good afternoon. this meeting will come to order. welcome to the march 14th, 2018 meeting of the rules committee. i aour clerk today is victor yo. i would like to thank jen low

and tom hofftis for staffing this meeting >> please silence all phones. completed speaker cards should be submitted to the clerk. items acted today will appear on the march 20th agenda unless otherwise stated. >> thank you, mr. clerk. this is the first item please call item one. >> the ordinance to prohibit housing providers from considering criminal history and authorizing penalties for violation. >> great. this item has been introduced by the supervisor. we have brittany today to say some opening remarks. >> yes, i have a few brief remarks. good afternoon, supervisors. i am brittany.

i am a legislative a and supervisor little thank you for hearing this item. i want to thank the co-sponsors. supervisor kim, thank you also to supervisor yee who joined us recently. last year the state legislature passed assembly bill 1008 which in many ways was outgrowth of the legislation the supervisor and a host of community leaders and partners worked hard to establish in 2014. the legislation before you updates some of this work. it prohibits employers and housing providers from inquiring about requiring disclosure of or basing decisions on aprilly can't's -- applicant's conviction history. two changes we request today.

on pages 4 and 19, i have copies if you need new versions. on pages 4 and 19, would like to strike the words either having the first flag interview with the person or so we will prohibit employers and housing providers from employing about the conviction history. this brings us in to compliance with 1008. she asked changing the date from july 1 to october 1 operative date. >> okay. you want to continue and we can make a motion. >> i don't have much else to say. i would like to ask that ellen love from the office of labor standards and enforcement please come up to give an overview of

the work they do for businesses. miss love will be followed by polk from the human rights commission and they enforce the existing law on the housing side. >> great. we can do that before we go to public comment. why don't we have the first person come up to speak. thank you. >> thanks for having me. i am helen love, i am a principal administrative analyst with the office of labor standards enforcement. i want to provide a brief background on the enforcement we have done to date, particularly because the proposed amendment does change the enforcement procedures. i believe the supervisor co-en thought it might be of interest.

the ordinance regulates job postings, applications and process for inquiries around conviction histories and arrest records. it addresses the types of conviction histories that can be considered during employment and hiring procedures. since the ordinance took effect in august of 2014, they have opened a total of 64 investigations. they initiate those based on complaintses of the public. we completed 56 investigations to date and currently have eight open cases. ththe types of investigations he spanned all industries in the city. they have attended to be concentrated in the areas where you would expect where there is a large amount of hiring activity including technology and software, hospitality,

retail, employment agencies across the city in all industries. the types of violations are two categories. the first type is just a question on employment applications. that ask prohibited questions. where the employer asks something like have you ever been convicted of a mad or felony? about a third of our cases or 24 have involved that type of allegation. about two-thirds have involved something in the hiring process like an off limits inquiry like an employer is inquiring during the hires process about a juvenile conviction, a conviction that has been expunged or something like that. or they are doing an improper

background check asking about convictions too early in the processor not doing the proper notification process. we have found violations affirmatively found violations in 35 of our investigations or 55%. no violation found in 25% of the cases. that is sometimes because it was determined in the course of the investigation maybe the employer wasn't covered or something like thanks and eight cases the claimant withdrew the case and ongoing for eight cases. just to give a little overview, generally our enforcements is considered to be fairly successful to date. in many of the cases, most of the cases when we identified a

violation the employer worked with us in an informal way to correct that violation. because the penalty provisions are limited in the ordinance to date we have been able to collect penalties in one case and that was a $50 fine for a second violation, which is what the ordinance provides. we collected $30,000 in back pay for a couple of cases where someone was fired based on a conviction that the employer should not have considered. that is a background on the enforcement to date. do you have any questions for me at this time? >> i have a couple questions. in terms of the covered applicants since 2014, did you say the total number of complaints that you covered? >> we received 66 complaints. >> 66. out of those complaints how many of them have you followed up on

and what is the response? >> we followed up on all of 66 complaints. we found definitive violations in 35 of those cases. some of them we found no violation. in many cases the employer ended up not being covered by the law because of the employer's size or the location of the employee's work. in about eight cases the employee ended up withdrawing the complaint and decided not to pursue it. eight ongoing investigations. >> what is the response from the employers as you have contacted them with these complaints? some were not covered, some withdrew. generally what is the response from the employers? >> i would say generally the employers have been cooperative with our investigation. we have had a number of successes in which the employers

corrected their employment processes and just in an informal resolution with our office correcting their hiring processes. some made those changes nationally. they have a job application online and say we will make this change to the question and roll it out nationwide. >> on a national level? >> yes those are large national hospitality stab -- hospitality stablishments. there are a handful of employers resistant. most employers are cooperative. >> in those cases how many resulted in a determination of violations versus negotiated settlement with the employer. >> to date only one case in which we have taken the step of issuing a formal determination of violation. all of the rest have been negotiated settlements.

>> thank you. and then trying to think through some of this. have there been any companies repeat offender that you received more than one complaint towards? that is out of the 66. >> i believe we only received one repeat violator complaint about a repeat violator. >> how have you dealt with that repeat violator? >> i mean under the laws it is currently written we issued a $50 penalty for the repeat violation. >> have any of the job applicants been reluctant to come forward to be named or they might not have the opportunity

for employment? is there reluctance on the part of the applicants? >> yes, absolutely. if they are identifying a question on the job application that is improper, we protect confident at. we are usually successful. others have gone through the job application and the employer found something on the background check and it didn't go well or was done improperly. we go the employer if they complain to our office. it is hard to protect the confidence of the employee in that situation. the employer can tell we did this one person and that was on the background check. we have to have a sensitive important conversation with the employee. we can try to protect your confidence but the employer may figure it out based on the facts

of the situation here. yes, i would say there is a tremendous amount every luck taps to come forward. many are looking for jobs in other locations. they don't want their names in the public record, and we try to handle those as sensitively as we can. >> i guess my last question before my colleagues have questions. in other areas that we have with employment or housing, we have the option or citizens have the option of private right of action. have you seen any instances where job applicants or applicants have decided to go down this route? >> i haven't and my office wouldn't know if an employee initiated the civil lawsuit under or minimum wage or paid

sick leave clause. we would know under the private right of action paid parental leave and the employee would have to come notify us before initiating civil suit, and our office has not received any requests for that type of -- or notification of that type of action under those two laws. >> so i mean i guess a lot of what this is about is changing behavior on the part and informing employers that this is something that is no longer legal to do. what do you see ultimately as being the most effective way to change that in terms of the employers? you gave the example where you contacted the employer. they said we are going to change this policy nationwide.

what do you see as the most effective way to change that behavior? i understand you are complaint driven. >> we carryout enforcement as prescribed in the law. that is a policy decision. we will enforce whatever provisions you decide to include in the law. >> okay. supervisor stephanie. >> thank you. i just have three quick questions. first, the small business commission did hear this and recommend it back in november. they did raise concerns about the administrative penalties for small businesses given that the application sometimes tends to be off the shelf and not compliant. is there any expected outreach

to be done or if there has been any outreach done to the small business community? >> absolutely. we have done mailings to all registered businesses in the city about the ordinance. we would do that again if the law was amended. recently we offered an online webinar that is posted on our website with information about the san francisco law and state law. we would be happy to do the outreach to the small business community to provide sampling or provide them to appropriate sample form that are online, whatever we can do to support that compliance. >> you should check in with the treasure and tax office since they have to file there. they also have to file the business name statements at the county clerk's office. given the penalties that are going to be imposed that leads

to the second question. i want to do as much outreach as possible. second question. the legislation is drafted in section 4909. implementation and enforcement of employee provisions subsection a and 6. it no longer allows the same procedural violation to be counted as one. it will now allow per applicant impacted by the procedural violation. the small business commission expressed concern when this combined with the administrative penalties is applied to employers with under 20 employees, it can be extremely high. i am just wondering whether or not the administrative penalties are in line with the state administrative fee and penalties? >> my understanding is they are in line with the state administrative penalties. >> okay.

are we absolutely sure about that? i want to make sure. >> so there are no statutory repenalties at the state level. the manner in which these circumstances are decided is that the vast majority are settled through enforcement or mediation through the department of fair employment and housing. that means that it is a case-by-case basis. if i were to make an appeal to dfeh for, you know, the application asking about conviction history, that would be assessed differently than a person currently employed and say looking to get a promotion or transfer to a different department in the company and being denied that job based on conviction history. you have at the state level

either the opportunity to go through the department for mediation or determination of fees or you can file an intent to sue and pursue a civil suit. as far as baseline number there are no statutory penalties. the place we are borrowing from is the los angeles ordinance. i have a copy of that which outlines their penalty and fees if you would like to see that. [please stand b

-- we would work with office of small business to make sure we're reaching folks through their lists, and i don't want to speak out of turn, so i will ask regina to clarify their process when new legislation is approved and how they ensure that small businesses are notified. and we would work with the human rights commission to ensure that housing providers that are impacted by this know about the new wall. >> and then the question -- when you do the notification, is it translated?

>> we have provided translator notification but i don't know that every mailing that we've sent out has been translated. we've included a brief summary. >> i would really urge that you translate this particular one, because if we're talking about notifying -- it means you are hitting the smaller businesses and a lot of smaller businesses are run by people that are mono-lingual. >> understood and thank you for that suggestion. >> any other questions? supervisors stephani? >> supervisor stefani: i have a question for the city attorney. given that we're looking at

potentially high fees, in some cases, like i said, the applications tend to be off the she shelf. small businesses are not being notified, not in the language that they need, is there an appeal mechanism or a way that the small businesses can explain any violations? what is -- how would a small business be able to defend themselves if necessary? >> i think it may be better positioned describing the experience of enforcing the law and seeing how businesses present offenses.

there's nothing explicitally that says, if a small business or business that fits a certain description violated the law but had insufficient information about the law that that's a defense. the ordinance doesn't provide that defense to an enforcement action. >> supervisor stefani: all right. thanks. >> and as a policy matter, the board could create a defense like that. >> supervisor stefani: we learn in law school, ignore-- ignorance of the law is no excuse. so we do need to educate the small business community. so i would hope to be able to do that in all languages necessary. >> as a procedural point, if the committee doesn't change the date today, you could change it pushing it back on tuesday.

and that would not trigger a referral back to committee. >> okay. mr. kueta, can i ask a question? do you need more time to answer the question about the operative date or would you like to get back to the committee and wait? i mean, if we wore to move this forward, would the sponsor be -- do you need more time to talk to the sponsor and have us decide on tuesday? >> i do. yes, i do. >> that's fine. okay. we have time. we -- because we have time, if you get a response before the end of public comment, but seeing no other names on the roster, we'll open this item up for public comment. those that wish to comment on the item, please come forward. >> before public comment, we were going to have the human rights commission present. >> okay.

all righty. sorry about that. >> no problem. good afternoon, supervisors, and thank you for your time. i'm zoe polk, executive director of the san francisco human rights commission. and we enforce the housing provision of this ordinance the housing provision applies to affordable housing providers, housing providers that receive city funding. we were deeply supportive of decreasing barriers for people with arrests and conviction records. and i was asked to talk about this ordinance, since when were involved in the early stages. we voted unanimously in support of the policy in 2012. after the commission's vote, the h.r.c. conducted outreach with various stake holders, including the chamber of commerce, small property owners, neighborhood association and community groups and since that time, there's been an explosion, i would say, in mainstream media about what

it looks like to have a conviction record and what mass incarceration that the war on drugs has done to black and brown people in the country. in addition to impoverishing people, it has been a stigma. in the lgbt community, harassment is why 16% of transgender adults have been incarcerated. there's been an explosion in the number of women who are incarcerated. 50% of people incarcerated are mothers and have children under the age of 18. because women workers are in industries that perform criminal background checks, some incarcerated women have challenges finding employment.

to reiterate, when we call someone a felon or ex-offender, we're talking about a broad range of people that include veterans, lgbt, women, and persons with disabilities, and all people at the human rights commission we touch. so since this ordinance has been passed, we've received 5 to 10 complaints in total. the h.r.c. is required to issue reports every year on its enforcement. we've done that and we have copies of them if you would like to review. it is the result of a compliance survey, mayor's office of housing and community development. and it includes recommendations on the h.r.c. from other commissions, like seattle and washington, d.c., and what they do and enforcing similar laws. the city review have monetary

damages payable to the complainant and we've seep that from our colleagues in washington, d.c. in our 2016 report, we received, in addition to getting information compliance from affordable housing, we receive information that they fine that applicants are not as much aware of the fair chance ordinance until they get the notice from the housing provider. it indicates us to the work that needs to be done. i know there were questions before about the outreach that was done. h.r.c. continues to do outreach and we offer free trainings and we've done so. i should say also, that affordable housing is also businesses, all the big housing providers are ones that we train for free. we provide relevant language about the fair chance ordinance

in our grant solicitations to make sure that they're do aware of the fair chance ordinance. in advisory capacity, one of the most common, is with the regulation of cannabis, we talk about the fair chance ordinance and make sure that the values of the fair chance ordinance are contemplated in regulations as it relates to that. we have significant work to do to make sure that those that are criminalized and impoverished receive a fair chance. i'm here to talk to you more about outreach or what we've seen in our offices. >> thank you very much. if we have any follow-up questions, we'll ask you to come back up. supervisor stefani? >> supervisor stefani: thank you for the work you do. it's incredibly important. and i'm a supporter of the legislation. 5 want you to know that. and my questions regarding making sure that small businesses are informed does not indicate that i'm not supportive of the incredible work that you

are doing because it's absolutely necessary. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. and i will echo that real quick. i appreciate from the time i was housing authority commissioner, all the importance of this work, not just for employment, but also on housing. so often we heard about so many cases within the agency, particularly with regard to section 8 vouchers and how housing applicants were discriminated against. we appreciate the great work you are doing. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> supervisor safai: identify yourself and if you have documents, leave them with the clerk. >> jim lazarus, san francisco chamber of commerce. we were proud to work with supervisors cohen and kim in 2013 and 2014 in months of meetings with businesses, civic leaders and advocates to draft the ordinance that became a model for the country. we continue to support it.

we believe it's been a huge success. we understand the need for some amendments because the state of california came on board and we have a state law now that differs in a few areas. we believe that ideally local applicants and employers should be dealing with the office of labor standards enforcement and not have to go to sacramento. therefore, for instance, the 20 employees, versus the 5, we should have a 5-employee threshold here to ensure that employers and applicants in the city can go to city hall with any grievance. where we have big problems with the amendments before you is the scope of the penalties. the penalty sections that were in the existing ordinance were crafted not to penalize people, not to encourage litigation. they were crafted to present knowledge to employers, that's why it's a warning, not a dollar

penalty. it's in line with other penalties with ordinances in the city. unbundling applications or allegations of violations will result in potentially hundreds of violations on a particular complaint when an application for a job is an error, there could be hundreds of period 'em that saw that application. that wasn't the intent of our ordinance to penalize employers. the intent of the ordinance in 2014 was to drive compliance to open up jobs for people that need jobs and shouldn't be penalized by prior spread past criminal history. so we urge you to amend this legislation beyond the lines -- >> supervisor safai: thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon. i'm sharon wu, chief assistant

for the d.a.'s office. d.a. gaston was an original supporter in 2014. we know working in criminal justice that access to employment and housing are key for men and women involved in the criminal justice system to get out. this legislation furthers public safety and it's important in order to ensure that there is successful participation outside of the criminal justice system. thank you. >> supervisor safai: next speaker? >> good afternoon, supervisors. i'm phil hernandez, staff attorney for the national employment law project, specializing in policies that are aimed at providers economic opportunities for people with records. we support this for three reasons. first, it would help to harmonize the fair chance hiring

standards across california, which is important to employers that do business statewide. my organization is one of the main sponsors. by harmonizing it with state law, extending the reach of the ordinance to include five or more employees and that a conviction history is not asked until offer of employment, it would mirror the fair chance act. it would permit people in certain circumstances to file civil actions in court. this, too, creates alignment with the existing state law. and allows them to file a complaint. second, as we've discussed here, the amendments would provide stronger enforcement tools to root out violations of law. and these amendments advance restorative justice, by prohibiting employers to consider convictions for decriminalized behavior. it recognizes that the legal

landscape around the rule on drugs is changing and it makes little sense to exclude people from employment on the basis of conduct that is lawful in california today. thank you. >> i'm sharon strain. the re-entry council was one of the sponsors and worked hard on the original fair chance ordinance here in san francisco. and has always worked on the state legislation that was passed last year. we think it's very important to expand whatever we can in order to make the -- make the fair chance ordinance here in san francisco as strong as possible. i think that one of the things that has been surprising is how little known some of the fair

chance ordinance is in this city. for example, know that we have expanding cannabis activity here, i was shown by one of our clients, a job for a cannabis place that specifically said in the advertisement, you must have a clean record in order to apply for this job. obviously, we have work to do. whatever we can do as a city to make the fair chance ordinance enforceable and as strong as possible we're support of. thank you. >> supervisor safai: thank you. any other members of the public wish to comment? no. public comment is closed. can we have the person from olse, are they still here? i just want to ask a few questions about the enforcement

and some of the violations, want to talk that through a little bit. >> okay. go for it. >> supervisor safai: there's been focus on 4909, 6 and 7, about bundling of -- can you talk about that a little bit, please? >> sure. the one thing i can say is that we haven't had multiple complaints about the same job advertisement or same company within a window of time. so to date anyway, we haven't had any complaints. >> supervisor safai: that's what i was asking in the beginning, how many complaints you had, filed, repeat offender. >> to date, we haven't had any of that. >> supervisor safai: and that's since 2014? >> right. that's correct. >> supervisor safai: okay. so that's at the crux of it in terms of -- supervisor stefani, do you have a question? >> supervisor stefani: given the concerns expressed by mr. lazarus, i wonder if we can

do something like report back to the board of supervisors so we can understand the penalties administered and how the ordinance is being applied. i would support an amendment if it's free -- agreeable with the author. i think honestly to understand how this is really working, i think it's good legislation and it's necessary and understand how the penalties are being applied. if we see the concerns being expressed by mr. lazarus, there is something that we can come back and address, but i do think we should have a reporting mechanism how you can report to us how it's being applied. >> i do believe that the current legislation has a requirement that we report on an annual basis. >> supervisor safai: would that be enough, an annual report? >> supervisor yee: i would like

to make a suggestion that we report back every 6 months. if that's okay for us to amend that. >> supervisor safai: what we'd be doing, instead of having for an annual report, that they would come back in six months and give us a report on how the law has been implemented. >> i think i can say that that would not be a problem. >> supervisor safai: can we make that amendment at the full board, city attorney? >> yes. >> supervisor safai: okay. great. or we can just do it now. >> supervisor yee: i'm okay doing it now. >> supervisor safai: they said they're fine with it. okay. can we entertain a motion to add language that we would have in the first year a six-month report back from the office of labor standard enforcement? >> so it would be a report on

implementation and enforcement of this ordinance six months from the operative date? >> supervisor safai: from the operative date of the ordinance, only in the first year, and then annual that point forward. >> okay. >> supervisor yee: i move that. >> supervisor safai: seconded. without objection. and is there any other comments from members of the committee. >> is there a motion to -- >> supervisor safai: we'll do that. go ahead. >> supervisor yee: i want to be sure that -- and i will make it public, that i really appreciate supervisor cohen taking the lead in this. i think it's really important that these people that are trying to get employment and housing and so forth are not

discriminated against. i am probably more concerns about those individuals rather than the business. >> supervisor safai: right. okay. and lets entertain a motion to accept the amendments as proposed and read into the record -- do we have to read them again? >> no, we do not. >> supervisor safai: as proposed by supervisor cohen's office. so moved. seconded. and then entertain -- yes? >> i wanted to know that that's with the operative date of october 1 -- >> supervisor safai: right. we'll discuss that at the full board. right now, it's at october 1, but we'll have the conversation on tuesday if it will go to january 1. can i entertain a motion? >> supervisor yee: make a motion to pass this out of committee with positive recommendation of

the amendment. >> supervisor safai: so moved. seconded. item is ordered. mr. clerk, please call item number two. >> clerk: ordinance amending administrative code for mior to appear at the board of supervisors for question and answer period. >> supervisor safai: we're joined by honorable supervisor peskin. go ahead and proceed on your item. >> supervisor peskin: thank you, chair safai, and supervisors yee and stefani. this is not earth-shattering legislation, but it's the result of two votes, which in 2010, when 60% of san francisco voters passed prop c, which was an amendment requiring the mayor to

appear on a monthly basis to engage in policy discussions with members of the board for everybody to see. at the time, it's intent was to provide political engagement between the board of supervisors and the legislative branch, that was not occurring in the space and to have that occur in full view of the public. the ordinance in the administrative code that created the rules for, had the promise of that back and forth and ending up with someone that was pretty stilted without real information being shared. and as we saw yesterday in these chambers, i think it was the first time that any member of

the board asked a question since september, 2016, that that system can be revised in modest ways to enhance what the voters told us they wanted almost a decade ago, which is real, candid engagement. so this legislation seeks to create a bit more of a structure back and forth, without putting anyone in the hotseat or playing a game of gotcha. and i think it's tailored enough to keep the back-and-forth brief, but also genuine and dynamic. to that end, the proposal would allow a member of the board to submit their question topic on the wednesday preceding the board meeting. all of us who suffer through an election become a jack of all trades and expert at none. 5 think we should be conversant on an array of topics. if we set forth that perhaps the topic be senate bill 827 or what

have you, it should be enough to allow the mayor to prepare and also it would -- this would enable a supervisor to ask a follow-up question. and the mayor would answer that question not to exceed 2 minutes. so it's not designed to be time-consuming. i would be impressed if all of the supervisors engaged in it. in order to -- i know there have been some fears expressed by the mayor's office, who have gone around today and said that it will make board meetings too long, i'm not exactly sure why the mayor's office cares if our board meetings are longer. to that end, what is before you, colleagues, rotates the supervisors that can ask questions throughout the year. the way it's structures, we have

supervisors from districts 1, 2 -- let me find it here -- 1, 2, 3 and 4 would be able to ask for -- this would be on a rotating, monthly basis. so the supervisors from those districts could ask at the mayor's first appearance, and then the supervisors from districts 5, 6, 7 and 8 could ask a question at the next appearance. at the third appearance, supervisors from 9, 10 and 11 could ask a question. in the spirit of back and forth, it would allow the mayor to, if he or she so chose, ask a question of the supervisor. i think it's about transparency and about demonstrating to the public that the legislative and executive branches of government can engage in civil, public dialogue and i don't think any of us should cowher from that. with that, i respectfully ask for your support.

>> supervisor safai: i will save my comments until after public comment. >> supervisor peskin: i know that the chair expressed concerns about brown act issues that i discussed with the city attorney and this satisfies the brown act. >> supervisor safai: any members of the public wish to comment on this item, come forward. seeing none, public comment is closed. >> supervisor peskin: like i said, earth-shattering legislation. >> supervisor safai: i'm going to propose a couple of amendments. i will hand them out to colleagues. this is for you. after my amendments, you can ask a question -- or go ahead, supervi supervi supervisor yee. >> supervisor yee: what you

have, i think, is time limit for the replies, but there's no time limit on the question. and what i found is if you don't put a time limit on the question it, could go on and on and someone could go on and on and on and on and ask the question at the end of 20 minutes. >> supervisor peskin: i remember that member of the board. [laughter] through the chair to supervisor yee, that's a good point and i think that we could certainly limit the question in the same form. deputy city attorney? >> the proposed ordinance does have a time limit on the question and the answer. 2 minutes per question. and 2 minutes per answer, so the entire conversation between mayor and supervisors would take a total, maximum of 16 minutes. 2 minutes for the first question, 2 minutes for the first answer.

2 minutes, follow-up. and then it flips, and then the mayor asks a 2-minute question. etc. and that's on page 3, line 23. >> supervisor peskin: and it could be as short as 4 minutes or even shorter depending on the duration of the question of and the answer. >> supervisor safai: supervisor stefani. >> supervisor peskin: i will talk through the amendments and give me comments. there's been one question asked, i think it was the other day, and it almost became dynamic, but there was no time limits, so no real opportunity. it could have been informative. the voters of san francisco were asked to weigh in on this topic.

and i believe that it passed with a 60% approval. it's something that i think the voters of san francisco wanted, maybe to have more open dialogue in a public format between the mayor and members of the board. i could see how it could become stale over time and it has. and i think the attempt by the sponsor is to create some dynamism. what i'm concerned about is to ensure that right now the way that it is is that members of the board are asked in advance as we do our agenda to submit their questions and that allows the general public to understand what will be discussed. in this instance, there will be a topic. that topic has to have parameters set around it. the way it is right now, the eligible question or topic area would be submitted to the clerk of the board by noon on the wednesday prior to the mayor's appearance. and the clerk would forward that submitted topic to the city.

what i'm asking is on page 2, lines 12-15, that the clerk would then forward the submitted topic to the city attorney to determine -- and have the city attorney determine the legality and adequate noticing of the topic to ensure that we're meeting state and local public meeting laws. we don't want someone to say "government" and have it be so broad that there is no real understanding of what the topic could be. it could be homelessness. it could be affordable housing. whatever the topic is, there will be some understanding to the general public what will be discussed. and if there is interested parties that want to at least, they won't be allowed to participate and they will listen and partake in the back and forth. is that right, city attorney? >> that's all correct except

there is public comment. it comes at the end of the meeting. so there is an opportunity for the public to comment during general public comment. >> supervisor safai: so even more of a reason for them to understand the topic. it was one of the amendments i wanted to make. and the other amendment is on page 3, line 22. because we're having it on a rotating basis and there's a topic area, i believe that it would be more dynamic to add that the mayor then has the ability to have a follow-up question with any of the supervisors on that given topic. so the mayor has the ability to turn around and ask a question of the members of the board. members of the board would understand what the given topic was in advance. they might not be the wounds that are asking the initial topic, but they're then noticed that they, too, could be asked a question by the mayor and should be prepared to have a conversation on that topic. i think that's in the spirit of

what the members of the public wanted. i think it's a friendly amendment, both of which i talked about with the sponsor. so those are the two that -- two amendments that i'm proposing. in general, i'm supportive of the concept and i think it would help to make it more robust. supervisor stefani? >> supervisor stefani: thank you. i've been around for a while. i was here back in 2006, actually. when the voters passed the policy statement urging the mayor, which didn't come to fruition before the board of supervisors, and then they tried again in 2007 at the ballot and the voters rejected it at that time. and then in 2010, the voters did pass a measure to require the mayor to engage in policy decisions with the board and now

we have the system in place that supervisor peskin described. while i do appreciate supervisor peskin's desire to change the way we're doing it, for reasons that he stated, i am not in favor of changing it. i don't think it's effective. i don't think we get much out of question time. and i think our time could be better spent doing our things. it could double the amount of time that question time would take. and i don't know that it's actually going to realize the goal that supervisor peskin would like it to. i think -- say we have a topic. yesterday, we had a scripted question and the mayor was aware of that question. if that topic were to be, say, minimum compensation ordinance, then the supervisor could ask a question on that up to 2 minutes. then the mayor would give his answer, which would probably be the same answer that he gave yesterday. i don't think it would be

anything different than what happened yesterday. and then a follow-up question, trying to get the mayor to answer what they want him to answer. and then the mayor would answer the question in the way he wanted to answer the question. people answer the question they want to. so i don't know if it will be effective. i feel that it's an exercise in futility. i do think maybe a skilled debater will be able to get a gotcha moment out of this, but i don't think it's effective either. i feel in my heart of hearts that this has the potential to divide us. that it puts people in opposite corners. i think that san francisco faces serious issues that requires us to work together constructively. and i think even though we're trying to engage in discussions and that's what question time is trying to do, i don't think it does that. and i think it does promote divisiveness. i don't think it contributes to policy development. and i do think it lends itself

to somewhat personal attacks or it could. i just don't see getting a lot out of it. i don't -- like i said, i don't think a lot of policy will be developed because of it. and i do think our time is spent much better working together to solve the major issues impacting our city. we need to focus on our commonality. and what i kept hearing today is that there is more that unites us than divides us. and i truly believe that on this board. and i think we need to work constructively together, collaboratively together and we need to fight hard to address the issues. i don't think that question time does that. i think that question time is a way to divide us. when the voters approved prop c, they asked for the mayor to appear before the board of supervisors to engage in formal policy discussions. and i think it has been done, albeit not a way that excites

people, but i believe it speaks to the mandate of 2010. >> supervisor safai: i have a question. based on -- if my amendment were to be accepted in terms of the mayor being able to ask any of the members of the board on page 4, line 2, "supervisor other than the questioning supervisor may participate." line 3. do we need to add something there to clarify that unless the mayor asks an additional quell to a different supervisor? >> you're right, supervisor, we can make that clarifying

amendment. >> supervisor safai: supervisor peskin? >> supervisor peskin: i respect the position of supervisor stefani. i think what's broken about this is the way the code was written, you have two people who read a pre-prepared statement. a pre-prepared question and mayor lee -- there was a couple of times that he came in here and he would literally read off a cooked-up answer. if we could -- i actually think it could be a unifying thing. if i could actually ask a question that -- it's very easy for mayors not to come out with public positions. we have to do that much more than a mayor does. and i think it's good to get on the record to say, i use senate bill 827 as an example.

what is your position on senate 827 and why? it would be great for all of us to hear that and for the public to hear that. i don't see it as a gotcha thing. i think when you don't have a prepared thing that you read, and you actually have to think on your feet, i don't think it's going to increase our tv ratings by any stretch of the imagination, but it's real democracy and i think that's what the people voted for in 2010 and what they haven't gotten. and i hope that the board will have an opportunity to do it. i'm glad that our president utilized question time, for the first time, as i said before, since september, 2016. and the answer can be -- obviously, any person or elected official or politician can say, i don't know the answer. i will go back and look at it and study it