Good morning.

This meeting will come to order.

Welcome to the February 6th, 2025 regular meeting of the Government Audit and Oversight Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

I'm Supervisor Jackie Fielder, Chair of the Committee, joined by Supervisor Souter and Supervisor Cheryl.

The committee clerk is Monique Creighton.

Our thanks to uh Clerk and SFGUBTV for staffing this meeting.

Madam Clerk, do you have any announcements?

Yes.

Public comment will be taken on each item on this agenda.

When your item of interest comes up and public comment is called, please line up to speak on your right.

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

Email them to the government audit and oversight committee clerk at M O N IQ E dot C-R-A-Y-T-O-N at SFGOV.org.

If you can submit public comment via email, it will be forwarded to the supervisors and also included as part of the official file.

You may also send your written comments via U.S.

Postal Service to our office in City Hall.

Number one, Dr.

Carlton Be Goodlit Place, Room 244, San Francisco, California 94102.

If you if you have documents you would like to be included as part of the official file, please submit them to the meet before the end of the meeting.

Please make sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices to prevent any interruptions to today's proceedings.

Finally, items acted upon today are expected to appear on the Board of Supervisors agenda of February 25th, 2025 unless otherwise stated.

Thank you.

And Madam Clerk, please call item number one.

Item number one is a resolution authorizing the office of the mayor, office of the city attorney, and office of the city administrator, and the head of each division office and department under the supervision of the city administrator to solicit donations from various private nonprofit, philanthropic, and other entities to support one, the urgent provision of legal services related to the creation and enforcement of immigration laws, regulations, and policies, including litigation and regulatory reform efforts at the local, state, and federal level in non-legal services and support for the city's immigrant communities.

Two, goods, services and support for the city to excuse me, goods and services, including legal services related to defending and supporting LGPB, TQ plus rights, three, goods and services, including legal services related to defending and supporting reproductive rights, four, goods and services, including legal services related to defending existing environmental protection laws and promoting environmental protection efforts.

And five, goods and services, including legal services related to racial equity initiatives, all notwithstanding the behested payment ordinance.

I would like to note that this item will be presented as a committee report at the February 11th Board of Supervisors meeting.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Um for this item, Calvin Ho, representing Supervisor Mandelman will, who is a sponsor for this item will be taking the lead on this item and introducing.

Oh, sorry.

Calvin, please go ahead.

Um thank you, Chair Fielder, uh, Supervisor Sauter and Cheryl.

My name is Calvin Ho, and I'm a legislative aide to President Manelman.

The item before you today is a behested payment waiver for the offices of the mayor, city attorney, and city administrator.

This will allow all positions that are required to file Form 700s in these departments to solicit donations to cover goods and services, including legal services to protect our immigrant and LGBTQ plus communities and defend reproductive rights and sorry, environmental protections and racial equity efforts.

Sorry, I'm a bit nervous.

Um and we hear about efforts to strip away the rights of our you know trans community members um and immigrant communities.

Um I want to thank Mayor Lurie, City Attorney David Chu, and City Ministry McCartman Chu for their leadership in this moment, and Deputy City Attorney Brad Russian for his work on this.

Um I'm going to turn it now to Brad to talk more about the resolution.

Good morning, supervisors.

Deputy City Attorney Brad Russian I wanted to thank the committee first for hearing this item today.

It's um timely, as I'm sure you've seen in the news what's going on.

And I also wanted to thank Supervisor or President Mandelman for sponsoring this item as well as his staff for working with us on it, and Supervisor Fielder um and her staff for collaborating with us on some amendments.

And also thank the co-sponsors, Supervisors Angardio, Dorsey, and Souter for helping us move this forward.

Um as you know, what's coming out of DC in the new federal administration is really unprecedented, and the actions that they're taking could have a significant impact on San Francisco and its communities.

Our office intends to take all appropriate legal actions that we can to uphold the city's laws and values and to challenge unlawful actions coming out of Washington.

And we anticipate this work will fall into the categories that are covered by this resolution: immigration issues, LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights, environmental protection and racial equity.

And our office has limited resources.

We need to continue providing the legal services that we always do for the city.

And so we can't undertake all this additional work without help from the outside.

And so that's sort of the purpose of this ask.

We need to partner with outside firms, philanthropic foundations, and other um nonprofits to bolster our efforts.

So the purpose of the requested waiver is to allow our office as well as our partners in the mayor's office, uh, the city administrator's office, and particularly the Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs and the Assessor Recorder's Office to have conversations with these outside entities about this coordinated effort without running afoul of the city's behested payment ordinance.

And we hope that these outside entities will be willing to help us with pro bono legal services and funding as well as potentially providing pro bono legal services and funding directly to impacted communities and the nonprofits that serve them.

This is really an all-hands-on-deck situation, and so we're going to need all the help that we can get to mount this effort against what's going on from DC.

Under the waiver, we'll be able to make connections between potential donors and nonprofit entities as well as coordinate donations directly to city departments.

And per the amendments that we've agreed to with Supervisor Fielder, we've we will be reporting to the board at the conclusion of this waiver all the donations to city departments that have resulted from the waiver.

And of course, we'll, you know, make all the other required legal um reporting that we need to do.

Um so we asked for your support in these important efforts and that the committee forward this item to the full board with positive recommendation as a committee report.

Um and also um I don't know if Calvin was going to mention this later.

We um the assessor recorder's office came to us after the the resolution was initially introduced to be added.