to come out until early next year. chair hur: i am glad to hear you are working on it. that is great. ok. any other questions or comments? is there a motion to adopt 0.1 through five, with the two amendments proposed? vice president studley: so moved. chair hur: it passes. the next item on the agenda is for section 1.126. mr. st. croix? >> when we have is to clarify some issues that have been raised dealing with the extent of the campaign finance reform and ornaments, and basically, many of the changes are technical in nature or are linguistic in nature. the one thing we wanted to do is to clarify when we are talking about the applicability is that it applies to an individual who holds city elective office in any committee controlled by the elected officer. and i am happy to -- not want chair hur: -- chair hur: any questions or comments from commissioners? this strikes me, again, as helpful amendments to clarify the purpose of 1.126, and to clarify it in terms of how it is applied. i think it is consistent with the goals and the intention of the voters. i welcome public comment on this. matter. >> commissioners, way, director of san francisco open government. is there ever a meeting where you are not revising cfro? is this not like rearranging chairs on the titanic? relieving city government and it doing this, and you have given them an exemption. certain members of the public tend to follow issues. they are more likely to notice the missing documents than what is applied. most often, the commission staff provides you with the documents that would lead you to the determination they want rather than documents to cover all sides. as has been mentioned several times to get by prior speakers, there are in these cases two requirements. one is that you make these changes and that the board of supervisors do it. it the board of supervisors at the rules committee is having a discussion, and they decide not to pass the information on to you, then how can effectively work with the board of supervisors to come up with a coordinated situation? it really does seem from reviewing documents that you have one side of the story. these are therefore not considered. the other thing i hate to think of is that you were being provided documents and the public is not, which obviously would be a severe violation of the sunshine ordinance, so if there rules committee is having discussions, and mr. rose gives them information about the very things you are talking about, and the staff passes on to your recommendation which leaves out the fact that the rules committee made several suggestions as to changes they felt were appropriate, that leaves you out of the loop, and it just sets up a dynamic where it goes back to the rules committee, and the rules committee says, we had a report from mr. rose, and we made suggestions for changes, and it went to the ethics commission, and they sent it back to was completely ignoring all i am saying is that the picture presented not only to you but to the public should be a complete and balanced one, and unfortunately, a lot of things i review with the ethics commission, the staff seems to send you documents that support the position they are taking and then leave out other information. chair hur: is there a motion to adopt the amendments to cfro? vice president studley: 2nd. chair hur: all in favor approved opposed? hearing none, the motion passes. commissioner hayon: i am sorry to do this. can we go back to item number three? there was something not mentioned in the motion. i wonder if the commissioners can consider that because it does have a change we mentioned. chair hur: i am sorry? >> that is on page 7 of the staff memo. chair hur: yes. >> and although it says 7, i think it is really six. vice president studley: i think you just said one through five. chair hur: going back to the proposed amendment, is there a motion to adopt the changes from decisions 6, having already approved the changes in 135 subject to our two amendments? is there a motion to adopt a decision 0.6? vice president studley: so moved. chair hur: is there a second? we have public comment. the motion was made as to one through five. so we need a public comment. is there public comment on decision 0.6? hearing none, all in favor? opposed? no opposition. the motion passes. unanimously. the next item on the agenda is closed session. pursuant to the charter provision c 3.699-13, to discuss anticipated litigation of the plaintiffs. is there a motion to go into closed session? vice president studley: so moved. commissioner hayon: sd -- second. chair hur: public comment? >> ray. this is totally meaningless to any of the general public reading it. the description of each item is to be something that anybody of average intelligence can understand. there is nothing in here. you are going in there to discuss litigation. if you are going to discuss anticipated litigation as plaintiffs, how can anyone comment on whether or not it is appropriate to go into closed session when they know absolutely nothing proved litigation about what? against whom? for what purpose? is there not a single, salient point that would give some understanding to be members of the public? members of the public should have enough information in the agenda to enable them to address whether conducting this particular business beyond the view of the public is appropriate. ethics commission staff, and by that i mean mr. sage current -- mr. st. croix -- i would argue that you have missed it completely the spirit of the law. the police commission, they give us the tate -- the type of case, the case number. they give us some idea of what they are going in the back to discuss, and what you have here, there is no way anybody would have the faintest idea, and i have a hard time believing there is not a single thing you can tell the public about what you're going back there to discuss that would allow them to make meaningful comment on whether or not a closed session is appropriate. i do believe closed sessions are used in an inappropriate way very often for things that you just do not want to deal with in front of the public, and i am not just talking about the ethics commission. i am talking about all city commissions. just slap litigation or a lawsuit where some name on it, and we can go in the back and discuss anything we want, and commissioner studley can shake her head, but as one member who almost never ever sees any discussion afterwards to disclose anything that is held in closed session, it is hard to believe that any group of people could go into a group, have a discussion for some indeterminate like the police commissioner went into closed session for four hours and you're telling me that group of people had a conversation that was so well controlled they never talked about anything that was disposable. it is almost impossible for me to believe that human beings can have a discussion and not occasionally go off track or occasionally get sidelined on to something which is disposable and get each and every time they come back, no, we did not talk about anything at all. in that session we should disclose to you. nothing, never. everybody is perfect. >> my name is richard hansen. the only reason i am here is to -- i do not like to see my elderly wife go out by herself at night, i want to be sure she got home safely. this is really the best show in town. talk about a paper tiger. i must sit agree with the previous speaker. somebody must know why you foks a -- folks are here and why city hall is kept open and what folks are talking about. otherwise what is the issue? why be here? thank you. >> is there emotion -- we did make the motion, all in favor? the motion passes. we will move to close session. >> i wonder if mr. givner -- the chair may not view this as possible to add to this but went litigation is proposed, i can understand why anything that relates to that is attorney- client privileged and i wonder if there is explanation you can give for that sort of situation. to me, it speaks for itself. that is the burden of a lot of years of attorney-client privilege. quex in -- >> when there is nothing you can speak about. >> what can answer the question that the gentleman raised, the agenda references charter section c which is the provision that requires ethics proceedings to be confidential up to a certain point and so that may provide some information that would be helpful to you. >> they are explicitly -- this is information that is specifically compelled to be confidential. this is not a judgment call. we are following the rules by not saying more than this. >> that is right. the charter requires the discussions remain confidential. >> thank you. >> >> we are back in open session. is there a rush we took no action during a closed session -- we took no action during a closed session that we need to disclose. there is a motion. >> so moved. >> is there a second? all in favor? public comment? >> members of the ethics commission. let me guess you're going to vote that nothing you discussed the subject to disclosure. i impression. i am amazed the commission seems to be exposed -- composed of no one but superhuman. and never discussed anything you should disclose. most human beings find it difficult to stay on track that closely. most human conversation can -- tends to wander off track from time to time. you, however, maintain such close control was maintained you never move on to another topic. and never discussed anything that you -- should be disclosed. wow, i am impressed. could it be that you have discussed things and having exhausted the topics, someone says we should not have this -- should discuss this as we would have to disclose that so let's disclose the discussion. we should return to the discussion we told the public we were going to have. what a scam. i find it incomprehensible sometimes to watch boards and commissions who will do things that just make no sense because they do it every single time. the arts commission has a habit of no one ever roads no -- votes no. every single person votes yes. i find that hard to accept. nobody disagrees with anything. and every single board and commission, it is not just you, every board and commission i go to, when the going to public comment, they come back and never disclose anything. and again, you have been in public life. you have been in public meetings, you know the tendency is to take sidetracks in conversation and i find it almost incomprehensible that every single time, people come back from the closed sessions and for the good of the public, they did not disclose anything that was discussed. not one single thing is mentioned ever or discussed ever, subject to disclosure. i have to wonder about the people who were the sunshine ordinance. why did they put the requirement in there that you disclose things that were discussed? that need to be disclosed. i think they accepted the human beings they are are going to occasionally discussed things which were not exactly on point with what they told the public they're going to discuss and they thought if they do that, they should disclose it. i just do not believe realistically that any group can always go into closed session and never discussed anything that is disposable. -- to disclose -- discloseable. >> we were in closed session for maybe tenet a -- ten minutes. we are required not to disclose the contents of the particular items we had to discuss today. all in favor of the motion to not disclose are closed session deliberation? opposed? hearing none, the motion passes. the next item on the agenda is consideration of the minutes of the regular meetings of march 26 and special meetings of april 13, april 23, may 29, june 19, june 28, and june 29. one -- there are competing issues with respect to the minutes of the special meeting. one is that we have a record -- a requirement -- we're required to post the minutes that have been voted on as soon as practicable or in a reasonable amount of time. we want to follow that. our other limitation, though, is many of these relate to meetings that are still in process. in other words, the beginning with the evidentiary portion of the hearing, which essentially are continuing the meeting until its completion which we hope will be on august 16. it is -- at least to me, it seems unusual to approve minutes for a meeting that is not yet concluded. i would ask for the staff's dew point and the viewpoint of my fellow commissioners as to whether we should adopt those or rode on those minutes. we will at some point have to adopt the minutes or wrote on the minutes. for the sessions that have occurred relating to the mirkarimi matter and the session that will occur on the 16th. we will have to adopt the minutes on the 16th anyway. should we wait until that point, or should we do these interim once dinallo and vote on the last one when we meet after august 16. commissioner renne: i thought was and so far there minutes, some are minutes of regular meetings which were not related to the special sessions we have been holding. that i would think that will hold off approving the mets for any of the midst relating to the mirkarimi matter and just approve the minutes for our regular meeting. because it may well be, we have mentioned at the hearings that the determinations may have been made that are reflected in some of those, for example the may 29 meetings and the june 19 meetings. there may be changed before we reach a final determination. what seemed to be premature to do with those at this time, we should hold off until we reach a conclusion of those meetings. >> i appreciate you raising this and i appreciate that comment. i agree that it is a balancing act between sharing information with the public and care about taking the matter as a whole. what was going through my mind is that the meetings the report on world public, every single word was -- is already public and can be interpreted by people who were there for watched it or talk about it. it is not as though these of the on the vehicle for conveying information about the meetings that are ready to place. i wonder if that balance could be struck. there is -- this is what i am exploring, whether we could address what commissioner renne spoke about by adding something to the mint said said the evidentiary rulings can be changed or biased, that this is part of a comprehensive proceeding that is not concluded, whenever we need to say to -- within the bounds of the document, explain what its limitations are, but which would avoid our seeming to withhold information about the steps we have already taken. i am wondering whether that would address it. it seems -- i see some downside to having them before us and not officially sharing them or giving them the next step or formality. i also agree that we might double back to some of the things that we did. does that help any board does that feel uncomfortable to the other commissioners i would be interested in public comment on this as well. >> one of my other concerns and i think we're leaning more toward the suggestion of adopting the meeting -- the minutes of our regular meetings but not the special meeting with respect to the mirkarimi matter. is that one thing i think we benefited from -- we would benefit from is having parties' lawyers revealed these findings and tell us if they think there are any inaccuracies. >> i would be fine with that. i think that is reasonable. >> to do that, we would have to give them opportunity to review and do that. we could perhaps adopt all the -- all these together when we adopt the minutes to the august 16 meeting. >> just so you're aware, the draft minutes are already public documents and there are available on request anybody who asks for them. we do not publish minutes until they have been adopted by the commission and then we have -- once you adopt them -- we adopt them, you have four days to post them. if we -- public the draft minutes and posted a change, you have two versions out there in the internet confecting. so we wait until you finally adopted and -- there are already available to the public. -- and they are already available to the public. if you wanted to do that and get comment from the attorneys of record july that would be fine. what is written is available to people who want them. >> ok. that would be the minutes of our regular meeting on march 26. we can adopt the minutes to the april 13 joint meeting with the sunshine ordinance task force. but the minutes regarding the official misconduct charges against mr. mirkarimi, i think we should -- welcome public comment on this matter. >> commissioners, i wanted to comment on the regular meeting minutes. in a minute of the march 26, 2012 meeting there is an example i feel they 150 word summarized discussed jet -- during general public, it is important trade and made public comment which was summarized on page 3 of this minutes as follows. he reviewed and accounting report issued march 1, 2012 by the friends of the library. right. i came here, waited for hours for a chance to make comment on item number five, and i only commented on the fact that i reviewed the county report. i did not say why i reviewed the report, i did not say anything about what i found in the review, i did not relate wife felt that review was relevant to the agenda item, what an idiot i am. i think most of the members of the public, if they were viewed the minutes and summer is done by the staff of not just this body but any public body, they would find nothing they said. it is nothing but century of. the purpose of the brown act and the purpose of the sunshine ordinance is to ensure that public comment is open and clear. that extends because it is a constitutionally protected free speech issue, a protected right to petition government for a redress of grievances and in particular, a constitutionally protected free speech right that, when someone makes public comment, they be allowed t