to make comments including those meeting predicted the protection which are descending comments. the right to petition government for redress of grievances in most cases is going to demand that unless you are making wild accusations, you have the public records so that you can proof and show that what you are saying has a basis in fact but the california public records act and the sunshine ordinance are there to establish the right of a citizens access to the necessary public records so that they can put forward a cogent case to support what they are presenting. one question that the task force members can say, yes, something that is one of his bugaboos, i asked him to consider their performance in the light of what have you done to support the right of a citizen to speak

freely at public meetings and what have you done to support the right of public citizens to access public records in their efforts to petition government for redress of grievances. that is the very basic core of what they are there to do. i believe that the discussions go to that same thing for the ethics commission. what have you done to support the rights of citizens to ensure that they have the ability to participate in government and make public comment and what have you done to ensure that members of the public sunni public records are given the proper access to support that effort? if you can look back and say, well, the record is not that good, that is one of the main underpinnings for everything you were doing right now. if a citizen cannot come and speak openly and speak honestly and get the records they need to

do so, then basically anybody who denies them that right is violating their oath of office and i think that that is something that unfortunately many city bodies do not take seriously. >> let me begin by saying that i came to the meetings in june of 2010 where these were last discussed. the fact that you are complementing yourself for almost 82 full years of spinning your wheels does not impress me that much. i i am a little shocked.

there is this mass of garbage that ended up at the bottom of the mountain at 17 years later. let me begin by talking about official misconduct. if you look at the willful failure, the restriction there -- will fulfill your to discharge any duty is a sin of omission. they did not do what they were supposed to do. with respect to official misconduct itself, you might look at your own ethics

commission regulations, which defined official misconduct in section 15 poin5.105. in the wrongful behavior by a public officer in relation to the duties of his or her office. presumably, people can do all kinds of things without making an omission of the sunshine duty and be guilty of that section and that section would trigger your enforcement. i want to take a few moments to talk about the burden that you placed on the complacent. -- complaintant. it is the duty of every private citizen to defend his duties and rights from scratch, all over

again, as if every other citizen has not come forward already and should have established the president's. we have a situation where he has wrongfully made a police complaint for purposes of political retaliation. are we going to just go from scratch and make her guilty of official misconduct a second time so she can ignore it again? i hope that will not be the result. thank you. >> i realize that three of the commissioners are new and not around in june of 2010. i also realize, it may be correct to say that none of you have ever attended a sunshine

enforcement task force meeting. complaints on public matters -- public records matters and the follow-up meetings to make sure they had it right. my question is, have you ever wondered how it is bad in this seven-year period, somehow, through sheer coincidence or some other and know and intangible, every records case was dismissed. none of them had merits? how was that possible? i will give you an example of one of the reasons why i case was dismissed.

november 5, 2008 -- when there is a conflict of opinion between the task force and the city attorney's office, the ethics commission, that is you, recognizes the city attorney as the lead attorney for the city and county of san francisco. having been elected by the people of san francisco to that position, the city attorney is a higher authority than the task force. you are just appointed. that was the basis on which the case was dismissed. when i asked for copies of that legal opinion from the city attorney, and it did not exist. when i filed my lawsuit and asked for the file to see what was in it, there was nothing. 0. there is a reason why all of these cases were dismissed.

i know what it is. and if you thought about it, at you would eventually come to the same conclusion. thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners, and members of the task force. i was a candidate for mayor in the november 2011 ballot. it is nice to see you guys trying to work together. it would be nice if the city family could get along and do their job. my concern is that to on november 11, essential tabulation units of the department of elections that was run by dominion systems completely through the vote. we know that in march of this year, 2012, dominion got busted

in palm beach, florida. their citizens assigned votes to the wrong candidates. when you have a right choice of voting system with 16 candidates on the ballot, if this system is citing the wrong votes to the right -- wrong candidates, we have a bad election. 460,000 registered voters, six out of 10 do not vote t. that is six out of 10 voting against the official family. that is only 18% of the voters in san francisco that voted for mayor that authorized an election system where the central tabulation is fraudulent. where did you go to make complaints for this type of thing? as a candidate, i was not

allowed into the locked door to see the process. i am living in the housing authority. we have a problem at the housing authority where 30 or $40 million contracts are being awarded routinely. no 72-hour notice is being given to anybody about what constitutes those contracts and to the bidders are and it is incomplete violation of the sunshine ordinance. amos brown and housing commission, complete violation of federal law, state law, and local law. where do go to make these complaints? i looked at some of these issues today, jurisdiction enforcement. as you go forward, the solution i would like to propose is, and give staff to the sunshine commission and said that a two- tiered process where they can

handle some enforcement with some financial sanctions. if things require greater review, that could go to the ethics commission. thank you. >> good afternoon. let me say -- i want to thank you for getting together, finally. and attempting to work out your differences. you need to focus again on what the goal you are seeking to date is and that is getting citizens the right to public records. citizens having the ability to participate in open meetings. i was not here for the entire discussion. there were a couple of points that were mentioned. first of all, i do not think anyone from the task force has

ever suggested that you would not have the ability to hear issues. the problem has been, you have never had -- i am sure you have read your grand jury report. i am sure that was one of the primary motivations of you having this joint meeting. no one is suggesting that you do not hear all the issues. what the public is asking the ethics commission to do is review the findings, the letters of determination by the task force, and determine if there is any merit. secondly, i heard a comment about the volume of cases. volume -- which should never be a criteria of whether or not you accept orders of determination for your trial.

if you would began to hear some of the cases, i can assure you there would be less volume of cases and orders of determination by the task force. thank you very much. >> good afternoon. this meeting was a reassuring and a big relief. i do not know why it had to happen. because of that document. that deviated from where everyone was going. i recall the civil grand jury report, pointed out the executive director had too much influence on the commissioners. i recall that 96% of the sunshine complaints gets

dismissed. they probably never get to the commissioners. similarly, whistle-blower retaliation complaints. not one has been sustained since this commission was founded. all of the investigations, the preparatory work is done by the staff. looking at the staff's proposal, you can see it the legal technicalities, the restrictions, the narrowing down of the intent. i think that is where the problem is. >> good afternoon, commissioners and staff and members of the public.

my name -- i am a candidate for supervisor in district 7. 2012. this is all new to me. i have a case that was referred before you. i do not know if you will. . i did not know it would be referred, but i am glad that it was a -- that it was. the case took a lot of time and the sunshine taskforce worked hard on that. one of the things i am concerned about is a lack of open government. i want to commend all of you for all the hard work that you do. some of the stories i have heard, i do not know, but one of the things i will say is that i am very appreciative of the numerous hours the sunshine taskforce has spent. we are beginning to work with

other people to invite them to participate in open government. as a person of color, i am very concerned about the lack of diversity at some of these meetings because i am not the only one who has a grievance. i am sure that our residents who are in hunters point or bayview or the mission district, they have reasons -- grievances as well. as the sunshine task force and the ethics commission, you have a lot of work to do. i'd to comprehend that everything political, even though we like to say it is not, it really is. some of these decisions to arrive that may not be something that you want to do because friends are involved, may be distant relatives, but you are here for the people. you are here for me. it is very difficult -- i hope

that is not lost. you are here for all of san francisco. it is truly a very diverse city. until my case, people thought they were disenfranchised, they were in despair. i had to do something to help my community. you are here on behalf of all san franciscans, nearly a million of us. i hope you keep that in mind. and not this side of that. thank you. -- and not lose sight of that. thank you. >> executive director of library users association. i am somewhat encouraged by today's meeting and there certainly appreciate the time and effort that all of you love

put into this. i certainly hope this will result in some type of action fairly soon. that will be a positive. mr. grossman referred to a 2004 case. that was my case against the library. even though the library did not even bother to show up for what they called an enforcement hearing, which the sunshine or dance task force held, even though they specifically said -- sunshine or dance task force held, even though they specifically said they would not show up at that hearing because they were unavailable, that kind of flouting of the law, including the finding of a violation, when this reached the ethics commission.

in brief, there was no word of any kind from the ethics commission. i tried to contact someone from the ethics commission and say, despite all the possibly confusing papers you were getting, including papers were a case i had filed a your previous was slipped in with the records so that it was quite confusing to sort out comment i said it was fairly simple and i would be very happy to cooperate. it was a simple case of a request for information that the library refuse to satisfy. i never heard anything from the sunshine taskforce. it was with the ethics commission. i never heard anything from the at this commission ever again about that case -- ethics

commission ever again about that case. i did not hear about anything about their process, nothing about their procedure, what the hearings might be. hearings are no hearings, how it worked. absolutely nothing. the way they've treated the way i found out about the ethics commission's dismissal was by chance when i visited a sunshine taskforce meeting and heard a passing reference to a letter that the ethics commission had sent. i certainly hope that all that you consider from here forward will include considerations of how you provide the justice to the public. thank you. >> this is a statement.

as i read it come at bear in mind, please, that it was delivered to me verbally by telephone before this meeting began. shortly before this meeting began. "i was on the sunshine or dance task force for 7.5 years and was a chair or vice chair of the ethics commission from 2002 to 2004. i am the only person ever to serve on both bodies. i filed various complaints with the sunshine or dance task force, all were upheld by the task force, either unanimously or by all but one vote. the sunshine ordinance task force agreed with me, it gets all of my complaints were dismissed by the ethics commission. ethics said the complaint would not stand up in court. the sunshine ordinance does not say that complaints must be court sustainable.

ethics is formulating a requirement that has no basis in law and is on known to anyone. in regard to the 123-page memo from ethics, this shows an attempt to avoid dealing with complaints by focusing on whether a violation was willful. there is an easier way to address this. there is a requirement of commissioners, department heads, and program managers, to take periodic training. people signed a declaration under penalty of perjury. thus, if an employee complaint against has signed that document, it is possible that they have been negligent in their retraining, and have committed perjury by signing it. its ethics simply looked at whether the sworn statements are filed, that is an easier way to

establish whether there was negligence and culpability on the part of the respondent. ethics approach now is a hybrid legalistic and will discourage complaints from being filed. these observations are coming from the only person ever to serve on both the sunshine or dance task force and the ethics commission. -- sunshine ordinance task force and the ethics commission." >> i would like to thank the task force before your assistance. the commission for their work. the staff of both bodies. mr. grossman and the public. i think we all have a goal of trying to faithfully enforced the ordnance and we appreciate your help in helping us get there. the meeting is adjourned.

>> sanrio famous for the designs for hello kitty. i thought i would try to make it as cute as possible. that way people might want to read the stories. then people might be open to learn about the deities and the culture.

♪ they reached out to make about five or six years ago because of the book published. they appreciated that my work was clearly driven from my research and investigation. after i contributed my artwork, the museum was really beside themselves. they really took to it. the museum reached out to me to see if i would be interested in my own space inside the museum. i tell them that would be a dream come true. it is the classical, beautiful indian mythology through the lens of modern design and illustration and storytelling. they're all of these great sketch as i did for the maharajah exhibition. i get a lot of feedback on my artwork and books.

they complement. they say how original the work is. i am the first person to say that this is so derived from all of this great artwork and storytelling of the past. the research i put into all of my books and work is a product of how we do things that a-- at pixar. sometimes you will see him depicted monkey-like or as superman. i wanted to honor his monkey coloring. i decided to paint him white with a darker face. it is nice to breathe new life into it in a way that is reverent and honors the past but also lets them breathe and have fun. it is almost a european notion

to bring these symbols and icons from southeast asia. they decorate their deities. it was a god they interacted with every day in a human way. the most important thing has been to create work that is appealing to me. i want to see vishnu to pick did in a modern way. it dawned on me by reinterpreting the deities in a way that is modern and reverent to the history, i am building a bridge for young and old audiences to make friends with the culture and these icons to learn their stories. ♪