. he was watching the inside of the restaurant while we were having the meeting, making sure they were doing what they were supposed to do. vice aih: technology is cool. >> exactly. our organization facilitates a entertait peitornong live hillan polk corner. we have had three meetings at the public library so far, none although the folkswho have been attending -- we have had 12 people attending regularly, along with the city attorney for our area. i want to make it clear that although someof thoseolks support of thi project, our organization's support is city- wide.

we aspire to represent all city districts. ornitis ole, andnotngfrom the committee for the area. i want to make that clear. at the conclusion of our meeting, we requested one condition, that the exterior surveillance technology -- which theygreed to want to sewe having said that, we support this project. vice chair joseph: thank you very much. is there any other public comment? i am glad to see you back in the room. did you have something to say earlier? ice aijose never mind >> linda chapman, representing some individual members of the community. our objective, as david

villalobos said, was nottoave a meeting on this board, but to stop what is happening on polk street. it is out of control. opertyowner caot come, because it raises his blood pressure too much. he gave me what he took into the meeting that david villa lobos had in our neighboood. statalio al of these. he says absolutely and unequivocally and no to any further licenses. hisclespeits,til existi late night street mobs noise nuisance is eliminated. there needs to be a total moratorium on any further icenses tie prlem ises fixed. that is in total his statement. he asked me to bring in his

list. e residentgeovere months, fr calls. this is at the corner. ine.teectioftion -- that are in at the intersection of pine, i was contacted by some people who called me up there. i was told tonight by david the lobos- villalobos that they would just be talking about conditions. so i did not encourage anybody to try to come. he cot s beoise. in this neighborhood, people live in studios, one-bedroom hecnogeafrom the' street. one man had to move his bed away from the kitchen.

in the senior housing, they at wanted to move in steps away from where they are. this is the center of activity at this intersection, where they you heard e soof bush street side. that goes on from 11:30 until it is nojust bar turnout.n it is massive crowds of people. neorhoodn besoandoneddhow a by city hall. about it, but it is going to take time. we do not need to add any more. vice chair joseph: thank you very much. >> here is a letter to your agency, asking for help. vice chair joseph: nicholas,

grab it. ok. never mind. >> about another 50 signatures have been filed. >> i will just add to the pile. our land use chair as well as our sick the chair has reviewed the safety plan. we got it yesterday. he was not about to write a letter. i just gave you a picture.

i it is noteea working. ice aijoseph there it to went. doubt it is working. oereopldinot get the chance? >> ilw bring this kind ofent. stuff. heve had the liquor license vice chair joseph: my screen is st. in theeiboood, one

tactic, and it grows to many tax. k eyneederst rpoed ausines what their responsibilities are. coin to eighbooohere i was amazed nobody else had said it to them. you have to do walk buys, andtwo we would also like to see the no loitering signs go up. it is part of e securiplan, and they are not up yet. they need to be part of the conditions. and i guesemindedthat the need to keep clear the litter 50 feet from the door.

h other inise ento have a bus stop in front of my concern is if they are having 100 customers how they are going to deal with the bus stop. and e overflow capacity. vice chair joseph: thank you. any other public comment? >> hello, commissioners. i knoweverybody wan tget out ofere. i was hired with garland mic to deal with outreach in the community -- i was hired with garland p.r.o deal with the community. the concerns about how to deal yvie-- initially, when they

file the application, they did companmmit to a security wedved them to hire somebody that was more professional, who the company knows how to do that. smokis or o thaterear issue, the happen to be on we are asking people to go to the corner if that becomes something else. there has been a long traditiond of having music. we want to maintain that. theseeopl vete back to engage with this community. you know the organizations they talked to. heave people who oo over their shoulders. they have watchdogs. petors, oryou will hearners and

about it there is a dynamite security plan. just ask that you approve the project and welcome them to the community. vice chair joseph: thank you. eeinnoneblic comment is closed. i have another qutionreally wioisent deal would you say that again? veeen woing with no. station. is thatwhatre talki vice chair joseph: ijust wanted o left theoom air that. they are working on it no falling on deaf ears.

i entertain a motion. i will get aotion and a second. mr. king? >> commissioners? vice chair joseph: next item on the agenda, commissioners comments and questions. anybody? moving on, new business or requests for futuregenda items? i move to adjourn.

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 th 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.