you have been watching coping with covid-19. thanks for watching. >> one is being recorded. president bridges, you may begin the meeting. >> what did i say? january 13, 2021, president bridges, you may begin the meeting. >> thank you, madam secretary. good afternoon, and happy new year, everyone.

happy 2021. welcome to the san francisco city and county employees retirement system board meeting january 13, 2021. this meeting is being held virtually, with all members and staff participating today via teleconference. this will ensure the safety of sfers board, sfers staff, and the public. while this technology allows us to hold the meeting via teleconference, it may not be as seamless as we would like to be. a reminder to staff and participants to mute their microphones when not commenting to minimize background noise. thank you for your cooperation. madam secretary, roll call, please. [roll call]

>> clerk: thank you. we have a quorum. president bridge? >> thank you, madam secretary. next item, please. >> clerk: item number two, communications. due to the covid-19 health emergency and to protect board members, city employees, and the public, the san francisco employees retirement system is closed. however, members will be participating in the meeting remotely. this precaution is taken pursuant to the various local, state, and federal orders, declarations, and directives. board members who attend the meeting through video conference and participate in the -- conference can

participate in the meeting to the same extent as if they were physically present. public comment will be available on each item on this agenda. public commenters will be allowed two minutes to speak. opportunities to offer public comment are available by phoning in, calling 415-655-0001, access code 146-368-3580, then pound, and pound again. when connected, you will hear the meeting discussion, but you will be muted and in listening mode only. when your item of interest comes up, press star, three to be added to the speaker line. best practices are to call from a quiet location, speak clearly and slowly, and turn down your t.v. or radio. president bridges? >> thank you, madam secretary. at this time, the board will be going into closed session, item

number 1, 3-a, public employee hiring. immediately after that, we will be coming into session for 3-b, investment. s the board will begin with general public comment, but no later than 2:30 p.m., we'll take public comment ongoing into closed -- on going into closed session at this time. madam secretary, please open the phone lines for public comment. >> clerk: thank you. members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this item should call 415-655-0001, access code 146-368-3580, then pound, and pound again. if you haven't already done so, press star, three to be lined up to speak. a system prompt will indicate you have raised your hand. please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted, and you may begin your comments. please state your name and make

your comment. you will have the standard two minutes to provide your comments. moderator, are there any callers on the line? >> operator: madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> clerk: thank you. hearing no calls, public comment is now closed. president bridges? >> yes. commissioners, please, in this open session meeting you are currently in in closed >> a we move into the open session of our january 13, 2021 meeting. you may begin. >> thank you. roll call please. >> president bridges.

commissioner casciato. >> present. commissioner driscoll. >> u a present. >> commissioner heldfond? >> present. >> thank you. commissioner safai? >> i believe stepped away from the meeting. and commissioner stansbury. >> present. thank you. we have a quorum. president bridges? >> motion is in order to reveal the closed session under 67.12a. at this time i will entertain a motion. >> aye. >> just kidding. >> are you making a motion to disclose or not disclose? >> i make a motion to not disclose.

>> okay. >> is there a second? >> it has been moved by commissioner safai and seconded by commissioner that we do not disclose items discussed in closed session. we will take public comment at this time, madam secretary, so please open the phone lines for public comment. >> thank you. if there are any callers, please press star 3 to be added to the queue. please continue to wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted. are there any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> thank you. hearing no call, public comment is now closed. >> president bridges? >> president: madam secretary, roll call vote please. >> president bridges? >> aye.

>> mr. casciato. >> aye. >> mr. driscoll? >> aye. >> u a commissioner heldfond? >> an aye. >> a commissioner safai? >> aye. >> commissioner stansbury? >> aye. >> thank you. you have six ayes. the motion passes. >> thank you, madam secretary. next item please. >> item number 4, general public comment. >> and do we have any public comment that was emailed? >> that is correct. we received an email from john stinson that reads as follows. at your december 20, 2020 meeting, the chief investment officer and all board members were very elated as you had good investment returns from april until december 2020. you could have trained a monkey

to throw $50 at the s&p 500 index and you would have better returns. you should put dexter on the investment committee to invest in the dog of the dow, quote, unquote, and the dogs of the dow have produced more than 100% higher return than hedge fund. p.s., i would like one of you board members to ask your chief investment officer how much money our pension fund has paid in management and performance for our hedge fund investments in the past three years. with best regards from john stinson, a 46-year member of the pension fund. that is the end of his email and public comment. >> thank you. >> you are on mute.

>> thank you for reading the public comment. madam secretary, please open the phone lines for general public comment. >> thank you. >> members of the public should call 415-655-0001. access code (146) 268-3580. then pound and pound again. when the item of interest comes up, you will be added to the speaker line. best practices are cocall from a quiet location, speak clearly, and slowly and turn your television or computer down. moderator, are there any caller on the line? >> madam secretary. >> there are no callers on the line. >> thank you. public comment is now closed. president bridges?

>> madam secretary, next item please. >> item 5, action item, 2020 review of economic assumption, discount rate and this item was continued from the december 9, 2020 retirement board meeting. >> good afternoon, commissioners. as stated, this i a tem is continued from the december board meeting. phil and ann are here to answer any questions you may have, and i will ask phil to take it from here. also, we would like to know how to proceed. >> thank you. with the december board meeting, the board adopted the recommended decision on the discount rate. and the conclusion on the

discount rate and reasonable and it is higher than the national median and it is the highest discount rate in california. and the future is pretty uncertain at this point in time. so i ask that you consider the alternative of 7.3 in addition to saying at 7.4. and back up to page 26. this is the detail behind that conclusion and the primary detail. we looked at your asset allocation and the capital market assumptions in a variety of investments. and the average would suggest the discount rate at 6.6% of the

10 years and 7.6 over 30 years. the discount rate between 10 and 20 year figures. that is really the basis for suggesting whether to consider. 7.3 to 7.4. with that, just take questions. >> thank you. board members, we have a detailed presentation on the economic sociorate and move this item to today's meeting. so at this time we'll take any questions you may have. you should have all the materials so we'll take any additional questions and ask for and entertain the motion.

we have one particular game for mr. hallmark. >> you may proceed. >> here on page 26 the expected return comparison. if you are using those consultants and managers, return assumptions and forecast for the different asset class by using our weights for the asset class. to come up with that total number, total portfolio expected return number. >> we take the policy and the weights in it and apply their assumptions for those asset classes. we do know that in some of the private asset classes and there is not a perfect match in every

investment on the market assumption. and the second question which may or may not be in the range for actuaries to opine, but are you assuming that we are able to execute what we say we need to do to achieve those rates of return? it is an operational question, but i am asking you. >> we assume that over relatively short period you will achieve the policy target in the new that we have adopted. we do not look under the hood at operational issues related to that. the operational assumption is on us at the board to execute and do all the investing and all the work to achieve those numbers.

thank you, bill. that concludes my question, commissioner. thank you, commissioner driscoll. are there any other questions from board members? >> this is brian. i have a series of questions. >> commissioner stansbury, please proceed. >> thank you. >> thanks for joining us today for this. so one of the takeaways that i have had is that your recommendation for 7.4 is based upon our ability to execute our asset allocation, is that correct? >> yes, we presume that your assets will be invested in accordance with the policy. and big coker, are you on the line? >> yes.

are we able to achieve our target asset allocation without additional staff? >> in my opinion we cannot sustain that now. we are at least one year into the budget process where we are trying to hire additional members for the investment team. i know you have said that the cycle is longer than that. where are we in the cycle? are we 12 months or 18 months or more than 12 months. >> a commissioner, who is the question addressed to? >> you. i'm sorry, mr. coker. >> in terms of the variability between resources and executed

in our strategic plan. >> i know behind the curve in terms of timing and how far behind are we? eight months, 24? >> formally 12 months and internal discussions began in april of 19. and there was a short fall of resources to execute on our investment strategy and we either needed to change strategy and resources and change the resources to fit the strategy. those begin internally in april of 19 and went to executive director with what led to the centraling stra teejic plan last january, 2020. for you, mr. hallmark, we looked at a variety of different asset mixes to prove the asset allocation. some of the mixes had lower

expected returns. and other mixes and 7-3 and with one of the other mixes. do you think your recommendation might be different or would you -- would it still be reasonable to stay at 7-4? it would be pushing us harder to go to 7.3. can you help with the guardrails on there? >> if the asset allocation was expected to return something 20 or 30 basis points lower than the current allocation. and probably be pressing a little bit more for the discount rate.

and 7.4 would remain within a reasonable rage. and the more reasonable expected to return. >> and the highest return rate in california? and with calpercent and where are the other large plans in california. awe and i believe is 7%. and are calpers and calsters considered top quantile in terms of the returns? and is that a question for mr. coker or alan martin at nepc.

>> i can tell you because it's apples to apples we advise san bernardino county with the asset mix not dissimilar to yours is 7.25. ventura county who is very much more traditional only have 20% moving to 25% in private markets. and their expected return is 7.25. and i think bill would tell you had the board opted to adopt an asset allocation that was, say, 60% in public equities and 30% in public debt and 10% in real estate and our number for that mix would probably be 6 3/4 and i think bill would attest that without private market assets that we and other consultants believe to have a higher expected return. you would have great difficulty

or they would have great difficulty supporting a recommendation close to 7 1/4. the better performing funds that we know of have asset allocations and a lot more private market assets and we see expected returns maybe a little lower than 7.3, but 7.2, and 7.1. and it depends on the staff ability to execute a private market oriented investment strategy. >> for you, mr. hallmark, going back to the actuary side of things, and i will wrap this up in a moment, what i am feeling is there is going to be constant pressure to reduce the assumed rate of return going forward. >> i think that is a reasonable expectation and at the last meeting i believe to foreshadow

that to the return. we have seen a significant drop in valuations and have an effect on the capital market moving forward. and the pressure to reduce the expected return. and if we reduce the costs and the greater return and what is the cost for the city starting july 1. additional incremental cost? >> thank you. we estimated a cost last time and we estimated the reduction in the discount rate would increase costs by 1% of pay. and i know that the other assumption changes we have made,

we estimated .8% in the contribution. how much in terms of dollars? >> 1% of pay, i believe, and this is not just the city and county, but all employers. >> can we -- is that number double and show us what this looks like? >> yes. we can and to point out that these estimates from the the

preliminary data. is that right now? to have the with the right estimates and to update the that valuation and we haven't gotten the data processed well enough. so i need a little bit more time to digest this and understand

the budget and what resources we are likely to get before i vote on the assumed rate of return, keeping it or reducing it and would be helpful to see the analyses to see what the additional dollar cost would look like. and so my recommendation to the board would be to table this another 30 days and i am happy to make a motion if we need that. >> thank you. >> thoughts and comments and questions from other board members. >> commissioner driscoll, and i can second that possible motion. but the other observation i want to make is to add to consultant alan martin's observation about not simply the private equity orientation which concludes private credit, but in the public markets and particularly

the public equity, our investment team needs more time and more xeem to pursue the niche player in the special industries. and it can take a couple of years and to actually fund a manager. and that falls back on how many people we need to maintain the 7.4 assumed rate of return. >> thank you. >> any other comment? >> i actually have a question for mr. coker. >> okay. commissioner casciato. >> i would like him to lay out what the needs are and over what time period is he talking about the hiring going forward, etc. and commissioner casciato, i

would be happy to give a thumbnail of that and it is the next item to go into that in some detail. the ask and the recommendation of the board is to increase staff from 26 to 36 over the next two to three years.

for the five years ended june 30, calpers was 6.5 and spurs was 7.3. for the 10 years ended, calpers was 8.5 and 9.4. >> 9.4? >> that is correct. >> and we are talking about the budget year july 1, 2021 through july 1 -- or june 30 and can you say the last part again, commissioner? >> actually, the current budget that we're entering into now would be a two-year budget commencing july 1, 2021 and ending june 30, 2023. as cio coker indicated, we had

presented last january a year ago a three-year plan. we weren't able to get any of the resources in the first year when we asked and so now we're in the last two years of the three-year plan. the additional 10 resources and we would need them to be included pretty heavily in coming two years of the coming budget. >> in the next item, maybe we will get into this and into the yearly outlay and the timing of when to bring people on board. and the additional estimated cost of $3.6 million per year

and a couple of years to implement and do we know how much it would be in year one? >> well, our goal for the current budget season is to have zero vacant positions in the investment division or in other words, by april or measure to be actively recruiting. we are just finishing up two recruitments right now and we believe that there are two or additional recruitments to go into because new positions that are approved in the july 1, 2021 budget are not funded. and are not funded before the october 2021 and assume the new positions and approved in the budget to hire them immediately. and funding for the new positions that we are talking about and we would not be able

to fill them or activery recruit them before october of this year. the timeline is not precise and that gives you an idea of the delay and being successful and getting the resources through the end to have july 1 budget and delayed until october i was very happy that we have very vacant positions currently in the investment decision. and through the entirety of the budget process which goes into july. so even if we have some clarity, we are talking 10 months out. >> absolutely. so we're another -- if we are 12 months into it and now we're talking 18 months. where we would be behind schedule. and the piece that will talk

more about it in the next item is sustaining what we are doing currently. and safety and the new initiatives. it needs to be stressed both ways, but the real problem is new resources are, you know, eight months away. nine months away. even if they are approved. >> i believe that the recruitment if the budget were approved effective july and even recruitment can't begin until october which means they are not on staff until 2021. 2022. i believe. that is right. we have to submit a request to fill a vacant position. and before we can viz it and

that decision to be placed. and from october of next year and with the on boarding of the resources and from that full year away. that will put us two years behind schedule trying to execute the current asset allocation plan. that is helpful. i am happy to make a motion at any time. >> are there any other questions before we entertain a motion? >> one of the things we do at the board of supervisors if we immediate to make something more immediate is we have the ability to do supplemental budget requests within a calendar year.

is that something that this body ever does? and it's something we decided to make a decision on now. is that something that we have the ability to do? >> i believe we do as a department and have the ability to request the supplemental to the budget. this is within the retirement fund and it is our budget, correct? there is no impact to the general fund and would have no -- we have a body -- we as a body have the ability and we

made the decision we wanted to continue to meet 7.4 return and move more aggressively on staffing. is that correct? >> congratulations for being appointed to the budget committee. and that will be a key assignment as far as we are concerned. we can explore the idea of going before the current budget and regular budget season before the board to quantify the need for additional resources in advance of the budget. thank you for the suggestion. >> president: thank you. are there any other questions? if not, then at this time -- >> commissioner: i have a question of jay. >> president: commissioner casciato. >> commissioner: by not acting

on this or not adopting the discount rate at this point, is it having negative effects on the operation of the system? >> no, the main pressure on getting the valuation done which we generally target to be completed by february and the complete valuation is only for mostly the convenience of the city knowing what the employer contribution rate is as they build their budget and balance the budget. but a month delay is not going to be significant in that process. and certainly i think concept and i believe presenting the preliminary estimate with the example of the scenarios. [please stand by]

-- so that hopefully the board would be able to make a decision on what to do with the return assumption, no later than the february board meeting, so they

could produce the valuation to be presented in april or may. >> okay, i could make that motion with the caveat that the figures to be provided to the board members at a minimum of 10 days prior in order to allow for detailed review. >> yeah, i think that is a great idea of getting it early because, you know, there's some different groups that we will need to talk to. mr. hallmark, i have a question for you and i know that you have a model and sometimes you have done it live for the board. how fast can we get some of those preliminary numbers from you? you think that we could get them next week? >> no, i think that this decision, i think that you want numbers based on the 2020 census, instead of the estimate (indiscernible) and then we can

switch, but we need to get a foundation for the valuation first. >> when do you think that we could get those numbers? what is realistic? >> i think that it's a week to 10 days prior to the board, probably when we would be targeting. >> your 10-day prior is a good idea and i'm happy to support that. >> i made it in the form of a motion. >> i will second it. >> that includes mr. hallmark as well as the both sets of data? >> so that was 7.0, 7.25 and 7.3

some. >> originally said 772, 773, and we should also ask for 74, right? since it's our baseline. although we know that the delta is 7.4, but the absolute dollars would be helpful. >> (indiscernible) [speaking over each other] >> the data from mr. hallmark. >> i mean, i think that it probably would be also be helpful to have an outlay from mr. coaker. >> that's what i mean, to be comprehensive you need both. that's fine. so that's why i'm asking the question. >> i think that to have an outlook with mr. coaker on what he wants to hire and what he wants in the timeline and the cost and at least trying to give us maybe a sense of when those

numbers are going to ripple through. because if we're talking, say, $3.6 million, a total budget, additional incremental budget costs, is it one in the first year and 1.5, is it 2? what's that number? >> right. >> if you could retake the motion -- (indiscernible) i'd appreciate it. >> so i need to -- for -- do i need to -- >> what i was going to propose with the appropriateness of the subject matter that the timing of the hiring of the additional resources be moved to the next item which is also an action item which is the update to the strategic plan and the regional plan. so i would suggest directing to calculate and to get as quickly

as possible the impact of lowering contribution rates from 7.4 to 7.3 or 7.2 or 7.0 or to be distributed to the board but also calendar at the february board meeting as, again, an action item. if you can get that to the board as quickly as possible and then in conjunction with the next item we can hopefully try to produce the actions and on the hiring with them. >> yeah, my intent is to close this item, go to the next item, and then i'll make a motion for a supplemental in the next one or, you know, something to that effect. >> okay, commissioner if you want to have a motion. >> my motion is that we move this item to the february

meeting, 10 days prior the estimates be forwarded to the board, the data from mr. hallmark showing exactly what 7, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4 do, or any other numbers that we can generate in that arena. and what the impact of those numbers is on the budget. >> is there a second? >> i will second the item. >> okay. so moved by commissioner casciato and seconded by commissioner stanesbury that we move this item to the february board meeting in order for mr. hallmark to come back with assumption based on data estimates at 7.0, 7.2, and 7.3 and 7.4. and at that time review that data 10 days prior to that meeting to come back to make a

decision, is that correct? all right. madam secretary, we'll take public comment at this time. >> clerk: thank you. caller, if you have not already done so, press star, 3, to be added to the queue. moderator, are there any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> clerk: thank you. hearing no callers, public comment is now closed. president brings? >> president bridges: yes. roll call vote on the motion. >> how about a second by the board members. >> president bridges: sorry. i had called for comments. go on. >> i can support this and i'm not sure how the next item on the agenda will result in a

request for a budget increase. so depending how that item works out, if it doesn't pass, i'll come back and say that the supplemental budget process has to be initiated to hire enough people to execute all of the investment operations that we have planned for last year. so i'm just saying that in case the next item doesn't pass quite the way that people were expecting it to go. >> president bridges: okay, that's fine, commissioner driscoll. any other comments? madam secretary, roll call vote, please. >> clerk: thank you. [roll call vote]

>> this is scott. i voted aye. >> clerk: thank you. we have six ayes. the motion passes. president bridges. >> clerk: next item, approval of the meeting for december 9, 2020 board meeting. >> president bridges: before that, i would like to thank mr. hallmark for bringing that forward, so thank you very much, mr. hallmark. >> thank you, commissioners. >> president bridges: the board to adopt the minutes from the december 9th board meeting. at this time i entertain a motion. >> so moved.

>> thank you. i'm sorry, this is brian. hi, i again -- there is some weird reverberation with this, i didn't hear what you were calling for. >> president bridges: the approval of the minutes for the december 9th retirement board meeting. >> i thought that i heard that there was a motion, i will second that motion. >> president bridges: yes. moved by commissioner heldford and seconded to approve the minutes from the december 9th board meeting. we'll take any comments, questions. if not, we'll take public comment at this time. >> clerk: thank you. if we have any callers, please press star, 3, to be add to the queue. moderator, are there any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> clerk: thank you. hearing no calls, public comment is closed. president bridges?

>> president bridges: thank you, madam secretary. roll call vote, please. >> clerk: [roll call vote] we have six ayes. >> president bridges: next item please. >> clerk: item number 7. (indiscernible) calendar. >> madam president, we are going to be taking two of the disability applications off of the consent calendar. we could do it verbalally but we need the removal of scott edwards and aaron bruek, from

the consent calendar list. basically to the disability applications, one which we'll be bringing back next month and the other (indiscernible). >> president bridges: did you hear his recommendation, board members? if so, i entertain a motion that we adopt the consent calendar with the removal of scott edwards and aaron bruek, to be brought back to next month on the calendar. did everyone hear me? because i'm getting some feedback. is there a motion to adopt the

consent calendar with the two exceptions noted by mr. harris. >> so moved. >> president bridges: thank you, commissioner heldfond. a second? >> second, commissioner safai. >> president bridges: thank you, commissioner safai. and moved by commissioner heldfond and seconded by commissioner safai to remove scott edwards and aaron bruek. to come back in the calendar for february. any questions or comments? if not, madam secretary, will take public comment at this time. >> clerk: thank you. callers, if you have not already done so, please press star, 3, to be added to the queue. moderator, any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> clerk: thank you. hearing no callers, public

comment is now closed. president bridges? >> president bridges: thank you, madam secretary. roll call vote please. >> clerk: [roll call vote] we have six ayes, motion passes. president bridges? >> president bridges: thank you, madam secretary. next item, please. >> clerk: item 8, and investment and strategic plans, 2020-2030. >> president bridges: thank you. (indiscernible) the updates for the strategic plan -- >> thank you very much, president bridges and the

members. >> there's a feedback. people need to mute. >> okay, that does sound a lot better. can everyone hear me? >> thank you though. >> okay, very good. we'll proceed. board members and darlene, we will begin, darlene if you can hear me, we'll pull up the document on page 16 of the document. and as darlene pulls that up i'll make a couple of beginning comments as i suggested earlier that the senior investment team began to acknowledge that in early 2019 that we were not well rusourced to continue to executing on our existing asset allocation as well as our approach to manager selection, which is really quite unique in that we emphasized unique

managers and specialist skills that are labor intensive and also capacity constrained. we approached mr. huish, the executive director husih and that led to the formation of the strategic plan to the board last january which the board approved. this is an update. covid interrupted the implementation of the strategic plan. and so we [broken audio] to see if darlene is here. >> we're getting a ton of feedback. >> darlene, you need to mute your thing. >> there we go. and, darlene, we'll go to page 16 of the powerpoint

presentation. we will bounce around a little bit. board members, we're not going to go through every page, we'll go through about 10 or 11 of the pages. >> page 16.

(indiscernible). >> perfect, right there. right there. thank you. thank you. board members, thank you for your patience. so several things had changed over the years that we began to recognize and experience that we were not well resourced to continue to execute on our strategy. amongst those first is that even five years ago private markets managers were coming back to the market every -- about every four years. and then that became three years and sometimes in instances even two years. but in private credit it's coming back in two years. so the increased pace alone

increased the workload by about 25% to 33% in terms of the frequency of the underwriting. in addition, as you see here, and this is comparing what our budgeted staff was in 2009, which was 14, to where we are today. so in 2009, on the fifth bullet point, and you will see in the yellow line in the chart is that our budgeted staff was 14 and at a time when our a.u.m. was about 11. and we had a relatively minimal amount of assets. i think that it was about $2 billion in assets in private markets. and so what has happened over time in that 10-year period from this time that staff increased from 14 to 24, it's 26 including

operational staff, so 24 investment staff -- and over that time our assets nearly tripled from $11 billion to more than $30 billion. in addition to that you see the green represents our investment in traditional asset and even there approaching recent years has significantly changed from more of an acceptance and an expectation of data returns to pursuit of returns and public equity. and the blue represents the change in alternative assets. and you can see that that has grown from $2 billion to $16 billion when you include absolute return and about $13.5 billion to $14 billion in private equity, private credit, and real assets. in addition to that, we took on

many new initiatives over the last six or seven years. we added private credit. we added e.s.g. overlay. and we in housed significant amounts of work for asset allocation and risk management. and we also changed the mandates. we increased private equity. and we changed the mandates for absolute return and for public equity. if we're giving all of these initiatives and this growth of assets in this growth of labor intensive assets, our staff levels only grew from 14% to 24%. let's go to page 23 and my apologies, we'll hop around here a little bit. okay, good, not so bad this time. perfect. and so you can see this is where our current budget is and you can see that it's 26 in total

and of the three in operations, two are for operations and one is admin. that was considered part of the investment budget, for a total of 26, including operations. to note here there's two things to note -- first is the large gap between an analyst and an s.d.m. and that leaves in my view some vulnerability, for whatever reason an s.p.m. or a director is unable to serve. the second is how thin we are in every asset class, sub-asset class. it's really two people in every activity that we view. and, again, everything that we do we really have a pretty labor intensive non-beta approach to almost everything that we do. so those are the two key takeaways is the lack of a career track for analysts and then the thinness of each silo.

darlene, let's go to the next page, page 24. thank you. and so here's the ask -- the ask is to go from 26 to 36. this is the same number as what we did as what we asked last year. and a couple of key takeaways. the first is that you will note that every time it's increased from two people to three. in addition to that, there's a tighter bridge between the -- say, the s.p.m. director level and the analyst level. a third takeaway is that by grouping some categories of employees together as one line item and budgeting at the higher line item, it gives us some flexibility to promote people, and also to hire people at one

level or another, depending on the experience and the accomplishments, etc. so -- and, third here is in addition to just the analysts, there's an opportunity for senior analysts and also assistant portfolio manager. another key takeaway to this page is what we have referred to as above the line. and we look over on the far right side and it's the total number of employees that are s.p.m. level and above. those in that total number remains the same, it remains at 14. so the hiring is really done below the line. it's really building a deeper bench of analysts and a career track for analysts as well. the last takeaway to this page is the column titled "direct and

co-invest" and that's to have a team that we would hire, an experienced team, to help us to -- to help each of our asset classes to prosecute and to evaluate directs. darlene, let's go to the next page, page 25. so here's a sum of the career track. right now you can see quite a bit of a gap between the analysts and the s.p.m. and so this is meant to bridge that gap and to give our analysts who are rock stars, they're really, really good and they have high upside, is to give them an opportunity to grow within the platform. because we have an amazing platform and we need a career track to be able to keep our people for a durable period of time. go to the next page, on page 29.

and well, actually, yeah, it's page -- i'm sorry, darlene, let's go to 28 first. thank you. so here's the total cost on the right side. it's expressed over -- over a three-year period practically speaking and that's probably what it would take. we just heard some of the initial on boarding process. and you can see the total going from 26 to 36 and that's about $4 million. maybe slightly less. and it would be the all in cost on an average basis that would be less than $4 million because it's going to take a couple years to on board the entire new group of 10. on a $30 billion portfolio, that is 1.3 basis points of plan assets or just 1/100th of 1%.

importantly, the board previously invested significantly in adding to staff. we did this in the beginning in early 2014. and you saw earlier on the first page that we looked on page 16, that there was a bump in staff from 14 to 26 over a pretty quick period of time. and so that cost was also about $4 million a year. all of which was not absorbed in the first year. so really the all-in costs are a little less. and our assets were slightly less than $20 million. so about 2.1 basis points of plan assets. the total cost over six and three-quarters years has been about $26 million. and what did we do with that $26 million? we outperformed over the past six and three-quarters years by

$3.3 billion. we'll show that next. darlene, if we could go to page four. >> page four? >> page four, yeah. we are going to look at page 4 and page 5 next. >> what is the title on page 4? we don't have page numbers. >> the page numbers are on the bottom right side. >> we could not see them, so tell us what we have --

>> sure, sure. >> (indiscernible) so early in the document. here we are. perfect, thank you, darlene. thank you. and, board members, this summarizes what the results -- both pre-2014 and since 2014. on the bottom chart is that you see that in the five years in 2013, is that we underperformed a bit by 33 basis points and that had the dollars outperformed by $20 million and we were in the peer ranking. and we have outperformed by nearly 2%, totaling in dollars

$3.3 billion and ranked in the top 1%. you can see that it's also been pretty consistent in the peer ranking across all periods of time. we're pretty consistently outperforming right around 2%. and, darlene, if we could go to page 5. next page, yeah. you can see also that we've managed to achieve higher returns with a lot less volatility than our peers. so the term risk here means meanvolatility. and the variability of an investor's returns and you can see that our variability of returns has been about 25%, even 30% less than our peer's and it ranks comfortably in the top 10%. the ratio are two measures of risk adjusted concerns and risk

adjusted concerns rank right near the top. previous to 2014, is that our standard deviation was like in the 50s in terms of percent tile. if i could beg your patience here, we could then turn to page 20. thank you, darlene. right here. right here. so this is a plan that is evaluating not just who -- what we need to become to be successful as we evolve. note here that our current liabilities are about $30 billion.

we're going to grow a lot. we're going to grow to $44 billion by the end of the decade and then to $64 billion in 2040. first is on a glide path to becoming a pretty large plan. earlier we had shown you metrics to show you that we'll also become a pretty mature plan. and our cash outflows and our pension benefits are about $500 million a year and that will grow at about a 9% rate over i think that it's larger than thao $1.3 billion. i think that is an 11% or 12% rate. so $1.3 billion a year. and, darlene, there's two more, if we could go to page 12. and this page is titled, "difference in expected

returns." right here. right here. it's expected returns. essentially, we are -- first is admin inflection point. we have a misalignment between our strategy and our resources. so we need to do one of two things. we either need to align our resources with our strategy. or we need to align the strategy to fit our current resources. the division is about 80 basis points. so compound that would be about 10% or more over a 10-year period. and i think that this might be being conservative because as we have shown earlier, we're outperforming by about 2% annualized more than the 80 basis points reflected here. and, darlene, one last -- and

this is where we'll finish up on page 30 -- last page. board members, this is really the crux. there's four features. and you can either look on page 30 or on page 2, but there's four features to this recommendation. the first is more resources to go from 26 to 36. and you -- we saw earlier what that was, it was to build out each silo from two people to three. and also to help to have a direct team to help each of our silos in terms of direct and co-investments which would extract more value out of our existing relationships. and i would also note that while the increase of 10 is $4 million

and costs, this recommendation actually results in lower total costs. and if we can do $500 million a year and directs, we're a long, long ways from doing that and we are doing less than $100 million last year. and if we do $500 million and the fee structure is two and 20, in management fees alone, that's $10 million a year. so this recommendation more than pays for itself alone in reducing the management fees. and then that doesn't even consider the incentive fees, the 20%, say, above the peferred prd rate. and standard fees of a co-investment, instead of two and 20, might be zero or 10 or

maybe one and 10. so this recommendation more than pays for itself. it looks like a big headline number of 10 f.t.e.s and $4 million of gross additional costs, but the total costs net for reduced management fees is far more easily comfortably than pays for itself. so the first is resources. the second is a career track. for analysts to s.p.m., and to assistant portfolio manager, and also for our s.p.m.s to become directors. so it provides for more -- much more of a career track. and the third is co-investments. we have great partnerships with our g.p.s. we think that we have really good intelligence into -- into their securities. and that we can invest in those,

you know, at some degree of scale if we have had the internal resources and that we could do that at low cost and earn higher returns. so the third is to provide for more of a co-investments and there's several options that we could take other than this proposal. we could index more. we could do more e.t.f.s and invest in more of a same old been here, done that type of strategies that can take very large amounts of capital. or we could outsource the co-investments. but that's also expensive and you lose some control by doing that. and our g.p.s are not going to share their ideas with another asset manager. by far, we think that the best solution of those five options that i just listened which are detailed elsewhere in the recommendation, by far the best of these five options is

certainly to on board an internal co-investment and a direct program. the last recommendation is elevation of authority. we recommended last year up to 2% of plan assets and up to 25 basis points per investment. we have done a lot less than that, because we are not scaled right now to do that. and the delegation ask is because of the oftentimes the short timelines that are required for co-investments. we made -- i don't think that we've had a situation this year where we had a one week turnaround, but we have had three week turnarounds. and so oftentimes we will experience this without delegation of authority is that without that, is that there will

be investments that we will not be able to make simply because they don't align with the board calendar. that completes the recommendation of the strategic plan and i'm glad to have a conversation or questions from the board. >> thank you, mr. coaker. are you there? >> yes. >> thank you so much. board members, you have heard the updated strategic plan and recommendation from mr. coaker. any questions or concerns? if so, we'll take the questions now. >> commissioner bridges, this is brian, can i say a couple things. >> president bridges: commissioner stansbury, please proceed. >> first off, i think that there's an issue from the

previous agenda item where the board wanted to get an idea of the timeline on how to hire these positions and prioritize them and the annual costs over the next couple years. i want to get to that. and, i don't know if you want to make a motion or i can make a motion for that. but i want to do that separate from the strategic plan in front of us. but i want to talk about the strategic plan though. so i thank you for putting this together and i'm very supportive of this. but i would say that there's one caveat though. the delegation of authority, i would ultimately like to get to that point. but i think that as we're building out a new area, something that we haven't done a lot of in the past -- essential in an area that we're looking to hire, you know, a managing director and a couple of people to support them, i think that we need to hold off on the delegation of authority until we can get that practice area really set up. and i wouldn't have supported --

to me this is no different than what we do with absolute return. there is a push before we ever hired somebody to start making decisions about how we're going to do it. and i thought that was the cart before the horse. and i feel the same with what we're looking at today. and so there's a lot of changes that are happening right now and we're trying to get our budget in place. we're doing a search for an executive director. and i think that we need to try to separate out delegation of authority and i'm happy to make the motion to support all of the other items, striking delegation authority, and then i think that the board needs to do a deeper dive on other systems and how they delegate, their history in terms of their performance. you know, obviously, there's some really good models out there that are doing this really well. and we also need to start thinking about what structure we'll be working towards in the long term. now in the interim, if there are situations where there needs to be a quick turnaround, i'm always happy to make myself for

an emergency board meeting. but i think that in most instances, i think that we, you know, we should be able to still get things through if we're only meeting on a monthly basis. but if there's a great deal that you feel that you need to bring forward, then i say to bring it forward. but i will tell you what i'd rather do. i would rather leave a couple good deals on the table that we miss for timing and get the proper structure in place and to do this well from the start, than to have some missteps that maybe cause us to abandon the program prematurely. which tends to be the history of, you know, the retirement board. so i will leave it up for the rest of the board to discuss, but i'm happy to make that motion when there's time. >> president bridges: okay, any other comments from the board members on the strategic update and the strategic plan? >> are we still talking about staffing decisions as well?

>> president bridges: that's a part of the plan, yes. >> right. so i'll just say this -- i know that we have spent a lot of time talking about whether we spend the money or whether we don't spend the money. i think that at this particular moment, given the uncertainty of the economy, given where our investments are going and given the need to reduce the burden on the general fund, i mean, i really feel like we should move in an expeditious manner. i heard the staff say that it could be potentially up to october of next year before postings would go up and it wouldn't be until the following year before people would be hired. so i think we need to think strongly about a supplemental request and moving quickly on investing in talented and recruiting the talented staff and spending the money now to get the return on investment to maintain that strong level of return for our fund. and so i think we should be

heading in that direction. i would like to hear what other board members have to say, but i certainly don't want to wait until this time next year to be hiring people and put the right staffing in place. >> i want to concur with that. and i think that this is the reason. we have a member of the board of supervisors on our board. exactly as to the educational process of how the government works and the supplemental idea is to me absolutely the way to go. i think that it's very, very important. >> and i would chime in, commissioners, that like our regular budget that we would bring this back to the february board meeting for a request that the board approve that we submit the request for supplemental resources prior to the regular

budget cycle. so, certainly, this would be something that we would bring back to the board and we would need the board to approve before we submit it to the board of supervisors. >> can i ask a question about process. does it go to the board of supervisors or to the mayor's office? >> i'm not familiar with the supplemental budget process, but i would say that first stop is this board and then we would go through, like you said, whether it had to go through the mayor's office. my understanding on a supplemental is that you -- well, i shouldn't speak. i'm not familiar with supplemental budget process. >> because my understanding -- i was going to say that my understanding last time is that we submitted a budget request to the mayor's office as part of our annual cycle. and our budget request was -- all new budget requests were struck. >> the mayor is required every

year to submit a balanced budget to the board of supervisors. that's the process that all departments go through. that's the process that started now and will culminate with the board's approval of our, quote, regular department budgets. those are the positions, the new positions, that could be funded until october or later this year. the supplemental process is more on an emergency basis. it isn't tied to the normal cycle of the mayor -- i'm not sure what -- but certainly not timewise, it could be accomplished i think much more quickly. and the funding for the petitions could be -- once the board of supervisors approved them, rather than waiting for three to four months to start filling the positions.

>> i just wanted to make sure that also that we have our staffing needs and the final decision-making for the executive director. have we discussed the final salary range and whether or not we are going to be including that in the conversation as well? >> president bridges: yes, commissioners, that is something that we covered that i can update you later on on that portion of it. >> no, i got that. but i mean in terms of the overall package, if we were asking for a supplemental budget request -- >> president bridges: yes. >> okay, so i just wanted to make sure that when they come back next month, the staff comes back next month, that is also included. >> that could be -- that could be a full package. >> president bridges: yes,

that's exactly what i said, yes. sorry, commissioner stansbury go on? >> i think that we need to be careful about what we're talking about in open session, number one. and, number two, we need to be clear that they are two separate issues. >> president bridges: right. >> they're obviously connected but they're separate. i would prefer that we take up the executive director issue either offline or back in a closed session and talking about it. >> president bridges: yes. >> okay, thank you, madam chair. >> president bridges: okay, any other questions on the updated strategic plan? >> yes. >> president bridges: commissioner -- >> i would like to note commissioner safai used both words in his original comment. first he said extending and then investing. this supplemental budget, investing in our investment team. and to include the developmental

issues that were mentioned in terms of not just the people but the career development if we want to get increased performance, and this the investment in our investment team that we need to do. with that on the budget, i'll stop. there are other ways of looking at the numbers that were presented. we have the benefit of pursuing the more private markets, which just have less volatility by definition. so i don't think that he promises a guaranteed increased return, but if we want to reach the 7.4, we need the people to do the work which is simply increased as our fund has grown. so, again, hopefully the supplemental budget will be presented to us to push through the mayor's office and to the board of supervisors to continue to develop and to increase our investment team. thank you.

>> can i just ask a question? >> president bridges: yes, you can. >> thank you. process-wise, do we need to go back through the budget committee? or can we bring this to the full board? >> let's go back to the full board. we're all talking about the same issue. let's not get caught up in our own process. >> i agree with that, jay. does that sound right according -- >> well, ultimately brought from the committee to the full board. because of the urgency and the need to get the resources now, i would suppose that the operations oversight committee will still be processing the full budget, the normal budget process, and they're having a meeting later this month which, again, would be culminating and presenting a full budget to the board at the same time that we're requesting a supplement or you're approving authorizing or requesting a supplementary

budget that would come before the funding of the normal budget. so it will be at the same meeting. one would have gone through a committee, this one can be brought directly to the full board because of the need to get it started. >> that's fine. i sit on the budget committee and that's -- the operations committee and that's fine with me. do you feel that you need a motion and a vote from the board? or do you feel that you have sufficient direction? >> i believe that we tried to break this item into two pieces and one of them you certainly are giving us and commissioner safai has indicated that he believes that the retirement board is going to be successful doing the supplemental and you can direct me to do it, and i don't think that there's a motion. but as far as approving the strategic plan, i believe that needs to be a motion, even if

it's the (indiscernible) delegation of the board. >> so this is off the budget real fast. so i feel that you have received enough direction from the board, commissioner bridges as president, do you feel like we need to do anything differently on that item? >> president bridges: no, i concur with talking offline that we go (indiscernible) and have the full budget and then the full board can come back on this separate item. but i think we have enough direction there so we can separate that out from the strategic plan to come back on the action plan. >> okay. supervisor, thank you for your support in this. do we want to talk about that some more or go back to the strategic plan? >> president bridges: i'm fine with the budget, unless other commissioners have additional questions. i think that you are good with your direction as well.

>> correct. we will be calendaring a separate item related to a supplemental budget request. and by that time we'll be familiar with the process that we can press the board to approve for investing in investment staff outside the normal budget cycle, getting the resources much sooner, rather than later. >> president bridges: correct. so, commissioners, if we're all on board on that we can move back to the updated strategic plan and then taking that portion away. any questions or concerns on how we separated it out? >> i would table a question about the career development track. is there a human resources -- hold on -- sorry, couldn't keep

out the background noise. is there a human resources issue in terms of the time that it takes to get through a hiring process, besides the budget process? or is it done where you have to go through the whole -- it's called the budget process and then go through the human resources of announcing and hiring and examining, etc., etc.? commissioner driscoll, the issue here is that there are new positions, new levels of -- (indiscernible), for example, senior security analyst position. those have to be worked through the civil service and the d.h.r. process with the city to get those positions approved, classified, and the compensation

set. that will not impact the ask, that is why we have approved the positions and as bill mentioned in his presentation by grouping, for example, the security analyst with the assistant portfolio manager if they are funded at a level that would give bill and the department the flexibility to choose what level we would be filling. so we will pare down, you know, i'm almost positive that our ask is not going to be for the full 10 additional votes -- resources for the supplemental. but i think that the combination of a supplemental and the regular two-year budget cycle should cover all 10, just to give you an idea of what we're looking for. and bill and i will work to determine what is the most urgent, what is the needs, and

most likely it will be focused on the direct investment area, and we would use the existing classifications to recruit those positions in the current jobs that -- because you're right -- commissioner driscoll. we work with the d.h.r. on the civil service commission to create asking approving the new job classifications for the city, it is an extended process. >> are you -- that civil service part of the process. are you going to wait for the supplemental process to be approved before you start? or are you ready to start now on the bases they the money might be approved? >> we have already started with what we had originally called in the january 2020 plan -- the investment office classification

level. and we have started and initiated the discussions with d.h.r. surrounding all of the levels and the representation of this new position. so what we're going to have to do is to refocus that and see if it fits in and whether we're going to -- to answer your question, we started it in advance, started with one of the levels that we had proposed when none of the positions were approved. and we did press them to complete that process but there's a process underway on that. >> again, glad to hear that you're ready -- you have already started, please continue it so that it doesn't take another year and a half to hire somebody. if we're more than ready and willing to pursue this once we get the budget approval. it's working out for you in civil service and you have to meet with the union and the investment team. i'm encouraging you to continue

to work on it because it's a (indiscernible) and the human resources, something that looks like it will take six months takes 18 months and we're trying to avoid that. >> right. i'm prepared to hire immediately if we get the supplemental. it would be at the managing director, the director, and the senior portfolio manager and the security analyst level resources. the rest of them for the career path will be over the next year or year and a half. >> president bridges: okay, any additional questions on the strategic plan? >> that focused on part one and possibly part two of how it is written in the staff recommendations. i'm not sure exactly what commissioner stansbury's motion

is about with the strategic plan? >> yeah, commissioner. i'm happy to see if i can do a better job of addressing that. (please stand by) . . . . hopefully in the next couple of years we can get a structure in place where we can start to

transition to delegations. let me see if i can re-imagine what you're saying. we've got a football team and they're out on the field and we have a coach. and the ownership, the management is doing what? we're responsible for getting the resources so the coach can put the right team on the field, correct? >> yes. >> but are we in danger of calling the plays? as opposed to the coach calling the plays. i want to make sure that

distinction is there. if we're responsible for the plays, then we're responsible and are to be held responsible for the performance. >> i don't think we are any more responsible than private equity or private debt or real estate and real assets and i don't think there's anymore responsibility or interference on this than any other investment. what i am saying is we're trying to go and run an offense and we don't have an offensive coordinator. let's get the koord nay nor place which is in the budget and then let's talk about a different structure. in the meantime, i think we should do a deeper dive into how other systems are doing this so we can start preparing ourselves to hit the field running when we get that team in place. >> we can hear from the coach

what his thoughts are. what i feel is and jay, correct me if i'm wrong, we have a good team in place here right now, and we are being target and recruited by others to take our team members away. we really are in the job of protecting our team members and enhancing them because they are pretty valuable to other teams. and i just want to understand what you are saying and give staff the full authority -- >> i didn't say that. did i say that? >> i am asking jay -- no, what i'm saying to jay is, is that true? is that true that our team

members are being targeted for recruitment away. i believe the more that our team distinguishes themselves and the industry, the more interests there are, and i hat to even be having this conversation. i am knocking on every piece of wood that i can find, but part of the bonus structure that we put in place is also not just to be able to hire folks but to retain folks meaning that if they are looking and offered a position with another employer that we would at least have the opportunity to try and offer them additional bonus money. i have no direct knowledge of anyone hopefully that is listening or even not listening on our investment team that would be looking around, but i do believe as we set them out and introduce them into the

world as they have shown to be very successful team, bill and i are always concerned and will always be concerned about making sure that we can change the quality of the team. and we just believe that bill and i talk often that the thinness that we have currently is we have a very senior level person, and then we have someone who does not have the experience that is managing portfolios. if that senior level is recruited away, that person is recruited away, what we have done is we have asked people at that same level who have responsibilities for other portfolios to sort of fill in until we can recruit and replace that person. that is a concern that bill and i have. i hope we don't have any

opportunities to have to deal with these issues for many years to come. no, you are absolutely correct. the more success we have, the more people become aware of players and the more people are tempted to try and get them on their team. >> can we stop talking analogies and talk direct to the issues in front of us? either people support this or they don't. if they don't support it or they do support it, the managers need to explain why. >> i think we're getting information here, and i think it's good and healthy to have a good discussion about what's going on here. and i'm learning a lot as i go on here. >> i think that's part of our fiduciary responsibility to extract all the information about what is transpiring and what are the needs and what is going on exactly and why staff

proposes something. and that is our responsibility to find out why they have something and what are the upsides and down sides of it. >> maybe some of these questions were not asked last year, but they were not. and when you bring the question to who is calling the play? the coach, the coordinator or the quarterback? let alone the owners. the owners should not be calling the play in case you want to continue with the analogy. however, we have constantly asked about the staff having their resources. and we are past that with what we talked about many minutes ago. the issue is about decision quality and the objective of decision quality is the net asset value of the fund.

the question goes to who is making decisions. and the way it was done which is not a unanimous decision and coming back to find out going forward how to get the decision quality so we know what we're doing and we have the right people working hard and compensating them for what they're doing. and with how much of the money should be invested in things where it's more labor intensive like co-investing. and obviously i have a problem with the way the delegation was voted on last year. and i still do and i am for more co-investing but improving the decision making process both with the speed at which it can be done. that is what we should work on as well. thank you. >> president: thank you, commissioner driscoll. commissioner casciato, have you completed your comments?

i am coming back to you. >> commissioner: commissioner driscoll brings up a good point. i don't know if he could put that in the form of a separate motion that does not affect the entire strategic plan. >> i guess you are saying you would like a motion on what he stated -- >> commissioner: i am looking at commissioner driscoll to ask him how he would bifurcate that out of this strategic plan so we don't -- what i am fearing is i am fearing that we would kill the entire strategic plan and i don't want to do that. >> president: i don't think that is what they recommend is that we kill the entire plan. that is not what i heard. what i heard is extracting a

component of this out and then approving the rest of the plan. if i misinterpreted it, please correct me. >> commissioner: well, that's what i interpreted from commissioner driscoll. i want to see how that could be handled. >> commissioner: i will chime in. >> president: did i have it right, commissioner stansbury, that you were only suggesting one component, not the entire plan? that you were addressing is on delegation? >> commissioner: that is correct, commissioner bridges. the only thing that i want to change about the strategic plan is giving staff the full authority to approve investments. i still want to do the investments and i support the strategic plan minus the delegation portion. i want them to come back to the board for approval until we get a team in place. and a deep dive on other structures and systems and take a look back and see how well we

have done and assess the track record. then we can talk about sell delegation. i support the strategic plan with the delegation of authority. i got that portion and basically supports the plan to approve the delegation and the way it was done. and right now are you having issues with the delegation portion? >> basically the answer is question. and not that i agree with what commissioner stansbury said or commissioner casciato asked, but when staff presented investment, the policy and belief statement, i pointed out two things should be included. one was decision quality. if we pursue decision quality, the issue about how it will come back to make decision making

effective in the co-investment which was perhaps the point and the objective of point four written by mr. coker and the investment team is how we will achieve that. so yes, we should be doing the co-investing but how we make the decision is part of what i am saying. i am allowed to continue working on the investment policy statement. i think we will see the improvement there as the board discussed at our retreat about a year ago when we had consultants come in to talk about decision making. here is the recommendation that i had. are there any other comments before i make my recommendation? the recommendation i would make is the updated strategic plan and is good and sound. i want to comment our c.i.o. and the team for putting it together with the biggest delegation portion. we have a governance committee

in place. that portion of the plan can go in the discussion for governors and come back. we can always amend the plan to update it based on the delegation once they go through in the governance piece. if that is the only contention to extract that piece and that piece can go for discussion and governors can bring it back to the full board. that is my recommendation. i am perfectly fine with that. i concur with that also. >> me, too. >> president: okay. so i will entertain a motion from someone based on the recommendation i made. >> commissioner: i am happy to make the motion. >> commissioner: i will second it. >> commissioner: my motion is we will -- my motion is we approve

the updated spurs investment plan to 2020 to 2030 with the exception of number four on page three as it speaks to the authority of delegation. i ask that component goes to the governance committee for review and bring the recommendation back to the full board. >> commissioner: i second that. >> president: okay, it is moved by commissioner stansbury and seconded by commissioner casciato that we as a board accept the updated strategic plans with the investment team including number four which is delegation and that portion of the plan will be sent back to the governor's committee and back to the bull ford and at which time review the portion of the plan.

other than that, the entire plan is up for approval. just before the vote i would like to ask staff, jay, and bill to chime in and let us know does this have a negative or positive impact on the neutral and positive operations of the system? anyone want to go first? >> i will say that since the vote and it was a 4-1 vote back in january with the board approving this delegation piece, we have executed under that delegation of authority. now, with this vote it will be taken -- it will be taking that

avenue away from staff. so i can't answer from staff perspective what type of impact that will have, but we certainly have been operating under the authority that the retirement board gave us back a year ago in executing not a lot of activity, but certainly we have used that authority to execute some investments. that will be a takeaway. i will defer to our c.i.o. to have his feelings on the impact on staff. >> members, two comments come to mind. one is there could be a periodic opportunity that we would otherwise pursue to completion and invest in that if it doesn't align with the regular board calendar, we won't be able to

make that investment now. commissioner stansbury has floated the idea, i believe, of maybe having a special board meeting. if we were to have that, we just kind of need to have confidence that we could pull at least four board members together on relatively short notice. often time these deals they happen in a week to three weeks along those lines. so there is that kind of impact and maybe a little bit of uncertainty on our ability to execute. a little bit of uncertainty that we need to communicate to the underlying g.p. that ultraviolet mali we don't have control of this. our board does, so you're going to have to wait for the final approval. there's just those kinds of

idiosynchrocies to be aware of. the second comment is it's very important to me that the board have full confidence if they do delegate they have full confidence and that that decision to delegate comes from you and with your fullest confidence. if you are there, i accept that and i don't want to press that and go beyond that line. i want to accept where the boundaries and where the rules and responsibilities as defined by the board and honor those. so if this is what the board decides to do, we will honor that and faithfully execute the

policy, procedure, and the roles and responsibilities of boards and staff. >> thank you, mr. cook. i don't anticipate this taking much. commissioner driscoll is chair of the governance committee. we are not talking months and years for this to get done. i don't anticipate that taking a long period of time for it to come back. commissioner crystle, please help me, correct me if i am wrong. >> without violating the meeting rules, i plan on them calling the board members with a clear understanding about what this

will mean that will have to come back to the full board, so we don't have to talk about it for months and months and months. in terms of aligning the objective in terms of what the fund is trying to do, all the fiduciaries which means the board members and the staff to include executive director and the investment officers, if we see that alignment, then we know how much to delegate and how much -- that is what resources and how quickly we need to respond if, in fact, we want to pursue any opportunity. to answer your question, commissioner bridges, is hopefully the governance committee will meet to have this calendar to come up with a clear recommendation to the full board that will work effectively in this one piece of the strategic investment plan. >> thank you so much, commissioner driscoll. are there any other questions or comments before we open for public comment on this motion?

if not, madam secretary, we will take public comment. >> moderator, are there any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there is one caller. thank you, caller. please state your name. you have two minutes that will begin when you start speaking. >> caller: this is fred sanchez with protect our benefits. can you hear me? >> secretary: yes, go ahead, please. >> caller: the plan is clear now and real clear why they need to invest in the staff.

a year ago i couldn't believe they didn't get the increase in the staff but this is an education piece that would clearly educate me at the board of supervisors. applaud supervisor safai bringing up the supplemental request that could be done. that is an excellent move. it is the best way to keep the discount rate going forward is by adding additional staff so they can continue to grow their asset value and fully understand that it comes out of the trust budget? not the city budget. if they have to go to 7.3 and that would add from $30 to $35 million a year. that i have don't want that especially with the current

crisis that's going on. the idea of a career track is very important for the retention. as you guys are getting so good at what you do, yeah, people are going to look at your personnel and try to pirate these people away. that's success. you use the analogy like football teams. they're going to look at the most successful football team and try to get their personnel. >> 30 seconds remaining. >> caller: i am in full support of this and anything we can do to help you. i think it's just an education piece. what you put forward to anybody and i think everybody understands what trustee driscoll said and the best investment that you can do is invest in your own team. it's wonderful.

>> thank you very much for your call. moderator, there are no other callers. >> thank you. hearing no calls, public comment is now closed. >> president: roll call vote please. >> president bridges. >> aye. >> commissioner casciato. >> aye. >> commissioner driscoll. >> aye. >> commissioner safai. >> commissioner heldfond. >> which one? >> commissioner heldfond. commissioner safai. >> aye. commissioner stansbury. >> aye.

commissioner heldfond? must have left. we have five aye's. motion passes. president bridges? >> thank you, madam secretary. next item please. item nine, action item. review and approval of sfers investment policy statements. >> thank you, board members. >> thank you, president bridges. a lot easier if we could see face to face. board members, in november the board approved a revised asset allocation. we have dilution reflected along with a few other things and anna will walk us through the changes and turn it over to the board for questions and alan martin is

also available as well. >> thank you, bill. >> good afternoon, commissioners and we work closely with the board to review and updates to strategic asset allocation for the next three years. this is the final part of this process. we are now bringing forward the update to the investment policy statement to reflect the target allocation as well as the ranges. in addition the board also approved the total plan leverage. the governance monitoring and restrictions around total plan leverage are now reflected in the updated i.p.s. investment quality statement. we will have a number of discussion with commissioners

and is heard loud and clear that an additional important investment belief is the factors are important in investment evaluations. that is now added to sfers investment. we also reviewed public equity investment guidelines to make sure that we reflect the additional need of liquidity and the desire to become more active management and more active rent. specifically the changes are that we require 25%er have us have previously 20% of public equity to be very liquid, what we called to1 and something to

liquidate and we also know that the way we structure and the active management and the active portfolio will go meet more walkups and allow what we call the risk measure of active risk to broaden the ranges from 1-4% up to 5% now additionally. lastly we are looking forward again since we had the discretion and we do look for investments as part of our adding active returns the proposal of the i.p.s. reports

monitoring and investment activities by general investment consultants. we have already been doing that and plan to present it with the upcoming investment activity. these are the five key areas of changes with the investment policy statement. we presented the updated version if there are any questions. alan martin is on online as well as myself and bill to answer any questions that the board has. thank you. board members, are there any questions from staff on the investment policy statement?

and thanks again for this investment policy and the updates were pretty much to execute decisions made by the board on staff recommendations of the previous month. perhaps i will then work on comments i made last year when this was adopted about the subject of uncertainty that should be addressed. sorry about that. because mr. corker was nice enough to send the article on uncertainty and around the things on what we are doing in investing. part two is the issue about decision making quality that is also another belief how it can improve our rates of return. and the net asset value and with

what volatility is and item five is a broad statement about risk. thank you for this statement. it is a living document that can be expanded in the future to deal with all the other beliefs, not just one separate list. thank you. >> this is alan. i do want the board -- >> mr. martin. >> i do want the board to know we went over this document with great care. we reviewed the duties and responsibilities and we carefully reviewed in addition to your targets the ranges and the benchmarks. we have been through that exhaustively with staff. the one area where there was a minor disagreement, and i understand it, and i feel i should mention it for your consideration is in the absolute return portfolio we're

continuing the 90 day t-bills plus 500 basis points. as you know, market rates have come down and the realized return would be more in line with 90 day t-bill plus 3 instead of five. your staff who is responsible for achieving this is unanimously in favor of the higher benchmark. they are aggressive people and they want to do better. i should mention to you going forward achieving that 90-day t-bill plus 500 basis points is optimistic. i only raise that so you are aware of the dialogue. otherwise we're fully supportive of the document and are fine with the 5%. that is your how high do you want to set that goalpost for you. thank you for the commentary and

the update. appreciate that. any other comments or commentary? any other comments from board members? >> really president bridges and following up on alan's comment. it's not that staff disagrees t bills plus three that is more appropriate and how it is. mainly we have chosen to remain silent on the issue. we think when staff advocating for a lower threshold of returns to measure of success could be self-serving. we want to avoid that. we think assignment of benchmarks and the like in the

recommendation to the board. >> thank you, mr. coker. board members. this is an action item so at this point i will take your comments and concerns. if there are none, then i will entertain a motion. >> move adoption of the recommended changes in the investment policy statement. >> thank you, commissioner driscoll. >> i will second it. >> thank you, commissioner casciato. it has been moved by commissioner driscoll and seconded by commissioner casciato that we adopt the updated sfers investment policy statement presented to us by staff. at this time, madam secretary, if you open the phone lines for public comment. if there are no other -- if there is no other discussion.

>> thank you. callers, if you have not already done so, please press star 3 to be added to the queue. moderator, are there any caller on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> secretary: thank you. public comment is now closed. >> thank you. roll call vote on the motion. >> president bridges. >> aye. >> commissioner heldfond. >> aye. >> he may have left the meeting. commissioner safai? commissioner safai?

commissioner stansbury. >> aye. we do have four ayes on the motion. >> president: thank you, madam secretary. please call 10, 11, and 12 together. >> i'm sorry, madam chair. my thing was stuck for a minute. is it too late to be added as an aye? >> no. >> thank you. we have five aye's. motion passes. yes, we were. >> thank you. we are calling items 10, 11 and

12 together. recommendation to hire cambridge associates for private credit consulting services. recommendation to hire come braj associates for private equity consulting services and recommendation to hire aksia llc for private market performance reporting services. >> very good, board members. in the interest of time, we will be brief here. the recommendation is to retain the incumbent and the process was vigorous including the drafts of the r.f.p. and meeting together and determining who to focus on. hosting meetings with three

finalists and ultimately arriving at the decision. the sum is that we have a really good thing going with cambridge and we have a terrific partnership. we have great coverage including the unique strategies that we tend to emphasize and not every consultant sourced to do in cambridge and is very experienced and capable at all of those. in addition they may call aksia and tori crow was a previous consultant for recording. we have a good thing going there and terrific reporting is very comprehensive. very detailed. very granular.

we have a really good thing going and it was a good exercise to go through this to be aware of and evaluate the scale and capabilities of services of the different providers. in the end our recommendation is to retain them and with that i will turn it over to the board. and we are available for questions. >> thank you, mr. corker. are there any board members for the investment team on the recommendation to retain the two consultants? private equity and aksia for market performance and reporting. >> a curious question. is mr. davis still with aksia or out of the business? >> carter or tanya, do you want to address that?

>> david is part of the team. i also wanted to mention that the private teams for equity and to answer any questions as well. david should be on the line as well. >> thank you nar additional piece of good news. >> from there any other questions or comments on this recommendation from our cio and investment team? if not, i will entertain a motion -- i'm sorry. >> i would like to i a prove adoption of adoption on items 10, 11, and 12. >> that is correct, commissioner driscoll. >> do i have a second? hello? do i have a second on the motion?

>> second, commissioner safai. >> thank you, commissioner safai. it is moved by commissioner driscoll that we adopt staff's recommendation on item 10, 11, and 12 to retain, to hire cambridge associates for private credit consultant services. hire cambridge for private equity and last week to hire aksia for private market performance. if there are no other discussions or comments i will now answer public comment. >> thank you. callers, reminder to press star 3 to be added to the queue. moderator, are there any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> thank you. hearing no calls, public comment is now closed. president bridges? >> thank you, madam secretary.

roll call vote. president bridges. >> aye. >> commissioner casciato. >> aye. >> commissioner driscoll. >> aye. >> commissioner safai. >> aye. >> commissioner stansbury? >> aye. >> we have five ayes. the motion passes. president bridges? >> thank you, madam secretary. item 13, discussion item. chief investment officer report. mr. coker, you are up again. >> the good news, board members, is we're really close to the finish line. and on top of that, great month to report. on top of that what turned out to be a great year. in december we were up another

2.54% on top of the 5.51% gain to the portfolio as a whole in invest which is an extraordinary return for a diversified book. and our public equity book was up 5.7% just last month. in the past quarter our public equity book is up 17.68%. on a fiscal year to date, let's hope for continued good news in the first six months of the current fiscal year we are up 16.4%. that is remarkable for a six-month period. our public equity book is up almost 30%. and some good news is while the initial rally was pretty much in technology and nasdaq is up 63.5% for the six months ended december. more recently that rally is

broadening and consumer discretionary is now up 59% and six months ended december. and in consumer discretionary is leading the market up. and the sign of a more broad rally is the international markets were significantly trailing the u.s. earlier in the year. the past month to outperforming and so have small stocks which also trailed substantially in the months of the recovery. then on calendar year basis we're up, excuse me, the private equity book was doing most extraordinary and the returns

have been boasted significantly by three, four pill lars and overweight technology, bio tech in china and manager selection throughout the portfolio. in a calendar year, it is hard to imagine this here back at the end of march amid the plunge of 34% plunge in the stock market in just over a month. we ended the calendar year up 13.48% an outperformed by more than 12% is the calendar year and private equity book was also up 22% on the calendar year. our absolute return portfolio has staged a terrific comeback in the month of december alone up 3.01% and for the quarter it

was up 6.84. you recall back at the trough at the end of march it was down 10.94%, i believe, or something along those lines. and up 2.93 and a remarkable recovery and on a fiscal year to date basis and the six months ended december and the barclay's aggregate is up 1.29%. market is recovering and 1.29% and the absolute return book is up 9.24%. and is now outperforming the barclay's ag by about 1% annualized since inception of the program four and half years ago. if we take a look on page four of the memo is been backstopped by a whole lot of presenting of

money. right now it is the aggregate central bank spending. if it were a country, it would be the largest country in the world. the recovery has been because record stimulus has really prevented a depression. then the other caution is that price earnings ratios have risen considerably. chart at the bottom of page four shows the ratios are 30 to 50 percent higher than they were a year ago. all the recovery and more in stock prices is because of multiple expansion and not because of earnings. that is expressed on page five and earnings are down about 20%.

and also maybe not a word the economy and earnings length and sometimes the economy and the stock market and earnings dealing because the market is a forward looking mechanism. it is anticipated with pricing and recovery now or recovery in the future. always sometimes the economy in the stock market being there and that is what took place certainly in 2020. the market is expecting a solid recovery to sustain the recent gain. and included in the index returns to see where this is for calendar year end. you see when you look out over long periods of time is returns

tend to be okay. the u.s. is returned 10% or a tad more and returned 10 to 13 percent. and europe is a difficult place and emerging markets have been extremely uneven. those returns are then compounded on page six. if you look out with the 2.7% spread in the nasdaq of 13.4 versus 10.7. it provides a compound return just so that we have a realization of the value of earning high compound returns over a long period of time. you see over a 30-year period with the terrific compound of 20x and just the extra 2.7% has

resulted in 42x return. i will quickly move on to page seven with items the board has previously approved in closed session and are due to be reported in open session. and the real estate investment board to approve for $50 million in november. with the allocation of $25 million. last month the board approved the second investment in communication with communications infrastructure specialist and the board approved the allocation with the allocation of $50 million. kennedy lewis the initial investment in this private credit specialist, we requested

an allocation and got that to win. subsequent to the board to the publication of the board materials and three additional items and first the long hill and along shortly and the board manager approved. we did receive $30 million and another real estate investment and the board approved for $50 million and received $40 million back in january of 2020. a year ago the board approved an investment in gssr capital solar partners for up to $50 million. and the word of explanation to why the long delay. one is covid delayed the

fundraising for the manager for a long period of time. and there were some important partners that they were waiting to hear from to the flagship partners. they were waiting to receive and the size of the ultimate funds is going to be for finalizing our commitment. that played into our decision is the reduction in the strategic asset allocation for real assets from 17 to 10 percent. we reduced the allocation here. in november moving on to page nine in november and trump administration issued an executive order restricting the investment in more than 30 companies that the defense

department is viewed as being identified as communist chinese military companies. we have communicated those requirements to restrict investment and start no further investment starting january 11. then to divest from existing investments and november 11 of this year. we have communicated this memo says to all managers and make that read all relevant managers and that means all of the public equity manageers and the public fixed income manageers and a large portion of our private equity managers from public equity security and went through manager by manager out there. and we did issue all of the absolute term managers. and on personnel update we have

two security analyst positions that are open and justin and anna were very close on both of those. and lastly as we have an investment meeting, this catches us up on the i.c.e. meeting scheduled for next week at 2:00 to 3:30 and hosting the head of global private markets for cambridge associates and served for 20 years. i know you are really going to enyou and i hearing from andrea. she is a stream of consciousness. it's going to be a great conversation. lastly i will note that we crossed a new threshold for the first time now over $30 billion. and 30.6 million and the recovery and from $111 million.

and i will turn it over to the board for questions and comments. >> board members, are there questions for the c.i.o. on the monthly report? i would like to thank the team for the extraordinary performance and a lot of hard work has gone into making sfers a first class investment system and thank you very much and i salute you and the entire team. president bridges and i do want to acknowledge also the board and executive director huish. you have been most supportive of the distinguished approach to asset allocation and especially manager selection throughout the book. thank you very much for your

support. and also to our team who executes on that strategy. they are incredibly thoughtful and comprehensive in the approach to the work, and i also want to thank our consultants nepc in cambridge for whom we also get exceptional support. it is truly a team effort and a high operating staff. thank you. >> i concur. and the same to the consultants as well. >> board members, are there questions? >> thank you so much, mr. coker. this is a discussion item to open this for public comment. >> thank you, callers. if you have done so, press star 3.

moderator, are there any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no no callers on the line. >> thank you. hearing no calls, public comment is now closed. president bridges? >> thank you, madam secretary. next item please. >> item 14 is discussion item. approve compensation manager report. >> and happy to see you. it's wonderful to see you, president bridges. welcome back. put it in and lovely to see your faces again as i was on maternity leave and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl in april of 2020. and despite her being a week and a half early, she was a 9 1/2 pound baby girl. for those who don't know me, i am not a large woman, so that

was quite a feat. her brother is five years old and he is in kindergarten and like all other public school children in the city and county of san francisco, he has been distance learning through zoom. and he is surviving with other children and unprecedented and extraordinary times and i am so grateful and delighted to return to work. i would like to express mycin sere appreciation to the board and mr. huish for the time off and my deepest thanks to the staff who are dedicated who are dedicated to the pandemic. and did an excellent job as i have been told so thank you very much, mr. voy, for holding down

the fort and keeping the plan focused on the mission. so if there are no comments to that, i would like to resume business as usual. i am aware of the hour. i will keep this quick. before you is the monthly border report with monthly contributions and demographics and you can see the plan had nearly $4.3 billion with a b in assets as of the end of november. self-directed brokerage assets are up as well since we opened the platform to allow stocks and e.t.s. last year. and new participants and staff is currently working to explore innovative ways to garner the enrollment despite working

remotely. and some good news, and participants are better prepared than the average american with the retirement savings and on page five the average account balance is more than double the average workers. finally on page six you can find loan information which is the perfect segue to provide the final numbers of the cares act. as a reminder the cares act allowed participants to take $100,000 in covid loans and distributions before the end of last year. you can imagine a flurry of calls and requests that came in at the end of the year. the total amount of covid distributions is just shy of 40 million from 1100 participants. there are 54 covid loans with less than two million outstanding and 80 participants chose to suspend their loan.

with that, i would like to answer any questions or address any comments the board may have. >> thank you. board members, are there any other questions? >> i would like to welcome diane back. we will talk soon. we will plan a meeting to get together and going forward for the year on deferred compensation. >> absolutely. wonderful to hear from you, commissioner casciato. >> we will do it between kindergarten zoom classes. thank you, commissioners and thank you, mr. moy. the discussion items and no other comments, we are opening up for public comment. >> thank you, callers reminder

to go star 3. and moderator, are there any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> thank you. hearing no callers, public comment is now closed. president bridges? >> president: thank you. thank you for that report. madam secretary, next item please. >> secretary: item 15, action item, approve request to adjust industrial visibility retirement allowance and 50% to 70%. i will make a motion to approve. >> i'm sorry. >> i want to make a motion to approve that. >> thank you, commissioner casciato. >> is there a second?

>> second. awe moved pi commissioner casciato and seconded by commissioner driscoll. we approve the request to adjust the industrial disability retirement allowance from 50% to 70% subject to the retirement system's credit rights qsr. is there any discussion? if not, we will take public comment at this time. >> thank you. moderator, are there any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> thank you. hearing no calls, public comment is now closed. >> thank you, madam secretary. roll call vote please. >> president bridges. >> aye. >> commissioner casciato. >> aye. >> commissioner driscoll. >> aye. >> commissioner safai.

commissioner stansbury. >> aye. >> thank you. we have four aye's. motion passes. president bridges. >> thank you, madam secretary. next item please. >> item 16 action item. closed session number two. conference with legal counsel on existing litigation. >> at this time we will exit our public general session and go into closed session. and that is closed session item number two that you should be going into. and item 16.

it should be in your calendar. so exit this and click on item two. all right. everyone will leave this session and go to the closed session. >> the retirement board meeting, january 13, 2021. thank you, madam secretary. roll call. >> thank you. >> commissioner casciato. present. >> commissioner driscoll? >> commissioner. >> commissioner stansbury. >> you have a quorum.

president bridges. awe thank you, madam secretary. and back from closed session with the recommendation that the retirement to entertain a motion that the retirement board accept the court's recommendation to implement the following. and the april 19 decision to deny application and may 22. and number two, remand the case to the retirement systems direction. to the officers of administrative hearing and the assignment hearing and has retired. consistent with the courts and

determination that ms. simmons was incapacitated for the performance with the work related disability and decision on the remand of the retirement board for the approval at the regularly scheduled meeting after issuance of that conclusion. board members, at this time i will entertain a motion to disclose this information. the board accepted the decision and remand the safety and administrative office and the decision and with the job. >> u an i will move the item. the unanimous vote with all

board the motion. >> it was moved by commissioner stansbury and seconded by commissioner driscoll that we accept the recommendation as stated. any other questions or concerns? if not, roll call vote please. we have already voted. >> we need public comment. >> thank you. any callers, please press star 3 to be added to the queue. madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> secretary: thank you. public comment is now closed. president bridges. >> thank you, madam secretary. that is the end of the closed session item. next item please.

>> item 18, discussion item -- item 17, discussion item and executive directors report. commissioners, my report is short this month. however, i did want to provide the retirement board with the department of racial equity plan to submit to the board and supervisor and the ranked submission in december of last year. this is our first attempt at drafting the department racial equity action plan. other departments have started on this and of interest to the board potentially to be the results of the survey that we

conducted in december. it is towards the end of the plan. and also i am happy to report that we have appointed veronica rodriguez to be the racial equity leader. and she has partners with h.r. and has partners with senior staff team, but the working group that we have put together to represent dealing with the different top programs. we think with the member of the working group and the investment team and i always mispronounce his last name.

and the outstanding contributor and we have steven lou. we have beverly nadrano from the retirement operations. then we have one more. anson from the i.t. team. i keep forgetting about hanson. we have a group of five folk who is will be a working group. you will see that the plans and targets and required actions that we have to take. this plan is focused on phase one which is the hiring and the retention process for the city as well as for the department that are going to be additional phases in the next phase for the racial equity plan to be

community outreach. that will be coming in the future. this is something new. we have a team that worked on getting this drafted. it is the living document, the growing document. there is a section in there related to the retirement board. we're very pleased this team has been prepareded. i am here to answer any questions. if not, i will take public comment. on this item.

thank you. reminder to any callers on the line to press star three to be added to the queue. moderator, are there any caller on the line? madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> hearing no further calls, public comment is now closed. president bridges. >> item number 18, discussion items and retirement board members with the order. >> board member, do you have anything for the good of the order? >> i want to make sure to wish everybody a happy new year and hopefully by this time next year we will have a nice party and all enjoying ourselves. >> u an in-person, right? >> in-person.

>> anyone else? if not, i would like to thank you everyone. we had charges on the technical side and thank you for your patience and understanding. and secondly, commissioner driscoll, you had some technical difficulty and we didn't see you in the first closed session. commissioner stansbury will follow-up on that closed session on personnel. he will follow directly with the chairperson nell. and lastly, i would like to encourage the committee chairs to have the committee meetings set up with the board secretary and making sure we have committee meetings scheduled in the next month or so so we can have an effective working board for the committee structure. i really appreciate what ooen has done to date. the committees have been working and i appreciate that and thank you and encourage you to contact

future meetings for the ensuing year. if there are no other comments or concerns. does anyone else have any comments or concerns? if not, we will take public comment. >> thank you. moderators, are there any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. public comment is closed. >> thank you, president bridges. that is our agenda for today. now this meeting is officially closed. thank you very much. have a nice evening. be safe and be well. thank you very much to everyone and we will close. >> thank you. happy new year.

. >> you're watching coping with covid-19 with chris manners. >> hi. i'm chris manners, and you're watching coping with covid-19. today, my guest is phil

ginsburg. he's the director of the san francisco rec and parks, and he's a national rec and park ranger. thank you for being here. >> hi, chris. thank you for having me. >> i've heard you have an exciting new exhibit that features social distancing and is outside, so it's safer. can you tell us a little bit about it? >> the golden gate 50 anniversary wasn't the celebration that we hoped for, but when life deals you lemons, you hope to make lemonade, and we tried to engage people in the park in different ways. behind me is what we did. it's a public exhibit which has transformed peacock meadows

into an enchanted forest of other worldly shapes and lights. it's to close out golden gate park's 150 years and to allow people to have outdoors socially distant fun. >> great. and what are the hours, and when can people go see it, and are there access for wheelchairs and strollers? >> well, it will run until february 27, and the ways are wheelchair accessible. it will close in time to make the city's curfew. we're not supposed to be gathering. we're not supposed to be

celebrating out there, unfortunately. it is a beautiful exhibit and is one that can be seen from the sidewalk or you can wander into the meadow, but we ask that people be really mindful of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. the most important thing for us is to be safe and healthy. do not show up with other households. come and see it, get a little taste of the holidays and leave so other people can enjoy it. if it's too crowded, comeback because it's going to be around for a while. >> how long does it take to walk around the exhibit? >> well, you could be there for five minutes or 15 minutes or longer if it's not crowded. it's about in an acre of meadow, but it's very visible even from a fully accessible

sidewalk. you'll get a sense of it. basically, there are sculpted trees, and it's gorgeous. i got an opportunity to visit it over the weekend. the conservatory of flowers is there, and then, we have our amazing spreckels temple of music which was recently renovated and lit up in lights. >> i have information that it was created by a local artist.

what can you tell us about it? >> well, it's a new concept, but the lights were previously installed in a park in toronto and also in las vegas. the installation has been paid for through private donations to the golden gate park's san francisco 150 campaign. it reflects a culture steeped in science and history and culture. >> i can't wait to visit it. safely, of course. >> wear masks, distance, sanitize, and don't gather. >> well, thank you for coming on the show today, mr.

ginsburg. i appreciate the time you've given us today. >> thank you, and thank you for giving so much attention to golden gate park which has been so wonderful for us during covid and deserves a lot of extra love and attention on its 150 anniversary. >> and that's it for this episode. we'll be back with more information shortly. thank you for watching coping with afternoon. welcome to the january 12, 2021 regular meeting of the san francisco board of supervisors. madame clerk, will you please call the roll? >> thank you, president walton. supervisor chan? >> supervisor chan: present.

>> supervisor haney: present.