following -- >> karen. i'm the chief administer for the public utility commission. i'm speaking on behalf of the voters and our candidate is allison wash burn. i know that supervisor campos was absent at the last meeting, so he did not have the benefit of hearing our concerns and our information about our nomination. thank you very much for your patience, chair yooe and thank you very much katie tang, supervisor chang for reaching out to us after that meeting, and supporting the legal women voters. i only want to say and reiterate what was just said by our journalist colleagues, and that is that the people of the city and county

of san francisco are clearly in favor of transparency and open government. it's a basic tenant of the legal of women voters to make sure that our democracy is open to all our citizens and that all of our dealings with the government as citizens is transparent. our candidate, allison wash burn is extremely well qualified. she, like myself, is a past president of the league of women voters and she's worked tirelessly for voter rights and advocacy for over 25 years. she's also been on this task force, this would be her third

term and the task force is in dire need of experience in this area. i commend our nominee, allison wash burn to the committee, and we look forward to you forwarding her name, our nomination to the full board of supervisors. thank you. >> thank you. so for the applicants, would you like to speak, come up and state your name since i'm calling you up by the order of the agenda. bow [inaudible],

supervisor tang and campos. [inaudible]. [foreign language] >> my name is chris highland. thank you for having us appear before you once again and working to fill these very important seats. with my opening greetings in three languages, i want to emphasize my multi racial and diverse background and i appreciate you going through that. i failed to mention

three weeks ago but did two years ago when the committee selected me for seat nine. my mother is of turkish descent and my grandmother was of turkey. my grandfather was an an ambassador of the nation and i lived in turkey and yemen. it instilled in my for the appreciate to interact with people from all races of life. it has been a great value of life to deal with the cases brought before us on the task force. we are indeed a diverse city and it takes a diverse force to serve our constituents. thank you chair yee for supporting my reappointment to seat nine

three years ago and i would like to say campos and tang to support me for a second term. i would like to touch on additional areas if i may. my degrees are in english and psych college and i have an mba from john hopkins. i was trained as a paralegal and i have an understanding of the law. this training is useful in navigating through the task force and in crafting the minutes of our sub-committees. i introduce we have some special meetings. we have been doing that for the past nine months and continue to do so. i have the best attendance records, that record is on page three of your handout. i have no children. just pets, a cat and dog and i have my own business

so i can meet the needs of the both and the regular meetings. i serve on not one but two committees, educational outreach and the rules committees. i have an -- it seemed that televised coverage is not something we're going to be budgeted for in the near future. i would like to re-evacuate the [inaudible] committee. i want to set up a short video coverage and presenting several case studies depicting cases we have heard, therefore by providing a road map and setting expectations for those who may appear before us in the future. i hope to convince the city a couple of hours of coverage. the intent

is to launch a new branch. and think by improve the efficiency of our meeting. lastly, i would like to talk about institutional knowledge. with four of our members choosing not to run again, i think it's viable to reelect the members choosing to run again. we have worked to hard to build over the past years. in summary, i would like to emphasize the qualities that i hope to continue to bring in a second term. first rate attendance, an it background, an ethically diverse background, a legal background, and lastly institutional knowledge to continue to drive for efficiencies within the scf. i thank you for your support. >> thank you. anybody else want to come up? come on up,

please. next person. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is mark, i'm spj nominee for seat number one on the task force. i wanted to thank you all for considering my april plication and thank spj for nominating. i'll keep this brief. >> i wasn't fully telling attention. what was your name. >> mark. >> i'll keep it brief. my interest on the task force is to help the task force operate efficiently and i believe my experience and my background will help me contribute to achieving those goals. thank you very much. >> thank you mark. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is winston. i'm the nominee for seat number two. chairman

yee, thank you for your continued support and tang, thank you for considering my nomination. there's a couple of updates and i'm not going to run through the speech i made before about my qualification and i had a positive meeting with council member wiener regarding the task force operation and not only that, i also -- my colleague and i received an award from the san francisco press club for reporting on oakland main awareness center last week and in the next couple -- in the next couple of weeks i'll be speaking at a national conference in san francisco about those records so if there's questions about my qualifications on working on these issues, i'll be happy to answer questions about them. lastly and certainly not the least, there were concerns about

diversity in the last meeting and i want the full committee to know that my mother is a turk and i was raised in a mixed household. my family is scattered across the middle east and i'm sensitive to concerns and the issues that people of middle east and muslims face in this country in their day and age. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> thank you for hearing us, again, my name is josh wolf. i think i spoke on each member of your staff, but just real quick, i had an opportunity in the 2012 election to work on the proposal for berky sunshine task force and that was a great opportunity to get a sense, not the berky sunshine task force, but the ballot ot

measure and we can see how the sunshine measure could work. in addition to that, i'm a free lance reporter and my work has appeared in the science monitor, the san francisco public press and other public application, and if you have questions, i'm here to address those. >> thank you. >> how, good afternoon. my name is martin and i know supervisor tang and yee sat through my statement. i want to introduce myself to supervisor campos, to put a face with the name. i'm a lawyer and i represent injured workers. i've been doing that for five years and i deal with people's problems everyday, and getting them through those. no one come to your office because they're happy and the same may be for the task force. i wanted to put a name with a face.

thank you. >> good afternoon, chair yee, supervisor tang and campos. i was before you two weeks ago and talked a bit about my volunteer background and many years of service on various organizations. i didn't say anything about my day job. i have a phd in psychology from john hopkins university. i've spent most of my career doing studies at the bay hunter's point foundation and at ucff, i was the san francisco general during the height of the aid's epidemic working with injection drug users. i then switched my career and worked at the jewish home. i have a diversity of work experience, but i'll bring diversity to the task

force in several ways. first of all, being one of two women should i be reappointed. i believe i'm the oldest member. that's hard to imagine to have that position. >> i can relate to you. >> and also i will be the longest serving member of the task force, and i think it's critically important. i want to reiterate what my colleague chris highland said. it's very important to have some institutional memory, the law is complex. we have set various precedents and it's difficult to get through our agenda so the newer members in the past two years have deferred certainly to member yee to me and help to getting

through a long evening, so thank you, once, again supervisor yee for your support and supervisor campos in the past for your support. thank you. >> good afternoon, chair yee and supervisor. my name is wolf. i won't reiterate what i presented in the earlier meeting. but i'm here today to let you know i'm here and i think attendance is important. and even though i had to take the day off from work today, i do have a flexible enough schedule to make meetings when necessary and have that happen. i understand your concerns. i want to just reiterate that i have the experience for this position. i have served on the position -- on the task force for quite

some time, and i think returning to it in light of the concepts of history and also in -- in just making it whole and real and workable and efficient, i think it's important and i would hope that would you reconsider. thank you. >> hello. good afternoon, supervisors. my name is lee, and i also was before you a couple of weeks ago and just a few comments. first of all, i'm experienced for this position as a civil litigation attorney, i have used the california public records act on multiple occasions to acquire information when normal discovery procedures were not available. i filed a petition this morning to have what is otherwise a private, very -- before the city of berkeley.

these issues are within my wheel house. my boss appreciates the sunshine task force. his recommendation letter is in your file and he's encouraging me to do this as well. i don't think there's a doubt that i'll have the time away from work to do this. since our last meeting, i've had meetings with supervisor yee and winer. i discussed the position with numerous members, past and present of the sunshine ordinance task force, and in the hopes that i can tackle that learning curve as quickly as possible. as a new member on the that -- as a new member on the task force, i'll be able to learn and tackle it quickly. i think it should be clear and precise. i say that communication is everything. i think anybody that's worked with

me can attest to my easy temperament when approaching the most conflicting issues. lastly as a member of the lgbt community in san francisco, having to study the lgbt movement in debt, -- moved in depth, i know what it takes to make sure that access is available. i know it's not unique to the lgbt movement that it affects minority groups and minorities are -- i think an emerging battle is the ex collusion of low income -- i'm sensitive to diversity issues and i think that the task force needs to be a diverse body. i think i represent at least one element of that diversity and i thank you very

much for your consideration for my candidacy. >> any other public comments. i have a few cards. dr. gear and patrick, tom and jackson west. so for those i just called up, come up in the order i called. >> what was the first one? >> dr. gear. >> i'm dr. cur. at the last meet, dr. tang deployed a test against task force applicants. they had to vowel obedience to whatever deputy city attorney was assigned to the task force. you as you know, the city attorney has a

duty to defend the city, and every sunshine complaint is directed at the city. some are directed against the city attorney's office for wrongly withholding public records. because the city is the respondent in every sunshine case, there's a conflict in having a city attorney dictating to the task force. that's why the sunshine ordinance requires that the assigned attorney, quote, shall serve solely as a legal advisory and advocate to the task force, unquote and that's behind an ethical wall. that's in the ordinance. the assigned dca functions as an assigner and not a ruler, but supervisor tang has us believes that it's an authority. if that were the case, the city attorney could simply adjudicate all

sunshine complaints. they'll be no need for a sunshine task force or for courts, or for judges. the trouble is voters did not want that degree of efficiency. they want input from the society of professional journalist, the league of women voters, new american media and the disability community. supervisor tang should drop her anti- sunshine test and accept independent nominees who are committed to open government rather than to her wishes. thank you. >> i'm patrick. the private citizen. i absolutely concur with dr. kur. the test is a [inaudible]. take for example, the three task members, rules represented on may 15 that the full board approved may 20. on may 15th, [inaudible].

she wants more mediation of task force complaints and wants to gain similar complaints into ape similar hearing, but fisher is ignoring dca advice from april 2013 and the complaintents should be able to get one. they ignore they shouldn't force the mediation and not -- and should not be forced into combining multiple complaints. david who you recommended and was appointed, heard deputy city attorney josh's advice on april 28th that he claimed -- respondent

gill had been denied due process by [inaudible]. dca white said topol would collect and he agreed. 17 days later, he pulls up at role and asserted again that the members don't know where due process is attached. he's ignored dca white's advice. you should remove him from the task force. >> hello, i'm jackson west. previously a volunteer member of the task force. i wanted to come and support the previous members i worked with, mrs. washburn and mr. wolf, also support the

other mr. wolf, but particularly to support mr. hepner and [inaudible]. i understand directly how frustrating the process at the sunshine task force meetings can be, the ultimate frustration has been in the lack of effective independent council, independent that is of the city attorney's office, especially in the absence of the ethics commission taking up task force complaints, so as a former member, i wanted to endorse hef ner who i know will be effective attorneys to speak on the task force both within and without meetings. cheers. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i'm richard. i'm a member of the task force and i'm speaking here as an individual. i have a question to raise about the candidacy of

topra who is on the new american nominee. first let me say that i have nothing to say about topra and good things about new american media. i talked with topra on friday and i'm sure if he's appointed, he'll do a good job on the task force, but my concerns are that he might not be qualified for seat number four. seat number four must be -- is for a journalist nominated -- the journalist must be from a minority owned organization. and mr. topra is coordinator for an organization called the [inaudible] foundation. and maybe i understand he's talked with each of and maybe you've already answered the

questions that are satisfied are the concerns i'm raising. you may want to consult with your deputy city attorney. at any rate, if those questions were not answered, i would suggest that you defer action on their topra's appointment. >> good afternoon supervisors. i'm the immediate past president of the society of professional journalist northern california chapter. the delay by the board of supervisors in appointing candidate to the sunshine task force has had the effect that there's few members that it's hard to get a quorum which has presented the task force of doing the business it was set up to do. as tom points out, the public wants transparency and journalist have a role to play

in pressing for that transparency. the spj chapter has been around for seven decades pushing for freedom of information and sunshine with the support of our nation organization the entire time. access to public records is a vital tool for us for journalist to do -- to fulfill their public watch dog role and holding government accountable and exposing government works to light. there's an open mindedness and there's a crucial component of any journalist mindset and that is also an important piece of the sunshine ordinance task force work. our freedom of information committee is vigorous arm for advocacy for transparency, and thorough -- has thorough vetted our two nominates. it took the rules committee over half a year to put their names on the agenda and then at least

month's meeting, the committee declined to send those names to the full board of supervisors for approval while approving other candidates who had poor records of attending task force meetings. it's questionable at best. we have two candidates who have outstanding credentials who are extremely qualified and who are committed to the task force. therefore, i would vigorously ask the committee to [inaudible] nominations to the full board of supervisors for approval. >> thank you. thank you very much. >> next.

>> good afternoon, supervisors, i'm peat, executive direct of library users association the years we've had dozens of cases at the sunshine task force. a vast majority has been successful including one last night. i'm also the recipient as part of the steering committee of the society for professional journalist, james madison, freedom of information award for work that we did on open government in another municipality in the bay area, so i do know something about sunshine. your cavalier passing over of candidates that are on today's list will range in quality from excellent to stellar is shameful. and it's an attack on democracy and an attack on sunshine. as you well know with the immediate change

of rules with the new regime that came in two years ago when you kicked out basically everybody that was there previously, they changed the rule to requiring six votes, and so every single -- they can see as well as every single absence is noted and a no vote on the public's complaint. last night with one holder not coming, a couple of holdovers and everybody who was there was a holder and there was seven members and anybody facing that task force and looking for a decision as i was and another member of the public had to get a super, not just a super, but a super duper majority on six votes out of seven. and every meeting they have where they don't have a full compliment is a shameful kind of destruction on your part against the public that has

asked for open government. thank you. >> good afternoon, members. my name is rose and i'm here enthusiastically to support the reappointment of mrs. wash burn, mr. [inaudible] and