Accidents and dismal customer service. In 1999, there were expectations by the voters that mta would bring improvements. Theyve had almost two decades to do that, but has that happen . Now is the time for voters to weigh on whether the mta experiment has been a success or not. I would strongly urge the board to respect the voices of the voters and place this charter on the june ballot. Let the mta and others make their case in the voter handbook, not in the board chamber. Thank you. Supervisor safai thank you. Any other members of the public wish to comment on this item . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. So as i said, we intend to, and a lot of it was represented today. We intend, both supervisor peskin and i, to have some further conversations with those in the taxi industry at their request. I think we need to give that a little bit more time, so i would like to entertain a motion to continue this item to the next meeting. Supervisor yee before we do that supervisor safai oh, supervisor yee. I didnt see you. I apologize. Supervisor yee yeah, yeah. No problem. First of all, i want to thank the authors of this. Im going to say that this issue of a check and balance is important to to me. I put something on the try to do something in 2016, i believe, making a Charter Amendment to maybe get to that check and balance with different mechanism which is to have the board be able to appoint commissioners on the mta and at the time, even with no really campaign to move it forward, it almost passed, and i think, you know, if we had added something, it would probably have gotten through the hurdle. So im looking at this a little more carefully in terms of how the checks and balances would be than to have just the board have the ability to appoint commissioners on there. Supervisor safai thank you, supervisor. Appreciate that, and we did talk about that, and as part of our process in rolling this out with groups that you had put that forward and in some ways, in that same spirit, were trying to create a mechanism with which we would have more authority and there would be some more checks on the overall system, so we really appreciate that. So id like can we entertain a motion to continue this item to the next meeting on january 24th . Supervisor yee ill make that motion. Supervisor safai so moved, without objection, it is ordered. Please call the next item. Clerk item number 8 is a Charter Amendment for the june 5, 2018 election to provide that whenever the projected budget deficit exceeds 200 dplr million, the city is not required to increase funds for certain museums, funds or cultural centers, provide these funds remain unspent and maintain the commitment to maintain and fund a symphony orchestra. And we a and we are joined by supervisor tang who is the primary author of this Charter Amendment, so ill hand it over to supervisor tang. Supervisor tang thank you very much. So back in july, supervisor peskin and i had introduced this, and this Charter Amendment mainly does two things, and ill speak to the third thing in a bit. But one it provides a mechanism for us as a city to pause the growth of set asides. Not cut, not eliminate, but pause the growth of set asides during an economic downturn when the citys projected deficit exceeds 200 million at the joint report. Second it requires that unspent baseline and set aside fund be returned to the general fund starting in fiscal year 2018 and 2019, and i will introduce an amendment to that piece, as well. So based on a hearing and a report that we had asked the Controllers Office to put together, and i want to thank the controllers staff for that, San Francisco, we currently have 19 set asides. That is the most out of any other jurisdiction in the entire nation. Just by comparison, los angeles has two adopted set asides. San diego has one, and san jose has none, and i believe this actually puts San Francisco in a position where the city may not be able to respond to the needs of priorities in the future. And of course, i think set asides sound really good when taken on an individual basis. Of course when you see a library set aside on its own, you see a childrens baseline on its own, a dignity fund on its own, all of it, of course is something we would all want to support. But when taken as a whole and as new ones continue to be added, i do think this poses a huge budget balancing problem for us in the future. I think its certainly very convenient for us to punt to the future and ignore problems that we cant see, but i think thats you know, to me, thats not okay. And hence i have this measure before us today. Also, according to the report from the Controllers Office, a voteradopted baseline spending in our city has trael increased from about 200 million from fiscal year 19941995 to 1. 2 billion in the current fiscal year budget and a projected 1. 6 billion in fiscal year 202122. So the thatportion thats mand has increased, and at a time when federal funding remains unclear, we as a city need to manage our budgets. I do have a couple of amendments, and i want to thank deputy City Attorney jon givner for working on the measure so quickly. Number one is in terms of regarding the general Provision Fund claw back, its already in the charter if you have the funds encumbered, that in addition if the funds are to be set aside for capital, then they would not be returned to general fund. Again if you have Capital Expenditures that youve identified. Secondly, for the childrens baseline to be distinguished from the Childrens Fund. To the childrens baseline, we are eliminating the line return to the general fund unexpended funds there in because theres a difference of how the Childrens Fund works in comparison to the other baselines. We do have our Controllers Office staff to explain that if you have any questions. And then, of course, we also clarified how the Controllers Office will calculate what the version will be, and thats based on the total that the department receives. So those are the amendments that i will ask the committee to adopt later. Regarding the similar phony baseline removal, i only included that provision in there because there was a measure that was that is being proposed and signatures are being gathered at the moment regarding arts funding. And at that moment, the similar phony was part of that. I didnt feel it was right for the similar phony to receive two baselines. Weve had some very productive conversations, and we will continue to do so, but i just want d to clarify that. Our charter measure says that the city is not required to increase the funding and throughout the measure it also says that we may suspend the cpi growth. So i want to let you know that it doesnt say that we must, it says that we may, so it allows the city flexibility during that economic time. Now ive received questions and concerns that weve always projected a 200 million plus deficit, but based on the controllers analysis in the last 20 years, it has actually only happened six years during our worst Economic Times here that a lot of us can remember. So in the last 20 years only six instances where it would have triggered a freeze in the cpi growth. It would not take into consideration any freezes or increases that might have happened in the previous year. So i hope that that clarifies some of the provisions of this measure. Ive certainly seen quite a bit of correspondence that i think doesnt speak to actually what this charter measure is doing. One of the things that, you know, im not trying to target any particular baselines. This is really to me about good budgeting and allowing us as a city to have the flexibility during downturns. I know that many of you will come up and say well, we have a baseline because in the past, we have historically not had enough funding in these certain categories, right, and i will agree with you. But we also dont have baselines for departments such as department of public health, Human Services, unless youre counting the dignity fund. Also counting the department of homelessness. But we can argue that especially during the bad Economic Times, these are some of the most Vulnerable People that we need to exist. I hope that well have the flexibility to budget as needed when were faced with tough times. One last thing i will say is or a couple few last things is ive also received a question about why the police, for example, the minimum staffing requirement is or the police baseline is not included here. Its because its a mun maximum staffing requirement so its structured very differently from all many of the other baselines that we have here in San Francisco. So it wasnt there was no effort to try to only target nonprofits and exclude public safety. Its not it at all. Its because the police is a minimum staffing requirement, so i want to make that very, very clear. Okay. My last point is i dont see this measure as a threat to our baselines and set asides that are in existence. To be very honest, i had contemplated, along with my cosponsor, many other provisions that we would have loved to included in this Charter Amendment, but we chose not to because we wanted to be able to allow the baselines to be the way it is right now without impacting all the hard work that many of you have put together in order to fight the battles at the ballot to put these measures on. So i feel that these two provisions are actually quite conservative in terms of what we initially wanted to achieve. I think the real threat which, you know is something that maybe, you know whether you see it or not, the actual threat to your baselines are other baselines that people put on the charter or put at the ballot. So for example, if it is successful, this arts measure thats for the june ballot, that would actually cut into the baselines that are in existence. In fiscal year 20182019, if that were to pass, it would impact the mtas baseline by 6. 1 million. It would impact the childrens services, including child care baseline by 4. 3 million, peace by 1. 4 million, the library by 1. 5, and other general impacts by 9. 6. Thats just that one year, but it grows in future years. I just want to make it clear this measure doesnt attack your baselines. It does consider in bad Economic Times your growth in the baseline, but frankly there are other measures that if passed by voters would dip into your existing baseline. So with that said, i dont know if my colleague has any my cosponsor has any remarks, i will be happy to hear from all of your Community Members from all of your supervisor safai supervisor peskin . Supervisor peskin this is a tough conversation to have, and i think just having the conversation is very important whether it was the hearing that we held at the government audit, an over Sight Committee where you could start to see the magnitude of this over time. And its also, i think important for virtually every one of these Charter Amendments arent put on by popular signature. Theyre put on by six or more members of this body. And theyre all for extremely laudable uses. Whether its Early Childhood education, whether its for our ageing and adult population. And of course these are always uses that are under tremendous pressure housing, libraries, recreation, parks and open space. But to set aside is the easy way out. The tough way for elected officials to go is to actually pursue new sources of revenues and use that terrible word call called raising taxes, whether its a gross receipts tax or other tax. Im as guilty of this over you know the last 20 years as anybody ive supported. Many of the ones that are on here and was proud to do so, but they were not accompanied by new sources of revenue. So we were we were slicing up the pie, tieing our hands in certain ways, because you sometimes have emergencies. This year, it could be a homeless crisis. Next year, it can be a housing crisis, and that is not by way of diminishing any of the other needs, but they have not come with new sources of revenue, and i have since i got back on the board in 2015 tried to be extremely disciplined. It gave me no pleasure to be one of two dissenting votes on the dignity fund. It gave me no pleasure to be one of two dissenting votes on supervisor farrells rec and park set aside the year before last. But that kind of discipline has to be instilled in the board of supervisors. And the problem is we cant pass a law saying that we cant do that because the charter is the charter. And we cant say that members of the board of supervisors wont vote for a Charter Amendment unless its accompanied by a new source of revenue because the charter doesnt say that, and the charters a function of state law. So were looking for ways to try to discipline this board and the community and understand the impact. So i want to say that i think its very kraj us of supervico supervisor tang to go down this road and start this conversation. But as she said, we are having set asides that are canbalancizing other set asideset cannibalizing other set asides. Weve really got to get our hands on this, and i think its long past time to start having that tough conversation. It gives me no pleasure, because ive got a lot of friends who have fought and worked very hard to get those set asides. And the most important thing here is this is not aimed at taking them away, its aimed at set aside reform, and with that, i will turn the mic back over to the chairman. Supervisor safai okay. So any additional comments or questions from Committee Members before we go to Public Comment . Seeing none, lets go to Public Comment. Please step forward. You have two minutes to speak on the microphone if youd like to speak on this item. Please lineup on the right. Please proceed. Hello. My name is francis collins. Ive been a renter in San Francisco since 1970. Since there is no money from the federal government, and with this administration cutting hud, i would appreciate that we keep the set aside from the housing for the housing fund. If something happened to me concerning my housing and the fact that im on a fixed income, id like to know that theres a housing fund that i could access in any case of an emergency. Thank you. Hello. Yes. My name is ernesto escuarez. I am a homeowner, and in 20112012, we stopped the foreclosure right on the steps of city hall. I think money set aside, it should be to help foreclosures or for the specific needs of the community. You know, the community is the one that makes the city, and id like to ask you the Charter Amendment is not a good thing for the community, and thank you for listening to us, and money set asides should just be money set aside for the community. Thank you so much. Supervisor safai thank you. Good afternoon, supervisors. My name is sandy morey, and im representing the Dignity Fund Coalition. Originally in my thinking of testifying today, and knowing all of you are very supportive of seniors and adults with disabilities, and all of you except two of you support the dignity fund, but the two of you were very helpful in not publicly coming against the Dignity Fund Coalition, and we appreciate that. Hearing your comments today, because this is a complicated issue, i agree with you. Its very complicated, and its big issue for the whole city to look at. So why are we trying to rush this through . I just think that we need to have a little bit more conversations. The issues that i raised today, supervisor tang, ive got to go back and look at that, because you know its very complicated. So i just really my initial thought was to just encourage you to just reject this whole thing today, but at the same time, given the fact that youre trying to come up with some ways of looking at this in a productive way, i say just delay this for a little bit and have morconversatie conversatie community. I know all of you support these issues. I know all of you support these populations that were talking about, and youre trying to do your fiscal responsibility for the whole city. Youre trying to balance all that out. So please consider, were just rushing this through, so just please consider that. Thank you. Supervisor safai thank you. Next speaker. Hi. Im margo baker. Im also with the Dignity Fund Coalition. Sandy and i are teammates. She said a bunch of stuff that i was about to say. I think whats important is something that supervisor peskin made you were saying in terms of, you know, the vulnerable population and the importance of being able to move money where its needed as opposed to having it all tied up. And i think the thing for us in the community and set asides and democracy is that many of us in the community, as many of you know fought for, you know, money for ageing services. Well i did the whole 21 years i ran an agency. And as our population was spiraling, and it still is exponentially, the city it wasnt on the radar screen to give funds so we could prepare as a city for this population, which is as everyone knows, its going to be 25 in you know, within the next decade, so its huge. 20 who are poor. So you know, we didnt want to get the set aside route, and we didnt. And we talked about it for years and years, and we finally did, because no matter what we did, we couldnt seem to get enough attention from the board and the mayor. So i think its important for people here to understand that its not like we all you know as sandy was saying also, set asides wiare the end all b all. I really appreciate the comments you made, supervisor, and supervisor tang. It was really helpful, and yes, id love to talk about it. I think its really important. Thanks. Hello. Patrick bran oon. Im a vet, and what im most concerned about is age 41, 47th avenue, my friend was foreclosed after 20 years. It was foreclosed for 320. Mr. Mohamed pardon me, please recnanian, he was convicted of