or no activity by the ethics commission and its staff to do a complete investigation. >> i think we did investigate. >> yeah. >> we did our own investigation. >> i mean, in other words, there was never any investigation as to how serious the offense was. i mean, we all react to the fact it's a conflict of interest. but whether or not it was -- rose to the level that somebody should be fired because they committed a conflict of interest, i didn't feel i as a commissioner was in any position to do any value judgment on that. that was up to the agency who -- to make that determination, absent some record that i had

in front of me that would cause me to either think this woman should be fired or she shouldn't be fired. i mean, it's -- i think if we're going to make recommendations concerning what the agency should do, we've got to have a lot more information about -- and understanding of what investigation the agency made and reached its determination. boss comes in and says, i think i took appropriate action. can't tell us what it is obviously for it's a personnel matter. i don't know what he did. but he he seemed -- his judgment, then we listened to all this public comment about what a wonderful employee she is and a wonderful community leader, there is no way i'm

inclined to tell the puc you ought to fire her. well, he did have more than commissioner renne characterized in the stipulation. he had some egregious language in the violation itself. influencing a governmental decision in which the official has a financial benefit. and i remember at the time when we were looking at that myself, i don't want to speak for commissioner hur who is next to me, we sort of had a visceral reaction to that, made some comments, some comments that were in the record. and in regard to the other language, prohibits any city officer or employee from making a contract in which he or she has a financial interest. it wasn't just some sort of generic thing. well, yeah, she he didn't -- she really didn't do it right. it was this is fairly

substantial language of a violation how we heard all this other stuff. in my opinion [speaker not understood] in all the other thing we heard. in the face of it, i looked at that and i looked at what we see he is our mandate under our rules ~ to promote the highest standards of ethical behavior in government, and i see a department which is allowing someone to continue an employment who has pled guilty to these two rather egregiously sounding offenses. and to me it seemed based upon that knowledge and that knowledge only, it was appropriate to say that she shouldn't continue. i've learned a lot more tonight, i have to tell you.

>> that's the problem. >> that's the problem, is that it come off with, sure, you're quoting the statute. but even as you read the facts, what we knew about the facts, i certainly didn't feel it was a corruption case in the classic term of the word. that is some public employee who is taking money under the table or doing something else. and her conduct, when it came up, was essential open and above and cooperative and she's paid the fine for it. she's made a mistake. i agree with these people who said she's made a mistake, she fessed up to it and go forward. ~ certainly >> commissioner, it sounds to me in some ways we're kind of doing our own temperature check on the commission's comfort level with the city departments to internally deal with this personnel matter in some kind of disciplinary fashion. if we trust that there is a

process, an internal process, and we trust that something would have happened, then we would -- it seems to me we wouldn't be finding ourselves here so much. to believe that nothing happened, i would say yes. but we'll never know. we don't know. it sounds to me it felt like the executive director was intimating that something happened and there was some disciplinary action, it was a personnel issue. he he said all the right things in public. around the fact that it's an h.r. issue. but the fact is we'll never know what actually that was. so, we'll just always have to trust the disciplinary actions were taken, if appropriate. so, to me, it seems that would be a logical and reasonable line item to add to a stipulation that if appropriate, disciplinary action should be taken by the

agency or the entity. i mean, it's vague enough, it would seem to me, that at least it brings to notice that the organization has a responsibility or the entity has a responsibility to investigate what they should do post the commission's decision. >> and i think that's fine to include. i think to the extent we want to provide a recommendation, i do think it should be done in the context of discussing the settlement in which case, for example, we had determined -- i'm not saying there was or wasn't sufficient evidence to make this determination. but if we had determined that we thought we wanted to send a letter like that, then i think the procedure would have been -- the settlement would have been rejected. the commission would have had -- staff would have had to gone back to ms. ellis. and if she rejected that part of -- she rejected the settlement on that basis, then it would come to a hearing in front of us and then we would

hear all the evidence and make a determination. so, as long as we make that decision in the context of approving the settlement, i think we are going to cover our bases and sort of do the right thing by due process. >> the only thing i would just add to that, i think you're absolutely right, is -- and that's why i said the word reasonable. it would be reasonable -- i mean, it would be -- almost seem unreasonable for the respondent to not want to sign off on, if appropriate, disciplinary action be taken. what they're basically saying is i get to violate it and i don't think it's fair if i am disciplined on my violation. so, it's well within not only what i consider just general reasoning among the commission, but certainly to any of the respondents who are in violation. ~ of any of these codes. that's where i wanted to see if we could find a middle ground here, where it would not be a kill switch on the stipulation, but at least have, have the,

the violator on notice, the respondent on notice, and the entity on notice that something should be done. >> okay. public comment on this notice? hello, commissioners. today is a very sad day, really, very sad day. i participated when gavin williams, his case was brought before you all, tony hall, sheriff ross mirkarimi, and now juliet [speaker not understood]. during your deliberations, y'all know you were a little

bit slow because of whatever reason in adjudicating this case. this case really came from the fair political practices committee which had a stipulation ~. and then just because it came from a higher authority, that kind of entered the flow and y'all messed up big time. so, in the investigation, there are over 30 cases of the san francisco public utilities commission [speaker not understood], their employees, infringe on ethics, morals and standards. this woman, juliet ellis, ~ chose and employed the wife of this director [speaker not

understood]. you all failed to do the investigation. y'all failed miserably. you remember president bill clinton, i did not have sex with this woman? monica lewin ski, looking us all in the eye and not blinking, and what they found out, that he did. juliet ellis is a very, very elegant person. [speaker not understood] to me. and once in this hallway and a bunch over there, i warned her many, many months ago to change her ways, change her ways and be humble. she did not.

commissioners, today is a very, very sad day in the history of this commission that was charged to do right, to discern and to adjudicate based on morals, ethics and standards. you failed miserably. thank you very much. good evening again. dr. espinola jackson. i would like to say, after listening to your deliberations, i went to the commission, puc commission. in fact, they will be in the very room tomorrow and i will be definitely on them. i said to that commission that i would like for them to have a

staff to cease and desist in what was going on in bayview hunters point dealing with the sewer plant. and the commissioner called me back to the podium and said, ms. jackson, we don't have anything to do with the staff. we only deal with the director. i said, okay. but he said, i will be your [speaker not understood] between this commission and you, mrs. jackson, because when i come to a commission meeting, i come with facts. what we are going through in bayview hunters point and what i see now that i will have to do is request that the rico act be enforced here in san francisco. you made a statement about corruption. this city is so corrupt and it became corrupt from '96 up until now because of what is going on. and i've been watching. i'm 81 years of age, but i've

been watching the politics of san francisco for the last 55 years. i have walked these halls like i own them. but i want to make sure that at your next meeting -- i'm finished with that. at your next meeting -- you're the director, correct? when you go over the minutes -- i've already talked to the attorney -- to make sure that he look up the responsibility of the chair. and before you make your motion to support the minutes that's going to be presented to you, you will have to make adjustments because i don't want to see you in trouble on an action that you have taken because i have been chairman of many boards and i have been on many commissions and i had to learn robert's rules of order. so, that's one thing that i do know well, what a chairman can do and cannot do. so, i don't want no

embarrassment on you all at all about your actions that you take. and i want you all to have a blessed evening. >> thank you. any other public comment? dr. derek kerr. several of the public speakers mentioned that ms. ellis had reported her error to you and to the fppc. she he herself had done it. if so, that's commendable and should be taken into consideration. usually these types of wrongdoing come to you or the fppc from a tip, from a whistle blower. and the wrongdoers who are exposed by whistle blowers instinctively try to ferret out

who it is and toize the threat, just a threat. if this case came about through a whistle blower, i would be concerned about am i ellis' return to her position because that would constitute a risk, a threat to the whistle blower if there was one. ~ neutralize thank you. >> no voter action on number 5. so, moving on to number 6, discussion and possible action on the minutes of the commission's meeting of february 24, 2014. ~ on the minutes. i have one change i'd like to disclose. on page 4 of 6, it states that

-- i think it's suggesting that i seconded the motion relating to the closed session, and i don't think i did. i thought i recused myself for that item. okay. you have me rejoining after that so it's hard to see how i could have seconded it. so, i think that should be changed. any other -- >> do we adopt the minutes as amended? >> second. ~ move that we -- >> public comment? seeing none, all in favor? >> aye. >> opposed? passes. next item, the director's

report. do we have a report? >> i'm going to make this very quick. the only thing i would draw your attention to is the chart attached to the eb report. you all may remember that the city is actively pursuing a single data site with all of the good information about san francisco government and its work. and all the information and data available from the various agencies. so, the status report at a meeting held this week regarding this particular effort kind of shows you here that the ethics commission has really been quite a partner in this. the second one on defined reflects data that was posted by city employees who did not leave any identification as to who the poster was. so, we have no idea how that information is. so, you know, obviously always thanks to see our tech person worked that out, making

available the data which is always good for transparency. that's my only highlight. >> comments from the commissioners on the executive director's report? public comment? seeing none, items for future meeting. any proposals at this time? public comment on matters appearing -- do i need to take public comment on 8? public comment? seeing none. public comment on matters not appearing on the agenda. none. seeing none, is there a motion to adjourn the meeting? >> so moved. >> second. >> all in favor? >> aye. >> opposed? meeting is adjourned. [gavel]

. >> this is a meeting of the commission of the environment, today is tuesday, march 25, it is 4.05pm first item on the agenda is roll call. commission president arce is expected shortly. (roll call). >> next item is approval of the minutes of the january 28 commission of the environment regular meeting. in your pact today is a copy of the minutes, it's a discussion and action

item. >> please speak into the microphone, thank you. >> i'm not used to all of the attachments here. so do i see any comments about the minutes? if not, i'd like to entertain a motion to approve them. >> i move we approve the minutes. >> second. >> is there any public comment on the meeting minutes? is there any objection to the meeting minutes being approved? hearing none, the meeting minutes have been approved. next item on the agenda is retroactive department of the environment 2013 annual report. commissioners, in your packets, you have a copy of the 2013 annual report. this is a discussion and action item. >> once again, is there any discussion or comments regarding the annual report?

i'll give everybody a second to refresh. it's been a minute. >> i move that we approve this report. >> i second it. >> any public comment on the report? any objection to the annual report being approved? the annual report has been approved. next item on the agenda is review and approval ftd department of the environment's fiscal year 2014 through 15 budget. in your packet today is a copy of the budget. sponsors of this item are commissioner arce. >> director assmann, i want to thank you once again for always creating new and innovative ways to show us a spreadsheet. it is definitely a lesson in

excel, every time we get to a new year i say damn, i want to copy that. >> well, thank you. commissioners, what you have in front of you is what we presented for the operations committee but didn't have an opportunity to present to the full board, full commission, sorry, and what i've tried to do is make it visually interesting and convey the information in a way that's easy to digest. what you have is a sheet for every program area which shows you the expenses and the revenue and then in chart form shows you the variance from this year to last year. and as you see from looking through these, there are relatively minor changes in all except for one of these, and the one area where we do have a significant shortfall is in the

area of clean transportation where we had an earmark that has sustained our electric vehicle work for a number of years that is now ended or will end as of june 30th. we also have additional (inaudible) in the area of clean transportation so that's the one area that does not balance as of this very moment. everything else does. we have match revenues and expenses in every other area. as far as clean transportation is concerned we are asking for general fund support for clean transportation and we have a meeting with the mayor's budget director tomorrow to discuss this issue. >> okay. >> everything else i think is fairly self-explanatory. i'm happy to answer questions. you will see the expenses at the top left on each of these sheets, then you will see the revenue on the top right broken up by different areas. there's an overall chart which

matches, shows our revenue for the entire department. it's in the form of a pie chart. as you can quickly discern from looking at that chart, we really have 3 major sources of funding, the imfound account is by far the largest at 9.6 million, energy grants at 7.6 million then 1.6 million from other departments. anything else is much smaller. 448,000 in clean air grant , 368,000 in ej grants, everything else is 200,000 over the last, approximately. the expenses you'll see on the large spreadsheet. you've got a chart that has expenses by program area and by category and it's got 2014 and 2014-15 listed. there are still some variables in this budget. the biggest

variable is that labor negotiations have not yet been completed. we had to submit our budget without knowing what was going to be the result of those negotiations. obviously the budget will have to be balanced after those negotiations have been completed so it's an on-going process. our board hearing for our budget will be on june 16th with a second hearing on june 23rd if it's needed. we are being heard with general fund departments this year, not with enterprise departments, which i think is encouraging, given that we put in a request for some general fund support. the next step in this process is we work with the mayor's office to make this balance in its swiert before it gets submitted to the board of supervisors on june 1st and then the board of supervisors analyst, budget analyst, will be looking at this budget the beginning of june and then we'll have our hearings on june 16 and 23rd and it gets adopted by the

board after that. with that, , i outlined this in much more detail to the operations committee but i'm happy to answer any questions regarding the budget. >> miss graffiti. >> thank you, i, too, am grateful for the graphics, makes it easy for me to understand what's going on. i want you to go into a little more detail about what plan b would be if we don't get the desired general fund support. >> in the area of clean transportation we would have to reduce services basically is what it comes down to. our electric vehicle program was entirely funded by the earmark and we would not have an electric vehicle program if we did not get support. there are lots of grants for

electric vehicle installations. there are no grants that we have been able to uncover that cover the cost of personnel to work on those installations or to coordinate or do any of the administrative work around that, so all our electric vehicle work is dependent on getting some sort of support to augment those grants to be able to continue the electric vehicle work. >> thanks. >> commissioner josefowitz. >> could you maybe talk a little bit about why the outreach budget is going up by 10 percent and then why the climate renewables budget is going down and it seems like in particular the pc's revenue stream is going down a lot? >> i will address the second one first. the reason the

climate renewables budget is going down is specifically tied to the fact that a lot of our support for climate work comes from the sfpuc, specifically the power division of the sfpuc they have a major budget issue this year and they have dramatically decreased our work order. so as a result we have also cut our climate work correspondingly. the outreach budget --. >> what is that going to actually lead to? what are we not going to be able to do next year that we were doing this year? >> specifically we have a vacancy in that area. it means that we will not fill that position as quickly as we would otherwise. it certainly, it's -- and the result of that will be that we'll have less capacity to do some of the climate work we've done in the