Introduce our subject Matter Experts who are here. I also have some very small amendments to the resolution, which ill pass out copies here. They basically just say that there are 18 other states, rather than 14 other states, that have taken similar steps. With that im going to turn it over to our subject Matter Experts who can provide more context and information and who will also be available for followup questions. The first person i want to introduce is a has been fighting this fight for a long. He will give you these little flyers where it shows all of the steps over many years to get us to this point and all of the struggles to make sure that we actually have a democracy that includes everybody and is, i think, one of our greatest champions not just for this issue, but one of the most important civil and human rights leaders in the country and longtime friend of mine dorcy young. Thank you. Ive been doing Voter Registration for over 20 years, and i like outside of a narcotic anonymous meeting, in front of the liquor store. Some of the stuff that just jumps out at you is the age of which people are normally registering the vote thats on parole or off of parole or have been convicted of a felony, you get into the area of people registering to vote, 35, 40, 52 years was the oldest person i registered to vote. At a certain point 50,000 is more than just 50,000. That 50,000 carries with it a message that you cannot vote if youve been convicted of a felony. If you want Something Different to happen with the Larger Population because right now we only talk about the 50,000 thats on parole, but there is hundreds of thousands of people who dont necessarily feel that they have the right to vote because theyve been convicted of a felony. Id like to drop something else, probably in the middle of this. Yall think that my fight is for democracy just by itself. My fight is to become recognized as a legitimate citizen of this country. So if i dont have the right to vote, i dont know if im a citizen. If i dont have the right to sit on jury, i dont know if im a citizen. If i dont have the right to sit in Public Office or retain a Public Office, i dont know if im a citizen and i dont think that people should be running around the state that dont know that as true when they are. So like last year my wife spent doing Voter Registration and right before she died, barack obama was elected governor. During the course of the evening he was being elected, i asked her did i squander our time together doing Voter Registration will often take you away from the house a lot. She told me she wouldnt have me any other way because she met me doing the work. You know, im proud of San Francisco. Youll is the first county that banned the box. Now we up to about 35 or 36 whole states. San francisco gave us that. We came to San Francisco when a lot of issues werent that and you werent that progressive on either, but im proud of San Francisco. Maybe one day when we have a parade on Martin Luthur king, you will recognize the work of my homies, secured the right to employment, we continued the fight, secured the right to housing and not to be discriminated in housing, both public and private that happened in San Francisco. So San Francisco is an important part of this. So i ask you to actually pass this on and allow the board of the supervisors to vote. Something happened this year that i cant ever recall ever happening. Last month we ran fourpage ads in the sacramento b three times on three sundays. At the bottom of the ad it says something really, really significant. It says that this ad was paid for by incarcerated people. So if this issue was so important, were acting as fully as we can and, by the way, ill always want you to remember 537 votes determine the core election and they actually determine the next two decades of what we did in the middle east where we sacrificed husband and wife and treasure to vote. Thank you. Thank you, darcy. Next we have darris siprian also from legal services. Thank you for having us and thank you for the support. My name is darris siprian and im a policy manager for just briefly for those who are not familiar with all of us, i just want to say we are a nationally recognized Grassroots Movement with the goal of uniting and strengthening our voices, visibility, and leadership in our communities and for our communities. So im here on behalf of those voices and we are here in united of aca6 unlike some of the voices i represent today, i have had the opportunity to vote, however, that opportunity was 33 years ago. I was 18 years old. I can remember the day very vividly. Me and my dad went to the poll and past our votes. On our way home he had a look on his face. I had seen this look in the past. It was a look i had seen when i won the spelling bee in fourth grade. A look i got an a in algebra or hit a home run. He was proud of me and he was proud. So i understand that now, but what i didnt understand then is that when my dad was 18 years old, in the 1950s, he faced a different kind of Voter Suppression. He faced a different i dont want to like a more violent jim crow, but make no mistake, its the same jim crow with this felony disenfranchisement. And that is just another name for Voter Suppression. It absolutely serves no legitimate Law Enforcement purpose. It serves no Public Policy purpose or no Public Safety purpose. What it does serve is a sign of power and supremacy that derives from a strategy to politically marginalize communities of colour. Thats what it serves as. Just to make it real quick, according to United States department of justice, parole has threefold purpose. One, its to assist people on parole with problems concerning finances, residences. Two, it protects people in society to assist incarcerated people by getting them into the community which prevents recidivism. And also parole prevents needless incarceration for those less likely to residivate. Im told that im a citizen. I have all the burdens and responsibilities of a citizen. Im a taxpaying citizen, but i dont have the same rights as a citizen. I have no say in what elected representative represents me, our district, nor do i have any say on how mitacs dollars are spent. So i just want to say we are all aware of this countrys history. Its marked by successful struggles to expand Voting Rights for different classes of people, race, gender, class. This is an opportunity to continue to build on that expansion. So we all have an opportunity to send a message to californian citizens across the country that voting is a cornerstone of a democracy and we will not tolerate any type of Voter Suppression no matter how you disguise it. So im asking this board today to support yes in support of the rules and regulations for aca6. Thank you. Thank you. Next i want to call up brendon woods who is the Alameda County public defender. Good morning, members of the committee. Thank you for allowing me to say a few words about this important pieces of legislation that is being considered in sacramento. As you heard, aca6 will allow the voters to decide whether people on parole should be given the right to vote. As i said earlier in a rally today just to provide some context, 21 countries, 21, currently allow people to vote if you are on parole or if you are in prison. 21 countries. Those countries include spain, switzerland, sweden, germany, and even south africa. South africa. In april of 1999, the Constitutional Court of south africa declared the universality of the disenfranchisement is important, not only for the nation and democracy to vote for each and every citizen is a badge of personhood. In south africa they literally said every vote counts. In south africa they recognize that people in custody lose their liberty, not to be stripped of other fundamental rights. The number of people who have been stripped of this right has risen dramatically with the rise of mass incarceration. In 1976 there were 1. 7 Million People disenfranchised. That those to now today 6. 1 million. 6. 1 million. In 2016 november election, there were 6. 1 million citizens who were ineligible to vote because of a felony conviction. For context 4. 7 million were not incarcerated. 4. 7 million were on the streets. Due to overincarceration, this has a devastating effect on black and brown communities. Black people are four times more likely to be disenfranchised. 1 out of 15 black opposed to 1 in 56 nonblack voters. 2. 2 million black people are banned from voting in this country. Aca6 will address this and it will also increase Public Safety by welcoming returning citizens. Research conducted on this topic consistently finds that harsher voting restriction laws results in higher rates of recidivism in those states. Higher recidivism laws equate to more disenfranchisement. So in 2012 a study posed by uc berkley. If one has no stake in his or her community, then one has little incentive to involve in a social manner in order to avoid punishment. This is important to rehabilitation and reintegration. In a recent study, 76 of parolees said that voting would help them stay out of jail, 76. Furthermore, im going to end with this, people who are incarcerated or on parole are uniquely situated to offer solutions on how we can prevent incarceration and promote Public Safety. Voting would give them and allow them to have a voice in important policy decisions. So it is time that we in california stop telling our neighbours they dont belong, stopping telling them they cant participate. Lets put that rhetoric to an end. Democracy needs everyone. We need to fix this. We need to patch aca6. We need to free the vote and i urge you to support the resolution. Thank you. Thank you to all three of our experts and to the many experts who i see also in the room here with us today. We can open it up. Chair ronen sure. Well now open this item up for Public Comment. Anyone who would like to speak, if you could line up on your right this side of the room. Mr. Wright, would you like to start us off . This is very important and by the same response he has numerous demonstrations, demonstrating how it affects people of color, but i want to highlight that everybody here is fair and equal opportunity abrogater and speaking up for the race theyre standing up for, but also i want to point out i believe everybody is like me fair and outside the people of colour as well because, see, there are whites too who are in the same type of position as people of colour who dont have the opportunity to vote as well. So all of you who are caucasian nationality white people, when you see us speaking like this, were not just speaking up for ourselves, were speaking up for you too because youre on parole too and you cant vote. This is not a situation where we want differential treatment. Were equal opportunity abrogators, and we want equal protection under the law and due process. Dont think were being biased against you because were not. Getting everybody to think that is the way to be and applies to the housing opportunities here in San Francisco and it hasnt been fair. Some of you touched spaces on housing while youre talking about the voting situation. All of it is a derivative of each other. [ bell rings ]. Is that clear . I also want to point out that when you paid your debt to society, you should automatically have a clean slate to begin with. When you get sentenced for that amount of time, that time is completed, thats why youre released. Youve been on parole or probation is just a way to make sure that you dont fall back in the system and the situation where youre behind bars again. [ bell rings ]. Chair ronen thank you. Next speaker, please. Im very nervous. Excuse me. My name is louis hammonds. Im a member of the united players and i support all or none. Im a formerly incarcerated inmisstai inmai inmate who is a returning community member. Thats something that says to us as a whole that were stakeholders and we have a moral obligation to make a difference in our community. I also work for the division of parole as a navigator. I help those returning home to navigate their way through the system to be a success. Many restrictions as they were talking about rely on trying to try to help us protect ourselves, make sure were doing the right things. We have motivation tempered with patience and were renewed back into the recovery of life. This restriction actually is an opposition to that. It does not promote harmony, productivity, prosocial justice, and so i would say that i have to just speak for myself. Theres nothing that i could ever do to repay society for my incarceration or the acts that ive done, so i dont come here to say ive done my time, i deserve that right. Its going to take a lifetime for me to even try to mend those things. But what i do say is as a leader of this community that i ask that we be stakeholders and brought to the table. They say every vote counts [ bell rings ]. What i here is every life should count. I respectfully request as a son of a mother who retired with the u. S. Army spending 38 years and the father of a son of a Police Officer in stockton, i say pleased allow us to come to the as stakeholders and make a difference in our community. Thank you very much. Good morning and greetings to all. I am formerly incarcerated and i represent all of us or none which is a project for prisoners with children. Parole serves as a vehicle of reentry into society in which individuals regain their reclaim their full citizenship and which entails the right to pay taxes, the right to vote, and the right to serve on juries. It is my civic duty and responsibility to change the narrative as to who formerly incarcerated folks are. We are not inmates, convicts, parolees, we are returning citizens. For the record, i am full support of aca6. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My name is paul conley. I was born and raised in San Francisco, and i know that San Francisco has a long history of not absorbing everybody in the population. This is another attempt to ostracise members of the society. The statistics that you provided are troubling that black people are less than 6 of the population, 45 of people on parole in San Francisco are black. Im from a community of color, and its disappearing, almost every black neighbourhood in San Francisco is disappearing. If 46 of people on parole are black, theres no wonder why, we dont have a say so on a local level, were losing your property, so much, our freedom and i would like for us to do whatever we can to make sure people from this city can remain in this city and have a voice in this city. My name is arian chekova. I am a resident of San Francisco since 1992. Im a Public School teacher in san bruno and a parent here in the city. I am a sister of a man who served ten years under minimum sentencing guidelines. This caused our entire family to be imprisoned for those ten years, but it didnt end because theres 20 years he is out now at the age of 33 and hes out it now and hes got a 20year parole sentence in which he cannot vote, he continues to not be a citizen of this country. During his sentencing, during his imprisonment, my father and mother who were very poor, were unable to get him a good lawyer, therefore the long sentence, overly long, drove across the country. My father died of a heart attack. One could say he died of heart break to go and see his son. He never saw his son again. Over the ten years he was imprisoned, my mother lost her job, lost all of her retirement. I spent thousands of dollars bringing myself, my son, my husband, my whole family out to visit my brother between two to three times a year in the south of this country. [ bell rings ]. Its a long journey for families. I saw a lot of broken families. I empathized with all the families, all the women, all the children, all the hiss and wives, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, of people who are incarcerated, it is a long, long time and we need to give every Single Person the right to full citizenship under the law and the right to vote as soon as we possibly can. Everybody who has served their sentence needs the right. Thank you very much. [ bell rings ]. Chair ronen next speaker. Good morning. My name is michael sevadra. Im also formerly incarcerated. I spent 19. 5 years in prison. Im now a pathway to Law School Student and also i work and pay taxes. However, i cant vote and i think its very important for me to be reintegrated back into the community to have that right and also to represent my community because my community is being marginalized as well and their voice as well as mine need to be heard. So i urge you to pass this. Thank you. Good morning, good afternoon, my name is wendy click. I work for hospitality house but also represent myself. Im formerly incarcerated. The sentence i carried, i had to be on parole for five years. If it wasnt for the dorothy nones and joe wilsons, i never would have thought about voting. After my five years, this past november was the first time i was able to vote. I brought 34 people who have never voted here to city hall. We did a walk to windy and that was so liberating for me because it wasnt for all of us or none of us who gave that pamphlet out to vote, i wouldnt have had all 34 folks here. Im going to continue this, but now at hospitality house, we have people, six with a life sentence. We are reaching out to the communities to say lets get out and vote. So i support this, hospitality house supports this, and we all would love for this to pass. Thank you. Good morning, my name is michael mendosa, and im the policy director w