>> i'd like to welcome everyone to the december 14 regular meeting of the san francisco ethics commission. this meeting is being held by teleconference pursuant to the governor's executive order 2920 and the 12 amendment to the mayoral proclamation regional emergency declared on march 12, 2020. >> clerk: thank you, madam chair. the minutes of this meeting will reflect that due to covid-19 health emergency and to protect city commissioners, public health, and the public,

members of this meeting and the meeting is being held remotely. commission members will attend the meeting through video conference and participate in the meeting to the same extent as if they were physically present. please note that today's meeting is being live cablecast on channel 26 and being streamed live at sfgov.org/ethicslive. public comment will be available on each item on this agenda. each member of the public will be allowed three minutes to speak. comments or opportunities to speak during the public comment period are available via phone call by calling 415-655-0001. again, the phone call is 415-655-0001. access code is 146-619-6608. again, 146-619-6608, followed

by the pound sign, and then press pound again to join as an attendee. please note, to members of the public, that if you look up the global call numbers that have been updated on the agenda, we -- there was a mistake on the agenda. we. if you're calling, and you need access, rather than the 415 number, please visit our website at sfethics.org. you will hear -- to the public, you will hear a beep when you are connected to the meeting. you will automatically be muted and in listening mode only. when your item of interest come up, dial star, three to be entered into public comment line. please wait until the clerk calls on you. ensure you are in a quiet

location. before you speak, mute the sound of anything around you, including television, radio, or computer. it is especially important that you mute your computer if you are watching via the web link so prevent feedback and echo when you speak. when the system says your line has been unmuted, this is your turn to speak. you will hear staff say, welcome, caller. you are encouraged to state your name clearly. as soon as you begin speaking, you will have three minutes to provide your comment, six minutes if you are on-line with an interpreter. you will hear a bell go off when you have 30 seconds remaining. if you wish to withdraw from public comment line, please press star, three again. you will then hear the system say you have lowered your hand. once you have provided your comment, you will hear staff say thank you, and the system will say your line has been

muted. public comment may also be submitted in writing and will be shared with the commissioners after the meeting has been concluded and will be part of the official meeting file. written comments should be sent to ethics.commission@sfgov.org. thank you, madam chair. >> and i'm so sorry. i will do that again, after i've unmuted myself. i will call the meeting to order, and if i could ask your moderator to call role. >> commissioners, please unmute your microphone so that you can

acknowledge your presence after your name is called. [roll call] >> clerk: madam chair, with five members present and accounted for, you have a quorum. >> thank you. i will now welcome everyone back to the remote commission meetings and hope that we have some public participation today. i know that, hopefully, we've all been reaching out to folks

to encourage people to participate and attend in the ethics commission on-line and by telephone. i want to remind commissioners that when you are not speaking, please turnoff your microphone to avoid audio feedback, and with that, i want to call agenda item number 2, which is public comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the agenda. members of the public who are already on-line and wish to speak should now dial star, three, if you've not already done so, to be added to the public comment line. moderator, can you please proceed with public comment. >> clerk: thank you, madam chair. the ethics commission is now receiving public comment on agenda item number 2 in this meeting. each member of the public will have up to two minutes to provide public comment. if you joined the meeting earlier in the proceedings, now is the time to press star, three to speak.

it's important that you press star, three to enter the queue as pressing it again will move you out of the public comment line and back into listening mode. once you're in line, the system will prompt you to speak, so it's important that you call from a quiet location. please address your comments to the commission as a whole and not to individual members of the madam chair, we are checking to see if there are any callers in the queue. >> thank you. >> clerk: if you have just joined this meeting, we are currently on agenda item 2, public comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the agenda. you will have three minutes to provide your comment, six minutes if you are on-line with an interpreter. if you have not already done so, please press star, three to enter the queue. please wait on-line until the system indicates you have been unmuted.

please stand by. madam chair, there are no callers in the queue. >> all right. i understand we're supposed to wait 90 seconds, or have you already waited 90 seconds? >> clerk: yeah. there was -- from the moment that i -- yeah, because i'm keeping an eye on it, but if you want to wait a few more seconds. >> no, that's fine. if anybody pops in, feel free to interrupt me. give everybody as much chance as possible. >> clerk: okay. >> but with that, i'm going to hit the gavel and ask you to close agenda item number 2 and call agenda item number 3 -- or actually, i'm going to call agenda item number 3, and that would be -- sorry. losing my place here.

the ethics commission is now receiving public comment on consent calendar item number 3 in this remote meeting -- okay. hang on a minute. i need, like, a script of this here. here we go. i'm not seeing -- okay. i see it. never mind. okay. i'd like to call agenda item number 3, consend calendar for the november 13, 2020, meeting. this item is considered routine. if a commissioner objects, an item can be removed and considered separately. does any commissioner wish to sever any items from the consent and call it for a separate discussion? seeing none, then i would ask

the moderator, would you please proceed with public comment. >> clerk: thank you, madam clerk. the ethics commission is now receiving public comment on consent calendar item number 3 remotely in this meeting. each member of the public will have up to three minutes to provide public comment. you will hear a bell go off when you have 30 seconds remaining. if you joined the meeting earlier to listen to the proceedings, now is the time to get in line to speak. if you have not already done so, please press star, three. it's important that you only press star, three once to enter the queue as doing so more will move you back out of the line and into listening mode. it's important you call from a quiet location. please address your comments to the committee as a whole and not to individual members. madam chair, we are checking

for callers now. if you have just joined this call, we are taking public comment for agenda item number 3, draft minutes for november 13, 2020 meeting. if you have not already done so, please press star, three to enter the queue. please stand by. madam chair, there are no callers in the queue. >> thank you. moderator. with that, public comment on consent item number 3 is now

closed. commissioners, do you have a motion to approve the minutes from the november 13 meeting? >> so moved. >> thank you, commissioner smith. a second, please. >> second. >> thank you. and with that, moderator, can you please call the roll on the motion to approve the consent -- oh, i'm sorry. commissioner bush, your hand is up, and i missed that, please. go ahead. >> two things. one is that i'd like to thank the people who prepare the minutes for including the links to -- what is it? sfgov -- so they can see each meeting that took place including links to specific sections of the minutes. the second question -- second issue i have a question is there are some things that are said in the course of the meeting, and it says no action was taken.

is that because the item -- the agenda item was for information and did not allow us to have action? because otherwise, it gives the impression that issues just faded away, rather than it was under a category that didn't permit commissioners or others to make comment? >> i think the notation that no action was taken simply means that there was no vote, so, i mean, if you want, i suppose you could change it, like, there was no vote -- no vote was taken on this matter or something like that. >> if you look at our agenda, the minutes, as well as today's agenda, some items are saying presentation, and others are saying presentation and potential action. so if the item just says presentation but does not say potential action, does that mean that we're precluded from

taking any action? >> i'm going to defer to the city attorney. i have my guess on the answer to that question. >> hi, good morning. deputy city attorney andrew shen responding to your question, commissioner bush. yes, the item did not indicate that any action was taken, then it would simply be an informational item. how we queue it up is if any action was taken on the item. >> and the importance of that is to let some member of the public know that while they could come back later and watch the informational presentation, but if it was calendared as a possible action item, then it would be important for them to participate in real-time because the commission might move forward without having a second opportunity to sound off on that particular issue, so it

is important when you calendar it that way. >> i think it's important to keep in mind that when the minutes are put down, and it says there is no action, it's because it was in a category that allowed no action. otherwise, it just appears a lack of interest in the topic, which may not be the case at all. that does not hold us up from going ahead and approving the minutes as they've been presented. >> well, i appreciate that. i think your perspective -- i've written agenda items that way for so long, i never would think that anyone would think that that's what that meant, but yeah, i can talk with the executive director and think about how better to phrase that so that it's clear. but with that, then, moderator, can you please call the roll?

>> clerk: my turn with the unmute. yes. a motion has been made and seconded. i will now call the roll. [roll call] >> clerk: with five votes in the affirmative and zero votes opposed, the motion is approved unanimously. >> thank you, commissioners. i'm going to now call agenda item 4, action on proposes commission regular meeting schedule for the calendar year 2021. can executive director [inaudible], can you speak to this item, please. >> good morning, commissioners. thank you, chair ambrose. this item, typically at this time of year, the commission puts forward a schedule for the coming calendar year so it can be circulated on the website and in other meeting materials

as necessary. last january, 2020, you might recall that the commission approved a bylaws change that the commission be meeting on the second friday of each month except in the case of unavailability of commissioners [inaudible] and of course over the past year with the shelter in place and the public health emergency orders limiting public gatherings, the commission resumed its monthly meetings in approximate august remotely, and that is, for the foreseeable future, is what we anticipate remotely, until we have been given the notice that we can meet again in public buildings. so this schedule that we've given you is still based on meeting the second friday of every month remotely. so if this is amenable to the commissioners, we would ask for your approval on this item so

we can post materials and updates accordingly. >> moderator, would you please proceed with public comment? you're muted, ronald. >> clerk: okay. i'm going to need some more caffeine in me. madam chair, we are checking to see if there are any callers in the queue. for those on the line, please wait until the system indicated you have been unmuted. if you have just joined this meeting, we are currently in discussion on agenda item number 4, action on proposed commission regular meeting schedule for calendar year 2021. if you have anot already done

so, please press star, three to enter the queue. you will have three minutes to speak, six minutes if you are using an interpreter. please stand by. madam chair, there are no callers in the queue. >> all right. thank you very much. with that, public comment on agenda item number 4 is closed, and can i have a motion to adopt the schedule for the 2021

calendar? commissioner bush, i have a motion. commissioner smith, i'll take that as a second, and moderator, please take the roll -- oh, commissioner bush, you have a comment. i see your hand. you're muted, commissioner bush. >> the february meeting is set for february 12. i was going to suggest that we look at a time more like the 26 on that particular month because i think that, in march, we're going to be putting out a report looking back at the 2020 election and doing an overview of the campaign spending and so forth, and it's also became as we use that as a basis for

pursuing our budget request, mayor's office, and so i was afraid if we are not having a meeting from february 12 to march 12, that those incidences would fall between the chairs, and that we should have a meeting on the 12 and 26 so we can discuss everything going on on the commission. >> and i'm going to defer to executive director pelham. is there anything about the calendar overall, and then, i would ask the other commissioners, to the extent that you have memory of what you might be doing in february, you know, understanding that we are going to have another meeting in february, although if you have a conflict, we can reschedule this item. i think there's a certain amount of notice that needs to

be given because of the bylaws? >> no. chair ambrose, since there wasn't a bylaws change, there isn't a ten-day notice required for this. you could do so with just changing that date within this calendar that you're adopting. the one comment that i just wanted to make that would perhaps clarify with commissioner bush, it is typically the case that the budgets are due for submission roughly that second or third week of february, so if the commission were not to meet until the 26, you would be meeting after our budget is submitted, in all likelihood, unless our budget changes. but if the commission meets on the 12, that would give the commission advance opportunity to see the budget submission before it is submitted. again, assuming the past practice is how we're going forward, so i just wanted to provide that context, as well,

for your consideration. >> yes, certainly, that's important. >> well, to be honest with you, we could, if it's sort of an intensive need for it, we could calendar a brief special meeting at the end of february or march to address commissioner bush's concern because i would not want to have the commission miss an opportunity to comment before you submit your budget to the mayor's office. >> that's fine with me. >> won't be able to do that by january 8, clearly, so thank you for that note, and then, commissioner bush, we can keep an eye on this. if we need to, we can either do that or we can move up the march meeting so that, as you say, something doesn't fall

between the chairs. with that, then, we have a motion and second, correct, for this item, so i'm going to ask the moderator to call the roll and keep an eye on this. clerk cle>> clerk: a motion h made and seconded. on that motion -- [roll call] >> clerk: with five votes in the affirmative and zero votes opposed, the motion is approved unanimously. >> all right. thank you for that, and then, if we do have any public listeners, i want to advise you that we are going to take items out of order now.

we are interested in having commissioner chiu particularly participate in agenda item 7, and so we are going to temporarily skip over the presentation on form 700 filing and agenda item number 6, and i am going to call agenda item 7, which is the discussion and possible objection on an update regarding ethics commission responsing to date to ongoing corruption allegations. -- responses to date to ongoing corruption allegations. >> chair ambrose, if i might jump in for a moment, i wanted to introduce the item and let you know we have a variety of staff members present on agenda item 7. >> yes. i didn't talk to you about that, but please, executive director pelham, you have the

floor. >> thank you. thank you. i'm here with actually the entire complement of our staff -- staff memory, who's contributed to the work in this area as well as to this memo. our director of enforcement, jeff pierce is here, as well as one of our investigators. pat ford, our senior legislative and affairs director. we have a number of hands on deck that have been responding to the corruption scandal that we have seen continuing to emerge in 2020, and we thought both in conversation with the chair, and noting that this is the end of the calendar year that has been dramatic on so many fronts, we thought it would be helpful to provide an update for you as well as the public about the kinds of activities that the ethics commission is engaged in across the range of our work in response to the allegations that we have seen continuing to unfold or unravel over the course of the past year. as you know, just at the end of

november, since our last commission meeting, most recently, new charges were revealed with a public announcement of the then-director of the city's public utilities commission allegedly taking bribes on charge of fraud. he subsequently resigned his position, but this is just the latest of a number of very aremain laing headlines and troubling work. we know from the city attorney's office, from the controller's office, as you've heard from reports that they've done over the last several months, [inaudible] with information about, there is much work going on in the city to dig further, to understand where there are practices or policies or laws to be strengthened to prevent this kind of activity, if true, from happening again. so as you know, from conversations that we've had over the last several months, there are a number of investigations ongoing from a policy perspective, making sure

we're digging into our government ethics law to see what needs to be strengthened, what policies need to be strengthened. we have some very specific views on that, and work that the outreach staff is doing. obviously, because of charter mandates, we take very seriously and abide by practice and in our work, the ethics investigations are always conducted confidentially. we also don't comment on whether we're undertaking an investigation or not which can be frustrating to the public because they want people to be brought forward and held accountable for their actions. we take those confidentiality requirements very seriously, and we don't comment on whether we're investigating or not because we do want to protect the due process interests of potential respondents and,

importantly, make sure that the public can and respondents can have confidence that the ethics commission is fair, neutral, and objective involving any kind of investigative enforcement that it might take. so that stems from whether i, as your probable cause hearing officer, may make the determination that probable cause exists that somebody violated our law in a jurisdiction. now, we also know that public comments have been issued, and so our investigative staff, like others, are looking at those documents and combing over them to see if there are things that we should be spending investigative time on. so we wanted to do with this memo is just provide a range of

activities, the kinds of things that we're doing, and identify where we're going over the course of the year with this work. we know there are significant things that should be happening in our own work, and as you look at different areas of this report, you'll see that there is an area a job that we can see that we have -- i'll talk about that later, but this -- you know, we've identified these positions, we're able to backfill them, and those positions ensure the work that we have been doing in each of those areas. i'm going to let you know our lens, our field of vision in

the next year going forward, and we want to make sure that you and others are confident in the work that we're doing with whatever resources we have and that we're doing in the coming here. with that, i'm happy and my staff are here to to speak something if needed. >> so anyone in the public who might be listening, i encourage you to take a look at that, and

i'm then going to open it up to commissioner comments. this is a presentation and possible action item, but before, if there is any action, i want to go to public comment, if we could. so before we jump in, are there any commissioner comments before we begin? i don't see any, so i'm going to start -- and i don't know, at the end, if you wanted each one of your staff to specifically speak to the work that you're doing. the question that i have, while some of the matters that are in this panoply of corruption indictments, there are at least four individuals who pled

guilty, and i don't know what the formal term is, but they cut a deal. i don't know if we're authorized to move forward on any actions on enforcement investigations -- i realize that none of these people were former city officials. these are all private contractors, right? all four of them were outside public parties -- [inaudible].

>> commissioner bush, you're unmuted. >> thank you. >> any way, that's my note. and i know you're already scouring the disclosure information that we have available to look at those points. >> we are. and i would just say that to the extent that there are matters that we do identify that are actionable and that the commission think we should be taking action on, we would bring those to you in a different setting. i would also comment, something i think is helpful to underscore, when we're talking about civic organizations in the press, there is a lot of work that goes onto helping identify tools that can exist to help factually report on or

understand the kinds of disclosure reports that we're seeing, because one of the things that we recently did was update our home page banner that tries to direct the public who might be interested in these items on our websites to see that the kinds of disclosures that city officials have to make under existing law. they might not be perfect, but there is a strong appetite for understanding this, especially when these types of incidents are unfolding in the press, and so to be able to have access for this to the public, and to walk them through this information is important.

that's something that doesn't get a lot of attention, but this is something that we want to have as a tool so the public can be aware that we have all of these ways that public officials can be held accountable. >> yes, and i appreciate all the changes that you and steven made to the website to best get the public access to the information. and how, for those of us that are not technically as savvy as some computer geniuses, how it's easier to get to a pay and view collectively information about a particular set of public officials and what their reporting has been. so i really appreciate that, and i think that, today, is

that is it tyler is going to give us what i really appreciate, which is a status on demonstration on what these webpages look like and how you click through them to get into the nitty-gritty, because it is fascinating. i think commissioner bush, maybe some of you longer veterans of the commission are more familiar with that, but it's incredible how many information is available. i took a walk-through the major developer disclosure because of my long-standing work with planning and land use development departments with the city, and there's a lot of information there. it was really useful to see the organizations that they interaction with and the

donations that they have made. i've got commissioner chiu and commissioner bush who have questions, so i'm going to take commissioner chiu. >> commissioner chiu: thank you so much. i want to thank you for taking the time to investigate the corruption allegations that we have ongoing here in the city. it seems to me that there are three prongs to this approach, and that they are, you know, on the policy front, you're looking at new laws and regulations to address gaps in the regulatory schemes that

govern in this area, and the second is the enforcement of current laws, and then, the third is around engagement and compliance to educate on [inaudible] and to really build a culture on compliance. so i think on the enforcement front, we are bound by confidentiality, and we can't talk specifics about what's happening, but i think there's an opportunity to plant a flag in the ground in terms of what is important to the ethics commission, because i think laws and regulations are only going to be as strong as the enforcement that follows them.

for example, speed limits. if speed limits are not enforced, people can drive five, ten, 20 miles per hour over that without fear of impugnity. that said, i know that there's a pandemic continuing to rage, and the d.f.w. duties fall to all of the city, but i think one-third of our city staff has been funded to help out with the emergency. so my question is is there a way to shift the load to others in the department to be able to free up more resources within the enforcement department to be able to get at this really critical work? i think anecdotally, when i see

next door, the ability of the neighborhood, people that post the stories of the recent allegations coming out of the p.u.c., it's like a shrug, all those corrupt politicians, all those corrupt city workers, but what can be done? basically nothing, and i think that is one, unfortunate, and two, doesn't need to be true. i'd like to have a discussion and hear from staff, without directing enforcement priorities, but i think enforcement actions can send a message about what the ethics commission thinks is important, what the ethics commission is going to say. we're going to plant our flag here, and these are the things

that we are going to go after because it's not okay, and i don't know if we -- if we have -- if we have done that in this instance, and obviously, this takes time, but i also think that the time is a double-edged sword. we need the time to conduct the investigation, but these things are unfolding and continuing to unfold now in 2020. it's going to bleed into 2021, and for them to be an investigation and some announcement in 2020 -- further down, the enforcement becomes attenuated from the violation, and i think the enforcement becomes not reduced, but i think the impact can be blunted, so that's one observation. and then, the second would be around engagement because we

already have a policy around travel and gifts and disclosure, so this goes back to enforcement. how do we enforce a law that we currently have already on the books, ask what do we need to add? so i think it's important to keep a focus on the longer term and what needs to occur, but also what we have in our current tool set to be able to bring to bear. and thing, the -- the cultural compliance piece, i'd really love to hear more about what we're doing in this area because the whole phrase, see something, say something, what is our culture of that in the city? are people simply, like, i'm going to keep my head down or

if we see something, we're not sure if it's right or wrong? i'd like to get more information. and i don't know if you know the answer, but i'd like to know what efforts we can do in terms of outreach because people comply when they know what the rules are and what the consequences are for obeying or not obeying. so as we think about this, how do we, as an ethics commission tasked with creating, helping to create ethical culture -- we have laws and rules and regulations on the books already about gifts and travel,

and they weren't followed, you know, as evidenced by the allegations -- not proven yet, but these are the allegations that there were restrictions on gifts, there were restrictions on travel, but the allegations are that these city officials did not follow them. and so how did that come to be, and how do we fix that because we can add more laws, and we can -- and we can have enforcement action, but if the people who are subject to those laws and subject to those regulations do not care to follow them or choose not to follow them, there will continue to be violations. in the corporate world, people always said corporations eat culture for breakfast. i think we can add more laws, but in the absence of a culture of compliance, it's going to become very difficult, i think,

to -- to turn the shift of city to become more compliant, and so i would really like to hear miss gage, if she's available, so the question would be, from an overarching standpoint, what would be the point to build a culture of compliance here in san francisco in city work because training is only the first step. and secondly, what can we do in this year of reduced budget and resources until we get to that point of having more money and funds and, you know, hopefully people to be able to do this work? how do we bridge it until we can get to -- until we can get

to that place and get to had a headway, and how do we measure whether or not we have been effective? i know that's a lot. >> commissioner chiu, if i might make a couple of responses, and then, i would obviously, love to hear from rachel and jeff and staff chiming in more. i heard a number of things, and i want to confirm idea as enforcement about a way to change culture, i couldn't agree more. we all agree that that is essential to help capture people's attention and know where the guardrails are very strong and exist. so that's something, in terms of prioritizing our work to accomplish where public trust is most damaged. to get public trust, that is something that is top on our radar from all the work that

the commission and staff have been doing over the past year. there was a certain ah-ha moment when reading the latest charges that came out on november 13, they related to behaviors that allegedly took place in 2016. so in some ways, it is a sad reminder that impact of this sad behavior doesn't always come quickly, but it isn't a reason to take our foot off the gas pedal or to keep it there. the notion of doing outreach and how we address the tone at the top, absolutely. those are steps we have to be taking now.

one of the things that rachel and her staff have put out is a reminder to all department heads and staff [inaudible] and here's what public disclosures are available, and so that's what we have on our radar to keep doing [inaudible] and if they have to do fundraising at the end of the year. so we hear those needs, and we are responding to those. and i'll pause there, but i just wanted to provide some of that context because there are a number of ways where the work that we're doing is happening.

it's not a matter of detecting or prohibiting behavior because sometimes no rules will prevent people from making a bad decision or taking bad action, but i think it's important to come alongside of staff people, employees who are in those processes, to help them know that we are relevant and that we can be helpful to them in making decisions and support them in making good decisions because i don't know how many people are comfortable saying something when they see something? that is something that we all have a role to play in dealing with that, so that's something that i think we're going to get a better handle on, but we have to figure out, and we can't wait for a grand plan because we'll be losing too much time,

and i think that things can take over if we're not on top of it [inaudible] let me see if jeff has anything more to add or rachel or pat ford want to add anything about the work that's ongoing in their [inaudible]. >> so -- and i just would like to add, director pelham, that the work that [inaudible] and i know that tyler and his team have done a tremendous job to create that transparency and make it accessible to every day san francisco citizens to understand, well, how much -- how much money is my elected official receiving and the work that they're doing?

another linchpin. >> as this item notes, our division meets weekly with a number of counterparts within the -- the city family, including the controller's office, the city attorney's office, and the district attorney's office. we also note both here and in the enforcement report, which we have noted in an ongoing way that the commission adopted a couple years ago this parallel proceedings policy where our office shares jurisdiction with other offices, and we had conversation with the commission in the past, in the recent past about what we might view as kind of a hierarchy of enforcement, given the three

kinds of penalty being criminal, civil, and ad str administrative. as we evaluate which matters to bring before the commission in that context, we are constantly thinking about the finite number of resources within the city at large and whether sometimes it makes sense for the district attorney solely to pursue a criminal prosecution or the city attorney solely to pursue a civil litigation, similarly here, with the feds bringing a number of matters of their own. as we brought before the commission last august, one would be the severity of the allegations, and certainly, what we're seeing from the u.s. attorney's office are

extraordinarily severe allegations, but another of the factors that we contemplate in deciding about how to exercise our discretion is the impact of a commission decision. so collectively, we have to think about, although you're absolutely right, commissioner chiu, that absent enforcement, the laws lack teeth. delayed enforcement can mean both diminished punitive value and diminished deterrent value, but i would appreciate input from the commission about what role you think we might play. by that, i mean, part of our work so far has been to evaluate, obviously, due to the allegations that are coming far from the federal prosecutor's office or district attorney's office or city important's

office, the impact of misconduct. some of those violations are identical to violations being brought by the u.s. attorney or identical to violations that the city attorney may pursue in plea deals or settlement agreements of its own, so the feedback from the commission that i would seek is does the commission wish for the commission to apply enforcement resources to duplicate liability that's been identified by other offices or would the commission prefer that we liability, so to speak, around the edges of what those offices are already pursuing, to so see what the broader scope of liability might be,

but to focus our own resources on the conduct that has not been addressed by other offices to date. i would also invite senior investigator jeff zumwald to add any feedback, as he's been conducting investigations and been conducting an investigation on his own. >> i think that's a really critical question for the commission to discuss. and i'm not sure if you want to jump into it now or i see that others have also raised their hands, but i'd like to --

commissioner chiu, if. >> commissioner chiu, if i can jump in, it is a very good question, but when we get there, we're going to have to talk about the specific violation. yes, we don't want to do anything in terms of our investigation that's going to interfere with a federal criminal investigation, for example, interrogating somebody and letting them know something that might interfere with the investigation that the federal government or the d.a. is doing, but there are other aspects like what i was raising before, for people that have already pled guilty to the federal charges. if there are violations of local law, there's nothing about the federal case that precludes the ethics commission from pursuing it.

but i don't want to get too far down into that specific request. when we get back into enforcement, maybe we can address that more specifically in the context of streamlining and how you address your work. because commissioner chiu and director pelham had raised so many issues, i wanted to come back to what we were focusing on, culture and sort of do people know what we're doing? in my 47 years of city government, the vast majority of civil servants are extremely

affable individuals who seek out input from the city attorney's office and ethics commission to make sure that what they're doing is what they're supposed to be doing. i also think that, in some departments more than others, there is a culture of going along to get along that is more problematic than ten years ago. it's not a question of the entire city. like, the things that you're seeing, commissioner chiu, that people are putting up on nextdoor. that's something that i want to have a discussion about because god, if that's what everyone

thinks, how do we expect our city employees who would be potentially speaking up in an environment where retaliation was a very real concern, but if they think that everybody just figures, you know, if you work for government, that you're crooked, so any way -- before i go off on my own issues of concern, i'm just going to go down my list. commissioner lee, you have your hand up, and then, commissioner bush, so we can hear some other viewpoints and then come back to the staff and then come to public comment. >> vice chair lee: all right. i would like to hear commissioner bush before me. >> hi. thank you very much. >> clerk: commissioner bush,

could you wait one minute? commissioner chiu, when you're talking, just be aware that when you move, your microphone is rubbing and is providing some feedback. commissioner bush? >> thank you. i want to say, you may be hearing my dog and i talking at the same time. it seems to me that a lot of this comes back to the question of resources. issues that need to be dealt with are beyond the ability of staff and the resources that we have at this time, and i would like to put that in the highlights of the minutes that get recorded and in the way we respond. for example, the b.l.a. report

that was given to the board of supervisors the other day included a chart that showed how long it takes for an investigation to be completed according to the type that it is, whether it's campaign finance or ethics law and so forth, and all of them took between two and three years. sometimes, that's because we have rigged the system that it it doesn't get acted on. i noticed that city attorney dennis herrera put on the record [inaudible] didn't seem to merit a slap on the wrist. well, it didn't merit a slap on the wrist because the only person that had the authority to do anything about it was the mayor, who appointed him. in fact, there was a detailed report done by the city attorney's office.

there was actions done by members of the board, but all of those were forwarded onto the mayor for his decision to act, and he chose not to act, and so there was not a whole lot that could be done about any of that. one of the things that you wrote, is the ethics commission is committed to timely investigation and case outcomes. well, two to three years for an investigation is not timely. that takes you right into the middle of the next election season, even for supervisors, who run once every four years. so if we're going to address any of this, we have to address issues of staffing and budgets. the rest of it is just whistling past the grave yard.

i have a lot of other comments that i could make, but i think you all know where i'm going with this. >> yeah. i think we all share the opinion of the d.s.w. work and the ethics commission staff and the funding concerns -- >> what i'm looking for is not just a blanket statement that we don't have enough resources. for example, director pelham, in a report to the commission a few months ago, pointed out a list of things that we're not going to be able to do with the

budget. of the people that are now facing criminal charges, six of them were filing form 700s. have we ever filed -- ever done an audit of the form 700 filings? do we have the staff to do that? i don't think we do. i have never seen anybody faulted for anything other than not getting their report in on time, and i've certainly never seen anybody take an action that they've failed to take action on a disclosure that was required. >> yeah, i've never understood how you would audit that. if somebody is taking an illegal bribe, and you audit them, they're not going to say oh, did i mention that illegal gift that i got from a restricted source -- >> excuse me, but there are things that they do have to report. they have to report travel.

you can't get around the fact that travel is not being reported and it's taking place. they have to report other positions they hold which receives economic compensation. for example, nuru held other positions that received other economic compensation requirements. >> okay. i don't want to get into the details. i'm not sure that nuru did have other compensation for those governmental roles that he had on the transportation authority or the -- you know, the rate setting functions, but in any event, i definitely agree with you that, in terms of, especially as we moved into the form 700 filing, publicly, universally, among all form 700 filers on-line, that having

more audit capacity there would be great, and i think we're going to have a presentation later in this meeting on form 700. i -- i totally agree with you, having more money for staff and doing more compliance and enforcement work would be key, and given that we're probably not going to get all the money and staff, and given the fact that we need to figure out what we're going to do in the meantime, i do want to move things along because we're going to -- if we have any public wanting to weigh-in on this item, we're going to lose them. commissioner lee? >> vice chair lee: thank you, madam chair, and i want to

thank the director for a really thorough report. i think we have an honor system, based on what commissioner chiu had mentioned, it was a three-pronged approach. it was based on the honor system that we all embrace an ethical culture for the city, and a vast majority of us do embrace that. so the challenge for us is how do we identify and have active enforcement oversight on it, active enforcement, whatever you want to call it, on a few bad apples who abuse the system? resources are going to be -- continue to be limits, and i think that we're going to have

some discussion, and i would like to have us discuss a near team and long-term step that we can look at taking now, number one, on what we have, and, more importantly, to really restore the public confidence. [inaudible] number one, on the

700 filing it's true. likes after they file it, they have to do it. my understanding is, again, with the limited resources, there's no way they can audit every single filing.

>> you know, this whole culture of see something, say something, or whether you want to just get along, i think it goes to the whole idea that if you say something, are you going to be the nail that sticks up? and i go back to the whistle blower program that we have. i was a little bit disappointed when the staff report came out, i was expecting a spike -- after all these horrific stories came out, i would have expected more people to call in

because they would say, who's bringing in the bottle of wine? who went on a nice trip with somebody. but if they don't feel confident to call in and make a complaint or bring to your attention, then we have a problem. we cannot monitor all the staff, but people who are working along with the nurus of the world, they would know. they would be the ones who could step up. but if they don't feel, if they don't feel that we have a system that protect them from further harassment or promotion or even losing their job, then,

they're not going to come forward. so i would love to have not just us, but again, engage with the stakeholder communities to really look at how we can strengthen those areas, engagement, enforcement, and the policies of the world. and just one more thing about engagement, i'm still learning about, you know, about how to navigate all the reporting requirements and everything else extend to a broader

stakeholder community the other folks who are -- everything that we do, the system, so ex-for instance, when we do the 700 report, whatever, i would love to see us put the information on our website, hey, these are the things that people have to report, but go out and talk to our stakeholders. hey, these are the people that are required to filed the form 700. these are the pieces of information that they're required to put in, so part of the education process to engage our community so they know hey, here are some of the things that may be a loophole, but let's have a discussion on how to close the loopholes. so the whole idea is yes, we have limited resources, but let's use the limited resources

in the maximum way to address the nature and along term objective to rebuild the public trust in the city's ethical and culture environment. >> one thing that occurs to me that maybe staff could look into, regardless of what happens with the indictments, we do have three positions in the city where the department heads resigned. department of public works, department of building inspection, and the p.u.c.

there is a position for those appointment, and if we wanted to influence the manner those persons are vetted in the, i t it's something that the board of supervisors doesn't have a role in. the mayor, with the strong mayorial government, we have an opportunity potentially to set policy. we could ask, for example,

for -- in the same way when, presumableably, an ethics staff is on boarded, we could ask for an opportunity to sit with the individuals in those positions and give them individual and intensive training and, you know, sort of education about the culture that we want to see established. so those are immediate things that we might be able to do at least for the three departments where we know that there's significant concern. so i want to say -- everybody's hand is still up. i really would like to see if we have any public commenters in the queue in deference to them sitting out there for a

half an hour if they did want to comment, so mr. moderator, if you could see if there's any public comment. >> clerk: madam chair, we are checking to see if there are callers in the queue. fore those -- hold on, please. for those of you already on hold, please wait until the system indicates you are unmuted. if you have just joined the meeting, we are currently on the discussion on agenda item 7, discussion and possible action on update regarding ethics commission responses to date to ongoing corruption allegations. press star, three to enter the public comment queue. you will have three minutes to present your comments, six minutes if you are using an interpreter. you will hear a bell when you

have 30 seconds remaining. please stand by. >> chair ambrose and others, in the event that my video goes off, i've got bandwidth challenges. i've got two kids also on the same network doing on-line school, so i may need to turn my video off in order to not lose connection entirely. >> that's fine. we'll note that your name is there. >> clerk: madam chair, we have no callers in the queue. >> okay. with that, public comment on agenda item number 7 is closed, and i don't know if the commissioners have any specific motions or actions that they want to recommend. i think that this is going to be a continuing agenda item for review and discretion.

i think that director pelham is usually pretty good at picking up the threads of our various ideas and turning them into action and direction, so -- but if anyone did have a motion that they wanted to offer, now would be the time. commissioner lee? >> thank you, madam chair. i just have a quick question to the executive director, which is something that we alluded to regarding the 700 audit. is there -- because we are required to do audits for the 700, so is there any way that you can, i'll say, select -- is there any way that the staff can focus on the certain area

of 700? so, for instance, we have identified certain departments that has a lot more public comments? is there any way that you can prioritize the auditing of the form 700 within the rule of law? >> yeah, thank you for the question, commissioner lee. just to clarify a couple of things. i do think it's important to clarify, when you say audit, it's facial review. it's required that the department conduct facial reviews. audit conveys there's some sort of further assessment and research of, say, the interest that's been reported and verifying those, in fact, are the interests that people have.

so just to distinguish those for a moment, the facial review, that i can tell you that that is something that, again, in the wake of what we've been reading about, our staff, we will be paying particularly close attention to the kinds of issues we've been reading about, and using that to inform how we proceed with facial reviews of documents in the coming years following the form 700 filings by supervisors, elected, and employee and department heads [inaudible] that's putting a program in place, but we will be paying attention to these issues, and i think we have to. it's incumbent on us to look at those issues in a different way than we have in the past. what's absolutely critical to commissioner bush's comments is having that audit manager role filled. if we do not have that auditor

manager and compliance review officer role filled, it's going to be possible for us to do what we need to do. i'm going to wait until the director's report to comment more on that, but the short answer is yes, we do need to be mindful of that, we need to be mindful of the issues that we've been seeing, and we have to have a more focused review of what we're trying to do on that front this coming year. >> chair, you're muted. >> thank you. i see commissioner chiu's hand is up, and since you only have a few more minutes, and then i'll go toition kmer bush. >> my limited time here, i just

wanted to -- i'll go to commissioner bush. >> my limited time here, i just wanted to ask, given the limited resources that we have in this current fiscal year, and the opportunity that we have receiving additional resources in the upcoming budget discussions, and, in my mind, the critical nature of the compliant work that we do, it's one of those things that we have in our control in how we deploy, and so i would actually appreciate hearing briefly from rachel gage in terms of what would be, given the resources that we have, the most effective way to deploy them. and given her work to date, does she have a sense of receptiveness to the community about the work that we're doing

and what she sees? what is the landscape that we're facing out there, and if we do deploy, is she optimistic that we can gain traction? i think commissioner lee made a really great point, that the alleged corruption did not happen in a vacuum, and while these major players were taking the trips and receiving the gifts and not reporting them, but there were major players around them that had seen the trips and are responsible, probably, for having prepared expense reports and other reporting, and so, you know, there are opportunities, if there is a culture of whistle blowing, and i think it's an important data point that commissioner lee brought in, despite the allegations that have surfaced, and the arrests

and the guilty pleas, the number of calls to the ethics commission did not go up. so i think it would be helpful to hear from miss gage on what she sees as the opportunities and the challenges ahead in the compliance work. >> okay. before we -- before we do that, i'm going to give commissioner bush an opportunity to respond to my query as to whether or not anyone had a specific motion that they wanted to make, and then, i'm happy to invite miss gage to respond to your question. commissioner bush? >> yes. the motion i would like to make it for the staff to prepare for the commission's use a list of outstanding issues with benchmarks and timetables for action on them. for example, at the last

meeting, the controller's office said that there are currently no requirements that prohibit a debarred or suspended contractor from making contributions or making behest payments. if you're suspended and not contracting, apparently, the door is open for you to go ahead and do it, which is proposterous. the report called for an action on lobbyists, which has not happened, so if you could create a list for the specific steps that are outlined in either the b.l.a. report or the controller's or the stuff that's come from the commission of a timetable or deadline for submission of either of those action items, or if you want to

present a policy calendar that says, in february, we will do this, in march, we will do that, that will give us a sense that things are moving forward. i say that from my experience working in the mayor's office. in 1990, we had major discussion about changing the culture at the police department. that is tha that happened 30-something years, and we're still having discussions. you can't just say we're going to do this, and outline in broad terms, what that means. >> thank you, commissioner bush, for that comment. i just would note that, in the report, i think number 9, we plan to bring a report in january back to the commission with an update on the b.l.a. items skprks happy to include that detailed information for you so that you have a sense of the momentum that is, in fact,

happening. thank you. >> okay. i'm going to -- we are going to run out of time for commissioner chiu to hear rachel gage speak to the issue that commissioner chiu raised, so i would like to just detour to that -- >> i was making a motion. did i get a second on that? >> i'm sorry. if it's okay, your motion is still pending on the floor, and we're going to come back, if it's all right with you. >> okay. i just need to clarify. >> yeah. i should have said that. i'm just going to defer discussion and action on your motion. it's just that it's 11:10, and i did want to give rachel a

chance to speak to the question that commissioner chiu asked, and then, we'll come back to our item -- or the motion. ra rachel, please. >> thank you. good morning, chair chiu -- or commissioner chiu. good to see you all this morning, and thank you so much for your question. graez question, and i can tell you that, you know, in the engagement and compliance division, we have a unique opportunity to interface with our regulated community quite a bit. obviously, we wear the hat as advice givers, but also in our filing officer capacity, and so we are, you know, currently tracking, you know, the types of advice questions that we get, and also looking for -- to evaluate and track the types of discrepancies and issues that we are -- we are seeing with --

with filings and looking for intends and opportunities to further educate our stakeholders. and in that, you know, because of the role we're in, we are consistently sending out different types of reminders, compliance information, educational correspondence to the regulated community for matters of, you know, different filing deadlines that are coming up, and also to remind them consistently of their obligations, both recording obligations and also the roles that support those requirements. and so currently, we are looking for opportunities to expand our consolidated

outreach. for example, monthly, we reach out to our lobbyists, for example, and we're consistently looking for opportunities to also educate lobbyists on other requirements or laws that may apply to them and consolidate those efforts. we -- executive director pelham mentioned the election payments, correspondence that we have going out this afternoon. that is an opportunity for us to look for opportunities to remind supervisors, elected officials, those officials, and department heads now, with the -- as a result of the mayor's directive of their obligations reporting under the behest reporting, but also to remind them of their duties and goals. we are always looking for opportunities to expand our educational resource library, which consists of guides and

fact sheets and so forth, and attach those to those correspondence -- e-mail correspondence that go out. so again, always looking to expand and utilize our opportunities where we actually have, you know, very targeted e-mail correspondence and outreach going out and, at the very least, to remind folks of their obligations, but also to initiate conversations. you know, unfortunately, we don't have the opportunity right now, due to staffing issues, to have those in-depth conversations with different departments, those departments who may have, you know, specific duties or job responsibilities that could impose additional, you know, opportunities to perhaps, you know, engage in potentially unlawful activity and to

understand what those -- what those job duties entail and look for opportunities to kind of customize our training in our discussions with those departments, and that's what we would be looking to do through ethics at work, is just to sit down and have those in-depth conversations with those different departments, whether it be different of real estate, those departments that are heavily engaged in contracting, to have a more comprehensive approach and custom approach to the types of trainings that we developed that are specifically for those types of positions and job duties. so that, again, that is what we'll be looking to do once we have additional staff on hand. but for now, with the resources that we do have, we're looking for opportunities to look for different trends, whether it come through the advice line or

through other methods and our outreach, and combining it to remind groups, and so we'll continue to do that work. >> thank you very much. that was very helpful. >> sure. >> yeah, thank you. rachel. i'm assuming that you are, as mr. pierce mentioned, you also have opportunity to coordinate with other folks who are in the city attorney's office or possibly the folks who are doing the investigations in the controller's office to people in h.r. who administer the statement of incompatible activities. as you said, the more you can

consolidate your outreach and layer all the different subject matter that folks are -- need to be aware of and in compliance with, so i appreciate it. it's got to be a lot harder to do that with everybody working in their little silo on-line. we appreciate your efforts in that regard because it does, whatever, take a village to address those kind of compliance and culture issues. >> i want to return, then, quickly, to commissioner bush's motion, which would be to direct staff to compile a list

of outstanding issues, which i think is pretty broad, so i think we need to leave that somewhat to the director's understanding -- >> i was going to say, issues, based on the recommendations from the b.l.a., controller, and commission. >> okay. from the b.l.a., controller, and commission, and presenting timetables for addressing those specific matters. and i think we heard from executive director pelham that she is already, you know, incorporating time lines and

setting priorities for her staff. i'm going to second that motion on the assumption that this is just bringing forward something that she is already incorporating in her management of the department. and i have a motion and a second, and now, i need to ask the moderator to call the roll. >> clerk: thank you, madam chair. a motion has been made and seconded -- >> commissioner lee, is your hand up? >> no. >> okay. all right. >> clerk: a motion has made and seconded. i will now call the roll. [roll call] >> clerk: it's five votes in the affirmative and zero votes

opposed. the motion is approved unanimously. >> okay. commissioners, i am planning on taking a break before we move back to agenda item 5, unless we can wait another seven minutes before commissioner chiu has to be temporarily excused, but i think this is a good breaking point, if that's okay with everyone, so let's all plan on being back here -- it's 11:19 right now. -- at 11:30, so you have 11 minutes to eat an early lunch. i'm see you back here at 11:30, >> i'm back in. now here we go. and let's see if we can get back in gear here. >> chair ambrose: i'm going to start by calling agenda item 5,

and so forgive me for a minute while i also try and to stop this from bouncing up and down. hold on just a sec. let me go backwards. all right, agenda item 5, staff informational presentation and discussion regarding form 700 e-filing for all projects. for all -- i mean, i think that my -- agenda is cut off here. anyway, i want to ask director if you could introduce this presentation. thank you. >> thank you, chair ambrose. i'll simply turn it over, and after reminding the commission this is an item that we had carried forward from last month and we ran out of a bit of time and so we're glad to have rachel

back for this meeting following the budget adoption on august 1st, our project went back on track and so now we're moving as expeditiously as we can for a january 2022 launch date of the final program. so, rachel, if you're on deck to walk through some brief slides that give you an in-depth feel for the work that's underway to get us to that time period and that project in place. so that we have public disclosure filings for those other designated filers. with that let me turn it over to rachel and give her the floor. thank you. >> thank you, executive director pelham. and thank you chair ambrose and commissioners. again, good to be with you this morning. and as was previously mentioned, i wanted to take a few minutes this morning to provide an overview and project status update on the form 700 e-filing for all projects. the slides that i'm going to share momentarily are included in your materials.

so in the interest of time i'm going to keep my overview brief, however, i'm available thereafter should you have any questions. excuse me one minute while i queue up the presentation. can everyone see that okay? >> looks great, rachel. >> okay, great. forgive me for one moment. sorry about this. i had some technical -- technical difficulties.

okay, can everyone see that okay? sorry about that. >> yes, it's very clear. >> okay, great. so this first slide offers an overview of a project life cycle and the programmatic work camp involved in implementing a city-wide program of this scale. shading indicates that a deliverable has been completed. so you will notice quite a bit of work has been accomplished to date and the bulk of the work that remains consists pri primay of data migration to the system, andout and reach and training and publishing training materials and content. also under the legislative category you will see that we still have the biannual review

and adoption and the subsequent conflict of interest code update that is also on tap. and we do anticipate that to become completed in the coming weeks and the conflict of interest code updated some time probably in january. and so that will also result in some obviously updating to our designated filing -- designated filers list, which we have underway right now and coordinating that with the departments as well to ensure that we have the most current designated filer list to migrate over to net file later next year. i think that is some kind of share that we plan to do with that migration. slide two we have a comprehensive training plan in place for both the departmental filing officers and designated filers which will consist of several components. first, the e-learning curriculum

which will consist of a series of how-to micro tutorials. each ideally will be 10 minutes or less. which will allow learners to pace themselves and also give the option to complete the training over several days as opposed to, you know, on a single day. which we're hoping that in turn will reduce information overload. tutorials will be intuitive and have guided systems where applicable. and training is mandatory for filing officers and is required to be completed before the access to the net file system is granted. and then, finally, we will be leveraging the city's learning management system which will allow us to track training progress and integrate surveys and extract attendance and performance metrics. so we'll be looking forward to working -- collaborating with the city controller's office who oversees the s.f. learning platform which is a learning

management system, to upload -- to get our trainings launched into that program. and so that will be something that is fairly new to us but that coordination is underway. next we have our instructor led q. and a. sessions which is currently in practice. this is something that we do routinely annually and usually the months preceding the annual filing season. this has been in coordination with the city attorney's office, usually they are present. in the past we have done these trainings in person but, obviously, the trainings will be held remotely, probably over microsoft teams for the foreseeable future. but it will be an interactive session, meaning the participants will also be able to engage us during the virtual meetings and to ask questions and so forth. and in addition to answering participant questions in real-time, these sessions allow

for us to do a deeper dive into the form 700 schedules, cover common doing and don'ts and provide fact-based scenarios and examples. so they're usually pretty in-depth and involved. in the past we have not had the type of participation from participants that we would like. i think that what we're hoping is that having these now being done over m.s. teams virtually that it will allow for more participation amongst filing officers and filing officers. we do divide these sessions, so we have one that is specific for filing officers. so, you know, it's much more administrative friendly, more about where, when and how as opposed to the sessions that, again, we do a deep dive into the schedules and common questions and offer a lot of examples and scenarios that filers face when thinking about

or considering what they need to file on the form 700 statement. also we are developing -- well, actually underway and developing user guides and fact sheets as well. so we'll have user define guides and we'll have one that is dedicated to filing officers and we'll also have one dedicated to filers. and these will be very comprehensive in nature. so, again, they will address the when, and the why and the how. and also offer visual aids. so, for instance, the filing officer training will not only inform the filing officer how to accomplish a specific task in the system, but also when to do it and why. san francisco has a few -- i'll say unique scenarios that come up here and there where it would determine whether or not somebody has to file and when

someone has to file, for example, would be the state considers the city of san francisco to be the agency. and so if you have a filer and an employee and an existing employee transferring from one position to another -- to another department -- that is within the city and county of san francisco, they actually do not have to file a leading office statement at their old department or a statement at the new department. it's treated as a transfer so there would be some updating that needs to happen, obviously, the position would need to be updated. and if the filing category changes as a result of the new position that has to be identified as well. so these are caveats that filing officers have to be aware of. so that is something, you know, that we would definitely cover in the filing officer guide. and then the fact sheets will supplement those user guides. so we will call out specific -- i would say probably more scenarios in these fact sheets

and we would offer those, you know, as a supplemental tool to user guides. fact sheets are, you know, friendly in terms -- they're usually much more condensed and have a more refined focus, easily, you know, easier to digest and read. and also easier to share. you know, over email and so forth. so we will definitely be including those as well in our informational resources. one thing that i want to add -- the filer training -- so the e-learning training curriculum will be mandatory for filing officers. but we will not make it mandatory for filers. however, we will work with the departments to encourage it, and, you know, because the departments do have the authority to require their designated filers to take these trainings. we have some leverage with filing officers because we are essentially adding or providing them with admin access to the

net file system. in doing so we can require them to take a series of trainings, a bit more difficult with filers -- with designated filers. but -- >> chair ambrose: can i interrupt you for just a second because i have a question about the city employees who will be going through this program to convert -- and this is really the question -- all of these individuals are currently filling out the same form on paper, so what we're really doing is just moving them into a computer-based form. so your program is that you're going to train the person within each department who those individual filers would reach out to for assistance on how to navigate the software program and then that person will then in turn about able to answer the

hundred people in the department about their particular -- is that your kind of tiered approach there? >> yes, absolutely. that is the approach. the filing officer will designate the filing officer will change substantially with the transition to e-filing. they will -- i mean, currently what they do is they disseminate information that usually is initiated by s.f. commission -- staff -- to the filers as they then circulate -- you know, a paper form usually through email to their filers. and then those filers have a deadline to return the paper filing to -- with the right investigate -- to their designated filing officer. with the inception of the net file system, those filing officers will now be required to create new filer accounts when

they have, obviously, new positions coming in that are required to file. and they also have to maintain those filing systems. they will -- the system provides for several different administrative tools that allows you to track the different notes and things of that sort within a filer account. it allows you to assess late fees. it also streamlines the 20% requirement review process, so 20% of statements that are filed on time must be reviewed by filing officers. all statements, 100% of statements that are filed late, have to be reviewed. they require a full review which moans that you're reviewing every page of the form, all of the schedules, making sure that information -- you know, the is are dotted and the ts are crossed, so to speak. and so, you know, we will be emphasizing a lot of that information in our training -- trainings as well and in our

informational guides to ensure they know exactly what type of information they should be looking for during this review process. how to administer that in the net file system, and so forth. and then we are also providing some guidance on non-filer protocol, what that looks like in terms of noticing the filers. and registering late fees should the departments, you know, opt to fine late filers. and then how to refer those late filers to the enforcement authority after 90 days. and then the enforcement authority for designated filers will be the ethics commission enforcement division. >> chair ambrose: um-hmm, and then quickly because we do still have the agenda. this universe of people that are required to file form 70 is are essentially people in policy and decision-making roles at the top levels of city government. these are the people that we're trying to get to help to improve

the culture in our organization. so as part of the communication -- and i know that i think that a lot of us are interested in looking at your implementation, your timetable for getting this finally online by next year i guess, so i'm going to let you move on to that. but as you're going through those next parts of the presentation, if you can just let us know when you might be communicating with that universe of folks and whether or not we can add in more of a pep talk about ethics work in that context. because i don't want to miss an opportunity to communicate with that key group about what our role is that we're here and we're supporting them, you know, that see something, say something, whatever we want to put in that. and i'll let you go back to your

presentation, but that's something that i'd like you to speak to. >> sure, absolutely. let me move on to slide two. now slide two, chair ambrose, should mention kind of our timetable for implementing this program. this offers a protective timetable for timelines for 2021. and i'll just kind of go over a few of the milestones here. the milestone service has significant reference points and more of the date of completion on major phases of work. first here -- obviously, in january we have our 1840, and our 2042 which are underway and this is the client support position that will help with much of the implementation work that's still remains with the form 700 program. but also to help to provide client support to filing

officers and filers once the program is rolled out in january 2022. so the 1840 is again a critical role and, again, hiring is underway then. and then the 1042 is the implementation system, which is also an integral part of the form 700. the pre-rollout work that still remains in terms of working with the net file vendor to ensure that data is migrated -- not just the designated filing officers but also the filing officers -- excuse me -- the designated filers but the filers administering the system and that information has to still be all migrated over. it's going to be -- need to be overhauled to some extent because of the conflict of interest code update. so we do anticipate, obviously, new positions being added effective next year, so we want to make sure that information is

up to date before that date it is migrated over. and so then, you know, in march we will start really, really focusing on developing our user guides issue and, again, the 1840 position is an intgreat inl part working with me and the staff to really develop those user guides. i think that these user guides are going to serve as not only a framework for staff, ethic staff, to determine what our e-learning curriculum needs to be compromised of, but also it's going to serve as just resources for everything having to do with the system and the law in general. and so these are going to be really, really critical. and then in early spring i guess, late spring, we move into developing the online training modules. and these will be conducted and we will be using a software authoring tool that, again, allows for several different

interactive elements to be incorporated in addition to real-time software simulations. but also assessments as well. and we hope to integrate surveys where appropriate as well. and so we will be asking for feedback from learners while they're taking these trainings. so, i mean, that's going to be something where we can consistently look for opportunities to improve. one thing that i wanted to mention is that the online tutorials -- although they'll be mandatory before the system rolls out -- they will be available on-demand indefinitely. so, again, we'll always be looking for opportunities to enhance those and to improve upon -- improve upon those modules. so in june, chair ambrose, you had asked about our outreach efforts. and the bulk of the outreach efforts begin in june of next year. we have had some preliminary meetings with select departments. i would say that probably over a

year ago we met with representatives from the public utilities commission, the controller's offic, the city administrator's office and i believe the treasurer's office. so it was a pretty -- a pretty good sampling of the departments that met with us. and they had several questions, obviously, for us that we were kind of to address. some we weren't because we didn't necessarily have the answers for some of their questions initially. and so we looked to get back to those departments and address some of those questions that were posed to us that we were not able to answer in real time in the form of an f.a.q. that will accompany an initial announcement. a formal announcement that will go out city-wide to all department heads and filing officers of record announcing the transition from paper filing toto e-filing.

so with that initial announcement, again, we'll have the f.a.q. addressing those questions that were posed to us from departments and then also some additional information that we think that the departments will probably want to know. we also intend to include a filing officer fact sheet. i think that this is going to be key because i mentioned earlier that, you know, filing officers currently, you know, they disseminate information that is initiated by the ethics commission staff and then they receive form 700 statements and they file them. so moving forward -- and, obviously, their responsibilities are going to expand tremendously. and we want to ensure or we want to make sure that we inform those department heads who elect or designate filing officers within a department of the change in these responsibilities as we want to give them the opportunity to determine whether or not they have the staff

currently -- the resources that they have will accommodate the need, but also that the person that is currently designated in that role is the appropriate person moving forward. so we want to make sure that we provide them with, you know, the information with regards to how those changes on that and that responsibility, you know, how they will change so they have an opportunity to make changes at that point in time. and once we've had some time to digest that information, we will then have another coordinated effort going out to those department heads offering them the opportunity to elect or designate a filing officer at that point in time. and i think that right now i think that we have it kind of -- we're hoping to do it, and after that june -- that initial announcement in june. so somewhere june/july, we hope to have a follow-up and an opportunity to update the filing officer roster. so we're projecting that to

be -- to happen some time in july. and that's going to be a critical milestone because that will determine who we require to take the mandatory training. and then essentially commission net file credentials to that group. so that's going to, again, this -- these are two critical outreach components that will, you know, really be important moving forward. in august, we have the net file data upload. so by that time -- oop -- i left something out that i think that is key and probably also addresses one of your questions, chair ambrose. so once we have an updated filing roster, we would reach out to those filing officers to update the filing roster as well. so that gives enough time for the conflict of interest code to be updated following the biannual process. it will also ensure that we're

working with the right individual within departments. so we will be working with them, providing them probably proactively with a list of who we currently have as filers for their departments and give them an opportunity at that point to change and add and remove. because we are planning to do that initial migration of designated filers and send that file system, but, thereafter, the filers are responsible for adding new filers as they come on and terminating filers as they leave. >> chair ambrose: i will ask right now to see if there are any questions from commissioners because we do need to get to a number of other items on the calendar and i think that because your graphics are so good that it's pretty easy to see the program i think, you know, obviously you set out a pretty intensive work program for yourself there.

so we're behind you 100% in trying to meet this agenda. because i think that everyone agrees that this absolutely -- once we get those positions that we, you know, required to move forward with this we've got deadlines. but, anyway, any questions from the commissioners? if not, i'm going to actually to jump ahead and ask our moderator to see if there's any public comment on 700 filing presentation. and then before we wrap up, rachel, i'm going to come back to you for any concluding remarks. so i wanted to get the public comment announcement going there if you could, ronald. >> madam chair, we are checking to see if there are callers in the queue. for those already on hold, continue to wait until the system indicates that you have been unmuted. if you have just joined this meeting we're currently on the public discussion on the agenda item 5, staff informational presentation and discussions

regarding form 700 e-filing for all project. if you are have not already done so, press star, 3, to be added to the public comment queue. you will have three minutes to provide public comment unless you're online with an interpreter. you will hear a bell go off when you have 30 seconds remaining. please, stand by. madam chair, we do not have any callers in the queue. >> chair ambrose: all right, public comment is closed on item

number 5. and, rachel, is there anything else -- i see commissioner bush has a question so i'm going to allow that question first. and then get back to you. okay, commissioner bush? >> commissioner bush: thank you. am i muted? no, i'm not muted. >> chair ambrose: no, you're good. >> commissioner bush: i wanted to know whether or not we could have a list of people who file 700s now and then update it as the list changes. and post that on the ethics page. even though we're not going to have the actual filings posted until january, at least for now the public could know who is it that files and where can you get a copy of what they filed. can we do that now? >> i -- so we do -- we do inform the public of where they can access filing -- not designated

officer filing forms. we do publish the filing officers and the department heads for each department and the information so they know who to contact if they wanted a copy of a paper filing from a designated filer. in terms of the filer's -- actual designated filers to date, the list that we have to date, i don't think that currently we publish that information. i'd have to check, obviously, to ensure that is something that we can, in fact, do. but i don't -- i don't foresee any issues with that. >> commissioner bush: so if i wanted to find out the filing of the mayor's chief of staff, for example, or people in the city attorney's office who have filed, i should be able to know who they file with and how to get a copy of it? >> correct, yes.

so, obviously, there would be some cross-referencing needed right now, somebody would have to reference the conflict of interest code to see who is required to file. but if they knew specifically within each department -- but if they knew specifically who they wanted to obtain a copy of, we do have a published list of filing officers and department heads for each department currently on our website. so they'd know who to contact. >> i think that would be very helpful to the public to know that not only is it still coming as a virtual database, but the information that they can reach out for now. so that's why i'm asking if we can do that and you're saying that we could, you think that we can? >> again, i would have to confirm that, but in terms of if we're able to do that, i mean we have the means to do it. it's whether or not we can do it. i'm not aware -- i should say that i'm not certain of, so i

definitely have to check on that. but, again, we do currently -- we do currently publish the list of filing officers, designated filing office for each department so that the public has, you know, they know who to contact if they want to obtain copies. but i don't -- nothing comes to mind now in terms of the law or that would refrain us or prevent us from being able to publish that list. >> commissioner bush: another question is when you put out your guide, are you making sure that the public is informed if circumstances change that they need to amend their filing? it's not just filing on april 1st, that if there's a change in their marital status or their property ownership or their investments, that is significant enough that -- and then their forms instead of waiting to april? >> yes, we will address amendment rules and

requirements. and inform -- the goal is not to leave anything uncovered in these guides. the more comprehensive they are i think would benefit all parties involved, including the ethics commission staff. >> commissioner bush: thank you. along those lines, is there flexibility to require more detailed information, for example, under "gifts," we now require form 700 filers to file if they've taken a trip or received money for a trip. but there's no place that i can see where you can see what was the trip and whether it was accomplished and all of the rest of those kinds of information that does appear in other jurisdictions. the same thing goes with on behalf of payments that are

actually not directed to the officer but are requested by the officer. and so, therefore, are relevant. and then there's a local ordinance that requires disclosure of relationships, even though uncompensated with people who are part of the regulated entity but interact with you in your industry as well as in the uncompensated capacity. that is a citation that the government put that i think that i have sent on to director pom and chair ambrose earlier. are the forms flexible enough to ensure that there's a one-stop-serves-all for that kind of information? >> chair ambrose: i think that i'm going to interject here because i'm pretty sure that we asked this question and had it answered that the actual form 700 being a state-mandated form,

that is the confines of the form 700 do not be amended at the local level. we could, of course, create our own form 701, and amalgamate information i presume in that realm. i'm not sure that it would take us all the way back through the meet and confirm process if we imposed that on all city employees. or it's just a matter of amending the government conduct code to identify where that information should be available. but -- and we do have a city attorney -- i know that they were tag teaming because of some other commission meetings, but i don't know if they have any comments because i recall

commissioner bush asked that question previously about our ability to amend the form 700 requirement. >> commissioner bush: yeah, actually, those are all requirements that are required by law. it's just as you say a question of where it is required to be disclosed. >> chair ambrose: um-hmm. we ought to think about -- i mean, because those things -- i think that some of them -- there is a big portfolio of work to do. some of that is maybe disclosed through their statement of incompatible activities and their request to the department head for authorization to have a professional relationship outside of work that may need to be disclosed but is, nevertheless, authorized or -- not authorized -- but, anyway, i'll let rachel and/or a city attorney that wanted to comment.

my screen is not on grid view so i'm not seeing. go ahead. >> hi. you are correct. it is state form and so we are not able to modify that form. it would require us to, you know, to identifying that we wanted to have a supplemental form prepared. >> chair ambrose: okay. i just wanted to clarify that. and, rachel, i did want to ask you to -- if you had any comments that we cut you off from by trying to move the agenda forward. but i did want to both thank you for all of your work on this and all of your good work generally being that link with all of the city departments and the staff who we want to encourage ethics that work with -- but, anyway,

go ahead if there's anything that you think that we should be listening to. >> no, actually, that really concludes the oral component of my presentation. i had hoped that the slides kind of, you know, told the story on their own. so i'm glad that we accomplished that. so, again, always -- always available to answer any questions or expand on anything. >> chair ambrose: okay. with that i'm going to actually close agenda item number -- where are we -- 5. and call agenda item number 6. and that is the discussion of possible action on ethics commission draft racial equity action plan. i would like to ask executive director pelham to present and i want to start off by saying thank you for your work on this. there's obviously -- this is not a one off product.

we look forward to working with you on the implementation, but i think that it was a good effort to date. >> thank you, thanks, chair ambrose. we -- the item here is something that is different for the commission that we haven't seen -- something that doesn't specifically deal with ethics and lobbying in most cases. i would suggest that this is a core of what we do and it's important and timely for us, given that we're engaged in our hiring plans for this year in particular. so this item -- there's a brief background memo that i provided as well as a more exhaustive draft plan attached to it. and this is work that the city launched in july 2019. as the memo indicated, with the board of supervisors introducing legislation in response to the city's growing racial disparities as a means to address structural and

institutional racism in san francisco city government. and i see san francisco as a leader in dealing with racial equity issues much more proactively. the plan is attached because we want to make sure that you and the public has an opportunity at this point to take a look at it and to see what our work involves. but also if the commission chooses and would like to take action on it in some way on the agenda, that it's on your agenda to enable to you do that at this point. this is a draft. and it's due by december 31st to the office of racial equity. and in the context of our work together as a staff leadership team and the hiring managers we've had some consultations around this and we have put in some action items that reflect the work that we have done in the past hires that we're continuing to do and this hiring process that build off other areas beyond the hiring and onboarding process. the specifics of this have been

shared with our staff currently. you know, one of the things that i would have hoped that we would have been able to do by this point in drafting this -- this work -- is being able to share it with much more in-depth focus among our entire staff team. and simply we have not been able to do that. but as we move into the coming year this is a doiment that is a living document, intended to continue to expand and evolve as our work does in this area. it particularly as we expect to bring on new staff opboarding in the first quarter of calendar year 2021, this is going to be something that guides our operations in a normalized way. and that also is something that we can really look to as kind of our organizational chapter in many ways to make sure that we're being the best organization that we can and we're doing everything that we can to make sure that we are taking steps to address racial equity in ways that we have the

ability to do. one of the things that i'd highlight for you in the document, you can see that it's broken down -- this is a template prepared by the office of racial equity and all departments from the same template. we've had input from d.h.r. and also some input from our city attorney colleagues and a meeting with the director next week to get further input before we submit a final draft. the template might be changing slightly but the content is what you are seeing here. the departments are asked to address work in their areas of hiring and recruitment, retention and staff promotion, and discipline and separation and diverse leadership and management and professional development. and inclusion -- cultures of inclusion and belonging is also identified. and lastly under section 7, boards and commissions, so that the departments that have

working commissions, you know, to the extent that we have actionable items that we have identified at this point, they are there. i would say this, again, it's a beginning document and it's a draft. we look forward to getting further input from the staff between now and the time that it's submitted and mostly to really start incorporating it and vetting it in our work in a more full way and broader way as we move into 2021. i think that i could pause there. i am happy to answer any specific questions that you might have about the work that we're doing or the draft itself. but, again, i wanted to provide the opportunity to have it and some of the commissions have any feedback or input that you have from your experience. and also to just to ensure that this is something that we'll continue to be working on as the calendar year 2021 rolls around with the expanding work and staff that we anticipate at that point. so i'm happy to pause there and to answer any questions that you might have or your comments and feedback. >> chair ambrose: i see hands up

from commissioner lee and commissioner bush. if you know which one of you is first i'm willing to defer to you. otherwise, commissioner lee, do you want to speak? >> vice-chair lee: thank you, madam chair. and i wanted to thank the staff and the director for this really timely and for this document. i wanted to say that i'm glad to hear that this is going to be a living document that we will continue to work on. and i'm glad to hear that the staff has a lot of input to help to put this together. i think that the key is that

this should not be a number counting document. i would hope that we would take a bold step to really drill into the broader issues on racial inequality and one of them is the institutional and instructional bias and racism that still exists. so without really understanding it and attacking it head on, it would be harder for us to do incremental stats. so i think that there will be ongoing interaction with the staff and bring in outside stakeholders too -- i shouldn't say outside -- external

stakeholders because that's the community that we could really benefit from their areas of experience. and we keep talking about building ethical culture within this city, government and, you know, employees and i really hope that with this that we could really build and create and build on the racially inclusive and ethical culture within the commission and also to share with other departments. and to see discussions and conversations to create a safe space for the staff to start talking about sharing their insurance, because only through that can we really tackle, you know, the structural issues and

the institutional issues that each of us bring to the commission. and, again, i know that the commission is not going to look at this as merely a numbers game, but, definitely, an ongoing living document. so i wanted to say to the staff and the director, thank you for putting this together. >> thank you, commissioner lee, and i will recognize commissioner bush. >> commissioner bush: thank you, thank you, chair ambrose. and in days gone by there was an additional group of city workers who spoke languages in addition to english. is that policy still exist? >> yes, i believe that there arr languages, i understand that

there is something -- or has been something, i believe that there is some sort of a stipend or for those who are certified to translate can accomplish or can secure. i will get that information back to you. >> commissioner bush: i'm wondering because the relationship between that and the equity policy that we're looking at, because if it encourages more -- more participation from people with different backgrounds than mine, that might assist in meeting some of these objectives. that's one question that i have. and the second question is that the entire plan seems focused on city workers and city employees. and not on the public. so to what extent are we acting in an equity plan to ensure that the public is included?

so that when you have hearings that there's translation services available, or other facilities to allow free participation. we know now -- i will just interject -- we know now by surveys done by rec and park division that those parks that are in lower income neighborhoods get less services than the ones -- that is by rec and park's own surveys. >> commissioner bush, your question is a good one, but clearly this plan is designed to first i would say in my experience in the committee to make sure that we're doing what we can to effectively to ensure that we're taking better steps to achieve equity. not just for hiring purposes but externally for services that we are providing to the city.

for us this reflects the steps where we currently are and what we're able to do and that is primarily at this stage in the hiring and the outlining of how we as an organization operate together. i notice that the city attorney -- has been raising her hand and she may have additional comments on the background for the framework and maybe on the language issue that was raised. so i want to make sure that she has an opportunity to answer as well. >> sure, director pelham. thank you. i thought they would just provide an answer to the bilingual question, what we're hearing since i do know it. there's a pay premium for the city staff who do speak more than one language so that is still in effect and if you are in job classification that is eligible for premium pay for that reason, you can qualify for that. as to the scope of the tempt late and the plan itself -- template and the plan itself,

i'm afraid that i'm not -- i wasn't closely involved in development, so i can't speak to sort of the public outward facing issues which are great, and the commentary and things it should be considered. from my vantage point this does appear to be focused on the internal workings of the department and recruitment that promotes racial equity and diversity and that commissions also reflect those same objectives. so happy to review it further and to get back to you. but that's my impression is that it's more of an inward facing document as opposed to outward. >> chair ambrose: so i want to actually jump in here because i think that while -- while both efforts are essential, that we apply those -- those object

itches to our own operations and functions. we too are public serving department, and so in terms of how we engage with stakeholders and people in political campaigns and public finance and outreach, education, is that everybody, you know, getting the same same questions answered, etc. because we're lucky enough to have four positions that we're hiring for right now -- and i don't know if you wanted to do it now or when we get to the executive director's report and you speak briefly about the hiring, because this is an opportunity to put into practicr now of the racial equity plan that speaks to your outreach, i'm particularly want to encourage aggressive, active and

unique forms of outreach to reach to individuals, say, who might have been active in the, you know, the political campaigns or just, you know, whatever -- whatever way that we can, you know, get to some of the -- i don't know, clubs -- the different groups in the city tend to organize themselves in with respect to campaigns. we have seen some of those, you know, maybe not somebody who has got a conflict of interest because of their political activity, but in any event, even outreach to those groups because they in turn might know people from institutes or academia who might be interested in one or more of those positions. so, anyway, just to let you know how we're going to -- how you're going to apply that element of the plan.

>> if i could just add a point in there to assist with discussion. as i look through the enforcement actions of the past few years, a number of them involved the disclosures that are in publications that are not english language publications. notably, chinese language publications. and i'm not sure if there's good guidance for explaining type size and all of the rest of the requirements that we have in languages other than english because i don't know how you do type size in chinese characters, for example. but people have serious fines for that. and so to what extent are our guides in languages other than english, especially knowing that our outreach and campaigns are going t to publications in spanh or chinese or other languages.

thank you. >> as you can see from the draft plan, the section that speaks of hiring and recruitment has several items on there that speak to making sure that we're doing -- as part of our hiring plan, as broad an outreach as possible. we have worked with the department of human resources and looking at diversity and inclusion working group to do outreach specifically through them. we ourselves are sort of looking at all of the lists and all of the contacts that we have that come through our office, we want to make sure that this week we're getting that information out to those audiences broadly. and we need -- we need the public and we need your help, right? and there may be other organizations or other networks that if you're aware of them, we want to make sure that people are notified. we certainly send it out to the council and the government ethics laws and i believe that

they're posting that this this morning. so that goes to the usual suspects -- recruiting is going beyond that. so we don't have an exhaustive list to give you today because the job announcements we just posted on friday. we tried collecting that information leading up to the posting and we're going to continue in over the next couple weeks to make sure that we're getting information out as well as we can. so, you know, with many things we're sort of in the moment doing this and i'm happy to, again, to keep you posted as we come into january with where we were able to reach out so that it is a diverse applicant pool as possible across many fronts. >> chair ambrose: okay, thank you. >> and the other to commissioner bush's specific question about translations and materials, i think that one of the growing frustrations that i have is the -- i would say the bureaucratic nature and the costs of trying to get documents -- timely translated to help to reach out. i think that the city has a lot of work that we could all

collectively do on that. so we have just updated our web page that sometimes requiring translation and that takes longer than most of us would think that is most helpful. but we're trying to get it in the hands of audiences who might find it useful and relevant and a source of great, terrific people to join the staff for the work that we have in front of you. >> chair ambrose: commissioner lee. >> vice-chair lee: thank you, madam chair. this question may be for (indiscernible). following up on the staff hiring, is it possible within the city law that you could put the preference in terms of hiring and recruitment? so, for instance, if we know that a potential number of the

city's operations is, you know, the first language is not english. so can we put in certain job descriptions that for someone who has a cantonese background, that could be you know, not a preference but maybe added consideration? can that be done? if we could justify -- let's say, if we look at the ethics commission, if, you know, we know that 33% of the population is chinese speaking and we don't happen to have a chinese speaker on staff, so can we put in, you know, as part of the job description that, you know, preference is given to someone

who is bilingual in chinese? >> there are, obviously, local, state and federal laws regarding discrimination and non-discrimination in hiring, right? so if there was a job-related reason why we needed someone who spoke a particular language for a position, then for that reason we could hire someone who has a particular skillset. to otherwise say that this position is specifically reserved for someone who just fills this demographic, we couldn't do that. that would be discriminatory. but if we had a job related reason, let's say that we had a specific program that was going to engage in outreach to the cantonese community locally and we really needed someone who spoke cantonese, then that would be considered sort of an exception to that rule and we would be permitted to do that. >> vice-chair lee: so you cannot

even say that this additional skill, a computer skill or what have you -- you cannot say that that if that person has the additional skill in russian or spanish, you cannot list that as a preference? not that you're going to hire that person, but that person would be given additional -- >> you can -- you can include it. if doing so is tied to what that person's job duties would be. so if we're hiring someone for the purpose of trying to promote outreach into the chinese-american community in san francisco, and that is going to be a skill that we need for that job classification, then it's permissible. what we couldn't do is to just say we want to hire someone that speaks this language and not have it connect to something related to their job duties. that could be seen as an

impermissible preference, right? and someone could potentially sue the city to say they didn't hire me because i didn't speak cantonese. and the exception is that was otherwise available doesn't apply because you didn't need to be able to speak cantonese to do the job. >> vice-chair lee: thank you. >> chair ambrose: i wanted to go ahead, ronald, and ask you to determine whether or not we have any public comments on this item. and i want to ask the executive director if you can make a note in your executive directory report as we go forward to, you know, to sort of include this as a regular update item as you continue to work with the team

and the city, as you achieve certain, you know, milestones with respect to the plan. i think that it is important to keep it front of mind. and then commissioner bush, you know, back to your point, as we move forward as well, whether it's with the trainings that rachel is going to be doing or the outreach that pat ford on stakeholder engagements that jeff peterson and his investigators have with the general public, i think that, again, as -- to quote or semi-quote commissioner chiu, culture eats strategy for lunch every day. we need to have a culture of keeping racial equity front of mind and thinking of ways in which we can better serve our objectives that we all obviously

share. so i think that it would help if you incorporated that as part of a sort of regular notation in the work that you're doing. because i know that you're doing the work and i think that it is important to talk about it and to keep everybody thinking about how we can improve on both fronts, internally and externally. ronald, any -- go ahead with your statements. >> madam chair, we're checking to see if there are callers in the queue. for those already on hold wait until the system indicates that you have been unmuted. if you're just joining this meeting we're on the motion of agenda item number 6, discussion and possible action on ethics commission draft racial equity action plan. if you have not already done so, please press star, 3, to be added to the public comment queue. you will have three minutes to provide your public comment, six minutes if you're online with an interpreter. you will hear a bell go off when you have 30 seconds remaining. please stand by.

as i'm checking, just a friendly reminder to all participants, if you are speaking and you are done speaking can you please mute yourself. everything from ruffling of papers to taking notes to coffee mugs, all of that can be heard dependent where your microphone is located. so just make sure that if you can mute once you're done speaking. thank you. madam chair, we have no callers in the queue.

>> chair ambrose: i would like to approve the plan and subject to our continuing engagement on this issue, if i could have a motion and a second. >> i move. >> chair ambrose: okay, commissioner bush. can i have a second? commissioner lee. thank you very much. can you please call the roll. >> clerk: the motion has been made and seconded. i will now call the roll. [roll call] >> chair ambrose: let the record show that commissioner chiu from excused from this portion of the meeting. thank you. i'm sorry? yoirk we're -- i'm sorry, four votes in the affirmative. and commissioner chiu is being excused. so four votes in the affirmative

and zero opposed to the motion as approved unanimously. >> chair ambrose: thank you. all right, and i'm now going to skip over and call agenda item 8, and as soon as i get to the right item. so this will be a discussion of the monthly staff enforcement report including an overview of the proposed streamlined administrative resolution program process. mr. pierce, if you can make your presentation. thank you. >> sure, thank you, chair ambrose and the commissioners. so this month's report highlights the development in our efforts to revise what the commission adopted in 2013, which is called "the fixed penalty policy." and just to remind the commission that we approached you in august of last year with a slate of proposals regarding

improvements to process that we were developing at that time. among those improvements was an intention to examine and to likely revise both subjectively and procedureally that policy that the commission adopted in 2013. as you know that policy provides for a -- effectively a scheduled set of penalties for violations of five kinds in the campaign finance arena. it was a reasonably limited policy and the political practices commission as you may know has a streamlined program that is significantly more expansive than the one that san francisco adopted in 2013. so in august of 2019, when we

brought our process improvements before the commission, the commission rendered its support of staff plan to expand this policy. we came back to you in september 2019 with a rough outline of what that process would look like, implementing that process. since we have hosted interested persons meetings. we have conducted internal and external consultations about what the scope and the substantive changes to the program might include. and you'll recall also that when the budget and legislative analysts issued a report in august of this year that they also encouraged staff to continue with this plan to revise the policy and specifically they asked that we come back in january of 2021 with a proposal that we might

put before you for your consideration and action. so we have continued to work in that process to identify how this policy might best be re-examined and expanded. staff have now developed a draft set of regulations that will greatly expand and we hope to enhance our ability to revise an enumerated set of violations through a scheduled set of penalties. the aim as we said before is to provide greater transparency and predictability to regulate the community to reduce the amount of time that it might take to negotiate the outcome to certain kinds of matters and as a result enable the staff ideally to

focus investigative resources on the kind of allegations that matter most, the kinds of things that we were discussing earlier today and in agenda item 7. you know, as we have contemplated what each substantive changes might look like, we have also had to anticipate what -- what process we might use to implement and expand the policy. the term that we have adopted for that will be the streamline administrative resolution program, which will be the process implementation of a set of regulations that you can advise us on at a subsequent meeting but, of course, figuring out how to make this thing a reality entails a number of

considerations, some of which are involving staffing, some, you know, are just structural in nature. so all of the senior investigator eric willett is invited to join us at this time. eric has been overseeing the process to consider the substantive review of this program and he has prepared for you today a kind of proposal about what the process of implementing this system might look like. >> thank you for that introduction, jeffrey. i can share my screen here. that did not work. okay. try -- okay.

my powerpoint slide can be viewed? great. thank you, ronald. well, good afternoon, chair ambrose and commissioners and colleagues. i'm going to provide a brief description of the enforcement process used within the division and the integration of the streamlined administrative resolution program otherwise known as sarp. when the enforcement division considers allegations an intake manager will review the allegations to determine whether there are sufficient facts as alleged and whether the conduct alleged falls within the jurisdiction of the commission. at which time they'll either issue a dismissal or a referral to the appropriate agency or department, and if the facts as alleged in the conduct is alleged within the division's jurisdiction, that conduct can be considered within the sarp program, and at that time the matter will become a complaint

and intake manager will forward it to the sarp program and administrator. if the behavior is outside of the scope of those in the sarp program, the intake manager forwards the complaint to the main line program for review by the investigator within the main line program. which at time will conduct a preliminary investigation. that investigation is to determine whether or not there's something there for an open investigation to be warranted. and also whether or not the facts as alleged fall within the jurisdiction. if there's not enough there, or this is not within our jurisdiction, the matter will be dismissed or, again, referred to the appropriate agency or department. now the preliminary investigation may also determine that the conduct falls entirely within the sarp program at which time the main line investigator can forward the complaint back into the sarp program. upon receipt of a complaint, the

sarp program administrator conducts an initial assessment where they apply general eligibility guidelines and conduct specific guidelines. and if at which time the conduct exceeds that scope, which is is considered within the sarp program, sarp administrator may deem the matter ineligible for resolution within the sarp program and forward it back into the main line program. after initial assessment has been undertaken, the sarp program administrator engages with the respondent and notifying the respondent that they're the subject of an investigation and providing them with a sarp program overview and the sarp program administrator may tuls direct the respondent to take corrective action. this may come in the form of supplying the enforcement division with documentation, filing or amending statements or reports or other corrective action that can be taken that also includes such things as forfeiting contributions that were in excess muc of the limit.

now after the corrective action has been undertaken the sarp administrator reviews the actions and determines whether or not the effects here can be covered within the scope of the sar prve program. if not, the sarp program administrator can deem it ineligible with the resolution within sarp and forward it back into the main line program. after corrective action is taken and assessed the sarp program administrator will apply a resolution guideline. and there's also instances in which the respondent does not need to take action, at which time they can proceed directly to the application of the resolution guidelines. these guidelines can dictate that a warning letter is applicable, and that this warning letter is confidential and not a matter of public record, but the administrator will keep it on file and it can be considered an aggravating factor in any future enforcement matter with this particular respondent. if the sarp administrator

determines that the guidelines do not allow for a warning letter in this particular matter, a penalty may be in order at which time the sarp program administrator will assess the penalty and provide a package to the respondent in order to enter into a settlement process. now if the settlement process is unable to reach a successful resolution, the sarp program administrator may deem the matter ineligible for sarp resolution and forward it back into the mainland perform. instances where this is applicable are where a respondent refuses to accept liability, or they are unwilling to pay the penalty and then at which time they are sarp program and back into the main line program. upon completion, a stipulated agreement is provided for consent. for contrast, the items within the mainland program that make it through the preliminary investigations toward opening up

an investigation, one will be opened and the main line program investigator will conduct that investigation, and resolve the matter and either a complaint closure or with a resolution by commission action. now that could include a stipulated agreement, or it may also include a hearing on the merits. regardless of the stipulated agreement came through the sarp program or the mainland program resolution, a public announcement is made and the case resolution is posted to the enforcement division's website, a web page within the commission's website. that concludes my overview of the processes with the integration of the resolution program. and i'm available to answer any questions that you may have. and turn it back to you, commissioner ambrose. >> chair ambrose: all right, thank you very much for that. i think that's really helpful to

see the sort of step-wise process and understand that one way or the other the matter is going to be assessed, investigated and resolved and disclosed. so that's what we want to see. so my understanding, going back to you mr. pierce though, is that we're going to see more of the particulars about this probably at the february meeting? because i don't know if anyone else has noticed but we have a fairly short turnaround between today and the way that the calendar works. we're back again on january 8th. and i know that you had said in your staff report that you wanted to have a stakeholder meeting to talk about some of the -- the characteristics that would determine where a matter was referred.

and i wholly support you engaging with the stakeholder community before we make any decisions about this. so are there any other questions from commissioners? yvonne, i see your hand up -- up from before. first of all, i wan wanted to sy that commissioner chiu is back as of 12:44 and i'm glad that you were able to rejoin us. and so i'm going to give you a chance to speak first if you would. you're muted right now. >> commissioner chiu: thank you, chair ambrose. sorry, i had some technical difficulties getting back in. a question for about this -- this is very, very helpful. is there a category of violation

that would could be and if there's any fines attached to the time stamp on the filing and you could not just proceed in a more streamlined fashion and you get a parking ticket like me meter ran out and you have time to pay so that there's -- that type of violation could be put into this program where, i don't know, would you need to engage with the respondent? if it's late. and it may not be -- i don't mean to get into the gory details of how it all works and i use the broader question, is there a category of violations and if we hadn't thought about it, you know, could we examine

whether or not there are matters that could be dealt with on an almost quasi automated -- automated basis in order to free up really precious investigative time to focus on those -- those matters that are -- that are -- don't lend themselves readily to easy resolution. >> thank you, and i appreciate the question and i appreciate, chair ambrose, your notation in the report that what we're attempting to provide here is a preview of the process in advance of a substantive discussion that we intend to announce tomorrow. so we'll aim to distribute a notice about those stakeholder meetings tomorrow. when we do we'll attach the draft regulations to that which will provide the substantive details that you're asking about now, commissioner chiu.

and -- >> commissioner chiu: i'll hold then -- so we don't have to go through. it. >> no, it's a good question and i'm happy to address it in brief. i would just add that we'll be glad, you know, within the brown act that any commissioners want to participate in those stakeholder meetings in the first week of january, but the commission now has a program of late fee assessments. so the commission has the commission office already on a regular basis to identify which filings have come in late based on the timestamp as you were suggesting and she prepares analyses what the statutes might say about those late filing. and then we work to distribute late fee assessments on that basis. but you're right, that there may be parking tickets in area it's -- i think that the late fee example is the best of thos-

the process that eric has described -- does include a number of scenarios in which remedial action may be necessary but not every allegation in the program will require remedial action and there's a number for which the conduct is over and done. there is no remedy that might be made. and so all that remains to be done is to see if in an accelerated manner that we can reach agreement with the respondent about liability and what it might cost. we haven't worked out all together what the process will look like. but it's likely that we'll create forms and template correspondence that will kind of function in the way that you're describing, commissioner chiu, where we might check a box, send it off to the spenten respondend here's the process and we would love if you might agree sooner

than later and we can all put it behind us. >> commissioner chiu: well, i look forward to having the substantive discussion down the road, but thank you for that preview. that's very helpful. because i think that the more we can do to take off some of the more routine matters that don't require the investigative time and effort, then you'll have more bandwidth to be able to focus on those more complex potential violations. >> chair ambrose: thank you for that. commissioner chiu. if there are -- okay, commissioner bush. >> commissioner bush: thank you, chair ambrose. can you give us an estimate of how many of the complaints that you deal with are generated by staff compared to how many come to you from the public? >> i could give you that estimate. i would have to look at the docket and to do some analysis,

i think that historically the -- and this is anecdotal but the majority of complaints have come from the public. what we've seen in the last year or so is that through the application of our discretion that we have freed up some time for staff to evaluate the potential liability independent of receiving any complaints. and, again, anecdotally, i might offer that a number of staff -- more important and more promising matters currently on the investigative docket have been staff generated. i know that the b.l.a. had some recommendations. (please stand by)

for example, let's say you have a permit consultant making contributions to the people who he approaches on behalf of a client for permits. well, that's not illegal. it wouldn't be illegal if they're a lobbyist. if you have situations like that, i'm just pulling that out of the air. do you then say we're dismissing this, then you forward it on to

director pelham or to the commission or to someone to consider whether or not this is a loophole or a gap that would be better off closing. >> we do, commissioner bush. you know, pat ford in his capacity as staff senior legislative analyst, consulted our division on a regular basis. so when he develops legislative proposals, that identify weaknesses in existing law, he will always ask us what we're seeing in a kind an anomized way to find exactly what you're describing, a situation we'd like to enforce, but it's not yet on point. >> thank you. and when you refer things on to

other departments in some cases that's putting it out of the ethics commission and someone who is a political appointee themselves. let's say you're talking about complaints that -- rec facilities are used for campaign materials when they shouldn't be. and that would go to rec and park commission. or rec and park director. does that ever create a situation where they don't come back to you and tell you what's happened with the case that they were referred to? >> generally when we make a referral, because we lack authority to enforce the provision itself. i think we may have had previous conversations about this. i suppose it might be possible for the commission to request that the receiving agency report

back on any remedial steps that it might take. but the commission would lack power to do anything with that information. we could not, for example, tell another department to take an action that they didn't find necessary on their own. so as a general matter, we have not required departments to report back to us when we made referrals. we can discuss whether it might make sense to begin doing so. >> i think there's a benefit in putting departments on record, whether they decide to contact on a case or not. that's my view. thank you. >> commissioner ambrose, you're muted. chair ambrose. >> thank you very much. i know that your report, in

addition to the item that we've just discussed, also includes the status of the collections, as well as matters that have been referred out. i see on the collection that the cases that are pending have all been put off it looks like until august of 2021, because of the backlog i guess in superior court. and i'm sure that we're in no position to ask for special attention there. i mean, those cases have been outstanding so long. i'm not sure. you know, there's much hope of get money out of a stone. but there are some, though, on that list that are more recent campaigns. and there's an individual listed as like a treasurer or

something. i don't know the answer to whether or not is it the individual who is the treasurer for, you know, say the josh arsay for d.c.c. that's liable for that fine? or is it the candidate whose committee that is that's liable for that fine? just curious how that works. >> yeah. under the campaign and governmental conduct code, could be either. the law would permit us to seek liability either against the candidate or against the treasurer or in theory against both. >> , well, i mean given the prominence of a couple of those individuals and campaigns. i mean, two recent ballot proposition campaigns, you know, going back i think it was commissioner chiu mentioned this before. is there some, you know, like publication of that list?

i mean, can we -- i'm trying to think of like is there somebody who they wouldn't want to be embarrassed in front of that we can refer it to. i mean -- because they're not that much why are we wasting our time keeping track of, you know, $75 or $400 or $700. i mean, they have the money or they can get it to clear their name, if they cared about it. and obviously, you know, there's got to be a better way to get them to, you know, whatever. get their good name re-established and their credit and so on. so, anyway. you can think of any way where we can help, you know, maybe we can, you know, whatever have a -- make a press release of money waiting for us or something. because it's just -- it's silly for them to still be really act and government and campaigns and have this legacy of -- to the

ethics commission. it doesn't sit well. commissioner bush. >> i meant to ask. given the timeframe that the b.l.a. showed to the board of supervisors, two to three years for an investigation to be completed. what staffing do you need in order to cut that down to say six months? >> well, i appreciate the question, commissioner. i mean, i suppose, you know, it's -- it's a case that some of our counterparts have investigative staff of half a dozen or so. i think that would be optimal. as you know we've been operating with only two investigators for a period of more than six months. and you can see in the enforcement report that that has contributed to a slowdown in our

already strained capacity to move through these matters. so, i mean, off the top of my head, it would be great if we had six investigators. i don't know whether that might become possible, but we have three seats filled and as, you know, the mayor's office has approved filling of a fourth. but theoretically if we could have two more, that would benefit the commission. >> okay. >> ultimately the public as well. >> yes. yeah, which is how i intended to phrase it. thank you, commissioner. >> all right. i am not muted. i'm going to take ask our moderator to see if we can any public comment on this item, right. i haven't called for that yet. because i know we're approaching 1:00 and i'm hoping that i can

keep us to, you know, 1:30-ish wrap-up. so if you could see if we have any public comment. >> clerk: madam chair, we're checking to see if callers are in the queue. if you have just joined the meeting, we're on public discussion on the motion of agenda item number 4, including overview of proposed streamlined administrative resolution program process. if you have not already done so, please press star 3 to be added to the queue. you'll have three minutes to provide your public comment. six minutes if you're online with an interpreter. you'll hear a bell go off when you have 30 seconds remaining. please standby. >> ronald is looking to see who might be in the queue, i didn't know if you wanted to revive from item 7 any discussion about

feedback the commission may wish to give about how the enforcement division allocates its resources, vees railroad what's -- vis-a-vis what's happening at the federal level or out of the city attorney's office. >> i did actually hope that we would have a few minutes to talk about that. because i think that somewhat reflected in your report when you show referrals to other departments. also the fact that you have weekly meetings. i thought it's very encouraging, because obviously we have a shared responsibility in your ability to coordinate with us. yes, if you -- if we do have speakers in the queue, then i'm going to allow them to speak first. but then i'll give you a few minutes to come back and we can address that point. thanks for reminding me. >> clerk: madam chair, we have

no callers in the queue. >> all right. so public comment is closed on agenda item 8. and back to you, mr. pierce. you know, it's a good opportunity, too, to come back to i think one of the most pressing concerns for the ethics commission is the corruption scandal and how the city family is responding to clean our own houses. i know that there's a new report coming out from the controller's office that i guess director pellin will reference in her director's report. if you can tell us more specifically the role and, you know, sort of support you need for the work you're doing in the face of these announcements of

indictments. >> sure. i'll be glad to. i'd like to again invite seen investigator jeff to join us in this meeting. but briefly i would say that staff assumption has been that the public and the commission may not strictly benefit from purely a duplication of enforcement resources. and that it would be a kind of needless piling on for the commission to bring enforcement actions for conduct that is identical to the conduct that forms liability at the federal level. or that's identical to the conduct that the city attorney is already pursuing in terms of the department or forfeiture of contract winnings or forms of liability that the city attorney may pursue.

you know, as i said in item 7, we have endeavorerred to do is to review the information that is coming out from those offices and to identify opportunities for enforcement of conduct, that is implicated by but not directly addressed by federal action or by action from the city attorney's office. if commissioners maintain a different view, that duplication of enforcement would send an important message and a necessary message about the value say of adhering to the campaign and governmental conduct code, then we'd be happy to receive that feedback and rethink how we're currently spending our resources. if jeff has anything to add for that, he's welcome to. but again we're -- we solicited the commission's preference

about how we approach this, without having to address specific allegations or specific respondents. >> all right. but i am going to -- and maybe you will speak to this. notwithstanding that we're not going to identify what are -- with respect to any given individual, whether it's an indictment pending. but i do think it is important to use a specific example of the type of enforcement action that we might bring, so it's clear. so if there's -- let's just take an example of an unreported gift and that's not on the form 700 and it's against the good

government code. while the federal government may be looking at that as violation of bribery law, we also have a disclosure obligation or prohibition, with respect to a restricted source, somebody who has a contract with that department. i for one am not at all concerned about piling on, as it were. i am concerned about using department resources in a way that that either one is where you're just going to be in a holding position, while the criminal investigation takes precedence. and they're going to push you to the side and not let you do your investigative work, because they don't want you messing with their witnesses, et cetera. but at the same time i don't have any concerns about assessing fines to somebody who

has been convicted or pled guilty to related crime, for my two cents. but, anyway, jeff, do you -- yeah. mr. zoom, i'll use your last name. do you have anything to add? >> sure. one of your senior investigators. just to piggyback on chair ambrose's recommendation, that is something that we do, any time these complaints come out. we're examining it, not to just look at named defendants in it. but maybe other activities that may arise, that would be conduct, as you note, within our jurisdiction. if it's something that we could pursue, you know, those are things we look for temperature we do that all the time with any source. if it's in newspaper articles, you know, those sorts of things. we're always reviewing those sorts of information that comes to our attention, specifically with, you know, a number of

complaints now continuing here throughout the year. yes. that is something that we're ongoing and reviewing and to commissioner bush's comment earlier, we do work with patrick ford on areas of law that maybe we can strengthen within our area, that could help. i would agree with your position that maybe not best to pursue those criminal defendants, just because we're going to have a number of issues of trying to talk to witnesses, you know, if we try to talk to a respondent, invoking 5th amendment privilege, so that they don't have to incriminate themselves and things like that. but, yeah, as everything is going on, it is something that -- enforcement is taking seriously and spending a lot of time and reviewing. >> okay. thank you for that. other commissioners? commissioner chiu? >> yes. thank you, chair ambrose. i just want to make a general observation. i think we had talked earlier,

at the top of this meeting, about the importance of enforcement and how through enforcement action, that the commission takes, that we send a message. so i would like to associate myself with your comments, chair ambrose, i'm not consider concerned with piling on in that regard. i also think that silence, you know, and lack of action is equally powerful message sent about what we are and are not doing. so i would only caution us to be cognizant of the fact that if we don't, and there are very valid reasons why we're not pursuing a parallel investigation and mr. zoom just noted, but you know if there are violations within our sphere of authority and we don't do anything about it, i think that also sends a message as well. although there might be competing -- i would propose the

question then, is there a way, you know, through a press release to, you know, communicate the stance of, you know, the view that the commission has, you know, like we are -- i don't know the answer to that. and i'm not asking. but i just ink think that it's important for us to note that by not pursuing something, that's also taking a kind of action that send as message. >> i think one of the things about the staff report, under agenda item 7, that we're kind of tieing this back to, was the explanation of why, given our responsibilities and the confidentiality issues, we're not not taking action, we're not disclosing publicly what actions we might be taking. but i -- i hear what you're

saying. i do want to kind of work with the executive director and think about how, when we come back in january, having taken that memo, which i think is great. but boiling it down to kind of a bulleted, you know, more impactful public statement about, you know, be advised. the ethics commission is in high gear and these are the actions. so it would be something that we could share with people. maybe posted on nextdoor or handed out to members of the board of supervisors. just a reminder. and those are some of the things that the executive director is doing as well. rachel talked about sending out the notice about requested gifts and just letting both the community and the outside world

know that we might not be, you know, making headlines with the indictments, like the fbi. but we are on high alert. and working to address it. and i agree. we've got to get the message out. >> yeah. i think that's really important. because in the absence of an official narrative coming from the ethic commission, peek make up their own stories, right. they make up their own mind. because they don't have all the facts. in conversations over zoom, get-togethers, it's sort of like, yeah, the ethics commission, what are you guys doing. it doesn't seem like you guys are doing a whole lot. you can explain to them, but having something on hand, right, that is -- we can point to in a public statement, i think can start to dispel some of those perceptions. >> yeah. i hear that. and share that. and also commissioner bush as well has had some ideas about

how best to, you know, legitimately attract people's attention, you know, to the information that we have available and how we garner that and ensure compliance with the requirements to produce it, et cetera. so i think that that's as -- i think with the benefit of the longer piece, that director pelham and pat ford put together, i think that we are on our way to having, you know, a more shareable statement of the role and activities of the commission. i think we need to bring that forward in january. so commissioner bush, go ahead. >> yeah. one point and that's to ensure that what we do gets cornered

properly in the matrix that we have. if you go on to the enforcement matrix, that's on the web page now, it ends in 2017. even though we've been doing enforcement actions in 2018 and 2019 and 2020. and they now show up on the matrix that we have. so it's important that somebody track that we're keeping that updated. >> i'm not sure what matrix you're referring to, but i'm assuming staff know what you're -- >> enforcement summary. >> i'll have to look at that, commissioner, bush. my understanding is we have, after every committee, we have an enforcement action updated the resolutions page. maybe we're talking about something different. you and i can confer after the meeting. >> thank you. >> with that i'd like to thank the chair and the commission for feedback on this question. we'll take it back and give it a second look. >> yeah. no, thank you, for all of your good work, too.

i know that this is trying to parse, you know, like you know what's a priority action and what can be dealt with administratively in a streamlined manner. but trying to articulate that and get stakeholder buy-in. i know it's been a long process and hopefully it will help tu going forward. i do want to, though, close out this item and call agenda item 9, so we give the executive director, who unfortunately usually ends up with having to speed talk, because she knows by the time we get to the end of the agenda, our eyes are burning from computer screen. so with that, i will call agenda item 9, discussion of executive director's report. an update of various programmatic and operational highlights of ethics commission staff activities since the commission's previous meeting.

director pelham, you have the floor. >> thank you. thank you, chair ambrose. i wanted to highlight just a few things from the report that i provide. it provides some updated information. on that report, first of all, let me note the printed document and i think perhaps online it references it was a holdover. my apologies for that. it was, in fact, item number 9. you see we have the public financing program came to a decision on -- conclusion on december the 3rd. last date that the candidate could see submit public financing reviews, claims under the program for this year. so there was an inch up in terms of the dollar amount. that candidates were able to qualify for for the entirety of the 2020 election. in all there were 50% of the candidates who participated in the third round and actually qualified to receive the maximum

amount, coupled with the other candidates who also came within 70% of the maximum. it was quite a year in terms of overall participation and the ability of candidates to really take advantage of the new program. so as commissioner bush said earlier in the meeting, we have the march that we typically review the election cycle and bring you forward information about how this year's public financing program played out. under the new program provisions that took effect. that was -- i do want to acknowledge and thank rob hodge, amy lee, eric and others, johnny and the others who played a significant role in keeping the program busy, on track and effective this year. so there was a lot of work that was put in across the office. really want to call out those folks. yeah. legislatively one update. the rules committee met this

morning. and approved the annual biannual code update. that means that it updated the departments are required every couple of years to look at their codes and identify who the designated -- for filing form 700 to the economic interest statement. and so those -- that information was collected into the city's ordinance. it changes and it will update the law. it looks like given the timing, that the full board will act on those changes in early january. [ please stand by ]

-- we will have that on the agenda for you at that time. i wanted to also underscore the b.l.a., the budget legislative analyst's performance -- audit of the commission. that was heard in committee on november 19th at the board of supervisors. i have a list of the files as well as to the audio discussion, the video recording on sfgov-tv. and the committee had questions through the committee chair, that there was no discussion -- among the committee, there was no public comment that the b.l.a. auditors then presented

their recommendations and findings. i was there to provide some response on the part of our department as well. they took action to file the item. so now the item is considered legislatively. but as i indicated then, we looked forward to reporting back as helpful that the progress we're going to continue to make and that will start in january when we come back with a report to you all about where we stand in terms of the recommendations that were identified through the end of december of this year. i also would note that there's no further update on the legislative items. we had reporting to this one this month simply because there was other work ongoing, and there had not been additional legislative updates in terms of the ordinance. so there is no further update that we have for you on that. and the two key things that i wanted to highlight before turning it over to tyler who is here to do a brief demonstratiog that we do have time, it's a

brief demonstration but it's a great tool that he was going to walk us through. but before we do, that i wanted to focus for just a couple moments on the hiring plan. i mentioned this on the racial equity plan that we developed. i am just very, very happy and gratified to be able to report that we have now posted all of the positions. we are accepting applications for the -- you can link to them, the detailed job analysis on our -- what are we? our website? sfx.org, and in the lower right-hand corner there's the listing of the drink directly to the jobs page. as i mentioned before we are circulating as broadly as we can and we'll continue to do that in the coming days and weeks. we have a deadline for the first part of january and we have been building these job descriptions

and this hiring process on the ability to hire these positions as exempt positions tied to specific projects. and we have identified very specific scope, deliverables and time frames for the positions, along with the specific duties that we're looking for, the individuals who fulfill these roles, once they are in these seats. and so i think that you'll be seeing reflected in the information that we bring forward about the timetable for the work that we expect to get done as well because they're embedded at the core of these projects and these hirings. >> great. >> on the front in terms of the disaster service work, that's come up several times during this meeting and i do want to take a moment on that. as you know, we've had two staff who have been continuing in an extended d.f.w. capacity over the last six months and we've had additional staff that have been tapped for part-time d.s.w. work as well.

we know that the pandemic and the needs that the city has is not going away. hopefully we're all moving into a new and hopeful chapter, but, you know, with the vaccine process to have to run and we know that the city is working in areas that will not go away. at the same time, we also know that there are additional crises happening in the city government. and that is reflected in many of the comments that you have chaired today and that we have a concern about our ability as an agency with a very unique mandate in the city government to be able to perform the work that we need to with the resources that we have. so this means that we need to have the resources that we have to do that work. so there has been an additional request, i will tell you from the mayor's office, to extend some of the staff positions and add new ones to the d.f.w. work for another three months. i have respectfully declined on behalf of our department, and i would welcome and will report back to you with what i know

further. a discussion with the mayor's office as necessary. the request is finding the deep need that exists and the ongoing need and it cites the desire to have proportional response from all city departments. we've had 13% of our staff of the department where we have less than 20 positions filled right now. providing direct support for our emergency services. and we know that is vital and we care deeply and greatly appreciate our staff stepping up and doing that. at the same time, i think this all we have to do is to listen to the commission meeting and to continue to see the headlines that we're seeing and know that we're desperately in need also of being able to perform on behalf of the work to stem corruption. that won't happen if we have empty seats. so it's a challenge, i know that it's a difficult conclusion to reach, but that is in my judgment what we need to try to articulate to the mayor's office and to be clear as possible and continue to be as supportive as

we can, but we also need that we need all hands on deck. i will pause there and if there's questions for me, let me know. and not i'll turn it over to tyler field for an overview, a demo of the utilization tools that we will have available through the work that our office has been doing with other colleagues throughout the city. so let me pause and turn it back to the chair. >> chair ambrose: thank you for that. i have actually three -- and i don't know if one of yours is still there, but commissioner chiu, you had raised your hand first. please, go ahead. >> commissioner chiu: thank you, chair ambrose. i had a couple questions -- one is a comment and one is regarding the d.s.w. work and i understand that the idea of having a proportional response and we're a tiny department in the city family of less than 25

full-time positions, not all of which are currently filled right now and taking 13% of that really hamstrings our ability to do our jobs, let alone during a time of widing corruption and the trust in government. so i would be -- i would be happy to help in whatever capacity to attend the meeting with you and to support of your pushback which i think that is warranted. and i would also to consider equity. there's proportion and then there's equity. 13% of the ethics commission is a much greater and disproportionate impact on our ability to perform our stated roles and to do our job versus a much larger department like, you

know, human resources or -- or, you know, any other department that, you know, that has hundreds of employees. 13% of several hundred or several thousand is -- they have many more bodies and impact to their work will not be as deeply felt as it is in our department. and so the second question is back to the b.l.a. report, no further action will be taken by the board of supervisors? and i would encourage us to -- to continue to rely on the findings, particularly with regard to the underresourcing of our department and the recommendations that they have. as the budget season kicks off, if it's not already. and so my question is that has the mayor's office given

preliminary guidance on what they're going to be expecting from us and then, second, would be -- i don't know if the incoming supervisors, whether there might be an opportunity to meet with them in order to present to them what ethics does and the challenges that we face and how we could partner with them on education and to underscore the dire need for additional resources. because we are not going to make progress on all of these multiple fronts of enforcement and engagement and compliance and culture change with the staff that we have, 13% of whom can't even do their full-time

jobs. >> thank you, commissioner chiu. yeah, that's very helpful and i appreciate your feedback and i appreciate your offer of assistance. the mayor's office has not yet released instructions and we expect that to happen this week. so we will have a better understanding of what kind of issues that are involved and expectations that the mayor's office has set for the city departments legislatively. and we certainly will be reaching out to the newly elected board of supervisors members and inviting an opportunity to meet with them, with our annual report as well as update on what we're doing on the b.l.a. front and the findings and the budget needs. so happy to get back to you with more information on that once we have been able to do that. >> commissioner chiu: yeah, that's going to be critical because that board will vote on our budget in july and they'll only have a few short online

only months to understand who we are and what we do and why we need those positions. commissioner bush? >> commissioner bush: two things that were in the report. the quarterly report on the whistleblower this morning. and you might want to go to the controller's page to see that. and the second thing is that i had a response back from the department of elections and they are moving forward with putting online filings from slate mailer organizations. and our look back at 2020 campaign spending, so that -- i think that they say it will be ready by end of december, beginning of march, somewhere in there. anyways, that will augment the information that we have and it will give us a better picture of

campaign spending. and i wanted to put that so that they could see that publicly. thank you. >> chair ambrose: thank you for that. so any further comments? i need to ask the moderator to -- oh, commissioner lee? >> vice-chair lee: thank you, madam chair. just had two quick questions to them. to those who accessed public financing how many were first-time candidates? because it would be great to know. and the second question is -- i noticed on the year-to-date revenue chart that we have are halfway through the fiscal year but in terms of the revenue, that has been collected so far is about one-quarter of the

expected amount. so just want to know is it something of a concern to you? is it going to impact the bottom line fiscal picture later? >> thank you, commissioner lee. and i'll start with the last question. it is. i think that part of it might be reflective of where -- where we collectively are in terms of the pandemic and maybe, you know, the coffers having slowed down of people being able to pay. but i think that the short answer is that i don't know. and this will be helpful to report back in january with a bit more detail as to why we know why those numbers look like they do. it is the case that at the beginning of every calendar year we see a big uptick because that's when lobbyists register, for example. but giving btiond on the flow of when we typically see these numbers increase will help us to

understand and to isolate if there are difficultieies that we are experiencing on the revenue collection side. though it's $157,000 it might not seem like much to many departments, it does affect the bottom line to the extent that we are not projecting a revenue base that we had identified at the outset of the fiscal year. so if you don't mind, we'll report back with more information to the commission at the january meeting on that. and could you repeat your first question? >> vice-chair lee: regarding the public financing -- >> oh, yeah. yes. thank you. i think -- i don't want to misspeak. my sense is that there were a number of first-time candidates but i don't want to misspeak. but we'll have that in the march information as well, because clearly the number of candidates that might have been able to choose to participate when they might not otherwise have, will be very helpful to understand. so thank you for your patience on that. we'll look forward to reporting.

>> chair ambrose: i want to ask -- this is tyler, right -- for the presentation? i would like to see it, do i have the support of the commission to keep going? we put this young man off the last time around and this is sort of the training that i need to really to be able to use the dashboard. so if you can all bear with me, i would love to hear his presentation. but anybody have a pressing online zoom call that they have to do or anything? are we good to go -- >> i concur that i would love to see tyler -- mr. field's presentation. i'm very much looking forward to it and i'm so glad that i didn't miss it. >> chair ambrose: okay. all right. at least two of us will hang around and see it. but, please, tyler, if you can proceed. >> so, thank you, commissioners and i am afraid that my presentation might not be exactly what you're anticipating

but i would be happy to come back and to make another presentation if this isn't -- excuse me -- this doesn't turn out to be what you're anticipating. what i'm here today to demonstrate is a web application developed by the city's open data portal vendor, which uses campaign finance data from the commission. this application is particularly interesting and nerdil everyone why exciting because it was developed by a third party. the e.d.a. division, electronic disclosure and data analysis division has done a lot of the behind-the-scenes work that made it possible for outside parties such as the city's open data funder named confusingly right now tyler tech. and that we have done a lot of work to make it possible for parties like tyler tech to use the data, and to create other

visualizations and these types of third-party implementations will become more common as our work continues. this is one of the data resources that the s.f. commission makes available. if y'all are interested in more comprehensive view of the commission data view sources and in particular the dashboards, that's something that i'd be happy to come back at future meetings. but let me switch over to screen sharing. and show you share. there we go. this particular application that i'm demonstrating today is available on the portal, data.sf.org/campaign [underscore] finance.

and it shows the data from the past november elections specifically, the contributions to primarily formed candidates and committees. it's designed by tyler tech to be very approachable and presentable to the general public. it starts here by searching for candidates or by name or the office that they're running for. in the interest of time i will just highlight one contest that recently occurred. the board of supervisors district 3. so a search for the candidates -- well, i searched by the contest name but you can search by candidate and they pop up and then this dashboard over here shows a geographic representation of where the candidates received their contributions. over here on the right is a list

of the top contributors to those candidate's activities. because san francisco has a campaign finance limits, it's not very exciting to see top contributors to a candidate's contest, but in this case the candidate himself seems to have contributed money which is why it foreshadows all of the others. and then down here it shows the contribution timeline. it's just a simple way for the general public to get into campaign finance research. i will clear these candidates and demonstrate also how a ballot committee measure also shows up. these two committees for supporting opposing measure f in this most recent election, and you can see here most of the --

or all of their contributions seem to come from within california and see the top contributors to each candidate. hopefully this is a tool that will enable members of the public to become interested in further research of campaign finance. just a couple things they wanted to highlight quickly. there are a lot of background steps that make this particular implementation possible. just going to mention that and not go into the technical detail on that. and it's because of all of the work that the e.d.e.a. division has been doing that the team from tyler tech was able to intake this data from the commission and implement this outside development or this was developed independent of our

data. they, in fact, gave us a gold star figuratively saying that this was the fastest implementation of this product that they've done. they're very -- it was very smooth and quick and we rolled out from start to finish i believe in two or three weeks, which is unheard of in a technology project. and i -- i look forward to bringing more examples of outside work worked on by outside parties to your attention in the future. we're doing a lot of work kind of behind the scenes in the background that will enable third parties to access and implement and to develop apps like this hopefully in the future.

and with that, that concludes the demonstration today. that sounds like i will perhaps be back to present more later. >> clerk: chair ambrose you were muted. >> chair ambrose: yes, i do hope that we can get you back for these tutorials. i mean, to me i'm a visual learner and apparently i really need to see somebody else and where they click, but what a great -- what a great tool. i mean, it's definitely something that i want to play around with maybe later with like a glass of wine so i can forgive myself for my technological failures. but i'll come back to you with questions next time about how to get the most out of it. anyway, any other commissioners, because, if not, i want to --

actually, can we have him call for public comment and while we're waiting in that 90-second break then i can ask for further questions. is that okay? because we -- i was waiting for the moderator to go ahead now and make an announcement. >> clerk: madam chair, we're checking to see if there are callers in the queue. for those on hold wait until the system indicates that you are unmuted. if you are just joining this meeting we're on the motion of agenda item number 9, discussion of the executive director's report an update of the programmatic and operational highlights of the ethic commission staff and activities since the commission's previous meeting. if you have already done -- if you have not already done so, press star, 3, to be add to the public comment queue. you will have three minutes to provide comment and six minutes if you're online with an interpreter. you will hear a bell go off when you have 30 seconds remaining.

>> chair ambrose: you're waiting your 90 seconds. in that regard i will ask, commissioner chiu you had your hand up or commissioner lee? >> my hand was up. >> chair ambrose: yes, please, go ahead. >> commissioner chiu: thank you very much for that presentation. and it's a beautiful thing to see all of this data so readily accessible at our fingertips. so i had a couple of questions for you. one, i know this is an historical look back at the funds that were raised in the november election, but, in the upcoming election on a real-time basis how often is that data updated? so if we're in the heat of an election, how current would the information be if a journalist or other concerned citizen were to go into the tool to look and find out how much candidate a

has raised and from whom. that was my first question. and then my second question is -- we have this great database and tool to visualize all of that information, and that would be only used so much as, like, people know about it. so are we keeping track of visits to the site? like, do we have visibility into that and have we seen an uptick in utilization over time? and then the third question would be, is it static? you know, what is the -- is there a push strategy, right? because we need to pull users to the site, but i think that this is a really powerful tool and this may go -- be a question for your colleague rachel gage, but then how do we push this out so that more people know about it

and can avail themselves of this really important information? and made accessible by this fantastic third-party tool. >> thank you, commissioner, all excellent questions. in regard to the first question, how frequently is this updated or, i guess, kind of a two-part question how frequently it is updated and how timely is the data. but for a lot of campaign finance reporting regulations the data is -- it depends on what type of -- what type of committee it is that you're interested in looking at and how long it's been since the past -- or the most recent filing design. but all of that to suffice to say that during the 90 days before an election we are updating all of the data that is

available to the commission is updated nightly. so the members of the public can be assured that the data that they're seeing is most recent as of the latest midnight the night before. >> commissioner chiu: and then would that be visible to them on the screen to say that this is -- refreshed daily as of, you know, midnight the day before, and so it should have been filed and if it's not there they would have some degree of certainty that it hadn't been filed yet? are we beyond the most current? >> just in the interest of time i will say most -- or on the main website that we push out it does say when the last update occurred. but there are some intricacies of whether a filer missed the

last deadline, what information shows up or not. those are good points that i can take into account and try to get an exact line -- >> commissioner chiu: so like my nerdy data-loving heart and so maybe we could follow up offline and i can have a deeper conversation. >> sure. i believe that your second question was do we have analytics on the site. we do have some insight into analytics or we do have some analytics on the site, but i would say that our team has not really been tracking them very closely. it's not something that we've had the attention span for recently, but, obviously, that is an important thing to know and, again, look into that and to get back to you. and then your third question was how we are pushing out this

information. that's actually part of what i'll be working on in the next kind of fiscal year is developing a plan and starting to implement a plan to reach out and to find people who will be -- or the members of the public, researchers and journalists, interested nerdy people who might want to use some of the tools that we're providing. reach out to them and to enable them to be able to use these tools. and to make sure that they're able to get the information that they're interested in. >> commissioner chiu: great. thank you for that. >> chair ambrose: i want to jump back to justin on the off chance that we have a speaker in the queue. i want to follow up. >> no worries. no, chair ambrose, there's no cuellars in the queue. >> chair ambrose: so we'll close public comment on agenda item

number 9. and were there any further questions for mr. field or director pelham before i call agenda item number 10? we good? okay. then agenda number 10 is -- i'm pretty sure that it's discussion of possible action on items for future meetings. if any member of the public intend to offer public comment for this item they should dial in now and enter star, 3, to be added to the public comment queue. do any of my fellow commissioners wish to identify any matters for future meetings? seeing none, i'm going to ask the moderator to read the notice for public comment on agenda item number 10. >> clerk: madam chair, we're checking to see if there are callers in the queue. for those on hold, wait until

the system indicates that you are unmuted. if you have just joined the meeting we're on the motion of agenda item number 10, the discussion and possible action on items for future meeting. if you haven't already done so, please press star, 3. to be added to the public comment queue. you will have three minutes to provide your public comment, six minutes if you're on line with an interpreter. you will hear a bell go off when you have 30 seconds remaining. please stand by. >> chair ambrose: while we're standing by, do want to wish everyone a happy holiday season and most particularly a joyous new year. i hope that 2021 brings us all of our wishes and the ability to get back and to see each other in person. so i am sure that we all extend

those to each other and to the city, the world. so thank you for -- for participating in our 2020 experiment in trials and tribulations. moderator, are there any -- >> clerk: chair, no callers in the queue. >> chair ambrose: i will close public comment on agenda item 10 and read the notice for agenda 11 which is an additional opportunity for public comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the matter pursuant to the ethic by laws article 7, section 2. you could read that notice to folks. i'm supposed to say if any member of the public intend to offer public comment for this item they should dial in now and enter star, 3, to be added to the public comment queue.

you're muted, ronald. i know. >> clerk: i know -- chatty kathy or however you want to put it. okay, madam chair, we are checking to see if there are any callers in the queue. for those already on hold, wait until the system indicates that you have been unmuted. if you have just joined this meeting we're on the agenda item 11, additional opportunity for public comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the agenda with article 7, section 2. if you have not already done so, please press star, 3, to be added to the public comment queue. you will have three minutes to provide public comment and six minutes online with an interpreter and you will hear a bell go off when you have 30 seconds remaining.

(please stand by)

>> motion on adjournment. >> yes. >> vice chair lee? >> happy holidays to everybody. >> thank you. >> indeed. >> commissioner smith. >> yes. >> chair? >> yes. >> five votes in the affirmative. the motion is approved. >> motion carriers and that concludes the december 14th meeting. we'll see you back on

january 8th. bye bye. >> take care.

. >> president yee: of the 26 neighborhoods we have in west portal, it's probably the most unique in terms of a small little town. you can walk around here, and it feels different from the rest of san francisco. people know each other. they shop here, they drink wine here. what makes it different is not only the people that live here, but the businesses, and without all these establishments, you wouldn't know one neighborhood from the other. el toreador is a unique restaurant. it's my favorite restaurant in san francisco, but when you look around, there's nowhere else that you'll see decorations like this, and it makes you feel like you're in a different world, which is very

symbolic of west portal itself. >> well, the restaurant has been here since 1957, so we're going on 63 years in the neighborhood. my family came into it in 1987, with me coming in in 1988. >> my husband was a designer, and he knew a lot about art, and he loved color, so that's what inspired him to do the decorati decorations. the few times we went to mexico, we tried to get as many things as we can, and we'd bring it in. even though we don't have no space, we try to make more space for everything else. >> president yee: juan of the reasons we came up with the legacy business concept, man eel businesses were closing

down for a variety of reasons. it was a reaction to trying to keep our older businesses continuing in the city, and i think we've had some success, and i think this restaurant itself is probably proof that it works. >> having the legacy business experience has helped us a lot, too because it makes it good for us because we have been in business so long and stayed here so long. >> we get to know people by name, and they bring their children, so we get to know them, also. it's a great experience to get to know them. supervisor yee comes to eat at the restaurant, so he's a wonderful customer, and he's very loyal to us. >> president yee: my favorite

dish is the chile rellenos. i almost never from the same things. my owner's son comes out, you want the same thing again? >> well, we are known for our mole, and we do three different types of mole. in the beginning, i wasn't too familiar with the whole legacy program, but san francisco, being committed to preserve a lot of the old-time businesses, it's important to preserve a lot of the old time flavor of these neighborhoods, and in that capacity, it was great to be recognized by the city and county of san francisco. >> i've been here 40 years, and i hope it will be another 40 yeararararararararararararararr