it's so easy that it's hard to not want to do it, and it doesn't really add anything to the bill.. >> december 20 of 2019. we'll take roll call. commissioner lee is absent today. agenda item number 2, public comment on those items not appearing on the agenda. >> good afternoon. thank you, commissioners. my name is ellen.

i have my name tag here. i am a public employee. i am a union delegate for government employees. i am also the director of public relations for california for the grand jury for the san francisco chapter. i have been coming to you at the commissions with other government employees, many times. in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. the last time i was here was november 15, 2019, which is last month. i came before you demanding as a commission to investigate corruption within the commission department. between april 2017 to july 2017, six public employees reported bribery, extortion and retaliation with the ethics commission department, but no record was found, and they never got back to us. i was one of the eight candidates for mayor, june 2018

election. i just finished my mayor run for the november election. i was one of the six mayor candidates for the last month's election. i was bullied by democrats and democratic leaders from city hall and from different departments and different leaderships from different communities. many of my billboards and posters were illegally removed because i am a conservative republican. i am a conservative republican, and i am for the people. i have been coming out to you about possible corruption with electoral officials and election fraud. in 2018, san francisco payers, taxpayers, paid $4.16 million in matching funds to support

government scam. the government has been running a scam for election fraud to empower democrats only. for the last 45 years, no other party other than democrats. it is a public scam created by democrats. november 19, $6 million bond for 2800 housing units is also a violation for equality for all. the united states constitution article 6 and the supreme court which stated that united states constitution is the supreme law of the land, the state and city violate the constitution. it's called treason. recreational cannabis is also a violation of federal law. it is a government race to raise a lot of money to do drug rehabs

because the illegal drugs support it and pay for our taxpayers. you as ethics commission, i believe you have the duty to investigate many of the complaints that i am bringing to you -- before you today. we the people have been facing a tyranny government for the last many years. we lost our quality of life in san francisco. we are worse than a third world country in san francisco. so today i'm here again because you ethics commissioners to restore law and order to protect san francisco for the way you sign up for. thank you. and for public record, my packet. thank you. >> thank you. any other public comment on agenda item number 2? moving onto consent calendar items to consider number 3, draft minutes for the ethics

commission november 15, 2019, regular meeting, agenda item 4, the proposed stipulation, decision and order in the matter of the coalition for san francisco neighborhoods, complaint number 16/17-056. and agenda item 5 the proposed stipulation decision and order in the matter of affordable housing for all, yes on d, complaint number 1718-134a. call for public comment on all three of these items? seeing no public comment, i'll move the items. >> i second. >> all in favor. >> aye. >> so the agenda items 3, 4, and 5 are unanimously approved. agenda item 6, discussion and possible action on proposed amendments to regulations related to article i chapter i of the campaign and governmental

conduct code. >> thank you. good afternoon, commissioners. i'm pat ford, senior policy and legislative affairs counsel. this agenda item contains a set of regulations or i should say amendments to the regulations that support article i chapter i of the campaign of governmental conduct code, which we call cfro because it's the campaign finance reform ordinance. the amendments represent updates that are part of two separate projects. i've condensed those into one document so that essentially for convenience that you can act on it if you choose to do so at one time. two different projects are the campaign financing review project, phase 2. this would update regulations to

match the statutory changes. and secondly, the regulation amendments also address changes to the code brought about by proposition f, which was passed in the last election and the same idea, brought changes to the code so we need to update the regulations to follow that and especially in this case to provide guidance about these new laws, because these are new provisions of law, don't provide all the details someone would need to comply with them. so this is to help fill in the blanks. what i would like to do is briefly go over at a high level what these regulation amendments are. and i would like to suggest to you five different amendments that were requested by stakeholders. i think all five of them make sense. and i will explain what they are. and i will also read the text of them where you don't already have it. i provided you with he mails

from -- e-mails from these folks so you have that. these are also on the table for the public. so in some cases you have the amendments in writing. in other cases they were proposed to me in concept-form and i have texts for you that i will read. >> before we proceed, i would like to ask the city attorney, is it okay for us to consider these amendments? >> yes. >> okay. thank you. >> so i'll start by going over what's actually in this agenda item first and then move on to the amendments. so the way that i structured this is in the actual attachment to this which has the regulation amendments that are ordered by regulation number. so on the public financing-related amendments are combined in with the prop f amendments. i can tell you that the vast majority of what is in here is really prop f. the public financing amendments

are very, very minor. so we'll talk about those first i think just to kind of get them out of the way. so really the only thing in the regulations that needs to be updated because of the changes to the code from the public financing phase two ordinance is basically just update the initial iec amounts, the individual expenditure ceiling, the limit that each candidate must agree to. the ordinance changed where that starts. it used to start at $250,000 for supervisor candidates and at $1,475,000 for mayor candidates. it will change $300,000 and $1.7 million. the places where those need to change are called out here in the amendments. so in regulation 1.140-2, which

is if you are looking at the attachment with the amendments, that's on page 8. you can see that's changed once for each number in that regulation. then on the next page, regulation 1.143-1, it's changed there and in regulation 1.142-2 it's changed throughout. i had to do a little bit more updating in regulation 1.143-2 than just changing the initial iec levels, because this regulation consists of a set of examples to explain the mechanics of the iec adjustment process. so i had to go through and make sure they still made sense, given the new levels. some of the numbers just didn't work out. so i kept the mechanics the same, the concepts are all the same. but you'll see there are a number of changes throughout.

it should basically keep the spirit of these as is. i did the same thing with phase 1 ordinance that changed the increments of the adjustment, made the increments larger. i had to do the same thing back then, going through the examples and updating them to make sure they still made sense and showed the new regime. so this is the same idea, going through the examples, making sure they add up and now reflect the new law. so that's all for the public financing-related changes. maybe i'll stop here and ask if there are any questions about those set of changes before moving on. >> the only question i have relates to the change in the matching ratio. that was done in the ordinance itself so it's not required to be addressed here in the regulations l. >> surprisingly there was nothing in the regulations that talks about the matching ratio. i was surprised myself to find the only things that needed to

be updated pertain to the initial iec level. there's nothing in the regulations about the matching ratio, nothing about what portion of a contribution can be matched, which went down from the full 500 down to 150. those things weren't in the regulars. the regulars i would describe as being more about process of how the financing program is administered and how the different mechanics work, not so much about the goal posts or the actual parameters of it. those are just set forth in the code, and the regs, i would assume didn't see the need to elaborate on those because they were just very clear in the statute. >> okay. thank you. any other questions from commissioners? >> no. >> okay. i'll move on to the prop f-related changes, which are a lot more substantive and may be have more room for discussion. and this is where the amendments

are. so i think maybe i'll start by giving a quick overview of what is actual in prop f. i know commissioner ambrose asked about that the last meeting. so i included some bullet points here. and i'll roll through those quickly so you are all primed with what is in this ballot measure. so this is on page 3 of this agenda item. starting at the top of the page, the first thing that is in prop f is that it expands the prohibition on corporate contributions, which is currently construed narrowly, it could apply to just corporations. it expands it to cover llps and llcs. and i would presume that the intent behind this was that it doesn't matter what form of entity you choose, that these are business entities, they are for profit, they should be treated the same way. >> i'm just curious.

was there any date that showed -- data that showed how limited partnerships and limited liability companies were not being picked up by the prior prohibition of a 100 contributions were 95 coming from llps and llcs therefore we needed to address this issue? >> i'm not aware of any kind of data like that. the only thing that i'm aware of that i can speak to is actually addressed in the regs, which is that the regs used to address when llcs might be actually captured by the rule and it was based on how the l.l.c.s had elected to be taxed. i found the taxation principles to be complicated, and i am not familiar with an actual application of that regulation to an entity, so i can't tell you too much about how it worked. but that's the only thing i saw

in here about non-corporation business entities making contributions. and i really couldn't tell you how common that was, only that we didn't get any advice questions that ever came to me about it. >> thank you. >> so the next bullet point, there's a new contribution prohibition now in section 1.127. and the basis of this rule is that the person who has a financial interest in a land use matter, as defined, may not make a contribution to any candidate or office holder of mayor supervisor or city attorney, so anybody currently holding the positions or running for them. and financial interest in land use matter are both defined terms in the code. and that's where a lot of the

clarification in the regs focused on, what does it mean for something to be a land use matter, what exactly does that term encompass, and what does it mean to have a financial interest. so the third bullet point is related to 1.127, to that contribution prohibition. and it essentially requires that certain departments post a description of this rule in their agenda materials and on their websites. and those departments are the same list of departments that is used in the definition of land use matter. so we are talking about the planning department, commission, board of appeals, essentially, any of the city departments that would be making decisions on land use matters. they have to put a notice that's publicly available that just tells people that the rule exists, that they should be aware of it.

>> so just to clarify the prohibition on making contributions. so this is the $500 political contribution so that $500 is now going to zero? >> correct. it's similar in its format to the contractor contribution prohibition, which says that if you are someone who is currently bidding on a city contract or who has had a city contract approved in the last 12 months, you can't give a contribution to an elected official who is considering that bid or approved that contract. this is loosely similar, saying that if you are someone who currently has a land use matter pending or a land use matter that was resolved within the last 12 months, you cannot make a contribution to a certain set of officials and candidates. it's not pegged in the same way as the contractor rule that you can't make a contribution literally to the officials who

approved that land use matter. it instead takes a different approach and defines a fixed set of officials and candidates and says you can't make a distribution to that entire set of people, regardless of whether they were actually involved in the land use matter. >> so if you are remodeling your house because of flood damage and you need to get permits, does that qualify as a land use matter and therefore that person would be prohibited from making a contribution? >> most likely not. there is an extension in the code for primary residence. that's carved out of the definition of land use matter. there's also a dollar threshold that's baked in. so you have to have a financial interest of $5 million or more in the project or in some cases the project has to have an estimated construction cost of $5 million or more. so depending on which type of financial interest applies, there's different ways you can have a financial interest. in each one of those ways,

there's a $5 million threshold that's baked in. so that would probably exclude the scenario you were describing. >> thank you. >> so the one, two, three, four, the fourth bullet point moves on to a different part of prop f. and the next few are all related. and it's about disclaimers. so the fourth bullet point refers to an existing requirement in state law, and it builds upon it. so state law requires that certain political advertisements contain disclaimers and that the disclaimers state who the committee paying for the advertisements top funders are. so if a committee pays for independent expenditure and they've received contributions of over a certain amount from other individuals or committees,

they have to put the names of those individuals or committees on the advertisement. even before prop f was passed, san francisco law expanded on that and made it the top toledo nowheres and lowered the thresh -- the top three donors and lowered the threshold. this lowered the threshold to $5,000. and it also requires that the dollar amount contributed by each of those people be included in the disclaimer. and further more it requires that if any of those major donors -- i shouldn't use the term major donor. that's something that's used elsewhere. top contributor, we'll say. if any of the top contributors are themselves political committees that have taken in political contributions that the disclaimer must additionally

list the top two contributors to those contributors. so to phrase it differently, you could have a disclaimer that says this ad paid for by abc committee, major committee funding from xyz committee, which is funded by these two people. additional funding provided by california voter committee with funding from these two people. so you could have up to, i guess it would be nine different funders listed in a disclaimer. and with each of them it would have a dollar amount that they contributed. and from what i saw in the voter information pamphlet talking about this measure, the idea is to put more information in front of viewers or readers who see political advertisements about who paid for the advertisement

and who that person got their money from. so trying to give you a glimpse into the chain of funding. sometimes people talk about nested committees or gray money when committees give money to other committees. so the policy rationale here is to try to shed some light on that series of transactions that is behind a particular advertisement. and aside from the merits of that idea, it comes with some degree of confusion for people making advertisements. some of the regs try to provide people with guidance about how to put all that information -- because it is a lot of information, into a disclaimer that both complies with state formatting requirements, which say nothing about any of this material, the funders of the funders or the dollar amounts, and also something that looks

readable and legible to people. so that's what the regs endeavor to do. i'll go over that in a moment. so the following bullet point, prop f changes the font and format requirements for disclaimers. the highlight here is that it changes the font requirement to larger. it's now 14.5 for all disclaimers. so leaving the disclaimer world, the second-to-last bullet point prop f requires committees making independent expenditures to disclose separate cost associated with any independent expenditures during what we call the late reporting period, the 90 days before the election. so during that 90-day period, as you know, any time a committee makes an independent expenditure of $1,000 or more, they have to file a form 496, the late

independent expenditure report, within 24 hours. what prop f says is not only must you file that form, which the form basically just says what expenditure did you make and how much did it cost. additionally you need to disclose the separate costs associated with that communication, which the code says includes things like that photography, design, printing, postage, et cetera. so basically the different costs that the committee incurred in putting out that communication. that's not included right now on the 496. but prop f says you need to disclose this information as well. >> so just to make sure i understand, what is required to be disclosed right now is the aggregate cost, and this prop f is requiring a breakdown of those separate cost components? >> yeah, i think that's a good way to phrase it.

the 496 requirement is aggregate. you typically would just put out literature supporting this candidate for supervisor's $10,000. >> now we need to know how much the printing was, the photographer, the design? is there a policy rationale underlying this? >> i don't recall that this particular requirement was addressed in voter information pamphlet, which is usually where you go to look for legislative intent, what the voters were thinking when they approved this. i don't recall that this was addressed in those materials. i can tell you that a similar requirement already exists for candidate mass mailings. when candidates send out 200 or more pieces of identical mail, they have to file what's called an itemized disclosure statement that discloses the total cost of

the mailing and breaks down the separate costs associated with the mailing. and essentially what prop f does is it duplicates that requirement for i.e.s. so the final bullet point here, it's a good segue, i was just talking about candidate mass mailings. the final bullet point expands that disclosure requirement in mass mailing disclosure requirement, to i.e. committees. so this is kind of a technical thing, but the interaction between these final two bullet points is a little complex. but the way that it works is before the 90th day before an election, let's say 91 days or more before an election, if a

committee incurs an independent expenditure, they will only have to make a filing, an immediate filing. they always have to do statements but they only have to do an immediate filing if the i.e. is a mass mailing. so if they do a mass mailing, 200 or more identical pieces of mail, within five days they'll need to file the mass mailing form which breaks down the separate cost of the mass mailing, and they have to include a copy of the mass mailing. once they hit that 90th day before the election and they enter the late reporting period, now it doesn't matter what form the i.e. takes on. as long as it's $1,000 or more, they have to file a 496. and already under existing law, when you file a 496, you have to attach a copy of the ad. and as i was describing under prop f, when you file a 496, you

also have to break down the separate costs. so i think the easiest way to think of it is the disclosures are now going to be the same no matter what, for i.e.s. whenever you do an i.e. that requires immediate disclosure, you have to disclose a copy of the ad, you have to disclose the aggregate cost, you have to break down the separate cost related to the i.e. the difference between the late reporting period and prior to the late reporting period -- >> there's no distinction anymore. >> not in what you file but whether you have to file. so if you are before the late reporting period, you are 91 days or more out, you only have to do the immediate filing if it's a mass mailing. if it's not a mass mailing you don't need to file immediately. once you reach the 90-day late reporting period, than any i.e.

of $1,000 or more triggers that immediate reporting. prosecution please stand -- [br-

>> what the conversation was

that his public comment relates to is that eye reached out to a number of treasurers and political attorneys to get feedback. especially i wanted to hear about them of whether or not from a technical and compliance perspective, if they thought that was feasible and what they highlighted is it is feasible but only if done in certain ways. the concern that they had is that on the 496, there's a section that's called park 2 where you actually list the independent expenditures and you do those in aggregate disclosure style. if you do a $10,000 mailing, one line item in part 2 says, june 1st, mass mailing. cost $10,000. that's one line item. what the treasurers flagged for

us was that it's not feasible to do separate line items in part 2 for each of the separate costs. it's not feasible to say june 1 printing of the mail, $400. june one, design of the mailers. that would not be feasible because that schedule is populated from information in that file and that information also feeds into a schedule on the form 460. the pre-election statement. by requiring filers to enter into into the file that would produce that breakdown, that would disrupt their 460 filing and that would populate schedule d on the 460 which is a schedule of expenditures that support or

oppose a candidate. that would populate that schedule and with that broken down information which is not sense cal on schedule d. they flagged for us we should not require that could be given in part two. what they suggested and what i think we will suggest to filers is that they do either one of three things. that they even provide the breakdown in the description, for each i.e., so when you do a line item, on the 496, it's possible to enter a description of the line item >> so this one, he made a specific example. this is that acceptable to you? that is what i was getting at. you don't need to know into the details. i commend them for their skill

at filling out these forms but i don't think we have a policy discussion about that because i do want you to talk about the other definitional aspects and make sure we've got that right and there aren't any unintended consequences or whatever >> sounds good. the bottom line is that i don't think any amendment to regulation 1.161-2 is needed. filers will use the 496 and it's the most feasible and i think ultimately the most useful way to have this information provided. >> ok. >> great. >> so i will go to the amendments at this point and talk about one amendment i do think should be made based on the response i've heard from stakeholders. >> can you tell us who you talked to? i mean, not everybody that you talked to but most particularly

since this was measures sponsored by the board or the board's legislative aids that they review it and the city attorney get a chance to review the definitions >> yes. the city attorney's office as and the people who propose the amendments all work with the regulated community to do the disclosures. so the amendments that they proposed are all in the nature of either technical amendments or those who clarify or correct things to make them more accurate. >> ok. great. >> the first mendment is to regulation 1.161-2. is that the one we were just looking at? a treasurer asks that a cost estimate provision be added to this regulation. and if you look back on the

previous page, in regulation 1.16-1 you see the cost estimate provision and what this says is that even though you are required to disclose this information short lie after the communication goes out, you have to disclose the separate cost associated with it and if you don't actually know the separate cost yet, because maybe your vendor hasn't billed you for them. it's ok to put an estimate and to amend the filing later when you get the invoice and you know the separate costs. that is already in effect here for mass mailing disclosures and it's something that also acceptable for the 496 so the treasure asked that we also institute that concept here with the 496 separate cost disclosure in regulation of 1.16-2.

i would recommend to break that regulation into two parts. the text in there rit now, just make that part a. and then add part b the cost victim provision for that proceeding regular. >> just for the record, same as 1.161-1 sub section c you will make that same language and of 1.161-2 >> with some changes. i should read them right now. i read what i would suggest so it's in the record >> the provision would say sub section b estimated cost of independent expenditure, period. filers who do not know the actual costs associated with an independent expenditure when they file form 496 as described in sub section a of this

regulation, may provide a good faith estimate, provided that they amend the form within 48 hours of receiving more information about the actual costs of the independent expenditure. >> ok. >> how do you propose to move these amendments one by one or? >> i think i would leave that >> we don't have a written substitution, right. we have to i'm just trying to figure it out. what your system is for making clear how we're going to move each one of them >> sure. >> they call this amendment number one? >> sure. >> ok. >> three of them are in writing. three of them are in public comment. it's in front of you. >> this is not so this is the -- >> this one is not.

>> ok. >> so, i think what i'd like to do is tell you the two that are not. first the two that i am just going to head into the record because it is not submitted to us in written form. for the three that were submitted to us in written form, you have that in front of you >> ok. great. the second one is on page 8 of the agenda item under regulation 1.127-3. this regulation relates to the land use matter contribution prohibition. there's a safe harbor that says if a committee gets a written attestation from a kin contributor saying the contribute or does not have a financial interest in the land-use matter if the candidate accepts a contribution from that person, the candidate will not be liable for the violation if it does turnout that the person

in fact does have this provides language we would accept from a candidate in order to trigger that safe harbor so it gives them something to copy and paste and run with into their contribute orchard. someone proposed we add clarification that this can be accepted in electronic form. that when it says in written, that does not mean a physical writing, exclusively it could include an electronic writing. the purpose is that a lot of contributions these days are received over the internet and they go on the website and they enter the credit card information and these as testtations, can you do it for contribution and prohibition as well, it's a check box that someone clicks. so what i was suggesting is that

these first line of the regulation be amended so that it says the candidate will meet the due diligence requirements of section 1.127c if the contribute or certifies in writing in electronic format to the candidate at the time the contribution is made that the following is true. >> so ragged the words includinn electronic format. >> correct. >> >> can we call that amendment number two and then i wanted to ask you though, sta substantive, say this form comes up and you are making a contribution, the regs won't come up so i see people asking questions about what a land use matter is and

whether or not the commissioner was asking and said if you are remodeling your bathroom you can't contribute to anyone's campaign so is there some citations or link or something that people are going to find when they have to sign this attestation >> i sought to put the minimum of what we would

>> i'm still think if we're going to get a lot of frustration because there's a lot of people who aren't going to be able to sign and won't attest to this because it's so broad. anybody that has had to rebuild the deck on their house has had a land use matter at the building inspection commission right, because you have to get a permit for it so just trying to anticipate that and and the regs if someone can find it or then they could put a link in on the

candidates website because we'll just confuse a lot of people and you will get a lot of phone calls. >> i'm fine with that -- >> you get a lot of phone calls anyway. i'm just trying to think out loud if you are looking is there some -- we're all lawyers up there, is there a way you can give people a clue where they would go to figure out if they can check this box or not? or do they just need to go back to the candidate? >> so, i'm hoping and kind of assuming that committees and their council are probably going to be tangling with us and developing their own approaches to how to best present this. it's fine if some kind of parenthetical is added as those terms are defined by statute and regulation. i think that's fine. i would probably advise against

including those definitions here or starting to. you could reference the code amended, you know, they do define land use matter in section 1.127 in prop f. that gives someone a tow-hold into where am i looking. i don't know if adding that just one little citation° i mean i'm a lawyer and maybe i'm looking at citations and i know we need to do this today. obviously, as this rolls out we'll get feedback and we can make improvements to make it more workable. i'm sure a lot of people want to try and get this information

from their donors at the outset because chief want to end up with the liability on the backside so i want to try and make it as you user friendly as you can. you do include the building inspection commission in here and building inspection is usually just building permits so i'm trying to think of what discretionary entitlement comes in front of the building inspection commission. did you get any feedback on that from the folks you consulted? >> we talked with folks at the planning department to dig into all of the mechanics of this new co section. for the reasons that department and that commission handles the vast majority of land use matter as defined.

i can tell you what we found is that 1.127 is not perfect. it does not match up perfectly with how land use matterser dealt with in the city. what the regs endeavor to do is faithfully carry out that code section. warts and all. you make a valid point about the building inspection commission but we thought to include the departments included in the code so to not artificially limit it and not impose the elementtation that was not imposed by the voters. looking at this further highlights in my mind i would like to at least put in, i do not have a financial interest in the land use matter as defined

in code section 1.127 and everything else flows from that so i'm trying to think of -- there are code violations issues that might be tied up with the building permission. the building inspector does have some incre incres ary authority. i appreciate you were trying to be all encompassing as possible. so, that would be my recommendation we put some tie into what a land use matter as defined in some code section and that at least gives them a starting place. >> should we call that amendment 3? >> you can do that >> to add the words as defined

in campaign and governmental conduct code section 1.127 immediately following the term lapped use matter? >> right. it's 1 point -- i'm just looking at the prop f. it's defined in -- where did it go? 1.127. >> 1.127 sub section a >> right, thanks. >> thank you for that. >> so the -- i guess we'll call it amendments four, five and six, are contained in written form in the public comment that you have in front of you and

it's also on the public table from anita mayo. she has amendments 1, 2, 3 and we'll call them four, five and six. all of these are good amendments. i would recommend all three of them. and i would call them technical in nature. just correcting the language to make it more concise. the first one is to clarify in regulation 1.114-1 that it is ok for partnerships that have business entity members to make contributions to committees as long as they do so through a

separate segregated fund. so if you look at the regulation itself that is on page 6 of the agenda item, you can see that in section -- sub section a. that already talks about the separate segregated fund. it clarifies if any of the business entities that use a separate segregated fund, that they can it's something because we are not able to prohibit. we have to allow that. go to the next page and sub section i >> it's just to make sure i understand, so that if these business entities companies and partnerships and corporations wanted, really wanted to make their $500 contribution they

could set up a separate fund. >> correct. >> a separate segregated fund is a type of pack so essentially a corporation can set up a pack and they can raise money for the pack. if they don't actually put funds from the corporate treasury into the pack and then give to the candidate. if they were to use the pack to solicit contributions from us, let's say, then they could use the treasury of the pack to make contributions. that kind of use of a pack is called a separate segregated fund >> it's important to clarify that here in the regulations. i appreciate ms. mayo in the audience. thank you for this and the other feedback. >> so her amendment essentially is to just call out that sub section a that use of a separate, segregated fund down here in sub section i. sub section i is different.

it talks about partnerships that are made up of business entity partners so if let's say two corporations enter into a partnership, this is talking about whether or not the partnership can make a contribution to candidates. in the first line, she pointed out is too narrow and too constricconstrict tive. it's prohibited under 1.14b for make a contribution to a candidate committee. this proposes adding the action unless it's made by the partnership separate segregated fun pursuant to sub section a of

this regulation so basically just making that first sentence not overly restrictive because if you read it in isolation, could you read it to mean that the partnership cannot have a separate segregated fund but under sub section a it could. i would suggest adding that. the next amendment, we'll call it amendment 5. it's just to make the definition lineup with how it appears in the code. this is on page eight and now we're in the land use matter rule. so one of the defined terms or one of the terms that is used that is defined in the regs is discretionary review hearse because as you can see i only called it discretionary review but it should be called discretionary review hearing

because it's how the term is used in the code. ms. mayo points out it needs to lineup. amendment 5 is to add the word "hearing" in that subsection b after both uses of the term discretionary review. the title would read discretionary review hearing and in co quotations it would say discretionary review hearing it means the process by which, et cetera. >> again, from a citation point of view, when you talk to the planning department staff, i mean, i think discretionary review is like an obscure part of the municipal code. did they have a citation that they could give you for that? >> no, so, it is in deed obscure but it's not an obscure part of the code. it's a special power of the planning commission that is not set fourth in code or in the charter. so there's no citation to make >> right. what about dish think they have

adopted regulations like outlining. i'm sure they have very elaborate provisions for how you seek discretionary review on someone's project. because again, it is just seems so -- discretionary review is hearing when a hearing is not required. i mean, if no one else is brought it to our attention or worried about it, it's a fairly hefty part of the planning commission calender. there's a fair amount of discretionary review hearings that they process all the time. i mean, probably it doesn't matter because i'm hug there are some that involve $5 million worth of construction.

anyway, i just don't have a citation for the regs so i can't really help. if there was someway to pin it to something a little bit more than just -- >> so my initial plan and approach for all of the 1.127 definitions was just to have references to the planning code. >> ideally >> those don't exist. they don't exist. i can tell you that a lot of the work that went into the regs was devoted to this particular regulation and trying to identify or define rather terms that are not defined. but that everyone seems to understand. but that are not defined. so, this represents my best effort at doing that.

you might want to do it for your own staff implementation. i imagine that you can go to the planning commission and get the discretionary review packet that describes how one goes about seeking that that might, at least if someone gets fancy and tries 20 argue they're entitled to this ex semmion because, anyway. >> we have that material on planning website about what a discretionary review it. this is the best we could do at boiling that down to a definition but beyond this, there's definition going to be a degree of interpretation and advice giving around 1.127. there's no way around it. it is a morfis and it's complicate and a lot of it we

have to figure out as we go >> maybe it helps by referring the hearing they do that. so it's a discretionary hearing and it's at issue. so ok, i'll let us move on. >> the final amendment we can call amendment 6, is regarding the displacementer formatting rules in regulation 1.161-3. so that is on page 11. of the attachment and ms. made owe called out where language needs to be added that's in subsection a2. and this is talking about how to format the names of the contributors to the top contributors.

so if you are listing your top contributors and the advertisement and those are committees and you are additionally listing the contributors to those committees, she points out that the words and contribution amount need to be added in the first sentence so it would read for any major contribute or that is a recipient committee the names of the top two major contributors of $5,000 or more to that committee, which i defined as a secondary major con contributor must be following the name, contribution amount of the major relevant contributor. you need to put the dollar amount after the name of the contributor and after that, you put the names of the contributors to that contributors. that is correct. what she points out here is you

would not want to put the name of the contributors immediately after that because that would get in between the name of the contributor and how much money that person or entity gave. i agree. it's a good addition to add that language there in the first sentence. >> ok. >> those are all the amendments that i would suggest. i'm glad to answer any questions about those or anything else in the regulations that you might have questions about. >> just more broadly, stepping back for a moment, with this new ordinance and the regulations that are implementing prop f, how will the ethics commission be in a position to enforce this ordinance. is there a data base where all land use matters so defined can be searched to know whether or

not entity company x and properly made a contribution improperly. these ordinances are only as effective as the enforcement ability. >> is there a data base that contains all land use matters? yes and no. there's not one that solely contains land use matters as defined here. there's nowhere that you can just call up a data base and it has all land use matters exactly as that terms is defined and interpreted here in 1.127. that does not exist. land use matters are public information. so that they are out there and you can't find them. but it's not as easy as just calling up a data base. it's not like 1.126, the contractor contribution rule

where we have two sets of notices that are actually creating a data base and when they file notice you have a data base of approved contracts and you can use that for compliance. what you would be doing is essentially asking the contribute or to identify parcels of land they have a financial interest in or parcels of land has a financial interest in but their shareholders for. you would check to see, for that parcel of land, are there any on going city processes that constitute a lapped-use matter. the best way to do that is to use the planning department planning information map, call up the address of the parcel, that will give you a list of any building permits or discretionary or anything going on with that property you would want to preview all of those

processes and see if there are any, within the relevant time period that constitute what is defined as entitlement, request for an entitlement in the code. and again, that's kind of a ambiguous term. it's not defined in the planning code and so there would have to be some work there to determine our any of these entitlements and we worked with planning to identify which ones are not titlements and it's on going advice giving because the fees you played to the panning department are based on the value of your project, which are always underestimated and now they'll probably be over

estimating or never mind. and any event, i think that you might want to get your i.t. people together because it might be a slightly more simple cross tab. if you are talking about over $5 million projects, there are fewer of those than everything that's spendin pending before te planning commission. at least when you -- it's something to think about comparing and they also have to list the owner of the property. they have to give authorization for an application at planning department and you can that would tie in with your list of potential contributors. putting the machine to work for you.

to fer et some of that out. it has to be the donor >> how will the donor make they can't make their $500 contribution? >> well, hopefully they will work with the committee to try and identify it. if they did not make the written attestation to the committee and they declined to do that but the committee wanted to accept the contribution, the committee would have to ask the contribute or why did you not make this written attestation to us. is there a financial interest you have in a land use matter and work to try and identify what they are and then do the due diligence with them of actually looking those items up and seeing if they are in fact land use matters as defined. there are certain things you can rule out off the bat. if it's under $5 million and it has to do with their primary

residents you can rule it out. if it's not a primary resident and it's over $5 million, would you have to go through that more detailed process of looking it up and evaluating it. >> link particular to the name of the person or corporation or whatever that was the entity and making a contribution. >> correct >> what makes it challenging and impossible to create a data base right now, of people who are prohibited for making contributions, even if there were perfect data base, of all land use matters, no department keeps track of every person who has a financial interest in the land use matters. they don't know who all those people are so they bridge that gap. >> we have a running list. i'm just seeing there is

information that gets filed with the planning department that when you are looking it will be easier to find than just randomly going through their agenda for a year or something. they have a robust data base on the matters that are pending before that commission. they do have a data base and we're trying to figure out what materials to make available to people. they wouldn't have a end product of a data base of names. there's always a good a leg work and we'll make it easy and spell it out for them but the pieces are not there to put together in a full proof compliance tool. there's not. >> well, i guess we'll have to just try and work through the issues as they come up. hopefully it won't be too much

of a budget buster. i don't want to hold this up any longer on this holiday eve so it's move -- we have public comment. >> so i talked about the six amendments. i'm glad to talk about those or anything else in the regs that you might have a question about >> any other questions? >> call for public comment on agenda item number 6. >> >> good afternoon, commissioners, i wanted to thank mr. ford for presenting my amendments to you and i think they will provide clarity and to the regulations and the only other additional item i thought about, as you were discussing

regulation 1.1-3 were you going to do after the land use matter as defined in section 1.127-a. say excludes a person's primary residents and it leads that way fight a few people will know the primary residents are not if they have issues or matters before the planning commissioner entities of the boards regarding a paper ary residents they wouldn't have to worry about that. prohibiting them from making a contribution. thank you. >> thank you. >> we would add that parenthetical into the language? >> the amendment for regulation 1.127-3 >> yes, definitely. >> i would move that >> >> any other public comment foray again da item number 6?

>> so, i would like to make a motion to adopt amendments numbers 1-6 as previously discussed. do we need to read out everything for the record? >> i don't think so. i second that amendment for a motion >> amendments 1-6 for the regulations all in favor. aye. so the motion is carried. the amendments 1-6 are approved unanimously. >> thank you. >> agenda item 7. discussion of monthly staff

policy report. >> thank you, agenda item 7 is my monthly staff policy report. >> i need a clarifying point. it's unclear on the record whether or not we actually adopted all of the amendments and their totality or just the amendments you itemized. the regulations in their totality >> ms. mayo's -- >> not just the stakeholder suggestions but you have a variety of other suggestion that's you put forward to the commission that you did not

itemize, right. you mean the amounts you are revising for the new thresh holds so we didn't talk will be >> i would propose adopting attachment one with with the edits proposed so there's not any ambiguity. as opposed to the edits before the commission and the attachment, right. maybe before we move on we can go back and make a motion to adopt, also adopt, everything proposed in attachment one >> attachment one as amended by amendment 1-6 that were read into the record >> yes. >> so there's, mr. ambrose making a motion to adopt

attachment one as amended by amendments 1-6. correct >> the list -- there was a suggestion to number the amendments, right and we were talking about specific subject matters and i'm concerned those topics are notten campusing of everything. >> we're going to adopt all of attachment one which has all of the written -- everything the staff but then as further amended by the ones that we talked about that are all numbered. his other stuff amending the dollar amounts is already written in attachment one. >> just as long it's clear we're adopting everyone in attachment one and the suggestions that were previously proposed as amendments 1-6. >> i think you made the motion. i move that we adopt attachment

1. the amendment to the regulations that are proposed by staff and tapment one to agenda item number 6 as modified by what we've referred to as amendments 1-6 as discussed and read into the record and attachment number one. that make sense? >> yes, thank you. >> all in favor, aye. >> the motion is passed unanimously. back to agenda item number 7. >> agenda # i 7, the monthly poy report. i will make this brief and only provides updates that aren't

already here in writing since i know you already read this. so the first item under policy prioritization plan updates is the public financing review project and you approved some regulation amendments related to that project and another thing is to help other divisions in the office who are implementing these changes so they can go live january 1st, 2020. as you know the ordinance lowered the match able amount of a contribution from the full $500 to $150 and we've discovered that net file in its matching request function, when you enter in contributions and submitting matching requests to ask them to be matched, the way it was set up in the code of

code meaning like the software code, not our code, but in the net files code, was that net file would search all the contributions that you had entered as receiving. remember net files is all encompassing system that you use, not just for public financing for all of your reporting. so it will search all the contributions you entered and it will essentially generate a request for you and based on your san francisco contributors that have not been matched and it will build, you can call it the best available match air class for so you it find all of the contributions and put the full amount up to 500 on the matching request. we discovered that mechanism is hard wired into the marching request. there's not an easy way for us to institute automatic $150 cap on that. net file will put full $500 contributions on to people's

match request. there's no way for them to make it just $150. there's no manual override so it will just kick $500 onto the request every time. that cannot be changed. what that means -- >> it cannot be changed by january 1st or at all? >> it can't be changed by january 1st. as you know, net file has a number of projects for us, including other jurisdictions but always a number just from us of changes to their system that we're requesting and they're always competing for bandwidth and this is big enough for my understanding is it would require enough work even if they did turn to this it would be hard to roll it out by january 1. what we're going to do for this election only, is is to allow candidate committees to use the

net file and we realize they have no way to limit their matching request contribution to 150 so we'll allow them to submit full $500 contributions for matching. we won't consider it a violation and we won't get them in trouble for asking for more than they're entitled to but we'll have a manual auditing process where our auditors, who add straighted the program, have to keep track of all of the contributors themselves and make sure they never match over 150. essentially, that process is not automated. that file can't be right now. we're going to have to manually do that for $150 limiting process ourselves >> is there an e.t.a. on when they could complete the update to the source code? >> it would be some time during next year. in any event, it will not capture this election and we don't think it's a good idea to

change the system on people midway. >> so you mean the march 2020 election or the november? >> they can't fix it before november 2020? >> he can't fix it for november 2020 election period. >> that's a year from now? >> well, although the election is almost a year from now, the time that people are starting to use net file >> it would be six months from now >> well, it's now honestly. committees are already out there and i believe they can submit matching requests earlier in the year. i want to say february i have to check but some time in february they can start submitting. so it's a little sooner than you might think. the roll out period would have to be now. we want it to go now so what we've come up with is the best solution to manually do this

$150 limiting process for this election in the meantime, work with net file to institute an automated $150 cap that will be in place in time for the following election >> is there anything to check the manual work on the back end? just to run a script to test? the math? >> yeah, i would have to touch base with our team to see if they can do something like that. i don't want to speak for them. i'm sure they are automate it and we don't want to be doing everything manually and we have the matching request point in terms of auto make where it's automated with a lot of manual oversights that we're keeping close tabs on things. yeah, more on that later. i just wanted to flag that for

you because it will be a little strange that we're actually telling committees it's ok for them to request $500. because, that's all they can do. i should also note, this is for the free net file. this is for the basic netfile that we make available to filers for free. the net file professional program which is a related separate but private product available to committees, it's a private transaction between them and net file which we don't get involved with but our understanding is that the net file pro efficientl professionaa way for committees to say how much of a contribution they want to appear on a matching request. they could actually only request 150. they have the technical ability to limit that request >> is that being communicated to them? >> we're talking to them. my understanding is that most candidate committee who's are participating in the program,

are working with the treasurer who uses net file professionals. so, it could turnout being for more candidates, their treasure will have access to a way to limit their submission to 150 but if they are use our system it will be weird where they won't have that ability >> communication is critical to make sure that they understand that even though the system is generating a $500 match, they're actually only entitled to 1 othe150 sothey don't become or e disappointed when the amount they receive in terms of matching funds don't correspond to what the request was >> absolutely. we're focus recogniz focusing o. on the next page, e filing for all projects, as had he update you had at the last meeting, we concluded meet and confer i

haven't heard anything that and that suppose done and we are moving forward with that project full steam now and the next thing is i will bring you a draft regulation at the january meeting that would institute e-filing for all and it will have january 2021 effective date. that's a preview of what to expect next month. another update that's not contained in here is that since writing this, i went to the conference with a number of other members of staff and i'll let the director give you the full update but i can speak to my experience there and i was on a panel that focused on relationships that fall outside of the traditional scope of contribution and gift rules so i

focused on the payment laws that were created in san francisco and went into effect this year so those are the new prohibitions on using your value to an organization that you are affiliated with. and also the payment disclosures. that brought into the disclosure to appointed officials as well as elected and lower the threshold to 1,000 so i was giving an update to ethics commission staff from around the country and in canada too about this. i got some interesting questions and feedback about that. it's something that not all jurisdictions have on their radar. new york and l.d. are doing this so it was added context to commission did earlier >> are did they go for an outright ban?

>> in new york, they have actually created the rule that the commission did not approve last year. which was to prohibit officials from soliciting from individuals who have matters before them. new york has that rule in place. so that was interesting to learn. los angeles, i think the los angeles city council approved a developer contribution rule similar to the one we were just talking about in prop f and there was some discussion in los angeles about whether that prohibition should extend to payments made by developers. i don't think they have that but it's been part of the discussion down there. so, to answer your question, yes, it's regulated in some cases considering being

regulated in those places >> in a future meeting, if it's inappropriate to discuss here, i would like to actually sew a report if possible, just on if there's any trends in terms of the reporting that that's been received to date to see how many payments have been made, how much have been made and to whom. >> it could be maybe -- >> are you talking specifically about the new payment disclosures created here? >> yes. >> yeah, i would be glad to. i can tell you right now that there have been very few. of the 3.610 disclosures by the officials making the ask for the payment, i think we've had a dozen or fewer disclosures and four filers and they're all members of the board of supervisors. and not a really high aggregate value of the payments and i don't believe there's been any

disclosures by people making the payments nor by organizations receiving the payments. the reason could be that the thresh holds were set high for people making payments and you only have to foil a disclosure if you make 10,000 or more in one year. and for organizations receiving the payments, you only have to file if you receive $100,000 or more in one year at the official. it's possible no one hit those thresh holds yet. i don't know. but that's the high level of review of the state of those disclosures right now. >> thank you. >> i would be glad to provide more information and deeper dive into the disclosures we have received, if that's of interest. >> the only other update i wanted to mention is just to highlight that next month, in addition to the -- [please stand by]

process with other departments. so that's something i would like to put on the policy prioritization plan. but i think there is some

bandwidth now that the regulations have been approved and now that he -- e-filing has been discussed, there is some room to have another project. i'll be working between now and next meeting with colleagues on staff to identify some good projects to put before you. so i look forward to that discussion. >> likewise. thank you. >> i'll be glad to answer any questions that you have. >> any questions? public comment on agenda item number 7? no public comment. agenda item number 8, discussion of informational report regarding possible elements in revising the commission's fixed penalty policy. >> good afternoon, chair chiu and commissioners. my name is eric willett. i'm an aid, senior investigator analyst with enforcement division. i'm here to provide an update on staff's efforts to revise the

penalty policy into the streamlined administrative resolution program. at the august 2019 commission meeting, directors -- commissioners directed staff to move forward with the policy to reduce incertainty and time spent negotiating a settlement by providing a level of standardization and predictability to the commission's enforcement program. at the september 2019 meeting, staff delivered a process outline with eight steps and appear today to deliver step four by detailing the progress staff made on steps one through three. commission staff reviewed the practices of other jurisdictions including the fair political practices commission, l.a. city ethics commission and san diego ethics commission as well as consulted internally with commission staff.

these conversations were very helpful, and they developed the violations applicable to the goals of the new expanded program as well as the consideration for the inclusion or exclusion from the policy. in addition to a thresholds applicable to each specific violation type. as step two, staff hosted two interested persons meetings. after the november election and before the thanksgiving break and received stakeholder input on a series of questions related to the commission's efforts to revise these approaches. this feedback established members of the committee were in support of these efforts and expanding the existing policy and they provided an opportunity for these persons to present ideas on violations types they would like to see included as well as parameters that would include or exclude an entity or respondent from the program as well as ideas with regard to

penalty structure. in that step three, based on its review of other jurisdictions, internal consultation with staff and feedback from interested persons, enforcement staff developed an overview of preliminary considerations for participation in the streamlined administrative resolution program. general requirements are that the director of enforcement reserves the right to include or exclude any respondent from participating in the program. is it respondent must agree to commit to the commission stipulation and order pursuant to enforcement regulation section 12a and which the respondent acknowledges responsibility for the violation as well as to adhere to the payment. and the respondent must agree to abide by time frames for resolving these and keeping with

the aspects of this program. general exclusions from the program would include evidence of intent to conceal, repeat offenders and conduct that resulted in more than minimum public harm. with regards to specific eligibility requirements, enforcement staff ongoing consultation with staff from other divisions of the commission and enforcement staff will draft specific requirements of eligibility and additional considerations factors and exclusions that are specific to each violation type and will provide that in the coming weeks, most likely the beginning of 2020. now we'll turn to specific violation types we would like to include in the program. the preliminarily identified expanding the existing penalty program which includes essentially just three violation types from article 1 which is

the campaign finance reform ordinance to expanding it to 35 violations over three articles of the san francisco campaigning governmental conduct code. that would include the lobbying ordinance as well as conflict of interest code. and expand the policy and vision to reporting and conduct violations that are relatively straightforward and don't require a large n. of resources to successfully resolve. as you can see within the memo in the agenda item, there are 18 violation types from article 1, eight violation types from article 2 which is the lobbyist ordinance and nine from article 3, the conflict of interest code. before i move onto our next steps, i would like to pause and provide the commissioners an opportunity for any questions. >> how are the interested persons determined? >> the members of the regulatory

committee, as well as anyone who is attached to our mailing list or watchdog groups. we had through our two different i.p. meetings, we had professional services representatives, general counsels, as well as members of the common cause organization, as well as friends of ethics. and we anticipate additional engagement from these persons as they are presented more concrete and specific additions in the coming weeks with these next few weeks that we'll have scheduled in the future. >> commissioner ambrose? >> the documentation for the existing six penalty -- fixed penalty actions, is there like a

monthly report or memorialization of that your action was on that so that if somebody made a complaint about a violation and it ended up on the fixed penalty, they would be able to see, by going to some list somewhere that action had been taken? >> that's an interesting consideration that we should take into account. for instance, this commission meeting did actually include a stipulateed agreement that was - that took place through the existing fixed penalty policy. it was agenda item four or five. >> right. i saw that. obviously if it ends up with a stipulated, it's going to be on the agenda. just so we move, and really this is more for the protection of the staff, as you move towards more staff-based discretionary

decisions, the responsibility and also the exposure to allegations of not giving due consideration to somebody's complaint can escalate. and i think if it gives you the advantage of saying i've made this information available to the commission, no one opt commission asked to bring -- no one on the commission asked to bring it before the commission for review or reconsideration or something. you know? even though you are not going through the formal process of not making a probable cause finding or finding of no probable cause, if you had a list in general, mostly i was thinking about that in terms of the preference for using warning letters for certain of the minor

and initial and unintended violations. everybody's going to be asking you if they could please have a warning letter instead of a $1,000 fine. by making that public information, it still has some approbation associated with it and also allows, presumably, you have to keep track of it anyway, because once you get one warning letter, you don't get a hall pass the second time around. so that was just my thought, is that if it wasn't already something that somebody could do a pretty quick search for that you might want to keep a running tabitha we would see so that you could -- a running tab so we would see that you could see what's out there. >> i may have missed the first part of your question. if your question is are we

currently memorializing and keeping track of the reason behind case dismissals -- >> is there a list of anyone who is been assessed a fixed penalty or got a warning letter. so i know you keep tabs of the complaints, but the disposition of them, warning letter, fixed penalty, probable cause finding, et cetera. >> i believe we do keep that information, but we would also keep it for the points you underscored. >> yeah. at least where you have -- if you have a disposition with a fixed penalty or warning letter, that's going to be a public letter. the complaints themselves, i'm assuming, are not locally disclosed. but they are certainly known to the person who made the complaint. i just want to think about how to bring some sunshine on what

the action item was, because i do think it will provide the staff with some, whatever, protection against criticism about how you've implemented or handled these various dispositions. >> eligibility requirements will bring before the commissioners will include specific enumerations for warning letters, the thresholds for what is not minimal public harm, and that would be excluded from the streamline administrative resolution program, as well as we envision including that language within our regulations. so we would be able to cite to that within the stipulated agreements as well. >> okay. all right. that was my only -- >> feedback. >> if there are no additional

questions, our next steps for this fixed penalty process outline, which were detailed at the extent 2019 meeting, would be to host an additional two interested persons meetings to solicit specific feedback to these 35 different specific violation types and perhaps get a little bit more information with regard to penalty structure. and then revise the draft as appropriate as number 6 and then number 7 would be to present findings and recommendations for the commission for discussion of potential adoption and necessary. we were envisioning perhaps placing the administrative resolution program within the existing enforcement regulations. and then after commission approval, we would begin implementation of the new program. that concludes my presentation.

>> any questions from commissioners? >> when are the two additional interested persons meetings? >> we were hoping to do those in the early -- i put that in january or february, definitely within early 2020. >> i think we've got the momentum going here. so it would be great to continue to build on that as we head into the new year. and i do note -- here it is. ms. mayo has included comments on the agenda item number 8. so i just would want to make sure that you and jess and the team consider that feedback here. >> yes. >> and she may come up during public comment as well. so take that into consideration. >> understood.

thank you, chair chiu. thank you, commissioners. >> public comment on agenda item 8? >> commissioners, as i've indicated in my written testimony, i am in support of expanding the commission streamline enforcement program through the fixed penalty provisions. and i did want to point out in my paragraph too that i think it's also important when the staff is considering factors and criteria for participation in the program, that they do look at violations that are readily apparent with little or no investigation. those have resulted in minimal public harm. and then number three i think is important. i've dealt with the fair political practices commission, and this has been very helpful

in matters where the respondent fully captors with the investigation and -- cooperates with the investigation and sometimes self reports. in terms of the additional provision under campaign finance, i think since contractor contribution prohibition is included, it certainly makes sense to include violations of provisions regulating the contributions by persons with pending land use matters especially since that's going to be a new provision, and people are going to be very confused about that. the $10,000 business entity disclosure and member communications disclosure. i added the gift prohibition since the lobbyist contribution provision was already included. that, again, makes sense. and then the other items that i have under the governmental ethics issue. and i did particularly want to

also emphasize the payment reports by donors and recipients. i think it was listed for the offices. but i do have a concern that donors and recipients, since this is a brand new law, may violate that inadvertently, and i think a fixed penalty would be appropriate for those as well. thank you. >> thank you. any other public comment on agenda item 8? okay. i'll look forward to seeing the next phase in 2020. agenda item 9, discussion of monthly staff enforcement report, but not including an informational presentation on city whistle blower protection that was included as a clerical error in this agenda. this was covered in last month's meeting. but public is welcome to comment on this. and this agenda item also includes an update on various

programmatic highlights of the enforcement program's activities. >> jeff zumwalt, investigative analyst, on behalf of our director of enforcement who is not here today. to the portion of this agenda item we are pleased to have mr. jeffrey, the director of the bureau of delinquent revenue. he has agreed to appear to provide an update on b.d.r.'s efforts to collect on up paid late fees and penalties the commission assessed. but the parties or respondents have yet to pay as well as to answer any questions the commissioners may have regarding their collection process. >> good afternoon. so i have a list of questions. i'm sure if you have those questions with you on specific items you want me to cover? >> no >> okay.

so i can walk through the questions and then answer them. so there's 11 in total so let me know if i get too long-winded. one of the first questions was how does our office decide how many resources to invest in trying to locate a deter. to answer that question, we typically evaluate the collectibility, so how much information we have on the person as well as if there's any ways to execute on the obligation. and also the total value will help determine how much effort we are going to dedicate to try to invest in trying to locate someone or execute on the obligation in and of itself. so i'll stop each time in case you have any questions on the response. the second question, does the bureau ever decide if the cost of locating a deter or seeking payment outweighs the benefits?

and yes, there are times when, let's say for example if someone who has assets outside of the state or they reside outside the state but the obligations are owed here and we have to seek outside counsel or efforts there that's more costly, then we would typically circle back to the commission to communicate that so you would be aware of that. if you sent us an obligation for $5,000 but the cost to pursue them is going to exceed that, we'll communicate that so the ethics commission can make that decision. >> do you have a list of objective criteria that tells you when you basically pull the plug? or is it a discretionary decision? >> typically discretionary. it really depends on what information we have available to us at the time. and we do have some cases where the balances are pretty

significant or if we have momentum, we obtained the judgment, and it's time to go back as we would like to, then that can also play a factor in deciding how much time and effort we want to dedicate to it. the third question, what roll, if any, does the ethics commission as klines play in adviseing bureau -- as clients in advising the bureau whether to cut their efforts. it's up to the ethics commission. if you have incidents where you believe it's not worth us to continue to pursue them, we are fine with having those cases recalled back or referred back. >> can i jump in here? >> yes >> so do you meet with ethics commission staff periodically to review the list of -- >> we send a monthly report. so the monthly report will share what the current status is, the last actions taken, where these

cases are. and it gives them a timeline. so we can have some cases like one is in a bankruptcy and how much time it's going to take in the bankruptcy process. we show that information on a monthly basis. >> okay. >> the next question, what method does b.b.r. use and we have many. within our office, we have access to various databases that are unique to t.t.x., such as business tax filings and other information such as that. we also use lexis-nexis, there's d.m.v., employment information. and we have trained professional collectors that know how to leverage social media, linked in or internet tools so we can use information to locate a person. number five, how does the bureau decide when to reassign an

account to a collection agency. this is also part of the cost effectiveness discussion component. so sometimes if we look at our resources and we have had cases not specific to the ethics commission where if they are located outside of the state, and we do have two collection agencies who supplement our collection services. we can assign to them, and they do collections all throughout the u.s. i've had them go for it versus us spending money directly. number 6, recent status indicated debtors have refused to pay. how do debtors communicate that? it's normally through phone or e-mail or some other way. a promise to pay is when the debtor has committed to a specific date of repayment and dollar amount. the dollar amount typically is for the entirety of the balance.

so anything less than that would be either a settlement discussion or payment plan based on the debtor's ability to pay. refusals to pay is flat out refusing to pay. so they are not going to make any commitments to pay back the obligation. so that informs us for our next steps. refusals will escalate if we have the ability to execute via judgment, that's the path they will go down. when the bureau secures a payment plan with the debt debtor, what form does that take? it is formal. we have them sign a payment plan agreement. i want to be careful with how i call it a contract. it's basically the language agreement stipulates to the debtor that they are acknowledging their obligation to pay, that they owe the

obligation. they are waiving their right under the statutes of limitations for the actions that we are take, ask they are acknowledging that consequences of default. and we have the typical repayment terms as far as the duration of the payment plan agreement, the obligation deadline date and we provide for their convenience the methods of how they can pay us, online, for example. question 8, if a payment plan is a contract with the city, are there code provisions that affect how the bureau and debtor interact? for example if they miss a payment have they breeched the contract? does renegotiating a payment plan mean renegotiating a contract requiring certain formalities? i wouldn't want to call it a contract, per se, with the city. this is definitely a document that we would use as part of an enforcement proceeding if we took it to court to show the debtor acknowledged they have an obligation to repay the debt. it doesn't change how we

interact with them. in our line of work, it's kind of expected that you are going to have a sloppy payer. so we are get them on a payment plan agreement. if they happen to miss five days and pay on day ten, we will work with people who are oing with us on good -- who are working with us on good faith. if you default, it is considered a default of an agreement. and what happens is while the agreement is active, you are basically, we are going to suspend our collection process because you are making an effort to pay. default will trigger that process to resume and go through the debt collection cycle that we normally would. question nine, does the debtor's agreement to a payment plan represent a waiver of rights to challenge the debt or underlying ethics penalty that forms the basis of that debt? i would say no. so the language in the agreement does not preclude them from being able to challenge it.

question ten, can the ethics commission take it back after they make a referral to negotiate or does a referral indicate we own the account? we do not own it. it's fine for the ethics commission to recall an account back if they needed to renegotiate for whatever the reasons might be. some of the common things we see with clients is if they send an obligation to us and say we were off on the amount that was due or there was the due process element that was missed and whenever we administered the penalty to them it wouldn't have that part fixed before we sent it back, that happens on a regular basis with other clients, and we treat those cases the same. it's fine to have them pulled back. the only thing is if the client or the debtor is responding after efforts have been initiated, whenever they make

payments, the commissions are still payable to b.d.r. >> i'm sorry. could i go back to my original question? i've been mulling it over. and that's whether you have any objective criteria or not. this is sort of a two-part follow-up. number one, has the bureau ever considered whether it auto to have at least a few -- ought to have at least a few brightline criteria, for example if the claim is less than x, we will not spend more than y months chasing it. >> got you. i totally missed that one. >> and second part would be has the bureau ever compared its policies with the policies of similar jurisdictions to see how they focus on collecting debts? >> answers to both questions. so as far as objective criteria, yes, we do typically, have a

full collection effort for accounts of $1,000 or greater. that's the primary criteria. anything less than $1,000, we are not going to consider going down the legal path. you'll probably get the standards collection treatment, notices, 90 days of dialing, then they are assigned to a collection agency. anything over $1,000, they will look for assets. we work them up to 18 months before we assign them to the collection agency. and then the second part of that question, as far as comparing to other government entities who do the same collections we do, yes, we do. so we do touch base with other members of different commissione the c.m.r.t. or organizations that we share best business practices and how they do

performance evaluations on the ability to pay and the return of investment as far as the time and effort that we put in. >> thank you. >> commissioner ambrose. >> i think i heard an answer to a question i had, which is the control and responsibility for the management, the ultimate decision on management of these outstanding debts is retained by the ethics commission. so it's not a matter -- it's referred to your bureau, you're assisting the commission in the recovery of that debt. but there have been some that have been carried here now for seven years, and that was part of the genesis for some of these questions is how much longer are we going to be reading about this person is unable to be found. so we should not here and now,

but follow up with the staff in thinking about how we might be able to give further feedback to you about whether or not you should continue to carry this on some of these on your to-do list. >> understood. i think part of that too would be some of the older cases are typically judgments. so probably we have them for the duration of the judgment. so periodically, the collector may do post-judgment review where they may continue to look for assets or try to locate a person or locate assets to try to execute the judgment against. but understood. >> right. so -- and this is probably where the discretion is opposed to so much of our criteria. if you have a judgment, so you don't have a statute, you are not on a short statute of limitations, as you just said, it can sit fairly dormant and every once in a while somebody

picks it up and runs it through the system to see if that person has made their presence known or an asset made available. right. so it's not like somebody is spending 15 minutes every week trying to find this person for seven years, right? >> no, no, no. it will be typically we look for judgment cases, specific for small volumes, we'll have like nine active account. once a month they'll touch it. and it depends if they are able to identify any leads to an asset. but the judgments we are good for ten years, and we renew them up to the full 30 years. >> so actually on that note for chris jackson whose referral date was six and a half years ago, i did spend not 15 minutes but ten minutes to make sure that that's actually on the agenda, though, his specific

case. can we -- anybody feel comfortable -- >> i would refrain from referring to specific cases. >> somebody might want to talk with him about it after the meeting. >> that's fine. well, linkedin is a wonderful place, as is google search. i would encourage that your team do that, because it can be very fruitful. >> i appreciate that. >> thank you. anyway, i'm sorry. >> no, it's just, the reason this came about was -- and thank you for coming and talking about and sharing more about what d.b.r. does. it concerns to me and us as a commission that this was referred six and a half years ago already and it's just not much -- still trying to locate people and track down assets and things and just want to better

understand what efforts are being undertaken, what can be done differently in order to get to the outcome that we all want to see here. >> i mean, we should add notwithstanding, there are some that have been carried, we do appreciate the good work you do there. i'm sure our staff in particular appreciates that you are doing it. and they are not doing it, right? [laughter] so but there are these kind of, whatever, some holdouts, as it were that we want to make sure we are doing what we need to do to get -- >> i appreciate that. and if the staff ever run into anything that may be of benefit to d.b.r., we'll have to collaborate to help push things forward. >> great. >> thank you. >> any other questions? >> you guys have a good rest of the weekend and a good weekend.

>> any public comment on agenda item number 9? no. okay. agenda item 10, discussion of existing ethics commission regular meeting skebbling and possible action to provide direction to staff regarding notice of potential bylaws amendment to revise regular meeting schedule for 2020. >> thank you. i wanted to highlight on agenda item 10, we wanted to provide information to you at the request of chair chiu. it is a time of year when the commission typically looks at its regular meeting schedule to identify for the coming year if the regular meeting schedule still makes sense, if you would like to make changes. the commission wants to make changes or consider changes, there are a series of stars that need to align.

one is there needs to be a space available. so we have spent time looking to identify space that could accommodate the commission's meetings at different types if you wanted to consider that, because our meetings are televised on sf gov tv. so we have proposed a series -- the second thing that needs to align is time to allow for a notice of a bylaws change if the commission does want to meet at a different time, because the bylaws do require the commission establish what's called a regular meeting schedule. and so that -- those dates would be approved after a period of notice. it can be agendized for the commission if the commission wanted to make changes and direct us to do a notice of the bylaws change, we could do that in if in time for the january meeting. but we wanted to provide this calendar for you so you could see what the options were at this point. and we were able to identify the three options shown on the

second page. first that the commission retain its current regular meeting schedule of starting at 2:00 p.m. on the third friday of each month. we also did identify there could be a meeting change to the first friday of each month starting at 9:30 a.m. and thirdly, another option is to change the regular meeting date to the second fridaying of each month and change the start time to 9:30 a.m. it is also the case that as you've seen over the years, there may be some months that commissioners cannot make a particular meeting date. when the commission approves this schedule, through a bylaw change, that could be noted in the schedule. so if one month needed to be off of what was adopted as the regular meeting date, we could put that as well. so the regular meeting date can stay as is, and we can note if there are any exceptions to that over the years, if need be. so i wanted to provide that to

you to make looking at the calendar year slightly easier. we did provide a graphic of those dates just so you can look at it and see if you are interested in considering a date change, how that might play out with your schedules. i'm happy to answer any questions and turn it over to each of you to give us your sense in direction, how you might want to proceed. >> i have a question. and as you know, i'm fairly new to the commission. so i was wondering why on earth we meet friday afternoons. it just inherently seems to me like the worst possible time for this type of meeting, since we often do go until 5. and there was one time we went to 6. so just from a personal standpoint, i would be interested in why we don't have morning meetings. and i understand there are space considerations and all of that. and that just may be the way it is. so i'd be happy to hear the bace

background. >> that was the beginning for my request because we were limited by the room requirements. this was the only time slot where we could get friday. it used to be mondays at 5:00 p.m. and we would go until 11:00 or midnight some days. and then the friday after 2:00 i think is a difficult time for people to make, and i think mornings would be better, and that's why i announced the executive director and her team to look at what room availability there may be for the 2020 calendar year. it's still friday, but 9:30 on friday is better than 2:00 p.m. on friday. >> almost anything is better than 2:00 p.m. on friday. >> the third fridays had us on the friday of a long weekend where it would discourage participation by the public,

because it was martin luther king and then president's day weekend, and today is the last day for the holidays, i think a lot of people have already left town. so hence we are having this discussion about the fridays. still friday but 9:30 a.m. on either the first or second day of the month. i think that for my own personal view, i would be in favor of moving to the second friday of each month, but beginning due to calendar conflicts already that we have beginning in april of 2020, so beginning april 10, we would have the regular meetings. i think for january we would need to stick with our regularly-scheduled meeting on the 17th. and then keep the third friday at 2:00 until april of 2020, and we could move to, if we pick the second friday, april 10th.

>> i like that idea, myself. >> would the second fridays work for -- >> i don't really care whether it's the second, third, fourth. if it's going to be at 2:00, it doesn't matter to me. >> we are saying keep the regular dates for january, february and march, and then april we go to -- >> the second friday. >> at 9:30? that's fine. >> i guess we'll put this on the agenda for january. so commissioner lee would have an opportunity to weigh in. all right. yeah, i would certainly appreciate being able to consider that. and we can also get some feedback from the public who are watching. >> i don't think a motion is required to do this since you are directing us to issue the notice, and the action would be placed on the january agenda.

so we'll provide information for the public and make sure it's circulating to provide you the opportunity to act at that point. >> i would like to know how the staff feels about it. this obviously affects you. and maybe if moving it changes things or makes it more difficult for you, then i would like to consider that. >> thank you for that point. i think staff would be in favor of moving it to an earlier time in the day as well. it does give more time for more meeting to play out in the normal course. i think friday afternoons are difficult for the public to be here. so morning meetings, i'm hopeful that we'll see more people. but certainly we will work with the commission's desire based on your schedules and the public comment at the january meeting. we are flexible, but we are happy to start earlier in the day. >> we would have the room for the sufficient number of hours? i know these rooms are booked pretty solid. so you would have it until noon or something. >> i think we would have it

beyond noon. >> no one meets on friday afternoons. >> okay. great. >> thank you. any public comment on agenda item number 10? okay. seeing none. agenda item number 11, discussion of executive director's report. >> thank you. on this item, a brief look forward, recapping some of the program implementation updates you heard from pat ford in his report. i did want to follow up with more specific information. at the last commission meeting i relayed we had sworn that supervisors president requested an audit of the commission. that is a motion that was directing the budget and legislative analyst to conduct a performance audit of the commission as a priority of part of its work toward this coming -- for this fiscal year that we are in. and we followed up directly with the l.a. office and also

supervisoree, and we understand there's a motion to approve that would be considered at a meeting in the early part of january. so we will keep you posted on that. we will be available to answer any questions the board might have. i reached out to mr. rose and his team to let them know if this does pass we are happy to provide whatever assistance we can to enable it to be a smooth audit. so we'll keep you posted. but that is something that will require legislative adoption if i understand it. i wanted to highlight one of the items on the staffing news. we do have the investigative analyst position posted. we did extend it for two weeks through december 31 on sf jobs because we realize with the holidays it might make it difficult for people to focus but we want to extend that. we look forward to having that process moving in ernest at the first of the new year. we will be posting and dusting off two other positions to get them through the pipeline as

soon as we can. and lastly, i would just add to pat ford's comments about the annual conference, we were pleased to be able to send a group to the conversation. pat participated in the panel. i saw staff at early morning meeting table topic starting at 7:30 in the morning to take advantage of informal conversation with colleagues around the country on issues where we have a lot of shared interest and experience. and the conference went until 5:30 every day. we had a chance to meet with our california agency colleagues, which was a great experience to get to know each other more informally, but it also sparked a lot of good ideas about how we might connect over the course of the year so we don't have to wait until cogel to sit down and compare notes. i participated on the panel wednesday morning with my counterpart in seattle, the grassroots lobbyist for public citizen, and a woman who heads

the state and local government work for common cause in washington, focusing on revolving door issues for campaign consultants as lobbyists. what was surprising to me is the conference on a wednesday morning on a day where there were other major events happening related to government ethics, we still had a room of close to 60 people wanting to talk about issues that were involved in the work we do every day. and so we had over 500 people at this year's conference which was a high for the organization's conferences. and that's a good sign of how much interest there still is around the country, how much resources, governments and citizens are willing to put into agencies doing this kind of work to get us to go to those conferences and understand and be on top of what the latest trends are. we are going to be debriefing with each other over the next couple days as everybody comes back to the office over the holidays so we can plan to do a more deep dive for the overview of the rest of the staff that

couldn't be there. so we very much appreciate that we have the resources to do it, and we are looking forward to continuing to participate as we can when funding and conference location provides that to be permissible. but we did learn a lot from this year. we found it a shot in the arm. so we are happy to be there and provide you with further feedback once we debrief and settle back in. and again, just as a final note, through this calendar year, we do very much appreciate, as my report notes, a bit more formally, but we want to appreciate the work the commission has done, the heavy lifting and the 2:00 afternoon meetings. we know it's not easy, and particularly going into the issues, going away for a month and coming back. the commission has always done a tremendous job being able to keep its foot on the gas pedal. we know that's the same with the public who comes and provides comment at interested persons meetings and commission meetings. from the staff, i want to say

thank you for your effort and to the public for keeping us on our tows, and we do hope that we will continue to work collaboratively in the coming here to ensure that here in san francisco our public service is worthy of the public trust. we appreciate your work. so thank you. we hope you have wonderful holidays. >> i wanted to extend our thanks to you and all the staff for the great work that you do day in and day out, because you make what we do up here possible. so without you, it wouldn't be possible. and i really appreciate the thought partnership and the long hours and the extreme patience that it takes to wrangle and herd cats on legislative matters across even multiple stakeholders and through city hall, and the fact that we got so much done this year i think is a real testament to your leadership and the leadership underneath you as well as the old-fashioned hard work. so thank you for all of it.

i did have one question. is the budget season kicking off? >> i don't know how i avoided touching on that. the budget season has kicked off. and while we were away at cogel, we did have a department head meeting with the mayor to issue budget instructions. i understand from that that departments this year, because of the strength of focus that the mayor would like to place on a critical pressing needs the city has, including homelessness and other needs, there's been a request that each department present budgets that consider cuts of 3 percent to about 7 percent. so those are deeper cuts that have been requested in prior years. so we again -- i'm hoping to have first discussions starting next week with folks from the mayor's office and welcome the chance to just walk through and get up to speed on what those

requests look like and also to reflect on the needs the commission continues to have for the work that we do. so we will be very much focused over the next several weeks in putting together a budget request. the budget will be due on february 21st, which is the date of our february commission meeting. so we will work to put together as much information as we can wherever we are in the budget process for the commission's january meeting so you and the public can be informed with what we know at that time. but it is likely, as you know from prior years, given the work that the budget takes, it can be sometimes hard to have a final picture of what those requests or exercises will look like until we actually submit the thing on february 21. we want to make sure there's information presented to you in january. we'll do our best to be as full about that as we can. i'm happy to answer any further questions. >> thank you.

just a call for public comment? agenda item 12, discussion and possible action on items for future meetings. >> i just had a quick question. there was an e-mail from someone about possible further amendment to the public financing regs concerning the counting of -- if i can remember, of campaign -- of public financing funds as part of the triggers for campaign independent expenditure cap. did you see that e-mail? i wasn't the only one. so i mean obviously i'm not putting a timeline on it, but i would like to understand better the problem that was identified and what your staff recommendation is about whether and how it should or could be addressed. >> i would be glad to talk with you about that. >> okay. great. thanks. >> public comment on agenda item

number 12. being none, additional opportunity for public comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the agenda, pursuant to ethics commission bylaws article vii, section 2. if there's no comment, i move to adjourn. happy holidays, everyone. ... [♪]

>> i just don't know that you can find a neighborhood in the city where you can hear music stands and take a ride on the low rider down the street. it is an experience that you can't have anywhere else in san francisco. [♪] [♪] >> district nine is a in the southeast portion of the city. we have four neighborhoods that i represent. st. mary's park has a completely unique architecture. very distinct feel, and it is a very close to holly park which is another beautiful park in san francisco. the bernal heights district is unique in that we have the hell which has one of the best views

in all of san francisco. there is a swinging hanging from a tree at the top. it is as if you are swinging over the entire city. there are two unique aspects. it is considered the fourth chinatown in san francisco. sixty% of the residents are of chinese ancestry. the second unique, and fun aspect about this area is it is the garden district. there is a lot of urban agriculture and it was where the city grew the majority of the flowers. not only for san francisco but for the region. and of course, it is the location in mclaren park which is the city's second biggest park after golden gate. many people don't know the neighborhood in the first place if they haven't been there. we call it the best neighborhood nobody has ever heard our. every neighborhood in district nine has a very special aspect. where we are right now is the mission district. the mission district is a very special part of our city. you smell the tacos at the

[speaking spanish] and they have the best latin pastries. they have these shortbread cookies with caramel in the middle. and then you walk further down and you have sunrise café. it is a place that you come for the incredible food, but also to learn about what is happening in the neighborhood and how you can help and support your community. >> twenty-fourth street is the birthplace of the movement. we have over 620 murals. it is the largest outdoor public gallery in the country and possibly the world. >> you can find so much political engagement park next to so much incredible art. it's another reason why we think this is a cultural district that we must preserve. [♪] >> it was formed in 2014. we had been an organization that

had been around for over 20 years. we worked a lot in the neighborhood around life issues. most recently, in 2012, there were issues around gentrification in the neighborhood. so the idea of forming the cultural district was to help preserve the history and the culture that is in this neighborhood for the future of families and generations. >> in the past decade, 8,000 latino residents in the mission district have been displaced from their community. we all know that the rising cost of living in san francisco has led to many people being displaced. lower and middle income all over the city. because it there is richness in this neighborhood that i also mentioned the fact it is flat and so accessible by trip public transportation, has, has made it very popular. >> it's a struggle for us right now, you know, when you get a lot of development coming to an area, a lot of new people coming to the area with different sets

of values and different culture. there is a lot of struggle between the existing community and the newness coming in. there are some things that we do to try to slow it down so it doesn't completely erase the communities. we try to have developments that is more in tune with the community and more equitable development in the area. >> you need to meet with and gain the support and find out the needs of the neighborhoods. the people on the businesses that came before you. you need to dialogue and show respect. and then figure out how to bring in the new, without displacing the old. [♪] >> i hope we can reset a lot of the mission that we have lost in the last 20 years. so we will be bringing in a lot of folks into the neighborhoods pick when we do that, there is a demand or, you know, certain types of services that pertain more to the local community and working-class. >> back in the day, we looked at

mission street, and now it does not look and feel anything like mission street. this is the last stand of the latino concentrated arts, culture and cuisine and people. we created a cultural district to do our best to conserve that feeling. that is what makes our city so cosmopolitan and diverse and makes us the envy of the world. we have these unique neighborhoods with so much cultural presence and learnings, that we want to preserve. [♪] brine is in the pro -- o bryan

works on oceanside projects. we understand the infrastructure is old and there is new technology to incorporate. bryan's role is to manage the capital projects to update infrastructure and to make things more efficient. >> bryan is a unique project manager. he brings technical experience but only that but he is a great mentor to young project managers in my group. >> mentors is a lot about compatibility, too. he showed me his process and how he organized things and managed projects and had conversations on escalating things with contractors. >> brine shows leadership. he is independent. >> we work together pretty well with the resources we have to

get the best outcome for the city. i think we have an open communication and that trust again of teamwork. >> bryan is a straight-shooter, he likes to get things done. he doesn't seek praise. i think that is why myself wanted to nominate him for the award to get recognition for the things he does to go above and beyond in his job. >> he is committed. that is why he deserved the golden pride award. >> i haven't been awarded anything like this in my 20 years. that is exciting to be recognized. it is special. it is excited to get recognition with the ongoing activities with the focus on the southeast. it is good to have a little bright light over here every once in a while.

we are next to sor ocean beach. >> i am a project manager for the sewer system improvement program at oceanside. is -- >> our united states s -- constitution requires every ten years that america counts every human being in the united states, which is incredibly important for many reasons. it's important for preliminary representation because if -- political representation because if we under count california, we get less representatives in congress. it's important for san francisco because if we don't

have all of the people in our city, if we don't have all of the folks in california, california and san francisco stand to lose billions of dollars in funding. >> it's really important to the city of san francisco that the federal government gets the count right, so we've created count sf to motivate all -- sf count to motivate all citizens to participate in the census. >> for the immigrant community,

a lot of people aren't sure whether they should take part, whether this is something for u.s. citizens or whether it's something for anybody who's in the yunited states, and it is something for everybody. census counts the entire population. >> we've given out $2 million to over 30 community-based organizations to help people do the census in the communities where they live and work. we've also partnered with the public libraries here in the city and also the public schools to make sure there are informational materials to make sure the folks do the census at those sites, as well a we've initiated a campaign to motivate the citizens and make sure they participate in census 2020. because of the language issues that many chinese community and families experience, there is a

lot of mistrust in the federal government and whether their private information will be kept private and confidential. >> so it's really important that communities like bayview-hunters point participate because in the past, they've been under counted, so what that means is that funding that should have gone to these communities, it wasn't enough. >> we're going to help educate people in the tenderloin, the multicultural residents of the tenderloin. you know, any one of our given blocks, there's 35 different languages spoken, so we are the original u.n. of san francisco. so it's -- our job is to educate people and be able to familiarize themselves on doing this census. >> you go on-line and do the census.

it's available in 13 languages, and you don't need anything. it's based on household. you put in your address and answer nine se questions. how many people are in your household, do you rent, and your information. your name, your age, your race, your gender. >> everybody is $2,000 in funding for our child care, housing, food stamps, and medical care. >> all of the residents in the city and county of san francisco need to be counted in census 2020. if you're not counted, then your community is underrepresented and will be underserved.

>> it did take a village. i was really lucky when i was 14 years old to get an internship. the difference that it made for me is i had a job, but there were other people who didn't have a job, who, unfortunately, needed money. and they were shown to commit illegal acts to get money. that is what i want to prevent. [♪] today we are here to officially kick off the first class of opportunities for all. [applause]. >> opportunities for all is a program that mayor breed launched in october of 2018. it really was a vision of mayor breed to get to all of the young people in san francisco, but with an intention to focus on young people that have typically not being able to access

opportunities such as internships or work-based learning opportunities. >> money should never be a barrier to your ability to succeed in life and that is what this program is about. >> there's always these conversations about young people not being prepared and not having experience for work and if they don't get an opportunity to work, then they cannot gain the experience that they need. this is really about investing in the future talent pool and getting them the experience that they need. >> it is good for everyone because down the road we will need future mechanics, future pilots, future bankers, future whatever they may be in any industry. this is the pipe on we need to work with. we need to start developing talent, getting people excited about careers, opening up those pathways and frankly giving opportunities out there that would normally not be presented. [♪] >> the way that it is organized is there are different points of entry and different ways of

engagement for the young person and potential employers. young people can work in cohorts or in groups and that's really for people that have maybe never had job experience or who are still trying to figure out what they want to do and they can explore. and in the same way, it is open for employers to say, you know what, i don't think we are ready to host an intern year-round are all summer, but that they can open up their doors and do site visits or tours or panels or conversations. and then it runs all the way up to the opportunity for young people to have long-term employment, and work on a project and be part of the employee base. >> something new, to get new experience and meet people and then you are getting paid for it you are getting paid for doing that. it is really cool. >> i starting next week, i will be a freshman. [cheers and applause] two of the things i appreciate about this program was the amazing mentorship in the job

experience that i had. i am grateful for this opportunity. thank you. >> something i learned at airbnb is how to network and how important it is to network because it is not only what you know, but also who you know to get far in life. >> during this program, i learned basic coding languages, had a had to identify the main components and how to network on a corporate level. it is also helping me accumulate my skills all be going towards my college tuition where i will pursue a major in computer science. >> for myself, being that i am an actual residential realtor, it was great. if anybody wants to buy a house, let me know. whenever. [applause] it is good. i got you. it was really cool to see the commercial side and think about the process of developing property and different things that i can explore.

opportunities for all was a great opportunity for all. >> we were aiming to have 1,000 young people register and we had over 2,000 people register and we were able to place about between 50 and did. we are still getting the final numbers of that. >> over several weeks, we were able to have students participate in investment banking they were able to work with our team, or technology team, our engineering 20 we also gave them lessons around the industry, around financial literacy. >> there are 32,000 young people ages 16 and 24 living in san francisco. and imagine if we can create an opera skin it just opportunity for all program for every young person that lives in public housing, affordable housing, low income communities. it is all up to you to make that happen. >> we have had really great response from employers and they have been talking about it with other employers, so we have had a lot of interest for next year

to have people sign on. we are starting to figure out how to stay connected to those young people and to get prepared to make sure we can get all 2400 or so that registered. we want to give them placement and what it looks like if they get more. >> let's be honest, there is always a shortage of good talent in any industry, and so this is a real great career path. >> for potential sponsors who might be interested in supporting opportunities for all , there is an opportunity to make a difference in our city. this is a really thriving, booming economy, but not for everyone. this is a way to make sure that everyone gets to benefit from the great place that san francisco is and that we are building pathways for folks to be able to stay here and that they feel like they will belong. >> just do it. sign up for it. [♪]

[♪] >> manufacturing in cities creates this perfect platform for people to earn livelihoods and for people to create more

economic prosperity. i'm kate sosa. i'm cofounder and ceo of sf made. sf made is a public private partnership in the city of san francisco to help manufacturers start, grow, and stay right here in san francisco. sf made really provides wraparound resources for manufacturers that sets us apart from other small business support organizations who provide more generalized support. everything we do has really been developed over time by listening and thinking about what manufacturer needs grow. for example, it would be traditional things like helping them find capital, provide assistance loans, help to provide small business owners

with education. we have had some great experience doing what you might call pop ups or temporary selling events, and maybe the most recent example was one that we did as part of sf made week in partnership with the city seas partnership with small business, creating a 100 company selling day right here at city hall, in partnership with mayor lee and the board of supervisors, and it was just a wonderful opportunity for many of our smaller manufacturers who may be one or two-person shop, and who don't have the wherewithal to have their own dedicated retail store to show their products and it comes back to how do we help companies set more money into arthur businesses and develop more customers and their relationships, so that they can continue to grow and continue to stay here in san francisco.

i'm amy kascel, and i'm the owner of amy kaschel san francisco. we sta our line with wedding gowns, and about a year ago, we launched a ready to wear collection. san francisco's a great place to do business in terms of clientele. we have wonderful brides from all walks of life and doing really interesting things: architects, doctors, lawyers, teachers, artists, other like minded entrepreneurs, so really fantastic women to work with. i think it's important for them to know where their clothes are made and how they're made. >> my name is jefferson mccarly, and i'm the general manager of the mission bicycle company. we sell bikes made here for people that ride here. essentially, we sell city bikes made for riding in urban

environments. our core business really is to build bikes specifically for each individual. we care a lot about craftsmanship, we care a lot about quality, we care about good design, and people like that. when people come in, we spend a lot of time going to the design wall, and we can talk about handle bars, we can see the riding position, and we take notes all over the wall. it's a pretty fun shopping experience. paragraph. >> for me as a designer, i love the control. i can see what's going on, talk to my cutter, my pattern maker, looking at the designs. going through the suing room, i'm looking at it, everyone on the team is kind of getting involved, is this what that drape look? is this what she's

expecting, maybe if we've made a customization to a dress, which we can do because we're making everything here locally. over the last few years, we've been more technical. it's a great place to be, but you know, you have to concentrate and focus on where things are going and what the right decisions are as a small business owner. >> sometimes it's appropriate to bring in an expert to offer suggestions and guidance in coaching and counseling, and other times, we just need to talk to each other. we need to talk to other manufacturers that are facing similar problems, other people that are in the trenches, just like us, so that i can share with them a solution that we came up with to manage our inventory, and they can share with me an idea that they had about how to

overcome another problem. >> moving forward, where we see ourselves down the road, maybe five and ten years, is really looking at a business from a little bit more of a ready to wear perspective and making things that are really thoughtful and mindful, mindful of the end user, how they're going to use it, whether it's the end piece or a he hwedding gown, are they going to use it again, and incorporating that into the end collection, and so that's the direction i hear at this point. >> the reason we are so enamored with the work we do is we really do see it as a platform for changing and making the city something that it has always been and making sure that we're sharing the opportunities that we've been blessed with economically and socially as possible, broadening that

>> when i look at an old neon sign that's working or not working, i feel the family business that was in there. >> since 2009, citywide, sf shines, has supported businesses and sites like the ones that receive new neon signs. >> you know, sf shines is doing an amazing job to bring back the lighting and the neon glow

of san francisco. >> sf shines is such an amazing program, and i can't think of another program in another city that gives matching gunned funds to store owners, mom and pop owners, and if they've got a neon sign, they've really got a great way to advertise their business. >> this is a continuation of the sf shines program. >> focusing other neon signs is relatively new to us. of the seven neon signs, we've invested about $145,000. >> a good quality sign costs more, but it lasts infinitily longer. as opposed to lasting five years, a good neon sign will last 15 to 20 years. >> in san francisco, the

majority of neon signs are for mom-and-pop businesses. in order to be able to restore these signs, i think it gives back to your community. >> part of the project has to do with prioritizing certain signs in the neighborhood based on their aesthetics, based on their current signs, and base on the history. in the time that we've been here, we've seen a number of signs restored just on eddy street. >> there are a number of signs in the tenderloin and many more that are waiting or wanting to be restored. i have worked with randall and al, and we've mapped out every single one of them and rated them as to how much work they would need to get restored. that information is passed onto sf shines, and they are going to rank it. so if they have x budget for a year, they can say all right, we're going to pick these five,

and they're putting together clusters, so they build on top of what's already there. >> a cluster of neon signs is sort of, i guess, like a cluster of grapes. when you see them on a corner or on a block, it lights up the neighborhood and creates an ambient glow. if you havy got two of three of them, you've created an atmosphere that's almost like a movie set. >> some of the hotel, we've already invested in to get those neon signs for people to enjoy at night include the elk hotel, jefferson hotel, the verona, not to mention some we've done in chinatown, as well as the city's portal neighborhood. >> we got the fund to restore it. it took five months, and the biggest challenge was it was completely infested with pigeons. once we got it clean, it came

out beautiful. >> neon signs are often equated with film noir, and the noir genre as seen through the hollywood lens basically depicted despair and concentration. >> you would go downtown and see the most recent humphrey bogart film filled with neon in the background. and you'd see that on market street, and as market street got seedier and seedier and fewer people continued to go down, that was what happened to all the neon strips of light. >> the film nori might start with the light filled with neon signs, and end with a scene

with a single neon sign blinking and missing a few letters. >> one of my favorite scenes, orson welles is chasing ririt rita hayworth with neon signs in the background. >> i think what the office of economic and workforce development is very excited with is that we'll be able to see more neon signs in a concentrated way lit up at night for visitors and most especially residents. the first coin laundry, the elm hotel, the western hotel are ones that we want to focus on in the year ahead. >> neon signs are so iconic to certain neighborhoods like the

hara, like the nightcap. we want to save as many historic and legacy neon signs in san francisco, and so do they. we bring the expertise, and they bring the means to actually get the job done. >> people in tenderloin get really excited as they see the signs relit. as you're driving through the tenderloin or the city, it pretty much tells you something exciting is happening here. >> knee an was created to make the night more friendly and advertise businesses. it's a great way of supporting and helping local businesses. >> there's so many ways to improve public safety. the standard way is having more eyes on the street, but there's other culturally significant ways to do that, and one those ways is lighting up the streets. but what better way and special way to do that is by having old, historic neon signs lighting up our streets at

night and casting away our shadows. >> when i see things coming back to life, it's like remembering how things were. it's remembering the hotel or the market that went to work seven days a week to raise their money or to provide a service, and it just -- it just -- it ju watching. >> ever wonder about programs the city is working on to make san francisco the best place to live and work we bring shine won

our city department and the people making them happy what happened next sf oh, san francisco known for it's looks at and history and beauty this place arts has it all but it's city government is pretty unique in fact, san francisco city departments are filled with truly initiative programming that turns this way our goal is to create programs that are easily digestable and easy to follow so that our resident can participate in healing the planet with the new take dial initiative they're getting close to zero waste we 2020 and today

san francisco is diverting land filled and while those numbers are imperfect not enough. >> we're sending over 4 hundred thousand tons of waste to the landfill and over the 4 hundred tons 10 thousands are textile and unwanted listen ones doesn't have to be find in the trash. >> i could has are the ones creating the partnerships with the rail kwloth stores putting an in store collection box near the checks stand so customers can bring their used clothes to the store and deposit off. >> textile will be accessible in buildings thought the city

and we have goodwill a grant for them to design a textile box especially for families. >> goodwill the well-known store has been making great strides. >> we grateful to give the items to goodwill it comes from us selling those items in our stores with you that process helps to divert things it from local landfills if the san francisco area. >> and the textile box will take it one step further helping 1230 get to zero waste. >> it brings the donation opportunity to the donor making that as convenient as possible it is one of the solutions to make sure we're capturing all the value in the textiles. >> with the help of good will

and other businesses san francisco will eliminate 39 millions tons of landfill next year and 70 is confident our acts can and will make a great difference. >> we believe that government matters and cities matter what we side in san francisco, california serve as a model phenomenal in our the rest of the country by the world. >> whether you do not to goodwill those unwanted text told us or are sufficient value and the greater community will benefit. >> thanks to sf environment san francisco has over one hundred drop off locations visit recycle damn and thanks for watching join

volunteers. >> my name is mark a proud grand date i didn't all over san francisco residents are adopt rains to keep our sewer system healthy i'm adopted a grain draining i thought of a simple illusion to a big problem it will help out the neighborhood and be responsible for the places we live i want or >> hello everyone. welcome to the bayview bistro. >> it is just time to bring the community together by deliciou deliciousness.

i am excited to be here today because nothing brings the community together like food. having amazing food options for and by the people of this community is critical to the success, the long-term success and stability of the bayview-hunters point community. >> i am nima romney. this is a mobile cafe. we do soul food with a latin twist. i wanted to open a truck to son

nor the soul food, my african heritage as well as mylas continuas my latindescent. >> i have been at this for 15 years. i have been cooking all my life pretty much, you know. i like cooking ribs, chicken, links. my favorite is oysters on the grill. >> i am the owner. it all started with banana pudding, the mother of them all. now what i do is take on traditional desserts and pair them with pudding so that is my ultimate goal of the business. >> our goal with the bayview bristow is to bring in businesses so they can really

use this as a launching off point to grow as a single business. we want to use this as the opportunity to support business owners of color and those who have contributed a lot to the community and are looking for opportunities to grow their business. >> these are the things that the san francisco public utilities commission is doing. they are doing it because they feel they have a responsibility to san franciscans and to people in this community. >> i had a grandmother who lived in bayview. she never moved, never wavered. it was a house of security answer entity where we went for holidays. i was a part of bayview most of my life. i can't remember not being a part of bayview. >> i have been here for several years. this space used to be unoccupied. it was used as a dump.

to repurpose it for something like this with the bistro to give an opportunity for the local vendors and food people to come out and showcase their work. that is a great way to give back to the community. >> this is a great example of a public-private community partnership. they have been supporting this including the san francisco public utilities commission and mayor's office of workforce department. >> working with the joint venture partners we got resources for the space, that the businesses were able to thrive because of all of the opportunities on the way to this community. >> bayview has changed. it is growing. a lot of things is different from when i was a kid. you have the t train. you have a lot of new business.

i am looking forward to being a business owner in my neighborhood. >> i love my city. you know, i went to city college and fourth and mission in san francisco under the chefs ria, marlene and betsy. they are proud of me. i don't want to leave them out of the journey. everyone works hard. they are very supportive and passionate about what they do, and they all have one goal in mind for the bayview to survive. >> all right. it is time to eat, people. >> hello. you're watching the show that

explores san francisco's love affair with food. there are at least 18 farmers markets in san francisco alone, providing fresh and affordable to year-round. this is a great resource that does not break the bank. to show just how easy it can be to do just that, we have come up with something called the farmers' market challenge. we find someone who loves to cook, give them $20, and challenge them to create a delicious meal from ingredients found right here in the farmer's market. who did we find for today's challenge?

>> today with regard to made a pot greater thanchapino. >> you only have $20 to spend. >> i know peter it is going to be tough, but i think i can do it. it is a san francisco classic. we are celebrating bay area food. we have nice beautiful plum tomatoes here. we have some beautiful fresh fish here. it will come together beautifully. >> many to cut out all this talk, and let's go shop. yeah. ♪ >> what makes your dish unique? >> i like it spicy and smoky. i will take fresh italian tomatoes and the fresh seafood, and will bring them to other with some nice spoked paprika and some nice smoked jalapeno peppers.

i am going to stew them up and get a nice savory, smoky, fishy, tomatoy, spicy broth. >> bring it on. how are you feeling? >> i feel good. i spent the $20 and have a few pennies less. i am going to go home and cook. i will text message u.n. is done. >> excellent and really looking forward to it. >> today we're going to make the san francisco classic dish invented by italian and portuguese fishermen. it'll be like a nice spaghetti sauce. then we will put in the fish soup. the last thing is the dungeon as crab, let it all blend together. it will be delicious. when i could, i will try to make healthy meals with fresh ingredients, whatever is in season and local. those juicy, fresh tomatoes will take about an hour to cook down

into a nice sauce. this is a good time to make our fish stock. we will take a step that seems like trash and boil it up in water and make a delicious and they speed up my parents were great clerics, and we had wonderful food. family dinners are very important. any chance you can sit down together and have a meal together, it is great communal atmosphere. one of the things i like the most is the opportunity to be creative. hello. anybody with sets their mind to it can cut. always nice to start chopping some vegetables and x and the delicious. all this double in view is this broth with great flavor. but your heart into it. make something that you, family, and friends will really enjoy. >> i am here with a manager at the heart of the city farmer's market in san francisco. thank you for joining us. tell us a little bit about the organization.

>> we're 30 years old now. we started with 14 farmers, and it has grown out to over 80. >> what is the mission of the organization? >> this area has no grocery store spiller it is all mom-and- pop stores. we have this because it is needed. we knew it was needed. and the plaza needed somebody. it was empty. beautiful with city hall in the background. >> thank you for speaking with us. are you on the web? >> yes, hocfarmersmarket.org. >> check them out. thank you. >> welcome. the dish is ready. >> it looks and smells amazing. >> thank you. it was not easy to meet the $20 budget. i checked everybody out and found some great produce. really lovely seafood. i think that you are going to love it.

>> do not be shy. cyou know this can run you $35 to $45 for a bowl, so it is great you did this for $20. >> this will feed four to six people. >> not if you invite me over for dinner. i am ready to dig in. >> i hope you'll love it. >> mmm. >> what do you think? >> i think i am going to need more. perhaps you can have all you want. >> i am produce the that you have crushed this farmer's market challenge by a landslide. the first, we're going to have to tally of your shopping list and see what you actually spend that the farmer's market. >> and go for it. >> incredible. you have shown us how to make super healthy, refresh chapino

from the farmers market on the budget, that for the whole family. that is outstanding. >> thank you peter i am glad that you like it. i think anybody can do it. >> if you like the recipe for this dish, you can e-mail us at sfgtv@sfgov.org or reach out to us on facebook or twitter and we shop and dine in the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges residents to do their shopping and dining within the 49 square miles of san francisco. by supporting local services within our neighborhoods,e help san francisco remain unique, successful, and vibrant. so where will you shop and dine in the 49? >> my name is ray behr. i am the owner of chief plus. it's a destination specialty

foods store, and it's also a corner grocery store, as well. we call it cheese plus because there's a lot of additions in addition to cheese here. from fresh flowers, to wine, past a, chocolate, our dining area and espresso bar. you can have a casual meeting if you want to. it's a real community gathering place. what makes little polk unique, i think, first of all, it's a great pedestrian street. there's people out and about all day, meeting this neighbor and coming out and supporting the businesses. the businesses here are almost all exclusively independent owned small businesses. it harkens back to supporting local. polk street doesn't look like anywhere u.s.a. it has its own businesses and personality.

we have clothing stores to gallerys, to personal service stores, where you can get your hsus repaired, luggage repaired. there's a music studio across the street. it's raily a diverse and unique offering on this really great street. i think san franciscans should shop local as much as they can because they can discover things that they may not be familiar with. again, the marketplace is changing, and, you know, you look at a screen, and you click a mouse, and you order something, and it shows up, but to have a tangible experience, to be able to come in to taste things, to see things, to smell things, all those things, it's very important that you do so. >> usf donates 100-120 pounds of

food a night. for the four semesters we have been running here, usf has donated about 18,000 pounds of food to the food recovery network. ♪ ♪ >> i'm maggie. >> i'm nick. >> we're coe-chairs of the national led organization. what food recovery does is recover and redistribute food that would go wasted and

redistributing to people in the community. >> the moment that i became really engaged in the cause of fighting food waste was when i had just taken the food from the usf cafeteria and i saw four pans full size full of food perfectly fine to be eaten and made the day before and that would have gone into the trash that night if we didn't recover it the next day. i want to fight food waste because it hurts the economy, it's one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the world. if it was a nation, it would be the third largest nation behind china and the united states. america wastes about 40% of the food we create every year, $160 billion worth and that's made up in the higher cost of

food for consumers. no matter where you view the line, you should be engaged with the issue of food waste. ♪ ♪ >> access edible food that we have throughout our lunch program in our center, i go ahead and collect it and i'll cool it down and every night i prep it up and the next day i'll heat it and ready for delivery. it's really natural for me, i love it, i'm passionate about it and it's just been great. i believe it's such a blessing to have the opportunity to actually feed people every day. no food should go wasted.

there's someone who wants to eat, we have food, it's definitely hand in hand and it shouldn't be looked at as work or a task, we're feeding people and it really means so much to me. i come to work and they're like nora do you want this, do you want that? and it's so great and everyone is truly involved. every day, every night after every period of food, breakfast, lunch, dinner, i mean, people just throw it away. they don't even think twice about it and i think as a whole, as a community, as any community, if people just put a little effort, we could really help each other out. that's how it should be. that's what food is about basically. >> an organization that meets is the san francisco knight ministry we work with tuesday and thursday's.

♪ ♪ byhe power ♪ of your name >> i have faith to move mountains because i believe in jesus. >> i believe it's helpful to offer food to people because as you know, there's so much homelessness in san francisco and california and the united states. i really believe that food is important as well as our faith. >> the san francisco knight ministry has been around for 54

years. the core of the ministry, a group of ordain ministers, we go out in the middle of the night every single night of the year, so for 54 years we have never missed a night. i know it's difficult to believe maybe in the united states but a lot of our people will say this is the first meal they've had in two days. i really believe it is a time between life or death because i mean, we could be here and have church, but, you know, i don't know how much we could feed or how many we could feed and this way over 100 people get fed every single thursday out here. it's not solely the food, i tell you, believe me. they're extremely grateful. >> it's super awesome how welcoming they are.

after one or two times they're like i recognize you. how are you doing, how is school? i have never been in the city, it's overwhelming. you get to know people and through the music and the food, you get to know people. >> we never know what impact we're going to have on folks. if you just practice love and kindness, it's a labor of love and that's what the food recovery network is and this is a huge -- i believe they salvage our mission. >> to me the most important part is it's about food waste and feeding people. the food recovery network national slogan is finding ways to feed people. it's property to bring the

scientific and human element into the situation.