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 soin order to set up the taff.

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 a 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. >> any further public comment?

>> mr. st. croix? reaction to those comments? >> well, i think that we could probably also give on the turn around time. and i would not and i don't see, an issue with extending the amount of time to the 14 or 15 days, there. but beyond that i think that the rest of it is straight forward and so i am not, confused that we need to delay this to get additional impact. this is pretty basic stuff. >> am i correct in understanding that the forfeiture is provision and it is not something that the staff came up with, if somebody accepts a contribution in excess, it is forfeited. >> correct. >> so that the due process

question that was raised has been resolved in the statute and if there is litigation, it has been resolved in litigation. but i mean we are not creating the automatic forfeiture that is just enforcing the statute. >> again, would i venture to say that this is an administrative and bureaucratic process and not really policy issue. i assume that there have been opportunities for the public to it comment on this. and to provide their point of view. >> this list of proposals is not or has not... and it is public, and... so, just a few days. >> so what is your reaction to having an interested parties meeting? >> again, i just think that it is kind of basic stuff and i don't know that we need a lot of input on something like this.

this is you know, we are making an administrative decision and already going to handle something. >> any other commissioner comments? >> so, with the three points, right? two of the three, we have kind of sort of resolved? ; is that correct?. >> two of the three, one is in consideration, but by business date possibly 14 or 15 days. >> i do not have a problem with that. >> and the other is basically a statute and all that we are doing is following. >> right. >> i would say that i would that the staff raised and we get to the factors of mitigation, and ago agree vasing, raise two options. and one would be an option which left no discretion really in the staff and the other option was one where they could

consider them without without restriction in one, the staff would prefer the first and i would prefer the second, i think that some of the factors clearly are much more important than others. >> okay. >> do we need to... do we need a motion to approve this? >> yes. >> so, a motion to approve these recommendations, with the change, if you wish to move it to... do we want to say 14 days? ten business days? >> yes. 14 days. >> yes, we are assuming that you want to change that to 14 days and then using the second consideration option where we would present to the commission and rather than the labor staff.

>> yeah, that is a great motion. >> and i make a motion that we accept the changes in the enforcement and settlement and penalties with the change of five business days to 14 days, is it ten business days? >> just like 14 days, that will be two weeks. >> 14 days. and we would accept the second scenario by which the staff would present this to the commission, for consideration. violation. >> any further discussion?

>> could i just make two comments? >> one is on page 3. after number one, and on the second line, instead of saying a violation of any part of 1.114, it should say a violation of section 1.114 a1, b, or e. and then on page 4, also, after number one, second line, instead of saying in violation of any part of 1.114, it should say in violation of section 1.114 a1, or 1.114 a2. >> thank you. >> any further public comment?

>> all in favor of the motion? >> aye. >> aye. >> aye. >> okay. >> could i ask a question with the staff? because if the individual makes a contribution to a campaign in excess of that allowed under the code, does that individual also face penalties? >> before now, no, after now, yes. >> okay. >> that is the way that i read it and i didn't know whether that one was finished. >> and okay. so for the next item, there has been some interest by the commissioners and particularly commissioner renne on revisiting the idea of reports back by expenditure lobbyists who do not directly lobby

government officials about governmental decisions but rather make expenditures that would influence people outside of government to in turn, try to influence governmental decisions. the most obvious is doing out reach to the public view, and various media advertising or whatever to try to get them to contact the elected officials or city officials regarding pending decisions. when we moved the lobbyists' program on-line, we changed the focus from entities to individuals. and as part that have discussion, the capturing of expenditure lobbyists was essentially deleted from our process. and it is not the action in the course of the year, there were a total of eight in the last four years. nonetheless, this is people spending the money to influence

the governmental decisions so we don't have legislation drafted yet, but we have a basis for what we think the commission might like to do, and after this sort of reporting. and so this recommendation is because that they do not really shoot well into the existing lobbyist reporting program and we will create a new program outside of the electronic system and basic simple reporting and they are reported to us and reported on-line. and but we wanted to make sure that this is the direction that is acceptable to the commission before we drafted the legislation that has to go through the board. >> commissioners how do you feel about that? >> was there a penalty built into that? >> i was reading through it and i wanted to see, what happens when there is a failure to? >> the standard rules in the campaign and governmental code would apply in general, it is fines are up to $5,000 and up to 3 times the amount of the

infraction or whatever. the commission determines this. and so that will, that language will be built in to the legislation, but it will reflect the standard that we use and enforcement actions. >> let's make... sense to you commissioner renne? >> is this acceptable to you in terms of what you have had... >> let me say that i am disappointed that there is no public comment here certainly my inquiry was in some ways initiated by mr. bush's article in which he made it sound as if there were great sums of money that were being focused into the political process and no reporting requirements. and if i by picking out the

expenditure of lobbyist and provision, that we were sort of not giving the public information, i hope that he would be here when the item is on the agenda so that he could articulate to me and to the commission what it is the problem that he wants, or that he thinks we should be addressing? and because i agree with what commissioner st. croix has said is that they are are really only two or three reports. but as i understood what mr. bush claims in his article, is that that was necessarily the tip of the iceberg and there were great amounts of money being spent behind the scenes, to control the political process. so, i have no problem with what the staff has discussed, and i

guess that the question is, whether there is a need for it. and whether something that we feel needs to be addressed because of the public is being deprived of relevant information as to expenditures that are being made. >> and again, the 8,... >> over three years. >> let me ask if there is any public comment on this item. >> somebody during business of

the city, makes a contribution say, to say charitable organization, which is charitable, a pet project of a supervisor. is there any reporting requirement? >> if the contribution is a result of purging, then that supervisor or elected official, the state law requires a filing of what we called a (inaudible) form and any time that a private entity makes a contributions that was generated in some form by the influence of an elected official they have to file that. >> it has to be initiated by the public official as opposed to somebody who is doing his homework and saying, what is a charitable organizations that supervisor x, is closely involved with. and i am going to... i am going to make the contributions to it. >> there is not any requirement >> no.

it is if you are... and i believe that the state is kind of looking at this, where and i don't know how far along it is, where anyone doing business with the city and makes a contribution in excess of $5,000 will have to report them as a matter of course. >> regardless of whether anyone urged them to do it. >> right. >> otherwise, at this time, it is the elected official who has to made the official report. >> right. >> and someone did the business for staoet and once the community campaigned to create public support for a issue that may be before the voters. that funding or that campaign, is not reported? >> that is right. >> and that is kid