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.

>> for thursday, april 12. members may take a roll, please. >> director harper is joining us in director ortiz's absence. [roll call] madam chair, you do have a quorum. >> thank you. are there any communications from thursday? is there any new or old business? seeing none, we will move to the director's report. >> good morning, everyone.

before we move on to other items on the agenda, i just want to let the board and the public know that yesterday i attended a ceremony for the white house. we were invited by the first lady's office. we were invited by the joining forces initiative. americans are coming together to recognize our veterans and military families. the initiative promotes education and wellness for the men and women that are transitioning from our military to civilian life. we had nonprofit groups, government entities, and the trance state -- transsattate authority. we were also able to obtain a commitment from web corps to

hire 50 veterans. we were very proud to be part of the first lady's veterans initiative. the next item -- at our last meeting, supervisor kim asked that we provide an update on how we work with the san francisco school district, in terms of bringing them to tjpa offices and our various confecting partners. we have asked if they can present, and thank you, evan. >> thank you for having me, directors. my name is evan decker. i am sure you are familiar with

james holt. he works with our supervisory boards. i typically work with our educators and students. i am here to talk about how the city district interacts with tjpa. i wanted to give you an overview of all of our programs and provide a more holistic view. i think you have your -- some slides about our programs. we have 27 academies and pathways, nine industry sectors within nine high schools. we are concerned with about 50 teachers. we are talking about engineering, pre-engineering, carpentry. we serve 2250 students. the students are mainly in the 11th and 12th grade. none of our academies go to the

ninth grade. of the 13,000 high-school students between 10th and 12th grade, we serve about 2250. will serve on seven district advisory boards. the advisory boards amount to about 250 across all industry sectors. we have a great partnership with the college. we have almost 400 students enrolled in class is. -- classes. after their school day, they receive high-school and college credit for those courses. we have glasses that are offered in welding, engineering, pre- engineering, and also on math and engineering class that counts as a credit for students over the summer. the academy structure really

combines three things. it is a small learning community. we have a group of teachers, generally two to three teachers working together with a cohort of students, students from the 11th or 12th grade. they are together in their elective class, and generally they go to social studies or english class where the project is participating or integrated so that the learning is applied. u c with many of our students, -- you see with many of our students the learning in the classroom is not really applied in the real world. we try to have hands-on instruction that is applied to their core curriculum class. for an example, we are developing a course that will incorporate both geometry and carpentry. using the essential

understanding of geometry and how are you actually going to construct a house? that sort of thing. we have the business partnerships. which we are very grateful to the tjpa for coming to our event on december 8 and putting the call out for organizations participating in the project to support our students. we do that through job shadows, through guest speakers. we had folks from tjpa come and speak to our students at burton high-school. we had ninth grade students, trying to engage them and get them to enroll in the engineering academy their. another key aspect of our academy is the situation with the college. it is really essential that students get a firsthand college

experience while they are still in high school. it has been shown that students participating in enrollment courses finish either eight two- year or four-year degree faster than students that come out of high school without such courses. just to talk a little bit about our curriculum -- we have a strict requirements that all students must meet the uc guidelines for acceptance. that starts this year with the first night grade class. -- with the first to ninth grade class. the way we are trying to keep up with that is through the integrated curriculum, working closely with math departments, english departments, social science departments to make sure the career tech ed requirements

are applied in that classroom. another example would be a class from a colleague at wells, taught in the context of algebra. students are doing measurements and it is all applied into producing some type of project at the end. i will move on from here. here you see all of our academies and pathways. in addition to tjpa, you see our academies involved in architectural construction and engineering. our engineering academies -- the one at washington is the two- your academy. you also see here an hour tech 21 courses -- our tech 21

courses. what you do not see here is our cooperation with the well-known architectural program. >> if i made? -- if i may? these are projects where you will be a recruiting potential summer interns from? >> yes. director kim: and how do you do that work? how do you recruit students into the program here at tjpa? >> here we have the summer intern program. we have the academy pathway. we are encouraging all our students from the 11th and 12th grade to take part with some kind of internship. we're trying to standardize

throughout the district, where students are making sure since they're in the academy, that they are focused on entrance peeping that they do their various assessments, focused on where they are in the field. architecture, civil engineering, technology. and then we have research, local research around the school, around the neighborhood. what organizations support that industry. we encourage students to get in contact with those industries, find out more about what a person in the profession would do. we also have the teachers interacting with the students, doing job shadow's. students going to the work site, shattering the students, perhaps -- shadowing the students, perhaps getting a better feel of what they would do in that organization. then we have our informational interview.

that is where the students are interacting with the industry professional, interviewing the professional, saying "how did you get to where you are," what is your motivation, what drives you? and asking for recommendations. "how do i enter into the field?" it folds the academy programs within the 11th grade. we're talking about roughly 120 students. in january we sent a letter to parents and teachers come up with a deadline and asking them to commit to the program. that narrowed it down to 70 students. we then sent out an application. we ask them to fill up the application to be considered for the internship. again, that is with the

deadline and students returning it and deciding they did not want to do what. now we have a pool of 41 students. out of that pool, we have asked teachers to recommend the students they think are most capable. we value our relationship with srs and tjpa, so we want to make sure those students will show up on time, are receptive to direction, able to fill in its direction was not clear. also along those lines, we also have citizenship. students to have to be citizens. they are getting paid. the need to be citizens be been -- they need to be citizens. so, we narrow that down. i put the call out to teachers about two weeks ago when they

sent me the position numbers and i have gotten back so far about six recommended students. of those six, i will make sure this is what they are up for. and i will make the two recommendations for those students that we have. that is really the prospects of selecting the student's. -- selecting the students. i can also talk more about how they get to that position in the 11th grade. in the seventh and eighth grade, through our curriculum, students take a ap exam. that exam is an interest assessment. it matches what students think their skills are and what their interests are into a series of fields that help narrow down to an industry they may be

interested in. we had that curriculum designed to help students in their selection of high-school. as you saw with our programs, the programs are dispersed throughout the district. however, they are not in every school. we try to make students aware of what programs are available and where they are available, so when they are making their selection they can end up in a school where they have that opportunity if they are interested in engineering or architecture. again, in the ninth grade, we have a sign ahead curriculum which really helps students plan out a six-year plan, making sure they meet requirements, making sure they are able to purchase debate in their elective courses, and they are then able to have contracts with professionals in the industries they are interested in. the 10th grade starts when a few of our academies start as well.

that is when we have this first year where they are taking the elective class, at intro to engineering, intro to architecture. carpentry programs, intro to carpentry. so, these three years, it is really an awareness, and exploration, and in 12th grade, a preparation. and the preparation leads to city college. most recently, with our agreement with the carpentry program, we will be able to incorporate parts of the program and to our high school curriculum so we have direct evidence to that program. director kim: if i may ask a question -- and of the program is fairly new. how many students have we had joined the preadmission program? >> that particular