Good morning.

This meeting will come to order and welcome to the Thursday, January 21st of the Government Audit and Oversight Committee.

I am Supervisor Dean Preston, the chair of this committee, and I am joined by Vice Chair Connie Chan and hopefully soon by uh committee member Raphael uh Mandelman.

Uh thank you to the committee's clerk, John Carroll.

And I would also like to thank uh SFGov TV for staffing this meeting.

Mr.

Clerk, do you have any announcements?

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

In order to protect the public, board members, and city employees during the COVID-19 health emergency, the Board of Supervisors, Legislative Chamber, and Committee Room are closed.

This precaution is taken pursuant to all various local, state, and federal orders, declarations, and directives.

Committee members will attend the meeting through video conference and participate in the meeting to the same extent as if they were physically present.

Public comment will be available for each item on this agenda.

Both San Francisco Cable Channel 26 and sfgovtv.org are streaming a public comment call-in number across your screen at this time.

Your opportunity to speak and provide comments during any of the public comment periods today will be available to you via phone by dialing 415-65501.

Once you're connected and prompted, enter today's meeting ID to connect today's meeting.

The meeting ID for today is 146-181-2723.

Following that, you'll press the pound symbol twice to be connected to the meeting.

Once you're connected, you'll hear the meeting discussions, but your line will be muted.

It will be in listening mode only.

When your item of interest comes up, dial star followed by three to be added to the speaker line.

A system prompt will then indicate that you have raised your hand.

Please wait until the system indicates that you've been unmuted.

You may then begin your comments.

Best practices are to call from a quiet location, speak clearly and slowly, and to turn down your television, your radio, or your streaming device.

Everyone must uh account for potential time delays and speaking discrepancies that we may encounter between live coverage and streaming of the meeting.

Alternatively, you may submit your public comment in either of the following ways.

You may email me.

My name is John Carroll.

I'm the clerk of the government audit and oversight committee, and my email address is J-O-H-N period C-A-R-R-O-L-L at SFGOV.org.

If you submit your public comment via email, I will include your comments as part of the legislative file on which you are commenting.

Alternatively, you can also submit your public comment via mail to our office, which is still open in City Hall.

And the address is one Dr.

Carlton B.

Goodlit Place, room 244, San Francisco, California, 94102.

And all of this contact information is available on the front page of our agenda.

Finally, Mr.

Chair, items acted upon today will appear on the Board of Supervisors agenda of February 2nd, 2021, unless otherwise stated.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

And before we uh call the first agenda item, just wanted to start by uh thanking uh the former chair of this committee, Supervisor Gordon Maher, who will be with us on the first agenda item, um, who served on the committee together with uh former committee member Supervisor Aaron Peskin and Supervisor Matt Haney.

Appreciate their service on this committee and and uh supervisor Mahr's leadership.

Also noticing uh that my colleague uh Supervisor Mandelman has joined uh the meeting.

So welcome uh to you as well.

Um I want to welcome and uh Vice Chair uh Supervisor Connie Chan, uh, and as I mentioned, Supervisor Mandelman.

Uh really looking forward to working with both of you on this committee.

And I did just want to say uh before we get started that you know the government audit and oversight committee uh is in my opinion a really critical uh committee, and I'm honored to serve as the chair, especially during this moment in time.

I think that right now the residents of our city um need government more than ever.

And I think this committee plays uh an important role as a check on the exercise of government power.

Um, and we uh fulfill our duty of providing oversight and uh exercising our power uh of inquiry.

And as part of that oversight role, we make sure that the promises of government are kept and that we aspire to and achieve the highest possible level of excellence in our work as a city.

Um and I think above all, this committee to me is about good government, transparency and accountability.

Um, and I think looking back over the last year, certainly the corruption revelations have really done, I think, damage to the public's confidence in City Hall.

Um, government corruption is not just about the abuse of power, it really creates distrust in government and that fuels um privatization and a privatization agenda that serves profits rather than uh than public benefits.

And I think when we allow a culture of corruption to continue in San Francisco, we're really losing support for the desperately needed government-based solutions.

And I'm really believe this committee can has and must continue to play a key role in advancing reforms and oversight that's necessary to help restore confidence and ensure the effective functioning of government, especially as we recover from this pandemic.

So looking forward very much to working with you colleagues on these and the many matters that come before the committee.

And also want to specifically thank uh the clerk's office, uh, and in particular our clerk John Carroll here on the GAO committee, uh, the city attorney's office specifically, uh, deputy city attorney Ann Pearson and Supervisor Maher and his legislative aide uh Edward Wright for their work, all of them in um ensuring a smooth transition, helping us get up to speed uh to serve uh as chair of this committee.

Um, Mr.

Clark, with that, uh please call item one.