resources were not provided. i'm really concerned about setting up false expectations with neighborhoods and communities that we can't meet. >> thank you. that is kind of where i was going with some of this. i am both concerned about our ability to adjust to the potential impact of our findings related to and also staffing around and making sure we are not setting ourselves up. >> thanks. folks are listening in and they can take heed of your concerns and mine. it is an indication of one of the things, if i may, that i have been thinking about since making the decision to step down , which is how much our work has changed over the last 10 years. and in response to changing conditions out in the world and things like t.n.c. and airbnb, and all the factors that have changed what we do, but also, those factors, our work has been

changed by desires of the community and the supervisors and the mayor to think differently about our work for the cultural districts. it is a perfect example of that. this is not on our radar 10 years ago. the first district came up in japan town. we looked across the country for other examples and could not find it. we were inventing the wheel at the time and that has taken off into a much bigger program, but it means a fair amount of work for the department and especially as part of the mirror 's office of housing and community development in oewd and all those agencies involved in this. thanks. >> commissioner fung? >> last point would be i was going to bring this up under commissioner matters, but i think we should be getting regular status reports on our new home. >> okay. >> what is happening there, and at some point i think would be important for the commissioners to see where people are going to be housed, a site visit maybe at some future point. >> they have been doing hardhat

tours. we can arrange for that, and also, just for your benefit, i believe tom can talk about this but i believe we are scheduled to move in august. either departments will move in before us, but i think the planning department is scheduled to move in in august. >> therefore, the staffing for the permit center and everything is all arranged? >> from our and it is. one of the very interesting things that is happening is the city administrator's office has created a new group, a team that would be the staff, the general staff to the permit center itself. so it they will be greeting people as they come in, directing them to the right places, organizing the hours, and melissa white house who was the mayor's budget officer has been heading that team and doing a fantastic job at convening all the departments involved in making sure that this one-stop permit center works. maybe the thing to do is have her come and make a presentation you would be fascinated by this because it really is changing

the way the city thinks about the permit process and trying to pay attention to, for example,, homeowners and nonusual suspects who don't do this on a daily basis. i think it has been a really great process. it is really going to be an exciting change to have the city does things. >> commissioner moore? >> i have always been a great supporter of the city's budget process. everyone has heard me said this before. the hardest part is to be an enterprise department in the prevention -- professional planning. it seems to me, a contradiction in itself. i want to elaborate. seventy% of your fees come from services paid by projects, by developers, and you normally perceive planning as a public service stewardship of the common good, and the two things

are in direct contradiction for each other. as i have watched the largest number of staff being dedicated to an increasing and more difficult workload, particularly the one you outlined before moving from larger projects to smaller projects, which is much more labour-intensive, you are basically -- chasing your tail. that is how it ultimately goes, particularly when there is lots of unpredictability, even predicting exactly the nature of the difficulties of these smaller projects. it's a herculean task. i have two concerns when i am saying that. one is that other divisions like citywide planning is having a decreasing small number of people doing what should be really at least 30 or 40% of the entire staff because that is what city planning is all about. i'm speaking as a practitioner,

having worked in private practice with the same rigour of working in an enterprise department. the profession itself is not as fee intensive as architecture, for example. i understand think credible extra strain you have on staff itself, but by reducing and further reducing citywide planning, for example,, i am concerned that we are kind of more in the fire drill alarm mode with having to service airbnb, interim length occupancy , s.p. whatever, instead of really staying the course with those fundamental building blocks, which are part of city planning. that is the stewardship and strong plans. stewardship of refining guidelines, elevating them as we move along, refining and building our truancy with

cultural districts and sustainable communities, really digging deep on the never solvable issue of housing and we are basically sidetracked to do the work in order to be able to do what else we need to do. i want to express my real concern about that. the questions i have off my soapbox, do we have a team functioning to the preservation group now. as it was integrated for the last few months, almost a year into putting -- are we reestablishing that as a core group operating on its own? >> yes. i will ask jeff to address that specifically. if i could, i would very much appreciate your comments about the general fund and long-range planning. used to be that about 30% of the department's budget came from general funds. over time, as our fees -- over

time, the board has chosen to reduce that to the point where suffer the split because of our new building, it has been in the range of five to eight%. i used to say this during the budget process, but i have given up. erases the very question you say that san francisco residents no longer pay for planning. it is essentially what that means. i think there is a very serious policy question there that i think is worthy of a larger general discussion, but interestingly enough, when i was in seattle, project fee money was not by state law and it was not allowed to be used for long-range planning. there was a bright line. here we are able to -- there's even a surcharge on fee applications to pay for it. it is developers and project applicants that are paying for policy planning in san francisco let me ask jeff to talk about the preservation question. please. >> i will get back with my other question if you wouldn't mind jumping in. i have another question for you.

>> since you asked i will provide you with a little bit more paper. >> thank you for the question, commissioner. there are two documents are

provided you here. one shows the allocation of preservation within the current planning division. did i provide you with -- and the other shows the overall organization of preservation across the department. i will focus on that one specifically because it goes most directly to the question, which is there has been some we organization and reallocation over the last six months. what we have done is refine and redefine how preservation activities are managed to better correlate to the work itself so that, you know, for example, the one you raised. preservation entitlements are managed within the quadrants. the position that formally was

the historic preservation officer has evolved in two ways. one, the position itself within the budget has been reallocated for the purpose of overseeing citywide surveys and designation portions of our program. that survey is, at this point, a fully budgeted, two and a half plus or - a year project that will be in the process of being fully deployed and being overseen by marcel boudreau. the overall, the management of preservation -- >> we're not quite familiar. could you point towards them so we know where to look? we are all searching it. we are not following. >> we're looking at this one. >> put it on the overhead and point to it. then we at least kind of know where we are.

thank you. now point. >> i will move from left to right. i was just describing the survey and designation role within the department and the division. now being overseen by marcel boudreau. again, that project has been launched as we speak. marcel just recently assumes that role. to the right of that are the preservation and entitlement allocations and that work resides within the quadrants primarily. managed by elizabeth gordon. north quadrants and the south quadrants. we have dedicated preservation

staffing within the planning information centre, as well as enforcement and within the flex team. we have, as of roughly two years ago, shifted the related preservation work specifically into the environmental division and then finally the cultural heritage work that we have just discussed previously, is primarily within citywide. it is managing citywide, but resources towards that work will be shared across the department as necessary over time. right now, again, as i mentioned , the historic preservation officer position has been otherwise redefined. that formally -- that work was formally done within that one position and it has been distributed over a number of managers.

that includes myself and marcel, elizabeth, rich, allison, and shelley overseeing the cultural district work. does that help? >> yeah,. i just have to think about it. thanks. >> commissioner johnson. >> great. i just want to land the plane on something that we are each bringing up, which is that we have concerns about staffing. staffing and being able to support what might come down the pipeline with s.b. 50, staffing around cultural districts, staffing around long-term planning, and this is an invitation to say, we can say these things here, but i would love to work together with respect to the director and also through the chair to potentially

call supervisors and a joint letter to the mayor's office just raising the fact that we have these concerns as they consider this budget so that the conversation doesn't stop here, but it is bolstering the director's narrative around why these things are needed. i just wanted to say that on the record and make the invitation. >> i think that is it, jonas. >> commissioner moore? >> director ram, or anybody else who wants to chime in, when you look at budgeting, one also looks at the effectiveness of budgeting and use of personnel, because budgeting is projecting what you want it to be, but where are you coming from to justify the numbers? how effective for you, for example, taking a particular project like central soma. it's a big one, or taking a

small one, a complicated one and saying, this is what we thought we would be spending, these are the people we assigned to the project, how did we perform? we never did get any look backwards. we only get a look for words without fully knowing the basis of the assumptions. and in private industry you have to perform week by week based on a project manager who is tracking what you do relative to the task at hand. did you spend too much time in the coffee shop or did you really produce what you promised the client to do within that particular week? this is a little bit exaggerated how do you track past budget performance with projecting forward? >> that is a good question. we did this at least a couple of years ago. we have a set of performance measures that we measure that we have taken typical project types to see how we have done in terms of timing on those measures. we can certainly get those and

pulled him out. i apologize we should have brought those for you for part of the budget process. we can certainly do that. >> since you are asking us for really big support, including what commissioner johnson is jumping into the fray and making certain comments to the mirror, mayor, i would like to be comfortable that we not just start making the drum sound, but also have clear accountability and transparency of what, from your perspective, has worked, what needs to change, and how do we move forward to make it work. i understand and we all agree the challenges ahead are horrendous. they are mind-boggling. i would not like to be in your position administering them, specific to -- specifically the fire one, given what is happening and overall state planning in local and regional planning. that said, i'm interested in a slightly closer look at how we are on a dollar by dollar performance as a department.

>> that is a legitimate question and i am happy to pull data together before the next meeting thank you. >> we are all set, jonas. >> thank you. i will make those changes to the memo that were talked about in the clarifications and we will have that in your package next time. >> thank you for bearing with us today. >> we are adjourned.

>> as a woman of color who grew up in san francisco i understand how institutions can have an impact on communities of color. i think having my voice was important. that is where my passion lies when the opportunity to lead an office in such a new space came up. i couldn't turn it down. i was with the district attorney's office for a little over nine years, if you include

the time as an intern as well as volunteer da, all most 13 years. during the time with the da's office i had an opportunity to serve the community not only as the assistant district attorney but as director of community relations. that afforded the opportunity to have impact on the community in an immediate way. it is one thing to work to serve the rights of those without rights, victims. it is really rewarding to work to to further the goals of our office and the commitment we have as city employees and advocates for people who don't have a voice. i don't know of anyone surprised to see me in this role. maybe people have an impression what the director of the office of cannabis should be like, what their beliefs should be. i smash all of that. you grew up in the inner city of

san francisco. my career path is not traditional. i don't think a person should limit themselves to reach full potential. i say that to young women and girls. that is important. you want to see leadership that looks diverse because your path is not predetermined. i didn't wake up thinking i was going to be a prosecutor in my life. the city administrator reached out and wanted to have a conversation and gave me interest in the new role. i thought you must not know what i do for a living. it was the opposite. she had foresight in realizing it would be helpful for somebody not only a former prosecutor but interested in shaping criminal justice reform for the city would be the right person for the space. i appreciate the foresight of the mayor to be open how we can be leaders in san francisco. i was able to transition to the policy space. here i was able to work on

legislation, community relations, communication and start to shape the ways our office was going to reform the criminal justice system. it is fulfilling for me. i could create programs and see those impact people's lives. i am the change. it took truants youth to meet with civil rights movement leaders who fought to have access to education. being a young person to understand that helped the young people realize this was an important thing to give up. what we find is that young people who are truanted have a really high homicide rate in our city, which is a sad statistic. we want to change that. >> coming from a community we are black and brown. i don't reach out to other people. i don't think they feel the same way. >> i had the great opportunity

to work on prison reform issues and criminal justice reform issues. we created a program at san quentin where we brought district opportunities t to lifs and talk about how we are all impacted by the criminal justice system. we brought over 40 elected das to san quentin for the situation. now we are inviting the police department. our formerly incarcerated group born out of this programming asked for the opportunity to work on a project where we could bring the men in blue on the outside to come speak to the men on blue inside to start the healing dialogue around how the criminal justice system specifically in san francisco impacts the community. i was attracted to the role. there was a component of equity that was part of this process. the equity community here in san francisco is a community that i

had already worked with. before i took steps to visit cannabis businesses i thought it was important my team have a chance to go inside and speak to men who ha had been impacted. that conversation needed to happen so we know how we are making an impact with the work that we are doing. the da's office as we were leading up to the legalization of marijuana in the state we started having conversations on the policy team what that could look like. the district attorney was really focused on the right side of history for this. we realized it would be quite a heavy lift for individuals who have been negatively impacted by the war on drugs to expunge the record. it was important to figure out the framework to make it seamless and easy. they put their minds to it after some time and many conversations

the data analysts and other policy walk throughs on the team came up with the idea to engage the tech community in this process. code for america helped us developed the rhythm to be used for any jurisdiction across the state that was important to create a solution to be used to assist all jurisdictions dealing with this matter. the office of cannabis is the first office to have a completely digital application process. we worked with the digital team to develop the online application. there are going to be hiccups. we are first to do it. it is one of the most rewarding parts to offer a seamless -- to offer a seamless approach. that is how they can find solutions to solve many of the community challenges. the best way to respond to prop 64 was to retroactively expunge

9,000 cannabis related records for san francisco. it feels like justice full circle for my personal experience. in the past i was furthering the war on drugs just as my directive. really coming from a place of public safety. that was the mandate and understanding. it is nice to see that pass a society we are able to look at some of our laws and say, you know what? we got it wrong. let's get this right. i had the privilege of being in the existing framework. my predecessor nicole elliott did an incredible job bringing together the individuals super-passionate about cannabis. >> the office was created in july of 2017. i came in early 2018. i have been able to see the

office's development over time which is nice. it is exciting to be in the space, stickily in thinking about her leadership. >> looking for the office it is always we might be before my time when i was working for the board oforboard of supervisors. i learn new things every day it is challenging and rewarding for me. >> we get the privilege to work in an office tha that is innova. we get to spearhead the robust exprogram. >> i am excited she came on board to leverage experience as a prosecutor 10 years as we contemplate enforcements but approaching it without replicating the war on drugs. >> i was hired by cam laharris. i haven't seen a district attorney that looked kind of

like me. that could be a path in my life. i might not have considered it. it is important that women and certainly women of color and spaces of leadership really do their part to bring on and mentor as many young people as they can. it is superimportant to take advantage of as many opportunities a as they can when they can intern because the doors are wide open. plans change and that is okay. the way this was shaped because i took a risk to try something new and explore something and show that i was capable. you are capable, right? it was about leaning in and being at the table to say my voice matters. you find your passion, the sky

>> the renovation of balboasky park, the oldest in the city of san francisco, and now it is the newest part in the city of san francisco. through our partnership, and because of public investment from the two thousand eight fund, we are celebrating a renewal and an awakening of this park. we have it safer, happier, more joyous. >> 3, 2, 1, [laughter] =--[applause]

>> it is a great resource for families, to have fun in the city, recreation. >> this is an amazing park. we have not revitalized it without public and private investment. the critical piece of the process of this renovation was that it was all about the community. we reached out to everyone in this community. we love this park dearly and they all had thoughts and ideas and they wanted to bring their own creativity and their personality to bear on the design. what you see is what the community wanted. these ideas all came from the residents of this community. as a result, there is a sense of ownership, pride and responsibility that goes along with what is going to be an exciting park.

afternoon, welcome to the relationally scheduled meeting of the san francisco ethics commission. roll call. [roll call] all five members are present today. agenda item 2, public comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the agenda. >> commissioners -- i'm sorry, can i get the overhead?

good afternoon, commissioners. director san francisco open government. a report of the grand jury of the city and county of san francisco entitled san francisco's ethics commission, the sleeping watchdog, reads in part as follows: quote, because of the ethics commission's lack of enforcement, no city employee has been disciplined for feying to adhere to the sunshine ordinance. the commission allowed officials to ignore the rulings of the sunshine ordinance task force. i know this from experience, at least this point in time due to the three dozen orders of determination i hold fighting years of violations without any being enforced.

it doesn't mean they were not effective. in most cases i got the things i wanted but we continue to have resistance, and people who just basically say middle finger to the sunshine ordinance. and it's hypocritical because it's on every meeting agenda, know your rights under the sunshine ordinance but if you try to act on those rights, you are completely ignored by all these different -- look at the bodies that are on there. just about everybody in the city. the thing here is -- oh and one thing i'll say about this. this is like president trump right now and nancy pelosi's comments about he will be impeached forever. he may be found not guilty or not found guilty by the senate but the bottom line, he is only the third president of the united states who has actually been impeached, and that will never go away. so those people who were all found in violation of the ordinance, that will not change.

second thing i would like you to consider today is this from the good government guide laying out the roles of commissioners and it reads in part: when acting as quasi judicial capacity, members of boards and commissions function like judges, thus they must take care to ensure the parties appearing before them received due process. now, look at my past record. i've got over three dozen orders of determination. a no more of those have come to this, and not one has the ethics commission found worth supporting. and the bottom line is not only did they find them not worth supporting, what they did is undermine it by saying the task

force got it wrong. so they devalued what i had gotten. would anyone on this commission like to handicap my chances today? >> thank you. >> good afternoon. my name is ellen. i am a public employee. and i am a delegate for government employees. we have 32,000 government employees in san francisco. i am also the director of public relations for california civic grand jury the san francisco chapter. i have been coming to you ethics commissions for the last four years. 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. the last time i was in here was december 20, 2019. i came to you with many issues about possible government

corruptions and election fraud. i still remember i was one of the eight candidates running for san francisco mayor in june june 2018. i was also for the process i din many of the forums, debates, events in public places in city hall, public parks. i was one of the six candidates for san francisco mayor for november 2019, which is two months ago. i was bullied by many of the democratic leaders, many of the campaign billboards that i have and posters were illegally removed by the democratic leaders including the mayor's representative and board of supervisors and of the electoral officials who are democrats. and i was publicly called racist by the democratic leaders that endangers my family's lives, my own life. i am here today to let you know that i am a conservative republican. i care about my city, san

francisco. i have been coming to you about possible corruptions within the electoral officials. so the election fraud. for san francisco election records in 2018 and 2019. because i went through the process, we found 150-year-old we have two voters, 150 years old, three voters, 136 years old, one voter, 119 years old, 659 voters. 100 to 109, we have 247 voters. that means many of those people they are no longer alive in this world continuing to vote in san francisco. san francisco has many violations according to the united states constitution article vi it says the supreme law of the land is the constitution. the sanctuary city that san francisco created is directly

violating our rights. it is called treason. and we have many of the problems going on with the city that we have no rule of law in san francisco that is protecting american people. many of the people like the homeless people suffering, dying on the streets, car break-ins every day, crimes daily and we lost our quality of life. and you the ethics commissioners, i believe you signed up to do something, and you are judges and lawyers and attorneys, and if you don't do anything, maybe it's time to think about 2020. think about what you want to do for yourself and for the city. and for public record. thank you. >> thank you. any other public comment? agenda item 3, ethics commission december regular meeting. i'll move the meetings.

>> second. >> all in favor? >> aye. >> aye. >> the minutes are approved unanimously. agenda item number 4, election of ethics commission officers for 2020. >> thank you. item 4 is on the agenda to provide for the election of ethics commission officers for this year. the bylaws as you will recall under article iv provide that each year the commission elects officers for a one-year term of service. and they also provide that no office holder may serve for two consecutive one-year terms. the memo before you provides some background on this service, ten years of both the current chair and vice-chair, responsibilities of the chair and vice-chair. and this item has been agendized to allow for the commission if it would like to at this month's meeting take action to elect officers for the coming year of

terms starting on march 1 continuing through the end of february, 2021. the process that is outlined in the memo is the process has been used by the commission. and that's the chair will open nominations for the chair. and any commissioner who wishes to nominate a candidate will state the name of that person. if the tern agrees to run, then that person is nominated. when there are no further nominations and following any public comment that might be received, the nominations are closed by the chair and a roll call vote is taken which each commissioner states the name of the nominee for whom he or she is vote. if no nominee receives three votes, the commission can proceed to another vote. the process then repeats until one nominee received three or more votes. that process is the same for the office of vice-chair. so i won't repeat it, but they are both outlined in detail on page two of the memo, so i wanted to provide that context

for that who may be following along and haven't read it as well as for the memory of the commission. >> thank you. so i will now open the nominations to my fellow commissioners. >> i would like to make a nomination. i would like to nominate commissioner ambrose to serve as chair in the upcoming term. >> i would accept that honor, provided you all agree to help me do that. >> are there any further nominations? okay. could you take the vote, please? >> i would like to take public comment first. >> i'm sorry. public comment. >> i personally run many times for the election commissions. and many of the things that is not up to date in the website and many of the things that we, the public, addressed was not

addressed. i said it earlier. people continue to vote that are dead. we have 93,000 voters still in the voters role. this person she or he or whatever do nothing, what's the point to appoint somebody? and san francisco has been illegally operating for 45 years. i said that it's because i studied the law and realized that san francisco is only one party ruled, democrats, for 45 years. if you appoint somebody else, you would be considered nonpartisan, libertarians, independent, any other party other than democrats, if you continue to appoint people that are democrat, san francisco is not going to recover nothing. we will continue the public, the election fraud is ongoing. the election office did nothing, and your commissioners do

nothing. and the election commissions will not do a thing. so what's the point to appoint people other than having a title and show people that you have a title? if you want to help san francisco, save us, we have so many homeless people dying on the streets, so many dead bodies picked up by public health. i am a public health worker for the government. i am ashamed for san francisco with so much money that we are not able to continue people dying on the street overdose. i'm asking you because you have a law background, attorneys, justice, people are reasonable. help save san francisco. appoint somebody who are nondemocrats, who are loving san francisco and willing to serve from their heart. thank you. >> thank you. any other public comment? the nomination for chair for the upcoming term? okay. seeing none. >> the nominations closed and public received, if we do roll

call vote alphabetically and if each commissioner could state the name for the person of whom they wish to cast a vote for chair >> commissioner ambrose. >> i always have that a, i have to go first. so i will vote for myself. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> commissioner chiu >> commissioner ambrose. >> thank you. commissioner gray? >> commissioner ambrose. >> commissioner ambrose. commissioner lee? >> commissioner ambrose. >> commissioner smith? >> smirks ambrose. >> with five votes for commissioner ambrose, commissioner ambrose is elected chair elect for term beginning march 1. >> thank you very much. >> congratulations. >> and if the current chair would like to open nominations for vice-chair for the coming year. >> i would like to open up nominations for the vice-chair position.

i would like to nominate commissioner lee. >> commissioner lee, do you accept the nomination? are you willing to serve? call for public comment? is there any other nominations? public comment? >> my name is ellen eloen. i will be continuing to come in here when i have the time. i know you guys plan to have a finished in the morning. i will try my best to come here on behalf of the people in san francisco. whoever you nominated today and whoever is going to accept the nomination as commission, they have to have the heart and the time and energy to really serve according to what the bylaw says. just like me, i am a public

government employee. i am a social worker. i obey the law. i follow the direction. i believe in quality of life for my patients and clients. i signed up for grand jury, san francisco chapter. i do government in the station. i do government in the station for improvement, because i sign up for it. so if you sit in here every month, once a month and sign up for something and you nominate it for somebody else to do something else, it is your duty to follow up, to really follow the good government conduct earlier the gentleman was saying in here, we the government have good government conduct, sunshine ordinance and brown act legislations. but the people that you guys sitting in here, i don't know what else to say other than urge you to have a heart for san francisco so we can save the city that we don't need to see the homeless people dying on the

street. we don't have to see more than a hundred cars and many people don't report anymore. and the corruption that dead people are still voting in san francisco and we don't have to see the commission that we reported to them and they say the record has been missing, it never exists before. even we have six people report it in person with audiotapes and that tells us san francisco is dying because of the people, you, sign up for something that you are not standing up for the united states constitution. i'm asking you, please have a heart for san francisco and save san francisco from everything that we are going through right now. i live in san francisco. i work in san francisco. we do not have to suffer like we suffer. thank you. >> thank you. any other public comment? on the vice-chair nomination? no? seeing no more public comment and the nominations closed, we do a roll call vote

alphabetically. if each person could state the name for who they are casting a vote. i'll start with commissioner ambrose. >> commissioner lee has my vote. >> commissioner ambrose for lee. commissioner chiu. >> commissioner lee has my vote. >> commissioner gray. noted. commissioner lee. >> i guess i will have my vote too. >> commissioner smith. >> commissioner lee >> all five members voting to elect commissioner lee as the vice-chair for the coming term, starting march 1, that election is closed. and congratulations, commissioner lee. >> congratulations to the commissioner chair elect and vice-chair elect. >> i did want to just take a moment, we should probably do something more formal and celebratory to thank daina chiu for her service. i came on to the commission

after she had just recently been elected chair in the middle of a very difficult legislative process on the anticorruption and accountability ordinance. and she saw that through the adoption and the implementation, the regulatory amendments that were necessary and then in the past year, the comprehensive review of the campaign public finance process with similar code amendments and regulatory implementation. i really appreciate your attention on all the enforcement issues, on bringing forward information from the ethics commission website, the dashboard, bringing people into educate us about that, about our relationship with other city departments, and i hope to maybe not do as much momentous legislative processes as you are.

i'm hoping to focus on implementing some of the things that we've just recently put on the books. and i think with the 2020 elections, we'll have a good trial run this year, but i really want to thank you and appreciate your leadership. and we'll count on you to help do the right thing. >> thank you. those are very kind words. and i feel like the credit really goes to staff and to the engaged members of the public for their passion and commitment and input into the whole process. i think it takes a village, and i'm happy to contribute where i can. and will continue to support both of you in your perfect as we take this work -- in your efforts as we take this work forward. >> item 5, show cause hearing in re hearths versus norman yee.

>> thank you. just a brief introduction to tee up this item for you today. so i think you know this item regards a referral from the sunshine ordinance task force, which they sent to the commission on october 22. and we had endeavored to hold this show cause hearing at the november meetings, but the chair continued the item at the request of the one of the parties. the referral before you is task force file no. 19042, i believe. and that order, that file includes an order of determination that the task force issued in a matter in which ray hartz brought a complaint against board president norman yee. in that order of determination the task force found that yee had violated two provisions of the ordinance, one is section 16

which governs the minutes of the meeting of the policy body. the other is section 31, which provides that elected officials must administer and coordinate the implementation of the sunshine ordinance for their respective offices. so the task force referred eventually that order of determination over to the ethics commission after it determined that president yee had declined to implement the task force's order of determination. so the posture of a situation like this is when a respondent fails to comply with an order of determination that the task force issued, the task force can refer that order to the ethics commission for enforcement, because is the sunshine ordinance provides that although the task force can review complaints and make determinations, the sunshine ordinance does not provide enforcement power to the task force but provides for a separate mechanism which would be the task force can refer

matters to other bodies that do have enforcement power. pursuant to that, the ethics commission and the task force negotiated a subset of the enforcement regulations that governs how the ethics commission handles situations in which the task force made a referral of this kind. and it summarizes and explains how the regulations would operate here but briefly, as a reminder to commissioners, you today, if you find it appropriate to do so, can defer the factual findings of the sunshine ordinance task force with respect to this file number. but you need not defer to the legal conclusions that the task force made the regulations provide that you offer to review with respect to any legal conclusions. both parties are present today. mr. hartz and a representative from the board of supervisors

are here. each party will have ten minutes to present any argument or evidence they wish to present. they can reserve three minutes for rebuttal. the regulations do provide that they may also call witnesses but in any event if either of the parties introduced new evidence today that was not before the task force previously an option that you retain is to remand the matter back down to the task force because the task force plays the role of the primary fact finder in a situation like this. after you have heard the arguments, and before or after public comment, which is required for this item, you must deliberate in public. and you must base your determination about whether the respondent has violated the sunshine ordinance on the entirety of the record before you. if you find that the respondent violated the sunshine ordinance, you may issue declaratory

release and injunctive release but we may not assess financial penalties against the respondent for a sunshine violation. if the respondent, as is the case here, is an elected official, a department head or what is called in law, a manager city employee, you might consider whether the respondent committed that violation willfully, because the ordinance provides when a respondent in those categories conducts a violation it will be misconduct. if they did so willfully, you would direct staff to refer that matter over to the appointing party for consideration of whether too institute official misconduct proceedings. and finally, whatever the

commission decides today, if you bring a decision, your decision will be considered the end of the administrative process. it will be a final adjudication of this matter at which point the parties would have recourse only by virtue of a writ to the superior court. so i think we'll hand it over to the complaint, the petitioner in this matter, who is mr. hartz. >> i would appreciate you set the time to seven minutes because i intend to reserve time for rebuttal. this is the order of determination that is in your packet. we are talking about it today. this is the 12th time the task force has ruled similarly on various other complaints.

going first to the question as to why ms. calvio raised as to why this is against norman yee was laid out in the introduction to the fact that elected officials and others are responsible for seeing that the sunshine ordinance is obeyed. she has been found multiple times in violation and has simply refused to do anything, in fact, this is the first time i believe she has ever shown up at any one of the hearings. she sends someone else who makes excuses. and all of the excuses that she put in her letter are things that she has presented to the task force almost on every similar occasion. and also if you look at that list, you will see the ethics commission is on there twice as well as the san francisco public library. and they raised the same objections, oh, we can't do it for this reason or that reason.

has this on her website. san francisco charter states the board of supervisors will libly provide for the public's access to their government meetings, documents, and records. that's what we are talking about here. she has raised a number of times that the sunshine ordinance task force has been inconsistent in their rulings, and she has misrepped that case. misrepresented that case. here's a letter that was sent out to all departments stating very frankly over and over that the sunshine task force said what the ordinance says is that if 150 word or less summary is provided, it will be placed in the minutes. and they interpret in the minutes as in the body of the minutes, and they completely

refute the idea that it can be attached to as a reference or addendum or some other position. and i will give you an example why. on september 20, here is the public comment record in the minutes of the san francisco board of supervisors. now, if i hadn't highlighted my name there in the middle, how many of you would have ever found that name? and how many reviewers of this document would have ever been aware that i had made public comment and submitted that public comment in writing? those same set of minutes had a hearing of the committee as a whole, and again, unless i had -- how many of you would have ever found the fact i submitted a 150-word summary

which was somewhere else in the minutes? and given that i had submitted three that same day, here's what you got at the end. three separate summaries. and anybody reviewing these records would be very hard-pressed unless they wanted to take a lot of time to figure out which of these was for which section of the agenda. they would have to go back and research. and i think this is really the intention that she has had, whether at the direction of the board of supervisors or on her own merit, to keep these things presented in a way where the public is much less likely to see it. you will also notice at the top it says the following information is provided by speakers pursuant to administrative code 6716. the content is neither generated by nor subject to approval or verification of accuracy by the clerk of the board of supervisors. now, how many of you can

honestly look at that and say if your summary of your free speech was there, that some people wouldn't look at that and say maybe this is a little questionable. it certainly isn't anything advocating that. and i think they should at minimum put a here's the summary submitted by mr. hartz of his public comment. as i've said over and over again, all the other bodies who have had gone through the sunshine ordinance task force proceeding now place by 150-word summaries along with those of other members of the public in the body of the minutes. the board of -- the library commission does, the ethics commission does, the police commission didn't have to even be taken to the task force. the arts commission didn't have to be taken to the task force. the rent board didn't have to be taken before the task force. they all placed them in the minutes.

and for some strange reason, she keeps presenting the idea that the board of supervisors is different than any other body, including this one. and you can ask your executive director, you can ask her where did the 150-word summary i submitted during public comment today go in your minutes? like i said earlier, although they have not been enforced, they have been effective. and the only holdout is ms. calvio. this is the free speech issue. it's the first amendment. this is constitutionally-protected political free speech. obviously it's political. it rises to the highest level of protection of any form of speech under our constitution. it is protected by also the brown act and is protected by, in this case, the sunshine ordinance, which says i have the right to submit 150-word or less

summary which will be put in the minutes. the reason i started doing this was for years i went to the library commission meeting. they would dumb down my statements. they would summarize them in ways that were misrepresentations, and i finally got sick and tired of it and have gone through this process. and now every single body except the board of supervisors puts them where the task force has said repeatedly they should be. >> thank you. members of the commission, chair chiu, angela calvio the clerk of the board for the board of supervisors. director. good afternoon. we are here today on behalf of the board of supervisors to attend to this complaint that's before the commission, specifically the complaint is

made out against supervisor and president of the board norman yee. but i am here today, because i believe that i am the appropriate person to actually address the issues here. if there is any doubt in that the president has deputized me to represent him on the department's behalf. this particular complaint alleges that mr. hartz's 150-word summaries were placed in an addendum to the minutes. i will just indicate that administrative code section 6716 states that the clerk or secretary of each board or commission enumerated in the charter shall record the minutes for each regular and special meeting of the board. so in this case, i'm the appropriate respondent. additionally i will just add that article ii of the legislative branch indicates, this is the front page of the charter section, but charter

section 2.117 offices of the board of supervisors, just i understand days that the board does appoint a clerk and the clerk shall have charge of its offices, its records and its classified staff. so the charter authorizes me to handle the board's records. additionally, mr. hartz indicated section 2.108 of the charter, that's the public's rights to know, we are very proud of that section, we have huge respect for chapter 67 and public access to our records and to the board offices. but that the clerk shall deep a permanent public record of the proceedings of the board, showing all actions that were considered and taken. the text of the ordinances and resolutions the vote of each member of the board regarding any matter before the board.

and so that is what we are talking about, the minutes. and so in your rather large packet, i would like to ask you to turn to page 3849, which is mostly toward the -- page 379. chapter 67 for the viewers watching. this is what shows up. yes, sir? >> student: [off? >> [off mic] >> page 211. we will adjourn each meeting, there being no further business before the board, we indicate the hour that the board adjourns and b, noted well, the minutes of this meeting set forth the actions taken by the board of supervisors on the matters stated but not necessarily in

chronological sequence. and then i indicate the dates that the minutes have been approved by the board and my signature. the actions of the board are what my signature is attesting to. the very next page, mr. hartz showed you, which is the section where we would place his minutes, which he read for you, i will not read it again, essentially i'm not vouching for the details contained in the statement. but most importantly, i would like to share with you that we do provide a summary in the minutes. it is essentially a summary, the speaker's name and then the print that he showed there. i'm not sure if you can actually see it on the television. it essentially put the page that you would be able to turn to

where you would find the 150-word statement, which is this page right here. so anyone, any like-minded thinker looking for a statement from mr. ray hartz, they would see a brief statement under public comment and then the page number that they would need to turn to to find the entirety of the 150-word statement. i will point out that the board of supervisors' agendas, their packets can be very long. we oftentimes have large items. and when a member of the public could be thumbing through your agendas, looking for the items that come after public comment, depending on how much public comment is there and depending on how many subsequent items fall after public comment, they can be very long, land use items, committees of the whole, closed sessions, adoption without reference to committee matters. if a member of the public is not looking for mr. hartz's

statement, and if we were required to put the entirety of the 150-word statement right under public comment, somebody looking for something that happened in the closed session would be flipping through several pages just to find out what had happened with that particular item's vote. so it's technically difficult for a member of the public looking after public comment for the vote, if we were to list all 150-word statements right now it's not a problem, because mr. hartz showed one particular addendum had 350 word statements on it. but one day, if we created a process where all 150-word statements were there and there were 40 people submitting them, i could see that happening. you put the word out on fox news, and for some unfortunate situation that fox news was upset about, they could get their entire customer base, client base to send us 150-word

statements, and we would be in a world of hurt trying to get people just to get through those statements to get to the back end of the agenda. so i would also like to state mr. hartz has made several complaints against our department. we are hoping that there could be some relief from having to continually come to his hearings where we talk about the same issue. we are very concerned that the public get their 150 words out there, that we are hearing what the public is saying. we have multiple opportunities for the public to actually publish their 150-word statements, not only would we be willing to put them in our agendas at this section of the agenda, we also have something called the communication pages, which we would be happy, which is on our website, and when a member of the public provides us

150-word statement, oftentimes they do ask put this in your agenda, and i would like it in your communication pages as well. so a like-minded thinker could go to not only our agenda but to our website to find their 150-word statement. so it is our hope that, again, similar to the regular meeting of october 2017, the commission held a show cause hearing. we did make a presentation. it was mr. ang, and i'm today with mr. willson ang who does attend these meetings for us. and at that time, the commission unanimously passed that our office did not violate the sunshine ordinance and voted there was no merit to mr. hartz's argument. we believe this complaint is without merit. again today. and ask that the commission find no violation. we ask that the commission

provide administrative remedy to adjudicate all duplicative complaints pertaining to the placement of the 150-word statement summaries in the minutes. we do appreciate your time. thank you kindly. and i'm available for any questions. >> thank you. any questions? >> commissions and boards, are they putting these minutes, these 150-word statements in the actual minutes? do we know? >> commissioner, i can only speak to our commission's practice, and we have traditionally placed the 150-word statements in the minutes in the flow of the minutes. we have not had significant number of them. but we place them in that

context. >> commissioner ambrose. >> maybe a question that might be for our enforcement staff or the city attorney, but i wanted to understand the request that you made at the end, i, as you know, i've been a -- was a city attorney for 34 years, i think one of the most difficult things is when there's disagreement within the city family. it's hard enough dealing with third-party lawsuits and the like, but it's the worst when there's some debate happening where people are looking at the same charter sections, the same sunshine ordinance sections and coming to different conclusions. and in particular, just to let everyone know my inclination is

because i was in the city attorney's office, i do know and have read the analysis that the city attorney provided. and while it may easily be said that reasonable minds have differed about what in the minutes does in the minutes mean, this page that says meeting minutes with a subheading addendum, or does it mean some other section of the meeting minutes before your signature? and i can understand why the ethics commission and certain other commissions would reasonably agree and incorporate the 150 words within the body of their minutes, because our minutes are three pages long. i also understand that somebody who has done legislation before the board that finding things in the board's agenda is a nightmare, and it would be within your charter duties to reasonably decide how you wanted

to organize the flow of information. but what i didn't understand is you'd ask for certain relief about other things that i'm not sure before this commission. and i don't know that i understand what our responsibility would be and how that might be before us. >> thank you for your comments, commissioner ambrose. i think chapter 67 of the administrative code, we honor that chapter. and respect when a member of the public might be in need of something and are confused about how to obtain it. we will bend over backwards to help them understand what it is they're trying to achieve and get them to the endgame. when a member of the public, in this case, mr. hartz, just views this subject differently than we

do, he is continuing to create complaint after complaint after complaint of the same subject. now he's moved on to the board president, next it's going to be the board of supervisors as a whole. without any of the facts underlying facts changing. and so my desire, it's a rarity, but there are a few individuals who continue to make the same complaints over and over again after, even after a body like the task force or your body, has decided in the opposite direction than what mr. hartz would like to do. we are concerned about repeated complaints, where my staff's time, we have a small department, we have a lot of work to do. and when mr. ang continues to go to these meetings after hours,

just for the task force to make the same decision, although they have decided in our favor in the past, it just depends on who is on the task force. it's just we would love some kind of relief for complaints, limit them to five times a year or once the ethics commission has made a determination in a particular section that there be something that is distributed to the department that you can handle it this way or you can hand it it that way, in which case it would not allow a complaint to continually be made again and again when the outcome is just going to be what it has been. >> thank you. i think i understand that. and i do surmise that may well require some further research and/or a legislative solution that may not be within our

jurisdiction today. but i understand what you want. thank you. >> we have a couple more questions. commissioner. >> yes, as you know, i'm fairly new to the commission, so this is my first encounter, although i have gone back to 2011 when i think were the first of the papers on the subject and looked at them. i do know that there were many times in the court when things were added to orders. and it was simply accomplished by saying here's an addendum. this matter is incorporated by reference as set forth. i'm not aware of any legal challenge that we faced in doing that. and what i'm wondering is whether some sort of a qualifying statement like that might satisfy you and mr. hartz as well by making it clear that these things are considered with the force and the respect as

though they had been fully set forth in the minutes and yet would not require the potential that you're concerned about with suddenly having a 200-page minute for an order. i don't know whether you've ever discussed those days possibilities or sat down with mr. hartz to see if there was some sort of a compromise that could be reached. >> commissioner smith, thank you for your recommendation. i am not opposed to that. i am more than happy to sit down with mr. hartz and show him some draft language that we could place there. even the word addendum, that was just a word that was on the fly recommended to us, not by the city attorney's office, but by an individual in any office who no longer works with us. >> that's a good word. >> okay. so we are happy so work with mr. hartz on that. and so i'll take your advice.

>> question -- >> sure. i'm not opposed to it. thank you. >> and my question is that in your mind, whether it's called an addendum or appendix but that by including that at the end of the minutes, in your view, though, it is part and parcel of the minutes so that for purposes of the legal requirements, that the public comment, therefore, is in the minutes? >> i whole hearteddedly agree with you, commissioner chiu -- chair chiu >> that's the bottom line here for me. but i'm still amenable to tweaking it further so the parties are satisfied. thank you. >> any further questions?

mr. hartz, your three minutes of rebuttal. >> [off mic] >> chair chiu, i did not reserve time and nor do i need it. thank you kindly. >> ray hartz, director san francisco open government. and so i now have gotten confirmation from her own mouth of what i have always believed but could never ascertain. she is not opposed to my 150-word summaries, she is opposed to any citizen of san francisco having the option of putting their 150-word summary in the minutes. in other words, she is adamantly against free speech. and she has decided that whatever she can do or will be able to do to put it somewhere where it would be less likely to

be seen, then she will do that. now, she has not been willing to talk about this at all. she has never even come to one of the sunshine task force meetings. she always sends someone else who really can't answer why they are so determined that my 150-word summary should be elsewhere than where the task force has ruled a dozen times that it should be. and this idea that fox news will put something on all of a sudden we'll get all these summaries, you have to make the public comment at the board of supervisors meetings, and then submit the 150-word summary. so unless all these fox news people are going to come and sit for several hours and if you look at the board of supervisors agenda, there's no certain time for public comment. if you wanted to make public comment to the board of supervisors, you have to put aside an entire day. because it could be, and i've had it as close as 45 minutes after the beginning of the

meeting and as long as eight hours later. and how many people in the public can afford to take time off from their life to take an entire day just to speak to the board of supervisors one time? and, again, we are talking free speech. and she has failed to show a compelling state interest answer to commissioner gray's question. every body that i submitted these statements to puts them in the body of the minutes exactly where they appear as any item would in the flow of the meeting. the library commission, the ethics commission does, the board of -- the arts commission does, the police commission does, the rent board does. so, yes, every one. and that's where i keep getting confused about. she seems to be resenting the case that for some reason her minutes are completely different

from all the other minutes run by every board and commission in this city. and for some reason, she's the only one -- now, you can ask her executive secretary, has there been a problem with putting my 150-word summary in the body of the minutes? and i think her answer would be no. and it would get same answer from all the rest. there has been no identified problem. and all she is doing is making up the worst possible scenario to come up with something that will stick to the wall and justify her not putting those in. and all you need to do is look through the 200 pages here, and you will see repeatedly the number of times the task force had done. if i had gone to the task force a dozen times and they found i was wrong, then her idiotic idea about getting declarative relief, does that mean if she's a bank robber and they rob a

bank five times that after that, they can rob a bank as many times as they want and nobody can file a case against them? >> thank you. call for public comment. >> good morning, commissioners and director, i'm dr. derek kurr. i commend and support ray hartz for pursuing inclusiveness and equity in the matter of including public comment within meeting minutes. her emphasis on the number of times that mr. hartz has raised this issue indicates that his persistence was somehow unreasonable or vexatious.

in fact, the pursuit of fairness and justice usually follows this representative path, because power concedes very little without demand after demand and year after year. the board of supervisors has two options. it can integrate public comment next to the agenda item that they address or it can segregate them into an appendix. choosing the latter, the back of the bus option, tells us that our comments are unworthy, that we are outsiders. it takes thoughtful effort to attend government meetings and to craft the 150-word public comment. why not encourage thoughtful public participation by including our comments where

they belong, in the body of the minutes next to the item that we are addressing? relegating our comments to an appendix marginalizes and buries public input. it conveys disrespect for the folks that government is supposed to serve. and worse, it fuels reciprocal disrespect. isn't it unethical to undermine good governance by demeaning public engagement? the ethics commission could convey that message to the board of supervisors and emphasize that the spirit of the sunshine ordinance is just as important as the technical legalities. thank you. >> thank you. any other public comment?

>> deputy director of operations for the clerk of the board. i would like to present myself as a member of the public to just correct a couple of inaccuracies that i've heard in the complaint's statement today. there has been several precedents that have been set, both with the ethics commission and consistently with the sunshine ordinance task force and also city attorney's opinion has been well-documented in the good government guide as well as directed to all city departments. so the task force was previously heard allegations regarding 150-word summary placement all from mr. hartz, there's several past complaints that have been filed, numerous future complaints that have been filed, the exact same complaint we are talking about today, 191-9042

and 19043 down the pipeline that is exactly the same that is addressing ms. calvio instead of president norman yee. so i want to direct you to page eight of the agenda, which is the memo we submitted which we cite several references to precedent. in two of them was ray hartz versus the public library ethics complaint 031-2402 and 07. on both complaints that were considered by the ethics commission, the ethics commission found for the city library saying the minutes provided were presented as a single document including the addendum, and the task force cannot add or imply the words into the body of the sunshine ordinance. and section 67.16 of the code

specifically states that the last sentence of the first paragraph, any person speaking during the public comment period may supply a brief summary of their public comments, not interpreted as the body of the minutes. if we were to submit -- so the way the minutes are is if there's january, february, march, april, may minutes that are all consecutive, so for example, if there was -- the first agenda -- set of minutes would be for example one to 20 then the second agenda -- or the minutes would be 21 forward. and so at the end of the year, they are all bound together as the general proceedings. and it's essentially all documented. they are all the minutes. it doesn't matter header,

footer, body, it's the minutes. so i want to make that clarification. and i want to refer you to this for additional precedence. thank you. >> thank you. commissioners? >> i want to say that i thought the evidence actually that mr. hartz provided showing that the minutes, the body of the minutes as we are calling them, does identify all of the public speakers with an acknowledgement of the sort of essence of what their testimony was and a specific page reference to the addendum. going to the other speaker, i don't see that as disrespect or failure to acknowledge. i mean, they are there with as

much fullness as a reference to something that a supervisor or department head would have said. i mean, the challenge of taking what can sometimes be a six-hour meeting and reducing it down to a memorandum, which from an attorney research point of view, i've always taken as essentially just i just want to find a keyword, a reference, so i can get back to the right section of the sfgtv video so i can see what did people say and how did they say it. so i want to make it clear that while i do come to the same conclusion that the city attorney did that when the voters adopted the sunshine ordinance, and they wanted the opportunity for 150 words to be incorporated in the minutes, that that left the discretion to the clerk of the board as to where in the minutes to put

those 150 words, notwithstanding the task force inclination to see it in an thive light. but in saying that, i want to be clear that i don't, and i don't think that the board is trying in any way to suppress free speech or deny mr. hartz an opportunity to be heard. i really sincerely believe that. so i just wanted everyone to know that. not supposed to apparently once the commissioners start to deliberate, but i'm happy to hear from you personally if you have a clarification. >> i would concur with commissioner ambrose's sentiment sentiment. i think that the 150-word summary is contained in the minutes. it's a matter of location.

and that the reference in the agenda item where it lists all of the public commenters and the gist of their comment as well as a reference to the page number in the addendum where the written comment can be seen, i think is a -- it satisfies the legal requirements of including the public comment in the minutes. >> i would concur with what she just said. without discussing the policy issues or the free speech or constitutional issues, from the standpoint of simply legal interpretation, i don't think the code section requires that it be in the body. the code section simply says what it says. and if there's an argument to be

made, it seems to me it's in the way the code is written. and the code should have said what it meant or been more specific if there was a -- now, that doesn't mean that there aren't policy reasons to discuss. and apparently other commissions have decided -- there's certainly no reason not to put it in the body according to the code. but i find it difficult to see a legal violation, simply from the standpoint of legal interpretation and code interpretation and the way it's written. >> commissioner gray. >> i concur. if i were mr. hartz, i would want to see it right where it should be in sequential order, but the statute doesn't say that, so i don't think we can find a violation. and i agree, it makes sense to me to have it in sequential order as opposed to having to

find an addendum and search, but statute is just, it's vague. so i don't think we can find a violation. >> but the task force will decide what the policy is, and they have decided it, and they have issued memorandums saying what the policy is. >> i think commissioner lee had a question -- had a comment, but i would like to ask the city attorney, in terms reviewing questions of law as that may have been interpreted by the sunshine ordinance task force, i believe that the commission can review the findings, the legal findings of the task force de novo >> that's correct. as jeff pierce explained on questions of law, the commission does review de novo. >> commissioner lee >> thank you. the commission had an earlier discussion regarding the

150-word public comment in our own minutes. but i think that fox news notwithstanding, i would like to see civic engagement in all aspects of government, and which means that it would be great if we have dozens and dozens of people commenting at proceedings or commission proceedings. and i think logistically, of course, i echo my fellow commissioner's comments that the public comment is included in the body of the public record, whether you include it in the specific item or put it as an addendum or what have you, but it is part of the public record, which is really important in respect to respecting the public's point of view and the right to speech. so my -- i think since there's

no legal statute to require that the public comment be specifically-placed within a certain body, and there's effort to show that any interest of parties can say, hey, how many people commented on this specific item, you can refer to page whatever whatever. i think that that would satisfy all parties. and i think that in terms of public's right to engage, if i were resident, i may not want to go through 200 pages of public comment to go to an item that i was interested in. but as long as i know if i want to read, what people have been saying about a previous item, i could refer to a specific page,

which i understand the board of supervisors has committed to do. so another comment i have is regarding the communication pages, the website that the board of supervisors have, i assume people click on a certain item and it would go directly to a specific page that would include public comments on that? or how does that go? i'm very low-tech so i have never used the web pages from the city before. >> deputy director of operations for the clerk of the board. it depends on how the communication is submitted. if it's just a general communication without any reference to any particular legislative item, with no legislative file number reference then there wouldn't be linkage. however if it is tied to a specific file number, it is searchable by that file number. >> thank you. >> okay.

any other comments from commissioners? >> i would like to make a motion that the board of supervisor's president norman yee did not find that the board of supervisors president did not violate administrative code 67.16 and 67.31. and that the legal interpretation of this commission is that there's no legal requirement under the code that public comment be placed in the body of the minutes. >> a second from commissioner lee. all in favor? >> aye. >> all opposed? the motion is carried unanimously. >> handicap like that, i knew i

would lose, because that's what you always do for sunshine ordinance. every single one. every single person. you deny every single one. [off mic] >> agenda item number 6. discussion and possible action on proposed bylaw amendment, article 7, section 4 to revise regular meeting schedule effective april 2020. >> commissioners, item 6 is in your agenda packets to allow the commission to act on proposed bylaws changed that would change the regular meeting date of the commission from the third friday

of the month beginning at 2:00, change it to friday mornings beginning at 9:30 on the second friday of the month. you will recall this was discussed last month, directed that a public notice be issued to enable the public to be notified of the potential bylaws change. we were able to distribute that along with the language of the bylaws change as required by the bylaws change process. and for the memo before you shows the dates this would take effect. it is proposed to take effect beginning in april 2020. so the commission under the proposal before you would be to continue the commission's current meeting schedule on the third friday at 2:00 until the month of april, 2020 at which point the commission would switch to a regular meeting day of a second friday of the month beginning at 9:30 in room 400 rather than 416. so that is the proposal. the attachment that is included

in this memo shows, depicts on a calendar so the public can see what those dates would be and the meeting dates that would be adopted pursuant to this bylaws change if the commission adopts, is shown on agenda item 6 page 2. >> commissioner lee. >> i have a question regarding the earlier starting time. is there anyone scheduled in the afternoon using that room? so right now we have this room forever so we can meet until past midnight. but for the room 400 meetings in the future, do you know if there's any other commission meetings scheduled, say, in the afternoons, that we would need to vacate this room? >> would there be a stopping

point or limitation on the time that we have? >> i will have to check. typically the schedule of city hall rooms are quite packed. so it is possible that there may be other meetings after our meeting. but typically they book the room one hour before and after so the room is locked until -- >> 9:30 to 3:00 positive p.m. >> yeah. so we do have the whole day. >> we are not going to be here six hours. >> is there any objections received about this? i understand a notice was -- and i haven't heard anything here yet, but i guess we'll ask. but was there any mail or anything received in response to

this that you are aware of? >> i'm aware of one e-mail that we received, a general comment saying that 9:30 in the morning might provide less opportunity for the public to engage than a friday afternoon at 2:30. >> any other comments? commissioner ambrose? >> i did just want to say -- and i appreciate that we're deferring this change overbecause of my schedule, but april 10 is the beginning of passover and it's good friday so on the chance that anyone knows they might have travel plans or something that weekend, and if we wanted to defer and stay with the third, with the existing schedule which would be the third friday at 2:00 p.m. for april, i just want to put that out there. it doesn't matter to me.

my schedule is -- >> i think that's a good idea. >> we didn't look at that. that's a very good point. friday, april 10 is good friday and the beginning of passover. so the commissioner ambrose, are you suggesting that we start the new schedule at 9:30 on friday, may 8? >> correct. and i guess since we've noticed this, i'm assuming we also have the right to make modifications to it as proposed schedule. i know you had -- so the proposed bylaw amendment had to be noticed, but since it has been noticed, we were able to tinker with it. >> okay. >> and i would recommend that we start effective the change in the schedule, effective may, for the may 8 meeting.

>> any other commissioner comments or questions? public comment? >> commissioners, ray hartz, director san francisco open government. i really don't think it matters when you meet. when i first started coming to these meetings more than a dozen years ago, they were held on the evening around 5:00 p.m., and there was usually about half the auditorium filled up with members of the public. and you moved to a daytime and it went down to a few. now the only people who come to these meetings are people who have a matter before the body. and whether you intend it or not, and i really do think you intend it, your intention is to cut back on purpose participation. the to put it at a time when normal working people won't be able to attend or families who have to find childcare needs can't attend.

i mean, do you want the public here or not? i don't think you do. because every time you change when you meet, it is to a time which is more hassle to the public being able to attend and palpable. and frankly, i see why, the public has caught onto something i've known for quite a long time. you don't want their input. you don't give a damn about their input, and you are going to do whatever you need to to hold these meetings at such a fashion at such a time the public will be uncomfortable in attending, they will not be able to attend, and if they have something to say, any of the meaning of what they had to say before you will never make it into your minutes, because they don't even know about my option of the 150-award summary. and i think that is basically the problem with the ethics commission that i have seen over

the years. you meet, and i don't know whose interest you serve but certainly not the ethics of this committee. i have never, ever seen you do anything except shuffle papers, rewrite the law and the ethics in this city are absolutely no better, in fact, they are worse than they were when i first started coming a dozen years ago. and you could sit there and go, oh, no, that's not true, that's not -- hey, one of your last presidents resigned, a former commission member judge cop went to the newspaper and said how ineffective and how useless this body was after he had been serving on the body so it isn't just my opinion but you're a worthless waste of time. i think the general public has gotten to that same thing and even some of your own members. one of your presidents got so disgusted he quit, he resigned in the middle of the meeting. what kind of a body does it take to act in ways that someone who

is a law professor will get up so disgusted and say, i quit? >> thank you. any other public comment? other comments or questions from commissioners? >> the only thing i wanted to say is i actually think that the purpose of moving it to 9:30 is with the hope that we will be able to get more people to attend that having a meeting at the end of the day on a friday, when people often have plans for that evening or the weekend, there are a lot of people who do work who might be able to come in and i think we are open to looking at alternative times of my it is a struggle, apparently, because of the limited room availability.

i've seen this before with other commissions trying to find a time that is most available to the public, but i do want to say that that is our reason is to find a time that will work for people. >> i would concur with my fellow commissioners. commissioner am brother's comments -- ambrose's comments. i would make a motion to amend the bylaws to read as follows. effective in may, 2020, regular meetings shall be held on the second friday of each month, except in the case of a city-recognized holiday or unavailability of a televised meeting room when the meeting shall be held on the closest practical day. unless otherwise noted, meetings shall be held at city hall carlton b. goodlet place, beginning at 9:30 a.m.

all in favor? >> aye? >> those opposed? >> the motion is approved unanimously. agenda item 7, discussion and possible action on proposed amendments to regulations related to article '28 chapter 1 of the article iii, chapter 1 of the governmental campaign and conduct code. >> thank you chair chiu and commissioners. i'm pat ford, senior policy and legislative affairs council. happy new year to you. it's good to see you again. we have a new meeting schedule, new leadership, i think you have a very good 2020 to look forward to. i'm glad to present this agenda item to you and i hope it's the first of many agenda items this year that continue all the projects that you've been working on over the past number of months and hopefully some new

projects that we'll talk about maybe in the next agenda item. but anyhow, just like to start off by saying that. it's very good to see you. this agenda item, we've talked about many times at many meetings. so i'll be very brief. but i do want to give a quick intro on it for the benefit of anybody who is just joining this discussion now. this agenda item contains a set of regulations that would require that all city employees who are already required under the law to file the statement of economic interests do so using an online digital filing system. first, what is the form 700? it's a form created by the state, by the fair political practices commission, and it's used by employees of state and local government, elected and appointed officials, all kinds of people in government across

the state to disclose their personal financial interests. there are a number of important reasons for that. don't need to go into depth about that right now. but essentially in san francisco right now, officials such as yourselves or elected officials like members of the board of supervisors file electronically using an online filing system. however, employees like myself and thousands of other employees in the city filed this form in a paper format, either with your department or with a related department, maybe a parent department. and that's created basically a two-tier system of disclosure where you have some people filing electronically with those disclosures being very easily accessible to the public, and you have a much larger group of people filing on paper, a format that's less efficient for the filer and also less available to the public.

so what these regulations that are before you today would do is to create a single uniform system of filing, all electronic, essentially to move everyone who is filing on paper into the existing electronic filing system that's already being used by officials in the city. purposes for that as i just mentioned, easier filing experience and better availability of information to the public. by way of background, i want to mention these regulations have been noticed before the public for ten days, so you can vote on them. and further more, as i discussed at earlier meetings, staff, assisted by the department of human resources, have already met with employee bargaining units, we have talked about this project of having employees file electronically. we have discussed the impacts of that. and we have explored some ways

to help ease the transition, including training, written resources, and having employee bargaining units be more involved with departments during the code review, which is a way for departments to go back and look at which employees are required to file. so the upshot is that the meet and confer process is concluded, the regulations have been noticed, you can vote on them, and you can approve this today, should you so choose. but before i conclude, i do want to just mention to you that aside from the actual e-filing requirement, because that's only one of these regulations, the others kind of setup processes to make that work. so you see in here that there are provisions that have the filer provide contact information to the filer's filing officer. that's the filing officer can set up the online account,

basically get a user name and password for the filer. and then there's a process for the filing officer to ask for that information. there's a deadline for that. there's a deadline to file the information. there's a deadline for the filing officer to can create the account and provide the log ininformation. that's why this is a page and a half and not just one line. so i wanted to explain as it's not so simplistic. it also sets up a infrastructure for administration which is necessary for any of these kinds of programs. so we believe that this was comprehensive of what needs to be in place in order for the ethics commission and all the departments to bring this project to fruition. and with that, i will answer any questions that you might have about the regulations or about this project, generally. >> any questions from

commissioners? i just had one question, mr. ford, and that is for the paper filers of the form 700, those are kept on file with their respective office, so their filing officer. and so as a result, they are not searchable from a online database standpoint but from an after these implemented regulations and january 1, 2021, next year? >> yes. >> they will be filing electronically >> that's correct. so to your question about how paper filed forms are available. all employee filers have a filing officer, typically another employee in their department, sometimes somebody in a department that is kind of a parent department to them. so if there's divisions or smaller departments within one larger department, sometimes they will file with, for example, the city administrator,

if you are in a department that the administrator oversees. but, yes, you are correct that once the employee files on paper, the filing officer has to keep track of the employee's compliance and report to us if there's noncompliance, and the paper form 700 goes into a filing cabinet. and it is available, it is a public record. it must be produced in full form if it is requested. but that's the problem is that it's not always clear to somebody what forms to request or where to go to get them. there's no one stop shop for form 700. that's what this project would create. [please stand by]

>> you could still do the kind of individual specific search that you can do now with form 700. if somebody wanted to know about

my personal financial interest they could request my paper form 700. under e filing they could see everything i have an interest in. that won't be go away. additionally you will have a powerful tool to search all of the forms at once, which this is the future. this is the direction we are moving with, all forms. this is important to have this form included with that kind much progress, too. >> commissioner, i have a question. just to be clear, the database will be all encompassing for the city so you don't need to know the name of the department, you will be able to do a name entry or something like that? >> that's correct. >> larry bush in some comments raised some interesting questions that i am going to want to follow up on.