know commissioner dooley's deeply passionate, so those are awash. whatever happens, it will be a good day when this commission rises to the level of maturity of the planning commission and other commissions, and frankly, i am not going to vote to support a narrowing in this commission. this commission should be broader and not more narrow, and what i am seeing is a narrowing. for some reason, the seat cannot be filled. the fourth mayoral appointment

has not been filled, and i think that is really telling, and hopefully that will broaden our commission can make a stronger commission, but i do not know because this vote is not illustrating the maturity. it is illustrating a narrowing of focus, and i find that really troubling, and hopefully, we are broadening, and there will be a lot of advocacy. this will show it is not capable of being the small business commissioned it was chartered to be. cracks seeing no commissioner's comments, we didn't have public comment -- >> seeing no commissioner's comments, we have no public comment?

>> public comment is opened. >> seeing none, thank you very much. much appreciated. public comment is closed, and back to you, chris. >> as with previous rounds, we will go in order of those nominated. commissioner kathleen dooley was nominated. on that motion. commissioner clyde: yes. commissioner dooley: yes. >> unfortunately, you cannot of spain. you need reasons for it -- you cannot abstain.

>> the motion fails, 3-3. commissioner o'brien was nominated. [calling votes] that motion failed, 3-3. >> the you say the rest of the meeting is adjourned or just this item? >> without being able to take a formal action on this, we are required to close the meeting. if we are not able to continue this through a formal motion -- if we are not able to continue to the february meeting, the

next step is to make a motion to close the meeting, but we still need a 4-3 vote on that. do we want to discuss it? >> of his time, commissioners can take additional nominations, or we would refer to robert's rules of order, and you need to either continue this on february 7 with four more commissioners, or the only option is to close the meeting. if commissioner o'connor is no longer present, since this is a procedural motion, only a majority of commissioners currently president would be required to vote to close the meeting.

>> we need a majority. >> you just stated we need a majority at this point, which is i believe what the city attorney advised us if we have five commissioners in attendance. goobacks right, and that assumee have a commissioner willing to put a motion before the board to vote on whether to continue or not. perhaps we have two options. to continue we would need four votes. perhaps we would have to put that in motion. -- >> we would have to put that in motion.

>> our attorney noted if there are five commissioners in attendance, we would need a majority to close the meeting. >> do we have a motion to continue? >> no. >> based on the legal advice, i now call this meeting to a close. >> unfortunately, we still need to go through the same sort of procedural steps. you can not so's you'd allow correlation -- you cannot just unilaterally call the meeting to a close, so we need to have you call a motion and go through the steps and have a majority approves it. >> even with every commissioners if they moved to close, we can close the meeting? >> yes. >> thank you for staying behind to do that. >> i make a motion and we close

the meeting. >> i second. >> any objections? seeing none, the meeting is now closed. >> i think a lot of times we look a community and we say, there is this one and this one, and we all have our own agenda, when our agenda is to create great work. if you're interested in that, you are part of our community.

>> it is a pleasure to have you here tonight. >> we are trying to figure out a way to create a space where theater and presentation of live work is something that you think of, the same way that you think of going to the movies. of course, it has been complex in terms of economics, as it is for everyone. artistically, we have done over 35 projects in four seasons from presenting dance, producing theater, presenting music, having a full scale education program, and having more than 50,000 visitors in the building almost every year. a lot of our emerging artists generate their first projects here, which is great. then we continue to try to support figuring out where those works can go. we have been blessed to have that were produced in new york, go unto festivals, go on to the

warsaw theater festival. to me, those are great things, when you see artists who think there is no or else of someone being interested in me being a woman of color telling her story and getting excited about it. that is our biggest accomplishment. artists becoming better artists. what is great about surely coming back to brava, we have this established, amazing writer who has won a slew of awards and now she gets an opportunity to direct her work. even though she is an amazing, established writer, the truth is, she is also being nurtured as a director, being given space to create. >> and the play is described as ceremony and theater meet. in the indigenous tradition,

when you turn 52, it is that the completion of an epic. the purpose of this ceremony is to celebrate. whenever you have been caring for the first 52 years, it is time to let it go. they have given me carte blanche to do this. it is nice for me in the sense of coming back 25 years later, and seeing my own evolution as an artist and a thinker. the whole effort even to put the indigenous woman's experience center stage is very radical. because of the state of fear, it is a hard road to hold up an institution. it really is a hard road. i am looking at where we're 25

years later in the bay area and looking at how hard it is for us to struggle, to keep our theaters going. i would like to think that i am not struggling quite as hard personally. what i mean by that is that in tension, that commitment. what i see is that we're here to really produce works of not be produced in other places, and also to really nurture and women of color artists. i think that that is something that has not shifted for me in 25 years, and it is good to see that brava is still committed to that kind of work. you know? ♪ >> happy birthday to you happy birthday to you ♪ >> windy will talk about the reflection of the community, we can only go with what we have on our staff.

south asian managing director. african-american artistic director. latino outreach person. to us, aside from the staff, aside from the artists that we work with him being a reflection of oz, yes, the community is changing, but brava has always tried to be ahead of that, just that sense of a trend. i tried to make about the work that shows the eclecticism of the mission district, as well as serving the mission. that is what i feel brava is about. ♪

commissioner: i would like to call the meeting to order. welcome to the meeting of the san francisco ethics commission, january 3, 2012. i will take role. commissioner studley, commissioner liu, commissioner hanyon. item number two, public comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the agenda. >> once again, i do not see my agenda item on the agenda.

the sunshine task force were for all on case number 11-013 and 11-014, which i sent you months ago. you have not yet scheduled a public hearing on my item, and it should not take you five months to either recused him from this case, since the task force had a finding of willful failure and official misconduct bore him on both cases, so for him to recuse himself and this body to schedule a hearing on my case, i wonder when you are going to tell me, commissioner hyr, -- hur, when you are going to schedule my hearing on the agenda? commissioner hyr: -- hur: thank

you for bringing it to my attention. we will look into it. >> excuse me. i have had a hearing loss since i was a child. commissioner hur: i said thank you for bringing it to our attention. we will look into it. >> that will be the third time you have said you will look into it. >> we have been here six or eight times before this body. the ethics committee is the only city body empowered to enforce violations of the city -- laws. i -- from 2004 to 2011 without having a single hearing or taking a single vote, the ethics commission rejected every one of 26 public record enforcement cases sent in by the sunshine ordinance task force.

during that eight-year period, the commission membership has turned over almost three times, and the commission has held over 100, over 100, meetings. the only constant player in all of these 26 rejections over the entire eight-year period has been john, your executive director. wrongfully using the ethics regulations and its default, and he handled the entire process from start to finish without the participation or involvement of even one commissioner. managing any staff investigations, determining whether there was probable cause for a commission year and, selecting the facts for his report and recommendation to the commission, and is sending a it,

no hearing, no vote, case closed. his views of the task force are no secret. in the new york times, he said that the work of the task force often lacked due process and that his department had an obligation to review the cases. that statement was blatantly false. he knew that. the task force has an exhaustive procedure, including at least three hearings. the ethics commission, on the other hand, has none. that statement and others in the article are gratuitous comments intended to discredit the task force work and discourage members. prop 59 adopted in 2004 by an 83% majority created the public

constitutional right of access to public records. the commission complete lack of involvement in these cases and the executive director misuse of this position has denied those 26 complainants that right. i think the time has come to recognize that that right exists. thank you. >> good evening, commissioners. my name is dr. washburn. i am a member of the sunshine ordinance task force. i occupied seat number five and was appointed by or recommended by -- of san francisco. i also share the compliance and amendments committee of the sunshine ordinance task force. i appeared before you in november at your regular meeting to urge you to meet with us jointly about your proposed

regulations for handling sunshine enforcement cases, and i think that the consensus seemed to be that that would be a good idea. i then sent a letter. it was dated january 6. 2012. asking again for a joint meeting, suggesting the week of february 6. it is probably too late for that to happen, but i am here today to again requesting a joint meeting. i think that the matters before us are complicated. the history between our two bodies is strained. we look to the sunshine ordinance task force, and citizens look to you to help enforce the city's public records laws, and this has not been happening, so i hope to

hear a response to my letter in a few days' time so that we can schedule a joint meeting. thank you so much for your consideration. commissioner hur: thank you. >> thank you very much for the time clock. it is in the morning that even though this meeting is relatively sparsely populated but the handouts are already exhausted. i begin by saying with the public library do not accept things from the public library and the friends of the public library. you will remember that the president of the library commission was found to have created a willful violation and that her conduct was below the standard for a public official. later that month, the library commission, during a discussion of a service for the public, one of the commissioner said, and i quote him verbatim, "you know

last monday when we had met," the commission meets on thursday, "last monday, the commissioners had met, and we talked about how the changes to the printing system would potentially impact staff, as well. i was just wondering if it would be worth it to speak to the public about how it impacts them, as well." you do not have to be a genius to figure out that this is a blatant omission of a non announced meeting of the commissioners. it goes without saying that there was no announcement of a meeting on the previous monday and no explanation offered about why this was a blatantly illegal meeting. i have mentioned this several times. of course, my mentions of it were never documented in the library commission minutes. finally, at a meeting on december 15, that same commissioner said, again, into the microphone, and i transcribed him directly, "there

is just a thing in reference to the illegal meeting, which was simply a briefing. i just wanted to be clear. there is no such thing as an illegal meeting. it was purely a briefing." well, this is an example of them simply flaunting their power, . they have a commission president to has been found in willful violation. you have no concept of how corrupt these people are. i certainly found nothing comparable in society. they are ripping off a public institution of millions of dollars, and a finding of being unethical or violating sunshine ordinances and laws is just an opportunity to show how impervious they are and how we any sort of democracy is compared to the influence of money and corporate power that

they possess. the fact of the matter is if you come to this ethics commission meeting and just shuffle paper, you need to be aware of how much damage you are doing because you are demonstrating how powerless democracy is, and of course, the laws cost more than the money. thank you. >> good evening, commissioners. my name is dr. -- after 20 years at laguna honda hospital, i became a whistle-blower, and then i was laid off. in the past six years, you have dismissed 29 consecutive sunshine complaints. even though you substantiated 20% of them, none resulted in any enforcement action, and only one was granted a public hearing. all of them were dismissed. this wrongly implies that the

complaints were not valid, and it also allows city officials who violate the sunshine ordinance to claim that they were exonerating by the ethics commission. your handling of a whistle blower retaliation complaints is similarly one-sided. every single retaliation complaint has been dismissed since the commission was founded. meanwhile, the government accountability project has provided a legal aid to some 5000 whistle-blowers over the past 30 years. here is what they advise in the whistle-blowers' survival guide. it says, "you will surely suffer retribution for blowing the whistle, because bureaucracies instinctively eliminate anything perceived as a threat. academic studies confirm that more than 90% of whistle-

blowers report subsequent retaliation, and they give references." now, if experts say that retaliation occurs in 90% of the cases, why do you report in retaliation rate of zero? please consider two possibilities. number one, your investigations are biased against complainants. and number two, your decisions are based on opinions from the city attorney, who has a duty to defend the very same city officials that we report for wrongdoing. thank you very much. >> good evening, commissioners. maria. i was pushed out and forced out

of the kahane after over 20 years of service to the city. two years ago, we made three whistle-blower complaints to the ethics commission. the first one regarded health director michel --mitchell katz, with a group that had an affiliation. this complaint was dismissed by ethics. our second complete recorded davis john s. sicilians, who was awarded a $2 million department of public health contract. the white, a high level dph executive, played a major role in awarding the contract. after two years, the comptroller revoke the contract siding, quote, irregularities. this complaint was also dismissed by the ethics commission. the laguna honda gift fund was

reported as well. it is a charitable fund for poor patients that was being plundered for staff parties and perquisites by the laguna honda administration. nine months later, pressure led to an audit which restored three under $50,000 for the patience of a good on that, but again, this complete was ignored by the ethics commission. and lastly, i was driven out after 22 years, and the doctor was laid off. our whistle-blower complaints were dismissed by ethics without a hearing. is this an ethical decision making? thank you very much. >> good evening. i am peter, the executive director of the library users association. first of all, i want to thank the ethics commission for having publicly televised meetings, which will make it much easier

for the public to observe what is happening at your meetings compared with audio only. i hope that the ethics commission will continue progress in the direction of open government by improving in a variety of other ways and especially by having public hearings on issues referred to you for enforcement by the sunshine ordinance task force. that is an area where i think you have an unfortunate record. a case that i brought against the public library in 2004 is one of the first that was referred to you and the group that a lawsuit brought. the issue there was the library refusal to provide workers' compensation records, even redacted, to prevent any kind of

confidentiality harm, records that would confirm or unconfirmed their claims about a very important issue, and that was what are the health risks of bar codes swiping for employees. they were claiming that swiping bar codes to demagnetize books when people check them out was causing repetitive stress injuries that were harmful, bad, and so on, even crippling to employees. when we asked for the documentation to back this up, they refused to provide it, and after a lengthy follow-up process, including their refusal to attend sunshine ordinance task force meetings, the sunshine ordinance task force referred this to you for enforcement.