thank you, president chiu, distinguished members of the board, i am "ben-hur", chair of the san francisco ethics commission. as you have likely reviewed the commission engaged in a lengthy and extense sieve fact finding investigation relating to the charges of official misconduct. our aim was to provide a hearing that was going to be both thorough and fair, and as efficient as reasonably possible under the circumstances. to that end we engaged in nine separate hearings, covering five and a half months. we received and reviewed 37 legal briefs and other submissions by the parties. we reviewed and handled objections to 17 different declarations. we amassed almost 2,000 pages of reporter's transcripts. we heard from five live witnesses, and also dealt with one bomb scare. thankfully only one. after this extensive procedure, the parties were given an opportunity to present argument before us, during which all the commissioners had an opportunity to ask questions, both on the legal basis for potential findings of official misconduct and for the underlying factual allegations. after having that

ben hur. i hope you guys follow hiso5 thank you very much. >> president chiu: thank you.name ist=5uz lori leaderman. in the incredibly diverse community of san francisco applying cx+í standards of being convicted of a misdemeanor as basis for removing an elected official is frightening precedent. city attorney called the charternoá0Ñ provision nimble. well a nimble mechanism for removing a elected official is something we should you cannot adopt a broad definition of this charter provisionácÃwithout undermining democracy itself. public resources have been squandered and abused in[hÑç a undisguised attempt to demo.yy demonize sheriff mirkarimi of being a batterer to make himhÑkx into a par ryeia somehow ineligible for redemption. it is clearo0dz from reams of evidence that the december 31 incident between mirkarimi:ó lopez has been blown out of proportion. while the sheriff crossed the line he immediately're stopped when called on it by lopez. lopez must be believed and respected in thisdi+! matter that she has never felt threatened by her husband. themubty domestic violen

we must either adopt or reject the agents commission's recommendation and thanks to president ben hur as well but we must either adopt or reject the religious that by pleading guilty to an act of domestic violence and put on plo baition ross has created official misconduct that requires removal from his office as sheriff. i think there are forces on both sides and it's a very polarized room this evening who would like us to make our decision into ross mirkarimi versus ed lee or between progressives versus moderates. but i think we owe it to ourselves and the people of san francisco to treat it as a choice between right and wrong but the hard thing is what do the right thing means. but i want to do the right thing, and base right or wrong according to what the law demands and what the evidence demonstrates. i believe that the ethics commission's recommendation is correct on its face. it's not possible for a top law enforcement official to effectively discharge the duties of his office while he remains under the supervision of the criminal justice system. his sheriff is undergoing a man

chairman ben hur told the supervisors how after nine hearings over 5.5 months, a majority of his commission thought mirkarimi was guilty of official misconduct for bruising his wife's arm after an argument on new year's eve before he took the oath of office but hur made it clear he disagreed with his colleagues. >> i think the conduct was morally inappropriate. i think it was wrongful. but there must, i think, be a line between official misconduct and personal misconduct. and i could not find a principled way to make that distinction based on the arguments suggested by the mayor and ultimately the decision made by the majority. >> reporter: next the mayors and sheriff's lawyers took turns giving their final arguments as to whether mirkarimi should remain sheriff. >> the ethics commission found the conduct was serious that he committed this conduct after he had already been elected to office, and they also found that this misconduct was centrally related to the duties that the sheriff has. >> i submit to you that removing a democratically elected official from office for a misdemeanor commit