Full Commission
2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 Immigrant Rights Commission Meeting
City Hall - Room 416
January 14, 2008
Minutes
Commissioner Jamal Dajani (Vice Chair) convened the meeting at 5:05 p.m.
1. Roll Call
Members Present: Jamal Dajani, (Vice Chair), Elahe Enssani, Vera Haile, Solomon Jones, Angus McCarthy, Sam Ng, Toye Moses, and Christopher Punongbayan
Member Absent: Gilberto Alexander, Jay Gonzalez, Falguni Ashwin Sheth, Felix Fuentes, Felix Levy, Sonia Melara, and Diana Lau
Staff Present: Dang Pham, Executive Director and Marie Mitchell, Commission Secretary
Acting Chair Dajani announced that Commissioners Sonia Melara, Diana Lau and Felix Levy have resigned from the Commission. The Mayor has appointed Greg Chew and Alan Mok to replace Commissioners Sonia Melara and Diana Lau..
2. Presentation
Ms. Laura Hill from the Public Policy Institute of California, a non profit, non partisan research firm in San Francisco, whose mission is to inform public policy in the State. Ms. Hill then presented a slide presentation to the Commission regarding immigrants in California.
Ms. Helen Hui from the San Francisco Citizenship Day, represents the American Immigration Lawyers which is a group of National and International American Lawyers that help Immigrants. The Organization is based in Washington D.C. with over 10,000 Lawyers. The American Lawyers would like the Commission to endorse their Citizenship Day on Saturday, February 2, 2008 at Hasting College of Law.
Commissioner Vera Haile moved that the Immigrant Rights Commission endorse Citizenship Day on Saturday, February 2, 2008 and do the necessary outreach to the Board of Supervisors. Commissioner Elahe Enssani seconded and the motion was approved unanimously.
3. Budget Issues
Mr. Edwin Lee, City Administrator, updated the Commission on the City’s Budget as well as what might be happening at the state level. A meeting has been held with the Mayor’s Budget Office. There is a soft hiring freeze in place which means the City is still hiring but only for those critical essential services and each department must seeking the approval from the Mayor’s Budget Office for such hiring. The City is faced with a deficit of $230 million dollars. The budget has not been set yet. Mr. Lee then passed out a Legislative Update by the Urban Counties Caucus to the Commissioners for their review.
At this time, there is no immediate impact on funding for the Immigrant Rights Commission.
Mr. Lee also informed the Commission that Ms. Sheila Chung Hagen has been hired as the Immigrant Rights Administrator and will report to work on Monday, February 4th.
4. Approval of Minutes
Commissioner Haile moved to approve the Minutes of October 16th, meeting with the correction of the spelling of the name of the guest speaker David Bacon. Commissioner Angus McCarthy seconded and the motion was approved unanimously.
5. Recognize the contribution of the former Commissioners
Commissioner Punonghayan moved to issue certificates of appreciation which indicate the accomplishments of the Commission for former Commissioners’ during regular Commission meetings. The Commission will retroactively recognize the Commissioners who left in 2007 and going forward. Commissioner Haile seconded and the motion was approved.
6. Public Comments
Mr. Gilbert Guerra, San Francisco Brotherhood of Latino Workers from the Department of Parking and Traffic, on behalf of his co-workers informed the Commissioners of the problem they are having with the Director of Operations, Ms. Toni (Antoinette) Coe of Management at the Traffic Sign Shop. Mr. Guerra and his co-workers have been consistently and indiscriminately targeted with discipline, intimidation, suspensions, segregation and even termination. Mr. Guerra requested the support and assistance from the Commission in correcting the problems.
7. Minutes for the meetings of the Executive Committee
Commissioner Dajani moved to not make this a requirement. Commissioner McCarthy seconded and the motion was approved. Commissioner Toye Moses abstained.
8. Director’s Report
a. Redesign the City’s website
Commissioner McCarthy indicated that he has a lot of interest in the redesign of the website. Perhaps we can create an ad hoc Committee who would work closely with the designer and have input earlier on and not wait until they spend all the money and time. Mr. Pham will forward the Commissioner’s comments to DTIS Director.
b. 2008 Annual Compliance Plans
According to the EAS, all Tier 1 city departments must submit to the Commission for approval of their 2008 annual compliance plans by February 1, 2008. I have sent out the reminder letter to the Tier 1 departments regarding of the due date of the plans.
c. 2007 Immigrant Rights Summit Report
Two interns received the reports back from student volunteers who took notes of the workshops during the Summit. The draft of the report of the 2007 Immigrant Rights Summit will be presented to the Commission for review and approval at the February 2008 meeting of the Commission.
d. Day Labor Project
I am working with Joan Lubamersky of the GSA to complete the required paperwork for continuing to fund the second year of the approved contract to the La Raza Centro Legal in providing services to the day laborers in San Francisco. In March 2006, the City approved a two-year contract with La Raza Centro Legal from March 1, 2006 to June 31, 2008 for the Day Labor Project.
e. No Match Letter
As of now, the US Department of Homeland Security announced that it will not appeal to the judge decision that temporarily stops the government from implementing a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rule that would cause US citizens and other authorized workers to lose their jobs, and which would illegally use error-prone social security records as a tool for immigration enforcement. Meanwhile, The Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration will redraft the language and revise the process to avoid any legal challenges by the immigrant rights advocacy groups.
Under the proposed rule from DHS, employers receiving the no-match letters might be required to fire employees whose SSA discrepancies are not resolved within 90 days after the no-match letter is received.
f. Sanctuary City Ordinance Brochure:
The Office of Language Services (OLS) is working with the Sanctuary City Committee and the Mayor’s Office to develop the PSA and brochure about the Sanctuary City Ordinance. The Mayor and other community leaders will be featured on the PSA. The brochure will be translated into many different languages such as: Chinese, Spanish, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Russian, etc.
9. Committee Report
Executive Committee – Commissioner Dajani indicated that there was nothing to report. Committee did not meet last month.
Program & Access - Mr. Pham on behalf of the Chair reported on the status of the 2008 EAS compliance plans and the proposed steps to amend the language on the EAS Ordinance.
Outreach Committee - Commissioner Solomon Jones indicated that the Committee hasn’t met for quite some time due to the lack of quorum. Commissioner Jones recruited for the new members.
Immigration Reform Committee - Commissioner Punongbayan. indicated that the Committee discussed goals for the Committee for the year, i.e. finishing the Summit Report; developing the position on immigrant rights issues; sanctuary city ordinance. He also suggested that the structure of the Committees should reflect the work of the Commission.
10. Committee Structure and Relation to staff
Commissioner Punongbayan indicated that at the last retreat, the Commissioners talked about creating a Committee on the Sanctuary City, Committee on Munipical I.D., Immigration Reform Committee. and renaming the Program & Access Committee to focus exclusively on the Equal Access Services Ordinance. Commissioner Punongbayan suggested that the Commission should abolish the Outreach Committee and asked all the Committees should conduct the outreach.
Commissioner Moses requested that this item be tabled for full discussion. Commissioner Felix Fuentes also asked that the item be tabled. Commissioner McCarthy suggested that this be placed on the agenda for the February Meeting, along with a new sign up list.
11. Adjourn
Commissioner Haile moved to adjourn, Commissioner McCarthy seconded and the meeting was adjourned at 7:15 p.m.