of san francisco some sort of representation is the grand jury. while some departments acknowledge that a grand jury, what they do is right and things are going to be implemented. today, you have seen at the mayor's office spew hot ash. so if we have a separate mediator or something, he's going to say something else, on whatever type of analysis we need outside the realm of the close circle. having said that, the population of 816,000, we have 26,000 plus city employees, and it is left to you who are representing the 11 districts of this city and county of san francisco to do what is best. [bell chimes]

we do have budgetary problems in spite of having a budget of $6.8 billion, and it is left to you. some of you are in the financial realm. some of you have been consulate to whatever, the san francisco unified school district. some have had experience with smart business. put your heads together and do the right thing. thank you. supervisor campos: thank you, sir. next speaker, please. >> good morning. my name is douglas, and i have lived in san francisco 59 years. i am glad to say that i survived 20 years working for the city of san francisco and san francisco general hospital. in regards to the hiring practice of the city. i would like to point out how the system is manipulated for my direct experience at the hospital. many of my co-workers kept telling me, and eventually i experienced where our superiors

basically verbally discouraged us from taking any tests, because they basically said between the lines that the person was already chosen. now this is from my experience. i have taken one test. i finished with a near-perfect score. and you tell me in 20 years how a person with my qualifications and never was promoted and never took another promotional test. so i would dare, department of human resources, to tell me that it is not an ongoing and longtime practice where applicants are verbally discouraged to taking tests because, basically, the appointee has already been chosen by management. second, i would like to point out that the civil service commission helped me in regards to my problem. i would like to give credits to kate. after her departure, i hate to say that i was given the cold soldier by the current civil service commission.

[bell chimes] roughly, an appeal through the civil service commission took close to three years to go through the process, and i was forced to go by their rules. let's put it this way, how does it 20 years city employee have to wait five years and is still undecided, undecided whether it was legal to put that employee on mandatory sick leave with no process of appeal? thank you. supervisor campos: thank you server -- thank you, sir. next. >> good morning. i am here are my own time as a private citizen. i would like to put the record straight. mr. da costa noted that we have 26,000 employees. you all know, because you are keenly involved, that that 26,000 figure is a lie. and it comes from the

controller's office. we have 26,000 fte's, but there are another 11,000 or so full and part-time employees, such that we have 36,644 city employees. so the other lie beneath -- being promulgated during the pension reform debate, our friend jeff adache claims city employees average $93,000 in salary. so if you forget the fte thing and actually look at the city controller's payroll debt, than $93,000 average salary is salaryhooey. as you consider changes to the civil service commission, i beg you to start using the real number of city employees and stop this pretense that there

are only 26,000 fte's. supervisor campos: thank you, sir. is there any other member of the public who would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. colleagues, as was indicated earlier, we have been asked to respond to find number 5 and recommendation number 5, and we have before us a motion, a proposed response, that calls for a specific position with respect to that finding and that recommendation. supervisor farrell. supervisor farrell: thank you. first of all, again, thank you to the civil grand jury for their work on this matter, and thank you for those who came before us today. i think, at this point, i would be prepared to accept the

finding. i have no reason to doubt that their hard work has kind of really gotten to the bottom of what some people are feeling about commission and city workers right now. however, on the recommendation, i am inclined to disagree here. it would be great to hire more folks, but we at the border faced with the budget for next year. and hundreds of millions of dollars of deficit already. so i would be happy to consider that next year, and we can think about it as a board next year in terms of our overall budget process. but to recommend it right now, when we heard it was not a necessity, you know, we're in austere times in the city and city government. we need to be very careful about that. so i would be prepared to agree with the finding and disagree with the recommendation. supervisor campos: so that is a

motion by supervisor farrell. i do not know if you have any thoughts or comments, president chiu? thank you. i certainly understand the perspective that supervisor farrell has and can supported or suggest in the language that we state that the kit -- the commission should consider the hiring of personnel. but in the context of the budget, i am happy to hear more on that this. president chiu: are we allowed to amend the language? >> yes, you are allowed to amend the language. president chiu: i see the point that supervisor farrell makes. i think that if we can have a language that leaves the option

of hiring open, i would be -- that would be my preference. the reason i see that -- say that is that i do not want us to take a position where we disagree with that finding or with a recommendation and later, you know, find out that, for some reason, in fact, this may be needed. i think that to the extent that there is a need, that there is an understanding that we will get the expert advice from the civil service commission, and that they will let us know what is appropriate. and of course, all of that has to happen in the context of the budget. so i and understand the hesitation, but to the extent that this finding is in error, it is important for us to leave some flexibility in how to respond to that. i get the point of what the civil service -- what the civil

grand jury is trying to say. president chiu: i have no problem with the language in the middle. i am not comfortable with what is there now. if there's language in the middle that would make people more comfortable, happy to do that. supervisor farrell: i suggest and the like, with respect to recommendation number 5, we're comfortable saying that, within budget realities and within the assess the needs of the commission in the future, something to consider if you want to go forward, something like that. supervisor campos: ok, so can we clarified the motion for the language? it would read that we agree with finding number 5 in respect to the recommendation -- what exactly? supervisor farrell: with regards to recommendation number 5, you

know -- i do not have actually any language specifically right now. supervisor campos: i do not know if the city attorney's office has suggestions. supervisor farrell: the point is to reflect budget realities as well as the needs of the commission. supervisor campos: ms. campbell. the budget analyst to the rescue, again. >> good morning. we could take supervisor, president chiu's language and say something to the extent of, with respect to the recommendation, the board of supervisors will evaluate the need for additional staff, a senior personnel analyst,

constraints of the budget and that requirement to the commission. supervisor campos: that sounds good. that is perfect. so we have a revised motion by supervisor farrell. can we take that motion without objection? thank you. madam clerk, please call the next item. >> we are going to item number 3. the hearing -- tabled here in number one. supervisor campos: we can table hearing never won without objection. with respect to item number two, we can repeat the motion, which is a motion to agree with the findings, and with respect to item number two, and this is something we already did as part

of item number one, but if there is any member of the public who would like to provide an additional comment on item number two, which is the response from the board of supervisors, including this committee, to the finding with respect to the civil service commission. is there any member of the public would like to comment? mr. da costa. >> normally the constituents at home rely on some of the information that we get from the controller's office. what we have here is the board of supervisors in the course of the year not having hearings on something as important as hiring practices. and one of the things missing in

how you evaluate yourselves is that we do not have an entity that gives us some sort of quarterly analysis. you presuppose that the city's hiring practices are the best. and billy brown was there. thousands of administrative assistant entered the system. so here we have the aid of the department of human resources making statements, but a lot of them participated in those shenanigans. so my input, besides what i said on item number one, is that you represent us, but we get very little representation in terms

of adjudication, process, and some sort of help to the constituents when it comes to the hiring practices. so we fall back on the grand jury's reports. and the least you can do is put a timeline, a sharp timeline, to see that something is done that balances the constituents of san francisco. thank you very much. supervisor campos: thank you, sir. >> i am patrick. so, interesting to hear supervisor farrell's attempt at comedy. austere times -- you just give a $20 million tax break to twitter. you just issued $110 million for certificates of participation

for the missoni convention center -- mosconi convention center. i am sure supervisor farrell read the article regarding this issue. while it is welcome to supervisor farrell, it is finally addressing part of the problem. you cannot claim that we have austere times if you're not going to require require -- require it being approved by the voters. in addition, if you would do salary reform before attempting to do pension reform, you would not have such an austere time of things, and you could easily fund that one position. thank you. supervisor campos: thank you, sir. next speaker. >> good morning, supervisors

could i am douglas. in regards to item number two, i would like to know whether you had a chance to talk to micki callahan and bill ginsberg? according to my information, the two of them are very influential on the current hiring practices. i think that it is only prudent that the two of them be consulted. i am surprise the both of them are not here, especially mr. ginsberg, given that there was a demonstration against mr. ginsberg on west portal last sunday. somehow the mayor did not show up in time to see it. anyway, in regards to the hiring practices, i am still wondering, what ever happened to the public demonstrations that happened at the department of public works on army street where there were many minority workers who

claimed that they were mistreated and were not given the proper hiring practices? also, i would like to know what ever happened to the x-ray tax which was involved in a so- called wildcat strike, which resulted in a secret meeting upstairs at general hospital and later that night the suspicious death of a union leader? i am kind of wondering if the hiring practices were ever fixed at san francisco general in regards to the x-ray tax, and were the complaints of the workers at the department of public works on army street were ever resolved? thank you. supervisor campos: thank you very much. any other member of the public that would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. with respect to item two, colleagues, i wonder if we can go back to the motion, and i apologize for failing to do it

in the right sequence. if we can take that motion again by supervisor farrell, which is a motion to accept finding number 5 and to expect a recommendation to number 5, the language that was provided to us by ms. campbell. we have that motion. if we can take that without objection. gatt thank you. madam clerk, please call item number 3. >> item 3, hearing on the 2010- 2011 civil grand jury report entitled "san francisco's ethics commission: the sleeping watchdog." >supervisor campos: thank you very much. i would like to call again on the foreperson at the civil grand jury. before i turn it over to you, i wanted to say that, you know, i have been dealing with civil grand juries for a number of years in different capacities

before i was elected to the board of supervisors. i was an attorney for the school district, and there were various reports that, over the years, that were submitted by the civil grand jury that implicated my client that involved the school district. and i really believe that there is a very important role that civil grand juries play. and i think it is a good thing for all government agency, all levels of government to have private citizens who are volunteering their time, who come in with a fresh set of eyes and provide their perspective on how government agencies are doing or not doing things. and i think that is a very, very and valuable. -- invaluable. i cannot emphasize that enough. from my perspective, the best thing that a government agency can do when dealing with a report from a civil grand jury

is to really keep an open mind and really try to understand where the civil grand jury is coming from. there may be agreement or disagreement, but i think that is important to hear that prospective. so i want to reiterate my appreciation for the work you do, and this item relates to a very important function in not just of this government but any government, and that is the role that such an agency plays. so this is a very important item. again, i want to thank you for the work that was done. with that, madam foreperson -- >> thank you. we appreciate your kind words about the civil grand jury. in some ways, you sort of usurped what i was going to say, which is to reiterate what mr. rothman said.

we're 19 individuals, citizens of san francisco, who are working only for the remaining citizens of san francisco to review the various departments and their operations. again, to reiterate, we do act independently. we do not have consultants assisting us. we have access to the city attorney, should we need it. but other than that, these reports are totally investigated by private citizens, the 19 members of the grand jury, and the reports that they write are solely the reports of those citizens based upon the information gathered by the various committees of the grand jury. i think it is important to remember that. our report that we're going to review now is on the topic of the ethics commission, the sleeping watchdog. i am going to turn this report over to mr. bryant clemmons, who was the juror who chaired that subcommittee for us. thank you. supervisor campos: thank you. and thank you for your service,

and welcome to the meeting. >> thank you, supervisors. when i started on the grand jury, and never thought that i would be investigating the ethics commission. initially, it was not even anything we were thinking about investigating. we were looking at something else, and that investigation brought us into the ethics commission for part of that other report. some of the things that we saw other kind of surprised us. because the ethics commission is supposed to be the organization that is watching out for the citizens and making sure that the rest of the government is functioning in the way we expected to. we found a number of things, and like we said in our report, we're not trying to be a complete review the ethics commission. this is just a small part of the ethics commission. it was not the main focus. but we found a few things that seemed, looking at it with a fresh set of eyes, as you said,

just did not make sense to us. so we thought we would bring these things separate from another report to make sure that they got enough information. one of the things that really disturbs us was relating to the sunshine or dance task force. and whenever the sunshine ordinance, whenever the task force found a problem, we noticed that there items have to get sent to the ethics commission for the hearing. from 2004 through 2010, in all of the cases that got sent to the ethics commission, every single one of them got dismissed. for various reasons. facts did not supported. yeah, one group of individuals found that there was a problem. yet, another group found there was not. i could see it happening sometimes, but every single one has seemed a bit excessive. and it seemed like the sunshine

or dance task force was being suppressed by the ethics commission because of the lack of a public hearing on the discussion topics that were brought forward to them. some of the other elements that we found were the membership of the commission and the way that the commission functions, while not directly towards your area, the scope and size of the commission, all the commission members are appointed by the people they are supposed to be overseeing. and while its -- there were not directed things that we could see, there were items that were not brought up that we thought should have been brought up, but they got sidelined due to the processes that are currently engaged in the ethics commission. and we looked at a number of

ways to try to rearrange some of that, and one of the approaches we came up with is one of our recommendations, which is number four, to add an additional members to the ethics commission which are not part of -- not appointed by the people they are overseeing. that they are appointed by independent groups. we feel that adding additional members to the commission would allow the commission to function better, and it would provide additional oversight within the structure of the commission to provide the transparency that the public is expecting with the ethics commission. and then, finally, the last item i want to talk about is the recording of the commission meetings. currently, there audio recording, which is better than a lot of the commissions, but we feel that as the voice for the

citizens and the ones that are supposed to be providing open government, that they do not provide and cannot find money in their budget to televise their sessions. it just seems disingenuous that only one-half of 1% of their total budget -- they cannot find that much money in their budget to spend to broadcast in their meetings, as opposed to providing an audio recording. with that, i will keep my comments brief, so thank you. supervisor campos: ok, thank you very much. why don't we now hear from the ethics commission? i do not know if -- or from the mayor's office? >> thank you. i am from the mayor's budget office. thank you for letting me speak briefly about this report. the ethics commission, in conjunction with the offices of the district attorney and city

attorney, have and will continue to work diligently to approach all complaints received. the ethics commission does investigate a variety of matters on a case by case basis. but the commission does strive to address all complaints in a timely manner. the mayor's office believes that many of the recommendations of the civil grand jury are reasonable. however, either because of limited resources or competing jurisdictions over subject matter or because some recommended changes require voter approval, certain recommendations may not be appropriate or feasible in all instances. with respect to the recommendations needing mayor's office responses, the mayor's office is believes, for recommendation four, that it would require further analysis, as this recommendation requires voter approval. with respect to recommendations 7, this also requires further analysis. but the mayor's office will work

with the ethics commission on broadcasting meetings on the city's television network. supervisor campos: i would like to ask a little bit more about that. i mean, why does that require further analysis? from my perspective, if you are going to have the kind of robust agency that you want to see, then one of the key elements of that is making sure that the public is aware, you know, of what the agency is doing. and that is why, with respect to the board of supervisors and many commissions, the meetings are televised. and i think that any supervisor here on the board can tell you that we definitely here, from time to time, as we're walking around our neighborhoods are our

districts, around the city, people provide specific comments about something we said or did or did not say or deny do, and i think that is important. so why should that level of transparency and scrutiny not apply to the ethics commission, which plays such an important role in making sure that government functions with a degree of, you know, the highest ethical standards possible? what further analysis do you need to have on that? >> well, one of the main things in our response is there is a budgetary impact or the department does have to find money in its budget to fund the services of the city's television network. but more importantly, and this is for the further analysis comes in, is that there are a finite number of rooms in city hall that are available