tv [untitled] June 1, 2014 9:00am-9:31am PDT
9:00 am
9:01 am
agenda that are within the jurisdiction of the ethics commission. >> good evening gentlemen. some of you know me, i'm allen grossman the original petitioner of the litigation that's a agendized as number 4. i have essentially two comments of a general nature. one is over the years as commissioners we are appointed address serviced they are terms and mr. synquid and his staff including the lawyers handled all the note to routine activities for which the commission is ultimately responsible for. those activities included enforcing not compiled task
9:02 am
forces with his hostility to open government is well known it was, in fact, quoted in the new york times and particularly has the task force as one of his objects. so in that roll he has a record of dismissing or finding in violation in other public records matter about 40 of them 40 since 2005. in my 2010 lawsuit he was forced to concede he couldn't withhold records the city paid my $25,000 attorney fees. the other point is really serious. you must be aware of gravity of many sin countries position in the article agenda 4.
9:03 am
it is contrary to the commissions own bylaws contrary to their own bylaws and will golden gate park others city personnel to seek help from the city attorney's office contrary to the specific requirement in the sunshine ordinance the city not as act as legal council for my city employee or my person having a record for denying assessing access to the public. as a kwubs it will discourage the records and nine the task force ability to inadequately resolve those issues or obtain compliance thank you. >> members of the ethics commission ray san francisco open government i'm going to
9:04 am
reaffirm the words of the prior speaker only changing one i think the city attorney's office on a regular basis to encourage city employees to withhold records the reason i hold 17 orders which determination from the sunshine ordinance task force one of which is an order of determination against deputy city attorney acting as the records person after a year i petitions her and she denied the petition because she was still producing them i petitions her again, after a year and it was denied because he was still producing records even though
9:05 am
the lieu talks about the timeframes in responder to a public records request. now the city attorney in this case was found by the task force acted as a counselor for the city librarian and my argument was if you 1e6r7 sit back and don't do what upper required to do balling and euyou allow that are person to withhold resources you're a participant. we now know that the practice commission found it they she violated the laws in which he under penalty of perjury had said he got nothing from the public library he got 5 thousand dollars or more of trips and
9:06 am
hotel consumptions and other benefits all of which he knew because he was the librarian since 2006 and took the ethics training knew he was required to report he was only able to do that because the city attorney refused to do what the law said get and provide the document and if not require it to this city attorney or the attorney general so basically you're going to sit there as at the city attorney help people not get records and the law requires you to do that this is the same thing as acting as council no difference. now are you going to listen to any of this that's said today. it's difficult to get a man to listen when a man similarly is
9:07 am
in a position not to understand. >> good evening, commissioners dr. derrick occurring. in 2009 mr. sin country had to say he had no basis for withholding documents and this city ended up paying $25,000 no city attorney fees now mr. syncountry if sustained it is contradicting little public documents. according to our website quote the commission provides records in ethics matters unquote unquote and contrary to your mission to practice and promote the highest standards of
9:08 am
ethnical behavior in government. the mission goes on to say in order to accomplish that the commission shall enforce the campaign finances and open government laws. the commission shall should is question the action by mr. syncountry has he not experimented your decision making process and the brown acts about president chiu public meetings he defied the task force and took it upon himself to defend the layout then when he lost he brought an appeal on his own all could have been resolved if brought before the commission before litigation. thank you
9:09 am
>> i'm pete arrest warrant field the director of the library associations we've had a variety of containments including at least one that was included in mr. grossing man's lawsuit which he won and that concerned the ethics commissions not handling and not finding nothing in the complainants favor in, well over o a dozen cases of the sunshine task force. once again and those were not taken up by the commission but determined by mr. syncountry without the commission having a hearing now your flaking to do something where mr. signifying i
9:10 am
syncountry is going to act on his own. your bylaws require you to comply with the sunshine ordinance and should you decide to support mr. syncountries claim that the notification retains you will be violate our own bylaws. african-american your bylaws takes two meetings and a 10 day notice and it's the beginning of a slipper slope for the sunshine laws for the ethics commission not only the one involving public access but that i san francisco iktsdz codes this is contrary to our mission and our reason for being - thank you very much. >> hi i'm hope jacque the former
9:11 am
chair of the sunshine task force i have somewhat of a acknowledgeable mission between the task force. i understand i referencing item 4 on our agenda there's an issue related to the city attorney's office not following the come forward out section of attorney-client privilege in the sunshine ordinance. i want to point out that commissioners, i remind you that in the ethics commission file number 080116 that you discussed on january 28th are 2013 that the city attorney said whistle blower complaint everything was attorney-client and nothing could be seen. we came before you and asked the san jose city attorney's office review the file they found it
9:12 am
was overreaching and not exactly investigative records but some should have been redacted and i feel the city attorney maybe overreaching the attorney-client privilege once again so look at that once again to remind you there are wants when you have is to access how the attorney-client applies under the law. i also wanted to reemphasis that the ethics commission bylaws requires that the ethics commission comply with the sunshine ordinance and because the sunshine ordinance is broolgd access it why the attorney-client section is in there so that the city attorney and the deputy city attorney can't give the city employees
9:13 am
assistance and withholding public information or records and if that if the public isn't able to evaluate that we can't see what kind of advise the city attorney t is giving you on open records this isn't related to things that are privileged so if upper to find that this privilege is being sections out by the ethics commission you don't didn't have to abide by the attorney-client then you would be violating our own bylaws that requires meetings that are not only san francisco laws but under the california public records act. thank you >> hello.
9:14 am
my name is michael i'm a gay bloggerer and a person with aids i'm wearing a button that says science equals death it's the aids years of the 1980s to the office of silence equals death we need a lot more sunshine in city government and a stronger enforcement from the task force from this be ethics commission. so i'm a proud member of the sunshine group that is here today and i'd like to call your attention to the matter that's before you allen grossing man's lawsuit. i want to state that since all the actions taken by mr. syncountry of the ethics department before and after the sunshine process and in the
9:15 am
litigation were taken without the commission first authorized them by following the requirements of the brown act and properly agendized public meetings where in public or closed session their legal effect even if the court of appeals decided in favor of the commission is questionable at best. the sunshine community will certainly pursue that course all of that could have been avoided in mr. syncountry submitted his process before the lawsuit was filed. this is an important matter i hope you'll give the proper attention and weight he regarding allen's lawsuit we need for you to do a better job
9:16 am
of advocating for sunshine for the public that is filing those complaints and wants to see have more sunshine in our government and i'm going to say it one last time sunshine equals life we need more of it. thank you. >> good afternoon. commissioner hur and commissioners i'm patrick inherits ago the published agendized item doesn't meet the requirements the sunshine ordinance for a number of reasons is grounds for filing our sunshine complaint on the sufficient agenda items. the commission is not the defendant in this lawsuit as the folks wrongly states you're the petitioner and your you agenda
9:17 am
is misleading it's a material issue because you have not taken action to authorize this suit in our name and yet you're calling yourselves defendants. doing so your obscuring this important contradiction this appears to violate section 68 point lvlg that states quote prior to my closed session a policy body shall state the general reason or reasons for the closed session and in the closed session the policy body my consider only those matters corded in its statement. today's agenda has not done that inaccurately by failing to
9:18 am
mention two basic matters first is - in the two sided lawsuits involving the two key sections of the agenda regarding access to public records that's a major omission and the other the inclines to the brown act. commissioner keane, commissioner, did any of you receive records from mr. syncountry prior to today's meeting if you did you have to make them available to the public you have to make them available prior to the meeting.
9:19 am
>> the next. good evening david former chair of the sunshine task force i don't want to confuse me with the other people because 33 the other people don't want to be associated with me i want to say with regard to the draft minutes i've provided staff with some suggested edits that help to not change the substance of what happened last month and the agenda items i'll suggest that the amendments to the lobbyist amendments be reviewed at the next meeting or the one after that and i indicated last month depending on how the next referral from the task force
9:20 am
regarding the records of the planning department it maybe time to review the procedures for handling the matter i've had discussions with the staff my hope they've been productive and feinstein in the event that the grand jury has another report we should probably set aside times for that either in jump or the august meeting. thanks i intend to comment on item 3. >> next item is on the agenda is discussion and possible action regarding the cpc. syncountry do you want to introduce this matter >> has the memo points out and everyone knows this decision would appear to have an impact not only on federal law but on
9:21 am
the several states and lock immaterial that have limitations. we believe that we have no choice, however, unfortunate ruling is to fellow the inclines with that. at some point we're going to need to alternate what's on the books in san francisco. we don't think that is necessarily something we have to do right now we can fold it into the next 6 to 9 months but we think the commission should consider adapting a policy like the city of los angeles has done basically stating for the record this is not a record we can endorse so we can inform the
9:22 am
candidates this restriction do not apply based on the supreme court ruling >> anything from the commissioners commissioner keane. >> i agree with mr. syncountry that ma capture makes it unconstitutional for there are to be my kind of enforcement of an aggregate limit it's something that is a reality no jurisdiction could indicator even though we have it on the books even if we didn't adapt the enforcement we could enforce it anyway. >> because of the courts case. i guessed in order to give notice to my candidates who might be relying upon the
9:23 am
present state of the law saying they can't aggregate monies in regards to running that's unfair to them for us not to give them as much notice as possible on this local level. so i support the idea of adapting the resolution of non-enforcement >> other comments from the commissioners? >> i think it is not goes to effect the maximum to each candidate that should be made clear. >> very good. >> i agree with that sentiment that we should adapt the resolution i don't see how we can enforce it as commissioner keane stated. my comments from the
9:24 am
commissioners on whether the staff should just deal with that on a one of basis or prepare others changes to consider as a package? >> i did want to hear more from mr. syncountry you said over the next several months we're loovnth more changes and those are inevitable. >> the supra is something we have to work on. >> i'm in agreement with commissioner keane the more notice we can give the candidates i'll support moving forward with the decision one .1. and just hold off on actually
9:25 am
having a full resolution to remove it non-enforcement >> on the point about whether the staff should work up whatever multiple changes to sequa do you think we should wait for that. >> i don't see a reason it seems like it is extra work when we can't enforce it that will be inevitable work that will happen within the next 6 to 9 months i'd rather give them the opportunity to make the changes all at once and move for a resolution just not enforcement now and not have them wait for the next 67 to 9 months. >> other comments from the commissioners. >> what commissioner andrews
9:26 am
said sounds sensible. any public comment on that item? number 3? >> commissioner director of san francisco open government i'll make the same comments it's like reranging deck chairs on the titanic basically, you spend 90 percent of your time reraining the rule on candidate finance we can't come to you like 9 city librarian accepting thousands even if dollars of guests from an entity he's supposed to be overseeing under the penalty of the perjury he got nothing. we had to take it up because you won't take it up. would i like to know you
9:27 am
actually made a difference in this city or sit here like bumps on the laws it to you rearrange the deck chairs. the sequa restraining order issues are noticing but confusing activity for accomplishment your activity i change the law but when it comes down to things like endorsing those laws when do you do it what agency has been found in violation of my laws when they quit and go to work for others departments and come and ask you for a waiver to go and work for those people you go sure just go work for them and ignore the fact i probably give them a nice big contract and you're going to go over and talk about how your
9:28 am
agency deals with what we don't like and give it to them so they can get a heads up over the competition. the bottom line is i watch those ethics commissions on television and you know i comb here i'm really, really put out of joint you're sitting here and taking a hearing from sunshine and schedule it at a day i left the state and heard it before i got back i expected you to have some integrity and have it brought back on the schedule instead of saying oh, the city librarian got off the hook when this judge was out of town. you want people to understand that's a consequence and mr. syncountries disingenious i was
9:29 am
surprised that mr. heart didn't show up for his own hearing he knew i was out of town and scheduled that purchasely and anyone that buildings otherwise is a fool. >> good evening. i'm anita from the pacific islanders burger firm i'd like to make a few comments 40 in support of the staffs recommendation for the aggregate contradiction and appeal the contribution document this was issued april 2nd of this year mccapture addresses the right of citizens to elect the leader transcribing to the
9:30 am
campaign a one reason the court stated the following one there's no right more basic then to elect our please leaders and two the right to participate in democracy is protected by first amendment. >> 3 congress or state and local government any limit the contributions but may not regulate contributions simply to reduce the amount of money in politics or reduce some in order to influence others and in other words, leveling the playing field is not permissible and it may seem repugnant to some bus
40 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
SFGTV: San Francisco Government Television Television Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on