. >> commissioners, ray hartz, san francisco open government, and i would like to associate myself with the spreefs speaker. i do believe that the city government, one of its problem is its incestuous nature. you don't know who is colluding or who is simply supporting or who is doing what with whom anymore. and if we expanded the mandate and said we need to get people who haven't been on boards and commissions over and over and over again for the last 20 years -- i always hear that as this wonderful talking about. oh, well, ed's served on boards and commissions for 20 years. maybe it's time to get somebody new. maybe it's time to get somebody who's not so blindered by their previous experience that they are willing to consider new things, new people. the trouble with a lot of boards and the commissions is the appointment process is so secretive and done in such ways that the public doesn't know exactly why an individual got appointed to a board or commission, and therefore, the concern that comes up to members of the public, you know, is what is really driving this person's action? what

further public comment. >> ray hartz, san francisco open government. before i comment specifically on this point, i'd like to raise a question as to whether mr. hepner is appearing here as a public citizen making public comment or a representative of the board of supervisors, in particular, aaron peskin. he can't have it both ways. the public needs to have an understanding of what he is saying in his official capacity as an aide to his supervisor or whether he is including his own personal public feelings about this matter. and i sincerely hope that this before you -- and you've really thrown some confusion into it, it doesn't include anything that happened at the meeting yesterday, because then you're in a public notice quandary because you didn't send out anything, and i'll be honest with you, i at this point have serious questions right now issues are being raised that were discussed yesterday, and the public was given a representation that none of this wouldn't have been there, and you said that it isn't, but now, it's being talked about. so you ca

. >> commissioners, ray hartz for san francisco open government. i'd like to align myself with the other speakers. first as an aside i'd like to apologize to commissioner lee with painting her with the attorney brush. >> and libel us, too. >> yes, thank you. we have a provision in the law for most boards and commissions that the people who attend the meetings or fail to attend meetings are supposed to be reported, and if they have a certain number of failures to attend meetings, that they are reported to their appointing authority and recommended to be removed. well, i know as a practical matter three boards that have a number of commissioners who have not been to a commission meeting in a year, and it's not even reported, let alone is any action taken. so briasically, we have a nonfunctioning member. now here is a situation where you're going to put the onus on the member to report their recusals. how do i say it? gee, the fair person who's an administrator of a body won't report someone who's not coming to the meetings, why would we expect the pe

. >> commissioners, ray hartz, president, san francisco open government, what we need, and it's an objectioxy moron in th, we need honest politicians in office. we need to get people who are ethically unchallenged in office, people who are just willing to come out and be honest and open, rather than having to be forced or tricked into it. what we need is somebody in the mayor's office who will sit down and simply say, i am going to tell you every single dollar i got and every single person that it came from. i'm going to tell you why they gave it to me, when they gave it to me, how they gave it to me. cash, check, money order, whatever it happens to be. you're always trying to close the barn door after the horses have fled, basically trying to catch somebody who is taking contributions under the table, over the table, around the bend or however they accept them. what we need instead is some leaders in this city, someone elected to the president of the board of supervisors who gets all of the other supervisors to agree, we're not going to accept any money that we're not willing to publicly ack

. >> commissioners, ray hartz, director, san francisco open government, although he probably doesn't appreciate it, i want to associate myself with mr. marstellar's comments. we have a lot of smart people in this city, and we have a lot of smart politicians, and this idea of behested payments, it comes up -- they're smart enough to know not to ask for the check, not to ask for the dollar amount, not to specify anything. they have some cut away or cutout or whatever you want to call it ask for them. i'd like to refer you back to this. i have previously referred to the activities of the ethics commission as, quote, rearranging deck chairs on the titanic, end quote. commission president, peter keane in a matter previously heard against our current mayor is quoted as saying, mr. farrell, an elected supervisor of the city and county of san francisco has never had the political will or courage or integrity to come before this commission and look us in the face, end quote. he went onto blame the results on former executive director john st. croix saying he was clearly totally incompetent in