Transcripts For SFGTV Ethics Commission 32717 20170401

Had almost a full six years because she had part of an earlier term and she was a stalwart member of the commission. For the record im told charliei think i second that. I think any commissioner that served at this time is responsible for helping to bring the commission light years ahead and its good to see commission growing up and i think commissioner hayon certainly participated in that process and encouraged others to follow such as commissioner kopp. Also, help us secure the appointment of a new stellar staff, so i want to thank her for her service. Commissioner dooley opened out in. So we were talking about the ongoing fraud being perpetrated on the citizens of San Francisco by the office of the mayor. From the findings of the Fair Political Practices Commission in sacramento, respondent luis herrera, will serving city library but the San Francisco Public Library failed to report gifts received from the friends of the San Francisco Public Library on annual statements of economic interest for calendar years 2009, 2010, 2011 in violation of Government Code Section 87300. These were no small sums. They were 5000 a year approximately that he was getting in gives that he knew he was required by law to report and in the first column, his original filings all set, zero. I will remind you that if you look at the bottom it says i certify under penalty of perjury under the law of the state of california that the foregoing is true and correct. So for years he was filling out these applications and actually was 10 years before this that he was doing it also but they could not any further back because of the statute of limitations. We got him for three years. So City Department head appointed by the mayor perjured himself by lying year after year after year. Almost 15,000 overdue those three years and i calculate another 5050,000 house in the 10 years before we took him to the f ppc. We brought to the Ethics Commission and a former executive director refused to even look at it. So said go away, dont bother us. Which is why they previously had a meeting set here, what is the purpose of having statements of economic interest if someone finds a City Department head was responsible for the entire City Department including himself to file these honestly and he perjured himself year after year and we bring it to the Ethics Commission and the Ethics Commission turns a blind eye . Does he do this knowingly and lethally, . Yes, he did get he knew what he was doing was wrong and the reason i will tell you that is i believe that is that the San Francisco Public Library commission has never ever discussed this. What i actually did is when this finding was released by the f pdc they had an unlawful meeting where they met and discussed their support for mr. Herrera and issued a press release based on that. Then, after that was the bill was wrong. We should not have had that meeting good we will withdraw the press release after it was already published in the newspaper. Seeing no further Public Comment from any otheron matters not appearing on the agenda . Sorry. My name is mark solomon mr. 20ish in district of the some issues i like to bring to your attention of the commission. I been working to establish legislative record on prop g. I found out the planning website is deficient in several key matters. Theres no context sponsor or cost information provided [inaudible] project records. The department disavows any responsibility for these emotions erects directly to the dbi and go to a bureaucratic minefield and for yourself. In fact [inaudible] projects and only 20 of the actual Contact Information to figure out who the sponsor is. So really cant connect campaignfinance approvals to figure out who is paying for what. I think the commission should require the Department Updates the records 48 hours after receiving a filing to the public in a with apartment is up to. Major developers maybe feel filing with the Ethics Commission [inaudible] as well and reminded to all developers. I need for a full and complete pipeline of sponsors so folks can Award Campaign contributions go to fund developers, two electives and towards nonprofits make projects more politically feasible. Also as commissioners take on new outside duties and jobs, this is a potential conflict of interest and [inaudible] notify all commissioners of [inaudible] they should be shared with the City Attorney as well. The commission should ensure that the enumeration and compatible activities for commissioners pose such conflict. My working prop g research has led me to some of his work when Planning Commissioner Planning Commissioner Christine Johnson two byebye San Francisco planning journal association, which essentially developed lobby shop. Shes never putting project [inaudible]. Our nonprofit is funded by developers. The consultants attorneys, architects, etc. And shes sitting there proving the projects is great latent conflict of interest. [inaudible] we can and get handle on the. [inaudible] you have the text and risk figure out the rest of it. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chairman if i may comment, mr. Sohn, i think on that last one, isnt that part of what you are going to propose tonight . Eat yes that would suddenly come in with mr. Solomon just outlined. We are certainly have come under what are about to propose on the restoration of prop j. [inaudible off mic]. Thats fine. Any further Public Comment on matters that are not on the agenda . All right. We will move now to agenda item 3 discussion and possible action on draft minutes the commission february 27, 2017 regular meeting. Do we have any comments or requests for corrections to the minutes . Im going to make a president ial motion but i think commissioner emanuel may work that. To approve the minutes as propose. I would second it with one amendment. [laughing] if you look on page 4, item number seven, the second line, michael patrols his name is misspelled. You left the i out. So that should be corrected and other than that [crosstalking off mic] second. Any further observations on the minutes of our last meeting . Yes . Public comment i would like to turn your attention to page 5 of these minutes. Under the agenda item 8 discussion of the executive directors report. If you notice there it says the following written summary was provided by speaker dr. Deborah kerr content of which is neither generated by the subject to approval or verification of accuracy by the Ethics Commission. That 150 word summary dr. Kurt is the only person i know that is taking advantage of the thing that i thought 543 years to get and that is the law in San Francisco is that if you make a statement a public hearing, and that you provide a summary of 150 words or less, that statement shall be placed in the minutes in the body of the minutes at the point where the discussion was held. Dr. Kerr is the one person who is taking advantage of this and i think anybody leads the minutes of meetings, whether it be this Ethics Commission or any of the body of the city, will find out that you are First Amendment rights are violated on a regular and ongoing basis. They are censored abridged and any other permutation you can think of. If you look at these minutes basically what they say is theres a little brief statement like, mr. Ray hartz got up and said something about something. Thats the summary of your 3 min. Comments. So if you want what you have to say to make it in the official record, submit 150 word summary of your comments and they will be in the record that dr. Kerr has done it and i think if you read his comments he was talking but the Whistleblower Program and he did a very cogent think when he put this in here did some very valuable information to the Ethics Commission. Dr. Kerr should know because he was the recipient of a 750,000 settlement from the city as a whistleblower. He knows what they do and he knows you can hidethe city will do everything they can to hide the wrongdoing and to protect their own. Do we have any further Public Comment on the minutes of our last meeting. We have a motion by commissioner kopp that the minutes be approved. Is there a is there a second . Second. All those in favor say, aye. [chorus of ayes. ] opposed, say nay. The minutes are unanimously approved. We will now go to agenda item number four. Presentation and discussion of staff report on Public Financing in the 2016s elections with an attachment for the march 22nd 2017 staff report and further attachments. Thank you chairman keane. I want to thank our system Deputy Director for leaving the effort on producing report this and she is unable to be with us this evening sohn stepping into bride you a brief overview and to try answer questions any have. I would also note just a clarification on the agenda, we do refer to march 22 staff report that that is referring to the report for item number four which happens to be dated march 23. So just we are one and the same and we will continue to move and correct our errors. Hopefully before they get you but thank you for your understanding on that front. First of all, this is a report that the commission is required to issue. Every year following an election to summit to the mayor and board of supervisors on the Public Financing and the prior election. This is under section 1. 156 of our campaign and governmental conduct code. The report that we have again following last years model provides required information that is specified in that section and poorly, provide some historical overview of our Public Financing programs elections from 20022016. This is based on reports that candidates follow to december 31 of last year. The most important thing i think to think about this report is that as with any Public Policy program it is important to periodically assess what steps are needed to promote the effectiveness of that program. So we have a legal requirement to produce a report and send it on to the board but in poorly, from the staffs perspective and hopefully for conversations Going Forward, this is a document that we hope will be used broadly engage candidates contributors other [inaudible] city elections and the public in a sensing issues related to our Campaign Financing framework and in particular Public Financing program to make sure that it is as strong as possible that encourages candidate anticipation that overall the program is effective in achieving the goals of the voters set out for it. You will remember the program was first established back in 2000 is been through a variety and number of changes over the years. The goals of the program remain the same. Its a program that is designed to offer candidates the opportunity to lie more on the neutral source to funding their campaigns to encourage limited spending as much as possible so that candidates can spend less time fundraising and more time communicating with constituents about Critical Issues in the community. That they are serving and also to leverage the boards of relatively small individual contributions and City Campaigns. So that these programs are designed to help encourage new and diverse voices, both among those who are running for office and those who elected officials are represented. The information we provide we hope will provide an empirical basis for the conversation Going Forward about the Campaign Financing system in the city and county of San Francisco. And as we look to the planned assessment of our financing programs and rules launched later this spring, theres a number of questions that we and the report with. Are there ways for example that the current mechanics of this program might need to be improved so that those mechanics are not acting as unintended impediments for candidate participation . Are there ways the Public Financing program can be strengthened to better balance its benefits for nonincumbent candidates . Are to current time frames for the distribution of funds were for candidates 12 support the goals . Are the given forms were not examined in terms of grants and rates of matching funds to determine whether there might be ways to again further incentivize candidates to want to participate in the system . Most important provider mechanics we should be examining the vehicle to better engage voters in City Campaign . So this board does not intend to answer those questions. It doesnt and to provide Empirical Data from the last election and from prior elections as a basis to start as for the conversation with the most recent expense of Public Financing program. So that brief overview on happy to answer any questions or your Public Comment and respond to any questions am i come up. Commissioners could . Commissioner kopp i got a couple questions about how the money is set up. Theres a legal limit of 7 million for fiscal year right . Is a maximum fund of 7 million at any one time. So, yes. A onetime fiscal year. Yes. Again you know more than 700. Okay. This year apparently, in the budget, there was an estimate because thats what a budget usually is, about 650,000. Right . For the current fiscal year we are and i dont have a number in front of me but that sounds in the ballpark. Well, identify got it here or i got it from ms. Bloom and actually, there was distributed over twice that. 1,000,000. 3 1,000,000. 4 its in there somewhere good very good report. Its an interesting report, too, especially the history. I would assume, and please verify, that the estimate is based upon how many qualifying elections there will be. Tommy board of supervisors elections, mayor, anybody else who qualifies. What do you do now for 201718 fiscal year inputting and the estimated amount . In any year as you point out is a maximum. A budget is a projection as you point out. Other potential draw that might result from the campaign and from the projection of the number of candidates who might participate. So we did have an allocation based on required formula of 2. 75 per resident bennies to be put into the fund if the fund is not already at maximum. We look after this year is because the fund is at its maximum and we dont anticipate draws that are going to put down beyond that, is not going to be required allocation into the fund. How much is in the fund now proximately . I dont have that information off the top i had. I can get it for you. So we dont have to run a deficit to use an inexact word . Is that correct . Its my understanding, yes. Funds allocated for that program. Thank you. Any further comment by members of the commission . Yes commissioner chiu director pelham these questions raised in the bottom of page 9, are very thoughtprovoking. Do you plan to address them when you fully are up to staff for example perhaps when the policy analyst is on board . Yes. As we will see in the second directors report later the commission has for some time had on its annual policy plan reviewing the Campaign Finance reform begins following the issuance of the reports respect to these questions among others will be folded into conversations begin this spring once we have our policy team in place and starting to get it in our City Campaign finance laws. I look forward to that. Commissioner cobbel i have one other question. In doing business with this program with the public, do you get suggestions from applicants for Public Financing yes and do you retain those . Yes. Okay. Do you consider them in terms of the elements and items you mentioned on page 9 of the report . Yes. I would add one of the things i think is critical that we do go point Going Forward is not the information get during the course of the election but once theres time to step back and take stock of the election to really sit down and have interested persons meetings to a proactive outreach lisa down and understand how peoplein a direct way. Any public almonds on the second . Hello. Charlierepresenting at how we at this time. I did want to thank the staff for this excellent report and externally interesting Historical Perspective. I think this is the first time weve seen anything quite like it. Im normally we see a slap shot here yeartoyear but not a conference of tiger reports. Im glad this is on the agenda because this started in 2000 on the ballot and the first year of operation was 2002, i believe in you indicated that we probably now have an update of where we can take up a good look back and see where all this has led. I would say, that your questions are extremely good and then we have questions of our own both in items that have been subsequently repealed by this body for various reasons and Historical Perspective and by Court Decisions that of purge subsequently. This one in particular i would want to draw your attention to a i sent you the the former staff memo ondated july 7, 2011. That was the arizona decision Free Enterprise club could arizona Free Enterprise club freedom called pac versus bennett and that was basically a decision that this body unfortunately blue by repealing [inaudible] to appeal the law on a 41 vote. Commissioner ward and i argued ineffectively unfortunately that is not proper that we shouldve taken the whole issue to public hearing as named Ethics Commission did and means Ethics Commission did find two remedies or workarounds from the spring Court Decision that is the us been court on a 54 i should mention. One of them was from the brennan ctr. , justice of new york and they propose those to the legislature but unfortunately the politics in the legislature had changed by the time that the clinician went and was no process or progress in name but that doesnt mean we can revisit it and bring it back here at this time. You have a memo said that and i do recommend commissioners attend if they can without violating the brown act. It would be a good didactic on the subject of Public Financing and some of the new purposes that i have discovered as a result of my years of study of this measure. I like to get into that but my time is up. Thank you thank you. Very bush friends of ethics but decided onto a charlie said. Which front of ethics completely supports. Among the issues that have been dropped along the way, but what charlie is suggesting we reexamine is the aggregate contribution limits which we used to have but which were wiped out when the commission acted precipitously early. Also was a requirement in the past microphones. I have to make love to it i guess good in addition to that, it was a requirement in the past that both candidates are accepted spending limits were identified in the voter handbook. As having accepted spending limits. At some point, mr. St. Croix decided those too much work for the Ethics Commission so they repealed that requirement. We like to see that requirement reinstated. The third thing is the point executive dr. Powell made which was that one of the points from purposes of Public Financing is to encourage greater participation. But, the law only requires one debate to take place between candidates of one of the canvas is vacant Public Financing. Given the way the world has changed since the year 2000, we recommend consideration of Something Like required email to every voter in the jurisdiction where the candidate is running. Because in the end, what we found from the California Voter Foundation and others, is that people are asked to vote they will more likely to vote and secondly, if you dont do that, weve essentially done is provided Public Financing for people to cherry pick windows potential voters who are inclined to want them anyway. So it becomes a good out for voting for the candidate than a way of increasing voter participation. So when you have your interested persons meeting, we would like those issues included. Thank you. Mark solomon again can either to look back at 2011 to get some lessons from that Public Financing round. [inaudible] in the 1970s what he thought the affects were of the french revolution he said too soon to tell. We could notice of thumb is that it was misquoted tanto para 60 but we dont know. So we look at 2011 disciples many candidates running for an open seat theater and lee was running for his first go and former supervisor david turned out in 2010. The next out was Public Financing for the mayoral race. God 1. 5 million. Essentially ran against ed breed offer anything didnt really turn out well in the polls. Give that getting the top for years as you shouldve to your winner with again hearty for any executive position because that was good 60,000 of money to supervisor turned ugly but for homelessness and the use of result traveling to keep his political life alive acting as an unintended consequence of the commission could close the door on. Thank you. Any further Public Comment on this item . There is no action thats necessary on this item so we will now move to agenda item 5. Discussion and possible action on proposed revised method for selection of Campaign Audits for the 2016 audit cycle. Directed handheld thank you chairman. This is a report that is come to you for your information and discussion in any policy action they might want to take. It does not require the commission to take action. And this is a bit of a revision from prior practice but it is not a change or deviation from the law. As you know, every after every election the Ethics Commission has the duty and responsibility to conduct audits of campaigns and of those who ran for city office. The methodology well the requirement under the law is that the audit by either random selection or targeted audits. Committees. We dont have specific requirements of who must be audited. Weve had practiced the past of selecting by stratified sample committees to be audited that factors in both the type of Committee Candidate committee, ballot measure committee, generalpurpose committees, as well as the relative spending and Campaign Activities are those committees demonstrated. We have been in oh period of change and transformation of the commission at the staff level in the last couple of years and have as you know. We been attempting to revise the number of our processes and had hoped to bring a very index report of our Audit Program to you in conjunction with this report to highlight ways in which we were going to change our Auditing Program itself internally. Weve not been able to do that. We are still struggling to complete audits from cycles that weve already selected. The remaining audits for lobbying that have not yet been started as a report indicates. We have audits from last Years Campaign selection that we need to continue to complete. So, thats one fact but we looked in this analysis and recommendation were waiting for tonight to approach a different take a different methodology. And it is also in several Guiding Principles that we think are helpful to articulate about why and how we want to approach audits Going Forward. First, we believe that it would be in keeping with the commissions past practices of doing random selection of audits. That goal is to make sure that audits are not in any way selected based on the candidate for the issue that is ported or posed by those Campaign Activities. That is not a relevant factor in selecting audits. And at the same time, in previous years audits have not captured were a lot of some of the money that has been used and affecting City Campaigns. So when the goals is to make sure that we believe that we should be trying to audits as much of what the Public Interest is the greatest. We believe that is often the case where theres a larger money spent influences voters are that four factors we also looked at. To making sure we want to measure the audit selection continues to be objective and transparent conversations before the commission, to focus most significantly on where the Public Interest is greatest, where theres a lot of money being spent and to take a bit more advantage what is the language currently uses targeted audits and by that, we dont need targeted to particular candidate or issue but winning targeted to a particular type of criteria. So for this audit cycle the Commission Staff is recommending that we move forward on audits looking at those factors and where the money was spent was greatly. We are proposing we take the top five in each category of committee for audit. And we also think you had to Commission Audits from audit cycles to a cycle would benefit by having objective criteria that might very having sex ability from your dear to program the Public Interest might be the greatest is something that we think would be beneficial. So when he looked at the 2016 election cycle for novembers election, we had 165 Campaign Committees the reported roughly 70 million in spending. 70 million. It is the fact that we willwe do not have the resources to audit 100 of all these committees. But we took a look at the Committee Types and the level of spending that they had and as you see on the attachment one, when you take a fiveyear look back the proposal we have this year that were planning to move forward with depending on the commissions comments and feedback tonight, is that we would he auditing of 114 excuse me there were 114 committees in the audit pool that we would be auditing a total, 27 committees which reflects 24 of the committees that pool but 80 of the money in a pool. That significant because the number of committees audited would be roughly on par with recent years. But would increase the amount of money thats been audit in the election, recent high in 2000 1364 of the money to 80 of the money those reported this year. So theres always a bit of a balancing act to try make sure were grabbing the most significant contains. We looked at this without any regard to any campaigns that fell into below the top five. Thats not factored into our analysis that we look to the money percentage of committees. So if you idea is that under our authority as the charter is the city law provides currently we can do targeted audits but what we mean by targeted audits again is not individuals were specific committees for targeting a potential to the criteria in any election year. So were not recommending the Commission Poll from random Selection Process Going Forward for the selection. We are planning to have actually initiated and will continue to work the mandatory audits of our publicly financed candidates which is required under the law. Those audits are conducted city comptrollers office. We are very least grateful provide that service to us under the charter if theres a request under the law from me for them to provide those services, they do provide them. So their staff the contract staff will be working the publicly financed candidate audits mandatory. Our staff will continue to complete the audits that have yet to be completed from the prior election cycle but will then also be responsible for the 12 other audits of other than publicly financed candidates. So we realize this is been a takeits a priority for us to look at the audits and get through them as thoroughly as we can and as quickly as we can. Our staffing has been impacted over the last year and with Public Finance program and just staffing issues. We are looking for to bring these forward with hope completing them within the next 12 months and then again taking a step back from that to really look at a much more conference of review of Auditing Program to make sure strong and thorough and the impact we bring to our auditing function. So that the bit is an overview. Im happy to answer questions. Commissioner kalb what you described as a process which is not statutory but is discretionary, with the commission, and to the Commission Staff, and do you recommend it continue in that respect rather than a regulation or ordinance . Yes, yes i would. Thank you. Commissioner chiu director pelham have a question for you as well as the comments. In the beginning of your report you noted that on page 3, the 5024 of committees in the audit 11 audited and overall anywhere from 864 of the expenditures were audit. Is there a benchmark or best practice of a measure that other commissions have either hit or aspire to . Well i can speak to my experience when i was with the los angeles Ethics Commission. Their law requires committees to be audited if they spend raise or spend over 1000. So was a mandatorytheres a floor and everybody about that is required to be audited. May i interrupt for a second . Yes, commissioner kopp is that by rule or by ordinance . Yes which . By statute. I think that can be can bea variancevery effective way by providing accountability for campaigns but i think we are not yet there because we need to take a look at our auditing process. I believe they are thorough. But i think thats the question. Do you think thats the preferred method, or, is it preferred to grant Administrative Discretion . I can see an argument both ways i suppose. But im satisfied with Administrative Discretion because it provides uncertainty to the filers i think thats a factor. I think youre a way. On the audit cycle way from having assessment whether ive a different view. Should we propose that the required floor under the law the . Possibly but i dont think of enough information this point to make a recommendation. Thank you. My second is a comment. So looking at the percent of funds audited digital old age and height 64 but if you average it its only about 32. 4 so less than a third. I strongly support and would very much be in favor of focusing our efforts on targeting a higher Amount Percentage of the funds expended so 80 proposal for 2016 i think is a very good start for 2016. For this year, the provided Little Information and insight and a year from now we can revisit this to see whether a floor is appropriate and would like to hear your recommendations. But as discovered in my career, its always the 8020 rule. 80 of the problems will come from excuse me 80 promise will come from 20 of the population. So i think this is a good split. I just want to say, i progress with great interest and i agree with some of the conclusions you come to. One of the criticisms leveled at this commission is that all weve done is targeted the little guy. And got after the small fish. And ignored the big fish. It seems three we are proposing here at least is an attempt to be put our focus where if there is something going on for some reason to think some action itll be focused on those ladies were those candidates who are raising and spending the most money. So i applaud that effort. Any other questions by members of the commission . Comments . If not we will take Public Comment. Commissioners larry bush for friends of ethics. We would suggest another category in addition to the ones you have in various committees and that would be a category of major donors that while theyre not a Committee Per say they used to be that the Evidence Commission did track major donors to do audits on major donors. That did turn out to produce some very Important Information including criminal convictions. As a result of thethe result the decision was made that executive director to no longer do audits of major donors and so thereve not been any done for any real tracking of them. So we would suggest major donors to the list of categories to look at. We would also suggest you audit any committee that leaves at least 20 of the donors blank under occupation or address. Thats usually an indication of money laundering. Every time that you have a quandary laundering case you looked at it has been as a result of a large number of donors were listed without addresses for occupancy. Then the third one is perkins back to an issue was raised by earlier and that is to ask for an audit of any committee thats been served with a legal notice to my violation investigation by the state city or federal agency. In the past this was precluded because it did not fit into the holdout of the hat category. But now, it we would say that as a policy matter, you would undertake an audit with any group that has received a formal legal notice of violation from a federal state or city agency. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Bush mayor ask you a question . When you talk about auditing major donors, how do you envision that is done . It turns out in the past was that there was a major donor who did report they were a major donor and said in fact the donation was intended to be a payment for a contract. The entity that he was contracting with said dont pay us in the contract. Just make the contribution to our ballot measure committee. Whichhe did not he did the forms and did that. Then there was no action taken by the Ethics Commission for a year until the newspapers discovered this in the door and the result was a conviction and resignation of the chancellor of city college. It was not a onetime thing. Theres a pretty serious issue. So i think the audit would do just check to see a facial audit. Do they fill out the form and does it show that went to this committee could you didnt go that committee and somewhere else, what is going on . Commissioners, open government and reading about or near sunset with audits of Campaign Committees help provide accountability as elections by determining the degree to which committees comply with applicable state and City Campaign laws. Commissioner chiu was talking about brightest principle which is the 8020 rule. 80 of the problems come from 20 of customers 20 of your customers cause 80 of your problems. So the idea of an audit is to find people the problems and determine what the real extent of problems were. Random selection is luck of the draw and read his principal chances are fortify the people randomly draw web no problems. Only one of the five will have the problem but there will be a number those. So i would suggest the criteria which is actually, i think common sensible. As a targeted audit, select the top two or three groups in each category who have failed to file their appropriate paperwork on a timely basis throughout the campaign. If somebody has failed on a number of occasions to file the paperwork or filed it incompletely, was filed late, theres a pretty good chance theyre sloppy bookkeepers and their sloppy bookkeepers is a pretty good chance the audit would hit some paydirt. So what im saying is rather than taking your luck of the draw which means 80 of your audits will be finding pretty much nothing except booking small bookkeeping averse, that the 20 who are causing the problems were always late on the filing sewer always incomplete in their filings. Then pick 23 at each of the categories that him in apparent look at them for the full audit. Because if you start out with a problem and if you go through the entire Campaign Campaign process. Good evening. Ill be appearing on behalf. Really glad to see this report of the commission know when i was on staff many years ago i made suggestion along the lines of what your staff presented here. Sort of accommodation of this idea with the prior speaker had said about focusing on campaigns that have violations on the face surges late filing or computer information deficiencies then lastly, a little bit of randomness but its really great to see it moving this direction. I also want to add a little bit of clarifying remarks to mr. Bushs comments. They want technically audits of major donors but the word delivered [inaudible] missing filings that was institute by the commission some years ago. Then, which was stopped by the Commission Staff and it did turn up a lot of very interesting findings and data that resulted in headlines and ultimately criminal conviction that was mentioned. So im definitelya side issue from auditing major donors were there independent expenditure versions the independent manager committees, but it still another important thing for the commission to do. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you commissioners but i think one of you raise an important point. In 2005 there was a ballot measure prop c would given the Ethics Commission independent counsel independent budget authority. [inaudible] besides counsel . Budgetary authority. Is that of having to rely on the mayor. We took out in prop c in it failed. It was terrible when into the committee and said we want to get some more funding for ethics to get it beefedup you want to do this work and said are you kidding. The dipping at her ankles like for nothing. Consider having to face all this independent of the auditing and oversight for the small committees were looking at the guys getting away for free. I think 8020 will applies here and maybe a percent your campaigns are going to be grassroots people funded campaigns important to give you the ones you want to look at and if you articulate a random audit scheme that hits your potential electorate is also the folks who are potentially breaking the rules affected [inaudible] looking to the ballot for these matters but we have to prove to san franciscans this commission is working behalf of them but against them [inaudible] just the opposite. For what its worth. Thank you. The best auditing criteria i ever saw was when i was on the platform with another speaker and i was introducing myself to this gentleman. He looked in the startled and he says, you are the guy that keeps and i on a guy like me. I thought, should i keep anionic . Later he was indicted as a matter fact. Whos eligible for nine years. He pled. Its a twisted world. Any event, i would want to ask about slate mailers. I realize thats under the jurisdiction of the elections department. I dont know how much auditing they do for slate mail if they do any all and that would do them. I was not aware they had necessarily an audit Enforcement Group that would be doing this type of auditing which we do. Maybe they deferred to the 8080 prop c the Controllers Office, dont know, but thats a question for you. As to whether or not you want to transfer the authorityto read that you were interested in looking at that. So i just thought i would mention it to the public. Any further be public on this item . Hearing none, we will then move to agenda item 6 discussion and possible action on legislative proposal by Commission Chair keane to restore there is contribution related restrictions enacted by prop j in november 2000. Theres an attachment march 22, 2017 cover memo attachments. Also attachment submitted by me. To begin with, in regard to this item, were going to take a certain format if my colleagues will agree. Presenting this tonight. Just capsule background. Inback in 2000 eight voters of San Francisco adopted prop j which essentially sets the number of limits on the any kind of gifts or honorariums for any kind of things that were given to Public Officials. Over the course of the next three years in severalin several measures that were put forth by the board of supervisors, and also put forth that came from this commission, prop j was pretty much you disarrayed and was he this rated in a secretive way. In those three measures that were put forward and look at the background on it in a little while. The three measures dealt with a number of things and sort of sub rosa had language in them which quite severely limited the definitions of what gifts and contributions were that were being the prop j had prohibited. And repealed a lot of the language related to it. It also limited substantially the people covered under that in terms of Public Officials. Limited down to the bare bones both in terms of what was prohibited and to him it was prohibited. Over the course of time, a number of groups tested this. Mainly the friends of ethics and the civil grand jury which looked at it and said, voters of San Francisco were deceived by these measures that repealed prop j without towing them they were repealing prop j. And buried these particular things in these various measures. Back about a year and half ago been chair renne appointed me as a committee of one to work to see whether or not those particular measures should be restored, could be restored and how they should be done. Over the course of that your have a number of other things, but were finally got back to working on it about six months or so ago. Im working very closely with friends of ethics and with the civil grand jury and particularly, with mr. Bush and with allover looby a former staff member of this commission we had a number of meetings. Windows means commissioner kopp was there and helped out in terms the betting of the restoration prop j and you have before you the restoration language of prop j along with a chart showing what goes back in and what was in their originally and what waswhat it is now in terms of what was reduced to. What i would like to do is have the presentations of it made tonight by mr. Looby, who is the essentially the drafter of the store prop j measure. Also mr. Bush relating to the history of the background at this time will have discussion. I would not anticipate voting on this tonight because such important measure and should be bedded at propose after we discussed here tonight among Staff Members of the public that we over the course of the next few weeks said several interested persons needing then come back next time and look at it again in terms of what whether we are ready with a final version of this to go with some. If theres further discussion the next time, and we want to find some more, then we will put itwe will come back to meeting after that theres no reason to rush with that. We should take our time on this to do it correctly. Without a certain month to tension just been excellent so far. Esther bush and i wrote that a oped piece for the San Francisco chronicle was that published last monday good on friday the San Francisco chronicle wrote an editorial very much enthusiastically agreeing that this should be done. By the Ethics Commission. So i would imagine we will get more coverage as time goes by and have a full discussion and eventually adopt something that we should. So with that, if i have the permission of my colleagues, would like to start the presentations from mr. Looby. Good evening commissioners. Allover looby. One of things prop j did was get officials approved contracts for receiving contributions from the contractors a section in the Campaign Finance reform reform speed is 1. 26 does the exact same things which is essentially fundamentals both address the intersection between money and public decisions, both block quid pro quo. We wanted the prop j restoration grafting to avoid overlap with existing code and utilize its architecture. The primary idea was to extend 1. 1262 cover public decisions besides contracts and not just contributions but what prop j call personal or campaign advantage. Plain english, its the various financial incentives that fall short of bribes but yet still can influence Decision Makers or create the appearance of an influence. The draft includes and looks to six sections. One is 1. 122 and part of another 1. 170 subsection ithree are the only changes that are technically derived from a restoration but are still prudent reforms that dovetail with j. To summarize those too quickly, 1. 122 consist of two changes. Restoration of another thing that was the lead fromprohibition on transfers between controlled committees not formed for the same office this is essentially Consumer Protection for Campaign Contributors and would prevent things such as excess funds in about Measure Campaign for popular measure suddenly going into a campaign for reelection or election to our office by the same controlling officeholder. The other part is, commissioner and Department Head contribution fundraising band copied from la law. As for the subsection i31. 170 essentially just copies la law allowing the court to impose in addition to weather or criminal conviction penalty would impose for it violation, also a fouryear ban on serving as a lobbyist for a contractor. Its in la law. As for the j restoration of the comparison table in your packet contrast j current law and the proposed amendment. Which we think of as sort of j but better. The j highlights first private attorney general provision and 1. 168 is expanded to include suits for penalties for the most significant violations. Second, the penalty section has edits that give 1. 26 violations parity with other relations and so the maximum penalty would go instead of being up to 5000 it would be up to the greater of 5000 or triple the amount of the illegally provided or the perceived. Similar to your contribution limit violations. Then, third and most important like the amendment extends the scope of 1. 26 key elements including the personal or campaign advantage is prohibited the official specific interest of the may not be received the advantage. Soar the sphere of influence of the official. The person prevented from providing the advantage the probation period, the decisionmaker that triggers the probation and tapes about the decisions that trigger the prohibition. Into the 2000 6116 was extended and extended some of its key elements. It was a major reform and the commission initiated in 2006. Prop j restoration also take this kind of path. Make up a major Public Benefit decision not just contract can have quid pro quo problems. Any campaign or personal advantage not just contributions should be prohibited in a case that the restrictions on persons seeking a Public Benefit should not only kevin should include not only its officers and owners, but their agents and in person with a financial interest in the benefit. Public benefits provided by the appointees of elected officials dont require scrutiny just because the appointees happen to run a state agency that the decision by anyone appointed by or subordinate to an elected official raise the same level of concern. In addition the amendment includes other changes to 1. 1262 major ones. The disqualification provision based on city richmond slop which is the flipside to the main prohibition essentially that officials already received personal campaign advantage they can then make a decision for the benefit of the donor for 12 months and they can also the barman provision which was recommended by the Campaign Legal center and creates another consequence for 1. 26 violators and is also based on la law. Happy to answer questions. I think what we will do is complete the presentation by mr. Bush and then at that point commissioners, i would ask if you have any questions about her mr. Wilby or mr. Bush. Thank you chairman king. This is been a multiyear effort on the part of a number of people. He began with the passage of prop j in the 2000 which was done by a petition. From a group called the oaks project. Stated in several different cities. San francisco pastor with 83 of the vote. Over the next several years, the Ethics Commission decided to rewrite a number of ethics laws and one of the things they did was to say this was essentially a ban on contractor contributions. So they wiped out Everything Else in your form the past in 2003 but was sort of slipped in to a overall the form of the pics laws and in the process of doing that, they do not tell the commission that one of the impacts of the reform is to delete all the provisions of prop jpa nor, did they tell that to the board of supervisors. Does that put into the voter handbook. They disrupt the other thing that would do. There was a throwaway line that says, we will go back and refer to some these other issues later on but of course that never happened. Following all that, as you look at it, we took a look at in evaluation by harvey rose the board budget analysts. Comparing San Francisco and los angeles ethics laws. Thought saw the were number of provisions in a way that dont exist in San Francisco and which harvey rose recommended we might consider here in San Francisco. They were very close to what was already earlier prop j. We worked with a campaign loss center in washington dc. To make sure that what we looking at imported with later judicial decisions. With the participation of former commissioners including commissioner sat on the commission in 2000 and prop j was passed in 2007 commission. In 2003 when there was eviscerated. And we worked with people like wendy little who wrote the provision in richmond that offer luby just mention. As well as bob stern, who was a coauthor of the political reform act. My point in deciding all this is tuesday we took a very sober serious look at what was going on. It involves everything from franchise agreements to development permits. It takes a look at the fact that in amazing loophole, while contractors are banned from giving contributions are not banned from being fundraisers. So the just loves that put their own check in the stack, they can go out and raise money for everybody else. This closes a lot of those loopholes. So as we look through it, what we found was that millions of dollars has passed through these various loopholes to the benefits were at the request of officials and made decisions that had a financial advantage of the people made the donations. When i say millions, i mean in one category alone in the last two years, its been 10 million. Mostly in contributions of 1 million. There were people that Major Projects that so the question then becomes, what difference would this make it . What we know is Public Confidence in political decisions increases, people are more likely to participate and feel like those decisions reflect their values and their interest. Rather than they been left aside by people of special interest. So we see this as reaching the overall goal of what we are doing as well as dealing specifically with the things that have created distrust that city hall decisions are being made for the interest of the few instead of the money. Thank you. Thank you mr. Bush could commissioners, at your pleasure, any questions they may have of other mr. Bush or mr. Wilby . Or comments . Without objection a couple questions that [inaudible] can respond to. Just a couple questions what was the thought of using a 50,000 threshold . Rather than some lesser amount or some greater amount . Well, the threshold actually varies. Theres an existing 50,000 or threshold in the 1. 26 for contracts. Disclosure threshold and i believe your former staff or actually not too fond of it and try to couple times to increase the threshold despite some public opposition. It does trigger more disclosures of contracts by the Mayors Office, the board the City Attorney at such. Its one of the side effects of the 2006 amendment and without getting to lead to much it would probably be good at some point the city and county switched from disclosure system with filing reports with ethics to an integrated Campaign Finance and contract city contract database. To the filings are automated and its kind of actually the one of the subsections in the notification section, but they back your question, the original prop j had different threshold amounts for different types of matters. We made some different to sort of honor those original amounts but if youll notice, one of the threshold amounts of zero which is the threshold amount in a similar proposal law thats coming from the supervisors. This sort of meters that with regard to land use the ben has a caveat that some of the landuse decisions be covered unless the amount value the land decision is 1 million or more. That was the thing here went. That might be a winner today staff or City Attorney [inaudible] and form. Thank you. Then going on to the next page, under definitions board, and ive got to say i didnt quite understand is his board on which an individual serves means about a commissioner collected . Doesnt he sit on a board. . They do. This would indirectlyperfect this term was meant tothis term i believe is actually in the original law but i think was meant to refer to the member of the board of supervisors specifically. Possibly, one of the state appointees but id have to look at again and refresh my left collection on how the term is used in the original law but i think its used on the prohibition section where they referred to yes, under b1a approved by such individual individual holding city elective office. The board was the individual serves so its elected official serves and then it goes on to the state appointees on state boards. We broaden that to include appointees or subordinates of that individual so commissioner makes a decision for a Public Benefitit could be this commission in theorythey would trigger the new prop j because it covers any appointee not just appointees to state appointees to state body such as Treasure Island Development Authority or former redevelopment commission. But as this term is used them i think its only gets used in the context of the board of supervisors. Then number of pages going on to the department section, g, i was just curious. It looks like if the Ethics Commission someone is notified in the debarment notice it is an automatic disqualification. It doesnt automatically disqualify him from goinghim or her from Going Forward with the contract they . Correct. So the ultimate Decision Maker in that case is the contracting officer or agency . Thats my understanding. This is a word for word. Its very similar to the los angeles law under which its based. Thats my understanding of how it works in la. My concern would be that in effect, one could be found to have violated but the city agency could say, well, these guys are too important as far as contractors and so we are going to ignored. That occurred to me as well in the reason we did not change itto be totally frank, we did not have the time to totally research on the legislative history that went into this. The something am hoping since you directors of former director of the jardine of this law in los angeles should have some familiarity with help reason behind it but it would also occur to us was they be situations where theres legal problems if problems ifdebarment is automatic. Power to think mr. Will be. Other questions for mr. Ruby or mr. Bush . I think you both as well. We will not take Public Comment. entered as was reading that section commissioner renne questioned section 3 these are page number so its kind of hard to reference it, is as board on which an individual means the boards to which the officer was elected and any the board on which the elected officers service. I think as was mentioned by the speakers, i probably wait to the board of supervisors will select members of the board of supervisors to serve on the golden gate transit board and other various commissions and boards. So it basically says that if im a member of the board of supervisors, im prohibited in my direct position as an elected official and member of the board of supervisors from violating these tenants but it also means i happened to be on another board to which i been appointed by my fellow Board Members and someone comes before me, ive had financial dealings were relationships, i will be prohibited also from them. It would be sort of like theres a firewall there and since im not really doing with this person on this matter at this board ive been appointed to i can sort of looked the other way. It becomes a very convoluted matter and one of the things that ive learned over the last eight years of looking at the friends of the San Francisco Public Library is that the bodies who authorized these kinds of arrangements will go to commence lengths to hide and withhold public records and anything that will provide evidence to document either one of two things. One, being documents that show wrongdoing, or more frequently, documents which cannot be produced because theyre not available and as a result show that the people are not doing their job. For one example, the orders of determination i had related to the matter has to do with the board of supervisors. When this body heard against eric barr. I asked eric tremont when he sat on the committee that approved the annual gift from the friends, i would like to have copies of any documents that you or any member of your staff looked at when deciding on how to vote on this matter. He refused to answer. He refused to give me any documents. He refused to say he did not have anything and there was the same thing with mark farrell. If im the head of a board of supervisors subcommittee and i have to admit to the public that i authorized and voted on and recommended to the full board approval of something that i nor any member of my staff even looked at that basically is an admission i did not do my job. There may be something that goes on governments all the time but its unacceptable. If im voting on something especially if my fellow board numbers are going to rely on the recommendation of an obligation to have someone look at the documents. Thank you. If i could correct my prior comment to the board on which the individual stores would also include the board of education and the Community College board and again the reason the term exists in the current law is because some contracts are approved directly by the elected official and some are approved by a board of elected officials. Thats why the term exists. Mark solomon. When i first got involved in politics i knew nothing of landuse and i do not care about it. But being involved in politics in San Francisco it centers around landuse because thats where the money is. Thats all the action is. 80 of the problem is not landuse but 20 the problem is because you katie percent of the work. As i got involved in the survey get to see exactly how the money played how would float could influence campaigns have worked on and against it how change the gray face my community. Beasley caused possibly 5000 families to become displaced from the Mission District because government was serving the people paying their bills got people who vote for them. I think thats a problem. Doing my work on prop j and also a Planning Department public data that there were 20 and the campaignfinance data there was some overlap with developers but its really the ongoing permanent Political Class will michael the spurt class of the consultants oh developers. The attorneys for the developers. Their architects, grace other people who exist from project to bridgette get one developer might do a project every year or two or three. While the same people are always doing the work to make sure the water is carried from step to step. Thats where i believe the corruption comes in is that songs like permanent expedition but for longterm project expedition and facilitation with to go ahead and get the same peoples name pops up over and over again to be sure that when they start to contribute anyone whose heart them is frozen out. We received a contribution from them is frozen out. We divide this wall here between Campaign Spending and Public Policy. Semitough to do. I think you get it immense public support from the. The extent to which we see government totally driven by this, just universal ive had the packed my head with california and our mental quality at the planning code just to be with to understand what theyre doing to our communities. Thats it immense amount of wasted brain cell space that continues for productive spaces but here we are living in San Francisco in the current case going to court every time i see a crane about one of these new buildings, was probably a solo jones Keith Jackson event that went on to goahead and grease the skids to make those contributions to say we know how we do business here in San Francisco. We do it right. So every one of these contractors everywhere is the roman projects where seen sometimes i had to go on but these dont things dont happen for not [inaudible] anderson ongoing criminal corrupt class in the city that is changing the face of neighborhood in a way that has systematically excluded residents from any participation in the realm of our communities as wood in the Mission District safe and secure my home, people are popping out of existence of the committee romney and this is concerning to me. Perceive families displaced. Has a real human factor here that description needs to goahead and restate the voters prop j to cover all this. Thank you. I want to say this. This city has changed radically in politics since mayor brown left office or even while he was mayor. We had basically a fairly standard series of political events occurring in the city but we have seem to be gone on steroids and clearly we had to look at the much broader spectrum of dynamics that we saw that were being abused particularly in then use and contracting that is tied to our elected officials and their decisionmaking. In the early days, you would go into Campaign Financing and you would go into Campaign Finance, but now we realize campaignfinance in this town is all about landuse. Its likely that when we do our Data Analysis as we are attempting to do, if we can get the data, we are going to see that 90 or 80 of the money is really connected to permits for developers seeking permits. I think mr. Solomon is right when he says theres 1 million for every boom crane you see on the horizon in San Francisco. Its not going into the pockets of the city. There are obviously consultants were consulting attorneys involved and common plan or come i wont mention whoin history of the city, told me that essentially, theres a handful of key players with all things in San Francisco and they overlap with just about everything that involves money in particular, bigmoney. So it boils down to a handful of people and if we identify that cadre of 20, 30, 40 people are basically running landuse in this town, were going to basically come to 80 of the money flow. So, maybe more. She said, 90. In any event, im very glad to see this broadening of prop j. It was good when it was written in 2004 before that, but it certainly updated by mr. Lubys work and for that i thank him. These tables say a heck of a lot and these blocks showing you the dynamics. Every one of these items in landuse follow money. Thank you. Good evening commissioners. My name is craig weber. Im a native San Francisco did i live in the Mission District. I served two years on the civil grand jury 20092010. I was the Committee Chairman for the investigation of pensions in San Francisco which, as it turned out was one of the mostin my opinion, one of the most important investigative reports done by the civil grand jury in San Francisco in the last 20 years. It resulted in at least two initiatives on pension reform and 20102009. It also was an important part of jeffcampaign for mayor at the time. The only public official that would stand up to the three most powerful groups in San Francisco, that is the seiu, the lease officers association, and the firefighters union. I point you bring this up is on my novice to this whole political process in San Francisco. That was my first exposure to how abusive government can be. And how few Public Officials will actually challenge the system. Recently, the editorial of the oped that commissioner keane and larry holmes edited the chronicle brought me here tonight. That, and also in the same day that your oped appeared in the chronicle, there was an article on landuse and that involve the littler corporation and the arrangement that a Nonprofit Organization in the mission called cavein to quattro has an appeal that affect against lennar and was passed by the motion by supervisor campos is literally last meeting as a board member to basically Block Development in the mission and block lennar. Also, block access development, which is kind of inclusionary housing on. And 23rd should. This is the type of tactics that you didnt address in your editorial, and that is, the role of Nonprofit Organizations who will block or provide some support for members of the board of supervisors. Try to literally go to lennar and threatened and buy one share of Lennar Corporation stock and advise them as a shareholder i will go to their Audit Committee at the corporate headquarters, with the complaint and i will instigate an investigation. Guess what lennar did in San Francisco . They backed off very very quickly. They went to their general counsel and they got advice on how to structure this deal where not one dollar will go to the Nonprofit Organization, or to a member the board of supervisors. In this case hillary ronen. Thank you. Thank you for your service, both in particular commissioner kopp two i remember in the early days on the board of supervisors with barbara gelato. Two key people in the history of San Francisco that served the citizens well. And thank you mr. Keane collier public service. I just hope your legacy here in San Francisco will be to bring Campaign Finance back to a status where we can trust the process. I hope you build the enforcement and that you dont have to rely on public numberspublic citizens in San Francisco to basically take up the enforcement that perhaps your commission should follow. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Any further Public Comment . Hello. Thank you for alumni to speak. My name isother than the dogpatch neighborhood in very good. By the group called were present us, that was working with commission on prop t. Our talk a little bit about landuse and land in dogpatch but what makes use neighborhood with a lot of commercial industrial zoning and all that is being torn down right now and being turned into the maximum density out in the available in every labor over 30 Construction Projects never thats only about four blocks by a blocks wide. The total population of course about eight years will increase public temple. Probably the most densely populated buscemi influence developers and their ability to get things done in the neighborhood in some cases in particular impacted by the Warrior Stadium now into these Public Meetings and i walk in icy 20 people in suits highly paid lawyers either paid consultants were helping get these things that some of them are also the staff in San Francisco City Employees helping to facilitate the incredible speed and rate the development is being built. I also do with ucsf willing to our neighborhood into a residential neighborhood and a note they can get things done and accelerated rate. Part of that is simply because they can offer jobs to people in the process further along in their careers. Dr. Follow city rules because the state agencys we see the power of these large billiondollar institutions that are using to greece things and to do development and to get some kids hundreds of millions dollars with the Development Done quickly. So i would encourage you for residents like me i have to forgo any thought of being able to live in San Francisco longterm. Because i know them at the whim of a developer recommended you developers are able to influence a decision and pushes out. Im a fiveyearold daughter. Love to weber state the resident in San Francisco and certainly to some extent i can stay here but theres just so much pressure to push all this out to make effectively with luxury housing of the elite to stay here. I would encourage you to put these kind of things and allows to slow down some of the profitmaking and favorability was and communities make impossible or some was to stay and live in San Francisco. Thank you. Thank you. Will good evening. Im not going to speak about landuse russia the content very much. All i want to comment is the process. I was the foreperson of the civil grand jury that had done the 1213 ethics report. There been one earlier navy 910, or, 1011 or call the sleeping watchdog. We were the ones i looked at what happened to prop j. The number of issues we look at for the Ethics Commission but the work that took the longest time was to figure out what happened and how did it happen that prop j had basically disappeared. We went back to the archives. We looked at all the minutes. Look at all the legislative history that was there. And as mr. Bush had indicated earlier, there was nothing where the commissioners themselves to not understand what they were voting on. Or that the board of supervisors did not understand what they were voting on. So basically, im here to say, this is a great process. Were getting the words out there. Everybodys going to understand what this is all about and i think that is part of what this all represents this for transparency to your process as well as transparency of the citizens to know what the candidates are doing. So thank you for that. Thank you. Any further Public Comment . Commissioners, any further discussion by the commission . Mr. Kopp well, i want to thank everybody who participated in the promulgation. Mr. Bush, of course. Mr. Loot but also those that have taken time to give their attention to us and i am ready mr. Chairman, to move that this Commission Submit to the board of supervisors as soon as possible all of these recommendations, but i know that in you are almost infinite wisdom, you rightly justifiable point out that we should ensure that its done in a measurable way which gives other people and other organizations an opportunity to be heard publicly and to be heard with staff for individual commissioners, without violating any law. But im satisfied with what lawyers call the work product. Thank you. Thank you commissioner. I would echo whatjust that. I think we ought to take some action tentatively adopting this. Then going out to the public for comment good then, come back to us for final approval and i see executive director is raising a finger so i must be doing something wrong. Not at all but im happy to come and commissioners when you had a chance to chime in. I have i process thought. I got mr. Chairman, if i might tentative approval might be the term which could be [inaudible] commissioner renne. Since youre looking at me i will take a moment and then to chime in. Thank you for that opportunity. I would love to take this time to remind the commission of the success of prop t last year with the lobbying provisions that were put before the voters. It reminds me of some of the discussion in the room today and i think there is an important process to be followed of transparency at the speakers have said. To really make sure this commission does its work in betting the proposals in a way that we can make sure our strong and clear and enforceable as we take issues to the board, to the voters directly. So in that process, i would encourage the commission to allow us to do our job at your staff level as well to make sure that we have an opportunity to do thorough and thoughtful interested persons meetings with information both within proposed here Additional Information to really bring out as much Public Comment as we can. It is clearly article as it is yours and is the publics to make sure our laws are strong and workable and enforceable and this is not called for slowing down the process or for getting what is launching a process to make the laws more effective but i think its very very critical that the practice you started on in the past year really using your staff to help you with this process is really critical one and we would ask that opportunity to make sure that its a good strong process. Ive got to say i did not think anything i said a word commissioner kopp said in any way interferes with the process that your suggestion. I assume you would do that. You will bet it. You have your interested persons meeting. Maybe they commissioner will appear at some of those of a can you with Public Comment is and he will come back to us with suggested changes or revisions or youll say, no it is fine as it is. All i amwhat i thought commissioner kopp was doing, is trying to express the support of the commission to the proposed legislation subject to Public Comment and Everything Else in coming back to us with a recommended sort of final version for our then consideration to see what changes should be majored thats all im suggesting. I understand that. I think the question i would ask for clarity on is the timeframe. I think chairman king your suggestion would like to see a comeback next month. At some interested persons meeting between now and then and i believe thats when to be extraordinarily difficult to do the process well for the commission. So if we can have some additional conversations about the timeframe for bring it back we understand as priority and we want to meet that but we want to make sure that tantrums is a purpose. My feeling is that over the course of the next few weeks we should have those interested persons beatings did we come back have the staff weigh in on it to the extent that youre prepared to weigh in on it. If you need extra time, we will go to the next meeting. In terms of getting your final analysis relating to it, i would also like the City Attorney to go ahead and that it and give their opinions as well. So we should meeti recognize and appreciate commissioner renne commissioner mccall desire to go head and expressed tentative approval. I think we are all doing that. But i think what we want to do what we should do is to keep the process really straightforward is go through this vetting and writing and rewriting process and then other or the time after that have a finished product and were the commissioners will move to introduce that. We vote on it. And then send it to the board. But theres no reason to vote now on it. I think these questions of tentative approval are well put and certainly welcome but i think if my colleagues agree that the track like to put it on now. I commissioner renne as i understand it we are down the track we are we are not going to put this on at the 2019 collection. Bill bino 2018 election. But were going to submit it to the board of supervisors for their adoption, which causes me to say to ask permission kopp, shouldnt we were the staff be doing some work with the board for the board staff to get some input from them before we send something to the board that we want them to approve . Well, i think that can be done in the period between now and april 27th or whatever it is. Im certainly able to confer with individual members of the board of supervisors. Without objection keep notes so that i dont forget at the next meeting. I think we should definitely do that. Certainly, board numbers as well. Whether not to jump at it with enthusiasm hopefully, they will but i dont know. So in that situation, what im looking for is that when we do send it on to the board, we send it on to the board telling them we want you to adopt this, or substantially adopt this and make a few changes but substantially adopt this within 90 days and the mayor sign it, or we are going to put it on the ballot for next year for the 2018 election. Then,because miller should not say this, but i dont expect a lot of enthusiasm at the board of supervisors relating to this measure which is going to sort of sew up their pockets in number respects. In my appointing authority i know youre not personalizing it no, im not. Anyway, i hope im wrong and everybody looks at it with an objective and detached view well, i think that 90 day thought is mandatory. Yes. Of course the City Attorneys office is happy to work with the commission and work with staff. We just saw this at the same time that you all did. This is an extremely complicated ordinance. Does a lot more than what prop j did. For us to do sort of a type of analysis that we want to do to raise legal issues come i think would require more than just the time between now and the next meeting. There are legal issues, of course we dont present those to you in public. There may have to if theres legal issues we would want to put them in memo format as is consistent with our practice. So i would just say we want to do a thorough analysis but thats required of a ordinance like this and we would just ask that this not be rushed good i really dont think the time between now and next meeting is sufficient for our purposes. Well, i want you to know that we will have to do it without you it takes too long. I think commissioner kopp makes a point there. Rather than just draw this outits complicated but its also very straightforward regards what were doing. Making some twist to it that we should have eventually looked at and tweaked but we have people that we talked about mr. Bush has talked about mr. Starr nine next birds in ethics all over the country. Have fashioned similar things to what we have and recommend this. So, i dont think it takes oh great to more study by the City Attorneys office. We would like your input by next time if you need to go to the meeting after that, i think we can probably be willing to do that. Beyond that though my sense is were going to vote this up or down. Send it to the board of supervisors and move it forward as we should get the last thing we want to do is just sit on it. Or, they get for too long. Commissioner chiu i would propose them that the staff in the City Attorney move as expeditiously as possible to conduct interested persons meetings and to do the legal analysis and not to rush you, but i think that what im hearing and i share, is a lot of support and a sense of urgency around this measure. Because if i think a harm done that we want to address immediately. Per expeditiously as possible, immediately. So i would ask that i propose to my fellow commissioners that the work be undertaken in the following months and that the next meeting we will hear from staff and from the City Attorney as to where we turn stand in terms the interested persons outreach as well as the input and revise draft as well as legal analysis so we can then formulate a decision as to whether we can act at the next meeting work its going to be and taking a little bit longer but understanding that this is a top priority to the commission. As always we will do our best. Not trying to sandbag you or anything. Its just we literally just got this but the red line the other day. We will do what we can. Thats all i would say. Any further comment on this matter . I might say in fairness to the staff you pointed out the very beginning it was a year and half ago when i appointed you as a committee of one to look into this. We are hearing it now. I moved with my usual lightning speed. In this case it took about a year and a half. Thats pretty fast for me. Ashley. So i think we have a sense of where we are with this. So we will take it up again at our next meeting. Lets move on now to item number seven. Discussion of status education and compliance report. A periodic update on various programmatic and operational highlights in the education and compliance division. With attachments of march 22 2017 staff report and attachments. Thank you chairman king. Pat peterson from education and Compliance Group put together this report a brief overview of activities that been the focus of our work over the past month. I merely, were been focused on sporting City Employees were designated filers for their upcoming form 700 filing process deadline which is monday, april 3 could all say it again get monday, april 3 is the deadline for form 700 filing to remind myself and others will not that obligation to make sure that we submit our documents entente with a very cool you filing system for elected officials board and Commission Members and Department Heads to help accomplish that requirement. But we have been having a series of meetings the last of them at we added one last session for filers at last friday to try and help people understand the requirements of the form 700 the process and what kinds of tools and resources weve been putting together two of them do that. So that attached for your reference and Public Information were the slide deck from those presentations. Again we continue to use our website to highlight key issues. Will be very interested to report that you in the future reports about the patterns weve seen with the tools and resources were providing online 12 folks with or filing obligations and other issues. So this was a status report and update for you and happy to answer any questions. Commissioners, . Commissioner chiu yes dir. , at last meeting you noted a high number, thousands come i think the paper filers. Youve spent that number to say the same or decrease more people transition to you filing this year . At this point it looks like that number would be pretty static. Theres a vital review process departments engaged in this year and so the numbers that resulted from that are likely to be the numbers that we move into 2018 with. That said, we are also continuing to be in conversation with departments about tailoring categories and disclosure designated employees listed so that it is in sync with state law and that theyre fully aware of the basis for having somebody listed as a designated filer. So that may change but i think rough numbers are the same. Thank you. Any Public Comment on this item . Commissioners open government. I did training for the Pacific League for four years in the navy but i spent 14 years teaching for the university of hawaii. And three years teaching for American International group, the Largest Insurance Companies in the world. When i look at this report i basically see a form for how to fill out the form, went to check it, what the fines are. The failed flaw and training effort regarding stamens of economic Interest Form 700 annual filings appears to be no discussion or penalty for false filing false statements. Documents submitted under penalty of perjury as we saw in earlier comments but theres no penalty for lying. City librarian luis herrera City Department head was brought to the attention of the Ethics Commission which ignore the complaint. Individual citizens had to take herrera to thein segmented to get action. Of the 31st three orders of determination that i hold from the Sunshine Ordinance Task force two thirds of them concerned the friends of San Francisco Public Library in the millions of dollars they have flowing through their coffers every year little which actually goes to benefit the library which is supposedly who they are the friends oh. If this training is simply done to tell people heres how you fill out the form, and once you get the forms you put them into a file and thats the end of the story laments the be all to end all. Fill out the forms. There have to be true. You can live. Even if citizens catch you in the lot, and go through public records requests and get documents that prove you are lying, you can bring it to us and we will ignore it. Thats been the history. Am i saying it is the way its going to continue . I hope, to god, to not. I dont think it was right that small group of us had to take the city librarian to sacramento to get him to correct his falsely filed sei. Yet what i see in this is really nothing that points to any indication other than if you want to make all those required filers aware they can lie without consequence. In other words, its a matter filling out the form, nothing more. You can lie on it. You can sign under penalty of perjury and lie on and they want to a darn thing to you. Unless there is something done to actually show folks that when they filed these somebody is going to review them and if they are wrong summaries going to do something about it then its just nothing but a pointless exercise and a waste of paperwork which you always seem to be concerned about. I laud the effort by the commission to get this system of Electronic Filing spread to all parties. Not just the top strata of the 700 filers. I am hopeful that we will get that legislation to the board. I did have a question. If it fails at the board are you prepared to take itor can you take itto the ballot . I dont know. Because things do have a tendency when they affect personnel sometimes to slow down at the board. To whit, the whistleblower ordinance. Which seems to be pretty dead in the water. I should say du eight but its pretty well stayed in the water right now, and its been there a while. This might be the same problem. But i do think that the employees may not have to light of those papers are lying in a file for them. Not to be too clever but im thinking that is essentially the bottom line is this going to be less people looking at the paper and obviously doing searches on the internet. I think that is the rub. So lets see what we can do to get the bill through the board. Then if theyre not point to do it, then somebody has got to put it on the ballot. Commissioners i just want to note from my own experience of tracking other peoples violence into my own filings, that this is essentially a state requirement the ethics takes on. As a state requirement, the most you can do is 100 fine. Which is 10 for a 10 day delay. So somebody is a year late turning their spirit is the 100. Unless at a local level you and not something to add to the penalty that the state would give. In some jurisdictions to add additional penalties. The fact is to become electronic is quick to make things much easier to understand where peoples interests are. Just simple things like how many city commissioners have pg e stock or, how may commissioners have spouses of businesses that contract with the city. Which is something that we see going on now over the Franchise Tax board. Thank you. Okay. Hearing no further Public Comment will now move on to agenda item number eight. Discussion of staffs enforcement report. An update on there is baroque programmatic and operational highlights of the enforcement programs activities since the last monthly meeting. With attachments from march 22, 2017. Enforcement report and attachments. Thank you commissioners. The main pragmatic highlights are that ive been attending a training for supervisors. Thats put on by the city. Its a 24hour, plus because as 24 hours of training in total, think or maybe its a little more than 24 hours but its every tuesday during the month of march with training modules in the interim. Its been very helpful and very good training and am very happy and honored to been able to go. So i just want to report that to you. I have also been collaborating with leeann and are signs collection officer and researching other enforcement policies publicly babble like the sec to come up with a set of enforcement procedures for in turtle handling that [inaudible] we are setting timeframe internally when the expect our new investigators supplement that you completed for what approvals of the degree needed [inaudible] the investigation itself. Try to shore them up. Thats been sort of a goal and we are also my next next up on my agenda is to refine and revise a template i been developing and finalize them so theyre ready for when the investigators arrive for training purposes. This month i also attended the Sunshine Ordinance Task force hearing about a complaint was filed by mr. Hart against judd george kopp. Alleging that he abridged his Public Comment time. These Task Force Found that the public on time was abridged by 78 seconds and found the commission in violation of the sunshine ordinance. I believe the order of determination is attached. That attachment number three if youd like to have a look at it. In terms of operational updates investigative caseload data youll notice that our investigation open investigation has remained static at 24. Preliminary review complaints saw a slight uptick to 100 and i think 113 were so now. 122 now. Then i also want to note, last month we made an error. A clerical error of sorts. In calculating the number of matters implementor you with you on our february enforcement data report, the attachments. So we have included a revised report for february is attachment 2. In addition to the march numbers that you have all the data. I could data infant we apologize for that error and note that the type of reporting those numbers will be standardized as soon as we are able to implant the Case Management system that we are still researching. I forgot to include an update on that but on that front, we are reviewing other Software Application with the Controllers Office this week. So were excited about that opportunity. The potential for collaboration there and we are excited about that opportunity. Thank you. Commissioner chiu so director pelham is impossible to be Case Management software installed or purchased this fiscal year . With some of the additional funds weve had from salary savings . That is possible but am hesitant to be very firm about that because im learning that purchase orders and procurement items take a bit longer than anticipated. Select all have a deadline for you but we are workingit something jessica is in regular contact with lots of folks about every opportunity. With our aggressive pursuing apri dont have a deadline yet. Even its not done this fiscal year will we have the funds in the upcoming fiscal year two people to make the investment . Were making that case as part of our budget we also may have some flex village use funds this year. Thats where were trying to keep it in the forefront. Commissioner renne mask or maybe the City Attorney, the Sunshine Ordinance Task force, said as i read the report, that under the Public Comment provisions the commission cannot interrupt during the Public Comment whether to twominute period or threeminute period. And our violation was the fact that there was some interruption which caused 8 seconds to be lost, but the underlined statement that under the right of Public Comment commissioners or the board or anybody else is not allowed to it as questions or intervene until that time is up. Is that correct . Thats their view. Thats not our view of what the sunshine ordinance says. I think the best practice is probably to allow the speaker to speak uninterrupted for that time. But, the sunshine ordinance simply requires the speaker get their allotted Public Comment time and so i think if there was for example a question that a commissioner opposed in the Public Commentor responded to that question i think theres an argument that question Response Time would not count towards the 3 min. But if after that question response am concluded and the public, tour was allowed to proceed with his or her time, without the full 3 min. , our view is that wouldnt violate the ordinance. So if the Sunshine Ordinance Task force wants to refer defining or violation ordinarily, they would refer to the commission. Obviouslyto the commissions that. Obviously that doesnt sound like a proper procedure. What is it . Should we refer to the City Attorney or Ethics Commission in oakland or something . I believe thats happening the past and we would consider which body to refer to. It could be the open Ethics Commission. We cani can sort of figure that out for you but you are correct, that this party would not hear a sunshine ordinance perspective against this very body. That would not be proper. Commissioner kopp my question may become and is directed to page 3. The delinquent accounts. The report states that after april, which means for our purposes, not until may be for the may meeting for the april meeting right. Theres at least one item on here would simply is not understandable. That 2000 item. That should be easy to collect and i wish you would inform whoever you are talking was accordingly. If they want my help am available to give them the help. These all carry what . For your statutes of limitations . Or, to . Im not sure what pdr has. Do you know, josh . Im not sure that i can look out what the statute of limitations is but for our purposes the ethics statute of limitations doesnt apply well, well two of those are going on two years. I dont understand them. Thank you mr. Chairman. Any Public Comment on this item . Barry bush friends of ethics. We of two points we want to raise. One was that we want to urge the commission to adopt a standard for action on complaints. You adopted a standard time for the City Attorney and District Attorney to act for the commission to act itself. We urge that you do a similar kind of action on the part of the commission so that you asked on the complaints within three months or whatever period of time but you definitely have a timeline. Because as you know some complaints have lingered for two years before theres been any action at all. The second thing is that we recommend a priority for complaints to be addressed involving an official whos about to take office. Because in some cases, we are there to be a finding weather to be a finding of violation but it could preclude a person from entering office. If they were guilty of certain violations. As things stand now, theres very Little Information thats available until weeks after some takes office. Election is in the first week of november. They take office the first week of january. But you dont see any reports about the finances they been doing or not doing until the january 31 filing. So if the complaint has coming and alleges activities there be meritless to and examine we would urge the become a priority in advance of them taking office. Thank you. a. Given the est wealth discussion allows the complainant in that case. This Ethics Commission is comprised of five members, four of them whom are attorneys with one being dean emeritus of Golden Gate Law School and another former superior court judge. Ive repeatedly identified the comments of the members of the public, myself and others may get these meetings as constitutionally protected political free speech. Not once has any member of this body or any other body where ive made that statement raised an objection to that thought. Thomas aquinas teaches that willful ignorance of what one ought to know is a mortal sin. Instances were members of this body have either interfered with or attempted to censor Public Comment can be viewed as nothing other than willful. You know the law. You know what im saying is true. If this feature is constitutionally protected political free speech. And rises at the highest level of any form of free speech. The behavior of other members sitting in silence as it happens can be viewed as nothing less in my opinion than violations of their oaths of office. Which include the statements to protect and defend the constitution of the United States and that of the state of california. Interfered with or censored Public Comment is bad enough but is truly egregious when those actions are both knowing and willful. There is in a Single Member of this body present can say that they dont know that what im saying is true. This is constitutionally protected political free speech. I should not be infringed upon by law. You can try to put a good face on it by saying, that means that task force is saying, we can interrupt to ask a polite question. No. What they were saying you cant interfere with someone speech and then act as a sensor and say theyre prohibited words. Tyson increased to this body and i said what are the profane words. Give me a list of the words that are prohibited or is it a minefield where every member the public has to walk in and ask and wonder whether or not somebody, not because they really are that worried about the profane word, but simply want to interfere with the speaker will object. We saw the same thing happen to michael petrellas remade up rules that did not exist at the meeting with the sheriff or mr. Patel is and i did not determine and i dont rules return us to the members the public that existed didnt exist. You know we are free to speak. Let us. Good evening commissioners. Ethics Staff Members. My name is luis dylan and i had filed a complaint with the sunshine ordinance regarding the closure of the historical staples in Golden Gate Park. My complaint be much gratified the fact that corruption in city hall to the Mayors Office and the other City Departments caused the 120 old business in Golden Gate Park to come to an end with the promise of the government modernizing the stables and reopening them. That was ultimately a ploy and a political grab to ratify left members of city hall and not have to deal with any of the equestrians in San Francisco. So after 130 years youre not seeing any horsedrawn carriages down in fishermans wharf. Not seeing children educated in writing verses in the city. Taking care forces in the city and ironically, it used to be one of the greatest [inaudible] in San Francisco was the Police Department versus and the activities that came along with them. So even though i did file a complaint with the sunshine ordinance and they agreed with my complaints, i didnt then took it at the time to the Ethics Commission which was again politically controlled and scuttled my complaints. So as a member of San Franciscos Equestrian Community to make my living off of horses in the city and seeing nothing but political battles in and unfairness that led us to this tragic state where weve occupied a city that was previously built by equestrian type people. Some going to bring in this fax to your attention showing you how mayor willie brown overstepped his authority at the time and how the City Departments to pay to play politics followed suit. Thank you for your time. There being no further Public Comments, we will move to the next item which is item 9. Discussion of the executive directors report did not take highlighting various programmatic issues and operational activities on the Commission Staff said the previous monthly meeting that covers a range of topics such as the commissioners budget, policy development, outreach activities, Audit Programs, and future staff projects. Any of the subjects may potentially be part of the directors presentation were discussed by the commission. There are attachments to the march 22 2017 executive directors report and attachments. Thank you commissioner keane. This months report is very brief. Theas we note, chairman keane and i have been doing outreach around meetings with the most movie sworn in members of the board of supervisors. We had one meeting. The f3 now that i think will be rescheduled to future dates coming up. But we will keep you posted about that. So opportunity to introduce the commission again and introduce our work and identify how we might be able to Work Together on issues of shared interest. Also in terms of an annual policy plan the update for this month shown as attachment three. One of the notes that was referenced in earlier comments as a whistleblower ordinance. The whistleblower protection ordinance. This is something been under discussion with the Controllers Office is reported previous executive director reports and the department of Human Resources. We had an indepth discussion with an Employee Organization on march 13. Pecking at the request of supervisor breed who sponsored the legislation for us. Employer organizations have since requested to meet and confer about a proposal to require training for supervisors in the city to better understand and know how to appropriately handle a complaint that is brought to their attention about retaliation for having been a whistleblower issue forward. So that is something the department of Human Resources is going to be scheduling with all the relevant parties in the coming weeks and the department of Labor Relations team from that department will be scheduling. We dont have any further information at this point about that date is but we have a good reason it should be in the next several weeks. So we will be participating in that. Test to staffing and thats been a continuing to be a significant priority for us. This number requirements still underway. As you see on table 1, the investigators vehicle analyst position weve been in the interview phase and so theres three positions that we are hoping to fill in the next several weeks as the process continues and hopefully concludes. The investigative analyst before the investigator is in the examined phase specifically in the review and rating of the exams. Thats the same for the policy analyst position. The open auditor position and the bacon education Compliance Officer position we have requested to fill submitted and requested phil is pending so those are the early stages of filling those positions. In terms of the annual policy report to go back to that for one brief moment, we will bring it updated report as we currently have scheduled sequence the items, we have had planned to bring back next months meeting. Enforcement regulation and review of related policies and regulations. That is something that will likely get pushed back one month as we dig into the other issues we talked about earlier. Also the a fix topics, extending the following mandate to all 700 file is written as a certain timeframe were gone have to focus on this year to make sure the record relations to enact defiling for everybody. That also will probably than be moved back one month. Those are just quick flags prowl trying juggled the issues we got on the radar. Im having to answer any of questions you might have. Commissioner chiu i have a question about [inaudible] payments ordinance. I believe it was passed and goes into effect in january of 2018. Is that correct . It becomes operative. The term used in the ordinances becomes operative january 1 that means that the date by which were supposed to have a system theyll be up and running to accept the form 803 payments that will be used for officials. We need to develop a outreach plan and the forms to make that process happen. Not done that yet. In terms of becoming operative in january 2018 we have enough one way to make that happen . We will have to and that dictates what a process we implement on january 1. Commissioner kopp talk what the staffing. The people of San Francisco ought to know is that this is a sorry record caused by our Civil Service process. As of july 1, 2016 this commission is authorized to have for investigators. There was one at the time. That one later departed. Now there are four. It is now nearly april 1. That means 10 months. Im not going to get into a philosophical argument about Public Sector and private sector would theres a sad lesson for the people of this city and county of San Francisco. The executive directors report just refers to the number of complaints filed with the commission. The commission is provided every month with a document which tells the commissioners took the state of various complaints and allegations. It is sad to me, and its sad to our entire commission, i think, and to our staff that we have even now after invoking a 90 days the rule with the dist. Atty. City attorney about holding on to allegations when they ask us to suspend any work that we are still in sports lexicon, coming from behind, way beyond. The people of San Francisco should know that this is an operate hardworking staff which is to set the candy cap of not having for investigators. 10 months after july 1 2016. It is genuinely intolerable. It should be rectified. So i will give Public Notice to those who are concerned that i intend as one person to collaborate with my fellow commissioners and our executive director, and all others in eliminating this sorry situation for the future. Thank you mr. Chairman. Commissioner renne i like to echo what commissioner kopp has said. Its a very important point and something we should put our emphasis on. Is there any Public Comment on this item . Barry bush for friends of ethics. We want to add a few things to the policy. We would like to request that you add to the policy agenda a discussion of the file forum 804 which is free omissions that are given out by City Departments. And how are those given out im a what is the criteria, for who receives them. . Is that criteria somewhat bogus . And what is a cost the taxpayers . A quick review of the past years of the [inaudible] the city has given up over 1 million of income they could have received in the reasons for people having free omissions include things like going to a sports event in or to see with the facility looks like. Read the executive director of the department. So they did not know their own facility to look like till they could go to an event. We would also like to suggest you put in a timeline for disclosure of contributions in the tenday period after the second election report and so that we can see what monies actually flowing in at that period of time. We thereve been discussions before the commission about this report. It is Legal Authority to do that. As you know, we have a contribution cap of 500 but in the tenday period before elections, only contributions of 1000 are important. Well obviously we dont have 1000 only 500 no reason to report anything. Weve been providing information exactly how much money that is because our experiences that people give at the end of the election when they dont want their identity to be known. Often, when the recipient doesnt want the identity to be known. Third issues document retention policy. Which i know you have on your list of things to do. We would like to see it document retention policy address such things as cell phone usage and retaining doctors there wouldve been [inaudible]. Two were asking all that be included in your future policy agenda. I know you that you dont have enough to do. Thank you. There being no further im sorry mr. Harts. Ray hearts, open San Francisco. I like to talk what the first item regarding whistleblower protections begins strengthening medics. On the matter of the Whistleblower Program ever for the public and members of this commission to the comments made by dr. Deborah kerr included in the ethics minutes of february 27, 2017 under agenda item number eight. To make it very easy on everybody, those are the minutes that you approve tonight. Dr. Kerr included hundred 50 word summary talked with some very very important issues related to the Whistleblower Program. As a recipient of a very large settlement summer in the range of 750,000 from the city of San Francisco, for multiple violations of the program, he is certainly wellpositioned to speak to the issue. When dr. Kerr states, quote the burden of proof is stacked against whistleblowers is exactly right. In considering his argument i would like you also to consider the following. You may consider the ability of each party to produce evidence. If a party produced weaker evidence when it couldve produced stronger evidence he may consideryou may distrust the weaker evidence. I think the attorneys in the room will recommend that from being a civil jury instructions. There were given to jury saying that if you have one party to couldve given you better evidence they didnt what evidence they did give you you can look at sideways. Basically, what it really comes down to is the city is always in a position to providing stronger evidence regarding whistleblowers and the retaliation that is in many cases send their way. But is always in their interest to withhold such evidence even if doing so is unlawful. One of the things ive got used to in fact its probably the most common comment i hear that every board and Commission Meeting his comments about the city family. It basically is there our family and we are not going to do anything if they do something wrong. In fact, we are there to turn our somersault if we have to to hide the documents that showed they did something wrong and to prevent them from ever coming before the bar of justice. I mentioned to you the Leverage Commission and friends of the San Francisco Public Library. Ive been going after that for eight solid years and i will go after it for another eight solid years until i blew it out because its become such a pernicious and invasive and wrong matter that he needs to be brought to the public attention. Listen to dr. Curt. Whistleblowers need protection. Thank you. Thank you commissioners. And ethics that. City attorneys office. I would just like to resonate with what quentin kopp said. There seems to be a definite disconnect between the people of the city, the people running the city, or how the city used to be run. I would term it as a dictatorship rather than a democracy when its not about the peoples vote or the peoples will. Its about a agenda that has specific goals and it appears that anything goes and nothing matters in getting those goals or objectives achieved. My relevance here is that, yes, we do need 3 min. Of time to just get our point of views across to somebody because there really is no other avenue in the city to do that. Even if you go to the tuesday or supervisors meetings, theyre so well orchestrated as to pretty much drowned out relevant Public Comment. Its all about these big issues. City college. Police brutality. Some other thing. But a lot of underlying issues have just never gone anywhere. Its a small city and that equates to apathy when theres no light at the end of the tunnel and the underdog doesnt have a shot. Its special interests. Its pay to play politics. Its a dictatorship that just doesnt care about whats really happening in the city. Consular going to these meetings, you just get burned out because nothing happens. I feel like the City Attorneys office is like a foreign entity thats taken over the city and every thing global and everything foreign is important. Everything local, everything traditional is just doesnt matter. Thank you for your time. Thank you for a properly running these meetings they given us time to speak. Alternately, you are the people were to make the decisions and we are going to respect those decisions. Thank you. Thank you. One item that i charlesthe record againone item i dont see on the calendar is the discussion of your budget mechanisms. There is something that should be imparted to this Commission Regarding thewhat i call the best practices model, which is a new york city model which allows the commission to file its budget with the mayor the mayor can only comment on those requests and he must in fact, reserve the amount requested by the commission and send it to the board in its total amount. So if its incorporated in the mayors budget in toto submitting it to the board for the purpose of slicing and dicing the policy issues or the funding mechanisms for the degree of funding in open session. So its both in the Board Committee that handles the budget but also at the full board discussion of the budget so that any cuts or even additions would be considered by the board in open session at all levels and it would be the votes would be taken in public session. Thats the new york city model. The new york city model also has the granting of independent Counsel Authority by their Corporations Council and the city of new york. In this case that would be done by the City Attorney if it was constitutional, which i dont know if it is or not. But those are some of the things that the new york city best practices model has the we dont could either be interesting to discuss that model and then take up a possible other mechanisms for funding. For instance, theres a project going up at market im sorry at franklin where the zoning envelope is 45 feet but apparently, its been agreed by the important players in the decision process to raise it to 320 feet in height. I am sure thats artie been approved, but my point is, with all development occurring, i think we should look at the conditions you use enforcement feed mechanism so ethics get a portion of the designated funds collected from those applying for conditional use to do its enforcement and investigation and higher investigators to do that type of enforcement. So we will talk more about that later but that type of idea that we might be able to take up is an agenda item. Hearing no further Public Comment, the go to agenda item 10. Discussion and possible action regarding the status of complaints received or issued by the Ethics Commission. Which will be if i hear motion to go to closed session on those issues. Do i hear motion to close session . Mr. Chairman ordinarily i would make one, but i dont know what a closed session will produce. Im going back to my prior remarks and i thank you for your association with them. Look, weve got one woman investigator for all of these. Jessica bloom. It just grieves me again, as i said to see this document which by law is confidential to the members of the commission but i dont see anything that im going to learn which is new. Is that will change. The realistic than 60 days. I would just have one question of ms. Bloom. For two months, weve seen an indication that there were to be so show cause hearings and they keep getting continued and i take it that this is simply the fact that you just havent had time to put these cases together for that purpose right . Yes mischer renne if i may jump in. I think that is not an issue for jessica. Thats been my inability to sit down with her and resolve the matters to move forward. So you are correct. With that, i concur with commissioner kopp that i would see any need to have a close session or any session on the subject matter of item 10 at this meeting. Ive only one other further comments. Commissioner kopp that is to be assured that 90 days people with the dist. Atty. , thats being followed right . Yes. Thank you. I think we do a Public Comment since an agenda items at any Public Comment on this . Hearing none, we will go on to agenda item 11 discussion and possible action on items for future meetings. Commissioner kopp i have a number them. They reflect the time and the effort primarily from friends of ethics. Which is certainly a redoubtable entity composed of genuine civic reminded people. I should like to supplement the list from the socalled proposition j subject matter with the following. The following are going to be about seven, eight or nine mme. Executive director. I think almost all of them and commented on. Almost all of these must take the form of legislative action by the board of supervisors and or submission by this commission depending upon the outcome in the board of supervisors. First, there was referenced by a citizen who spoke earlier, mark solomon, to a potential conflict of interest by a member of the Planning Commission who was, or is now what is iti forgot what the acronym stands for is been so long. Planning and urban renewal. Director of everything which occurs in San Francisco. As has been pointed out, spur is a major conduit for money from developers. Which pays a salary of that planning the commissioner. That seems to me to be right and is ripe for action legislatively of primitive conflict of interest. Secondly, theres been reference also the earth to former law and practice that identified in the voter handbook. Candidates who are the recipients of Public Campaign funds. Secondly, to a requirement if the candidate received applied for and received Public Campaign funds to engage in more than one debate. Im going to be a little bit arbitrary and suggest an asking for consideration of three debates. I think im also, consideration should be given to identifying in the voter handbook candidates who did not receive public funds, do not apply for public funds so there is complete disclosure to prospective voters. Thirdly, weve already discussed the product policy considerations and indepth discussion, there was reference to the fact that i think by a citizen who testifiedit may have been mr. Bushthat slight mala regulation is the domain of the department of elections. I agree with the comments i heard that it should be the domain of the Ethics Commission. In that same connection, there should also be some priority given in the audit policy to prior violators of any of the laws which form the subject matter of the Ethics Commission responsibility. As well as those already mentioned whoby testimony from mr. Bush as well as those who failed to identify the occupation or address in their Campaign Reporting statements. You will recall his testimony that those being the most likely violators of antilaundering laws. Fourthly, i think we should impose a deadline on ourselves or for action. Mr. Bush mentioned three months. I am going to suggest six months after a allegation or claim of violation and that i would think can be done by regulation by our own rules but anyway, the attorneys can opine on that legal point but i think we should impose regulation. Its got a be a better world ms. Pelham. Rav4 crackerjack investigators and five character characteristically attentive commissioner so its feasible. It is feasible. Lets see. I think also, and this mustthis will take maybe a charter amendment, if elected candidates successful candidate is under investigation with an investigation based upon allegations that have not been completed, that person should not be allowed to be installed in the Public Office for which the personto which the person was elected. I dont know if thats president ial but im sure research will show whether that occurs in la, new york, oakland, wherever else our responsibilities are duplicated. There was also mentioned in Public Commentary tonight the practice of city officials receiving tickets to events, entertainment events that the public must pay money to attend. I think i recall testimonythats right friends of ethics estimates that that amount to about 1 million a year in what can be characterized as lost revenues to the city to the taxpayers of this city. Because those are tickets which are not sold and they are given away to Public Officials. I also think we need this is a goalnight i guess its up rule maybe it is a ordinance. Document retention. Give discussed that couple of times and we had a couple of cases that involve that. But we need to finalize a document retention policy and the private self telephones and all those in intricacies. I further want us to actand i would like all of these calendared in some responsible but still sane fashionmaybe not all in april, a be some in april. Maybe some in may, i will leave it to you mr. Chairman to make that customary decision that this business of election to attend a period, before the election, those local 500 maximum contributionstheir 100 to 500. 100 you have to report. 99, you dont. But the 100 500, that should be covered. On the same basis that the law now covers requires thousand dollars or more contribution the last 10 days to be reported every day. A couple more and i will be exhausted. It was mentioned earlier today also or maybe he was in informal discussion i want to be sure its legally within the purview under the charter of the Ethics Commission, but it isnt the Ethics Commission, certainly is the board of supervisors and the Ethics Commission can make recommendations, that there be inserted in San Francisco law charter ordinance that an appointed officer or employee of the city and county of becomes a candidate for election by the people of the city and county of San Francisco to any such Public Office shall automatically forfeit their position as an employee or officer of the city and county of San Francisco. There was offhand referencei cant remember which citizens speaker tonight but the thrust was embodied in a couple of ordinances have been drafted in the board of supervisors and it gets a little bit technical but it deals with nonprofit socalled housing and Community Development entities which under a series of transactions involving loans and then sail of the property after its developed for lowIncome Housing,and i guess middle Income Housing in regular market rate housing, have the ability to participate in political campaigns with excess money. And can make donations to candidates and can make donations to urging a yes vote were no vote on ballot measures. Apparently, have done so and i will provide staff with copies of these two proposed laws. Theres a term which is employed that is called cash out proceeds. Have you ever heard of cash out proceeds . Well, its defined inill give you this little tidbit just to end it. It means in connection with any sale, transfer or refinancing of an Affordable Housing developments, any and all funds received by an owner of an Affordable Housing development that are not needed were utilized to retire existing debt or construct, visit improve or preserve your photo housing development. Something like a little profit out of a series of transactions and you use that profit to campaign so far against ballot measures or four ballot measures. Even though Public Financing is an approved or authorized for ballot measures. But its taxpayer money. Okay. I shall desist. Well, a good set of work tasks for the future commission kopp. I want to complement on you that lists. Any comments by commissioners . We would take Public Comment done. Commissioners tray heart open government. Would like you to take a look at this list. Sorry about the small type. Once you get past authorities have hard to get them all on one sheet. I have 33 orders of determination from the Sunshine Ordinance Task force relating to one of two issue. Either access to public records and denial thereof, or, interference with Public Comment at Public Meetings. Whether you like it or not, the sunshine ordinance is city law. Whether you like it or not, you are responsible for enforcement of this and never have done a single thing but one time. Literally, for years this law has been ignored by this body. Just like you are ignoring me for right now. The bottom line is, ive heard a lot of comments about all the task force whats up with them andreally, the comments really sound little bit ignorant. In that if you dont with the task force does when you have rules and regulations in your ownfor your own staff that tell you how to deal with complaints and how to process the complaints and how to do it, it just kind of a willful blindness. We dont like this law. We dont like people like mr. Harts coming here with 33 of these things im saying, why dont you do anything about it because it makes us look bad. It does. One attempt was made to commission kopp in previous meeting kind referred to. He says what we can make the mayor fire somebody, can we. No, you cant. But have you got the moral responsibility if you feel that someone has done something wrong to recommend to the mayor that he take some action . Or, is it something well we dont want to embarrass them the mayor because the person we are recommending you dismiss is a mayoral appointee. So we will send over the mayor and the mayor chooses not to answer will just accept that. Its all well and good to have all these peoples and all these regulations make all these processes and procedures, but if you never are able to enforce any of them very frankly, this is a question ive asked this body over and over in the last eight years. Can anybody here give me an example of anything this Ethics Commission has done that is really made this City Government more open and more honest . Im always met with a reply, theres nothing but utter silence. After you shuffle papers. You change the speed rules and is like rearranging deck chairs on the titanic. Commissioners, yes, i am just overwhelmed at the fundamental changes that i feel going to take place here with it seems like genuinely interested people on the commission that are not bought and paid for. That is very good to hear. Some of the statements coming from the commissioners sound like theyre genuinely trying to expose the government which is what the sunshine ordinance was all about. It is so easy when you have a City Government structure like this to have the mayors opinion or Decision Just taken for granted and done and that is not the government by the city for the people. So, yes, very optimistic about presenting you the facts of how this doesnt work by showing you previous attempts in my complaint in my orders of determination that were in my favor yet i was not able to come to some sort of resolution with the city. This tables were closed in september of 2001 which im sure you all were aware of was a very modulus and changing time for me as thats when 9 11 happened. But the stable inhabitants predicted exactly that same time. The mayor that also [inaudible] the resolution then came out after the 9 11 attacks and said he was the only person to have advance warning of the attack. The only person in the United States that knew about the attacks and he was told, not to travel and the same person authorized the resolution evicting every equestrian in Golden Gate Park stables promising them a rebuild hated better functioning place. You can see what we got. Zero. Both okay. Hearing no further Public Comments, at this point, i will entertain a motion to adjourn. I the point of personal privilege. I want to exercise. Commissioner kopp spee was sitting in the room is the best paralegal in the city and county of San Francisco. Im going to give him his 30 seconds of pay. Bradley j cox, stand up. [applause] thank you. Following the genes commissioner kopp to do a motion to adjourn . So moved. We are adjourn. [gavel] [adjournment]