federal court is much better than anything we could do to protect them. >> commissioner kopp? >> can you distinguish the situation from other complaints to us under which within 10 days city attorney, district attorney have a right to say, i want to investigate this, and we give them 90 days. if there's no action, then we reassert our authority. here you have somebody filing a complaint with whatever state department it is, fbpc, do they handle retaliation? no. i don't know which one.

filing a complaint with the federal government. could we have a system where we would wait 90 days or 110 days? see if anything happens there and then we pursue it. one of the things which concerns me is a duplication of effort by governmental agencies. >> i think that's right. i think there's the potential of duplication of effort, but, more importantly, there's no requirement in any law that the entity filing a complaint with the state tell us. so we wouldn't know whether or not they're conducting an investigation into our city. i think that's the concern that people have, the government has, with encouraging people to whistleblow internally so that the government agency itself can conduct the investigation.

so if somebody filed a complaint with the state alleging misuse of city funds in city aberrations, that would be covered by whistle blower protection laws. and that state would be bound by their own requirements, and they wouldn't be able to share information about it. so it really is black hole of information. the department of resources and the controller's office were right to point that out to us. we were receptive to the argument. we thought it was important enough to strike that from the law. >> well, you would know about it because the employee who got retaliated against would presumably make some claim. >> not necessarily to us. i mean, they should rightfully make it to the state. presumably they could make the claim to us, but how -- like, what would we investigate if the state was already investigating

the conduct? it doesn't seem additive to us. >> okay. >> my thought is, commissioner renne, unless the employee tells our staff, our staff wouldn't know. >> right. >> okay. >> mr. bush has a point to make on this. >> in most federal agency, it provides money to the local government. there's an agreement that the federal agency will inform the local government. when i worked at hud, we did that when we had complaints come in with housing violations, corruptions, bribe, people jumping the waiting list. we then provided that information to the city attorney office as well as the mayor's office and the housing authority. it's required as a condition for them receiving money from the federal government. i would suggest you ask dhr to

provide any copies of laws that says it's not going to be provided. i don't think that exists. i think that's a convenient explanation for not doing something. secondly, i think that if you take an action right to court, it means that you have deep pockets of your own to hire an attorney or else find an attorney who will take on the case on contingency. when i had to file on a discrimination case as a federal employee, it cost me about $50,000 before we had any kind of resolution. there are not that many employees who have enough access to cash to do that. i was fortunate. if i hadn't had that, i would have just been out of luck. the third thing is even if the federal government or state agency finds retaliation, they can't do anything to the city employee who retaliated. but if you did something here, you could direct to this agency head that the person who did

those wrongful actions pay a penalty of some kind. you can't do that otherwise. so there are good reasons to proceed with this in a broader scope, in my view. thank you. >> can i make a clarification? >> sure. >> there seems to be a little bit of confusion about whether or not we should or can take complaints alleging retaliation based on discrimination against employees because they're in a protected class or based on sexual harassment complaints. i just want to be clear that the ethingtonics -- ethics commission does not have jurisdiction. the equal opportunity office is the agency delegated under the state laws. everything has to be reported to them, all investigations are run through them. well not be able to get

jurisdiction over those complaints, nor do we have it now. i just wanted to make that abundantly clear. >> thomas buckley. i wanted to pick apart a very precise definition of misuse of funds. it sa the 2016 verse says misuse of city funds is any use for city funds used outside and it states outside state and federal law. this is consistent with every version. the misuse of funds provision is very specifically defined and what does it mean in the negative? i would like to compare that against some recent scandals. the city of beaumont formed a joint exercise of power authorities with a redevelopment agency which then promulgated a facilities district which

floated bonds, $300 million. it was sitting in the bank accounts that went to the city of beaumont's finance manager and three members of the city council. not once in a quarter of a century did that agency ever report any financial -- ever release financial reports. it was a massive scandal, and under this proposal ordinance, whistle blowing on that would not be protected because it's not city funds. we could continue. let's say the 2005 community college district scandal whereby the real misuse of funds was coming out of an agency in the form of a city college foundation. who was writing the checks? city civil service employees who are also the same civil service as the community college district. so we have defined this very e precisely so it protects the

controller who acts as the agent of a special number of districts. finance corporations, does this cover the san francisco finance corporation? that part of the city? what about the county office of education? i have a suspicion, and i think it is reasonable, that the city unshifts a substantial part of the erav, and the reason why they can do that is you should this definition. misuse of city funds should mean any misuse of city funds which the city believes is theirs for purposes outside those directed by city. so if the state directs that the erav go to the school district, that's not protected under this ordinance. it's a very, very specific text. i don't know where it comes from. it protects the controller and the city attorney. thank you. >> out of the mouth of babes, it seems.

i was going to speak on the same point. we've had the city county dodge. this is when there's an issue with a city-county agency, in the old days, redevelopment, for example. if a commissioner was appointed and this commissioner had been kicked out of public office for corruption in a city commission, the city county state dodge -- city county state dodge, they would be allowed to serve on a city-state or local state commission like redevelopment. and this came up with mr. homm, the late, great, mr. homm who did many things in his career. some of them were fairly

nefarious, and he ended up getting caught up in the city-county dodge to his favor. these were basically attorney opinions, city attorney, state attorney general, whatever, where this law became null and void when it came to a city and county commission. this gentleman who just spoke really did a pretty good inventory that gives us the magnitude of the problem with these dual agencies under creations under state law but basically operated by the city. so i did want to say that the purpose of the whistleblower ordinance, according to mr. bush, is to support and help protect the whistleblower and not the city attorney or the city agencies or departments or anyone else. it's for the whistle blower.

that's our focus here. i did want to say that you've done a lot of work already on this bill, maybe not you directly, but your staff sat in on those meetings. so you have done substantial meet and confer on this in the draft of 2017 and that the 2017 draft is your agent. and the issue is meet and confer in support of the agent, which is, in fact, the legislation, or the proposal that's going to go to the voters. so you should add those meetings that you've already had or participated in because they're on the list. you've already met now upcoming on the 24th, at least twice with some of these unions. so be sure to include those in theally. -- in the tally.

>> good point. thank you. >> it might help people to look at page -- agenda item page 20 of the ordinance under definition. 4.10 sub a. city or city agency, whenever it's referred to in the ordinance, shall mean the city and county of san francisco, its departments, commissions, task forces, committees, and boards. so there's no risks that county agencies will not be included in this proposal. >> thank you, ms. bloom. >> good afternoon. my name is douglas yep. i was put into a very precarious position in 2007 by my employer, the department of public health, san francisco general hospital.

to make a long story short, it was very complicated, and, nip, there were many obstructionists within the city system who benefitted from slowing down the whistleblower system. a certain person was credited with starting the whistleblower system as an investigator. in my opinion, by the time he became senior official, he had switched sides, basically saying one thing and doing the exact opposite behind the scenes. in my opinion, certain city agencies, one of them sitting right here, have a vested interest to slow down the process by their sole call

interpretation of what the rules really mean. from my experience going through the whistleblower system, going through the court system, and finally settling with the city, for the record, i feel that there is a lot more built-in obstruction and so-called interpretation that the public is very unaware of. people like oliver luby, derek kerr, joe lynn basically figured it out. unfortunately, the public is unaware of the obstructionist. so i would like to caution everybody, for the record, that certain city units have a vested interest to slow the process down and basically say one word, i will not run for mayor but

then exactly do the opposite. i am the choice of everyone. and we saw what happened to the city when people say one thing and do the exact opposite. >> thank you. any further public comment? all right. well, we have on the floor a motion to adopt the 2017 version, and it's been sect -- seconded. all those in favor, please say aye. >> aye. >> those opposed? the measure passes three to zero. okay. we now go to item no. 5, discussion and possible action

-- >> whoa. i'm sorry. commissioner kopp? >> i had spoken with the executi executive director and deputy director about page 38. and the deputy executive director suggested language to correct that. and i'm sorry. >> that's all right. that's fine. >> at the top of the page where this defines unlawful -- it's under definitions. defining unlawful activity, violations of any activity, et cetera, i wanted to insert the word "written" and -- what was the term? >> i think the concept was online one, on page 38 of the agenda.

unlawful activities should be any -- i think that was judge kopp's amendment to that line. >> all right. so why don't we start the vote. >> yeah. >> okay. i will move to rescind the last vote. >> okay. all those in favor -- >> aye. >> aye. >> all those opposed? >> so now we have an amendment -- >> i will remove the language on the first line on page 38. >> second? >> second. >> all those in favor of the motion as amended, say aye. >> aye. >> aye. >> opposed? the motion passes three to zero. let's go to no. 5.

discussion on possible actions on the amendments of enforcement and sunshine regulations. >> thank you, chair. this is the same regulations we brought before you in -- what month is this? december. there's a couple of changes that were requested by the commission. actually, just one change requested by the commission and an additional change requested by the city attorney's office so that we could bifurcate a certain piece of the regulations out and go to the meet and confer process while not derailing the entire regulatory change. so the first is that commissioner kopp and commissioner renne expressed interest in providing three minutes or allowing people time for rebuttal during their presentations to the ethics commission on their cases, and so i incorporated that change into -- let me see here --

section 10.3 on agenda page five, item 30. you're going to go there, it's not going to be there. i apologize for that error. on section 10, the second change is to -- we were advised by the city attorney's office, that if we were to include the new requirement or new option for the commission to assess administrative penalties against people who violate the sun -- sun shine ordinance, that would affect the employees. we agreed with that advice and struck that provision from this regulatory scheme so that we can go through meet and confer separately with the unions, and then we'll bring back a future version of these meetings to you once that's concluded.

that adds back in the ability to get administrative penalties. other than that, the law remains substantially the same, if not identical to what you saw in december. >> so there would be nothing for us to vote on in regard to -- >> i can tell you exactly what changed. and then we can just incorporate the language. what we posted is correct. [off mic] >> yes. what we posted online for the notice today is the correct version. this is just a photo copy for the agenda materials. >> and we voted on that last time? >> we did not vote on it last time. you put it over to this time. >> okay. if i understand, on this agenda item, we take two votes. one is to repeal the regulations

for sunshine ordinance. right now, there are two separate. and then to accept the staff's recommendation of the new regulations, which incorporates the sunshine ordinance. >> makes sense. >> am i right on that? >> correct, yes. repeal the sunshine ordinance regulations because they're being replaced with this combined. >> yeah. >> right. >> okay. i would make a motion that we repeal the existing enforcement regulations relating to the sunshine ordinance. >> second the motion. >> okay. >> do we have public comment on the motion? all right. well, then we'll vote on it. all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. >> aye. >> aye. >> opposed? none. motion passes three to zero.

commissioner renne? >> i make a motion that we accept and adopt the regulations as amended as described by ms. bloom. >> second the motion. >> all right. >> that motion has been seconded. do we have any public comment on the motion? yes, sir? >> i would urge you to consider amending implementation of these regulations with a poison pill, that as a result of the meet and confer, you actually can create administrative penalties for city employees who disobey the sunshine ordinance. then these regulations will go into effect, but right now, we're protected by ab1455.

we don't know anything. these decisions are being made in private, and the city attorney is advising you on ways to avoid the sunshine ordinance via meet and confer. that's what the city did right to the ethics commission and violated the sunshine ordinance. last may, i walked into the controller's office, the first of my life, i walked in, made a request, nothing. came back the next day. executive assistant to the controller said, you know, there's six people working on how to answer your request. nothing. nothing. nothing. nothing. ten days later, please speak to the school district. two sentences. something's wrong. and without teeth, you're not

going to fix anything. thank you. >> thank you. any further public comment? all those -- well, we have the motion as seconded. all those in favor, please say aye. >> aye. >> opposed? motion carries three to nothing. okay. we then go to item six. discussion on possible actions for payments reported by members of city boards and commissions pursuant to san francisco campaign and government conduct code section 363.600. [please stand by]

>> commissioners, larry bush for friends of ethics. since this is a form that we're creating specifically for san francisco, i'd like to recommend that you add two lines to the disclosure. one is a disclosure at the time they make to the city at the time they're making a donation at the immediate preceding time or immediately following. and a disclosure whether

anything donated is going to an entity that's under the control or the influence of the officer who's requested the funds. that would include whether or not the money's going to someone that they're related to, whether it's going to their own office, whatever it is. thank you. >> mr. bush's point is well taken. i just don't think it's appropriate for this action today. >> okay. so that under new business, i should ask for such two regulations to be prepared for further action. >> yeah -- well, so just as a reminder, what mr. bush has relayed already would be part

of the old ordinance. >> i know. so the old ordinance has to be amended. >> right. but i'm saying the aao that's out there would do this, so this would be recommending a separate ordinance -- a recommended ordinance out there that would make the changes that mr. bush has described. >> all right. that's what i want to do. >> all right. well, the anticorruption and accountablity ordinance that's with the board right now has these changes in it. so if you're saying you want to do other day ordinance that would write the aao. >> through the chair, mr. bush, does that satisfy you?

[ inaudible ] >> so we have a motion before us to approve it. all those in favor say aye. opposed? no. okay. passes. we can go now to item number seven, discussion and possible action on proposed regulation for financial disclosure filing proceedings. there are attachments from january 16, 2018, staff memorandum and other attachments. commissioners? >> i'm prepared to accept the recommendation and move the adoption of the regulation. >> second. >> motion's been made and seconded that we approve the recommendation. is there any public comment on that? mr. bush? >> thank you, commissioners. one comment is that the form 700 is filed annually.

although there are changes in people's financial interests in the course of the year, and i would recommend that you adopt the policy that when there is a significant change in the financial interest of a commissioner or other person filing a report, that they amend their 700. the ftp said that's certainly something that's doable, but there's no guidance that says specifically what those circumstances should be, so i would urge that in a passing thpassing -- in passing this, you would urge the staff to provide guidance, and urge the city attorney to provide an updated guide to government which explains what the procedures are for a issuing a new form 700 between reporting periods. >> can i just ask for my information, mr. bush, in terms of your proposal, are

there particular situations -- i don't want to talk names. >> i can name names. >> but have you seen circumstances where there has been specific change and people have gone -- and it would be something in the public interest. >> we had a planning commissioner who was hired by sfur, and it was for december 31st, so it didn't show up in the report that she filed in april, but you wouldn't have seen it until a following year. meanwhile, she would have been on the planning commission and a sfur employee the entire time without a public disclosure. and it's certainly true, as you know, that you also have to report your membership on a board. and as a board member, you

cannot vote on issues that may affect other board members. so we have some commissioners who are on commissions make policy that affects a broad group of people, including some who are on their own board in the private sector. so there are a number of those. >> thank you. any further public comment on this? same question procedurally. can such a suggestion be amended to this regulation? >> not to this regulation specifically, but again, mr. bush's point is well taken. i think the fepc in particular holds the form 700 in high regard, so they would be preempted from taking action to require the information that he's asking for is a question to work with the fepc on. otherwise i think it would take

an ordinance change to do that if we are allowed to do that. but i think we have a couple of open questions if we're allowed to do the activity in question, and it's definitely not for this regulation. >> i am thinking out loud. >> actually. i think my suggestion was that you ask the city attorney -- >> pull the mic closer, please, mr. bush. >> i think my suggestion was to have you ask the city attorney to update the guide to good government. in terms of what the ftec allows, i talked to them and there's no prohibition on submitting updated forms 700 throughout the year. >> and you're talking about having that in the good government guide so that would just be advisory and a recommendation, right? >> yes. i'm always happier if you could enact it into law and include a

death penalty, but -- >> but perhaps in a step towards that, i think what we're hearing mr. bush talk that is the guidance we can provide people immediately to help them understand what the current laws require. just as a note, we are moving into the annual forms ftime fo processing the forms 700, and we can ramp up our guidance to help people with those requirements, so thank you for that suggestion. >> i'm interested, mr. chairman, in what would be a practical and feasible period for changes of the nature described by mr. bush. >> and we can do some further investigations. >> yes. >> okay. so we have -- and with regard

to the matter, is there a motion to approve it? >> so moved. >> second. >> we have a motion to approve and it's been seconded. any public comment? all those in favor say aye? opposed, no. passes 3-0. we go to item number eight, discussion and possible action on monthly staff report and update of the commission's annual policy plan. >> thank you, chair. sorry. so i'm just going to run through now that the commission and the public has had a chance to see our new format over a couple of sessions, i'm just going to run through a couple of updates and changes. so agenda on page 2, the san

francisco and antiaccountablity ordinance, it was introduced in front of the board on january 9th. i believe it was originally submitted subject to the 30-day rule to the rules committee. however, we have subsequently received a waiver of that 30-day rule but because of a potential budget impact over $30,000 it has been transferred from the rules committee to the finance and budget committee and it will be heard on february 1st. again, we -- we are -- supervisor cohen is the share of that committee, and you know, working with her and her staff to make sure they have all the information regarding the process of the aao and giving them an outline, we will potentially work with chair keen to setup a meeting with that office, but that was an update reco

update regarding the aao as it currently stands with the board of supervisors. moving onto the nonvoting ordinance, that was originally submitted to the board of supervisors with supervisor peskin sponsoring that legislation. there was a technical modification that was presented to supervisor peskin by staff, and it was -- that ordinance was reintroduced on october 31st, 2017. i just want to update the committee that that is still pending committee action. there is no update on that. i would suggest maybe as a policy directive that you allow staff to reach out to sponsor and supervisor peskin and attempt to move this item forward as there has been no movement on it since late octob october, so that is the only update there that it is sitting and pending action in the rules committee. the ethics and sunshine training, the e filing form 700

project and the e payment and sunshine ordinance, those were systems, forms and training materials that was updated for all of those items, so proposition t and d passed the payment ordinance. took effect on january 1st, and we just wanted to update you that we prepared and implemented electronic systems for those, and they're up and in place, and we're still finalizing a training and updating schedule. the same is true for the ethics and sunshine training. so all of the sort of i.t. procedures and databases that are required so people can comply electronically are being used. we're still at this point finalizing a schedule so we can be sure to get people updated on that. moving then onto agenda item 8,

page 4, the planned and pending -- >> before we forget just as a point, if you could just send me an e-mail reminder to get in touch with supervisor peskin. >> certainly, the nonvoting ordinance? >> yeah. >> certainly. >> and a memo on that, that would be very helpful to me. >> okay. moving onto item 8, page 4, the legislation from supervisors cohen and supervisors kim, we are currently working with both of the staffs to update that legislation based on recommendations made by ethics commission staff, the city attorney's office, we are working with them in particular to work on the cohen legislation that's regarding the retirement board system, so we will continue to work with those offices to update that legislation and i'm sure both of those supervisors will be eager to present these items to

you, but for now, we're just monitoring and there's no action required. moving to part b, the other plan projects, you will note that items two and three, the review of the refined campaign ordinance, and number three, we have set dates for those projects to begin. these are large comprehensive projects similar to what we've done with the account eye corruption accountablity ordinance. because of the sort of emerging nature of major elections in june of 2018, november of 2018, and then again november of 2019, the executive director, interested persons and number of others have highlighted the city's public financing system as something that people would like to see reviewed and potentially modified, so we plan to begin or formal review of that on

february 1st and to begin the larger process of reviewing that program and ensuring its effectiveness is still in place. in addition to that, we are planning on definitively starting the campaign finance reform ordinance regulations review on april 1st of 2018. those regulations, as far we can tell, haven't been substantially reviewed since at least 2009, so we think that this is a long overdue review of those regulations. and we know that there is certainly some current areas that just aren't up to date and have procedures and policies that are no longer based in law, so those are sort of the two large programatic updates that we would like to begin. i think our plan is in february to present to the commission with sort of a more scoped out project plan for the public financing program just so you can see a timeline, and we will

then attempt to set interested persons meeting, and when we'll bring it back to the commission for its initial review, so we can keep it better on track than the aao, just so the public is aware. moving lastly to page five on agenda item eight, the recently identified policy projects, the social media and election integrity, this has been a hot button issue. we are hoping to provide you with a more formal update in february , but we are reaching out to interested person, subject matter experts and reviewing the information that's coming up about social media and election meddling. we have word that the city of seattle actually had a public file archiving requirement and they've had it in place for several decades, and recently they told the likes of facebook and twitter that they will have

to comply with this public filing requirement that the city has. facebook and twitter had 30-days to respond, they have not yet done that to tell the city of seattle whether they will comply with that, so we are watching that closely to see how those -- how the city of seattle and those interactions with facebook and twitter and other social media sort of websites and platforms are operating, so we are keeping an eye on that closely as we move forward. moving to the other items, the prohibition on the use of the cashout proceeds, we had the opportunity to meet with kate hartly from the mayor office and the office on urban housing and requirements, and based on that discussion, we are tabling this item for now, they have a number of policies, procedures and practices in place that

make the cashout proceeds at this time probably something that the commission doesn't need to take up. it seems that the mayor office and the office of community development have that well in hand. the last item -- and i believe this needs an update, but the independent city attorney memorandum or update was originally scheduled for this meeting, but i believe that has been pushed back or tabled at this time. i will look to my executive director for an update if that is incorrect. >> no. we're preparing the memo. if the commission's interested, next month. we simply weren't able to calendar it with the election. >> so we'll work on that for next month. i have nothing else, other than i will point in particular judge, we do have in particular on page seven. i understand it's very small here, but on attachment two, page seven, this is the new

pieces of state legislation that i've been able to identify. obviously this looks better in electric format, but there are links to all the proposals here. these are all in very early stage does, but i ju stages, but actually a lot of them are reconsiderations from last year, but there are a number of things at the state and legislative level that we're tracking. this is the updated calendar for 2018. i don't have anything further. >> commissioner cobb? >> mr. chairman, i have a couple of actions that i would like to seek approval. first of all, i would like to move approval of the commission

proceeding with those projects set out under roman numeral i , as recommended. >> second. >> okay. the motion has been made and seconded that those matters be approved. any public comment? >> i have just an inquiry.

in the past, the commission acted to have reports that are now filed at the department of election transferred to the department of ethics on campaign finance reports, some of which are filed there and some of which are filed here, and i didn't see that in the list of policy initiatives, and i'm not sure what the status of that is. >> are you talking to us about the slate mailers? >> yes, i am. >> it's still -- it's a still ongoing project. it's admittedly been moved back behind these other larger projects. >> i would express a hope that that could happen before the june election. there'll still be a lot of slate mailers. [ inaudible ] >> okay. any further public comment on the motion?

all right. all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. opposed, nay. motion carries, 3-0. >> further, i note the description of time and attention devoted to the use of so-called cashout proceed -- proceeds, and i am satisfied that i was misled because i'm satisfied that city money, city loans for low income housing construction has the safeguards sufficient to prohibit the use of any excess cash for ballot measure campaigns and similar

campaign activity. that is not the case, however, with respect to federal housing administration loans, but we lack jurisdiction over those. so i deem and -- for myself that the matter has now been concluded, and it's too bad we spent so much time for that -- on it, and i want to make that announcement public because i had two visitors to my office on west portal avenue on this week who didn't know it was going to be a moot subject or in that particular field.

and then with respect to number three, the independent city attorney, i thought we already had a model for that in san diego law, but i would specifically request that that be on our agenda next month for actio action. and i'm satisfied with that san diego ordinance. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, commissioner cobb. and if you'll bring that up when we get to -- again, when we get to new business. >> okay. >> or setting future agenda matters, that would be helpful. >> i want to refer you to page two, the first item, the san francisco anticorruption and

accountablity ordinance. the reason i bring this up is because during the staff oral summary, i thought i heard the staff a aao. aao is standard acronym for the standard proposition ordinance to city budget. though that term, aao, is not in the text, i thought i heard staff say it, and if you're going to use it, i would suggest you say acao, because if not, you're going to confuse people when you say it. >> thank you. any further public comment? okay. we have any action to take on this? if not, we'll go to -- >> chair, we have a request for a quick ten-minute break. >> oh, sure, benedict.

>> we're back in session and we'll now go to item nine which is discussion of the enforcement report and discussion on various program highlights and various activity since the last monthly meeting. >> thank you, chair. we had a productive month. received nine new complaints. we opened 11 new investigations, and we dismissed 23 complaints which put a significant dent in our outstanding preliminary review matters. the details for which i can -- oh, no, i have it in here. 58 complaints only remain in preliminary review. so when we started this process, when we were down all investigators, we had almost 190 unreviewed complaints, and we're down to 58, so i'm proud of my staff. they're doing a great job. and thanks to everyone in the review chain that has to get through all that information. it's a heavy lift.

i also wanted to highlight that you'll recall the sunshine ordinance task force received a complaint that this commission violated the sunshine ordinance regarding taking of vote of doing -- yeah, taking a vote of something that wasn't on the agenda, and the task force decided that you did not violate the law. the sunshine ordinance committee has decided to repope that complaint even though it was decided in december with the final issuance of that order, and we have declined to participate in that process. so i sent them a letter at that we had fully complied with our obligations and provided all the facts and arguments that were available to us regarding the incident previously in the first hearing, and i asked them for a citation to hearing that allows them to reopen the adjudicated matter, and i have not heard back.

the additional statistics regarding the open complaints are on page two. we now have 63 open investigations, and that caseload is growing as we get through the remaining 58 complaints, we'll have more and more investigations, but we're also working towards stipulated resolutions in several of them, and you'll have some findings of no probable cause and findings of probable cause coming before you over the next couple of months, as well. and you can see the matters that are with the bureau of delinquent revenuer, and people are keeping up on their papymet plans, so with that, i'll answer any questions. >> commissioners? any public comment on that? >> i'm bob planthold.

as a veteran of the sunshine ordinance task force, i want to comment on that. some weeks after the hearing where the decision was you didn't violate, i contacted the administrator for that body to s say what's the basis and what's the timeline for any appeal and reconsideration. you folks haven't mentioned that in here. there was a timeline, a relatively short timeline after the decision is made for reconsideration. i believe that timeline is long passed, so even if there was grounds for somehow taking the d.a.'s decision into account, they missed the deadline, and that hasn't been stated in here. maybe it's been stated in the letter. it just bothered me that suddenly the task force seems to be saying well, somebody else differed with us, so we'll go along with them. and that's why the procedural

issue of the timeline, it can be as important -- and i'm m t mystified why the task force said somebody else's decision made after is a different analysis? because my understanding, they can only reconsider a different understanding of the fact, not a different analysis. who knows who's going to go to the media and paint the picture their way, unless you can go to them and quickly say, it's not new facts and they missed the deadline. thank you. >> thank you, mr. planthold. >> i have to say that my one experience with the task force

they continue to underwhelm me by what they do. yes, sir. >> my name is douglas whepp, and i would like to thank the commission and its staff. i think they're doing a wonderful job especially compared to the old regime. i'm making a prediction that this is going to turn out to be another #metoo movement. when the public is convinced that there is enough momentum that their complaints will be seriously considered and correct correctly handled, there's plenty of people sitting right now, watching the tv, waiting to be convinced, and all of a sudden, those complaints will come one, two, three, because most of them know who the

obstructionists are. some of them will be exposed, and ultimately, the ethics commission up in the sky is going to be issuing more penalties. and maybe, if we're really lucky, if we're really lucky, there'll be some death sentences handing out to some deserving people. >> as an opponent of capital punishment, i don't like you to keep saying that. any further public comment? all right. we'll move, then, to agenda item ten, discussion of executive director's report. >> thank you, chair keane. my report provides some information on some significant operational developments. i won't go into a lot of the

details, but kyle kundurt's report mentioned that with the new year, we have new tools to help people comply with some of the new requirements that took effect january 1. we have now information on-line, new tools for lobbyists to register on-line to comply with prop t that was passed november of 2016, and some other refinements for the lobbying program. i do want to note that we are getting a lot of good feedback from our engagement and compliance team from filers who are working through the system as we identify any hiccups or bugs, we are working with our i.t. staff quickly to try and resolve those things. so we do appreciate the candid feedback that we're getting from people, as well as the filing comments. that's something that steven massey and other team members in his office put a lot of time in. obviously folks that have to

file with these mechanisms are also going to be giving great feedback. also as you know the election called for the mayoral race called for june 2018, we've done a significant and unplanned ramping up of our activities. we did have a first session for candidates focused on the 2018 june mayoral race, an information session that we had about 20 attendees and we're updating information and supplemental guides to help that process. we will be doing that more as we move into the eligibility and we have started that with our staff, as well, and we will he arepo report on that as we go forward. i do have a significant note that is unusual and not a frequent occurrence for us, but as i also report in my report, this week -- actually, last week, on january