Transcripts For SFGTV 20130708

Includes it in the body. The library in the bod y the Police Commission in the bod y the Arts Commission and mr. Renne at the last hearing we had in february said specifically i think that all city bodies should. Yes. And i think that we are in agreement on that. But you now just said that the Library Commission is doing it. So then what is the problem . Because it is arbitrary, my political free speech cannot be what bureau crat decides, and i will not go before the body that i work for and have them discuss it and make a decision, i will do it on a whim and that is what mr. St. Croix did. You have not had a discussion about the placements of these . He decided to stop thuting them in and put them in the body and portray it as an accommodation to me. Commissioner studley . In my view there was no violation here of 67. 16 because the Library Commission included the 150word statements in the minutes. And in my view, in the minutes includes both in the body of the minutes, and in the addendum. One thing that i pointed out the last time is to me, a numbered document from one to. It is not your free speech. Excuse me mr. Hartz im speaking. I think that we have raised two completely separate issues here. These complaints before us, relate to whether the inclusion of the 150word statements in the minutes is a violation and we have to affirmatively find if we think that there was a violation. The commissioners may not all agree with me that the addendum is perfectly satisfactory way of accomplishing the statutory responsibilities. There is a separate issue that you commission have raced that is not before us and that is the responsibility of a city body that is required by law to maintain minutes. And under 6716, the sunshine ordinance requires the boards and commissions to record minutes for each regular and special meeting. Our minutes characterized what i say, they are not the same as the transcript. The minutes are something else. And they summarize what each of us says. And that is different from the inclusion of the 150word statement that allows the speakers before the commissions to be absolutely clear about what they want to say. The commissions that have been criticized before have done both they have carried out the responsibility under 6716 to record minutes, not to record transcripts that is a separate obligation but to record the minutes in which they say, what happened at the meeting. If there is a complaint, that those minutes are not being kept appropriately by any commission that will be a separate question. That is not on the floor before us right now. And on the matters before us, it seems clear to me, that the Library Commission that these complaints do not carry weight and there is not a violation of 6716 and the 150word statements have been included without any editing and without change, there is no question on the record before us about whether they have been revised shortened tampered with or otherwise reduced from what was presented by the complainant or anyone else. I think that it is a simple matter and i think that we should act in a way that follows the decisions that we have made in the past on this issue. Thank you, commissioner studley. May i respond to that . Mr. Hartz. Why are they fighting so hard to keep these summaries out . What is it thatvy to say that they dont want heard . Im not just fighting this for my own sake, im fighting this for the sake of any citizen in this city who has gone before a public body, made a statement and had that statement either deleted, sensored, misrepresented and the sunshine ordinance offers an extra layer of protection. And what you do in each of these cases you say that even though the body who is legally charged with deciding these cases has found a violation, we are going to ignore what they have to say, and never having looked at any of the evidence involved. And say that they are wrong. Thank you, mr. Hartz. Commissioner hur you have a question or a comment . I was just going to say that i, concur with commissioner studley and i would be prepared to hear Public Comment and vote. I would move that we make a finding as suggested by commissioners. I would be happy to make that motion. And then we can have Public Comment on the motion, would that be helpful . Yes. I believe that the motion is that the commission, find a better way to articulate this. The Commission Finds that the city library did not violate the sunshine ordinance as to all allegations referred to by the task force because the 150word written summaries were included within the minutes as required by the sunshine ordinance and under section 677hp 16. Any person shall provide a statement, and this is the responsibility of the secretary of the clerk to take down and i appreciate you commissioner studley for creating the distinction or outlining the distinction between a transcript and minutes which is to summarize all of us that is the role and the responsibility and the Job Description of the secretary and the clerk and it says that you were a manager and you decided to do an evaluate on me and you called me into our office of a years worth of work and as you have done good Due Diligence of talking to me and observing me and talking to the people that i supervise and you wrote up an evaluation and at the end of that you have the opportunity to signoff on it with no comment and say that i agree and i have a comment or i disagree and here are the reasons why. But you dont get to do is to have the opportunity to change the words within the evaluation. And i think that is in many ways what the role of your 150word summary can do when you are summarizing the minutes because the minutes are not there to capture the meeting the transcript is there. But clarification happens for that, and this is the role of the clerk and the secretary and i, concur with commissioner studley. Can i respond to that . We are going to have Public Comment. The comment was made and i think that it is time that i respond to it appropriately. I think that mr. Hartz has had plenty to say on this issue. Are you afraid of what i have to say . Hardly. You make it a joke, mr. Hur. You sit there and you smile and you laugh, and you make derog torrey comments because you have the power. You are a bully. I think that the only person that is making derog torrey comments in this chamber is you. I asked to respond to this comment. And i was told that mr. Hartz has had a lot of time. You have a lot of time, more than the normally allotted time. So we are opening this up to Public Comment and i believe that mr. Warfield was going to speak. Mr. Warfield, were you going to speak . Peter warfield, executive director of Library Users, i have had a long history with the library and unfortunately i can say that the new commissioner is mistaken. The job of the minutes is not necessarily to include anything that the commissioners say. Or anything that their officials might say,vy been to a lot with the Library Commission. Let me tell you they have it on frid which they wanted to put into the library and which we and the aclu at the Chronic Foundation thought or it was the technology that was highly privacy funding and so they had a forum and a fixed time went for two hours, and they had all kinds of invited people. And minutes, you know what they said . At the Library Commission for that meeting for the presenters and their two hours of discussion . Nothing. Not one word. And the Library Commission has also discussed on again, off again, over the years how about we just have action minutes, meaning we will only discuss or put into the minutes, the actual motions and votes for ourselves. Because the sunshine. Ordinance does require some summary of Public Comments. I have taken complaints about the comments when they gave five words on that hearing for my comments. Incomprehensive and not even a sentence and that is all that they gave the electronic frontier. And he said those and that was represented as his. And if you listen to any Library Commission meeting and even the smallest requests of collections that would be simple, or even to correct or in some case to reverse a backwards meeting are ignored routinely and it is seldom that they make a change. Last sentence of 6716 was an added thing. And 150word summaries were added as proposition g to strengthen the sunshine ordinance originally passed some years earlier presumably because they recognize that without the publics opportunity to speak in their own voice. As i well know and mr. Hartz and otherwise know has happened and to the library has played all kinds of games to say that they are knocking the doors and to make the document and they need to be in the minutes as the sunshine ordinance. Thank you mr. Warfield. Commissioners . Call the question. On commissioner studley motion. All in favor . Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Motion is passed. Unanimously. Push i would like to make a quick comment. One could not sit here for the length of time that we have without recognizing that there is tension in the library community. I think that there is fair to say that that i am educated by our commenters to understand that is happening. We can only act on what is brought to us and there is. And i am glad that others agree that there is not a violation along these lines. And these things that are discussed here are not related to the comments, or are now embodied in a legal way of the complaints that were brought to us. So whatever unhappiness is going on we have not been getting. And we may not have the authority to deal with those issue and only acting on what is brought here and we have reached the result. I agree with you. If there are violations and not necessarily referring to to the sunshine ordinances and to other activities and you have the evidence and why not take it to an investigative reporter. And then you surprised me. And so, we have raoefmd that conclusion and now we are moving on to the next case. Mr. St. Croix . So, under chapter two the regulations there is not a staff memo or a staff recommendation, there is a presumption of the Task Force Findings are correct and the respondent in this case bears the burden to show that the task force errored in this determination, three commissioners are responsible to make sure that they have met his or her burden and so the respondent is permitted to speak first for five minutes. And complainant has five minutes to speak and then the respondent has a threeminute rebuttal. My name is Kate Patterson and in i am the primary responder to the sunshine requests that come to the agency. First i would like to acknowledge that responding in the Task Force Order april 5, 2012, the Arts Commission failed to respond within the designated time frame. We dont have a good excuse, and it was simply overlooked and it was overlooked by me, specifically and for this, we have apologized on the numerous occasions to mr. Warfield and to the Sunshine Task force and have attempted to rectify the situation. I have submitted the copy of the last response to the body back in april, i believe as it includes all of our priary arguments for not complying with the order of determination. In a response, to the order of determination of april 5th, 2012, we reiterated that we have no speaker cards to present to mr. War field in the response for cards from the meetings of september, october and november of 2009, however we were able to furnish mr. War field with cards for several meet thatings took place in the time line requested by mr. Warfield to clarify this was september of 2011 through december, 4, 2011 and the visual Arts Committee meetings of 2011, through january, 2012. And in our initial response, we indicated that in order to protect the individuals right to privacy under the california constitution article one, section one, we redacted the personal addresses but not the business addresses that have been written on the cards before making pdf files and photo copies and also provided mr. Warfield with paper copies of the same documents. On the advise of the City Attorney we have a Standard Practice of redacting in order to protect privacy, we are careful to site the constitution article one section one as a rationale for these edits by redacting this the Arts Commission was in no way trying to obstruct his right to assemble and gather support, we are protecting those who had not consented with us sharing the information with someone who is interested in soliciting them with the private email telephone number and residence, despite the finding, the Arts Commission main that i should that it acted appropriately by redacting the personal information of those who filled out the speaker cards at past meetings because of the at the time it was unclear to the Arts Commission and to the individuals in question, that they would be waving their Constitutional Rights to privacy by participating in a Commission Meeting by filling out resident information on a card. At no point did the cards include information alerting the individuals to the fa account that once handed to the commission that the private be a record. It assumed that the citizens are conversant with all of the rules, after conducting with the City Attorney on the legalities of this issue we modified the speaker cards so that it does not ask for one persons is address and will dlud this, you are not required to complete this card and you may speak anonymously if you wish. Protecting the rights of individuals to privacy, the Arts Commission properly withheld the private home, address of citizen whose submitted Public Comment at the Commission Meetings. The findings and purpose section of the sunshine ordinance makes it clear that it is not intended to eliminate or interfere with privacy rights, specifically 67. 1 g, states that private entities and individuals and employees and officials of the city and county of San Francisco have rights to privacy that must be respected. It was adopted in the spirit of being mindful to the right to privacy. And so this is the essentially a recap of the letter that i sent and i am running out of time, that i sent to this body a while back and i spent a number of cases where this was an issue so although the home addresses and telephone numbers are often publicly available through telephone directors or Similar Services such as google and it does not eliminate the interest, and the Arts Commission feels that disclosing the information will make them vulnerable from the entities from a corporation to a cult that wish to sell something and use this for something such as identity theft. And all of the private citizens in for participate ng ining a democratic process, and i think that the question is not what they will use the information for but the question is that we dont know, the individual so it is a hard call for us to make. Thank you. Do you want to take or if you have questions or would you like to hold it until after the complainant speaks what happens we should take the questions now. It is up to you. And the complainant. Respect to the failure to respond to an immediate disclosure request in a timely manner, although you addressed that very candidly, i will have to say that i am. Could you point to me. Could i, it was not a failure to respond to an immediate disclosure, it was a failure to respond to an order of determination from the Sunshine Task force. Okay. Thank you. But what there is an element of the proceedings before us, is failure to respond to an immediate disclosure request in a timely manner and the dates that i see are december 15th, and i am speaking now from the task forces order of determination, dated april 5th, 2012. This says on december 15, 2011, the Library Users association requested electronic copies and december 19, 2011, the ac secretary, produced electronic copy and on december 20th, mr. Warfield inspected them. So i think that my question is for you that i will ask mr. Warfield why this was not timely. And it is whether that directly tracks your understanding of the timing or the request on december the 15th and a response on the december 19th ni have a letter, february 6, 2012, from the Commission Secretary to the members of the sunshine Traffic Force regarding the request made on december 15th, 2011, and what i dont have in front of me is a calendar and i dont know if this is a situation whereby it was the friday request and we got back to him on monday and i dont know. It was a thursday and the response came on monday. Okay. So what she says is on december 19, i reply by email saying that there were no speaker cards response to his request number one, and i supplied copies of the speaker cards for the following meetings in response to his request and explained that there were no cards for any of the other meetings he had requested. So i dont recall it does not say in her letter to the Sunshine Task force whether it was an idr. And so, i dont know. For the record, what is the time requirement for the request . The business day the following day. Thank you. I appreciate that. I said that i will ask you the same question when or after you have presented unless you want to incorporate it. You can have it. I think that we have it. Thank you. May i answer the question, because it is right here in your packet. You may incorporate it in your comments or answer it afterwards, it is up to you. All right. May i answer the question she asked it, it is right here in the packet. Well, it is your turn to present. I dont want to spend my time on this issue. Then i will ask you at the end. Right now as the chair said your time is running now. Mr. Warfield. We are going to hear from the complainant now. That will be you. Thank you for calling me madam chair. As a said in the Public Comment, i think that this is an out rage that you are doing here now with respect to your procedures. This is, this procedure is being won as though i personally complained against Kate Patterson personally and there was no Department Head or elected official involved. Mr. St. Croix says, in his first paragraph, and when the respondent with Kate Patterson and the named complainant was Peter Warfield of the Library Users association and he goes on page 2 where he says, that task force referred this matter as a willful and this is on page 2 of the old letter and the second paragraph. The task in addition, under the section, such and such and however, miss patterson is not an elected Department Head and thus this matter will be handled under chapter two of the commission for violations of the sunshine ordinance and so what mr. St. Croix has done is define away the possibility that a document head might be responsible here and only it was a knife that did it so nobody could be held responsible. I have nothing to do with miss patterson and i am not sure that she was working with the Arts Commission at the time that i made the request on behalf of the Library Users association and she had nothing to do and she knows nothing personally about this. It is all what she has heard about. She is the employee of the Arts Commission, and the head of the Arts Commissioner at the very least ought to be considered responsible, and especially given the insistence and the long time. Of the Arts Commission over many months over a year and a half old complaint and the defiance over men months and i suspect that she will be in deep trouble if she on her own decided to turn any information over to me that they have not yet. And that is because the head is involved, and now, if he were ko tom here and say that i am not involved, it is the mayor, because that is how i got appointed, or the City Attorney because that is who i follow religiously and i think that there might be an argument for that. Go ahead and find that out. Judge sirica but to claim that this follows the procedures of something that where no Department Head is involved, is absolute nonsense, if you look at the order of determination from the library or from the Arts Commission, i am sorry from the Sunshine Task force, Library Users association verses the San Francisco Arts Commission, case number such and such and that is the april fifth determination, the Library Users association alleged that the San Francisco Arts Commission and it goes on and on like that. Until finally, at the end of decision and order of determination on page 2, and the Task Force Finds the sfac, that is the sf Arts Commission in violation of sections and so and so and and so on. And the next paragraph says that the Arts Commission shall release the speaker cards and so on and so forth. Although the referal that she received from the later referal that you received directly to this body, which was written by the most recent chair of the Sunshine Ordinance Task force simply, she is not talking, nobody is talking about Kate Patterson and peter war field and especially not kate they were referring this to the case of the Library Users association against the Arts Commission for failing to respond to the immediate disclosure and request, such and such, goes over to the Library Users association and verses the Arts Commission, on march 7, the task force heard the complaint number so and so by the Library Users association, complainant. And against the San Francisco Arts Commission respondent. And so it goes on and on in that way. And meanwhile you have covered your tracks. Your agenda talks about a complaint of Library Users association against the Arts Commission. And yet, you are using the procedure that is appropriate for a nonDepartment Head, what is the Arts Commission that has a Department Head . And so i think that this is an out rage and this is backwards and you need it rehear this properly so that it follows the procedures that you yourself have set up and someone looking at the facts and the documents will know who is complaining against whom. Okay. The practical matter and i am not saying that you are right or wrong and as a