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 paper over year and another piece of a lot over here, and do they or do they not match up, but there were very significant consequences in the real world that hurts library users. thank you. >> commissioners, the director of san francisco open government. as documented in a recent civil grand jury report, this ethics commission has failed to carry out and responsibilities related to the sunshine ordinance. through this, the ethics committee has sided with the city and against citizens in every case where public records were withheld. not only has this ethics commission failed in its duties, in as woefully and knowingly avoided the efforts of the sunshine ordinance task force. it has done this for years while

representing its efforts as trying to work with the task force. it has been derelict in its duties by allowing every case to be dismissed by staff without a hearing. after taking an oath to support and defend the california and united states constitutions, the committee has acted in ways that knowingly and willfully violate the constitutional and civil rights of the citizens of san francisco. some may feel that i am being too harsh in this, but i think prior speakers and myself have to really look at the records, and for the first time, we are now on the public record so that the citizens of this city can actually see what this ethics commission has done up until now in the dark. and i will quote senator barry goldwater in his 1964 presidential acceptance speech of the republican nomination, where he said extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of

justice is no virtue. you have not done your job as far as sunshine and the citizens of this city. you took an oath to support and defend the constitution, and yet when citizens come to you and say "we were denied an opportunity at a public meeting to meaningfully comment and participate," you ignore it. you side with the city 100% of the time. now, it is kind of hard to argue with that record as being one that is totally unjustified. >> hi, commission lovers. -- here. first of all, i wanted to congratulate you on having a televised version of this meeting. it is long overdue. i am glad that he's found money in the budget for it. or -- sorry. i want to say that i am sad to

see the poor record you have to date on the enforcement of the sunshine referrals. almost every one that has been sent to you has been dismissed without a public hearing, and without even regulations in place to dismiss it. i would strongly encourage you to have a joint meeting with the sunshine task force to work with them on the regulations that are needed to be designed to handle sunshine matters, and i would advocate that you do significant work in protecting the public right to speech as well as right to documents. >> good evening. hal smith. i wanted congratulate you on starting the televised meetings.

it is a great thing, and i congratulate you again. it is good for the citizens of san francisco, democracy, citizenship, good for open government, but it is also good for you because it gives you the chance to tell the story of the ethics commission. it gives you an opportunity to be out front, strong, noble people. working for the benefit of the citizens of san francisco. today, it is my understanding, i have lots of chinese friends, it is the year of the dragon. dragons are strong. dragons are wonderful people who believe end strength and character. i consider this your beginning, since you are televising tonight. i guess it is your birthday. it is the beginning of something. be strong like dragons. do the right thing. protect the citizens of san francisco. protect their rights. project open government.

thank you. >> good evening, commissioners. my name is hope johnson. i am the chair of the sunshine ordinance task force. i am here to reiterate what dr. washburn said, the chair of the compliance and amendments committee, to request that you consider having a joint open meeting about the ethics commission regulations on sunshine. i think that even though the ethics staff clearly disagrees with us that there are a number of things that you might want to take into consideration. there are a number of things that happen within the city that demonstrate that the ethics staff opinion that is only willful violations is elegant misleading and perhaps incorrect because, first of all, the ethics commission is tasked with collecting all of the signatures

stating that the required employee's and elected officials and public officials have taken sunshine training, so you are clearly involved, and in section -- one section, it refers specifically to the ethics commission. it says, in addition, the commission adopt rules and regulations related to carrying out the purposes and provisions of ordinances regarding open meetings and public records. the individual clauses of the sunshine ordinance do not work outside of a law, the of the laws. big public records act and the brown act, and you are also tasked with upholding those. it is not just individual provisions that you can argue to untangle them or untangle them, depending on what you do or do not want to do. none of the ethics commissioners as commissioners want to rely fully on staff without really investigating it, the people

hear them all of the time. in addition, in a one area under duties, the appendix to section 15-100, it says that one of your duties is to advocate understanding of the charter and city ordinances related to campaign finance, conflicts of interest, lobbying, governmental ethics, and open meetings and public records, and the roles of public and other elected officials, city institutions, and the city electoral process, and i think the idea that they put public meetings and public records and there is really demonstrating that your responsibilities are more than just willful violations, so we would appreciate the opportunity to discuss that with you with the commissioners themselves rather than going through memoranda with ethics staff. thank you.

>> good evening, ethics commissioners. my name is thomas. i am also a victim of your staff dismissals with orders of determination. i will not go into the merits of the case. you have the records. but the statistics cited by mr. grossman and the doctor are very troubling in terms of the dismissals of all sunshine ordinance orders of determination. from the members of the public or watching the proceedings, they should be advised that the sunshine ordinance task force makes a determination when there is a violation of a request for public records or not being able to participate in public meetings. the sunshine ordinance then gives you the responsibility to

review the orders of determination by the sunshine ordinance task force. the statistics by mr. grossman and dr. kerr -- at least in the past, it has been biased against individuals who have shown that their rights have been violated at either open meetings are public records, so my suggestion to you is that you put the matter of enforcement or the lack of enforcement of orders of determination back on your agenda. thank you. commissioner hur: think you for your comments.

speaker, sir. proceed. >> well, i think the thing is i have been assaulted by some of the staff of the city and county of san francisco. i have been kicked out of meetings just for showing up. i have been not given many documents. i do not know why. i just feel i should not have to call david or any of those people to get the documents that i need. i think it is definitely outlandish. i am hoping that you all decide to hold somebody accountable. i mean, i definitely believe that you are making the city and county of san francisco's spread eagle for whatever lawsuit comes by, and the citizens need to start filing. we need to start filing immediately. the statistics that you are

presenting, it is in a plea unacceptable. commissioner hur: thank you all for your comments. we do want to meet with you. i think when we last addressed the issue, it was suggested that we try to do it in the coming year, not sort of at the end of 2011 to assure greater participation, and we look forward to having such meetings so we can get the sort of regulations that we can hopefully agree are effective and efficient. the next item on the agenda is proposed amendments to the sia for the san francisco public library. would you like to introduce this issue? >> .net yes. we started this last may. there were some questions,

commissioners, about the appropriateness of a language as it applied to not just staff but -- excuse me -- officers, so we have gone back and forth with the library staff, and commission, and have determined that there is sufficient grounds to reintroduce this proposal to the commissioners, including officers in the language, and there is marion from the library who is here to answer questions. commissioner hur: would you like to make some remarks? >> donna from the library, human resources director.

the library still feels that, yes, we would like me -- the sia approved as is. we already have things in place for the collection and plant policy as well as our exit policies. we have already established guidelines that address your concerns that have been established for quite some time within the library, so we were hoping that you would move forward and approve the sia. commissioner hur: thank you. any questions or hurt? commissioner liu: thank you for coming today. -- any questions or her? how that is done and if it is separated? >> yes, it is separated. the commission has no involvement in improving library

contracts. commissioner liu: so someone who wants to have their work published, they would be in a position to influence to contract with that vendor or the publisher? >> not at all. commissioner liu: a ok, thank you. commissioner hur: any other questions for ms. marion? thank you. i would like to take public comment on this matter. >> yes, thank you very much, commissioners, and of course, do not accept money for the friends of the library. this is more complicated as it seems or as it is being represented or kind of masked as a potential author might want to write something, its publisher might be involved.

it is also actually a wide spectrum of vendors, not just somebody who might want to publish a book. there are digital vendors, and digitalization projects, all kinds of exhibition projects, copier vendors. there is a wide number of people who do business with the library, and they not only do business with the library, they do business with people who have another level of influence, which is the public-private partnership they have with the private nonprofit. and, in fact, if you looked at what is being proposed here as an exemption that can always be exempted on a case by case basis by seeking a prior determination, so you are actually stepping back from a level of review that ought to

apply to every department. in fact, and library or library commissioner is no less likely to write a book than a nurse and a hospital or a gardener working in golden gate park. and as i say, the provision is that they can get a prior determination on the case-by- case basis that there is no actual conflict when that comes up. i expressed some concerns before because the incompatible activity statement that had been in place since 1995 or whenever it was was completely ignored in this process and still has not been rescinded. i guess you are considering it rescinded as a de facto fact, but i wish this had been originated through the library

commission rather than refer to them as a fait accomplit, and as i say, this is not a bunch of little offers getting their exemptions for one little book. this is a big business with big players involved, and we need the kind of oversight that this whole idea of an incompatible activity statement envisions. but you very much. -- thank you very much. >> commissioners, the director of san francisco open government. unfortunately, when i reviewed these things for a meeting, i always have the tendency to read the entire thing, not just the part that is under revision, and having attended the library commission meetings for a number of years, i had to read

something in here and came to the conclusion that what you are doing is rearranging deck chairs on the titanic. prohibition on gifts for assistance with city services. no officer or other may receive gifts for performance of a specific service or act of the officer or employee with respect to read or perform in the regular course of his or her or duties for advice about the processes of the city directly related to the officer or employee duties and responsibilities on the processes of the entity they serve. i just recently in december had a finding of a sunshine violation against the city librarian for withholding public records. he was very, very careful to send all of my requests to him to the secretary of the library commission, and then sent me all the information from the friends of this difference is the public library. now, they withheld all of the

information which would appear in documents that the city library is required to provide to the mayor's office, the comptroller, and other city agencies and simply gave me the numbers that the friends provided, which are not audited. the interesting thing was, when you look at some categories and then you look at this item, mr. herrera its approximately $65,000 per year by the friends for use at his discretion. $35,000.40 -- -- $35,000 for use at his discretion and then another 35,000 or so for his views. office supplies. i guess the library and others do not provide him with office supplies, so the friends have to give him $35,000 a year to buy those, and he takes the step out those, and he takes the step out to lunch, and he has this and