and josh wolf will do shine the sunshine task force fine he's on the hunt he'll work so good and he'll be [speaker not understood] he'll make it real fine he's on a hunt and he'll work for you you know that i would be untrue you know that i would be a liar if i was to say to you these applicants task force couldn't get much higher come on city light the task force fire come on city light the task force fire gonna set the night on fire [speaker not understood] and you're gonna sunlight even task force might even retire come on city light the task force fire come on city light the task force fire

gonna set the night on fire -- task force fire ♪ make it happen thank you. (applause) good afternoon. my name is jeffery king. i am a first amendment lawyer specializing in [speaker not understood] government matters. i am a journalist who is an enthusiastic and frequent utilizer of the california public records act and the san francisco sunshine ordinance. a huge part of [speaker not understood] which includes open government matters and, of course, i'm here in my capacity as the freedom of information committee, [speaker not understood] society of professional journalists which i served since 2011. and i'm here to voice the committee of strong support or strongest support of mark rumold. as you heard from mark, he is

an attorney with the electronic frontier foundation, a position that he has held for the past four years a a legal fellow and now staff attorney. what he did not tell you is that he was not only qualified for this position. he's one of the leading open government experts in this country. he would serve the task force extremely well. he was unanimously recommended for this position by the freedom of information committee and i would urge you to, to accept his -- our nomination of mark for this role. thank you. ~ >> thank you. good afternoon, supervisors. my name is thomas peel. i'm an investigative reporter and u.c. berkeley lecturer. i am mr. king's co-chair on the sunshine ordinance task force

and i am asking you to approve the nomination of ali winston to the journalist seat on the task force. mr. winston [speaker not understood]. he is an outstanding journalist. unanimously approved by the sunshine ordinance task force for this position. journalistses use freedom of information laws all the time. he is deeply -- has a deep understanding of -- excuse me. the ordinance public records act, freedom of information act and the brown act. he would be a passionate and fair advocate to the northern california journalist community. i'll also say the most important tool a journalist brings to work every day is their common sense. and i think mr. winston's common sense and his outside perspective a a task force

minutiae would help in its reform and i would ask you to please move his nomination forward. thank you. >> thank you. good afternoon, supervisors. i'm richard nee, member and past chairman of the sunshine ordinance task force. you have an opportunity today to begin the process of filling all 11 seats on the task force and i would strongly urge that you do so. with two vacancies on the task force over the past couple years, it takes only four members, four absences to kill a quorum, and believe me, it's happened. that number rose up to 6, that threshold goes up to 6 when there is full membership on the task force. and that, by the way, does go to the efficiency of the task force. i don't have time to go into

the detail of it now, but i will tell you that when it comes to efficiency, i will match the task force's record against that of anybody in this city, any other body in this city. you need to appoint somebody who is physically disabled. you have that in bruce wolfe who has an outstanding record on the task force. particularly as the information technology systems of this city are undergoing renovation, you need tech savvy people. you have mr. wolfe, mr. rumold and vice-chair fischer who can meet that criterion. i am stepping aside because after 12 years it is time to allow in some new energy and new ideas. you have that -- you have that in ali winston. i am on the spj society of professional journalists freedom of information committee, and i fully support

the nominations of mr. winston and mr. rumold to those seats. thank you. kerry brockton, member of the board of league of women voters. i'm speaking now as a citizen of san francisco. i've also spoken quite a bit about maintaining diversity in san francisco and in our city government. the charter also encourages this as well as the best government practices. what i have observed today in sitting through this particular rules committee agenda item is that out of the 13 candidates for the 11 seats you have 10 candidates who are white male.

i know diversity is lacking in the city of san francisco now, but i don't think we've come to that. where our task force would be predominantly white men. while there is some representation of the lgbt community and only one candidate who would represent the disabled community, i strongly encourage you to continue outreach for this task force into all the communities so that we have a broad spectrum of asian representatives, of african-american as well as latino participants in the sunshine task force. i think it's essential that we make sure that the beautiful pro sake of our city is represented on all boards and commissionses here in city government. thank you.

~ mosaic >> next speaker. hi, supervisors, my name is patrick connors and i am a local writer, activist, political junky. i've been a resident in san francisco since '95 and i've been living in district 5 with my husband since start of the century. so, i'm here to speak on behalf of my colleague lee hepner. i've worked with and observed lee in his capacity on the board, as a board member of the harvey milk democratic club. he's one of the most knowledgeable and professional members of the board. lee clearly exhibits a passion for open, honest, and ethical city government. in his capacity in the club as well as in his career as a

civil rights attorney. lee has experience managing issues and conflicts among club members as well as with members of the general public that interact with the organization. he would be a valuable addition to any city commission, especially the sunshine ordinance task force. san francisco needs people like lee hepner involved in local government and i hope you will please give his interest consideration and appoint him. thank you. i'm bruce board man. i'm here to check on my supervisor, supervisor yee and also close by, supervisor tang.

i'm in west portal. i'm delighted to see the roster of good candidates here before the supervisor for thea key jobs. i want to make a couple remarks. i was largely responsible for the original ordinance 20 years ago, the bay guardian and spj put it through. and i was also involved as a leader in the movement to close the loopholes in an initiative that was passed by a strong majority of the board of supervisors. i was also on the task force for 10 years and when willie brown became mayor, he he spent a lot of time trying to kick me off the task force for political reasons. i took the position that i would not leave the task force until lee hepner was mayor and lee became mayor and i left the task force. the reason i did that was i

wanted to help establish the principle that the city hall people could not kick people off the task force and that is why when we wrote the original ordinance we mandated that the society of professional journalists and league of women voters would have seats from their representatives on the task force because these were groups that were dedicated over a long period of time to freedom of information and the task force and these kind of issues. that's why they're there, and that's why it's important that you recognize this principle -- i'm sorry, i did want to mention their names. mark rumold and ali winston and alicia washburn. i hope you will put them in and reestablish that principle right now in this [inaudible]. also, i'd like to say a word for josh wolfe [inaudible].

good afternoon, supervisors. i'm peter war field, executive director of library users association and i have had a long experience with the sunshine task force many years, at least 10, the first three complaints were passed successfully and our last one march 5th went with a unanimous vote. unfortunately just 6 to nothing on march 5th and there is one in the works. there is a lot of problem with the sunshine task force and unfortunately the supervisors are at the base of some of them and basically a lack of support for the previous excellent sunshine task force. and we now have every member of the sunshine task force serving

without having basically after their seats have expired. there are a number of points to be made. first of all, seats 1 through 5 each have a single applicant and we certainly endorse those folks being appointed or reappointed as the case may be. in the case of the remaining applicants of which presumably you would need to cut out one more or two, rather, i can only say that david pilpel has had a long history of doing everything he can against the public interest and when he says he's got a [speaker not understood], i'm sure that's probably correct and it's probably because he is impervious to sympathy for the public. he certainly is not qualified for seats 6 and 7 and i don't think should be on the sunshine task force. there are a number of issues that have been raised here, mediation. unfortunately we've had secretive process and no public

description of outcomes. it is antitheyth cal to sunshine. the city attorney has often provided ~ absolutely wrong advice to the sunshine task force. open government is important to you as well as supervisors because that is your only way for check and balances to be looking at what the administrative departments are doing. thank you. good afternoon, supervisors. dr. derek kerr [speaker not understood]. two years ago supervisors wiener, chiu, [speaker not understood] lead a campaign to purge the sunshine task force. they wanted to get rid of those who determined that a committee of supervisors had violated the sunshine ordinance, while approving the park merced development deal. [speaker not understood] a pretext to justify the purge, namely, the innocent merger of

the bylaws of the task force. what they wanted was a task force devoted to government rather than open government. supervisor wiener went so far as to deploy a slanted and surreptitious audit of the task force, again, to justify the purge. then compliance candidates were recruited. the task force was stacked with folks whose commitment to sunshine laws was more controllable. candidates advanced by the society of pro ~ professional journalists, league of [speaker not understood] were immediately dismissed. so was bruce wolfe, a qualified and experienced candidate, who was the sole representative of the disability community. supervisor farrell of this committee discredited himself and alienated many by saying he

was seeking "fresh blood" for the task force. as a result of this political vendetta, the task force couldn't function for four months because of its warped composition which violated the city charter. i hope this committee will turn the page on this disgraceful chapter and simply do the right thing. thank you. (applause) good afternoon, supervisors and madam clerk. denis [speaker not understood]. i'm here to support the present incumbents, all of them, and also bruce wolfe. as was testified previously, bruce is the only disabled candidate. so, as you know, if he is not appointed, the sunshine task

force cannot exist. and if you are truly advocates of open government and access to public records, you will not allow that to occur. let me just respond to a couple of questions from your body that i listened to during the nomination process. i think the board of supervisors should be more interested in the backlog of cases that are pending rather than the length of the proceedings. secondly, many occasions, the task force has not had a quorum, but that is a direct result of the board of supervisors not filling the vacancies. so, you know, supervisors can speak that they are strong supporters of the task force, but what is more important is the actions that they take.

you need to fund the task force with adequate resources to hear all the cases and make the nominations in a timely way. thank you. >> thank you. any other public comments? seeing none, public comment is now closed. [gavel] >> okay. supervisor tang, there are many, many people here. >> yes. again, i want to thank all the applicants who came out and took the time to express their interests in serving on the sunshine ordinance task force. obviously all of you know it is very important. i will speak for myself in saying that if i didn't care so much making sure we are transparent in the work we do, we really shouldn't be here. so, i really do respect what the task force does and it's really, again, like i said earlier, goes hand in hand with our work in government. with that said, i did want to really acknowledge some of the public commentses that i did hear about the need for

diversity and really opening up the opportunity to really look for candidates that are very representative of san francisco. i really do think that is important so i real i do want to thank you for bringing that up. and the other thing is that i didn't want to respond to in term of public comment, one issue, i would dispute it is not the director's [speaker not understood]. in some cases it may be, but it is not always the case it is because of supervisor's appointment process there is lacking in quorum. we certainly care about [speaker not understood]. we think it is important. especially if we are respondents, we want to make sure that, yes, the task force is in full operation so that we can also get our issues addressed as well. so, we really do care about that. and still, but with that said, i do want to respect the comments about seeking a diverse board. so, for today i am comfortable with moving forward five nominees because i do understand that this must be sent forward to the committee report to the full board of

supervisors all the applicants, however, would be under consideration still. so, it is not -- it would not take anyone out of the running. today we only have two members here on the rules committee. i think that for such an important task force that really we ought to find the time to go and search for the diverse candidates that we really deserve on the sunshine task force. so, with that said, then, today i would like to make a motion to see if we can nominate david pilpel for seat 6, louise fischer for seat 10, todd david for seat 8. rodman martin for seat 7. and samuel mccormick seat 11. and all those are really took into consideration not only your application and your testimony today, but also all the background information, some experiences as well. so, with that, i'm happy to see what my colleague would like to say as well.

>> similarly, the remark of having a diverse group of people is high on my agenda and it' been high on every committee, tac, commission and so forth, that we've been able to appoint. ~ it's we bring this up all the time. i'm also looking at the, if this is the correct record, of who missed meetings and so forth. it looks like at least for a while, there's always been a quorum so i'm not sure what people are saying. on this sheet, started 6-12, 6-6-12, there's never been more than looks like two people that were absent from the meeting. there are some overlaps in

regards to the people you named. for seat 6 i would also reappoint david pilpel. seat 8, todd david. seat 10 louise fischer. on my -- people that i felt comfortable with would be for seat 1 mark rumold, seat 2ali winston, seat 5 allyson washburn, and seat 9 chris hyland. so, the ones i actually named were all reappointments or they are specific to a group. that's what i would like to move forward with. so -- >> it appears that we are in agreement on three appointments

today and unfortunately there are only two of us. so, it looks like david pilpel seat 6, [speaker not understood] fishier [speaker not understood]. with those three can we perhaps make a motion to send those forward to the full board with the committee report? the city attorney has something to say. >> mr. chair, we were going to recommend that you duplicate the hearing file. send the original one, make a motion, and submit out. as a committee report, the duplicated file amended to only indicate the remaining seats and then continue that to the call of the chair. >> do i need to make that -- do we need to make that [speaker not understood]? >> okay. so, i'd like to make a motion to duplicate the file. we will keep one file continued to the call of the chair. wased on our comments about seeking diversity of candidates, and then the second one duplicated file would be with the motion to appoint the three people that at least we

agreed on so far. >> so, let me ask a question. if we only appoint three today, it doesn't seem -- would there be a quorum? >> deputy city attorney jon givner. existing members i believe are currently holding [speaker not understood] and will continue to hold over. the three appointments would be kind of dove planned approved by the board. those would be filled by the new members. so, unless there are issues with existing members continuing to make meetings, the appointments today would create form problems. >> okay. so, so, the recommendation is that we will move the three people for seats 6, 8 and 10 which is needed to fill. todd david and louise fischer to the full board with positive relevanttion. ~ recommendation.

>> as a committee report. >> no objection? so motion passes. [gavel] >> mr. chair, we need to make a motion to continue to the call of the chair [speaker not understood]. >> yes. >> yes. >> so, i'd just like to make a motion to continue the file to the call of the chair. >> seeing no objection, motion passes. [gavel] >> so, before we he entertain a motion to convene in closed session, is there any member of the public who wishes to speak on item 4 through 17? >> mr. chair, would you like me to call the item? >> yes he, please. >> items number 4 through 17 are [speaker not understood] for existing lawsuits and claim.

>> okay. so, i believe there is one card first. milo [speaker not understood]. thank you it, my name is milo hanky [speaker not understood]. i sit on the national board of directors of civic america. today san francisco beautiful urges this committee to vote for a continuance on item number 8, settlement of lawsuit regarding contest promotions of bill board operator that is long violated the laws of this city. ~ the -- i think we have a number of concerns. it's been very difficult, almost impossible to get our answers -- our questions answered clearly to the planning department or the city attorney's office. and we believe this committee needs to hear from us and receive our insights and our interpretations over the proposed settlement as we under it and also the background on

the offending [speaker not understood] law bill board operator called contest promotions. we're not certain that the proposed settlement is even accurately summarized in the agenda. it mentions nothing about all the fines that, for instance, it might be forgivenfor a mere $375,000 ~. the last time a similar settlement came in it got passed, it was dropped off christmas eve, went through as a consent item at the board of supervisors and we ended up having to file a lawsuit against a group called metro fuel in the city of san francisco. what we're talking about, we're talking about prop g, a ballot proposition we sponsored with the help of a few supervisors, passed with 79% of the vote. no new billboards in san francisco. and as i'm reading this today, it violates the law. it violates the law and rewrites the definition of what a bill board is.

so, if this thing gets fast tracked on up to a meeting tuesday, we might be making a serious error and inadvertently be rewriting our sign definitions in violating prop g. so, i would say please let's go for a continuance and get the facts straight. >> thank you. chair yee and member tang, again, my name is patrick minot shaw and i'm also advocating that you separate item 14 from [speaker not understood] consideration of all of these matters. last december 7th i wrote to the board of supervisors neighborhood services and safety committee of which

supervisor yee and supervisor campos were then both assigned to that committee. and i submitted testimony to you this morning. i'm not sure it repeats the testimony i presented in december. the city controller has noted and advised the citizens general obligation bond oversight committee the unspent funds from bond measures which [speaker not understood] by way of recoupment is a policy matter for the board of supervisors to decide how that money is going to be used. it does not need to be deposited directly into the general fund and my strong recommendation is that the mayor, 21% of the 70 million that the city attempted to

recover, just 15 million being recovered. be used in one of three ways or a portion of it in all three ways. one, you should be paying down the debt on the general obligation bond so that the voter can have some relief. two, reserve the 15 million for [speaker not understood] problem at laguna honda. they have been eliminated in [inaudible]. >> thank you. good afternoon, supervisor yee and tackvthv. i'm jim rubin, rubin, junius and rose, and i am the