>> for the record. >> it sounds as if you really place a very high value on your commission seat? >> i do. it is an honor, i think that there are five of us on the civic design review and we get along well and i think that we are productive and it is surprisingly, you know, it is one of those things that you feel that they are doing something, i know that i think that even paid employees of the cities are in politics sometimes people like that, what do i do with impact. and i am like, i sit around and they go, well, we give some good advice to that architect or to that agency and they listen and they made the changes and look at how much. >> one of these days, we want to do one of these before and

afters because we are get beat up by the mayor's office. look at the difference. i am going off the tang ent. >> commissioner andrews? >> thank you, mr. smith i wanted to hear a little bit more about your thought process and if we could, hear your thought process starting all the way back to four years ago. what amount of knowledge you had around this? this ordinance that was ultimately preclude you from responding to any rfq or any rfp?

>> so i guess that the question is why now? what happened for the first few years and was it a consideration and were you knowledgeable of it and when did you become knowledgeable of it and how did that weigh into your deliberations to stay on the commission? >> in the beginning, i did not think about it because i did not know it was civic design review. i had no idea, because i never, i thought that we were being reviewing our murals and i didn't... i was sort of, you know i didn't know. then, as i, and then i was given the chairmanship and then as i, i think that i just over time, watched the way that projects got designed and managed and you know, you sit there and you think about it and sometimes you go that is the kind of project that my firm would do and sometimes you think, they are doing a really good job and that is great. and you see them being done in

ways that you think that your firm could do better? and it makes you, i think, you know that might have been. and it was more of a rhetorical question to myself and after a while, you know, i think that projects could be done, some of these if given the opportunity could be done at a higher level of a better level. those, i might crash and burn on a projector hit one out of the park. but that is general, generally the way that i have seen it.

and, i don't know, maybe it is setting an example sometimes. i mean on a committee, sometimes, we kind of get frustrated because we feel like the bar is not being set high enough sometimes. and there is no reason that is should not because we are a world class city and the projects are well-funded. there is not something that is making them and there are many projects that will never be good no matter what and there are a lot of city projects that i think could be really, really good. and so, i felt like i could actually not just a positive impact one way but the other. i have a lot of theories about it. i think that the projects should go out to cop advertisings more, and none of that is relevant. but i think that there are

other methods besides what i am talking about today that could raise the bar. >> a quick follow up. >> if i could narrow the time line, i am believing that probably in the last two or three months all of this, you were knowledgeable of all of this and you thought that you gave thought to a second term? and in which, that came out as an affirmative to yourself and for mayor lee. but you were fully knowledgeable of this as well. did you have this conversation with yourself and did you have this conversation with folks in your firm enough to say you ultimately would be weighing the two, right? so you were knowledgeable of both of these, if i stepped forward and go for another four-year term. this preclusion still is there and i am going to hedge my bets and hope for the best and then go to the commission, i was just wondering how you

ultimately got there over a period of, and i am guessing in the last couple of months that all of this... >> yeah. because i enjoyed being on the commission a lot, i never, i mean i know what you are asking, i never really sat down with myself and said, make a decision, which one would want? i never did. i mean i know for a fact that if i were not on the commission and there was no conflict of interest, i know that i would probably be quite assertive in trying to get certain work because it would you would sort of be an idiot not to. but i never felt like that was a trade off at this point. and you know i don't see that becoming a trade off. and i have put a lot of work and i don't need to make more money. my life is very interesting. and it works pretty well and i like actually, i really like the balance that being on the

commission gives me. it is a different world of design and all of that and i don't think, i don't think that i would trade that for just a few more projects. it does not fit into my big picture, right? and what i did originally, and it was probably more than a few months ago, but it might have been 6 months ago, but i i didn't know that there was a conflict of interest, i figured there was but i never got out the charter and read, but i checked with vicki who used to be staff and said what is up? is this a conflict of interest if i were to work on some of the projects that is when the fire stations started coming through, those are... i felt like i just had like a little extra interest in fire stations when i saw the way that they were coming through and what they did. initially it was not a

conflict, i was not sure and i wanted to be really safe and i checked with john and he said no, there would, and so we went through this. give me a waiver and iam leaving and i never thought about it that way either >> i too would like to thank you for your service on the commission it sounds as if you are fully engaged and enjoy it very much. that makes a big difference. i would dare venture that being the chair of the civic design review committee is some ways a competitive advantage for you as an architect. because you are aware of the projects and the procedures necessary for any firm and that is involved in these things. so, to some extent, you already have an advantage.

but, what i would like to do now, is to open it up to any comments from the public? >> yes. >> sounds good, thank you. >> ray hartz director of san francisco open government as you figure out i go to a lot of boards and commissions and i would like to talk about an incident since the requestor of the waiver brought up the issue of being appointed and serving on the arts commission so forth. the fact that really does mean that he took an oath of office to support and defend the constitution of the united states and that of the state of california, and he has been through the sunshine ordinance task force training at least three times. signed at least three affidavits that may be more at this time. and yet, this is a matter of public record at a public meeting of the arts commission, mr. peter war field executive director of the library users association got up to make comments about the fact that

they were failing to follow the sunshine ordinance, and while i know under the ordinance, members of the boards and commissions were allowed to respond and they are not allowed to be abusive and i would say that the comments that there smith made to mr. warfield were abusive and i would suggest that you go back and review those comments. one of the comments was i don't have to listen to this shit from you or from someone like you, and then he referred to mr. warfield as whether whoever you are and then he came out at the end and said that i am going to do what i can to make sure that you are not involved in things like this any more, which i see as a threat to say that i am not going to let you participate in public comment. now when you have someone who takes an oath, takes the training multiple times and signs a number of agreements to follow that training and follow that law, how could you trust that person to be a good willed person who is going to actually

recuse himself in cases where he should. i have questions about it and you should go back and review the testimony and you can look at the public arts commission and there were more things that he said and i did not bring my notes with me tonight. the thing about this is while he was good enough to this this in public and insult mr. warfield on a number of points in public, he is at no time ever apologized to mr. warfield let alone in public for having abused his position as a member of the arts commission. and as a result, i don't feel he deserves to be on the arts commission. i question why he is still on the arts commission, because the only thing that i have gotten from the executive director mr. tom decaney is that they talked to him. i don't think that they would have had to talk to him to have him know that he is not allowed to be abusive to someone who

was getting up and making legitimate public comments and i don't think that anybody who would do that in public and fail to apologize in public lacks a certain level of integrity. >> and any further public comment on this matter? >> if not, commissioners any further questions or comments? >> well, i just wanted... and for those who are more experienced with this, one i see that we write at least for the staff says that we have never taken up this specific waiver. >> yes. >> and as i read it, is says that the ethics commission may waiver for any officer who must be appointed represented in the profession, it seems to me that for as much as i have an understanding of it, it falls squarely within it and as we

talk about it, i would want to hear, reasons why we would and then reasons why we would not. and is there something extraordinary that we are missing here that keeps us from taking this under full consideration or if we need other information on it? because it seems like in reading through the ordinance itself and reading through the waiver and in reading through the requirement for the arts commission, and having two professionals on there and with mr. smith holding one of those positions, i was wondering if how close or less close this is to one of the garden variety requests that this would be or how exceptional this request is. since we have not picked it up. >> in general, waiver requests are post employment.

and the city officials, and the city officers are enjoying some certain kinds of contacts and activities with the city for a year after they leave. so, when waiver request generally come to this, someone wants to demonstrate that they want to participate in a prohibited activity, and then say, what, but there is not a conflict of interest and so i should be allowed to do it. some have been denied and most of them have been approved. >> we seldom get requests and within this particular type of waiver and we never have had this request and will people want to remain as part of the city board commission staff, whatever? and conduct what would normally be considered a conflict of

interest activity? >> i have no further comments except to say that my position on this and decision on this will be without regard to the accusations that have been involved against mr. smith which i do not think are appropriately rephrased. but i have got to say that i maybe wish there were more people but i am inclined to deny the waiver. under these circumstances, i think absent a showing that that position could not be filled without somebody asking for a waiver, i'm not disposed. the voters said that they wanted this provision, and i don't see a reason to wave it. >> my own view is that we, to

answer, your question, commissioner andrews, at least, during my tenure have not addressed this kind of request, and as he said most of the requests are the people who are leaving a commission and in those cases i have tempted to feel that i do not want to deprive people who have left city government or city positions further professional opportunities, and you know, these professional opportunities are not that common. and you don't want to undually limit the chances that such individuals have. but i do think that as a commissioner, i think that it would send the wrong message. i think that the whole point of being on the commission is to weigh in on the activities of city government and what we do and i think that to say as a commissioner, then, you are now

going to also be recruiting business, i think that it sends the wrong perception to the public and i would be inclined to deny the request in this case as well. and i'm really... and i do have to say as i have said earlier to you mr. smith. that is seems that if you are doing quite a good job and seem to enjoy it. and the art commission is lucky to have you in that position with your expertise and i do believe that just in a less formal way, you do have a little bit of a competitive advantage knowing what you do and the kind of decisions that you are making and what you have learned, that can be applied within your profession. if you were forced to make a choice, i suppose, and you will make that choice whether to stay on the commission, or to leave the commission, and then try to get your firm to get

city contracts. but i think that as a said before, it is the wrong message that i at least would want to send to the public in this particular situation. >> yeah, i would tend to agree with you commissioners. i was not completely clear, it seems like it was an interest and i would be more compelled if it were a financial hardship and that is where i was sort of heading. and you said that you are doing fine and you are doing a great job on the commission, and your firm is doing well. but if it turned out that the majority of the projects that were coming on-line over the next year were 100 percent of them, 75 percent of them, your firm would be eligible for and you are already experiencing financial hardship, i would take a little bit more

consideration to that. but it seems i was not sufficiently convinced that... it feels more like a luxury decision than it is an essential decision for yourself. and you will have an opportunity to make that decision at some point. >> i would like to add to commissioner renne's comments about mr. hartz' comments. i don't know that they are completely germane to the question before us. the only thing that i would say and i don't excuse any commissioner that mistreats a member of the public that has something to say or brings something to our attention or the attention of any commission, but as an aside, i would say particularly with the commissioners, the commissioners are people. and they are humans, and all too human at times and

sometimes, they could lose sight of the official role that they have to play, that does not excuse those kinds of comments or behavior and ternl, apologies may very well be in order. but i would just you know, like to say that put it on the record in terms of those of us who are commissioners and can sometimes get a little frustrated. and i am sure as the public becomes frustrated with us. so there you have it. >> i will call the question. >> we don't have a motion. >> we don't? >> i don't think that you need one. >> we don't need one, since there are three of us. >> okay, all right. >> make a motion that we deny the request. >> we can do that. >> i second. >> all in favor. >> public comment? >> public comment? >> always. public comment? >> hearing none, all in favor? >> aye. >> aye. >> aye.

>> okay. the motion passes. >> the next item up on the agenda is a discussion and possible action on policies related to the handling of violations of certain provisions of the campaign finance reform ordinance, otherwise known as sfro. >> we are following up on the policy decision and on recent discussions about moving settlement actions and penalties to the enforcement division from the audit staff. so, in order to set up the

process for handling these, the enforcement staff has developed some guidelines that they have proposed to use, when making enforcement penalties to the people who have violated that portion of the law. must like we have late fines of the other filings and we have a set of criteria when the people request a waiver of either full or partially, and the penalties and they are assigned to them and we have criteria where they can get reductions, the list is not essential but it tracks that in several ways, we have factors that we would like to use, and the initial penalty for making a contribution larger than the law allows is 100 percent of the excess contribution. and again, based on what it was

a criteria that it all bookkeeping and whatever the mistakes were made and whether this is deliberate, we want to set in basically an advanced set of guidelines for the staff to use. >> you know, what... >> we have been reading this, and it has been unclear, back in 2008, and this is the first discussed, have we been including forfeitures where it exceeded the limit? >> yes, we collected them on the law, but it was a question of when we would do the occasional reviews of how enforcement was working, and in the early stage of my tenure, we only had one enforcement staffer. and it was not until years later that we were able to get the additional staff. for a while we had to and then

ultimately we had four and now we have two again. and so, for various reasons we delayed moving the collection of these enforcement penalties against excess contributions. stayed with the audit staff. because generally they were found as a result of the audit and part of the audit report would say that you have x, number of contributions that you would have to forfeit that excess to the city. and there was not formal process for considering waivers. and for those assessments. >> there is no process to enforce that? you say that they are collected? >> well, i mean, when somebody owes money, after three months, we are supposed to refer it to the bureau of delinguent revenues. if they have 3,000 in excess contributions they have to give that to the city there was not a normal process of giving them

a waiver and all of that or part of that. no. >> which ro? >> mitigations... >> because you could go lower or higher? >> right. it can't be higher than the actual value of the over contribution. but it can and the scenario it could be lower. >> you know, we are talking about a bureaucratic process, or an administrative process, this is not a policy change, of any kind. >> the policy changes are already in effect and that is to say that we want to handle this... that is already done, so this is just setting on how we are going to go about doing it. >> what this policy also does is act and impose fines against the person who violates the law. >> and so if i understand it

correctly, what you are standardizing it and saying, that let's assume that we are talking first-time violation. if somebody, or some campaign accepts a contribution, in excess of the maximum limit allowable, that they forfeit automatically in five days you tell them, you violated it, and then they have got a fairly brief period of time to show you that they did not violate it. or, to, or the first time violations you will impose a fine of $2,500 i think, but there was a set fine that gets imposed, and then, there is some discretionary procedure, if they want to say that they are mitigating circumstances or you think that there are

aggravating circumstances? >> yes. >> but it would be something, fairly, and it would not require any great process, from the point of view of the staff, it simply once you find out, or once you are satisfied that there has been an excess contribution, what happens after that is just spelled out. >> pretty much, so, yes. >> and when you pointed out that i left out is, up to this point, we just took the excess amount as the penalty. >> right. >> going forward, and we are going to do that and then assessment of and give a fine on top of the penalty if you will. >> i understand. >> and any public comment? >> hi. my name is erica boyd and i thank the staff for putting forward these proposals i know that it takes a lot of time. the first issue that we have, i know that you talked about the law in 2008, but the fees came forward on july 17th last

thursday and so there have not been any interested person meeting to discuss this specific interpretation enforcement of the policy. so we would ask that because it is such a big issue, there are at least one or two interested persons meeting in that time in 2008 and also we had meetings at the california political treasures association and the political attorney's association. we would ask that those groups are contacted to at least give their feedback on this enforcement procedures. and to begin with, as someone already mentioned the five days in the policy to respond to a possible violation, is a very short time period, i think especially in the midst of a campaign or while something is going on, if someone is out of the office for two days and they missed the letter and if the address is wrong on the letter, the five days could go by so quickly. the ftpc policy is 14 days to respond, the fec's policy is 30 days, and so we would ask that at the very least it would

remain that the pcc policy of 14 days or possibly longer. we understand that this is a process where you are trying to get through the violation quickly but we would praesht the longer time there well. >> and also to take into account that sometimes it is not a black and white issue, it is not easily seen that someone gave 500 dollars at one point and 100 later on and maybe the campaign stretched over a year and a half and did not realize that they had written up that check and so giving the donor and the campaign a chance to rectify would be appreciated as well. we also have a due process question in regards to the picture to the city and i understand completely that in situations where a candidate or a committee was not supposed to take a contribution they should not benefit from that, but instead of the money going to the city it should go back to the distributor. we would ask that possible have a city attorney on that and

giving that it could have implications for a due process clause. >> and then the last part that we wanted to address was the disclaimer violation. and looking at the list of mitigating and aggregating factors one of the ways that the staff was going to go about it was doing an automatic five percent increase or decrease, but looking at this list of factors and absence of any intention to conceal should not have the same weight of evidence of intent to conceal and if we think that there should be, more of a totality and taking into account that there is no public harm in the violation. >> thank you. >> thanks.