your sports supervisor about affordable housing, that should not have them have a gift prohibition, the state prohibition that applies to all local and state officials, i don't see much of a difference by limiting a non-profit to 460 versus 0. another kind of just very, very technical cleanup and i believe theses the purpose of law and i wanted to make sure that it's clear, with regard to the campaign contribution prohibition, this is page 13, subdivision e, line 4, it says no lobbyist shall make any campaign contribution and it says if that lobbyist is register to city elected afflicting or have been [inaudible] in the past 90 day, expenditure lobbyists do not contact officials directly, they will never register to contact an official director, a small technical cleanup that

miektd provide more clarity to the law, it's also more noting that there is a corporate ban on contributions in san francisco, so most expenditure lobbies cannot make contributions to begin with as well, thank you very much, i appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> hello again, michael petrelis, i would like to see this move forward and i am really concerned that if the matter goes forward before the voters and it's approved, it doesn't make effect until 2018, that's what i'm reading in your documents, okay, and i think that is a reason why you need to move this forward now, you need to get it on the ballot for this november because by the time 2018 rolls around and these

changes go into effect, we're going the discover that the lobbyist and some politicians have found new ways to get around whatever it is that's hopefully going to be approved in november, like many of us have been reminded in the past few days thank tos the hillary leaks of all these e-mails from the democratic national committee, the system is rigged, the system is rigged against the public and when we have that as our philosophy with we're looking at what this commission is doing or wants to do and then the proposals that come from the supervisors, every step of the way and every person who's involver in your process is part of the system that is rigged.

these changes that you're going to bring about, they're relatively minor in termser of bundling and funding and things like that and you know what it's also telling me? it's telling me that the supervisors are not doing their jobs, that they are trying to put this matter before the voters and again i hope it passes when the voters get a chance to weigh in on it but if we had the supervisors doing their jobs and creating the laws that we need, we wouldn't be putting the burden on the voters to weigh in on what is going to be a pretty complicated issue i believe for the average voter, so you guys, i believe here at the ethics commission have to look at radically changing how you do business and that also goes for the supervisors and all their aids. they need to figure out a way to address our problems,

modify the laws especially in terms of ethics at the board of sups and i hope we get to see that change happening very soon, thank you. >> thank you. >> hello, i'm alex kaplan, the policy directly with first national, i want to thank you for your time and devotion to this, the open process of crafting this correctly and to give a big thank tos the staff who have done an enormous amount of work on this, i want also to do a quick cleanup of my own, page 12, line 11 televising assist a doubling up of the word less, it says less $25 or less per occasion and should say worth $25 or less per occasion, very quickly also i want to respond to the last two comments and urge the commission to retain and

continue to apply the travel -- the gift pensioner especially travel gifts to expenditure lobbyists as well, the idea that an expenditure lobbyist who is in many ways augmenting their lobbying power to spend money to get other tos do lobbying for them could give a gift or a travel gift, a significant one, ask try to leverage their influence that way, i think the -- especially from talking to voters in the city and the many represent member that is have shown up today, the idea that one trying to exert specific influence by content or expenditure on a city elected official is -- really blows their mind that that's possible, to the travel gifts as well. i would like you ask you to apply the travel gift prohibition earlier than january, 2018, talking with

the director, the january 1, 2018 start date is so the staff and so the computer systems can take enough time to make sure the registration tailoring can apply, because the gift ban is purposely and rightfully not tailored, it applies throughout should apply relatively immediately. thank you. >> thank you. >> good eve nonlinear, alana smith with friends of ethics, i want to join the core lus for thanking me for what you have done and call out the work staff has done to get this in front of the public enough so they could hear comments, respond to comments and show us revised language. it's made a big difference in terms of your final product and you can tell from the comments tonight that getting that kind of very good public process makes a difference, so i thank you for that and

friends of ethics obviously thanks you for putting this forward. >> thank you. >> again, for the record, i'm charles mar ston, i wanted to say there's a caveat to the question of aggregate expenditure limits and i realize that question is a little off topic, but i wanted to explain very quickly to the commission that on july 11, 2011, you considered the mckuchin decision and vote ted 4-1 to repeal our law, that was blocked at the board by a coalition that was formed called friends of ethics, and that's our origin and that explains why we are still here. i did want to say i left the room, that meeting was taped and i have strong opinion on

that matter because i'm aware of other events that occurred with other commissions in the united states working with the bren nan center to develop legislation to be both constitutional and respective of local law dealing with aggregated limits, so it's not as black and white i -- even though we were in fact sued, that would require a separate issue to be put on the agenda to be discussed so that we could get into the details, but i wanted to tell you at one point, i was planning to raise again the question of aggregate limits because there are constitutional ways for addressing the concerns of mchuchin, so i wanted to give you the heads-up on that. >> thank you.

>> good evening, anita mayo, as i've testified before t proposed lobbyist relates changes are not needed. the current gift limit of $25 per lobbyists is so low that it cannot possibly have a corrupting influence on a city officer, notwithstanding the foregoing, both versions prohibit lobbyists from making i any dift including dift of gravel to any officers, this is a broad prescription, it is not narrowly tailored and apply ifs the lobbyist will ever lobby a city officer . the proposed ban could prohibit the mayor or any city officer from attending city related meetings, if the city and bay area corporations are interested in bringing the olympicess to the san francisco bay area and a for profitbacker

profit corporation discussed the olympics, city officers would not be able to eat during the luncheon or dinner meet ifing the for profit contributed as an expenditure lobbyist. with regards to contributions by lobbyists, the proposed revised june initiative would prohibit a lobbyist from making a contribution to a city canadian kate exceeding $100 in an election cycle since the current $500 limit applies on a per election basis kh*s clear and straight forward, introducing a limit based on an election cycle basis will create unnecessary confusion, both versions of the initiative contemplate imposing limits on contributions to lobbyists to candidate controlled committees including local bat lot measure milt tees, imposing limit on contributions to lobbyist tos a ballot measure committee

could be unconstitutional, regarding the ban on bundlings, the proposing ban is not needed since bundled contributions are subject to detail, disclosure requirements on the lobbying reports already. there is federal court precedents that a banning on lobbying and the green party f connecticut, the city court not only invalidate add ban but prohibited lobbyists from soliciting contributions on behalf of state candidate and is reach thirsting conclusion, the court stated that "a limit on the solicitation of otherwise permissible couldn't bourses prohibits exactly the kind of expressive activity that lies at the first amendment's core". that is because the solicitation of contributions involve speech, to solicit contributions on behalf of a candidate is to make a statement "you should support this candidate not only at the polls but with a

financial contribution. ". speech uttered during a political campaign requires the most urgent application set forth in the first amendment for these reasons, i urge you not to impose a ban on bundling of contributions by lobbyists. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you so much, my name is joshua strong mansion i'm with artist of alliance with democracy as well as with represent us and i want today thank the commission and thank the staff for taking up this measure, and i really want to say i've heard a lot of comments, i came here in support of represent us and i come here in support of good government and i come here so that -- because we're in a time where our citizens as we said earlier, do not have the fullest confidence in our elected officials and in ou city governments or our local

governments to give us a government that we voted for and inspires us to believe in, to want to contribute to, making san francisco and making the bay area a place where everyone will want to come and live and raise their families, this is about restoring integrity to this process. now, i've heard many people come up here and talk about the various ban that is are already in place but obviously they're not working so one of the things i wanted to stress to the commission and stress to the staff is enforcement. now, commissioner [inaudible] brought up a good thing, those are questions that you should know, we should understand how these laws have failed z. you should know why all these people are in this room. you have failed. the ethics law that is are currently on the books have failed. that's why we want this measure, we're not ta*ub asking for it out of the sky, it has failed so we are taking it upon ourselves as citizens would care about san francisco, would care about

the bay area, would care about our future to say, look, whatever you had going on first, whatever laws barer policies or protocols that were in place, they have not worked. i am strongly if support of this measure going forward in july, give the voters a xlans to vote on this. it's obvious the folks that have been elected to involve this problem has failed so it's time for the voters to have our say on this. i'm strongly in support of this measure going into the july ballot and thank you for giving us the time to speak and making our concerns known. thank you. >> thank you. >> hello, my name is greg [inaudible] i'm with represent us and i wanted to say one thing -- add one thing, i think there is a sense of urgency, whatever the language is needs to be worked out tonight so something can get on the ballot, whatever the little nuances with regards to language, at least something

can be agreed upon tonight so things don't get pushed out to 2018. thank you, and thank you for all your hard work. >> thank you. >> hi, i know it's against protocol to come up again, i want today directly respond. i can't? okay, at all? alright, sore -- sorry. >> you're saying he couldn't if he used his three minutes the whole time. >> not to say mr. kaplan didn't have good feedback t commission would be obligated to provide everyone in the room with a second opportunity as well. >> alright, any other public comment? if not, there is a motion presently pending and i take it that that grammatical error on page 12, line 11 where the word less should

be deleted, i will call the question which is to approve the option -- the july option as presented by the staff, all in favor? >> aye. >> aye. >> opposed? alright, the record should reflect that it has been passed unanimously by four commissioners as required. and that we should now move forward to see that it qualifies to be placed on the ballot in november. [applause]. >> thank you, mr. chair. i would just like to acknowledge that the city of san francisco and all of us owe a great debt to represent

us. it's an organization said by you to have been formed about a year ago and the most refreshing thing to me is to see the vibrancy of a bunch of young people coming forward on good government measures. there are other organizations like friends of ethics and the civil grand jury and the rest of us who have been involved with it over the years ask have been talking about this, but for the most part, most of those folks have hair like mine, so to see all of you is really great and i just want to thank you and encourage you the keep up the good work. i think you're an inspiring group. >> commissioner hayon. >> i would like to second

what commissioner keane has said. the atmosphere in this room today is completely 180 degrees from the atmosphere when i first came on this commission, and i don't think this commission or its staff can do the proper work unless there is full involvement on the part of the community. i am an average voter and oncern is that my concern is that we passed this and it will go ton ballot but i hope you will do the same kind of work to inform and educate the a*frmg voter. from my understand, it's going to be at least 30 ballot measures, in situations like that, the average voter just says, i'm

voting no on everything, so unless there's a real major concerted effort to educate vote and he iser to get them to vote particularly on this ballot which is of concern to you, then i'm concerned we may not succeed. and also a lot of this is quite arcane, so you need to find a way to get the message out in a way that's really comprehensible to the average person out there because otherwise they throw their hands up and say, okay, i don't understand what this is about so i'm not going to vote for it, so that is your challenge now and i think that's a much, much greater challenge than getting it on the ballot, but i wish you luck. i'm sure you can do it and it's great that it's young people who are engaged and we need that because otherwise we're in deep trouble which i think we are anyway, but -- so, that's another story, we

don't need to address that, but thank you so much and it's a huge difference having so many really well informed and expert members of the public participating in the process, so thank you. >> and i on behalf of the commission also join in thanking all of you for working with the staff and i want to thank the staff who spent hours getting this into the form, but for those of you who may be new to the pr kress, once this goes on the ballot, the first thing is there's a ballot simplification committee that meets to word the way in which the description of this is put in the voter's handbook and that's very important because that's really what people look at in the voter's handbook, so

that when that meeting takes place, i urge you to be in attendance to help draft the language, there are five members and believe me, they are very dedicated but they're like your high school english teacher and they parse every word and they will spend a long time whether or not they can use this word or that word, and either vice chairman keane or i and ms. pelum will be there, but to have some support behind making sure that we get that, but even more importantly, san francisco has hundreds of political clubs and the months of august, the last part of august and the month of september and october are when those clubs meet to

either endorse or take a position against or for ballot measures, and they -- it's very important that proponents and supporters of this ballot measure turn out at those meetings to show the community the support because under the laws of san francisco, if i go to those meetings or commissioner keane goes to the meetings, we can't urge the voters to vote for it. we are constrained from taking a position. all we can do is tell them information, what it's about, but we can't at the end of it say -- and we want you to vote for it. i know that may be ridiculous, but that is the

rule, so that what's needed are people -- voters, people who can say after we may make a presentation at one of these community meetings and we advise them of the restrictions that we're under, but i mean, it should be obvious that we put it on the ballot and we can point that out but we can't urge them to vote one way or another, but you can, and the more people who show up at these community meetings in support, the more likely it is that these organizations will support it, and when the ballot -- when the handbook comes out, it will show what organizations support it and it's very important, the more organizations we can have behind it and the less opposition and i think in this case where we ao*f had as much public input, the kind of opposition that

there was to proposition c, even that, it passed by 75 or 78 percent, i would like to see this pass by 90% and show that truly the public is behind this initiative, so with that, i will -- >> before we move on from this item, as you may recall, the last time when we did proposition c last year, the commission had a formal vote on who would be the spokesperson representative for the various political club meetings you mentioned as well as media inquiries and such about the proposed measure. i don't know if the commission want tos do it now since as you mentioned, a lot of the endorsement meetings are coming up fast and furious and the ballots committee meeting you mentioned is schedule today discuss this measure this friday, so a lot of naoez public arenas in which the commission or whoever the

commission decides to choose as a representative will be asked to speak are coming up quickly, so i don't know if the commission want tos designate that spoe, person tonight. >> any commissioners, any comments? >> i think remembering back on c, the reality of what happened was that commissioner renne wound up taking on an enormous amount of effort in regard to going to all of o those meetings, you went to so many of them, and because what we did is we formally authorized commissioner renne to be our spokesperson for these presentations, vice chair andrews also went to a few and there were two i think that neither chair renne or vice chair andrews could go to so i went to. my suggestion would be that

at the direction of the chair, we all be empowered to go and explain this to any group that the chair might want it to be explained to, either for the chair to go or if he can't make it, for one of us to go, whoever he designates, mainly because he wound up just breaking his back last time going to all of them and taking the pressure off of him so i would be glad to go to as many -- >> i appreciate that suggestion and i have a call for a vote on it, but i would add the executive director as also being authorized to -- >> i don't want to add to her burden, but i think it is important. >> yes, e *f i agree. >> and certainly i want to remind the commission that we can have those kinds of scheduling discussions following the brown act,

xhaoun sauteing amongst yourselves about the substance of any presentations, obviously we want to remain very -- strictly observe the brown act and all its public meeting restrictions. >> right. >> do i hear a motion that -- along the line of what commissioner keane said? >> moved. >> i think under the bylaws, i'm authorized as a spokesman and the sense of the commission is if i can't go or if i want to assign it to somebody else, i can assign it to any of the other three commissioners. okay. and i appreciate that because i will tell you, there are times when there are three or four meetings a day or at night, they're usually at

night, but they're interesting and you see local politics at its best. alright. let's turn to discussion -- >> we need a vote on that. >> alright. >> so moved. >> second. >> alright. public comment? hopefully none. alright, hearing none, i'll call the question, all in favor? >> aye. >> aye. >> opposd? it's carried unanimously. turning to item 5, discussion and possible action on ordinance introduced by supervisor peskin to amend the campaign and governmental conduct code to require members of city boards and commissions to file behest payment reports, and i think mr. hepner is here from supervisor peskin's office and bring us up to date and tell us what you are looking for from us. >> absolutely, thank you

very much, thank you, commissioners, chair renne, director pelum, i do have copies of some amended pieces of legislation that i'm happy to distribute to you, i left 10 or so copies on the table for the public, but i'm hoping that somebody can distribute those and could i grab just one of those? we can walk through some of the changes we made, some of which were discussed expressly in the department staff report. but jumping in, i mean, i do want to thank you for taking this matter up again and for staff's report and from soliciting comment from the fppc all of which is going to be invaluable as we move forward with this. there are a lot of stakeholders with this legislation and it's become very evident we need to strike exactly the right

balance to make sure this is furthering the aim of transparency and openness while not imposing a burden from commissioners or ethics department staff, so i do want to walk through a couple of the change that is we have made, just in the past week, i'm sorry, this did not make it into your packets. we set forth on the first page a definition for auction nao*er and explicitly exempted auction nao*ering later a little further down as an activity that does not count as a solicitation, just because there was some concerns about that. on the second page beginning at line 8, we defined interested party as any person who is the subject of any administrative action taken by a board of commission, we defined non-profit organization as 501c organizations. under section 3.610

subsection a, we did as we indicated last month, we expanded the filing time from 30 days to quarterly or 90 days, 90 days from the date at which the 5 thousand dollar contribution was made or a series of -- and then in the next subsection 2, we left it at 30 days for those solicitation that is are made to solicited -- to interested parties. on the third page, we have that exception under subsection d for auction noes, we also undertook a definition and tried to carve out full time employees of non-profit organizations who have fundraising

responsibilities and are soliciting charitable contributions on behalf of their non-profit employer, if you're working for a fundraiser as a none profiteer, that will be your job and you will be exempt from reporting every solicitation that you make with the exception that we do want you to disclose any solicitations made to interested parties. and lastly, ethics department staff request, we allowed for this not to be just reported on a form 803 but on some other electronic forms as staff sees fit, there's a reporting mechanism and per staff's report which i'm happy to get into a little bit, i understand that might take some resources ask some time and we're more than willing to take that into consideration. with respect to the staff

report, just a couple of comments. i thought the reference to the fppc's report i thought was particularly instructive on one point and this is a point that has raised concerns from several of our board members and commissioners and that is well what if my name is on a -- that goes out in a mass mailer, i raise money for the san francisco ballet or some other organization and i'm selling 10 thousand dollar ticket tos a charity night and my name is on the mailer that goes out, is that a solicitation, and the instruction from the fppc is in fact, if you're a board member of the ballet for instance and every board member's name is included, there's no particular distinction to your name from the other board members and that does not -- that would not count as a solicitation. on the other hand, if there is some distinction made whether your name is

highlight separate from other board members or looks like there's a fact specific determination that is made i suppose if the board member or commissioner personally signed it or crossed off the mr. so and so, maybe details like that may make it look like a direct solicit tai, more like something that should be reported and those are the circumstances that would give rise to this reporting obligation. anyway, i thought that was very interesting advice from the fppc and kind of confirmed what was both xho*en common sense and what we had talked about and now there was another concern about twitter solicitations, just briefly i thought i would throw that out there, what if somebody saying donate to green peace on twitter, i think there are certain aspects of this where there is going to be in effect on a board

commissioner orbacker or supervisor's behavior are going the have to change nair behavior in some ways and maybe hey don't tweet out donate to green peace, might be that's something that person should not be doing in our public facing role, whether or not green peace has an item before the board or commission, it starts to be a little bit sticky, i don't want to say suspect but at least maybe behavior that a commissioner or board member should not be engaging in. there was a mention -- >> could i ask a question about that. >> yes. >> engaging out about that behavior about twiting out between graen peace, what is that with the commissioner's role with deciding matters against it, what's the conflict or matter? >> i suppose the nexus would have to be there would have to be a secondary sexbacker nexus in that circumstance,

maybe graen peace is supporting the caoe byways of a new park downtown or there would probably have to be some secondary nexus to make clear sense, but -- >> currently drafted -- if the commissioner were to tweet and were to generate contributions of 5 thousand dollars, they would have to file a report, is that right? >> that's correct. that's correct. >> even though the green peace activity may or may not have anything to do with the work of the commission on which that commissioner serves? >> yes, that's right, and the portion of the staff report which i thought was well written talking about how narrowly to craft this reporting requirement and we could craft it even wider was one option that ethics staff set forth, and any political

donating active or any solicitation for candidate to elected office, that could be included theoretically. >> wouldn't you want to narrow it down that the commissioner would be deciding upon, if it's an out of state alma mater and alma mater has no business in front of the commission, why would we need to know about that? >> right, and i think that more often than not, this reporting requirement may capture behavior that is entirely innocuous, there's no suspect -- >> why do we need to capture it then? >> by limiting the scope of the reporting requirement, what we're doing is essentially putting the onus on the commissioner or board member themselves to be the judge of whether this is something that should or should not be reported and from a policy angle and i think there are fair room for disagreement here, i don't think that putting the onus on the commissioner or the board member in a self-reporting context to

make that tough determination is where we want to put that balance, so yes, a lot of this behavior may be innocuous, but furthering the aims of transparency and openness, i think it's probably the public's obligation to make that determination of whether that solicitation is suspect in any way. so, i think that that's kind of where that ideological or principled view comes from is i don't think it should be the commissioner or board members' role to make that judgment. and i'm more than willing to hear push-back on that of course but that's where our office was coming from. >> i would hope we would have more trust in some of our commission members to be able to make that determination and i have a follow-up question with regard to the privacy of those donors, particularly out of state donors or the example i gave

last month of parents at a school for example, when they make the contribution to the charitable organization, i think they have a reasonable expectation that their name won't show up in a public database. >> so, this requirement does exist for elected officials in various contextess. i don't think it's that rare or unique to require the reporting of people who make contributions over 5 thousand dollars, i think that that threshold is set relatively high, so that you're really capturing -- >> but are those examples, do they require all donations or only those for contributions made with some sort of connection, a nexus back to the government organizations? >> correct, and maybe staff or city attorney shen can correct me if i'm wrong.

>> yes, to respond to that, currently elected officials are required to file behest reports, 5 thousand dollars or more, it doesn't really matter what the source of that contribution whether that source of the contribution has any business before the elected, it's a pretty wide net. >> and i think we're get hinting the territory where strike thing balance is important, we don't have the desire of [inaudible] if you're a board or a commissioner in a public facing role and this is not about trust than it is about trust in our political system, but if you are in that public facing role you are in a unique position to leverage your public facing role and the decisions you make at public hearings to raise substantial amounts of money, we don't know the extent to which this is going on anecdotally, i know it's

out there, our office knows this is something that does occur and in the interest of public disclosure which the ethics department staff also recognizes the high demand for more publicly accessible information, electronically or otherwise, i think that's where this legislation is coming from. i can wrap up my comments fairly soon, i did have a comment, there was a note in the staff report noting that this is going to be -- this requires filing these reports with the ethics department as opposed to with the individual commissions, the only reason why we put that in there is because i think it's -- it would be pretty difficult to ask our boards and commissions to develop their own mechanisms for receiving and processing this and i think having it centralized is probably best for the sake of uniformity, to that end and along with the recommendation of ethics

department staff, we are happy to support additional funding for the ethics department, we are always happy to do so in order to further the aims of this and certainly are amenable to a start date or an effective date of january 1, 2018 to allow the ethics department staff some time to get these mechanisms up and running, we're more than amenable to that. just one additional point, there was mention made in the discussion on the ballot measure item number 4 with respect to whether we were considering prohibitions in this. we weren't really until a couple of days ago or rather until we read the letter from friends of ethics. i think that our office would be amenable to a prohibition, a flat-out prohibition on solicitations to -- solicitations of interested parties or solicitations to

maybe specific types of 501c4's i think is one that came up in particular, that said, it's not in the legislation right now and i'll leave it at that and take the recommendation. the question that i had is how does that -- does that obviate a disclosure requirement f you're prohibiting activity out right, does it obviate the need to disclose your other behavior and my thought process ended up with, probably not, when you're committing something to paper and you're required to do so in the form of a filed statement with a government entity, that is kind of causing -- it's creating another honesty mechanism, another little self-check, this is all self-reporting again and i think that a lot of this, while we trust our board member and is commissioners, we want to make sure that we create the

most fluid mechanism for that reporting. >> let me ask you a question, and that is if there's say an invitation to the opera gala and it goes out and it lists names of the gala committee and it asks for 10 thousand, 5 thousand, 1 thousand, whatever the table is, and my name is on it as one of the committee, is that a solicitation? >> no, and i think the fppc letter addresses that point directly and at risk of misquoting it, my understanding is no, that if there's no distinction between your name and the other names, if you're just part of a list of the committee members, then it would not be a solicitation requiring reporting. >> and particularly if it doesn't identify any city

office, it doesn't identify me as a commissioner. >> i think that's -- yeah, that would be another distinction. >> okay. >> procedurally, i'm happy to hear the discussion tonight, if you have any questions, i'll hang around. i don't think it's necessary for you to take action, but while it is before us, i would be grateful for any oak -- recommendations this body has. thank you. >> commissioners, i just had a quick couple of comments. the -- one of the questions that the memo tried to outline for discussion tonight is the question for breadth and nexus, and mr. hepner talked about the

distinguish of commissioners that might have [inaudible] with the nexus, one of the things i wanted to subjecting, there's form 700, the statement of economic interest, commissioners are routinely require today consider what the reach of their work might be because their conflict of interest code disclosure categories identifies the kinds of interest or should identify the kinds of interests that they could potentially influence and it doesn't include the breadth that an elected official would have typically because commission and board roles are triply more prescribe today certain functions, so i think it's maybe not as difficult as on first blush it might seem for commissioners to consider the ways their particular mandbacker mandate could translate to the kinds of solicitations they would be disclosing, that's what i wanted to throw out there, whether that burden is too great or whether it might be

something that commissioners are familiar with already. >> thank you. >> do any commissioners have any comments or questions, if noted, i'll call for public comment. >> good evening, commissioners, back again, [inaudible] it's fascinating how this issue is growing, and i think our elected officials have been really put in a difficult position because they're out fundraising in some cases for private sector activity which is perhaps in their districts that would support their local home based home grown grass roots organizations which is a very good thing, on the other hand, the first people they were going to think of to call would be

the lobbyists or the people that are making comments to them that are trying to get them to influence administrative and legislative action. that said, i have always been won to personally and i think many people in foe have felt that disclosure is where we start, so building a basis or a database of disclosure to see and track this type of activity, much of which now is reported anecdotally or in the press is probably a good start so we can start building our database and following this activity which is very robust. in our communications to you, we have given you a list of contributions that have come in or have been issued by the behest say for google in the

millions of dollars, like 6.8 million dollars, and i believe that was for one item. so, this is not small bucks. routinely, some supervisors are going out and going through a list of organizations or rather lobbyists or people looking to influence legislative action because they are in fact registered lobbyists to make donations so they're bringing in the bacon where there's five or ten contributions that have been made in 5 thousand dollar increments that goes to the 501 c-3 or the philanthropic institution in their district, so my point is that clearly this is maybe not the way they want to go when they see it in print and when

they have to disclose it to the ethics commission, and then we have a much better sense of what's going on, so i would urge you to support this and i would also ask whether or not it would not be a good idea for you to seek an amendment to the current law to prohibit such activity from lobbyists. >> thank you. >> i'm bob plant hold. i wanted to echo what mr. hepner said that you don't necessarily need to take a position, ubd just offer comments or raise question, you like this, you don't like that, you wonder why, so you need to make a decision, no, should you? a lot of us would you like to make some sort of supportive decision separate from in addition to comments. i want to call attention to

the supplemental memo from item 5 that came from larry bush and friends of ethics questioning part of the staff analysis and recommendation, so in looking at the revised text that mr. hepner has brought forward, maybe it's being addressed even if he hasn't linked to our comments or to the staff, i want to note on page 3 with d exceptions, the number one issue, i think it's helpful that there's that second part that says commissioners -- provided commissioners will have an obligation to provide behest payment reports, so on and so on, so i'll give you archival history n the past sfrj ri, i was an officer on the board of a non-profit, the executor was on a major commission, there's several commission that is have perks, that can give away or provide services or things of value, of significant value to people, and so that

person would solicit contributions to a major fundraising event which is handled by somebody else, then that money was brought into the non-profit. at the same time, that commission like i said did have different business that people could benefit from when they went for a decision before it, so the idea of requiring a filing of behest payments reports even if the donation is not specific to the commission and the duties of commission but is part of the fundraising activities of that staffer, i think it's helpful to keep in mind and i think this is an acceptable start towards addressing that option. i'm trying to be vague because i don't want the name name, this is like i said in the past century, so everything is just dusty records, but as a person who was an officer on the board of directors, i was on ec sh

uneasy on how some of this was happening, but at least there's a klans to bring light to it. thank you. >> good evening again, my name is jonathan mince s*er and i'm a political attorney here in the city, i didn't plan on speak on this issue until i heard something that concerned me from the presentation, the phrase that we don't know the extent to which commissioners are soliciting donations to non-profit organizations and the degree to which that interested parties may be appearing before them. that's particularly, particularly concerning. i truly believe that this is a solution in the search of a problem. i also am scared that this is really just going to be a trap for the unweary, it's worth noting that elected officials are already suj to this requirement, most major contracts or most things

where there's a concern of this goes before those elected officials. i'm afraid this is a trap for the unweary, i'm afraid this can be used as a tool to levy fines, administrative action against small commissioners who don't know this law exist, who don't know that the -- by raising money for their pta, they're implicated in any way. there's enough disincentives not to go into public service, why add another layer when we don't know there is another problem, is there such an evil of somebody soliciting millions of dollars contributions to donations of an art commissioner to a non-profit support to an art commission or some other small commission, is this something we really need, and again, i don't want to start to brainstorm -- try to understand the legal issues that may come by a prohibition on behest

payments, i encourage you not look that, for every evil scenario that i con ko*kt kokt in your head, think about quha's happening, we're talking about donations to non-profit organization, to 501 c-3 organizations that do great work in the community community, to the extent we know funding is limited, non-profits step in at a time of need, i don't think we should take as to limit contributions to non-profits nor do i believe there's really a purpose for this, nor do i believe we need another disincentive to public service. thank you so much and i appreciate your time as always. >> thank you. >> commissioners, debbie lur man from the human services network. i did speak to this somewhat in july about the need to encourage non-profits to serve on commissions and

share their expertise for the good of the community and to balance that with the ability to raise funds for their organizations. we do not wanted to hamstring the ability of non-profits to raise money and the city is on our case all the time to raise money and to enhance whatever funding we receive from the city, so that leaves us with this need for a balanced approach. i do praoeshtd the staff memo suggesting that the legislation apply only where there's a nexus but we have worked with supervisor possess -- peskin's office and we appreciate the exemption of this for non-profit staff who are fund raisers and who are simply doing their jobs and the reason to balance that for donors to want non-confidential, we would have preferred that applies to board of directors as i suspect some of you do serve

on boards, some of the most civically engaged people in this city both serve on commissions and serve on boards, and we need our ports of directors to be leading our way in our fundraising campaigns. it is a relief you can still be listed on an invitation but it would be nice if you could scribble a note to your buddy saying hey, tom, how about coming to this event, so i think we would like to see that be a little broader but we are appreciative of this exception and we'll work with supervisor peskin for whatever final measure goes to the board of supervisors. and we do agree with the interested party exception, that was the compromise that made a lot of sense as the way to resolve any potential, again, undue influence. and the other thing i want to say, there were some comments here about a ban, whether it's a lobbyist or anybody else, i think we would have a problem if there was any

kind of propose salt to ban contributions by anybody to 501 c-3 organizations, and so i hope that that does not gain traction as a serious discussion. thank you. >> i don't think you have to worry about that. i think it would be constitutional. >> thank you. >> good eve anyones i'm bob docent door f, former friends of *it ix commissioner, i'm here to talk about 501c4's and 501 c-3's, 501c4's are the issue that we're looking at with beh*is payments that are in the tens of millions of dollars in some cases. when you have a 501c4 that requests a contribution from

an elected official or a commissioner for a pet project, that needs to be recognized and needs to be brought to the public, you can't hide these kind of things from the public. i think we need legislation that brings us out into the open. thank you. >> thank you. does any commissioner have any comments or want us to take any action this evening? >> well, i don't think we've been asked to take action by supervisor peskin's office. we've been asked by his staff member and also by several of the people who are in favor of the measure to indicate by comments and other things as to whether or not we believe

that the measure is on the right track, whether we would endorse it. it's not something that's going to be part of the ethics commission's bylaws or any part of us doing anything. so, i can say that just personally as one commissioner, i think supervisor peskin's on the right track in regard to where he's heading. there are some concerns that are pointed out both by our staff and other people by the interesting parties, that compromise could be reached out in order to reach the transparency so that someone doesn't lefrj their position as commissioner or as a san francisco official in any kind of improper way. there's a necessity for that and in my opinion,

supervisor peskin is on the right track and is going in the right direction. >> i would only add to that, that i agree this is on the right track. i would like to see it a little more narrowly tailored so we can get at those -- the nexus of the behest payments and the conflict that arises when the matter is coming before the commission. i think th to cast such a broad net is almost like trying to boil the ocean and you will spend a lot of time sorting the weed from the chaff, if you can be more targeted, i think you can be more effective. >> yes? >> with regards to the last person who commented, why not limit this legislation to 501c4's? >> as opposed to including

501 c-3's? >> i'm happy to venture a guess at an answer there. i think that that would be narrowing it too far and in fact we're not only interested in the entity to which money is being solicit tainted for but also the individuals or entities for which charitable contributions are solicited of, so it could be a 501 c-3, 9, 12, 400, i don't care if you're soliciting it from somebody who has a matter coming before your board or commission, so that's the other element of this that i think is at play here. >> the staff in your memo made a list of recommendations, i think it's on page 7, and i would make

a motion that we adopt those recommendations and have them transmitted on behalf of the commission. >> i second that. >> any discussion? any public comment? i'll call the question. all in favor? >> aye. >> aye. >> the record should reflect that it was passed unanimously and that the staff recommendations will be transmitted to supervisor peskin with i think a clear indication that we support the intention of the legislation but those concerns that the staff has identified should be understood. >> thank you very much, commissioners, i appreciate

it. >> alright, item number 6 is continued to our next meeting . item number 7 is a discussion of the executive director's report. >> excuse me, chair renne, even though we're continuing item 6, we need to take public comment on it. >> pardon me? >> even though we are continuing item 6 to the next meet, we do need to take public comment on that item. >> i thought the item was moved but i'll call for public comment on item number 6. hearing none, we'll move to item number 7. >> thank you. and i just would say for the record, our apology sos the commission and the public to item number 6, we thought it would be prudent to make sure the public had full opportunity to be here, so

we posted the notice and we will continue to do that as necessary, so again, our apologies. in terms of our agenda item 7 and the executive director's report, i think the most important thing i would like to share with you, i'm please today announce the hiring of our new deputy direct torx jessica bloom who is here with us this evening. >> welcome. >> she's going to be jounbacker joining our office on august 15th, she's assuming day-to-day management of our investigative and enforcement program and will head our enforcement and legal affairs function. i'm very delighted she's going to be joining us with her legal skill, her enforcement experience and her insights and her mentoring talents as well to our growing staff over the coming year. as you will recall from my update last month t commission received over 120 applications for this

position, so it was a competitive process, she comes highly regarded as a keen legal mind, a fresh thinker and a collaborative problem solver, quick experience approaching complex issues from different angles, the work will unfold in all that we have to do. she spent six years as an assistant attorney general working for the missouri general attorney's office where she enforced state, environmental and animal welfare laws include thing cleanup of the state's water, landfills and hazardous e waste and through the creation of a new unit that dealt with animal cruelty preveption where she mansion and responded to complaint, invest gated violations and successfully prosecute add number of cases to uphold state law, she received recognition as an outstanding achievement award in 2010 and 2012.

most recently for the past three years, she has been serving as the senior staff attorney for the non-profit animal legal defense fund in the bay area region but works across the country, she's applied her legal skill to win major cases, worked with conservation groups protecting wild and endangered an maol malls. her law degree is from the university of iowa college of law, and she holds a ba from the university of iowa where she majored in organizational ethics and [inaudible], so i will look forward to providing more information for you in the coming months about the structure of the office and howe're going to align ourselves to get all of our work done but i was delighted that she's here tonight and i hope you join

me in giving her a warm welcome. >> well, welcome. would you like to say a word or two? we'd be happy to hear from you. >> thank you, commissioner, i'm -- thank you for that wonderful introduction, leeann, i'm pleased to be here, i'm very excited about the work, *ib it's a little bit outside of my wheel house if yu heard from my background, i've already started diving in and found this riveting, this debaitd that's been going on and learning all the key players and i also wanted to mention that i brought my husband and my daughter earlier, so if you heard a crying child as she was etc. courted from the room, that was may, she's two years old and we just rent add house in berkeley so we're excited to be part of the community and to be part of the commission -- or staff for the commission, thank you very much. >> welcome, and we look forward working with you and you have a big job because i think we have what, two

openings for enforcement? >> three. >> three, with one enforcement officer left and we moved to two, so hopefully we'll give you the resources so you can really turn two and some of the criticism that if you attend our meetings, you will hear from time to time is that we have been a sleeping tiger or something that they call us, that we didn't do enough enforcement but a lot of that had had to do with personnel, so -- >> well, i'm your gal. >> okay, great. you have a delightful two year-old also, she seemed to be commenting justifiable on the merits at the time when she was here, but bring her whenever you would like. >> thank you. >> alright, thank you.

>> and i guess i would make since it's an evening for correction, one other note on the memo on item attachment 2, i provided the charts showing the number of open formam complaints on our caseload as of july 20th as well as the matters under preliminary review. those numbers are accurate, we have 22 formal complaints still pending, 56 matters under preliminary review, the memo however says 55, so my apoll jis for that, i diced the data after the memo and i did not correct the memo, so -- but we want to keep providing this information for you so we can keep track of where we are and with the additional staff resources coming on board, more hands to help get those members moving along. i'm happen my to answer any questions but i wanted to make sure to introduce our newest staff member to you. >> any questions or comments?

other than to compliment ms. palum and the staff for continuing to provide us with great support. any public comment on the executive director's report? hearing none, item 8, discussion and possible action on items for future meetings. it has been the practice in the past for the commission to skip one meeting during the summer because of the vacation schedules and it would be my recommendation subject to comment that we cancel the august meeting. i know one of the commissioners is going to be unavailable in any case and that we defer all matters

that i think there are only one or two matters that we were contemplate ining the august meeting, that they be continued to the september meeting. any comments or concerns? any public comment? >> just a reminder, you're not off the hook because of course you have 30 club meetings or whatever to go to, so you'll be very busy with that. it's just as well you're not worrying yourselves with the agenda. >> thank you. and i do feel that considering the amount of work that the staff -- we put on the staff over the last few months, hopefully some of them can take vacation. alright, so that will be -- the notice will go out that the meeting for august has

been cancelled and we will -- our next meeting will be the fourth monday in september. any other comment or public comment? then item 9, additional opportunity for public comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the agenda. hearing none, i will entertain a motion to adjourn. >> so moved. >> second. >> alright. public comment? hearing none, all in favor? >> aye. >> aye. >> the record should reflect that unanimously we adjourned at 7:45 which is pretty early. thank you very much. thank you very much. ( meeting is adjourned ).

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>> all right. good morning, everyone well to the special rules committee i'm commissioner tang the chair and to my left for supervisor cowen is supervisor farrell and supervisor eric mar will have a motion to excuse him our clerk derrick and thank you leo and mark mr. clerk, any announcements? >> ichld during the proceedings. and when speaking before the commission, if you care to, do state your name for the record. august 2nd board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. >> thank you a motion to excuse supervisor mar. >> so moved. >> we'll take that without

objection. and item one. >> item 5 a submitted voter so for the planning code to require the conditional use authorization for the distribution and repair for the institutional and acts use and replacement space. >> thank you and so at this time we held a special rules committee meeting really just to be able to entertain the amendments that were made at the last rules committee meeting i'd like to invite april to come forward if you want to say anything otherwise this is a procedural hearing we have today. >> i'll make my remarks brief thank you commissioner tang and to supervisor farrell for sitting in for supervisor cowen very much appreciate the special meeting we can consider the amendments i think the legislation that we have before us has been considerably

improved was of the rules committee praerngs and is participation of the public and thank you very much. >> thank you okay seeing no questions or comments open up for public comment so if anyone wants to come forward to speak okay. and now a motion to the full board as a does she property for july 26th. >> so moved and send out without recommendation and okay without recommendation and without objection mr. clerk, is there any additional business to come before this body? >> no more items madam chair. >> all right. this the meeting is adjourned

>>[gavel] >>. morning avenue one. welcome to our wills committee meeting of july 28 26 and i'm katie tang chairman of the committee get to my right is vice chairman eric cannot. from sfgov tv we would like to thank charles kremenak and jusco larson. supervisor cohen is

unfortunately stuck in committee today. she may or may not be able to join us will get a motion to excuse her from this meeting. with that mr. clerk any announcements >> yes. the silence all cell phones electronic devices and complete speaker cards. items acted upon today will be on the september 6, 2016 supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated >> thank you these call item 1 >> item 1, >>[reading code] >> actually with go into that motion real quickly to excuse sor cohen >> moved and seconded. will do that without objection supervisor cohen is excused >>[gavel] >> so, we have here one seed one applicant mr. clinton ellicott if you would like to come forward? >> good morning. thank you

mdm. chairwoman for the time spent with me relative to my application and thank you supervisor mar for your gracious telephone call yyesterday. i hope you have eight 3 min. rule because i don't want to abuse my time. i want to make three points. the chairwoman and one or two other people have asked me my reason or reasons for applying. my answer is, good citizenship. which i believe in. because i was brought up by parents who believed in good citizenship and participation in civic affairs in public responsibilities. second reason is my lengthy experience,

mostly legislatively subject matter related to the responsibility of the ethics commission. as i reflected and thought about it, i began in 1972, the first year i was a san francisco supervisor. the then charter, which had been adopted by voters in 1932 and amended contained only a predatory conflict of interest provision. i introduced a proposal to make it a conflict of interest coalition with penalties for violation. that was presented to san francisco voters in 1973 and enacted. i

also, in 1974, introduced with co-author john j baba gelato [sp?] the first san francisco election spending and donation ordinance, which limited spending to about $46,000 for a board of supervisors campaign at a time supervisors were elected at large by the whole city and i think was about $123,000 for mayor. that emulated the first speed is of its kind in california in the city of san diego. unfortunately, for a controlling campaign contributions excesses, the

united states supreme court, two years later, in a case entitled buckley the vallejo, held it was a violation of the first amendment to limit expenditures in a political campaign for public office. donations could be limited and, gosh, 17 maybe now 15 years later, in 1988, a republican assemblyman, a democratic state senator, my then seat mate in the state senate and i initiated a ballot measure by the initiative process to impose

donation limits and other provisions on all california governmental entity political campaigns. that was proposition 73 and the november 1980 election and it was approved by california voters. again, unfortunately, some 7-8 judicial attacks, most of which failed, but one of which in effect an old proposition 73 and the united states district court for the eastern district of california. affirmed by the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit. in 1990, i introduced and pursued to

enactment what is now, you will pardon, the egotistical recitation called, the quintin know conflict of interest act relating to the board of equalizer nation, the board of equalization, as you know, as quasi-judicial responsibilities and that act was passed in 1990, but with a compromise on my part, which gives the lie to anyone who might say he never compromises. so, that there is a $250 limit or a member of the board must recuse himself or herself if he or she has received more than $250 from a party appealing a tax assessment subject to the board

of equalize asian equalization. the footnote is there is pending legislation in both the assembly and senate to reduce that to $100 and also include in it the so-called behest of donations to nonprofits that a commissioner of the board of equalization might be involved in. thereafter, at the instigation of bruce bruggeman [sp?], the famous publisher of the san francisco the guardian and the california newspaper publishers association, i introduced a bill to represent

the first revision of the ralph m brown opened meeting at which is been enacted in 1953. that measure was opposed by every local agency in california could board of supervisors, league of california cities, the california school district association. the california special district association. then assembly member john l burton became a co-author and we were successful in enacting it with the acquiescence of then gov. pete wilson who had been mayor of the city of san diego earlier in his career. after that, i introduced about a year or so later a major

revision of the california public records act to strengthen the ability of people to obtain public records . today, the word is called transparency. the third reason that i filed my application is based on hearsay, reading, and some conversations that the ethics commission new executive director is competent and capable and brings a sense of reactivation as compared to her predecessor about whom i heard complaints. that the staff is composed of strongly motivated individuals and that it is a worthy exercise of citizenship

to be a part of the five-member ethics commission in these present circumstances. thank you. >> thank you very much good for the deep background of what you have done in your role especially as a legislative at the state level in terms of better government transparency and so forth. i know that a lot of the times you will probably be spending, if you're pointed to the ethics commission, your time may be interpreting law that perhaps you've written yourself or that you have laid a huge role in it so that will certainly be very interesting. now, given your deep background in again cracking open government and transparency laws and policies, i am just wondering you in your role as a commissioner, you will have to be very neutral just like you are as a judge which i'm sure

you're very familiar with. in terms of setting aside maybe positions you held as a legislature to be in a neutral. i am just wondering if you can kind of elaborate on whether you find that to be something you're going to be able to achieve? >> i'm sorry. my hearing aids are being-you want me to, don? >> so you're very deeply involved in the crafting of open government and shows that the legislation as a legislature. and in your role as an ethics commissioner here you will be tasked with interpreting some of those laws committee you had involvement in as a legislator. so, i was just asking you to comment on your ability to be a neutral commissioner? i know that in your role as a judge you certainly have been able to demonstrate that >> the regulations in the

charter sense, and the duties and responsibilities and limitations on members of the ethics commission are in the san francisco charter, and i note the bar against participation publicly in any city elective office campaign. i note, also, the bar on participation in any city ballot measure. i believe in law enforcement. i believe that the law applies to everyone. that, obviously, includes me as a perspective ethics commissioner. i will certainly follow and obey that law and

those prohibitions in all matters. >> thank you. supervisor mar >> thank you for the history and legal lecture, too, about how a lot of our laws in the state and san francisco have come about. it will be great to have you on the attics commission sen. cobb. i want to say that even thinking back about buckley versus alejo and four years of speech and money in politics i want to ask you about a question from 30 years ago, and you addressed opposition 73 it wasn't just you but others that crafted the state ballot measure, but one part of proposition 73 really opposed to public financing of elections and i think it was

according to common cause, which raised a concern with my office, i just want to ask you about your position on public financing? because i know san francisco's small donor public matching funds program is really a heart of reducing the influence of money in politics. i know that you insert supervisor tang's question but i want to ask you more directly, do you still believe in the proposition 73 positions against public financing and also how would you address that as the ethics commission is charged with carrying out and in forcing our public financing policies? >> there are a couple of ways, maybe more, to phrase a

response to your understandable question. the elemental response is that public financing is the law of san francisco. the ethics commission has important responsibility in the execution and administration of that wall. as i just said, and i will repeat it, i believe in law enforcement. i walked accordingly. now, let me ruminate for one more item that is relevant. proposition 73 included several provisions. one of them barred public financing. all three of us i'm

a democrat republican, independent, included that because we believe in it. another one also banned one political office holder taking donations and then transferring them to another or [inaudible] unfortunately, that provision was held unconstitutional. the public financing clause was held invalid in los angeles superior court and a lawsuit initiated by the city of los angeles on the ground that state law could not regulate a charter city. los angeles was and is a charter city. the easiest way to describe the

reason for my feeling is that, personally, i would abhor the use of money i paid government in taxes,, fees, to be used by a -let's take an extreme example-as david duke of candidates. san francisco's ordinance weakens that kind of a transaction because san francisco's ordinance requires, in effect, to use the abbreviated description, a candidate to be serious in order to qualify for my tax payments. were yours or others of our 850,000 fellow san

franciscans. that is rational. a candidate, as you know, has to raise so much money on his or her own in order to qualify. that certainly reduces the possibility of it being used by somebody who you abhor. and resent using your money. >> i appreciate your candor and your supported across the board by so many different people from communities that appreciate your history of resisting conflict of interest and creating greater transparency and being a watchdog did i want to say that friends of ethics it's great that mr. buckman is here from our former guardian but i know many community members feel that public financing and the electoral reforms we have

achieved in san francisco were very proud of come up with the different efforts by big business groups to weaken our public financing and electoral reforms could i'm wondering if if future efforts, where big business forces in particular i tried to weaken the public financing system. would you reconcile those issues at the local level? >> well, with respect to specifically to public financing, as far as i know, i know of no suggestion that it be altered. that certainly i know of no suggestion or no person who has communicated with me a desire to repeal it. or, to change it. in some way.

if such a proposal is made to the ethics commission i will treat it like the quads i judicial position that an ethics commissioner has. that is, evaluate the arguments. evaluate probably evidence about use in other jurisdictions, both american and foreign countries. and make a decision accordingly. i'm not going to let my feelings in the commencement of the proposition 73 drafting in 1988 control or affect my evaluation, theoretically, in 2016 or 2017

or 18 of public financing in san francisco. >> thank you for your willingness to serve and i think you would be a breath of fresh air on the ethics commission to support their leadership role. i think everyone for writing to us with very thoughtful comments from john dollinger to larry bush and friends of ethics to many others. norman yee writing in your support. thank you sen. cobb >> may i impose mdm. chairwoman, just to express the public record my thanks. to all of those individuals to former mayor art agnew's, mr. broadman, the san francisco chamber of commerce, the california first amendment coalition of which i've been a board member about 3.5-four years. for my friend, as i thought about it over 40 years, fellow attorney and vice

chairman of the attics commission, peter kane. mr. john gallon jug, nobody forgetting people. i don't know of other organizations. i know the friends of ethics mr. larry bush, i want to thank them publicly. thank you mdm. chair one >> thank you very much. for your presentation and for answering our questions. so, i know there are quite a few people who probably want to comment on this and so i just have one card jim lazarus would appear here to speak on item 1 please, on all. >> good morning chairperson tang supervisor mar. my name is peter king. i'm the vice chairman of the san francisco ethics commission and i'm happy and honored to be here to speak on behalf of judge called for

this position. if you see fit will be joining us as our fifth member good supervisor brett and is to help position that was appointed by the board of supervisors because of a busy schedule he resigned a wild go so that's why supervisor cop the vacancy is there. supervisor cop mentioned, known him had been his friend and also his admirer in san francisco government for over 40 years. i've watched him as a san francisco supervisor as a state senator and as a judge. he has the ultimate in integrity and knowledge and intelligence relating to ethics and law. he is someone that will bring more than a breath of fresh air to the ethics commission. he will exalt it tremendously in my opinion.

he's quite corrected i been on the ethics commission now for about 22.5 years. when i came on the prior executive director before the deployment of land palo, the commission itself was really something that left a lot to be desired. leeann palo has brought an enormous amount of energy and drive and focus to the commission and to the staff. so, for the first time really in the commission's history as i know it, it's doing its job and it's doing it well. that's why it's been able to attract someone like went and caught. so i'm very excited and looking forward to being a colleague of judging, on the commission i think the city is going to be enhanced by it and all of us will be very appreciative of your support of his candidacy. thank you very much >> thank you very much. next

speaker, please. >> thank you mdm. chairwoman supervisor cannot. my name is peter scheer and executive director of the first amendment coalition nine here to speak on behalf of the first amendment coalition. as supervisor cop mentioned a moment ago, he is currently a member of the board of directors of the first amendment coalition and has been for about 3-4 years. it's in that capacity that i've got to know him and work with him quite closely. i think he is just an extraordinary choice for the ethics commission. for all of the responsibilities and functions of the ethics commission, but in particular, for the role that he will play

in the interpretation of and enforcement of the various state laws having to do with government openness and transparency get better within the purview of this commission. to be more speak specifically of the brown act and supervisor cop as you mentioned, was one of the authors of a crucial amendment to the brown act sometime ago and also the california public records act, and in addition, in san francisco the sunshine ordinance, which is unique to san francisco and in some ways provides a greater degree of protection of citizen access and government openness then to the state laws and to that extent supersedes the state laws. i think that a newly energized and activated ethics commission will benefit hugely from the wisdom, the experience the insight, the knowledge that

judge called will be able to bring to bear both of the laws as they exist today and also his knowledge of interesting and important legislative history. over the last 2-3 decades that leads us to this point. so, i can't tell you how enthusiastic i am. i just think that you could not find a better choice for this vacancy. thank you for much for you, >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> thank you chairman tang. i'm patrick shaw did i strongly support the nomination of judge quentin kopp for appointment to the ethics commission over the commute of 27 years, he served as a member of the board of supervisors, member of the tenant and superior court docket mr. kopp has been strong advocate for a long time of

open government in our city. mr. kopp clearly has demonstrated during his tenure on the superior court that he is exceptionally impartial and obviously, very knowledgeable about california state law. his service as a board member of the california first amendment coalition is additional evidence of his dedication to clean honest government to the extent ethics commissioner peter king a be correct, that mr. kopp "can sniff out a rat better than any carrier". clinton's precisely the type of commissioner the ethics commission is sorely in need of and he would be an excellent choice to join prof. king as a ethics commissioner and he would also be a fresh air to counteract the mr. beverly hayon

. please, forward a unanimous recognition and support of mr. cox recognition to ethics to the full board of supervisors. he's extremely confident and deserves that you are unanimous support. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> tricia belinda. over the years have been ahead of 22 neighborhood merchants associations. i currently am head of the marina cal hall merchants neighbors. over the 40 years, i have been involved with this legislative entity could quentin was the one that you could not buy. no matter how hard it was political pressure, if there was something that needed to be ferreted out he did it. the

ethics commission needs this. i put in 11 complaints under the previous leader, pedro leader of this organization. they were very legal complaint amendment were never even brought to the commission. with this new leadership i think that he would be beneficial and far all people, not just a few. few. this is something that you did in this is you and your under the rules committee he follows the rules. as the committee, you must realize that openness and fairness is extremely important particularly with this administration. i recommend that you appoint him and he will do what is correct.

thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good morning supervisor. jim lazarus san francisco chamber of commerce could read a registered lobbyist. as a privilege to come before this committee to urge you to confirm judge kopp. in my professional life, actually, as you know started here in 1975 as a deputy city attorney during that time i was assigned to the board of supervisors and worked very closely with supervisor cop could sometimes tell to tell. sometimes in argumentative way sometimes his great mind and mind not so great mind did not always see eye to eye but over the years i've had a great relationship with supervisor kopp, sen. cop and judge kopp. i think bringing that background is run

for office and state office and local office did he said to file reports that he's dealt with lobbyists and he said to be above it all as amber of the superior court of san mateo county and we would be well served having him on this commission. so thank you very much and i urge as everybody will here today, you to send this with a recommendation to pass. thanks >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> i'm peter warfield executive director of library users association. this man is clearly overqualified and so we recommend him without reservation that altered it certainly was music to my ears to hear the first thing judge kopp saying. i hope you have a three-minute rule. unfortunately, that may be what the law says, but that's not what's done in practice in all cases. as some people knew when

particularly when out of office the phrase, might be, call the cops and in this case call the cops i think would be something that people are doing and would do well to do. when the civil grand jury said that the ethics commission was a sleeping watchdog just a few years ago, that was certainly a strong characterization but as we've seen today and as we've certainly seen over many many years and decades it's hard to imagine judge kopp sleeping over anything and that's a good thing also. and attention to detail and attention to law and so, we certainly are glad to

join with others in recommending as the supervisor has said, a breath of fresh air to this office and recommend you to go ahead and endorse his appointment. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good morning supervisor could on charles maisel here representing myself. i think it is clear to all that ethics is on the move and that i think judge kopp's interest in serving on the commission is time speaks to the fact. as you know, we now have a nationally known executive director, who brings great promise. she said 17 years of experience out of la. as executive director that. ethics also is now has an

engaged public. many of them are actually millennial's in great numbers. the last meeting i think that maybe 20 people of the younger generation number which is extremely good for me to see.. i've been there 20 years and i've not seen such a crowd. as a consequence the commission is energized in both by both of these events and i think they are definitely on the move to develop a proactive and concurrent agency in dealing with all the corruption. as we grow to 1.1 million permanent residents. so, now is the time to serve on the ethics commission and this is clearly why we are now honored to see judge kopp. having known judge kopp personally for 33 years i can say that i've never met a man

who is developed his skills and his mind so well and i suspect most people, when they first come to the city and learn of him here that fact about him. so, no person could really better represent your interests on this commission i should note, i've been active on the commission as an observer for many years. as: nader of common cause and now with fo we and also as an individual. thanks. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> i'm bruce bartlett. i guess i'm a citizen journalist now. i was the editor and publisher, coeditor oh publisher cofounder -my wife was hit and she's the other. for more than 50 years. i just like to say that whenever you get the guardian and jim lazarus on the same

side, you must have a hell of a candidates. i don't see there should be any objection to the man of this kind of expansive background and backing to you should endorse him and endorse him strongly. i just want to make a very key point. i said i been covering and directing political coverage in san francisco for many years. i have never come across a politician or an attorney who is more qualified to serve in this particular job. this is uniquely particular job than kopp. i give you one reason among others. when mr. kopp was in the senate he was there for eight years. he was the go to guy for the california public association and their endless battles ferocious battles, with the secrecy lobby and in

favorable government. that's who they went to first and that's why she could talk today about the reform of the cpr eight and the ralph m brown act, two towering achievements that started here in san francisco with a chronicles series by mike harris back in the early 1950s. so i strongly endorse quentin kopp for this job. thank you >> think you much good any other members of the public was to speak on item 1? please come forward. seeing none, public comment is closed. >>[gavel] >> the decision is now in the hands of this committee could supervisor mar >> thank you everyone for making the great comments and thank you for sender kopp as well. i move that we appoint quintin l kopp to see number one on the ethics commission in this business need to be a committee report? >> it was not noticed as a committee report so it will not be.