am at now. claire, can you please explain how the remote public comment will be handled today? thank you, madam chairman. public comment will be available on each item on this agenda. each member of the public will be

allowed three minutes to speak for those attending in person. opportunity to speak during the public comment period will be made available here in room 400 city hall. for those attending remotely, public comment period can also be provided via phone call by calling. 14156550001. again, the phone number. is 14156550001 access code. is. 2663 095878. for again access code. is (266)!a309-5878. for followed by the pound sign then press pound again to join as an attendee when your item of interest comes up, press star three to raise your hand to be added to the public comment line . public comment is also available via the webex client application. use the webex link on the agenda to connect and press the raised hand button to

be added to the public comment line for detailed instructions on how to interact with the telephone system or webex client. please refer to the public comment section of the this agenda document for this meeting. public comment may also be submitted in writing and will be shared with the commission after this meeting has concluded and will be included as part of the official meeting file. written comments should be sent to ethics commission at sf gov. org once again written comments should be sent to ethics commission at sf gov. org members of the public who attend commission meetings, including remote attendance, are also expected to behave responsibly and respectfully during public comment. please address your comments to the commission as a whole and not to individual members persons who engage in name calling, shouting interruptions or other distracting. behaviors may be excluded from participation. the following behaviors or activities are strictly prohibited during remote particip session. applause or

vocal expression of support or opposition lawn signs. regardless of content or message, profane sanity, threats of physical aggression. the prohibition on signs does not apply to clothing, which includes signage pinned to clothing, messages displayed on clothing, pins, hats or buttons . this provision supplements rules and policies adopted by city hall. the sheriff's office or the board of supervisor hours related to decorum prohibited conduct or activities, noise et cetera, and is not meant to be exhaustive. thank you, madam chair. thank you. i now call the meeting to order. roll call, please. commissioners, please verbally indicate your presence after your name is called commissioner flores fang. she's excused. she's excused. excused. absence. vice chair. finland here. chair lee. present commissioner salahi. present chair lee with three members present and accounting for you have a quorum. thank you. um,

let's go to agenda item number two, which is general public comment. anyone in the room wish to speak. go good morning, ethics. you see, it's very. we i keep this today. i'm a bit. we have to pay attention. so you see, even the clock says it's late. it's a bit late to. we have to pay attention. uh it is impossible to fight against the eternal rules of existence. which states that for any human being, the reason for being is happiness. and you can't achieve this happiness without exclusively working within yourself. it's. a mindset towards the eternal, all emotional aspirations towards beauty. if you don't do that, you can't be happy. end of the story. it means that you work

indirectly or not towards ugliness and you finish your life unhappy much, mostly ugly. and the eternal rules of existence tells you you are not badge ever. even if you don't believe in reincarnation. it's not the problem. the universe works by cycle of reproduction. that's all life is about existence. so we have to pay attention because it's late ethics rely on this understanding. otherwise you don't have any basis. what ethics? everybody decides ethics. no, no. if you don't rely on this idea that your reason for being is happiness according to these rules, you are then so you are free not to want to be happy, but humanity doesn't need you because exist sense says it doesn't need you anymore. have a nice day. it's

not for you. it's for i know, but i can be more specific because i work for everybody's happiness. you have to understand that. are we clear? thank you. any other speakers? if not, let's go to the queue. madam chair. we have two callers in the queue. please stand by for the first caller. welcome a caller. your three minutes begin now. commissioner my name is francisco da costa and the last ethics commission, i was there in person. i i want to bring to your attention that a role of the ethics commission is very important to the citizens of san

francisco. and i want to bring to your attention an that recently an individual angel who has hoodwinking everybody in broad daylight. and he took. 15 years, 15 years to bring this person to book. and the ethics commission was aware of this person. dealing with community benefits and failed us. and the ethics commission was aware of another person that worked with him. and failed us. and you have

one commissioner who worked for the fair political practices commission who is aware of the situation. we want a adjudication based on empirical data that i provided to the comptroller, not this city attorney, but the past city attorney, he said on the information and prepare the way for him to become the general manager of the san francisco public utilities commission in and new ethics commission have to adjudicate this case because initially you fail to do due to justice. no fair play, no sound

adjudication. but looking the other way. thank you very much. next caller, please. okay please stand by. will we get the second caller going? welcome caller your three minutes begins now. can you hear me now? yes. great it's david pilpel. good morning . so i just had one brief comment. i've been working through some complicated issues with staff recently. they're not relevant for today's agenda, but i just wanted to mention that my interactions with staff have been entirely professional. they've been quite helpful and we're in a big problem solving mode. some of the results may come to you at some point, but i just wanted to say that i really appreciate the professional work of your small but highly

competent staff. that's all for me for now. thanks very much. thank you. madam chair. we have no, we don't have any further callers in the queue. okay public comment is closed for agenda item number two. let's go to consent calendar. there will be no separate discussions on the consent calendar item unless a request is made by a commission member or a member of the public in attendance, in which event the matter shall be removed from the consent calendar and considered as a separate item. colleagues, any know anyone in the any member of the audience? no reflected so let's open up for public comment on consent calendar, please. madam chair, we have no callers in the queue. okay. let's take a

roll, please. oh, we need to have a motion. i move to adopt the consent calendar second. okay roll call, please. okay. on the motion to adopt the consent calendar, vice chair of a chair. lee. a commissioner salahi. a madam chair with three votes in the affirmative and zero votes opposed. the motion is approved unanimously. okay, let's go to agenda item number five, which is an update and discussion regarding the march 2024 ethics commission ballot measure focus on gift training and other city ethics laws. let's have our acting policy and legislative affairs manager, mr. michael kenny, to give us an overview and answer any questions we may have. thank you. chair lee. commissioners just to briefly recap, what was in the staff memo since the last meeting,

staff have delivered the commission's approved ballot measure to the department of elections and worked with the chair to issue a press release regarding the measure. submission staff have also followed up with the mayor's office and the department of public health to notify them of the amendments that were made during the last meeting. staff is currently working on developing additional materials for the public that will provide factual information about the measure. the staff also met yesterday with the department of elections to get more information about how the commission can submit ballot arguments which the commission has done with previous measures and drafts of those will come before the commission in the coming months. we've also been in the process of developing initial draft regulations, actions related to section 3.218 of the measure for the commission to consider in the future. and lastly, the memo has attached to it the city attorney's 2022 memo on political activities, which was included as a reminder for commissioners and staff and the public regarding what's allowed

and prohibited in relation to the measure and i'm happy to answer any questions. the commission has and deputy attorney brad rusty is also available for any questions on the political activities memo. thank you. the packet was really helpful seeing the old ballot measure argument was really helpful to see how that works. i'm just curious whether anyone's reached out from the mayor's office or anywhere else about substantive proposed regulatory anything they want to address in the proposed ballot in the ballot measure, language nothing specific. we updated the mayor's office in relation to the financial interest rule that was removed, and i think conversations around that are moved to what would be an item six in relation to the legislation proposed by supervisor safai. so we haven't heard anything specific related to the measure since then. okay great. thank you. let's open up public comment. no one in the

room. let's go to the queue, please. madam chair, we have one caller in the queue. please stand by. welcome caller your three minutes begins now. so commissioners. the public. they don't have the latest amendments that have been made. but we are trying to work with the election department meant to put some language and the gentleman who gave his short presentation seems to think that that's the way to do it. commissioners. when it comes to behalf donations, we. with us at the

board of supervisors. when the mayor's office came with a proposition to get a waiver on behalf of donations is linked to a pac, a conference that's going to be held in november. what is happening here is that when it comes to gifts, training and other city ethics laws, we do not have standards as we need a language on standards. we need a

language on how this department can get their orientation and how the heads of department are evaluated. it we need to focus on standards. the generalities of stating that we said this and they agreed to it. and the election department is going to put it on the ballot measure. we have no clue if they meet standards. and if you cannot do that as the ethics commission, that we have to revisit this type of talk. we where some generalities and the language is very general, but it has no standards. thank you very much.

thank you, madam chair. we have no further callers in the queue. any other callers who wish to address this item? none. okay. public comment is closed. i do have a question for our assistant city attorney. what happens if we are asked, as in vigils? but people know that we serve on this commission to do get out the vote activity is not specifically on this specific ballot, but just urge members of the public to vote. um i'm sorry, i didn't understand your question. could you repeat it, please? if you're asked about i understand we cannot comment on on any specific ballot measures, but what happens if we are called upon to urge members of the public to vote to do the

civic duties next year? would that be allowable without touching anything on this ballot, just say, hey, please go out to vote. you know, you know , urge to vote generally in the election, but not with respect to this measure. no, just for the march election. i think that's probably okay for you to do. there are specific rules that apply under the charter to the commission with respect to your political activities and generally, you're really not supposed to be involved in election in endorsing candidates or measures regardless of what they are, including your own measure. i think likely just as a statement, we urge everyone to vote is probably okay because normally we do use our titles. but members of the press usually would identify us, whether it's a member of the ethics commission, you know, even though we don't use it ourselves. and i've caught myself, you know, being on the

receiving end. but all we have to do is just say all members of san francisco. citizens please go vote in march in the march, as long as you're not not you're not specifically referencing any measure or candidate, i think that's probably fine. but the newspaper would say, you know, commissioners sarlahi, member of the ethics commission, urge members of the public to vote in the march 2024 election. right. i mean, if the article is about this measure, you might want to decline to comment. i think that probably would be the better course of action because by making any comment with respect to this measure, it's going to be perceived as you endorsing, urging people to vote affirmatively for this measure, which would be an issue under your sire and under the charter rules. does that make sense? no longer applies to me, but for my colleagues next year, it would be a potential issue. i'm sorry.

i'm done. i'm done by next march so i could speak my, my, my free will, right? i'm not. do you have another? i couldn't understand what you said. i'm sorry. no, i'm just saying that for the for this item, it would impact my colleagues more. okay. jerry is indicating she will. no longer be a i think a commissioner at that time. oh, right. when the ballot when the measure. yeah, right. you won't be on the commission anymore. right okay. um um. so no action is required for this item. let's go to agenda item number six. this which. discussion of legislative proposal from the board of supervisors prohibiting city officials from receiving compensation from departmental contractor was again, let's have mr. michael kenny to give us a review and answer any, uh. thank you, chair lee. commissioners

this legislation was introduced by supervisor safai, which would prohibit officers and employees from receiving compensation from entities that contract with their departments. this this legislation is intended to address both real and perceived conflicts that can arise when a city official is employed by or receiving compensation from an entity that's contracting with their department. some departments already have similar rules to this in their cities. others do not. there was a similar rule that was included in a previous draft of the commission's ballot measure that was removed during last month's meeting. also during last month's meeting, the commission discussed potentially narrowing this rule. so it applies only to form 700 filers. the legislation is currently being discussed as part of a process with city units. there's been a meeting on that thus far and additional meetings will likely occur and there is a. uh, information

being exchanged as part of that that meeting confer, which will need to be finalized before either the city can implement this legislation if desired. the item was agendized today for the commission to be able to ask questions, identify priorities and discuss the legislation with representatives from supervisor safiya's office. i believe bill barnes is here from the supervisor's office and is prepared to speak to the commission and take questions as well. thank you, michael. bill barnes with supervisor safiya's office. want to thank the ethics commission for all of its hard work on the measure that will appear on the march ballot this was one part of that potential measure focused on individuals who are city employees who are then being compensated by contractors of their departments . in general, we believe that outside employment should be allowed for city employees. some people, because they need to or because of professional reasons, seek outside employment. for

example, a nurse at san francisco general might also be a nurse at ucsf for a doctor, might go to a different facility so that we think that's okay. but what is not okay is when people who are making decisions are then being compensated in addition to their city salary by a contractor or their department as michael noted, many departments already prohibit this practice. government code section 1090 prohibits this practice where an individual is part of making the rfp, they then can't profit from it later. that's a state law, but there's not a clear standard in the code. so we drafted something that we thought was effective. it was narrower than what was in the proposed measure. and let me just talk about those differences quickly and then i'll take any questions. we exempt any local, state or federal entity that has a contract from this prohibition. so, for example, you, ucsf or the veterans administration would be exempted and employees would be able to generate income there if the measure were to

pass and we also exempt spouses or registered domestic partners from the requirement. so city officials have to, on their form 700 list the employment and sources of income of their spouse or registered domestic partner. if the spouse or registered domestic partner worked at a contract there, that would continue to be allowed. i i would just say a couple of things. the offer process has been great. we've heard from labor that that they are generally supportive but don't want to harm frontline workers who are not making any sort of governmental decisions, but may have another position. so we're hopeful that we'll be able to get to agreement with them as we work through the process and we suspended the process because we wanted to be differential to this commission. had the measure gone on the ballot with the provisions that were in it, then those would have superseded our ordinance. so we sort of suspended our work while we waited to see what happened.

just two examples. one actually what example i just shared, i think is in the staff report there was an employee at pf who was earning outside income from a contractor widely reported in the media. we held a hearing of the ethics commission. staff, came in, did a great job, came, as you all know, outside employment is required to be reported to the city prior to beginning outside employment. it has to be approved by the department as well as by da. we discovered that there were hundreds of employees who had never notified pf or da of their outside employment. so we're already making progress under the existing rules. this ordinance would just clarify and standardize this prohibition. i will stop there and take any questions. i have a couple go ahead. i always have questions. but commissioner sally, go ahead . thank you for the presentation. that was very helpful. so i do have a couple of questions. just to clarify, i think you mentioned that the this measure is intended to only as far as the outside compensate is concerned is only intended to

apply to employees who might have a decision making role with respect to the outside employer. is that right? the current draft that's before you does not include that language that is on the table in the meet and confer process and we are amenable to making those amendments after we complete that process. it is our intention to have it apply to those individuals who are decision making forms. have 100 filers would be an example of that. there may be other individuals who don't follow form seven hundreds, but who are making decisions, maybe giving input on an rfp for example. so we need to be thoughtful about what the language is, but that's our goal. okay. thank you. yeah, that was my question because it seemed like the language here is broader than than that. but the second question i had is just echoing a question that commissioner finlaw had at the last commission meeting about the commission's own ballot measure, which is just trying to provide us with a more concrete understanding of what kinds of employees are going to be affected by this. maybe that's not as much of an issue if the language is narrowed in the way that you've you've represented it today. but if it is a broader

one, i think it would be helpful to know who it will actually impact. so that we can assess that and so that is a question that was asked to meet and confer. da is pulling together for those employees who have been approved for outside employment. and so we'll have a list of their employers as well as their classifications before we move forward. so we'll know here are the type of employees in the aggregate here are the types of outside entities that they're drawing income from and of that, there'll be a subset that are departmental contractors, right? some people will be drawing outside employment from just other folks. and that's okay because they have nothing to do with local government. so parsing that data now we'll share it with the labor unions and then we'll share it with you all the other source of that data is form 700. so to the extent the individuals file a form 700 and they list outside income, that's a public form. as you all know. so we would be able to cross-reference those individuals who have a listed source of income. that's a contract or that would be a data project we could work out as

well. so we will make certain to have that information before we bring it to the board. and we have to bring this back to you all for approval on a 4/5 basis before the board could consider out of two thirds basis. and so we'll make sure to have that information before we return. thank you. thank you for being here. i think this is a great kind of common sense, good government, good government legislation. but i'm about the details, i suspect. i'm glad you're doing that. form 700 and looking at where the outside employment is, because i suspect for some of the nurses or doctors, the outside employer may not be a government agency. it may be a private medical provider contractor type entity. and they would not be, as i understand it, exempt under the current legislation. so there may be a way to address that so that you're not kind of treating similarly situated folks differently just based on who the employer is. but i guess that data kind of call you doing will help you see where those

folks are in fact working. and then kind of related to that, this hypothetical i presented, i think at our last commission meeting where by exempting song government outside employment, maybe that also creates is too big of an exemption in some situations where you have the head of a city agency that's also high up in a government agency that's to me potentially presents the same conflict that it would if they were at an outside private employer. staff pointed out that that might violate other parts of the statement of incompatible activities. maybe you know, the time burden or things like that . that said, though, i think if you're going to address conflicts, that may be worth looking at because right now, as written, it's a pretty broad it's both maybe too narrow and too broad, the exemption. and i think it's going to be really hard to find that perfect place other than the last thing. so those are more kind of suggestions for you to keep in mind going forward. the current exemption applies to, sorry, the current language exempts spouses

income, but that income would still be on the form 700, right? so it'd be disclosed so that folks can assess this person's spouse works for contractor and they're making these decisions. is there a conflict? is that right? that is correct. but the spouse or domestic partner wouldn't be prohibited from having that employment. it would potentially limit the city employee in their decision making capacity based on the conflicts, but it wouldn't be prohibited in that instance. i would just respond to your comments by saying thank you. i appreciate the feedback. we're hopeful that we can use the vehicle for process and legislative process to get this right. and the other thing that we're looking at, which i would just share more briefly, is that we have some data and we've seen there was a recent case brought by the da around the community challenge grant program where someone was receiving a payments allegedly there. so we have other data from other departments has been the primary focus of attention. but we haven't done a citywide sweep of all departments to get the

information on how this would work. and so that is going to be part of the beacon for it would be able to share with you not just in the dpa context, but in the context of every other department as well. those who've reported their income. yeah, i think it'd be fascinating. just public service to put out, not specifically who has what job, but like an anonymized data set of where city folks have outside outside employment. as you move forward, i think it'd be helpful to us. well, i guess it's a question about the process before the board. how does it work? safari makes his proposed legislation. then it comes to us and then it goes to the board. so the process is we introduced this ordinance and it was referred to the ethics commission, which has to act on it by a 4/5 vote in order for it to move forward to the board of supervisors. if the commission recommends it on a 4/5 vote, then the board could consider it and approve it on a two thirds basis. that process can only begin after we satisfy our meet our obligations and once we have

that initial assessment, we're basically doing an up or down vote. well can we make suggestions? or then it creates like a ping pong effect where it goes back and forth between us and the board. we would welcome suggestions from the commission. i would defer to the deputy city attorney and others on how that would impact being conferred to the extent that we have suggestions that weren't discussed with bargaining units that we accept, we might have to go back. but that would be that would be a step. we're open to if there are recommended amendments from the commission level would be happy to explore that. yeah, i guess just at that point i'd urge you to share your work with staff kind of in advance so that they can have that. and it sounds like you already are working with them. yeah, and staff will be part of the meet and confer process as well. so if the commission has priorities that you want kind of brought into the meet and confer, you can communicate those through staff and hopefully those would be reflected in what's agreed on through the meet and confer. got it. okay great. yeah. i personally would love to see any

language that you come up with that addresses those kind of waivers or exemptions that we've talked about. but thank you to the office for moving this forward. i think it's important legislation. thank you all. we look forward to working and also i should mention, we've also been working with the human services network and others, not just in the labor community, but in the nonprofit world at other places, to make sure that any concerns they have are also incorporated. so by the time we come back to you, hopefully most stakeholders will have had their concerns as evaluated and addressed. thank you. thank you very much. um let's open up for public comment. okay. madam chair, we have two callers in the queue. please stand by. first caller, welcome. caller your three minutes begins now. now great. can you hear me now? yes great. david pilpel, actually. sorry nothing substantive on this. i appreciate the dialog back and forth. i just wanted to point out a technical issue too. if

staff can work with sf govtv so far, twice during this meeting, the phone line has gone dead and i had to call back in. it's not a problem. i'm online on webex, but it has been a problem on the phone and i checked it. it's not the phone on my end so there may be some glitch in the phone system with webex, but i appreciate the discussion on this item and thank you to bill barnes and supervisor safi for their work on this. that's all. thank you. all right, madam chair, we're going to go to the second caller in the queue, please stand by. welcome. caller your three minutes begins now. so commission is if you do a needs assessment of what happened at the city administrator's office with this woman doling out community

benefits. i think. you all do not have all the information on because this case is just being adjudicated and so there are many loopholes right now. how certain people receive compensation not only with the department of health, but some other departments. that is all i'll say. you cannot not address this situation without delving more as to how such things could go on at the city administrator's office for so long. and at the same time look into the san francisco public

utilities commission. that right now in its contracts is still encouraging the contract to do outreach, which look into it. there's money set aside. linked to the contractor to do outreach , which if the contra actor doesn't do the outreach, somebody else can do it. what about mickey mouse? is this this look into it. thank you. okay. thank you, madam chair. there's no further callers in the queue. okay public comment is closed since there is no action required for this item, let us

go. thank you, mr. barnes, for your presentation and we hope to see you again next month. thank you. thank you. let's go to the next agenda item, which is campaign finance information presentation. an i call on our enforcement divisions. investigative analyst mr. demarco, the presentation. welcome. uh, we have a presentation. just a powerpoint slide here. so great. thank you . chair lee. commissioners my name is zach d'amico. i'm a senior investigator with the enforcement division. we have a presentation here basically over the last several years, the division has taken on, we think, more wide ranging campaign finance cases to better achieve some of the policy goals underlying those laws, including

public access to information and avoidance of undue influence. we've also started to prioritize proactive investigations in an attempt to identify violations without the receipt of a complaint from a member of the public next year, 2024, the city will hold elections for 19 city elective positions. that will be alongside a presidential election and presumably proposed ballot measures. with such a large volume of campaign finance activity, we hope to start preparing the commission and the public through what will be hopefully around a 15 minute presentation today, highlighting just a few major areas of campaign finance law. obviously, 15 minutes is not enough to dive into the entire code. today will just be an overview of a few select laws, focus on conduct that we're hoping to prioritize over the coming years. we also welcome commission feedback on those areas of priority and where we should direct our attention over the coming i guess now 30 been to 14 months until the election. so just

briefly, the presentation will just start with a quick reminder of some of the building blocks of campaign finance law. a lot of this will be things that you're very familiar with, but want to sort of start from the most basic and build up. then i'll move on. i'll discuss committee obligations that will include both. when the obligation to form a committee arises and when it does arise in the committee exists, the various disclosure requirements imposed by law within these sections of selected one particular area of law to focus on through a case study and then finally, we'll briefly discuss some of the restrictions placed on committee fundraising through contribution limits and other prohibitions. and again, we'll focus on two areas of law through a case study, both from the cases will be both from our jurisdiction and other jurisdictions. so as i'm sure you're all aware, there are two major laws that govern campaign finance in san francisco elections. the san francisco campaign and governmental conduct code. article one. and

at the state level, the political reform act, both of these have implementing regulations and both the ethics commission locally and the fppc at the state level have issued interpreted interpretive guidance over the years. you'll see both of these laws cited in pretty much every one of our stipulations or cases that are brought before you in particular, the one piece of code that's worth pointing to for everyone is in campaign and governmental conduct code section 1.106. essentially incorporates the state law political reform act into local law as it applies to local city elections. so at times when we're citing state law, it's only as it applies to our elections in terms of foundational terms. again, most of these will be familiar to everyone and although they do each have sort of their own quirks, for example, candidates will almost always be defined by their presence on the ballot, and that's written into law. but the law also defines candidates as. excuse me, basically anyone

who is making expenditures or accepting contributions in order to bring about their own election, even if they're not on the ballot yet, and even if they don't know which office they're running for yet, they're still considered a candidate under the law. committee, on the other hand, is just any single person or group of persons who's receiving contributions or making expenditures hours exceeding a certain threshold. i'll go into more detail on that briefly on the next slide, but i think you can already see, even just from the definition of candidates and committees, that contributions and expenditures are two of the core terms in making our campaign finance laws work. and so just briefly, a contribution is any payment that forgiveness of a loan or enforceable promise of payment that's received by a candidate or a committee. if it's for political purposes, whereas an expenditure similarly is just any payment forgiveness of a loan or enforceable promise of a payment, not received by a candidate or committee. and if it's for a political purposes, again and finally, an

expenditure is considered to be an independent expenditure referred to as an i. if it's made in connection with a communication advocating for or against a candidate, but it's not made at the behest of or to that candidate. so it's truly independent, which will most of these terms will just be brought up through this presentation. so i felt it was important to briefly establish the formal definitions of them. so first, i want to quickly just discuss when exactly does a person or group of persons accepting or spending money for political purposes become a committee? we there are three main ways that this can happen in. the first is if they are receiving contributions of at least $2,000 in one year. that's considered a recipient committee. second, if they're making independent expenditures of at least $1,000 in a calendar year, that's an eye committee. third, if they're making contribution to or at the behest of other candidates or committees of at least 10,000 in

1 year, and that's considered a major donor committee. now, upon forming, each committee also has a set of requirements considered to be part of their official organization. things like they have to file a statement of organization, they have to have an official treasurer, someone the treasurer and the candidate has to take training. they have to pay fees, things like that. and as i'll get to later, the committees are then subject to obligations for reporting their activity, which essentially govern what campaigns have to report when they report them and where they report them. we're talking about these thresholds just for city measures and candidates, right? yeah. so a committee taking $1 billion for congressman from san francisco might be a state committee, but not anything that would relate to what we're dealing with. right. can you repeat the question? so a congressional candidate in san francisco would not flag for city purposes, right? right. if they're a federal candidate and so i just

want to briefly get at some of the basic purpose of these formation requirements is basically as soon as any person or group of persons is raising or spending money for political purposes, as they are working to influence an election. and so the law now forces them to disclose what they're doing to influence that election, which gives the public, the press regulators insight into those activities to attempt to influence the election. i want to look as an example at multipurpose organizations, which under the law are a range of organized nations from trade associations to nonprofits, civic, religious, educational institutions, organized nations that have varying degrees of transparency into their finances, usually less than is required of political committees. but their work often includes and overlaps with political activity. so when, for example, does a nonprofit have to register as a political committee and to disclose their finances as such is an example.

i just want to look at when a nonprofit would have to form as a recipient committee under the law. first, they have to have met the threshold that i mentioned on the last slide. they have to have received contribution loans, meaning donations meant for a political purpose of at least $2,000. but then they have to meet one of an additional criteria. either they must have solicited the donation specifically for making contributions or expenditures, or there has to have been a condition agreement or understanding between the donor and the nonprofit that that money would be used for contributions or expenditures in other words, basically there has to have been an indication or a meeting of the minds between the person giving the money and the nonprofit receiving the money that this would be used for political purposes. the law essentially ensures that donors can't hide their political activity by funneling their money through nonprofits engaged in political activity. but it also protects nonprofits who are engaged in very little incidental political activity.

that is not at all the core of what they're doing. take for example, the bicycle coalition case. this is the san francisco bicycle coalition. in recently, this commission approved a stipulation. in that case, the coalition fundraised directly for their efforts on ballot measures that were designed to keep a stretch of jfk drive car free at and in that case, again, the coalition specifically referenced this ballot measure in emails sent out to their members soliciting money to be used to influence the ballot measure and then proceeded to spend that money on communications and activities designed to influence the ballot measure that was an expenditure. so members or supporters who donated in response to that email had a reasonable expectation that their money would be used for political purposes. and therefore, under the under the law, they have the right to see how that money was used through reporting under our campaign finance laws, as did the rest of the public. so the nonprofit was required to form a committee and report that activity. moving on briefly,

we'll cover the basics of the obligations that then apply once you have formed a committee prior. primarily, these come in the form of reporting. you have semiannual statements that committees are required to file twice per year. this documents contributions received and made, expenditures made payments, loans essentially financial balancing statements out as the elections draw nearer, committees have to file what are called pre-election statements. these contain the same information they're just done on a more regular basis to keep the public more up to date with what committees are doing as the elections draw closer. and finally, again, as i'm sure you're aware, there are late contribution and late expenditure reports that must be filed within 24 hours. once you get close to the election. if the expenditure or contribution is over $1,000, again, the purpose behind these laws is fairly simple. it's to give the public and the press and understanding of who's who is spending to influence elections and how they're spending. and it's to allow regulators to

ensure that donors, candidates, committees are following the law committees are also subject to certain disclaimer requirements . i'm not going to get into those today. i think that's a separate rabbit hole. we can go down just in the interest of time. but i did want to mention that on this topic. i just want to highlight an area of the law that's focused on where a committee must file its statements. i mentioned a lot of the disclosure requirements focus on what when and where for general purpose committees, which are committees that make contributions or expenditures to support or oppose multiple candidates. essentially, the law states that a committee qualifies under city jurisdiction under our jurisdiction. if it makes more than 70% of its contributions or expenditures, is focused on elections. in one city in san francisco, then they would fall under the ethics commission's jurisdiction if less than 70% is dedicated to one particular city. if it's spread across jurisdictions, they would be under the state's jurisdiction.

every committee is responsible for determining its own status, verifying it quarterly and changing its jurisdiction. if it's activity changes, then there are just briefly, there are two tests that a committee can use to determine whether they reach the 70% threshold, the 24 month test looks at the prior two years of activity. the current period test only looks at activity going back to january 1st of the most recent odd numbered year. that may seem arbitrary at first glance. if you're a committee choosing that test today, you're only reporting your activity from january through september of this year. the reason for it is that oftentimes after an election cycle, committees will pivot to a new jurisdiction because they only cared about about measure. that was in san francisco in 2022, and now they're done in san francisco. they're moving elsewhere. so if their activity has changed, they shouldn't have to look all the way back two years to activity that's not really relevant for what they're doing right now. and it's up to them to determine which test is most, most accurately reflects their activity. so again, this

commission recently voted to approve a stipulated settlement in a case dealing with progress. san francisco, a general purpose committee that had had switched back and forth between city and state jurisdiction five times over a two year period in which 98% of their activity was focused on san francisco city elections. and i think this emphasizes the fact that for most people, the where of jurisdiction may seem to be sort of the least contentious or least complicated requirements surrounding a committee's filing obligations. but i do think this case illustrates its importance as a member of the public. if i want to get a full picture of a well funded committee's activity and attempts to influence san francisco elections, i should be able to find all that information in one place. i know to go to the ethics commission's website or and look at in where to find disclosures. but if i find six late contribution reports covering 50,000 and

expenditures, but the committee has another 300,000 expenditures that they've filed elsewhere but that are influencing city elections. i think i have the full picture and i don't. and i don't even know what i don't know. i don't know to go check other jurisdictions and piece it all together. if regulators, if journalists are using the ethics commission's data sets and their, you know, our data visualization tools, i'm not getting the full picture of who is spending to influence elections if they're sort of sophisticated actors are trying to game the system and file in different places. so that's some of the importance of kind of the ins and outs of the where to file part of the law moving on to discussion around some of the limits and prohibition laws that apply to who can contribute to candidates and candidate committees and how much they can contribute these are more of the high profile laws that i think a lot more people are aware of. so by way of brief summary, you have things like the $500

contribution limit to candidate committees from any one person. you have. there is a prohibition on contributions in exchange for any official action vote, use of influence or lack thereof. there is a prohibition on on contributions to candidate committees from any corporation , an llc or llp. there's a prohibition on any city contractors or their affiliates from making contributions to someone who might have approval of authority over that contract and a prohibition on any person with a financial interest in a land use matter from contribute to a supervisor, mayor, city attorney or a candidate for one of those positions. again, i think the purpose here is fairly straightforward. it's designed to limit the undue influence that any person or organization can have over an election or an elected official. there also in place to limit the potential conflicts of interest that can arise over the course of a campaign and that can then linger over that individual once they're in public office and must be acting in the public

interest. obviously, over the years, sophisticated campaign actors have found ways to avoid loopholes to try to get around these restrictions in an attempt to exert their influence. so i'm going to wrap up the presentation with two examples of campaign finance law that are essentially targeted at preventing circumvention of these limits and enforcing these limits. so the first one common way that donors and committees can evade, contribute restrictions is through committees, i.e, committees have fewer restrictions on the contributions they can accept and they can then turn around and spend that money in support of candidates and ballot measures. so san francisco has laws that regulate when an expenditure is no longer considered to be independent and should be treated under the law as a contribution given to the candidate who benefits from that spending in general, if an expenditure is made at the request, suggest, or direction of the candidate or in cooperation with the candidate, it should be considered a

contribution. if it funds a communication that is only made after advice or a decision from the candidate on location or timing or content of the communication, then it's considered a contribution. that is sort of the general coordination provision of the law. i think it's very intuitive when something goes from being independent to coordinated with a candidate. but the laws are also written with an eye toward the fact that it's pretty rare that you're going to get that direct evidence of coordination between a candidate and, say, an independent, independent expenditure committee spending to benefit them. so the law bakes in certain rebuttable presumption means of coordination in in so in cases where an expenditure funds a communication, if regulators can basically meet one of five tests that the law creates a presumption of coordination and the respondent in any case would have the burden shifted to them to show that there was no coordination. i'm going to briefly name these sort of five tests. it's a bit of a verbal mouthful, but just so that

they're out there and i do think they're all, again, fairly intuitive. the first is if the expenditure is made through or by an agent of the candidate, someone who is working on the candidate's behalf or their campaign's behalf. the second is if the communication funded is based on information about the campaign's needs or plans that were provided from the campaign or an agent of the campaign, third and fourth are basically if the spender or the spenders agent served the candidate's campaign in an important role, or if the spender retains the services of someone who provided the campaign or the candidate with professional services related to strategy. and then finally, the fifth is just if the communication replicate or reproduces a communication that the campaign put out. so if an i committee puts out an identical communication, an mailer door hanger or whatever, as that the campaign put out, that creates a presumption in the law. so again, it's that was a mouthful. but effectively the law has identified certain strong

indicators of coordination and codified them into a legal presumption. and one one thing i do want to note about coordination is that coordination in and of itself is not against the law. it only changes how an expenditure is treated under the law. so once that expenditure is treated as a contribution, as a result of coordination, it's possible that the contribution violates the law in ways that an expenditure wouldn't have. but the coordination itself is not inappropriate or illegal for example, i have a case here that was actually in southern california. it was resolved via stipulation by the fppc in which it was a case of pat furey for mayor of torrance, in that case, there was an individual who ran a had a campaign consulting firm , and that individual, through that firm, provided professional services to the candidate committee through the creation of a mailer. that individual then worked for a pac that supported the campaign, including the assisting with the creation of literature or billboards, yard signs, mailers . so essentially, in that case,

the one individual's involvement with both the campaign and the pac created the legal presumption of coordination, which again, was not illegal by itself, but it turned the pac spending into contribution fees, which then violated the law. moving to this is the final example in slide i have, and this is about how sort of deep pocketed donors can evade contribution limits and other restrictions by financing and persuading others to contribute to specific candidates and their committees. and again, the ways that this activity allows you to avoid can campaign finance and contribution limits. a company could have. a company can't donate to a campaign, but they could pay someone and ask them to donate on their behalf. they could do it to multiple people to avoid the $500 campaign contribution limit, and they could finance thousands of dollars of donations if they're a contractor with the city and can't give to a specific politician or give to a specific candidate, they could pay someone to give to them on their

behalf. so it allows them to go around all of those restrictions i mentioned earlier, again, a san francisco law prohibits this type of campaign finance laundering, essentially by banning what it refers to as assumed name contributions. the law prevents any person from contributing to a candidate in their own name if they received money before or after for that purpose. either partial reimbursement or total reimbursement. unlike with coordination laws, an assumed name contribution is prohibited. it is a violation of the law in and of itself, and it is we consider it to be a fairly serious one, given that it is almost always a knowing attempt to subvert campaign finance laws . one tool that we can use to identify this type of activity is looking to see when a series of donations have been made by relatives or individuals who list the same employer. you have to list your employer when you make a contribution, especially when those are all made around the same date, or if they're made by individuals who don't

have a history of making large contributions and are suddenly doing so. take for example, a case from the ethics commission, which has done a lot of great work cracking down on these sort of assumed name contributions. the hillcrest road, llc case. in that case, they enforce a very similar, almost identical local law around assumed named contributions. and in that case, ten employees of hillcrest donated the maximum amount to a city council campaign in just a few days after the owner of the company donated the maximum amount to that same candidate. and upon investigation, officials found that the company account subs was used to pay back the maximum donation amount , which is 700in los angeles at the time, to all ten individuals. so you have ten counts of violating the assumed name contribution law. and you also have one count of a massive excess contribution above the $700 limit because all of those effectively were made by one person, the owner of the company. in that case face the

maximum penalty was $71,000. and the la commission ethics commission imposed a penalty of $71,000, which i think effectively conveyed the severity of that type of violation. i know that was a lot in a compressed period of time, so thank you for your attention and your audience. that concludes it. i do want to mention again that this is just a slice of our campaign finance laws, some priorities that we identify and we do ask for and welcome your feedback, especially on our priority is moving forward. anything that you've seen that you think we should pay a special attention to, we're happy to receive that feedback. that was very helpful. thank you. thanks i do have a couple of quick questions. yeah i won't take all day, but campaign finance is fascinating . great presentation. i would love to see something similar someday. on lobbying. what triggers those requirements? and part of my thinking is as i understand it, political activity that triggers

everything you've talked about is based on candidate or ballot measure advocacy. but not legislative advocacy. or for that matter, if a company paid a bunch of folks to come and urge us to vote a certain way on our proposed ballot measure, the measure itself would, but not our vote on it. and i'm guessing those would be more lobbying issues. that's kind of my understanding. yeah yeah, they would be lobbying issues. i think there is definitely space and opportunity for a presentation, especially what you just described would probably fall under expenditure lobbying versus contact lobbying. and i think that's an important distinction that could probably use more exploring and we would definitely be open to coming and doing a similar presentation. yeah and is that premise generally correct that only candidate or measure advocacy would call for as political activity under the local code? yeah. yeah. i mean, it's important to note that that includes those elected officials who are currently in office, but who of course will eventually be or are running for reelection.

they are also still considered covered by campaign finance laws. but everything you just described would fall under lobbying. got it. thank you. i have a couple of questions. thank you for the great presentation. the first question i have is campaign laundering. how do you close the loophole specifically on the contract hours? because we've discussed this on quite often what happens if a partner of the contractor. for raising the check, even though the contract is prohibited from making the campaign donation? is there any sister system built in that you can track? let's say, a contracting firm? you have the address, you have the owners. personal information is there any way that you can trigger a same address or or similar same last name or whatever you have

just to catch that loophole because it seems like that's a pretty large loophole using family members to make political campaign donation when the person is not allowed to do so. yeah yeah. as far as i know, we don't have any sort of automated system set up to help trigger that, but we do. i mean, all of our investigators regularly review campaign filings and we sort of have through experience, a reservoir of like red flag indicators built up and, you know, spotting a series of contributions made by people with the same last name, the same address. once again, i mentioned the listing. the same company will spike those red flags. i think it's probably worth exploring whether or not we can set up systems that save us some manual legwork and can create almost notifications, things like that. but at this time, no, it's mostly manual research from staff. is there

any updated list of contractors and expediters somewhere around the city that we can build on, build upon on do either of you know the answer to that registration? because don't they have to register for something? oh yeah. so on our so um, on our website, right we have information on permit consultants. um available who are registered with us. in terms of contractors, are you thinking any city contract? i believe it should be on the controller's website. right. um, that, but i don't know exactly which data set. yeah. okay. yeah that'd be great to find out from them. okay. the second question i have is regarding nonprofits. unfortunately, given the current environment, i can see more nonprofit organizations having to use the camp main route to,

to, to protect the interest of their constituents. so the first question i have is, you mentioned the commission staff often hold information sessions for can gain consultants. it would be great if you could hold these sessions with the nonprofit community as well. i think that's a great idea. yeah and also from the executive directors report on the revenues section, i see little or no registration fees from lobbyists and campaign consultants. so i imagine it's because this is only the first quarter they're going to come in later on as we get closer to the campaign. well, how does that work? the

annual, um, registration deadline is typically at the beginning of the year for campaign consultants. i believe it's in in january 1st, if i'm not mistaken, in in february 1st for lobbyist. that's when we typically see a lot more activity. okay. good to know. thank you for the clarification . if there's no other questions from my colleagues, let's open up for public comments. please. madam chair, we have no callers in the queue. okay public comment is closed. thank you very much. mr. delmonico. you're going to be very busy in a couple of weeks. in a few weeks. you did just call public comment closed. so a hand just raised. okay would you like to move forward with the caller? yes, please. okay please stand by. welcome caller your three minutes begin is now great. david pilpel, i assume you can hear me. sorry. it took me a

moment to raise my hand. you really need to pause just briefly. there but thank you to ronald for recognizing me. so the presentation was very helpful. i did not find it on the website, so if staff could post that and perhaps number the pages prior to posting, that would be fantastic. nick i don't think i heard anything about slate mailer organizing sessions, which are their own sort of weird and unique type of entity. i'm not sure. if staff wants to discuss them right now. maybe another time. i also wanted to call attention to the fact that some committees under the law file with the department of elections, their campaign finance statements and others with the ethics commission. it has been complicated and confusing. sorry, it's been complicated and confusing historically reviewing the political reform act briefly, it looks like sections 84215 and

84217. discuss locations to file campaign finance statements. i am of the strong view that amending those sections to provide that all statement it's in san francisco should be filed with the ethics commission and not with the department of elections would be great, but that would require a change in state law. and i would encourage staff to look at that possibility. and maybe we could get senator wiener or one of our assembly members to introduce that. i think that would simplify a lot of things for a lot of people. it cetera. those are my thoughts on this item. thank you very much for listening. thank you. and the slide presentation will be uploaded on our website by the end of today. so thank you. also it may be helpful for our next meeting or by november meeting to have a presentation on social media and slate mail buys that

would be very interesting for us. thank you. thank you. thank you. let's go to agenda item number eight, which is discussion and possible action on items for future meetings. very quickly, it's the plug to a mr. damico. if we at some point have a presenter on lobbyist disclosures, i'd be particularly interested in how they apply to city employees like members of supervisors offices or of commissions. are they exempt from those provisions or from those requirements? just a plug. i don't expect a response. obviously okay. thank you. and i think it would be very helpful to have an expert to address. the difference between advocacy and lobbying, too. yeah that would be very, very helpful. okay um, public comment, please . madam chair, we have no

callers in the queue. okay. let us go to agenda item number nine. additional opportunity for public comment. i guess none. once again, madam chair, we have no callers in the queue. okay. agenda item number ten, which is a adjournment. thank you very much. and have a very happy weekend. gavel punch.

[music] welcome to our video on the improper use of city positions. people deserve the government this works for them. this monies the decisions are made with the public's interest in mind. not for personal gain. to make sure city resources, titles and. am serve the public and are in the use for personal gains. restriction its had officers and employees can do with our city title and public resources. like official letterhead and business cards. or while on duty. to start, we cannot use our city title for private gainor advantage and cannot use it in ways this lead others to believe

we are representing the stele when we are not. for example, dropping our city title to get faster service or better treatment. not allowed. using city equipment for personal business, also a no-no. >> public resources can't be used for nonwork activities. for example, we can't use agency letterhead for a reference letter. we cannot use city resources for nonwork purposes the minimal use of city resources for person everpersonal purposes check with a childcare provider or calling the doctor is okay. >> also, a city official we need to be mindful when engaging in political activities. for example, we cannot enengage in political activities on duty, using city resources or equipment; in uniform or on city

premesis. a park, street or other public place is excluded. we cannot sit in our office and microphone calls urging donations to political campaignseen if using your phone or on a break. we cannot ask other city officers or employees for donations on our time or off sight. >> what can you do if you want to be politically active? unless your department prohibits you miengage in volunteer political in personal capacity and on personal time. we can attend public meeting in our private capacity and personal time and identify ourselves. but clarifying we are speaking as individuals and not as representatives of the city or any city department. >> we cannot use our position

to help family members or partners get a job with the city. to keep the hiring process fair for all those in government are not allowed influence the hiring or. am decision involving a family member or romantic partner and not sell, publish or use nonpublic materials this were prepared on city time or using city resources. that's a quick summary but it is up to you to know the law. visit the website to learn more, for questions contact the ethic's commission at 415-252-3100 or ethics. commission @sfgov.org. thank you for watching and for doing your part to serve with

effectiveness, transparency and integrity. >> in case there is is a you're watching san francisco rising with chris manners. special guest is david chu. hi i'm chris manners and you're watching san francisco rising the show that's about restarting rebuilding and re imagining our city. i guess today is david chiu, the city attorney for the city and county of san francisco , and he's here today to talk to us about the opioid crisis, reproductive rights and the non citizen voting program. mr chu, welcome to the show. thanks for having me on happy to talk about whatever you want me to talk about, so can we start by explaining the difference between the city attorney's office and the district attorney's office? i think it could be slightly confused. that is a very common fusion with members of the public so um, if

you get arrested in san francisco by the san francisco police department, all criminal matters are dealt with by the san francisco district attorney . we handle all civil matters on behalf of the city and county of san francisco. what that means is a number of things. we provide advice and counsel to all actors within city government from our mayor. every member of the board of supervisors to the 100 plus departments, commissions boards that represent the city and county of san francisco. we also defend the city against thousands of lawsuits. so if you slip and fall in front of city hall if there's a bus accident if there is an incident involving the san francisco police department, we defend those matters. we also bring lawsuits on behalf of the city and county of san francisco, where most famous for litigating and obtaining the constitutional right to marry for lgbtq couples have sued gun manufacturers,

payday lenders, oil companies, you name it, who are undercutting the rights of san franciscans and the city and county of san francisco. so now moving on to the opioid crisis. i understand you've had some success in court, um, dealing with manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies. could you elaborate a little bit on that for us, so the opioid industry and by that i refer to the legal industry that prescribes pain pills. um over years. uh, deceived americans and resulted in literally thousands upon thousands of deaths and tragedies that we see on our streets every day when it comes to the addictions that folks are experiencing. many of the addictions really stemmed from what happened over a decade plus period where the prescription pain industry marketed prescription pills in ways that were false. we were one of

thousands of jurisdictions around america that brought a lawsuit against the opioid industry. but we've had a particular set of successes that others have not. ah we initially brought a lawsuit a few years ago against every part of the opioid supply chain, and that included manufacturers, distributors and retailers, including pharmacies over the course of four plus years. a number of these corporate defendants settled with us. we've as of this moment brought in over $120 million of cash and services. to the city to help address the root causes of what we're talking about. but a few months ago, we had a really historic verdict against the pharmacy, walgreens and their role walgreens was responsible for literally over 100 million pills, flooding the streets of san francisco over a period of years where they flouted federal law that require them to track where they're pills were going

to. they had a what? what we refer to as a phil phil phil. pharmacy culture where folks would bring in their prescriptions, and the pharmacist would just fill them without checking why someone was coming in multiple times without checking why certain doctors were seen a 100 fold increase in the number of opioid prescriptions that they were prescribing. so we had a historic judgment against walgreens recently, but it's been a very intense lawsuit. and we know that will never bring back the lives that we have lost to opioid addictions. but it's critical for us that we get the resources that we need. maybe one other thing i'll mention because it's often confusion. a large percentage of folks who are addicted to street level drugs say heroin or fentanyl started their addictions. with painkillers, opioid medications that were prescribed through doctors provided through pharmacies and so literally the suffering that we're seeing on our streets was caused by the

opioid industry over many, many years and has created the significant crisis that we are dealing with right now. right right now moving on. i understand after the recent supreme court ruling, striking down robust as wade that you've put together an organization that's designed to help mm. provide free services to people who are both. seeking abortions and providing them can you tell us about the organization? sure so, um, before the dobbs decision came down, but after we learned about the leak from the supreme court about the draft that suggested the decision would be as bad as it has turned out to be, um, i reached out to leadership from the bar association of san francisco because we knew that if that decision came down there would be tens of thousands of patients around the country as well as providers whose legal situation would be in jeopardy. women doctors, nurses who could be subjected to lawsuits who could be arrested who could be prosecuted, particularly in red

states? 26 states where rights are being rolled back or in the process or have already been rolled back because of the dobbs decision. so we put out a call to lawyers all over the bay and frankly, all over the country, and as of this moment there have been over 70 law firms that have answered our call to be part of the legal alliance for reproductive rights who have committed to reviewing cases and providing pro bono assistance to patients and providers who are at legal risk. we also are looking at potential cases that these lawyers can bring against various states. in these areas that are looking to deprive women and patients and providers of their of their rights. um it is a very dark time in america, and i'm really proud that that barrier attorneys, the legal community care have stepped up to answer the call. it's very important that's great. so now the non citizen voting program that was passed by voters just

for school boards has faced them court challenges recently, but it was in place for the most recent election that we've had. how do you see that situation panning out? in fact, it's been in place for now. five school board elections. um so a little bit of background in our san francisco schools over one out of three kids. has a parent who is a non citizen who doesn't have a say in the election of the policy makers that dictate the future of our san francisco public schools, and so over a number of years, there has been a movement to allow immigrant parents to vote in school board elections. few things i'll mention about that is our country has a very long history when it comes to allowing immigrants to vote. from 17 76 for 100 and 50 years until after world war. one immigrants were allowed to vote in most states in our country on the theory that we want to assimilate immigrants in american democratic values and

institutions, and it wasn't until an anti immigrant backlash in world war one that that sort of ended. but in recent years, um cities across america have allowed this to happen. in fact, at this moment, believe there are over a dozen cities that have voted to allow non citizens to vote in a number of context. now, this is particularly important in our schools just given how challenge our schools are, and given that we know that when we engage more parents in her school system, regardless of their citizenship it helps to lift up our schools for all parents. and so in 2016 the voters of san francisco past about measure that allowed this to happen. unfortunately earlier this year, there were conservative organizations that came to san francisco to bring a lawsuit to try to overturn this , and i should also mention it is obviously the perspective of our office and our city that this is constitutional. nothing in the constitution prohibits non citizens from voting. and in fact, there's an explicit

provision in the constitution that allows chartered cities like san francisco when it comes to school board elections to be able to dictate the time and manner of those elections. and so, uh, we are involved in litigation on this issue. there was an initial ruling that was not good for us that essentially said at the trial court level. we shouldn't allow this. um we appealed it up to the appellate level. the appellate court made an initial decision to allow this past november election to proceed as it has for the last previous four elections. we're going to be in front of that court soon. stay tuned. we'll see what happens. it was good to hear that the city was able to reach a settlement with the center for medicare and medicaid services are meant laguna honda could still operate. how did you manage to reach that agreement? it was not an easy conversation . just a little bit of background. so laguna honda has been an incredibly important institution in san francisco for 150 years, taking care of our

most vulnerable patients are frail, very elderly patients, many of whom are at end of life. and a few years ago, there were some issues in that hospital. some violations of rules that we very much want to make sure don't get violated. there were folks that weren't using proper ppe, who are bringing cigarette lighters into the facility, who might have brought some contraband into the facilities. we have zero tolerance for that and have made that very clear. we self reported some of these violations to the federal authorities. and unfortunately from our perspective, they took the very disproportionate step of ordering the closure. the permanent closure of lugano, honda. problematic on a number of reasons. first and foremost, there are just no skilled nursing facility beds not just in california but around the country. after their order came down. we literally were putting 1000 calls a day to skilled nursing facilities around california and around the country and could find nowhere to move the 700 patients that we

had had in the gonna honda but just as disturbingly as we were forced to start moving some of these patients, a number of them died. there's a concept in medicine known as transfer trauma. when you move someone who is that frail and unfortunately, folks folks died and we were at a point where we were five weeks away from the deadline for the federal government. that they had provided to us to close the facility. so uh and we have been trying for months to get the federal government to reconsider their action, so i was compelled to bring a lawsuit on behalf of the city and county of san francisco and very pleased and appreciate that we were able to come to a settlement whereby transfers will be delayed at least until next year. we're going to have at least a year of funding. to keep the facility open, and hopefully we can get back up on our feet and ensure that no future violations occur because this is an institution that has to stay open for the good of these patients. quite

right, quite right. so finally, congratulations on winning an important public power service dispute with pg and e. um why is it important that the city's rights as a local power provider maintained well, so san francisco has been a local power provider for decades. we are fortunate to have access through our hedge hetchy hydroelectric system to provide electricity to a number of providers, particularly public recipients of that. and unfortunately, pg any has used its monopoly when it comes to private electricity to try to stop that, and to block that, and from our perspective, they violated federal law in adding literally tens of millions of dollars of expenses to san francisco and institutions that we're trying to ensure um, public power infrastructure. put years of delays on our ability to do this, and so we had to bring a number of appeals in the federal

commission. ah we were successful in those appeals, and there was a decision recently that basically held the pg and e could not use its monopoly to unfairly delay or add tens of millions of dollars of cost. to the city and county of san francisco, as we are trying to move forward with our vision of public power. clearly pgd has not been able to serve not just san francisco but northern california. well we all know that with the wildfires with its bankruptcies, with all the issues that they've had, we think there is a different model to move forward on and we are grateful to the court. and providing a ruling that allows us to move forward. well thank you so much for coming on the show. i really appreciate the time you've given us here today. i appreciate and thanks for your thanks for your questions. thank you. well that's it. for this episode, we'll be back with another one shortly for sf gov t v. i'm chris manners. thanks for watching. yeah.recorded.

president heldfond, quou you may begin the retirement board meeting. >> thank you. madam secretary, you want to call the roll? >> yes. commissioner o'connor, present. commissioner thomas, present. president heldfond, present. commissioner driscoll, present. commissioner bridges is running late and commissioner safai and gandhi will not be in attendance today. >> would you call the first item, please? >> item 2, communication. we welcome the public participation during public comment period. there will be a opportunity for general public comment at this meeting after closed session. we have no closed session today. there is a opportunity to comment on each discussi