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tv   [untitled]    April 24, 2012 5:30pm-6:00pm PDT

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and all that he did, do not forget, his wife's arm. he is awfully strong, but his intention was not to hurt her, and you have heard and read in the paper that it was not his intention to hurt his wife. he was just a little nervous, and he made a mistake. as a matter of fact, this same problem has happened in the city of san francisco to other officials and their wives. like brown. 10 points of law, the 10 commandments.
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he did not comply with one single commandment or promises. that is outrageous. that is really unethical, but here is one of the best supervisors, most progressive, and you should defend him. you will not be representing our city if you do not. thank you. [cheers and applause] >> commissioners, and terry sanders with the in arrears foundation. i am a union and community organizer. i have known ross mirkarimi many, many years. he was one of the founding people to of create the reentry council. he speaks highly and often about
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the local job issues, helping to create jobs for disadvantaged neighborhoods. being a supervisor in district 5, going over there when they had some boxing matches, and the supervisor was there, but what i really want to talk about is our character assassination of a newspaper. it has vilified this person here every day, every day. it is news. distorted news, but it was news. i have got the news here. i have got the news here. look at it here. look at it here. sensationalism. i took a course in journalism. very distasteful, very ugly. it took him away from his family. how could you do that?
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and you sit in judgment? and he sat in judgment. it should be dismissed before it even goes any further, but would you have the courage to do that? would you have the courage to do that? you are talking about ethics. we are talking about law. or are we talking about personalities? [applause] >> good evening, commissioners. i am a community activist. my name is -- i am here to give sheriff mirkarimi my complete support. i would like us to go back to work immediately, have him go back for the job he was elected for. as a mother and woman, i have had long-term relationships. a young child, upset, getting into an argument, if things get
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heated, stuff happens. that is not misconduct. misconduct is real-life issues that we all have to deal with in today's relationships. enough is enough. i really truly believe share of mirkarimi needs to go back to work. we need him. there is many people coming out, something he has always been a part of. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, commissioners, for giving me this opportunity to be year ended least portillo minutes -- two minutes of my heart out to you. my name is bob. i was born and raised in tehran, iran. i have been a very long time california resident since the 1960's.
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i would like to bring to your attention one point that no one has mentioned. the universal declaration of human rights. it is only 32 sentences. it is not 35 pages to go in a brief. if you read that, this man and his family have been violated of every single one of those 32 situations. the universal human rights, and it does not belong to our state department to take to north korea, russia, myanmar, china, etc. the other point that i would like to bring is mayor ed lee, he suspended share of mirkarimi on the new year's day, and a lot of people have called that a racist move. to support that, he would have
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never done it to a black. would he do it to a black on martin luther king day, to a two-person -- to a jew on rosh hashanah. every bit of this thing is very appalling. i know it is a hot potato that been has been passed down to you to cover up for the city officials who have brood this witch hunt so far. you have the power and authority to terminate it now. you do not need to wait for the rest. in view of all of the contradictions in the case. thank you very much. [applause] >> good evening, commissioners. my name is paul. i served on this commission for eight years, actually longer than any other commissioner in
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the history of the commission, and my interest in the commission is the integrity of the commission. i am proud to say that during the eight years i was on the commission, and never, why we would sometimes a disagreement among commissioners about the facts and have a vigorous debates with the city attorney about a lot, never did i feel the process was compromised because of the politics of the party complaining or the party complained of, and specifically, what i want to make sure of in this proceeding is that the same legal standard is applied that the city attorney has advised the commission must be applied in every single case where there has been a complaint of official misconduct in the history of the commission, and that is, and i read from a memo by a city attorney who was the chief deputy to the city attorney, and this was in a case where the commissioners were unanimous in their findings of the facts, but
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we were advised that we could take no action unless we found a violation of a charter or city ordinance relating to campaign finance, lobbying, conflicts of interest, or governmental ethics has been violated. under these circumstances, the regulations make clear that no further action shall be taken on a complaint unless a specific violation of a specific ordinance or charter provision that the ethics commission in forces has been found. thank you. [applause] >> good evening, commissioners. i am a former inmate of this county jail. i am now reformed. i am a pastor. i am a district 5 residents. as you can see, i am an african- american male. i am a father.
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all of these are things we fight every day, but i want to stand here and ask for the ethics of the san francisco police department of the hiring of people that destroy evidence during drug use. the former lady, i forgot her name, what her position was, but she took the cocaine and snorted it, snorted up evidence, and nothing happened to her. even gavin newsom was a cokes in order. -- a coke snorter. doing it outside. he is a lieutenant governor. we are wasting money on this thing. every day, as people have come up here before me said, we are dealing with homicides. we have actual mothers and fathers who are losing their children on the streets of san
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francisco. there has been no ethics in finding justice for these families, unsolved homicides for over 20 years. that is ethics. bring the police department to this commission on their ethics on finding justice for families. [applause] >> how are you doing? i am larry haynes. ross mirkarimi, he has been positive in our western addition, and i would like to see him get back to work, and he has been very responsive to the needs of the community. i think he is very honest. i know him personally, his family, and he needs to get back to work. he is a good guy, and he does good work. thank you.
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>> hello. my name is merrill easton. i have been a resident of district 54, i do not know, 25 years or so, and before ross was our supervisor there, i was a victim of street violence. i was attacked in front of my house and 7:00 a.m., my face broken in two places, and the police were not very interested in this affair. however, after ross came in as supervisor, he got into the community policing and coordinated work with all of the departments, and i have not had any problems since, and i think that ross needs to get back to work so that people knew are doing these things, like the person you did this to me, they need to be given the resources to turn their lives around and not be attacking other people,
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and i think that the ethics are in the -- excuse me. thank you. >> hi, good evening. i was expecting to get up here to speak, but i hear you will not be taking public comment on this as you go forward? i am a native san franciscan, and i have worked with ross on a number of campaigns. i have known him since 1995. i find him to be an incredibly outstanding citizen. he has been of great service to this city. he has been a part of many great changes that have protected marginalized folks. greatly involved, when he was a supervisor, in this district. when i had encountered violence against women, i was able to
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count on ross for counsel and support. i have known him personally but mostly professionally, and i believe that you're really doing a disservice to the city. he was duly elected. i do not feel that this is due process. i really do not quite understand what the city attorney's office is trying to say, and they did not really seem to be present, but i feel that he was elected to office. you are withholding his pay. there is really no great reason for this. you are expending a lot of city resources trashing this man's good character, and i find that you're doing a disservice to the voters of san francisco. [applause] >> hi, my name is rosario, and i met ross back in 2007 when i was tutoring, and we were fighting
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to keep the school open, and ross was a strong advocate for us, and i am also working with family and children, and i have known him for many years. he is very committed to people and his district 5, and now he is committed for sheriff. i voted for him, and i want him to do his job. thank you. [applause] >> good evening to all of the commissioners and everyone in the audience. my name is paula bahama, and i am here on behalf of mr. ross mirkarimi. i have sat here and listened to everything that everyone had to say on behalf of him, and we as the people when we elective him, we knew exactly the type of person that we were putting in office, which is mr. mirkarimi. my children or all born in the
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western addition. i have eight children. in all of the years of living in the western addition, i've never seen a mayor or a supervisor or elected official get out on the streets and do what he has done. i think he is the best thing that could have happened to the western addition. i feel that he has gone through enough pain and suffering. he should be allowed to return back to work with pay. to suspend him is one thing, but to suspend him about the date is a total different thing. he has a family. he has a child to support, and one thing i am asking the commission to please do is to have his wife returned and the year to be able to give her testimony, because she is the only person that can actually tell you guys what you want to know what you want to hear. everything else is just tabulations on what somebody else said. unless you get it directly from her, i do not feel that there is
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a case. i feel it is a waste of taxpayer money, and that is all i have to say. [applause] >> good evening, commissioners. my name is michael, and i am san francisco resident, and think you for letting me speak. thank you for your job. i know you have a hard job in front of you and that you are treading on some waters. i would like to ask you to consider re-establishing share of mirkarimi's pay. there is a lot of financial loss here. it is kind of ironic. i heard the peace officer bill of rights, and if you work involved in an officer involved shooting, you would be on leave with pay pending the results of the investigation, so any consideration you can give to that would be appreciated. thank you very much.
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[applause] >> good evening, commissioners. i am beverly with domestic violence consortium. family violence is the number one reported crime in san francisco. i helped charity commission of san francisco and have had the pleasure of being on the advisory committee of many intervention programs. i am also starting to serve on the realignment committee. the world is watching. the world is watching. my concern is that victims are watching, victims and cannot come of their crimes and talk, victims who are not here today to talk about what they are facing, and my other concern is that abusers are watching. we do not want to emboldens abusers. the san francisco damascus -- domestic violence related crimes are down. we used to list 12 to 15 women a
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year, sometimes their children as well, and i am so proud to be part of the san francisco partnership with the community that has reduced the homicide rate to one or two tragedies, absolute tragedy is per year, but the statistics bear us out. we are heading in the right direction. the world is watching. they need our leadership. thank you. >> hello, commission. my name is mr. hunter, and i was born and raised in the fifth district, the district ross mirkarimi represented, and i really do not know him personally, but i have seen his work in the community, and for a supervisor, i can say he was active in the community and knew what was going on in the community, and i have nothing bad to say about him per se as a supervisor, but i would also
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like to just bring up to your attention that the people made the decision why we are here today for this man here, mr. mirkarimi, is ed lee made the decision to suspend him without pay and basically terminate his election, being elected, by the voters of san francisco to be the sheriff, and i just want to say that ed lee also hired greg suhr as the chief of police in the middle of a corruption scandal or officers created perjury and all sorts of things. those are felonies. nothing was done by ed lee other than appointing greg suhr as the chief of police who was demoted to deputy chief.
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so there is a lot of issues going on pertaining to law enforcement, and i personally believe that it is a waste of money what is going on here. the man was elected by the people, and the people who are making these decisions why we are here are several. greg suhr, whom he appointed, brought the evidence to garscon, so think about ethics and that when you go forward. thank you. [applause] chair hur: i want to thank the public for your comments. we are a five-member, a volunteer body, and another is volunteering his time, and i think i speak for the commission when i say we are committed to having a just and fair process, and we look forward to the party
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is cooperating in that endeavor. commissioners, any further comments or questions for the party is in light of the public comment? i have a couple. so could they please come forward? regarding the briefing, and, again, and it ministerial issue, i parties have no problem with double spaced 12-point font for your breeds, that -- >> we agree to that format. chair hur: ok, great. as far as the schedule, i want to make sure that we build in sufficient time for a meaningful
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meetings about stipulations and rebuttal, disclosures of witnesses. i know that you said that for the majority of your witnesses, you could identify them in one week. is that right? >> yes, the back witnesses. chair hur: could you provide all of them within 10 days? >> unfortunately, i have a trial coming up next week, so i think we will need the full two weeks. chair hur: you will need the full two weeks. >> that is correct, yes. chair hur: what if we had you disclose the fact witnesses in one week, the additional couple of witnesses that you will
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identify the week after, and then gave him 10 days from there to identify his witnesses? >> so we would split up the witness disclosures with the fact witnesses being in one week and the remaining witnesses in two weeks? chair hur: the remaining witnesses in two eggs, and then, sir, i do not know if you are intending to identify qaisi- expert or expert-type witnesses. >> it depends on their testimony. we can certainly respond with our witness list within 10 days of disclosure, and then if they give us the police expert or experts, i am not quite sure who the witness would be, i would think that we could probably
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respond within 10 days. i would rather sit 14 days just to be sure on that one, because if we think we need to respond, it may require finding such an expert witness. chair hur: that is a fair point. to the parties think that would help? in other words, the fact witnesses would be disclosed earlier, and you and then, if i am calculating it correctly, you would have about 10 days from disclosure of the sheriff, the back witnesses, to meet and confer about the fact stipulations and the like, or is the schedule that we outlined before do you think is sufficient time to meet and confer on these issues? >> i think more time is better, so i think the revised schedule would work better. >> the revised schedule would work for us. chair hur: ok.
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commissioners, any objections? i think the way that what looked -- the way that would block -- look, the mayor would disclose fact witnesses on april 30. he would disclose any expert- type witnesses on may 7, the sheriff would provide his list of fact witnesses on, is wednesday may 9 enough time? so from the 30th until the ninth proof we could do 10. it is a matter of a day year. >> we prefer the 10th. chair hur: ok, the 10th for fact witnesses. the mayor would then have until
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-- i am sorry. then the sheriff would have until may 17 to respond to any expert witnesses that were disclosed by the mayor. >> that is fine. chair hur: does that sound reasonable for the parties? >> yes. chair hur: then we would expect were but a witnesses on the 25th, i believe, so that would then give you eight days to meaningfully figure out to what extent you can agree on issues and what we will have to look at in terms of an evidentiary matters. is that acceptable to the commission approved other
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thoughts on revisions to that? ok. to the parties have anything else that they would like to raise with us at this time? >> i think one of the public comment people was about the things we were to brief that would be helpful, and that would certainly be helpful to us. >> agreed. i have been writing these dates down, but i assume they will be available in written form at some point. chair hur: we will do our best to get that out, but you have teams with others that may have gotten the dates, so we will not delay you on getting started, but we will endeavor to get that out as soon as we can. commissioners, anything further? commissioner renne: do we need
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that in the form of a motion to adopt that schedule? chair hur: my understanding is that that is not necessary. mr. m milledge? -- mr. emblidge? >> could they dictate the ability to modify the schedule between now and when we next come back in case the need arises? should something come up in the meantime. chair hur: to the parties have any objection to that? >> i am sorry. the first part of that, as chairperson? i do not think we have any objection to that. >> the mayor has no objection. chair hur: would that require a vote? >> actually, i think you already have that.
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congratulations. chair hur: ok, great. i think that is a great suggestion, mr. emblidge. ok, if there is nothing else from the parties, that being the only item on the agenda -- >> why not avoid future problems and make a motion? chair hur: is there such a motion vice president -- a motion? vice president studley: i make a motion. i think that would be very helpful. commissioner renne: