in which this comes before this commission, each of us received a packet, with the information relating to this complaint which are going to go in a minute be considered

adopted by us, at this meeting tonight, unless one of us asked for us to be pulled or to be calendared for discussion. i don't understand that procedure, and maybe someone can explain this to me. i see, a series of rather serious allegations against the high level official in the public utilities commission saying that she violated several aspects of conflict of interest, working at a paid commission at another job and lobbied the public utilities commission to give contracts that she worked for which would have aamounted to $250,000 that she would have been a beneficiary of that and i wind up agreeing with the stipulation and i have no problem with it and obviously underlying it, our staff must

have done a fine job of working on it with the fppc. and in bringing about this stimulation. but, why is it that something like this comes to us, and without telling the public and i think that the education of the public, and on this, a high level public utilities officials lobbying her own agency for $200,000 for lobbying for a company that she works for and that is fairly significant in terms of conflict of interest and we should be delving into it and the staff must have to come up with this and we should be talking about it and discussing

it more and analyzing it and we should be telling the members of the public about it, and educating the public about it, and if nothing else, just to blow our own horn, i mean that we have people who are coming here, and saying, that, the three meetings that i have been at saying and that you guys don't do your job and this is an indication to me that the staff did do their job. and terms of the findings and the woman is admitting that she committed these offense and she is going to have to pay a fine, and you could argue about whether or not that is enough or not. but she is, it is in effect to finding a guilt and a plea of guilty, or that is fine, but can someone please explain to me, why the procedure is, as it comes to us, it would have been considered that we accepted it,

and agreed to it, and the public never would have known, what our thoughts were about it. and why don't, what is this procedure in could someone tell me what this is about? >> how to do the regulations of the commission, regarding the results of the investigations, there are several types of documents settlement agrees, dismissed, proposals for dismissal of complaints that the staff creates a document for and sends to the commission. and if the commission agrees with those documents, and does not calendar it, then the staff recommendations are adopted and some of those documents are very simple and some like these are more come complex and it is incumbent on the commissioner to determine which of these documents deserves discussion by the commission and which one are simple and cut and dry enough to accept the staff's recommendation. and for most of the time that the commission had this procedure, it required two commissioners to calendar such

a document. but, a little over, maybe a year, year and a half ago, the commission determined that that standard was too high of a, or too high for the commission to use and it was lowered instead to a single commissioner and can calendar any of these such documents. >> and commissioner, keen and, let me further that point and the change made in response to the grand jury investigation and you know we took many of those recommendations seriously and i think that was really a good one of theirs. and the idea of reducing it, made it such that if any commission had a problem, it would be calendared or any commission had a question. to mr. st. croix's point, we are also trying to balance efficiency, with adjudicating matters with the group, that we find to have significant complexity or for which there are lingering concerns.

and this would have been calendared even if you had not done it. you are not the only one to request this one to be calendared. and i think that the commission by and large does a good job of recognizing when a matter should be brought before the commission and as, mr. st. croix said, the matter would otherwise have been heard in closed session, but for the fact that the fppc had already issued a determination, and so, these are typically not, even when discussed among the commissioners, done so in, or with the public present and now if we want to discuss a change to that prior, whereby they are automatically calendar and we discuss one at every meeting we can do that. but, i think that that, that decision is for a separate time. and i think that today, we should focus on adjudicating the actual matter. >> madam chair? >> we will indeed, focus on adjudicating it and in fact, as i said, i intend to vote for

the stimulation. but, i think that in regard to the procedures themselves, where we have a matter of such public significance, that shows a conflict of interest to this extent, that it should be something that routinely this commission will take up and that it will be calendared for discussion and that we do discuss it and we have the staff talk about it and we get into the background of the investigation and we have and let the public know what it is that we have done in relation to a matter of significant public interest, relating to a conflict of interest by a high official. and benefiting by working for another company and voting and lobbying her department. i think that we, and at some point in the future, picking up on what commissioner hur said,

we should change our procedures we should talk about it and analyze it with the members of the public, and in addition to that, get some sort of report from the staff about how this, how this out come came about, what were the negotiation? s what was, what were the investigations? to give some sort of background, the kind of thing that a judge would want in regard to see that there was a substantial basis for accepting a stimulation or accepting a resolution of a case. >> i just think to do it in this, to have a procedure whereby, something like this can just not be discussed, and we voted, we have accepted it,

and the public never hears us talk about it, it is not a good idea. and it feeds into the stuff that i have been hearing now, and i am a new member and this is my third meeting and it is easy to say i know because i have not been around like the rest of you have and i mean no disrespect to anyone here in regard to the sincerety to which you all do your jobs, but here, if nothing else, the staff is hiding its light under a bushel basket. if it comes up with an out come like this, which, is a good out come, and it shows that they did their job. and we just have it as a matter of procedure go through and we would say nothing, and it is passed and it sounds like they

are very, foolish thing for me and for us to do, and at a minimum for the public relations standpoint. >> commissioner keen i certainly do not disagree with your point of view on this. you may want to bring it up again at the end of the meeting and perhaps it should be calendared at a future meeting where we can discuss it further and make a decision about whether or not we want to change the procedure as commissioner hur indicated. so, it might make a note about that. i have a different view and i am not sure that i understand commissioner's keane's concerns, because this stimulation lays out the factses and it is a public document. and the public can read it and all that we are being asked is to say that we concur with the

findings that have been set forth here, and if we were to, if we, if there is a question about accepting the facts, as i understand it, that would have to be done under california law, under a private hearing,