Transcripts For SFGTV Ethics Commission 72516 20160801

25, 2016 will begin shortly. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the regular july 25, 2016 meeting of the San Francisco Ethics Commission. I will call the roll. Commissioner keane, commissioner hayon, commissioner chiu. Here. We are still awaiting an appointment for a replacement for commissioner andrews, so all present commissioners are accounted for. Turning to item 2, Public Comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the agenda. Good afternoon, commissioner, charlie mark stellar, for the record, i just wanted to alert the commission to a very important post on the kqed news website that i got over the weekend pertaining to linar corporation, and the developments that are occurring both at both locations in the city. Theres a significant and new items that are being reported in regards to the three indictments that have come down, so i did want to alert you to that and if you dont have it, i can forward it to you. Or to your executive director who will forward it to you, okay, i wanted to alert you to that important item. Im bob plant hold, i just wanted to offer comment about what may be change tos the pending whisleblower ordinance that supervisor breed has introduced and because of their [inaudible] may not be heard in committee for some time. Our group, friends of ethics is suggesting that there ought to be added a requirement that there be mandatory training for all City Employees. Right now, department heads, certain levels of managers, commissioners have to get training in ethics and sunshine, the kurntd draft of the whisleblower seems to require that same type of training for the same type of employees. Were suggesting its not enough and because you folks would help develop, monitor, proofread any training on the whisleblower legislation if it is passesed, i wanted to give you an awareness of theres potential changes. Were asking for this mandatory training because a lot of City Employees do not know about whisleblower ordinance, about protection, about their rights. And because these training could be done online, we dont think it would necessarily be burdensome. I want to give you a reallife example of why and how people may benefit from such training, on the very last night that i was on the Ethics Commission, after i left early for family reasons, a janitorial Maintenance Person stopped me in the hall of city hall and told me some things expecting me to follow through to file a complaint but that person wouldnt come forward, that person was afraid of job retribution. The claims the assertions made were disturbing, unnerving and yet that person did not feel empowered or safe in even asking anybody in that persons union, in that Persons Office for help or understanding how do i complain about this and it was significant financial misdeeds alleged so, this could be a real situation for anybody in all levels of City Government. Youre not going to be involved in enacting the legislation but you may be involved in implementing k it, thats why i wanted to let you know of the possible change, to be more inclusive and more responsive to all in the city staff. Thank you. Any other Public Comment . Hello, michael pe troll lis, iem here to address several matters, theres much talk these days about creating a public advocate here in San Francisco. I believe that we do need a public advocate in part because of the failures of the Ethics Commission and whi say the failures of the Ethics Commission, i was here a few months ago to discuss a complaint i filed on february 24th, five of ago, i brought it to your attention in october, willie brown attend a meeting at the Mayors Office that i obtained the signin sheet through a public records request, willie brown did not list his organization on this signin sheet regarding the meeting he had in october about banking matters with the mayor. Here it is five months later, i have not been contacted by any investigate torx i have come and discussed this complaint with you guys here, nothing has happened. Why should i or any member of the public file complaints when after five months, nothing is happening about the investigations . Nothing. The other matter i wish to discuss with you is something thats coming before you in july, it should have been on your agenda tonight and that is my complaint against steve kawa, the vicemayor, it is found he is in direct violation of city records and retaining city records. Hes been destroying his records. They put it in writing, the Mayors Office put it in writing that steve kawa every two weeks was destroying his agenda, so the complaint finally came from the Sunshine Ordinance Task force to you, it was supposed to be on your agenda for july 25th, yet the may yrs chief of staff sent you a let e i also got a copy of it saying mr. Kawa would be allegedly traveling today and not only that, they needed more time to consult with the City Attorney regarding this matter. Theyve had months of consultations with the City Attorney, who is also in this building yet they requested an extension. Unfortunately, leeann palem on behalf of mr. Renne sent me a letter staining the request of a continuance was granted and there is nothing in this letter fra leeann palem, the drektd toer on behalf of 2 commissioners is indeed steve kawa is out of town. Did you question why the mayor still needs a whole other month to consult with the City Attorney about this matter . Did you verify in any way that steve kawa is indeed out of town . Well, maybe if we had a public advocate, wed get some answers. It is not okay that you have delayed the steve kawa matter until next month. We need urgency from the Ethics Commission. Thank you. Thank you. Alright, ill turn to item number 3, discussion and possible action on draft minutes for the commissions june 27, 2016 regular meeting. Any commissioners have any comments . If not, i have some very minor ones. On page 4, there is a reference to a number of witnesses from represent us, and that should be caps for represent us, initial caps for the organizatione, and thats on both page 4 and 5. Other than that, i have no comment. Any Public Comments on these minutes . Hearing none, i will consider a motion. Move approval. Second. Alright, all in favor . Aye. Minutes are approved unanimously. Turning to item number 4, continued discussion and possible action on proposal regarding a possible november 2016 ballot measure to restrict lobbyist gifts, Campaign Contributions and bundled contributions. And i would just let the executive director palem update us where we are, although i think the memo and is the document that is are attached are very detailed and helpful. Great, thank you, chair renne, i want to draw your attention and the publics attention to the amended documents, supplemental document that is we provides on july 15th when we first posted the memo railroading agenda item 4 with initial draft language as you requested in june, we provide both a june approach and a july alternative as you had indicated an interest in. We provided that on july 15th publicly because we wanted to circulate it as broadly as possible to receive as much Public Comment to enable a full discussion this evening. We received some Public Comment, we did some further revisions based on that and further examination of the language and so we had a memo that we circulated on july 22, i believe, let me just confirm. That has the revised language attached to it, so for purposes of the language that is the most current, they are labeled supplemental attachment 4, item 4, excuse me, supplemental memo attachment 2 and item 4, supplemental memo attachment 3, we will get these straight. Conveniently referred to as the june revised june approach and the revised july alternative. Well get the hang of it before the ef wantoning is over so, we have the lang wang here t memo that was distributed with it explains how the two veers are similar change that is were made to both and they also indicate where the two veers are different, so im happy to walk through that if thats useful to you or to the public or to take Public Comment or discussion that you have. Unless other commissioners feel i think the material you supplied us with is very helpful and explanatory and i would be prepared to not require you to go through it step by step. I agree with that, mr. Chair. Likewise. I guess ill ask, do any of the commissioners have any first, before, as i understand it, what we want whats on the table today is to come up with a final determination as to the proposed ballot measure that we agree to by the end of this meeting because of the impinging, we have to tonight either fish or cut bait. Thats correct. So, with that in mind, i guess ill let the commissioners, any commissioner want to start commenting to either of the options that june or july as to which they may be inclined to favor or any suggestions to changes to the present drafts of those options . Mr. Chair, to get the discussion going, i would just move approval of the revised july proposal. Which proposal . The amended the revised july alternative which would be item 4, supplemental memo attachment 3. I couldnt have said it better myself. Do i hear a second . Second. Alright. I will first ask for before i ask for Public Comment, i have some comments about that draft and questions and possible changes, but i am in support of the july attachment, but if we could turn to that attachment. A question i had first on page pardon me, mr. Chair, could you position the microphone so its closer to your mouth and in a better position, thank you, it is hard to hear you, thank you. I guess the first question and it is on page 4 where there is a question about controlled line 6 it says controlled meeting should have the same meeting as set forth in section 101. 04, this code shall not include any state committees t question is what about committees that are set up to support the candidate but are not controlled by it . They are not covered by this . And is it the City Attorneys view that there are case laws that say they cant be covered . Yeah, and i believe director palem had a footnote, i cant remember if it was the first memo or supplemental memo that addressed a extreme court case in 2007 which involved San Franciscos attempt to place a limit on independent Expenditure Committee or committees independent of candidates control, and that was the plaintiffs move for a preliminary junction which the court grontbacker granted and we settled a case for a not sis cant amount of money, so based on that local case involving our own ordinances as well as case law in the ninth circuit and across the country, i think it would not be particularly legally defensible to include any limits on contributions to whats the rational of saying a lobbyist cant contribute directly to a candidate but he or she can contribute to a committee thats independent but whose only purpose is to get that candidate elected . And im in one of those uncomfortable positions which im trying to defend Supreme Court decisions, but let me try my best. Yeah, so going back buck vvalejo, the big Supreme Court case dealing with contributions versus expenditures and what are the constitutional bounds in placing the limits in what you can do in terms of this recording, different kinds of political mitt taoe, there was a distinction drawn between making contribution directly to a candidate or to a group of people, an Expenditure Committee that is operating independent of the candidate, and this is something that has evolved over time and youve probably seen numerous news articles about super paintings which are independent expenditure mitt taoe, that there are ways to get around this sort of distinction, but for better or for worse, it is a distinction that exists in the case law that there is very little you can do frankly to regulate independent committee that is are not controlled by a candidate. Okay, alder, then on page 5, i know that either friends ethics or represent us that brought that we should add on our definition of lobbyist, Lobbyist Firm, is there any reason why that cant be done . We did look at that question after receiving the Public Comment and one of the changes that we made to clarify that they can be caught up in the restrictions to some extent was to put in language that clarifies the aggregation of gifts and the aggregation of contribution, existing language that we have currently in our city regulations with regard to contributions provide circumstances in which somebody who directs or controls a contribution by another would have those contributions aggregated with their own, so using that, we took parallel approach to include language in this revised version that would have similar result for gifts so, we thought that gets most directly tat question of the Lobbyist Firm may have gifts that or contributions for that matter that are controlled by the lobbyist, they would all be aggregated under this approach. Then turning to page 8, this section starting on line 16, all Campaign Contributions of 100 or more it goes on. How is that even relevant if we said they cant contribute and they cant deliver . Under this approach, you may recall from the june meeting that this july revised alternative intends to create a ban that is narrowly tailored to the individuals of the office that is a lobbyist is registered to lobby, so assuming that the approach if that approach were enacted, there could be offices where a lobbyist is not lobbying and so therefore they would still have a disclosure requirement for any contributions that would not be banned under this approach. I wonder if i mean, because i read it and i thought, why is this here, and it seems to me that maybe to avoid ambiguity say unless otherwise banned, all contributions some language to that effect saying this is applying only to that exception where theyre making contributions to a candidate for whom they have not registered and lobbied. So, very good question, and i guess my or comment, and i guess in terms of drafting the measure, since it is a ballot measure and since it can be in some instances difficult to amend a ballot measure at a later date even though we obviously have something that addresses that issue, we did try to go through and in terms of drafting this keep our edits fairly light, we didnt want to edit unnecessarily to or if we didnt need to, while i certainly understand where youre combining from, i think its best to not edit more than we need to and certainly there could be instances where a lobbyist would need to disclose a contribution if theyre not banned from doing it given the tailored approach of this alternative. [inaudible]. Yeah, and certainly, thank you, leeann, were going to have manual, forms, faqs, regulations and certainly the staff will take [inaudible] presumably from members of the public that will allow tlem to clarify any questions or ambiguity along this front. Because when i read it, i thought, why is this here when what were doing is banning lobbyists from making contributions, youre saying but there are some exceptions or they may not have registered for a candidate who theyre lobbying, and if youre comfortable that it doesnt create sufficient ambiguity that somebody could challenge us later in saying we really didnt intend to ban them, alright. Then on page 11 under section 2. 115, limits and prohibition, the gift prohibition. Is there any reason not to say no lobbyist or lobbying firm shall make a gift . I think its similar to what City Attorney shawn was saying, we dont currently have Lobbyist Firms registered. We might have to create a definition for that and we thoigt that the most direct way to get at that was to use the aggregation rules that we saw similarly applied to contributions. Again, i think its a point well taken and its something we would want to make sure werar e cleabout that those are examples where lobbying activities may be caught under this to the extent has the lobbyist is directing and controlling them. And then in line 23, the it says no contact lobbyist. Wasnt that intended to be lobbyist including both expenditure lobbyist . This particular prohibition is particular for contact lobbyist because its an actual contact with a city officer. So, this is attempt frk this particular prohibition is attempt tog get to a contact lobbyist who misrepresents who they are, since expenditure lobbyists dont necessarily contact city officers, you know, theyre making money to urge others to contact lobbyist, its doesnt seem appropriate. Im not sure what youre saying. Im on line 23. My apologies, yes, thank you. And it should be out, right . Yes, my apologies, i thought you were talking about the next page. Okay. Then turning to page 12, line 8, there was suggestion made in some of the communications, either from friends of ethics or represent us about that we should have a prohibition on city officers soliciting contributions from a lobbyist. Now, as i understand possibly in supervisor peskins legislation on behest, that provision is something nas being considered that would prohibit a city official from soliciting a Charitable Gift to an educational or whatever other institution it might be or governmental institution, but is there any reason why where we say that no officer of the city and county may accept or solicit any gift, is there any reason why we dont include including soliciting contributions to 501 c3 organizations, whether theyre educational, governmental or other purposes . I think its a question of the place that we started from of having this focused on the type of personal benefit that an official might have, either tlau Campaign Contribution from a lobbyist or a gift from a lobbyist. Certainly to the extent that a lobbying firm is providing some benefit to some nonprofit that an elected official cares about, thats a question that probably should be looked at but im not sure that its only as to lobbyists, so i think on balance with approach this measure intends to take, it was narrower than getting at those issues admittedly, but i think those are issues that should be looked at in a broader context with others who might also be asking for those kinds of donations, being solicited for those kinds of donations. And as i understand it, it may be part of what supervisor peskins legislation is looking at on behest, so i will drop that comment. On page 13, one of the suggestions about was how they can circumstance circumvent it and we seek to solve it with a 30 day window, people circumventing changing their designation. Is there any reason why we couldnt with were talking about bundling, is there any reason why we couldnt make a complete prohibition on bundling because in many ways tha,s the most egregious action that goes on is that collecting money by a lobbyist and then delivering it on behalf of a number of people and if we if we just had said you cant bundle if youre a lobbyist, would we be in trouble . Yes, so certainly as you recall from the last meeting, i believe you were the commissioner who proposed taking the targeted approach thats represented in the july revised alternative, certainly if we think that approach is ta tailored approach is appropriate for direct campaign, it would be appropriate for bundled contributions as well, from a constitutional perspective websinger are impacting peoples about to make Campaign Contributions to certain officials and as much as you can make that targeted at the anticorruption concerns this entire scheme is getting at, the more defensible it is. I understand that on individual contributions that its targeted, but if we didnt if we said on bundling because bundling is much of a potential for corruption than the 500 contribution, and some of the testimony weve seen that some of these lobbyists bundle hundreds of thousands of dollars and deliver. If we say theres we dont want them to contribute directly to a candidate but were going to allow them to bundle it to any candidate other than those for which theyve registered, it seems to me we may be missing a chance, we may lose somebody may attack it and some court may say, you should have tattered your bundling, but i would be disposed to try and stop the bundling. So, the rational for preventing in this proposal, direct contributions to the lobbyist to a direct [inaudible] that theyre supposed to o lobby, we think that contribution will allow them to curry favor with the official, make the official more receptive to whatever the lobbyist is proposing or advocating for or maybe opposing in some instances. I think and correct me if im wrong, i believe that the commissions view on bundling is largely the same, its not different inkind, its different in scope, that instead of simply talking about a single up to 500 individual contribution from a lobbyist, we should also be concerned about the corruptive influence of not my 500 check if i were a lobbyist but a fairly decent stack of 500 checks. Clients, other people, interested parties and how that can also have a potentially corrupt of influence of the recipient of those bundle contributions, so were getting at the same problem, its the same problem but just different in scope. It seems that if we believe for the smaller contribution it ice appropriate to taster and say that the ban should only apply to those officials, the robyn is register today lobby, we would wanted to maintain that parallel, we think that bundle contributions like an individual contribution paves the way for the lobbyist to have a more successful pitch to an elected official. Alright, just a thought that i thought i would throw out. Can i follow up on that . Yes, go ahead. Listening to chair renne, it makes a very important i think in regard to what were attempting to do and just isolating, bundling on it by itself and saying this is something that is by its very nature subject to a great amount of abuse and the whole aspect of political contributions not being limited too much as to be unconstitutional in regard to restrictions on freedom of speech that youve identified in buck lee harvester valeyo where youre preventing somebody from making a statement, i favor this person and youre preventing them from making that statement by making that statement but giving money to that person and you cant do that, you simply cant have a blanket kind of preventing of someone to do that, but we wouldnt be preventing them from making that statement or giving contributions to a person and therefore making that statement if we say, fine, you can do that but you cant bundle. This is a mechanism that weve identified as something that is too much subject to corruption, big pay to play characters come in with a ton of envelopes from big shots and they bundle and they get special favors, so i think if we could and im not so sure we couldnt, in fact, as i listened to chair renne, i became more convinced that we could, if we could take bundling itself and have a prohibition relating to bundling, i think we might be able to do it and i think it might be something that we would want to do. So, is that too ambitious . I wanted to weigh in here as well. I understand the desire to prohibit bundling outright but what im wondering, what does the data show us from the bundling that has gone on in the past, who has it gone to and how much contact has been following the payment because in the absence of content, i dont know if lobbyist would bundle a large amount of money and contribute to the Mayors Campaign and not follow up, how would they further their agenda or their clients agenda in the absence of contact . I did work with the staff to create the foundation for this proposal and we certainly did find some instances in which there was some bundling and then some contacts in a seemingly relevant time period. Perhaps there wasnt always a close one to one connection between a bundle contribution or set of bundle contributions and a contact but certainly there seems to be in some instances some connections there but going back to commissioner keanes point, you know, and i know the commissions well aware of this, that the purpose of Campaign Finance laws as per the Supreme Court is legitimate if theyre seeking to prevent corruption or the appearance of corruption, and what im hearing from commissioner keane is bundling is something that we want to prevent or avoid or impact but for an entirely different it seems like interest. And i would simply urge the commission to keep focused on the anticorruption interest that all these proposals were working on our fundamentally geared towards combating. Well, what i said was not a concern about bundling different from anything other than corruption or the appearance of corruption, so i dont understand when you say that my addressing the aspect of bundling somehow im addressing it in a whole new way different than everything that weve been tattering so far, i think what chair renne brought up and what i followed with is something that is right in line with the whole topic of where were going and that is addressing issues of corruption and appearance of corruption in campaign financing, so what did you have in mind when you just said that im addressing Something Different . And, you knower, i apologize if you misunderstood but if were talking about a tailored approach here, weir talking about prohibited contributions or other fundraising activity from a lobbyist to an official, when that lobbyist is attempt tog contact that official. That is the tailored approach that the commission arise at last months meeting, that seems appropriate. Again, if we think these contributions make the recipient of the contributions more receptive to a lobbyist, then the lobbyist otherwise would be, that the lobbyist has a leg up because they have made a contribution directly or have parented raent presented a bundle of couldnt bourses. I think you have limited what weve been talking about all along, if the lobbyist is bundling for the purpose of contacting the official, nas not any kind of limitation weve been talking about, weve been talking about if the lobbyist is bundling to unduly influence the official, whether theres contact or not, contact is i dont think is relevant at all. Ix im a little bit unclear how with respect to most lobbyists, how would you be influencing the official without contacting them, isnt that how you would be influences them . Well, if the official knew whether you contacted him or her or not, you would be able to bundle together a lot of money and it would have come his way, that would certainly influence him, whether that official ever had any kind of contact with you whatsoever. The money was bundled and the money then got into your Campaign Committees funds and the official knows, this is joe big shot who did this for me and joe big shot wants me to approve his paving over Golden Gate Park so he can make some money there. So, i think ill vote for that. Isnt that wouldnt that be corruption in terms of a quick pro quo contribution. But in the absence of contact, how would the elected official know that the lobbyist wabt wanted to pave over Golden Gate Park . Well, i think that you can get a message to someone in lots of ways without actually having a one on one contact with that person. Clearly thats the more direct way, but if im a politician and i hear that someone has been responsible for an enormous amount of money to be placed at my disposal or through and has done it through bundling, even though i never met that pensioner i never will meet that person, i may tend to feel favorable towards that person with regard to later influence thats going to be put upon me for something that has to be done. I dont think contacting is really the somehow the main test of this. Are we am i talking parallel to something here . Im getting the impression that from your looks that im more incoherent than i usually am . No, i wouldnt say that at all. I guess the question is that logic would apply to those who are also not lobbyists, so how are those messages sent and for what purposes and how far would you take a bundling ban . I mean, it does raise that question i think as well, but its i think the assumption that this discussion has been built on is that these are folks who are either spending a lot of money to directly to communicate a message to elected officials to achieve a certain outcome even expenditure or from compensation through clients and when you remove the communication piece from that interaction, i think it begs a question about whether theres a broader approach that needed to be looked at and whether the it just seems to commissioner chius point, how do you know unless theres some sort of communication about an interest and that seems to be one of the Critical Links in this puzzle . Okay, im not going to beat on it. Let me ask you, your alternative was setting a 90 day limit. Why the 90 days . Is there some magic . No, theres no magic to 90 days, i think in response to the concern that represent us had raised about whether there might be an intentional gaming to have system by people registering and then reregistering just solely so they can contribute or bundle, its in essence trying to create a cooling off period after theres been that interaction and an attempt to establish a relationship through a communication where money would then follow that simply because of the a deregistration. Whats the impinging and when somebody has to file for an office candidate, how far in advance from an election . It could vary tremendously, for a november election would be early august, i think probably a lot more credible candidates probably take out their papers early spring, something along that sort, especially if theyre seeking Public Finance for which they need simple additional paper work and evidence of public support, i think Something Like that. So, probably not quite a year out from the election but not too far from that would be my guess. Im just wonder ifing the date, if you moved it tout 180 days, half a year, the likelihood that somebody would try to game the system by discontinuing his or her contact with a city official with the anticipation that theyre going the raise money more them and maybe you could put it at both ends and would be prohibited from lobbying 90 days or 100 days or that official after, i dont know. I think we had some discussion about the preregistration concept so, the concern that people will give a lot of contributions and then register only thaf activity is done, i think that is fundamentally a part of a process where you are trying to tailor a contribution ban to communication that is are intended to influence a person and under that approach, i think its madder to try to establish a preregistration ban of some sort because in fairness to anybody whos attempting to do that process, if they have not communicated to someone, what would why would we f we say that if somebody saying after im going to lobby the mayor but then 90 days before they deregister, im no longer going to lobby and then raises a lot of money for the mayor and the next day says im going to lobby the mayor, we havent done much, have we, at that point. So, couldnt you you could put a restriction at the other end, couldnt you . Certainly if i could respond to your previous question about why not go to 6 months so i guess 180 day, my general impression although i certainly would defer to the director on this, certainly within the last 6 months of a campaign is where you would think most to have fundraising would happen, six months out relative to a november election puts you in early may, mid spring which is fairly early on i would think in most candidates cycles, certainly more it it comes in at the very end, if you want to extend 90 to 180, i can certainly understand that approach. And turning again on page 13 to the aggregation, that is in there because of the fact that were targeting the lobbyist in terms of who theyve registered to lobby, in other words, one of the ago retailing of contributions is they cant make a contribution. Again, there may be certain circumstances where they cant make a contribution but because theres no entity like a lobbying firm thats prohibited in making a contribution, if the lobbyist is prohibited from making a contribution because theyre registered to lobby that agency, that individual, then if they direct and control the contribution of their firm, that would also be prohibited. Alright. I think those are the only comments. Do any commissioners have comments . Call for Public Comment on the motion that we adopt the july proposal as drafted. Im bob plant hold, im a member of friends of ethics and yes, we support moving ahead with the revised july and ill let you fill in the other 28 words afterwards. I wanted to speak specifically to the questions raised by commissioners keane and chiu from my own experience, so first off, with regard to section 2a 2. 115 a2 which shows up on page 5 about the restriction on soliciting, i want to give you an example aof why its worthwhile, why it might be beneficial. I happen to be in a car driving with somebody to an Agency Meeting outside San Francisco, this person is paid by a Major Company in a major industry in San Francisco. People would look at that person as a lobbyist, maybe official, maybe not. I was in the car, this person got a call from the Mayors Office asking that person to raise a lot of money for a hirable sports event, fo rnl gently no one heard me, but my ears were starting to writing because he was also been appoint today a commission, so is it possible to raise none for the supervisor or assemblymember or do you have to produce money in order to be considered for an appointment, so im suggesting there assist a benefit to keeping that provision in. With respect to bundling and commissioner chiu questioned of what does the record show . Its pretty damn hard to find out if things are really bundled. Ive gone to lots of fundraising dinners, you pay for the dinner and a portion goes to the a committee. Ive seen people walk up and hand checks to somebodyfinger not to the candidate, there was one elected official who had a cousin who was on the Central Committee of a Major Political party, so people knew, go to the cousin and give the cousin the khe, so theres no formal record of whoever handed in a bunch of checks to that cousin. The Campaign Just records the individual khex, who gave it, would was their employer dollar amount, you dont know that joe big shot was the one who brought these but the cousin knows, so the record is hard to find, hard to verify, incomplete, thats why theres a benefit to keeping in a prohe bysing about bundling just because that does happen all too often, if you really sit on the sidelines and watch these events. Thank you. Hello, my names charlotte hill, im the Communications Director for represent us and the direct door of represent california which is our california state branch, im also resident of San Francisco since 2011 and an advocate for mroit cal reform in america more broadly and im so pleased and grateful to see this initiative being considered for the November Ballot here in San Francisco and specifically the july alternative of the initiative which represent us fully supports. San francisco as you know has struggled in recent years with public Corruption Cases and i believe we have the opportunity with this initiative to put those abuses in our past and become leaders in the fiekt against political corruption, so i want to thank you for seriously considering the lobbyist ban weve put forward, we greatly appreciate the thoughtfulness with what youve approached this initiative and look forward to working with you in the future to make our citys elected officials more responsive to the people of San Francisco. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, im morgan ache young with represent us and i wanted to thank you all for your hard work and echo charlottes thanks on the thought put into this mesh yaou, we appreciate it and were excited this is being considered for november and just to be respectful of your time, we have a lot of people here supporting and i want everyone to stand up and you can see everyone woulds in support, friends of ethics and represent us, so people nr the community. Thank you, guys. [applause]. Hell lean graikbacker graik owe, i want to nang the commissioners and the executive director for paying great attention to this and bringing forward a solution, [inaudible] it imposes a clear and more administrative rule and is more likely to with stampeder legal challenge than the june approach, California Law indicates that ablaout f laout laws in lobbying [inaudible] have been upheld, the july alternative by modeling state law accounts for this distinction t june approach while not a ban proposes to treat lobbyists differently, a likely free speech violation given current case law so, we support the july alternative, thank you. Thank you. Good eve anyones commissioners, debbie lur man from the San Francisco Human Services network, i am speaking to a memo that i submitted very last minute dated today regarding the proposed ballot measure, and i have a couple of point tos make, first of all, this is a Good Government measure and we do agree with its intent. The concerns weve raised have only pertained to a couple of situations which would have a detrimental impact on nonprofits but no risk of undue influence, first of all, there is in the language of the ordinance an exception for gifts of food or refreshment and we want to say thank you for include hating in the ordinance, we hope you will accept the staffs draft language on that point and we appreciate it. Secondly, we had asked that there be a restoration of an exemption that is in current law around nonprofit conferences so that we can share information with Public Officials. It is my understanding today, i had a phone call from director palem clarify hating the state definition of gifts which is what is included in this measure does include still that particular narrow exemption for informational conferences in sim pose ya, so my memo, i believe that concern has been addressed and so i just want to say that for the record as well, and those are our two most significant problems with the measure, so that is great news. I do want to make one technical point that i believe should be addressed in this measure and that relates to inflation. The charter of San Francisco which list it is duties and responsibilities of this commission requires an annual adjustment of any kinds of limitation or disclosure thresholds imposed by city law or using the annual increase or decrease in cpi, i believe that since this is a ballot measure, it supersedes the charter whic is older and therefore there would need to be language in here specifying that those duties and responsibilities are also part of this ordinance, and thats the problem with ballot measures, things get set in stone. If you have a 25 food or refreshment limit in a few short years in San Franciscos economy, that will only have a dollar value of 20 so, there should be a cpi adjustment made to that and i hope the City Attorney can clarify whether the cheater does in fact apply here or whether something would need to be placed into the ordinance to ensure that the duties and responsibility and authority to make cpi adjustment tos the feature ins this measure would still be within your purview. Thank you. Thank you. Thats c3 6799 c3 69911. Im david, im a member of represent us and i would like to very much thank you guy, thank the commission for taking into consideration this action to try and bring some conference back to government, we formed our group about a year back, this is our first full reign trying to see how Government Works and how we can make our mark on it and attempt tog make sure that every person in the city of San Francisco has an equal voice and no one is given preferential treatment because of the amount of money they can contribute, in what way and what manner and what rules they circumvent is important to us, weve been working to make sure that peoples perception of government which is currently rock bottom both in the city and the state and nationally in terms of corruption and in terms of undue influence of money, we seek to curtail that, and we are very glad that you are helping us in trying to pass legitimate reform that is address this issue and helping turn the boat around and getting voters confident and excited about the direction that City Government is facing. I would like to thank you from my heart that what youre doing is bringing a lot of hope to us and we hope that you stay on the right course. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, commissioners, my name is jonathan and im a marital elections law attorney mere in the city, i have two minor comments to make with regard to the gift prohibition and the to the Campaign Contribution and bundling prohibition. Reflecting on a comment i made last month during this meeting, i believe you guys should consider amending the gift prohibition to only apply to contact lobbyists as oppose today expenditure lobbyists, the reason for this is reflective in the kind of government purpose for passing this regulation, and that we want to ensure that those who contact city officials cannot curry favor with them through gifts, as i discussed before, an expenditure lobbyist is indirectly urging others to contact in the public usually to contact Public Officials for purpose of influencing legislation. There is no risk of quick pro quo in this situation and corruption in this situation, i feel by having a broad definition of lobbyist for the gift prohibition, you may run some constitutional or legal issues in that respect. I cant see the reason for this legislation and i encourage you to look at that, if a small nonprofit spent 125 thousand dollars to say contact your legislator, your sports supervisor about affordable housing, that should not have them have a gift prohibition, the state prohibition that applies to all local and state officials, i dont see much of a difference by limiting a nonprofit to 460 versus 0. Another kind of just very, very technical cleanup and i believe theses the purpose of law and i wanted to make sure that its clear, with regard to the Campaign Contribution prohibition, this is page 13, subdivision e, line 4, it says no lobbyist shall make any Campaign Contribution and it says if that lobbyist is register to city elected afflicting or have been [inaudible] in the past 90 day, expenditure lobbyists do not contact officials directly, they will never register to contact an official director, a small technical cleanup that miektd provide more clarity to the law, its also more noting that there is a corporate ban on contributions in San Francisco, so most expenditure lobbies cannot make contributions to begin with as well, thank you very much, i appreciate your time. Thank you. Hello again, michael petrelis, i would like to see this move forward and i am really concerned that if the matter goes forward before the voters and its approved, it doesnt make effect until 2018, thats what im reading in your documents, okay, and i think that is a reason why you need to move this forward now, you need to get it on the ballot for this november because by the time 2018 rolls around and these changes go into effect, were going the discover that the lobbyist and some politicians have found new ways to get around whatever it is thats hopefully going to be approved in november, like many of us have been reminded in the past few days thank tos the hillary leaks of all these emails from the Democratic National committee, the system is rigged, the system is rigged against the public and when we have that as our philosophy with were looking at what this commission is doing or wants to do and then the proposals that come from the supervisors, every step of the way and every person whos involver in your process is part of the system that is rigged. These changes that youre going to bring about, theyre relatively minor in termser of bundling and funding and things like that and you know what its also telling me . Its telling me that the supervisors are not doing their jobs, that they are trying to put this matter before the voters and again i hope it passes when the voters get a chance to weigh in on it but if we had the supervisors doing their jobs and creating the laws that we need, we wouldnt be putting the burden on the voters to weigh in on what is going to be a pretty complicated issue i believe for the average voter, so you guys, i believe here at the Ethics Commission have to look at radically changing how you do business and that also goes for the supervisors and all their aids. They need to figure out a way to address our problems, modify the laws especially in terms of ethics at the board of sups and i hope we get to see that change happening very soon, thank you. Thank you. Hello, im alex kaplan, the policy directly with first national, i want to thank you for your time and devotion to this, the open process of crafting this correctly and to give a big thank tos the staff who have done an enormous amount of work on this, i want also to do a quick cleanup of my own, page 12, line 11 televising assist a doubling up of the word less, it says less 25 or less per occasion and should say worth 25 or less per occasion, very quickly also i want to respond to the last two comments and urge the commission to retain and continue to apply the travel the gift pensioner especially travel gifts to expenditure lobbyists as well, the idea that an expenditure lobbyist who is in many ways augmenting their lobbying power to spend money to get other tos do lobbying for them could give a gift or a travel gift, a significant one, ask try to leverage their influence that way, i think the especially from talking to voters in the city and the many represent member that is have shown up today, the idea that one trying to exert specific influence by content or expenditure on a city elected official is really blows their mind that thats possible, to the travel gifts as well. I would like you ask you to apply the travel gift prohibition earlier than january, 2018, talking with the director, the january 1, 2018 start date is so the staff and so the Computer Systems can take enough time to make sure the registration tailoring can apply, because the gift ban is purposely and rightfully not tailored, it applies throughout should apply relatively immediately. Thank you. Thank you. Good eve nonlinear, alana smith with friends of ethics, i want to join the core lus for thanking me for what you have done and call out the work staff has done to get this in front of the public enough so they could hear comments, respond to comments and show us revised language. Its made a big difference in terms of your final product and you can tell from the comments tonight that getting that kind of very good public process makes a difference, so i thank you for that and friends of ethics obviously thanks you for putting this forward. Thank you. Again, for the record, im charles mar ston, i wanted to say theres a caveat to the question of aggregate expenditure limits and i realize that question is a little off topic, but i wanted to explain very quickly to the commission that on july 11, 2011, you considered the mckuchin decision and vote ted 41 to repeal our law, that was blocked at the board by a coalition that was formed called friends of ethics, and thats our origin and that explains why we are still here. I did want to say i left the room, that meeting was taped and i have strong opinion on that matter because im aware of other events that occurred with other commissions in the United States working with the bren nan center to develop legislation to be both constitutional and respective of local law dealing with aggregated limits, so its not as black and white i even though we were in fact sued, that would require a separate issue to be put on the agenda to be discussed so that we could get into the details, but i wanted to tell you at one point, i was planning to raise again the question of aggregate limits because there are constitutional ways for addressing the concerns of mchuchin, so i wanted to give you the headsup on that. Thank you. Good evening, anita mayo, as ive testified before t proposed lobbyist relates changes are not needed. The current gift limit of 25 per lobbyists is so low that it cannot possibly have a corrupting influence on a city officer, notwithstanding the foregoing, both versions prohibit lobbyists from making i any dift including dift of gravel to any officers, this is a broad prescription, it is not narrowly tailored and apply ifs the lobbyist will ever lobby a city officer. The proposed ban could prohibit the mayor or any city officer from attending city related meetings, if the city and bay area corporations are interested in bringing the olympicess to the San Francisco bay area and a for profitbacker Profit Corporation discussed the olympics, city officers would not be able to eat during the luncheon or dinner meet ifing the for profit contributed as an expenditure lobbyist. With regards to contributions by lobbyists, the proposed revised june initiative would prohibit a lobbyist from making a contribution to a city canadian kate exceeding 100 in an election cycle since the current 500 limit applies on a per election basis kh s clear and straight forward, introducing a limit based on an election cycle basis will create unnecessary confusion, both versions of the initiative contemplate imposing limits on contributions to lobbyists to candidate controlled committees including local bat lot measure milt tees, imposing limit on contributions to lobbyist tos a Ballot Measure Committee could be unconstitutional, regarding the ban on bundlings, the proposing ban is not needed since bundled contributions are subject to detail, Disclosure Requirements on the lobbying reports already. There is federal Court Precedents that a banning on lobbying and the green party of connecticut, the city court not only invalidate add ban but prohibited lobbyists from soliciting contributions on behalf of state candidate and is reach thirsting conclusion, the court stated that a limit on the solicitation of otherwise permissible couldnt bourses prohibits exactly the kind of expressive activity that lies at the First Amendments core. That is because the solicitation of contributions involve speech, to solicit contributions on behalf of a candidate is to make a statement you should support this candidate not only at the polls but with a financial contribution. Speech uttered during a Political Campaign requires the most urgent application set forth in the First Amendment for these reasons, i urge you not to impose a ban on bundling of contributions by lobbyists. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, my name is joshua strong mansion im with artist of alliance with democracy as well as with represent us and i want today thank the commission and thank the staff for taking up this measure, and i really want to say ive heard a lot of comments, i came here in support of represent us and i come here in support of Good Government and i come here so that because were in a time where our citizens as we said earlier, do not have the fullest confidence in our elected officials and in our City Governments or our local governments to give us a government that we voted for and inspires us to believe in, to want to contribute to, making San Francisco and making the bay area a place where everyone will want to come and live and raise their families, this is about restoring integrity to this process. Now, ive heard many people come up here and talk about the various ban that is are already in place but obviously theyre not working so one of the things i wanted to stress to the commission and stress to the staff is enforcement. Now, commissioner [inaudible] brought up a good thing, those are questions that you should know, we should understand how these laws have failed z. You should know why all these people are in this room. You have failed. The ethics law that is are currently on the books have failed. Thats why we want this measure, were not ta ub asking for it out of the sky, it has failed so we are taking it upon ourselves as citizens would care about San Francisco, would care about the bay area, would care about our future to say, look, whatever you had going on first, whatever laws barer policies or protocols that were in place, they have not worked. I am strongly if support of this measure Going Forward in july, give the voters a xlans to vote on this. Its obvious the folks that have been elected to involve this problem has failed so its time for the voters to have our say on this. Im strongly in support of this measure going into the july ballot and thank you for giving us the time to speak and making our concerns known. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, my name is greg [inaudible] im with represent us and i wanted to say one thing add one thing, i think there is a sense of urgency, whatever the language is needs to be worked out tonight so something can get on the ballot, whatever the little nuances with regards to language, at least something can be agreed upon tonight so things dont get pushed out to 2018. Thank you, and thank you for all your hard work. Thank you. Hi, i know its against protocol to come up again, i want today directly respond. I cant . Okay, at all . Alright, sore sorry. Youre saying he couldnt if he used his three minutes the whole time. Not to say mr. Kaplan didnt have good feedback t commission would be obligated to provide everyone in the room with a Second Opportunity as well. Alright, any other Public Comment . If not, there is a motion presently pending and i take it that that grammatical error on page 12, line 11 where the word less should be deleted, i will call the question which is to approve the option the july option as presented by the staff, all in favor . Aye. Aye. Opposed . Alright, the record should reflect that it has been passed unanimously by four commissioners as required. And that we should now move forward to see that it qualifies to be placed on the ballot in november. [applause]. Thank you, mr. Chair. I would just like to acknowledge that the city of San Francisco and all of us owe a great debt to represent us. Its an organization said by you to have been formed about a year ago and the most refreshing thing to me is to see the vibrancy of a bunch of young people coming forward on Good Government measures. There are other organizations like friends of ethics and the civil grand jury and the rest of us who have been involved with it over the years ask have been talking about this, but for the most part, most of those folks have hair like mine, so to see all of you is really great and i just want to thank you and encourage you the keep up the good work. I think youre an inspiring group. Commissioner hayon. I would like to second what commissioner keane has said. The atmosphere in this room today is completely 180 degrees from the atmosphere when i first came on this commission, and i dont think this commission or its staff can do the proper work unless there is full involvement on the part of the community. I am an average voter and oncern is that my concern is that we passed this and it will go ton ballot but i hope you will do the same kind of work to inform and educate the a frmg voter. From my understand, its going to be at least 30 ballot measures, in situations like that, the average voter just says, im voting no on everything, so unless theres a real major concerted effort to educate vote and he iser to get them to vote particularly on this ballot which is of concern to you, then im concerned we may not succeed. And also a lot of this is quite arcane, so you need to find a way to get the message out in a way thats really comprehensible to the average person out there because otherwise they throw their hands up and say, okay, i dont understand what this is about so im not going to vote for it, so that is your challenge now and i think thats a much, much greater challenge than getting it on the ballot, but i wish you luck. Im sure you can do it and its great that its young people who are engaged and we need that because otherwise were in deep trouble which i think we are anyway, but so, thats another story, we dont need to address that, but thank you so much and its a huge difference having so many really well informed and expert members of the public participating in the process, so thank you. And i on behalf of the Commission Also join in thanking all of you for working with the staff and i want to thank the staff who spent hours getting this into the form, but for those of you who may be new to the pr kress, once this goes on the ballot, the first thing is theres a Ballot Simplification Committee that meets to word the way in which the description of this is put in the voters handbook and thats very important because thats really what people look at in the voters handbook, so that when that meeting takes place, i urge you to be in attendance to help draft the language, there are five members and believe me, they are very dedicated but theyre like your High School English teacher and they parse every word and they will spend a long time whether or not they can use this word or that word, and either vice chairman keane or i and ms. Pelum will be there, but to have some support behind making sure that we get that, but even more importantly, San Francisco has hundreds of Political Clubs and the months of august, the last part of august and the month of september and october are when those clubs meet to either endorse or take a position against or for ballot measures, and they its very important that proponents and supporters of this ballot measure turn out at those meetings to show the community the support because under the laws of San Francisco, if i go to those meetings or commissioner keane goes to the meetings, we cant urge the voters to vote for it. We are constrained from taking a position. All we can do is tell them information, what its about, but we cant at the end of it say and we want you to vote for it. I know that may be ridiculous, but that is the rule, so that whats needed are people voters, people who can say after we may make a presentation at one of these Community Meetings and we advise them of the restrictions that were under, but i mean, it should be obvious that we put it on the ballot and we can point that out but we cant urge them to vote one way or another, but you can, and the more people who show up at these Community Meetings in support, the more likely it is that these organizations will support it, and when the ballot when the handbook comes out, it will show what organizations support it and its very important, the more organizations we can have behind it and the less opposition and i think in this case where we ao f had as much public input, the kind of opposition that there was to proposition c, even that, it passed by 75 or 78 percent, i would like to see this pass by 90 and show that truly the public is behind this initiative, so with that, i will before we move on from this item, as you may recall, the last time when we did proposition c last year, the commission had a formal vote on who would be the spokesperson representative for the various Political Club meetings you mentioned as well as Media Inquiries and such about the proposed measure. I dont know if the Commission Want tos do it now since as you mentioned, a lot of the endorsement meetings are coming up fast and furious and the Ballots Committee meeting you mentioned is schedule today discuss this measure this friday, so a lot of naoez public arenas in which the commission or whoever the Commission Decides to choose as a representative will be asked to speak are coming up quickly, so i dont know if the Commission Want tos designate that spoe, person tonight. Any commissioners, any comments . I think remembering back on c, the reality of what happened was that commissioner renne wound up taking on an enormous amount of effort in regard to going to all of o those meetings, you went to so many of them, and because what we did is we formally authorized commissioner renne to be our spokesperson for these presentations, vice chair andrews also went to a few and there were two i think that neither chair renne or vice chair andrews could go to so i went to. My suggestion would be that at the direction of the chair, we all be empowered to go and explain this to any group that the chair might want it to be explained to, either for the chair to go or if he cant make it, for one of us to go, whoever he designates, mainly because he wound up just breaking his back last time going to all of them and taking the pressure off of him so i would be glad to go to as many i appreciate that suggestion and i have a call for a vote on it, but i would add the executive director as also being authorized to i dont want to add to her burden, but i think it is important. Yes, e f i agree. And certainly i want to remind the commission that we can have those kinds of scheduling discussions following the brown act, xhaoun sauteing amongst yourselves about the substance of any presentations, obviously we want to remain very strictly observe the brown act and all its Public Meeting restrictions. Right. Do i hear a motion that along the line of what commissioner keane said . Moved. I think under the bylaws, im authorized as a spokesman and the sense of the commission is if i cant go or if i want to assign it to somebody else, i can assign it to any of the other three commissioners. Okay. And i appreciate that because i will tell you, there are times when there are three or four meetings a day or at night, theyre usually at night, but theyre interesting and you see local politics at its best. Alright. Lets turn to discussion we need a vote on that. Alright. So moved. Second. Alright. Public comment . Hopefully none. Alright, hearing none, ill call the question, all in favor . Aye. Aye. Opposed . Its carried unanimously. Turning to item 5, discussion and possible action on ordinance introduced by supervisor peskin to amend the campaign and governmental conduct code to require members of city boards and commissions to file behest payment reports, and i think mr. Hepner is here from supervisor peskins office and bring us up to date and tell us what you are looking for from us. Absolutely, thank you very much, thank you, commissioners, chair renne, director pelum, i do have copies of some amended pieces of legislation that im happy to distribute to you, i left 10 or so copies on the table for the public, but im hoping that somebody can distribute those and could i grab just one of those . We can walk through some of the changes we made, some of which were discussed expressly in the Department Staff report. But jumping in, i mean, i do want to thank you for taking this matter up again and for staffs report and from soliciting comment from the fppc all of which is going to be invaluable as we move forward with this. There are a lot of stakeholders with this legislation and its become very evident we need to strike exactly the right balance to make sure this is furthering the aim of transparency and openness while not imposing a burden from commissioners or ethics Department Staff, so i do want to walk through a couple of the change that is we have made, just in the past week, im sorry, this did not make it into your packets. We set forth on the first page a definition for auction nao er and explicitly exempted auction nao ering later a little further down as an activity that does not count as a solicitation, just because there was some concerns about that. On the second page beginning at line 8, we defined Interested Party as any person who is the subject of any administrative action taken by a board of commission, we defined Nonprofit Organization as 501c organizations. Under section 3. 610 subsection a, we did as we indicated last month, we expanded the filing time from 30 days to quarterly or 90 days, 90 days from the date at which the 5 thousand dollar contribution was made or a series of and then in the next subsection 2, we left it at 30 days for those solicitation that is are made to solicited to interested parties. On the third page, we have that exception under subsection d for auction noes, we also undertook a definition and tried to carve out full time employees of Nonprofit Organizations who have fundraising responsibilities and are soliciting charitable contributions on behalf of their nonprofit employer, if youre working for a fundraiser as a none profiteer, that will be your job and you will be exempt from reporting every solicitation that you make with the exception that we do want you to disclose any solicitations made to interested parties. And lastly, ethics Department Staff request, we allowed for this not to be just reported on a form 803 but on some other electronic forms as staff sees fit, theres a reporting mechanism and per staffs report which im happy to get into a little bit, i understand that might take some resources ask some time and were more than willing to take that into consideration. With respect to the staff report, just a couple of comments. I thought the reference to the fppcs report i thought was particularly instructive on one point and this is a point that has raised concerns from several of our Board Members and commissioners and that is well what if my name is on a that goes out in a mass mailer, i raise money for the San Francisco ballet or some other organization and im selling 10 thousand dollar ticket tos a Charity Night and my name is on the mailer that goes out, is that a solicitation, and the instruction from the fppc is in fact, if youre a board member of the ballet for instance and every Board Members name is included, theres no particular distinction to your name from the other Board Members and that does not that would not count as a solicitation. On the other hand, if there is some distinction made whether your name is highlight separate from other Board Members or looks like theres a fact specific determination that is made i suppose if the board member or commissioner personally signed it or crossed off the mr. So and so, maybe details like that may make it look like a direct solicit tai, more like something that should be reported and those are the circumstances that would give rise to this reporting obligation. Anyway, i thought that was very interesting advice from the fppc and kind of confirmed what was both xho en common sense and what we had talked about and now there was another concern about twitter solicitations, just briefly i thought i would throw that out there, what if somebody saying donate to green peace on twitter, i think there are certain aspects of this where there is going to be in effect on a board commissioner orbacker or supervisors behavior are going the have to change nair behin some ways and maybe hey dont tweet out donate to green peace, might be thats something that person should not be doing in our public facing role, whether or not green peace has an item before the board or commission, it starts to be a little bit sticky, i dont want to say suspect but at least maybe behavior that a commissioner or board member should not be engaging in. There was a mention could i ask a question about that. Yes. Engaging out about that behavior about twiting out between graen peace, what is that with the commissioners role with deciding matters against it, whats the conflict or matter . I suppose the nexus would have to be there would have to be a secondary sexbacker nexus in that circumstance, maybe graen peace is supporting the caoe byways of a new park downtown or there would probably have to be some secondary nexus to make clear sense, but currently drafted if the commissioner were to tweet and were to generate contributions of 5 thousand dollars, they would have to file a report, is that right . Thats correct. Thats correct. Even though the green peace activity may or may not have anything to do with the work of the commission on which that commissioner serves . Yes, thats right, and the portion of the staff report which i thought was well written talking about how narrowly to craft this reporting requirement and we could craft it even wider was one option that ethics staff set forth, and any political donating active or any solicitation for candidate to elected office, that could be included theoretically. Wouldnt you want to narrow it down that the commissioner would be deciding upon, if its an out of state alma mater and alma mater has no business in front of the commission, why would we need to know about that . Right, and i think that more often than not, this reporting requirement may capture behavior that is entirely innocuous, theres no suspect why do we need to capture it then . By limiting the scope of the reporting requirement, what were doing is essentially putting the onus on the commissioner or board member themselves to be the judge of whether this is something that should or should not be reported and from a policy angle and i think there are fair room for disagreement here, i dont think that putting the onus on the commissioner or the board member in a selfreporting context to make that tough determination is where we want to put that balance, so yes, a lot of this behavior may be innocuous, but furthering the aims of transparency and openness, i think its probably the publics obligation to make that determination of whether that solicitation is suspect in any way. So, i think that thats kind of where that ideological or principled view comes from is i dont think it should be the commissioner or Board Members role to make that judgment. And im more than willing to hear pushback on that of course but thats where our office was coming from. I would hope we would have more trust in some of our Commission Members to be able to make that determination and i have a followup question with regard to the privacy of those donors, particularly out of state donors or the example i gave last month of parents at a school for example, when they make the contribution to the charitable organization, i think they have a reasonable expectation that their name wont show up in a public database. So, this requirement does exist for elected officials in various contextess. I dont think its that rare or unique to require the reporting of people who make contributions over 5 thousand dollars, i think that that threshold is set relatively high, so that youre really capturing but are those examples, do they require all donations or only those for contributions made with some sort of connection, a nexus back to the government organizations . Correct, and maybe staff or City Attorney shen can correct me if im wrong. Yes, to respond to that, currently elected officials are required to file behest reports, 5 thousand dollars or more, it doesnt really matter what the source of that contribution whether that source of the contribution has any business before the elected, its a pretty wide net. And i think were get hinting the territory where strike thing balance is important, we dont have the desire of [inaudible] if youre a board or a commissioner in a public facing role and this is not about trust than it is about trust in our political system, but if you are in that public facing role you are in a unique position to leverage your public facing role and the decisions you make at public hearings to raise substantial amounts of money, we dont know the extent to which this is going on anecdotally, i know its out there, our office knows this is something that does occur and in the interest of Public Disclosure which the ethics Department Staff also recognizes the high demand for more publicly accessible information, electronically or otherwise, i think thats where this legislation is coming from. I can wrap up my comments fairly soon, i did have a comment, there was a note in the staff report noting that this is going to be this requires filing these reports with the Ethics Department as opposed to with the individual commissions, the only reason why we put that in there is because i think its it would be pretty difficult to ask our boards and commissions to develop their own mechanisms for receiving and processing this and i think having it centralized is probably best for the sake of uniformity, to that end and along with the recommendation of ethics Department Staff, we are happy to support additional funding for the Ethics Department, we are always happy to do so in order to further the aims of this and certainly are amenable to a start date or an Effective Date of january 1, 2018 to allow the ethics Department Staff some time to get these mechanisms up and running, were more than amenable to that. Just one additional point, there was mention made in the discussion on the ballot measure item number 4 with respect to whether we were considering prohibitions in this. We werent really until a couple of days ago or rather until we read the letter from friends of ethics. I think that our office would be amenable to a prohibition, a flatout prohibition on solicitations to solicitations of interested parties or solicitations to maybe specific types of 501c4s i think is one that came up in particular, that legislation right now and ill leave it at that and take the recommendation. The question that i had is how does that does that obviate a disclosure requirement f youre prohibiting activity out right, does it obviate the need to disclose your other behavior and my thought process ended up with, probably not, when youre committing something to paper and youre required to do so in the form of a filed statement with a government entity, that is kind of causing its creating another honesty mechanism, another little selfcheck, this is all selfreporting again and i think that a lot of this, while we trust our board member and is commissioners, we want to make sure that we create the most fluid mechanism for that reporting. Let me ask you a question, and that is if theres say an invitation to the opera gala and it goes out and it lists names of the Gala Committee and it asks for 10 thousand, 5 thousand, 1 thousand, whatever the table is, and my name is on it as one of the committee, is that a solicitation . No, and i think the fppc letter addresses that point directly and at risk of misquoting it, my understanding is no, that if theres no distinction between your name and the other names, if youre just part of a list of the committee members, then it would not be a solicitation requiring reporting. And particularly if it doesnt identify any city office, it doesnt identify me as a commissioner. I think thats yeah, that would be another distinction. Okay. Procedurally, im happy to hear the discussion tonight, if you have any questions, ill hang around. I dont think its necessary for you to take action, but while it is before us, i would be grateful for any oak recommendations this body has. Thank you. Commissioners, i just had a quick couple of comments. The one of the questions that the memo tried to outline for discussion tonight is the question for breadth and nexus, and mr. Hepner talked about the distinguish of commissioners that might have [inaudible] with the nexus, one of the things i wanted to subjecting, theres form 700, the statement of economic interest, commissioners are routinely require today consider what the reach of their work might be because their conflict of interest code disclosure categories identifies the kinds of interest or should identify the kinds of interests that they could potentially influence and it doesnt include the breadth that an elected official would have typically because commission and board roles are triply more prescribe today certain functions, so i think its maybe not as difficult as on first blush it might seem for commissioners to consider the ways their particular mandbacker mandate could translate to the kinds of solicitations they would be disclosing, thats what i wanted to throw out there, whether that burden is too great or whether it might be something that commissioners are familiar with already. Thank you. Do any commissioners have any comments or questions, if noted, ill call for Public Comment. Good evening, commissioners, back again, [inaudible] its fascinating how this issue is growing, and i think our elected officials have been really put in a difficult position because theyre out fundraising in some cases for private sector activity which is perhaps in their districts that would support their local home based home grown grass roots organizations which is a very good thing, on the other hand, the first people they were going to think of to call would be the lobbyists or the people that are making comments to them that are trying to get them to influence administrative and legislative action. That said, i have always been won to personally and i think many people in foe have felt that disclosure is where we start, so building a basis or a database of disclosure to see and track this type of activity, much of which now is reported anecdotally or in the press is probably a good start so we can Start Building our database and following this activity which is very robust. In our communications to you, we have given you a list of contributions that have come in or have been issued by the behest say for google in the millions of dollars, like 6. 8 million dollars, and i believe that was for one item. So, this is not small bucks. Routinely, some supervisors are going out and going through a list of organizations or rather lobbyists or people looking to influence legislative action because they are in fact registered lobbyists to make donations so theyre bringing in the bacon where theres five or ten contributions that have been made in 5 thousand dollar increments that goes to the 501 c3 or the Philanthropic Institution in their district, so my point is that clearly this is maybe not the way they want to go when they see it in print and when they have to disclose it to the Ethics Commission, and then we have a much better sense of whats going on, so i would urge you to support this and i would also ask whether or not it would not be a good idea for you to seek an amendment to the current law to prohibit such activity from lobbyists. Thank you. Im bob plant hold. I wanted to echo what mr. Hepner said that you dont necessarily need to take a position, ubd just offer comments or raise question, you like this, you dont like that, you wonder why, so you need to make a decision, no, should you . A lot of us would you like to make some sort of supportive decision separate from in addition to comments. I want to call attention to the supplemental memo from item 5 that came from larry bush and friends of ethics questioning part of the staff analysis and recommendation, so in looking at the revised text that mr. Hepner has brought forward, maybe its being addressed even if he hasnt linked to our comments or to the staff, i want to note on page 3 with d exceptions, the number one issue, i ink its helpful that theres that second part that says commissioners provided commissioners will have an obligation to provide behest payment reports, so on and so on, so ill give you archival history n the past sfrj ri, i was an officer on the board of a nonprofit, the executor was on a major commission, theres several commission that is have perks, that can give away or provide services or things of value, of significant value to people, and so that person would solicit contributions to a major fundraising event which is handled by somebody else, then that money was brought into the nonprofit. At the same time, that Commission Like i said did have different business that people could benefit from when they went for a decision before it, so the idea of requiring a filing of behest payments reports even if the donation is not specific to the commission and the duties of commission but is part of the fundraising activities of that staffer, i think its helpful to keep in mind and i think this is an acceptable start towards addressing that option. Im trying to be vague because i dont want the name name, this is like i said in the past century, so everything is just dusty records, but as a person who was an officer on the board of directors, i was on ec sh uneasy on how some of this was happening, but at least theres a klans to bring light to it. Thank you. Good evening again, my name is jonathan mince s er and im a political attorney here in the city, i didnt plan on speak on this issue until i heard something that concerned me from the presentation, the phrase that we dont know the extent to which commissioners are soliciting donations to Nonprofit Organizations and the degree to which that interested parties may be appearing before them. Thats particularly, particularly concerning. I truly believe that this is a solution in the search of a problem. I also am scared that this is really just going to be a trap for the unweary, its worth noting that elected officials are already suj to this requirement, most major contracts or most things where theres a concern of this goes before those elected officials. Im afraid this is a trap for the unweary, im afraid this can be used as a tool to levy fines, administrative action against small commissioners who dont know this law exist, who dont know that the by raising money for their pta, theyre implicated in any way. Theres enough disincentives not to go into public service, why add another layer when we dont know there is another problem, is there such an evil of somebody soliciting millions of dollars contributions to donations of an Art Commissioner to a nonprofit support to an Art Commission or some other small commission, is this something we really need, and again, i dont want to start to brainstorm try to understand the legal issues that may come by a prohibition on behest payments, i encourage you not look that, for every evil scenario that i con ko kt kokt in your head, think about quhas happening, were talking about donations to Nonprofit Organization, to 501 c3 organizations that do great work in the community community, to the extent we know funding is limited, nonprofits step in at a time of need, i dont think we should take as to limit contributions to nonprofits nor do i believe theres really a purpose for this, nor do i believe we need another disincentive to public service. Thank you so much and i appreciate your time as always. Thank you. Commissioners, debbie lur man from the Human Services network. I did speak to this somewhat in july about the need to encourage nonprofits to serve on commissions and share their expertise for the good of the community and to balance that with the ability to raise funds for their organizations. E do not wanted to hamstring the ability of nonprofits to raise money and the city is on our case all the time to raise money and to enhance whatever funding we receive from the city, so that leaves us with this need for a balanced approach. I do praoeshtd the staff memo suggesting that the legislation apply only where theres a nexus but we have worked with supervisor possess peskins office and we appreciate the exemption of this for nonprofit staff who are fund raisers and who are simply doing their jobs and the reason to balance that for donors to want nonconfidential, we would have preferred that applies to board of directors as i suspect some of you do serve on boards, some of the most civically engaged people in this city both serve on commissions and serve on boards, and we need our ports of directors to be leading our way in our fundraising campaigns. It is a relief you can still be listed on an invitation but it would be nice if you could scribble a note to your buddy saying hey, tom, how about coming to this event, so i think we would like to see that be a little broader but we are appreciative of this exception and well work with supervisor peskin for whatever final measure goes to the board of supervisors. And we do agree with the Interested Party exception, that was the compromise that made a lot of sense as the way to resolve any potential, again, undue influence. And the other thing i want to say, there were some comments here about a ban, whether its a lobbyist or anybody else, i think we would have a problem if there was any kind of propose salt to ban contributions by anybody to 501 c3 organizations, and so i hope that that does not gain traction as a serious discussion. Thank you. I dont think you have to worry about that. I think it would be constitutional. Thank you. Good eve anyones im bob docent door f, former friends of it ix commissioner, im here to talk about 501c4s and 501 c3s, 501c4s are the issue that were looking at with beh is payments that are in the tens of millions of dollars in some cases. When you have a 501c4 that requests a contribution from an elected official or a commissioner for a pet project, that needs to be recognized and needs to be brought to the public, you cant hide these kind of things from the public. I think we need legislation that brings us out into the open. Thank you. Thank you. Does any commissioner have any comments or want us to take any action this evening . Well, i dont think weve been asked to take action by supervisor peskins office. Weve been asked by his staff member and also by several of the people who are in favor of the measure to indicate by comments and other things as to whether or not we believe that the measure is on the right track, whether we would endorse it. Its not something thats going to be part of the Ethics Commissions bylaws or any part of us doing anything. So, i can say that just personally as one commissioner, i think supervisor peskins on the right track in regard to where hes heading. There are some concerns that are pointed out both by our staff and other people by the interesting parties, that compromise could be reached out in order to reach the transparency so that someone doesnt lefrj their position as commissioner or as a San Francisco official in any kind of improper way. Theres a necessity for that and in my opinion, supervisor peskin is on the right track and is going in the right direction. I would only add to that, that i agree this is on the right track. I would like to see it a little more narrowly tailored so we can get at those the nexus of the behest payments and the conflict that arises when the matter is coming before the commission. I think that to cast such a broad net is almost like trying to boil the ocean and you will spend a lot of time sorting the weed from the chaff, if you can be more targeted, i think you can be more effective. Yes . With regards to the last person who commented, why not limit this legislation to 501c4s . As opposed to including 501 c3s . Im happy to venture a guess at an answer there. I think that that would be narrowing it too far and in fact were not only interested in the entity to which money is being solicit tainted for but also the individuals or entities for which charitable contributions are solicited of, so it could be a 501 c3, 9, 12, 400, i dont care if youre soliciting it from somebody who has a matter coming before your board or commission, so thats the other element of this that i think is at play here. The staff in your memo made a list of recommendations, i think its on page 7, and i would make a motion that we adopt those recommendations and have them transmitted on behalf of the commission. I second that. Any discussion . Any Public Comment . Ill call the question. All in favor . Aye. Aye. The record should reflect that it was passed unanimously and that the staff recommendations will be transmitted to supervisor peskin with i think a clear indication that we support the intention of the legislation but those concerns that the staff has identified should be understood. Thank you very much, commissioners, i appreciate it. Alright, item number 6 is continued to our next meeting. Item number 7 is a discussion of the executive directors report. Excuse me, chair renne, even though were continuing item 6, we need to take Public Comment on it. Pardon me . Even though we are continuing item 6 to the next meet, we do need to take Public Comment on that item. I thought the item was moved but ill call for Public Comment on item number 6. Hearing none, well move to item number 7. Thank you. And i just would say for the record, our apology sos the commission and the public to item number 6, we thought it would be prudent to make sure the public had full opportunity to be here, so we posted the notice and we will continue to do that as necessary, so again, our apologies. In terms of our agenda item 7 and the executive directors report, i think the most important thing i would like to share with you, im please today announce the hiring of our new deputy direct torx jessica bloom who is here with us this evening. Welcome. Shes going to be jounbacker joining our office on august 15th, shes assuming daytoday management of our investigative and Enforcement Program and will head our enforcement and Legal Affairs function. Im very delighted shes going to be joining us with her legal skill, her enforcement experience and her insights and her mentoring talents as well to our growing staff over the coming year. As you will recall from my update last month t commission received over 120 applications for this position, so it was a competitive process, she comes highly regarded as a keen legal mind, a fresh thinker and a collaborative problem solver, quick experience approaching complex issues from different angles, the work will unfold in all that we have to do. She spent six years as an assistant attorney general working for the missouri general Attorneys Office where she enforced state, environmental and Animal Welfare laws include thing cleanup of the states water, landfills and hazardous e waste and through the creation of a new unit that dealt with animal cruelty preveption where she mansion and responded to complaint, invest gated violations and successfully prosecute add number of cases to uphold state law, she received recognition as an Outstanding Achievement award in 2010 and 2012. Most recently for the past three years, she has been serving as the senior staff attorney for the nonprofit Animal Legal Defense Fund in the bay area region but works across the country, shes applied her legal skill to win major cases, worked with conservation groups protecting wild and endangered an maol malls. Her law degree is from the university of iowa college of law, and she holds a ba from the university of iowa where she majored in organizational ethics and [inaudible], so i will look forward to providing more information for you in the coming months about the structure of the office and how were going to align ourselves to get all of our work done but i was delighted that shes here tonight and i hope you join me in giving her a warm welcome. Well, welcome. Would you like to say a word or two . Wed be happy to hear from you. Thank you, commissioner, im thank you for that wonderful introduction, leeann, im pleased to be here, im very excited about the work, ib its a little bit outside of my wheel house if yu heard from my background, ive already started diving in and found this riveting, this debaitd thats been going on and learning all the key players and i also wanted to mention that i brought my husband and my daughter earlier, so if you heard a crying child as she was etc. Courted from the room, that was may, shes two years old and we just rent add house in berkeley so were excited to be part of the community and to be part of the commission or staff for the commission, thank you very much. Welcome, and we look forward working with you and you have a big job because i think we have what, two openings for enforcement . Three. Three, with one enforcement officer left and we moved to two, so hopefully well give you the resources so you can really turn two and some of the criticism that if you attend our meetings, you will hear from time to time is that we have been a sleeping tiger or something that they call us, that we didnt do enough enforcement but a lot of that had had to do with personnel, so well, im your gal. Okay, great. You have a delightful two yearold also, she seemed to be commenting justifiable on the merits at the time when she was here, but bring her whenever you would like. Thank you. Alright, thank you. And i guess i would make since its an evening for correction, one other note on the memo on item attachment 2, i provided the charts showing the number of open formam complaints on our caseload as of july 20th as well as the matters under preliminary review. Those numbers are accurate, we have 22 formal complaints still pending, 56 matters under preliminary review, the memo however says 55, so my apoll jis for that, i diced the data after the memo and i did not correct the memo, so but we want to keep providing this information for you so we can keep track of where we are and with the additional Staff Resources coming on board, more hands to help get those members moving along. Im happen my to answer any questions but i wanted to make sure to introduce our newest staff member to you. Any questions or comments . Other than to compliment ms. Palum and the staff for continuing to provide us with great support. Any Public Comment on the executive directors report . Hearing none, item 8, discussion and possible action on items for future meetings. It has been the practice in the past for the commission to skip one meeting during the summer because of the vacation schedules and it would be my recommendation subject to comment that we cancel the august meeting. I know one of the commissioners is going to be unavailable in any case and that we defer all matters that i think there are only one or two matters that we were contemplate ining the august meeting, that they be continued to the september meeting. Any comments or concerns . Any Public Comment . Just a reminder, youre not off the hook because of course you have 30 Club Meetings or whatever to go to, so youll be very busy with that. Its just as well youre not worrying yourselves with the agenda. Thank you. And i do feel that considering the amount of work that the staff we put on the staff over the last few months, hopefully some of them can take vacation. Alright, so that will be the notice will go out that the meeting for august has been cancelled and we will our next meeting will be the fourth monday in september. Any other comment or Public Comment . Then item 9, additional opportunity for Public Comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the agenda. Hearing none, i will entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Alright. Public comment . Hearing none, all in favor . Aye. Aye. The record should reflect that unanimously we adjourned at 7 45 which is pretty early. Thank you very much. meeting is adjourned . 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