Mr. St. Croix . Reaction to those comments . Well, i think that we could probably also give on the turn around time. And i would not and i dont see, an issue with extending the amount of time to the 14 or 15 days, there. But beyond that i think that the rest of it is straight forward and so i am not, confused that we need to delay this to get additional impact. This is pretty basic stuff. Am i correct in understanding that the forfeiture is provision and it is not something that the staff came up with, if somebody accepts a contribution in excess, it is forfeited. Correct. So that the due process question that was raised has been resolved in the statute and if there is litigation, it has been resolved in litigation. But i mean we are not creating the automatic forfeiture that is just enforcing the statute. Again, would i venture to say that this is an administrative and bureaucratic process and not really policy issue. I assume that there have been opportunities for the public to it comment on this. And to provide their point of view. This list of proposals is not or has not. And it is public, and. So, just a few days. So what is your reaction to having an interested parties meeting . Again, i just think that it is kind of basic stuff and i dont know that we need a lot of input on Something Like this. This is you know, we are making an administrative decision and already going to handle something. Any other commissioner comments . So, with the three points, right . Two of the three, we have kind of sort of resolved . ; is that correct . Two of the three, one is in consideration, but by business date possibly 14 or 15 days. I do not have a problem with that. And the other is basically a statute and all that we are doing is following. Right. I would say that i would that the staff raised and we get to the factors of mitigation, and ago agree vasing, raise two options. And one would be an option which left no discretion really in the staff and the other option was one where they could consider them without without restriction in one, the staff would prefer the first and i would prefer the second, i think that some of the factors clearly are much more important than others. Okay. Do we need to. Do we need a motion to approve this . Yes. So, a motion to approve these recommendations, with the change, if you wish to move it to. Do we want to say 14 days . Ten Business Days . Yes. 14 days. Yes, we are assuming that you want to change that to 14 days and then using the second consideration option where we would present to the commission and rather than the labor staff. Yeah, that is a great motion. And i make a motion that we accept the changes in the enforcement and settlement and penalties with the change of five Business Days to 14 days, is it ten Business Days . Just like 14 days, that will be two weeks. 14 days. And we would accept the second scenario by which the staff would present this to the commission, for consideration. Violation. Any further discussion . Could i just make two comments . One is on page 3. After number one, and on the second line, instead of saying a violation of any part of 1. 114, it should say a violation of section 1. 114 a1, b, or e. And then on page 4, also, after number one, second line, instead of saying in violation of any part of 1. 114, it should say in violation of section 1. 114 a1, or 1. 114 a2. Thank you. Any further Public Comment . All in favor of the motion . Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Could i ask a question with the staff . Because if the individual makes a contribution to a campaign in excess of that allowed under the code, does that individual also face penalties . Before now, no, after now, yes. Okay. That is the way that i read it and i didnt know whether that one was finished. And okay. So for the next item, there has been some interest by the commissioners and particularly commissioner renne on revisiting the idea of reports back by expenditure lobbyists who do not directly lobby government officials about governmental decisions but rather make expenditures that would influence people outside of government to in turn, try to influence governmental decisions. The most obvious is doing out reach to the public view, and various Media Advertising or whatever to try to get them to contact the elected officials or city officials regarding pending decisions. When we moved the lobbyists program online, we changed the focus from entities to individuals. And as part that have discussion, the capturing of expenditure lobbyists was essentially deleted from our process. And it is not the action in the course of the year, there were a total of eight in the last four years. Nonetheless, this is people spending the money to influence the governmental decisions so we dont have legislation drafted yet, but we have a basis for what we think the commission might like to do, and after this sort of reporting. And so this recommendation is because that they do not really shoot well into the existing lobbyist reporting program and we will create a new program outside of the Electronic System and basic simple reporting and they are reported to us and reported online. And but we wanted to make sure that this is the direction that is acceptable to the commission before we drafted the legislation that has to go through the board. Commissioners how do you feel about that . Was there a penalty built into that . I was reading through it and i wanted to see, what happens when there is a failure to . The standard rules in the campaign and governmental code would apply in general, it is fines are up to 5,000 and up to 3 times the amount of the infraction or whatever. The commission determines this. And so that will, that language will be built in to the legislation, but it will reflect the standard that we use and enforcement actions. Lets make. Sense to you commissioner renne . Is this acceptable to you in terms of what you have had. Let me say that i am disappointed that there is no Public Comment here certainly my inquiry was in some ways initiated by mr. Bushs article in which he made it sound as if there were great sums of money that were being focused into the political process and no reporting requirements. And if i by picking out the expenditure of lobbyist and provision, that we were sort of not giving the public information, i hope that he would be here when the item is on the agenda so that he could articulate to me and to the commission what it is the problem that he wants, or that he thinks we should be addressing . And because i agree with what commissioner st. Croix has said is that they are are really only two or three reports. But as i understood what mr. Bush claims in his article, is that that was necessarily the tip of the iceberg and there were great amounts of money being spent behind the scenes, to control the political process. So, i have no problem with what the staff has discussed, and i guess that the question is, whether there is a need for it. And whether something that we feel needs to be addressed because of the public is being deprived of relevant information as to expenditures that are being made. And again, the 8,. Over three years. Let me ask if there is any Public Comment on this item. Somebody during business of the city, makes a contribution say, to say charitable organization, which is charitable, a pet project of a supervisor. Is there any reporting requirement . If the contribution is a result of purging, then that supervisor or elected official, the state law requires a filing of what we called a inaudible form and any time that a private entity makes a contributions that was generated in some form by the influence of an elected official they have to file that. It has to be initiated by the public official as opposed to somebody who is doing his homework and saying, what is a charitable organizations that supervisor x, is closely involved with. And i am going to. I am going to make the contributions to it. There is not any requirement no. It is if you are. And i believe that the state is kind of looking at this, where and i dont know how far along it is, where anyone doing business with the city and makes a contribution in excess of 5,000 will have to report them as a matter of course. Regardless of whether anyone urged them to do it. Right. Otherwise, at this time, it is the elected official who has to made the official report. Right. And someone did the business for staoet and once the community campaigned to create public support for a issue that may be before the voters. That funding or that campaign, is not reported . That is right. And that is kind of what this proposal will tend to capture. All right, so that aspect, does that cover for example, an organization that has a project, you know, and has a big campaign, and that is endorsed by an elected official. Does that count . I mean, elected officials endorse all kinds of programs and projects all of the time. I think that it could, if they were using an elected officials in premature to add legitimatecy in the appeal to the public. You mean if they used it for example in printed material . Yeah. Or the media campaign. Yeah. Lets say that we are doing a mailer to say right to the board of supervisor and tell them not to cut them for the fire cuts keep them all open. Maybe the Firefighters Union will do Something Like that. And they would say, you know, supervisors you are actually spear heading a movement to help us in gaining the funding that we need. Please write or call the board right away. And that reporting would be captured whether or not the supervisors names were attached to it or not. And you know, it is kind of that would not be it is not associated with like a ballot measure or Something Like that, so there is actually no political reporting attached to this. I see. Does that answer your question . I think that it does. Basically, the same thing is endorsed. And i was thinking more fire house number 9 and they and there is a particular initiative or some ballot measure that is endorsed by these candidates already. And then you list that or those candidates who have endorsed this particular initiative to the fire house number nine and that will fall within this as well. Yes. It gets tricky in the range before an election, anything that contains the candidates names kind of becomes election material and therefore will be regulated differently. And i think that a good example and i hope that i, construct this correctly there was a prop f about fire houses. Before it came into existence, there was a campaign to get the board not to put it on the ballot and not to create a ballot measure and so the spin on this was to put up i think billboards and send out mailings to tell the public and the board of supervisors that we dont want, the funding cuts and then it looks like it was coming any way and a ballot measure came to rescind those cuts. But before that point it would have been expenditure lobbying and it was not associated with the candidate or a ballot measure. If is there an initiative on the ballot, and some individual wants to finance global calls, just does he or she have to report the fact that global calls that going to say vote for this initiative n they will have to report it as independent expenditures. Right. In which case it is Campaign Finance reporting and that is already captured so at this time what is necessary, is to actually write the language that could be incorporated into the legislation at the board of supervisors. If you like this direction, you know, we just need to indicate to ask and go ahead and go forward and draw up the proper legislation and we will give it back to you for the approval when it is drafted and send it over to the board. We dont need a formal approval. I wanted to hear from the other commissions that the preponderance after mr. Bush brought this to our attention and believed that it was the tip of the iceberg and we find off an investigation and some research that it is eight over three years, and i wanted to hear from the other commissioners does it have bearing on what we are getting ready to move forward with . One way or another . The subject and that there was no Public Comment. And that therefore, absent it does not appear to be a need under the present reporting requirements. And some someone wants to bring it back, i would. And i dont know why we want the staff to fuel the problem that the public apparently is not concerned about. And then we will have an additional opportunity to discuss this issue when the language comes back to us at the next meeting. So that is. And do i want us to go forward. I think that we do. Absolutely. I think that we all agree with that. We are going to do that and we dont need any formal action. Very good. Lets look at the minutes, are there any additions or corrections . That was your first meeting with commissioner andrews . Indeed it was. And my name is spelled right. So that is great. That is the. Thank you. And that is what is essential. The first and the last. And i make a motion. Second. Approve the minutes. Any Public Comment . For the minutes . Hearing none, and all in favor of approving the minutes . Aye. The minutes stand approved. And we want to consider the executive directors report. Okay. So, the mayor has not signed it yet. So we are still not through the woods if you will, but the indications are good. So this bodes very well for us, and the delay in hiring and education out reach coordinator continues, and because the city wont let us hire someone until they have an approved list. The list i am told now exists. And it will be distributed to us in the very near future and so we have been recruiting for that. So we can only recruit from the list . Right. And we had an auditer retire and until that person has exhausted their vacation we cant begin to look for a replacement and so that is coming up and so this funding will allow us to hire another investigator. And which will be good. So we will be able to do the current investigators that are doing exceptionally good work and this will allow them to concentrate on fewer cases at a time and bring in the resolution and a satisfaction. And that is actually very, very good news and that is my own real highlight and the other thing that i would just point out is, 15 nonfilers were referred to the fppc of the standing of economic interest. And this is out of six or 700 filers. And normally, we have 60 or 70 nonfilers a year and so we have done a good job this year in spite of the responsibilities of transferred from one year from one staff to the other and so i am actually well pleased and so i wanted to point that out to you, if you have any questions i will be happy to answer those. Commissioners . Any questions . I just wanted to if you can hear from mr. St. Croix, a caseload, do you have an timum kind of caseload that you would be going for i suspect for this moment that it is higher that you prefer it to be. I dont have an actual number because we dont have any control over that. The number of cases divided by the number of staff, tempered with the with the case. And three is well and probably five or six, you move forward and you have to wait to move forward and several of our investigations are pending audits and they move at a different pace and at any given time we have 30 to 50 cases and the number of cases come in at a rate and a lot of them are dismissals and you are going to see many of those. For various reasons, mostly of nonjurisdiction and so i could not ideally what it is because it we do not fit if an ideal mold. Okay. And am i glad to hear that. And any items for future meetings . Public comment on the ada report . Public comment on the executive directors report . Hearing none, we will move on to any propose td items for the future meetings . Okay. And add to at again agenda. Is there any Public Comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the agenda tonight . We appreciate those of you who were here, to provide the Public Comment, thank you. And that concludes. The meeting is adjourned. Second. All in favor . Aye. Aye. Aye. That adjourns the meeting of the ethics commission
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