item number five, san francisco lafco reserve fund policy. >> i think that pg&e was happy about that. >> commissioner, mr. freed? >> jason, freed, lafco staff, and on this item, if you remember from last month's meeting where we were talking about the budget, we were talking about our reserved fund that we have left and how that has been shrinking over the years as we have been spending it down to get the acceptable level and the fact is that we don't have a policy in place to determine what should be responsible amount for us to keep in place. and so based on the request from the commission last month, i did some research into what do the other s do as far as the reserve funds and just as every lafco is different, the reserve policies are very different, and some not having any and some have the specific ones and i wanted to focus on the ones that are similar to what i believe that we are looking for here in this commission which is a more general reserve and in your packet you will note that there is an attachment that has, a draft language for a reserve for our policy that we could

there is always been a reserve, probably because the first few years of lafco we got a money from the city and county of san francisco and it sat there being unspent and when i started working for lafco i believe that the reserve was somewhere up to 1 million dollars and we are now down to or we will be at the end of the fiscal here, $300,000, and we are doing it as a way to help the city and county, and many of those years were difficult budget years and we are not going to take any money we will spend ourselves down and every given year, even though we have the fund that will be going away as well, and unless we get an extension of the mou and we are going to get to a point where we don't have any money left in the reserve and so setting up the policy now, will establish and we continue to spend down which is what my goal will be to take the least amount that we need from the city and county until we get the reserve to a respectable level and by setting a policy, we will be establishing what that level is, and because what i want to keep in mind is if we budget ourselves should there be a last m inthat needs to be

and it is also important that lafco maintain gender diversity and san francisco is under represented by women of all levels of government, and as the activity haves spoken in support of clean power sf on the commission of the environment and the puc, cac, we published an open letter entitled stop the shell shock, more like stop pg and e bs. and this burns real action against climate change and the limits of corporate funded think tanks. and i'm not applying to it because i want to use it as a stepping stone for my next move, i am a policy wo nk and it is a independent agency and not to the board of supervisors or the mayor, it is an important agency, and it is a research powerhouse, they are doing the work, and paving the way for progressive legislation and i am further qualified on the basis of my work on additional topics of research, how jurisdiction fill vacancies between election cycles and the voting in the city and county of san francisco, and i am excited about the future projects and exploring the loose fears of service reviews and increasing san francisco ininvolvement. and

last year the local area formation commission, lafco, studied how other jurisdictions filled vacancies in vacant offices. one unique san francisco's appointment process is the mayor has discretion to [speaker not understood] to fill vacancy. that process let alone the democratic process for how the mayor makes these [speaker not understood]. there are no time constraints when the mayor make these appointments. [speaker not understood], she was not appointed to be assessor until february 2013. and there are no -- there are virtually no other examples of this lack of public process in filling vacancies in many place around the country. the colorado governor makes [speaker not understood] to fill a vacancy [speaker not understood]. the mayor of philadelphia make appointment of vacancies in their city, but there is no other executive office where they have this ability. this will bring us in line with processes for filling vacancies in our state and federal legislative bodies. example, appointees that happened over the years. there have been 23 appointees to the board of supervisors since 1960. since 1960s. since we moved on from that

that was as the city and county of san francisco was going through their process and changes to staffing and how lafco can interact with staff i noticed an interesting difference between what we say our budget was and what they were saying and i did research and worked with the clerk and by state mandate the minimum amount that we can request be ag indicated to us and it's 300,000 so you will see the budget reflect the lower amount. once again we do have enough in reserve to pay for one year of our budget but after year we will be below that budget and next fiscal year we will be below that amount. we're at 300,000 now in the reserve act so we can go one more year if we want to return the money and i will suggest that at a future lafco meeting once i review other lafcos and what is a good amount to have? we were up at a million dollars and we have spent it down and we should have a policy in place and most lafcos do and we should stay within the budget and be fine and the choice is up to you to return that back to the city and county for a year but let them know we're reserving our rights to the full

and her skills will greatly benefit lafco and truster that her research and the policy in san francisco with the values and heart. and you know, my personal recommendation, for miss crews, is that she is, someone that has completely energized my interest in local politics. not just because of her. >> thank you very much. next speaker please. >> hello and thank you. >> leah coal and i live in the mission near sf general and i am a public schoolteacher at burton high school and it serves for the bay view hunter's point and the valley districts and i spend my time and my energy in the communities in which i live and work. and i love the cities and i am enthusiastickly supporting crews for the voting seat, or the voting citizen seat. and this is a great fit, she is her professional skill set is amazing and you have heard about it. and a lot of it, and she is ready, and she is ready and she does not need to do research and she will continue to do research, but she is ready to serve from day one. and she also embodies the great combination of empathy as well as fairness and she can imagine he

last year the local area formation commission, lafco, studied how other jurisdictions filled vacancies in vacant offices. one unique san francisco's appointment process is the mayor has discretion to [speaker not understood] to fill vacancy. that process let alone the democratic process for how the mayor makes these [speaker not understood]. there are no time constraints when the mayor make these appointments. [speaker un

lafco member. we looked at how vacancies are filled for all elected offices, san francisco being the only charter city/county in the state of california we kind of are an island of ourselves as far as being able to compare to anyone else because there's no one else like us. nationally there are other city/county mixed together, we took all the chartered city counties and how they appoint their elected officials, how vacancies get filled, for california-wide offices as well as california and nationally most populous. in total we looked at every elected office, in total there were 192 offices in 31 different jurisdictions that were looked at. last thursday when i was asked by the chair of our commission, supervisor avalos, to take simply a look at mayor and board of supervisors, once again we consider board of supervisors and city council in this study to be one and the same because no other county in san francisco has a mayor, so you need to find places where there's a mayor and a city council working together. so just for those positions, mayor or city council, in some places they have different place