holding a gun to their head and making them type in their credit card information. i said, are you crazy? how -- maybe somebody was holding a gun to someone writing a check. this is crazy. so my final comment is my experience dealing with the ethics commission and what miss pelham did to me personally gives a new meaning to koska-esque. i'm looking forward to working with you on these issues. commissioner renne, i know you have some commenting pending, and i've documented everything that's happened to me. most of it's been included in the responses to the writs. thank you. >> chair chiu: thank you. >> good afternoon,

commissioners. i see a few new ones here. i just want to give tribute to my idol, commissioner, former supervisor, but i'm here today to speak on ace on the case. and i hear you all talking about, and i hear it in a way this has somebody to do about who i stood toe to toe, alioto, whoa, you in trouble. she's suing everybody here in the city by the bay. may i get a copy of what you have, what everybody else have? i must have it. so let me go on -- find out what's going on. i ain't been here for a while, since the campaign, when i was here tastanding toe to toe with alioto, but i hear that she's after you all. what i'm here is to say, i'm here because these are the two agencies that i have to get at

all these city departments is the ethics commission and the sunshine. you guys are the act right commissions of the city hall. you put everybody on point. i'm going to come back at a different point. already, i'm experiencing discrimination. i'm the only black in the print room. i've been going for ten years. they kicked me out, and now i'm back, and i can't even hold papers in the desk there, so i want you all to investigate. it goes way back to willie brown, silly willie. is that the chronicle, the examiner, they have private rooms. did you all know that? how much money has the city lost through the press room, from the

chronicle, and the examiner, but when a black man comes in, i feel like a second class citizens. when i get in there, boom, boom, boom. doors close. i left some of my papers in the office. on the same day i interviewed the mayor, london breed. we come from the same community, and we happen to be the same doggo doggone color. she's a little lighter, look a little better, but i'm here to say i want an investigation on some of these departments, ocii, department of real estate, city attorney, sheriff's department, all of these departments, i'll come back later. only got a little time, but i'm telling you, put it on your mind, my name is ace, and i'm on this case. i'm going to come back because i'm going to need it. all these roguish department

heads, they are s.o.s. i can't say it publicly, s.o.s. figure it out. >> chair chiu: thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. charlie m charlie marstellar. let me be clear, and i only have three minutes to explain public financing, but let me proceed. it's unconstitutional for us to level the playing field with p.f., public financing. it is a platform to essentially provide a platform for debate, and another wrinkle that i have seen, which i think in this town is important is as a check and balance on the political system and on political corruption, and i can't get into details, but there obviously are issues.

are we building a safe city with tilting towers? there are people in this town that know the answer to this question, and should they decide to run, they may be running as a structural engineer and not as a politician, and they don't know how to run a campaign or they don't know how to raise money. p.f. provides the mechanism for someone to come up and blow that whistle, so that would be an example of why it could be a very important check and balance on political corruption, and there have been instances in our past where that almost has happened. i also think that as the spending limit is raised, the press is very vigilant about who's breaking the limit, so they look at the independent

expenditure committee, they look at the person that's been trying to dominate the political scene. being an international city, we have unfortunately been blessed, also, with valuable land. we have a dual problem, and that is there's a lot of capital and a lot of capital investor money attracted to the city that most cities may not have. and international money, at that, some of which could be corrupt. so i think having to limit -- to lift the cap continuously is not necessarily a bad thing. and i want to say one last thing, and that is alan jacobs, who was the director of planning, put together the urban design plan, and i called him, and i asked him, what's the problem with the urban design plan? it's being violated with conditional uses from a to z.

in fact, that's the way we do business, with conditional use, which is in other cities called special exceptions, which means entitlements given to people with money. i'll finish by saying that alan said that if we got rid of conditional use or limited it, we could also limit the problems we have with lifting the cap on public financing because we would not have so much independent expenditure activity in this city, and if you think about it, that makes sense. >> chair chiu: thank you. >> good afternoon. i'm very new to you all, but i have heard your story in the chinese newspaper. when a candidate was running in her campaign, she was in this room all the time, every single

month, and she brought up a very interest case where she brought along her five co-workers together, and they went to the ethic commission and filed a complaint. guess what? the whole file -- the whole files are completely missing. that alert me. that's why i'm here today, and i'm learning the whole thing. i'm glad that ethic commission is the last shield, guard, to hold the city accountable, and i hope that this is how -- the function of the ethic commission. i'm learning it today. my name is wendy wong. i'm from san francisco coalition for good neighborhoods. the reason we want -- we formed this coalition is because we are fed up, we are ticked off of who was running in the city. when louanne bassen is running

her campaign, i know how she feels. miss bassen has no campaign manager, no secretary, no bookkeeper. but the ethic commission is setting these rules that's supposed to be anticorruption that should not have any big corporation to donate money to the candidate, but that is good intention and bad result. it hurts the first campaign candidate, just like louanne bassen and ellen lee zhou. we take out corporation donations, we see a lot of big money, super pac's that are running the city. we don't have the grassroots candidate that is speaking out for the neighbors chl i'm from sunset. when i went to the supervisor's -- board of supervisors meeting, we don't want canopies in sunset

district, the supervisors know, the city -- the whole city have to share the burden of the cannabis industry. proposition 64 doesn't allow the industry going into a neighborhood where they don't want them to be there. so i want them to alert -- the board of supervisors, even the mayor, has received from a subject that they vote. they refused to see the community. that's why i'm here today. i am not even interested in running politics, i'm just a normal person, but i'm here to make sure that the city is well run by decent people, and not a corporation. thank you. >> chair chiu: thank you.

>> hi, commissioners, elena schmidt. i want to make sure you had a chance to read larry's submittal. i want to read one particular part, which is making sure that there is an opportunity for those who do not wish to have their street address made public, that you would accept something other than a street address. this is important in terms of domestic abuse places and that kind of thing where people are under threat, and they -- they want to contribute to a candidate, but they don't want their public -- for an address to be out there. at one point, i worked for the california public he tilts commission, and i had the same thing come up with public i.d., and they worked around it. i'm sorry to say i don't know

what the answer was, but i know sometimes when people asked for public addresses, there is a way to move around it. make sure that we keep larry's comments in mind as you move forward. thank you. >> chair chiu: thank you. >> vice chair kopp: may i comment, madam chair woman? >> chair chiu: yes, commissioner kopp. >> vice chair kopp: on that point, miss schmidt, mr. bush makes the comment in an e-mail dated october 17, 2018, one model is the state system that retains the address of some individuals in a confidential file to thwart those who would harass them. options include having a third party sign a sworn affidavit that the person is a san

francisco resident. and that's ae whwhat you're refg to. >> yes. >> vice chair kopp: okay. then i would ask the staff to investigate, consider, and have that part of the report next month. >> chair chiu: mr. ford, br you d -- before you do that, could you clarify what the process is at the commission about the addresses of donors to candidates, if that is kept and whether it's made public? >> absolutely. so right now, when contributors provide their home address for purports of demonstrating that they're residents, the candidates provide that on a qualifying request or matching request, but when that is posted to our site, the addresses are redacted. just as we do with 460's, with campaign statements, the street

number and street is did redakt so it is just city -- redacted, so it is just city and zip. our current practice just for reposting is just to redact them. >> chair chiu: thank you. >> commissioner ambrose: is that true also of contributors? >> yes, exactly. >> chair chiu: thank you. any other public comment? there being none, so for agenda item number four on the -- the public financing review, mr. ford has provided seven regulatory recommendations and four legislative recommendations, and i'd like to

make a motion to approve those and direct staff to go -- go forward and draft the regulations and the ordinance as stated on page 17 here. >> vice chair kopp: before you call for a vote, i request, beside the point just made about somehow protecting residential addresses as appropriate, a couple of other suggestions from mr. bush, and that is the second one, which is to provide

publicly a current list of people who are prohibited from making contributions to candidates. and thirdly, that the announced of the -- what do you call it -- press releases of increased ceilings for candidates include the source of such funding which causes the increase, particularly for independent expenditure committees. and i would ask for that, and

i'm prepared to vote for the motion. >> chair chiu: so i would -- so just to recapitulate, it would prohibit those from making contributions to candidates as well as identifying the sources of funding when ceilings are increased. okay. i would like to get the staff's view on that -- on those recommendations. >> definitely. so on the first one with addresses, we do redact them, so i'm not sure what additional measures we could take short of we could cease posting them on-line. that's actually the practice in other jurisdictions. i spoke with los angeles this morning. they do not post qualifying requests on-line. they make them available, of course, through public records requests. that's a practice we could

adopt. we could no longer immediately post them when we receive them. right now, those forms which are called 1.12 a, are automatically posted by net file when the committee received them, as with 496's, we could discontinue them. so we could make a request an internal document such that no one could see the contributor's names unless they made a public records request. >> chair chiu: i don't know if i would be comfortable going that far because i like the transparency of the public request. currently, personal addresses of contributors are not made available on our website in any form, and that, i would then request that, to the extent that there is ever an appeal, and that the attachment for the qualifying request is going to be made public as an attachment

on an agenda item, that those addressing be redacted, consistent with the practice that we follow on the website. i don't know if that needs to be incorporated into a regulation, or if it's something we can implement. >> i think we can probably just implement that. so to the second item about making a list of prohibited contributors, i would say we already do. we have lots of materials that assist committees, candidate committees and others to understand what rules apply to them, and i would say that if there are that we are not making this clear enough, we can do that. i don't know if there's a way to roll this into public financing. the main thrust of this project is to not overload the public financing project with a lot of moving parts. my effort here is based on simplifying it. in terms of educating candidates about who they may not take contributions from, i think probably working on just

improving the existing resources is probably the best thing, rather than creating a new resource. what i'm referring to are the guides, that we have the guidetguide for candidates, and we have the supplemental guide for public financing. i think reviewing and revising them are on the agenda, not on this agenda, but generally on the agenda. we're going to go through and revamp that. we're going to have to, especially if you adopt these reforms, we're going to have to change the manuals, so i think going through and changing these manuals, providing information in a clearer way, about who the prohibits contributors are, i think we can -- prohibits contributors are, i think we can absolutely do that. >> vice chair kopp: may i, through the chair?

>> chair chiu: commissioner credit kopp. >> vice chair kopp: mr. bush opines that also a public list. >> i have seen that list. >> vice chair kopp: is that feasible for us? >> so we already have that information in our guide. >> vice chair kopp: all right. i think that's satisfied now. >> absolutely, and i think we can work on making it even better. >> vice chair kopp: all right. if mr. bush is watching, i invite him to comment on that assertion. >> so on the third idea, on the press releases on the independent expenditure ceilings, similar, we already provide a lot of information on sources of funding. i don't think doing it in two places is the best approach. i think if we are not doing a good enough job right now about informing the public, where campaign committees are getting

their money, it's not that the press should release it, i'm saying the data dashboard should do its job. it's probably in the top fifth percentile nationally of how ethics commissions are presenting data, and i think that it's constantly evolving, and if there are comments in the public about specific ways that the data dashboard or the statement search function on our website can be improved, we are all ears. >> chair chiu: is there current -- i know we embed press links -- embed links in the press release to the sf website. in the case of the increase in the i.e.c.'s, we could link a more detailed link to the public that would link to a particular candidate's webpage. >> i think that's a great idea, and i'm going to -- >> chair chiu: because i think it would be exhaustive to

include all of that information, and if it's a redirect to the website, it'll be real-time information in all of its detail. >> yeah, i will do that. i will make sure that a link to the data dashboard is included this all future press releases. >> chair chiu: okay. so it sounds like this -- are you satisfied, commissioner kopp, that the address issue raised by mr. bush has been addressed because it's not included in any of the postings on a public request, and when qualifying requests are included in appeals heard by the commission, all addresses consistent with that practice will also be redacted. >> vice chair kopp: okay. >> chair chiu: okay. >> a motion is on the floor. >> vice chair kopp: well, there's a motion and a second, so it's been -- >> chair chiu: so commissioner ambrose? >> commissioner ambrose: not -- to not belabor the point about the anonymity of someone who

feels vulnerable having their address out there. i think that what mr. bush was saying is that if you had a third party provide an affidavit that that person was indeed a resident of the city, then, that person wouldn't have to disclose their address to anyone. and so i don't know if the district attorney's office who more frequently deals with protective orders, if we could just look at that, because i think that might have been what that seventh category of documentation that you were proposing that we eliminate was intended to address as the idea that a noninterested third party could confirm that the contributor lives in san francisco without actually disclosing the address. so i think -- i mean if there is something -- someone from the d.a.'s office can maybe give us a clue how they handle that. i realize obviously it's a very

rare circumstance, but they're trusting that somebody in our office is going to sit there with a black marker and cross that out before it gets out: as we know, everybody's address came out on the web when it came out on the appeal. and we don't intend to do that again, but there are vulnerable people, and we should respect their right to participate and protect their privacy. and then, i do -- tried to make the point on the appeals that i want to see further development and analysis on the appropriate way to proceed. i totally understand. i don't want to sit here with people coming forward and asks us to waive very clear code requirements with deadlines where we really don't have authority necessarily to change what the legislation is, but at the same time, i think that

needs to be developed, and so when you bring it back, i'm hoping that we'll see that, and with that, i would support your motion. >> chair chiu: all right. so we have a motion pending. all in favor. [voting] >> chair chiu: okay. the motion carries unanimously. okay. agenda item number five, continued discussion and possible action on proposed ethics commission opinion and advicepierce, and mr. shen

tried to answer your questions about these, but you communicated that you wanted to wait until this meeting to have some final questions addressed. so my goal today is to address those questions. i've had a chance to review the film of last month's meeting, and i've communicating with a few of you in the interim and would like to cue this up with a little bit of an intro, try to answer some of the questions and then make myself available for more questions that you might

have about these. so first of all, as i mentioned, these regulations would create processes for the commission's opinion process and for staff giving informal advice. these two features are created in the charter. the charter says the commission may provide opinion,s staff may provide informal advice to people who are asking about their duties under the law, which includes charter, code, regulations, that pertain to campaign finance, conflict of interest, lobbying, and other subject matters that this commission has jurisdiction over. and that is the fundamental thing that makes a question informal advice or opinion, when somebody is asking how does law apply to me? how do my facts play out under the law, please tell me, that's exactly the same for opinions and for informal advice. the only difference is the

person asking staff or is the person asking the commission? if the person is just asking staff, it is informal advice. it doesn't matter how the person is asking. they could ask by e-mail, by phone, they could come into the office, they could send a telegram. it doesn't matter. the medium is irrelevant. it only matters if they're asking their own duties under the law. if they take the additional step of asking the commission to issue an opinion, obviously, that makes it an opinion, and really, the only difference is the person adds onto the question, i would like to here by request an opinion of the question, so that is a quick look at what is opinion, what is advice. [please stand by]

would still be answered. >> absolutely. absolutely. in fact, that's an example of informal advice. you have a candidate asking what do i have to do? even though you don't have someone asking if the law applies to the facts. the law requires candidates to file certain things at certain

times so when they ask about how to finish those filings, how to submit them, it is informal advice. let's say someone wasn't asking for themselves. they are curious. let's say someone called up and said out of curiosity, when do candidates have to file the form. we aren't going to demand they answer the question. that's not the point of the regulations and not the purpose of having staff answering the phone. >> the example wouldn't have to be written in an email, laying out all the different information that is specified in the regulation, if it's a question like, what time, when is the deadline to file, or what date is the 460 needing to be filed? >> no. general inquiries meaning someone not asking about their own duties under the law would be completely outside of these regulations. not addressed. i can tell you what our approaches are to those now and would continue into the future and that's to endeavor to answer as many of them as we

practically can. that will be limited by having to balance that interest and response to this with the prudent use of our time and of the commission's interpretive faculties. meaning, if someone comes up asking a novel question, that would be an issue of first impression. never encountered it before. that person isn't asking because it applies to them. we would wait until it actually comes before us. you can think of the case or controversy requirement.

people want to know how do i access information on your website. where is your meeting? how many commissioners are there. how do i perform research using the data dashboard. those are all inquiries, that promotes the commission's mission and we aren't going to stop doing that. the purpose of this, aside from making that distinction. helping people know what defines the two specific processes under the charter. the other thing is to give people an actual understanding what they have to do if they want to get informal advice or

an opinion. right now the charter just says people can ask opinions and for advice but the code and regulations give no further clarity about how do you ask. what form. what information do you include? how much time does staff have to respond. when does the commission have to hear it? it's silent. i can tell you the process has been ad hoc. we have had to come up with a process. has there been a change in staff? i assume there would be a change in process and that could end with these regulations. they would create a standardized process for answering informal advice questions and for the commission hearing opinions that would persist through time it would provide something for staff and the public to use. it would be a really convenient guide for people to look at and it's designed to not be burdensome. in terms of what info people have to provide asking questions, it's not overly burdensome.

they have to ask the question. they have to provide the facts that are relevant to the question because you can't answer the question without the facts. they have to provide their name, their title or position, which is highly relevant to the answer of the question. because a lot of the times it depends on what office they are holding. and they have to provide their contact info, that includes their email and their phone. and i can tell you the vast majority of people asking for informal advice already provide this without having to be asked. you need the first three. you need the fourth for us to get back in touch with you. so this is really the bare minimum of what's required. in order for someone to ask a question, give us the information we need to research and answer it and to get back in touch with them. it's not going to create a kind of burden where someone is not able to do it. it's fairly intuitive and we

would not exclude somebody because they don't cover the inth degree. if someone doesn't provide a phone number, i don't think that person will have that rejected. it's not going to happen. if you want, we could change that to an or in the regulations so they provide an email or a telephone number. i think that's very reasonable. as long as we have a way to get in touch. whether mailing address, phone, email, it doesn't matter. we just need to be able to contact the person. so i think that pretty much sums up what i wanted to say in terms of what your questions were at the last meeting. and i'll make myself available if you have more questions based on that information or based on further review, definitely glad to answer those. >> chair chiu: commissioners, any questions? commissioner lee?to make the po

another wrinkle. that's one thing that could add time. sometime it's could be other departments too. sometimes we get questions from people who work at other departments and that requires us to talk to other departments about their practices to better understand the facts and do research. sometimes we have to really

spend time to flesh these issues out. another thing that can add time is communicating with the f.p.p.c. we implement and enforce on a lot of state laws in the political reform act, the state's version of our law. and we have to collaborate with them a lot. likewise, they are very responsive and usually get back to us very quickly but that could add another factor that is necessarily going to add time to how much time we have. so the reason why this time line exists you could think of this as the worst case scenario. if someone requires us to talk with another department. collaborate with the city attorney. talk to the f.p.p.c. and work internally to flesh out the facts and questions, this is still the guaranteed turn around time. an example is right now we are still waiting for the f.p.p.c. to return an opinion. i asked for informal advice

from the f.p.p.c. many months ago and they have directed that question through their commission's opinion process. we have not been able to answer that question for months. that could happen with informal advice. >> commissioner lee: for public confidence and public trust, i would suggest, because you did say staff could extend the response time. i would suggest no longer than 30 days. maybe you could put in no longer than 15 days. so at least people will know within a certain time they will hear back. unless the staff needs additional time. because 30 days for a lot of the folks in the campaign season is not a lot of time. >> you are talking about regulation 699- >> commissioner lee: formal

advice. you are proposing the staff must provide advice no longer than 30 days after a complete and proper request. and i would suggest you put that in 15 days. because you already said staff may extend the response if there's a good cause for delay, such as you are waiting for other folks to respond to you. >> i think that sounds like a very reasonable amendment. >> chair chiu: commissioner renne? >> commissioner renne: we heard the woman candidate saying that if we adopt this, we create some kind of bureaucracy in the sense that somebody can't just call up and get information that they want so they can act quickly. what is your response? >> that's not the case.

that's not the case. to ask for informal advice, you provide your name, you provide your title or position. the question, the facts and your contact information. that's what's required and people already give that to us frmt it's as simple as someone asked the question and someone on the engagement and compliance team said we will need to look into that, can i get your name and phone number so i can get back to you. >> this proposed regulation, does it change the practice that presently exists, the front office was very responsive and gave her all the answers and she believed with this that wouldn't happen. >> it's not the case. we already have the name and contact information for candidates. >> commissioner renne: i would move that we approve and adopt

the proposed regulations. >> chair chiu: okay. >> vice chair kopp: question? >> chair chiu: commissioner kopp? >> vice chair kopp: what is your comment of the recommendations of ms. anita maio from pillsbury? >> is there a particular recommendation? >> vice chair kopp: dated october 10th. let me go through them here. the first one, she recommends based on f.p.p.c. law that the executive director must notify the person requesting within 14 days whether the request will be honored or not. >> so i believe that we already had amended this in response to

her comment as we understood it and in her latest rounds of comment, she is now saying we misunderstood her previous forms of feedback. i think this is fine what she is proposing that we -- >> vice chair kopp: 14 days. >> chair chiu: commissioner kopp. and i'm sorry to interrupt. i, unfortunately have to leave. the witching hour has arrived. i will hand over the -- i will miss out on the rest of the meeting but i will be sure to -- >> vice chair kopp: [off mic] >> chair chiu: thank you all. and i will see you next month.

>> vice chair kopp: she states on page too, she, being ms. maio, the effect of an opinion which should be rescinded should not be upon concurrence of the d.a. or city attorney. >> i'm sorry so -- >> vice chair kopp: well,

what's your reaction to that recommendation? >> that particular comment? let me read it again. >> through the chair. i also have a question about that. i think in your draft staff report, you are suggesting that for formal opinions, that if the commission adopts an opinion but the d.a. or the city attorney don't concur then, as i read, what i think i read is that you are following the recommendation from the pillsbury attorney and taking the position, nevertheless that the commission's administrative enforcement would be restricted and the commission executive director would be precluded from making a finding of probably cause. am i reading that correctly? >> that's correct.

>> okay. because i do have some concerns about how that would work in the real world. you have a candidate who has, wants to feel confident they can move forward. you have an opinion from the commission, which i understand, hopefully that there would be pre-engagement with the district attorney, attorneys or city attorney's. but in this scenario we are talking about, obviously there wasn't because you end up with an opinion from the commission not concurred and that means that candidate is vulnerable to legal action but protected from administrative action. i guess what i really want to focus on is what do you think you would do in that circumstance to resolve that

very unhappy, confused state of affairs? whether you are still protecting that person from an administrative proceeding, that's fine, if we have already gone through the commission with that. but then what would you do? >> it's really a question of whether the commission would first determine through an opinion that certain conduct is lawful. and then turn around subsequently through an enforcement proceeding, find it to be unlawful. >> commissioner ambrose: right. i understand that. >> the regulations would basically assume the commission would not do that. if the commission were to find through an opinion that certain conduct were lawful, then the executive director wouldn't find probably cause that such would constitute a violation. why would we bring it before if the commission previously opined it was lawful.

that's the thinking behind it. >> commissioner ambrose: i understand. i guess what i'm focusing on, because the attorney points out that action doesn't depend on the concurrence, though if you want protection from civil or criminal liability which could be brought by the d.a., civil attorney or third party. we gave this advice that is in conflict with these other elected officials but now my question to you is how, because the regulations don't really talk about that. how do we reconcile the issue where there's a lack of concurrence? more specifically, one of the minor changes i wanted to make, in order to get this information to the candidate, it says that the commission

adopt, if the commission adopts an opinion in a session like this, that the executive director has three days to provide that to the d.a. and city attorney and they have ten days to say whether or not they concur. there's added language there that says that it could be provided in three days or later if the executive director deems necessary. i guess i want to strike that. i think it's going to be really important to the candidate to know that the opinion this commission adopted has got the concurrence of the legal enforcement entities, the d.a. and city attorney as soon as possible. so that's one thing. and i guess what i was really looking for you to say is we would all work really hard to either bring it to the board of supervisors to have the legislative intent clarified or back to the commission to have the disagreement between the

various members of the city family resolved. because it highlights that this commission and staff have a sort of quasi legislative role and we want to make sure that all of the entities that have legislative responsibility in the city are talking to each other and on the same page. >> right. i will address both of those questions in turn. first question, how would we resolve it. the regulations create a time line for when the commission must hear an opinion. that was the topic of some discussion in the last meeting. the reason that time line exists is so we could have that discussion before the opinion comes before. that's why that time exists. so we can research it, talk to the other offices hopefully to resolve it beforehand.

firsthand is hopefully that wouldn't happen because we would work it out in advance. if it did happen, meaning the commission did decide to move forward with finding an opinion that contradicted whether the city attorney or district attorney said, either because the commission firmly disa dprees with what those offices are saying. hopefully you would already have their thoughts before you, because staff have had the time to research and talk with them. so if you did disagree with what the city attorney, district attorney's one of them offices were saying, you make the finding through an opinion, what would we do after that? i mean, you could pass a regulation, clarifying it. you have the power to do that. you could send the regulation to the board and then if the board still doesn't do anything that would become law, so that would be one way to resolve it, because we would be talking about ambiguity.

you could resolve it through regulation. if it couldn't be done through regulation, you could do it through an ordinance. >> commissioner ambrose: i would like, my preference would be it be explicit that we notify the city attorney and d.a. give them a copy of the direct opinion. making sure there be communication in advance so we don't end up with some big public unexpected dispute about how one of our laws should be enforced. but that wasn't in there and so all i was left with, there would be this estoppel effect. if you want to put in there a

note that says we will copy it to them or some kind of a flag that says this is coming, weigh in now so we don't end up with that inconsistency that leaves the candidate vulnerable to some enforcement and not the others. >> you would like to see language in the regulations that requires staff to at least initiate that dialogue. >> forward a copy of the draft opinion. consult, defer or something. >> i would propose doing that page 3, section 699-12 a2. in subsection c, where it says upon receipt the executive director or other staff shall prepare a draft opinion that addresses the questions posed in the request period. we could add something in their

language like what you just said. those offices may share their analysis of the issues contained in the opinion. >> vice chair kopp: wait a minute. is their opinion, is one of them going to be binding on us? >> no, whether or not the city attorney or district attorney concur. >> vice chair kopp: how much more time would that take? >> i think we can do it in the time line i have proposed in here, which is 45 days after we determine that the request for an opinion is proper and complete. >> vice chair kopp: anything else, commissioner ambrose? on that paragraph of ms. maio's letter? >> commissioner ambrose: no, thank you. >> vice chair kopp: okay.

all right. let's get back to rescission. she says that shouldn't be dependent upon concurrence of city attorney and district attorney. do you agree? >> i'm not sure i understand what she is commenting on here. >> vice chair kopp: well, i think i do. i noticed she is here so she can make that clear. when we take public testimony.

next thing she claiming is requesting informal advice. preventing an attorney for asking for informal advice concerning hypothetical scenarios. >> that's not true. >> vice chair kopp: it's not true? >> no. >> vice chair kopp: i thought i read it in one of these sections. it's not true? >> it's not true that attorneys would be precluded from asking hypothetical questions. >> vice chair kopp: i don't care about attorneys necessarily alone. >> no person would be precluded from asking such questions. all it says is such questions are not requests for informal advice. they would be considered general inquiries and we seek to answer those questions. >> vice chair kopp: then on

page three, she refers to the time line based on a specific number of days after receipt of the request. instead of specific time after a determination. is there merit to that? >> yeah, i thought we had already addressed this comment in a previous version. what i'm seeing here is apparently we misunderstood what she is asking for. i think this is a reasonable request, and i think it's easily changed in the draft. i think we can do that. >> vice chair kopp: so noted. then the next one.

as a matter of substance out of conformity with respect to informal advice should be a complete defense to any enforcement. what's your comment on that? >> i'm sorry, i was consulting with the deputy attorney. >> vice chair kopp: okay, well read that paragraph, please. >> i'm sorry, can you specify which one? >> vice chair kopp: page 3 under regulation 699 12-b3. effect of informal advice. second paragraph, she says conformity of the informal advice should be a complete defense and not a mitigating fact. do you agree? >> no, i disagree.

formal opinions have the effect, essentially of immunity because the executive director will not make a finding of probably cause that certain conduct is unlawful if the commission is already determined through an opinion that such conduct is lawful. advice does not have that same exact effect. it could have, in effect, almost that same effect depending on certain circumstances. so you would look at things like how well was the question asked. did the person give all of the facts. was the answer actually what the person is attesting. because you have to remember that informal advice is provided in so many different ways. it could be through a phone call, it could be through a short email, through an inperson email, so i don't think you would want to ascribe the power to those very brief interactions to confer immunity. you could imagine people would come to you and say someone

told me in the office i co