they have that good at mosphere where you don't have to be scared, you don't have to feel you all by yourself, because they there and they have been there. morning folks welcome to the january 17th 2025 regular meeting of the san francisco ethics commission excuse me. today's meeting is live webcast on s.f. gov tv two and live streamed online at s.f. gov tv dot org for slash ethics live for public comment members of

the public may attend in person or may participate by phone or the webex platform as explained in our agenda materials. mr. clerk would you please explain how public comment will be handled 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 opportunities to speak during the public comment period will will be made available here in room 416 city hall for those attending remotely public comment can also be provided via phone call by calling 14156550001 access code is 26633755989 followed by the pound sign and then press the pound sign 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 be available via the webex client application use

the webex link on the agenda to connect and press the raise hand button to be added to the public comment line for detailed instructions about how to interact with the telephone system or a webex client. please refer to the public comment section of the 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 self-governance. org members of the public who attend commission meetings including remote attendance are expected to be here 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 and interruptions, foul language or other distracting behavior behavior may be excluded from participation. >> thank you mr. clerk. and now call the meeting to order. clerk would you please call the

roll under item number one. >> commissioners, please verbally indicate your presence by saying i after your name is called sheriff and live. hi commissioner salahi i commissioner francois i performed live with three members present and accounted for you have a quorum. >> thank you but i'll call you an item two general public comment does anyone in the room wish to make public comment? not seeing anyone in person mr. clerk would you check if there's anyone on our online platform driven live? we were checking to see if there are callers in the queue

. sheriff i live there are no callers in the queue. >> thank you for checking seeing no callers i call item two is now closed. we're going to proceed to the calendar. i'm going to take things a little bit out of order to accommodate some folks are here in person so we'll start by calling agenda item 11 then we'll call the rest of the calendar in the regular order. so i now call again item 11 discussion on possible action regarding request for a waiver of compensated advocacy provision for hans laid off mr. canning thank you chair commissioners.

i'll briefly summarize the matter which is a request by hans off for a limited waiver to the ses compensated advocacy rule after i introduce the issue mr. baldauf is present and available to speak as well. section 3.2 24a of the campaign and governmental conduct code prohibits city officers from directly or indirectly receiving any form of compensation to communicate with any other officer or employee of the city with the intent to influence a decision. this rule is an important safeguard for ensuring the integrity of decision making and seeks to prevent situations where city officers could use their positions to exert undue influence over city officials on behalf of paying clients. the commission, however, has the ability to waive this prohibition for any officer who by law must be appointed to represent any profession a trade business union or association. mr. baldauf serves on seat two of the historic preservation commission a seat that may only

be filled by licensed architects that meet certain standards related to historic architecture. given this, mr. baldauf is eligible to receive a waiver should the commission deem it appropriate to grant him one. mr. baldauf is also a founding partner of the bcd architecture plus interiors. in his waiver request he explains how part of his role requires him at times to speak with city officials on behalf of his firm and their clients which is why he is seeking a waiver to communicate with the departments listed in the request. mr. baldauf has also said that if granted a waiver he would delegate such communications to the best extent possible only using the waiver in situations where other qualified members of his firm are not available. >> when determining the appropriateness of a waiver for mr. baldauf, the ethics commission regulations specify that the commission may consider the following factors. one. the ability for the city to recruit qualified individuals to fill the position in question.

if the waiver were not granted to the ability of the member to engage in their particular vocation if the waiver were not granted and any other factors the commission deems relevant. looking at these factors in the past the mayor's office has requested waivers for seats on the historic preservation commission particularly seat one. a waiver was granted back in 2019. as part of that communication the mayor's office stated that filling these positions can be very challenging given the unique qualification requirements and that not granting these types of waivers could create situations where only retirees or members of very large firms are able to serve on the hpc. to the second factor mr. baldauf has stated that not receiving a waiver may lead to a situation where it's not feasible for him to continue serving on the hpc while meeting his obligations to his firm. >> based on the factors based on these factors and the

limited nature of the request especially the fact that mr. baldauf is not seeking a waiver to communicate with the hpc or the planning department or its employees staff recommends the commission grant the waiver to mr. baldauf that's limited as specified in the staff memo specifically that it's only applicable to the entities listed in the waiver request that it's only applicable to situations where other members of mr. mold ups firm couldn't reasonably make the communication. and additionally the waiver should be limited only to communications made on behalf of bcp plus interiors or its clients. thank you and i'm happy to take any questions and as i mentioned mr. boulder is here and able to speak as well. thank you for that. i have no questions but i can just share my thinking and then we can pick up mr. baldauf and that way you have the benefit of what we're thinking as you talk with us. i was just going to ask that madam deputy city attorney can we take public comment now? just so we have the benefit of the extent we have any comment

as we move on we don't have to wait too long, right? >> no, you can take great. >> does anyone in the gallery wish to make public comment on this item? seeing none. mr. clerk, would you check if there are any callers? >> chair from that we're checking to see if there are callers in the queue. >> sheriff i love there are no callers in the queue. >> thank you mr. clerk. mr. baldauf thank you for being here. we look forward hearing from

you. my only question is i'll just tell you how i'm thinking. i intend or sorry. right now i very much support staff's recommendation. i think they laid out the issues well. well, the question should be whether you have any issues with the narrow kind of not narrow but the waiver as envisioned in the recommendation which is based on communications only with the agency's bullet bulleted and the memo. those are my thoughts and i'll just before we speak i'll get my colleagues a chance to talk. >> that way you can direct any comments toward any questions they may have. i have nothing further, dad. >> all right, mr. ball off the floor. >> no. first of all, thank you very much for hearing this first. i appreciate it. i you know, i asked for this waiver out of an abundance of caution. i am trying to not get into any situation where i'm running afoul of the both the spirit and the letter of the rules here.

but there are times in just the practice of architecture where you are all of a sudden at a meeting and something comes up and you a supervisor walks into the meeting and it becomes awkward and complicated and so i'm trying to make sure that i am following the rules and i think very narrowly. i as i say, i'm trying to delegate anything that would to other people in our office. but there are just times where situations present themselves and i don't want to just by my presence or saying something be construed as advocating. as a lobbyist i'm not trying to do that. >> i'm just trying to practice architecture. well i think we all thank you for so thoughtfully raising the issue to me i don't see any real risk of untoward influence in your roles. i think the city is lucky to have folks like you stepping up to serve on commissions and i think it would be a shame if

you couldn't do that. so any other comments from my colleagues? >> yeah, i agree with chair finley. >> thank you very much. so with that i would move to adopt the staff's recommendation as outlined in the memo on agenda item 11. >> thank you and i'll second mr. clerk would you take roll please? >> let's start before we do that. i'm just asking that madam deputy city attorney. do i need to spell out on the record the specific recommendation in terms of how the waiver is kind of framed? >> yes. and that's well, thank you. since that's spelled out in the staff recommendation, if you'd like to just move to adopt the waiver as specified in the staff recommendation that would be sufficient. >> right. thanks. thank you. i think that's what i did. so i think we have a pending vote. thank you, madam deputy city attorney. >> on the on the motion to adopt staff recommendation on agenda item 11 sheriff and live by commissioner salahi high commissioner francois sure.

finally with three votes in the affirmative the motion is approved unanimously. >> right. best wishes to you. thank you. that will go back to the consent calendar i now call item it was item well, so i should say there's one item on the sound calendar i'd like to move which was previously item four. >> i don't know if it's now item five but the executive director's report will move everything else on the consent calendar will remain there unless my colleagues want to pull anything and discuss it separately. seeing none i move to adopt the consent calendar which would be the draft minutes previously item three and the enforcement report item five second mr. clerk would you do any take public comment?

yes. thank you. is anyone in the room who would like to make public comment on the concerned calendar? seeing none mr. clerk, would you check if there are any callers, please? >> thank you. the chair finally, if there are no callers in the queue. all right. thank you. >> on the motion to the to adopt the consent calendar item three and item five a chair from high commissioner salahi i commissioner francois i chair friendly with three votes in the affirmative the motion is approved unanimously. >> thank you. that i now call item can't keep track of the numbers because we ran a little bit but it will be the executive rector's report previously item four thank you mr. ford. >> director ford thank you chair for the live. do you have any questions about the report? i'm glad to go through it if you'd like or it could just talk about any items that are of interest. >> noble questions the reason i call it is i was really happy

to see all the new staff mentioned in the report and i see some folks are here in the gallery so i want to take this opportunity to welcome you all to the commission. it's a great place to be. i'm really happy to see you all here. i know the staff has put a lot of work into finding the best and the brightest so welcome here. i'm not asking you all to say anything because this is public and on the record i want to welcome you all and give my colleagues a chance to say anything anything that they'd like to say. yeah, i echo that and that was one thing that really stood out to me some really great additions to the commission staff and so congratulations and thank you to everyone who worked on this and making it happen. you know, i definitely want to recognize gayathri and our h our analyst nikki choo if she's watching they put in a ton of work getting all these recruitments through. it is a lot of work to hire in city and also to all the managers and everybody else in the office that participated in the interviews we interviewed many, many people for these 13 recruitments. yeah and seeing the wealth of

experience and backgrounds that people have i think they're going to valuably contribute to the commission. so it's really great to see. thank you and thank you director void i think i have to take public comment since i pulled this item. so does anyone in the gallery wish to make public comment on this item seeing none. mr. clark would you check if there are any callers? >> chair found that there are no callers in the queue. >> thank you adam that item is now closed. with that i call to make sure i have the number and right would it be number five so just keep the same number separate. i call item number six which is discussion and possible action regarding the push the relation decision and order the matter of randy collins mr. demicco thank you chair. good morning. and so this is a matter i'll give a brief summary and then

i'm available for questions. the matter involves randy collins who is a respondent. he was a member of the board of examiners from 2014 2024. during that time he was also the founder and ceo of ftf engineering i the three counts in this case are that during the period in question that is included in the statute of limitations from 2020 to 2024 count one there was one year in which respondent did not file a form 700 as 2022 count two there were five occasions in which the respondent mr. collins did not include paid the various contracts over the $10,000 threshold that ftf engineering received and then count number three there was one year where respondent did not file a certificate of taking the ethics training and did not file a sunshine ordinance declaration.

now the unique thing about this matter and the reason that our proposed penalties are at 200 per count for a total of 600 is that respondents the board of examiners did not meet at all during the period covered by the statute of limitations. the board met four times during respondent's ten years. he attended two of those meetings. the final meeting of which was held in 2018. this means that respondent did not have a practical opportunity to influence a decision during the period in question in which he did not complete all his relevant filings and trainings. that said, we do still believe a small penalty is appropriate because we do still believe these laws are important especially it's important to make sure that all of one's financial disclosures are complete so that if the board had met both we as regulators and the public would be able to

figure out if there were any potential conflicts of interest for example. >> but because the board did not meet we believe it would be unduly harsh to penalize respondent anything more than a de minimis amount to emphasize the importance of the loss. >> but just on that point so the violations themselves are within the statue limitations. >> it's just that the board happened to not me during that time. yes and again because important because in 2020 and 21 and 22 the respondent did not know that the board would not meet ever again during his time there and so he was still required to complete these filings. it's just that he never actually had any sort of opportunity to influence a decision in that time. >> yeah, that makes sense to me. i'm just curious though what is the board of examiners and how do they not have any meetings and that's kind of irrelevant but i guess as a matter of curiosity. >> sure. yes. so the board of examiners they they determine whether or not new construction material or

methods of construction are compliant with certain safety rules around construction and architecture in the city and ftf engineering, as i mentioned is an engineering and architecture firm that respondent worked at. got it. thank you. thank you for the write up. i agree with the analysis and the outcome particularly given the unique circumstances of the case and one question i had was with respect to the violations outside the statue limitations whether there is anything that you learned in the process of reviewing that about whether they had been flagged earlier or not and whether there's something that could change moving forward to help identify violations before they become too old to take action on. >> yes. so it's something that i i don't want to the someone else may be better to speak about. it's been something that we've started working on and will be continuing to work on is certain not necessarily automation but we're working with our at a department to be

able to more quickly essentially scan filings and again i'm not a technical expert so my language is not correct but essentially automating the process of looking through filings and looking through city officers to be able to pick out people that we should take a closer look at earlier in the process. so that's definitely something that will be incorporated into that effort. >> thank you commissioner francois, any questions? >> i do just have a question. i saw that i was reading that commissioner i think that mike is oh i'm sorry. can you hear me here? i'm moving closer. he said on okay. i just have a couple of questions. we're just really one because it said that he didn't file for 2000 for three years 2017 did i did i misread that there were several years before the statute of limitations covers that he also did not file and

what is the process when someone doesn't file for one year rather than 2 or 3 years? how does that happen? i'm just curious. well, our office sends we send reminders in the lead up to the filing deadline for annual filers. we also send out notifications when someone is late on filing and i. i personally cannot speak to what our process was in 2017 and 2018 for dealing with late or non-filers but i know that now we have you know enforcement staff is working to try and sort of create a streamlined process and we have the streamlined process but also create an expedited process for bringing non-filers and late filers into compliance . okay? so that we don't end up with a situation of multiyear non-filers thank you.

is there a motion a move to adopt the item item number six the staff recommendation and the stipulation? i'll second thank you mr. tamika. thank you. i'm sorry did we skip public comment? we haven't done that. sorry. does anyone in the room wish to make public comment on this item? seeing none. mr. clerk, would you check if there are any callers chair filled live? >> there are no callers in the queue. thank you. whenever you're ready you can take a vote on the motion to adopt staff recommendation for item number six chair friendly i commissioner salahi i commissioner francois i chair friendly with three votes in the affirmative the motion is approved unanimously. >> thank you mr. clerk. item six is now closed. i now call agenda item seven discussion and possible action

regarding proposed ssab stipulation decision and order in the matter of budget policy because i should say sorry how do you say sorry? what's the we do say chair i thank you chair commissioners good morning. this is a matter that involves respondent bert pileggi. he's a senior vice president of and community relations at maximus real estate partners and he's been a contact lobbyist lobbyist registered in reporting with the commission since at least january of 2014 and april of 22. mr. platt you acted as an intermediary of the $10,000 campaign contribution and failed to report that contribution on this monthly lobbyist disclosure report for the month of april 22nd through investigation the commission did not find any additional campaign contributions that mr. pileggi failed to report. he took responsibility for the violation and filed an amendment to disclose that campaign contribution on the relevant disclosure report.

this matter was resolved on the commission's streamlined administrative resolution program site where the penalty amount is $500 plus the penalty modifier of 15% of the unreported contribution in this case that was $500 plus $1,500 because mr. polaski filed that amendment and timely engaged with the program within the initial 30 day span. >> i'm glad to answer any other questions that commissioners may have about this matter. thank you. i don't have any questions. i thought the writeup was very clear and helpful. >> i agree with that. i agree it's well there's public comment. is there anyone in the room wish to make public comment on this item? seeing none. mr. clerk would you check if there are any callers please

? >> chair found that there are no callers in the queue. >> thank you mr. clerk i move to adopt staff's recommendation an agenda item number seven second on the motion to adopt staff recommendation for agenda item seven chair fellow high commissioner salahi i commissioner francois i chair friendly with three votes in the affirmative the motion is approved unanimously. thank you sir john item seven

is now closed and i call agenda item eight discussion and possible action regarding proposed step stipulation decision and order and that julio ramos and julio ramos for college board 2024. >> for the record, eric willett, investigator with the ethics commission enforcement division this matter involves mr. julio ramos and julio ramos for college board 2024. mr. ramos was an unsuccessful candidate in the november 2024 general election. during that election cycle mr. ramos and his committee failed to include proper disclaimer language on campaign communications that they made in support of mr. ramos's candidacy for city elective office. these communications had improper campaign disclaimer language included that was partially correct but ultimately did not meet the standards and requirements. these included communications such as yard and window signs and the committee's website.

as a result of the investigation, mr. ramos corrected the website disclaimer within approximately one month of that website being live and for the yard window signs only through 30 of which were distributed and any future ones he had corrected the disclaimer on those that were distributed after that initial throw with the improper disclaimer this matter was also resolved in the commission streamlined program and that is a $500 penalty when the respondent corrects disclaimers where practicable and within 30 days of contact by the enforcement division i hear mr. ramos did correct those disclaimers engaged with the program timely and first a $500 penalty was applicable. >> welcome. any questions for commissioners? thank you mr. willard. i think this is a good action. i'm just curious the the website issue is that it didn't list that the financial disclosures were available at as of ethics but what was the specific issue with the website

let's trying to sort that out in a paragraph towards the bottom on page six well that's where i was looking i don't want to direct you anyway. correct. so the website had the following disclaimer paid for by julio j. ramos for s.f. college board which is the incorrect name of his candidate control committee . okay. and is it all because of the initial correct so he had incorrect community name and he also failed to include the self ethics disclosures for the financial statements. >> got it right. and those are important because that's where folks need to go to see the actual transactions behind them. indeed and not the correct committee so they can look up. great. thank you mr.. but i don't have any other any other questions nor do i thank you. thank you. all right. i move to adopt staff's recommendation on agenda item i would although i keep forgetting sorry.

thank you. is there anyone in the room who would like to make public comment on this item? seeing none mr. clerk, would you check the three callers please? >> sure. friendly. we were checking to see if there are callers in the queue and live there are no callers in the queue. thank you for checking i will move again. okay. remember forgot to second i moved to adopt the staff's recommendation an agenda item eight so you can second i think commissioner commissioner francois seconds second on the motion to adopt staff recommendation for agenda item eight chair for live i commissioner salahi i am commissioner francois i chair finally with three votes in the affirmative the motion is approved unanimously. >> thank you jenna item eight is now closed. i now call agenda item nine presentation the public hearing and possible of actions on ethics commission budget

priorities for the fiscal year 2025 through 26 and fiscal year 26 through 27. >> thank you chair for live for the record pat for detective director got a slide deck mat load up right goodness of gov tv display that great thank you city law requires that we have two hearings on the budget before we submit the budget to the mayor's budget office. so this is the first of those two hearings and the second one

will be at the commission's next meeting february 7th. so today i want to give you an overview of what the mayor's budget instructions are. recap what the ethics commission's departmental budget is and give you the opportunity to have a conversation with each other about what priorities you have in the coming fiscal year and that will help me and guy three as we go through and create a budget proposal to bring back to you at the february meeting. so then you'll actually have a proposal to react to we don't have that today. we just kind of have the landscape for you and then we can have a conversation and then over the next couple of weeks we'll we'll put that together. >> so as i mentioned we'll have to submit the budget to the mayor's office, the proposed budget february 21st and this is the first of those two

public hearings that city law requires. this is something that started about 4 or 5 years ago. i think the the board really wanted to make sure commissions were having an opportunity for the public to come in and not to have all that funneled into the board's budget process. the slide shows some strategic priorities that i've identified . i'd definitely be curious if you have feedback on these or if you have additional priorities that are important to you but these roughly track what the commissions main operational programs are and roughly aligned with our divisions. but i wanted to put a finer point on exactly what we're trying to focus on in the next couple of fiscal years. so the first one is to provide effective educational materials and compliance assistance and that's of course to better inform the people who we regulate and i'm talking about political committees, city officers and employees, lobbyists, etc. to make sure

that they understand the law and can follow it and also to engage members of the public, people who are trying to learn about our laws just to inform themselves or to hold public officials accountable always want to make sure they have good information so secondly to conduct thorough and timely audits right now we are revamping the audit process and really making it new and more modern with the goal of getting all of the audits of publicly financed candidates done within about a year of those final filings which are going to be due at the end of this month. thirdly, to strengthen enforcement in particular by doing more proactive investigations and by doing larger and more impactful cases . obviously we've had some of those recently. we want to do more. we want to make sure that we're focusing the resources in a way that allows us to do those big long term cases next to make sure that our electronic disclosure systems are very

strong. you may have seen in the id report i had a couple of updates that we just converted our final disclosure program to electronic filing. so we now have full e-filing of all of our disclosures. that's something that we've been trying to work toward for a really long time. yeah, probably 10 or 15 years and we finally closed the gap on that one. but there's still work to do in terms of going back in modernizing those systems, making sure that they're effective, that people can use them well and then the next bullet point really talks about our policy process of reviewing the laws that the commission administers, making sure that they're working. i think we've got a couple of projects in mind that we could talk about at a future meeting one involving campaign finance ,one involving lobbying laws that would be really impactful and then the final two bullets are really just general goals that we have across all of our operations which are to enhance

operational efficiency in particular by implementing standardized procedures using more detailed performance indicators, increasing automation and using more data driven approaches. these are things that we know we have the tools to do and we want to really implement them more to make sure our work is as efficient as possible and lastly to maintain the staffing that we know that we need in order to get all of that work done. and that's going to be a major theme of this budget cycle which we'll talk about in a moment. so this slide gives a high level overview of the commission's current budget and what we call the baseline budget for the next two fiscal years and i'll explain what that is so the current fiscal year budget for fiscal year 25 which ends at the end of june we have a $6.75 million annual operating budget and we actually have 29 funded

positions currently but during most of the fiscal year we were at this bizarre 27.61 number those are you see things like that doesn't mean we have 27.61 people it means that's the average number of funded positions we have during the fiscal year and that has to do with timing of when we are allowed to hire a position sometimes the mayor's office will say you can hire this position but you have to wait until this date. you can't start paying somebody until then just because that's how much money they're willing to give us. so that's why you get these weird fractional numbers of fte is what the baseline budget is is it's basically a way to say if we continued our current operations and current staffing levels and current contracts that we have at their planned rate, what would the budget be ? the reason why it increases is mostly because of the planned cost of living adjustments that are baked into all of the city's ammo use with the bargaining units. so there's a schedule right now

i think every six months for the next three and a half years there's a cost of living adjustment of 1 to 2% every six months. so that's why even if we keep existing fte count you'll see the budget increase in other similar things like contracts that we have with net file work orders we have with other departments even if we keep those more or less level they can fluctuate over time. so that's why you see these numbers changing but basically you see the fte count remaining right at 29. this slide just shows you how that breaks down again, you see the same numbers you saw in the previous slide for our current approved budget and the next two fiscal years if we were to stay with our baseline and you can see that right now we're just over 85% salary and benefits were very staff heavy organization. we don't have a lot of equipment or grants or contracts that we make with

community based organizations or vendors. we really are mostly an organization of people doing this work and you could see that that actually just deepens over the next couple of fiscal years with those planned cost of living adjustments our budget becomes even a little bit more heavily weighted towards salary and benefits. >> just a quick note because this is always something that's part of our budget which is the election campaign fund and this is how the city's public financing program is funded. this is a distinct fund separate and apart from our operating budget. so whenever the mayor's proposed budget comes out it'll say the ethics commission's budget is $15 million. it's not $50 million. we have the operating budget around about 7 million and then the election campaign fund will actually fluctuate quite wildly year to year because of how the city funds it and because of major expenditures out of that fund during an election year in this last election in 2024 i

think it was around $9 million of expenditures out of that fund plant. >> imagine we can use that money for operating expenses, right? >> it's we we can in a very limited way in we're actually exploring that right now what is the the full extent of what we are allowed to do? there is a provision in the code that allows us to use i believe it's up to 15% of the balance of the fund for costs that are associated with administering the program. the balance of the fund is a moving target so i think we have to figure out what that means. what is 15% of the balance when that changes all the time and what is the cost associated with administration of the program? so we definitely want to use that to the fullest extent we can but we are fairly limited because previously those costs have been absorbed by the operating budget, correct? >> for example the main cost would be the staff hours that go into reviewing those claims for public financing and then on the back end doing the statutorily required audits. got it. >> exactly. but we have for example use

that 15% of the fund in the past to pay external auditors. as you remember we've in the past used external vendors to complete those statutorily required audits. we've been able to use funds from the election campaign fund to help pay for that. thank you. so more details on that to come as we learn exactly how that works and this is what our divisional org chart is right now and you might remember that we have a new division, the operations division which we created through the last budget. >> so gary three now has a team to help her with all the iman and h.r. work things like running commission meetings all kinds of you know basic department wide functions that we have those are now all subsumed within that division and then you'll see the standard five divisions that we've had for a long time and this is our

position or chart and as i mentioned in the report we have 29 funded positions and we currently have all 29 of them filled which is a first as far as any of us are aware of in the history of the commission. i don't know that we've ever had zero vacancies before. the red boxes that you see here those are positions that are technically in our org chart. they are not funded. we have no authority to hire those positions. they are required to be held open permanently in order to meet what's called our attrition savings target which is just a weird feature of how the city does its budget. it says well technically you have 32 positions but your attrition target is going to require you to hold three of them open. so pick three that you want to never hire for. that's what these three are. so you can see there's a senior clerk position, there's a senior policy analyst position and there's an investigator position. so i would consider right now

we have no vacancies where we're fall but we do have these kind of weird kind of zombie positions that we can't use. >> so now that we've talked about commission's operations in our budget i want to segue into talking about what the mayor's budget instructions are and these budget instructions actually came from mayor london breed these came out let's say early december so we did know the outcome of the election at that time. however, she did issue budget instructions. mayor daniel lurie has not issued any additional budget instructions or anything at this time that would change what these are. so we do understand these to be the budget instructions that we will be operating under for this this budget. the only thing that he did which i'll talk about in a moment is to institute a hiring freeze. so these are the three main high level priorities that mayor breed put into the budget

instructions. first one is to maintain core city services including public safety and clean streets. the second one is to continue significant progress decreasing unsheltered homelessness, ensuring effective mental health treatment and the third one is to propose opportunities to improve operational efficiency and service delivery and reporting across all areas of city service and in furtherance of those priorities. these are the instructions that we're given. the bottom line number here is a 15% cut and that is 15% in both years of the budget. so as you know, every time the city does its budget which is every year it's actually a two year budget. so right now we are going through the process of determining what the budget is for both fy 26 and fy 27 but we will come back in 12 months and we will do fy 27 again. >> that's how the city does budget. >> they call it a two year budget but we do it every year so there's 15% would be across

both years so it would be for fy 26 and fy 27. this is not just a temporary 15% cut. this is going on into the future. the second one is that this doesn't really apply to the ethics commission too much but assessing community based organizations grant allocations for efficiency we don't make grants to cbos third to reexamine all contractual services and non personnel expenditures. we don't have a ton of those but we certainly will look and see if there's savings that we can find but we really have very few contracts. mostly we have net file and doc is signed for our e-filing systems. those are our big vendor contracts forth to eliminate vacancies and not add new ftes departmental functions. and lastly to consider a hiring freeze. those were the instructions in december but on january ninth,

mayor larry's first full day in office he declared a hiring freeze. so luckily we have no vacant positions right now or a full 29 member staff. however, if we were to have a vacancy we would not be able to fill it unless we went through a process that the mayor's office is creating right now to request an exception because this is not a complete hiring freeze. the mayor did say that public safety positions and positions that are necessary for operations or something like that can be hired but you have to get approval so if we find ourselves in that situation we will definitely be going through that process and making a request and that separate from the budget that's for right now any positions you have right now. >> so the way that this 15% budget cut would translate for our department is that it would be an ongoing cut of $1.1

million and we are required to submit a budget that meets that cut. we have to input that into the city's budget system and we have to be in compliance as you remember from previous budget years, we can also make a separate request for something that does not involve a 15% cut. it could be something less than that or it could be no cut. but we do have to propose a scenario to them for them to consider of what that would look like to do a 15% cut and because of the fact that we are about 86% staff and a lot of those non personnel costs are things we cannot stop paying for. we can't stop paying the rent on our office. we can't stop paying net file to run our disclosure system. we can't stop paying other departments like da to provide necessary services to us a lot

or nearly all of that cut would come out of our staff budget so that would involve a reduction in the number of positions that we have. so to recap what the process is, february 21st is when we need to have our budget proposal submitted to the mayor's office. i should have added on here that also february 7th will have an additional hearing here with you. but then following that february 21st we need to submit our proposal by june 1st the mayor submits his proposed budget to the board and it is still at that time just a proposed budget. the mayor does not actually have the full authority to set the budget. the board actually does that. then in june the board goes through its budget process so that's when it forms up the full budget and appropriations committee five member committee and holds lots of hearings and departments come in and make

presentations so we will be making a presentation at some point during the month of june . sometimes you have to come back for a second round if they want to make changes to your budget and then by august 1st the board has to pass the two ordinances that constitute the city's budget and that's a piece of legislation just like any other ordinance. and the mayor needs to sign it and for it to become operative. so obviously that is already into the next fiscal year but that's just how they do it. they approve the budget already in the fiscal year that we're approving the budget for. so that's an overview of the process and where we are. be glad to go back and talk about any of that or answer any questions would definitely be curious to hear your feedback about the priorities that i articulated. >> i could go back to that slide two if you want to talk about that any additional priorities you have what you're thinking here, anything you can you can share.

i have a question the the 15% target cut for the commission is that because some of the mayor's office has specifically said you ethics commission should target 15% or is that drawn from the citywide kind of 15%? >> that would be citywide and this is the approach we've seen every year is the mayor will articulate a single number that just reflects where they want to be. they want to reduce the deficit by a given amount. so they want to cut across the board that amount. they do not give different departments different percents in our experience although oftentimes departments end up in different places, some departments get cut more than others. >> got it. and then i was curious to hear the 9% or so that's for other services of other departments is that kind of contract support or what does that go through? >> do you want to talk about that? sure i can. so the services of other departments are work orders with departments such as department of technology. they provide all of the infrastructure to

communications as up of tv software licenses and things like that. we also have a quarter of a d a charge for our services but the comptroller's office, the office for accounting services ,real estate for and things like that. >> got it sounds like those are not things that can be done in-house or enjoyed by so those are like very you know, basic operational needs. >> yeah. okay. well the parties you laid out director ford make a lot of sense to me. welcome any comments from my colleagues i agree yeah i agree as well yeah i think i think you're doing good work and i think that's that for our granular input but everything you laid out makes sense. okay thank you. and like i said you'll have something more concrete to react to at the next meeting so that might you know, drive more conversation. also hopefully we'll have two more commissioners at that meeting. we can see if they have any any specific ideas but we'll come to you with a full proposal of

of how we think we could best sustain what would be a pretty serious cut to our budget without disrupting our operations more than more than we can avoid. and just out of curiosity about the process will you have an opportunity to get input or engagement from the mayor's office before you come to us on february 7th or even if it's informal, just a sense of it we're not too sure what that's going to look like there there is a process for that. so when we submit our budget proposal at the end of february historically then there has been back and forth with the mayor's budget office. so we have a budget analyst that's assigned to us that budget analyst reports to the mayor's budget director. the budget director is in charge of putting together the mayor's proposed budget to send to the board so basically during march and april the mayor's budget office is reviewing our proposal and the proposal of all the other departments trying to assess what their priorities are,

figure out where they want to spend their time and money and attention. oftentimes in the past i think we have not gotten a ton of attention on our budget. i think it's been hard to get the mayor's budget office to prioritize the ethics commission. i would love to see that change. i would love to see the mayor's budget office really take seriously the cuts that they're talking about doing to our office and think about the impact that's going to have and give us some time and attention on this budget and hopefully avoid some of these cuts because cutting a tiny department like ours does almost nothing to balance the overall budget. we understand it's part of their approach. they want fairness. they want an across the board haircut for everybody. but that just doesn't make sense for a small department that isn't issuing big grants and contracts. we're not spending cash. we're very small staff doing important work so hopefully they will take the time to meet with us, learn about what we do and keep us from having to roll back the services we provide. >> yeah and i think that's exactly right. the cost benefit analysis seems

kind of skewed in our situation and there's no way that we can do as commissioners to help with that message. >> just let us know, okay? i will. yeah it could be helpful in the past when you've had particularly difficult budget discussions we have involved the chair or other commissioners so i could see that being something wre we may want to do but hopefully not and hopefully we can negotiate and come to a good conclusion. >> we won't have to do that. right. all right. thank you director for public comment. does anyone in the room wish to make public comment on this item? >> seeing none. mr. clarke, will you check are there any colors if there are no colors in the queue the clerk that closes item number ten sorry nine a now call item ten discussion of enforcement regulation review project excuse me. >> thank you for the record my

name is dr. mico, senior investigator with the enforcement division. >> this is so our our department, as you know over the last few years has made an increased effort as well as showed an increase increasing willingness to bring cases through the entire process. that's sketched out in our enforcement regulations, especially focusing on probable cause process, the pre hearing process and then the hearing on the merits process in that process we have learned a lot both from the hearing that we held last year as well as from the many cases we have brought to the probable cause phase. we've learned a lot about how our enforcement regulations apply to these areas and how they could potentially be

improved the enforcement regulations as you may know, were adopted in the late 1990s . in the past 28 years they've been amended 11 times. the most recent time was in 2018. so a lot has changed since then in our department's operations and i think regulation ones that were written in theory have now been put to practice and as i've mentioned we've learned about four opportunities to improve those regulations so as part of this we've identified a couple of different types of issues with the regulations that we think we can improve upon. the first two are just very basic updates to reflect current practices as they've evolved. the second two are opportunities to provide clarity where there are currently ambiguities from our experience especially with the hearing that we held last year these are just thi

basic mechanics of how a hearing is held, how and who is appointed as a pre hearing officer and a hearing officer things like the order of who asks questions to witnesses and again you were all here for the hearing and i think you all experience that in real time as we did that additional guidance would be helpful both for us as the commission and staff but also for respondents giving them clarity on what they can expect as they move through the process. >> and then finally there are a few places where we feel the enforcement regulations contradict themselves or other laws and there can be improvements made on that regard as well. >> so our department is kicking off what we hope to be a six month or so process to revise these enforcement regulations. the past four months we have been working on researching the regulations in other jurisdictions, talking to folks in other jurisdictions about what they do and how they

address some of these issues that we've identified. and so we're ung this meeting to sort of publicly announce this project to let you all know what the process will look like. we're not requesting any action at this time, but we'd like to give you the opportunity to weigh in on the process if you'd like and ask any questions essentially for the next few months we will be soliciting ideas and feedback from a number of parties. we're going to do at least one round of ip meetings, interested party meetings to solicit ideas and feedback. we welcome and encourage active participation from you all as commissioners getting your ideas and and getting feedback as the proposed amendments work their way through the process. we've also already started working with the city attorney's office to ensure that we meet all requirements for potential meet and confer throughout the process and we hope to have final proposed

amendments before you all by the end of the fiscal year which would be the end of june of 2025 and again there's no action that we're requesting today if you do have substantive suggestions we're welcome to take them today although today is mostly about sort of announcing the project and going through the process. but if you do have things you'd like us to take note of now or we're happy to thank you. mr. d'amico seems like a great effort. i'd be particularly interested in anything relating to the hearing process after the hearing we did a few months ago which i think went well but there definitely room for improvement and things that we learned a lot of takeaways from that but no other comments from me at this point at this time yeah i agree with jeff and live thank you i'll take up public comment does anyone the room thank you mr. d'amico anyone in the room wishing to make public comment. seeing none. >> mr. clerk, would you check

if there are any colors? chair friend that we are checking to see if there are callers in the queue. >> sure. if there are no callers in the queue. oh caller thank you mr. clerk that closes item ten a now call item 12 items for future meetings. i have nothing personally colleagues anything for future meetings. does anyone in the room wish to make public comment on this item? seeing none mr. clerk would you check if there are any callers chair friendly there are no callers in the queue out of an abundance of caution let's take public comment on the agenda item regarding the budget that was agenda item i did. >> yes you did. i did. before we close the meeting i want to confirm with the clerk that we have a motion on item four that was pulled off the

consent calendar and if not we could you did take public comment on that. i just want make sure we have the motion directors report. >> i'm not sure there was any action required it you don't need one it's would be consistent with the the past practice i think to to do one so you could out of an abundance of caution if you want for the minutes i'm not sure the motion would be i guess would be to because there are no specific recommendations in there now there's there's no action so if you're if you're comfortable there's there's no reason you need to have that i'm comfortable with that. thank you. and then for i think i just say on agenda item 12 nothing from the commissioners on future meetings and i think we check public comment in the room there was none mr. clerk will you check if there are any colors or none? thank you mr. clerk. item 12 is now closed. sorry. item. yeah, but was closed and i'll call item 13 additional opportunity for public comment . does anyone the room wish to make public comment on item 13

seeing none mr. clerk would you call item sorry would you see there any colors on item 13 chair for that we are checking to see if there are callers in the queue chair from if there are no callers in the queue. >> all right. item 13 is closed. i call item 14. >> adjournment. thank you everyone

>> the vibrant south of market neighborhood in san francisco is deep lee rooted filipino if fluences to shape the cultural identity. soma pilipinas known for [indiscernible] night life and art scenes is home to growing filipino community that thrived for generations. >> soma pilipinas is a community, the village that has been over a hundred years in the making. this is home to many

generations of filipino from the turn of the century, to the present. continues to be a gateway community for a lot of filipinos just arriving from the philippines. >> one of sth most prominent scines is filipino owned businesses become staples in the neighborhood. restaurants like manila bowl and jp restaurant offer [indiscernible] >> we call it [indiscernible] this is my passion. everybody's who came right now. we feel good right here. community is like a family. >> the eatery serve mouth watering dishes and provide a sense of home to the filipino community, preserving traditions passed down generation. >> a filipino restaurant

utilizing california ingredients we honor traditional family recipe [indiscernible] we shop in the market 2 to 3 times a week. we make the filipino cuisine proud in san francisco. >> along with the culinary deliteds, soma philippine ow is home to san francisco top mix aulgists. filipino artistry is a facet of soma pilipinas rich tapestry. the filipino cultural heritage district transformed public spaces into canvases that depict the stories and experiences of filipino americans. >> parlt part of the work we do is support filipino artists to work with community to really create and develop community based art. this is murals and designs that

really reflect the rich history, the culture and the struggles and triumps of the filipino community. >> the presence of the filipino cultural center which offer workshops, language classes and community resources is a testament to the community efforts to preserve and promote the heritage. >> features the [indiscernible] philippines which is a indigenous community weaving textiles and tapestry for hundreds of years so proud to feech were modern ones and very antique ones and showcase fashion from the community and we are inviting everybody to come experience that with us. >> the center not only caters to the filipino community, but welcome all who wish to learn about and embrace this culture. >> we want to develop a cultural district where you have the young generation learn their history, language and culture and where you have also

the seniors be part of the cultural and share their stories and their traditions, and continue to grow young in the neighborhood. >> the intersection of technology and culture in this part of san francisco provides a unique back drop for a thriving community embracing the past while looking to the future. the filipino influence ingrained in soma serves as remindser of the power of cultural diversity and importance of celebrating in our ever changing world.

san francisco is known as a city filled with diversity culture and progressive ideas. our ever changing city and the people within in. but it was not always this way, women struggled to have one of their own on their life until 2021. it would not be until 32 years later that the mex women clarissa mcman served in the board of supervisors. since then women have continued to make significant contributions to the board of supervisors. so who are these women? and what impact have they made with their time on the board. >> to be honest it came as a surprise when i became as a supervisor. i was working as a deputy

director in the mayor's office and there were some challenges with the then supervisor and mayor gavin newsom at the time removed that supervisor from office. i was asked to serve on the role. it was a quick transition, but i got into public service because i really believe that government is a place where you can create opportunities and level the playing field. >> madam clerk, would you please call the roll. >> i was on the board of supervisors from 2001 to 20111. i have been involved in working my community, there was scheduling to be a redevelopment area plan and as african americans we knew that meant, that was usually a removal of certain kinds of people. so because fs path, there had to be a committee formed of all the people that lived in the community. everybody had to be involved in this committee and there were certain rules and regulations and we had to get neighbors to vote for us and so we did that and i did that, and i won the

seat on that committee and that kind of started everything. >> supervisor kristenson. >> i think having women in the board of supervisors and legislative bodies all around the country have meant that some of the issues that have traditionally called family issues are now raised .d >> i think san francisco and the rest of the country here is very behind and i think that you know, many mothers, they don't have a choice about whether they get to return to work or not. >> having individuals who are women in all of these places helps to create, a more rich dialogue around what policy choices actually mean and what the impact to people and family and lives would be. so sing having women on the board here in the city has been impactful in that way. >> supervisor kim, kim presentation. >> democracy is about representation, how can you leave off over half of the population. a lot of women are not just taking care of children but taking care of parents and

working so all of those life's experiences are part now of our policies of our city policies and throughout the country >> supervisor breed. >> here. >> breed present. >> supervisor maxwell. >> we saw two of san francisco female mayor having originated from the board of supervisors as well. that's where people are seen as leaders and get exposure and have the influence to influence policy. i think it's important to see ourselves in that. >> supervisor cohen. cohen present. >> doris championed rent control. contracts for black women, women of color and small businesses, he will a was really really special, she was really who motivated me. she worked for the lawu, she was a switch board operator and

then secretary. and then founded an organization cofounded with somebody called congress of racial equity core. so the lin she came with was about equity, about young women, seniors at-risk youth having jobs. it was about more police guided. those three women to me left their legacy. >> supervisor elliot. >> when you think about the legislative and women legislatures, i think the tendency is to find a women issue that would otherwise won be covered. but so many of our legislatures women included have touched on so many faucets of policies. it's important to be seen through your life experiences how you identify and for a young girls, i think having women on the board is important because you get to see that you actually changed seat yourself

in that power of decision. >> that concludes business for today. >> there was one where the fellows, at the time, they were arguing and i was the only women and only african-american, and i'm sitting there, thinking oh my god, it's a room full of people because it's a board day and i'm thinking, what can i say to stop this. so the universe gave me the words, gentlemen, let us be about the people of business. and of course all the people started clapping. and they had to do what? they had to act like gentleman, that one for me, showed the importance of having women, having the importance of having african-americans and the african-american women. >> to the women of the board, past, present and future, thank you for your strength, grace, and commitment to changing san francisco for the better.

let's continue to make history. >> i'm new. today i feel like a