[meeting reconvened]

[meeting reconvened] >> okay, we are now back in public sessionism i want to thank members of the public for your patience and continued engagement as we resume our open session meeting. do i have a motion to disclose discussion held in closed session? >> i move to not disclose the substance of the closed session. >> second. >> okay. unanimous consent. >> yes. >> okay. now, let's go to item number 11. discussion and possible action regarding preliminary matters in the matter of paul allen taylor case number 20-243 1920-031. this item is called in connection with

ongoing enforcement matter involved the respondent paul allen taylor. in december of last year, the executive director issued a finding of probable cause in the case. the executive director cause found probable cause is existed to believe the respondent commitment (indiscernible) held in this case, the commission needs to resolve any relevant prem liminary matters. through this agenda item, the commission will decide the method in which it will use to resolve preliminary matters. this #cd include appointing a member of the commission to make decisions on behalf of the full body. enforcement division has presented the memo making recommendations how measures should be handled, and today we have our senior investigator mr. zack who will be making a brief

comment and answer any questions the commissioners may have. and afterwards, mr. taylor would have the same opportunity to speak and answer any questions of commissioners may have on him. so, mr. demarko, welcome. >> thank you. so, i will be fairly brief and open up to questions. everything is in the memo as well as in the larger guide book, both of which provided to the respondent and to the public on the website. so, i are want to just mention three quick things that i'll draw your attention to first. just to we are not dealing with substance today but take a step back and remind of the case in general. this was a case where the respondent mr. taylor was alleged to have coordinated between a committee and a pack to facilitate a $10 thousand expenditure by the pack that went towards

supporting the committee, his coordination is alleged to have (indiscernible) into contribution far over the $500 limit. flowing from that, the executive director found probable cause for 8 counts. the first 2 were that the respondent caused violations by both the committee to have accepted the contribution over the limit and the pack to have given the contribution over the limit. counts 3-6 are related to respondent causing the committee and pack to have not filed the proper campaign finance filings. they didn't report the $10 thousand contribution on the 460 and didn't file the late contribution report. count 7 ist noregistering as a campaign consultant and count 8 is withholding information and not complying with the investigation including several subpoenas. so, the second point i like to draw your attention to is the timeline and how we ended up

here. we worked several years as part of the investigation to reach stipulation as we do try to in all our cases. we were unable to, it isn't possibly in this case. after it became clear a stipulation want going happen- >> is that because the financial penalty was too stiff? >> that was-it was the lack of cooperation. we attempted to-i can go into more detail if you like at a certain point, but we attempted to reach out to the respondent multiple times, investigators talked to him via phone in september 2020 to notify him of a document request,bsent the request the same day,sent follow e-mails twice in october- >> we dont need lat level of detail. >> lack of responsiveness what so ever. >> alright. >> just briefly, after the became clear the stipulation want possible,

investigators served respondent with a probably cause report and a subpoena for documents at the same time in person on october 25 this year fallowed up snding mail the next dale and e-mail two days later. there was a three week deadline for the respondent to file response and request a pc conference. we sent reminder of the deadline november 9, the deadline passed november 15, no request or response, therefore per regulation the executive director had 60 days from issuing the pc report to issue a pc determination. so, that pc determination came december 19. the commission had 5 days to ratify it, it was ratified december 6, the monday after the 5 day deadline and that is how we have ended up here. and then the third thing i will briefly draw your attention to what we are here for today and that is, there are 4

separate items decisions really before the commission today that will allow us to then proceed with preliminary matters, which have to happen before we can have a hearing in this case. the first item is deciding who is presiding over the preliminary matters. as the memo goes over that can be a individual, commissioner outside hearing officer or the commission. the second item is set a deadline for motions to be filed that includes request for subpoena, motion to make determinations on preleminary matters. we want to make it clear so everyone knows what is expected if they e-mail or mail those requests and motions and who they send them to. finally, item 4 is if the commission decides today to appoint a individual for preliminary matters the commission

retain s the right to review the individual determinations and the regulations are silent on what process is in place for that review, so if you decide to appoint someone, then we ask you set out a process for your review including how a party request review, when the review happens, what the party's role is in the review and thereat is it. the memo goes into more detail, the guide book goes into more detail. i'm here to answer questions on individual items and case as a whole and with that, i'll turn it back. >> colleagues, do you want to hear from mr. taylor before we have any questions to both parties? >> i did have a question. maybe the fact mr. taylor is present will answer it. my second is hearing you speak that there (indiscernible) preliminary hearing either. he may not show up at all. it sounds like there is engagement if he is participating

today. >> yes. he is-sounds like he is participating today. >> alright. we'll deal with that later. >> why dont we-patch in mr. taylor and have him- >> please stand by. >> presentation before us. >> good afternoon mr. taylor, can you hear us? >> i can hear you. >> perfect. we can hear you. >> i was waiting for it to come up on my computer, but you are not on there now. >> we can hear you fine. >> mr. taylor, can you please proceed? >> say that again? >> would you like to proceed with your comments? >> i just came back on. have you guys already

discussed your side? >> we just heard from the staff report and we would like to hear from you. >> we got to stop. somebody has to figure this out. [echo] >> mr. taylor, looks like you have logged in twice. >> i logged in on my phone to find out if the meeting is still going on. it isn't on my computer. i just wanted to watch. i didn't have any comments. >> okay. >> he has no comments. >> mr. taylor, i understand you do not wish to make any comments? on your item? >> i dont know what you are going to say for me to comment about. >> can you help him figure

out-- [echo] >> mr. taylor, could you mute your other device or turn your other speaker off? we are hearing echo so it is difficult to hear you when you speak. >> mr. taylor, can you hear us now? >> is that better? >> much. >> thank you. >> so, mr. taylor, we have just taken up the item that involves you, and we just heard from the staff presentation and i understand you choose not to make any statements, is that correct? >> i was sitter here waiting to hear the presentation

but want able to get on until i called on my cell phone here. in other words, every time i called to relaunch the webinar it never once came on again, even though i got a heads up that you will be coming back on. so, i have not heard since you came out of closed session one word of what your people had to say, so i can't comment unless i have that. >> okay. with sense of fairness, i would ask our senior investigator to repeat his brief presentation. the way this is going to go is, the staff is going to make a presentation, the commission will hear from you mr. taylor, and then we would have questions for both of you. so, mr. dumarko. >> if it makes sense i can repeat the last parts

which is what is going to be happening. >> okay. >> great. we are here for today are 4 potential decisions for the commission to make before this case can proceed to preliminary matters. the first decision is who should presides over the preliminary matters. the commission can appoint a commissioner or outside officer or hear on their own. the second decision is to set a deadline for motions and subpoenas to be due into the preliminary matters commissioner or entire commission, a date for those things to be due. the third is for how those things should be submitted, who they should be sent to and via e-mail or mail or some other method. the fourth is the process by which the commission would review any determinations if they do appoint an individual to make those determinations. the commission can make a decision on how parties can request that review and what role they have

and how the review will run. so, that is what the commission is here and mr. taylor can-- >> mr. taylor, can you hear us? >> i heard you. >> yeah. so, the bottom line, is we are about to launch into a big process here about determining the allegations that the campaign finance allegations against you. we dont typically do that. this is pretty uncommon. what usually happens is that staff and who ever is involved in these allegations usually come to some kind of settlement well in advance. we are told by staff you haven't responded to them. is there a way to resolve this? you are entitled to go through the full due process in the hearing we are about to engage upon, but i want to make sure before we do that we are all on the same page that you dont want to try to work this out as a settlement to get it done quickly and we don't

have to go through the whole process. >> i don't even know what your charges really are. i dont know what you have to support those charges. i don't have any responses from anything that i have mailed into the ethic committee. >> is there a we can organize a meeting between you and the enforcement division to make thet clear? >> it sounds like we have been down this road and i credit staff with having tried to make those connections. >> i would say go for-if mr. taylor is willing to come to have a meeting to have these issues discussed, it seems you never made contact. >> we have made contact and then been ignored repeatedly through e-mail, in person service, voice mail, phone calls, we also

received numerous mailings in response to the probable cause report that came with all evidence and those mailings accused our officer of violation of the rico act and due process of every part of the constitution and demanded a million dollars from the commission and we felt we were unable to have any productive conversations with the respondent. if he is willing to meet we are happy to meet. >> okay. >> i think that we had received the executive director's report on probable cause a few months ago. that outlined all the contacts and all the outreach the staff has made, so i don't see any benefit if we were to delay it few more weeks to have

mr. taylor come back and engage with the staff, because everything was already outlined. if we can make that report available to other commissioners and eve mr. taylor, that is fine, but i think that we need to really address this. is it time sensitive matter? don't we have to act within a certain period? >> there is no immediate deadline right now. this meeting is intended to kick off the preliminary matters process and set deadlines and then there will be deadlines. >> okay. >> but at this moment, there are no current. >> you have estimated penalty of what you guys would offer as a first-? >> no, we cant talk about that right now. >> okay. >> okay, so colleagues-

>> your acquisitions are not true and so there is no reason to talk about a settlement, because they are not true. i have no violated anything. >> absolutely you are right to-that what we are here to determine. that is the whole points. >> the question for mr. taylor whether he has a opinion about whether we should appoint a commissioner to preside over preliminary matters, whether we should do it as a body and deadlines for filing motions to for preliminary matters. mr. taylor, if you have thoughts on that, i would love to hear them. >> you are presenting two options. is that what i'm hearing? >> the agenda item has been posted- >> dont do that. >> well, i will not read the

entire memo, but the first decision we are facing is who presides over the preliminary matters. the options are member of the commission, license attorney not on the commission or full body. >> this is the commission discussion and decision. >> right. >> so, i think that after we hear from mr. taylor and if mr. taylor doesn't have any further things to add and we dont have questions to ask, then it is up to this body to decide whether to appoint a member of the commission, hire a public outside counsel, or to conduct this as a full commission to conduct to carry out the motions on preliminary matters. that is what is in front of us right now. >> that's why i'm

inviting mr. taylor to opine on. >> mr. taylor. >> my trust level is very low for you, because you guys came at me accusing me of something that i would never do and never did. andthetened if i didn't give up information you have no right to then you would send in police to take my computers and phones and anything they can find in the search of my property, which this is not a fishing hunt you come here looking for stuff to try to find a crime. there is no crime. and so you're violating and moving along with this as if you are-i don't have a chance to prevail with the truth. >> that's-sorry this

is so complicated and are difficult to do this over the phone. i appreciate that. we are trying to set up a trial so you can present your case for the truth and there is determination. these are pre-trial matters that we are trying to establish. we are wondering if you have feelings about how to do the pre-trial matters on who should determine the rules of the road as it were? >> i understand and that is the reason why i sent you questions to show your jurisdiction to put me in a trial and you didn't respond and that's why the penalties have come at you, because i sent in a lot of printed documents for you to read and to respond to. you say i don't respond, but you guys have not responded. now, you have delivered the subpoena to a place that i no longer occupy and use that

against me, so i never received that, and so everything that i see that is going on in your arena makes me feel not at ease that a fair trail or anything is fair or truthful will come out of this. also, tied into this it makes it even more difficult is this, is that, coming after me someone who did nothing wrong but yet the violators who had the billboards that this whole thing was based about taken down and removed was the federal crime you do nothing about it. 22 billboards i produced and managed that is all i did is produce them. (indiscernible) were taken down after

they were up two days. >> mr. taylor, i'm not your lawyer but encourage you not to start talking about the facts. we will have a proceedings at some point presumably to address this. today we are focused on preliminary matters how to design the rules of the road. if you dont have a opinion, that's fine, but this is your chance to have a opinion. >> i don't have a opinion right now. >> okay. >> we appreciate you're maintaining you didn't do this and that is the point of doing this, okay? >> would the commission like for me to comment briefly on a few processings he mention just to respond or no? >> yes, but i just want to put in the record that i want to make sure that the public knows this commission, the members and representatives would not threaten anybody's personal or property, so i just want to make sure that is the case. you have a chance to respond and i want the record

to reflect that. >> thank you for thunt. we delivered the subpoena and the probable cause report in person. two of our investigators traveled delivered them to mr. taylor in person, alsosent by mail and e-mail address which we since received response from him about attending today. in that pc report i would also note we outlined where the commission gets the authority, the legal authority and jurisdiction over his behavior and finally, we did not follow up on the subpoena and make a threat whether or not he responded and what we may or may not do. >> so, the next step is for us to consider options for preliminary. first of

all, in terms of timing, are we required to make the decision today, or can we table it until a further meeting? >> that is up to you. there are no current deadlines. we put it on the agenda because it is required to move forward, but there is no deadline for you to do it today. >> okay. among the three options, may i just suggest that we delete the outside counsel one due to budge t or concerns? >> that means it has to be one of the 4 of us? >> yes, the decision is about us. >> alright. >> i think we should pick one of us to deal with the preliminary matters. i doubt all 4 want to sit on dealing with the preliminary matters. if we do, by all means, let's hear it. are folks interested in doing this as a

commission? >> not it. does anybody want to do it? >> do i have a volunteer had? >> i will do it. i think i have the experience. i tried criminal cases and work frd a judge. i have a question about timing though. i know part of this we are also picking-i'm not getting ahead of a decision, but for timing, there is one of the action items is deadline to serve motions or file motions. following from that, when do you envision-is there a idea when decisions on the motions would be decided? what is the turn around kblrks that is up to you or who ever is appointed to handle preliminary matters. these are the decisions before you are the only 4 decisions that should be made by the whole commission and

everything else there are deadlines, there are how certain things should be done that the preliminary matters commissioner or if the whole commission hears it whole commission will decide. >> can i appoint commissioner finlev to preside over this preliminary matter at the earliest convenient time? >> it requires majority vote to appoint a individual. >> okay. >> do we need a motion? >> if others are interested i'm happy to hear from them. >> i move to appoint commissioner finlev. >> second. >> you should take public comment. >> hold on a second, do we have to take public comment on each of the 4 different--?