and inspiring and i cannot imagine working anywhere else but in sannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn 22nd 2024. regular meeting of the san francisco ethics commission. today's meeting is live cablecast on sf gov tv two. live streamed online at sf gov. tv.org forward slash ethics live for public comment. members of the public may attend in person or may participate by phone or the webex platform, as explained in our agenda document. mr. clerk, would you please explain how remote public comment will be handled? public comment will be available on each item on this agenda. each member of the public will be allowed three minutes to speak for those attending in person. opportunities to speak during

the public comment period will be made available here in room 416 city hall for those attending remotely. public comment period can also be provided via phone call by calling area code (415) 655-0001. access code is 26643680498, followed by the pound symbol, and then press pound again to join as an attendee. one moment. we have a technical issue at the moment. i'm sure we're unmuted. and not getting any .

i'll continue speaking so that they can tell whether or not audio is functioning, again. so the number to call to make a remote public comment is 14156550001. the access code is. 26643680498. followed by the pound symbol, and then press pound again to rejoin an attendee. when your item of

interest comes up, press asterisk three to raise your hand to be added to the public comment line. public comment is also available via the webex client application. they still have issues with not being able to hear us. no problem. because you don't have any remote participants, right? so that'll be all right. so the air appears to be the webex, which does not preclude people from hearing us on sf gov tv. okay. so we can continue. yes that's correct. all right. so public comment is also available via the webex client application. use the webex link on the agenda to connect and press the raise hand button to be added to the public comment line with preference. given the technical difficulties

today would be to call in at 14156550001 with 26643680498. that's the access code for detailed instructions about how to interact with the telephone system or webex client, please refer to the public comment section of the agenda document for this meeting. public comment may also be submitted in writing and will be shared with the commission after this meeting has concluded, and will be included as part of the official meeting file. written comments should be sent to ethics commission at sf gov. org members of the public who attend commission meetings, including remote attendance, are also expected to behave responsibly and respectfully during public comment. please address your comments to the commission as a whole and not to individual members. persons who engage in name calling, shouting, interruptions or other distracting behavior may be excluded from participation. thank you, mr. clerk. i now call

the meeting to order. clerk, will you please call? roll under item one. commissioners, please verbally indicate your presence by saying i. after your name is called chair i, commissioner flores feng i commissioner salahi, i chair finley with three members present and accounted for. you have a quorum. thank you. with that, a call agenda item two general public comment. seeing no public commenters in the room, mr. clerk, would you check if there are any remote public commenters?

cheerful. if there are no remote public commenters. thank you. i now call the consent calendar colleagues. as noted on the agenda, there will be no separate discussion on the items on the consent calendar. unless one of us or a member of the public requests that there be such a discussion. colleagues, do any of you wish to discuss the items on the consent calendar? i do not. seeing none, i move that we adopt. sorry. is there a motion to adopt the consent calendar? so moved. seconded mr. clerk, would you take roll, please? sorry. do i need to take public comment on the consent calendar? thank you, mr. clerk. would you check if there's any public comment on the consent calendar item?

we're checking chair. if in the . there are no public comments, though. the webex, application

is still experiencing technical difficulty with muted audio from us. i don't mind waiting a few minutes if you think it is a problem that will be resolved imminently. let's take a five minute or let's see what happens the next five minutes. thank you chair, for the .

room for 16. clerk. yeah. i just noticed that after you started. i think so. looks good. so. one second. i'm going to do it now. test one. two. three. three. two. one. test out . test one. 23321. test out .

great. appreciate your help. thank you. so webex is getting our audio. fine. is this when it goes out from webex is the problem. so he's calling somebody else to check on that aspect. from the livestream. oh, yeah. oh, yeah. okay. so they can't go out? not yet. but we're not the problem. yeah. the mechanic momentarily. come in to check the audio. come into the

chat. they didn't. oh yeah. did somebody come when you were. yeah, yeah. so someone was in here. they were doing something to the . different. test one two. 3321.

test out. great chair of the technical glitch has been resolved successfully. great. thank you, thank you. i think we were checking if there was public comment on the adopting the consent calendar. chair will check the remote queue. there are no public commenters in the remote queue. thank you. i believe i. got a motion and a second. could you take roll, please. a motion has been made

and seconded to adopt the consent calendar for items three, four and five. i will now call the roll chair a commissioner flores fang, a commissioner. salahi. i commissioner finn, live with three votes in the affirmative. affirmative the motion is passed unanimously. thank you. and i. i now call item number six. discussion and possible action regarding paul taylor matter. case number 20. hyphen 243. colleagues. this matter concerns an enforcement action brought by the staff enforcement division against paul taylor. we heard this on the merits at our last meeting on february 9th, 2024. we then started to deliberate, then, and today we will continue that deliberation. commissioner flores fang and i prepared a draft findings of fact and conclusions of law that we can

discuss today. the staff submitted some proposed findings. mr. taylor forwarded an email exchange that he had with the city attorney's office. and those matters or those items will be posted on the public, agenda items. so, colleagues, my hope today is that we'll discuss the matter. then at the end of today, vote on violations. and if we find violations, vote on penalties. i'm happy to kick us off, but i think first we can take public comment on this matter. see, folks have any comment. but i'm going to ask mr. deputy city attorney if there's something he'd like to say first. no. okay mistook your stare for a. so, colleagues, i'm happy to kick us off by sharing some observations that resonated with me in the time since we heard this last month, there were a couple of facts that as i was thinking about this and working through this, that really resonated with me. and

they resonate in the sense that i do think that there are violations on all eight counts, but there are just some facts that really didn't crystallize until i was kind of going through this process, so i think one and what i'm saying now is not the exclusion of anything that's in the proposed draft findings. they're just things that i thought were particularly, salient, you've got mr. taylor forwarding an article that refers to him as the head of the campaign, as the head of the campaign. and along with that, social media forwarding, he says, help us. he's soliciting money for that campaign. and i think he says, help us raise money. he's also circulating various ads for her campaign. then he sends ethics staff, some of her campaign materials. it's not clear why he did it. he didn't participate in our evidentiary hearing. but i think the clear inference is that he's doing this as part of her campaign to get clearance through the ethics commission. he's circulating that. then he introduces a donor who has

capped out her contributions to the candidate, introduces her to a pac, introduce the candidate to the pac, and then at the same time, he's arranging a billboard campaign for the actual candidate's campaign and for the pac using identical or substantially identical paperwork. sorry, billboards, campaign ads, and in effect and then he specifically tells the pac, this is an independent expenditure. i don't work for the campaign. after he circulated an article saying that he, in fact, in charge of the campaign, so those to me are really important facts, but i'm also aware that he's not a professional campaign consultant. i think the mayor's the lanzhou campaign was not run by professional campaign folks. it seems like it was kind of a home grown operation. doesn't mean it's not subject to the laws. it is. and i think that is

going to go to our penalty discussion for me at least. but those are things i want to lay out. when we spoke last, i was not so sure about count, eight. that involves the providing false information or sorry, providing a failure to provide information required to the ethics commission. i was uncomfortable with the fact that i don't know if that's county counsel. i think it's county eight, i wasn't comfortable with the fact that there had not been a motion to compel in court that there had been no process, but as i read the rules, that's not a requirement. and until a court says it is, i'm not sure that it's our place to say that that that that is a requirement. that's not if it's not explicitly stated in the code. so i think he did violate that provision. but i do think given that he's pro per, given that he did submit a response to the subpoena, albeit it was, i think five days after the deadline, he showed some he didn't ignore it. he provided a lot of material

that was not necessarily responsive. and then he followed up twice. once he didn't get a response to his response from the enforcement staff. nothing that he provided, as far as i can tell, was actually. well, he certainly did not provide the responsive documents, but i don't think we can say that he just ignored the subpoena. he didn't. he provided a lot in response, so i think there's a violation there. but when we discuss penalties, if we get to that step, i think those facts to me, militate in favor of a, a much smaller penalty for that count than what staff recommended. so i just i'm saying that to kind of kick us off. but i'd love to hear my colleagues thoughts and, yeah, take it from there, commissioner szilagyi. yeah. thank thank you, chair and vice chair flores for preparing the proposed findings of fact and for the staff for also preparing a version, i also appreciate the background on on count eight, i do want to talk about that one. a little bit as

well as, one of the questions that came up at the last hearing regarding the showing of causation that's required with respect to his role in causing the failures by the asian american freedom pac, as well as the zhao campaign committee to fail to disclose required information. at our last hearing, we had, talked about how it seemed that from the testimony of mr. tsuneishi, who confirmed that he was essentially misled into believing that there was no connection between mr. taylor and, and miss zhao or her campaign, that that is what triggered their failure to comply with the required disclosures and the caps on donations. and so there seemed to be a clear causation requirement there, the part that i'm still struggling with a little bit, although i don't i think i, i haven't made it a decision on that yet is how we deal with the fact that, the

zhao campaign had an independent obligation to comply with these reporting requirements. and it seems that mr. taylor helped carry out the underlying violative conduct. but it wasn't clear to me whether he also triggered the failure to disclose, by the campaign itself , there are a couple factors that i'm still mulling around in my mind, but on the one hand, we are in these proposal. we are finding that he was, in fact, an agent of the campaign. and i think that that is supported by the evidence under general agency principles, knowledge of an agent can be imputed to the campaign. i'm just not sure how that plays out. so we can presume the zhao campaign knew about what he was doing, to coordinating the payments, the unlawful payments by the pac. i guess with the next step from that be to the i guess. how do we get from that to the failure to report is also mr. taylor's

responsibility. and how does that interact with the possibility of future, liability findings if it ever comes before the commission? as to the zhao campaign's committee to failure to comply with alleged failure to comply with certain reporting requirements, so that's on on those two on those two issues. and to be clear, those go to counts three. five. three and five i think it is, pivoting back to count eight, i had your concern at the last hearing as well about whether there was a failure to comply. i think i have a slightly different view that gets me to the same result, which is i agree that if, there is, well, i agree that if there's no response, a timely

response under the statute to the subpoena, including a timely objections, that there's a failure to comply there. but i do think that if there is if there are written objections served, that does shift the burden to the commission or the city attorney to file some sort of enforcement action on the subpoena before a finding of failure to comply with this provision can be found. but looking at the statement of facts here, we were struggling a little bit to get the dates on the fly at the hearing, but it does show that he was served, on october 20th. and the subpoena that's in paragraph three of the proposed findings prepared by the chair and vice chair. he was served on october 20th. he was required to comply within 25 days or to respond within 25 days, which is november 14th. and he didn't serve anything that could possibly be construed as a response or objection until

november 17th, so that is untimely by a few days. and i think that's sufficient to sustain a violation. i do think i agree with you, chair, that the fact that he's pro se and the timing issue, is de minimis in terms of his, his, his, his, his failure to comply timely, probably goes to the severity of the penalty that's appropriate here. but normally when you don't respond, when you don't serve timely objections to a subpoena, you waive those objections unless there's some sort of excusable neglect. and there was, because we don't have his participation, we have no basis to find excusable neglect here, so just my general thoughts. great. thank you. i'm happy to commissioner flores fang. so the first point you raised about causation, i think these are really good questions. specifically how he caused the your campaign's, violations. the

way i think about this, whether or not her campaign was also liable has no bearing on whether he was liable so they could all be liable for the same conduct and have no clue whether there is an investigation there, whether that's that's beside the point. but the way i read the law, it basically someone else's violation doesn't obviate or vitiate his own liability. and i here i think it's pretty clear that his conduct caused it in the sense that but for his actions that contrition wouldn't have been made and the jackman would not have failed to report it, disclose it. so i'm comfortable with that, but i think the bottom line is that multiple parties can be liable for the same violation. so i think doing this in no way addresses whether or not other parties are also liable for that failure to report.

yes. so. i agree with with the point that more than one party can be liable for the same misconduct. i think conceptually i'm distinguishing between causing the campaign expenditure and contribution versus is causing the failure to report that underlying, contribution. and so i guess my question is where where how do we how do we explain the failure to report? how do we explain the failure to report being caused by him? to me, it just flows from the failure to from causing the excess contribution that a corollary, i guess a downstream consequences that then it was a failure to report it. but to me they're they're the same facts that lead to the same violations , and again, to me it's almost a but for causation. but for what

he was doing, this wouldn't have been an issue. but again, it doesn't mean that the commission sorry that the campaign committee itself should not also have disclosed it or reported it. but i will say for even though we're kind of jumping ahead, the way i think about that on the well, i'll save that for a penalty conversation if we get to that stage. but i think so. my hope is to extend we reach kind of consensus on just the charges. we can have one motion to adopt all the ones that we agreed on instead of voting on them one by one, and then we can separately talk about penalties after we cross that, but, commissioner, if you're not there on all the counts, then we should just take the ones where you are. there and then do the deal with the other ones separately. that's fine with me. do we need to take public comment before we, or should we make a motion to. i

think we can take uncertain. yeah. mr. russell can correct me if i'm wrong. i think we can take public comment now and then entertain a motion after that, any public comment? i don't see any in the room. mr. clerk, would you check if there's any public comment remotely? chair, if there is no remote public comment at this time. so i think , well, i don't want to make a needless motion, but the motion i would do is to move to find violations on counts one through eight. but before i do that, just if we're not, if you'd rather do it kind of one by one or carve off some separately, then we should do that. we could do one through eight, except three and five, if those are the ones that i think i, i think that makes more sense. okay so i moved to let me try the right language. i move, give me one

second. i move that we approve the findings and conclusions of law. sorry, let me back up. i move to find that enforcement staff has proved, by preponderance of evidence, that mr. taylor violated the charges in counts one, two, four, six, seven and eight. is there a second? seconded. mr. clerk, would you take a role, please, chair, before i take role, can you please have the commissioners? thank you. certify that they. sorry, i don't mean to cut you off, but i know where you're going. i apologize, i forgot. so under the rules, we have to certify us commissioners who are voting that we were present for the testimony and have reviewed the evidence. did i get that right? is that generally the, yes,

that's correct. pursuant to our enforcement regulations. so i will certify that i heard the testimony, i reviewed the evidence, and commissioners, would you i'll ask you both individually, but do both certify that you heard the testimony and reviewed the evidence? commissioner flores fang. perfect evidence. commissioner salahi, as do i. mr. clark, thank you for reminding me. you're welcome. chair a motion has been made, and seconded. i will now call the roll chair. finley i commissioner flores fang i commissioner salahi. i chair of the. with three votes in the affirmative. the motion has been passed unanimously. great. thank you. and i think even though i sense that if my if i move on the other two counts, it will not pass. but i think we should do it anyway. just to have a complete record, mr. city attorney, does that seem like a

necessary step or a misguided step? that makes sense to me. okay, have on the record what happened. can i offer a comment on my vote when i vote or should i do it before, anytime? absolutely. okay. floor's yours. you can do it now. or you can do it. okay. some other time. yeah, i'll do now. i think, i unfortunately, for the reasons i stated, i'm not prepared to find that there has been sufficient evidence presented that mr. taylor caused specifically, the failure to report by the zhao campaign committee, in counts three. and five, the reason for that, i do think there are sufficient evidence that he caused the underlying violation. but the reason for that is that i don't think we have enough evidence in the record to find that he was the campaign person responsible for filing those reports, or that he otherwise

played a role in the failure to disclose the required information. the only basis that i could look at in the record for that is that he played a role on behalf of the committee and running advertisements by the commission, it seems. so if we were to point to any evidence, it would be that. but to me, that feels flimsy, particularly given that it's a separate issue from the reporting requirements. so i'm not prepared to find a sustain a violation on those two counts. okay any other comments? sorry, i want to say one more thing, i, i understand the but for causation argument here, and i agree that but for causation is satisfied. but i don't think that's a sufficient basis in and of itself, if that were correct, then the donor herself, miss liu, is also responsible for the failure to report because. but for her contribution, there wouldn't be any underlying

violations either. so i think there is an implicit proximate causation limitation there that we have to take into consideration. yeah, i think those are all good points, just on that last point, though, i think the distinction i would make is that the donor didn't coordinate the contribution. mr. taylor did. but i think those are all great points that you raise, mr, deputy city attorney, we already took public comment on this matter generally. do we need to do another one since we're about to entertain another motion? no, you just need to take public comment once. okay? any action is taken. thank you, commissioner flores fang, any comments before i make a motion? okay. i move to find that enforcement staff proved by a preponderance of evidence that mr. taylor violated the charges alleged in counts three and five. is there a second? seconded mr. clerk, would you take a role, please? a motion has been made and seconded. i

will now call the role chair. i, commissioner flores fling i commissioner salahi. no chair in love with two votes in the affirmative and one vote in the negative. the motion has not passed. thank you, mr. clerk. great. so now we should consider the appropriate penalty for these violations, and again, my hope is that we'll have a conversation about it and then move them all at the same time rather than doing it separately, and i'm happy to kind of share my thinking if it's helpful, but i'm also happy to defer to one of you to kick us off. so, to me, the two most significant violations are one and two. the ones that cause the actual excess contributions, because those are the ones that trigger everything that follows, for these two staff is seeking $1,700 for each violation, and i

think those are appropriate for those two violations. for the balance of the violations, though, i'm not where staff is, because i feel like these violations, again, i'm taking into account a couple of things. i'm taking into account the, seemingly i don't know what the word is, but these are campaigns that are relatively small, not run by big outfits. and also the expenditure at issue $10,000 coordination is significant. they got some a lot of billboards out of it, but it's also not as big as we see in other kind of independent expenditures. so it's a relatively i think the size of it is relevant. so for counts one and two, my recommendation is that we accept staff's recommendation of 1700 for each of those for count for my recommendation is 500 for that one. that's the count for count five. we don't have, sorry, i got something wrong. count

three. we didn't find a violation on. so sorry. i'm going to start over. counts one and two. 700 each. 1700 each. count for 500. count six. 500. count seven. 500. that's the failing to register. and for count eight, this is the one where staff sought the most $5,000. for the reasons that we've discussed regarding the subpoena, kind of the late submission by a few days is proper status. the fact that mr. taylor did respond just not as appropriate. but he didn't ignore it. he, i think, put a lot of effort into his responses, even though they were not responsive. so they're i'm thinking $100 penalty because i think it's important to point out until we're told otherwise, that there are penalties, appropriate here without court intervention. and here there was a failure to comply. but again, i find it a relatively not de minimis. but there was an effort to comply a few days late. so there i'm thinking $100 penalty

is appropriate, i think that would get it. i'll have to do the math, but that would be the math. but that would be about a $5,000 combined penalties. but just to summarize, so counts one and two $1,700 each count for $500 count six $500 count seven $500 count eight $100, my math is probably wrong, but we can figure that out once we entertain a motion, so having kicked that off, i'm happy to hear my colleagues thoughts. i'll start with the last one. count eight, if that's all right. of course. i would advocate for a higher penalty on that one, even keeping in consideration the untimely response and effort put into it, the reason is as follows. $100 is quite low. it's just a bit

more than some parking tickets in san francisco. and i think that this kind of violation, which is even with the objections, i think, clearly intended to impede the department's investigation, i don't you know, i, i can't look at the substance of the, of the objections and deciding whether or not, they were valid or invalid. that's what the enforcement actions are meant for, for subpoena enforcement. but they didn't appear to me to be good faith objections. they're pretty borderline frivolous, and i do think that we saw in the presentation from the commission staff that the inability to get a lot of documentation required us to rely a lot on inferential, reasoning from publicly posted materials or the one witness who did make himself available. mr. tsuneishi, so i would advocate for a higher penalty on the order of $1,000 for count eight.

i think those are good points, and i could, but i'm i'd like to hear what my colleague says. no, go ahead. yeah, this was a tough one for me, because he is pro se, but because i think that, while his response you know, wasn't necessarily, wasn't responsive to the subpoena, i do think it was sophisticated to some extent that he knew he was like responding to something. and this wasn't the first time, you know, the enforcement division had reached out. i think he was fully aware, and so i do think that more than, you know, a de minimis penalty is necessary here. i think, i just can't get, you know, $1,000 does seem pretty high, but i do i'm, i'm leaning more towards, i

haven't come to an exact number, but more towards like 100, between 100 and 500, so you can come back to me. but those are my initial thoughts. i think those are all good points, commissioner szilagyi, if we went to 500, would that address your. we're kind of compromising between the three of us, but i'd rather reach a compromise. then we have nothing. so i think i would be comfortable with that. i'm just reviewing the factors again, and i think it's while you're doing that, i'm going to read them into the record, because i think they are important to have. and i know we did this last time, but i think it's relevant. and these are in the proposed findings at paragraph f 54. yeah. thank you, pursuant to section nine d of the commission's enforcement regulations, when deciding on an order and penalties, the commission will consider all the

relevant circumstances surrounding the case, including but not limited to, the severity of the violation, the presence or absence of any intention to conceal, deceive or mislead, and whether the violation was willful. whether the violation was an isolated incident or part of a pattern, whether the respondent has a prior record of violations of law, the degree to which the respondent cooperated with the investigation and demonstrated a willingness to remedy any violations, and the respondent's ability to pay will be considered a mitigating factor. if the respondent provides documentation to the director of enforcement of such inability, which must include three years worth of income tax returns and six months worth of bank records or accounting statements at a minimum, of course, since mr. taylor did not engage with us during the hearing, we don't have anything responsive to that subsection. i just read, and i think commissioner, you raise a good point. when i was initially thinking about this, i was focused on the fact that he nearly complied. but for a few

days. but as you point out, whether he accepted from that, it's pretty clear that he was not intending to actually be responsive to the subpoena in substance. and i think that's a really good point that these factors get to. so i think a $500 penalty is appropriate. yeah, i agree, walking through those factors, one severity of the violation i the commission relies on the cooperation of individuals and entities that are under investigation to be able to carry out its mandate. so i would treat, unwillingness to participate in a process as being a pretty severe violation. when you look at the other ones, two, three and six, my inference is that it was a willful, non-cooperative non-cooperation by mr. taylor, we got the bare

minimum, which were late served, so-called objections to jurisdiction, but unfounded ones. he had the opportunity to present testimony and respond to evidence presented here or to submit his own evidence, and he didn't do so. so to me, that that demonstrates a pattern of unwillingness to cooperate. so if 500 is the only number we can reach consensus on, i would support that, but i would still push for a higher penalty. give me one second. i'm going to do some quick math. partly because, we don't want to send a message to other individuals that non cooperation, withholding of evidence, which may have explained some of the counts being not being sustained here, could, could benefit future individuals under investigation in. yeah. no i think that's a

good point. and i think, it's good we're having this conversation, i think 1000 is still too steep for me, but i think 750 is a good, is a good figure taking all that into consideration, any other comments on that item? if not, i'm going to move that we i'll say those figures into the record and then i'll move it all as one big item. all right. and then someone else, maybe staff can check my math while i'm doing it. so i move that based on the evidence submitted and the consideration of the penalty factors that i read in the record in relevant circumstances, that the appropriate penalty for count one is $1,700 for count two, $1,700 for count, four $500 for count, six $500 for count, seven

$500 for count, eight $750. is there a second? i'll second that. do we need. and just to confirm, we've already done public comments, so we don't need to do that again. right. okay. we're good. great. mr. clerk, would you take the roll, please? a motion has been made and seconded. i will now call the roll chair. philip hi, commissioner flores feng. aye commissioner salahi, i, chair of the motion has passed unanimously. great, so i think in terms of the next steps in the in the staff's findings, sorry, in the commission's findings of fact and conclusions of law will plug in the vote totals and that will be the only, i think, change to the

what was submitted, and then i'll work with staff to have this posted. but i think mr. deputy city attorney, that's all that remains for this matter. right correct. i think you should, adopt the findings as amended by the decisions here today. and the commission may consider delegating to commissioner finley or one of you to make the conforming changes to the findings consistent with the decisions. thank you, i move to adopt the draft of fact and conclusions of law prepared by the commission, as amended by today's discussion and to delegate to me finalizing this consistent with our discussion today. seconded mr. clerk, would you take the role, please? and motion has been made and seconded. i will now call

the role. chair of high commissioner flores feng, high commissioner salahi i chair finley with three votes in the affirmative. the motion is passed unanimously. thank you. i now call item sorry. agenda item seven presentation on lobbyist program engagement and compliance division. thank you . good morning, commissioners. my name is john kim and i'm just going to wait until the presentation gets cast by i think it's tt. good morning. thank you for being here. nice to see you. so as i said, my

name is john kim. i'm the senior program administrator with the engagement and compliance division. i administer the major developer permit consultant and lobbyist programs. i'm here to give you guys an informational session about the san francisco, about san francisco's lobbyist program, and happy to take questions throughout. over this presentation, i'm going to cover the building blocks of our ordinance disclosure ordinance, including the lobbyist qualification threshold, a brief glossary of the foundational terms, including a few exceptions to contact lobbying. and i will also cover the disclosure obligations program statistics and provide an overview of. the guidance and informal advice and assistance our division provides, and hopefully leave plenty of time for questions. so an individual can qualify as a contact lobbyist in two ways. there are in-house lobbyists that qualify after making five contacts on

behalf of their employer in a calendar month, and there are client based lobbyists who qualify after one contact. oh, we also have expenditure lobbyists that if they spend $2,500 to urge, solicit others to communicate with officers of the city and county, will qualify as a contact or as an expenditure lobbyist and disclose how they spend their money to influence those types of contacts. so those foundational terms start with contact, which is defined very broadly. it means any communication oral or written voicemail, mail, email, text, including communications made through an agent or employee with the purpose of influencing local or legislative or administrative action. local, local, legislative and administrative action is also broadly defined and includes and includes, but is not limited to

the drafting and enactment, defeat, approval, veto of motions, applications, ordinance , permits, contracts, and other governmental decisions made by officers of the city and county officers. officers of the city and county are more specifically identified. they are any official that holds city elective office. members of most boards and commissions as the chief executive officer or directors of those boards and commissions, as well as the head of any city department, the comptroller, the city administrator, some county entities, or most county entities like the board of education, redevelopment agency, which is oci, i believe, and includes specific holders of unique positions such as the zoning administrator or the city engineer. and i just want to note that the line that separates advocacy from lobbying is connected to an economic

consideration, which is defined as any payment fee reimbursement for expenses, gifts or anything of value. and it does exclude salaries, wages or benefits received by a federal, state or local government. so public officials communicate in their official capacity would not qualify as lobbyists, and would not need to register and disclose that those communications that they're making on behalf of their department. additionally, individuals that have a 20% or greater ownership interest in a business are exempt from qualifying as a contact lobbyist if they're making communications on behalf of that business. and finally, there is an exception for representatives or officers and employees of 500 1c3 organizations and 500 1c4 organizations that file a 999 or 990 s, which i believe has a $50,000 threshold, and only if they're communicating on behalf of those nonprofits. so once an

individual or entity qualifies as a lobbyist, they have two filing requirements a registration statement which is due within five days of qualification. and a monthly statement, which is due on the 15th of every month. the registration statement is where we would where we and the public would track who was involved in lobbying, the name and contact information for the contact lobbyist or the expenditure lobbyist must be disclosed and the clients that they will be representing, including their contact information, the period of representation for clients when they will be lobbying the specific departments that they want to identify and for expenditure lobbyists, payments of payments to influence also have to be or the decision makers of expenditure lobbyists have to be disclosed. the if depending on the type of organization the ceo, the cfo, someone any partners of an

organization or the less option was yeah, anyone with ownership interest. and then monthly statements reveal details about who, what, when and how much has been spent to attempt to influence via via the disclosure of campaign contributions, economic consideration, contact details including which clients interests are being lobbied, a description of what was attempted to be influenced, and then the date name and department of the officer contacted for expenditure. lobbyists, payments of $1,000 or more have to be itemized and disclosed when the payment was made, who it was paid to and what it was for. and i just wanted to give you a quick recap of our program statistics over the last four years. in any given year, we've had approximately 220 to 250 registered lobbyists and 180 to

210, active lobbyists in any given month, each calendar year, we have about 50 new lobbyists, 400 registration statements, 2300 monthly reports, and of those monthly reports, 98% are timely filed, and the other two get filed within generally within a week. the an additional program statistics. the average economic consideration that's disclosed in any calendar year averages just around 12 million, we also have captured an average of 3600 reported contacts for in terms of expenditure lobbying, there's an average of about 300,000 payments to influence that have been disclosed and for campaign contributions due to the nature of what is on a ballot in any given year, i'm just going to give you a four

year overview of the $700,000 that was disclosed, connected to lobbyists, 675,000 were for local ballot measures or recall efforts, which is not prohibited by our ordinance. and the rest did go to the remaining 25,000 were connected to candidate controlled committees. and here's a few simple guides that provide a general overview of how to submit disclosures as a lobbyist and review data as a member of the public, these allow interested persons to get a brief overview of how they're supposed to comply with our laws , or how to review the disclosures that we provide online, this gives staff time to onboard new filers, provide informal advice, review all filings, and request amendments to attempt to make sure that the data we capture is as useful and accurate as possible as the

department's filing officers, we want to make sure that filers and interested parties get the advice in a timely fashion. replicable and consistent and fair, so we have updated guides, fact sheets, manuals provided, trainings, help any walk ins and field, a lot of cold calls to our office, and that is the brief presentation. mr. kim, thank you. i have a couple of questions. i think you covered this, but i want to drill down on it. what triggers the filing requirements is that once a certain expenditures met, the threshold. so the requirement to register is triggered. once a contact lobbyist makes five contacts on behalf of their employee and their employer, or one contact on behalf of a client. alternatively, if a lobbyist wants to register

before they qualify out of an abundance of caution, the moment they qualify, they the moment they register the next monthly filing would be due. that's for contact lobbyists. what about for contact and expenditure lobbyists. and so one issue that's always been elusive to me is when you have public officials or their staffs advocating for certain legislation or will probably legislation that's advocacy and not lobbying, because i still struggle with that concept. for example, you've got a state legislator showing up to advocate for a certain bill that's part of their job, and maybe we're getting too deep. but i'm just curious kind of where the line is between that and lobbying. you can speak to that. absolutely and so that would go back to the way that san francisco defines economic consideration, in 2015, there were some changes that were made to the lobbying ordinance, one

which moved an explicit exemption from contacts for public officials that were making contacts on behalf or that were getting paid by government sources, from qualifying as contact lobbyists. and we just moved to that to the definition of economic consideration, which exempts, any public official using their salaries for that type of advocacy. but thank you. but i assume, is it still tethered with what the contact is about? like just because you're a public official, you can't lobby on every thing without being a lobbyist, right? it doesn't still have to be kind of related to your official role. and that's where the difference of where the money is coming from matters. if i were to send a letter to a different board or commission saying that my personal opinion was that whatever it was, something i was not being paid by any other entity. that's advocacy. that's

involvement in the democratic process. whether i was an elected official or member of the public or rank and file staff. right. the moment that payment is received or economic consideration, which is the very broad definition which is a much broader definition, once that it becomes a involved, whether or not i'm a government employee, would change whether or not i would could qualify as a lobbyist. although proposition d did add some restrictions on their added a blanket restriction from public officials from lobbying. okay. yeah. thank you. and i know these are hard questions. i didn't warn you. so thank you for addressing that. anything from my colleagues. thank you for the presentation. yeah. thank you for being here. and i think we have to take public comment on this item even though there's no action item, seeing no one in the room. mr. clerk,

would you see if we have any remote public commenters? chair finley, we have no remote public commenters. thank you. okay, i'll now call agenda item eight. discussion and possible action on items for future meetings. let's start by taking public comment. seeing no one in the room. mr. clerk, would you check if there's anyone, remotely. sure. we're checking. and there are no public commenters in the queue. i have, not a specific thing to talk about, but kind of a mechanical way. the way i'd like to approach commission meetings in terms of the agenda items. i think we'd gotten into the habit of having enforcement actions, being on the consent calendar. from our perspective, they should always not be on the consent calendar unless we're crunched for time to be. enforcement actions are so important that they should all be considered individually. if we have a really busy calendar, we can consider that. but that's kind of my default approach. i'm curious if how you all think

about that. my perspective is just that there's not a ton of them. they don't take that long, but they're really important because it's the core of us enforcing these laws. so i think they're worth of consideration. and frankly, a lot of the time when they've been on the consent calendar, one of us takes it off anyways. so it ends up being that way. i feel like that should just be the default, and i think maybe these are more tips for staff. i'm curious to have your input as well. my colleagues, to extend that. we have items that we anticipate a lot of folks from the public. we should have that at the very, very first thing so that folks don't have to sit through unrelated items to be respectful of people's schedules and calendars. we should front load those items. and then to extend that, we have items that don't require action, that are informative. we should put those at the end of our calendar just so that to extend folks have time issues they can deal with commission action items first, and then we can kind of backload those. so those are kind of just three broad ideas for how to pursue this. but i'm curious, commissioner flores fang, commissioner sly, how you feel.

and just to summarize, it would be enforcement actions should be considered individually, not consent, public items with kind of a lot of public comment. we should front load non action items. we should back load. those are just kind of my broad ideas, mr. ford, i welcome you if you have a reaction to what i'm saying. and i'd also welcome, my colleagues. but please go ahead, mr. director. sure, for the record, patrick ford, executive director, we certainly try to already do the second part, we do try and put, you know, active matters where we're going to have parties, whether that's, you know, enforcement hearing or a waiver or anything like that. first, in the informational ones, later, we can certainly, you know, make sure that we're we're doing that. the first part about enforcement, i think you're specifically talking about steps. right. steps. right. for the record, stipulated settlement agreements with respondents, the enforcement regs specify that those go on the consent calendar unless they're pulled by a commissioner. and there's a process in the regs where we

notify the commissioners immediately when a stip is signed. and then commissioners have five calendar days to request that the steps be pulled. so what i understand you saying is essentially that you would like to just preemptively pull all of them and just have them all appear on the regular calendar. so i think my only request would be that we just not engage in that process. yes. not not send them to you and ask for you to pull them, but that we just understand that they're all effectively pulled until we're told otherwise. so we can just have a more streamlined process. we'll just put them all on the regular calendar. that works for me. as long as we still get them, because i like getting them, we'll still send them. certainly but we won't wait to hear from you. you don't need to tell us to put them on the regular calendar. yeah, that works for me. but i'm curious if commissioners have any issue or mr. deputy city attorney, if you see any problems with that approach. that approach seems fine to me. thanks commissioner sly, vice chair flores fang. yeah, i also see no issue with it. i do think that even when it is a stipulation, i think

sometimes we have we're able to like commend the staff to coming to like i think it just opens discussion in a way that would be, productive. so i'm in favor of doing so. yeah. i think it's also probably better for staff because frankly, there have been times where we didn't tell you that in advance, but and then at the meeting, someone requests to take it aside and then staff is having to respond to questions that maybe you all didn't anticipate. so i think this way everyone will know that they should be prepared to discuss it . oh, sorry. that's all. yeah. so just a follow up question. would you like the staff to give a presentation on each stipulation or just sit until the commission identifies which ones you'd like to have discussion of, and then come up and only speak on those? that's a great question. let me table that and think about it. but i think that's a good question. can you can you what do you mean by presentation. like a like a summary of. yeah. if you look at the meetings that the fppc and i think in the past sometimes we've done this where for every

step the staff gets up and presents a summary of the facts and a summary of the violations that were agreed to. i think in the past, the commission decided , let's not do that. if they're on consent, we don't need to have that. i think a perfunctory introduction is appropriate. you know, we recommend that staff, that the commissioners accept the recommendation that we blah, blah, blah, but you don't need to go a full recitation of the facts and the conclusions, and then we can dig in as appropriate. but it's really signposting, basically announcing the agenda item as what staff would be doing okay, but not get into the substance of the step right? unless someone asks for. that's got it. we read them all before. before coming. so that works for us. perfect. great all right. any other thoughts on future agenda items? vice chair, commissioner. all right. great. i think that gets us to public comment. do we take public comment on this? no i thought we did, but we do. we did. we already know. we have not did, but not for item eight. all right, mr. clerk, would you

check? i actually do have one item that i wanted to. okay, hold that please, i mean, i think i don't know if we mentioned this at the last meeting, but, and maybe not because of the election, but we're really excited about prop d, and i know that there's a lot there are a lot of action items that come from that, including additional training, for our city officials and the departments. and i was just i think that at the next meeting, if we could get an update about how that's going, you know, how the trainings are being set up or what the plans are that would be great. and i know that we've discussed it, but i think it would just be good to have everyone kind of updated on on our progress. and next steps given, the success of property. glad to do that. absolutely pardon me. great. mr. clerk, would you see if there are public commenters on the remote system, there are not. under item nine, we provide an additional opportunity for general public comment. seeing no one in the room. mr. clerk,

would you check if there are any callers? if we are checking to see if there are remote commenters for item nine, and there are not, thank you. hearing no further callers, this opportunity for additional public comment is closed. i call agenda item ten. adjournment thank you. this concludes the march 22nd meeting. thanks everyone locals. >> (music). >> the work go ahead offered i

didn't the rec and park friday's local young people between 14 and 17 to be part 6 the workforce and eastern responsibility and professionalism and gain job skills and assignments in neighborhoods parking and recreation centers and includes art and crafts, sport, cooking, gardening and facility support and so many more. >> (multiple voices). >> i think we're part of the this is the fact we're outdoors and it is really great to be in nature and workreation is great first step to figure out what you would like to do workreation

covers real life working skills and expansion can be allowed (unintelligible) it is a really great program because um, students get placed all the time for what they like. join us in the experience and opportunity and i really like the workreation program it is fun to workout at the summer camp with all the kids each is different and the staff is really nice. >> why? is because i used to go to the local park often when i was a little kid. with my mom i often had to translate for my mom i applied in the hope to provide assistance for other people with first language was for the english.

>> i like this job we have fun and working and i feel welcome. >> hi. >> like how a job actually works like maybe before then i didn't know like all the jobs i don't know any of that now i do. >> it has to be self aware of things and independence of value of this taught me how to be progressiveal but still learning as i go on. >> i learned a lot like a got to adapt and challenges and obstacles come up everyday and . >> i like that we're able to really work with other people and gaining experience like how in the real world hoe how he work with other people.

>> if you're looking to develop your live skills as well as cash and working in the parks, and meeting great people and working with great staff i definitely recommend the corporation. >> it is fun. >> i definitely do the scombrifrm again that the workreation and park and i'll do that again. >> i will

>> conduct a field shelter exercise where we open up a number of tents that animal control has they have supplies and equipment and staff and volunteers. we simulate the need for cape ability after a disaster or earthquake. >> animal care and control is your city's animal shelter. we care for approximately 10,000 animals a year. we are opinion for san francisco's animal in thes upon effect of an emergency. we got our tents and practicing how to deal with that. >> this is the shelter is overwhelmed with animals after a disaster this shelter is full

regularly. if we torch have an event that would cause a number of animals to escape or injured or stray or separate friday their people that's where we would respond. >> pets are part of the family and need to make sure they are taken care of like people with the supplies and equip we are able to provide shelter for pets in addition to the existing shelter. >> we have formulated a plan so this in the event of a disaster we are hear ready to help and support the city. >> we are able to use the muni bus to transport the people. animals and other equip if the shelter. >> encourage people there is an evacuation order to take your pet with you. >> very first thing everyone should do is microchip the pet.

and pack a bag >> shelter cert not a place where you want your animal to end up unless the last resort and like to keep most out of the shelter when we can. >> take care of your people and your friend and family. pets need to be taken

>> good afternoon everyone. this meeting will come to order. welcome to march 25, 2024 regular meeting of the land use transportation committee of the san francisco board of surprisers. i'm supervisor melgar joined by supervisor president aaron peskin and vice president dean preston. the committee clerk today is mr. john carroll and i like to acknowledge and thank matthew at sfgovtv for staffing this meeting. mr. clerk, do you have announcements? >> thank you madam chair. please silence cell phones and electronic devices. if you have documents to include as part of the file, you should submit them to me. public comment will be taken on each item. when your item comes up please line up to speak along the right hand side of the room. you may submit public comment in writing.

you may e-mail me at john.carroll@sfgov.org or send via u.s. postal service in the clerk's office room 244 city hall address is 1 dr. carlton b goodlett place, san francisco california 94102. if you submit public comment in writing i'll forward and include as part of the official file you are commenting. finally madam chair, items acted upon today are expected to appear on the agenda of april 2, 2024, unless otherwise stated. >> thank you mr. clerk. please call item number 1. >> item 1, ordinance amending the planning code to facilitate city wide expansion of commercial restaurant and retail uses. >> thank you. we have carrie here from the

office of small business. you don't want to make a presentation? you are here just for questions. we heard this before. i will turn it over to my colleague president peskin because he just circulated amendments that he wants to introduce and i want to thank you so much president peskin for working on this language and work wg the department. >> thank you supervisor melgar. i think we all came to consensus last week, but left it for the city attorney to massage some language which is set forth at page 10 and is now internally consistent in subsection d relative to use sizes that set forth-i'll read it, in rh rm1 or rm2, comply with the use size limitations of a neighborhood commercial district or special use district located within 1 quarter mile of the use of

maximum of 1200 square feet of occupied floor area of commercial area in any rm3 or rm4 district. comply with the use size limitation of the neighborhood commercial district or special use disrict located within a quarter mile of the use up to maex mm of 2500 square feet of commercial use and repeats that language with regard to the 1200 square foot of occupied floor area in a commercial rto, or in a rh, rm1, rm2 district if the use is more then a quarter mile from a ncd or sud and no more then 2500 square feet of commercial use in rm3 or rm4 if the use is a quarter mile from a ncd or sud. that is the language that seems to work for everyone and i

think there were also planning department cleanup on page 6 under outdoor activities and i think said p located in the front of the building, np if elsewhere. do i have that right? yes. mr. star is nodding his head, so and i believe those amendments are not substantive. >> sorry. just reading the last amendment. p if located in front of the building, np if elsewhere. >> i think that somebody brought up something and maybe--i this can the way it

was written was-this isn't my language, this was a suggestion from planning. i think it said not at front of building and i think that everybody decided that it would be clearer if it said, elsewhere. >> planning department staff, that is correct. it will make it consistent to state elsewhere, similar to the other code sections and it is to clarify instead of the wordy phrase of not at the front, just state elsewhere. >> okay. >> but there is no change in the allowances or implementation. >> okay, thank you so much. okay. works for me. thank you very much president peskin for working on the language. let's go to public comment on this. >> thank you madam chair. if you are here to give public comment on item 1, related to city wide expansion of allowable commercial restaurants and retail uses, please come forward to the lectern. appears we have no speakers. >> with that, public comment is

closed. president peskin did you want to make a motion? >> i move to amend the item as stated and send the amended file to the full board with a positive recommendation. >> on the motion offered by member peskin that the ordinance be amended and recommended as amended to the board of supervisor, preston aye. member peskin, aye. chair melgar, aye. madam chair, there are three ayes. >> thank you, the motion passes. let's go to item 2, please mr. clerk. >> item 2 is ordinance amending the planning code to prohibtd north of market special use district and lower polk street neighborhood commercial district tobacco paraphernalia

establishments where any tobacco paraphernalia is sold, delivered, distributed, furnished, or marketed, and to establish that after 180 days of non-use a legal non-conforming tobacco paraphernalia establishment in the sud or ncd will be deemed abandoned, preventing its restoration; and affirming the planning department's determination under the california environmental quality act, making findings of consistency with the general plan and the eight priority policies of planning code, section 101.1, and making findings of public necessity, convenience, and welfare pursuant to planning code, section 302. this is amended as a committee clerk and may be sent to board tomorrow. >> thank you. we continued the item from last week. vice chair preston did you have further comment snz >> no, we talked about at length last week. make a motion after public comment. >> great. let's go to public comment. >> thank you madam chair. does anybody have public comment on item 2? if so, please come forward. appears we have no speakers. >> okay. public comment is now closed. vice chair preston. >> thank you chair melgar and president peskin for your cosponsorship. i like to move with recommendation to full board as a committee report.

>> on the motion offered by vice chair preston the ordinance recommended as a committee report, vice chair preston, aye. member peskin, aye. chair melgar, aye. madam chair, there are three ayes. >> thank you, the motion passes. let's going to item 3. >> item number 3, ordinance amending the zoning map of the planning code to rezone assessor's parcel block no. 3144b, lot nos. 027a and 036a, known as 68 nantucket avenue, from public (p) district to residential-house, one family (rh-1) district; affirming the planning department's determination under the california environmental quality act; making findings of consistency with the general plan, and the eight priority policies of planning code, section 101.1; and making public necessity, convenience, and general welfare findings under planning code, section 302. >> okay, welcome. please tell us what we are doing and why.

>> good afternoon supervisors. the item before you today is request for zoning map amendment to sectional map zn11 to rezone two parcels, block 3144b, lot 27a and 36a, also known as 68 nantucket from public to rh1 zoning district. the subject parcels are two irregular lots located on the bay area transit exterior rail line from glen park to balboa park station. until 2017, the parcel approximately 1900 square feet combined were owned by bart, since then bart subdivided the parcels to follow the existing paved road and topography of the site. the parcels were purchased by the current property owner at

6826 nantucket and undeveloped. the subject parcels are located within the outer mission neighborhood when predominantly residential neighborhood and immediate neighborhood includes 2 and 3 story residential development and it is within the rh1 as well. this concludes staff's presentation and available for any questions. >> i have questions. so, i looked at the map, so were the property owner project developer lives is not rh1, isn't it nct? >> no, he is immediately to the-if you are looking at the parcel to the right and still within rh1. >> why are we zoning it for rh1? >> so, the site is not very conducive to a lot of development. >> the small one, but there are two, right? >> correct. yeah. so both of them are being

rezoned to rh1. >> okay. i'm just-what we have been doing everywhere is trying to get more housing units and so, i'm just puzzled why have this opportunity to take land that is not-under-utilized and instead of aggregateing to the parcel and making it something else, we are just doing-it just doesn't make sense to me, but okay, that's what you want? >> so, the site-the little small-it is two different sites, there is a tiny triangle shape lot- >> we see people park on. >> correct. >> you can't do much, but if you at added to the lot next to it, which i thought was the owners lot, dont they live right next to the little sliver? >> yeah. here, probably best if i do this. >> this isn't my district by the way. it isn't like--i'm just questioning the logic of why

the department is asking for this. >> can we get the overhead? so, what is outlined is red is the two lots. there is a tiny one here you can kind of just barely see and that's approximately 300 square feet, and then there's this bigger lot here that's approximately 1600, and so they are both owned by same property owner, but his actually site where his house is the adjacent. >> that what i had understood. >> so combined those are only 1900 square feet in size. >> the two parcels that belong to bart? >> correct. okay. i'm not going to belabor the point. what i was thinking is there is

already a existing property, so all combined you would have a lot that could support multi-family housing but we are asking just to have this be zoned rh1. >> you were thinking rezoning his current home- >> i realize that would take another action, because it isn't part of the project but we are inviting it to stay because we are zoning as rh1. >> yes. >> okay. thank you. let's go to public comment on this item, please. >> thank you madam chair. if you have public comment on itedm 3 related to 68 nantucket avenue, please come forward to the lectern. it appears we have no speakers, madam chair. >> okay. public comment on this item is now closed. i would like to make a motion that we forward this to the full board with positive recommendation. >> on the motion offered by the

chair be sent to board with recommendation. preston aye. peskin, aye. melgar, aye. madam chair, there are three ayes. >> okay. that motion passes. thank you. let's go then to item number 4. >> item 4 is, hearing to receive an informational presentation on the united states (u.s.) army corps of engineers san francisco (sf) waterfront coastal flood study draft integrated feasibility report and environmental impact statement; and requesting the port, planning department, and army corps of engineers to report. >> okay, we have--this is your district president peskin. did you want to have opening remarks? >> thank you chair melgar. it is all our districts and i want to thank and acknowledge the port of san francisco and assistant port director, michael martin who is here and also thank the army corp of engineers and brian harper who has flown across the country

for this presentation and just to put it in a little bit of context, it is nothing new to any of us. we are surrounded by water on three sides. we are living even though maybe donald trump denies it in a era of unprecedented climate change and sea level rise we are grappling with as a city, as a state, as a country, as a world, and we need to prepare as we are slowly boiling and san francisco actually has been at the forefront that in many ways at the public utilities commission, at our port from the great highway to the northern and southern waterfronts and the port of san francisco that is responsible for 7 miles that waterfront has been working for some time under the leadership of brad

benson and the good news, but it is daunting is that we have gotten this far and it is a project i liken to the buildings of the pyramids of great cathedrals of europe that will happen under many generations of governmental leadership and this is a opportunity for us to get our heads around it. this is a very high level document. there is going to be a lot more planning. i think we need to see this not only in terms of the 2018 bond that the voters of san francisco passed by some 80 percent relative to the reinforcement and rebuilding of our sea wall, which is really a down payment on coastal defenses, but we should see this as an opportunity for unparalleled public participation and inclusion, knowing this is going to