sheriff and live we are ready to begin. >> thank you.

>> would you mind just to say one more thing? the audio came through a little weird terrified that we were ready to begin. i can hear you but it's a little muffled but i think we're good. >> welcome to the february 7th, 2025 regular meeting of the san francisco ethics commission. today's meeting is live cable cast on s.f. gov tv and live streamed online at s.f. gov keyboard forward slash ethics live for public comment members of the public met in person or may participate by phone or the webex platform as explained in our agenda document. mr. clerk, will you explain would you please explain how remote 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 be made available here in room 408 city hall for those attending remotely public comment period public comment period can also be provided via

phone by calling at 14156550001 access code is 26612892579 followed by the pound sign and then press pound again to join as an attendee when your item of interest comes up. please 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 raise hand button to be added to the public comment line. for detailed instructions about how to interact with the telephone system or 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 s.f. gov dot org. members of the public who

attend commission meetings including remote attendance are also expected to behave responsibly and respectfully. during the public comment please address your comments to the commission as a whole and not to an individual members. persons who engage in name calling, shouting interruptions, foul language or other distracting behavior may be excluded from participation . >> thank you, mr. clerk. i now call the meeting to order . >> the clerk will you please call roll under item one turf and live here? commissioner florus feng here. commissioner salahi here. commissioner. so are your staff in love with the former? yeah. with former members present and accounted for you have a quorum. >> thank you. that i call agenda item number two. general public comment. does anyone in the room wish to make general public comment? >> seeing none. mr. clarke, will you check if there are any remote callers please? >> chair felt that we were checking to see if there are

callers in the queue. chair live there are no callers in the queue. >> thank you. hearing no further members of the public wishing to speak. general public comment on item two is now closed. i now call the consent calendar . >> colleagues as noted in the agenda unless one of us wants to discuss an item on the consent calendar or a member of the public wants to. we will not discuss them separately anyway. >> i'm sorry. go ahead. commissioner, i can say there's nothing that i want to add substantively but i did just want to offer a welcome to everybody who we recently hired and also thank everybody whose positions have been vacated for their service to the commission. so i just want to acknowledge welcome and thank you. >> thank you. is anyone in the public wish to call an item from the consent calendar? >> seeing none mr. clerk, would you check if any remote callers

chair friendly if there are no callers in the queue. thank you. >> i move to adopt the consent calendar. well, i did that last hour kind of clunky as checking if there were folks who want to call someone inside. you check if there's any public comment on the remote sorry on the consent calendar. >> seeing none in the room. mr. clerk, would you check if there are any callers? chair if there are no callers in the queue. >> great. thank you. so with that i move to adopt the items and then consent calendar. >> second thank you. >> on the motion to adopt the consent calendar. >> turf and love i wish her flowers fang. commissioner salahi. >> hi. commissioner. so i chair live with four votes in the affirmative. the motion is approved unanimously. >> thank you, mr. clerk.

we're now going to go a little bit out of order. we're going to save it. item six election of commission officers until the end of the agenda. so instead called item number seven. discussion i propose possible action regarding proposed regulation decision and order in the matter of labor and working families. slate and daniel anderson mr. demicco. >> good morning. i have a note to congratulate the new chair so i'll just scratch that out since we saw the order. >> so this case involves respondents, labor and working families. slate which is a general purpose committee and their consultant daniel anderson. it's a case involving coordinated spending too. as a reminder. so basically in this case coordinated spending with this staff of the general purpose committee being their

consultant and the staff of a supervisor campaign for supervisor dean preston turned out what was otherwise an independent expenditure into a contribution under law and that led to violations including a contribution over the limit and inappropriate reporting of the contribution as an expenditure. >> so i'm going to basically break this into three parts and briefly talk about the coordination and then the communication that was funded by the expenditure and then the calculation of the benefit that went to supervisor president's campaign. >> so so as a reminder under law if an independent expenditure funds a communication that benefits a candidate and it was coordinated with that candidate then the expenditure is not independent and it should have been considered a contribution. the law has various tests. one of those tests is that if the communication was made

after an agreement on timing location or mode of dissemination was come to between the funder of the communication and the beneficiary at then that is considered coordinated. so in this case again daniel anderson who is a consultant for labor and working families slate the general purpose committee who funded this communication he texted with a staff member of supervisor preston's campaign who benefited in part from the communication and they texted about the timing, location and mode of dissemination agreeing on language for an invite for the event and agreeing on it that they could that the general purpose committee could put fires and literature in at the event. there was also a parallel language from the two committees in terms of how they talked about various things and we thought there is also a text message that shows that the

communications in this case were printed specifically for this event. so they were printed after an agreement had been after an agreement had been made on timing location and and and mode of dissemination. so that's the coordination in this case and then moving to the communication that it funded the cases are sort of complicated because it involves numerous campaign. i'll try to walk through it as best as i can briefly but it involves campaigns for both the democratic county central committee in assembly district 17 and 19 and the campaign for supervisor in district five. district five encompasses all of assembly districts 17 and 19 or of and in this case bilal mahmood was running in both assembly district 17 for democratic county central committee and in district five supervisor race against supervisor preston.

>> so essentially in this case the general purpose committee paid for fliers which on one side had essentially the candidates for that assembly districts democratic county central committee that they supported. and on the other side it just said, you know, vote no on bilal mahmood for democratic party. >> now this brought a benefit to supervisor preston for two reasons one, the side of the fire that just said vote no on bilal mahmood for the democratic party was vague and could have been talking about his candidacy against supervisor preston. >> but two half of those fliers were focused on assembly district 17 and half of them were focused on assembly district 19. so for the ones on 19 on the opposite side it had a list of the candidates supported by the

committee running in assembly district 19 democratic county central committee. and so for those fires the only race that bilal mahmood is running in in assembly district 19 is supervisor. he was only running for the triple c race in assembly district 17 so for someone district 19 it only could have been interpreted as talking about vote no for him in the supervisor race. >> so this caused a benefit to accrue to supervisor preston's campaign and because the communication was made after the coordination and it should have been a contribution at least in part and that's where we get to the final part of this case which is just briefly how we dealt with the calculations here to put it again quickly the the respondents in this case paid $6,968 for all fires.

they coded half of that. >> the sides that had the candidates for d triple c as contributions split amongst those candidates. so we're not dealing with that side. we're only dealing with the side that said vote no on ballot mahmood. so half of that was coded as an independent expenditure against bilal mahmood $3,484 half of that was dealing with assembly district 17 and half with 19. >> so the half that was dealing with 19 that entire thing should have been a contribution since there was no other way to interpret no one. bilal mahmood except for in the supervisors race for that half for the other half we split that once again in half because half of the benefit was toward bill was against mahmood in his supervisor race and half in his d triple c race. >> so that led to a total of $2,613 that of spending that benefited the preston campaign

after coordination. obviously the contribution limit is $500 so that was 2113 over the limit and that is the first violation in this case a contribution over the limit. second violation is just the incorrect reporting of the spending as an independent expenditure instead of a contribution that penalty was set at 15% of the spending which is $400 for a total of 2513. and just i'll wrap up by noting sort of the importance of these laws essentially if supervisor preston was running you know, if any supervisor is running low on money and they want to get a certain message out or they want to get a message out at a certain time in a certain place, they can coordinate spending with a group that then spends independently and they have no limit on contributions they can accept and then spending that they can make. and so that's sort of an end

run around a contribution limit by coordinating the spending. and so it's important that we, you know, identify instances where spending is coordinated and it should be treated as a contribution so that the playing field is level across all candidates and everyone's abiding by the same restrictions and limitation on their fundraising and spending . thank you for that. i have a couple of questions but i'll see any my colleagues want to jump in now. go ahead. so thank you. that i think is a really good case and important to highlight the coordination issues. i have one question about so the last paragraph of the substance explains why there are not charges against the preston khan candidate campaign because i think as the memo articulates, the law kind of goes both ways. it prohibits excess contributions but making them and receiving them. >> so i was hoping you could kind of flesh out a little more what that last paragraph talks about and i want you to go beyond what's in the public

record here but maybe you can kind of synthesize it and the gist that i'm getting is that you all thought it was appropriate to not focus on the present campaign because there's no indication that his campaign knew about the substance of the the coordinated communication. but i'd like you to flesh that out if you can a little bit. >> yeah, that's exactly right. and so there's no indication that in this case if the respondents had shown up to this event after coordinating on the timing and mode of communication and their spending funded a communication that very clearly opposed bilal mahmood for d triple c and it was only you know, distribute did it in a way that focused on assembly district 17 where he was running and not on the district where he was not running and it very clearly identified what it was opposing him for then that spending would not have benefitted supervisor preston's campaign in any meaningful way and there wouldn't have been any violation like any violation

whatsoever. so it was the content of the communication that created the violation not not necessarily the coordination alone. and in this case there was no indication no evidence that we could find that the staff of supervisor preston had any knowledge or input into the substance of the communication. got it? yeah. thank you for that. i think at the same time highlights kind of the the concerns that if campaigns are talking to other campaigns that there may be lines you're crossing. >> so it's a good thing to folks to be aware. any questions for my colleagues ? >> yeah. yeah. just one quick question. i mean i do think that the penalty up here is fair given the circumstances that you described. >> i'm wondering if in speaking with the respondents they highlighted, you know, any part of the law that they found confusing or they kind of expressed what it was that led them astray here or what they wish they would have seen in order to kind of avoid. >> it's a good question. also allows me to note so most

of the credit in this case should go actually to our now audit manager armond who used to be an investigator with the enforcement team and he did a lot of the investigation in this case before he changed roles that also maybe a question that he knows the answer to. they never expressed confusion around the law to me but again i came on later so i don't sorry almond price or so just briefly, the consultant in this case was aware of the coordination law in general. he knew the location where it's laid out all these different factors that might lead to coordination. so it was i think there was a bit of confusion that it wasn't only about the content of the communication itself but also the dissemination. so that might have slipped by but generally there was understanding that it also applied to the dissemination

and it was just i think an oversight. and with this case i don't know that we've necessarily had a coordination case about dissemination where there also wasn't agreement on coordination. so with this opportunity we can make that known to our regulated community. thank you. the questions. let's take a second. thank you, mr. d'amico. with that let's take public comment. does anyone in the room in the gallery wish to make public comment on this item? seeing none. mr. clarke, will you check if there's any one on the line? >> chairman there are no callers in the queue. with that i move to adopt staff's recommendation on item number seven seconded.

>> with that you have a clerk at your at your leisure on the motion to adopt staff's recommendation on item number seven. chair high commissioner flora fang commissioner salahi i. commissioner so i can live with four votes in the affirmative. >> the motion is approved unanimously. >> thank you sir. that closes item number seven now call item number eight presentation and public hearing and possible action on ethics commission budget proposal for the fiscal year 20 2526 and fiscal year 2627. mr. director thank you chair for lot of good morning commissioners i may have brought up a slide deck for you real quickly

. great. you should be able to see that now. i think we only have this one screen in this room that faces away from you so hopefully you can kind of see it on your small screens. if not, feel free to stop me and i can read this anything that's on the slides if you need of assistance with that. >> so this is the commission's second required budget hearing. you remember from the last meeting that city law requires each department to have two public hearings on its budget each year so so that there's an opportunity for the public to give input on the budget proposal for you to have a discussion amongst yourselves

and to give me direction as to what budget we should propose that complies with the mayor's budget instructions and perhaps what proposals we want to make that doesn't comply with those instructions we can make that request. >> so this is the second opportunity to discuss that. you'll see some of the slides here are the same from the last time. i'm not going to go through them in that same level of detail since you've already heard that content but they're here in case you want to have a discussion we can go to that slide, look at that content so you'll see me kind of skipping some of this but there is some new content in here. i do have a budget proposal that i want to get your feedback on and then i also have a budget request that i suggest we make to the mayor's office that would not involve a cut to the ethics commission. so i'd be eager to hear your feedback on that. i think it's always good to make both kinds of proposals to the mayor's office that they can evaluate that. >> this slide just reiterates what the strategic priorities

are right now for the commission. i think these are things that we've talked about together at many meetings. i think they're in alignment with our basic charter mandates . they align with our program areas and the basic programs that we do. so this would be kind of a flavor of what will go into the proposal, how will be portraying the work that we do at the commission? and again this just gives a snapshot of what our current fy 25 budget is and what our baseline would be if that were carried forward into the next two fiscal years. and again you can see at the bottom that we are about 87% salary and benefits. we are primarily a organization of people. we are not an organization that engages in a lot of contracting or grantmaking or owns a lot of physical assets. >> we are a group of people

doing this work. >> we also have the election campaign fund which is the fund that pays out grants to supervisor oriel and mayoral candidates that qualify for public financing under that program. that's separate from our operating budget. this is our current org chart and this actually is different from last month because unfortunately we did have a staff member move on to another city department so there was a promotion opportunity for her, very happy for her but unfortunately we do have a vacancy now. so there was one very brief moment when we had zero vacancies which was really exciting and first time we'd have that but we're back now to having a vacancy. and of course there's a hiring freeze in the city right now that's going to prevent us from filling that. so we are going to go into this budget with a vacancy if we can talk about that in a moment. but you can see that it's under the engagement and compliance division. it's one of the 1823 senior program administrator positions

. >> and to recap, these are some of the mayor's priorities that he will be trying to carry out through this budget. i believe that these are the same are very similar to what mayor reed had iterated while she was still the mayor. so this budget process kind of will span to mayoral administrations and these are the instructions that carry out those priorities. so of course it's a 15% cut. that's what we must propose. we have to come up with a way to meet that. >> we do not grant to community based organizations so that's not an issue for us. >> we have very few contracts but we of course did review that and try and find savings. like i mentioned, there is a hiring freeze. and then some other instructions that are relevant. the mayor has told departments to cut our least effective programs in order to find savings and to try to allocate resources in the most impactful

and most effective programs also to improve operational efficiency in how we deliver services and how we report and especially to maintain public facing services and operations. so where possible to reduce things that are internal to the city so that the public in san francisco does not feel as much of a reduction in the services that they're receiving from city. and that's very important to us . we are a very public facing agency. we provide critical accountability and transparency and information to the public. so that's something that i've tried to do in creating this proposal is to make sure that we are not rolling back on that core mandate that we have in any way. >> so this slide gets into the proposal that i would like to make to the mayor's office as to how to meet that 15% cut that would involve a cut of $1.1 million. >> and like i mentioned, mostly

we are a salary budget. >> so that cut would involve a reduction in staff. it would involve reducing our funded positions by four. so going down from 29 to 25 positions. as i mentioned, we have a vacant position that we won't be able to fill. so i would propose that we allocate a cut there since that position is already vacant. it's a very important position but at least we could minimize the impact on the staff by allocating a cut on that position. but other than that we will have to choose three filled positions which is a very difficult thing to do but that is the position we are in. the three positions that i've identified are the training design specialist position within engagement and compliance division. the personnel clerk that's

within the operations division and the 1840 policy research specialists within the policy division. i'll go into a little more detail on the next couple of slides about what the impact would be if that were to happen. but just to reiterate that's a 14% cut to our budgeted staff so that will mean we will have to dial back some of our work. we won't be able to keep doing everything we're doing but we're going to try to be strategic if we have to endure that and try to keep doing as much as possible. >> before i talk about those staff positions, i do want to highlight some of the non staff cuts that we were able to find. these are things related to materials and supplies. some of the services that we contract for our work order with the comptroller's office for accounting services we can dial that back a little bit. also our maintenance costs

within that file. we found some savings there and that's not enough to meet the 15% but at least will help. and what's most helpful is that we were able to in discussions with the mayor's office find a way to use some of the election campaign fund to help fund staff spending. the reason we can do that is that city law provides for 15% of that fund to be used for administration of the public financing program. and since the audits division is responsible for administering that program, we found a way to allocate some of our staff expenditures to that fund. not a ton but enough to reduce how much we're going to be impacted on our staffing. so that was a really good and positive development. >> this is what the org chart would look like basically you

can see the positions, the positions that are identified here so you can see where they fall in the chart. there would be two within the engage in a compliance division . one of them is vacant. one of them is not one within the policy division and one within operations. you can see that at the top. >> so to talk a bit about what the impacts would be if we were to lose those positions, i'll talk first about engagement and compliance. so of course this is our division that is responsible for giving guidance, delivering trainings, creating our compliance materials, answering advice questions. it's a really important function. it's how the people we regulate can get in touch with us and you know, make sure that they know how to comply with the lots. >> i am foreseeing that if we were to lose both of those positions and also in the spirit of cutting our least

effective programs and trying to minimize any impacts on our public facing services so the service people would get if they reach out to us and ask for compliance assistance, i would want us to take a close look at the major developers program and the campaign consultants program and consider whether or not we have the capacity to continue administering those. those are not very high value programs in a lot of ways they the campaign consultant program provides information that largely already appears within campaigns for 60 campaign statements. this is kind of an extra layer of reporting. so i think it could be a place where there's some duplicative information that we might consider whether we could save some time and money by not administering that program any further. the major developer program has to do with companies that are developing real estate projects in the city that make donations to nonprofit organizations. i can tell you that this has not been a very effective

program in terms of people engaging with it and filing disclosures through it. we have a handful of disclosures that have been filed and it's something i think we should take a close look at and see if it's worth continuing to spend staff time to administer that program. >> well, mr. ford, those are not the only programs that those positions are responsible for, right? >> correct. and you're raising a good point which is it's very difficult in such a small office to point to one particular type of work that one position is responsible for and say if we lose this position we can't do this work but we can still do everything else. everybody in the office has lots of different roles. they touch many different programs. so if we were to lose any of the positions that we're talking about today, there would be a much larger reshuffling of work programs would have to be changed and tweaked. everybody is basically going to have to take on some different roles which would make it

manageable but people would have to be working more across divisions to try to get the work done. so what i'm looking at is where can we just reduce the overall level of work that right now the department is doing roughly dialing that back about 14%. if we're losing 14% of our staff, i'd want to look for about 14% of the work we're doing because i will tell you everybody is very busy. there's not there's not really a lot of places where i can just have people do more work. >> so that's what i'm looking at is where can we just eliminate programs that are either not effective or not efficient with the understanding that then we'll take those 25 positions that we still have after this budget and we'll find ways to make that remaining workload doable. i think the staff are very ready to do that. >> and is it fair to say that with respect to the first and third bullet points the main impacted parties or communities

would be city employees who have to get the guidance on how to comply with ethics regulations and also the board of supervisors in the mayor's office with respect to those custom forms. >> no, i don't think so. i would really want to try to make the the impact focused on these programs, particularly the major developer campaign consultant program. but i also would want to try to to find other ways to save time and energy. so for example, not supporting the customized workflow that we've created implemented and have continued to support and maintain for the mayor's office and for the board of supervisors for the last seven years. i think that's something that those offices ought to take ownership of at this point and if they need to establish a work order with the department of technology to make sure that they have the technological expertise to do that, i think that they ought to do that rather than us do that through our budget. this is separate and apart from

the standard disclosure process that all the other elected officials use. i think what has been difficult for the board and mayor is that there's too much data entry involved. if they were to do the forms so we created a customized back end software solution that they could essentially have the departments fill that information out for them. so that's just not something that we'll be able to support under a 15% cut to our budget anymore. but no, my goal would be that when people come to our website and want to find information there would be no noticeable change in the level of information that's available. and when people call us or submit a ticket through our advice portal or when they send an email to our main inbox, they're not going to experience any kind of decrease in service or response time or quality. i see that as a core service that we provide. i think that's what we need to prioritize and focus our energy on not on other things that would distract us from that. >> thank you. >> so i'll move on and talk a

bit about policy and operations. if we were to lose the 1840 policy research specialist position, it will basically reduce the commission's ability to work through policy projects. that's a new position. you remember that we only hired for that position just about a month ago and the purpose of that position is to help increase our capacity to study our programs, to study the laws of study what's happening in other jurisdictions and to help us go through the policy process of refining those laws, implementing them. losing this position would just reduce our capacity to be able to do that for payroll. >> we would need to establish a work order through the city administrator's office. we do believe that that's feasible. we could do that. so that would cover that element of that position's responsibilities and the other administrative tasks that are performed by that position

would essentially have to be absorbed into other commission staff and by our dhs, our analysts who's somebody that works with us through a work order that we have we pay the department of human resources for the analyst to work with us . so we would be relying on that work order of a new work order with the city administrator and our existing operations staff to absorb that. >> so the next slide to talk about our request that that i'd like to talk about but maybe before we move on to that, do you have any more questions or feedback about how we could meet the 15% cut? what our required proposal would be to the mayor's office ? i just had one question for you. we received a public comment from i think the clerk of the board of supervisors asking for reconsideration of that issue and i wonder if you had any response to that? >> definitely.

yeah, i reached out to both the clerk of the board and the mayor's office to give them as much advance notice as possible that we may not be able to continue supporting the software solution for them. i wanted to let them know as early in the process as possible that that may be an effect of this 15% cut to our agency. >> i did that because i wanted them to have the opportunity to include a request in their own budget. so if they need to establish a work order with the department of technology in order for them to take over and support that software product that they would have the opportunity to do that. i thought it would not be fair for them to find out only later in the budget process when they had lost the opportunity to put that in their own budget proposal. so this is still something that may not happen. i just wanted to give them an advanced heads up that it could happen so that they could plan we could start having a conversation about it and talking about what an alternative approach might look like. we had a very productive meeting yesterday with the mayor's office, talked through what this would how this would

impact them, what exactly the difference is between the custom workflow that we built and what the standard disclosure processes that other elected use the mayor's office seem to understand the issue we talked about. it's impossible alternatives. we have next steps plans that the mayor's office will help get us in touch with the department of technology to talk about whether or not they could be part of the solution to a different way to do this. i think that was very productive. thank you. is there anything more you can ask for from the mayor's office or for the board of supervisors in terms of technology support to make some of this more efficient and provide more resources to the employees and officials in terms of some of the work that your office is doing? >> absolutely. and that's part of our request that we want to make that would not involve a budget cut.

some technology support is part of what we want to ask for. but certain things that you think can be improved though are things that you've looked at that you can ask for specifically? >> yes. >> and also steven massey, the director of technology services is here. so if we want to go deep into what that is, he he's available to talk about that. and also i should have mentioned that deputy director guy three tech on deal is not well but she's on the line. so if we want to get into any really specific numbers she's available to so we can do that as well. i think for now just go ahead. thanks you. okay. so the budget requests that i'm proposing that we make would not involve a cut to the ethics commission's budget and why i would like to request that would be first of all to fill the vacant 1823 senior program

administrator position that was just vacated. as i mentioned, it's a very important position and it helps deliver trainings and respond to advice requests that come to our office very core to what we do. that would be a very important position to backfill and have on our team. i would also ask the mayor's office to reclassify the training design specialist position to also be an 1823 senior program administrator. they're very similar in terms of the pay scale. it's an analogous classification but the duties and responsibilities are different. so i would want to equip the engagement compliance division with as many programing administrators as we could people who can respond to advice questions, who can interpret and analyze the law, who can't help people who are trying to comply with the law as opposed to the training and design specialist position has been really critical as we implement proposition d and as we roll out the new mandatory

ethics training module that now all forms of 100 filers have to take. but we have that module in place now. we've done a lot of the creation of the materials so the design role law has been incredibly important i think could benefit the agency more as a program administrator moving forward. so that's something that i would like to ask the mayor to consider. i would also like to ask to retain the 1840 policy research specialist position as it is. as i mentioned, this position is very important to helping us analyze and improve the laws also supports the advice program. so if there are questions that the engagement or compliance division needs assistance on for any reason, the policy division is there to help back them up. so having enough staff in that policy division also supports engagement. compliance supports our advice program as well. i would like to also make the same request that we made last year which was to reclassify three of the positions within

the enforcement division. this is something that the mayor's office agreed to in the last budget and then the board took it back during the board's budget process. so we were close to getting this but it ended up not happening. the board had a general policy against what they call upward substitution reclassifying positions to a higher classification. so they rolled that back from the budget that we had approved but i would like to ask for it again. i think it remains just as important as it was last year. this would essentially be to reclassify to 1823 senior investigator positions that are essentially like administrative prosecutors. now you heard from mr. d'amico today would be his position and another position that's filled by a board attorney. these are people who lead the legal elements of our enforcement matters. they engage in settlement negotiations with respondents, councils and the political bar in san francisco.

they draft charging documents, subpoenas. they present oral arguments to you, hearing briefs to you. these are very specialized and and nuanced skills that i want to make sure we're really breaking into our org chart that these are distinct from the other investigators who provide critical work in fact finding doing interviews, gathering documents but that those are different types of work investigating versus administrative prosecution for lack of a better word are different. i'd really like to break that in because it has been so effective and that's why in part why you have seen so many good cases come before you in the last couple of years. >> in order to do that we would also need to reclassify the director of enforcement under city civil service rules. certain classifications cannot supervise other classifications or 9 to 2 manager one cannot supervise an 1824 principal investigative analyst so we would need to reclassify that position to a 9 to 3 which i

think also is appropriate given the sensitivity and expertise required for that position. >> similarly i would like to ask that the mayor's office allow us to reclassify the 1052 ice analyst position to a 1042 ice engineer. this is a position in the adult division or electronic disclosure and data analysis division. the reason is that the 1042 is part of the engineer series whereas the 1052 what we have now is an analyst's serious. there's similar but they are different in the kinds of work that they do and what we really need from this position is to provide engineering services engineering work to be creating things like our electron disclosure systems, our dashboards building custom software solutions inside the office to support automation especially within audits. we want to automate a lot of

the manual audit work to try and make it more efficient. similarly with enforcement we want to automate as much as we can reviewing voluminous disclosures or documents. and so that position could be a very critical piece to that. i see that as something that would without adding an actual additional fte, it would really increase our capacity and our effectiveness quite a bit. part of this budget request would still be to not maintain the personnel clerk position but rather to support that through a work order and to otherwise absorb the roles of that position into our d our work order into our operations division to that would be to realize some operational efficiency. >> i also like to ask to have budget to help cover some net file licensing costs. right now we are essentially paying for all of the licensing

for all of the city's forms of 100 filers and we're doing that through a project funded by court which is the committee on information technology. that's a city wide committee that essentially funds technology projects across the city. that's how we have been funding those licenses and that is running out that will be finishing up pretty soon early 2026. so we need to find an alternative funding solution to that. so that's something that i would like to ask for as well and also to support increases for net file systems maintenance and certain other software services. and this gets to your question commissioner, i stephen could talk in more detail if you want to but there are some particular products that if we are able to get funding for and we could procure them it would really give us the platform we need to explore more automation, more use of advanced technology to make our operations more effective and efficient. >> how much of those licensing costs right now has steven would have to answer that

question is quite a bit. >> yeah. steven, do you want to talk about that? i'm guy three here. if needed i can also jump in or guy three sure go go for a guy three hello commissioner. are you asking specifically about the form 700 licenses or just our software licenses in general? >> both. okay. yeah. so the form 700 licenses that support about 6000 or so city employees and officials is currently funded by a court project which is what director ford is talking about. so we are estimating roughly about 10,000 or so in the first year that will need to be funded in a 526. that's because we have some partial funding left in that

project but the following year and a 527 will have to fund that fully and then also moving forward that's around the time when the net file contract will also need to be renewed. so we only have an estimate. so we're currently estimating about 65,000 but it will also depend on the renewed contract negotiations. separately would we're also asking for increasing license costs that we fund on our own. these are tools that we use to support our office operations. we also use microsoft products adobe products that support our email services and other communication tools that department of technology supports. so we have certain costs related to that as well. so that's roughly in the first year at about 12,000 or so for

those costs together and in year two it's something similar each to slightly less than a year to about 9000. so those are the software requests in our budget proposal. >> great. thank you. >> director ford i have a kind of broader question. so the proposed the second proposed budget with the reclassifications i think it all makes a ton of sense to me and i supported them i think about a year ago when we did it the first time around. but wouldn't that would that in fact increase the budget since you're upgrading some classifications? >> so this is what the budget totals would look like under the request. >> it would essentially keep us flat in the first year of this two year budget and there would be about a half percent increase in the second year. so it wouldn't increase our budget but it would it would

keep us flat but there is a cost associated with it. yes, that's why it would be an ask to to actually fund us by keeping us the same but nothing that asks make 100% sense. this is the climate where and so is your idea to kind of present both budgets to the mayor's office one with cuts one. the second one we just discussed? >> exactly. we actually have two input the 15% cut scenario into the city's financial system. so we would have to in some numbers that add up to a 15% cut there's actually a dollar number that's at $1.1 million number. so we have to input that. we don't have the opportunity to input the requests but that's something that we would express to them through the budget memo to the memo lays out very similar to how this slide deck is organized first it would be here's what the 15% cut scenario is. here's what the impacts are, why we think that's bad. and then the second half is alternatively here's what we would ask that you do.

and then there's typically a negotiation process where we meet with our budget analysts. we'll meet with the mayor's budget director, we'll talk about the impacts of the 15% cut. we'll talk about the opportunities and the costs associated with keeping us flat and hopefully we trend towards the request but that's the negotiated process and then that's not even the end of it. the mayor's proposal is only a proposal. the board ultimately approves the budget and as we saw last year they will make changes to it if they would like to. got it. thank you. no more questions for me. you can proceed. okay. >> so this is something that i'll be working on over the next couple of weeks with deputy director take on dale will be preparing that memo to go to the mayor's office and we'll be entering the submission into the system. so that's do i think we've got

a slide right here with the deadlines. so if you have any further ideas or you want to talk in greater depth about any particular part of this, we do still have a couple of weeks that's in part why we changed the date and thank you again for your flexibility. we changed the date of the meeting from the second friday to the first friday so that we could have this conversation and then perhaps you might digest this information and have further thoughts you wanted to share and we could continue to talk so that opportunities is still there. this is our required second public hearing. it's not your last chance to be involved in this process and to work with us so i just wanted to put that out there. >> these are really hard questions by the way analyzing it and laying it out. it makes a lot of sense to me. so thanks for doing that work. any other comments? does that conclude your presentation? it does. thank you. all right. thank you. and i think even though it's not an action item we have to take public comment. great. anyone in the room wish to make public comment on this item?

sir, thank you. a copy of the letter to the board of. >> good morning chair. honorable commissioners of the ethics commission. i'm edward diocese. i am the deputy director of administration of finance for the office of the clerk of the board. the board of supervisors and i am speaking on behalf of the office of the clerk of the board as well as madam clerk angela calvillo. >> i just passed out a copy of the letter that was submitted by the clerk of the board yesterday in case you need a copy for your review. at the meeting today i'm here to speak on behalf of the clerk of the board and urge you to continue maintenance of the current 126 form process and

you sign as the letter spells out both ethics commission as well as the office of the clerk of the board. i've worked on this system since 2018. we really do appreciate that work that stephen massie and the ethics commission has done accommodating some of the business processes and the input from our office. i really am here to urge you to continue maintenance of form 126 and to continue responsibility over it for a couple of reasons. >> as you are all familiar with the form 126 there's a lot of data that is known only to departments not to the mayor's office, not to the board of supervisors including the nature of the contract and the contract amount. the board of directors. so there needs to be a system an online system available for departments to enter that data for the office of the clerk of the board, for the board of supervisors as well as the mayor's office. >> and as you know that data helps to meet the public's right to know. >> it's an important disclosure

that the public needs to know so it promotes open and transparent. that alone is a reason why the system needs to be maintained by the ethics commission. >> the second reason is that the proposed discontinuance of that system actually will not save any budget for the city. so realize that the 15% general fund cuts that's been asked for of the departments are citywide cuts. they're not just cuts to single department. so whatever cut or savings that the ethics commission may realize is actually going to move over to other departments mainly who may need to hire another it specialists to maintain the system. >> and obviously the board and the mayor are going to be paying for this. >> so basically there will be no cuts or savings of the general fund from this particular proposed change. secondly, this change is going to inconvenience both the mayor

and the board of supervisors as they will have to collect that data on behalf of the ethics commission. so there will be costs in terms of overtime as well as additional personnel, additional work, additional workload for the staffs of those two departments. so i'm here to urge in summary that the ethics commission continue to maintain the system on behalf of the city, on behalf of the mayor and on behalf of the board of supervisors. >> i am available for any questions if there are any. >> thank you. >> we don't generally i think respond to public comment but i'm happy to entertain questions as any of my colleagues have them. >> i have a question for director ford if that's okay. this just clarifying question is it right that the proposed halting of the that program is only if we our budget is cut by 15% correct. >> if we were to lose the staff positions we would have to dial

back a number of things and reassign work throughout the office so we would not have the capacity to support that anymore. and just to be clear, also supporting the disclosure requirement that the code imposes on the board and on the mayor this is not the ethics commission's disclosure requirement. so those offices would be gathering the data for their own disclosure requirement not on behalf of the ethics commission and it's something we've been assisting them complying with their requirement. mm hmm. and if the mayor's office and the board of supervisors approve the larger budget proposal that you will present as an alternative, would the commission continue to service that program? yes. okay. thank you. >> thank you. thank you for your service. if i may also add also spelled out in the letter the last paragraph i mean there is a potential no change to the current system that could result in more efficiency, some more cost savings into the current process a single form

126 has to be submitted by both the mayor and the board which results in two submissions. so we propose that the current process be reworked to have the department submit the singular form to the board and then it goes to the mayor for approval. that could potentially reduce workloads for both the ethics commission on board of supervisors mayor's office as well as achieve some savings. >> thank you. we saw that in the letter and i think it will be added to the agenda as part of the public record. >> thank you, sir. thank you for being there. when else in the gallery wish to make public comment on this item? seeing none mr. clerk, would you check if there are any callers or if there are no callers in the queue? thank for that. no more callers. item number eight is now closed and i'll call item number nine. recognition of chair types for

a live upon the end of a service on the ethics commission. >> so up mr. for standing up i'm going to start talking as well i was actually going to flip it around but i guess i'll wait until you've had your your time. i had to twist tice's arm to let him put this item on the agenda. so thank you for your cooperation. >> chair fin laughs we're very sad that you are not going to be with us anymore and whenever any commissioner but especially a chair leaves the commission it's very important to stop and recognize the work that that person's done. this is community service. you guys don't have to be here . you're not getting compensated like the staff are. you are volunteering and you're just serving the city that you live in and that you love and it's it's a tough job. it's a thankless job a lot of the time these are hard decisions, critical decisions. so i just want to take a moment to say thank you for your years of service.

it's been a real pleasure to work with you. i think i speak for all the staff. we've learned a lot from you and you've had an incredible impact in your time here that you should be very proud of. i in particular i wanted to note a few projects that as we were talking in the office about you know what what's the what's the tice legacy? what is tice leaving behind the things that came to mind our prop d that was a major project that you were very heavily involved in. it's one of the most popular ballot measures the city's had the single most approved highly approved ballot measure in 30 years. so i think you were really tapping into something the public cared deeply about with that ballot measure. you were also the chair presiding over the first hearing on the merits enforcement hearing that the commission did in ten years that hearing was very smooth. it went well. so i think that that spoke to you a good competency with the gavel and working with the staff in advance on that enforcement hearing guidebook.

we now have that document that will last into the future to help guide future enforcement actions. you brought great insight as a former assistant district attorney and also from the enforcement work that you do at the sec. you were just meeting this week with staff to you know, with the enforcement staff to help them still here in your last week think about how to deepen the impact of enforcement. so i think that program in particular really benefited from you. we've had very quick, efficient orderly commission meetings. we've trimmed down the time these things run like a swiss watch and i think everybody appreciates that very much in the last thing i'll mention is when you were chair the commission approved the e-filing regs and that allowed the staff to require e-filing for the final paper forms and we have now completed a 20 year project of converting all of the commission's disclosures to electronic filing 100% electronic filing, no paper, never again ever.

>> not one paper. that's a huge milestone. >> so you know, we thank you for your leadership on that and we're very happy to be able to deliver that result during your tenure and that's that's definitely something we're all very happy about. so again, thank you so much. we hope that you'll keep in touch. you wish you the best son and what comes next for you in this next chapter. >> and don't don't be a stranger. yeah thank you for those kind of words. you should have framed the very last paper filing that came in. i don't know if it's public but thanks for that, director ford. i didn't want it to say a couple of things even though it's recognition of me, i really want to recognize the staff because i think the things you just gave me credit for, pat, are really frankly we just sit here and kind of go if we assess, we analyze, we review, we oversee but the staff does all the work. i've been in public service for most of my adult life whether that's for the or for nonprofits and i think really there's no higher calling and that's the same for commissioners who are sitting next to me.

it's a little awkward positioning right here because i was putting right my way was established here in the room. i really, really want to know that i appreciate what you do. we all do. but i got to speak now as a public servant right now it's kind of a hard time to be in public service. i think we maybe feel a little bit differently here in san francisco. i work in the federal. it's not a great time and i think keeping your head down and doing the work is so important. so as a san francisco resident i really want to appreciate the work that you all do because we all benefit from it. you know, get thanked at least not in person i imagine from the work that you do. but it's so crucial and we all depend on it. we rely on it. so i thank you for that and thank you to my fellow commissioners who are really, really busy in our own lives taking the extra time to give back to the community by showing up here and doing what we can do to help advance the work that you all do. it's really gratifying. it's been great to be a part of it so thank you all and i know the commission is in good hands with the new director of the new commission we've got currently so that's it. thank you. and with that well even though

you say i do not have any public comment but i think we have to take it because it's on the calendar. is that right? so okay. does anyone in the room wish to make public comment on this item seeing none. mr. clarke would you check the phone please in the there are no callers in the queue. >> all right. thank you. well, i think your fellow commissioners also if they want to say something i think just to take a quick second bucket you're not going to break my time record. >> i know. i know. i think today would be the day i mean where i think i speak for all of us when i say that we're honored and privileged to be in this position and to serve the san franciscans in this way. but i think it's always a special treat when you get to serve alongside people who you can learn from who are innovative, who are committed and very focused like you. and so it's been a pleasure and an honor to work alongside you and hopefully our orbits overlap soon but that's very quick. >> that's what i was going to

say. that's it. that's it. i'm done. thank you. but i just wanted to echo that and express my gratitude for your guidance to me as a new commissioner when i joined the commission really appreciated the expertise that you brought to the table in campaign finance regulations and enforcement of ethics rules generally and the inclusive manner in which you ran an efficient manner which you ran all these meetings. >> so thank you. you're going to be sorely missed. thank you. thank you. >> i'd also like to echo that too. thank you so much for your service and for teaching us and guiding us in the right direction. thank you. thank you everyone. with that i close item nine and now call item six election of commission officers for the 2025 pre the ethics commission bylaws. director ford would you mind just briefly summarizing how we've done this in the past if i didn't expect that but for sure that that's fine. so typically the way that it's worked is commissioners can nominate each other. they can nominate themselves if

a commissioner nominates another commissioner, the nominated commissioner should say if they want to accept that or not. and i know in speaking with you that you thought it would be helpful if if the commissioner wants to accept a nomination perhaps they could speak a bit about what their priorities or their approach might be if the commissioner want to have some kind of conversation around it. in the past there hasn't been a ton of conversation about it. so if the commissioner wanted to have that that would help the nominated commissioner perhaps could initiate that and then each commissioner votes and you say the name of the commissioner that you want and i think we would just have kevin call a roll call vote and each commissioner would state the name of that commissioner they want to vote for i and do chair first vice chair second and basically as soon as one commissioner has three or more votes then that's that's it that commissioner wins.

>> okay great. and i think from memory we complete that chair election in its entirety before we move on to the vice chair we don't take nominations for both at the same time. >> that's right. yeah right. yes. kathy just reminded me public comment before taking that roll call vote of course. so after the nomination but before the vote. yes. got it. okay, great. well as one of my last official acts it gives me great pleasure to nominate vice chair flores fang as chair. i think anyone who's paid attention to our meetings will speak for itself but i think her wise engagement with staff and with the issue is just show what kind of chair she'll be. so i hope that she will accept the nomination and if you want to say a few words go for it. but no nope no pressure like the second that thank you. >> thank you. i do accept i'll start with that and i mean i don't have a list of priorities right now. right now i'll say that this is going to be my third year on

the commission and i've learned a lot and i think that a lot has changed and so i'd be happy to engage in a larger discussion about you know, this is very helpful discussing the budget. i think that we're in you've presented materials that i think help orient me if i were to create some sort of agenda for moving forward. but i'm happy to engage in a longer discussion and not out of confine myself to a list that i create today on the spot . great. so now we take public comment if i'm right do i have to nominate myself? >> i don't. thank you seeing no other nominations is there anyone in the room who like to make public comment on this nomination? seeing none. mr. clark would you check the new callers? >> chair i if there are no callers in the queue mr. clark at your convenience you can take roll to its right i can do

i mean you want to yeah okay commissioners as i call your name please vote by stating the name of the individual for whom you cast your vote to serve as chair of the ethics commission for the coming year beginning march 1st. >> chair friend of vice chair floor saying vice chair flora's feng vice chair flora sitting commissioner salahi vice chair flora swing commissioners ii vice chair floor sitting chair by a vote of 4 to 0 the commission has elected commissioner for fang to serve as chair for a one year term beginning march 1st 2025. >> congratulations vice chair for saying thank you. >> thank you mr. clark congratulations on now open the floor for nominations for vice chair yeah.

>> i'd like to nominate commissioner salahi as vice chair on that third. >> thank you all. i accept the nomination and my priority will primarily be to support the new chair and setting her agenda and supporting her agenda moving forward while working with director ford and other commission staff rate and i guess we have to take public comment on this as well. so does anyone the room wish to make public comment on this item seeing none. mr. clark would you check the new callers? >> griffin if there are no callers in the queue, great. mr. clark you can take the vote of your convenience commissioners as i call your name please vote by stating the name of the individual for whom you cast your vote to serve as vice chair of the ethics commission for the coming year beginning march 1st. chair finlay commissioner salahi vice chair flora's fang commissioner salahi. commissioner salahi. mr. salahi commissioners i wish

just like chair by a vote of 4 to 0 the commission has elected commissioner salahi to serve as vice chair for a one year term beginning march first, 2025. and congratulations commissioner salahi thank you. >> thank you everyone. i think we've never had a not unanimous vote in my tenure in my tenure on elections. >> i did that to the list. >> so i think that closes item six and i'll call item number ten items for future meetings. any of my colleagues? >> yeah, i have an issue to raise. it may not necessarily need to go on an agenda but i wanted to disclose that i received a phone call from supervisor connie chen earlier this week. um at the board of supervisors the appointing authority for my supervision for my position and she had asked whether the commission has any guidance or view on how the board of

supervisors exercises their authority under subsection 3.6 20f of the code campaign code with respect to when waivers for the hazard payments prohibition is granted. so i just wanted to flag that that might be something that is worth engaging with members of the board of supervisors as well as other interested stakeholders on as to whether that would be useful for the public and for the board and we'd be more than happy to engage with supervisor chan or anybody else at the board and also with the mayor's office or any other electeds that may seek that kind of waiver. definitely be always happy to help inform any processes that are touchy in the campaign of governmental conduct code. >> absolutely. thank you. great. anything else from my fellow commissioners? seeing none does anyone the gallery wish to make public

comment on this item? seeing none mr. clerk would you check if any callers driven live? >> there are no callers in the queue. >> adam tennis close to item 11 is additional opportunity for general public comment is there on the room wish to make public comment on item 11? seeing none mr. clerk would you check the phones if there are no callers in the queue? item 11 is now closed. item 12 adjournment and thank you. we're done

[music] welcome to this over vow of san francisco ethic's commission. we are excited introduce to you our work and serve as a resource for city employees and officials. the ethicky commission created by san francisco voters in 1993. to impartial low over see rowel and guidelines for i cleaner government. we help those work nothing or with local gentleman follow the rules through education, support and enforcement the commission

shapes the rules to make them strong, practical and enforceable. the public expects and deserves the government this serves them. this means serving the public without improper influence or seeking personal gain. the government's decisions made fairly and open low. however, this is not always the case. for this reason, rules and guide lines exist to steer people away from violating the law or engage nothing unethical behavior. the ethicky commission provides education and assistness for people working with local government includes city employees, officers, candidates, lobbyists and others engaged in or with government. here are examples of our work.

we create new ethic's policies. help officials avoid conflicts of interest. manage public disclosures, over see campaign finances and including recordkeeping and the administration of campaign financing and aid the registration and reporting of lobbyists, campaign and permit consultants and mirj developers. audit campaign, lobbyist and city filers. we investigate complaints of violation and it is commission's jurisdiction and fines for violation. the san francisco ethic's commission is lead boy 5 voluntary commissioners. who each serve a single 6 year term. the ethic's commission is here for you.

we welcome to you engage with us by phone, on line or in person. thank you for watching. >> our market street program started in 1992. the goal was to bring arts to an audience who may not be normally be exposed to contemporary art. for 2023, we chose comics as

the median to highlight san francisco. it could be fix al, science fiction. history. >> i'm fan, i'm illustrator and writer, i grew up all over the bay area. and is post history no history no south. i've been drawing since i was probably four or five. it's just a cool memory, i just remember painting my apron in kindergarten and i would suddenly start painting myself. it was cartoon, it got me excited. in my home life, it was not consistent but what was on tv is always consistent. there is always xy z- channel, cartoon, i would wait for the cartoons to freeze and chase really fast. i remember getting into anemai as a kid, as a young person because it was one of the

avenues of asian-american expression that i can relate to. my project is i'm highlighting 6 trailblazers who's family was tied to san francisco. they all have different forms of art expression. but i noticed through the research that there is a common that connects them all, which is this desire to live life authentically, organickly, speak of the love that they believe in. i made it art students and learning about art history and the place in art with the context of learning about their predecessors. >> sinsawa is synonymous of san francisco. there is a school named after her. >> wasn't she also in stamp? her art was in 2020. >> do you think she would

become a artist? >> hmm, i think she was like 100s of other in the city that love the art. when there is no audience or income, why do we still make art? >> well because we seek to know ourselves and one has to believe like alela, we make art for a lifetime not just a career. i think for some, artist like breathing, it's how we know we're alive. >> it's so incredible to do this project and do the experience that connects generation, the full experience of being artist. >> comics have a rich history in san francisco even from early 20th century. we also wanted to open up public art opportunities for artist that don't normally apply to public art. >> i hope it stays with them and lingers and they chew on it and think about it.

and it may not make a big impact but it's something that opens up the door or starts the conversation or the beginning of something. i would like for it to be a start, whether it's a start of research or start of pondering, yeah, what does it mean to be an artist? and how do i decolonize my mind? >> making to may grandkids a program all about pop ups, artists, non profits small business in into vacant

downtown throughout the area for a three to 6 months engagement. >> i think san francisco is really bright and i wanted to be a part of it revitalization. >> i'm hillary, the owner of [indiscernible] pizza. vacant and vibrant got into safe downtown we never could have gotten into pre-pandemic. we thought about opening downtown but couldn't afford it and a landlord [indiscernible] this was a awesome opportunity for us to get our foot in here. >> the agency is the marriage between a conventional art gallery and fine art agency. i'm victor gonzalez the founder

of gcs agency. thes program is especially important for small business because it extended huge life line of resources, but also expertise from the people that have gathered around the vacant to vibrant program. it is allowed small businesses to pop up in spaces that have previously been fully unaccessible or just out of budget. vacant to vibrant was funded by a grant from the office of economic workforce development that was part of the mayor's economic recovery budget last year so we funded our non profit partners new deal who managed the process getting folks into these spaces. >> [indiscernible] have been tireless for all of us down here and it has been incredible. certainly never seen the kind of assistance from the city that vacant to vibrant has

given us, for sure. >> vacant to ibvooerant is a important program because it just has the opportunity to build excitement what downtown could be. it is change the narrative talking about ground floor vacancy and office vacancy to talking about the amazing network of small scale entrepreneur, [indiscernible] >> this is a huge opportunity that is really happy about because it has given me space to showcase all the work i have been doing over the past few years, to have a space i can call my own for a extended period of time has been, i mean, it is incredible. >> big reason why i do this is specific to empower artist. there are a lot of people in san francisco that have really great ideas that have the work ethics, they just don't have those opportunities presented, so this has been huge lifeline

i think for entrepreneurs and small businesses. >> this was a great program for us. it has [indiscernible] opening the site. we benefited from it and i think because there is diverse and different [indiscernible] able to be down here that everybody kind of benefits >> shop and dine in the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges residents to do their business in the 49 square files of san francisco. we help san francisco remain unique, successful and right vi. so where will you shop and dine

in the 49? >> i'm one of three owners here in san francisco and we provide mostly live music entertainment and we have food, the type of food that we have a mexican food and it's not a big menu, but we did it with love. like ribeye tacos and quesadillas and fries. for latinos, it brings families together and if we can bring that family to your business, you're gold. tonight we have russelling for e community. >> we have a ten-person limb elimination match. we have a full-size ring with barside food and drink. we ended up getting wrestling here with puoillo del mar.

we're hope og get families to join us. we've done a drag queen bingo and we're trying to be a diverse kind of club, trying different things. this is a great part of town and there's a bunch of shops, a variety of stores and ethnic restaurants. there's a popular little shop that all of the kids like to hang out at. we have a great breakfast spot call brick fast at tiffanies. some of the older businesses are refurbished and newer businesses are coming in and it's exciting. >> we even have our own brewery for fdr, ferment, drink repeat. it's in the san francisco garden district and four beautiful murals.

>> it's important to shop local because it's kind of like a circle of life, if you will. we hire local people. local people spend their money at our businesses and those local people will spend their money as well. i hope people shop locally. [ ♪♪♪ ] >> everyone loves a good sunset, but in san francisco we take to a new level. i'm city supervisor engardio and i represent an entire part of the city called the sunset. it stretches 30 glorious avenues. welcome to district 4! the sunset is a collide scope of people culture and experiences for residents

of all ages. we are a beach town, we are a chinatown, and not a town at all. the sunset is home to 80 thousand people and we love our dogs. we live in neat row houses, homes with yards, story book homes and every quirk in between. the sunset used to be sand dunes all the way to the ocean. when the city needed to grow, san francisco's future ran through the sunset. we built rows and rows of housing for a great irish population and welcomed a great chinese population. today home to a gowing number of families from all backgrounds and the future starts here. >> we chose sunset knauz we love san francisco but during the pandemic we needed more space and more family focused, so that is where we found the sunset. how walkable it is. we live along iving street along where

diana's school is our son's day care is. >> our kids and all the kids we knee in the neighborhood are really the future here and we are really excited to live in the neighborhood. we love it so much. >> nina and alex are expecting their first baby and it first leaders of the newly formed sunset community band which bring together musicians of all ages at special events. >> we are about to have our first kid and met so many younger people and so many moving into the neighborhood. exciting to raising our family here because this community is awesome. >> bringing the community together and making it stronger i think a band can help with that. it is a matter of civic pride and coming together and doing something as a community that really makes like us from a collection of people into a

neighborhood. >> sundays in the sunset are for worship, farmer's market and live music at the ocean. if the sunset had a town square, it would be this magical area that appears every sunday on 37 avenue. the sunset farmer market isn't just a place to get good food and produce, it is where community gathers live music from local musicians and cultural celebrations and [indiscernible] share ideas to shape our city. it really is the place the community comes together to celebrate the best of the sunset. >> something about it had sunset chinese cultural district is there a lot of opportunities to uplift the chinese voice and chinese people. when you look at the sunset, a lot of

think of trees and single family homets and the schools, but there isn't a lot of very iconic locations that people can look at and know they are in the sunset. one thing we are working on is to unveil a new mural in the park by community and as we do more work in the sunset and uplift the unique qualities of the community, we want to do more mural s and spaces that are iconic so the sunset gets a piece of being unique and identifiable. >> a supermarket for everything you need for chinese home cooking and [indiscernible] the rice noodles are so good they are featured in catherine moss latest novel, [indiscernible] takes place in the sunset. there is a old school menu at the ond mandarin islamic restaurant and a item so spicy they have to warn customers.

maybe bobo can neutralize the spice. the sunset has plenty options. try the bars at the beach. we also have the sunset reservoir brewing company and o'briens irish pub. cuisine in the sunset spans the world. [indiscernible] >> travel and work in [indiscernible] we have our own restaurant. and then, it was my turn to follow her to her country, so that's why we opened in her neighborhood. >> we are looking for more a local gentleman gem. we traveled around the world and what we highly value, a place for the community to gather. a local hang-out spot. that is why this isn't a restaurant, it is cafe, you can order a coffee, you can have a fuel full meal but it is place to connect.

whether parents kids friends is why we decide to go qulose close to the beach, a neighborhood i am familiar with. i run into people all the time. i live in a big city but why i chose district 4 outer sunset. it has a small town feel. i love our neighbors. >> the sunset has everything from footwear to hardware. here is great wall hardware, 3500 square feet of retail space. we carry about 22 thousand items and counting. it never stops because i have a thing. when a customer says don't you have this and i don't have it, it bothers me. i want to have it,s so it is just of those things about owner a hardware store, people expect you to have everything and you to fulfill that need. i like to serve my neighborhood. most businesses you want to buy

this or that or eat this or buy the widget. a hardware store is different. people come in and have a problem and need a solution and they are looking for you to navigate them through that problem and offer them products that help them get to where they need to go. people are great. i love this neighborhood. there is different ethnicities here, different cultures here. we all intermingle and mix together and we get along fine and i always like that about this neighborhood. it is just a nice place to be. it is near the beach, it is beautiful and near the zoo and near golden gate park, stern grove. great schools, great parks. whats there not to like? we also love pizza from hole in the wall to [indiscernible] hottest restaurants in the sunset tunching vietnamese food [indiscernible] ice cream [indiscernible] this is

great highway park. a great place to burn calories on the weekend. i'm here every sunday doing a long run and start with 5 miles and with this ocean view, if it motivates me i try for 10. the new york times named great highway park one of 52 places to change the world. it is that amazing and the gem of the sunset and people are finding new ways to activate the space. in halloween it turns into the great haunt way. >> we imagine a future from the part time road close toor to a park to welcome people all ages and activities to our coast. >> since we had [indiscernible] always looking for ways to sort of improve what is already good around us. the neighborhood is great. it will be even better with a park here. >> sunset turn to put a new sign up on

our coast. open for all. >> this is the treasure of san francisco and this hasn't been discovered yet. homes are still relatively affordable, there is decent schools and a place for kids to have a feeling they can run and play and take part in things. what i'm happy the great highway has become a park for the weekend. i'm glad we share what we have with the rest of the city and people come from outside the city. i'm sure people come from the east bay, and i just feel like, seeing the people out here enjoying this represents the hope for the future. >> imagine the potential of an emerald necklace in the sunset for safe biking and recreation along the green belt of sunset boulevard which connects lake merced with golden gate park and great highway park. quality of life matters and we know how to take care of each other.

sunset youth service helps teenagers find purpose and self-help for the elderly let's seniors shine. local artists capture the sunset experience and work is on display in cafes like java beach and black bird books. the art of conversation happens at this new barber shop called the avenue. the owner calls it a barber lounge because he wants to create a space for the community to gather beyond hair cuts. this corner is a hent of the future. you see new housing built for new generations and it is over a community space that everyone loves. the sunset is a place full of potential. >> the possibility is here, more then anything. you can start something here and people will get behind and the community finds there is a need for it and people support it. >> i always look around the corner, the next thing we can do to crank it up more and make it safer, make it more enjoyable.

bring in new business, support them. >> i really hope we bring just joy, because ultimately music helps bring joy to the community. >> this is where people are at. this is where people want to be, so it gives me a lot of positive energy. >> my office created the first sunset night market on iring street where i'm standing. more then 10 thousand people showed up. nobody has seen that many on--[indiscernible] here it celebrate all the fun things in life, food music and art. our beautiful sunset always amazed. the sunset experience is pure joy. the sunset is where we will create our best san francisco. join us. mean today so today wee

announcing that we'll be filing a lawsuit against the trump administration in the northern district of california this effort is co-led by san francisco and santa clara county and you'll hear shortly from our santa clara county counsel tony lopresti. since his first term, donald trump has tried different ways to coerce cities into doing the job of the federal government and carrying out federal immigration enforcement.

since taking office on january the 20th, trump and his administration have doubled down on those efforts. >> they've targeted sanctuary localities and states with executive orders and agency actions meant to illegally compel local jurisdictions into carrying out the president's priorities and allowing the federal government to commandeer local law enforcement officers as ice agents. >> the federal actions make clear that cities like san francisco will be defunded if we do not give up our local authority and autonomy and comply. his executive order titled protecting the american people against invasion orders federal agencies to illegally cut off federal funding to jurisdictions with sanctuary policies. to implement this executive order and to carry out trump's wishes, the u.s. department of justice sent memos on january the 21st and this wednesday february the 5th that instruct

u.s. doj personnel to investigate and civilly or criminally prosecute local officials in sanctuary jurisdictions that do not actively assist in immigration enforcement. these are not idle threats. yesterday the trump administration brought a lawsuit against the city of chicago cook county, the state of illinois and local and state officials challenging their sanctuary laws. their lawsuit made the prosecutor of state and local officials for following their laws a reality. the lawsuit that we're going to be filing later on today with a number of cities and counties lay out exactly how these executive orders and u.s. doj memos violate a whole host of laws. >> their actions fly in the face of fundamental constitutional provisions. they violate plain statutory language and numerous court orders. our lawsuit describes how their actions violate the constitution's 10th amendment

the separation of powers doctrine, the spending clause, the due process clause and the administrative procedures act. we will be asking the court to declare these actions unlawful and to prevent the trump administration from enforcing the challenge portions of the executive orders and u.s. doj memos. i want to be clear the trump administration is asserting a right it does not have. they are trying to tell us how to use our resources and to commandeer our local law enforcement. >> this is the federal government coercing local officials to bend to their will or face defunding or prosecution and that is illegal or authoritarian. and last i checked, we still live in a democracy under the rule of law and the federal government needs to follow the law. >> local officials have a right to do their jobs without threats or interference from the federal government. >> now let me note that none of

these actions targeting century jurisdictions will improve public safety. sanctuary laws improve public safety and that is their purpose. our city sanctuary laws have been in place since 1989. studies have consistently shown immigrants are less likely to commit crimes and sanctuary jurisdictions are either seeing no increase in crime or have lower crime rates as a result of sanctuary laws. victims and witnesses of crime are willing to come forward and report crimes to the police . and when law enforcement and communities trust each other, we get criminals off the streets making everyone safer. these were points that were made in a recent statement by the california police chiefs association representing hundreds of police chiefs in our state. >> eroding trust and targeting hardworking families with threats of deportation does the opposite. >> it makes individuals fearful to report crimes to go to

school to get needed health care. it makes us all less safe. now donald trump and his allies like to spread falsehoods that sanctuary jurisdictions harbor criminals. >> that is simply not true. the federal government knows the identity and has the fingerprints of every inmate in san francisco jails. if the federal government has legal reason to arrest someone they can do so by obtaining a criminal warrant or a court order. >> the purpose of our local sanctuary laws is not to interfere with or impede lawful federal immigration enforcement . but let me say this. immigration enforcement is the federal government's responsibility, not the responsibility of state and local governments. sanctuary policies prioritize using our scarce local law enforcement resources to actually fight crime, not do the job of the federal government. >> now during the first trump administration, san francisco

and santa clara sued the federal government after the administration attempted to withhold federal funds from the city based on its sanctuary policies like it is trying to do today. >> and we won federal district courts and the ninth circuit u.s. court of appeals ruled that the conditions the trump administration attempted to place on federal funding were unconstitutional and that our local sanctuary policies comply with federal law. >> no one is interfering with the federal government's ability to do their job. >> but the trump administration is certainly interfering with our ability to do our job. they're trying to take away our autonomy and interfering with our ability to keep our residents safe. and thus we have no choice but to seek relief from the court. >> i want to mention that our lawsuit is joined by a number of jurisdictions across the country including new haven, connecticut, portland, oregon. king county, washington.

and i'm here to introduce our santa clara county council tony lopresti. i very much appreciate the partnership between our offices and as i mentioned, santa clara is co-leading this case with us . good morning. i want to begin by thanking city attorney david chiu and his extraordinary team for their leadership and partnership with santa clara county and standing up for the constitutional rights of our residents. santa clara's core mission is to care for its most vulnerable residents and to deliver the critical services that they need to survive and to thrive. santa clara has mission. our job is not to enforce immigration laws and the constitution could not be more clear that the federal

government can't require us to help with enforcement of civil immigration laws and constitutional speak. we call that commandeering the federal government can't commandeer our local government. they can't commandeer our local resources and they can't commandeer our local law enforcement to help them carry out a vision of mass deportation. you might ask why santa clara and san francisco and hundreds of other jurisdictions choose not to cooperate with the federal government? for us it's simple. we are striving to create a culture of trust and security within our communities so that our residents know that they can come to the county when they are in need or when they can be of help. that includes feeling safe coming to local law enforcement to report crimes or to

participate in investigations without fearing that they or their loved ones face deportation. our non-cooperation policies are designed to protect that trust and security and the federal government can't weaponize federal funding to bully us away from that commitment to trust and security. we worked hand in hand with san francisco in 2017 to enforce the constitution against the trump administration. we litigated before and we prevailed. we are litigate litigating again and we will prevail again. thank you. >> i want to take a moment and thank the team in my office that has been working around the clock really since the inauguration of donald trump. >> our litigators karen tulloch ,nancy harris, sara eisenberg, molly lee, alex holtzman and others advice attorneys jenna clark, lisa cabrera, kate

kimberlin, valerie lopez and pearson christina fletcher's jesse minority and others. >> our legal professionals elizabeth colebrook. >> katie dunn, sir gutierrez as well as yale law school's asphalt program. and at this moment i'd like to invite up our chief deputy yvonne murray to make a few remarks in spanish wednesday. yes. i mean i'm receiving midday you'll abogado ethan holcomb all here for the totality here. that office now that abogado de la ciudad de san francisco only lets you let the san francisco yell condado the santa clara in who took on last you that is the new haven and connecticut portland and oregon. yale condo they king and yale started in washington vi mossop but i think that only the hill control but i think that trump official hinted at the los estados unidos e various lee that is that he fed this

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>> thank you. that concludes our comments. >> happy to answer any questions. talk a little bit about the differences between what the trump administration tried to do last time around and this time and the difference between the lawsuits if that's so. >> so at some levels there's not there not many differences. >> and in fact he is reinstating the original executive order that a court had held in the ninth circuit had held were unconstitutional. but in addition to that, he is now also threatening local officials, state officials with investigations, criminal and civil prosecutions. what relief are you seeking in this lawsuit? quite a few pieces and you want to take a yes no? yeah, at a high level we're. oh, i'm sorry. sara eisenberg from the san francisco city attorney's office. we are seeking declaration that these executive actions are unconstitutional and unlawful and an injunction that

prohibits them from enforcing them against jurisdictions that have these policies of non-cooperation with federal immigration authorities. >> why does it only go to the ninth circuit last time there was a decision. so there were actually several cases that raised this. some of them we prevailed at the ninth circuit and the trump administration made a decision not to go further but to actually withdraw the initial executive order. and some of them that they administration changed over before there was an opportunity for them to go all the way up. but these threats to investigate officials and courts to maybe commandeer local resources are at this point still threats. so why take preemptive legal action rather than wait for years to come to fruition and then seek relief when they do? >> so the first executive order

that came down articulated the strategy and that was a number of weeks ago. but this week when the bondi memo came down it made it very clear what would happen. and then yesterday when the city of chicago and the state of illinois were sued by the trump administration, that made it abundantly clear and abundantly real that this enforcement would happen indication that the trump administration officials they said something to justice from our perspective we think any and all sanctuary jurisdictions are going to be targeted. and what has happened this week made that abundantly clear. if bondi is successful in her attempt to strip federal funding i mean how much does san francisco stand to lose? >> so san francisco on our own we receive billions of dollars of federal funding. this would be catastrophic to our city, to the services that we need to provide to our community and to our local economy. i understand. >> i'm sorry. i'll just add for santa clara it's a similar situation.

we have billions of dollars at stake including money that is devoted to our health system. we have the second largest public health system in the state of california. it's critical that we're able to provide those health services and the community services that federal funding helps support. so our core mission really is at stake here. >> this is still a threat at this point and that's where the funding for sanctuary cities and these orders they're there has certainly been communications that have been issued. you know, one thing i'll say to that point is what we have seen the administration moving so fast and oftentimes so chaotically it's difficult to tell when they are putting something forward or withdrawing it. so rather than be caught flat footed, we definitely felt like we needed to be proactive rather than wait for the impacts to our residents in our in our community stops as a result of these numbers. yeah, that's correct. my understanding is that the commandeering sort of interpretation is what's played

out in this law right under the 10th amendment. i'm just wondering if you guys are worried about the supreme court and just how many judges trump appointed the first time maybe making a different interpretation of the 10th amendment. i'll start by saying it's our perspective that judges that follow the rule of law will side with us particularly given the precedent that we have here. we'll obviously see how that happens as we proceed. >> but but the laws on the books are clear. expecting more jurisdiction to join this lawsuit? >> we are absolutely and we're in conversations as we speak. we'll be filing the complaint later today in part because we're still gathering names and information that we can put into our complaint related to other jurisdictions or any other bay area jurisdiction that are a part of this. >> there is very likely at least another bay area jurisdiction and we are will we're awaiting will likely have

more to say about that in the in the near future. so we're going to worry about this action and see in support of it. >> i have advised mayor leary of this. we had a very good conversation. he understands why we're needing to move forward at this time to defend our city. are there any other actions that trump has taken or is that you expect for yourself or other jurisdictions to actually present? >> i think what i would say is as countless legal observers will tell you, donald trump has been openly violating the law and the constitution on almost a daily basis. he just to give a number of examples he is trying to ignore the constitutional right to birthright citizenship which our office is litigating. he's violating separation of powers by trying to cut off federal funding that congress has authorized and shutting down agencies that congress has also authorized. >> he's violating the law by firing inspector generals and federal prosecutors without notice as well as giving billionaires access to private

financial data. we of course are monitoring all of these circumstances and will take action when we need to defend our city. >> does your office have the capacity to do that work? well, i have to just thank the incredible professionals in our office who are literally working around the clock and not sleeping at this time. >> we need to do whatever we can to uphold the rule of law. >> i'll just say that, you know, we're very privileged to be working in coalition with a whole host of other local jurisdictions and we fully anticipate that there is going to be a flood of necessary litigation that we're going to need to bring forward and we are going to be working hand in hand with partner jurisdictions in making sure and making sure that we push back on the unlawful and unconstitutional policies of the administration. >> were there any conversations with attorney general bonta in california in the sanctuary state or is that just entirely different? >> we've had conversations with

the ag's office on a number of topics. i'm not going to go into what those are but we certainly have been in communication with our ag. >> and with that unless anyone has any questions appreciate you being here. >> i know there are folks who can do individual interviews. >> thank you so much listen, thank you all for being here. >> i mr. barry bonds it's an honor to have you in the people's house here at city hall. thank you for coming on to 525 day and after last year your