to create an ethics process.has been a committee in congress that polices ethical issues for years, but it does it in private. publicized incidents unless they are extraordinarily serious, and nobody ever knew whether or not anybody was investigating allegations of wrongdoing. so they decided to move this out as part of a public-private to the ethics process. they created this office, and the office's job, the office of congressional ethics, is to look at news reports and other public allegations of possible ethical wrongdoing, review those cases, and the ones that look like maybe a problem, send them to the ethics committee and have the ethics committee then begin his process. the trick here is the difference between the two boards, the office of congressional ethics make its -- makes its reports public, which the ethics committee never did. now you have this process where not only are they tapping the ethics committee on the shoulder and say you need to look at this , but after 45 days, that report gets release

of this ethics commission. first, juliet embodies the progressive ideas of san francisco and exemplifies leadership. i am proud to call her a mentor. in fact, i would say that her current job is a perfect fit for her and very few people could do the incredible job that she does. in my time working with her i was able to see directly how her progressive mind-set made the sfpuc better at community relations and really think about its impact on the community. her leadership in this area is no small feat and is surprisingly rare among large utilities which is why. sfpuc has become a model for utilities across the country. this is a direct result of juliet being in this position and removing her would be devastating to the future of the sfpuc as well as the future of san francisco residents. second, the resolution states that article 2 of the bylaws mandates that "the mission of the ethics commission is to practice and promote the highest standards of ethical behavior in government. the remaining portion of the sent

we as the ethics commission see that as an ethical failure. if there is a finality to something, i agree. i didn't see this as reopening anything that had been made final. it had moved on to another level. >> commissioner andrews. >> so, could we within the stipulation more clearly outline what we thought should happen, disciplinary action, that we would only agree to the stipulation if indeed -- and not necessarily saying that it would be termination, but it would be some [speaker not understood] whatever disciplinary action were toke tab enwere taken, or even have an understanding of what that could be while we were knit md l of settlement agreement ? >> in my opinion we would be better off doing that in the future ~ in order to make sure that we have, indeed, finalized something to the extent that my fellow commissioners are uncomfortable that it was finalized and that this was reopening it. so, some language might be added that might address the problem in the future so that it wouldn't come up. >> and i guess if i could just add, if there

this is the ethics committee where you ought to do the ethical thing, so... (applause) >>> my name is john [speaker not understood] i work at a local community group, i've also known juliet through her work at urban habitat in east bay. and you've heard from a lot of people about how principled, how high character, honorable, integrity and i echo that statement and all those statements from many speakers here today. she really has advanced a number of important programs for low and moderate income people. and really become a model of how we can create bigger accountability within some of our public agencies here in san francisco, which is a very difficult town to create real change in, especially for low-income people. so, the puc has done an investigation. there's been an agreement that was done a couple months ago. it seems pretty logical that this shall be done, it should have been done a couple months ago. by doing this you create a pretty powerful group of people to come out and say to not only stop, but i would agree, change the resolution to an apology

follow the example of this ethics commission and just look the other way. the ethics commission handles of this matter at best was incompetent, my personal opinion it was nothing less than the collusion with other city entities to cover up wrong doing and illegalties. the final out come, not one city employee was held accountable. they took retribution against dr. kurr and fired dr. kurr and did not give him three quarters of a million dollars because he was treated well. the only losers in this whole evolution were the citizens of san francisco, who ended up paying $750,000 in a lawsuit, and god only knows how much in legal fees to bring this matter to a conclusion. my question to you is, if this is the way you chose to handle it, what the hell are we paying you for? >> i myself have experienced coming before this board, you have even heard items where you had a conflict of interest. deciding matters against me, that if you had favored, taken my side of it, would have found yourself in violation of the sunshine ordinance. so what you did is you just basica

and i want to thank friends of ethics for bringing that to our attention. but with that, madam chair, unless you have any questions, i'd love to open it up to public comment and, again, as i said before, we do have an amended version in front of the committee today. but we will be making more amendments to this and hopefully bring this back to committee at the next meeting or two meeting from now. >> all right, thank you, supervisor chiu and thank you for taking the time to incorporate additional changes. so, with that -- >> i'm sorry, i for got one area i wanted to mention. there was also a set of requirements we had in our ethics reform package that would require ~ developers that were involved in major environmental impact reports to disclose contributions of $5,000 or more to nonprofit organizations in, before, or after a major e-i-r. and supervisor breed had raised some issues around that. and, so, we are looking at how to ensure that this is not just about contributions to a nonprofit organization, but really any -- any organizations or entities that

a few introductory comments as to why we are doing this, we know we have many ethics and lobbying laws on our books but there is a strong perspective held by many in the city that we need to do better. during my first term on the board i passed several ordinances to pass online lobbying activities, to report electronic filing of campaign statements and our city's conflict of interest code. in my second term eye a better understanding of how influences from and important decisions within our $7.9 billion government. i hear regularly from constituent from governmental transparency and this reform packet designed to increase public confidence in the everyday workings of our local government. to shine a brighter light to lead to better and open decisions by city officials. let me also make it clear that while our proposals impact certain activities such as lobbying and permanent expediting. we are saying it's important for the public to know when they occur that there be transparency as former supreme court once said, sunlight is the best disinfect ant. what i would like to do is look at a

with this resolution also fails to mention is this ethics commission through your own code of ethics also commits itself to one encouraging and promoting integrity in government by education and example, two, fairly and objectively enforcing the city's ethics laws and regulations, and three, treating all staff members of the public and colleagues with courtesy, respect, objectivity, and fairness. regarding the first point, promoting integrity and government by education and example does not mean making an example of a few leaders for a one-time violation. i am here today because the actions being considered by this commission seem extraordinarily punitive and unnecessary. removing juliet from her position especially after settlement agreements were previously entered into between her and this commission questions the objectivity of this commission. this resolution also seems to have seen that leaders cannot learn from their mistakes while in office and the only way to promote integrity in government is to remove them from this position. i would stress there are 78 other ways to promo

her ethical integral moral standing were the highest accord. she always will and continue to fight for what is right. whether or not you believe that, it's your time. having us here tonight is us giving back to her, paying her forward and hoping that she can get past and through all this and we can all let her do her job. thank you. (applause) >>> good evening. my name is carol tatum and i've lived in san francisco since 1955. and i have seen the african-american population go from somewhere between 17 and 25% to now between 4 and 6%. i've seen african americans live in substandard housing as now 80% of the 4 to 6% live in either public or subsidized housing. so, that is an indication of how san francisco treats african americans. now, i don't know juliet. quite frankly, i didn't know about this situation. i don't read the newspaper as much as i should. but i heard about it yesterday. as a matter of principle, i felt that i should come here today. it sounds like this matter had been resolved, but you have chosen to reopen it. i don't know why.

if the ethics commission were to agree with you, what would happen to david samson?could, for example, fine him up to $10,000. they could impose imprisonment up to six months. and they could bar him from public office for up to five years. for someone like david samson who has been in the middle of every, it seems like, every single chris christie scandal from bridge gate to this harrison question it would be significant that he's barred from being able to hold public office. >> and what do we know about the track record of the state ethics commission? is this generally an aggressive watchdog? does this have a track record of issuing harsh penalties, of the kinds of punishments you're describing of weeding those out or is this something where we're sort of investigations go to die? what's the reputation? >> so i think the intention of governor codey when he create this had commission was to ensure there was this very fair agency to overlook and ensure that the public trust wasn't being violated. i think that it has in its authority the ability to do exact exactly wha

and this is an ethical obligation. and so that the authorities in this volume wrestle with those components. and you never know, you never know when it's going to good research will be challenged, it gets challenged before it gets published by reviewers or whether it will be challenged by, for example, the border patrol. and i have a quick story that happened this week that was quite interesting. i went with a set of ngo from the tucson area to the border patrol central office here in tucson with some of the policy leadership from d.c., border patrol d.c., because the ngos had been effective raising the issue of migrants having their possessions taken. 25% of all the migrants have gone through detention, have their possessions taken. 34% lose their identification cards which are critical for how they work and survive in mexico after they are deported. and so ngos in the tucson area and some of the national organizations have very effectively raised this as an issue for the border patrol, and the border patrol said, oka

even if you are known for being ethical, you will by that nature attract ethical people. >> is theren interview question that you ask? is there something that you say to try to find as an indicator of how people will respond? >> well, when you're hiring employees, you're held to certain standards, as you well know. we always believe your background and your track record is important. your track record will tell us what you intend to do in the future. if you have a blemished background, you're probably not going to be a good candidate for employment in our company. >> does that mean you look for complaints against people? i know a real estate agent who once i was in contract with them and they found a better bid and they dropped us and went somewhere else. i thought that was unethical, but this is a person i see getting high ratings. >> employee res held to one standard. independent contractors, a different standard. that doesn't mean ethics are difference between the two classes. it means that you go about the background check differently than you would otherwise. that agent would pr

this week, there was a new ethics reform law when he took a swipet the politicians in d.c. >> some of the tightest campaign restrik sthauns you havhave -- restrictions that you have in this kun are tri are in d.c. and maryland. hell, in d.c., there has to be a shuttle bus between the penitentiary and the city council chambers and three, three since the last election have gone the jail or resigned. and the mayors is up to his ass in alligators. >> and the d.c. mayor responded telling the virginia post that they have ethics problems of their own mentioning the indictment of former governor bob mcdonnell, and they did just pass a new ethics law, but some feel it is too watered down. >>> many believe that the d.c. lottery is losing millions of sales, because it has run out of pop popular scratch tickets. and we take a look at how it is impacting the local businesses. >> reporter: they are called scrat scratchers ap and you can win instantly, but you can't play if you don't have any. you have a empty lot there? >> yes sh, the lots are like, l of choices right now. >> reporter: at this stor

and i looked at what we see he is our mandate under our rules ~ to promote the highest standards of ethical behavior in government, and i see a department which is allowing someone to continue an employment who has pled guilty to these two rather egregiously sounding offenses. and to me it seemed based upon that knowledge and that knowledge only, it was appropriate to say that she shouldn't continue. i've learned a lot more tonight, i have to tell you. >> that's the problem. >> that's the problem, is that it come off with, sure, you're quoting the statute. but even as you read the facts, what we knew about the facts, i certainly didn't feel it was a corruption case in the classic term of the word. that is some public employee who is taking money under the table or doing something else. and her conduct, when it came up, was essential open and above and cooperative and she's paid the fine for it. she's made a mistake. i agree with these people who said she's made a mistake, she fessed up to it and go forward. ~ certainly >> commissioner, it sounds to me in some ways we're kind of doing our ow

our city attorney has arrived, herrera, white, gibner and advocates for strong ethics and transparency laws. we have worked together for a number of was no put this packet together and attend this hearing to let folks know that we are kicking off this discussion and hopefully in the coming weeks we'll be able to have some clarity over a few remaining issues that are outstanding before we come back to this committee and ask for our committee to move this out to the full board. with that, i would like to invite up our city attorney mr. herrera for some comments. >> thank you, mr. president and members of the board and thank you for the opportunity to come and spend a couple minutes to talk about this legislation forum today. first i want to thank and congratulate president chu for all of his hard work over the last year. you may recall that supervisor chiu and i introduced this legislation last year and at the time announced it was our belief that thises the most important ethics legislation to advance before the board of supervisors in its generation and i happen to believe that that re

or no activity by the ethics commission and its staff to do a complete investigation. >> i think we did investigate. >> yeah. >> we did our own investigation. >> i mean, in other words, there was never any investigation as to how serious the offense was. i mean, we all react to the fact it's a conflict of interest. but whether or not it was -- rose to the level that somebody should be fired because they committed a conflict of interest, i didn't feel i as a commissioner was in any position to do any value judgment on that. that was up to the agency who -- to make that determination, absent some record that i had in front of me that would cause me to either think this woman should be fired or she shouldn't be fired. i mean, it's -- i think if we're going to make recommendations concerning what the agency should do, we've got to have a lot more information about -- and understanding of what investigation the agency made and reached its determination. boss comes in and says, i think i took appropriate action. can't tell us what it is obviously for it's a personnel matter. i don't know what

to me this book is a kind of an ethics handbook for people who are going to do this stuff. scott is too much of a gentleman to call out carpetbaggers but i call the kind of thing we are discussing here my day at the zoo where people go to the wild animal park and then present a book of out the hidden life of a tiger. no, not possible. look at me. i was born in tijuana. it's never lost on me that i could be walking down the street with sicilian friends and they could be asked for their papers and all i would have to do is say go patriots, man. [laughter] the border is not what people assume it is. my beloved homies from el paso are here. people oh el paso it's a dangerous -- it's not a beautiful -- it's not a dangerous city. it's a beautiful city. the question of the border image, what you are seeing in my opinion in a lot of these border related writings is not what is on the ground but is in the eye. the person who walks into right about that place is walking and and has to really check himself or herself before starting to represent the border or people who live in the bo

don't feel you need to, but the bottom line is, what in the hell do you do to make this city a more ethical entity? you don't, you know, the people... want to go to take another job, six weeks after they quit the city job and you say, sure, go ahead. and you know there is not much that you do really that helps this city. and at least, there are people like dr. derek kurr who are willing to take the heat and take the actions necessary to actually do something. >> thank you. >> any further discussion on the minutes? >> do i hear a motion to approve the minutes as corrected by commissioner keane? >> so moved. >> corrections. >> okay. >> all in favor? >> aye. >> aye. >> aye. >> and the motion passes. and mr. st. croix will make a note of that correction. >> yes. >> all right. >> and on the report i want to point first two typos on page 2, under section revenue report, where it says 0.65 percent, and it should just be 65 percent. in that paragraph before the xhart and where it says 0.62 percent it should be 62.5 percent. and i apologize for those typos. and last month, commissioner keane asked a

[gavel] >> february meeting of the san francisco ethics commission will now come to order. >> i will call the roll. >> vice chair renne? here. >> commissioner hur? >> here. >> commissioner keane? here. >> commissioner andrews? >> here. >> everyone is present and accounted for, thank you. >> the first order of business will be the public comment on any matters appearing before our commission today, whether they are on the agenda or not. >> there is something that i have to do. >> commissioners ray hartz, director of san francisco open government. on this screen is a list of 16 orders of determination issued by the sunshine ordinance task force in cases i have filed. and that 16 out of 21 cases that i have one a success rate of 76 percent. and now, i will ask you or the commissioners to take a guess how many of these have been enforced? i think that you all know, you just don't want to admit the fact is zero. not one. what i think is particularly interesting is the fact that all of these cases sent, of all of the cases sent to the ethics commission you have dismissed every one. the mem

which is very closely related to lesson learned number seven, ethics. the importance of ethics. and by the way, one of the things that has kept me very busy in the last three months was a major failure of integrity, our core service, our core value number one. it occurred in a missile community. the icbm community to take a minute now to talk about this. it gets down to ethics. this was a chief situation that occurred. and by the way, it grew out of a drug investigation, and cell phones were confiscated as part of this drug investigation. and in the forensic analysis of the cell phones it was discovered that those who are in a missile commute to and are of our icbm nuclear weapons had cheated on a proficiency test. which i think i was two or three weeks on the job when this came to the light, came to our attention at the senior levels. and the first thing i asked was, holy cow, does this mean that the people who are in charge of our nuclear weapons are not proficient, that they had to cheat on a test to get by? so first of all let me answer that question. and reassure all of you

the ethics commission investigation also found no intent. juliet is an activist and not a bureaucrat and just made an honest mistake of someone who has spent her life in city government. this example of ethics commission violating a written agreement that they had juliet speaks to other motivation, it just makes you sit back and say, what is the motivation behind this? this is a st

>> i think it raises a lot of questions about ethics. i think there's frustration from good government folks, because there's not really a clear solution here. how do you address the fact that a lawmaker is allegedly trying to ship arms in from outside the country to get just a few thousand dollars in campaign contributions? california already has pretty tight compared to other states campaign finance laws, ethics requirements, reporting requirements. so there's a question of what can you do to solve this problem. but going back to those wiretaps, you have recordings of leeland yi allegedly saying hey we have to be careful because the fbi just busted one of my colleagues for taking bribes. little does he know that the fbi's listening in on that conversation as well. i think when you have two -- the right case is not about living in the district. you kind of have to separate that here. but when you have two different lawmakers simultaneously being so willing to take money in order to do official business, i think a lot of people are conce

late to the game in the ethics rules. they are the first ones to judge your ethics rules. >> mine?as part of their investigation. now let's hope that -- >> i can't own individual stocks. >> and look they've had trouble -- i don't know who is doing this reviewing the sec had trouble. they had to suspend their assistant inspector general for evidently being perceived as threatening. they had some bumps in the road. the thing here is perception and part of the insider trading rules is that this system is fair and if the sec has perceptions and this story was all over the street today. if there's a perception that the sec itself isn't fair who is regulating the regulator. >> i guess that's the press that's the only one opinion the point is here as these two professors figured out it's an odd one that some of these sec staffers seem to always be selling just before a new insider trading or some charge. >> very conduct that will get you a formal order of investigation from the sec. >> so where are the resignations? where are the inside orders? where are the inside investigations? why isn

for people who violate, but we have no enforcement authority over form 700 and their constant, the ethics commission can cannot investigate or take action on those, we have to defer them to the state. >> so we can levy five, and i don't understand. >> when the people file late, we can levy late fines, but if people falsify the documents, and don't report the things that they are supposed to or refused to file and that is out of our hands. >> okay, that is all that i have for today. >> any questions or comments? >> well, interest to the hear about and you look at the variance, particularly your actuals compared to budgets and under the lobby that was a significant variance in our favor and at least on the budget. and then under campaign consultant fees, we budgeted for 18 kind of okay with that and that was okay. so talk to me, a little bit more mr. st. croix about the lobby fees that we, they jump so quickly. >> and we were able to, we only budgeted for 27 and it is 53. and are they or is it just because it is a particular year? or if it is an election year? and is it just because more pe