cents. i think two things that to happen to do that. maybe three things. i think you're going to have to, as generous as $20,000 is, when you're talking about a $600,000 house, it is not doing it. it is pretty much closing costs. i do not know how cops are getting four hundred $56,000 loans, by the way. i am not sure how the heck they are doing that. that is well over half of their take-away, so they're over 50% ratio, which is not good. that is what got us into this mess in the first place. i have been thinking a lot about this. to give them, let's say, half of the down, and to $120,000, which would be 20% of the six and a thousand dollars. if you're to give them $60,000 toward the $120,000, because they're trying to save the down, and you are able to somehow lower the interest rate by maybe 1%, 1 point, now you're talking about a difference in your mortgage payment of maybe $500

to $800 a month. now you're talking. i just do not think $20,000 is the number. i think it is a great effort, but i think to really change behavior, which is that we want people to stay here and we want people to come here and live better emerges to respond those -- responders. i did it is equally a report for teachers and nurses. banos we need our nurses during a disaster. we will need our teachers immediately to help care for the children. firefighters, police, sheriffs, these are all important. the third thing is i wonder if it would help to not limited to first-time buyers. because you might have some who owns a town house condominium and would like to move up to a house. the buyer and you have already bought. i say the three components are a slightly small interest repayment, more help on the down

payment, and then also to not limited to first-time buyers. that would be my recommendation. supervisor farrell: from your sins in the police department, do people think about this a lot -- from your sense in the police department, do people think about this a lot? i think it is great first start, but our housing costs are a tremendous. do people view it as a liable thing? >> it is not going to change behavior, $20,000. our officers have gone further and further and further with the affordability situation. a lot of them come up from windsor, which is a heck of a ride every day. we have a lot of officers in antioch, pittsburgh, contra costa county. we have several officers, believe it or not, that the vine sacramento beat up on the 10- hour workday, you're talking about basically a 14 or 15-hour day. i think a lot of people would like to get those four or five hours a day back.

it is a big part of your life. when you get into the area of, ok, i am married with two kids, maybe i want to explore the feasibility of the public-school system, maybe i want to explore the feasibility of park and recreation, those types of things, then other factors become involved. but i think you'd be able to increase by 25% to 30% if the offer was really substantial. and those things that i am talking about, from talking to my officers, i think that would actually change behavior. supervisor farrell: following up on that, can you say a little bit more about the level of the interests, because when i have spoken to officers, many of them to live in san francisco, but some may not for other reasons. i am just trying to understand

what the interest really is. >> i think it is a valid point. i think we're talking about a couple things. we do not want to drown the people in mortgage payments. you know, it is pretty tough for a police officer to be carrying more than a $300,000 mortgage payment. with property taxes, you're of about $3,000 a month, and that is over half their take-home pay. the weather is a concern. some people want to go to the suburbs because the weather is nicer. the sunset district, maryland beckham of bernal heights, the mission are attractive to officers, but the question is, can they buy a home for their families for $600,000? i used that number, and i do not think in our profession, unless you have a huge down payment, i do not think cops should have those kind of mortgage payments. to answer your question, i think there is an interest in living in the city under the right conditions.

but not at the expense of drowning in the mortgage payment. and i think that is a big part of it. i am hearing more and more cops, and mark and i talked about this a few weeks ago, we get a lot of empty nesters. 20 years in the business. they would like to move back to the city into a town house or condo and get rid of their car. there is that group of people, too, that would like to come back to their city and retire. i might do that myself and run for supervisor. you never know. i do not know what district. supervisor campos: is there a way to look at their actions and the expectation that they will move and as many of them will live in the city as possible? >> i think being single is a big part of it. if you are a single person in

this town, what greater place to live? they think that if we are recruiting, you know, we have been getting some great people from san jose and oakland because of their demise, and i know a lot of those officers are single officers. and you know, union street, you know, the castro, it cannot be a better place to be single. who wants to live in fearful that you are single? i do not think most of our cops really want to live in fairfield and dixon. i think you're talking about a difference between 1,200 feet and 2500 square feet. i think that is what it comes down to, i think we could change. supervisor campos: thank you. we're looking forward to your run for supervisor in a few years. always entertaining. thank you. sorry to fairfield, san jose, and oakland. again, thank you to the mayor's office, housing, department of

human resources, and to the poa for showing up today and for colleagues being a part of this. from my perspective, the purpose today is to get the conversation started. i think that having our police and public safety officials living in the city on a daily basis does improve our public safety. it is startling to hear the statistic that 75% of our police officers, about 65% of our fire fighters, to the outside san francisco, about the same for deputy sheriffs. but i really want to start the conversation about how we expand it to dig about first responders, and whether it is emergency personnel might be a great way to think about that. and you know, as we heard, i think there're certain instances that we're not going to build a change behavior. those that want more sunshine in square footage, that is the way it is going to be in they are going to move to the suburbs, and that is fine. but there are things we can do is a city. the mechanism is not what to talk about today, but i think it could come from the city in

terms of increasing the down payment system -- assistance. it is a balancing act with our limited funds. but i think, also, as we talk about how we change it, you know, the criteria as well, because there are a lot of and investors. i have talked into a lot of folks in our police and our department merely to say i would love to move back to the city. i do think the one part to mention that is key as well is that it is the down payment, but it is also the interest rates but that is not something that we can affect as a city. but i will say to my colleagues, i have already been talking to a number of lenders in san francisco and bigger lenders or a very open to the idea of providing lower interest rates for our first responders and emergency personnel in san francisco. they really believe that it is something that is a virtue, that they could be good corporate citizens of the city. my hope is that if we can expand the program as we did about downpayment assistance and to

include in the program, but also have private lenders come forward and say, you know what, to defending good for the community and we want to offer the, i do think that will ultimately have the true impact. that is what we want to do here. thank you again for sitting through this hearing. with that, unless there's anything else, i would probably move to table item number one. supervisor campos: first, why don't we -- first of all, thank you for bringing this issue forward. i think it is and that we need to continue to work on. i would simply add that we need to get to a right definition of, whether it is first responder or whatever the term is, because beyond the emergency situation in terms of the life of a city, the concept of community policing works a lot better if the officers actually live in the city. but i think that we need to include teachers as well. from my own experience, when it 9/11 happen, thank god that we

had teachers in the school day had already started in the teachers were here. anyway -- selling the we need to be careful about how we move this forward. president chiu? president chiu: we have not really had a conversation about how we're going to develop our work force housing, housing for our working families. no one can disagree that would be great to have all our first responders in the city, all of our teachers and nurses in the city. but it raises the broader question, and i think these are issues that we could probably more appropriately talk about in a land use and planning development, but it is certainly something we need to think about more significantly. supervisor campos: thank you. is there any member of the public who would like to speak on this item? seen none, public comment is closed. thank you, supervisor farrell. we have a motion to table. we can take that without

objection. can you please call item number two? >> item number two, ordinance amending the campaign and government to conduct code to require the ethics commission to televise its meetings on sfgtv. supervisor campos: thank you very much. colleagues, this is an item that i introduced, and there has been much discussion over the years about the need to have the ethics commission televise its hearings. for a lot of different reasons, i believe that it is good government common-sense thing to do. it is about transparency. the ethics commission plays a very important role in the life of city government, and i think that if we want to have the kind of accountable, transparent government that we all want, that providing some sunshine on what happens at the ethics commission is very important. with that, i would simply, if i

may, ask the executive director of the ethics commission, who is here -- thank you for being here. the last time we discussed this, you indicated that there was already a movement in this direction on the part of the ethics commission. i am wondering if you could lead as know where things are? >> yes, thank you. we made some good progress on accomplishing this particular goal. my commission has ratified the mission that they wished to have it televised. we have changed by allows tuesday that all of our meetings will be televised as of january 2012. i worked to identify a funding source. i spend a good deal of time with city hall management and sfgtv to work out the logistics for this. so we will be moving our monthly

meetings from the second monday to the fourth monday starting in january into a different room that is equipped for television. as of january 2012, our meetings will be televised. supervisor campos: for the benefit of the members of the public, how often does the ethics commission meet right now? >> it meets every month, right now on the second monday. starting in january, the fourth monday. we generally have between two and six special meetings a year as well when the need arises. supervisor campos: ok, great. colleagues, any questions? again, i want to thank you for your good work on following up to this, in thank you to the ethics commission for making the progress and to the mayor's office as well. the other point that i will add, and i have actually had a brief conversation with supervisor wiener about this -- as are not sure where he is on this, but as we move forward with this, it is something we should consider.

i do not know, for purposes of notice, how we would be to approach this, but from my perspective, i think it is very good to provide members of the public an opportunity to see how the laws that govern the conduct of elected officials, appointed officials, how they are being enforced or implemented by making sure that these bodies, like the ethics commission, the provide oversight over that implementation, that their meetings be televised. but is not just the ethics commission the plays that role. you also have the sunshine task force, which is also charged with a very important responsibility, to make sure that the open meeting laws and rules that govern the conduct of elected officials and appointed officials are implemented properly. and my interest would be to amend this ordinance to includes -- to include the sunshine task force as well.

i do not know if there is any thoughts on that. supervisor farrell? supervisor farrell: we have had a conversation with the director about the finances. that would be my main reason -- consented to the other point, i agree. i did it would be great. i would have a question about where the findings are coming from and what the cost would be. i know that had to move meeting days and rooms. i would like to hear about the details behind it. president chiu: are you looking to do this in this meeting? supervisor campos: not necessarily. i do not even know from a public notice perspective if we can actually do that. but i think it would be happy with focusing on this right now and an end to get at some point, -- and amending it at some point as we look at the issue of finances. but i do think it is important for us to move in the same direction with respect to the

sunshine task force for the same reasons biddable president chiu: -- for the same reasons. president chiu: i am certainly open to it. supervisor campos: a question for the city attorney's office. again, we're not looking to do this at this meeting, but if this legislation moves forward, procedurally, wetherbee a way to amend the ordinance to include the sunshine task force -- would there be a way to amend the ordinance? >> adding the sunshine or dance task force would require additional public comment. you need to hear from the different departments affected, in different people would testify. that would trigger another committee hearing. supervisor campos: ok, great. thank you peter i am fine with moving this forward and acting on this today. but, again, i wanted to put that

out there, because i think that since we're talking about providing transparency and accountability, it is important to think holistic the end clearly. it is not just the ethics commission playing the role, but also the sunshine task force. i appreciate my colleagues and being open to that and look forward to getting additional information. that is one of the things that we will do in my office, making sure that we follow up with the sunshine task force on that. why don't we open it up to public comment? any member of the public who would like to speak on this item? i have a couple of cards. one card from douglass. you each have three minutes. >> good morning. i am the chair of the sunshine or dance task force. i wanted to make sure that -- sunshine ordinance task force.

i wanted to make sure that the ethics commission was included. there are things that get missed on the audio. for example, when the ethics commission heard the only sunshine task force referral, they watched a video of the library commission that had been taped. if that was not available, they would not have been able to watch it. and when you see the ethics commissioner's response to the video, it is equally as important as what you hear. i appreciate this going forward, and i wanted to make sure you knew how important it was despite the budget. i also would like to urge you to consider televising the sunshine ordinance task force meetings. and the ethics or one has both the regular meetings and the special meetings but at a minimum, the regular meetings, for the very same reason. i want to remind you that the sunshine task force is dependent on the board of supervisors to poll for this. we do not have paid staff. we have an administrator, but it

is not the same as an executive director. so we would be dependent on you to find the funding, not hope that this funding is available, similar to what was done for the at the commission. just to point out how important that is, it helps the department, too. we had a recent meeting with the city attorney's office brought in a large exhibit. largely their presentation was based on that, and nobody could see it. i had to take a picture of it with my cell phone so that later on, if somebody goes back to look at it, including the ethics commission, that would have that available to them. it is not just people, but it benefits the employees and the department, too. we also had a recent hearing or the arts commission had a tape -- there's are not videotape, and there was dispute overlie

segment was missing. it was agreed upon that it was missing, but nobody could explain how. if those are a videotape, we would have been able to look at that and see if something had happened. it helps out. i wanted to make sure you know that and to urge you to advocate for us. thank you. supervisor campos: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good morning, supervisors. i have lived in san francisco for 59 years. i would like to thank supervisor campos for this ordinance. i think it is long past due. i think another person i would really like to thank is my inspiration, mr. joe lynn, who is closely connected with the ethics commission. for sure he would fully support this idea, so we should pass it as a show of gratitude for joe's

passport with the ethics commission. in regards to televising the ethics commission, i think it is really important that people see how it actually functions. from my experience with the ethics commission, i have a very dim view of how they handled interviewing certain witnesses, like gavin newsom and philip ginsburg. also, i would like to find out what ever really happened with my district supervisor's residency, since it was a written complaint. also, i would like to find out what really happened with regards to the infamous tony hall witchhunt. things like this should not be allowed to happen. i think that when there is transparency, people, in a certain sense, know that they're not going to get away with it. in regards to getting away with it, even the famous coach joe paterno cannot get away with it

and not talking to police peter i am sure if there was an active watchdog agency, he would have done the right thing in long time ago. unfortunately, he decided not to do it. so i think we need to set an example for future san franciscans, and also because san francisco was supposed to be a leadership city, we should send out the word that it is not just the fbi that puts the bad guys in jail. we need cooperation from watchdog agencies like the ethics commission, and they should be doing their job instead of handpicking the cases and, in a certain sense, offer protection, in my opinion, to other cases that they choose not to hear it is so i think people like joe support this, and i am sure in the but of all the, i am sure most people would support it. because when you have that here

at the commission that protects everyone, no matter what their politics or personal beliefs are, so i think something like this is way past due, and i think that everybody should support it. because it protects everyone living in san francisco. thank you. supervisor campos: thank you very much. is there any other member of the pub