-- yeah, i shouldn't have gotten this involved with it but the case file should have been right the first or second or third time. i don't know how many people are referred to after six hearings. they would have been had a seventh if i wasn't at the end of my rope and i would have been in court and all i am asking for is proper review for my neighborhood but when there are shadow studies and not discussed it's not innocent. there is something they were trying to hide and they hid it. it's emotional to me because it's a really long road. >>i think you had more than enough time. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. any comments? any motions? >> just one last comment and then i will have a motion and that is i think people of san francisco owe a debt to you

mr. ringel because for going and pushing this rock up this mountain as you have because i think for all of the people like yourself that get to this points there have been probably hundreds that have given up, and haven't -- excuse me, have not been given the information that they're entitled to under the california public records act and under the san francisco sunshine act, and it seems that you're bringing this to the attention of the city as you

>> they know what the requirements are and they and i'm going to tell you one thing more about mr. ionin . two years ago i attended a sunshine ordinance task force hearing where he claimed in the hearing that the department handed over everything that was available. they found him in violation because they didn't believe him and i happened to walk out in the hall after the end of the case and heard him say the following to the complainant "i know what documents you want. i know where they are and i'm going to make sure you don't

get them." he then turned around and saw me and surreyed off. he's a liar. that's one of the positions he's in the position he's in and that's why he's here. >> i want to calk the ethics commission on this next speaker. >> >> [gavel] i will have you removed. >> point of order. >> good even. david pilpel peeking as an idea. i have a lot to say and i am sure it will be used against me. >> absolutely. >> i would like to proceed. upon reviewing the staff recommendation i am inclined to agree that mr. rahaim didn't violate a violation of the ordinance. i generally agree that the department was delayed

in their production of records. there are clearly some problems that i see with this and you have discussed a lot of them already. the order -- >> [inaudible] >> i'm sorry. can i have my opportunity to speak please? >> every public speaker can speak and if the audience is silence. >> [inaudible] >> if you continue to ask noise i will ask you to leave. >>i am repeat i am speaking as an individual and not representing the task force at this time. the order of determination they reviewed found the department committed a violation. i'm not sure if that's the best way to proceed. i'm not sure that departments in that way violate the ordinance. i think it's individuals who either produce records or don't.

i'm not sure how we expect -- or how that can be fixed at this point. this really does resemble in my mind the [inaudible] versus rec park hearing a few months ago. you could certainly find a violation. maybe that sends a message but i'm not sure if the point is to send a message or to achieve compliance and i'm not sure if other than the person to whom a records request is directed if someone else is held responsible for their conduct if that actually sendies the right message with compliance. i wanted to address the commissioner's question about training. we held a number of hearings about departments and

their policies and procedures regarding records requests. i was intended to invite mr. ionin to talk about the planning department and their policies and procedures. we don't do specific training -- >> [inaudible] >> if you have questions i can answer on that. the one thing i didn't see in the file was the actual referral letter from the task force. there were other documents from the task force which were helpful in collection but i didn't see the actual referral letter. in summary you could find a violation if you believe that the facts and the law support that. i think that there are still issues about whose named and whether the individual that receives the request or the supervisor or the department head and there maybe

distinctions with a small or medium or large department. i think it would be difficult to believe that the department head in all departments is involved with all requests. if have questions i can answer them otherwise thank you. >> any other public comments? >> can i comment again? >> you've already had your opportunity to comment. >> i know just to amend my complaint. >> any discussion among the -- all right. there's a motion. you want to read the motion again? or commissioner keane do you want to state it again. >> yes. i move that we find the director john rahaim

violated the san francisco administrative code sunshine ordinance section 67-point two one a. as custodian of the records he didn't without unreasonable delay permit a public record to be expertd and examined. i am use the statutory language mr. chair. >> [inaudible] and non willful. >> i mean i second that motion and i agree with it. i think mr. pilpel has raised some very important issues about who we find responsible in these kinds of cases as we've had discussion about this on several occasions, but in this case i have to say i do agree with mr. hertz and in the end we have no recourse other than to hold the director

of any department ultimately responsible. i mean i think that is true that the buck stops there and to try and to decisive and unspool the thread of who rejected or didn't do a timely response i think can get a little too complicated. i think the simple thing is that a executive director of any department is responsibility, end of story, whether it's willful or non willful is the other matter that we can certainly discuss. >> the purpose of the public records statute is to get access to documents and guess the frustration i am feeling is even if we make this motion and we pass it, and we send a letter to the head of the planning department how does that get documents produced? i mean how

do we -- >> can i respond? if you consult the ethics commission's guidelines in section 3c it discusses the options that the commission has in the event it finds a violation whether willful or non willful. i can read those to you if you like. there are three. one is that the respondent cease and desist the violation and produce the public records or the second option the executive director to post on the website the commission's finding that the respondent violated the sunshine ordinance and the third option the executive director issue a letter to the respondent and the appointing authority or the mayor of the violation and those are the options in if you find a violation whether willful or

non willful. >> so if we vote in favor of commissioner keane's motion the next step is make a recommendation as it to which option should be adopted? >> included in the motion. >> pardon me? >> included in the motion. >> that's what i am saying. do we include it in the motion? >> yeah. >> to be clear you could do one or all three. i think you faced picking one. >> considering that do you want to make a new motion and i will allow the public to comment on. >> yes mr. chair. i would like to amend the motion and in addition to the language in the original motion stating the violation i would like to add all three of the measures that the city attorney has pointed out to us, the cease and desist measure, and i can't recall the wordings of the other two.

>> the posting of the website and the warning letter. i just read verbatim from the commission's recommendations. >> okay. i would like to add all three to my motion mr. chair. >> is that seconded again? >> commissioner andrews and i will take public comment on the amended motion. >> thank you chair renne. i apologize for my behavior but there must be a way for mr. pilpel not to comment on the task force. when we gets to the word "we" in his testimony he's attempting to influence you as being a representative from the task force when they haven't authorized him to come and speak for "we." you've got to figure out how to cut him off on the

mic. commissioner keane my esteem went up for you again. thank you for adding all three recommendations to your amended motion. i think the point of those would be to start sending a signal to other city departments that they had better start complying with the sunshine ordinance. to that extent it should be a unanimous four person vote to up hold your motion tonight sir. i really, really am disturbed by mr. pilpel's behavior. i'll be amending that complaint and i am hoping commissioner keane that you will have the wherewithal during the agenda setting topic tonight to recommend that a public hearing on mr. pilpel's sia violation be expedited and put on your next commission

meeting. >> any other public comment? >> commissioners, directors of san francisco and [inaudible] open government and i would like to say will. >> back to my general comment and regarding the things with the new members. frankly i think asking a question what good is it going to do to do this is rather transparent, but what it's supposed to do is get people to follow the law. they all have a responsibility. they all know what the law s they have done it for a dozen years yet we repeatedly get in situations like this. he was denied due process because he was denied the records he needed to present his case at various points, whether it was at the sunshine ordinance task force, their subcommittees, the appeals board, the planning commission or whatever. if i can keep you

from having the documents you need to prove your case and prove something i presented is not correct then you have interfered with the course of justice and that's what the planning department did and i have no reason to believe that they are so ignorant of what they do that they didn't realize that was exactly what they were doing. now as far as finding mr. rahaim responsible he is responsible. no ifs, ands or buts. if you're the head of the department and accept $200,000, whatever salary you get plus another 40% in benefits and take an oath in defend the constitution of the united states and that of the state of california and all of the laws that come there from that's a big responsibility and you can't come back later and say "well, because i didn't directly handle

this request i'm not responsible" is just a complete denial of anything you know about proper management and acceptance of responsibility. and now we find out that mr. rahaim has a direct report, the individual who was responsible to see that all those other people answer this request properly. and do any of you honestly believe that throughout this entire process from beginning to end mr. rahaim was not kept informed of everything going on? and that he had every opportunity if he wanted to say something to show up at any of these hearings so he was not denied due process or notice or anything else unless you want to assume that every single employee tells him nothing and if that's the case he's got bigger problems than

this. >> okay. i call the motion. all in favor? >> aye. >> opposed? >> thank you. >> motion is carried. >> [inaudible] >> unanimously. now there's a second charge in the referral from the sunshine task force which was a violation of section 67.29-7a which was maintaining records in professional business like manner. any commissioners have any comments? >> yeah, on that mr. chair i don't think that we have any evidence of any kind before us as to how they maintained their records, so i would be hesitant

to vote on anything relating to whether or not they maintained their records correctly or preserved them correctly or not preserve them correctly. i think the evidence that we had was pretty strong that they didn't comply with turning over the records that they had but i don't think we have anything in front of us in terms how they kept their record so i think in regard to that one i don't know what the procedure would be -- >> well, i think it would be a motion made to make a finding that we did not have sufficient evidence to support a finding that there had been a violation. >> i so move mr. chair. >> second? public comment? >> thank you commissioner renne

. so one minute my esteem goes up and then comes right back down because the sunshine task force held hearings. they issued an order of determination. it was referred to the compliance and amendments committee. after a while it came back to the full task force. they issued another order of determination and said "look they didn't keep the records in a business like manner." what more do you need than to have the complainant [inaudible] than testify he took pictures of blank files? that photograph of a blank file is that not evidence commissioner keane? does the evidence only come from sotf or it can come

from complainants or [inaudible]? your evidence should be the referral from sotf that the records were not kept in a business like manner, end of story. >> commissioners, i have been a professional manner for my adult life starting out at 16 doing it and the bottom line i am responsible for keeping the records and responsible for responding to anything that i am responsible for anything i'm responsible to respond to it to and if you listen to the evidence and the testimony you heard tonight you have two choices. either they're so incomtant the records are in a half dashed way and this is the response and little here and

there and then a kr.d d and then another one and go looking for this and that. that is the sign of a professional organization or professional record keeper? if you went into the internal revenue service and "we need to see documents to support the deductions?" and i have receipts here and a bag here and gave them something one day and send them something next week with something else what do you think the irs would say to you? the bottom line is they don't keep the records in a professional manner or they purposely with held the information. what are the other choices? i mean i think you're giving them the benefit of the doubt if you say they're not keeping professional records because the other one is a willful violation. we keep the records that we can't find them so when someone asks them

pretend we did a good job searching. we don't know the plateses we put the records to search and we keep some here and over there and we think it depends who you talk to. i heard one thing where the complainant got a letter saying you have to ask a specific person and everybody on this commission ought to know is wrong. you can ask any employee of any branch and they have a responsibility to respond and that they kand they have the responsibility to get you to someone that can. that is in the ordinance. so which is it? they're unprofessional and kept the records in the way they didn't and require multiple hearings or did they do what i think they did? they didn't want to give the

information because it would put a monkey wrench on what they were trying to get through on behalf of somebody and now want to hide it. they're intelligent people. which is it? are they bad record keepers or bad liars? >> david pilpel again speaking as an individual. at this time i support the motion. i agree there is insufficient evidence to find a violation for this code for failure to keep records in a professional and business like manner. thanks. >> [inaudible] >> no other public comment. call the motion. all in favor? >> aye. >> opposed? it's passed unanimously. turning to -- >> commissioner -- >> number four on the agenda.

>> i apologize. >> sure. >> under the regulations the next step in the process is for the commission to instruct staff to prepare a written order reflecting the commission's findings so you're free to do that if you like. >> all right. so i would ask that the staff prepare an appropriate order reflecting the findings and the determinations of the commission on agenda item number three. item number four. discussion and possible action on request for two waivers from campaign and governmental contact code section 3.222 section leo chow who occupies one of two seats on the arts commission has requested two waivers from section 3.222 which bars members of boards and commissions from entering into contracts wihe