October, 2015 and its been more than a year and thank you and thank you to the fellow i havent met and name with of i would screw up and would just say thank you. I would assume the website continues to evolve as things change that they are highlighted interest persons meetings, draft, all kind of fun stuff. It will be great. I also assume particularly with the translated materials and disabled user enhancements there is coordination with ocea and Mayors Office on disability, so whatever the city standards for translation and for accessibility are used here and that were not sort of doing our own thing . And just finally to the extent that the staff learns both through feedback and experience what works for outreach, if that is useful to be shared with other city departments. So its not like you are doing it well and the puc and port arent. If you are doing it well, share it with others and hopefully everyone can be up to the high Steven Massey standard and im encouraged to hear about the larry Bush Development corporation. That is a positive development. [laughter ]. Any other Public Comment . I have been requested to take a 10minute break and well come back and complete the agenda. Recommendations for fiscal 18 and 19. Good evening commissioners, yes item no. 9 is presented to you for your consideration and possible action this evening related to the development of our budget submission, which all departments are required to submit this year, february 21st to the Mayors Office. I would note that the commissions next regular meeting is february 27th and so wanting to make sure you had an opportunity to weighin on policy direction for when our budget submission should look like. I put together a report that reflects the staffs recommendation where we are at this point in our development and our progress toward as achieving the blueprint that is approved by the mayor and board of supervisors and adopting the fy17 budget. So i wanted to walk through briefly the key areas as we see them and our hope this would be a frame work with recommendations that the commission would be supportive of that would give direction to me and staff to prepare the document to submit next month in accordance unlike last years blueprint for accountability we have estimates in this budget and we would want to take advantage of time and i will get into that in a few minutes to make sure the numbers were looking at are as accurate as possible, based on policy direction you give us this evening. With that, i will walk through a recap. First of all, last year, which the commission submitted its budget, i had understood that it was a request for a twoyear budget cycle. As it turns out, were not on what is called a fixed 2year budget as a department, unlike some departments are and the city apparently. So our office like many are required to submit a budget for the coming fiscal year and fy18 and 19 together, which in a mind is not a bad thing with a year of experience at stafflevel to reflect on what our continuing resource needs are, and where we best need to apply Additional Resources in the coming year to continue to try and meet the goals that the commission established last year. The areas that were intended to guide our work. We have talked about organizational efficiencies and more Effective Enforcement Program and supporting compliance with stronger information for those who are required to comply with our laws. And a strengthened policy direction. When he look back at the year we establish a number of key pieces for that blueprint to be furthered development. As this document reflects where we still have work to do and those are the recommendations that i would like to highlight for you. The first is that when we look at our recommendations overall, one the key recommendations that we have its important to align our staff positions and resources with the nature of the work that we actually have to do. What that translates to in specific terms is a request for two new positions. That i believe are necessary to provide the level of oversight daytoday in management of our programs. In our Core Education and outreach work, and in our Audit Programs. Im proposing that we recommend two Senior Administrative analysts, each of whom would be tasked with oversee and working with the daytoday Program Delivery of our education and Campaign Finance lobbying and ethics arena and also to strengthen our Audit Program. But we realize when we do that were looking at delays that we need to correct and part of this, i think, needs to have Additional Resources to support the daytoday management of the program. What we find as we have in many Program Areas when we have to have staff multitasking too much, were not able to focus on the work that they need to do because they have got split responsibilities. So one of the key areas is recommending that we have that appropriate level of staffing that can actually manage programs. The classification of the positions need to match supervisory and programmatic responsibilities that we have and that is not currently what we have and we have challenges delivering the services that are core to our function. Secondly, i think its probably clear to you and many in the room that the commission had a significant underfunding of the tools and training and Staff Development resources that again the work were doing really does require. This budget framework proposing to change that historic underfunding by recognizing through specific line items that have not existed todate, things like improved outreach and Training Resources for our staff, ongoing investments that are required in our technology to make sure we achieve the policy goals that new legislation proposed is proposing to accomplish. So this is an area where technology, we are looking at things like Case Management software. So we can better track our enforcement cases. That we can better use that information to monitor our own work and to understand where were coming into pinch points . As were increasing our staff and have more robust investigations and enforcement and more serious cases we really need to be able to track that information, and spreadsheets are probably not the best way to go about doing that. So looking at jurisdictions like the fppc to see where we might be able to find programs that will help us . That is again getting our work up to the level that it needs to be to do the work that were required to do. That for example is initially estimated to be perhaps 20,000 onetime cost. In addition the report notes the variety of policy initiatives that have been either adopted or are being recommended by the board of supervisors so far where there has not been funding in the ordinance, in the legislation, to enable the Disclosure Requirements to happen in an online setting. We know that technology that disclosures are really only as good as the filers ability to complete the requirement easily, and as ensuring its easy for the public to access that information. Transparency through Online Filing tools is critical in our view and need to make sure that any ordinance that may be proposing or enacting changes actually comes with the resources to enable our system to be modified to accommodate the expectation that we create by having new laws and new Disclosure Requirements on the books. When we look at some of the recent policy initiatives initiated with my the board were estimating a ballpark of 150,000 for fy18 to accomplish implement those. We had a conversation about translations. One of the things that we have not done a good job at historically is identifying line items and cost its will help us translate our information to communities that may not have english as first language we have identified ballpark of 5,000 a year that would enable us to [skpapb ] expand on a regular basis that on line is updated as they need to be, working with the appropriate offices in the city to do that. We have sort of had to play catchup over the past years with where is that money going to come from . Its a pressing need and to continue to reach out to a Broader Community its important to have the resources in the budget and funded to reflect that work and to support that work. In our Staff Development and training again having the right staff positions is critical and having the right staff with the right skills and training and refreshers is really christ. Critical. Jessica and i know at the council on governmental ethics law a tremendous resource for our staff to understand and build up skills and auburn new ideas and making sure that we have some staff each year attend the conference something in my judgment is very important for our agency. And also providing the kinds of skills training, onboarding for new investigators, deposition training is one of the things that jessica identified for new investigators who come onboard some of these may be onetime costs and other areas where we have identified 1,000 a year, for example, per staff person to go and really strengthen their skill areas is something that we would like to identify. We have identified some specific areas, but we also need to take a hard look at supporting staff in recruiting exceptioning and keeping exceptional staff. In the third area is something that is a bit broader question that were trying to get a handle on over the next month. Im not interested in coming to you with a blank check request. But i think its important to recognize that as we have expanded our staffing, to 22, we have now saturated our existing office with one Conference Room. If we were appropriated and authorized for two additional people were asking the bottomline for that space to make sure that we have the space with the work were required to do. So were thinking big and we know that may be a longer term effort, but in my view its important once you have the right people and right skills to doing right work to have the kind of support to deliver the kind of work in the way that we expect it. So that going that were going to talk to the department of real estate and other departments in the city to understand what that involves and what those costs are. Its something that needs to be recognized as a cost and cannot be an afterthought. It will mean were hampered in perhaps expanding our staff to the right level simply because we dont have chairs to put people in. So i want to think big and pressing for the idea to have appropriate staff for staff and training and for the work that were required to do. Lastly i want to come back to a fourth point and that is making sure that we continue to extend the use that we have been planning to be Key Performance indicators. One thing were happy about to track in baseline ways for example, our enforcement caseload. How old those cases are and what nature they are . That has been critical for us to ask questions for whether were going about the work in best way . It enables the public to ask questions and enables you to have proper oversight and ask questions. We need to expand that kind of process to all of our areas, when we start restaffing in some new area. So those are the kind of indicators that we need to develop and put in place, so we can tell the public and you all, how we are using these very important dollars to accomplish the goals that voters have set for us and we believe that is going to be an important piece of it, too. We dont want that to get lost. Its something that we have started to do but not seen through because of competing priorities, but were committed to in the coming year. Because we know that the city has very important choices where its spending its money and well hopefully be able to make the pitch in the next months budget with your approval. That this is the sort of budget that we need to continue to build on. So that we can see our work through in the way that we have identified and the vision that you set forth last year. So that a bit of an overview. I would say in sum, the request that were looking for at this point is approximately 513,000 for fy18 and approximately 338,000 in fy19. Again, ballpark subject to some refinement, but to give you a sense that is about 15 increase and about 10 increase based on current operating budget figures. So i just wanted to give that you overview and happy to answer any questions that you and get your direction for next months policy submission. What surplus is present in the budget that supposedly we were going to have four investigators onboard. We dont have any of them, and maybe it will be march . So that for a period of from july to march we didnt pay any salaris for those. Does that result in our having a pot that we can shift over to 18 . No. In 18 . No, unfortunately it didnt work that way. If departments are saving money one year, its the useitorlose it. To use it for other appropriate functions well do that. But its clear that when we have salary savings, that is not a question of whether were going to fill the positions, but a question of when . They are all ontrack and i dont want to get ahead of myself, because i was hoping to talk about that during the executive directors report, but its something that affects our enforcement work, as well as our work generally. The delay and time it takes to hire staff. Im just curious in terms of what we budgeted for 1617, we arent going to be paying the salary amounts that we budgeted. And you say that just goes by the board. So well have spent less money than we were authorized . Can we use that as any kind of carry to the city and saying look, we didnt spend all the money we had, so we ought to get some more . Unfortunately i dont think they see its a carrot and i will make available to you and the public what is our salary savings. We went through the exercise of our salary savings and encumbrances and some costs we have been deferring. To the extent that some of the costs are deferred are appropriate to be used through salary savings we with do that. I want to make sure i have that information, but i dont have it and dont want to state it inaccurate. For example, there is 20,000 worth of Case Management software that would be a potential expense in fy18 would that be pulled forward . I think its possible if we identify it and i want to make sure that the salary savings can be used for that function . I dont have that information sitting here, because i know there are some restrictions what that money can be used for. I think last month when the commission heard from the mayors budget analyst, there was recognition that the fact that we have not been yet able to fill positions does not sound like that is going to be held against us in terms of obviously you didnt need those positions . I think there is wide recognition that the process of city has to go through nonexempt positions which is more than half of what we have been hiring and there is a process and time it does take. So weve been able for example, to use salary savings this year to bring onboard through a work order a senior personnel analyst from the department of Human Resources who is dedicated solely to our departments hiring processes for the next six months. So we have been able to use again, i dont want to misstate the dollar amount, but using significant amount of salary savings to pay for someone who primes the pumps to get that staff in the door. I had a question about the guidance that the Mayors Office has provided about the possible 3 reduction. What is concerning to me is that were just Getting Started with this new fy17 budget and trying to hire the four additional ftes, and that if the 3 reduction is going to be required, that would effectively eliminate half of those; right . And i would suggest in the budget submission that we put forward, i think it would be unwise for the city to require us to eliminate those positions. The biggest savings that we would have is from staff positions. Because i think it would send a terrible message to the people of San Francisco that well give you money in fy17 and take it away one year later and that means they are not serious about ethics and i dont think that is the message that the city wants to send and i dont think that is what the mayor certainly believes. But by virtue of requiring across the board 3 reduction, in that passion, that fashion that is in effect what will happen. And second two ftes you mention on page 3, that would be two new positions. So that would bring the total staff count from 22 to 24, is that correct . Correct. Okay. That would be the cost of 500 and change in fy18 and 338, so all of these initiatives. So the net effect would be an additional to the budget. At this point what we have identified. Commissioner keane, i just want to associate myself with commissioner chius observations and i agree with her very strongly in records to that regards to not allowing any of those cuts to take place and im sure you are up on it, but you are still somewhat new to the city in terms of the games played in the budget process in the Mayors Office and board of supervisors and commissioner kopp longterm member of the board of supervisors. You have some confidence that the mayor is not going to look at the salary savings because we havent used the positions. You have some confidence that the mayor is not going to do that. That is great. Probably your confidence is correct. But you have to watch out for the board. Because the board, they cant add to anything, but they can cut. And so when particularly they see harvey roses office and they havent used that and you are likely going to have a recommendation from the Budget Analysts Office that they havent used it and they will cut it and maybe i dont presume, if i am, to be lecturing you on something that you already covered you may want to start lobbying the budget analyst, and getting in the ear of the budget analyst for the board in aspect of not snatching away that part of your budget, our budget that has not been spent because oh, well you didnt spend it, you didnt need it to me that would be a big concern. I did the budget for the Public Defenders Office for 20 years and these are the things i really had to watch out for. I appreciate your wisdom on that and think its an Important Note to underscore. So again, with the policy direction that hopefully we can come out tonights meeting with, very much making a priority getting in early to these conversations about the budget. Demonstrating very clearly what the ongoing need is and the expanding work is that many of the Board Members are looking for us to provide. So i think there is a good basis to make those arguments you are suggesting. You have to get it from Budget Office because the members of board are dealing on massive stuff and rely on the budget analyst and if the budget analyst says they dont need it, cut it. No matter what the presentation you make, you go with the budget analyst. So you have to have the budget analyst wired on these things or else its not going to happen. Commissioner kopp. I will just add for informational purposes that the charter has been changed so that theyll take the mayors budget, budget analyst for the board will examine it and make recommendations of reductions. The board will effectuate those roductionsreductions and then the board has the legal right under the new and improved charter to add money back to substitute from the reduction from the mayors and in effect you have two opportunities. The recommendation of course of conferring with the budget analyst is one. But after that youll have certain champions on the board of supervisors if something needs to be rectified. We expect all the open positions will be filled by the end of the fiscal year . Yes. By when . By the end of the fiscal year. End of the fiscal year is june 30th. Yes, the answer was yes, we did expect to have it filled by then and sooner, i believe. Terrible. Let me say, i think that the groundwork that ms. Pelham and i assisted with the mayor and a number of the supervisors talking about the budget, there was real enthusiasm for what you were presenting and i think what you outlined here, that they will be receptive to. Because i think they were receptive to what we asked for even in the face of the mayor at that point wanting 6 over two years. So i dont think we should be bashful and i think we keep moving forward. I think there is a sense both from the Mayors Office and at the board that the commission is much more active, and is much more effective than it was in the past. And i dont know if any of them in the face of our 85 on prop t are going to say were going to start cutting the ethics commission. So i would go forward in the direction that this memo says. Do you want a motion on that regard . I dont know if its necessary, but if the commission feels inclined, its welcomed. I leave it up to you. You have to do it by february 21st. Yes. Any Public Comment . Good evening chair renne and commissioners and executive director pelham, im a friend of ethic and just wanted to say friend of ethics strongly supports the commissions framework for the operating budget for the coming year. The new and improved website, which was discussed earlier is a demonstration of funds wellspent. Additionally, it has been reported in the media lately that this commission has an enormous backlog. However, those reports failed to mention that that backlog is due in large part to understaffing and inaction of the previous executive director and his lack of enforcement. The budget requested will be in the longterm, a costsavings for this city. And this commission and its staff are to be commended on the exemplary jobs that they have been doing to put things on solid footing. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Any other Public Comment . Larry bush, also with friends of ethics. Any career has been spent a lot with elected officials and i have learned that they learned something from position papers, but learn more from anecdotes and just talking to steve massey about the major donors filing on the ethics page. Its a paper filing, because there was no money to make an electronic filing. And if you were to use that as an example, of the kind of things that could be done with this budget and should be done, you would probably find 11 supervisors who would immediately agree that yes, Major Developers filing should be electronically filed. So that they are much more readily researched. So a few examples like that, underscore what is in the position papers, but excellent work. Thank you. Thank you. David pilpell again. A couple of comment points i will admit i havent been if that building, but last i recall room 70 was a large Conference Room and perhaps that can be used for staff meetings. I support the direction that is proposed. I think you do need to take a motion. The charter still requires each commission to have a Budget Hearing and i think this is it for next year, tonight, right now. So i think a motion of support is in order and i support that. I hope that the staff report for this item will be posted on the website, and ultimately the budget submission with a summary of the 24 positions, 22 base plus the two. The 500,000 to 800,000 increment and the whole nine yards there and to really support both the current budget and proposed increase in anticipation of commissioner keanes perceptive view is more data on the backlogs in audits and enforcement and that really more than anything, i think, makes the case for funding the existing staff and funding the expansion. So that were right sized as you have properly used the word. And the more you can get that out there, attach it to the submission to the Mayors Office, support that with the budget analyst, be around in june for all of the fun and games, et cetera. That is all to the good. And just finally, we originally had three now we have four new supervisors. If the staff perhaps with chair renne havent had the opportunity to sit down with then and explain the history and backlog and talk about the priorities and translation and other stuff floating at the board and the need to fund new programs, et cetera, et cetera is all to the good and hopefully will be as supportive as others have been in past for doing the right thing. Thank you. I have a question, mr. Chairman, of ms. Blome. Why do you on page 2, with the graph refer to nonGrant Funding . Thank you for the question. This is a term that is kind of a term of art used in the budget document. That essentially means operating stuff. The Grant Funding as the budget refers to is allocation for the Public Financing program in our instance. Thank you. I learn something every meeting. [laughter ] i tend to agree with mr. Pilpel and would welcome a motion to endorse the proposals that are outlined in the staff memo. So moved. Second. I will call the question. All in favor . Aye. Opposed . Motion is carried unanimously. Turning to agenda item 10, discussion of enforcement report, and update from various programmatic and operation highlights of the enforcement program. Ms. Bloem. Yes, thank you, chair. So ill try to be brief, but i have been busy this month, doing some policy development and some research and analysis, and a little bit of investigating as well, which well talk about later. I drafted and researched the suspended investigations and parallel proceedings policy that we talked about earlier. Were also looking at the best way to move forward with the weekend filings deadline policy. That has become somewhat critical as we work with net file to do improvements to our website. And our filing system. And to input deadlines for the years filings. Some of our ordinances give grace periods for weekends and holidays and others do not, which makes it somewhat confusing for the coders and our fines collection officer. So we want to be consistent, and so were probably going to do it as a matter of regulation in our enforcement regulations and you should be doing that in next month or two. I spent a good deal of time preparing for and attending a Sunshine Ordinance Task force committee hearing. As a result of the michael petralis complaints related to the sign he brought to the meeting in a believe it was september. And then the second was regarding the meeting decorum paragraph in november. That was read aloud. Mr. Petrelis believes that we violated the sunshine ordinance in a couple of ways. The to affect disagreed with him with regard to the sign im sorry, the committee did, but they referred to the full panel of the to affect. So to return for a meeting on february 1st in the evening. And then the Task Force Committee fund we did not violate the sunshine ordinance in some ways, but did in others with regard to the meeting decorum paragraph. Essentially their argument is that we did not require or provide Public Notice and comment on the meeting decorum paragraph and that it was a policy that should have been noticed and made available for Public Comment. We think they are wrong and we think its important to continues a hearing, even though that violation is fairly easily remedying it. In terms of Operational Update and investigational caseload data, we provide the average complaints in the time periods, their age and when they were first brought to our attention as complaints sorry, im starting to get tired, so im losing it. Some key takeaways, that the complaint numbers have started to taper off postelection and we have been able to get to some of the older investigations. You saw the hearing on merits and i have gone through a couple of older matters and presented cases for dismissal at this meeting. So we have been doing good work in terms of getting those investigations moving which has result in the a plateauing of our complaints and intakes. As we dispose of cases and add case its sort of staying level. I would expect that to increase when we get investigator because we have so many matters in preliminary review and a lot of those matters in preliminary review are there because they are not easily disposed and would want to do digging before we recommend dismissal and once those become complaint we would have a pretty good caseload. We provide yearend data to see how many complaints. If they were dismissed they just werent tracked and if they didnt become formal complaint so this data is a baseline for what happens next year and next year to see if our outreach efforts are resulting in more complaints and where were failing, and what areas of the law and what to do better to improve Public Participation in the process . I have a question, chair renne, if we installed that software, would that make it possible to know how many complaints come in . What actually get dismissed . Its a good question and the Case Tracking Software is necessary for so many reasons and that is one of them. As a matter of your information were keeping track of that on excel spreadsheets now and that can be subject to a lot of human error and its a little bit chaotic for people for us who are trying to maintain all of this data and all of this information. For every complaint that we received we have to enter preliminary review tracker and becomes an investigation, it goes on the investigation tracker. If its ever and also on the master complaint tracker. We have another spreadsheet keeping track of adeline s its all manual. Its all manual with calendar appointment its probably nothing like you have dealt with before, because its just the magnitude and the lack of Technology Available to us to manage it is overwhelming. And so that is why we really conceived of the Case Management system. Were actually going to the ftcp to meet with the Enforcement Division who spent the last year developing a Case Management system that is tailored to state ethics law to use it for San Francisco and link it up with net file. Our vision is that each filer from the time that they are participating as filers through an enforcement action would be represented in the same system. So that we can sort of see all at once their compliance history, their fines history, their enforcement history and we would know that if they filed again; right . Because like right now its all based on memory of. If i have seen that person before . So it would be good to have one person with one number that is their identification number. As you saw, i met with the i have met with the bureau of delinquent revenues with our fine collections officer to do a deepdive with how the collections process work. It was very informational and informative meeting and they very nice offer he there. As you saw, they are on top of it and know what they are doing. They seemed to have the right answers and i was pleased with the out come of that meeting. You see nevertheless our delinquent filers are apparently dont have any assets. So they just remain on our delinquent filer list. With that i will open for additional questions any questions of any of the commissioners . Thank you for the report. I thought it was very complete and any Public Comment . Larry bush for friends of ethics at our friends of ethics this week we discussed an option that we respectfully request that the Commission Consider at a future meeting and that is an ability for lowbudget committees that have committed violations to satisfy the penalties by Community Service, as well as with dollars. When you have a wellfunded committee, they dont have much problem coming up with the money to pay off a penalty. But if you have a committee that raised perhaps 5,000, 10,000ing and hit with a significant fine they have a hard time raising it, but Community Service is the kind of thing that most of the these smaller committees actually do. And there are ways in which they could provide a Community Service, either directly to the ethics commission, or into a pool that the city would have. And then the ethics could apply for some of the Community Service hours. It just recognizes there is a world of difference between highvalue committees and communitybased groups and each has a strength and communitybased groups have an ability to do outreach. Whether its outreach for upcoming policy meeting that is on your agenda or developing something in another language, to augment what the commission has, or some other things. There are different ways of doing it so it does not become an increased political asset to them, but just becomes an asset to the community. So were respectfully requesting when you look at the question of enforcement, that you look at an option of Community Service under certain circumstances for lowerbudget groups, not for bigmoney people. Thank you. Thank you. Any other Public Comment . David pilpel again. Two items here. On the Sunshine Ordinance Task force with mr. Petrelis, i did not attend that meet, but would agree with staff there is nothing in my read of the sunshine ordinance or the brown act for that matter, that requires you to take comment and have a scheduled item on meeting decorum. A legislative body can have and should have reasonable regulations regarding Public Comment, but it doesnt speak to how that occurs. And for the task force to read some requirement that you had to have a calendared item before you could talk about appropriate meeting decorum, seems excessive to me. You certainly could choose to do so. Could you amend your bylaws and do any number of things, but i dont think there is anything in the sunshine ordinance or brown act that requires that. Perhaps staff will Say Something along those lines at the february meeting. Regarding the charts that continue to be totally helpful, just one point the open formal complaints does track from the first chart to the second in terms of the aging and the detail by age and type. The second chart, the matter in preliminary review doesnt track and for example show ones case that is 24plus months and moves over to 2224 in terms of the detail. So somehow that didnt align perfectly. It was close, very close. Anyway. Never mine mine, this is very helpful and the chart at the end shows the ongoing status of enforcement caseload and hopefully it has grown to this point, but hopefully it will diminish over time and well see important things before you, and other things maybe dismissed, et cetera. And then of course, and wasnt clear since it shows 28 current cases open informal, why the agenda for the closed session item later refers to 30 cases, but ill ask that later. They are cutoff dates. They are close just so you know, people do read this maybe im the only one. Thank you very much. Great report. Turning to agenda item 11, the executive directors report. Thank you, chair renne. In the interest of time ill try to be brief, but i did want to spend a few minutes on some very important news. The first of which is that we covered the budget discussions. Thank you for that, in a prior item. In terms of staffing news, i included in table 1 an update of where each of the positions are in the process. There is a bit of additional news that i wanted to announce this evening in terms of one of the positions we show on the table 1 the Information SystemsBusiness Analyst as is underway and that position has now been filled. Im happy to report. Im particular ly happy to record Jarrod Flores will work very closely with Steven Massey on all things related to efiling conversion process and jarrod brings a lot of experience having handson, handheld guidance on our Campaign Finance and other systems over the past ten years he has been with the commission. So were very excited he will be there to really help from the user perspective and moving into that role very soon, on the 30th. Were going to transition him away from pulling the questions, but pull him in for the up coming filing deadline by the end of the month. Its a critical function to be served to help our electronical filing process get underway and you will hear more about that next month as well, but it was very good news. Im very hopeful well additional news on another position for your Commission Meeting next month. There is i was asking i did an analysis for our positions and on average, looking at the positions that we have both exempt and nonexempt, if you look at the position the process from posting a position to filling a position, the exempt positions, starting with Deputy Director and our education and compliance assistant and the position jarrod is moving into on average have taken three months once they are posted to have a person in the office. When you look at the from the date that the position was created or became vacant its about a 6month process, fiveandahalf to sixmonth process, which is a very slow process and not so hard to believe when we have so many position in thes place. So one of the challenges that we had for all of these positions is the nature of our staff currently is that we dont have a personnel person inhouse. We dont have a finance or Budget Officer inhouse. So these are the roles that we sort of learn to do and manage as we can. With that said, were working through it and very happy to have the support of doris from the department of Human Resources working with us to get the positions through the process. The three investigator positions, the senior investigator positions are going through the exam process as we speak. We expect to rate the exams the first week of february and they will be consolidated on to a list and we have to select from the list, the rankings and bring in people for panel interview. So i think the best guess is looking at midmarch as optimistic, but its ontrack. We have two other positions, i dont want to say junior, but investigative analyst position and application closed for that on the 30th and the application closed for the policy analysis position on the 3 1st and those will be working through the same process of exambased testing to determine who is on the eligible list and to bring in for interviews . Those are working their way through the process so im happy to answer any questions about this. I share the frustration over the challenge of getting folks from the door. We want them there yesterday and it doesnt happen fast enough for us and i think its important for you to know the process is ontrack and we have been aggressive with the Department Human resources general timeframe and they have been very willing to work with us to keep things moving. Recognizing that any time you have 810 positions you are recruiting and examining for and selecting, there will be a pinchpoint and were making progress and happy to answer any questions that you or members of the public have about the process and where we are . So just to finish im sorry. A question about the auditor position, the one that became vacant in november. Yes. When do you expect the recruitment documents to be posted . Were working to have that posted by the end of this month and were in process to get those documents approved and that will again begin the exam process. Any other questions on that . I just wanted to ask could you send me the Job Description on the investigators . Happy to. Another note, i have listed as legislative and policy items moving through the process and with attached language. Two of the items relate to proposals that would address the Campaign Finance ordinance and on the policy plan, youll see at this point i tentatively placed them in sequence with a broader review of the Campaign Finance laws to early part of the spring. Again, if you have feedback individually or comments on that, im happy to talk with you individually what your sense is with timing. It makes sense for us to incorporate in the discussion of the moving parts of the Campaign Finance law to get a handle on how they fit together . I just wanted to highlight that for you. One other note, the Audit Program as well discuss more next month and laying the groundwork for alternative thinking about how we might select audits for this year we have met with the auditors from the Controllers Office and the controller has been very cooperative and helpful. His office will be assisting our office with audit resources this year. So that we can get through the Campaign Finance audits that are required to start by roughly april 1st. So were partnering with that office to obtain Additional Resources and leveraging their expertise. They have helped our office before a couple of cycles ago and earlier we had a member of the Oakland Ethics Commission and there is a result of a memorandum of understanding that we worked and collaborated with the City Attorneys Office on to develop. We have an mou, where we share resources periodically, whether its for position hiring panels or for instances like this to provide some assistance on various topics, we just wanted to make sure we were clear its a reciprocal sharing of resources on work when those resources might be needs . So we were very happy to avail ourselves to that and something to report to you that were working with the Oakland Ethics Commission. Were trying to take advantages of experts where we can. We have a visit with katy Hinckley Kelley the state and local programs director at the Campaign Legal center who is in town this week. We have met her at in new orleans and she was gracious and very interested to stop by and spend time with our staff. So well have a meeting with her inoffice on wednesday and she is interested in hearing what we find that works and challenging about enforcing our ethics and lobbying and Campaign Finance laws. Were looking to hearing from her organization in washington and very is happy to hear froms and happy to have that opportunity. With that im happy to answer any questions about report or anything that is happening in the office . On the revenues report, we look to be in great shape, given were about halfway through the fiscal year and were 90 almost 91,000 on the budget, but looking at lobbyist registration fees, they are significantly less than the half of the 85, if you just do the simple math. You with expect to be. Do you have any insight why that number is so low . I would need to followup with you, there may be a question of cutoff, registers coming in january and they may not all have come in. So that numeric i anticipate to go up next month to reflect a higher percentage of that budgeted amount. Im happy to get that information back to you, if that is not the case. Commissioner keane . Just on your meeting with the lady from washington to have questions about the constitution. Thank you for that heads up. Any Public Comment . For the executive directors report . Larry bush from friends of ethics. My comments on the whistleblower are welldocumented in minutes that are already voted on that runs through the specific things that i hope would be there. Now that this is going to go through another round, at dhr and so forth, i urge that it also come back to the ethics commission. Because you are the only body that is going to have a public forum other than at the board, the committee. Dhr doesnt have it and the controller doesnt have it, only you have. And there are reasons why some of the other bodis are not as interested in a robust approach to whistle blowing as ethics would be. So im urging you to incorporate the things that we have mentioned in our last presentation, and that you also have an opportunity for public input. Even if its not a regular Commission Meeting an i. T. Meeting. Because there are an awful lot of people in the city that care about whistle blowing. Thank you. Thank you. David pilpel again. Several points on the eds report. First regarding hiring. The old concept was that it took about 3 months for a new position to be hired. So new position in budget was only included at. 75 assuming it would start october 1st. If its now taking up to six months, that seems long. Im not saying this is any of staffs fault, but if there are lessons that you are learning with going through the dhr person at the Controllers Office or the city process atlarge to fix so its back more to 3 rather than 6 . It shouldnt take six months to classify and describe and hire. That just seems long. Anyway, im sure you are feeling that stress that i referenced. With regard to the audits, i think well talk about that next month, so ill hold my comments until we have a full report. With regard to revenue, that was a good catch by commissioner chiu n putting the budget together, perhaps you could adjust the revenues so they more match what the reality has been . I think the overall number is about right, but more recent experience with lobbyist and various filers might suggestion suggest move something of the revenue numbers around a little bit . On the mou with oakland, page 2 was not included in the packet. We only have page 1 and page 3. So its hard to read the whole document. Im sure okay. Im sure someone can share it and perhaps on the website we can have the full document . Fine. I also wanted to note in the past the commission has had a reciprocal staff arrangement with other public agencies, depending on the matter and staffing and what not . So we have had the San Jose City attorney and san jose excuse me, Santa Clara County council and i think even san mateo City Attorney in addition to oakland ethics and possibly even the oakland City Attorneys Office have aided on various matters. I dont know there was a written agreement governing those, but it was perhaps arranged through the City Attorneys Office and there is an arrangement from the past and staff should be aware of that. This is the first time anything has been codified in an mou to my knowledge. And finally, i provided staff with markups on the minutes. I wasnt present at the beginning of the meeting and they are minor and nonsubstantive. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Turning to agenda item 12, i believe all of the commissioners have received the confidential information relating to the subjectmatter of the status of complaints. Does any commissioner want to have us go into closed session . Or is there no need for it, having reviewed the materials . Well, mr. Chairman, we didnt get the table that i have gotten used to. Or i didnt. Huh . We think we need to clarify if others did not receive it . Judge kopp, i received yours, but didnt look at the label. You received mine. You are kidding . No. Its the same material; right . Yes. Logically i would have opened oh, i see you received one addressed to me. And you didnt open it because you looked at the label. I received yours. Well im not going to take the time now. Because its late. Ill go through it. Maybe ill confer this will be on the agenda every meeting. So if there is something specific. Our apologies for the mixup. Well endeavor to get it tot right people. So well not go into closed session. There is a couple i see quickly. I have got one or two discreet questions and i guess i have to ask in closed session. Im sorry, but i do. All right. Any Public Comment before we go into closed session . That is fine david pilpell, that is fine, i wont wait. Could you disclose are there any stipulations that have been agreed to other than questions about the status of matters . None this month . Okay. If there is a way to formalize the announcement about stipulations, that dont require a closed session, so you could do that either during the eds report or now in the future and any to disclose after closed session, just so that there is a better way to hear what stipulations were entered into . Thank you. Enjoy the evening. Thank you. All right. Well go into closed session. All right were back in open session, and a decision was made in closed session not to disclose what was discussed in the closed session. Turn to agenda item 13, discussion and possible action for items for future meetings. Any suggestions by in the any of the commissioner . Hearing none and hearing none from the public, item 14 is additional opportunity for Public Comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the agenda. Any Public Comment . Appearing none, do i hear a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. All in favor . Aye. Were adjourned. Thank you very much. Good morning ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon want to welcome you balk to the land use transportation thank you sfgovtv for broadcasting this meeting thank you leo and Nona Melkonian i want to recognize our clerk eric can will help us run the meeting smol and im supervisor cohen the chairman and Transportation Authority jeff sheehy i think this is your first land use transportation meeting mr. Clerk, any announcements . Yes. Electronic devices. Completed speaker cards and documents to be included should be submitted to the clerk. Thank you. Items acted upon today will appear on the january 31st agenda board of supervisors board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. All right. Thank you very much call item one. The ordinance amending the subdivisions for the design of a subdivisions for a mc2 or park map provides for Community Facilities to each parcel. Ladies and gentlemen, supervisor farrell is 9 thorough of this item and today jeff here from his office to present welcome. Thank you supervisor cohen jeff legislative aide to supervisor farrell interest for hearing this item hes out of town a noncontroversial issue i promise to be brief the Video Services are a part of our everyday lives we view this with the power and services we view the future and make sure that again subdivisions are create on the residential and commercial side those have the supportive for the Communication Services for the public the policy is straightforward currently our local law no requirement for the invention so for the communicates this ordinance will implement the state law provision that allows San Francisco to add that within a subdivisions installation of the infrastructure from a cost and labor perspective is minimal and in some cases raise the value the property given the Communication Services we want to make sure the necessary infrastructures are in place to support the technologies that serve our resident and businesses i humbling ask youre support. Supervisor peskin has a question for you. Thank you, madam chair the only question . More of a question for the City Attorney in as far as the definition of Communications Service provider references the various state public works codes as section 5840 and plus other sections the one thought i had maybe we want to say as they are defined today so that every time the state changes their definitions this law is not inadvertently impacted. Sure. A technical thought and maybe john gibner, deputy City Attorney. Is dealing with his sons class came and visited the board chambers might be able to answer that. Thats not a bad idea we want to make sure the Communications Services are by the state and in the approval process to be in the public rightofway. It ammunition. Supervisor peskin will you be making that amendment. Maybe before that jet john gibner, deputy City Attorney. Thoughts on that. Why not go ahead and seethe to Public Comment. Ladies and gentlemen, this is an opportunity for any member of the public to speak on item one, two minutes on the other items on the agenda two minutes a soft chime indicating thirty seconds remaining and Public Comment is open i welcome you to come up to the microphone seeing none, Public Comment is closed. At this time thank you. All right. Well mr. Peskin. Should we go to the next item and wait for City Attorney john gibner, deputy City Attorney. And welcome the gentleman back. Can you get the deputy City Attorney mr. Clerk item 2. Amending chapter 41 for the Hotel Conversion for the redefinition of transit and tourist use and with the low income household. Supervisor peskin is the author of that item. Thank you, madam chair for scheduling this item i want to open up the hearing with give you a little bit of background this law is on the books for a long time over a third of a century and fine fwund a quarter of a century ago as the world changes it needs to be finetuned again, the district i represent in the Northeast Corner of the city is arguably the most historic one that along with the tenderloin houses sit portions of the housing dating back to the 19 century those neighbors have housed the low income longshoremen and the manila town throughout the city seasonal labor depends on the sros for lodging awhile following pay as you go work opportunity sometimes working to support families elsewhere filipino and chinese and japanese in japantown and africanamerican recognizing from the south found a home in singleroom occupancies hotels in San Francisco unfortunately, a wave of demolition swept across San Francisco an unwarranted america throughout the United States decimating believe it or not one million sros unit between the mid 19 san jose and 90s to diminish and convert those low income units many into condo and some hotels and to was no exemption in between 1970 and 2000 almost 9 thousand unit were demolished and within 1980 and 2000 im sorry 24 71970 and 19802000 were diminished and substantially another 64 hundred and 70 were you converted the country in San Francisco didnt the to replace the unit and throughout but United States saw increase in the Homeless Population as displaced were about pushed below the remarks. Supervisor peskin i want to be added as a cosponsor many sros remain a source of Affordable Housing and your 34ur will protect this Housing Stock and protect low income residents from leaving did. Supervisor sheehy thank you. Welcome its good to see you. Thank you supervisor peskin for such a detailed and succinct history of an ordinance been around since 1946 state and local or shortly before the ordinance in 1981 a moratorium the city passed to protect those units that was seeing those residential gift rooms despair there was a housing emergency so for this type of housing that was opted out by then elderly and disabled so as you said supervisor this ordinance has not been amended since 1990, 1992 and been around a while and we do have currently quite a few measures to enforce the ordinance primarily to treat ios residential units if being xhefrntd there be approximately 20 thousand a little bit less than 20 thousand gift rooms and 5 hundred hotels three hundred for front of the hotels the rest run by nonprofits along with the nonprofit buildings are participate in city programs and the la of the problems are for profit hotels and others conversion of a lot of the residential gets guests rooms this will be addressed and slide artists necessarily the Business Records they need for tax purposes and other reasons weve in the past seen the coming back of the books, if you will, of records that didnt reflect how the building is operated enough hotel do this they talk about the proper rents this is an important part of the legislation we are doing this for a 7 can i rental if a breeder hotel is out there a lot of them are renting for 7 days ask for a lot more information well have a better understanding and be able to monitor and be fair in the residential for the residential use so there are other issues in the ordinance 3 would be helpful to the department if it is violated one of the things that is taken away a taller change the occupation so have 25 percent of the residential guest rooms thats abuse and if somebody is constantly not giving an accurate picture theyre representing the room on essentially for tourists use as part of investigation will be able allergy to see the significant evidence that will be taken away that is given create a situation were not encouraging to the app unquote record were encouraging them to file the ordinance and preserve the rooms with that, i dont have anything else to add at this point if you have any questions ill be happy to answer them. Supervisor peskin. If you can explain the Preservation Fund and the in lui conversion funds work. Thank you, supervisor when Residential Hotels was the cal hotel contaminate i at a time we were looking 50,000 a unit and one hundred and 50 thousand were told they have research by the Mayors Office of housing those units should be at a point around three hundred thousand a unit without that kind of upgrades to the legislation were at a disadvantage with the reminded that is needed to preserve those rooms. Thank you particularly for the seniors and the immigrants for facilities this was a Housing Stock that needed to be protected we find were continuing to lose the units in the 1990s many of you came to us and the organizations to ask for stronger enforcement and allow for nonprofit a point of action to support our city and City Attorneys Office in suhr were protecting those units your on the ground and see the units that we see for the protective status it is great to see that over the past two decades this was one of the most important and effective collaboration that the city has with our nonprofits and our Community Leaders in assuring we dont losses more sro hotels given the immense housing crisis that is unprecedented over the last couple of years were seeing that many have never we never thought well see the sros rooms of thought it couldnt happen but i think this piece of legislation is an important next step in further the sro conversion ordinance and glad to be a cory represent the district with the most sro hotels im proud of the fact that not only do you search warrant this but the strong i did Community Leaders that helped us to shape this protective through the work youre seeing on the ground and the difficulties you face in lowerincome the sro i want to thank the central city thank you and commissioner peskin an others for putting this altogether before us today role proud to honor your work all right. Supervisor kim. Before you got here supervisor sheehy and i added our names with all due respect were going to do this ordinarily when that bell rings your time is up thirty seconds a remaining of 30 seconds left from the sro collaborative calling names . So in order to help move in transition lets cue up and get ready when the speakers speak either microphone works. The floor is yours welcome. speaking foreign language. good afternoon, board of supervisors thank you for this space youve given us to express ourselves. speaking foreign language. im an outreach working in the mission four sro hotels. speaking foreign language. so im going to ask the lady to translate you can stand over at the podium. speaking foreign language. my worry agency a outreach worker in the hotel speaking foreign language. is that in those times were losing a lot of the hotels for families use. speaking foreign language. and the few that remain are at a high price. speaking foreign language. and we know were living if difficult time and the salary that our families are earning dont allow them to find a place better than what theyre at. speaking spanish. theyre in small spaces and suffer from mistreatment. speaking spanish. and discrimination. speaking spanish. so i ask you if you believe that all of our children have the right for dig if i did housing. speaking spanish. why up to now so the has been done. speaking spanish. the right thes of our children are violated. speaking spanish. thanks thank you hopefully moment youll do something on behalf of our families thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi thank you, everyone my name is katie a staff member at the mission sro collaborative thank you for having this space and hearing us we really appreciate it for the sro collaborative one of the things we go door to door and do the outreach at the sros and help them with each other to build a community i think we have a unique preserve agency on the ground witnesses to this work im here to present data if our research that shows we need stronger bombardment ill speak about 5 hotels in the mission the merry a bell on 19th street in 2015 the report in january 2015 that three filed recorded zero tourist unit and the tropic can has one residential tenant remaining we have booked on airbnb and recorded tourists zero e line captain have told us everyone is tourist and dont let us in and one of the interesting things they have 43 vacant out of 80 puss rooms in a tourist city like San Francisco hard to building those are 3 examples and you know there are more we can can you be where clearly the report so not lining up with what we see on the ground and at the rate this is going in this past two years an 8 percent loss of sro stock in the mission alone not counting loss if marketrate housing but that rate means in less than 25 years all sro housing will be gone with the conversions to marketrate housing that that will be less. Thank you is come down. Good afternoon. Born and raised in San Francisco, california and currently a mission sro Collaborative Program corridor and here to say that during this time we ought to be doing everything we can to protect the vulnerable pomths with the families residing in the sro hotel and close the loopholes giving advantageous to landlord and we need to move this to the full board thank you for your time. Thank you for your work. Hi good afternoon, supervisors im also born and raised san franciscan and currently at Mission Housing im representing the mission that is a coalition of 20 communitybased organizations with social work in the mission and former leader of the sro collaborative and thank you to supervisor peskin for taking the lead and thank you to all the organization that do a lot of the people power work that is needed to bring those problems and bring ti