I want to say that during the time off that you have over this Holiday Season and in the next few weeks, it is time to congratulate yourself but also to take stock and see what else is ahead of you. Not just in the work plan, but what youve done so far. Is it adequate . Appropriate . Responsive . Specifically on the accountability act. I think you passed something that was too pharaoh in its application by only applicable to a commissioner for groups, agencies, people with business before that commission. The very fact that there havent been problems reported is because there was no such prohibitions before. I can see scenarios where somebody from such as lets say the Fire Commission could go to contractors who may be having business before Building Inspection Commission or human rights certifications and seek some donations. And a commissioner from one of those other two going to people appearing before the Fire Commission. I can see a back and forth cross channeling of efforts to raise money. So, i think its still too narrow and there is going to be a lot of you scratch my back and ill scratch yours fls you revisit this and considering that the suits will have their bite at the apple, whenever it comes back, whatever changes they suggest, maybe you reopen the narrowness of this commission prohibition on these. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, chair and members. 14 year ago, voters passed propc requiring board of supes to enact a whistleblower act to protect those. And in 2015, the civil grand jury issued its report saying that the whistleblower protection ordinance is in need of change because board of supes had failed to carry out their mandate to pass a genuine to pass amendments that would genuinely protect City Employees. Nearly three years after the grand jury issued its report, theres still been no action. This Commission Approved your wplo amendments on march 28, 2016 and you submitted them to the board of supes. The jurys recommendation, 1. 3, clearly stated that if the board failed to act, this commission should submit wplo amendments directly to the voters. The board has failed to act for over two years. So, you should act quickly and place wplo ae. S as you had submitted them to the board on to the june 2018 ballot before the february submission deadline. Amendments ethics submitted had recommended providing antiretaliation protections to complainants who make disclosures to county, state and federal agencies. The supervisors removed that provision and you should act to reinstate it. Along with other protections you have included in the amendments that the supervisors have further deleted. As judge Claudia Wilkin noted during the wrongful termination lawsuit, its long past time that the language in sunshine Ordinance Section 67. 22d, and 67. 22e, that provide First Amendment protections to City Employees should be and must be replicated into the whistleblower protection Ordinance Section 4. 115a. This commission should ensure those First Amendment protections are added to the wplo. City employees have First Amendment rights and it needs to be expressley stated in the wplo. Thank you. Thank you. Public comment . No one else . [inaudible]. Good evening, everyone. And as i stated in the Police Commission in the same room last week, i wanted to give my condolence to mr. Ed lee. Ive been knowing mr. Ed lee longer than anybody thats been talking about him. I knew him years before he got into politics. I knew him when he was came Jesse Jackson flew into town. He and maple tang was with the rainbow coalition. At that time i was the executive director of the way pac area project committee, which is the most powerful black organization in the united states. It was the first p. A. C. That fought against the urban renewal and justice herman. And ironically im reading in the paper today, there is some real estate guy and talk about having fake news, al term tiff news, talk about a real estate guy that wants to try to rename Justin Herman after ed lee. Now i respect ed lee. But o to the hell to the no because the stories havent come out about ed lee yet. Not one black official except for london b who i call queen b and willie brown had anything to say good or bad about ed lee. But i am giving respect until they bury the man because i know his kids to talk about the real ed lee that knows me, a. C. E. Im here basically to this agency, i very much respect yall and make sure we gonna roll together. Because the correction is still here in the city by the where everybody thinks everythings ok. And now we have queen b. At the top of the heap . We still think theyre going to hear from me simply because she happened to look like me . I dont give a damn, whoever sits in room 200 is going to have to hear of what the exmayor, the next governor newsome said about the outmigration, which the black not the African American migration, its the black outgration. I aint african america. Never been to africa. We have to differentiate when we get to the 2020 census to talk about African Americans and black. If you eliminate our race, our population is damn down like this. So, my name is ace and im on the case and im on the case. I respect. Rest in peace, ed lee. But dammit, what happened to the [inaudible] street. Now im here to speak with yall because i very much support yall. Yall the only agency that i have to bid some corruption, bring it back to where its supposed to be. Pay to play. Yall need to turn in the pay the other way. A lot of them, including my black people, are turning the other way and they know corruption is going on. Anyway, got five seconds. Glad to be here. Rest in peace, ed lee. Thank you. Good afternoon. Im larry bush from friends of ethics. I would just start by noting that ive known ed lee for over 30 years. We starteding to working in mayor agnuoss office where he was the first whistleblower, ironically. And he headed up the human rightses commission where he stood firm against rigging contracts. He was not a person who believed in corruption. He was a someone who did not have so much of a vision for the city as he was good at implementing visions that others have. Which may explain how he ends up being in the news stories for a pay to play episode back in the 2015 election. And i brought copies of tease articles because this is not about ed lee. This is about a political infrastructure at city hall that operates for the benefit of political insiders. And it does so by threatening peoples contracts and threatening their approvals. And they are spelled out pretty clearly with the mayors own staff being quoted in the stories saying that there has to be a penalty for disloyalty to the mayor. If you contribute money to the person whos the mayor opposes or if you dont support the person the mayor does support. If the list an extensive list of lobbyists, city contractors, city unions and others who were called to this meeting and told that they had to get money with ron conway saying that he could not write the checks he had in the last election because it wouldnt look good. But if he had money, he would give money to their personal causes, to compensate them for having given in a political cause. So, im asking you, in this meeting today, to set a hearing at your next Ethics Commission meeting to find out exactly what people will tell you on the record, under oath, because at this point, my conversations with the City Attorney, Dennis Herrera that when he went to find out the facts he was unable to get people to testify about it. Which is odd because it is on the front pages of every newspaper. People would talk to the reporters and not to the enforcement officers. And they said they didnt want to talk to the City Attorney because they didnt want to get caught up if an investigation. I think the Ethics Commission has an Important Role to play. Because this is not about someone soliciting, but about people who have business before the city of all kinds and i think that its appropriate that this now be put on the agenda. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners. I support mr. Bushs statement whole heartedly. I, too, have heard that story and its something that you may have heard about. But i think you need to be briefed on. In case you have not been informed about it or, as a unit, informed about it. I brought my christmas presents today and distributed them to the members of f. O. E. Since they were bitcoins, i decided not to give you your copy of it. And i just wanted to let you know i dont want any conflicts of interest between us, especially starting in the new year. I do also want to tell you that i attended the represent us meeting last week. They had a bit of a get together with new members and we discussed the fact that you were changing your calendar and they were all very disappointed because all of them clearly were working individuals who would not be able to easily attend meetings at 1 00. Not that that should stop you at all from doing so because i understand the constraints that youre under. But i do want to say that really speaks to the need for your educator outreach representative to figure out a mechanism to involve people like r. U. Members who are not able to regularly attend your meetings and my thought is that that is the way that r. U. Trains or introduces their membership, new members. To ethics about corruption in San Francisco and they bring their new members to these meetings for that purpose, expressley for that purpose. And the new group of attendees the other night were looking forward to attending these meetings until i told them that they were switching the calendar. Theres a mechanism that you can regularly meet with the newcomers to groups like r. U. , the younger people that are working because we do need desperately to cultivate younger individuals in this process of watchdoging ethics in the city. All of us are getting old and, as you can see from the canes, were getting disabled and not that our enthusiasm has waned, its our body tas are giving out. So, that is the comment i wanted to make was that its very important for us to nonetheless reach out to the younger members of the city, particularly the working professionals or even individuals. Any individual whos interested if participating in this process and keeping an eye out on the government and a the city because obviously we desperately need it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any further Public Comment . If not, then well move on to agenda item number three. Discussion and possible action on the draft minutes for the commissions november 27, 2017 regular meeting. The minutes are attached to the notice. Commissioners, any chairman, i note occasion of a comma on page or item three, which i marked a misspelled word under item four and with those changes, i would move for adoption of the draft minutes. Commissioner . I just wanted to thank whoever it was at the staff level that prepared these minutes because they were very responsive to the comments that i had made about the lack of information. I felt they were i was very pleased that i think these are very the minutes really captured what went on. And i look forward to your continuing in that process. And ill second the motion. All right. And i would associate myself with the commissioners remarks in regard to the minutes. They are excellent. All those in favour of adoption of the minutes . Aye. Opposed . Motion passes unanimously. With item number four, discussion and possible action on revised regular meetings scheduled, proposed for the Commission Bylaws change. There iss a detachment from the december 8, 2017 staff report and other attachments. I regret that it is deja vu all over again. This is an item that, as you know, the commission took up last month and unfortunately following that Commission Meeting we realised that we did not have complete information and we made an error. This is back on your agenda for a possible bylaws change again, to clarify the following. Mission meetings as proposed in this bylaw change would supersede last months change and based on room availability in city hall, as well as on the ability to cable cast live, fully the commissions meetings, we needed to make a room change and time change. The room and the time that we the Commission Approved last month would have provided for televised broadcast, but not for the duration of the meeting. That is something that we overlooked. Apologies. When we triple checked and quadruple checked the calendar. The bylaws rules proposed in this memo would provide for a regular meeting date on the third friday of each month starting at 1 00 p. M. In room 416 unless otherwise noticed. Based on that calendar, all heatings follow that schedule with the exception of the may meeting which would be on a monday, may 7 at 1 00 in city hall room 408. We apologize for having to reconsider this issue. There are extremely tight constraints on city hall meeting rooms and the availability to telecast live which is what our bylaw also require. With that, we presented this. We noticed it 10 days if advance of the meeting so that the public also has a chance to weigh in and we provide this to you for your consideration today. Thank you. Commissioner kopp . We could make that 2 00. I would have no objection because i have a conflict fridays between 12 00 and 1 30 or so. Ms. Pelham . I think that is up to the commissions discretion. But that would work out in terms of the schedule of the tv and all that stuff . Yes. The rooms on fridays are open after 12 00. Ill make such a motion. Commissioner kopp has moved to amend it so that meetings begin at 2 00 rather than 1 00. Commissioner lee . I just have a question. Obviously there would be there should be no more meetings on friday night. Is there any other meeting scheduled on the friday afternoon after hours . No, not continue not that im aware of. We checked that. In unthat are currently scheduled. Do we have a second . Ill second it. Potion motion has been made and seconded. Further comment by the axisingers . Commissioners . My only comment would be, and it is directed to the staff and the comment that was made about sort of trying to bring in those people who are otherwise employed at in an afternoon and, as i understand it, there is a telephone type of connection that can be worked out, is that right . Well, i think that is . Ing were still trying to explore. Im not familiar with how the room is set up to accommodate multiple phone lines or callin and so i im hesitant to convey a confirmation that thats doable at this point. I would urge you to check and, if at all possible, make it so that there is a number they could call in to and mute their cell phones or whatever it is until they want to address the commission. Ok . Further comment by commissioners . Well take Public Comment. Im bob planthold. Im glad you considered the change initially. Im glad you are looking again. It is a going to be widely, consistently available on tv. I support this. And i want to pointed out that sfrat attending in person, people can monitor these meetings, ao eltser through the cable tv station or because these are cablecast simultaneously. So, people at work, on a, muni bus, up in their attic, wherever they are, they can keep track of this. In terms of the callin phone number, before i wrote my comments to you, i check with the acting director on disability about the longterm practice about having a callin phone line and she verified that it is free. It is not prescribed to any part of a domestics budget. So, it is a zero cost item and the staff there can help ethics staff with getting whatever equipment. There is typically one extra phone. I think youll find a way to plug in an extra phone here in this room or in 408 as need be. Because the i. T. Folks downstairs are pretty adept at managing Public Communications of public meetings. So, i think there need not be a problem with not having at night anymore. People can, as they sometimes do at work, do their work were buds and the ear buds may connect to some other audio information other tan their work and so suddenly when they get to item x that theyre interested in, they could pause their work, dial in and speak their peace. Free to them, free to you folks and thereby increase participation more widely by multiple media. Thank you. Thank you. This is so wonderful to see that city hall has a Government Agency like this to keep track of all the construction and of all the happenings at these commissioners meetings. I just want to bring to your attention in which i have a list of complaints that i have on a number of departments and i will submit it to you before i leave. But i want to bring to your attention one agency which is i fought hard to bring them from where they used to have their commissioners meeting, which is the San Francisco Housing Authority commissioners. Right after the mayor had announced what they call a reenvisioning. They started the p. P. P. And they were instructed to move to city hall and to have their meetings video taped. But they had not done that until they havent even done it yet and they done been through what they call the rad. And most of the Housing Authority tenants dont have a clue right now that there is no more Housing Authority left to manage over their agencieses. They have the developers and developers hired the nonprofits. In my opinion to kick the people out. Now im going to ask, along with the other agencies that you look at San Francisco Housing Authority and look at the oewd, look at ocii, look at the department of real estate and im going to name a few. And this is a letter that i gave to the mayor and i hope that this didnt cause him to have a heart attack because it was the first letter that i ever signed in 20 years. But i had told the city and county and the mayor particularly that we wanted to know whats going on with the addition, yoshis, where the city and county spent over 18, 19 million and never got a dime of it back. But they lit 1300. A place there that used to have a commissioner that used to work with the Small Business commissioner, manetta white on 1300. On top of that, opened up a business right across the street from where she supposed to be closed at, they call black bart. And then adjure she got another store out there at the airport. 1300. So, out in the heck and i dont care if she is black. How in the heck in the community where the city let someone thats that was a Community Person , then turn to a Small Business and had to go to that agency and have her kicked off but yet she can have a business open and oewd and ocii dont monitor them . Theres a lot of things that im going to bring to this agency. Im 63, but im willing and able to be out there and to monitor and bring you back all the wrongdoing in this city by the bay. Well be called city hall, but i call it conveniently silly hall. My name is ace and yall im on the case. [laughter] thank you. I love that. Any further Public Comments on this agenda item . Mr. Chairman . Commissioner kopp . In section four where there is a reference to the place of the meetings, i suggest that it be the city and county of San Francisco. A matter of legal sufficiency. Thank you. That is appropriate and that change will be made. Any further discussion . Well move to item number four then oh, im sorry. Oh. Im sorry. We have a motion pending to approve minutes and it has been seconded by commissioner renne. All those in favour . Aye. Ark ye. The bylaws. Approving the change in the bylaws. Do we have a motion . We have a motion. Ill make the motion that we approve the bylaw change as recommended by the staff. Just to clarify, commissioner. Im sorry. We had a motion by commissioner kopp and seconded by commissioner renne. That was on the minutes. It was adopted and commissioner rennes motion is on the proposal as amended. Oh, ok. Yeah. And so that is commissioners rennes motion s. There a second . Second. All right. Any discussion on the motion . All those in favour of the motion, say aye . Those opposed . Motion carries unanimously. Ok. The item five discussion and possible action on revised Ethics Commission enforcement regulations. Theres an attachment of december 13 and staff memorandum and attachments. Good afternoon, commissioners. Im going to stand. Im going to avail myself of the elmo projector. As you know, weve been working to revise substantially rerise the enforcement regulations that govern the processes and procedures that staff use in order to evaluate and investigate and bring to conclusion complaints alleging violations of law in the commissions jurisdiction. On page two of the staff memoranda, youll see a list of seven big changes, big picture changes that the regulations undertake. And through this process, those big picture changes havent really changed at all. So, within the structure of the enforcement regulations, delegating probable cause authority to the executive director, delegating responsibility for conducting investigations to the Deputy Director, turning the finding of probable cause into the charginging document for the purposes of hearing on the merits before this commission. Considering settlement proposals in public, combining the sunshine ordinance regulations with the Ethics Commissions enforcement regulations and codifying the waiver policy by regulation instead of by policy. That is all remains the same in this draft that you are seeing today. There is a substantial changes that were made i wouldnt say substantial, but some bigger changes made to the sunshine Ordinance Section that is different from the last time you saw this regulation this package of regulations and i want to talk about those a little bit specifically so that you are aware and thats highlighted for you. I also wanted to advise you that we received a couple of lastminute submissions for written Public Comment today. What i would like to do and is that you not vote on these regulations as a final package today to give staff additional time to evaluate those two written submissions and then well bring you back final language and final package in january. So ill leave that to you to decide. Well, for chairman, i must state that i need time to evaluate mr. Shenzs comments. Yes. As well as these other comments from the task force and i dont know the timing internally from an administrative standpoint, but i would prefer if i had those two documentses five days ago and not today. Yes. So that is what i convey to mr. Schenn and i convey to whoever represents the task force. The documents that i placed on your desk are the two that i placed to deal with and that is the reason for the delay and sending in their comments. So we dont hold that against them and happy to evaluate those comments and do a good job of reviewing and implementing them for january. But i do because mr. Young is the administrator for the sunshine Administrator Task force came today to answer any changes that you have to that section of the regulation, id like to walk you through those. On page three of the agenda packet, i discussed those changes and staffs reaction to them and i just also wanted to bring your attention to the exact provisions of the sunshine ordinance that were talking about. Ill try to see if i can get this to show up. Yeah, when im done, right . Oh. Ok. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ok. Sorry. So it showed up. Ok. Good. So, the first is in my evaluation of the sunshine ordinance, i discovered something that apparently hadnt been discovered before and that is under section at least between the two agencies, the Ethics Commission and Sunshine Ordinance Task force itself. Under 67. 30, the Sunshine Ordinance Task force has the authority to send any referral of an order that they make to our commission for enforcement. Thats because our commission is an identified Enforcement Agency in a different section of the sunshine ordinance. So where as in the past, all the sunshine ordinance im sorry. Sorry to interrupt you. But just a comment i want to make and athink my colleagues will agree that in regard to our screens up here, for the last few meetings, every time something has been put up and were supposed to be able to see it better on our screens, the screens go crazy. Oh, no. And so whoever is in charge of the technical aspect of our screens, they should take care of that. Because we havent we havent had the benefit of our screens for the last few meetings. We just get this like 1950s tv after midnighttype stuff on it. Oh, wow with. Ok. Yes, thank you. Ill read it out loud then. So, section 67. 30 of the add pin tiff code sets forth the Sunshine Ordinance Task force and all of its authority. Everything that it is empowered to do. And sort of buried in that section, it states the task force shall make referrals to a Municipal Office with enforcement power under this ordinance or california record publics act and the brown act. Whenever it concludes that any person has violated any provisions of this or did fans or the acts. So, we are a Municipal Office with enforcement power under section 67. 35, which says any person May Institute proceedings for enforcement in end penalties before the court of comp tend jurisdiction or Ethics Commission. Because we have enforcement power, we dont have to wait for the Sunshine Ordinance Task force to decide that someone has committed official misconduct. They can send matters to us for enforcement whenever they conclude that someone has violated the law. That opens the door to a few more options for us when were considering for the commission. When its considering orders of determination send over by the Sunshine Ordinance Task force and that serves as the crux of the proposals for referle ras. Were proposing that the commission would defer to orders of determination from the Sunshine Ordinance Task force in terms of their findings of fact. That means that if the Sunshine Ordinance Task force reaches a conclusion about a factfinding or promulgates some findings of fact so that we would defer to those findings. If a respondent appears before the axising or presents a new fact or something substantially different, we might decide we want to consider that new fact in this context or we could remand it back to the Sunshine Ordinance Task force for them to consider at their level. That way went were considering what the Sunshine Task force has investigated and determined, we have a complete picture. And then the other provision that i recommend we change in addition to that option to remand is that we would review all conclusions of law di novo. We are the only commission allowed to promulgate rauls or interim the sunshine ordinance. We would still have the power to disagree with the Sunshine Ordinance Task force if, for example, they found we have cases in the pasts that they found a violation based on the understanding of the law we did not share with them. That power would not go away. This would take effect in the place of today we have the respondent come forward and complainant come forward and present their case to you all in the context of a show clause hearing. Now we consider the findings of fact to be the complete picture unless presented with something substantially new or different. Ahem. Excuse me. The other big change that youll see is i recommend givinging the complainants and respondents in those show clause hearings 10 minutes instead of five minutes. I think weve seen in the past that, for the most part, people who feel very passionate about their orders of determination and feel like five minutes is not enough time for them. The Sunshine Ordinance Task force recommended that we give them an opportunity for rebuttal. But my view is giving each side 10 minutes will be enough to get their comment out and rebuttal would be unnecessary. So with that, i would entertain any questions from you and then there are many members of the public here to address the issue. Commissioner renne . I do have a question about the findings of fact. Is that a change from how the eics commission has approached Sunshine Ordinance Task force matters . I think technically yes. But practically speaking, not really. In my experience, i have not seen this body question the fact finding of the task force. But what i have seen is that sometimes the respondent would appear before the commission but not did appear before the Sunshine Ordinance Task force at all and bring you new facts and you base your decision on the new facts and what this would do would sort of preserve the task forces role in that factfinding process, by giving you the option to remand it to them if you would like to. You would still be able to retain jurisdiction and not remand it if you didnt want to. As i the criticism that has been leveled at this commission, is that we never uphold the Sunshine Task force. And is that because we disagree with them on the law or that we disagree with them on their finding of fact . From what i have seen, its largely been either because you disagree with them on the law or because you disagree with their finding that the violation amounts to official misconduct. So, up until now, the task force has only referred cases to this body where they found they make a finding of willful violation which, opportunitier sunshine ordinance, shall be deemed official misconduct. If this commission were to agree with that finding, which is really the only thing that theyre presented with on the referral, you would be required that would trigger a requirement under a different part of the charter where you ask the mayor to start official misconduct proceedings. From my view, this commission has been unwilling to do that for the most part. What this new set of, regulations does is give you enforcement finding short of official misconduct and recognizes that the sunshine ordinance has the ability to refer cases to you short of a findinging of official misconduct. So, youll start to get referrals from the Sunshine Ordinance Task force with regular findings and regular requests for enforcement for penalties. And for injunction instead of for a finding of official misconduct. And in those case, were bound by factual finding is, assume nothing new evidence is. Defer. Yes. You would defer, where appropriate. There is a little wiggle room there. But for the most part you defer to their findings of fact. For what with its wo frt, i have not seen them get the facts wrong. They do a very good job of having the complainant and respondent and all the parties there. They do a good job of getting the parties to talk to each other and to get firefightersing and documents from the agencies. They are not always correct on the conclusions of law. But this body has a responsibility under the sunshine ordinance when theyre going to enforce the law to be correct on the conclusions of law. Which is why we would need to review di novo. And those matters that we would take up then that would not be matters that result in official misconduct would be matters, what, where there was negligence or that it was not willingful . Right. Nonwillful. Just regular violations where somebody we actually saw a few original complaints like this, where someone was alleging that the documents were redacted improperly so exemptions were claim beed by the agency that were improperly claimed and the Sunshine Ordinance Task force would have to go through and decide whether or not they were properly claimed. If the agency still refuses to produce documents without those exemptions, they could refer it to us to impose a penalty of up to 5,000 per violation. I have a question. Yes, commissioner . To commissioner renne. It sounds to me as if the Ethics Commission would be similar to a court of appeal. If it must accept findings of fact. Have you had experience in this kind of a proceeding . As an Ethics Commissioner. Well, i cant call specifically to mind but i know the criticism that weve goten from the public is that we dont accept the findings of the Sunshine Ordinance Task force. No that may be because we disagree on the implementation of the law or the application of the law. But i do think it is a if its spelled out that, if effect, it is like a court of appeals where were we have to take the record that they give us and the only question we have is did they apply the law correctly yeah. I think that is certainly i think, in my mind, that is a change in at least the publics perception of how weve dealt with Sunshine Ordinance Task force. Yes. I would, too. I have a question then through the chair for mr. Schenn. Maybe a short but incisive memorandum of law. On whether that is the current state of the law. Im not sure if i you dont have to do it now. But id like to know if a paint or two of a written opinion as to whether the law now require this is commission to accept analogous to the court of appeals in the state of california, the findings of fact of the Sunshine Ordinance Task force. And in reviewing the action of the task force, base its review upon the law. That was a question. Sure. I think i could briefly respond. In terms of sunshine ordinance itself, this is an issue that we have struggled with in adopting these regulations or form lating them in the first instance. Id like to know the state of the law now. In your opinion. Right. Before i get to the regulations next month. Right. And the sunshine ordinance is not specific on that exact question. Which why there is a need in the regulation to spell out exactly what is the per view of the Ethics Commissions review of task forces decisions. Because the sunshine ordinance is nonspecific on those questions. That is why weve had to delve into these issues a little more precisely here. About the legislative history of that issue. The last time we looked at it, it was inconclusive and we looked into all these issues. Well that makes it a horse of a different colour for me. So, just following up on commissioner kopps and your comments mr. Schenn. Since it is not specific it seems like it would be up to us as to whether or not we would adopt their findings. Is that true . That is correct. Ok. Thats right. Yeah. Opportunitieder existing regulations that are in effect right now and have been since 2013, im not i cant tell you the way that its set out there, it doesnt specifically say that we have to defer to findings of fact for the task force but rather it says in the show clause hearing, the respondent has burden of proving the task force was wrong basically. So were just sort of clarifying what that means for the public and what that means for the commission. So, thats why i said technically speaking this is a change. But practically speaking, the law the records were written in a different way. But intended for the same outcome. And i can i think that the reason why there iss no legislative history on the sunshine ordinance, maybe mr. Schenn could confirm this. But it is because it was enacted by referendum so there is no record of debate or legislative intend. Is that right . Yeah. Mr. Chairman commissioner kopp . [laughter] laugh this is just a comment on one of the proposed substantive provisions and that is your last asterisk. And i raise it rhetorically. Isnt it custom and practice in a disputed hearing process to allow for rebuttal . You dont have to answer that now. But think about it. And i noticed just quickly that the Task Force Recommends allowing threeminute rebuttals to all parties. And i have made a note that it seems if those circumstances, meaning a rebuttal is permissible that the 10 minutes should be cut and just to provoke, i would favour cutting it to five minutes and allowing each side three minutes of rebutttal. Ok. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Commissioner renne . Commissioner kopp, may i suggest maybe a compromise would be a total of 10 minutes and the party can reserve of that 10 minutes what part of it or he she wants to use as rebutttal like they do in the supreme court, for example. I agree. That is a good idea. Ok. Very good. All right. Let the public weigh in. Thank you very much. Should we have the sunshine ordinance comments . Hi, my name is victor young, im the administrator for the Sunshine Ordinance Task force. It was the intent of chair wolfe to attend todays meeting but he was unable to make it to todays meeting due to work circumstances. And just to provide a brief summary, most the subject matter has been covered, but the main concern of the task forces is they believe that the Ethics Commission should be only determining what enforcement action should be taken and not readjudicating the complaints. That is the very simple form of it. I provided a list of their six points of recommendations. I provided those at todays meeting. I apologize fot providing those earlier. But i wasnt aware i would be here until the last moment. Thank you, mr. Young. Any last questions of mr. Young . Commissioner renne . , it your suggestion that the only role of the commission is to dole out the penalties even though it thinks that the task force has gotten the law wrong . Is that your position . I believe the Task Force Position is that the Ethics Commission would be enforcing the decisions of the Sunshine Ordinance Task force. Even if we felt that you had the law wrong . I would not be ability to speak to that part of i. I would bring that question back to the task force. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, my comment on that is that the task force should inform us clearly whether thats its position. And that should be in writing. I will bring that back to the we will prepare a formal memo when possible. Ok. Thank you, mr. Young. Public comment on this matter . Commissioners, this will be my last time coming before you too. I have some other things to do, but im going to wind it all together here. I would like to submit this copy and then at the next meeting you can pass it out to the commissioners where it clearly says where yours truly, ace washington, i wrote a letter to ed lee on may 4. He got it. Lets see. Wednesday he called for an Emergency Department head, supposedly to tell them to cut the budget. By e but i think it might have been because of that letter there and because of one building, the western edition. As far as the sunshine act, i remember back in the days, before this gentleman was there, maybe before you were commission, we in the west edition brought issues about the African American Cultural Centres was acting up and doing some illegal things. We brought all the evidence to this commission. Do you know that they still said it was a conflict of interest. They couldnt do on it because those two agencies were so protected by this corrupt city and county, the Cultural Centre at the time and i hate to say it because i aint saying anything bad about our current mayor, but the director at the time was london breed. The lady is a commissioner with the human rights commission. When i bring back my complaint, it will go back a few years right now to where the western edition has been penalized, not by individuals, but one individual and im willing to have a debate with him because i got no allegiance to this man. His name is willie brown jr. Now willie brown jr. Ive been waiting for the time for him to raise his ugly head. Figuratively speaking, not ugly. He had to get up there and he say it and im asking for an investigation. He got up there and said it. Im the one with responsible for forcing ed lee to be a mayor he didnt want to be the mayor. No, he did not want to be a mayor because he was a civil rights helping everybody. Me myself, too. When he turned politic, politricks started in 2011. What im bringing to your attention, and ill tell them willie brown, he got up there and said it was his idea. He orchestrated the conspiracy. Yall must hear it a lot in my songs. It was a conspiracy and im going to tell the next Lieutenant Governor who might be our governor, for him to stop saying that. Dont say you was proud of that because that was willie brown did that and that governor dont need all that residue that is going to come out. Im going to tell the truth, nothing but the truth so help ace god. I been knowing ed lee for 20, 30 years. I shook he hand when he said he was getting ready to quit and go to korea and to close it, willie brown said publicly he orchestrated that takeover. I was there [inaudible]. Thank you. [inaudible]. It shows you that anybody can be taught to be a politician. Right . [inaudible]. Im larry bush. Ive commented on a few of the measures in the proposal. One is on section five, which was the investigations and sets a timeline of the director of enforcement will notify the District Attorney and the City Attorney of a pending case and within 14 days after they respond with what theyre going to do, the commission will move forward. As i recall, you all adopted a policy a few months ago that said that you would not wait forever for the City Attorney or District Attorney to come back with a decision of whether they were going to act. Excuse me, mr. Chairman. Did you direct us to section five . Of the hand outhere. Yeah. Agenda item five oh, you mean page five. Not section five of the draft. Ok. Thank you. Oh, im not here for that reason. [laughter] im on page eight, section five. Sets the timeline for notifying quit imitating me by getting it all wrong. [laughter] you do it better than i do. Oh [laughter] so, as i recall you did a timeline in which you recall if it sat over a certain period of time that the District Attorneys office or City Attorneys office that you would initiate your own investigation. And thats not here in this proposal. So i would recommend that that be included in your regulations. Since it was an adopted policy of the commission. Secondly, under penalties, which is on page 19 now that i know how to read the pages the penalty factors, i think that one factor needs to be considered as the timeliness of the offence. So, if it is an offence that is taking place and there iss a pending decision that would be affected by a wrongful act, then i dont think you should have a timeline that would let these procedures go for months into the future. I know that is an issue that the commission has had in the past of how long it takes things to get resolved. But particularly looking at a sunshine ordinance violation, the fact that it would take five or six months to wind its way through to this stage, means that the information is really useless at that point. And in that vain, i would point out that it ought to be clear that the sunshine ordinance applieses to the california supreme courts decision of march 2, 2017 of the city of san jose versus the superior court of santa ana clara which held that private communication device like an iphone can be searched and the information made available on it as a request as a public document. Part of the problem with the supreme courts opinion is it did not set out the penalty. And so in your enforcement thing, it needs notes that those penalties would apply to a failure to respond to a request for Text Messages or emails or what have you. And, again, that ufnz scores the timeliness of response. If someone takes and says im invoking my 10day delay to review this, and emails are going back and forth about whos going to be the actinging mayor and it takes place in a week, what is the point of having 10 days . You would never know it is going on,less unless youre writing history instead of the citys policies. Thank you. Thank you. Further Public Comment . Commissioners, im i just wanted to thank the Deputy Director and ethics director for going through so robustly on these provisions. Im sure they learned quite a bit by scrubbing the provisions. And then checking back with the institutional history of commission over the last 20 years. Enforcement has been a problematic area. A lot of it was tied to understaffing relative to mandates. Of course, it is a an issue now as far as looking at budget cuts. But i did want to suggest to the deputy that she might want to review really for the publics interest the item number six on page two of the memo, the staff memo, of what will happen if a person a defendant, essentially, does not reply and goes into denial. That is an unavoidable has been an avoidable, i think, situation
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