>> the utilities commission. madam secretary, will you take the roll please. >> president maxwell. >> here. >> vice president moran. >> here. >> commissioner harrington. >> here. >> commissioner. >> here. >> commissioner paulson will be arriving in 15 minutes. we are a quorum. >> i would like to welcome our new commissioner to our official meeting. welcome and thank you so much for your commitment. thank you. >> looking forward to working with you. >> thank you. next item, please. >> before i read the next item i would like to make a brief announcement. due to the covid-19 health machining and given the public health recommendation issued by the san francisco department of public health and governor newsom and mayor breed lifted

restrictions on teleconference. this is being televised by sfgovtv. if you are watching live stream there is a brief time lag. on behalf of the commission i would like to extend our thanks to sfgovtv for assistance during this meeting. if you wish to comment on an item dial 415-655-0001. meeting id1463590630. followed by pound pound. to speak press star 3. before i call the first item i would announce that item 15 is removed from today's agenda. for those watching if you want to speak on item 15 you may do so during general comment for item 15. it is removed. you may provide public comment

under general public comment. your first order of business is approval of minutes of january 26, 2021. >> commissioners, any discussion or corrections on the minutes of january 26? seeing none may i get a motion and second to approve? >> so moved. >> second. >> thank you. madam secretary public comment on this item, please. >> members of the public may make two minutes on item 3 comments of january 6, 2021, dial 415-655-0001. (146)359-0630 followed by pound pound. to speak press star 3.

there is one caller in the queue. >> good afternoon, commissioners, my apologies but i have a comment regarding the communication. can i discuss it at this moment or no? >> no, this is for item 3 approval of the minutes. general public comment if you wish to speak to an item not on the agenda for item 15 pulled you may do so during general public comment, the next item. >> thank you. >> thank you, caller. there are no more caller in the queue. >> that closes public comment on item 3.

>> roll call vote, please. >> president maxcle. >> aye. >> vice president moran. >> aye. >> commissioner harrington. >> aye. >> commissioner j a.m.i. e. >> i will abstain since i was not at the meeting. >> you are allowed to vote. >> yes. >> you have four ayes, madam president. >> next item, please. >> next item 4. general public comment. members of the public may address the commission for two minutes on matters within the jurisdiction and not on the agenda by dialing 415-655-0001. meeting id1463590630-pound pound. to speak press star 3.

>> there are seven callers. >> you have two minutes to speak. >> commissioners, i am francisco day costa. what i want to bring to your attention is this commission is unique that we have two general managers. neighbor it serves a purpose when we address audits. we have had a number of audits recently. i want to bring to your attention that the corruption within the sfpuc has not ceased.

you commissioners because of your experience two general managers and one member who has been a board member on the board of supervisors and a new member that i have welcomed her once but she has been in the private industry and in the private i does industry they give you a pink slip. it is blatant, defiant. doing what they want to. 20% of the worke forcer. you have a worke forcer of about 2000. if you continue doing what you

do, it will be brought forth and burn you all. in other words, you are playing with fire. we need to admit that we have corruption. we need to admit they are good people representing the taxpayers and do the right thing. thank you very much. >> thank you for your comments. >> next caller. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i am calling on item 5 which is the memo from the attorney's office. >> i am sorry to interrupt you.

this is item 4 general public comment. item 5 is the next item. we will call for public comment when that item has been heard. >> thank you, caller. your call is open. you have two minutes to speak to item 4. >> coalition for san francisco neighborhoods speaking on my own behalf. for 10 long years advocates exposed the expansion of sfo to fill in two square miles of san francisco bay. i would like to thank commission president maxwell for being with us on this fight. we know from experience how difficult it is to oppose an enterprise department. at the january 13th meeting of the board of supervisors budget and finance committee sfpuc

staff said the first issuance of 221a series of bonds would include potable water pipes on 19th avenue and on slope from 19th to 25th avenue. this is despite the spite that the water is inferior to the existing dedicated system and inconsistent with prop 218. sadly, despite the advance at the p.u.c., the agency still is unwilling or unable to self-correct. the advocacy against the runway expansion has stood the test of time. two square miles of san francisco bay were preserved and the airport was able to flourish. i believe advocacy and opposition to the water will stand the test of time. i would urge the p.u.c. to use

the current situation to reassess the strategy of using drinking water to put out fires on the west side. the west side has waited decades expecting the dedicated system and should not be betrayed with bait and switch. new subject. the coastal commission has two p.u.c. items for this friday which is not on today's agenda. why is this? thank you. >> thank you, caller. your line is open. you have two minutes to speak on item 4. >> i am gave warner resident of palo alto. thank you for the workshop and thanks for the water supply calculator workshop a few weeks ago. thank you. i sent my comments to last

friday's meeting by e-mail. i am expressing importance of a risk analysis. i am going to mention a january 22 letter the sfpuc sent. table 3 shows in the third year consecutive dry year and footnotes 2023 that says the supply available would be 45% of 265mgd normally available. this is highly disturbing. if someone could infer two years from now the sfpuc could invoke 50% rationing and you heard the comments last friday. the 50% rations is wrong. demand is not close to that but alarming data. to me the problem is the sfpuc would consider reducing by 55% in the year three of the drought without understanding the risk or probability profile of the

design drought. if it is one in a 1,000 years taking into account climate change it is negligent to cut supply so much to protect against such a rare event. if the risk is higher there could be such a cut. you should be in a position to assess risk. the worst part to my knowledge there is no risk assessment. we have 100 years of data, 1,000 years from tree rings and climate change modeling you spent time on. my point is to please direct staff to perform risk analysis associated with design or flying blind without it. thank you so much. >> next caller. you have two minutes to speak on item 4. >> hi, i am a member of the chapter water committee. regarding last week's workshop,

no matter the conclusion and no firm conclusion is logical. we can agree there must be much less draw or more strategic draw on the water supplies. to that end we ask you to cocreate something like a roundtable to bring together wholesalers with sfpuc to address this. the drought trend expected by forecasters to be part of 100 year pattern. historic numbers might no longer be helpful. that is up for discussion. climate change will see more snow melt. some areas to addressing this are lack of implementation channels, lack of information channels. i urge you to join with the wholesale customers to create the supply round table where success stories are exchanged,

solutions discussed. funding, issues of water billing. the last meeting the hayward member replied with several ways the city is reducing fresh water dependence and two other members chimed in, too. one asking about his story. that was a beautiful thing. sfpuc staff members should be part of the discussion at the time and place just for that. please consider this proposal. we are overdue on this issue with the operatives at the table the current commission is the dream team for a robust response. thank you. >> thank you, caller. there is search callers remaining in the queue. next caller. your line is open. >> hi, i am flow kelly. i am representing the coalition

on homelessness. san francisco is displaced in one of the wealthiest cities in the world and not getting access to the lowest un international standards for water and sanitation. i am aware of the budget process is already happened. it is the committee that assesses the midyear budget assessments, i would like the committee to consider the expansion of public drinking water assets. although we are grateful for the creation of the permanent water access in the tenderloin, mission and bayview, they will not be sufficient to provide the minimal standards that are needed. there would need to be an additional 36 water assets in the tenderloin alone in order to meet the minimal water

sanitation and hygiene standards as set forth by the u.n. hrc which is the unitedmations human rights council that deals with refugees internationally. at the coalition on homelessness we did survey of ununhoused neighbors they are closed during covid. the library, churches, playgrounds, pools, today we are asking for additional three public water taps in the tenderloin which would bring the total to six which is very, very minimal for what people really need in order to be safe during covid.

thank you. >> next caller. you have two minutes to speak to item 4. >> i am carlos watkins, coalition on homelessness. i want to follow up on what flo said. in the budget that was approved you have made some commitment to inclusion and equality in the city of san francisco. i wanted to flag that. we have thousands unhoused in san francisco not getting adequate water for survival especially during covid not what they need to stay safe and sanitary and prepare to live through the pandemic. i understand the budget is approved this year. i wanted to really push the commission to make it a more priority to increase water

access. i mean more water assets in the tenderloin would be a step to be taken by public utilities to work to relieve for folks struggling. we did survey unhoused in the tenderloin and they are not getting the amount of water they need to survive to stay clean and to be presentable. water is so important for everything from life to dignity to survival. we really need action on this. we think the public commission is an ally in making san francisco more equitable with a lifeline to survive. thank you so much for your time. >> thank you for your comments. next caller. you have two minutes to speak to item 4. >> hello, committee members. i am john steeple, san francisco

resident. for the last four years working as community development monger among the unhoused in san francisco. i am also on the human rights with the coalition on homelessness. prior to that 12 years in international relief providing water sanitation and hygiene solutions. in the last four years san francisco is one of the wealthiest cities in the country following below the international water standards for hygiene. a survey showed over half of the residents in the tenderloin are not able to access the minimum standards of drinking water due to barriers facing them. really encourage you guys in

line with your inclusion in equality to look deeper at the issue of water access to unhoused community of 10,000. we want to at least meet the minimum standards. i ask as initial next step to add three additional water points in the tenderloin building on the momentum you are doing to address that. together we can overcome this falling below the standards. thank you so much. good-bye. >> thank you for your comments. you have two comments. >> this is jennifer with the

coalition on homelessness in san francisco. following up on the previous comments. it has been pointed out how much the pandemic through attention of water. i want to break down the practical situations for unhoused people what that means. people are trying to in many situations they have no other options forgetting off the street. there are thousands and thousands of people out there and not enough housing units. the shelters are closed. during regular times the shelter wait list is over 1,000 people waiting for shelter and many more trying to get into shelter. people when they don't have water, that means drinking water for the critical. we hear they are not getting enough of that. that has huge health

implications. it also has health implications when they don't have access to water to wash hands. water is just so critical for folks, and especially those living in the shadows of affluence in san francisco. i want be to thank you guys for working on this, putting resources into it, to the 15 permanent water sources city-wide. as stated before, we really are grateful for that. it is a huge, huge difference but it doesn't bring us to the gold line. that is not meeting the international standards laid out at least getting us a little closer than having a little bit of the hardship removed from those struggling with no place to call home.

thank you so much. >> are there any other callers? >> caller, your line is open. two minutes. >> thank you, commissioners. i am harry bernstein. i have a few questions related to the southeast commission facility. as you know, the mitigation agreements from 1975 originally

provided the bayview area with a -- built around 1987. there is an effort from the p.u.c. and the community to build a new southeast commission facility. with the mitigation agreement transfer from 1800 oakdale, the current facility, to evans when that comes into being. i need to know that and how could i find that information? second is i have been to the commission facility meetings, and i looked into their records. it turns out they have some recordings from 2011 and 2012

but nothing more recent than that. they have spotty minutes and they don't seem to have recordings of their meetings. the p.u.c. knows how to do that. is there a plan to help? they have blue jeans which records programs but they don't seem to have them available. they have two or three committee meetings each month. what can be done to help the secf commission to get their meetings so they are recorded and those not able to attend will be able to access? there are important things that have gone on there, but they are occasionally there are minutes. very often there are not. it is sporadic. >> there are two more caller inn

the queue. >> your line is open. you have two minutes to speak on item 4. next caller. your line is open you have two minutes to speak to item 4. >> thank you. pronouns she and her. good to be back with you. again, reiterate clean power s.f. i would like to see clean power s.f. more to go beyond the selling of kilowatt-hours to being more engaged in helping people to i quote from an old program. live better electrically. when i get done here i will turn

on my electric stove to cook. i remember when i lived in san francisco for six months and i shared a place and from was a gas stove. i never turned it on. i bought a cheap toaster oven and hot plate. i was able to cook food and live better electrically. how can we have more resilience in the grid? it is the short towers apartments in new york city is energy independent to keep the lights on during city-wide blackouts. i am not saying san francisco is an island. with solar and storage we can have greater energy independence. it should be a municipal district to control delivery rates. people should have inexpensive

electricity. you are doing good work towards that end. there is much more to do to have a city that is powered by 100% renewable energy. it can be done. not today but it can be. thank you. [please stand by]

>> okay, madam secretary. next item,please . >> file follow up with staff on those two items. >> items five,communications . >> do we needdiscussions on communications ?

public comment onthis item . >> members of the public who wish totwo minutes of public comment on item 5, communications . meeting id 146359, jurisdiction 340 pounds pounds. press star threeto speak . do we have anycolors? >> there are three members of the public wishing to be recognized . yourline is open, you've got two minutes to item number five . >>speaker: i hope you are doing well. i'm directing the member from

the city attorney's office regarding cec contract. first of all this letter ignores all the comments in the letters that you have received from myself and other companies that are extremely concerned about this process. the letter also talked about the rotc base and notes the roc has other specific items stimulating the lb recuse will beconducted during the selection process. this is never mentioned in a memo . you might not agree with me but cmv is a criminalorganization . itis a part of the city corruption . jurisdictions are bought and sold on the market just like i'll give you one example, an lbd working for 4 and a half million dollars, more than the

maximum thresholdis 2 and a half million dollars . how could that have happened with a new company ? the memo also misses the fact that kathy how is adding more money into these contracts. this is effectively prevents any new set of contract competitions and would allow the same companies to be benefiting from it when they are not and lbe replacing d placing other lbe from the contract. i don't know what to tell you but they're actuallyviolating the civil rights and the civil rights act of the united states government . then francisco and the cmc is a recipient of federal money. this effectively will not allow you guys to get any more funding. so whoever told you there are no risks for the cdc, really needs to examine the lawyers and their publications.

>> thank you color, your time is expired. next collar, you have two minutes to speak to itemnumber five . >>speaker: i want to comment on 140, the cmb memo with requests for proposal. [inaudible] the selection process does not mean the proposal throughout the patient process. [inaudible] stage for the purpose of calculating this proposal. this is not what the contract documents state . each statement used does not mean the proposal must be followed inits entirety . [inaudible] the interviews were

held on september 18 and october 5. you filed a complaint on october 15, 2020 three at the lbe expired in august 31. there's no mathematical difference between withholding supplies versus showing up lines each state is not current. applying the discount! different statements does not allow a mathematical difference. as a result . [inaudible] our calculations and raising outcomes should not be executed since the argument is mute and are not contractual statements and the mathematical statement clearly shows that applyingthis to each phase does not change the outcome of the bid. our records show . [inaudible] i'm requesting is in accordance with the recent bid and ideals my time.>>

thank you foryour comments . next collar, you'vegot two minutes to speak item number five . >>speaker: can you hear me now? >> yes. >>speaker: good afternoon and welcome to the new commissione . i look forward to meeting you in person someday when we get there. in the meantime, onitem 5b, the contract advertisement report . i would like to see that report included the environmental review status of those contracts inthe future . it may take a little while to get there but i'm happy to follow up off-line with at the end on that and on item 5, the city attorney memo, i have no issue with the advice rendered since the memo is now public, i would remove the header on pages two, three and four that

suggests that it's still a privileged andconfidential memo .it's pretty public at this point and in fact, the city attorney may want to consider making it public memo that they post on their website under cityattorney opinions that's all i have on item 5 . >> thank you for your comments. secretary, there are no more colors in the queue. >> that closespublic comment on item 5. next item please . >> madam president your next item is item 6, update on the product to transfer san francisco public commission websiteinto a mobile friendly customer focused on . presented by teresa young and lawrence show.

>>. >>speaker: thankyou for welcoming myself teresa young and my colleague . i am part of the community department and we are very excited to hear about our website transformation project and again, this project has been in partnershipwith ips . i want to pause there and let us introduce ourselves. >> i have been partnering with lisa and other members of communicationsgroup in that we design our external website . >>speaker: please. i just want to showcase some of members of our team listed on the slide. there's so many other people that have participated in collaborating with us and certainly helping us to be fought partners in our new

website. i certainly do want to give a shout out to all into medications and it and the enterprises different programs, divisions andbureaus. who havetruly partnered with us on this website transformation project . next slide . just wanted to point out a couple of things that we will be going over today. we're talking about why we do, how we did the newwebsite. to really walk through the launch the rollout of the new website , it certainly provides a sneak to all on this website. is fully working but we're still not publicly launching just yet is why i say this needs to be to and certainly wantto open it up forquestions . next slide . i want to take usback in time . about 10 years ago i'm not sure

if you recall commissioner harrington, you were at the time rgm sp and we resigned our website to what you see today on sf water.org. over the last 10 years many of us have had adopted smart phones or just using phones differently, technology differently. methods are also very different compared to what it was when we first launched the current website on sfwater.org. people are using technology in so many different ways and we heard over the years there are some pain points withour current website such as it is not mobile friendly . i encourage you all if you take the time to after this meeting to try to access sfwater.org on your mobile device whether it's smart phone, or account you will notice that there are some

pain points youprobably have experienced , especially the pinching to enlarge the current website and just trying to navigate. certainly we heard a lot of pain points as pertains to the current website. it's just difficult to display on a mobile device. we also heard loud and clear from different stakeholders that the navigation is very difficult and some of the results that you plug into the search function will up a lot ofdifferent things . it's a very little intuitive search plus over a course of 10 years, there have been a lot of authors on the website so the consistency of the voice, the content, there's been redundancy . there's just different personalities on different pages as well and we heard a lot of issues translation so all that to say many many reasons have applied why we're doing it and how we are hoping

that our newwebsite that we will be showcasing in just as it will help resolve a lot of these painpoints . next slide . >> as teresa mentioned our website when you do visit the site currently on your mobile device you will realize a lot of pinching, a lot of us stretching, a lot of scrolling left and right which is not natural for mobile devices to one of the key things we focus on as part of the redesign effort was to make sure the underlying design was responsive and will allow us to support viewing the website consistent across all different types of devices whether you are on a standard desktop, on a tablet or on a mobile device. we anticipate like the rest of the world that visits to the website will drastically increase on mobile devices in the future and we will become the de facto standard way in

which consumers will view our website so we are ensuring that the redesigned website will support all devices across all types. >> throughout the course of thisproject we did not want to work in a vacuum . we wanted to be collaborative and hear from various partners , both internal as well as external. so different folks that we've engaged with again, not just our executive team but certainly a different working group, that's sfpc or even different ways they have been interacting with the public on various content pieces or certain calls to action that have been displayed on sfwater.org. we've engaged with the chp several times especially during the kickoff and just really a vision for thisproject . taking in their feedback and

asking them what is missing? what are the things you as a user, a website visitor would value as well? to page in fact in normal times we engaged in person with the city's digital services team. that really hasn't had a great working group, fully representing across the city, working on various website transformation projects. we mayhave had different , then on different phases of our project whether it was soliciting or maybe in the middle of an implementation or even after it's gone live, how have they been incorporating the feedback from the public. so we've got a lot of feedback from them, a lot of lessons learned from that group and then also just continuing those conversations as we want to learn, we want to be responsive and certainly knowing that a lot of our audiences overlaps. it was important for us to really learn from others as

well as thinking through how w would realistically implement a lot of that feedback into our project . next slide. which is how we came up with these goals. at the start of the project these were some of our guiding principles . and still are. for us to continue to march towards i would say it's really important toemphasize that once we launch the website , it's notthat we view it as a gun product . there are roads and thoughts to continue to enhance the product cause technology as we know continues to change so we want to be responsive to our community. these are just goals that we will continue to marchforward with even after we go live . next slide. we, this project is very user focusedso as i mentioned before , with all the different folks

that we engage with over the project, we always went back to okay, let's take ourselves out of the hat, staff person, let's ourselves in the shoes of a websiteuser, having a more empathetic approach when it comes to different audiences that may need to do certain things on our website . these are just five examples of five audiences that actually come to the site a lot to do certain thingsand we were really again putting ourselves in their shoes , empathizing with them what arethe things you are looking for to do or to learn about or to even find information , whether it is signing up to do something, attending ameeting, looking for a contract tbid on . reading more about a certain program , getting informed . really we were drawing upon i guess a lot of empathy. and again taking ourselves out

our staff minds and really looking at it from a user focused approach next line . laura, when you take this one? >> one of the things you'll see in the title of the slide is we are transitioning our new website domain from sfwater.org to sfpc.org. i'll provide details as to how the transition will take place i will go over to marie about why we are going with sfpc.org. >> sfwater.org has been around for a long time and as our organization has continued to grow in a lot of our program areas representing the different enterprises, it was important for us to move into a url that is representative of the rest of theagency . certainly not to say that water is not important.

it is certainly important as well as the various enterprises and services that we provide so sfpc.org is something that we were moving into but certainly we are still holdingonto sfwater.org as well as the other urls that we havealready purchased .and we will continue to maintain . so for sfpc.org, and sfwater.org sfwater.org, the sites are going to be living in tandem because we understand there's going to be a period of time that we need to do a lotof change management , informing the public that things are shifting over to the new site and certainly we want to make sure that people have the time to really learn about the new website and the new navigation. next slide. actually, i'll pause there. lee and brad, if you can queue up the homepage as well.

perfect. thank you so much. lee and brad, i'm going to slowly cue you to walk through and scroll down. this is the new homepage right now working website is not launched publicly .it's still in the faces where we are finishing up the bugs and testing and makingsure that we clean up all the content . i wanted to show you all the homepage will look like . as lawrence mentioned it is certainly built on a new advancement system that is mobile responsive to what you see here in this display is very much for the desktop but there are, there is a website that mobile finally will already size of the site to any mobile device and i'll have moreon that in a moment. if you can scroll down just a little bit . you will see that there are someicons here .

we brought up and elevated a lot of the top pages that we know people are accessing. this is just based on metrics that we tracked over time as well. very call to action oriented as you can see here area if you can scroll down just a bit. the new homepage also allows us to get again toelevate a lot of quick links . this is what we've done so far. and howcan we help these individuals ? for customers we have quick links, contractors and individuals we have quick links allover the homepage easy access . our goal is to not have the user embark on a labyrinth of content to get what they need which is why we have a lot of quicklinks on thehomepage . if you can click over to developers and contractors . you can see just the folks there and see how under how can

we help, there we go. we can follow between the two different groups and you can see different links as well. scroll down just a little bit further. the homepage, allows us to highlight certain programs . the team can actually editorialize a lotof the different programs . it gives us a chanceto highlight cool things the agency is doing . one of the key things that we will be doing a lot more is to update our homepage more frequently. it gives people a reason to come back. it feels scroll down a little bit so we can showcasethe video carousel . thank you. and if you can click on to the little arrow right many the

first video. i want to showcase how that experience is going to feel like so that the carousel actually scrolls sideways. you can take a look at more videos and again, the purpose of this is to do more storytelling. really highlight programs and some really neat things that we have captured on video. i wanted to show that experience really there's a lot of scrolling left and right within itself, not moving outside of what you can see on your page . thank you. if you canscroll all the way down . we have our news releases and our upcoming events. right now on our current website you almost have to dig into the website to find these things so our purpose is to elevate a lot of the content, especially for some really good newsthat we want to share from

press releases . we will be highlighting front and center as well as over to the right we have upcoming events. you want to highlight things that are coming up right away but certainly for foldsthat want to take a look at more they can click either on these columns . and then lastly, a really great feature that i think is standard across a lot of websites nowadays is if you click on that board arrow, that's kind of orange yellow. perfect. when you click on that it brings you directly to the top of the page again less scrolling with your finger or your mouse . there are ways, there are tricks,shortcuts you can navigate the site .you can take a look at things very differently but again, i think what we're trying to do is to make it as simple as possible. to make links in different places where it's easy for people to access.

some things will maintain on, on the floater as well as at the top written. multiple ways for people to find things. our search function is much better where you click onthe magnifying glass please . to the right ofabout us . once you start typing a lot of you type in, start typing in water. notice that actually is is more intuitive search features where it will hold a lot of differen pages that have the word water in . again, our current website does not do that. so for the new site we certainly have more features, easier ways to navigate and an

easier way to find things. i'm going to pause here and let lauren chime in as well quit i'll comment with regards to the mobile aspect andexperience all the content you saw there , quite a bit different types of widgets from the carousel to thecalendars . to the videos, all those layouts and widgets are represented on a mobile device consistently without the user having to pinch or resize the images, the text automatically resizes to a visible format on whatever device they are working on. whether it'stablets, whether it's smartphone. so we don't have to maintain a separate sort of mobile site . it is a single responsive design that will adjust depending on whether you're looking at so regardless of the variety of content we have on our site it will render consistently across all devices

because of the responsive framework that we have in place . so it makes reviewing consistent across the board without us having to maintain multiple iterations of our site. >> brad, if you cancall back to the presentation . and then you can go to the next slide so there's still a lot of work to be done . we're still in to launch the site at the end of this month and we are really approaching it as we are not showing off the light at sfwater.org. both sides will be running in tandem but after a training time we will stop updating and documentation around placing people to sfpc.org, have new updated information and contact their after a time, do a lot more change management and medication to the public to let them know that sfwater.org will direct everything over to

sfpc.org so there's a lot of work that isn't captured on this timeline but these are some immediate thingswe're going to see you doing . doing some initial external communications tovarious audiences .doing a lot of work with our audiences and employees. certainly we want to make sure that the information that we want with is correct so that's why we haven't made the site public yet and why we're still doing a lot of cleanup like i mentioned andworking through a lot of bugs . and also we're doing a lot of training . we certainly want to make sure that the folks that need to update the site know how to do it and we will continue to do these training sessions even after the launch. again, our plan is not to be one and done. it still launched with a workable product that at the same time continue to enhance the product and be responsive to what we are hearing backfrom

various audiences the feedback that howdo we make the website better ? lawrence, anything you want to add ? >> i think you got all points. >> next slide please. as imentioned a lot ofwork we are doing with employees right now . we have announcements coming our way . maybe i wouldn't call them lunch andlearns because everybody , i certainly don't want to take up somebody's lunch hour we will be doing some informal sneak the sessions and certainly do a little show and tell. and really take on questions because it's important for us to engage our employees again, for them to also feel confident as they engage with members of the public or evencustomers , knowing where to point people to you that'ssomething that's important to us as part of this rollout . next slide . we have a lot of planned communications with our customers but certainly also

with the general public. these are justsome of the ideas that we are going to be working towards . certainly not to say that captures everything so there's definitely a lot more that we are planning in terms of a newsletter that will be included on the bills . certainly a lot of change management on our current website people to the new sfpc.org. really promoting on socialmedia digital communications . telling people in various channels that this is the new site, please come to visit and be moved,etc. . next slide. >> as teresa mentioned numerous times as we transitioned over from sfwater.org to sfpc.org, we will still keep peoples site

up and running. we will likely update the banner to let individuals know that we have a newhome and to please visit the new home at sfpc.org. we will likely ask for people to operate a bookmarks they have with the new sites location . we will likely also put in the timeframe in which we will stop allowing folks to access the old sfwater.org website and automaticallyredirect them to the sfpc.org site .so generally that will probably take months out but we will still continue to monitor traffic on the old site and if we see a significant number of users still visiting sfwater.org we will collaborate with communications and conduct additional outreach to make sure that peopleare aware of our new sfpc.org website . on a separate but related project is with regards to emails. since we're changing our website domain to sfpc.org, we are also looking at changing our email addresses to sfpc.org as well.

with thattransition , we will also look at changing the nomenclature to something that's a little more contemporary where instead of just the first letter of your first name and last name we are looking at full first name, period, full last name as part ofyour email address . we also working with hr and working at changing the nomenclature and including sort of the mayors corrected on gender inclusivity where perhaps leveraging an individual's chosen name versus theirlegal name as part of the email address . we're still working through some of those details with hrs once we get some of those details plan that we will have a better time frame but our goal is to look to transition emails fairly shortly after we go live with the sfpc.org website. >> next slide.

as i mentioned, there's still so much work to be done and one thing i want to call attention to is that with our newwebsite we certainly want to make culturally responsive . so our current website has google translate on sfwater.org. we know as we heard back from a lot ofpeople we know that's not good enough . in partnership with ips, we procured a different translation tool that also allows for us to insert human translation so that's definitely something that is very important to us as we are able to and as we really just look for ways to enhance the content, it's also equally very important for us to be responsive in translation and then also looking for ways to enhance how we can be more

culturallyresponsive to our different communities . that may need toaccess a website for various reasons . so once we launch there's so much more work to be done. that's what he continued enhancement roadmap. also we procured thing is part of how we make decisions around enhancement which is a website optimization tool that will give us a lot of information about visitor behavior and what really draws them to certain pages or content. again allows us to have the data to make decisions on how to enhance our website going forward and then build out a roadmap that is again responsive to our community. our official launch will be an of the month . it's not one and done. i would certainly hope to come back in the near future to you

all and report back after we had time with the new website on how is performing and things we would like to include on our nextenhancement . that is all for our presentation and thank you so much for your time i appreciate yourattention at initiative in this . >> chair, presidentmaxwell, i have a couple comments if i may . one, teresa and lawrence, i'm incredibly impressed with what you've put together with us . i just as an example in a previous job i actually gave that assignment to again a much smaller staff to put something together i got bored because they were everything that i wanted to have with the insurance medications and information andinteractive stuff and whatever else , there was no real plan to make sure

it was simple and it was going to be accessible. it was going to be this great labyrinth like you were reading war and peace or something, the novel and it took everybody so long. so i'm really impressed with the amount of pills that you put into thinking about what this is going to look like. and i hope that is going to be what it is. anybody who has any desire to get on this website is going to find fast. they're not going to have to look too hard to get whatever they want. i don't care if it's like what about my bill, what is my water off, what are the commissioners doing ? whatever is going on is just pain. with the good things that you put out it's clear that you're doing that stuff but again, just as commissioner you have to roll all this stuff out for

transparency and we're doing this publicly right now.i kind of understood everything you saidabout halfway through it and then it went on and on . he keeps going and i hope that this does translate into all of the websites, the transitions from one to the other and whatever else that works on so i'm incredibly impressed and i hope it stays that simple. because we are a community of complainers . we've been on a, we don't find what we want and then we complain about . so that is, and i think you adjusted everything. you said we want to be simple and you have these beautiful, i'm going to lose my power digging in the sand? it is a friendly way of you putting together so anyway, i am impressed and i hope it

stays simple and i it stays in a way that people are going to say when i click on the link i'm going to get what i want and not have to search too much i didn't get theanswer or whatever else . again, i'm impressed and hope it works the way you've rolled it out. >> colleagues, any further comments western. >> i had a comment, thank you. nice job. i have a few comments and question actually for you. did you ever scrape the information in your search to see what people are looking for whenthey came to the website ? obviously there are people who come and have very specific needs. it's much more straightforward but i want to find a specific

answer and i search for it and i can't find, it's always somewhere in your system but i'm not sure you're able to take that data out to see what people have tried to look for and have not been as successful tofind . since there is a lot of interest in making sure you are serving everybody and every member ofthe public , i think that's veryimportant . the second thing is obviously this is a great effort and my previous jobs every job i've had they tried to launch a new website at different times and this is definitely a never ending effort. so i was wondering as you were going through this process, have you been trying to look to see where and how the websites are ableto link ?

maybe by the time you launch this and three years from now it will be outdated and particularly if you can get the next generation at this point rather than the previous one. and i guess that was about it. i was also one other question i have andi don't know , i assume based on what you showed you guys try to figure out who visits your website often but there's this search maps that people use to see how often people click on what and where theygo and what they do . and i have information that you had on your visitors site was to use what came out of that but i was wondering if that's the case and how to use that information? thank you, and great job obviously . >> you want to follow up with some of the answers toyour

questions . on our current website we have pages that people are frequently visiting so that drives some of the key lessons that you see on our initial websiteabout the search or reporting a problem . that has influenced our design. however one of the things we are lacking is sort of as teresa was mentioning is the search optimization. if somebody visits our site donated one page or do they go to areas of the site to see if they can follow that journey to help us better understand how to refine our website so the information that is frequently being listed is several layers deep and continues to search and we see that pattern of failure so part of it is going to be critical to providing us an additional depth of information to our existing

site so hopefully that answers your questions with regards to better understanding the behavior of our users and being able to adjust our website accordingly to get the information that they frequently get or we can get you. >> so that is coming after you launch the website ? >> it's going to be part of our website as we launch. >> at this point you're not able to scrape information out of previous website see how often you lost people because they were not able to find what they were looking for ? >> you have to understand statistics like. >> .what about the next generation? was that something you guys consider? >> i can take this one. i think with web optimization

certainly going to get a better picture of the difference visitors that come to our website area and also the journey andalso insights in terms of who are these individuals and what they cannot . we're excited to embark on that right after we launch the site and get some numbers and data to help support that. in terms of the different audiences, demographics, generations of people , we certainly have done a lot of research on what are some different websites that have more transactional call to action. we look at some really, some of them are our favoritewebsites that draws in . and then also look at okay, who are we advocating, what is the offer instead of making sure that ever we develop as realities around as well . i mean, i was just for us to have a website in the future where really classy website

that really is visionary for a utility agency and i think we're going to inch our way towards their course you want to make decisions about the different ways that we level our website based on metrics and data. certainly i think we are very excited to start network, this next phase of the website project and i think that would the different audiences, different age groups and demographics like we mentioned . hopefully our future ratepayers as well so again, i fully emphasize once we launch is not one and done,it's more work to come . >> thank you all. is there any further comments? i want to say thank you so much for your great workand we look forward to seeing more. thank you . >> madam secretary.

>> members of the public who wish totwo minutes of public comments on item 6 , 415-655-0001, meeting id 146-359-0630 poundpath . raise your hand to see pressáthree and update to the sfpc.org website. mister moderator,do we have any colors in the queue ? >> 2colors waiting to be recognized. go ahead caller,you have two minutes to speak on item number six . >>. >>speaker: this is very important and long overdue because i find that when i first started reading the

agendas i have to click through several pages of menus to do so so this is definitely welcome and i have several expensive mobile devices which i use because i like to be portable and so a large desktopcomputers and laptops don't work for me . so obviously i think they have to have a more mobile centric function about this. certainly the website should tie into more effective attainment to our customers. more and morepeople are getting smart phones and tablets . free cellular service so technology is becoming more available. we have to be responsive to that. hopefully we can create a app that will come out of this and people can pay for their bills

with a few keystrokes . thank you for the gender equit provisions that were mentioned i'm looking forward to it . thank you.>> thank you for your comments. next caller, you've got 2 minutes toitem number six . >>speaker: can you hear me now? david phil paul again. please post today's presentation on this item online. i would like to read carefully to appreciate the challenges that staff walked through. i hope that website updates and changes will remove existing content but only add and enhance. i'm happy to help and discuss with the appropriate staff. for example the construction project list on page one, 275 on the website does not list all active projects in the city and does not look like it's

been maintained or being maintained well remember, not everyone has digital access , good internet service or uses email i for one don't use email. we should try to meet people where they're at and i think this website overhaul to better address mobile devices is a great example of that. the city committee on information technology continues to discuss centralizing and standardizing city websites. it has its pros and cons. i don't think that takes into account the particularities of the various departments like ez. i doubt that the city's digital services team help on this redesign. i think that should be significantly downsized and decentralized to the departments and if you need help they should help you and not get in the way and wanted to be done there way andfinally i think alida! before me about clicking through items is well taken .

sharepoint may be useful for staff but i think it's very clunky for public downloads for this meeting attachmentsfor example so perhaps that will change in the future . anyway, good work. i hope to see morein the future . thanks. >> comments? madam secretary there are no more colors in the queue. >> publiccomment on item 6 is closed . >> madam president, you are muted. >> next item please. >> the next order of business is item 7: report of the general manager. mister karlin. >> michael carlin, acting general and i'm going to give you to katie millerto give you an update on the program .

>> thank you michael. good afternoon madampresident and commissioner . i'm katie miller, director of water capital programs here to present an update on the status project in water enterprise capital improvement program. as of the end of second quarter in december 2020 and i'd like to get a special warmwelcome to commissioner ajami, we're happy to have your expertise okay. let's get started . next slide. this slide shows the overall program status of the 36 regional and local projects representing $2.2 billion . at the end of the quarter, i'm sorry. ithought we were starting off in water enterprise . this is the water, i'm sorry, can you go back one slide? this is our water system

improvement program. and this is at the end of the second quarter.i apologize. you can go aheadand share the water system improvement program. that's okay brad . [inaudible] >> we will be hearing item 71st. water system improvement program, report first. thank you. >> this is our water systems improvement program and the half pleaded the local part of the water system improvement program so i will be reporting only on the regional programs. and as of december 2020, this slide shows the status of the over 52 projects inthe regional system representing $3.8 million . our program is 99 percent complete with only 124 million

remaining to be spent. atthis time there is only one project , six are in construction andone is in close out . the other 42 projects have been completed . next slide. this table shows the summary of our project costs forecast compared to the approved budge . as you can see most of the projects are pretty on budget. with the exception of the san francisco regional region and that is fromour regional groundwater storage and recovery . this project is on cost and exceed the approved budget and this is primarily due to the much longer than expected construction contract and several changes in scope that have occurred for that project as it's gone along. next slide. this slide shows a schedule summary and it summarizes the number of projects that are forecasted to exceed the current approved schedule.

over the projects that are still underway you can see only one project exceeds is approved schedule by six months and again, the regionalgroundwater storageand recovery project . next slide . and now i will share with you some highlights from the projects that are underway. the alameda creek recapture project, we are very proud to share that divine documents are complete and the contract was advertised for construction in december. we did in january and the needs are being evaluated at this time we're lookingforward to getting this project in construction . next slide. the regional groundwater storage and recovery project is the project i was sharing that has extended schedule and budget at this time. the phase i construction

contract is 98percent complete . but there have been significant numbers of change orders in order to try and get these 14 well sites up and operational. just in q 2 there was $1 million in change orders this includes changing out the metering cost of site and carrier costs, calibrating flowmeters and performing repairs to three of the wells where there was significant corrosion issues down in the well shaft. so there's still some work to be done but we're hoping to wrap that phase i construction project in q2. so the phase 2 project, this is to complete the i'm sorry, go back one.complete the well construction at the south entrance is domain well. it's one well that was staggered behind because of the easements and issues and that, they're finishing the design on it for the pipeline work . we're going to add protection improvements at all remaining

well sites because of the corrosion issues that we saw at the three wells. this work is ongoing. we still expect it to be completed by the end of our currently approved date which is may 2023. there continue to be challenges withthe well site . next slide. the calendars dam replacement project as you are aware reached significant substantial completion in 2019.but with such a large project there were quite a few punchlist items and remaining things to be closed out. were also still trying to perform inspections in the reservoir feels completely and we had a pretty dry winter last year. hoping for somegood storms so we can get that up to highlight and finish the inspections . next slide. the second contract that is

part of the dam replacement project is fish passage facility at alameda creek conversion dan and as the name implies allows this to continue to migrate up alameda creek while we are able to diver water to the reservoir this budget also is 90 percent complete . we also need to do testing you can see in the top photo there's a bar screen and to really test that weneed very high flows in the greek . we hope we get a wet winter here ahead we can do some testing but in the meantime there are some challenges communication and the solar facilities medication . equipment that islocated in the dam site. and also we need , we learned we need protection equipment on this so that people can get in

and work on the facility. we are currently evaluating whether we do that under the existing contract or whether we close the contract out in this quarter and do this under a different contract in one of ourcloseout contracts . next slide. so now we have four closeout projectsthat are regional by nature and this was because it was a large program . there are just a lot of little follow up things to take care of. but these are progressing along and most of them will closeout in either this quarter by march or by the summer. in the san joaquin region we have solar panel facilities, a lot of equipment and several of the valve vault along the. we are getting the battery back so we don't, all that work is

coming to a close and we will get itdone this spring. next slide . there were several subprojects that mostly have been finished. we are selling polymer feed facilities for the water treatment plant. this project will fund the design and in our water capital improvement program project to install facilities. and the backup pipeline carrier water has some follow-up issues for monitoring. one of those is to put more water monitoring equipment in theirving tunnels and that's all getting completed and wrapped up . next slide. the beta vision, we installed

some drainage facilities around some of our valves. these all been installed and are completed. we would be finished but one fencepost that was in the districtwide way needed to be relocated and so that work is happening then we're going to build as well. really nice to see all coming to. next slide. and finally in the peninsula region, we completed the work on the replacement, a lower springs dan, that was a joint project with san joaquin county and all that's left is we have, we pledge to provide security system improvements for that and so we're working on design for that and hope to have that installed in the next six months and distilling basin connectingchannel , i believe

that the last commission meeting you all approved. that is done. next slide. and just a final kind of a fun slide. last quarter, a celebration of completion of the local cip which was a final project with the pump station was completed in june2020 . we had a little bit of acknowledgment into events, in october 20, 2010 was a press event at the lake merced qualification and we made a short video of that as well as we got coverage from the local media. then in december 2020resume event for employees . commissioner paulson was generous enough to join us and was a lot of fun. we showed slides before and after, his slides of some of

the facilities in san francisco and alan johansson and howard and kathy have joined and gave commentary on how some of the projects went and some of the successes it was a really nice event and i think that really appreciated urine from management and receiving some of that acknowledgment . that concludes my presentation on the water system improvement program and i'd be happy to answer any

>> -- that offset the corrosive

qualities of the water and therefore keep -- prevent your -- the metal in the wells from corroding further. so we are now installing that cathodic protection. in addition to preparing those wells, which was very expensive, we are installing cathodic protection at those three sites, and we will add cathodic protection at the remaining 11 sites just in case. we don't think there is corrosion at these wells, but we think it would be a good idea. >> so do we know where it's coming from, the corrosion?

is it chemicals? is it the soil? where is it coming from? >> i don't presume to know or i don't want to go into too much detail, but there's been some nutrients in the water that are not harmful, but they provide opportunity for microbes. we did have experts come in, and they are providing information for us. i don't think -- i think this is a very normal-type thing that we just didn't anticipate and now we're responding to. >> so how long -- is there a life cycle for these solutions? will it go on forever?

will we have to replace? will we have to redo? what is that? >> i will get back to you with more details because i don't want to say something erroneous, but they do have a life cycle. it's probably ten years or something like that, but i can get back to you with more details. >> i'm wondering, if we're going to add to that with our maintenance and details, is that something we're going to add to our budget so we don't go oh, my goodness. >> i appreciate that comment. that is something that is really important to consideration, the cost and the security to maintain. >> and then, the next that you mentioned was the security at crystal springs. what are we trying to secure? >> you know, i know it's for

the bridge, and i think it's in conjunction with san mateo county, just to monitor for intruders or, you know, just to have some monitoring. >> so electronic surveillance of some kind? >> yeah. it's, like, cameras and video. here's steve. do you know more about that? >> yeah. it's additional fencing in some areas and additional -- and two security cameras. >> okay. fencing and security cameras? >> yes. >> all right. thank you. >> relatively simple. >> colleagues, any other questions or comments? >> just a quick comment. this is commissioner paulsen. i'm just very pleased, as i've been on this commission, to know that the talent of being able to monitor a major infrastructure, you know, can deal with the type of questions that we've had, and it's, like,

you know, like, any construction site, there's always going to be, no matter how well everything is built, which, of course, in the bay area, is usually so incredibly well bit, there's also a monitoring process and punch lists and what-have-you are based on forces that nobody can ever anticipate. and the sfpuc is enriched with the talent to -- and that the sfpuc is enriched with that talent to take care of this is just -- it's questions about what the government is supposed to be about, so i'm proud to be a part of this in this particular area of infrastructure, so thank you. >> thank you for that comment. i will pass that on. >> thank you. >> i actually -- madam

president, i actually wanted to -- katie, thank you so much for your presentation. it was very informative. i want to second the comments that president maxwell made on erosion, and i would like to see some more information on that, so if you end up putting them together, i would appreciate if you can share with all of us. thank you. >> yeah, absolutely. >> madam secretary? >> members of the public who wish to make comments on item 7-b, the water quality report, dial 415-655-0001, then enter meeting i.d. to raise your hand to speak,

press star, three, and i'd like to note that system 7-b was called out of order, and it's for the water system program quarterly report. >> moderator, do we have any callers? >> operator: yes, madam secretary, we have one caller in the queue. >> clerk: thank you. >> operator: caller, please go ahead. you have two minutes. >> this is david pillpel again. i would like to see items that are presented posted on the website afterward. i can follow up with don on

that. i also wanted to note that i chaired the p.u.c. citizen advisory subcommittee for a year, so when there are events that recognize project milestones and completion, particularly if they have been in the works for a long time, it would be nice to be invited or included. not just me, but there are a number of people, former staff and c.a.c. members who should be invited to those events. despite that there's a virus out there, we are still seeing projects to completion, so just wanted to mention that. thanks very much. >> clerk: mr. moderator, are there any other callers?

[inaudible] >> operator: go ahead, caller. i'm sorry. two minutes. >> thank you. commissioners, this is ali altahar. if you remember the c.s. 910, which is the construction management services that i won fair and square, and if you remember also how you tried to derail that contract by contacting a designer that was involved in the design of some of those processes under my contract, and you tried to give them the work directly not only violated the ethics code, you also violated the conflicts of interest by allowing a designer to conduct their own construction management design and connection. shame on you, katie. this is why the corruption is

so embedded in the p.u.c. because of your kind and because of the conduct of yourself. >> operator: thank you, caller. madam secretary, there are no more callers in the queue. >> clerk: thank you. [inaudible] >> clerk: public comment on item 7-b. >> can we go to the next item? >> clerk: yes, item 7-a.

[inaudible] >> next slide. this table shows a summary of the project costs forecast compared to their 2018 approved budget. the projects are grouped into categories. as you see, there are many projects with forecasted costs that exceed the 2018 budget. know that these forecasted costs are within the 20 to 30 ten-year c.i.p. in march, we will be bringing you you a recommendation to rebaseline these programs so the budget can be consistent with the budgets that were approved in the ten-year c.i.p. in 2020. next slide. this table summarizes the number of projects that are forecasted to exceed the 2018

approved schedules. again, there are many project that's have exceeded the approved schedules by more than six months. this is for a variety of reasons that are specific to each project. over the past year, we have carefully analyzed the project's scope, schedules, and budgets, and we recommend revising many of these to accommodate our current resources and permitting and contracting restrictions. we will be bringing you our recommended rebaseline program for your approval in march. next slide. so some highlights of the reporting period. in general, we still are having some minor schedule impacts due to the covid safety requirements, but not too bad. and i shared with you, what you're seeing in this will be

the same that we propose to you when we come back in march to propose the new baseline for this program. and i'll skip the rest because i have slides for each individual project, so let's go onto the next slide. so this is the regional water project, and why don't we go to the next slide. so the sunol project, this gives you an idea of the breadth of what's needed. the san andreas number two, the completed construction of over one mile of pipeline that was

completed in san bruno. at this time, the creditor's completing -- the contractor's completing punch list items. this line carries water from the harry tracey treatment plant to several parts of san francisco. this project was completed on time and on budget, even with several times going through very environmentally sensitive habitats. next slide. the crystal springs pipeline is in early planning stage and undergoing corrosion assessments and geotechnical testing. next slide. the southern boulevard ridge extension, we are just waiting for the approval of the environmental impact report. the planning commission is reviewing our response to public comments documents that

was submitted to them last quarter, so we hope as soon as we can get approval, we'll get this project out to construction. for the sunol long-term improvements projects, there are two contracts. the first contract is the sunol yard and shops, and that contract was closed out during the quarter. for the watershed center, the walls are being erected, and this picture shows the lovely architecture that are being put on those walls. they're really doing a great job out there. a few additional native american features were found, and these are being handled appropriately as i've noted in past reports, and the arts exhibit continues. next slide. so this is an example of some of the art and exhibits that are being considered at this time, so very exciting projects. and next slide. and now i'll cover some

highlights of the local program. next slide. the [inaudible] and the contracts are approaching completion. again, there's just a lot of close-out items to do, and starting up the wells and converting them over to the potable water. right now, they are feeding the irrigation systems in golden gate park. next slide. and the sister project to this is the san francisco west side recycle water project because when this project's done, this will feed the irrigation in golden gate park, and we will convert the groundwater to potable system. for this project, the most of the building structures are completed at the oceanside water pollution control plant, and the treatment system is being installed, and they're also making improvements to the building structures.

next slide. the college hill reservoir project has completed design, and we anticipate this will go out to bid in either this quarter or in q-4, so it's a great one to get out to the streets. next slide. and our main replacement program, it never ends. continues to go on. we have 12 projects in construction right now. the geary street project was completed during q-2, and i think there's going to be a couple other projects going out to bid in the next project. and that's my presentation, and i'm happy to take any questions. >> any questions? i have a very [inaudible] rollins road building that we just purchased, and i think at some point, you were going to

have staff in that building, and then, you changed your minds and decided to [inaudible] so why was that? >> the rollins -- you want to recover that, michael? >> yeah. we purchased -- we leased rollins road for several years, and then, we purchased it. we went through the exercises of rebuilding the millbrae yard and then went through the procedure of removing them back to millbrae yard. so they're actually planned for their movement over there in a couple of years. >> thank you. all right. any further questions or comments, colleagues? seeing none, then, thank you. >> thank you. >> madam clerk, public comment on item 7-a.

>> clerk: members of the public who wish to make comment on item 7-a, water enterprise capital improvement program quarterly report, dial 415-655-0001, enter meeting i.d. 146-039-1469. press pound, and pound again, then press star, three to enter the queue. will moderator, do -- mr. moderator, do we have any callers? >> operator: madam secretary, we have one caller in the

queue. >> this is ali [inaudible] please check your records. that contract was signed about $400 million, so 800 from 400, that's, what, 200% increase, and you call that -- you call that keeping the project under budget, keeping the price? now, the reason for this is seeking is confidence of people like katie miller, todd kelley, and others. 200% increase, and you are telling the public that ratepayers, that we are keeping our projects under control, under budget. this is -- this is amazing. do you really believe those statements that are being made? do you believe someone like kate miller who is willing and has tried and actually has done it, to call the designers to do the p.m.s, and i had a contract that i won fair and square?

it's the same story all over again. please wake up, commissioners. thank you for your time. >> operator: thank you for your comments. madam secretary, there are no more callers in the queue. >> madam president, that concludes my report. >> item 7-c, you have nothing to report? >> no. >> and madam president, we don't typically engage, i understand that, but just to be clear, katie was not involved in the calaveras dam project. a lot of unknown sites factors there, but it's not katie's issue. >> thank you. madam secretary, next item, please. >> clerk: madam president, your next item is item 8, new commission business. >> colleagues, any business?

seeing none, then, madam secretary, next item, please. >> clerk: your next item is item 9, consent calendar. all matters listed hereunder constitute a consent calendar, are considered to be routine by the san francisco public utilities commission and will be acted upon by a single vote of the commission, there will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the commission or the public so requests, in which event the matter will be removed from the calendar and considered as a separate item. >> any items that you would like to see taken off the calendar? no? seeing none, madam secretary, please open this item up for public comment. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to comment on this matter, dial 415-655-0001,

meeting i.d. 146-039-0630, pound, pound. mr. moderator, are there any callers? >> operator: madam secretary, there are two callers. first caller, your line is open. you have two minutes to speak to item 9. >> eileen [inaudible] san francisco coalition neighborhood, speaking on my own behalf. i am requesting the commission separate item 9-e, as in edward. this is the lynn col way-48 avenue diversion project, contract number ww-694. >> operator: thank you. next caller, you have two minutes to speak, and your line

is open. >> can you hear me now? >> operator: yes. >> thank you. david pillpel. i have two items. item 9-a talks about a specific item without the contract or the date, so i'll be requesting that from city planning, if someone can find that. item 9-b, by contrast, includes the case number, the date, and has a link to the e.i.r. addendum. that's a much better model, and i would strongly encourage is that approach going forward. finally, 9-d. it has the case number and contract, but there's no link

to the staff report in the categorical exemption, so that could be better. just looking to have a little bit better organization of these items. thanks very much. >> operator: next caller. you have two minutes to speak to item 9. >> this is ali altaha again, and specifically the contract with midship. if some of you have the history that i do, you should recognize the company being awarded this contract, which the owner is a personal friend of [inaudible] kelly. could this just be another walter wong sole source contract to buy pumps from

china? finally, with all due respect, commissioner harrington, i have a lot of respect for you, and the fact that you are a previous general manager of the p.u.c. the issue here is not what katie -- whether katie is or was involved in what project, the issue is the conflict of interest, the issue is the incompetence of an agency that allows them to double the cost of the contract. i'm well aware of why the geotechnical report and what it did not include and how it was covered up. i'm well aware of the fact, and i know exactly why the price is 800. the question is when is the p.u.c. willing to hire competent l.d.e.s and competent people instead of the pass through of the c.u.d. and the

flea market for whoever is going to get certified as a construction manager. again, just to review the west side of the report on l.d.e.s and the licensing requirement, it's not difficult. anybody can see it, but unfortunately, a lot of people decided to shut their eyes and close their mouths as if -- >> operator: thank you, caller. your time has expired. madam secretary, no more callers in the queue. >> clerk: thank you. item 9, consent calendar is closed. madam president, you're muted. >> may we have a motion and a second on all items except item e? >> so moved. >> second. >> i'll second. >> thank you. it's been moved and seconded on all items, except item e.

roll call

february 12, 2021, regular meeting of the san francisco ethics commission. commissioner chiu said, happy new year to everyone. commissioner lee will be joining us today. but she is delayed. so we expect her to join us shortly. this meeting is being held by teleconference pursuant to the governor's executive order n-2920 and the 12th supplement to the mayoral declaration dated

february 25th, 2020. before we proceed, i'd like to ask commission staff member acting as a moderator to explain procedures for the meeting. >> thank you, madam chair. the meeting reflects the covid-19 health emergency and protect commission members, city employees and public, the meeting rooms of city hall are closed. however, commission members and staff will be participated in a meeting remotely. this precaution is pursuant to the various local, state and federal orders, declarations and directives. commission members will attend the meeting through video conference and participate in the meeting in the same extent as in they were physically present. please note today's meeting is live cable cast on

www.sfgovtv/ethicslive. each member of the public will be allowed 3 minutes to speak. it's available via phone call by calling 1-415-655-0001. again, the phone number is 1-415-655-0001. access code is (187) 462-0879. again, 1874620879 followed by the pound sign. you will hear a beep when you're connected. you will are muted in listen mode only. when your item of interest comes up, dial star 3 to raise your hand to be added to the public comment line. you'll then hear you have raised

your hand to ask a question. wait until the host calls on you. the line will be silent as you wait your turn to speak. make sure you're in a quiet location. before you speak, mute the sound of equipment around you, including television, radio, or computer. it's especially important that you mute your computer if you are watching via the web link to prevent feedback and echo when you speak. when the system message says "your line has been unmuted," this is your turn to speak. you'll hear staff say welcome, caller. we encourage you to state your name clearly. as soon as you begin speaking, you will have three minutes to provide public comment. six minutes if online with an interpreter. you will hear a bell go off when you have 30 seconds remaining. if you change your mind and wish to withdraw yourself from the public comment line press star 3 again. you will hear the system say you have lowered your hand. once your three minutes expired, staff will thank you and mute you.

you will hear your line has been muted. again, those who wish to speak during other public comment periods may stay on the line and listen for the next public comment opportunity. raise your hand to enter their public line by pressing star 3 when their next item of interest comes up. public comment may be submitted in writing and will be shared with the commission after this meeting concluded and will be included as part of the file. written comments sent to ethics.commission@sfgov.org. thank you. >> chair ambrose: with that, i call the meeting to order. mr. moderator, can you proceed with item one, commission roll-call. check >> clerk: commissioners please

unmute your microphone. [roll-call] >> clerk: madam chair, with four members present and accounted for, you have a quorum. >> chair ambrose: thank you very much. as i said, commissioner lee will be joining us shortly. i'll make an announcement when she joins us. but i would like to go ahead and proceed with the agenda item number 2, public comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the agenda. members of the public who are on the line and wish to speak, dial star 3, if you have not done so, to be added to the public comment line. moderator can you proceed. >> now it's public comment on agenda item number 2. as a reminder to participants in today's meeting, if you are

shuffling paper, if you are -- all background noise can be heard. please mute, thank you. the ethics commission is receiving comment on item 2 remotely in this meeting. each member of the public has up to three minutes to provide comment. if you joined earlier to listen, now is the time to get on-line to speak. if you have not already, press star 3. it's important you press star 3 only once to enter the queue. as it will move you out of the public comment. once you are up in line, the system will prompt you when it's your time to speak. address your comment as a commission to the whole and not individual members. madam chair, we're checking to see if there's callers in the queue.

[silence] >> clerk: madam chair, there are no callers in the queue. >> chair ambrose: thank you very much for that. i'm going to call agenda item number 3, the consent calendar. we have the draft minutes for the january 8th, 2021 as the commission's regular meeting. and we have a request for an amendment from one of the public participants, who communicated

those edits in advance to the director. director, do you want to read the amendment that -- or describe the amendment that was requested. and i'd like to ask for a motion to move the minutes, as amended. >> yes, good morning to commissioners. we did receive the email and the reviewed the audio from that meeting. it makes sense to us to adjust the minutes accordingly. so the paragraph under public comment under item number 3, january 21st, minutes would read at follows: ester marks identified investigations as priorities. she stated -- considering the

sum of those implicated in the corrections standard filed electronically and -- enable detection of their correct practices. the minutes would strike the next sentence as shown. and insert instead she stated: the commission is not known as being effective carrying out its mandate. she closed the board of supervisors and analyst's, to communicate goals that do not demonstrate effectiveness of core functions. >> chair ambrose: all right. i'm going to ask for a motion and second. and then, i would like to ask for public comment. so do i have a motion and second to accept esther marks' edits to her comments? >> so moved. >> chair ambrose: commissioner bush, do i have a second? >> commissioner bush: yes. >> chair ambrose: ron, can you request public comment before we vote on the consent -- i mean,

on the minutes? >> clerk: thank you, madam chair. the ethics commission is receiving public comment on consent calendar number 3 remotely in this meeting. each member of the public will have up to three minutes to provide public comment. you'll hear a bell when you have 30 seconds remaining. if you joined the meeting early to listen to the proceedings, now is the time to get in line to speak. if you have not already press star 3. it's important you press star 3 once to enter the queue as pressing it again will move you out of the public comment line and back into listening mode. once you are in the queue and standing by, the system will prompt when it's your turn to speak. it's important you call for a quiet location. please address your comments to the commission as a whole and not an individual member. madam chair, we're checking to see if there's callers in the queue. >> chair ambrose: thank you.

[silence] >> clerk: madam chair, we have no callers in the queue. >> chair ambrose: all right. thank you. i'm noting we have draft minutes from january 8th meeting that amendment is actually to the draft minutes for the january 21st, 2021 special meeting. commissioner bush, i just want to finish one thing. we also have the proposed

stipulation decision, which is action item on consent that you received in your packets. we also have received comments from esther marks about that fine in that matter. so i'm wondering if commissioners have any comments on that matter as well? so now, commissioner bush, please. you're muted, commissioner bush. >> commissioner bush: thank you. on the january 21st, minutes it says that i identified esther marks as a task member of the department of building inspection commission. as my understanding, she was on the board of permit appeals, not building inspection. so i would recommend that be changed. >> chair ambrose: okay. >> commissioner bush: are we ready to talk about the

stipulation at the same time now? or do you want to do the minutes first? >> chair ambrose: it's all -- well, actually, no. we can go ahead. we have a motion and a second to adopt, i will say, the minutes for january 8th, 2021 without amendment. and to adopt the draft minutes for the january 21st, 2021 special meeting with the amendment described by the director and amendment described by commissioner bush. so why don't we go ahead and vote on those two consent items 3 and 4. and then, we'll take a separate motion on the dante king stipulation. so ronald, can you call the roll on both items 3 and 4, the draft minutes for the january 8th and the january 21st meeting, as

amended. >> clerk: a motion has been made and seconded. i will call the roll. [roll-call vote] >> clerk: with three votes in the affirmative. i'm sorry. this is new to me, commissioner bell. >> commissioner bell: i was not a commissioner. i read the minutes, but i'll abstain at this point. >> if you don't mind me interjecting? >> chair ambrose: you can go ahead. i was going to let it go. but go ahead. >> i understand. as you are aware, commissioners

are not allowed to -- and commissioner bell, welcome. and my apologies, but unfortunately that applies to meeting minutes such as this. even if you didn't attend the meeting in question. >> commissioner bell: aye. >> clerk: thank you. >> chair ambrose: all right. >> clerk: four votes in the affirmative, the motion is approved unanimously. >> chair ambrose: and all right. i see that we have commissioner lee. welcome. happy new year! >> happy new year. >> vice chair lee: happy new year, everybody. [simultaneous speaking.] >> chair ambrose: can you hear us?

>> we can hear you, commissioner. >> vice chair lee: okay. [laughter] >> vice chair lee: was i cussing? >> no, you weren't. i just want today make sure you were aware. >> vice chair lee: well, happy new year, everybody. my apologies for being late. and i want to add my welcome to my fellow commissioner bell. >> commissioner bell: thank you so much. i appreciate it. i've already screwed up on my first vote so... [laughter] >> commissioner bell: i hope to get better from here on out. thank you. >> welcome. >> chair ambrose: it is an odd thing. i've had that question come up when i was advising commissions. it does seem odd to vote on minutes you weren't present for. there's a charter issue about not abstaining. moving along, we are -- commissioner lee, we are just about to take up item 5 on the consent calendar, which is the

stipulation for dante king. and i had mentioned -- and it may -- although, there wasn't anybody present for public comment on the consent items, esther marks had written an email, advising the mistake commenting that she did not support the reduction of the penalty from $5,000 to $2,500. and i -- when i read the stipulation, i didn't understand her point that there was an abuse of the public employment in pursuit of personal gain, which is what she referenced. so can we hear from mr. pierce or the director about what are the mitigating circumstances

that encouraged them to negotiate a stipulation with the lower penalty? >> sure. good morning, chair ambrose and commissioners. you know, the stipulation is a negotiated document, so this was a process that both parties engaged in to arise at. you know, realistically, settlement negotiations are confidential proceedings. and so in general, the document has to speak for itself. but i would refer commissioners to finding in the document indicating that we did not find -- the evidence did not reveal that mr. king had behaved intentionally or willfully. and we found as well that

mr. king cooperated with the investigation. he was forthcoming when we spoke with him, he expressed a willingness and desire to remedy any potentially unlawful conduct at the time that this was brought to his attention. and for those reasons, we arrived at the penalty that we reached. >> if i might add. one additional factors in the stipulation, we recommended and came to an agreement about, we looked to prior cases to try to peg them in the same ball part and that's what we did here as well. >> chair ambrose: okay. thank you for that. i'm going to make a motion to adopt the stipulation as recommended by staff. i like to support staff. you're the ones on the frontline of the investigation, so i would

make that motion to -- and commissioner bush, please. you're muted still, commissioner bush. >> commissioner bush: thank you. i have some questions about the stipulation that i hope could be answered. it mentions that he was in violation of the s-i-a statement. there's no requirement that i could see that people who are employees of the city and covered by is that correct?

>> i can tell you in this i think instance mr. king acknowledged the time he began employment he read and understood the statement of incompatible activities. you're right city law requires departments no later than april 1st of each year to distribute their statements. i can tell you the department in doing so notified employees that they had an obligation to read and understand the contents of those statements. but there's not -- i don't believe there's a requirement in city law that officers and employees annually acknowledge their understanding of the contents of those statements. >> commissioner bush: generally speaking, when we require people to read something that affects their employment, we require that they also sign that they

have read it, not simply that it went to their inbox. so i'm concerned that what this indicates is a broader issue that this was this employee. so i'm raising this issue here. secondly, it appears mr. king's violation of this persisted for three years; is that correct? he started his employment in 2016. and then, continued it until 2017. and 2018. and then, finally in 2019. >> to clarify, the stipulation does not describe liability in relationship to his outside employment. the liability arises only in relation to materials that he posted to a website that he created in relation to that employment. and the stipulation indicates that he created the website in june or july of 2018.

and that as far as we could tell, the material producing liability here were uploaded around march of 2019. so the span of his noncompliant behavior was a period of months rather than a period of years. [please stand by]

-- considering that he disclosed the names of employees who had taken the training or had signed up for the training. so i'd be happier with a higher

royalty than 2,500. that's my feeling. and what happens when i expressed that feeling? anything? >> i already made a motion that i would support the staff's recommendation. i mean, i see the description of the -- that he included, um, a website, the d.h.r. sign-in sheets that employees when had participated in his d.h.r. trainings had added their signatures to confirm their attendance, and i'm not clear why he wanted to show that people were taking the training that he was doing at d.h.r., i guess. but the amount of the penalty,

given that he made no income from the -- from showing that he had done d.h.r. trainings and his employee capacity. i mean, that to me is the question about penalty is in relation to how egregious the violation is and whether or not it was, you know, a money-makiny material and this just doesn't -- you know, in my view, $2,500 seems fairly effective in demonstrating one's -- the seriousness of the violation. but it's up to you, commissioners. and to decide what you all want to do. if we want to amend -- i mean, this is a stipulation on consent and we can amend it.

we'll send the staff back to renegotiate with this individual, which is underlying my concern, because it means then spending a lot of time in that capacity and maybe not working on the other backlog of the investigations that we have in our queue in order to try to attain an agreement to impose a higher penalty when to me i'm willing to support the staff recommendation that this is a fair stipulation. but it's up to the other three commissioners to decide which motion you want to second and then we need to vote. we need to move along, because we're still on consent. so any comments from commissioner chiu or lee or

bell? >> thank you, chair ambrose. on the one hand, the posting of these to the website, you know, would be -- of employees who attended the training and their capacity as employees and the training conducted by mr. king, as a city is in violation of this, and they had put their names down on the sign-up sheet though they wouldn't expect it to appear on a website. but balanced against that is in my mind a determinant factor is that, you know, according to mrt we received, you know, mr. king, immediately took it down. he said that i want to be in compliance with other areas of my website or my work outside of

my role for the city. you know, it's not in compliance. i think that, you know, what is the purpose of the sign? is it to be -- you know, punishment? retribution? or is it a deterrent and to send a message to others who may be engaging in outside activity to make sure that they are in compliance with their statement of compatible activities and they observe all of the rules and the procedures and, you know, seek guidance from the city attorney or the ethics commission as appropriate. and i think that like you we are not close -- as you noted, chair ambrose, we are not close to the facts and we're not on the frontlines conducting this. and as executive director pelham has said that they looked at past practice and other similarly situated cases, the

signs that were levied in those cases and that would be commensurate and consistent with that practice. and, you know, i would support as let recommendation of staff on this. and the main factor in my mind are, one, that they're closest to those facts and that the expression of a willingness to correct the mistakes and the, you know, the commitment and the undertaking towards future compliance, which is what -- which is what i think that is the ultimate goal of our efforts here is to ensure that people -- people, you know, will comply. >> chair ambrose: okay. so we have a motion and a second on my motion. we might have to get a

parliamentary assistant here. but do we have -- from commissioner lee or commissioner bell, if there isn't a second for commissioner bush's amendment, i'd like to call the roll on my motion to approve this stipulation and consent on number 5. so, commissioners, your hands are not up, and so on that basis i would ask ronald to please call the roll on agenda item number -- sorry, my screen just went dark -- agenda number 5. thank you. >> clerk: a motion has been made and seconded and i will now call the roll. [roll call vote]

with four votes in the affirmative and one vote in the negative, the motion is approved. >> chair ambrose: all right. thank you for that. and i'll call agenda item number 6. which is the election of commission officers for 2021 per ethics commission bylaws, art iv, section 1. there's a cover memo attached. and i should have read that before, because am pretty sure what i'm supposed to do is to ask for a motion. let's see... all right, i'm

going to open up the floor for nominations for chair. commissioner lee or commissioner bush. commissioner lee. >> vice-chair lee: thank you, chair ambrose. i think that the year has been a very challenging one for both our country and the city. we were hit by a couple of viruses, covid pandemic, and also in the city the outbreak of the corruption virus. the commission has gone through a very challenging year in various ways. and i really appreciate chair ambrose's leadership in guiding us through some really unusual

times. and i would nominate her to a second term, because we need steady leadership and continuity to bring us to a new chapter. to really rebuild the public's trust. and also to enforce the ethic commission's relevance in our work and tackling the -- the challenges that we're facing as a commission and in the city. so it is with honor for me to nominate chair ambrose to be our next chair for the commission. >> chair ambrose: thank you. commissioner bush. you are muted, unfortunately.

>> commissioner bush: i second the nomination of chair ambrose. >> chair ambrose: thank you very much. are there any other nominations? seeing none, i think what i'm supposed to do is to go ahead and call for a vote. and i would have happily stepped aside for any one of you, because i so admire and honor the work that you do. but i will try and to keep up with this work for the remainder of this year and will hopefully we'll be able to count on all of your support in doing so. so, ronald, if could you call the chair. >> i'm sorry to interrupt. andrew chen. we should take public comment before we do the vote?

>> chair ambrose: see, i first blew it. [laughter]. >> sorry for the interruption. >> chair ambrose: no, no, please, yeah, so that's -- boy, that's a lot of public comment. let's go through that really fast, ronald, if you could. >> 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 have been unmuted. if you have just joined this meeting we're on the public discussion on the motion of agenda item number 6, the election of commission officers for 2021 per ethics commission bylaws article 5, section 1. if you have not already done so, please press star 3, to be added to the public comment queue. you have three minutes to provide public comment and six minutes online with with an interpreter. you will hear a bell go off when you have 30 seconds remaining. please stand by.

madam chair, there are no callers in the queue. >> chair ambrose: all right, thank you for that. can you please proceed with the roll call on the motion for the chair. >> clerk: motion has been made and seconded. i will now call the roll. [roll call vote]

with five votes in the affirmative and zero opposed the motion is approved unanimously. >> chair ambrose: all right. well, thank you very much for that. and now i would like to ask for nominations for vice-chair, and i'm going to take the privilege of the floor and go first and nominate commissioner lee to serve again as vice-chair of the san francisco ethics commission. and now i'll open up the floor to anyone else in the commission to second or to provide a

nomination. all right, commissioner chiu. >> commissioner chiu: i would like to second that for commissioner lee to serve as vice-chair for a second term. >> chair ambrose: all right. and do i hear any other nominations? nope? so, can we please have public comment on -- oh, commissioner bush. >> commissioner bush: i have questions to ask of commissioner lee. >> chair ambrose: okay. >> commissioner bush: commissioner lee, i respect your work and i think your participation has been an asset, particularly what you have done beyond the confines of the commission. but one of the things that took place about two years ago was a vote on behest of contributions,

in which a motion by the commission failed on a 3-2 vote. and you were one of the two votes who opposed a reform of the behested contributions law. and since that time, it has emerged that behested contributions, as was suggested at the time, was a route for corruption and it is at the heart of much of the public integrity findings by the controller's office. and the proposal that had been made before the commission and supported by three commissioners, those three commissioners were the chair of the commission, the past chair of the commission and the vice-chair of the commission. and it had been the result of two years of hearings at the commission. and at that time you said that you didn't support it because you felt that it was a step too

far for the commission to put something on the ballot. and that you were not concerned -- not committed to its impact on non-profits. in retrospect, as now as we have seen with the public integrity reports, do you have any second thoughts about that vote? >> vice-chair lee: thank you, commissioner bush. i stand by my vote at that time. and i remember i stressed very strongly the need to really make a differentiation between what we mean by "non-profit." i came from non-profit, community-serving organizations. and the way that i understood at that time, the proposed language did not make a differentiation between, say, a non-profit,

friends of the opera, than a community non-profit that provides food and other assistance to immigrant families, to childcare centers. so i remember that we went through that a lot. and, again, my understanding at the time and with my experience working with the true non-profits that i had been familiar with for the past 40 years. i know the importance of non-profits. what i would call community-serving, direct service non-profit organizations in this city. their contributions, their struggles with financial support, both from the private and the public sectors, and the need for them to continue to

really raise the voice for their community members, which in this city to this day -- while a majority of our residents are newcomers or persons who do not have the access to city services or city's attention, i felt that these non-profits provide a much-needed voice and presence to make sure that they're not forgotten. so was that a perfect proposal? no. and, again, i am open to holding groups who are using -- as i

said, using the tax exemption status to promote whatever they have at that time. but i felt that combining the true community service, vital service organizations and to the other folks who are basically skirting the system, i felt that i had no choice but to really stand by the community that i'm very familiar with. so to answer you, i do not regret my vote. however, i am open to continue to work to make sure what we have experienced and i had said at that time people that organize under the guise of non-profit that are not truly non-profit. but as i said, we need to really

make a clear distinction and i really do not feel that we should diminish the folks who truly need to have a voice in this city and i'm open to working with you and other commissioners to really push forward to realize the controller's recommendations. because i agree with you, you know, there are corruptions. but corruptions are not in all non-profits and we need to really make a clear distinction. >> chair ambrose: thank you for your comments, commissioner lee. and i see that your hand is up, commissioner bush. >> commissioner bush: i just wanted to state that my recollection of that is a little bit different. i think the chair had put an

amendment in to adopt the san francisco -- the los angeles law on behested contributions, which exempted those which served low-income residents with human services, including housing and health and so forth. but it continued to cover things like the national rifle association and entities which are non-profits under the law. and which continued to enjoin a dissension in san francisco, so they don't necessarily adopt a federal standards and apply it to our local situation. so my recollection is that the final vote that was before the commission at that time did include an exemption for the kind of non-profits that you're discussing. and i competely agree with you

that non-profits that provide those services do not get the support that they need from the public or the private sources. and they need to be supported. that they should not be made as a vehicle for a work around so that dark money can influence our elections and our officials. and as it stands now, dark money can do exactly that. >> chair ambrose: i'm going to interject here because i don't want -- from an agenda point of view, this is not the time to talk too much substantively about behested payments, vis-a-vis the non-profits and how we might better fix that. the item on the floor is a motion to elect commissioner lee as vice-chair of the commission for a second year. and we have a motion and a second and i haven't heard any

other nominations and so i'd like to call for a public comment. ronald, if you could please ask for public comment here and then we will move to a vote. and get on on to our very full agenda. >> clerk: 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 have just joined the meeting we're on the motion of agenda item number 6, the election of excision officers for 2021 for ethics commission, with section 1 -- so sorry -- excuse me -- >> chair ambrose: i lost my place too. [laughter]. >> clerk: if you have not done so, please press star, 3, to be added to the queue. you have three minutes to provide public comment and the six minutes if you're on the line with an interpreter. you will hear a bell go off when you have 30 minutes remaining.

please, stand by. madam chair, we have no callers in the queue. >> chair ambrose: all right, with that can you please call the roll on the motion to elect commissioner lee as vice-chair of the san francisco ethics commission. >> clerk: a motion is made and seconded. i will now call the roll. [roll call vote]

with five votes in the affirmative and zero votes opposed the motion is approved unanimously. >> chair ambrose: all right, thank you very much. and i will call agenda item number 7, presentation by the controller's office on the january 11, 2021 report, request the preliminary assessment: ethical standards for contract award processes of the airport commission and other commissioners and boards," and discussion and possible action related to report finds and recommendations. and before i turn it over to director pelham, i want to say to mr. delosriosa, thank you for coming back and making your presentation. i'm going to ask you -- i did

see your presentation at the board of supervisors. i know that we have assistant controller todd -- hi, todd, how are you? i'm going to ask that you move relatively quickly through your presentation so that we can get to the substantive discussion, because i think that there are questions about what we as the ethics commission might do going forward in response to these recommendations. and maybe some others that you make. and i want to make sure that we have time for that deliberation. so with that, director pelham, did you want to make some remarks? >> thank you, chair ambrose. just very, very briefly for context for the public who are viewing and for the benefit of our new commissioner bell, welcome. this is a fourth in a series of reports that the controller's office has issued as indicated in the cover memo.

and as a process note, a couple items. one, this is based on the agenda and does not require action by the commission, but we realize that the commission is interested and engaged in these issues and so it's in place if the commission takes action for the findings and the recommendations, you will have the matter to do that as the matter is agendized. these are items that we'll often talk about in a subject matter area and so all of these items will be as relevant and we will bring them into our policy -- ongoing policy discussions as well. so just with those brief comments i'm happy to turn over to mark and i appreciate the participation of the controller's office once again. thank you. >> good morning, commissioners. definitely noted we will go through our presentation as quickly by not going through a

lot of background. but hopefully we'll provide enough so that there is context for some of you and provide some discussion later. good morning again, commissioners. chair ambrose, vice-chair lee and commissioners chiu and bush and bell. as director pelhammentioned, thn our series of presentations. to provide briefly, we started these reports a little over a year ago when the mohammed nouri investigations became public and really the key goal is to provide recommendations on the internal control weaknesses and to improve transparency for the city. in conjunction with our efforts in the controller's office is the city attorney's focus on the investigations related to the misconduct of the current and former city employees.

one thing that we're going to highlight as well on the next slide is just to provide context on some of the key aspects of the federal complaint and the affidavit just so that there's context on how we were able to scope our report for this deliverable. as some of you may know, the f.b.i. affidavit has alleged that in 2018, mr. nuru and they tried to bribe the airport commissioner linda crayton to get a city lease at s.f.o. for a company owned by mr. bovis. and miss cra yton had indicated a willingness to do favors given the relationship and checking to make sure that the subject of the note was not promised to others, and that she would find out who would be on the selection committee and she'd do

everything that she can to provide assistance to mr. bovis. and the role of mr. nuro areu in the tjpa. and his willingness to assist mr. bovis in trying to get a lease with tjpa. but mr. bovis on this particular example was not successful. briefly as well, you may know... (please stand by)

>>mark de la rosa: any contracts must be approved before the board of supervisors this is just to run through the board process which is a robust process but mostly driven by the revenue management division within the airport. there are three key points in which the rdn division within the airport goes beforethe commission for approval . again, as contexts , these are the contracts that we reviewed as part of our assessment from 2020, there were 99 units

covered in our report with a minimum guaranteed revenue of $123 million. the first set of recommendations were findings actually rather that we have really is more of a positive finding in that we found based on our assessments and procedures that the airport appropriately awarded concession releases based on solicitation results and really despite mister creighton's alleged assurances ibelieve that was , that the subject was ultimately not given to mister bovis and the lease number five was awarded to the winning bid based on theairports competitive solicitationprocess . one thing to also note is in 2019 , our city services auditor also conducted on it separately of the airport commission and concluded based

on that audit that the airport administers the solicitation process though the findings based on that on as well as the current assessment are corroborated based on the results of our review. the second set of findings and recommendations that we have really commissioner creighton having had an improper communication with a potential bidder who in this case is mister bovis. miss craven allegedly agreed to meet with and help they potential bidder and she did not report the improper reques for preferential assistance . miss craven did meet with a proposer during the required training which violated the rfp as to the proposals inception preventing any attempt by the

proposer to communicate with or solicit any market officials with theintent to influence the outcome of the selection process .we also wanted to highlight as part of our fieldwork we did a limited scope survey of various commissions and boards in the city . in particularly we look at the court commission, sf mta board of directors as well as the sfp public utilities commission and the dtpa and what we want to highlight some of the findings based on that comparison, it's that we found none of the commissions reported having their commissioners being involved in the solicitation process with theevaluation process . we also found in terms of the approval authority that all commissions to have responsibility to contract and in terms of writtenpolicy , we found that the airport does have written policy in this

prohibition. in terms of the statement of incompatible activity or sia prohibition we all found that all of the surveyed entities had this except for the key jpa which was technically not of city affiliatedentity . and that in terms of rfp instructions to potential bidders that all actually did have instructions intheir rfp regarding their communication . one thing to note is that none of the departmental sia's that we reviewed included any prohibition related to communication with potential bidders .it mostly focused on actual bidders but not potential bidders and i will talk more about that in the set of recommendations that we have. that really drives to our recommendations related to the

communication prohibition . the first is for the city commissions and board to revise their policy procedures to include requirements to address involvement in contract board process. we also have a second recommendation on sia training in conjunction with the commission and board, it should annually train its members on the departments sia and the training should state that if requesters do request inappropriate assistance that petitioners have a responsibility to report them and to have certain next steps with the cityattorney and ethics commission as well . we also have a recommendation in codifying prohibition, city law should be amended tocodify that city officials and employees who knowingly provide

selectiveassistance , to further strengthen the requirements that we have and solicit on the potential proposer for a city contract . fourth is on the inclusion of the communication restriction. really just for departments to include in their competitive documentation, solicitation documentation the restriction on communication with potential bidders and the fifth on codifying prohibition of the sia. we recommend this commission to work with the city attorney to consider codifying prohibition of the statement of incompatible activities to ensure consistency in their enforcement as well as increasing the visibility of the requirement. and next set of findings and recommendations really how the city may benefit from codifying limitations when the commissioner and board directs their involvement in the contract board process. currently the charter inception

4.102 outlines the powers and duties of boards and commissions but it doesn't say much substantively, the board should not do. one example we found was the qualifications of such a requirement in la county in which they codified thedirector and commissioner involvement as such . though their recommendation that follows really is for the city to consider whether it would be warranted to codify the rules commissioning boards limitations and the contracting board process. the fourth set of findings really is more on the measures that the airport has taken since the fbi report and strengthening their contracting policies and procedures. one thing we did note was that they did implement a number of new seizures including adding restrictions in the

communications by bitter and proposer during thequiet period . that's our rfp request for bid and they also in december implemented their competitive selection processcommunications policy . a prohibited communication with potential proposers during the restricted communications period. our recommendation specifically follows for the airport to continue with their efforts in improving the various aspects of their competitive solicitation process including regularly issuing reports to the commission that they have waste awareness in terms of the various proposers. the last and final set of findings and recommendations that we have really the increase or enhance data-driven decisions.

as some of you may know one overarching requirements the city has related to transparency is the san francisco campaign and government conduct approach section 11.26 which prohibits city contractors or affiliates from contributing to city elected officers where a contract must be improved approved by the city elected officer or a candidate for an office or a committee . since january 2019 departments and city elected officers have been bound by this requirement. for example, report departments are required to comply with section 1.12622 file their form 126f to within 30 days of receipt of any proposal. these are for contract evaluations for $100,000 or more per fiscalyear. and then for city elected

officers , they are now required to comply with section 1.126f4 to file within four days of the contract and really currently the forms 1.126f2 are tracked by the commission but they are not available or tracked such as not trapped in the financial or procurement system.basically while filing in centrallytracked information is important is before a contract is awarded , the department department and commission contract approvers may not know if contract information that could help them avoid conflicts of interest . one key feature of the form 126f2 is it contains the nameof the subcontractor owners and officers . informationcollected earlier on , would certainly benefit the

city as a whole and in particularthose that are proving . another key aspect of this is we also noted that revenue contracts which are those that generate revenue for the city are not yet configured to the duty stored in the city several financial and procurement system information collected through such essential repository can facilitate awareness of entities or individuals subject to the city competitive selection policy so what follows are recommendations related to the city directing departments to require to submit the information about their thoughts affiliates. basically the earlier date will collect such information the better information, the better site line we will have to avoi potential conflict of interest . and then also to promote

data-driven decisions to develop and implement the departments to work with the city controller to develop any new refinements in the evidentialsystem that could benefit the departments . thatconcludes our presentation . we have as mentioned, this is fourth in a series. we have three currently in the pipeline thatwe will be issuing the next few months . the next one being on the citywide ethics reporting requirements and next one on the department of building inspection and another one on the sf utilities commission in response to the november 30 complaint. that concludes ourpresentation and we would be happy to answer any questions you have , commissioners. >>chair ambrose:thank you very much, i appreciate it , all the work you've been doing and effort as well.i'm going to go to commissioner busch, you

have your handup . i don't know if that was from you. if i can get everybody back on the screen. commissioner busch, yes, you had a comment. >>larry bush: i have a question about conferencefor commissioners , i notice on membership at least two of the commissioners are executives in nonprofits who solicit contribution. and those contributions are not disclosed because they are nonprofits. how would you know if someone is bidding on a city contract was a contributor to a nonprofit that the airport commissioner headed ?

was i muted? >>chair ambrose: know, we heard you.i think people are trying to process the question. you're saying there are airport commissioners who are employed by nonprofit organizations and your question is how would we know if they solicited contributions to their own organizations, is that the question? >>larry bush: they are not just employed by, they are directors of nonprofits and i'm wondering about whether a better make the contributions to their nonprofits at the same time they're making a big at the airport and would that be consent or not?

>> one of the things the city currently has in place already is that there is a payment reporting scheme for commissioners so that's been in place for a couple of years now. there are some exceptions admittedly in the ordinance but commissioners do have to report payments or contributions solicited that they solicit, those need to be disclosed and those contributions are $1000 or more or more those are on file with the commission. >>larry bush: they didn't solicited it and it came across the transom, would you know? >>andrew shen: not necessarily. >>chair ambrose: okay. i'm not going to ... >>larry bush: ifit's commissioners is a serious issue .

>>chair ambrose:did i hear somewhere out there the point that , i'm not sure delarosa's informationprovoked some of the commissioners who'd been on the commission for 24 years or more , did i hear board members suggest that their return limits for commissioners or did i just dream that anyone here that ? go ahead, commissioner busch if you have another question or comment. >>larry bush:that was where i was going at the moment . i think the controller's office has done again another excellent job of getting this information and showing us our roadmap of where to go . >>chair ambrose: i had a few questions if i can interject. first, the recommendation that all departments have written

policies precluding what i would call ex parte communications from proposed bettors or proposers on contract or opportunities or leases before the commission, when you presented this matter to the board of supervisors hearing, did any ofthe supervisors say they were going to introduce legislation along those lines ? because i do think that having consistent written policy applies to all commission decision-makers on these major contracts and development opportunities would be a good policy so is that pending anywhere? do you know? >> chair ambrose, remembering

what was the gao, i don't think there was a specific motion to introduce at the time. we are aware that a supervisor may be putting forth a possible set of legislation that relates to this particular deliverable but i don't have the specifics on that and what exactly is covered under that. >> what we're doing as part of our recommendation and now there are approximately 29 recommendations in the core report, we are tracking where there have been legislative items introduced either by board members or in the case of city attorneys departments for suspensions update to the degree thatthose or mayoral directors, we are tracking that . supervisors as you know at the chance to reach out to do drafting and review.

i believe a number of them are still considering whatpotential implications may be especially given that we have three more reports coming out . so what we know and has been introduced, you can see on the registration system specifics, we don't have sightlines so that the proposal. >>chair ambrose: my second question specifically, you referenced form 126 f2 and 4 but that only applies if the underlying contracts are going to be subject to an

>>daina chiu: have you thought

about a mechanism or process by which it could force the officials to either certify at the end of the year, if you have any recommendations other than that would be beneficial to say if you are an elected or appointed when you file your forms you also certify. >> is buried within the first set of recommendations i

mentioned. this is in relation to a competitive solicitation document and a new restriction from communication and there's a second part to one of the recommendations that basically requires commissions and board members to certify annually. >>daina chiu: with respect to contracting ... [inaudible] that's helpful because it could be a great reminder what am i missing and course in place of record-keeping and compliance filing along the way for instance search for march 31. and drive more disclosure hopefully.

>>mark de la rosa: the next deliverable assessments willthe concern you just mentioned . it will highlight any improvements that we need to make in order for such ethical reporting and data to be more centrally tracked and located so that there's a public facing mechanism by which either elected commissioners and department heads can track on regular basis . also for the public to have visibility to compliance on an ongoing basis . we will cover that in our next deliverable. >>daina chiu: just a follow-up question given your work in investigation of these agencies, what level would you put in awareness or understanding to elected officials have their obligations amid these

allegations and the various scenarios that are pretty outrageous and egregious and were they knowingly flaunting the law or were peoplearound them just not there ? how much awareness was there would you say if you can do obligations that come with the responsibility of the office and how much of that was just simple and blatant disregard. i know it's not something we are going to do anyway but how much of it was actual ignorance and thinking it would be all right and how much training is there within city departments? >>mark de la rosa: that's certainly something that we tried to scope these assessments based on the limited at least scope that we were able to create based on

the federal complaint. so we didn't really extrapolate beyond the departments that have beeneither implicated or that we survey .again, it's a great foreshadowing to for the final report, so all of the assessments we've completed so far are preliminary and at the end of the series of the preliminary assessment tool then have a final report. i think last time we boarded we discussed how that final report will be basically cover some of the underlying or overarching themes and issues including tone at the top and the ethical environments in the city. so hopefully we will shed more light on that citywide kind of lens and pulls for the ethical and the values citywide.

>>daina chiu: thank you for that, i know this is coming from the corporate world and the strategies get brought before us all the time and the principle of leadership and holding people accountable for ethical behavior and its not just words on paper and having breach of recommendations including actual facts, leadership and requirements for people to be ethical and be held to account and divide by legal standards. it will be a long time coming to thank you for your work and i look forward to your report and we will read it back here in the meantime. >> you are muted, chair. >>chair ambrose: that is the

phrase of 20/20, that youare muted commissioner lee, go ahead . you are muted now. >>yvonne lee: thank you madam chair, i cannotfind my button . >>chair ambrose: its way down in the far right corner. >>yvonne lee: thank you so muc . it's then another informative presentation. thank you for all your work and leadership. i have one question . when the proposal appeared before the airport commission, they may be legally required to recuse themselves from voting as a requirement but is there

any other requirements for the commissioners to disclose their friendships or facilitation with the applicants? out of a total abundance of transparency, they may not meet the legal requirement but there should be anethical consideration . >>mark de la rosa: i was going to defer to andrew shen. >>andrew shen: i don't mean to interrupt you but vice chair lee, we have a provision in the governmental code actually 3.14 which requires officers leading commissioners to disclose thei personal , professional or business relationships with people that come before them where the commission is making a final decision about the

matter at hand so in addition to therecusal requirement you mentioned , vice chair lee there are otherrequirements that does fairly often .thank you. >>chair ambrose: commissioner bush go ahead. >>larry bush: if you can explain where is that disclose because it's not part of the hundred. i don't know if it's just disclose in the minutes of the commission meeting and not the ethics commission . where is the disclosure taking place? >>andrew shen: commissioners are required to and it's a matter of public meeting they are required to take the disclosure at the meeting itself and that disclosure to be incorporated to reflect the meeting minutes or city employees those disclosures obviously can't be a public meeting if there are committees outside of that context and they're supposed to put a memo

to the file and in my experience itusually sent to a department in charge . so it depends on the official involved. >>larry bush: thatsounds fairly inaccessible to the public . >>chair ambrose: just to be clear about this is an instance where a person is disclosing that they have a personal or professional relationship with someone who as as a matter pending but where they are stating for the record that that relationship is such that there is no financial interest involved. that's if somebody that they know from their church or their in the school committee from their kids high school or something, if someone asked the conflict of interest and they recuse themselves, my understanding is that now we do have a centralized database

where we show that somebody recuse themselves because they have an actual conflict of interest that precludes them from voting on a particular matter or being involved in preparation of the contract. is that correct, city attorney? isn't there arequirement now that that , that refusals be disclosed? >>andrew shen: that's correct, the commissioner needs to recuse due to a financial conflict so they have a financial interest in the matter at hand they are required to file a notification which are submitted and posted with the ethics extension. >>chair ambrose: okay. go ahead commissioner bush.

>>larry bush: i like to put on the record that we have groups like the third, a good public civic minded group whose board of directors is made up of city officials and developers . and some of the people on the board of directors are developers who have matters before the city department head. the department heads are not in a public meeting where theyare making a recusal . so i don't know where that shows up except that theywrite a memo to themselves . so i think that there is an issue to be explored here. >>chair ambrose:just to be clear even if you are a department head , if you can separate what's legal versus maybe something gets disclosed

that we can examine as mister delarosa pointed out in the next comptrollers report which i hope you will work very closely with commission staff, we're going to focus specifically on what do you know and how can we find out when you know. the whole disclosure regimen for ethics wise so we can come back to that there. but if you are a department head and you have, you're not paid but if you're a department head and you have a financial interest in a matter before your department and you are going to recuse yourself from being involved in, minimum assuming that department head notifies their pointing officer should either be a commission or it would be the mayor or the board of supervisors, depending upon who it was that they were explaining why they couldn't perform their expected duties, but with that i want back to

ronald because we need to make an announcement and solicit public comment so just so we all know when this itemis included , i'm going to take a maximum 10 minute break so that everybody can eat a granola bar or something and then we will come back and do the budget item so ron, if you could please offer public comment. >>ronald contreraz: we are checking to see if there are colors on the queue. if you have joined thismeeting we are currently on public commission on item number six , on january 11 day preliminary assessment for contract processing of the airport commission and board. actionsrelated to report

findings . if you have not already done so please press á3 to beadded to the public comment queue. you will have three minutes to provide public comments, six minutes with an interpreter . you have 50 seconds remaining. ... madam chair, 4 colors in the queue.

>>. >>chairambrose: public comment is closed. i'm going to do 1209 on my computer. would everybody be okay if we came back like in seven minutes ? i just want to keep moving. it's 12:10 now,we're going to be back here at 12:17 . so i'll see you all then and at that time, i didn't give director chance to say anything in his final remarks or to thank mister delarosa and mister right so thank you very much for your work and we will the working with you intensively during the preparation of your next presentation because it involves us so closely. okay. anyway, see you at12:17 . thanks.

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>>chair ambrose: agenda item number eight although i'll actually go ahead, ronald if you wanted to advise folks about the change in sfgov tv >>ronald contreraz: to any members listening and watching , our ethics commission meeting is on live channel 26, and the first channel rather than channel the once again we are broadcasting live. >>chair ambrose: thank you. agenda item number eight,

public comment and possible action regarding ethics commission object proposal for fiscal year 2022 that begins july 1,2021. director , if you'd like to make your presentation speak and thank you chair, item 4 for the benefit of the public and additional background for some of you commissioner bell, we have a slide presentation that i'll walk through briefly but i wanted to update you with where we are with our planned budget proposal at this stage. this commission meeting constitutes the second of 2 public hearings required under city law to help mold public participation and understanding of the budget process so this hearing is obviously public comment as with any agenda item called for it alsoprovides an opportunity for the commission to take , to hear an update and take any action you might choose to in regards to the proposed budget for fiscal year 22 so we can submit it as required by the february 22

deadline to the mayor's budget office so if i could jump over to slide 2 for a moment for context about how we are developing our budget , through this budget process obviously it's a way to express the organization's priorities and deeds and we are every year making an effort to try to achieve the resources necessary for the purposes we established to accomplish. over the past years as we discussed in meetings a number of times, the revelations of high-level corruption allegations have underscored a variety of operations where certainly the work of the ethics commission is needed and the improvements we started putting in place need to take hold and come to fruition and that requires sufficient operating funds in order to do that as you know from our perspective , our commission has too long suffered from a lack of core funding that's not enabled us to do the work that

we need to do so for us to work that in corruption, preventing corruption from taking root in the city means more than investing in the status quo. i continue to slide 3 as a snapshot of our current funding and full-time equivalencies, this slide is familiar to you, will go through in detail and it includes information of our existing funding by program areas and distribution of staffing by the types of functions that we have. in slide 4, this is where we talk about what our budget proposal is that we are envisioning. and as recommended, in our budget request that we plan to submit, we would be requesting a total fiscal year 22 operating budget of $6.5 million for the commission. at 6.5 million would be 26 percent increase over the

commission's current operating budget of 4.7 million and it includes a 33 percent increase in that division by eight new divisions over our current level. there are three key areas where this will enable us to pursue our essential reason to address the essential need and it will allow us toattain our capacity . you heard from the controller's office we have several reports from the office that we had the dla performance and the existing organizational capacity is critical to make sure we'recontinuing to work through those recommendations and address the findingthose reports contain. from policy and enforcement across our operations, that's essential . so we are continuing to propose

that we have full funding for all existing authorities. secondly , on the following slide this goes back to our training andoutreach that we believe are necessary to develop , deliverand support city employees and leaders at all levels of city government and practical ways of understanding and applying , navigating efforts through difficult decision-making . clearly we are in difficult stressful times and it is often the case at the time when people feel the pressure to cut corners the most. is this it specifically atthis time we need to address that and begin to try to support the city's workforce in a much more exhausted and comprehensive way .this matters and we're going to fund in it so we can create a stronger city government together for all san franciscans. our view is that requires training specialists to hit the ground running with techniques and training that would build content and needs around ethics

at work. moving on to the next slide, the proposal that we also plan to submit is investigative resources that would enable us to reduce our existing resolution 10 times by 40 percent so it would be no more than 18 months on average on the time the enforcement division identifies allegations either receiving complaints or initiates and matter. the date of final action for the commission to resolve the matter.this would have the same time enable us to increase the number, the proportion, the severity of cases that our staff examines and investigates so that capacity to a initiate proactive investigations would be wanting to make sure we're focusing our resources as we can to address areas where there's a threat to the most public harm if they are in accountable government. this we've identified three new investigative physicians to

enable us to do that. lastly, one area we did not talk about last month but in continuing to reply and reflect on our budget proposal and to accomplish it, we've identified one additional position we believe is essential to be able to not just track and develop the performance work that we are initiating but need to expand office slide but we also need a position that's going to help us communicate that to the public, somebody that will be the set of hands that will drive theprocess of establishing and inventing , reporting on the performance of programmatic measures that we are putting in place because this is essential to make sure that we can both our own accountability and impact and progress but that we also have to do a better job of engaging the public as you know what the commission is doing and how we're going about doing our work so we can engage in contributions on aregular basis to shape network that continues

to be effective over time . one program is physicians identified for this purpose. the assets that we believe are essential to the budget that we plan to submit on february 22 is not shy about identifying the needs that we see, that we believe are essential and we also know at the same time we have address the mayors instruction to all departments to prepare them should they be deposed given the ongoing challenge, we know that. we have identified, we would respond to the proposed 10 percent customer impact. i won't go into detail on this slide number eight but it shows the level of funding that would be required to show these numbers. the mayor's budget instructions you will recall ask for a 7 and a half percent or 2 and a half

percent contingency so this is what that would translate to for our operations in the next 2 fiscal years. as to how we would absorb those impacts or those cuts to be faced with and in fact, there are three significant areas of impact in these three slides so i will turn it backover to you , chair for any discussion. there are three areas of, significant areas of impact and the first is we would be faced with elevating three staff positions primarily on departmental administrative support. these are positions when we look to the future when we are faced with operating with drastically reduced staffing resources, we would need to be to have resources on board that can be asked to do a broad range of duties as not all our positions are applications where we can ask that of them so we would be forced with having to make choices about

where we would retain positions and ones we would not be to retain, we would not be able to retain the positions that would be a departmental support primarily. this consequence is identified in the slide, the high level obviously would delay issues related to response times and public guidance, payment to vendors and also the impacts of some of theservices that are currently being handed by the staff . obviously that work would have to continue to be done at the department and be explored by other staff impacting back hours that we would have available to do the other work and we would also have to completely cut our seasonal hiring temporary staff to handle as needed work during the election season as we've done in years past. turning to the next area of impact on the following slide, this is an area when we looked at the options for the alternative approaches discussed in the first meeting

january 21 about the budget priorities. here we have looked and as all those options, we think that we would not be able to further make progress on the citywide filing form. electronic filing projects and this would be the project as you know would allow for the line of sight as the controller might describe it to the financial interest in over 3500 city employees are every day divided on departments to file as they make or participate in governmental decisions. they would not be able to continue with electronic filing if they would have to buy on paper within their department decreasing the public's line of sight into potential financial interests. be impacted by those officials decision-making capacity. this project would have to stop . until we have reason to think the project is not going to be able to part of next year we continue to make progress and

we will continue to move forward but if we did this it we would have to absorb this and the program would have to come to an end until more persons are available so the final area that would be impactedhis staff training. we've made some strides in the last couple of years , increased funding and our staff levels having increased to the levels that they currently are. this would basically pull that ability back. we would have to cut $20,000 down to the budget for training. this comes at a time where training opportunities that would enable the staff to acquire and refine and strengthen skills that are necessary working in a fully digital environment to, it would impact our ability to keep our skills sharp and on the leading edge where we believe they can be and should be with the training. so that's the sum and substance of the areas we would have to

have absorbed these cuts. one other document that is attached to the report that i provided is the attachment that i received from chair ambrose the last meeting on the budget authority as you recall the commission discussed might express the views that you have about the impact of the budget cuts really imposed and your interest of the value that you would like to see expressed in the budget. there's a draft statement that chair ambrose has provided for your discussion at this meeting so with that i'll pause and be happy to answer any questions and i want to acknowledge that we have our deputy director and chief operating officer back with us after a leave of absence and we are delighted she's here. it's perfect timing and stephen matthews is acting as chief operating officer on all things budget has returned to technology services both are here toanswer any questions

with that i will pause and be happy to answer any questions . be one commissioners, i'm going to take questions and then we will go to public comment and then come back for action. i guess actually before we take public comment we should hear those first. so starting at the top , commissioner bush, you have your hand but you are goingout from my screen, are you there ? >>larry bush: i amhere and i am seeking . >>chair ambrose: we hearyou . >>larry bush: i had a number of questions. i should put them all out at one time? >>chair ambrose: that would be for the best in theinterest of time . >>larry bush: you see anything in this proposal that includes revenue enhancements?

that's number one. secondly are you contemplating work orders on any of the form 700s, especially to those departments that have independent general funds ? third, are you willing to look at having the april form 700 forms submitted as pdfs at each department so they can post them in ethics list of which positions arenow posted, at least as pdfs . they are not searchable, they don't do what you want us to do but at least takes us to some level of transparency beyond what we have. i'm asking about equity steps that are in the budget, especially with 3 seats will be upfor election next fall . not in this budget cycle but we have to get readyfor it since

this budget goes until july 1 . and i know that those three seats which are for districts , 6 and 10 i think it is. they areall majority minority districts . and i have only two more left. when you do the investigations and you have a give us an update every six months on where the progress is on that so we have some sense of him and him and the public has some sense of it all. and finally, i'm delighted to see your public proposal at the last part of theethics budget that you just gave , in what way is that different from the commissioners's secretary. >>.

>>larry bush: as far as i know ethics is the only department that doesn't have a commission secretary and i think what you're proposing goes a long way towards those same issues that are the crux of a commission secretary so that i take it your division includes press releases about enforcement actions, press releases summarizing what's happening with public financing for compliance with disclosure laws whether it's for city commissioners complying with the filing of form 700 or whether it's city political committees and its route for the public to go directly to the commission. those are my questions. i'll shut up now.

>>leeann pelham:did you want me to take those now or wait until all commissioners have closed their questions ? >>chair ambrose: i'm going to go at least for questions, not comments but if we can get all the questions for the executive directoror i don't know, actually i was going to defer to you director if you'd rather takethese one at a time and go ahead and propose an answer . and can i stop for a second ? for some reason on my commander computer, it's easy to see but you are flashing on top of another commissioners grid panel. is that just my screenor is that everybody ? not everybody, just mine. it's you are like a disco. i'm just going to get out of the grid and then i won't

bother you anymore. go ahead director pelham. >>leeann pelham: i'll try to be brief and if i can handle them going that's mosthelpful and other directors if they have anything to clarify but the first question about revenues , are the revenue enhancements reflected in the budget, not as we're showing them here. we've not been able toconnect with the controller's office but in a weeks time by the time the proposal has to be submitted it is not going to be possible to come up with solutions thatwould address the revenue side so that's why we're seeing that not here . i don't think it's doable this year but it's a conversation we need to initiate because we trip clearly have to try to get a handle on it . for the work order 700, our

focus has been on trying to make sure we get form 700 file for this april 1 filing and we continue to work on building the program for the full disclosure next year. you have not been able to reach out to and apartments to suggest paying for this process at this point. the question about willing to look at pdfs april 1. in my view that also is something we have not been able to focus on because i think we can ask people to do that but unless there is a requirement for them to do that i think perhaps it rings hollow and it would be confusing given we are in the midst of working them with them to set up an automatic filing system nowto take effect next year we have not at this point proceeded with that . in terms of equity steps as you mentioned in terms of the election, i think our focus is on trying to make sure we can reach out as possible with resources that we have in new ways and that's going to depend on us being able to use marks technology and staff whose focus is on helping us do that

so in some ways it speaks to we should be taking new approaches regardless of the staff levels that we have what we have to do more with the staff levels we are hoping to receive in the coming budget year. you also mentioned the three-year timeline that updates every six months, we be happy to update youevery six months and that progress would continue if we are to get in any event try to keep you posted about progress on all of our friends , certainly if we had three additional investigators who were able to make toward this goal and producing disclosure time by 40 percentcertainly we want to be reporting back to you and the public to get your sense of progress and what the issues are if any that are continuing to be in front of us . and then lastly very briefly you asked if the program performance analyst working with the performance tracking information helps us to annual reports and in my mind it is not. the commission secretary is

something in my time here i have not been proposing in budget because i think provides a limited way in which we would be able to maximizeresources that we could otherwise use or a variety of projects . it is akin to the commission secretary in that will free up your director, your deputy director be able to do that type of work which is part of our portfolio but i think it completely supports the goals that the commission secretary has but is not limited to providing services that only a commission secretary could provide. >>chair ambrose: with that , i'm going to try to bring up my screenbut commissioner chiu my recollection is you had your hand up . >>daina chiu: this is questions only as opposed to comments? >>chair ambrose: if you can get your questions in and then i'll come back for general comments. >>daina chiu: i had one question director pelham and

that was in regards to budget. i wanted to clarify for commissioner bell who is new to the commission today what we will be submitting, there are directions from the mayor to submit a budget with the decreases as directed and i believe we have done that but we've also had the opportunity to propose our ideal budget if you will with the additional resources that we are requesting. could you just do a brief recap for my education and also clarification. >>leeann pelham: the position of the department on february 2 it's all essentially apartments entering into the city's financial system a series of figures that reflect what our operations would look like

where we faced with a 10percent cut. so the only , if you are a budget person in the city the only budget submission you see is a department entry of information into that system that reflects a budget that is 10 percent less than it is at present that's the way the system is fixed so and there are opportunities within that system to annotate what the impact would be but as has been our practice in my tenure for the last five years it's been important to have a much more visible conversation about what that is and what the impact of that submission would be because our request our proposal that we would describe merit narratively and in attached documents we sent to the mayor for the mayor's budget team is much broader. it will go through the acts that we have for the essential functions that are not yet being met. so the package is what we're proposing. we believe we need to do our essential services and we will

also have in that narrative attachments how we have to enter the numbers into the system to reflect the budget cuts when we are faced with having those. does that answer your question? >> helpful point about the reductions and the different scenarios that you outlined, i think we discussed this very briefly towards the end of our last meeting but i just wanted to circle back to it and that is believe there are three open positions we are currently filling right now and are in the process of, have yet to be filled. have you considered and haven't ruled out simply freezingthose positions and not hiring ? [audio loss]

>>leeann pelham: we're looking at what we are required to do under the laws that have been established for us, we have a broad range of mandates that require the five positions we are continuing to hire right now, positions that we had that are essential so is not the new positions were asked for, these are positions we had him so in my view this is the time, if we were faced with six or seven less positions than we currently have we have to have

all those positions able to be deployed in every range of work that we need done so that in my judgment we keep on a hiring plan as we are now until we are told otherwise but we have every reason to believe we should be able to hire these physicians recognizing they are essential network has beenfar overdue to be done. so this isnot , if this is what we landed on , we would have to make the best of an awful situation but we need the maximum resources and ranges to be necessary to get that program implemented. >>daina chiu: i just one last observation about equity these days, and i know that the mayor's instructions are the mayor's instructions but you have a disproportionate impact on our ability to perform a mandate that the city has

entrusted us with. it's a department with tens of millions of dollars and i don't know if this will come up in future conversations or if you want to get to attachment three with the statement on budget funding but it feels to me a 10 percent cut is not equitable for a commission with a tiny budget of 4 million and change to keep up with a budget of 1.3 billion. >> 1.3, 13 million. and a modest increase to support these programs, not

decrease, a modest increase. we doubled our budget and we can barely scratch the surface of the work we need to do and when there is a crisis , in chinese the phrase is danger and opportunity,and the moment of crisis , the choices we make indicate what's important to us. and so i'll stop editorializing now and let others ask their questions but i fully support the proposal that director pelham put forward and that you and resources to the commission staff in order to be able to do the work and we just ask the question is that enough given theever widening corruption

scandal . there are threemore comptroller reports coming in is that sufficient ? it's monumental to create culture change and create policies and procedures and programs to really turn the titanic away from theiceberg . >>chair ambrose:i'm going to assume commissioner lee as a comment . i just want to make sure i understand okay, we have to budget. the one we want and the one the mayor requires you to submit with 7 and a half percent and an added 2 and a half percent contingency. iwasn't sure from your presentation how many positions , whether or not you would have to eliminate all of the

administrative support which i'm going to come back to in the form 700. if you are underthe 7 and a half percent or is that, you're just assuming 10 percent ? >>leeann pelham: the short answer is the impact one through three would be the 10 percent but i'm going to defer to the deputy director. she can walk you through how that operationally works. >>chair ambrose: out go there and just one second but to get to myother question , in your statement about the impacts of, about eliminating three administrative support positionsyou only talked really about the administrative support function . but those functions as we all know, they are not

discretionary functions in any department. somebody has to answer the phone somebody has to respond to public records requests . somebody has to paythe bill . somebody has to keep the material going on so that's 120 hours of work a week that somebody has to do if you eliminate the three positions who are doing that work right now and that means that ofthe 20 people that are left in the apartment , that much, what is that?not all of those people can do that work so somebody's going to have a third of their time or corner of their time doing those other functions and so when you're writing a statement aboutwhat are the impacts of eliminating your entire administrative support staff , i think you need to

explain that it's going to have an impact on policy and enforcement andcompliance and legislation because that's the real impact of taking that approach. otherwise , if i was sitting in the mayor's budget office and i thought somebody was willing to give up their entire administrative support staff and that all meant is some vendor wasgoing to have to wait another 30 days to get paid , i wouldn't be renting my hands trying to figure out how to get your money. that's one comment and the other one is with respect to the revenueenhancement and work orders , we missed our chance i realize when we had the deputy controller on the line. i wanted to buttonhole him about getting access to the bond money for oversight. i wouldn't assume that we don't have the chance to do that in this fiscal year. when the budget preparation ordinance goes to the board, as a legislative action they have

every ability in whatever it is, 150 page piece of legislation that is a budget appropriation ordinance to write in there that some percentage of the controllers bond oversight review can be used by the ethics commission for an investigator position or something like that though it's not that to one side. while you're in there, we all know this is just date 1. you submit your budget to the mayor and then the wrangling begin. the board doesn't adopt it until may or june, the actual budget isn't adopted until july so let's keep our you know, our foot forward on getting other sources other than the general

fund for that. now i'd say if you wanted to sort of remember whatever it was i was asking about. oh yeah, the positions in how the seven and half percent gets broken out. >>leeann pelham: so seven and half percent target in addition to attrition savings target which we are expected to meet each year we will need to consider the five positions that we have mentioned in the presentation. the reason being ... >>chair ambrose: all four or three in the presentation you see there's administrative staff and mentioned and two positions that divide from700 . so in order to meet the 7.5 percent project and the attrition savings targets each year, we would need to rule on our costs, the reason being we

have a very thin budget it comes to non-family expenses. the majority of the expenses in that category are for our filing systems. and in telecommunications, we don't really have a lot of room in that category to spend to be able to meet the level of production that the mayor's office is asking for. so that's the answer to your question. >>chair ambrose: so i'm clear, the other 2.5 percentwould , you need all the form 700 positions which are new positions and the three existing positions to meet the mayor's unacceptable 7.5 percent and for the 2+ attrition and then to get the

2.5, that would also into the what, theinvestigator positions that were trying to hire for ? >>gayathri thaikkendiyil: to clarify one of the points you mentioned earlier, we're not talking about affecting all related program support, we're specifically talking about the citywide e-filing effort which is expanding employees. specific positions to cancel that project so that is where they in fact will be. coming 2.5 percent contingency. the way we are able to meet that target is by offsetting some costs systems and related costs that are allocated for the lobby system so we've been in discussion with themayor's budget team . and currently there's a

maintenance cost that gets charged to our annual operating budget. the mayor's team was okay with usmoving back over . recently they're coming in their careers to a project on pipeline funding so specifically the instructions that the mayor's office has provided two departments for the budgeting cycle, the 10 percent, the entire 10 percent is required to be identified within the annual recurring costs butthe mayor's office in our case were okay with that . making this adjustment, meaning not taking greater reductions on the recurring expenses. instead, making some adjustments within the appropriate category meaning we are again offsetting the lobby system maintenance onto a lobby related project funding that's

available so we were able to make that type of adjustment and also as director pelham mentioned cutting out a few other areas on staffing and job training and we also have 10 million funds for seasonal type staffing recruitment, specifically closer to an election cycle , we hired staff to assist with increased customer support so we will now be able to do those types of additional changes to our staffing levels but we have to cutdown our temporary funds as well so to answer your question we were able to find 2.5 percent in those areas . doing acombination of different attempts . >>chair ambrose: and make sure i don't have any more questions

and then i don't see any other hands with questions. we have based on what we've seen our last special meeting about the budget, we had talked about our collective discomfort with having to suggest a budget that reflected a 7.5 or 10 percent cut and was asked to draft a statement that would allow us to meet our charter obligation which is to approve a budget submittal, presumably the one to the mayor's office since it doesn't necessarily come back to us and at the same time to object to the budget that we submitted that meets the requirements that were required to approve and so

that's the action item before i want you to consider what we want to do with that. i have drafted something and had asked along with commissioner busch and i've asked commissioner chiu to look at it and add her comments so that's the piece that we need to work on. i also wanted to say because we've had written comments from esther marx. she wasn't going to be able to stay at the meeting after noon today and she had expressed a strong support for an operating budget of 2.5 million which is our ideal budget. and communicated that these are for essential department needs. and that filling the five

vacant positions and authorizations to receive vacant positions is important as we all know that we fought really hard last year and we supported them, fought really hard to get the mayor's office to include those positions so that's understood. she also said that she thinks that investigative and enforcement division needs to be strengthened in order to reach public comfort in government and the department could move ahead in addressing culture city leadership. she suggested that staff increase to a budget of640,004 2022 . she also adopted a timeline of investigative matters within nine months within 18 months. as commissioner busch had stated at an earlier meeting

would be ideal if those investigative matters could be resolved within six months. the essence of work is useless if people think they can get away with noncompliance abuse and she said that as agenda item number five. she also said on commission support in mobilizing public opinion i hope that 6.5 million budget would be approved but in the event there are reductions she objects to eliminating the three administrative staff positions focusing on administrative support. her assistance with me it would be limited in participating in at x programs and it would negatively affect the department's budget and delay the ability for payment for goods and services means no one will want to do business with the ethics commission if the departments nonresponse as an attitude of what are they good for ?i wanted to get back on the record because i think that they are important

contributions from the public and i can go back to the talk for whatit's worth . i have concerns about eliminating administrative support and about a of the budget cuts that i am concerned with eliminating all the administrative support in the department. i understand from director pelham's perspective to freeze person positions that we have advertised and that are essential to our core function, i think what you're going to find is that the mayor take you up on that and you have to eliminate all your support , you're going to have a really hard time getting to your core function because your staff is going to be spending a lot of time doing administrative work

but anyway, that's my comment and i'm going to start with whoever as their hand up and that would be commissioner chi . if you have a comment or recommendation on how to proceed? >>daina chiu: to proceed with the budget overall. >>chair ambrose: this is up for possible action. we need to have a motion to presumably since the deadline for the director to submit this budget to the mayor is on 22 february ibelieve , so this is the meeting we need to authorize the director to submit some budget that complies with the mayor's directives.and we presumably need to make a statement about

how we hate having to do that. >>daina chiu: is the statement to be submitted along with the budget or would it run along some other approach ? >>chair ambrose: the idea we talked about was to try and publish it as an op-ed. and as you know, i didn't put in the statement what the commission did today because i didn't want to presume what it wasthat we were doing today . once we do something we could amend the statement to say that the commission's position so i sort of left that in the draft since it was drafted ahead of time. but we can't be sure that any newspaper is going to want to express our opinion for us so we called it a statement so that yes, though the director could reference it when she sent it over to the mayor's office and the controller's office or whatever.

though that we are on record as not supporting the absolute gutting of the ethics commission's resources but anyway. >>daina chiu: i think if we can't run this final version of an op-ed i would also support releasing it so that is out there in the public in the absence of us putting forth our own narrative of what's happening from a budget standpoint, then other people can make up their own stories about what is happening, like what the ethics commission thinks about cuts to the budget. but i think that's really important for us to seek kind of our own position publicly. and then second i think as an overall observation i would jump straight in to making the point that i think yourwords are very apt . there gutting our budget.

there gutting the budget. we are going to be crippled and unable to fulfill our charter mandate and mandate that the people of san francisco have entrusted us with .we won't be able to answer the phones, we won't be able to help people comply and we certainly won't be able to change the culture of corruption in parts of the city's family. if we don't have any of the resources and we won't be able to investigate due to enforcement.everything is going to be limited so i understand that this is a belt tightening exercise because there is significant shortfall in revenue but we have and i think commissioner lee said it very well read the virus of corruption is here in san

francisco and we can collectively adopt that it's just going to go away, but it's not going away. it's only increasing first it was in the building inspection and then it led to the puc on airport commission and more and more. we have three more comptroller reportscoming out . and i think the federal investigation is ongoing and the other shoe is going to drop or acouple other shoes are going to drop .we need to exclusively say that i think that the wires of corruption have affected san francisco and if left unchecked it's going to spread and intensify like a cancer . on city government and that by refusing or requiring the ethics commission to cut staffing and be gutted i think

that what the city is saying is that's okay. because when thechips are down , that's when and everything is online, you have to make the hard choices. what are the choices you're going to make and if the choices are the one organization in the entire city department, the entire city family is tasked with ensuring high standards andethical practices,ethical conduct , transparency and accountability , it's in a time when all that is under fire and multiple instances that has been uncovered byfederal government for which people have pled guilty and are facing criminal indictments , and for the city to say yes, you know , we're going to make the ethics commission cut 10 percent just like everybody else.

i mean, the message that i got from that is it doesn't matter. and that everything that's happening, it's okay. >>chair ambrose: one of the things i want to make sure we're clear on, while the mayor asks everyone to show cuts across the board, as has happened last year, the end result that the mayor's office submits to the board of supervisors is not always reflecting an across-the-board cut. i mean, that's just the beginning of the process but just to be clear that the reason for the tone and the statement we are clear that we cannot withstand a 10 percent cut but that we don't want to presume that it's already been

called out to us and that therefore the message is that corruption is in vogue in the city so there's a balance there. what we want to say is i'll be honest with you. i would hate to be either the board finance committee or the upper rewrite now because it's going to be ugly. there's no question about it. it's like, revenue is down. it's goingto be down even more over the course of the fiscal year, whatever their projections are one assessments start changing . and there are a lot of problems in the city. you just have to open the newspaper every day. it's going to be ugly and we may not get what our ideal is and i guess the question is how in my mind is how can we get as much of our budget off of the general fund as possible and into the sources of revenue in

the city that are not affected by taxes and i think that's where commissioner bush has been going with the work orders and bond oversight because there are capitalfunds, capital funds are based on issues that you pay off over 20 or 30 years . and our budget is so smallwe would be like a minuscule little piece of . but anyway, all i want to say is we need to be clear that they haven't done it yet and when we first come out with, we will say this is how ugly it would be if we had to meet across-the-board but of course, nobody would do that to the ethics commission at this critical time. as the gentleman wanted to set i think that's fair because they haven't taken action. i think that we can be preemptive in an agreement that if they take that action this is the message that would be

sent. and i think it would be also helpful to propose that are there alternative sources and that should the departments that have been publicly identified by the office as having these problems, should they not do a work order to support training? i was impressed with what the airport commission had done in terms of the drafting the procedural and programmatic rules or deficiencies that the comptrollers had identified. what has the department of building inspection done and how they decided to commit to putting their house in order and can they partner with the ethics commission by creating a work order to conduct training for all employees above a certain level to be able to do that so it's not so much ethics

going hand in hand with the board asking for funds but asking those who have the most need of change to be part of that change and to invest the resources to affect change within their organization. >>chair ambrose: i'm sorry, go ahead commissioner bush. >>larry bush: two points, when you faced significant budget cuts wasn't an across-the-board budget cut so for example the budget that's at the department of social services did not cut the positions of staff working to get people qualified for social security. because that resulted in an increase in funds for the city . san francisco's ethics commissioners in a similar situation where better

investigation and more timely investigation on whistleblowers might reduce the amount of money that we are paying out in court costs because a significant amount of money goes out from san francisco city budgets due to court decisions on san francisco whistleblower cases. that same thing is true about how much we might be able to save small businesses which is one of the priority areas for the mayor . by addressing rigged contracts and fraudulent contracts because that really is not just a question of losing taxpayer money. it's also taking money away from all businesses who don't have a chance to compete fairly. so i think that those are areas that we need to surface more clearly in our discussions.

finally, we see that the federal government is looking at adding more resources to local governments to compensate for the amount of loss that's taken place.and as that moves forward and i expect that it willsucceed , i would like to suggest that we get ourselves put first in line for reimbursement of expenses that we paid because we are as commissioner chiu points out a small commission with a small staff which is asked to do a great deal so it's appropriate that we would be first in line to have what we have lost made up. thank you. >>chair ambrose: thank you. commissioner lee, is your hand up? you.

>>yvonne lee: thank you madam chair. i asked my fellow commissioners comments, i want to suggest that every time there's a budget discussion support staff is always in the front line of the cut. what is ultimately going to happen is an acceptable proposal that puts staff out and at the same time people find it easier to say we could do without the staff but other staff can do the work and i wonder if the director can answer this question. in lieu of the three support staff recommended cutsthat you

made , what about a particular program? let's say several hundred outreach program. something people can direct their attention to that this is what it means by requiring the 10 percent cut, we will not be able to do a, b, c and d at the commission because it's a very easy excuse to say you're just losing the three support staff, all of us deal with it but if we come in and say this is what it means, we're not going to be able to do 10 percent of what we are required to do. this particular program. it makes it harder for folks to visit andsay here's your 10

percent . and i agree with the chair. this is just the beginningof the fight and it's going to be a tough fight . but we are facing a huge epic challenge for the next year or beyond so we just have to find ways to fight it and i don't want to put ourselves against other departments and community groups that need money quest somebody isnot muted . >>daina chiu: chair, i would like to echo vice chair of these!. to the extent we can make impacts more real, what

would that look like for questions about i'm a candidate and i have questions about what forms i need to file areayou're not going to get the answer to the question or a real person . public financing is if you want to apply for public finance funds, you need to take next time, is probably going totake three times as long so to the extent we can qualify on to tell the story about what we won't be able to do and what that means , for the public and for no, officials i think it's all the more tangible and real powerful in what of the cuts would be and that'san point that commissioner lee made . >>chair ambrose: director pelham do you have to identify

specific positions when you show your cuts? are you going through and building your budget and this system and all of a sudden somebody that was in your budget last year , number 13 something isn't in there or is it bigger blocks? you just say this is how we are going to get there? i don't understand when you have to submit it and maybe i should stop before i ask a question like that because i thought if i ever really understood the cities finance system, i've been around too long but going back to the other point that folks are making, i agree. i think if we don't communicate and in fact it occurred to me we should just say we won't be able to do public financing of campaigns and then all of a sudden the board of supervisors would be very interested in

making sure that we had enough funding to make sure they can get the funding that they needed for their next election cycle so are we being on strategic in identifying positions that arenot clearly articulated as being essential to our being able to perform all the substantive things that we do ? i hope that that message is getting across. i also would want to because i am concerned about moving forward, i want to make sure that we if there is somebody out therein the public that wants to testify that we hear them .go actually want i'm going to ask you to go ahead and mute a notice for public comment and see if anyone'sbeen able to hang in there long enough to comment .>>ronald contreraz: where checking to

see if there arcolors in the queue. wait to indicate you have been on muted . to join the meeting we are currently on discussion on agenda item number eight . keep your comments to fiscal year 2022 that begins july 1, 2021. please press á3 to enter the public comment you.you will have three minutes tsubmit their comments . you will hear a belt go off when you have 30 seconds remaining . madam chair, wehave a color in the queue . thank you caller. your three minutes begins now. >>caller: commissioners, myname is francisco the cost . the last time i participated in your deliberations i described the state of affairs of the

sometime task force, theethics commission , the city attorney and the controller.nothing has changed. now, our mayor in the middle of this pandemic has taken a rais . she makes $400,000. as far as i know,i've been following this commission from day one , we need to put a business plan and submit to the mayor directly, not to the controller, not tothe city attorney, to the mayor directly . the federal bureau of investigation if you know something and know the ethics commission , they lean on the mayor.

the federal, the fbi is still monitoring her . so if harlan goes down and naomi goes down or juliet jumps the ship, there are about 30 or 40 in the pipeline that the federal bureau of investigation was forced to come and clean up because the sometime task force at thiscommission, the controller's office and city attorney did not do their job . nobody's going to tell it to you as strongly as i am and i do send you all some emails which i think all the commissionersshould read . we have corruption in our city that has reached saturation point. why do you think we created the ethicscommission ? what has our ethics commission done in the last 15 years when

it comes to a blow that's brought to your attention the millions of dollars that are being wasted, what have they done denmark nothing. what has the controller's office done, nothing really so we have a budget of $30 billio . and it shouldn't be a problem to give the ethics commission the full amount that they are asking to have resources to serve their constituents and taxpayers of san francisco. but you need to write a letter to the mayor and have that letter published in the newspapers. you know that some of the local newspapers are doing a beautiful job on the

controller, on the city attorney and ethics commission really you should read those articles by doctor kerr and the others. thank you very much. >>chair ambrose: thank you mister dacosta and do we have any other people in the queue? >>ronald contreraz: we are checking. once again if youhave just joined this meeting we are currently on public discussion of agenda item number eight . public comment and discussion of ethics mission for disclosure, 2022 which begins july 21st. if you've not done so rest á3 to be addedto the public comment queue. you will have three minutes to

provide public comment. you will hear a bell go off when you have 30 seconds remaining . ... madam chair, we have a caller in the queue. thank you caller, your three minutesbegins now . >>caller: iq. i agree the ethics commission does a lot of important work and there's a lot of things that need to be changed in the city and not only is the ethics commission important because of current problems in the