Call for public comment. No public comment. Any comments from commissioners. Ill move for a motion to approve agenda items number 3 and 4. So moved. Second. All in favor. Aye. So, agenda items 3 and 4 are unanimously approved. Agenda item number 5. An informational presentation on new Ethics Commission data Dashboard Tools for the novembe. H. I good afternoon, commissioners. My name is tyler field. I am a Information Systems engineer. I just got a new title. Im here today to give you a brief presentation on updates to the data tools that the Ethics Commission provides. And if we can witch over to the computer, i want to first start with a quick refresher on the reporting and president came in finances reporting dead lines and periods and dead lines and throughout the year throughout the year, campaign communities have to present or have to file a form 460 with the commission thats a very tense, typically governmental difficult to under paper form and these are due at different periods throughout the year. I have a nifty little calender here. Showing the 2019 dead lines and ok. And reporting periods. For 2019, the first semi annual form 460 was due on july 31st and it covered januaro 30th and im sure i dont have to elaborate too much on the calender. You can see that were right here on october 18th and the last form 460 was due on the 26th of september which covered september or forgive me, jul. Do we currently know how much the campaign has raised or spent as of only the 21st of september and the answer is complicate but not really because we do know some Additional Information about campaigns or Campaign Committees fundraising and spending efforts during the 90day period before an election which started on august the seventh. And during the 90day per they have to file an additional report if they have to file an additional report if they spend or receive more than 1,000 and im bringing all this up to emphasize how the data dash boards used to present information in a way that mimicked the way that it was reported. Either in this dense 460 or on these additional late period reportings. But someone coming to our website wanting to know how much money is being raised or spent by a committee doesnt want to know how much was spent as of september 21st. Theyre interested in how much has been raised or spent as of right now. So, these dash boards and the improvements of the dash boards ive made are a way to receive that information. Im sorry, could i ask a question. Of course. So the 460 is a retrospective filing so you will the communities are reporting on funds raised and spent on a prior period so that would have been most recently september 21st you said. Maybe this is for mr. Ford, lets go to september 3rd like the end of the month or is there any particular magic to the dates that were picking . You are talking about the reporting periods for the 460 . Those are established by state law and theyre generally described as days before the election. Theyll say you have to file a report that covers the 40th day to the 20th day before the election. And, im not sure exactly what the calculus was that went into defining those periods. They were trying to make those that were progressively shorter as you approached the election. So the closer you get to the election. But of course under the state regime theres a big gap that is left since they only have two preelection reports and our new preelection report fills the majority omajority of that gap s another 460 that will get you 11 of the remaining 17 days before the election. Theres still a little gap thats missing but most of it will come in on the 460. Thank you. If we can switch back to the computer. Thank you. The dash boards are the way members of the public, press, interested parties come to our website to understand what is going on. If its very similar to the dashboard i presented to you in february. With some additions, like i said earlier, these were a representation based on the forms that were filed. This page used to show the 460 which is the latest accounting of or the most recent very thorough accounting. It would be the form itself or just the the representation shown on this page came directly from only the 460. Now its showing the 460 and those additional late period reporting added together so like i said when someone calls and says how much someone in this race, they dont care how much was in the race as of september 21st, and they want to have the most edition. This is the funds reported to us in one place. And money that has not yet had an opportunity to be reported same type of thing i have now done for the expenditures tab. This is money spent by committees. You can see independent expendituring by third parties and the money that the community has spent and late contributions made in support of committees. I just want to reemphasize they make understanding the current elections camping finance easier in real time. And, moving over to come neat new features and im switching to the running sums tab that shows a running some overtime and how committee has spent their money and how they have money coming in. You can do Interesting Research and most importantly you dont have to go through a stack of paper forms with a calculator. Switching to the estimated cash tab, this is an interesting new idea. Its those two charts from the previous tabs, expenditures and money in with the subtraction done for the interested person. Its an estimate. Some transaction dozen have dates reported with them so i have to make an assumption that the period of that or the date, the beginning or end date of the period in which the transaction was reported. This is kind of an idea of the Bank Accounts of a certain committees. You can start with this information, you can start to look for patterns and ask interesting questions. Again its something that is not possible with just stacks of paper and now that you have this data on computer you can ask interesting questions like what type of donors might a candidate have. Committees are asked for occupation and employer of their contributors and here on this occupations tab you can see the top 10 occupations listed by contributors to committees and and on the employers tab, we can see the top 10 employers of contributors. You can ask questions do employees give them large amount and it turns out city and county of San Francisco, the employees of the city are civically minded as you might notice and it shows up as an employer for many committees. Could you scroll back there was unitemized listing monetary. Unitemized monetary contributions are contributions less than 100 in this is the aggregate of all the contributions of small ton arrest and committee dozen haveo report the name of those contributors that give less than 100. So, you can already see how useful this tool is and a t allows you to understand this dense information quickly where it would take hours if you have paper. Over the next year ill work on projects to update the infrastructure behind this data so we can do exciting new things. Here on this location lab n. I have a map of the concentration of contributions by zip code with the work that ill be doing, well provide zip codes or supervisor districts. Another interesting thing that comes out of this work ill be doing, right now the public can see how much the committee has spent to buy an add but soon well be able to make so they can see that add also whether. When you add a filter by district would that mean the public or a reporter can go into search where contributions are coming for a candidate for the district seven, for example and what percent of those contributions are totaling from district 7 are they coming outside the district . The darker the color on the map, the more contributions have come from that zip code. Sue filter down by contested, by candidates and see where one candidate is fundraising more than another and you can be with the supervisor district map, you can ask questions like, board of exercise canada dates where do they get most of their funds within their district of outside of their district and things like that. For ballot measures you can do the same thing. Could you show us, i dont want to derail your presentation but could you show us prop c for San Francisco that would have been the thats the vaping . Certainly, im filtered down to candidates only so ill change to develop measures and filter down to measure c. 15 almost 26 million. Wow. So yeah, not a lot of variety in that measure c right here. How do i look at this state map so that california is highlighted and the amount ranges from 540 to 19,000,421. So orange, the state of new york, the shade is that indicating the amount falls in the middle of that bar . Yes, i should emphasize the colors are automatically generated because they change as the filter changes and i remember in this contest theres not that many contributions to either supporting or opposing and i believe theyre all from either new york or california. The idea there is you can see on the scale on the bottom, bright red is 19 million and yellow is 500. The two states are both new york is in between and i think california is the 19 million. Definitely eyeopening. So other well be able to provide uptodate information to the citys central repository of open data data sf. This is a warehouse that of data that departments across the city use to provide access to the public for open data. Now these tools that ive shown you and that will be fourth coming arent that useful unless people know about them and know how to use them. So over the next year, ill work on outreach to educate people on these tools and others that we provide and how to use them. Last year, pat ford and i did a lot of outreach to members of the press. Ill be continuing that type of work and looking to expand the audience. Theres a high level overview and a quick update but i didnt want to get lost in jargon and phone numbers. Im happy to open it up to additional questions that you may have. Any other questions . This is a quantum leap forward in the presentation of the data is accessible and its undeunderstandable and makes it easier for people to find the information that they need and i would like to hear more as plans become more concrete on how the outreach is going and which organizations there was the reporter who came previously and i think that he was surprised and delighted to learn there could be a cool like this im not sure where it resides and compliance and engagement to just keep usebreast of the efforts to promulgate this more widely would be great. Thank you. Any Public Comments . My name is ellen and i am a Public Employee and i am a resident both of San Francisco and whatever you are doing here at Commission Staff volunteers and people pay or not pay, it is almost an illegal operation for San Francisco and we have no other party to be in the political sense. Because the United States constitution clearly spells it out that we are a republic government. In San Francisco, for the last 45 years, we only have democrats for 45 years. All the lefty policies that you are presented right before me have no other political balance. About two weeks ago, current mayor london breed, passed an and for Public Employees that means that theres a lot of imbalance and employees and representation along the government. I am here to charge you all as a commissioners pay staff volunteers to think about what you do for the city. If San Francisco has hundred thousand residents and almost 32,000 government employees, with a budget of 12. 3 billion, u have a duty to deliver quality care to make sure electoral offices deliver what they are running for office. As you know in our guest, 2019, we were reported by 13 departments and we now have 21,000 homeless people. Dying. Suffering. Overdose. Hunger, sickness, on the streets. I have to come in at you because you volunteer your time and the people in here they get paid for. As i run for mayor right now, i have been bullied because i am a conservative and i am a republican. Theres no other party other than democratics. I have been bullied. And i have been reported to you nothing has been done. Im asking for the people in San Francisco, we have choice. The choice is to report this to the federal government, the public has been abused because we dont have any political voice, political means for what is you are doing here in another world that we are running a government, a mafia government and a government scam the Public Services and have scammed the government money into a lot of illegal activity and you might be part of it. Thank you. Agenda item number 6, discussion of monthly stuff policy reports. Thank you, chair chu. Good afternoon commissioners. Pat ford senior policy and legislative affairs council. I have a short report for you this month. Just a few key updates on on going projects. One of them which is a big update is is that on the fourth of act, the mayor signed the Public Financing ordinance so it is now finally approved, all the steps are done and it is slated to be operative on the first of the year. We are implementing it and im meeting with the heads of other divisions in the office to figure out everything that we need to do so that its a very seamless and smooth roll out of these new provisions and very confident that we can do that t im happy to report that to you. Thats terrific news, congratulations. Thank you. Another update which is a Good Movement is on the form 700 project we have a tentative date with the first meeting employee bargaining units and were shooting for november 6th. Hopefully, within the next week or so, the department of Human Resources will issue a notice to the bargaining units and on the staff side, were going to be preparing our comments and probably some kind of presentations to make sure they understand the project and that are fully part of the process. Were hoping well have this meeting and one more before the holidays. During the Holiday Season it against hard to plan these meetings because so many people are involved. Potentially over a dozen different unions might want to come and participate so its just a lot of people to coordinate with. So were hoping that well be able to make Good Progress on this before the holidays and most likely then take a hiatus if were not done and pick it up again in january. Hopefully doing these meetings in the next few weeks will be a good start on that. How many meet and confirm meetings do you anticipate needing to hold . Its hard to say. Its very hard to say. A ballpark. Low to high range. At least one, right. At least one. I can tell you on previous meet and confer projects, i think weve had three, average of three. I think thats how many we had for the last update. Which at least is somewhat similar subject matter. If this process is similar to that, maybe three. Is the process time boned at all . Or deadline by which all the meetings need to be completed . Not bylaw. Really only operationally. Theres a certain point at which we as a staff just need to have that process completed so that we can bring the regulation before you and you have the opportunity to consider it and potentially improve it and we would then have enough time to do our implementation for january 1, 2021. Im not sure what that dropdead date is for completing meet and confer but some time in the spring is when i would like to have that done so you could have two or so meetings to consider that regulation and then we would have that 60day window where it sits over at the board and they have the opportunity to veto it and then when that 60 days passes, then we would be able to do our final implementation and hopefully we will have three or four months on that. So i think its this meet and confer process if we find ourselves in the middle of next summer and its not done yet, well have to have a discussion with you about whether or not we can meet january 1, 2021 deadline then. Im hoping that we wont find ourselves there and that we can do one or two meetings here in november and maybe a third or fourth one in january or february and that in that late winter, early spring time, that that is when ill be able to bring a regulation to you. That would be great. Keep us posted as the planning unfolds and im happy to write a letter or engage a letter that would be helpful to keep this on track so we can meet that january 2021 deadline. Great. Ill definitely do that. The last update that i wanted to highlight for you is that i designed a depart mental training that is meant to give City Employees, Department Heads and any City Employees who support commissioners information about their on going responsibilities under our code and understate laws that we enforce. So this training includes information about conflictofinterest rules, form 700 filings, statements of incompatible activities, all things that comply to all City Employees and we talk about Department Responsibilities like receiving form 700s or distributing statements and compatible activities to employees and with commissioners about recuseel rules and things that apply to commissioners and this is something that the director asked me to do because after her recent presentation to the meeting of all Department Heads that the mayor holds, she gave a presentation about some of our new laws and the mayor expressed center in all Department Heads saying abreast of those rules and as a result, some Department Heads if they could get a refresher. We could come on site and talk to them. So we developed this training to be responsive to that. They feel supported and our department is a partner and were there to help them and make sure that they understand their response act and they have all the information they need. Hopefully as we do these training on site were building alliances with other departments and other employees that they see us as a resource, as someone that can come to for help and perhaps come to with concerns with things they see. I heard some questions from employees at the training that rachel gage and i did on the 16th about potentially unethical behavior and violations of such interesting to hear that employees are seeing this and theyre not sure what to make of it. We want to make sure they have a framework so they know who to go to to get more information about it and potentially to lodge a complaint. So i think that this is a very worth while project and im glad the first one went so smoothly. It was a relatively small department. It was a Contract Monitoring Division which is a department or a Division Within city administrator and staff the size of ours, it was a good first run and scalable. I think we can do it for larger departments. Im hoping well get continued interest from other Department Heads moving forward. When is the next one scheduled . We dont have one scheduled. Im in discussions with another department head. I think he delegated the responsibility and office so were still working on that and thats the only one in the pipeline right now so we might explore with engagement and compliance of whether or not we should do some more proactive outreach to let people know this is available to them and maybe well get a little bit more interest. I would be interested to know as these things roll out and also what types of questions people are asking because that would indicate where the gaps and are their knowledge of the obligations to fulfill as the roles as employees and i think its fantastic that theyre focusing on making sure that people know what could raise a red flag. Know the obligation and what the law requires of them and who to go to if they see something. About what can happen. What are the consequences of that behavior. Thats a major under pinnings of an effective program. Kudos to getting that off the ground and keep us posted on the roll out. I will. Definitely. Thats all the updates. I would be glad to answer any questions you might have. Questions from commissioners . Public comment on this agenda idea . Number 6. My name is ellen and i am a Public Employee and i am a bargaining team. Theres a lot of dirty secrets. You remember i came here many times and reported to you. We have six government reported to the Ethics Commission. Get them report and audio and a few months later we were told things are missing and to this day theres snowsquall answer. The reason i bring this up is because the report itself is not the row a lot of the report. I wonder how accurate the Ethics Commission reports reflect the problems we have. I do not know a lot of dirty secrets until i run for mayor june of 2018 last year. Ive been through so much about election fraud, about ethic commissions cover up and about electoral officers tha that are democrats. For example, 2019 this year i went to the Election Office to inquire information. We had more than 490,000 voters. More than 100 of them no longer are in the city but still in the voters row. Essential that between the election and Ethics Commission has the duty to improve this process. I am a director of civil services. Civil grand jury one of the members for the San Francisco chapter and i reported to you they need to be reported for legal actions and 2019 i found out 5 9 voters ther 589 votere commission was informed and Election Office was informed and the District Attorney was informed and today, october we still have the same voters in the voting row so that means that people continue to roll. People are no longer in San Francisco more than 100,000 of still in there and people send them ballots. We have 60 absentee balance spots it may be one of the reasons its supported by democratics evil a begin da only. Anyone who had commonsense will think about what i said today. It was set up to fight off government correction. Thank you. Given commissioner lees absence well hold over the city whistleblower discussion to the next month. Commissioners, just a brief presentation about the remainder of this inside then as we do every month and we have reported some sta tas ticks how on on the front page and the back two pages. You can see that the number of complaints requiring staffs triage is Holding Around 50 and that the amount of time it takes staff to decide whether to investigator refer or dismiss those complaints is moving in a downward trend and were hovering now at six months. If you were to consult the graph on page 4, agenda item 7, attachment 1 you would see that about 3 5 of the complaint in preliminary review staff received within the last three months and so, the bulk of the complaints that requires staff attention are relatively new. I think if we look at the dock et ceterdockets staff have reced close to 40 complaints in this fiscal year so far. 40 complaints we have added to the docket as opposed to i am formal complaints that as the director of enforcement i have handled through a new protocol we have described to you before where i consult with that informal complainant and steer them towards the proper jurisdiction where they might raise those questions or resolve with them and and then that is limited informal complaints which the charter distinguishes from formal complaints and as the regulations reinforce. Just for my refresher and for the people watching at home, if a complaint comes in and it is not within the jurisdiction of the Ethics Commission to investigate say its it belongs elsewhere, you will then connect them with the right people and the relevant departments . To the extent possible . To the extent we can identify who the right Department Might be, yeah, welt direct those complaints to those departments. Thank you. I have a question. And this may have been something that has been answered in the past but because of my recent fairly recent appointment im not familiar with it. Looking at the summary to state of rev noose i was struck by the dramatic difference this is the lobbestist registration fees of 85,000 budgeted and 7500. The other categories between budgets and receipt is far less dramatic and i wondered if this is an ongoing situation or if theres some historical reasons or some new reason for that . Im going to defer on this question. It might be on the executive district report. I will answer it now. Im advised to wait until that item is called. Thank you. Yeah, and as to the matters that are currently under investigation, you can see there are 90 of those and half come in from the Campaign Finance context just shy of 40 of those and fall into the category of government ethics and the remainder are divide between allegations of wrongdoing in the lobbyist context and whistleblower context. Since its an election year, although its kind of an odd year, and anecdotally i understand theres been an uptick with an increase in complaints. When would you typically see that happen and would it be now and leading up to the election and have you seen corresponding rise in the number of complaints that have come in . I remember correct and anecdotally we see more complaints during an election season and if i remember correctly, ahead of the june 2018 election, in the throwmonth window proceeding or up to and including that election i think Something Like half of all complaints that were filed during that fiscal year were filed during that throwmonth window but when we looked instead at the november 2018 election, the uptick was far less dramatic and i have not run the numbers to answer your question with real certainty but anecdotally, my experience is that we have not gotten as many campaignrelate the complaints that i might have expected. I think one reason is there may be a perception among the public that theres that the mayoral race is less close this time than it was in june of 2018. As you review the polling. I think as a member of the public you might come to that conclusion. It is also the case there are fewer supervisor races taking place and its possible the public is less concerned about the Campaign Finance activity taking place during this particular election s those may contribute to that but this is anecdotal and i cant really say. Thank you. A couple of notes about the referrals to the bureau we have had conversations about some of these matters over the course of the last you foo months and i wanted to know a couple of things regarding some of the newer masters that they have referred to that bureau for their handle being. One is the sf latino Democratic Club. You will note that the bureau and that in light of a regulation that appears in the enforcement regulations governing the scope of payment plans to which the executive director might agree and they egg negotiated a plan with that committee subsequently, our office, i believe starting with the collection officer and eventually routed to my received a phone call from an attorney who hoped we might pull that matter black from b. D. R. To the commission and ro renegotiate te liability for which that committee was liable and our view of that was this is a matter belonging to the bureau of delinquent revenue and any negotiations on behalf of your client have to be persuade with the bureau its sev and you can see from the notes, the bureau has requested that the attorney substantiates in writing that the attorney represents that client and evidently the bureau has not succeeded in obtaining that documentation. I would not be surprised however if there was a relationship between the committees defaulting on than plan and the efforts of that attorney to seek a better outcome on the half of his client. The last thing i would say is regarding the last committee on the list there. I just have a question. So, if, would it be possible to take it back from bdr to renegotiate the plan . I dont know if thats a question for the city attorney. Im not suggesting we do that but is it prohibited or permitted . Do you want to take a stab that the . I think it is possible for the Ethics Commission to be involved in those discussions. And so i dont know if thats something the department is interested in exploring. I mean, yeah,. If you dont renegotiate for them to seek judicial of the review of the imposition of the penalty are you saying that the club agrees to this penalty and entered no a contract with the city to pay it back and to i believe as to the we can of dea. Its 30 days and given this penalty was assessed before june was the referral was made june 21st, if im right about the 30day deadline to rid the city then theyre well past the statue of limitations and i dont know whether a payment plan constitutes a contract for which this Contracting Party has breached but i think thats pretty fair guess about what the posture might be. Ok, im just not seeing litigation over that before but im just curious if thats where were headed. I think given the size of that penalty, that is likely on the mind of the bureau when you look at the last committee on the list there and that particular committee has evidently refused to pay. A penalty that is less than 20 of size of the first one we were speaking about and the bureau indicates that their intention to litigate and collect that penalty. I cant speak for the bureau but i would not be surprised. Not to collect means to get out from under that penalty . So mailed intent to file a lawsuit. Im sorry. That was bdr filed to collect against the essential committee . Debtor refuses to pay. Thats the city filing the letter. Ok. Yes, the city through the entity of the bureau. Ok. Yep. I have a question. How did they notify you they refused to pay . Did they send you something in writing . It didnt come to us it came to the bureau of delinquent revenue and i dont know in what terms they would have communicated their refuse a i can find out if you want to know. Im just interested. What about the promise to pay . Well, it looks like they promise today pay bit end of today. My guess is that most of these things are negotiated pretty informally. When the bureau can make contact with debtors by phone or by email, that is how they like to do it because its the most efficient and the least administrative overhead for them. So my guess would be that that Democratic Club probably got an email from the tax attorney over there and wrote back saying ok we understand what is going on here and we grow to pay it and informally they agreed on a deadline. Thats my guess. I can followup with my contacts and get you more specific information. Coming back to the question about whether the commission by claw back a debt from the bureau, we have a question about whether we ought to do that which s. You know, its a question of policy or a question of strategy and it would suggest maybe to debtors as long as they refuse to play ball with the bureau, they may have an opportunity to seek a more favorable venue. I mean, our view is that one reason to refer them to the bureau is that we dont want to give debtors an opportunity to venue shop and that really were on the same page about what is owed to the city. I guess thats why i was can go thats where the other commission is going. In that instance if they signed a payment plan agreement with the city that is receivable of the city and county of San Francisco. Im not sure under those circumstances, you know, i think we would have to look at it before you even thought about bringing it back and renegotiating that because then youre waving a receivable of the city and county of san from if they are obligated to pay. I dont know, maybe its just an informal agreement. Im assume a payment plan is in writing and has installment payments and dates and the like i would be curious to see what b. D. R. Uses for their payment plan. When you have a contract with the city theres a lot of basic municipal codes provisions about not being able to, you know, ignore it or renegotiate it, et cetera. Going back to chris mack son, this item has been on the report since i was appointed to the commission and its pretty much the same, no change in residents status and skip tracing to locate. I mean, i dont have the answer to this question but my question is what is b. D. R. Doing . Its been thro three plus yearse i have seen it on the list and the referral date was 2013. Thats already six plus years ago. Would you like me to bring back more information about the tools or try to locate it . I mean, yes. When are they going to deliver results on this . How much longer are they going to do this . If you are not getting the result you want, what do you need to do differently, right tox ge,to get the outcome and te not that effective. How much are we spending to try to find someone and is the Ethics Commission trying to find money to b. D. R. Based on the number of cases or how many times they skip trace because they know theres a procedure through the municipal code if its a lost cause, you can make a determination that this person has gone underground and its not worth trying to find them so, i would be curious about that too. When does bdr say that theyre, whatever. When do they cut their loss losses. That question has come up in that conversation but i did consult with the commissions science collection officer about whether we should cut and run on that particular run and her view was his conduct was poor enough that she would be uncomfortable with us just walking away. Now the commission may make a separate evaluation but what it wishes to do and the evaluation turns on the facts about the engagement. I have not read the m. O. U. And i believe that what is true of our engagement with b. D. R. Is they take a percentage of the debts that they collect and not that we pay them fees related to the items on the docket but i dont know. If its their expense loss, i mean, if were not paying them every time someone picks up the phone and says i cant find Chris Jackson, fine. Well just defer to them to keep trying to find and i guess i said i dont know if Chris Jackson is a woman or a man. Anyway, i was just balancing the costbenefit if its not productive. Its feedback and i will endeavor to review the m. O. U. Y. I would b yes, i would be. Were obviously giving them a lot of work. Im happy to take any questions if you have any. Any comments . No Public Comments. Discussion of executive director report and program attic and staff activities and since the commissions last monthly meeting. Thank you, chair. As i mentioned at the end of the last month, meeting in my verbal comments to the report. Weve had a number of staffing announcements over the last month. Weve had some progress with some positions that weve been able to realign and re adjust so the detail that i highlight is for you. [please stand by] good morning, everybody, the meeting will come to order. Welcome to the meeting of the rules committee. Im hilary ronan, chair of the committee and sitting to my left is supervisor marr and to my right is matt hainey. Our clerk
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