that is replaced with -- the department shall post notices on and notices pages accessible from the department's web site home page. the department of technology shall call such notices -- again, a deletion -- to be promptly posted on receipt. the department technology shall cause such notices to be acceptable in the notice section placed on the city's home page. supervisor campos: thank you. >> i do not know if there is anything, since you helped us compose this -- you would like to speak with regard to what current practice has been, first as the need to upgrade our practice about how we inform the public? i know you have been following sunshine, brown, notification for some years now. >> yes, i did work in the clerk's office on this.

it does give people access on the website but gives newspapers. regardless of the meeting that an individual uses for information, there will be a link or follow up with a can get the information they need. >> old habits die hard in some cases. in one respect, if people rely on their community newspaper, it is something that we do not want to eliminate, but at the same time, we want to expand people's options for where they can gain information. >> that is right. the clerk's office did a survey, they published questions asking people if they saw this notice and to give feedback. one person responded and said, please have bigger type.

particularly this amendment that you just read, it gives people both options. they will have a short summary, an agenda-like freezing of a particular notice, but then we've refer people to the specific website so that they can see the full notice. >> thank you for your assistance. colleagues, if it is ok, i would like to call up the clerk of the board. i want to thank the clerk's office, who is on the front lines of having to facilitate and address many of these issues that i think we take for granted in some ways. in order to keep people informed of the over 60 commissions and task forces and

advisory groups, not to mention, any of the organs related to the chief executive, board of supervisors, any of the other elected family in san francisco, it gets into the many dozens of activities and bodies that are engaged in some form of city business, formally or informally. that puts an incredible amount of onus on the clerk and others to traffic cop, for lack of a better phrase, that information to everyone else. if it is not done well, naturally, the fallout is, why are we not informed? >> thank you. we have been working in conjunction with supervisor mirkarimi and the city's attorney's office. this does not preclude any of the notification that are required under state and federal laws, which are land-use matters which include general

plan amendment, zone controls, eminent domain, ground controls, items that will still be required under state and federal law. what this does eliminate is the need for us to publish all of our agenda, summary of actions of minutes, as well as it legislation introduced. i have a shamble -- i have a sample to show you what this would look like. honestly, i do not see how anybody can read anything in those tiny columns. >> what would that cost us, for example? >> probably $1,200 for that ad. >> aggregate lee, over a budgets time? >> some years are more than

others. about $150,000 a year in publications. the passage of this ordinance, we could save -- conservative estimate is 50% of that. we do not know the requirements that we have to publish. as the deputy city attorney indicated, at the bottom of these ads, we had been indicating, if you see this, let us know. we have not received any -- except for the one individual who said, please make the print larger. we have included this in all the publications, so -- supervisor campos: thank you. >> thank you as well.

next, i would like to call the department of technology. >> good morning, the supervisors. i would like to direct your attention -- we have been working with your staff to put together a template of what it could look like and how the experience could be, as it relates to the general public's who accesses sfgov.org. as you see on the bottom, we have a carousel of images, city services that we have. we have public notices featured on the right. that is sort of the image that we use when we have something new, news timely. of course, these are the most

requested, things that people are always looking for, accessing 311, paying your parking tickets, public notices we can highlight their as well. once you click on public notices, this is the index page but we would provide to the public. in this case, it is done by a business service. we can work with the clerk of the board and supervisors office to determine that, but this is what you would see. every city department available from this page. finally, this is an example of where you would go from there. as supervisor mirkarimi indicated earlier, the various departments are responsible for posting the notices.

commack as they are for all the information and contact -- content available on the website. we will provide the access. if there is any training that needs to be done -- which there should not be -- because these are the same tools that we are using to post these notices as well. i have a marker from the department of technology here as well. he is responsible for enterprise in the city. he is here to answer any questions that you might have. >> thank you. i do not want to be remiss. are there any other departments that would like to speak to this? colleagues, i would be more than happy to welcome public comment for this item. >> a good morning. again, richard nee.

the question i had before, on how might this city's ability to implement this provision be affected by the dt and coit obligations to upgrade the storage system, that question was referring to both of the warden says. supervisor mirkarimi perhaps said it was not necessarily a concern in the previous ordinance discussed. and perhaps he has better expertise on this than i do. again, this ordinance is, i think, well crafted, raises no red flags with me. it is important to note, even before his days as a supervisor, mr. mirkarimi has

made major contributions to the cause of sunshine in san francisco. we owe him our gratitude for that. i also want to echo her -- her -- echo -- earlier, you were talking about ms. wong. i have always found her demeanor to be professional. >> thank you. >> good morning, supervisors. i am the eyes president of the haight-ashbury neighborhood council. we polled our neighborhood members and brought it to the board, and there was overwhelming support. anyone tried to be involved in government politics, policy knows what a nightmare it is. quite often, certain departments

will have a vested interest in making sure certain groups and do not know what is going on. this should have been implemented years ago. our organization overwhelmingly supports this. we cannot wait to have this happen. >> next speaker please. >> good morning, supervisors. director of the neighborhood parks council. i am happy to represent the council today in support of this measure. as a community-based organization, we encourage the city to continue improve public access to city notices, especially in a way that inform the number of constituents. like other community-based organizations, we rely on sharing information through our constituents through the web, and communicating to others

where they can access this information. our constituent part users, advocates, stakeholders often look to us and other neighborhood groups to find this information. we like to act as a conduit for the city to make sure that more groups are finding out what is happening. knowing where to connect our users will be absolutely inaudible, insuring that we share the most accurate and up- to-date information, in a defined means. lastly, we really heard from our town halls and surveys, that there is an increased need. we appreciate supervisor mirkarimi's efforts to get this through. this is critical, both online and offline. we are happy to offer our support for any electronic for cat -- format that decreases the number of trees used. that just means more parks to be enjoyed by our community. thank you.

>> thank you. next speaker please. >> members of the committee, alex clemens. there seems to be general unanimity of support for it. instead of exploiting the reasons why it is great, i will encourage other members of the panel to take it even further. you are offering pull technology to san franciscans. if you want to find out about something, there is some place to go find it. i would encourage that you expand this through legislation to allow people to sign up for all committee reports, and perhaps a year or two from now, certain key words, but maybe if

-- the way people operate these days, you're right, and they do not look much at newspapers or public notices. this is a fantastic first step. this should have been implemented five years ago. the second-best time to do it is today. >> it is an honor to come up here again. i want to voice my support this. there are a lot of small businesses and smalin san franc. i think they are actually helping our country to survive because they create jobs and they bring resources back into the community. you would be surprised how many small businesses in the city are not taking the advantage of the

most basic tax incentives, enterprise zones, etc. the reason i bring that up, if you want to try to get information, the smallest piece of information takes so much time for a small business person. there are programs out there where you can do stuff, get some of the incentives for free. the point of why i am saying this, there is a newsletter. i do not know what i found out about it. i started looking through. if it is late, i am like, where is the newsletter? i have to have it. it is critical information in a centralized place. it deals with monday, urban

solutions. now that have an account and coming in to help small businesses to bring businesses together to teach them how to fill out those forms and maybe even share resources to pay for the same account. this will help every department. i just want to say that this is important. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> i also want to speak in support of this. thank you, supervisor mirkarimi, for your ongoing support with sunshine and legislation. the only question i would have is, again, i would advocate departments be strongly encouraged to post notices in a text searchable fashion.

.pdf is very lamenting -- limiting. people also used for restores for research. i wonder if it would be useful to have a clearly delineated, how long the information needs to be posted and available. retention issues should be addressed, i think. thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i am speaking in support of this measure. my name is marilyn cohen. i have a question for supervisor mirkarimi. how long and advanced to these notices have to be posted? -- how long in advance do these

notices have to be posted? i have been following the rec and parks commission for months and will be speaking there this afternoon about their lack of transparency and the way that they do things in back rooms and present the public a set of countries. they're doing it again today. we really have got to make the department open, acceptable, and accountable to the public. that department is not being run like that right now. thank you. >> thank you. before the next speaker comes up, when public comment is done, i will bring the department's back up to speak -- those are two excellent points. retention of notice and how long in advance. i will address that. >> first of all, ross, you are

the boss. i am supporting when you're doing here. when it comes to transparency and information. i have been here for over 27 years. i do not get the amenities. i do not have any of the amenities they have, but transparency is great. i have been trying to get information. hats off to you all for putting together an audit of the redevelopment agency. we need transparency. this is one step of putting together an internship of you for coming here to city hall to learn about the structure of that. our first assignment will be a transition team. this is one way to turn this into silly hall into city hall. an opportunity of a generation through communication. this is exactly what we need to

open up the doors. we can bring the youth in to find out exactly what happens in city hall. with this transparency of information, -- i am one of the founders of san francisco government channel. i used to bring the cameras around. i am one of the pioneers. i do not get the credit, but that is ok. i am bringing in a new generation through communications. i am going to present that we have community new services. like we have the government channel, we need a community channel to cover the community meetings. we will be here with our cameras to tell you what is going on. this is a case, in your face, on the case. >> thank you, mr. washington. the speaker. >> catherine howard.

golden gate preservation alliance. government transparency is very important. navigating very city websites is challenging since many are organized to different formats. i have the most experience with the department of recreation and parks. if you are a member of the public, you go to this web site for the first time, you will see a list of categories, but none of the talks about the commission, meetings, commission hearings. you have to go to the bottom after you spend time clicking on irrelevant things, and then you will find us. when you click on that, you will see a lot of topics, including the rec and parks commission. then on the left-hand column you'll see agendas, minutes, supporting documents. finally, when you see that, you will see the agenda minutes. at the very bottom, if you are lucky, within the time line specified by sunshine, you might

see the supporting documents. this legislation will simplify the process and increase ease of access. i think it is very important. i would also like to encourage the supervisor to find a way for sfg to always record the rec and parks commission meetings. oftentimes, there is a pecking order and rec and parks often gets bumped. a few weeks ago, a group of environments said they would be suing the department. that meeting was not recorded. this was the way that lots of community members found out about rec and parks. for sfgtv attics like myself, suffering from insomnia, you can see those things late at night, but it would be better to get the information. >> any more public comment?

>> i am the vice president of sales and marketing of the san francisco examiner -- "san francisco examiner." i want to commend you, commissioner, for having these public notices published on the website and available to the public. i would like to point out one of the important roles that a newspaper, like "examiner" plays, is a time stamp document independently distributed in the city. as you talk about making this available, making sure the public can see what meetings are occurring every day at city hall, you are suggesting potentially that some of the notices will not be published and the city clerk's office will decide which will not be published. this potentially create an issue

because what the newspaper does is, once it is published in that newspaper in a timely fashion, before the meeting, it is a public record that that meeting happened. if you take some of the notices and not put them in the newspapers, how do you intend to do with the fact you are controlling the website? it is not necessarily time stamped and will not be put out to the public in a timely fashion. i think that is an issue you should consider. i also think that the paper -- not only distributes hundreds of thousands of copies a day in the city -- all public notices are available on our website which is well visited. in fact, you can request a version of the paper. for those who cannot read it, it can be blown up and read. we are addressing not only the print but the electronic version. have a great day.

>> thank you. i appreciate that. any other public comment? i think public comment is closed. i want to bring up mr. caldera from the clerk's office. in addition to your previous points, retention of the notice when it goes to website, and how long in advance, which i believe is dictated by both brown and sunshine. the gentleman from "the examiner" brings up a good point, and i think we should have a chat about that. >> thank you for having me back up. i have been listening to the questions raised in the discussion. the retention piece of it, we are required by brown and sunshine requirements to post things within 72 hours of meetings. for publication purposes, for regular meetings, we have to publish 36 hours in advance.

for special meetings, 18 hours in advance. all the court staff works diligently to make sure we meet those deadlines. san francisco, the city and county, is unique and different from the rest of california. we are required, from the sunshine ordinance, to publish the agenda is, minutes, and legislation introduced documents. especially at the board of supervisors office. [inaudible] [unintelligible] ] they are just posted outside in a place that is visible and on the website as well -- [inaudible] publish our agendas and minutes.

>> you may want to put the microphone closer to you. to the point which is important, with regard to being able to affirm what i understand is the foundation of onset of one we are supposed to post something, the issue that was brought up for consideration is, you have something that is time stamped. you have something that is memorialized, essentially. how would we make sure that that would not be compromised? >> we will be working with the department of technology on the process, as well as other departments to get the information out, and what they need to do. one piece that we are thinking about is, there is an actual proof of service, posting, which some weone will sign off on.

that is important, in case we are sued or something else happens, that we are in accordance with the brown act. >> even though my initial legislation -- before i introduce an amendment -- it was more in the direction of moving completely into the internet, but we stopped so that it is shared with newspapers. we wanted to find that balance. that is my objective to the folks from the industry. it is not one or the other, it is both. it is to increase the orbit of obligation to make sure that both fronts are used as tools for notification and information

transmission. >> just as a recap, in my earlier comments, this does not preclude us from printing the other requirements pursuant to state and federal law in the official newspapers. this includes fee adds, general plan amendments, the zoning in turn controls, ground leases, eminent domain, free vacations, cids, and ordinances. >> i hate to make your life and staff costs life more arduous with regard to responsibility, but he reminded me of the time advance of when you are to post things based on sunshine and brown act practice. what if we were to extend that? instead of the minimum of hours, what if we were to