it optional now, i suspect that most candidates will do it at some point in the future and we can use that as a argument to make it mandatory. >> okay. >> we work on any complaint violation and we are a complaint based, yes. >> and the only way that we know that someone willfully or unwillingly violated this is if someone complaints to you telling you so and so is actually a contractor and they made a contribution. and that is the only way this we would really know. >> right. and the forms that are filed for this particular when the contracts are made by the city officials we don't have a paper form and it is on the list of things to do, but we really

only one move one a year and so that is a few years down the line and a more searchable data base and it will be better for the people to figure out and in the process but in the meantime, it is a tough responsible. >> and now, i would say, as we learned dramatically in the last month and a half or so, the government works slowly, in terms of electronic technology. and so we will forgive ourselves on that note. >> so, any further discussion on this? >> i just want to be clear so this is for anything over 100 dollars. and then i am practically just playing out how i in the years past, when i it has been a long 20 years since i was not an executive director and since i was going to the campaign and going to house parties and writing checks. i am just practically playing it out but the particular candidate has or is good friend

and throws a house party and he speaks and people pull out their checkbooks and credit cards and it would be incumbent of that candidate to have these cards ready to go. >> yeah. >> and to strongly suggest or have the staff be, and remind everyone as they make their contribution that if it is going to be over $100 that you should fill this particular card out. >> yeah. and once, when they put up the cards and add the language, it is going to be there. >> it is going to be there. >> any further discussion, commissioners? >> and do i hear a motion? adopt this change? >> so moved. >> second. >> all in favor? >> and there is no one in the public here. >> correct. >> all in favor? >> aye. >> aye. >> aye. >> i am so happy. >> okay.

all right. so we are moving right along here today, i don't know what happened. >> yeah, i did. >> all right, so we are moving along to approval of the minutes of the last meeting on october 28th. >> any changes, or corrections to the minutes? >> no. >> okay. do i hear a motion to approve the minutes? >> i move that we approve the minutes as written. >> okay. >> all if favor? >> aye. aye. >> aye. >> executive director's report. >> what do you have to tell me? >> i don't have any specific in the report, it is, it does mention that i taught a class at the university and i got a

nice tweet for the ethics commission and a big shout out for john st. croix for the director and today's policy administration class, i thought that was nice. >> it is nice. >> i want to remind the commissioners that your anti-harassment training has to be completed by the end of december. and i send e-mails along the lines. and we are going to do, as you know, next year we go to all electronic filing for form 700s and so we schedule the trainings for february 5th at 2:00, and march 5th at 2:00 in room 408 down the hall. >> and this is training for the general public? >> or for the people. >> for the filers. >> yeah. >> we don't necessarily need the training but we are provided it for the people that are going to face the difficulty. and i want to show you this, there is a city wide data base, that is being or has been

created to allow people, the public greater access to information that is available through the city agencies. and this chart shows you the level of participation. by the department, and it is actually by user name and the top line steve massy is our tech person and so that purple line represents the ethics commission and you can see that participation and this far exceeds the other departments and steven wanted me to point out because he was a modest young man that many, members of the staff actually made these contributions, data, but he is the main user, which is why his name is the one that is up there. but does he ever sleep? >> he is magnificent staffer and we are lucky to have him. finally i have one other thing that i would like to point out and i don't want to do this, it

makes me very sad, but this tonight is mabeline's last meeting. but i am going to have a lock changed on the office door so she can't leave. >> it saddens me very much. >> saddens me very well. >> she come to my first meeting last week and seeing a former student of mine, mabel lang who i was looking forward to working with during my tenure, and we have had several discussions, and communications over the past couple of weeks and they have been great and pleasant. and i am certainly going to miss you, and wish you well, in your future endeavors. >> maibl, you are getting a look of disapproval. >> but i will say, i concur,

and we have over the, over the few months that you have been a great guide for me, and stepping in when john was busy, and answering my questions and i very much appreciate that and you very much remind me of my deputy director who retired in august, and she was the quiet storm and her name was chief, and i don't know if you have a nickname but her name was chief which was the under boss which means that she ran me and i suspect in many ways you are running that office too and i know that you will be missed and i want to thank you for your service and it is meaningful to the city and county of san francisco. and the people that reside here. and so thank you. >> thank you. >> well, i just don't know what this commissioner is going to do without you. and i honestly mean that and i think that when people, you know, throw around disparaging comments about government,

bureau crats or government workers it only indicates that they have did not encounter someone like you your thoroughness and your expertise and your skill make all of us stand in awe of what you do, and what you have done for us. so, you will be missed and i wish that i could talk you out of this. but, retirement can be pretty terrific. so, we wish you well, and we are very, very happy for you and this is not your last day though. >> no. >> when is your last day. >> january third. >> okay. >> so, thank you all for the time and i really appreciate working with you, and i really appreciate every single member of the staff that has been wonderful. and i appreciate the city attorney's office and it is just about a really great, great experience. yeah. thank you very much. >> yes, and thank you. >> thank you. >> and we wish you well, in all

of your future endeavors and so please stay in touch with you. in fact, if you would like you can come and sit in the audience. to comment. >> i would just add that commissioner andrews is a perfectly right and anybody who has ever had a deputy knows who the real boss is. >> pretty much. >> it was the partnership of a lifetime for me and i will miss it. >> okay. >> i just have one question in the report, i don't know what... and you may not have the answer and we may not have your executive director's report from last meeting i just wanted to confirm the number on the revenue's report and our goal, or our budgeted goal is 100,000 and for some reason i am remembering a number like 16,000 in receipts has that number changed or has it always been 12,000 or did it even go

up? does anybody know? >> i don't know if it went up or not, but i think that i mentioned, that the january time period is where most of our revenues. >> yeah. >> ran for. >> and i remember. >> not all of them, but most of them. >> so the confirmation on that in the last meeting. >> and i will double check those numbers, and shoot you an e-mail. >> okay, thank you. >> anything more that you would like to add to your executive director's report? >> no. >> any further comments or discussion off the director's report? >> i have none. >> no. >> if not, we will move on to any items that commissioners may have for agendas on future meetings. >> i don't know that it, if at some point it will make it to, i think the ethics commission but i was wondering where they were with the proposed legislation, the chiu herrera

legislation, where is the city with that? >> i know that they were revising it. and i am not sure exactly when they intend to. >> okay. >> and that is correct. it does not have the committee schedule, but it actually has not had it the full examination in a public hearing for public comment, but i think that people want to move it forward fairly soon. >> okay, thank you. >> and at some point, i would like to discuss something which i actually saw in or on the materials last time, having to do with the executive director's power to dismiss complaints. and it is on the content calendar and one of us can pull it off if we want and it is nothing to do with your power to do that.

it is just the options that are available because i saw one man and i am not going to go into it because it was on last week. and among the options, it talked about that you would exercise that power, if, for example, it was being investigated as a criminal matter, the district attorney was looking into it as well. and so, does that strike a cord with you, as mr. st. croix in terms of, without going into any individual matter that is something and has been referred to us, and as an ethical matter, and it was also determined that it was being looked at criminally, and this district attorney or someone, asked us wait, don't get in our

way, that it would then be part of your process of putting it on the consent calendar for dismissal. i saw one of those, and my thought was that it might be better idea in those situations if when they can come up in the future if they come up in the future, but rather than just dismissing it, that we have some provision where we could just defer it to some period of time, because of the dismissal means that it goes away from our purview, and it may be that something is or starts out, or comes to us as an ethical matter, there st. croix sees that it is also being investigated by the criminal authorities by the district attorney. and the district attorney says that well, stay out of the way,

which is quite appropriate that we should. i think that we should still keep track of it because it might occur that the district attorney for whatever reason might decide, well i am not going to go forward this, i am not going to prosecute it, just because of a belief that they might not be able to get a guilty verdict beyond a reasonal doubt, but there are live ethics questions in there that have not been... and i don't know where i am making myself clear on this. so, honestly, i think that in those situations, i think that we might be better served if rather than them being just dismissed, that we defer them to some period of time. and look at them again, and like it is deferred for three months or six months. and then we find out what the criminal authorities, and the district attorney, might be doing with this and if they are

going forward or someone has been convicted or whatever, we may want to just forget about the whole thing. but if they then, if we hear that the district attorney or the criminal authorities have decided, well, we are not going to bother, and we are not going to pursue any further action, at that point, we may want to take another look at it to see if we want to do anything. >> well, there is nothing to stop us if we dismissed a complaint to reopening it. and, there are, and occasionally there have been times when higher authorities pursue the investigation and did not necessarily go anywhere. the problem with your solution, is we have to meet certain performance measures every year that the city requires of us, and the length of time that it takes to conclude in the investigation is one of those. so, if we left cases that we are not investigating open it is going to bring down the percentage or it is going to

bring up the level of average time that it takes us. to complete. each investigation. and so it is going to hurt the performance. >> well that does not impress me. because what you are saying is that in order to have good statistics, showing that we are real efficient. >> and getting things done in, with this batch, we would allow something to get away from our purview, that we should not allow to get away from our purview. i would rather take the hit on what the appearance of our statistics are. and in terms of well, we have continued something, for a while, so therefore, our getting and turned around does not look as good as it did before. and rather than risk the idea of someone who has committed an ethical breach that is under

our jurisdiction, we have not done anything about it. and nobody does anything about it. because we don't get back to it. i understand what you are saying about the idea that nothing prevents us from refiling. or taking on a complaint again, after it has been dismissed. but, in my view, generally, once you dismiss something, unless something happens to red flag it for you. >> what you are proposing or the help with the process where we put the referrals and the cases for the particular file and we will automatically review them after a certain amount of time but we are getting into a policy discussion that is not on the agenda, i don't think that we should carry. >> that is something. >> recommendation for a future meeting.

>> and i do think that, and one of the complaints that we hear, fairly or unfairly that too many cases are dismissed and why are they dismissed and so on and so forth and so, i think that a good discussion by all of the commissioners, would be worth our time. and worth while to see if there is something that we can do, where we could still have good statistics but still also have a sense that we are still keeping an eye on some questionable decisions, or activities. so, i think that a discussion for a future agenda is an order and it also brings me to something that i have been

thinking about, and that is, i doubt that many know what the ethics commission is about and what we really do. >> and the ethics commission is that they have a completely different notion of what the work is, and not at all, a real idea of what the actual work is, and at some future meeting, i think that it would be worth while and especially if we have a good number of people in the audience to kind of go through this is who we are and what we do. and we want the public to understand, why we do what we do. and it is not always what the expectation may be and there are reasons for it. and at some point, on the agenda, i would like to see us talk about who we are and how we do it.

kind of educational and i know that we have the interesting party meetings and sometimes those are again, are people who are already very knowledgeable. something that the public can understand and they are televised and we can reach more people who amazingly watch this on tv and that is my recommendation at a future meeting and perhaps at the beginning of the year. >> i know that we are not going to get into the policy discussion but i see the value in coming up with a mechanism that would allow us to fully exercise our duties and responsibilities and also, seek to not in any kind in any kind

of way, damage, or effect, negatively effect our performance. you know, i don't know how many there are and i guess that is a question that we want to find out. and how many of those cases really are there in a year that ultimately have a higher authority investigating and in which case we dismiss and you could also, i believe with the power that measures our performance, ask for a waiver on those particular cases that say, for as long as this case is opened and pending, and an investigation under another body, we would, we request a waiver that this particular case not be included in our performance and in the particular year, and i have done that in the key areas of performance at the organization.

>> i think that your suggestion covers that concern. >> any further items for a future agenda. >> hearing none, i would like to call for public comment. but there is no public, joining us today. and this is really a first. at least for me. so, with that, i would like to call for adjournment. and could we have a motion to adjourn? >> so moved. >> second. >> all in favor? >> aye. >> aye. >> aye. >> the meeting of the san francisco ethics commission is adjourned and amazingly so, 11 minutes after 6:00 this has to be a record, thank you all. 37 minutes is the record. >> okay, well, still we are doing pretty well. so. we are adjourned.

>> please stand for the pledge.