one that i wanted to focus on our if i can is our school education program and working with san francisco unified and various schools in order to do that. also i have a quick powerpoint. if we can put the that up as i walk through the items. since 2001 our school education team has been involved in water education. thanks to the support from the san francisco public utilities commission. we have designed a program called save our bay which we target to 5th grade classes merely teaching about water pollution prevention and promote water conservation. today we given over 800 presentation to 5th graders reaching about 25,000 students here in san francisco. in addition the team has developed a variety of fact

sheets about environmental topics including water conservation and we distribute information directly to teachers and have these items posted on our website for people to download. we are adding more tips on water conservation. plus when we provide this information, we encourage kids to take the tips homes and have conversation with their parents around how to save water. one of the most successful aspects to get these fifth graders to be fully engaged from the process and from our account it's been a special program in reaching san francisco's diverse family. in addition to those materials, we've also developed curriculum for the sf puc specifically designed for grades 4-6. teachers are able to use the curriculum around water resources and

water conservation and the sf puc is distributing these materials to all teachers who are interested in san francisco and also make it available on their website. our water class presentations not only are teefrps -- teachers doing this but our office as well. we have given eight presentations to assemblies targeting about 8,000 students in san francisco and developing a curriculum to take it to further grades to allow students to be fully engaged in the process. lastly one of the other aspects we are doing is front line educators and directly turn key materials to use in their classrooms as part of their overall teaching. one of our best strategies is to educate teachers in a way to present this and really get to the message of water conservation to all of our

diverse communities in san francisco. this program has extremely successful and appreciate our partnership. i wanted to spend a little time on this aspect on water conservation and the 10 percent voluntary reduction. again, one unique and different way that we approach this and again like the puc happy to answer any questions. is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. >> colleagues, any other questions? i want to thank you both mr. richie and mr. rodriguez for coming out today. this is a really important issue that we are dealing with in the state.

next tuesday at the board of supervisors i will be introducing a resolution urging the state legislature to provide drought mitigation funding for the critical water supply for the san francisco bay area. they are considering leveraging $640 million for the drought and the drought area we are requesting for the san francisco water supply project and the lower cherry aqueduct restoration project and install toilet program which are important priorities which mr. richie mentioned. i hope we'll continue to work hand in hand and submit this to the board. my office will be submitting this at the board of supervisors meeting on tuesday and we want to continue to work with you to

address any concerns to protect our water supply and look towards the future and make good decisions about our infrastructure in order to make sure san francisco has it's water supply intact and available for it's residents, not only in san francisco but throughout the bay area. thank you both for being here today. okay. with that can we continue this item to the call of the chair? >> so moved. >> without objection this item is continued to the call of the chair. thank you. madam clerk please call the last item. city clerk: [campaign and governmental conduct code - lobbying regulations] sponsor: chiu ordinance amending the campaign and governmental conduct code to expand the definition of a lobbyist; expand the list of reportable lobbying contacts; enhance lobbyist training, auditing, and record-keeping requirements; require public reports about city officials who fail to file statements of economic

interest; require a public guide to local campaign finance laws; require permit consultants to register with the ethics commission and file regular disclosure reports; and require major developers to disclose donations to nonprofits active ity clerk: sf 512341234 >>supervisor london breed: supervisor chiu. which >>president david chiu: colleagues, thank you for bringing up this item particularly as it relates to lobbying. this is an effort that our city attorney and i began last year and mr. herrera will be joining us momentarily to make some introductory comments and it's timely to start this conversation given our city attorneys recent proposed settlement for a violation of lobbying ordinance announced last week. a few introductory comments as to why we are doing this, we know we have many ethics and lobbying laws on our books but there is a strong perspective held by many in the city that we need to do better. during my first term on the board i passed several ordinances to pass online lobbying activities, to report electronic filing of campaign statements and our

city's conflict of interest code. in my second term eye a better understanding of how influences from and important decisions within our $7.9 billion government. i hear regularly from constituent from governmental transparency and this reform packet designed to increase public confidence in the everyday workings of our local government. to shine a brighter light to lead to better and open decisions by city officials. let me also make it clear that while our proposals impact certain activities such as lobbying and permanent expediting. we are saying it's important for the public to know when they occur that there be transparency as former supreme court once said, sunlight is the best disinfect ant. what i would like to do is look at a few issue of our

ordinance and this is a complex legislation that covers a variety of different topics and my office continues to work with our city attorney on a wide a n array of legislation. our city attorney has arrived, herrera, white, gibner and advocates for strong ethics and transparency laws. we have worked together for a number of was no put this packet together and attend this hearing to let folks know that we are kicking off this discussion and hopefully in the coming weeks we'll be able to have some clarity over a few remaining issues that are outstanding before we come back to this committee and ask for our committee to move this out to the full board. with that, i would like to invite up our city attorney mr. herrera for

some comments. >> thank you, mr. president and members of the board and thank you for the opportunity to come and spend a couple minutes to talk about this legislation forum today. first i want to thank and congratulate president chu for all of his hard work over the last year. you may recall that supervisor chiu and i introduced this legislation last year and at the time announced it was our belief that thises the most important ethics legislation to advance before the board of supervisors in its generation and i happen to believe that that remains the truth. we have painstakingly worked over the last year with supervisor chiu's office to put together the packet that you are considering today really concedes the orange --

objective over this legislation. over the last year it has repeatedly demonstrated it's is the importance of promoting legislation that is in the best keeping of the ethical and the people have the confidence of the transparency. i think this legislation accomplishes that. i know we'll get a number of different views and discussions. make no mistake the broad outlines that supervisor chiu and i have to do needs to happen and we agree it's in the best interest of the business that we do here in city hall. the legislation that you have before you today does a number of things. it imposes the

amendment that would expand the issue of lobbist and more lobbying activity is subject to self disclosure requirements and limits exemptions that are currently in the law so there is no confusion about what it is that we mean to capture. we also at the same time ensure that permanent expediters have the same rules that we demand of lobbyist and attorneys that do business here in city hall. i think we both recognize that we should demand no less of ourselves than we do of the public and the interest we seek to regulate. that's why our legislation also calls for greater accountability for oversight, contracts, procurement and grant making that we do here when we do the city's business and finally the legislation i think goes absolutely best in making sure that our community is as

informed as possible when it comes to the business going on here in city hall. we have enhanced public information provision and requirements with respect to reporting financial non-filers and publishing campaign guide so there can be transparency when it comes to campaign fundraising and we also strive to make sure that we have full language access. so the legislation requires that we expand the access for non-english speakers for a san francisco tradition and i think it's in the cutting age to ensure that multilingual populations are informed of what's going on here in city hall. i want to thank supervisor chiu for his partnership in working with our office in the last year to make sure we put together a comprehensive packet that i think speaks to the best ethical tradition that we all

do in the business here in city hall. supervisor chiu, thank you, supervisor breed, supervisor tang i hope you will consider this legislation and hope to have your support because the public depends on it and expects no lesson ethical sessions will. thank you. >> >>president david chiu: thank you for your partnership on this and i want to talk about more details and open it up to initial public comment that we know will result in future hearings on this topic. but as our city attorney eluded to that part of this definition is the lobbyist is an individual who receives or is promised economic consideration of $3,000 or more, because the language has been ambiguous on the ordinance to the there is a

distinction between contract lobbyist to get paid any amounts to contact any city officials versus in-house employee lobbyist and we are considering whether it makes sense to have either some sort of low dollar level lobbyist as well as an em employed lobbyist to make it a little less challenging than it is today and the attorney issue which is a real issue with force many. at enforcement. at this time the current law that the duties by the attorney can only be created by an attorneys and communicating with a party on actual litigation involving

the city or the county. we also address the fact that permanent expediters are acting with city and government and all levels of government and we heard that it is important to have some transparency in this area although we do understand that we want to stharn -- ensure that there is a level of reporting because expediters have hundreds of contact with city staffers and we ensure feedback for transparency in a way that is efficient for folks engaged in that activity. as eluded to before our package also requires additional lobbyist training and auditing and training and public reports for issues failed to economic interest and public guide to local campaign finances laws and also require major developers to disclose donations to

non-profit organizations acti in the city as well as implement some language to know that full diversity of the city understand what these rules are about. with that, i know this is a large piece of legislation. colleagues, if you have any initial questions to us the city attorney or myself we would love to entertain that now, if not, open up to public comment. >> okay. public comment. >> i would like to bring up someone who is familiar with these issues. >> good afternoon, i'm judge clinton cobb city san franciscans. i want to

recommend strongly that you today recommend enactment of this ordinance to the full board of supervisors so that it maybe placed on it's agenda next tuesday. i have read the ordinance in its entirety. it has two salient provisions to protect san franciscans against city government corruption and bin alt. one is direct consultants, they are lobbyist and should be treated as lobbyist. this ordinance does that. the second is the developer self disclosure requirements with respect contributions to non-profit entities which lobby at city hall and lobby on

behalf of or depending on the position against they particularly act by the board or even an ordinance proposed to the board. very important. i think you should consider whether the reporting limit should be reduced from $5,000 to $1,000. these are entities like the san francisco planning urban renewal association which obtained almost all their funding from entities which have affairs in business with city hall and with city government or the other one of the housing operation supposedly. let me just point out one tactical problem that mr. herrera and mr. chiu may want to address

and that's on page 13 of the ordinance with definition of a non-profit organization which is based on the word active refers to any entity that within the past 2 years has attempted to influence city legislator administrative action. on the other hand at the subsequently there is a reference to any non-profit organization to whom it should be to which, a developer has made cumulative donations of $5,000 or more since the date 1 year and before an application for environmental review occurs. i maybe missing something, but it seems to be

an inconsistency between the two 2 years and the 1 years and i'm sure that's easily curable. finally i want to comment and commend the sponsor and the author for attempting to get a handle on the conduct of attorneys. attorneys historically have been able to hide behind attorney-client privilege while lobbying like a non-attorney does at city government. i think that's a major recognizable effort to face the fact that attorneys are not practicing law in too many instances. so i hope you will make the appropriate motion and send it to the full

board. >>president david chiu: thank you judge clinton. this is a major piece of legislation and i know there is additional comments people want to make today. we are not moving it out today and we hope to move it to march 15th and hope to move it out that day. if there is any public comment, please step up. good afternoon supervisors, i'm anita. i'm an attorney and i have monday oerd -- monitored the changes to lobbying since it's been created. i'm against the proposed deletion of the word attorney which exemption a person from performing a duty that can be performed only by

a licensed attorney. the legislation of torn -- attorney is a matter of state term and not by lobbying law. i also recommend the submissions of the bids to rfp to the city of this activity. this is exempt when the information is providing to officials specifically designated in a request to receive the information. if a law is enacted as proposed, every person who bids on an rfp everybody is considered a lobbyist. this is competition forbidding citywide. currently an individual qualifies as a lobbyist is promised $3,000 or more. i think the language in

the ordinance should be clarified to clearly indicate that you are talking about contract lobbyist in house employee lobbyist. in addition i think each lobby should have a financial threshold. most local jurisdictions impose some kind of financial threshold or hours threshold; long beach, los angeles, san jose. i don't think you want to report on issues of small matters. >>president david chiu: thank you very much. can i ask you to submit your comments to us. >> we advocate reasonable regulations and procedures. >> okay. thank you very much. we look forward to those

comments. is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. >> what i would like to ask if we can continue this item to march 13th. >>supervisor london breed: before we do, i want to get some clarification on what this means for non-profit organizations? >> the only real change that we make here is that when developers are trying to influence decisions around environmental impact reports, message orp developers there is a requirement that a developer who makes a contribution more than $5,000 to a non-profit organization to disclose that. we are often lobbied by many individuals around various project and we have non-profit organizations which approach us that have received contributions in the past. it doesn't say those contributions can't be made.

it just that there is transparency around that so we can make-up our mind around that. >> for clarity, in many cases, i'm not aware. can you give me an example of non-profit organizations that actually lobby people who may receive contributions. can you give me an example of that? >> sure. >> organizations that would potentially receive financial support from an entity and would then ask the non-profit organizations. let me just say, i ran a non-profit and we got a lot of continue bugz from -- contributions from a lot of people. we did not ask, nor did we agree or ever agree to reach out and lobby on behalf of any of the individuals who have given us contributions. so i'm just trying to understand the

kinds of organizations this is targeting because my biggest concern is that i would hate to punish non-profit organizations especially non-profit organizations that are particularly doing a lot of incredible work but not crossing that line and becoming lobbyist which in many cases they don't necessarily have the time to do that kind of work, but more importantly, i just don't want to discourage the contributions from coming into these entities. i'm just trying to under maybe if there are examples or maybe if there are organizations or what have you that have this history or that there has been a particular problem or challenge in this area, i would like to understand why this is being inserted to

feel a lot more comfortable about that particular section of the legislation. >> so rather than singling out any one non-profit organizations. let me tell you about some non-profits that came and testified in support of these projects. i think the question was for many of us was to really understand the motivations around some of the individual organizations that come and testify in front of projects. the cpmc projects. there were many organizations that came to lobby around that. the washington project. similar activities. >> can i get some clarity around that. was it because there was a commitment of maybe job opportunity or

something beneficial to the community or potentially because they have received a contribution to their organization from this particular entity? >> it's unclear. oftentimes i think many of us would be surprised to see individuals representing non-profit organizations speaking out on behalf and i will list a couple other projects, the 555 project, hunters point and bayview project. i think the testimony is fair and inadequate. i think it's helpful to know if there were organizations that had received monetary considerations before their testimony. it's not saying those contributions can't happen. it's just knowing about it. >> in some cases many of

these entities receive public funds and their information is actually available to the public. so their contributions.990s and all the information that they are required to provide is basically opened and available to the public. again, i just want to make sure that this doesn't discourage contributions to non-profit organizations. i would be a little concerned and maybe we can discuss more of the details on what this could potentially mean before it comes back to committee. definitely we can continue this item for the next meeting which is scheduled for march 13th. >> to continue as amended? >> we have not made any amendments. by the way, supervisor breed, i very much appreciate you raising your concerns and we'll think about it in my office and consider

some of the issues you've raised. >> thank you. >>supervisor london breed: is there a motion to continue this item to march 13th meeting. great. it's been continued to the next meeting. madam clerk, anymore business? >> that concludes the items on the agenda. >> great. this meeting is adjourned. [ meeting is adjourned ] >> >>