i appreciate it. >> thank you, ms. katz. i think this is often taking a bad situation and having a good outcome. thank you. that concludes my report. >> good evening, president marshall and members of the commission. as of today we opened 576 cases and we have closed 34 more cases than we closed. during the same period last year we opened 650 cases and closed 651. this is an 11% decrease in cases opened during the same period last year. as of today, we have 4123 pending cases. -- we have 413 pending cases. today the o.c.c. has sustained 35 cases. in 2009, we sustained 30 cases. this is a 50% increase in sustained cases. moving quickly to mediation, as of today, the occ has facilitated 31 complaints this year compared to 53 by the end of last year. mediations are looking up. in july the o.c.c. mediated eight cases. so far in august, we have mediated 6 cases. that concludes my report. president marshall: anything for the director? ok. a couple weeks ago, we did a press conference on the new ambassador's program. let me give a

given to san francisco. 6 -- commissioner dejesus: also, i want to thank you, captain barrett and ms. katz for collaborating and meeting with the community and coming up with some ideas. i wasn't at the meeting, so i wanted to ask some clarification. officer hicks, are you going to be a hearing officer, or will there be rotating hearing officers? i'm not sure. >> i am the hearing officer. i think it is important to have that skinsy. as far as a rotating sferks i heard rumors, i don't know where they come from, but that wouldn't be consistent with being fair. you need the experience. you need to know canine behavior, of course, which i have two dogs and a plethora of kities. so i have the balance there. i actually worked with dogs in my past life. it is different to play with dogs. when you work with them professionally, you learn their behavior. commissioner dejesus: i am happy to hear that. i am glad to hear you have dogs. one of the things you mentioned with educational components will be part of this package. i was wondering, how are you going to set this up? are you going to work with