that brought the ethics commission to the forefront of san francisco when we were dealing with ross mirkarimi the sheriff's department. and a lot of it, a lot of discussion was around legal terms. i'm curious to know, since you don't have a legal background, how would you be able to approach this from a layperson's perspective? >>> okay. i did attend all of the hearings for sheriff mirkarimi -- >> you attended those hearings for fun? >>> i attended those hearings. >> there were many of them. >>> that's right. but i was interested to see -- because this was sort of a new situation. this was uncharted waters for the ethics commission. and, so, i was interested to see, given my experience and what i have seen of the ethics commission, how they would handle that particular situation. and i will say that under the chairmanship of bennedict herr, i was beginning to feel a little hopeful that things were turning a positive corner. but once that -- >> what do you mean hopeful? >>> well, that maybe the sleeping watchdog was waking up and that they were taking steps to actually fulfill their, you know,