. and they do not listen to the public. believe me, i've been to so many meetings of m.t.a., they want to manipulate the public at the meetings and that's what they do. they don't want to take the needs of the public into account. there are philosophies that underlie policies, always there are. traditionally, transit policies were, we want to make transit convenient for everyone to use. that means, if you have -- i see a few people are leaving -- bye -- that means if you use a transit stop not as popular as another, you still get the same convenience as those that use a popular stop. now the philosophy is changing. the priority is not individual

human needs, but end to end transit time. this serves the needs of developers who want to putç new multifamily properties way out at the?mbçw3=)ko end of themyy you can get downtown in 20 minutes. that is a tradeoff. sfmta is misusing the power to prioritize the needs of one group and penalize residents that need the same convenience for their stops. if you are els'tly andç have t walk two blocks, three blocks -- >> thank you, appreciate it. >> thank you for your time. >> next speaker. >> good afternoon. i believe i know almost all of you personally by now. i'm speaking as a citizen. g

-- two things. i'm not speaking to the charter amendment because i think it needs to be amended. what is the process for doing these charter amendments? what are the process for going through the various committees, what does it mean when one passes? at what point are amendmentsço longer accepted? this is something that i believe i have some idea,ç but a lot of people don't. more information about the process would be really helpful. but i just want to say that in terms of the charter amendment and why it needs to happen or something needs to change, it's really about power structure. the power is over-weighted against the public for a really long time. interestingly enough, i believe you're doing exactly what i wasó )sq)ucççç ago, i don't know if my suggestions got outt

there with my bringing them, but decentralizing power is where it needs to go first which is my suggestion. each individual supervisor should be able to communicate easier with their residents and their businesses about what their needsñrç areç and they d be dealt with as individuals. that would be a really good first step and perhaps like some meme wer -- people were saying,t pressure on and see how they react. but at certain times, redo the amendments, maybe it will be necessary to change the way the board is appointed. maybe it won't. maybe this department will get the news that the supervisors are goingg/>>p4v listen to their constituents. thank you. >> thank you.ççç3w next speaker.uwççç

>> good afternoon, david pilpel, i want to thank the board for expressing sympathy for the recent loss of my farther. as to this charter amendment, i think there is general consensus, not complete agreement that this board should haver imççñrçshouldhaveççe m.t.a. and the specific decisions. i had a moment to review the legislation introduced yesterday. i'm sure that will be the subject of a separate hearing or hearings. we'll talk about the specifics there. i think it's a good first start. it will be need in my view some amendments. i think the m.t.a. needs to hear clearly from this board that they're onç noticeokç to chae things in some of the ways that they've already described and perhaps in otherççç ways. that there is great dissatisfaction among various

people in the city on what m.t.a. is doing and the way they're doing it. in addition to the meetings they talked about with you as individual supervisors, i would strongly urge you ask them for a memo memorializing the changes that they're intending to make over the next few months, and that a copy of the memo be ing#a public file both on the charter amendment and on the ordinance creating the process that supervisor safai that you introduced yesterday, and that they be very open with the public about the changes that they are intending to implement over the next few months so we can all be aware of that and make comments and they be open better, recognizing we can all do better in how we goçóçç abt this. that includes outreach about projects, outreach about construction and environmental review and noticing public

communications, all sorts of things. as the budget process comes -- >> thank you. any other members of the public wish to comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. [gavel]?ebxsevçrm2î( want to be clear. the intension of what we're trying to do is to not pit and have the old arguments that have been hashed in the past. we're not trying to pit cars versus pedestrians. or cars versus buses. we're trying to create more efficiency. i've worked in the city almost 20 years, my colleagues have worked in this city for decades as well. i have to tell you, i have not worked with a less nimble bureaucracy than the sfmta. that is the the truth. that does not mean they are pea not smart, dedicated.

committed people that want to do wonderful thingsxfç for san francisco.çzv their presentation, we've made tremendous advancement as it goes to pedestrian safety. we in no way intend to undermine that. that's why we ploa pose keeping the same commission, same commissioners, same level of oversight, but the reality is, if you create a separate department that's focused on public transportation, it's our belief, and we've heard overwhelmingly since we proposed for hig hi hyperbolly, but 8 ton favor of doing something dramatic with the sfmta because of the level of frustration is

real. that does not mean we're not çñri vehicles or institute mo) !"9kç lanes and more alternative formç of vehislm and be thoughtful about pedestrian safety. we have a supervisor here that has championed so many different ways to think about vision zero and think about pedestrian safety. but he also shares in our conversations the same level of frustration with this agency. we need to beoi3zoyç thoughtfut that. this proposal for that is a step in the next direction. we want to be thoughtful about alternative biking proposals coming out, but the reality is that folks want to be more voice in the say in the final outcome. that doesn't mean when we're talking about pedestrian safety or removal of parking, or muni!

center, that doesn't mean we wouldn't end up with the same outcome. but people are saying they're not happy with the process, and that is very important. i'm going to -- unless any other members of the body want to make a comment on this item -- supervisor tang. thank you forçi] joiningñrnb?ç, supervisor. >> i'm here for another item,ite nom a member of this committee, but since i saw sunset residents come out, i wanted to speak briefly to this item. i think this opened up an important conversation that we need to have. yes, the m.t.a. as an agency is much too big, too bureaucratic. we want efficient, reliable transportation that is also safe. i know i've spoke ton staff directly and the director directly. my staff spent an incredible amount of time on