which are -- >> finish your statement. >> okay. this is not stalking. this is howard lazar on a public plaza on a phone to somebody. i'm not in his face, i have not approached him. in a logbook, he claims that i got on a trolley from 25 van ness, went down market street and went down powell street. we were talking about the giants. howard lazar and shook their both and he approached me and claimed in the logbook that i said something to them. it did not happen. i live close to the park. very often i walk to plaza and eat. >> you will have another minute

to continue your argument. >> thank you. we'll hear from the department now. >> good evening commissioners, i'm howard lazar. by way of background. in 2003, the arts commission denied her renewal of arts certificate after finding here in violation of not selling arts by the commission and disrupting the businesses of other street artist. in 2007, she applied for a street artist certificate and two hearings were held on her request, the commission denied her request. on

november 7, 2007, the board of appeals over ruled the arts commission and ordered the commission to give her a certificate. we did. it's not six years later. she has committed the same type of violations as well as other is and once again, the arts commissioners are the street artist committee voted to deny her renewal of the certificate. the committee states clearly that an appeal on violations is not appealable to any other level of the art commission, but it is appealable of course to the board of appeals. now, i wish if you will please hand these out as evidence can you pass them up? i'm sorry. >> you didn't submit any? >> i didn't submit earlier. i didn't have time. i was dealing with other cases. i want to

apologize. what i have are photographed, i can go through each of the charges. >> has any of this been provided? >> yes, we provided this stuff with our notice of hearing to her. but there are photographs of, for example selling items she didn't make. >> you can put it on the overhead. i can see it better. okay. >> that is actually multiple violations of her on that one incident. first of all that table is over sized. it's not a 4 foot table in length. it's longer. it's not a designated space for the board of supervisors. it is opposite the entrance to the bart and our law says you must be within 10 feet within the outer entrance of an entrance and she is

selling work that we didn't approve. the artist is mark tetro. i got a copy that he wrote to you extremely upset over this. this was never authorized by him. he is asking you to uphold the decision to deny her renewal of permit. you see multiple violations on that one incident. >> when was the time of the photo? >> hold on. i can get that for you. that would be february 11, 2013. >> okay. >> so it was that photo. in fact let me replace it with this one which is colored. if that's any better. same photo. >> so, and here is one. she

said she showed a picture of nate talking on the phone. here is one by a street artist of when you can see how close she is to me. that's how she was following me around that day at the plaza. it obstructed my duty to gather information from street artist and prohibited them from telling me of violations that were going on at the time and prohibited the ability to answer the processes of making their work and consequently that was a total obstruction of my job. we are all used to that. you see how close she is to that. that's a good 4-5 feet following me around. john is here to tell that you he even talked to her to stop doing that. those are some of the things. if i may proceed to the charges or can i

answer questions? >> honestly it's very hard to understand the position of the arts commission simply because we are reading the appeal of the appellant without the basis for the denial by the arts commission. so if you can lay it out for me, that will be useful. >> thank you, i will appreciate that. in outline here it is in charge no. 1, selling in illegal locations not approved by the board of supervisors. charge no. 2, selling items not examined and not certified by the arts commission. you just saw that, that happened on december 7, 2012, december 11 and february 11. charge no. 3, exceeding the display size regulations. december 7, 2012, and february 11. charge no. 4,

selling outside of an entrance. she was opposite direct to that bart entrance and that wasn't a designated space. no. 5, harassing another street artist and interfering with the business of another street artist and january and february 2. we had a street artist who was a complaint who testified that when he asked her to move her chair which was blocking potential customers from viewing his display, she blew up at him and continued to provoke him and turned his customers from him until he had to pack up his display and leave the plaza. we have witnesses to that. finally charge no. 6, obstructing the duty of a staff person which is myself and street artist john doleey is here to address that.

those are the six charges. >> as far as charge no. 6 goes, i see she mentioned a 1983 opinion from the deputy city attorney and talked about obstructing the duty of staff people of the arts commission and she even held that her own screening committee could be considered as staff people as well as myself. that could be a legitimate charge to suspend or revoke or deny the artist. >> which was the charges laid out, what was the first date and the last date? >> the first date in december 2012, december 10, >> i don't need each one. tell me the last date. >> the last date february 8,

2013. >> okay. >> just to give me some context because i have none since you made no submissions here. has the commission ever decided not to renew other street artist certificates for these types of infractions? >> i don't know about not to renew but i do know of revoking. a flat out revoking. >> when did those take place? >> what comes to mind right now at this moment, one happened 20 years ago with a fellow selling something he didn't make as well as trying to assault our art inspector that we had at that time. i would have to go back to the files. i have been at this for 41 years. sorry. >> okay. it's great because you

have historical knowledge. okay. that's it for now. i might have more. >> mr. lazar, the appellant discussed different levels of penalties. can you provide from the arts commission ordinance and policies and procedures? >> yes. this is a policy of the hearing procedure and standard penalties adopted by the arts commission many years ago and this of course was with the aid of the city attorney. the violations if you will are loosely divided into two categories. one category is minor violations and that would be selling not in a street artist legally designated space or selling with display that exceeds the size regulations which are three feet deep by

four feet wide by four feet tall. those are minor. typical violations is having a sales person selling for you or selling what you don't make or selling something that is not examined and not certified. those are violations. and the first category of standard penalty could be for example a three week suspension and i'm talking about -- >> you are talking about minor? >> yes and first time coming before us. it can increase of course. the second category, the major violations would carry typical two months suspension. now what was explained to us by the city attorney is our art commissioners are not necessarily bound by those

penalties, they can mitigate them or infer those penalties to a different time of the year if they want to. commissioners know that. i hope that answers your question. that's a policy. >> it do. thank you. >> okay, we'll take public comment now. can i see a show of hands of all people interested in speaking on this item. thank you. have the first person step forward. if you haven't done already, please fill out a speaker card to us. it's not required but we appreciate it. >> commissioner, san francisco open government. i raised a number of issues at that hearing regarding the idea of due process. you've already talked about the short period of time over which all of these violations occurred which is about a two month period and i think a reasonable person could look at that and say was there

being an effort made to identify this person and come up with a string of items that could be used to do this. there were -- at the hearing, the only documents that were presented were notes in a log, no indication as to who made these notes or whether she received any notification of these violations. and you have already touched on the idea that the arts commission has a policy in place which i would describing as progressive discipline. i'm questioning why all of a sudden we go from zero to 90 at an instant. all of these violations occurred in january and february and she gets no notice of this until they say we are not going to give you a permit. at the time it was my understand that go

mr. lazar was in the process of working in the city attorneys office to get a restraining order against her and she was not supposed to go to city hall or was not able to attend this hearing. i really have to question whether or not an effort was made to do that to keep her from being at the hearing to provide her own defense. and whether it impacted her ability to provide her defense about being uncertain about whether or not she would go to city hall to city offices to get documents and information to carry out her defense. i will notice again mr. lazar tonight has a bunch of documents he wishes to introduce. my question is if this is a fair process this should have been a matter of public record and something you could see in advance and it shouldn't be something that has come in at the last minute and

very honestly, at the hearing, i got the impression and i have no acts to grind on either side. i'm not a street artist, but there was a lot of personal an animosity among the participants. i have a feeling that this is more of an issue of personalities than anything else , but i really do feel it's inappropriate of mr. lazar as a city employment and director of street artist program to for meant this an animosity. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello, commissioners, my name is john, i'm the manager of the street artist program at the plaza and have been so for the past three years dully

elected by my members. >> not paid? >> not paid. i wish i was paid. i do it for the community service. but, all the photographs and all the information that was received at the office that howard lazar has came from me. it's my job to patrol the safety of my fellow artist and their concern to air it to the police or to the office. those all came from me. i did not format anything, and miss attach is not the only person i'm reporting on this and they hate me because i call them when something is wrong. this is something that has come to you before. now we are back here again. she was in new york because she is in prison for two years by the way. , check her report. she was trying to get a restraining order because

i was taking photographs of her and then goes to the office and city attorney does what it needs to do and a lot of it get thrown out because it was deemed as street artist and not accountable to anybody. they are self-employed. there is all sense of fairness and anything taking place. i'm available for more questions. >> thank you, any other public comment? please step forward. >> my name is jordan. i'm one of the street artist. my appearance is that i'm the one that took the photographs

throwing howard. what they are showing one photograph, i took up to four progressive photographs. i have them here on the ipod. >> if you want to try, you can. are they from the same day? >> yes. >> okay. this is the first one. can you ask him to slide it over. >> can you see? >> yes. >> that is the second one and you see how this is here and the side one. that's the fourth

one. can you see that? okay. so the reason i did it was item sitting and we are kind of -- the whole arrangement is in the loej. when they come around to inspect what we are doing, they come and they pass on this table and talk to us and check whatever they are checking. they ask how we are doing and the people are moving. whenever she would come across here, she would get in his face. i wondered why. then they turn the corner and then i was uncomfortable. that's when i go

up. i recorded this situation. so she went away and by the outside where we are and that's the first photograph you saw. and then he turned around and came back. eventually i went to the half, when someone -- [inaudible] why don't you stop doing this? she turned around and the photograph of me talking to her. then i forward the photo to the arts commission. >> thank you. >> any other public comment? seeing none then we'll start our rebuttal. you have three minutes of rebuttal. >> wow, i didn't spend two

years in prison in new york like a lot of the information that you are hearing. i don't know where it's coming from. it's coming from a lot of chatter at the plaza of people i don't know. there is no code violation. there is john that came up and took a picture of me and walked away. he did not discuss anything with me. that photograph of dog prints does not place me at that stand. i knew nothing about it. i knew nothing about any letter from any artist and i have asked has there been any response. i would have known about it. there was a similar case that was filed against me curiously enough on march 14. i did a public record search. that's how i knew about it. he

regurgitated a lot of the same information. even though i wasn't served, i did know. i noticed it online and i was tracking it. i went to 400 mccallsers street. what i showed was a video not a photograph. so you can see exactly what happened. and this was a chance meeting. i was righting my bike and i was in pete's coffee in the ferry building. he approached me. and the case was dismissed. i looked at this case three times in these past three days. there was no reference to anything he said, he used my own video against me and my own police report against me and he didn't

appear. >> can i stop you for a minute. stop the time. >> it's a lot to take in. >> no. you have less than three minutes now, we would like to hear your response on the charges. >> my response on the charges in all honesty i didn't do any of this. i have shown you the work that i have done that i have been screened for. >> go ahead and put it on the overhead. >> i worked with feathers my entire life. i actually went out yesterday to take a tape measure and mark off a space. my stand is 6 feet. i was in an 8 foot space. but there is this -- daniel assaulted me and i wasn't able to complete my

task. i was out there and did my work. the few times he was constantly calling the police. he called them down and he told the police he had a restraining order and asked him to produce it and he didn't have it. they said to document everything which i have done. you have seen police reports in the file. these are events that did not take place. what can i say? this is how i make a living. i did not do the things i'm charged with and i don't see any evidence against me. what i see is selective prosecution. people vouching for each other. >> thank you mr. lazar? >> well, commissioners she mentioned that she's now identified in the photos those pictures. that is her, that is the back of her. john can

testify that that was her. he saw her. secondly -- >> do you have any pictures of her making a transaction there? did she sell anything? >> no. the street ordinance says offers for sale or display, offers for sale. >> where in the ordinance does it say that? >> in proposition l. >> can you site -- cite it for me? >> i just know that ordinance is 1975. >> you are using phrases from a text that i don't have in front of me. >> i'm sorry i can't do that. as far as the brief time period in which she was caught selling and doing these activities, we waited into consideration her previous record which included

her coming before you and ruling us and giving her a second chance and she's committing some of the same type of violations and selling work she was not licensed to sell. i just want to address those two. >> mr. lazar, you show these products and this size, she shows a different product and different size. how are we supposed to gauge that? >> i'm only show you what was given to me. i can only testimony she is license today sell feathered jewelry and it was not what she showed us. when that happens that requires a reexamination. >> i understand that. then let m ask you slightly differently.

those photos were given to you. did you did not actually see? >> correct. >> thank you. >> commissioners, the matter is yours. any comments? >> confusion. i don't know what completely opposite. i don't know what to do with it yet. >> well, evidently there is a personality conflict to say the least. >> please don't speak. >> [inaudible]. >> i'm not in for taking someone's livelihood away and i'm extremely disappointed in the lack of information that was brought forth by the commission that we need to have

this information before us to make a decision. i think there is some violation here, but not enough to warrant her not being able to have a livelihood. that's my thoughts. >> okay. did you question his attorney? >> i'm not going to get legal advice from him. >> have you seen evidence here to support the charges? >> i'm not a -- justin my position here as a commissioner along with the board and the evidence that was presented today, even if i would give a pass to the arts commission which is a paid position for not having submitted documents, we have lots of documents from someone who is not paid to support her position. i find it

very beyond challenging to try to come up with, i don't have records, i don't have the basis, i don't have the statute and actually personal knowledge. we did hear some testimony of being photographed. i will grant that we have actual, the person who took the photograph of the appellant taking pictures of the director, does that rise to the level of something of certainly not a revocation, certainly not a renewal in my view. maybe a slap on the hand, maybe a please stop doing that or else type of thing. that's the only real evidence that i have seen and that's basing it on the actual representation which has been orally provided to me. i think this is, as far as an evidentiary hearing goes, i think it's woefully

inadequate. i don't think it supports the arts commission. i would grant the appellants appeal here to preserve her an i think one of the commentors that there was no progressive discipline. i think it's necessary, i think it was written in the statute that was discussed with commissioner fung's questions that exist for a reason that was legislatively enacted that people have a right to warrant to fix their problems and go forward and further penalty if not corrected. whatever it is to be done in a certain type of man or or a type of conduct, you have gone too far but we didn't get evidence of that. taking someone's picture four times in one day. there could