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Meeting Information



Full Commission

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Immigrant Rights Commission
Minutes of Meeting on May 9, 2005

City Hall, Hearing room 416


I. Roll Call:

Members Present       The meeting was called to order on 5:30 p.m., Commissioners Alexander, Escobedo, Haile, Lau, Lee, Ng, Nguyen, Ow, Tran were present.  Commissioner Tran left at 6:20 p.m. & Commission Lee left at 6:30 p.m.

 

Members Absent        Commissioner Jones, Kaff, Melara & Specktor was absent excused.  

 

Others Present           Dang Pham, Executive Director & Winny Loi, Secretary.

 

II.              Approval of minutes for April 11th: Commissioner Haile moved to approve the amended minutes & second by Commissioner Ow.  Check the static’s for the naturalizing citizens every month   The Commission unanimously adopted the amended minutes.

 

III.             Tier 1 Department:
Critique Compliance plans –
The letter was send out to DA’s office, Rent Board, Elections, Adult Probation, Emergency Communications, Department of Parking & Traffic, Juvenile Probation.  Juvenile Probation is the only department who did not submit the compliance plans for 2 years.  Departments that did not submit 2005 plans are Adult Probation, Juvenile Probation & Parking and Traffic.  Our authority is to state the department non-compliance & send the findings to the Mayor & Board of Supervisor.  Motion: That Pursuant to section 89.13 that we find the Juvenile Probation Department in non-compliance with the equal access to City Services Ordinance and that the ED draft a letter specifying the nature of the non-compliance (not inconsistent with the letter sent to the department in April 2005) and that this draft be circulated to the members of the program and access committee no later than one week prior to the next committee meeting for final review.  Once finalized by the Equal Access Committee, the findings of non-compliance shall be transmitted to the Mayor, The Board of Supervisors, Human Resources & the Department designated pursuant to section 89.13.  Commissioner Escobedo made a motion & was seconded by Commissioner Ow. 

Motion: That pursuant to section 89.13 that we find the Adult Probation Department and the Department of Parking & Traffic in non-compliance with the Equal Access to City Services ordinance and that the ED draft a separate letter for each department specifying the nature of their respective non-compliance after reviewing all prior compliance plans for each department and that these draft letters be circulated to the members of the program and access committee no later than one week prior to the next committee meeting for final review.  Once finalized by the Equal Access Committee, the findings of non-compliance for each department shall be transmitted to the Mayor, the Board of Supervisors, and others designated pursuant to section 89.13.  Commissioner Escobedo made a motion & was seconded by Commissioner Haile. 
Centralized place for translation, recommend putting on June’s agenda as a discussion & action item.

How we can collect information about what translators the Tier 1 department uses, if they are happy or not happy with whom they are using.  Commissioner Escobedo suggested that we get the Equal Access Ordinance Translated into Chinese & Spanish. 

She also suggested that we sent a letter congratulating a few Tier 1 departments for doing a good job with translating documents & assisting the monolingual speakers.  Commissioner Lau suggested doing a press conference to recognize the ones that did well. 

  • IV.Muni Draft:  put on next month’s agenda.
  • V.Bylaws: Chair Lau asked Mr. Pham to modify the language of the bylaws, so the Commission can approve for next months meeting. 

            Loss quorum at 6:30pm.

Director’s Report:

1. Equal Access Ordinance:

Due to the budget issue, a number of the city departments have been consolidated to another agencies or closed out.  At this time, there are 14 Tier 1 departments instead of 16 as indicated in the EAS Ordinance.  The Department of Aging and Adult Services merges with the Department of Human Services and the Department of Consumer Assurance was closed and their responsibility and services transferred to the Department of Public Health.   So far we did receive 11 compliance plans from the following departments: Department of Elections, Department of Human Services, Department of Public Health, Department of Public Transportation, District Attorney’s Office, Emergency Communications Department, Public Defender’s Office, Sheriff’s Office, Police Department, Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Board and Fire Department. 

 

2. Day Laborer Program:

Immigrant Rights Commission received final approval from the Office of Contract Administration for the contract of Day Laborer Program.  The advance funding in the amount of $24,750 has been approved and released to the contractor at the starting point of the program.

According to the City Attorney’s Office, this current contract is a very short one (March to June 2005), and based on the last RFP, the City needs to work with the City’s Attorney Office to amend the current contract so that the City can extend for another 12 months before we can run another round of RFP.  We are in the process of  coping the contract for the members of the Day Laborer Program monitoring committee so we can begin to monitor the performance of this contract.

 

3. Meetings/Activities:

  1.        Mr. Pham attended the Human Trafficking Forum at the Asia Society on 4/18/05.  Commissioner Ivy Lee was one of the key presenters on the issue
  2.       On April 19th,    joined Commissioners Vera Haile met with Bill Slotnik and staff from the CTAC (Community Training Assistance Center).
  3.        On April 20th at 4:30PM, Commissioners Lau, Sonia Melara, Zina Spektor, Bill Lee met with the Mayor.  At this meeting, Commissioners shared with the Mayor of the main issues came up during the annual Commission’s retreat and highlighted some of the key areas such as:  upcoming hearing of the EAS compliance plans of the city departments, Day Laborer Program contract, citizenship education, etc.
  4.       On April 26, 2005, Mr. Pham attended the press conference in Mayor’s office to announce the appointment of Edwin Lee to the position of City Administrator and the Mayor also appoints William Lee to a newly created position to coordinate the trade, economic development, tourism to the Pacific Rim countries such as China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, etc.  The appointment of Edwin Lee is pending the approval of the Board of Supervisors.  The Immigrant Rights Commission is part of the Office of City Administrator.
  5.        Mr. Pham met with Supervisor Ma to follow up with her suggestion that the Immigrant Rights Commission joins with her and President Peskin and other supervisors to call for a public hearing for the status of the compliance of the EAS.
  6.         On May 26, 2005 at 4:30PM in City Hall – Room 416, the Immigrant rights Commission is joining the Human Rights Commission to conduct a special hearing of the REAL ID Act of 2005 legislation.  The purpose of this hearing is taking the public testimonies on impact of the Real ID Act (HR 418) and raises public awareness of this legislation among the immigrant residents in San Francisco.