Transcripts For SFGTV LIVE BOS Budget And Finance Committee 20160128

All that some say i am appreciative of these amendments that were made, i know we have to have another hearing but i would be supportive of it with these amendments. Thank you and i do appreciate your comments about the budget process but if we have a report thats before us, that even has our approval, it gives us some guidance about how to make changes to the budgets the mayor presents to us. It gives us the added ability to practice our role of appropriations. Supervisor farrell. Thank you, supervisor avalos and supervisor tang for your comments and i failed to thank supervisor tang earlier for her existing cosponsorship and i want to thank you for being a huge park advocate, as well as supervisor avalos, i fully acknowledge that as well. I do want to ask, with the amendments i introduced, there are a few typos that the City Attorney will be able to use the record to do the corrections thereto. Deputy City Attorney john givner, just echoing supervisor farrells comments that every comma is in the right place we had someone go through again and we caught a few numbering issues. Page 3, line 18 and line 22 theres a subsection 1 and subsection 2 there, those should be subsection a on line 18 and subsection b on line 22. Page 9, line 8 theres a section 3 that should be section 4 and on line 18 theres a reference to h1 that because of the amendments should be h2. If the amendment passes today well make those corrections and submit them to the clerk. Thank you, mr. City attorney, i appreciate that. Mraps after Public Comment we can incorporate those. If theres no other comments or questions, supervisor avalos, we can move to Public Comment. Sure, i have a number of cards and if you want to come up more or less in the order your names are called, jim lazarus, matt obrady. Good afternoon, supervisors, jim lazarus on the board of the Parks Alliance. Appreciate the work thats gone into this as a former member of the recreation and Park Commission im certainly well aware of the departments trials and tribulations over budgeting, especially in light of two recessions during the last 15 years and the fact that the departments budget really never recovered certainly from the first recession in 20022003 and maybe to some degree recently from the Great Recession of 20082009. But this Charter Amendment is really, as i raed it, more about stability and assuring that the departments revenues track more closely the up and down of the citys general fund and that our services to residents of San Francisco and the recreation side and our maintenance of parks dont take an unfair hit during the down times. I think regarding oversight, i know that may be one of the remaining questions, theres clearly a role for the mayor and the board of supervisors to review operational plans, capital plans, if not within the budget process which you normally do anyway, but to see these new reports that would be coming out from the commission and prozac. I think the real question is, i would hope that the authors of this and supervisor avalos, any further amendments, would consider treating this department the way other departments there are other departments, the library and others, i think any review of actions of the commission and the department should be in conformity with how other departments are treated in the charter. Thank you very much. Thank you, next speaker, please. Good afternoon, supervisors, matt ogrady, ceoof the Parks Alliance. We have already been through a number of aspects of this, particularly the fundamental impact this would have of preventing and protecting the department from further disproportionate cuts to its budget in any future downturns in the economy. But it also provides for stricter accountability which we also strongly support. Equity, this has become perhaps the issue of the hour. The Parks Alliance core values, statements of why we exist, include equity as a fundamental core component. Our values include that we want to ensure that all of our parks remain clean, safe, fun and welcoming to all San Franciscoans, all San Franciscoans. Because of that value of equity we strongly support the amendments that have been brought forward here to strengthen this Charter Amendment, to ensure that the improvements that this amendment generates through our department will have a solid positive impact on all of our neighborhoods everywhere its needed. That said, we also need to be very mindful that this is a Charter Amendment and we need to be really careful with how we do it. We need to ensure that we strengthen the equity components of this without unintentionally hamstringing the department or cause undue burden of how the department can fulfill that mission of providing clean, safe, fun parks for all San Franciscoans. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good morning, supervisor avalos, my name is phil arnold, i speak to you as the former assistant general manager of the Parks Department and a member of the Parks Alliance. I had the experience for about 10 years of trying to balance the recreation and Park Department budget. That was my first career here in the city. I know how extraordinarily difficult it is to try to maintain and balance a departments budget of that size when the resources provided to the department are so variable year after year after year. So i urge you, while you fine tune the wording for this Charter Amendment, to keep your mind on the big picture, why this originally came before us and you which is to try to provide a stable and predictable source of funds for the recreation and Park Department which will grow as the responsibilities of the department are growing. And that really is the key. I respect and appreciate all of the amendments that have been brought before you but i hope that you will be able to come to resolution on the amendments so this item can go forward so the stable and predictable funding for the department can be insured. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Next speaker. . Oo we are heading a 20 million project to renovate Golden Gate Park and its important that money be coming forward to support the center once we renovate it, so we are very supportive of this. Our hope is that once the center comes from something from good to great that it will support tetis throughout the city so we would like to offer our support now. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, supervisors, im kelly nice, i would like to add to what my colleagues said. I would like to point out in the two years weve been talking about this, with a lot of community input, equity comes up in every conversation we have. We have donors who will make a gift and make sure there is a corresponding gift to be equitiable. That is important, we are happy to have that in the language. But on a negative point we got into this to take some of the politicalization out of the process. Our goal in this was to take some of the politics out and again we would encourage you it keep those out of the process. I know you all feel strongly about making our parks better, thats really what this is about is making our parks better. Thank you for your help, we appreciate what you are doing. Next speaker, please. Before the next spreeker i will read more names. Rosemary cameron, jean boarches, linda lightheiser, dennis muscovia supervisors, my name is ken weber, im a serving member of the Parks Alliance board. I also happen to be the executive director of the zinga dot organize organization which is an independent 501c3 charity at the heart of which is the drive, our Charitable Mission is to bring play to all, particularly in San Francisco. In fact over the past 4 years we have either built or been part of building more than a dozen new playgrounds and play spaces in San Francisco. I would say probably all but one of which have been in a district or a neighborhood that i think we would all agree is considered underserved. So were very focused on and concerned with issues of equity. We are appreciative that you all are taking this issue up as you have. We are in support of anything that stabilizes and makes more sustainable and equitiable for the Department Funding for parks and open spaces and we are also fully in support of equity components and would hope that the way that those are administered, chartered, would strike a balance between their importance and the ability of the department to do its core work and to do as much of it as possible. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Members of the committee, my name is rosemary cameron, i am a 40 year resident of San Francisco, a lifetime parks professional and a proud member of San Francisco Parks Alliance board of directors. As you know for well over a year the Parks Alliance has been working in pursuit of increased, dedicated and predictable funding for our recreation and Parks Department chl we have a worldclass recreation and Parks Department and its critical that it has additional funding for maintenance and operations of our parks. Adequate and Stable Funding for the system will go a long ways towards ensuring equitiable funding throughout the park system. Every day we see the impacts of our growing population which actually includes families with children. You dont have to look far, literally in every corner of our city to see how critical our Neighborhood Parks are to children, parents and truly everyone. These mini oasises are critical to keep inaudible thank you, supervisor farrell, for your leadership in crafting what we believe is a very reasonable solution throughout the proposed Charter Amendment including the specific amendments that you discussed today. We clearly are in support of those. We know that if it is approved by San Franciscos voters and we have every reason to believe it will be enthusiastickally supported, it will provide rec and parks with sustainable and stable revenues to address those critical maintenance issues throughout the system. As its drafted with the amend thes we believe that it has important provisions that will ensure that the Department Prepares an annual Operations Plan to direct expenditures to meet the highest priority maintenance needs throughout the system ensuring equitiable distribution where the needs are greatest. So we are highly supportive of supervisor farrells Charter Amendment with the amendments presented today and we urge you to vote to move it forward to the board of supervisors and give it to the voters for their support. Thank you. Good afternoon, supervisors, again my name is christine raher and im a very proud member of the San Francisco Lawn Bowling Club that has been around in Golden Gate Park since 1901, thank you John Mcclaren. Our club is also a partner of the San Francisco Parks Alliance and we fully support the park funding because of three things, including the equity issue. I am a 67yearold bowler and wleefrb believe it or not, one of the younger members of the club. I stress active because as equity is discussed, please count our 70yearold average 100plus members with regard to that. Secondly, our gardener is the most important part of our club. He keeps our 3 greens in great shape and works cooperatively to mock sure they are in good shape. Did you know, supervisors, our greens have the potential to host the u. S. National lawn bowling nationals . We have actually been asked to do it this year but our greens are not yet in that condition but we have done it in the past. Finally, no. 3, in 2015 we lost our members maureen and kathy. Kathy was the first woman president of the Lawn Bowling Club and since my last testimony on december 10th we have lost another member, zelda, so speed is a real issue to our club. So please move on, thank you very much. Thank you. The election cant be any closer than today. Thank you, supervisor, jane bojiages from district 10, San Francisco Parks Alliance policy council. I just want to support the proposal that you are looking at and let you know that we live in a district that is experiencing great population growth and so having better support and stable support of the parks is very important and having the stability is really critical. So thank you. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, supervisors, my name is linda lighthiser and im a resident of district 11, a 46 year resident of San Francisco and ive been involved with parks since the day i arrived in San Francisco. As to that, i have always volunteered and advocated for our parks. I currently serve as the district 11 representative of the San Francisco Alliance Parks policy council so i am able to interjekt into that body a lot of the needs and concerns about that council. I am happy with the progress we have made on all the amendments and all the concerns because, as a resident that came in dead last in the controllers report, we feel the need to have Strong Language that will help us make sure that these things will take place and i appreciate all the efforts that have gone on between the Committee Members to make sure that these things are addressed. Im also aware this has taken a long time, but i know that our people want this to be done right and i am into the long mall and i want to see this on the ballot in june and i want to work to make sure this passes. Thank you. Supervisors, my name is ara kelly, i live in district 8, i am here to support you for this great work you have done in leadership. Supervisor farrell it is really important because we have a growing city as you know, and our parks are incredibly important to the service to us. I want to also touch base with us, the word that you used, the great equalizer. If you look at a equalizer im sure all the parks would agree with you. But i think a greater equalizer is open space. If you have a neighborhood that has no access to open space and parks that is a diminishing enjoyment if you have to go walk the dog, play with the kids. I hope you will Pay Attention to the roads plan of our city and support independence of funding the open space fund of our city because i think the city needs to commit and recommit its several to the rose plan and provide open space to all citizens of the city. So we cant actually cheat the equalizer beyond Just Services and picking up trash in parks, actually having true access for parks in these spaces. Thank you very much, next speaker. Before the next spreeker speaks, i will call a few more cards. Ken weber, deseligman. Good afternoon supervisors avalos, tang and farrell. Thank you for this opportunity to address the Charter Amendment for base line funding for parks and recreation. This is my colleague janet gamble and we represent supervisor farrells district 5. Its bordered by steiner, scott and jackson streets. This was originally a quarry and was filled in to capture the panoramic bayviews. Alta plaza was designed by John Mcclaren himself and we consider it a jewel in the system. We draw visitors from all over because of these vistas and the welldesigned sports courts that were underwritten by private funding in a campaign 10 years ago. But like so many other parks, alta plazas parks have been severely underfunded. Sfr and p will undertake an extensive renovation project this year. There will be excavated, engaged a landscape architectural firm, held multiple Community Meetings and developed an exceptional master plan that has achieved a historic review by ceqa. Now the friends must launch a Major Capital Campaign to make the master plan a reality. In brief, what im saying is were 12 acres, we have one gardener and if we are successful in launching this master plan and getting it implemented we need the funds to maintain it because all our effort will be for naught if they arent. We will strongly lobby our community for support of this balance ut measure and we thank you so much for your consideration. Thank you very much, next speaker, please. Good afternoon, my name is dee seligman, i am the president of the forest alliance. The first relates to suggested text for maintenance of trees, the second item relates to suggested text for environmental and Design Guidelines and the third relates to suggested text for specificity for unspent set aside funds. In regards to the first item id like to suggest that the following language be added to page 8, line 18 the Operations Plan must include specific funding for the deferred maintenance of all park trees that could be considered hazardous if their maintenance is deferred beyond the normal 7 to 15 year cycle. There is nowhere in the current draft language to alow kite new money to rec and park racials to maintain our park trees. The forestry unit is funded entirely from operations, it is not from the capital fund. Tree maintenance belongs entirely to urban forestry and operations. The second point of suggested text is to state on page 10, line 20, rec and parks guidelines for open space and renovations for parks and open spaces should be adopted by the rec and Park Commission. We suggest the commission because it is the commission that is tasked with representing neighborhoods and communities of interest and they should be the ones who do the final adoption, not the rec and Park Department itself. And the third item wed like to model the specificity of unspent set aside funds and the controller annually reporting the amount left over for unspent funds on the library system. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Its now good afternoon, i am nancy werfel, once again i urge you to require the Charter Amendments specify what the 3 million in the base lane appropriation will be used for each year. Since rec and park states they have 1. 7 billion dollars of deferred maintenance on the books i want to see this very serious backlog tackled on a pay as you go basis. We can start right now to fix what is broken in the parks if we demand that the new money be directed that way. , 125,000 for Security Systems and lighting, 250,000 for Erosion Control and retaining wall replacement. Worst of all the original budget did request 1. 1 Million Dollars for urban forestry but the final budget shows zero dollars approved, nothing for tree maintenance, zip. Over 14 Million Dollars for every thing else except caring for our 100,000 trees. How shameful is that . Supervisor avalos, i wish you would listen to this. This ballot measure already faces an uphill battle because the mayor has required 1. 5 percent reduction in departmental budgets partially due to, quote, voter adopted base lines and set asides that he has stated. Since the measure is asking to approve a new base line please give us something that we can support that shows specifically how the money will be spent. Dont let the people think the new money will just be a slush fund. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon, supervisors, Rachel Norton with the San Francisco Parks Alliance. I want to actually just commend you on todays amendments and on the work you have done in committee. We have impatient, were chomping at the bit to get this on the ballot, but i think that the Committee Work really has improved a lot of the language. The amendments today regarding equity i think are really important and fill a need in the amendment. So thank you for doing that, thank you for pushing for that language. And i think that we continue to want to see this measure balance really improve obviously protecting the rec and park budget and balance improved accountability with streamlining their operations and really giving them a way to get the work done. I think the plans as described in the current language in the amendment really will accomplish that, particularly with new equity Metrics Incorporated in them. We have some real teeth built in there that if they dont do the work that they lay out in their strategic plan, in their operational plan, that you, the board of supervisors, can take real action on their budget and make sure that they do the work that they say they are going to do and keep their promises. So we feel pretty comfortable with the accountability and the oversight that are in that plan, we feel we have a real role on going as the Parks Alliance to hold them accountable and make sure the board holds them accountable, we think the language is good, theres been a lot of improvements made and its time to move this amendment forward. Thank you, have a good evening. Thank you, any other member of the public who would like to comment and seeing none we will close Public Comment and i want to thank everyone for being here and for their work looking at this measure and making improvements on the measure. I do appreciate that the word today is equity and i do appreciate that weve gotten to a Committee Meeting where thats been addressed with some amendments and explored as thoroughly as it has been. We didnt have the language in the measure to begin with and so if hes something that had been considered early on, i do appreciate that but i really appreciate the change in language. As i said i dont believe it is as strong, the language that we have around equity, is as strong as it needs to be but i will accept today the language that we have and i still hope to make stronger improvements on it, on the amendments we have today. There is an amendment i didnt talk about that i would like to make and it was one i referenced before and that was extending the open space fund another 15 years. And i do have amendments id like to add to supervisor farrells amendment, i dont think it would take very much to actually put together and i think its already been contemplated by the City Attorney and that is to extend the annual set aside and base line appropriation for 15 years to fiscal year 204546. That will be language to add in the subtitle of the Charter Amendment and then on page 2, line 4, this is regarding the annual set aside, it will read the city will continue to set aside from the annual tax levy for a period of instead of 35 it will be 45 years starting with fiscal year 20002001 and including fiscal year 204546, then later on that page, line 20, were changing 20, 30, 31 to 20452046. On the next page on the top, the first line, changing 20302031 to 20452046 and then on line 13, changing 203031 to 20452046 and that will be my motion on amending. Is that something that we can do today . Yes, you can do that today. Of course it requires another hearing. Right, we already have a hearing based on supervisor farrells language. Thank you, chair avalos and thank you to all member s of the public who came out to speak today. I appreciate that and the ongoing conversation and the months and like i said i probably at this point a year of solid work let alone contemplating this for much longer. Thank you to all and look forward to the continuing conversations and i have the amendments that i put forward to supervisor avalos and his amendment i appreciate that. I think there is, between extending an additional 15 years or keeping it 15 years as is, i think its certainly a different perspective from different park advocates and different groups and the theory on keeping it at simply 15 years right now is it allows it to finally tie into the calendar of the existing open space fund and that the, long after were all gone from city hall, maybe im just speaking for myself, over a decade from now it will have a conversation of being able to have a real total and complete discussion around parks funding into the future and, you know, i can see both sides of this equation but thats certainly how i feel today, that this is the best approach. You know weve talked about this quite a bit over the past 12 months so i appreciate you, chair avalos, your amendment, it is not something i would be supporting today but i appreciate both sides of that equation. I think its a simple difference of opinion among different park advocates but i am not in a position to support it. You are not in a position. I am not going to be supporting the amendment to extend it another 15 years. As i mentioned, weve gone around and around on this issue, ive come to appreciate the reasons for having it simply stay at 15 years and extending it to 30 and again i acknowledge both sides of that discussion but from my perspective i think right now i would like to see it as is. Im hoping to continue those conversations but, again, from my perspective, talked with multiple different groups, i think it makes sense to keep it as it is right now. Thank you. Supervisor tang. Thank you. I think i was one of those who signed on pretty early to this Charter Amendment and with the understanding that it would be for this particular time period. I would like to see how this Charter Amendment plays out over the course of the years we have originally designated before saying we would go further than that, so i think at this time i would support it as the original time frame proposed. Okay, so lets have a roll call vote and you have a motion on the floor as well . I dont have one yet. We can do one on yours or we can put one forward. On the motion as stated by supervisor avalos, supervisor tang, no. Supervisor farrell, no. Supervisor avalos, yes. There are 2 nos with supervisors tang and farrell in dissent and one aye. The motion does not pass. Thank you. Is there another motion . Yeah, so id like to make to approve the amendments as i submitted earlier with the oral amendments to that that our City Attorney, john gibner, put forward earlier, and then a motion as part of that one motion, motion to continue this item to the next rules Committee Meeting. Okay, we have a motion, seconded by supervisor tang. Well have a roll call vote on the motion before we vote on the motion i really feel like i have been very, very flexible with my time and my consideration of this Charter Amendment. I dont really feel that thats been as reciprocated in the process and i would say thats been throughout and im ready to vote. Roll call, please. On the motion as stated by supervisor farrell to amend and continue to the next rules committee, supervisor tang, aye. Supervisor farrell, aye. Supervisor avalos, no. We have two ayes and one no with supervisor avalos in dissent. Okay, so this item is continued to the next meeting. Next rules Committee Meeting. Thank you, next item, please. And no. 6 is a Charter Amendment first draft to amend the charter of the city and county of San Francisco to provide a Runoff Election for mayor between the top two candidates selected through rank choice candidates unless one candidates requires a majority of votes, require provided that the president of the board of supervisors serves as acting mayor until an election is held to fill that mayoral vacancy and provide the board of supervisors shall appoint a interim supervisor until an election is held to fill that vacancy with the interim supervisor being ineligible to compete in that election, with the election to be held on june 7, 2016. Thank you very much. I really dont want to talk too much about this measure. What i want to do, more than anything, is to make a couple amendments and then continue it to our next rules Committee Meeting. The reason why this measure has come forward and why i brought it up before was that i think that we really have an issue of separation of powers here in San Francisco that leads to our work as legislators being highly politicized and constrained and i want to make sure that we can actually have a separation of powers that could really be, lady to us being better legislators and also separation of powers that is more democratic. When we actually have thousands of people take part in electing representatives to work on this wud we are living up to the principles of democracy and when we have a few people make an election of who serves on the board of supervisors we are limiting what democracy is about. So i want to make sure that we are being as strong as we can and live up to the values of San Francisco, despite our charter somewhat being a reflection of those values i dont think they are carried out the way they really need to be and we see that our elections get highly, our elections are political things, right, they get even more mrit politicized and we get a city more divided when there is a single power behind a single candidate with a large amount of money behind that candidate trying to assert that income bepbs si that isnt quite as fair when you have an open seat and people dont have the value of that incumbent si when they are running for office. To me thats important that lives up to what San Francisco is about and why i brought this legislation forward. So what id like to do today, this Charter Amendment is about filling vacancies on the board of supervisors and a vacancy in the Mayors Office. Its also about rank Choice Voting and extending rank Choice Voting to actually eliminate rank Choice Voting and having a runoff for the mayors race. I want to actually divide into two different measures this Charter Amendment. Well have two Charter Amendments. One is going to be on the rank Choice Voting process, which i will divide out into a separate Charter Amendment and continue to the call of the chair. I do not intend to move forward on changing the rank Choice Voting but theres a Charter Amendment thats drafted if someone wants to pick it up and run with it, fine, but i really want to focus today on filling vacancies on the board of supervisors. The other amendment id like to make is to keep right now the way this Charter Amendment that is on filling vacancies is drafted is that the board of supervisors would select someone to fill a vacancy until the next special election. That person would have a term limit that would last until the election is certified but would not be allowed to run for that seat so there would be an interim supervisor. Instead of having the board select, id like to keep it with the mayor selecting the person who will serve as the interim supervisor who will not be able to run, his term will end at the end when that election is certified and the new replacement supervisor comes in. So i dont think its a very difficult amendment to make and if, im not sure if mr. Gibner, if you have your copy of that and you could read into the record . Attorney john gibner. I have a written copy, basically the concept here is duplicate the file and amend both, one of them you are amending out all the references to the rcv measure, rcv measure plus runoffs and the other you are referencing out all the references to the vacancies. In the appointment following vacancy measure you would be amending to say if the office of a member of the board of supervisors becomes vacant because of death, resignation, recall, permanent disability or inability to carry out the responsibilities of the office, the mayor rather than the board shall appoint an individual qualified to fill the vacancy under this charter and state law to serve as the interim supervisor. The mayor shall appoint interim supervisor within 28 days of the date of the vacancy as opposed to the 14 that was in the initial proposal and other than that, substantively there are no other changes. Great, thank you. That is exactly how i have it written here. And then the other thing that id like to, there could be changes that i might want to contemplate next time we have this heard and that is related to the office of mayor and the vacancy there. Right now the way it works is that the, if theres a vacancy at the Mayors Office the president of the board would serve as acting mayor until the election is certified. And in this case the person who is serving as the acting mayor and president of the board would have the ability to run for the mayors seat. We tried to make it as clear as possible, as conforming as possible, but there are a lot of moving parts. I dont think theres any perfect way of doing this but we want to make sure we have that separation as well as possible. So im contemplating some changes there, but i havent quite made those. But the one i really want to make is that we maintain the power of the mayor to appoint, but appointing someone who will serve until the election is certified, will not be able to run and then whoever succeeds in that election will be the person to serve. Okay . And we will go on to Public Comment. Any member of the public who wants to comment please come forward. I had a couple cards but they are under a pile of paper here on my desk. You want to come forward . Thank you. Nancy werful. I want to thank you, supervisor avalos, from the bottom of my heart for what you have just told us. I am a witness to the tragedy of what happened when ed chiu got thrown in jail and we were left for 4 months without any information from the mayor. A group of leaders of district 4 met with the mayor privately and pleaded with him, we need representation. We are paying taxes and we are not supposed to be without representation. When are you going to appoint somebody . There was no answer. I dont even remember how long afterwards he finally did appoint carmen chiu, less his heart, that was fine, but we were left with nothing and there was no contact. If some neighbors had not reached out to him and drug him into a private meeting he would have just god knows how long we would have wasted time without having anybody we could talk to. There was nobody we could appeal to. Thank you and i want to make sure this is on the record because there are lots of us that remember what it was like not to have a representative. This is an elected form of government. This is democracy. We were not served. You are now serving us for the first time. I can now tell you personally how important it is. This has got to go through. I understand you have amended it from 14 to 28 days. Thats it. No more length of time without having representation and, yes, i like the idea that we have a clean referendum for people to elect people that do not have the incumbent cy only because it negates people from wanting to run. People have told me i would, but i cant fight an incumbent. Thank you, youre on the right track and i appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Actually before the next speaker, director orenz is here thank you for being here. Thank you, supervisor avalos, farrell and tang. My name is david carey and as an advocate and educator id like to commend supervisor avalos for his suggested amendment and for the changes he is making today. In general i think its great that San Francisco could make sure when there is a vacancy that voters have a voice in how that vacancy is filled and limit the time that an appointed supervisor, office holder, is in place. But probably more importantly i think its also great that these two concepts of the runoffs and the vacancy filling are split and also that supervisor avalos is choosing not to pursue the idea of our rcv, rcv has served San Francisco very well and will continue to do so and i hope we keep it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Supervisors, jim lazarus, San Francisco chamber of commerce. I think my biggest concern with the Charter Amendment as its been redrafted today is it continues a situation of dual office holding. I dont think an extensive period of time for the president of the board of supervisors to serve also as mayor, as i read the Charter Amendment or the remnants of it as its divided, really makes a lot of sense. You are going to have a situation for 4 or 5 or 6 months or longer, because the alex with the approval of the department of elections, the mayor and the board of supervisors, could extend more than 180 days until you consolidated it with a regular election. So as i read it you could have the president of the board of supervisors serving in two capacities and being a candidate for the office of mayor for an extensive period of time. I think thats a fatal flaw in that portion of the chatter amendment and i would urge you to reconsider. Its something i am still looking at, trying to find what a good solution is going to be for that. I do realize its a lot of responsibility and probably not, runs counter to what we are trying to do concerning the separation of powers, completely. Thank you, supervisor. Memorandum members of the rules committee, good afternoon. Today i am speaking as a member of the public. In addition to serving in the Elections Commission i have also been a polling place inspector 15 times over the last 8 years. I have modified my comments since the amendments but i want to thank you for not Going Forward with the proposal to reinstitute december runoffs and thats all i want to say. Thank you. Thank you very much, are there any other member s of the public who would like to speak in Public Comment . Seeing none, we will close Public Comment. Supervisor tang. Thank you, supervisor avalos, for i think the change, i think that was indeed two very different topics so i do appreciate you separating the two issues out. I think most of my comments will be very similar to i think it was last year or the year before when this measure also came up before us. This measure and this proposal sounds good on paper, but it really, i think, has a lot of holes in terms of practically speaking how it will work out. Im not just speaking as someone who has been in that role where i was appointed and then also worked for someone who was appointed, but really just in terms of examining what would happen. Ive said this before as well, but our Current System is not perfect but it certainly has worked. In doing my research i know that in the past history there have been 24 mayoral appointments to fill board of supervisors vacancies and there were actually 5 instances out of those 24 where the person that the mayor had appointed had lost the election and there are actually not that far away. For example, in 1978 there was someone who had lost and appointee, 1992, 1999, 2012 and recently one of our colleagues lost an election who was a mayoral appointee. I know there is a lot of concern when you are the appointee that it comes with this power of the incumbent but some of the elections have shown it actually is working. Frankly speaking, i know the mayor wouldnt want to hear this, but being a mayoral appointee comes with quite a bit of baggage. When people say, hey, you are the mayoral appointee, its not a good thing. It tends to put people against you. I also come at this from the perspective that in my situation i actually had to run for an election within 7 months the first time, then i had to run again, i had to run twice within two years so there were certainly two opportunities for people to come out and, you know, potentially run against me. And all that saying as someone who, again, grew up in the neighborhood i represent, who worked for almost 6 years for the neighborhood that i represented from my predecessor yet still this issue, i think some people are uncomfortable with the fact there with the fact there are appointees one of the issues i had you have someone the mayor is going to appoint until the next election occurs. It could be 4 months, it could be longer, obviously shorter than two years under current laws. Where are we going to find someone who quit their job with the understanding with the restraint you cannot continue to run for ofrs in the future, thats very undemocratic for us to say. You are not allowed to run for office, if you decide you like and you would do well at, no, you cannot run. Practically speaking it will be very difficult to find someone to fill in for that short period of time and to be held actable to the constituents. Why would someone feel like they have a responsibility to serve their constituents in that period of time . They may have a Good Relationship with your predecessor, you may not, to have a relationship with your constituents, that you should be responding to them, where is the accountability there . I dont see that. For me when i knew i had to run again, i felt a huge responsibility to serve the constituents so thats one of my concerns. Staffing, not only is it going to be difficult to find whoever it is to fill in as a supervisor, where will you find the staff to go and work for just a couple months to fill in. That was difficult for me to ask people to quit their jobs and come work for me and face the uncertainty of elections coming up, twice. So i just, you know, i think that again our system is not completely perfect but there have been instances where elections have shown that, yes, a mayoral appointee who is serving on the board of supervisors can actually lose elections and sometimes when this do win elections it doesnt mean because of the power of the incumbent. Maybe in instances like sean he ellsberg who did great work in the community and people like they should continue. Thats where i stand, still the same place as last time when this measure came about so i still feel uncomfortable with the measure even in the strippeddown version. Thank you. Well, all im asking today is that we make amendments and continue this item. I think theres a million arguments you can make in any way about it. Were talking about trying to create a new pathway for how we fill vacancies and you can find different arguments to say why we shouldnt. I dont think theres everybody a difficulty in filling a legislative aide position on the board of supervisors. Theres a line of people really looking to do good work and i think also the work that a legislative aide does to do well on their job can have a huge impact on their career. So i would say the same thing for the person in question, the supervisor wants to do a good job and doesnt want to be a lame duck supervisor even though they are not able to run for election once they have served the people of this city. And i dont think it will be any difficulty finding someone to qualify. Especially probably the person that is, the people who are most, have the greatest chance of being selected to serve as an interim supervisor would be a legislative aide. I think there are legislative aides who would step up to that occasion and know how city hall works and knows all the con tents of the Supervisors Office and the event of that person being appointed for an interim term. But i do appreciate your consideration of this legislation, supervisor tang, and in no way is this to call upon yourself as a supervisor, you do tremendous work for a district, representing the people in your district, you come with a great deal of expert and knowledge and experience and there is no reason why you shouldnt have been elected to serve your district and i dont want you to in any way think that this is something about you or about your ropl on the role on the board of supervisors, its more about the separation of powers between the Mayors Office and the board of supervisors. So i have a motion to accept the changes that were discussed today and hoping colleagues you can support that and have the item continued. Motion made, i guess. We can take that without objection. So just to summarize, the measure that is about filling vacancies will continue to the next rules Committee Meeting and the duplicated file that is about rank Choice Voting will be continued to the call of the chair. Well take that without objection, thank you. Mr. Clerk, do we have any other items before us . There are no more items, mr. Chair. We are adjourned, thank you. meeting adjourned . Power its all around us in the sun and the winds and caves waves power that lights our homes while protecting our Natural Resources clean power will provide power to san franciscans how about works right now our power is from pg e from nonrenewable systems that comes over pg e maintained lines with clean power your energy about think generated by caesarean more renewable sources come to our home e. R. Businesses to the pg e lines