governors on the commonwealth club and also the chair of the finish line committee what do that mean the finish line committee is charged with the fundraising effort to complete that beautiful building we currently have 16 plus million dollars of money committed to the project the total cost is $25 million so we ve got another 8 one half million to raise mary gave us a firm foundation to bring this foundation to completion so we re 2/3rd s of what you there. i would say to thank our expanding campaign counselor shawn richards who is where it is shawn he s back here you want to hold up your hand he s the president of greg by the fundraising consultants from the beginning. we also would like to thank pat as mary less mentioned a member of the clubs board and president of the tom by foundation the largest and very generous donor to the project please welcome tale of two cities to tell us why it is so important that the commonwealth club complete that project. tale of two cities
hartz was right about that. on two other points that were raised and then i will wrap up. the statement that the 150-word statements or summaries as the ordinance provides, are not generated or validated by the city commission, that whose minutes they are part of, does seem to me to be a useful notification to the public. to understand the difference between minutes that were generated by the official recording secretary, or responsible employee, and approved as you know the report of the meeting or the business decisions that were made. as distinguished from statements prepared by the public. as long as that is done consistently with regard to every statement that comes before them, i don t think that that is an effort to be demissive. i think that it is truly saying that these are something different from the minutes that we wrote. their statements were written by someone else. all of that said, i think that these comments were very revealing about the statement of frustrat
150-word statement verbatim to be included in the bod y of the minutes. yekt if they do that, haven t they complied with the requirement that the written statement be included in the body of the minutes? but they have not done that. if they do. it is a hypothetical question. i know that your complaint is that they did not do it for everybody. what mr. renne is saying, that if they included everyone s 150-word summary in the body of the minutes, would that in your mind, remedy the issue? going forward, yes. but it does not answer the fact that they spent the last two years avaiding it, avaiding it, and i don t think that the law is intended to be something where they go along for two years, and only when mr. herrera has the chance of being found in willful violation, does he actually even show up at the hearings. he sends miss blackman to the hearings to represent him and that is the lowest and the biggest exhibit of lack of integrity, sending a subordinate to an
make a written statement that he or she wanted in the record. so, that i think going forward, certainly from my point of view, if the library were to retreat from this policy of putting the exact verbatim, 150, or whatever the number not-to-exceed but the speaker s written statement that is handed in, putting it in where the speaker appeared in the minutes, put it in, i think that as they go to some other policy, they clearly are willfully violating at least as i read the sunshine ordinance. but i don t find that their conduct in the past in view of the city attorney s opinion constituted willfulness conduct. commissioner liu? i concur with both commissioner studley and commissioner renne on the conclusion. i also did appreciate mr. chavey s historical perspective on this issue. because you know, i have only been on the commission for two years. and i did appreciate knowing what the history of it was. but, at the same time, i think that it also highlights that the ordinan
just a 1 or 2 line summary in the minutes, which may be an inaccurate summary and the public may never go to that addendum and never really get the thrust of it, so it strikes me that what the library is now proposing to do is what i would recommend that every public body ought to do is put in verbatim, the written brief summary and interestingly enough when you look at the statute, the statute says, that minutes shall include a brief summary of public comment in the next almost the next sentence says, the speaker may submit a brief summary not exceeding 150 words. as i read it says, instead of the secretary summarizing what was being said, that put in the exact wording that the speaker took the time and effort to make a written statement that he or she wanted in the record. so, that i think going forward, certainly from my point of view, if the library were to retreat from this policy of putting the exact verbatim, 150, or whatever the number not-to-exceed but the speaker s