>> hello. welcome to "culturewire." we are here today with bay area artist jody chanel, and we are here to see the plaza where

your piece has just been installed. >> i have been doing large-scale paintings in the galleries and museums, and the idea that in the future, i could do something that would hang out a little bit longer than the duration of the installation the kind of appeal to me. i quickly found out about the san francisco arts commission school and realized there was a pre-qualified school you had to apply to, so i applied to the. >> how long did it take you to develop this work for the plaza? >> this was a fast track project. design development was about a month. >> let's look at the beautiful mural. i have never seen a mural created on asphalt. >> the heat of the asphalt, a new layer of asphalt. then, these wire rope templates

that were fabricated for the line work get laid down and literally stamped into the asphalt, and then everything was hand-painted. >> maybe you could talk about some of the symbolism, maybe starting in the middle and working out. >> [inaudible] the flower of industry. >> it is like a compass. there's an arrow pointing north. >> within the great bear consolation, there are two pointed stars here. they typically lead one to the northstar, otherwise known as polaris. so i thought it has a layer of theme. >> let's talk about some of the other elements in the peace. we are walking along, and there is a weather vane. there's a sweet little bird hanging on the side. what kind of bird is that?

>> [inaudible] the smallest of the gulf species, and it lives around the bay area. >> you want to talk about the types of flour patterns that you send? >> [inaudible] around 1926 or so by the dahlia society. >> what is this bird here? >> that is the california quail. >> coming up here, we had a little blustery theme. what is this area here? >> this is supposed to be the side view, the expense of the golden gate bridge. >> there it is. >> there are really beautiful elements of architecture still around, i would say that it

gives that feeling over to the work. >> what are your hopes for it? >> that in a way it just becomes part of the area. i think it is starting to have that feeling. people utilize it. they sit and, and have their lunch and play on -- they sit and, and have their lunch and play on that -- they sit and come and have their lunch and play on it. just for it to be part of the neighborhood. that is my hope. >> is such a beautiful addition to our public art in san francisco. thank you for joining us. it was nice to meet you. and thank you for telling us about your beautiful mural. thanks for watching "culturewire."

>> the next time you take a muni bus or train, there could be new technology that could make it easier to get to your destination. many are taking a position of next bus technology now in use around the city. updated at regular intervals from the comfort of their home or workplace. next bus uses satellite technology and advanced computer modeling to track buses and trains, estimating are bought stocks with a high degree of accuracy. the bus and train our arrival information can be accessed from your computer and even on your cellular phone or personal digital assistant.

knowing their arrival time of the bus allows riders the choice of waiting for it or perhaps doing some shopping locally or getting a cup of coffee. it also gives a greater sense that they can count on you to get to their destination on time. the next bus our arrival information is also transmitted to bus shelters around the city equipped with the next bus sign. riders are updated strictly about arrival times. to make this information available, muni has tested push to talk buttons at trial shelters. rider when pushes the button, the text is displayed -- when a rider pushes the button. >> the success of these tests led to the expansion of the program to all stations on the light rail and is part of the new shelter contract, push to talk will be installed.

check out the new technology making your right easier every day 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. i was unaware of any process whatsoever. i was unaware of any hearing whatsoever. and ultimately found out that a letter had been sent using the phrase, which i do not have before me, dismissing or no violation found, as though the ethics commission had actually had some process in place. it was pretty shocking. and i wanted to tell you about the real-world consequences of this, which i think is important for you to recognize. this is not just a piece of