monday, may 10th, 2021, i'm aaron peskin, joined by raphael mandelman and connie chan. our clerk is mr. victor young. mr. young, do you have any announcements? >> yes. due to the covid-19 health emergency, and to protect board members, city employees, and the public, the committee room and board of chamber room are closed. committee members will attend the meeting through video conference to the same extent as if they were physically present. we are streaming the numbers across the stream. comments and opportunities to speak are available via phone -- one moment while we sort that out. is available by phone by calling 415-655-0001.

the meeting i.d. 1871153493, and then press pound and pound again. when connected, you will hear the meeting discussions, but you'll be muted and in listening mode only. when your item of interest comes up, dial *3 to be added to the speaker line. best practices are to call from a quiet location and turn down your television or radio. alternatively, you may submit committee to me, and it will be forwarded to the supervisions and included as part of the official file. that completes my official comments. item 1 is the motion appointing dean preston ending february 4th, 2022, to the

(indiscernable). >> chairman: colleagues, i want to thank supervisor preston for his willingness to serve on a local formation body, that is chaired by supervisor chan. supervisor chan, is there anything you would like to say about this? >> thank you, chair peskin, for scheduling this, and i want to also thank supervisor preston for his willingness to join us and spending the time, but i look forward to seeing his leadership on the commission to help us especially with the items around public bank. so thank you so much. >> chairman: thank you, supervisor chan. i don't believe that supervisor preston is present, and this is relatively proforma, done pursuant to a memorandum that the clerk of the

board of supervisors sends out from time to time, determining if members of the board are interested in various bodies, ranging from the goldengate bridge board to the california association of counties to the local agency formation commission, amongst others, and supervisor preston indicated his interest. is there any public comment on this item number one? >> yes. members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this item should call 415-655-0001, and the meeting i.d. is i.d. 1871153493. then press pound and pound again. and then dial *3 to line up to speak. a system prompt will indicate you have raised your hand, please wait until the system indicates you can speak. there are five listeners, but nobody lined up to

speak. >> chairman: okay. public comment is closed. i would like to make a motion to send this item to the full board with recommendation. on that motion, a roll call, please. >> clerk: supervisor mandelman? >> yea. >> clerk: supervisor chan? >> aye. >> clerk: chair peskin? >> aye. >> clerk: the motion passes. the next item, item 2 (indiscernable) for a term ending february 20th, 2024. i believe there is a request that this be sent out as a committee report. >> chairman: that is correct. thank you, mr. young. ms. gandhi, feel free to turn your camera on. i want to start by thanking ms. gandhi for the not one, but two meetings that we've had,

not in person, but virtually. and let me just start by saying that ms. gandhi is quite accomplished in her field. and i enjoyed our visit, and it was an opportunity for me to use my handful of phrases of terrible hindi language, but that is not what is before us today. what is before us is a motion pursuant to section 3.100 of the san francisco charter that relates to this appointment to the mighty retirement board of the city and county of san francisco that has an investment portfolio of many, many billions of dollars. and before we hear from ms. gandhi, who you all colleagues have a little write-up about her, and you may have already interviewed you herself. her form 700s are in the package and available to the public. i just wanted to say those

things for the record. but i want to put this into a little bit of context. obviously, this is a mayoral appointment, subject to section 3.100, which means that the board of supervisors can reject such an appointment within 30 days by a super majority of eight votes. and the last day that the board would have jurisdiction, sitting as a full board, would be tomorrow. hence the need to send this as a committee report. there has been a long-standing interest, arguably going back now a generation to the days when i was first elected over 20 years ago. in having the san francisco retirement system divest from its investments in fossil fuels, and in the last

almost decade that has been a very robust movement, championed by then supervisor john avelos, and it has been the subject of numerous resolutions by the board. as i told ms. gandhi, every appointee from the retirement board, supervisor safai, have been stal worth supporters of the investment from our fossil fuels portfolio, which is a very, very small part of the entire investment portfolio of the retirement system. that has been repeatedly met with resistance by staff. it has repeatedly been met with resistance by the oversight body, to which ms. shruty has been appointed to, and which we are considering today. despite the fact -- and i

say that acknowledging that the retirement board and its staff visit a fid fiduciary duty, and appropriately so. having said that, there have been a number of moral imperatives relative to investment over time. going back to the days of apartheid in south africa, where the retirement board, along with retirement systems across the country, chose to divest with companies doing business with south africa. the same was true around the city's historic investments in the firearms industries, which the retirement system divested from. the same is true with

tobacco, but has yet to be true for fossil fuels, despite the push from really remarkable coalitions of environmental activists. and in recent years, many retirement systems, academic retirement systems, like harvard, other cities and states, like new york, have been much more aggressive. san francisco's retirement system has been late to that system. with that in mind, the board of supervisions passed on february 23rd of this year, a resolution urging the mayor to appoint an individual to the retirement system who

had experience in divestiture, including divestiture in fossil fuels. i think that is what is before us today to consider. i have no question that ms. gandhi has the skills, the experience, and the background in the world of investment, and, indeed, her resume and her form 700s indicate that. i think the question before the board of supervisors today and tomorrow is relative to the unanimously passed resolution that we passed on february 23rd, that was co-sponsored by safai, ronen, mandelman, and mar, and voted for unanimously by the board. with all of that in mind, i do want to say that both of the conversations that i've had with ms. gandhi have been productive in

general, and in this specific regard, and with that, ms. gandhi, the floor is yours for as long as you would like it. >> first of all, thank you for the context and sharing that. and thank you forgiving methe opportunity to share my platforms. before i dive into that, i prepared a bit of my opening remarks to acquaint everyone who i am. i truthy gandhi. thank you for having me here. i'm a capital venturer. my fund focuses on (indiscernable) companies across different verticals, such as compliance, governance, health, finance, security, and my portfolio companies have been acquired by

companies like apple and others. before venture capital, i worked for ibm for a decade, working on many new patents, and also for the c.e.o. chairman at the time's office. i got my undergraduate degree on the east coast in computer science at meris college, and master's in computer science at columbia university. i have an m.b.a. university of chicago, school of business. chicago has produced many laurents in finance and economics. and i won the (indiscernable) award for 2021. having shared my resume now, i want to give -- and, you know, given you qualifications, as i mentioned, i want to give you my qualifications necessary for this

retirement board. and i will be honored to leverage my experience, knowledge, and network to serve for the role here. that is the points of me sharing my resume, just from the investment perspective. i know in february the board unanimously passed resolution for fossil fuel divestment. i want to mention that this goal is near and dear to my heart. with the recent drought, temperatures rising, we have something to do more aggressively to save our planet. with global temperatures rising every year, we have to act on a much shorter timeline. we have to get to carbon neutral as soon as possible, and have a clear plan on how to get there in three to five years. the resolution also called on the mayor to appoint an expert in sales

divestiture. i want to be clear i'm not that person, as you can see from my resume. but i will be a strong advocate for divestment. my expertise is helping companies set clear timelines, pushing them to meet those timelines. i want to bring transparency to our initiatives, to support a plan we were revisit regularly to track our progress towards these efforts. i think that san francisco employees and retirees are looking for more transparency, more visibility, into what the board and the retirement system are doing. lastly, my work over the last two decades will support notity the not just the divestment, but assets that reflect our san francisco values. thank you for that, and

thank you for your consideration. >> chairman: thank you, ms. gandhi, and i'll certainly turn it over to my colleagues on this panel. i think part of the rub, if you will -- and, by the way, in the last e.s.g. report, the retirement system indicated they would like to reach net carbon neutrality by 2050, which we found to be -- how should i say it nicely -- l. i think neutrality is a part of the issue, but the way the requirement system's staff and board has been treating this is that neutrality doesn't mean divestment. it means investment in alternatives. we want investment in alternatives and divestment from the approximately 120 instruments that are in the fossil fuel portfolio that i think total a little more than a half

billion dollars. really, a very small part of the entire portfolio. i think it is a couple of percent of -- >> 2% or less, yeah. >> chairman: there you go. okay. exactly. so i want to hear your thoughts about what neutrality means to you in your role on this body. >> actually, you bring up an excellent point, which i'm really good at, which is, you know, where does the money go once we do divestment. we should create a plan and make sure we stick to that plan. the part that i think alternate classes with high return in this category are important. i want to just point to one of my recent investments i made in this category, in a company called "solution," which recently announced they're going carbon negative. even though i may not have the best hat on for

something like this, it is definitely areas we're going to consider, where we focus our investment strategy, and what carbon neutrality really means, and not just neutrality, but more like carbon negative assets. i will still push for full divestment, i want to be clear on that, but pulling on my expertise, based on my experience and also people i know well in the industry, you know, we will get 200% divestment, but now also leverage all of these people into figuring out what is the best place for our money to be invested for highest amount of growth possible, but still considering the social implications of our investments that we make. >> chairman: thank you, ms. gandhi. and yesterday, when we were talking -- and i really appreciate you're reaching out to me over the weekend -- you indicated that you had kind of searched high and

low on what is publicly accessible on the internet really to a divestment plan, and we're having trouble finding. what do you think about that? >> that's an excellent point. i think we should bring more transparency because without being able to really understand what our goals are and publicly talking about them in a very clear fashion, i mean, in business that's what i do. we talk about what we're trying to achieve for the year, for the next few years, and then every board meeting we talk about where we are compared to those goals we set out as a company. so similarly, i agree. it is hard to find this information. and it should not be. and we should be able to bring more transparency to the process. and i will try my best to be able to create some sort of a transparency as

much as possible to this process so we can then go out and make it publicly available to what goals we're meeting, basically. and that's -- i think that's a fair concern, without me being on the other side, that's what i saw. >> chairman: right. and given the lack of a plan, or a transparent plan, what do you think is a reasonable timeframe, given the -- depending on how you want to count it -- one or two decades that the elected board of supervisors has been pushing the retirement system? what do you think is a reasonable amount of time for that plan to be publicly available? >> um, that's a good question. i -- it's a very good question. i think something comes out in october, as you and i were chatting. but i think within the next year or two would be a good, reasonable timeframe for us to start talking about how we talk

about 100% divestment. i also want to be clear that we're talking about two different types of as asset leases in here. there is ones we can divest in sooner, like stocks, just like you and i can just sell. we should be able to sell thinking through what -- how does that impact our returns. and then there is a long-term asset class. i think that's the piece -- so within the 2%, we have to figure out what is the long-term asset class we divested in, and we should have those kinds of numbers available and talk about -- so sooner, to your answer, than later on the plan to start having transparent conversations around divestment from those asset classes. >> chairman: despite unanimously passed resolutions in 2013 and 2017 urging divestment,

the more liquid class has not only not been divested in, as a matter of fact, the board increased its investment in oxidental petroleum, despite those unanimously passed resolutions. so it has been going in the wrong direction, not the right direction. although i agree with you that the less liquid class of assets requires more planning. as to the more liquid class of assets, what do you think the time would be? >> i would say, again, one, to two years is something, in my book, that we should target. i'm on your side. but i want to push for this as past as possible. i think this realization came to me -- i mean for a while now, but last year my daughter was less than a year old. and i had to worry about the air she was breathing. and to me, that is not a

concern any parent or anyone in the future generation should have. so i'm with you there. i think, for me, it is going in and doing the work. i'm a doer, and i want to make sure we come up with clear plans here to support everything worry talking about. but i understand your concern, that it has been talked about for a long time, and not addressed. so i want to go in and figure out why that is and then come up with even better timelines. but one to two years sounds very reasonable to me. >> chairman: thank you. i want to use this opportunity to thank the folks who i know are beleaguered and who have been at this and got the board 20 years ago to pass -- ae there was such a sense of climate change and sea level rise, but they've stuck at it for 20 years. they were the wind at supervisor avelos' back and mine and many policy-makers. i want to thank sun rise

bay area 350.org, and two ynsz. unions. local 21, as well as the mighty largest employees union for the city, the service employees international union, 10to 1, as well as the group defund the dakota access pipeline that i think just scored a major victory with this new president of the united states for their ongoing advocacy. and in addition to thanking them, as far as we're talking about transparency, ms. gandhi, have they reached out to you? members of this committee have gotten a number of e-mails expressing their concerns or disappointment that you -- and you've been very candid about this, and i appreciate it -- don't have that experience in divestiture

from fossil fuel portfolios or failing assets. have you reached out to them? have they reached out to you? and would you be willing to carry on an ongoing dialogue with them if you are retained on this body? >> who are we talking about? >> chairman: i'm talking about the advocates for divestment? >> is that a group? >> chairman: it's many groups. it's two major -- >> right. okay. >> chairman: -- employees' groups, the folks who have been advocating from the outside for this policy change. >> i'm sorry. good point. i didn't realize if it was one group or not. i think we -- they haven't reached out, but i'd be happy to meet with them. and i think we should have a plan of someone to, you know, make sure --

actually, i don't know the inner workings of the staff on this, but someone should be in touch with these groups and updating them. and if it is not publicly available, which is what we should be pushing for anyway, so there is no one one-on-one conversations, but a more transparent one goal as an organization overall, or as the city overall. >> chairman: thank you for that. are there questions from committee members? supervisor mandelman, you're the author of any number of policies related to reducing our carbon footprint. any questions from you, sir? >> i mean, i think that this appointment and the resolution we're looking at raises questions for me

about an area where i'm, frankly, out of my depth. i think -- i do not understand why it takes 20 years to divest from fossil fuels. i'm hearing a commitment from this nominee to make this a major focus ofory of hertime on the board. although you might state that, actually. i think i need to spend a little more time understanding why this seems so hard for this entity, and what other comparable retirement boards and funds have been able to do. i am sure that chair peskin is correct in that we are lagging, but i don't know what it looks

like for those other entities to move more aggressively. and i don't know how many folks -- and i have no idea how many folks are out there, or if there are any folks out there, with an interest in serving on this board. it is called for in the title, but not in the resolve, you know, who have the concrete experience in doing this, that would ensure -- i would love to be having a conversation with this nominee about how it actually would work, and clearly she has some work to do to figure out how that would be. i'm inclined to accept a strong promise from her, if she is comfortable making it, that she is going to make this a top priority and will be in regular contact with advocacy groups and will push for -- and this is what the resolution does call for -- will commit to working with colleagues, staff, and non-governmental stakeholders to develop a

concrete plan, and just making it happen to (indiscernable) for the carbon neutrality. so i have lots of questions, but i'm not sure it is for this nominee. >> chairman: thank you. ms. gandhi, anything you would like to respond to? >> i think from an outsider, who is thinking about this, myself here, without being briefed, and all sorts of things from the internal workings so far, since i haven't attended anything just yet, i feel the same way. how can something take 20 years and still not make progress. to me, i agree with your sentiment here. one of the things i would say is, to your point, supervisor mandelman, we

should be looking at what the harvards of the worldsare doing, and have they accomplished it? not as a benchmark, but to figure out if they've accomplished it, and what is stopping us? i definitely agree with your remarks on that. i think we should, as an investment committee, discuss that and at least, as i said, bring transparency to why and what is happening and talk about it in at least every six months in a public way. so i'm with you there. and, yeah, i'm as baffled, so i'm not sure, and i don't want to point fingers because i don't know what's really behind it to make this so long of a trajectory so far. but i am committed, you know, putting my efforts -- i don't know what you are looking for,

but i am committed to putting my efforts into this and making this a priority, and implementing a plan. >> chairman: thank you. supervisor chan, anything you would like to add? >> um, thank you, chair peskin. i think it is rather more of a comment than as a question at this time. i just kind of wanted to say it's probably -- it is just interesting and i concur with vice chair mandelman that it is out of my depth as well in terms of understanding our divestment strategies and how to approach it. however, i do want to understand for any appointee to be on this board, to move the entire board forward -- you know, what would the strategy be to change the direction that has already been in

place for quite some time? perhaps, i guess it is a question to pose to try to understand -- it indicates that we see that that has been the pattern going against what the board of supervisors have urged unanimously. you, alone, as one appointee, what is your strategy to approach the situation to ensure that we are going to change the direction, so to speak? thank you. >> and that's a very good question. i mean, that is what, i would say, i am good at, managing certain boards and the investments and otherwise. creating a plan, creating transparency, creating accountability on people and doing what they -- and

doing what we promised and doing as they say, and not kind of paying lip service. i mean, if you call any of my companies, people that i've worked with for decades, they will -- you know, they will point to that quality of mine, which is to bring everyone on the board on the same page and making sure we're all moving in the direction that we've committed to. in this case, the commitment has happened, it is just taking really long. so we want to make sure -- that is kind of kind of why accountability is a very big part of it. i will do my best. and i will be acting on behalf of the employees here and the money that, you know, we're governing and helping grow, to make sures it grows into the best possible assets, and in the best socially

motivating san francisco values kind of investment that we all agree on. i hope that helps. >> chairman: i do want to say, obviously this is a very complicated field, and to supervisors mandelman and chan, while i don't claim to be a hedge fund manager, i do note that everybody from harvard, to the university of california to new york, have figured this out. so we could have figured it out when supervisor avelos passed his first measure in 2013. and the second measure in 2017. there is just recalcitrants on the part of staff. and if i may, not enough support from the board. and so, i mean, yes, it gets a little complicated relative to long-term investments that are locked up, and short-term

investments that you want to sell without taking a big loss and all of the rest of it, but it ain't that complicated. i wanted to get that off of my chest. ms. gandhi? >> well, first of all, yeah. i think, as i mentioned, it would be great to call our colleagues and figure out what they did and what we haven't done. i think that should be the first order of business, if not. but if i may just kind of summarize some of my commitments, if you're open to it -- >> chairman: sure. >> okay. let me just start a little bit so we can all feel a little like i'm saying -- i'm saying the same things you're hopefully looking for in some ways. let's see. i want to commit to pushing for an aggressive schedule for fossil fuels, to an effort to build a coalition on our board, to build out data and metrics, to build a case. i'm committed to holding

our staff and the board accountable. we need to proactively daylight our fossil fuel divestments to a committee structure by asking tough questions, and reflecting those efforts in an annual report. we also need to hold our staff accountable to these divestment efforts and to ensure that the strategy doesn't just pay lip service, as i've been saying, to climate risk and so forth and has something more substantial around it. i'm committed to supporting staff wherever i can, particularly for the direct investments, which is my expertise. and i have actually invested in some companies in this category directly as well. i'm committed to pushing for some social impact divestments, so we build towards climate solution investments, that means pushing for more research in that area. and, lastly, i'm committed to using my personal

experience with folks of different, you know, pension funds, investment platforms, and my extensive business and financial network at places such as columbia, university of chicago, to present those opportunities to the fund. so we are moving in the right direction as we continue to think about divestment and start thinking about areas we should be investing in, as i mentioned, as far as our values are concerned, aligned with their values. i hope that is helpful to kind of summarize some of the things we talked about. >> chairman: very well received, at least by this supervisor. why don't we open this up to public comment. mr. young, are there any members of the public here for item 2? >> clerk: members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this

should call 415-655-0001 and then i.d. 1871153493. and then press pound and pound again. if you haven't already done so, please dial *3 to line up to speak. please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted and you may begin your public comment. at this time, we have eight listeners and seven people in line to speak. >> chairman: first speaker, please. >> caller: hello, supervisors mandelman and peskin, as well as ms. chan. thank you for allowing me to speak. my name is johnny kotrin. i'm a resident of direct 9, a past member of ipt local 21. i'm speaking to you to express concern that the current mayoral nominee for the retirement board,

gandhi, does not meet the requirements. urging the mayor to appoint someone with direct experience in divestment in fossil fuels. i'm afraid we will continue to kick the can down the road without making any substantial action. to our supervisors who claim this is out of their depth to understand, i want to reiterate what supervisor peskin said: this is already being done across the country. just because neither you or i understand the (indiscernable), it does not mean it is impossible to find a future divestment plan. based on the board's previous commitments, without something with direct experience towards divestment, we'll be in exacting the same place as we were 10 years ago.

[inaudible] thanks for your time. >> chairman: thank you. next speaker, please. >> caller: hi, everyone. my name is alexander. i'm c.e.o. of mountain stream. and i want to talk to you as an investor, it is a software company that helps manufacturing and industrial companies comply with environment regulations. we help companies track requirements and measure their progress. when they're following all of the rules we're helping them follow, they reduce pollution. in fact, one of the long-term provisions is to be a key piece of e.s.p. p.

investments. the reports are very unstandardized, and they generally jerry pick pieces of data that makes them look good. without standards, it is hard to compare one company to another. i know you're talking about divesting in fossil fuels, and i imagine you'll go even farther than that. so transparency is going to be a key piece in making it possible for us to standardize these things. she took the time to dig in and understand the regulatory landscape, and that was something more investors were, quite frankly, not willing to do. she stayed very involved over the past three-and-a-half years, sharing her advice and opinions when we needed help, and she prides

herself in building a community of founders, and not just being an investor. i believe truthy would be a available voice on the board. >> chairman: thank you. next speaker, please. >> caller: hi, everyone, my name is sam bennett. truthy is on the board of my company. as you all know, making real progress in the world requires intense focus, the ability to think big while operating unlimited resources, ability to see a promising future where others don't, and not letting anything stand in the way of getting there. as a board member, i can tell you that shurty is the right amount of hands on, and is highly

responsible, and she knows how to create a plan and drive a team of people towards a shared goal. she helps us keep track of important milestones to make sure we see our company and the project to the next important phase of growth. she is highly respected in the technology community, where she has a broad network of subject experts to call in when needed, and she has been very generous bringing them into the fold here. she is a excellent capital investor, and she has a very unique perspective as an engineer. i think that is critically important for anyone looking to make data-driven decisions, and she does that and uses data to also persuade others to make decisions with her. i've suggested to a number of company founders that

they add shruty to their board, and i wholeheartedly make the same suggestion for this board. thank you for the opportunity to speak. >> chairman: thank you, next speaker. >> caller: hi there. i live in district 2, and i'm calling to support her appointment to the retirement board. i'm a fellow venture capitalist, and i have worked with her on a number of initiatives, and i found her to be one of the most astute bankers in the venture capital field. and what makes her unique and stand out is her ability to actually overlap and overlay her intelligence with a strong sense of moral fortitude. and i feel like this position requires that. her investments span a number of areas, including technology, as well as

next generation materials, as she mentioned. all of those investments, i think, will give her a really unique insight, and a differentiated insight in terms of how to rectify this position we're in in a very fast and thoughtful manner. i couldn't agree more that this is something we should prioritize and do in a timely fashion. 20 years is a long time to be waiting for action. i firmly believe that shruty is going to be a very, very strong advocate for making the change we need and will be a very responsible member of the committee for all of these purposes. thank you. >> chairman: thank you. next speaker, please. >> caller: hello, thank you, chair peskin, and supervisors. my name is chad holtzman,

i live in district 5, and am a senior policy analyst for 350 bay area, and i'm one of the founders of fossil free san francisco, which started trying to get the retirement board to move after the 2013 resolution efforts. thank you to supervisor peskin for caring this forward with the leadership. i wanted to say it was april 2013 when the board of supervisors passed the resolution calling for divestment. it was august 2013, when we started engaging with the board and meeting board members. over that time, they have lost a very substantial amount of money on those investments. managers hold on to them as they lose value for the public, which is poor incentive structure. if they had invested in indexes fund at the time we told them, then they would have done better for the fund. as a member of the public

who has attended the most meetings on this topic and someone who works with many other boards and commissions, i need to say that the culture at this agency and board is totally arrogant and necrotic. the board and the community asked for this. i'm not sure if ms. gan gandhi has watched these meetings. this appointment is one vote out of seven, so we need not just a supporter, but a leader, someone who can move a very stagnant board forward. i think we really do need a storied expert in e.s.g. and fossil fuel divestment. we have only ever been talking about liquid public investments, not ventricula investment.

[buzzer] >> chairman: your time has lapsed. thank you. i appreciate your testimony. >> caller: hi, this is jack fleck. i was very excited in 2013 and joined the efforts that was talked about. we met with pretty much all of the board members and tried to lobby every way we can. we started out by pointing out that this is an immoral thing, to be destroying the planet. if we were rats, would we invest in rat poison? and some of the members of the board were, like, yes, as long as it was making money. i'm very encouraged by a lot of what you said. i especially like the fact that you have a daughter, that you care about her breathing the air, and we all suffered last year. and four years in a row we have had unhealthy air.

and we're heading into another wildfire season, and we know we have to be solving climate change. it is a really high priority. we need somebody on the board -- and maybe you are that person -- who can whip them together because we're very frustrated. we have not strong leadership. we just need four votes. let's get rid of the fossil fuel, and certainly the equity has been going down in the value. not because anybody is divesting, but because they're becoming worthless. there was a great presentation at the board when a former f.c.c. member said that fossil coal is the canary in the oil well. coal stocks became worthless, and the fossil fuel stocks are rapidly becoming worthless. so the sooner we get rid of them, the better we'll be. so thank you, everybody, for working on this. i look forward to meeting you. i have to say i'm a little

nervous about university of chicago. we always complain about them being the neoliberals who make it impossible to solve things, like covid, because they think the market is going to solve everything. we think government has to do something about it. i hope you're the leader we're looking for. thank you, everybody. >> chairman: thank you, mr. fleck, and thank you for your service to the city and county. it was great overlapping with you for about a decade. next speaker, please. >> caller: yes. my name is david page. i worked for the city and county for 27 years before retiring. i want to say a quick happy mother's day to ms. gandhi and all of the other mothers that are in the room. i spoke before your committee about the issue of how to integrate the urgency of e.s.g. matters

into the fiduciary committee. i'm seeing very little progress in this regard. as the qualified and honorable ms. gandhi admits, she is not a leader with the e.s.g. issues, so i recommend that this committee vote to reject her appointment. i apologize about that, ms. gandhi, but i would like to recommend that we get a leading, strong advocate of e.s.g. on the board to balance out some of the other members that were referred to by the previous speaker. supervisor peskin, you spoke about fossil fuels. i want to emphasize that

the s.and g., in the e.s.g. are also important. let me give you some quick examples, where they have invested in fossil fuels. one is in china, one is in russia, and another is in saudi arabia. so regardless of how bad the pollution is by these companies and the product that they sell, there is also the social and good governance issues that are being neglected here. and that's another reason i was hoping we would get a strong e.s.g. proponent on the board. san francisco could be, and should be, a worldwide leader in e.s.g., and not a lagger.

finally, i wanted to say one thing about this climate catastrophe, atmospheric warming issue: people think about the matter as the future, but people die from air pollution every day. depending on which study you look at, it's maybe four million people a year, up to nine million people a year die from pollution currently. so we should be addressing this issue now and not thinking of something that is going to happen in 10 years or 100years. thank you very much. >> chairman: thank you. next speaker, please. >> caller: good morning, chair peskin, members of the committee. my name is hernandez gill. i'm in the local 10 to 1, which represents many city

workers, many of which are in the san francisco retirement system. they passed a resolution urging the retirement board to immediately cease any new investments in fossil fuel companies or in co-mingled assets, and divest within three to five years. [inaudible] such as renewable energy, clean technology, and sustainable communities. now in 2021, we find little progress has been made in this investment. this idea of a more critical climate emergency. we believe that any appointee to the retirement board must understand the importance in divestment and commit their highest priority to this. the local 10 to 1 urges the board of supervisors to ensure that a suitable and committed candidate who is serious about

fossil fuel divestment for the appointment to the retirement board. thank you for your time. >> chairman: thank you. next speaker. >> clerk: just before we go on, we have one more speaker on list to speak. if you have not already done so, please dial *3. for those already on hold, please continue to wait until the system indicates that you are unmuted. at this time, this will be our last caller. >> caller: hi, my name is austin. i called in today to listen to ms. gandhi speaker and her credentials. my alma mater just last month announced they had completed their divestment for their retirement funds, and that really spurred me to listen in today. overall, i'm really satisfied with ms. gandhi's qualifications. she is an exceptionally

articulate speaker, and i'm really happy to hear that we have a commitment of one to two years to be committed to divesting from our short-term investments, like stocks. generally speaking, i think she is qualified, and i really do hope that this board will move forward with her as i do believe this to be an urgent matter, and i see that we have a qualified candidate. >> chairman: thank you. are there any other members of the public for testimony on this item? >> clerk: i believe that completes our list of callers at this time. >> chairman: okay. so public comment is closed. and the matter is now in the hands of the committee. colleagues, i, number one, want to thank ms. gandhi for her forthright and candid testimony and for her willingness to serve. i want to thank all of the members of the public for their testimony. and i would like to make a

recommendation to you, colleagues mandelman and chan, which is that i think part of this effort and movement is elevating this issue in and around appointees to the board, in and around the resolutions that we have and will continue to pass, our direct interaction with members of the body. supervisor safai and i met with board member sansbury recently to continue pressing this effort. what i would like to do is have a robust conversation with our eight other colleagues tomorrow, with ms. gandhi present. and to that end, i would like to make this suggestion of sending this item to the full board of supervisors without recommendation as a committee report, if that is acceptable to, colleagues, and we can continue this conversation that i know is of great

interest to all of us as evidenced by the number of co-sponsors on the february 23rd resolution. if that is not objectionable, on that motion, mr. young, a roll call please. >> clerk: on the motion to refer this matter without recommendation at a committee report, supervisor mandelman? >> aye. >> clerk: supervisor chan? >> aye. >> clerk: chair peskin? >> aye. >> clerk: the motion passes without objection. >> chairman: thank you. and, ms. gandhi, we will see you tomorrow, a little bit after 2:00 p.m. next item, please. >> clerk: the next item -- item 3 is an ordinance amending the administrative code to create a now registry to promote participation by anchor businesses and city

grants for small businesses and for commercial (indiscernable). >> chairman: this ordinance is brought to us by supervisor chan. supervisor, the floor is yours. >> thank you, chair peskin. i'm excited to move forward with this legislation to create a neighborhood anchor business registry. it is really, from my experience talking to merchants in the richmond area, that i recognize the need for this. what it is, is we have a lot of great legacy businesses in the richmond.

[please stand by] p.

we can really prioritize these small businesses. this is really the reason why it's moving forward. another part of this is i also wanted to talk about the fact that a lot of these challenges that are facing our small businesses at this moment is their leases and paying their rent. we know the commercial eviction moratorium is expiring on june 30th of this year. it was actually extended thanks to the effort of supervisor peskin and supervisor preston along with state assembly member bill chain.

so we know it's already been a challenge for them to stay put and pay their rent. it's a reason why this piece of legislation will also provide a free legal aid extending that program to help our small businesses negotiate their leases and eviction. so i would like to thank supervisor, my cosponsor supervisor haney, hillary ronen. dean preston and shammann walton. and legal outreach for submitting the letters of support for this legislation. i do have some amendments that i am introducing today based on

the feedback from office of small business which i see that ragina is here and small business commission and other stakeholders and advocates. if i may move forward with the amendments today, i'm just going to read it out loud for now if it's okay and in case you have any questions, i'm happy to open the floor for regina, sorry. director dick andrizzi. so the amendments that i am proposing today including the following limit the grant and loans for neighborhood anchor businesses for those related to relief or those recovering from the covid-19 emergency. the reason why i do recognize we want to prioritize the covid-19 emergency funds to help these businesses, but we also want to make sure that

there is enough for everybody especially the younger ones, younger business that helped them to continue to sustain moving sfard so another amendment is at cultural businesses in the area. to sign a sworn statement that they depo not have a pending complaint, a paid judgment or finding by a court or labor enforcement agency that they have violated a worker protection law. this reduces the office of small business staff to administer the program. and this is something we haven't talked about enough is

also working with the small businesses who need protection. doing the right thing and doing right by our workers and the other amendment is to allow the executive director of the office of small business to identify additional community based organizations so they can nominate small business who may not have connection to traditional business groups to also advance the city's racial equity and access. another thing is allow each merchant association or community based organization to nominate a maximum of ten small businesses per year. this is again with the goal to make sure equity throughout everywhere in our neighborhood not just in richmond. obviously, i think richmond is the best, but here we are. and then another amendment is to give the office of small

business more time to repair a report identifying all covid relief and eviction services available to anchor businesses and requiring them at new programs within 30 days of adopting eligibility for these programs. so, colleagues, the city attorney has confirmed that these amendments are substantiative. today, i will be asking for your support of these amendments, but i do understand we need to legislation to the next rules committee. i thank you for your time today in hearing us out. we do have director dick andrizzi here from the office of small business able to to

make sure this is as strong as ever. i want to remind you that this legislation was continued at the small business commission. which i intend to personally attend the commission meeting to have an open dialog with the commissioners. thank you, chair peskin. >> chairman: thank you, supervisor chan. before we open it up to public comment, i think your amendments are responsive to what we saw on the package to the small business commission which obviously is your prerogative as supervisor to take those suggestions or not. i'm glad you guys have had a collective collaboration. i would like to be added as a cosponsor. i don't see any names on the

roster, so why don't we go to public comment. >> clerk: there are no callers in cue queue. >> chairman: okay. public comment is closed and supervisor chan, would you like to make a motion to amend? are you on the chat? >> supervisor mandelman: i am, but you're not seeing it, are you? >> i have john c. we still have a problem houston. you've got like three hours into this computer and we've tested it this morning and it's still not working. but this will be the sub theme of the pandemic for this chairperson. supervisor mandelman. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you, chair peskin. and i want to thank supervisor chan for this legislation. a concern that it does raise for me a little bit and i also will be supporting it, it is the capacity of the office of

small business to take on a significant additional responsibility. legacy business is a heavy burden right now being carried i think by one person and so i don't know what kind of thinking there has been about the administrative needs and how we're planning on needing that specifically through our budget. >> supervisor chan: if i may, through chair peskin, and i want to answer that, but i'm going to also make sure to give a chance to regina to answer too. it's her team doing the real heavy lifting. i have a few conversations, i think, one, start off with the understanding that in the most recent times, both the mayor's

recovery act for small businesses as well as, you know, budget chair matt haney's budget or entertainment legislation all these are with the focus of small business or the businesses are 15 years and older. it's kind of we really are align in identifying and thinking to really provide funding and help and support for small business that are 15 years and older around the city and i also had a conversation with the incoming director and just try to have an understanding of which small business is under and part of and to try to understanding you know, we haven't been asking them to do a lot during this pandemic. not just with this legislation, but all around and wanted to understand what her needs and this is going to be enough of

what we're trying to provide some of the support and budget commitment that i'm working with budget chair haney on. from what i understand is obviously everybody needs more support and resources and, but i also want to make sure that our staffing is efficient and that service is not duplicated and to make sure when we really help these businesses, sometimes it may be one business that could qualify for multiple help and grant and relief. so all to say is we have the commitment from budget chair matt haney to make sure we move this forward and provide a support and he's also a cosponsor of this legislation. and obviously budget conversation is still ongoing and i want to make sure we work

with the mayor's office and and i think that's a goal for everybody all around. >>. >> supervisor mandelman: through the chair. i think it does and a huge additional kind of set of tasks was put before folks behind the scenes. sometimes we can see the creakiness of that. so we'll just need to be attentive tom that and, then, the other is just and the differences between this and legacy business, legacy

businesses can apply for legacy business status themselves i think. that's not the case for these businesses. right? >> supervisor chan: thank you, through chair peskin, and answering that question. it really is i think to sort of make it even more i think community led allowing the small business to work with the people that support them and i do believe that also includes petitioning which their customers can provide their support to the small businesses, i mean, there should be other options beyond the members of the board

supervisors to recognize the small business in the district or neighborhoods to say they are recognized and deserve support. >> supervisor mandelman: thank you. >> through the chair. this is director dick endrizzi just to provide some information between the legacy business program and this potential program. for the legacy business program, a business maybe can initiate an application, but we cannot process that application until it receives the nomination from the board of supervisors or the mayor. with this program, not only do the merchants association and potential other business entities that the office and for me to identify to help achieve our equity goals,

businesses can also self-nominate through a petition as well. again, so if this allows a business that isn't connected to an organization to be able to be on the anchor business industry meeting all the other sort of qualifications that are settle out. just a point to note that with the legacy business program, we are backlogged with about a 9 to 10 month backlog of being able to process our applications. so adding this program will definitely need to have the consideration of the resources which supervisor chan did talk about and the fact that keeping consideration that this is the program isn't the short term

program to deal. while we're work on focus to relief to the pandemic. as per this legislation, it will be establishing an ongoing program to be managed and so that does mean it is a relationship just like rick has with all of our legacy businesses staying in touch with them making sure that if there's any need, resources that they need to engage with. so this will be an ongoing program to build with the number of businesses that are identified as neighborhood anchoring businesses. it will have anger ongoing management requirement. and that includes my remarks.

>> chairman: thank you, ms. dick endrizzi. and, public comment is closed. so have you moved the amendments, supervisor chan? ? >> supervisor chan: i don't think yet. but i will make the motion to move the amendments that i talked about earlier. thank you. >> chairman: okay. on that motion, a roll call please. >> clerk: yes, on the motion to amend, [roll call] the motion to amend is approved without objection. >> chairman: and then, supervisor chan, would you like to make a motion to continue the item to a week from today rules committee meeting. >> supervisor chan: yes,

please. move. >> clerk: on the motion to on the move to move the item to may 17th. [roll call] the motion passes without objection. >> chairman: thank you, mr. young. colleagues, do not sign off. i've been informed by counsel that we need to rescind the vote on item number two do to some technical and procedural issues. so i will make a motion to rescind the vote on item number 2. on that motion, a roll call please. >> clerk: the motion to rescind the vote on item 2, [roll call] . the motion passes without objection. >> chairman: ms. pierson, deputy city attorney pierson

can you please regale us with what we need to do? >> yes. i'll be happy to rebale you. so the motion before you today requires a motion for omit because it's left for this committee to decide to reject the nominee and the practice of this committee is to make that amendment in committee and then to send it to the full board either with recommendation or without. so the board may amend it here to make that choice, but it may still send it to the board without recommendation. and this practice derives from the board's rules with the clerk to require to send two separate motions. over time, that process has been expedited a little bit, but to send you one and have you make that selection through amendment. once you make the amendment, it allows the motion to arrive on

the agenda tomorrow and to align with the question that's presented in the agenda which is "should this motion be passed?" >> chairman: right. let me just look at that motion on tomorrow's calendar which says, well, the motion on tomorrow's calendar is the same as the motion on today's calendar. it's motion approved/rejected. >> that's right. we can't update that on the notice, but the clerk will read the revised long title after it's been amended. >> chairman: i guess my question is why can't -- i don't want to prejudice the board in that discussion by saying we are accepting or rejecting. i think the whole point of our sending it as is is we want to have though robust discussion at the full board. and the full board says

amending/objecting. and then the full board would have to make a motion to accept or object. >> that's right. if you make that amendment today, the full board can override whatever choice you've made. but the practice of the committee consistent with the board's rules has been to send to the full board a motion that already makes that selection. and if the clerk, if the samir is on -- >> chairman: by the way, before we get to that, i think there also are some additional technical corrections that need to be made because this is not a reappointment, it is actually an appointment. so in any event, i do believe that online 10, it should say authority to reject the not reappointment, but appointment and the mayor's notice of reappointment in line 11 and in

line 13 and reappointed should be appointed. because this is actually succeeding car men chiu. so there is that technical correction that i believe also needs to be made. >> that's right. >> chairman: all right. ms. samara, this chair, our rules not withstanding would like to send the item as is saying "accepting/rejecting" to the full board. have the full board actually make the amendments that we would normally make inspect committee. is that acceptable to you, madam deputy clerk? >> hello, mr. chair. thank you for calling upon me. the clerk of of ot board does recommend that the question is cleared by the time it gets to the full board. we do acknowledge it has came to the board where it has one or the other. it is currently agendized but

the expectation is the work happens in the committee so the question that you guys put before the board or refer to them is clear and con size. i mean, we do acknowledge it has happened before, but we do think of it is -- it will take a motion for somebody to amend it to strike approval/reject at the board level. if that were not to occur, the question would no longer be valid and we acknowledge it's very unlikely that will happen. but as the clerk and for parlitarian procedure. it is up to you and we won't push it if that's how you want to do it. >> chairman: thank you. and let me just say, this is i think a unique circumstance. it is very rare that we do not strike accept or reject and send.

but this is -- and, by the way, at least i did a lot of work relative to reso much on esg and the retirement system and two interviews with the appointee, ms. gandy, but i think the point here in this unique situation given the entire board of supervisors february 3rd, 2021, resolution is to really leave that to the full board. i generally like to do all of that work here, but i think this is of weight and import that the full board should be able to do that and, look, if for some reason, we didn't do that, we lose jurisdiction before next week's meeting anyway. so it becomes a mute point. so i would make a motion to change lines 10, 11, and 13 to say "appoint" instead of "reappoint" and then send it with accept/reject and as you

indicated it has happened in the past and, don't worry, this will not be a normal practice of this committee during my tenure as chair. >> great. thank you. >> chairman: supervisor chan. see, i'm bringing my computer back in. >> supervisor chan: great. thank you, chair peskin. this is truly just a technical question for how this is for both our deputy state attorney, but also probably for our clerk to answer this question. i mean, will it be problematic? should we duplicate a file and the other one say accept and then both without recommendation will that pose a problem? i mean, that, you know, because then that way the board can vote specifically on each item

up and down. perhaps that creates even more problems. i don't know. >> chairman: i think the question is a noticing question which is the item on tomorrow's calendar. there's only one item on tomorrow's calendar and that crossed my mind when deputy city attorney pierson contacted me offline. but that would be another route if we don't have a noticing problem on tomorrow's agenda. >> it would pose a noticing file because there is only one file on the file as a committee report. in the past, this is how we submitted appointments. we would send two motions, one to appoint and one to reject just so that we wouldn't have this issue, but, in this case, it did come out of the committee or it is coming out of the committee report and there is only one item. >> and, we might. this is probably not the place to have this conversation, but we might want to say given, you know, this board's policy

around retirement board issues. we might want to say any time pursuant to 300 subsection 18 that we have somebody from the retirement board up, we send two motions that way but it's half a dozen to others. the board will tomorrow amend it one way or the other, and if the board fails to act, we lose jurisdiction. so it kind of net net doesn't matter. so it will be rare that this happens in this committee except for in this instance. >> good to know. >> chairman: so, with that, colleagues, i would like to make the aforementioned motion on turning appointment into reappointment. with that, mr. clerk, a roll call please. >> clerk: yes, the motion on the appointment on that motion

-- on the amendment. my apologies. [roll call]