No Public Comment. Agenda item number 8, discussion of informational report regarding possible elements in revising the commissions fixed penalty policy. Good afternoon, chair chiu and commissioners. My name is eric willett. Im an aid, senior investigator analyst with enforcement division. Im here to provide an update on staffs efforts to revise the penalty policy into the streamlined administrative Resolution Program. At the august 2019 Commission Meeting, directors commissioners directed staff to move forward with the policy to reduce incertainty and time spent negotiating a settlement by providing a level of standardization and predictability to the commissions Enforcement Program. At the september 2019 meeting, staff delivered a process outline with eight steps and appear today to deliver step four by detailing the progress staff made on steps one through three. Commission staff reviewed the practices of other jurisdictions including the fair political practices commission, l. A. City Ethics Commission and san diego Ethics Commission as well as consulted internally with commission staff. These conversations were very helpful, and they developed the violations applicable to the goals of the new expanded program as well as the consideration for the inclusion or exclusion from the policy. In addition to a thresholds applicable to each specific violation type. As step two, staff hosted two interested persons meetings. After the november election and before the thanksgiving break and received Stakeholder Input on a series of questions related to the commissions efforts to revise these approaches. This feedback established members of the committee were in support of these efforts and expanding the existing policy and they provided an opportunity for these persons to present ideas on violations types they would like to see included as well as parameters that would include or exclude an entity or respondent from the program as well as ideas with regard to penalty structure. In that step three, based on its review of other jurisdictions, internal consultation with staff and feedback from interested persons, enforcement staff developed an overview of preliminary considerations for participation in the streamlined administrative Resolution Program. General requirements are that the director of enforcement reserves the right to include or exclude any respondent from participating in the program. Is it respondent must agree to commit to the commission stipulation and order pursuant to enforcement regulation section 12a and which the respondent acknowledges responsibility for the violation as well as to adhere to the payment. And the respondent must agree to abide by time frames for resolving these and keeping with the aspects of this program. General exclusions from the program would include evidence of intent to conceal, repeat offenders and conduct that resulted in more than minimum public harm. With regards to specific eligibility requirements, enforcement staff ongoing consultation with staff from other divisions of the commission and enforcement staff will draft specific requirements of eligibility and additional considerations factors and exclusions that are specific to each violation type and will provide that in the coming weeks, most likely the beginning of 2020. Now well turn to specific violation types we would like to include in the program. The preliminarily identified expanding the existing penalty program which includes essentially just three violation types from article 1 which is the Campaign Finance reform ordinance to expanding it to 35 violations over three articles of the San Francisco campaigning governmental conduct code. That would include the lobbying ordinance as well as conflict of interest code. And expand the policy and vision to reporting and conduct violations that are relatively straightforward and dont require a large n. Of resources to successfully resolve. As you can see within the memo in the agenda item, there are 18 violation types from article 1, eight violation types from article 2 which is the lobbyist ordinance and nine from article 3, the conflict of interest code. Before i move onto our next steps, i would like to pause and provide the commissioners an opportunity for any questions. How are the interested persons determined . The members of the regulatory committee, as well as anyone who is attached to our mailing list or watchdog groups. We had through our two different i. P. Meetings, we had professional services representatives, general counsels, as well as members of the common cause organization, as well as friends of ethics. And we anticipate additional engagement from these persons as they are presented more concrete and specific additions in the coming weeks with these next few weeks that well have scheduled in the future. Commissioner ambrose . The documentation for the existing six penalty fixed penalty actions, is there like a monthly report or memorialization of that your action was on that so that if somebody made a complaint about a violation and it ended up on the fixed penalty, they would be able to see, by going to some list somewhere that action had been taken . Thats an interesting consideration that we should take into account. For instance, this Commission Meeting did actually include a stipulateed agreement that was that took place through the existing fixed penalty policy. It was agenda item four or five. Right. I saw that. Obviously if it ends up with a stipulated, its going to be on the agenda. Just so we move, and really this is more for the protection of the staff, as you move towards more staffbased discretionary decisions, the responsibility and also the exposure to allegations of not giving due consideration to somebodys complaint can escalate. And i think if it gives you the advantage of saying ive made this Information Available to the commission, no one opt commission asked to bring no one on the commission asked to bring it before the commission for review or reconsideration or something. You know . Even though you are not going through the formal process of not making a probable cause finding or finding of no probable cause, if you had a list in general, mostly i was thinking about that in terms of the preference for using warning letters for certain of the minor and initial and unintended violations. Everybodys going to be asking you if they could please have a warning letter instead of a 1,000 fine. By making that public information, it still has some approbation associated with it and also allows, presumably, you have to keep track of it anyway, because once you get one warning letter, you dont get a hall pass the second time around. So that was just my thought, is that if it wasnt already something that somebody could do a pretty quick search for that you might want to keep a running tabitha we would see so that you could a running tab so we would see that you could see whats out there. I may have missed the first part of your question. If your question is are we currently memorializing and keeping track of the reason behind case dismissals is there a list of anyone who is been assessed a fixed penalty or got a warning letter. So i know you keep tabs of the complaints, but the disposition of them, warning letter, fixed penalty, probable cause finding, et cetera. I believe we do keep that information, but we would also keep it for the points you underscored. Yeah. At least where you have if you have a disposition with a fixed penalty or warning letter, thats going to be a public letter. The complaints themselves, im assuming, are not locally disclosed. But they are certainly known to the person who made the complaint. I just want to think about how to bring some sunshine on what the action item was, because i do think it will provide the staff with some, whatever, protection against criticism about how youve implemented or handled these various dispositions. Eligibility requirements will bring before the commissioners will include specific enumerations for warning letters, the thresholds for what is not minimal public harm, and that would be excluded from the streamline administrative Resolution Program, as well as we envision including that language within our regulations. So we would be able to cite to that within the stipulated agreements as well. Okay. All right. That was my only feedback. If there are no additional questions, our next steps for this fixed penalty process outline, which were detailed at the extent 2019 meeting, would be to host an additional two interested persons meetings to solicit specific feedback to these 35 different specific violation types and perhaps get a little bit more information with regard to penalty structure. And then revise the draft as appropriate as number 6 and then number 7 would be to present findings and recommendations for the commission for discussion of potential adoption and necessary. We were envisioning perhaps placing the administrative Resolution Program within the existing enforcement regulations. And then after commission approval, we would begin implementation of the new program. That concludes my presentation. Any questions from commissioners . When are the two additional interested persons meetings . We were hoping to do those in the early i put that in january or february, definitely within early 2020. I think weve got the momentum going here. So it would be great to continue to build on that as we head into the new year. And i do note here it is. Ms. Mayo has included comments on the agenda item number 8. So i just would want to make sure that you and jess and the team consider that feedback here. Yes. And she may come up during Public Comment as well. So take that into consideration. Understood. Thank you, chair chiu. Thank you, commissioners. Public comment on agenda item 8 . Commissioners, as ive indicated in my written testimony, i am in support of expanding the commission streamline Enforcement Program through the fixed penalty provisions. And i did want to point out in my paragraph too that i think its also important when the staff is considering factors and criteria for participation in the program, that they do look at violations that are readily apparent with little or no investigation. Those have resulted in minimal public harm. And then number three i think is important. Ive dealt with the fair political practices commission, and this has been very helpful in matters where the respondent fully captors with the investigation and cooperates with the investigation and sometimes self reports. In terms of the additional provision under Campaign Finance, i think since contractor contribution prohibition is included, it certainly makes sense to include violations of provisions regulating the contributions by persons with pending land use matters especially since thats going to be a new provision, and people are going to be very confused about that. The 10,000 business entity disclosure and Member Communications disclosure. I added the gift prohibition since the lobbyist contribution provision was already included. That, again, makes sense. And then the other items that i have under the governmental ethics issue. And i did particularly want to also emphasize the payment reports by donors and recipients. I think it was listed for the offices. But i do have a concern that donors and recipients, since this is a brand new law, may violate that inadvertently, and i think a fixed penalty would be appropriate for those as well. Thank you. Thank you. Any other Public Comment on agenda item 8 . Okay. Ill look forward to seeing the next phase in 2020. Agenda item 9, discussion of monthly staff enforcement report, but not including an informational presentation on city whistle blower protection that was included as a clerical error in this agenda. This was covered in last months meeting. But public is welcome to comment on this. And this agenda item also includes an update on various programmatic highlights of the Enforcement Programs activities. Jeff zumwalt, investigative analyst, on behalf of our director of enforcement who is not here today. To the portion of this agenda item we are pleased to have mr. Jeffrey, the director of the bureau of delinquent revenue. He has agreed to appear to provide an update on b. D. R. s efforts to collect on up paid late fees and penalties the commission assessed. But the parties or respondents have yet to pay as well as to answer any questions the commissioners may have regarding their collection process. Good afternoon. So i have a list of questions. Im sure if you have those questions with you on specific items you want me to cover . No okay. So i can walk through the questions and then answer them. So theres 11 in total so let me know if i get too longwinded. One of the first questions was how does our office decide how many resources to invest in trying to locate a deter. To answer that question, we typically evaluate the collectibility, so how much information we have on the person as well as if theres any ways to execute on the obligation. And also the total value will help determine how much effort we are going to dedicate to try to invest in trying to locate someone or execute on the obligation in and of itself. So ill stop each time in case you have any questions on the response. The second question, does the bureau ever decide if the cost of locating a deter or seeking payment outweighs the benefits . And yes, there are times when, lets say for example if someone who has assets outside of the state or they reside outside the state but the obligations are owed here and we have to seek outside counsel or efforts there thats more costly, then we would typically circle back to the commission to communicate that so you would be aware of that. If you sent us an obligation for 5,000 but the cost to pursue them is going to exceed that, well communicate that so the Ethics Commission can make that decision. Do you have a list of objective criteria that tells you when you basically pull the plug . Or is it a discretionary decision . Typically discretionary. It really depends on what information we have available to us at the time. And we do have some cases where the balances are pretty significant or if we have momentum, we obtained the judgment, and its time to go back as we would like to, then that can also play a factor in deciding how much time and effort we want to dedicate to it. The third question, what roll, if any, does the Ethics Commission as klines play in adviseing bureau as clients in advising the bureau whether to cut their efforts. Its up to the Ethics Commission. If you have incidents where you believe its not worth us to continue to pursue them, we are fine with having those cases recalled back or referred back. Can i jump in here . Yes so do you meet with Ethics Commission staff periodically to review the list of we send a monthly report. So the monthly report will share what the current status is, the last actions taken, where these cases are. And it gives them a timeline. So we can have some cases like one is in a bankruptcy and how much time its going to take in the bankruptcy process. We show that information on a monthly basis. Okay. The next question, what method does b. B. R. Use and we have many. Within our office, we have access to various databases that are unique to t. T. X. , such as business tax filings and other information such as that. We also use lexisnexis, theres d. M. V. , employment information. And we have trained professional collectors that know how to leverage social media, linked in or internet tools so we can use information to locate a person. Number five, how does the bureau decide when to reassign an account to a collection agency. This is also part of the cost effectiveness discussion component. So sometimes if we look at our resources and we have had cases not specific to the Ethics Commission where if they are located outside of the state, and we do have two collection agencies who supplement our collection services. We can assign to them, and they do collections all throughout the u. S. Ive had them go for it versus us spending money directly. Number 6, recent status indicated debtors have refused to pay. How do debtors communicate that . Its normally through phone or email or some other way. A promise to pay is when the debtor has committed to a specific date of repayment and dollar amount. The dollar amount typically is for the entirety of the balance. So anything less than that would be either a settlement discussion or payment plan based on the debtors ability to pay. Refusals to pay is flat out refusing to pay. So they are not going to make any commitments to pay back the obligation. So that informs us for our next steps. Refusals will escalate if we have the ability to execute via judgment, thats the path they will go down. When the bureau secures a payment plan with the debt debtor, what form does that take . It is formal. We have them sign a payment plan agreement. I want to be careful with how i call it a contract. Its basically the language agreement stipulates to the debtor that they are acknowledging their obligation to pay, that they owe the obligation. They are waiving their right under the statutes of limitations for the actions that we are take, ask they are acknowledging that consequences of default. And we have the typical repayment terms as far as the duration of the payment plan agreement, the obligation deadline date and we provide for their convenience the methods of how they can pay us, online, for example. Question 8, if a payment plan is a contract with the city, are there Code Provisions that affect how the bureau and debtor interact . For example if they miss a payment have they breeched the contract . Does renegotiating a payment plan mean renegotiating a contract requiring certain formalities . I wouldnt want to call it a contract, per se, with the city. This is definitely a document that we would use as part of an enforcement proceeding if we took it to court to show the debtor acknowledged they have an obligation to repay the debt. It doesnt change how we interact with them. In our line of work, its kind of expected that you are going to have a sloppy payer. So we are get them on a payment plan agreement. If they happen to miss five days and pay on day ten, we will work with people who are oing with us on good who are working with us on good faith. If you default, it is considered a default of an agreement. And what happens is while the agreement is active, you are basically, we are going to suspend our collection process because you are making an effort to pay. Default will trigger that process to resume and go through the Debt Collection cycle that we normally would. Question nine, does the debtors agreement to a payment plan represent a waiver of rights to challenge the debt or underlying ethics penalty that forms the basis of that debt . I would say no. So the language in the agreement does not preclude them from being able to challenge it. Question ten, can the Ethics Commission take it back after they make a referral to negotiate or does a referral indicate we own the account . We do not own it. Its fine for the Ethics Commission to recall an account back if they needed to renegotiate for whatever the reasons might be. Some of the common things we see with clients is if they send an obligation to us and say we were off on the amount that was due or there was the due process element that was missed and whenever we administered the penalty to them it wouldnt have that part fixed before we sent it back, that happens on a regular basis with other clients, and we treat those cases the same. Its fine to have them pulled back. The only thing is if the client or the debtor is responding after efforts have been initiated, whenever they make payments, the commissions are still payable to b. D. R. Im sorry. Could i go back to my original question . Ive been mulling it over. And thats whether you have any objective criteria or not. This is sort of a twopart followup. Number one, has the bureau ever considered whether it auto to have at least a few ought to have at least a few brightline criteria, for example if the claim is less than x, we will not spend more than y months chasing it. Got you. I totally missed that one. And second part would be has the bureau ever compared its policies with the policies of similar jurisdictions to see how they focus on collecting debts . Answers to both questions. So as far as objective criteria, yes, we do typically, have a full collection effort for accounts of 1,000 or greater. Thats the primary criteria. Anything less than 1,000, we are not going to consider going down the legal path. Youll probably get the standards collection treatment, notices, 90 days of dialing, then they are assigned to a collection agency. Anything over 1,000, they will look for assets. We work them up to 18 months before we assign them to the collection agency. And then the second part of that question, as far as comparing to other Government Entities who do the same collections we do, yes, we do. So we do touch base with other members of different commissione the c. M. R. T. Or organizations that we share best Business Practices and how they do performance evaluations on the ability to pay and the return of investment as far as the time and effort that we put in. Thank you. Commissioner ambrose. I think i heard an answer to a question i had, which is the control and responsibility for the management, the ultimate decision on management of these outstanding debts is retained by the Ethics Commission. So its not a matter its referred to your bureau, youre assisting the commission in the recovery of that debt. But there have been some that have been carried here now for seven years, and that was part of the genesis for some of these questions is how much longer are we going to be reading about this person is unable to be found. So we should not here and now, but follow up with the staff in thinking about how we might be able to give further feedback to you about whether or not you should continue to carry this on some of these on your todo list. Understood. I think part of that too would be some of the older cases are typically judgments. So probably we have them for the duration of the judgment. So periodically, the collector may do postjudgment review where they may continue to look for assets or try to locate a person or locate assets to try to execute the judgment against. But understood. Right. So and this is probably where the discretion is opposed to so much of our criteria. If you have a judgment, so you dont have a statute, you are not on a short statute of limitations, as you just said, it can sit fairly dormant and every once in a while somebody picks it up and runs it through the system to see if that person has made their presence known or an asset made available. Right. So its not like somebody is spending 15 minutes every week trying to find this person for seven years, right . No, no, no. It will be typically we look for judgment cases, specific for small volumes, well have like nine active account. Once a month theyll touch it. And it depends if they are able to identify any leads to an asset. But the judgments we are good for ten years, and we renew them up to the full 30 years. So actually on that note for Chris Jackson whose referral date was six and a half years ago, i did spend not 15 minutes but ten minutes to make sure that thats actually on the agenda, though, his specific case. Can we anybody feel comfortable i would refrain from referring to specific cases. Somebody might want to talk with him about it after the meeting. Thats fine. Well, linkedin is a wonderful place, as is google search. I would encourage that your team do that, because it can be very fruitful. I appreciate that. Thank you. Anyway, im sorry. No, its just, the reason this came about was and thank you for coming and talking about and sharing more about what d. B. R. Does. It concerns to me and us as a commission that this was referred six and a half years ago already and its just not much still trying to locate people and track down assets and things and just want to better understand what efforts are being undertaken, what can be done differently in order to get to the outcome that we all want to see here. I mean, we should add notwithstanding, there are some that have been carried, we do appreciate the good work you do there. Im sure our staff in particular appreciates that you are doing it. And they are not doing it, right . [laughter] so but there are these kind of, whatever, some holdouts, as it were that we want to make sure we are doing what we need to do to get i appreciate that. And if the staff ever run into anything that may be of benefit to d. B. R. , well have to collaborate to help push things forward. Great. Thank you. Any other questions . You guys have a good rest of the weekend and a good weekend. Any Public Comment on agenda item number 9 . No. Okay. Agenda item 10, discussion of existing Ethics Commission regular meeting skebbling and possible action to provide direction to staff regarding notice of potential bylaws amendment to revise regular meeting schedule for 2020. Thank you. I wanted to highlight on agenda item 10, we wanted to provide information to you at the request of chair chiu. It is a time of year when the commission typically looks at its regular meeting schedule to identify for the coming year if the regular meeting schedule still makes sense, if you would like to make changes. The Commission Wants to make changes or consider changes, there are a series of stars that need to align. One is there needs to be a space available. So we have spent time looking to identify space that could accommodate the commissions meetings at different types if you wanted to consider that, because our meetings are televised on sf gov tv. So we have proposed a series the second thing that needs to align is time to allow for a notice of a bylaws change if the commission does want to meet at a different time, because the bylaws do require the commission establish whats called a regular meeting schedule. And so that those dates would be approved after a period of notice. It can be agendized for the commission if the commission wanted to make changes and direct us to do a notice of the bylaws change, we could do that in if in time for the january meeting. But we wanted to provide this calendar for you so you could see what the options were at this point. And we were able to identify the three options shown on the second page. First that the commission retain its current regular meeting schedule of starting at 2 00 p. M. On the third friday of each month. We also did identify there could be a meeting change to the first friday of each month starting at 9 30 a. M. And thirdly, another option is to change the regular meeting date to the second fridaying of each month and change the start time to 9 30 a. M. It is also the case that as youve seen over the years, there may be some months that commissioners cannot make a particular meeting date. When the Commission Approves this schedule, through a bylaw change, that could be noted in the schedule. So if one month needed to be off of what was adopted as the regular meeting date, we could put that as well. So the regular meeting date can stay as is, and we can note if there are any exceptions to that over the years, if need be. So i wanted to provide that to you to make looking at the calendar year slightly easier. We did provide a graphic of those dates just so you can look at it and see if you are interested in considering a date change, how that might play out with your schedules. Im happy to answer any questions and turn it over to each of you to give us your sense in direction, how you might want to proceed. I have a question. And as you know, im fairly new to the commission. So i was wondering why on earth we meet friday afternoons. It just inherently seems to me like the worst possible time for this type of meeting, since we often do go until 5. And there was one time we went to 6. So just from a personal standpoint, i would be interested in why we dont have morning meetings. And i understand there are space considerations and all of that. And that just may be the way it is. So id be happy to hear the bace background. That was the beginning for my request because we were limited by the room requirements. This was the only time slot where we could get friday. It used to be mondays at 5 00 p. M. And we would go until 11 00 or midnight some days. And then the friday after 2 00 i think is a difficult time for people to make, and i think mornings would be better, and thats why i announced the executive director and her team to look at what room availability there may be for the 2020 calendar year. Its still friday, but 9 30 on friday is better than 2 00 p. M. On friday. Almost anything is better than 2 00 p. M. On friday. The third fridays had us on the friday of a long weekend where it would discourage participation by the public, because it was Martin Luther king and then president s day weekend, and today is the last day for the holidays, i think a lot of people have already left town. So hence we are having this discussion about the fridays. Still friday but 9 30 a. M. On either the first or second day of the month. I think that for my own personal view, i would be in favor of moving to the second friday of each month, but beginning due to calendar conflicts already that we have beginning in april of 2020, so beginning april 10, we would have the regular meetings. I think for january we would need to stick with our regularlyscheduled meeting on the 17th. And then keep the third friday at 2 00 until april of 2020, and we could move to, if we pick the second friday, april 10th. I like that idea, myself. Would the second fridays work for i dont really care whether its the second, third, fourth. If its going to be at 2 00, it doesnt matter to me. We are saying keep the regular dates for january, february and march, and then april we go to the second friday. At 9 30 . Thats fine. I guess well put this on the agenda for january. So commissioner lee would have an opportunity to weigh in. All right. Yeah, i would certainly appreciate being able to consider that. And we can also get some feedback from the public who are watching. I dont think a motion is required to do this since you are directing us to issue the notice, and the action would be placed on the january agenda. So well provide information for the public and make sure its circulating to provide you the opportunity to act at that point. I would like to know how the staff feels about it. This obviously affects you. And maybe if moving it changes things or makes it more difficult for you, then i would like to consider that. Thank you for that point. I think staff would be in favor of moving it to an earlier time in the day as well. It does give more time for more meeting to play out in the normal course. I think friday afternoons are difficult for the public to be here. So morning meetings, im hopeful that well see more people. But certainly we will work with the commissions desire based on your schedules and the Public Comment at the january meeting. We are flexible, but we are happy to start earlier in the day. We would have the room for the sufficient number of hours . I know these rooms are booked pretty solid. So you would have it until noon or something. I think we would have it beyond noon. No one meets on friday afternoons. Okay. Great. Thank you. Any Public Comment on agenda item number 10 . Okay. Seeing none. Agenda item number 11, discussion of executive directors report. Thank you. On this item, a brief look forward, recapping some of the Program Implementation updates you heard from pat ford in his report. I did want to follow up with more specific information. At the last Commission Meeting i relayed we had sworn that supervisors president requested an audit of the commission. That is a motion that was directing the budget and legislative analyst to conduct a performance audit of the commission as a priority of part of its work toward this coming for this fiscal year that we are in. And we followed up directly with the l. A. Office and also supervisoree, and we understand theres a motion to approve that would be considered at a meeting in the early part of january. So we will keep you posted on that. We will be available to answer any questions the board might have. I reached out to mr. Rose and his team to let them know if this does pass we are happy to provide whatever assistance we can to enable it to be a smooth audit. So well keep you posted. But that is something that will require legislative adoption if i understand it. I wanted to highlight one of the items on the staffing news. We do have the investigative analyst position posted. We did extend it for two weeks through december 31 on sf jobs because we realize with the holidays it might make it difficult for people to focus but we want to extend that. We look forward to having that process moving in ernest at the first of the new year. We will be posting and dusting off two other positions to get them through the pipeline as soon as we can. And lastly, i would just add to pat fords comments about the annual conference, we were pleased to be able to send a group to the conversation. Pat participated in the panel. I saw staff at Early Morning meeting table topic starting at 7 30 in the morning to take advantage of informal conversation with colleagues around the country on issues where we have a lot of shared interest and experience. And the conference went until 5 30 every day. We had a chance to meet with our California Agency colleagues, which was a great experience to get to know each other more informally, but it also sparked a lot of good ideas about how we might connect over the course of the year so we dont have to wait until cogel to sit down and compare notes. I participated on the panel wednesday morning with my counterpart in seattle, the grassroots lobbyist for public citizen, and a woman who heads the state and local government work for common cause in washington, focusing on revolving door issues for Campaign Consultants as lobbyists. What was surprising to me is the conference on a wednesday morning on a day where there were other major events happening related to government ethics, we still had a room of close to 60 people wanting to talk about issues that were involved in the work we do every day. And so we had over 500 people at this years conference which was a high for the organizations conferences. And thats a good sign of how much interest there still is around the country, how much resources, governments and citizens are willing to put into agencies doing this kind of work to get us to go to those conferences and understand and be on top of what the latest trends are. We are going to be debriefing with each other over the next couple days as everybody comes back to the office over the holidays so we can plan to do a more deep dive for the overview of the rest of the staff that couldnt be there. So we very much appreciate that we have the resources to do it, and we are looking forward to continuing to participate as we can when funding and Conference Location provides that to be permissible. But we did learn a lot from this year. We found it a shot in the arm. So we are happy to be there and provide you with further feedback once we debrief and settle back in. And again, just as a final note, through this calendar year, we do very much appreciate, as my report notes, a bit more formally, but we want to appreciate the work the commission has done, the heavy lifting and the 2 00 afternoon meetings. We know its not easy, and particularly going into the issues, going away for a month and coming back. The commission has always done a tremendous job being able to keep its foot on the gas pedal. We know thats the same with the public who comes and provides comment at interested persons meetings and Commission Meetings. From the staff, i want to say thank you for your effort and to the public for keeping us on our tows, and we do hope that we will continue to work collaboratively in the coming here to ensure that here in San Francisco our Public Service is worthy of the public trust. We appreciate your work. So thank you. We hope you have wonderful holidays. I wanted to extend our thanks to you and all the staff for the great work that you do day in and day out, because you make what we do up here possible. So without you, it wouldnt be possible. And i really appreciate the thought partnership and the long hours and the extreme patience that it takes to wrangle and herd cats on legislative matters across even multiple stakeholders and through city hall, and the fact that we got so much done this year i think is a real testament to your leadership and the leadership underneath you as well as the oldfashioned hard work. So thank you for all of it. I did have one question. Is the budget season kicking off . I dont know how i avoided touching on that. The budget season has kicked off. And while we were away at cogel, we did have a Department Head meeting with the mayor to issue budget instructions. I understand from that that departments this year, because of the strength of focus that the mayor would like to place on a critical pressing needs the city has, including homelessness and other needs, theres been a request that each department present budgets that consider cuts of 3 percent to about 7 percent. So those are deeper cuts that have been requested in prior years. So we again im hoping to have first discussions starting next week with folks from the Mayors Office and welcome the chance to just walk through and get up to speed on what those requests look like and also to reflect on the needs the commission continues to have for the work that we do. So we will be very much focused over the next several weeks in putting together a budget request. The budget will be due on february 21st, which is the date of our february Commission Meeting. So we will work to put together as much information as we can wherever we are in the budget process for the commissions january meeting so you and the public can be informed with what we know at that time. But it is likely, as you know from prior years, given the work that the budget takes, it can be sometimes hard to have a final picture of what those requests or exercises will look like until we actually submit the thing on february 21. We want to make sure theres information presented to you in january. Well do our best to be as full about that as we can. Im happy to answer any further questions. Thank you. Just a call for Public Comment . Agenda item 12, discussion and possible action on items for future meetings. I just had a quick question. There was an email from someone about possible further amendment to the Public Financing regs concerning the counting of if i can remember, of campaign of Public Financing funds as part of the triggers for campaign independent expenditure cap. Did you see that email . I wasnt the only one. So i mean obviously im not putting a timeline on it, but i would like to understand better the problem that was identified and what your staff recommendation is about whether and how it should or could be addressed. I would be glad to talk with you about that. Okay. Great. Thanks. Public comment on agenda item number 12. Being none, additional opportunity for Public Comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the agenda, pursuant to Ethics Commission bylaws article vii, section 2. If theres no comment, i move to adjourn. Happy holidays, everyone. I love that i was in four plus years a a rent control tenant, and it might be normal because the tenant will for the longest, i was applying for b. M. R. Rental, but i would be in the lottery and never be like 307 or 310. I pretty much had kind of given up on that, and had to leave San Francisco. I found out about the San FranciscoMayors Office of housing about two or three years ago, and i originally did Home Counseling with someone, but then, my certificate expired, and one of my friends jamie, she was actually interested in purchasing a unit. I told her about the housing program, the Mayors Office, and i told her hey, youve got to do the six hour counseling and the 12 hour training. She said no, i want you to go with me. And then, the very next day that i went to the session, i notice this unit at 616 harrison became available, b. M. I. I was like wow, this could potentially work. Housing purchases through the b. M. R. Program with the sf Mayors Office of housing, they are all lotteries, and for this one, i did win the lottery. There were three people that applied, and they pulled my number first. I won, despite the luck id had with the program in the last couple years. Things are finally breaking my way. When i first saw the unit, even though i knew it was less than ideal conditions, and it was very junky, i could see what this place could be. Its slowly beginning to feel like home. I can definitely you know, once i got it painted and slowly getting my Custom Furniture to fit this unit because its a specialized unit, and all the units are microinterms of being very small. This unit in terms of adaptive, in terms of having a murphy bed, using the walls and ceiling, getting as much space as i can. Its slowly becoming home for me. It is great that San Francisco has this program to address, lets say, the housing crisis that exists here in the bay area. It will slowly become home, and i am appreciative that it is a bright spot in an otherwise right before the game starts, if im still on the field, i look around, and i just take a deep breath because it is so exciting and magical, not knowing what the season holds holds is very, very exciting. It was fastpaced, stressful, but the good kind of stressful, high energy. There was a crowd to entertain, it was overwhelming in a good way, and i really, really enjoyed it. I continued working for the grizzlies for the 20122013 season, and out of happenstance, the same job opened up for the San Francisco giants. I applied, not knowing if i would get it, but i would kick myself if i didnt apply. I was so nervous, i never lived anywhere outside of fridays know, andfridays fresno, and i got an interview. And then, i got a second interview, and i got more nervous because know the thought of leaving fresno and my family and friends was scary, but this opportunity was on the other side. But i had to try, and lo and behold, i got the job, and my first day was january 14, 2014. Every game day was a puzzle, and i have to figure out how to put the pieces together. I have two features that are 30 seconds long or a minute and a 30 feature. Its fun to put that altogetl r together and then lay that out in a way that is entertaining for the fans. A lucky seat there and there, and then, some lucky games that include players. And then ill talk to lucille, can you take the shirt gun to the bleachers. I just organize it from top to bottom, and its just fun for me. Something, we dont know how its going to go, and it can be a huge hit, but youve got to try it. Or if it fails, you just wont do it again. Or you tweak it. When that all pans out, you go oh, we did that. We did that as a team. I have a great team. We all gel well together. It keeps the show going. The fans are here to see the teams, but also to be entertained, and thats our job. I have wonderful female role models that i look up to here at the giants, and theyve been great mentors for me, so i aspire to be like them one day. Renelle is the best. Shes all about women in the workforce, shes always in our corner. [applause] i enjoy how progressive the giants are. We have had the longer running until they secure day. Weve been doing lgbt night longer than most teams. I enjoy that i work for an organization who supports that and is all inclusive. That means a lot to me, and i wouldnt have it any other way. I wasnt sure i was going to get this job, but i went for it, and i got it, and my first season, we won a world series even if we hadnt have won or gone all the way, i still would have learned. Ive grown more in the past four years professionally than i think ive grown in my entire adult life, so its been eye opening and a wonderful learning is our United States constitution requires every ten years that america counts every human being in the United States, which is incredibly important for many reasons. Its important for preliminary representation because if Political Representation because if we under count california, we get less representatives in congress. Its important for San Francisco because if we dont have all of the people in our city, if we dont have all of the folks in california, california and San Francisco stand to lose billions of dollars in funding. Its really important to the city of