Transcripts For SFGTV Ethics Commission 20240713

Appearing on the agenda. Good afternoon. Thank you, commissioners. My name is ellen. I have my name tag here. I am a public employee. I am a union delegate for government employees. I am also the director of Public Relations for california for the grand jury for the San Francisco chapter. I have been coming to you at the commissions with other government employees, many times. In 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. The last time i was here was november 15, 2019, which is last month. I came before you demanding as a commission to investigate corruption within the commission department. Between april 2017 to july 2017, six Public Employees reported bribery, extortion and retaliation with the Ethics Commission department, but no record was found, and they never got back to us. I was one of the eight candidates for mayor, june 2018 election. I just finished my mayor run for the november election. I was one of the six mayor candidates for the last months election. I was bullied by democrats and Democratic Leaders from city hall and from different departments and different leaderships from different communities. Many of my billboards and posters were illegally removed because i am a conservative republican. I am a conservative republican, and i am for the people. I have been coming out to you about possible corruption with electoral officials and Election Fraud. In 2018, San Francisco payers, taxpayers, paid 4. 16 million in matching funds to support government scam. The government has been running a scam for Election Fraud to empower democrats only. For the last 45 years, no other party other than democrats. It is a public scam created by democrats. November 19, 6 million bond for 2800 Housing Units is also a violation for equality for all. The United States constitution article 6 and the Supreme Court which stated that United States constitution is the supreme law of the land, the state and city violate the constitution. Its called treason. Recreational cannabis is also a violation of federal law. It is a government race to raise a lot of money to do drug rehabs because the Illegal Drugs support it and pay for our taxpayers. You as Ethics Commission, i believe you have the duty to investigate many of the complaints that i am bringing to you before you today. We the people have been facing a tyranny government for the last many years. We lost our quality of life in San Francisco. We are worse than a third world country in San Francisco. So today im here again because you Ethics Commissioners to restore law and order to protect San Francisco for the way you sign up for. Thank you. And for public record, my packet. Thank you. Thank you. Any other Public Comment on agenda item number 2 . Moving onto consent calendar items to consider number 3, draft minutes for the Ethics Commission november 15, 2019, regular meeting, agenda item 4, the proposed stipulation, decision and order in the matter of the coalition for San Francisco neighborhoods, complaint number 16 17056. And agenda item 5 the proposed stipulation decision and order in the matter of Affordable Housing for all, yes on d, complaint number 1718134a. Call for Public Comment on all three of these items . Seeing no Public Comment, ill move the items. I second. All in favor. Aye. So the agenda items 3, 4, and 5 are unanimously approved. Agenda item 6, discussion and possible action on proposed amendments to regulations related to article i chapter i of the campaign and governmental conduct code. Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners. Im pat ford, senior policy and legislative affairs counsel. This agenda item contains a set of regulations or i should say amendments to the regulations that support article i chapter i of the campaign of governmental conduct code, which we call cfro because its the Campaign Finance reform ordinance. The amendments represent updates that are part of two separate projects. Ive condensed those into one document so that essentially for convenience that you can act on it if you choose to do so at one time. Two different projects are the Campaign Financing review project, phase 2. This would update regulations to match the statutory changes. And secondly, the regulation amendments also address changes to the code brought about by proposition f, which was passed in the last election and the same idea, brought changes to the code so we need to update the regulations to follow that and especially in this case to provide guidance about these new laws, because these are new provisions of law, dont provide all the details someone would need to comply with them. So this is to help fill in the blanks. What i would like to do is briefly go over at a high level what these regulation amendments are. And i would like to suggest to you five different amendments that were requested by stakeholders. I think all five of them make sense. And i will explain what they are. And i will also read the text of them where you dont already have it. I provided you with he mails from emails from these folks so you have that. These are also on the table for the public. So in some cases you have the amendments in writing. In other cases they were proposed to me in conceptform and i have texts for you that i will read. Before we proceed, i would like to ask the City Attorney, is it okay for us to consider these amendments . Yes. Okay. Thank you. So ill start by going over whats actually in this agenda item first and then move on to the amendments. So the way that i structured this is in the actual attachment to this which has the regulation amendments that are ordered by regulation number. So on the Public Financingrelated amendments are combined in with the prop f amendments. I can tell you that the vast majority of what is in here is really prop f. The Public Financing amendments are very, very minor. So well talk about those first i think just to kind of get them out of the way. So really the only thing in the regulations that needs to be updated because of the changes to the code from the Public Financing phase two ordinance is basically just update the initial iec amounts, the individual expenditure ceiling, the limit that each candidate must agree to. The ordinance changed where that starts. It used to start at 250,000 for supervisor candidates and at 1,475,000 for mayor candidates. It will change 300,000 and 1. 7 million. The places where those need to change are called out here in the amendments. So in regulation 1. 1402, which is if you are looking at the attachment with the amendments, thats on page 8. You can see thats changed once for each number in that regulation. Then on the next page, regulation 1. 1431, its changed there and in regulation 1. 1422 its changed throughout. I had to do a little bit more updating in regulation 1. 1432 than just changing the initial iec levels, because this regulation consists of a set of examples to explain the mechanics of the iec adjustment process. So i had to go through and make sure they still made sense, given the new levels. Some of the numbers just didnt work out. So i kept the mechanics the same, the concepts are all the same. But youll see there are a number of changes throughout. It should basically keep the spirit of these as is. I did the same thing with phase 1 ordinance that changed the increments of the adjustment, made the increments larger. I had to do the same thing back then, going through the examples and updating them to make sure they still made sense and showed the new regime. So this is the same idea, going through the examples, making sure they add up and now reflect the new law. So thats all for the Public Financingrelated changes. Maybe ill stop here and ask if there are any questions about those set of changes before moving on. The only question i have relates to the change in the matching ratio. That was done in the ordinance itself so its not required to be addressed here in the regulations l. Surprisingly there was nothing in the regulations that talks about the matching ratio. I was surprised myself to find the only things that needed to be updated pertain to the initial iec level. Theres nothing in the regulations about the matching ratio, nothing about what portion of a contribution can be matched, which went down from the full 500 down to 150. Those things werent in the regulars. The regulars i would describe as being more about process of how the Financing Program is administered and how the different mechanics work, not so much about the goal posts or the actual parameters of it. Those are just set forth in the code, and the regs, i would assume didnt see the need to elaborate on those because they were just very clear in the statute. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions from commissioners . No. Okay. Ill move on to the prop frelated changes, which are a lot more substantive and may be have more room for discussion. And this is where the amendments are. So i think maybe ill start by giving a quick overview of what is actual in prop f. I know commissioner ambrose asked about that the last meeting. So i included some bullet points here. And ill roll through those quickly so you are all primed with what is in this ballot measure. So this is on page 3 of this agenda item. Starting at the top of the page, the first thing that is in prop f is that it expands the prohibition on corporate contributions, which is currently construed narrowly, it could apply to just corporations. It expands it to cover llps and llcs. And i would presume that the intent behind this was that it doesnt matter what form of entity you choose, that these are business entities, they are for profit, they should be treated the same way. Im just curious. Was there any date that showed data that showed how limited partnerships and limited Liability Companies were not being picked up by the prior prohibition of a 100 contributions were 95 coming from llps and llcs therefore we needed to address this issue . Im not aware of any kind of data like that. The only thing that im aware of that i can speak to is actually addressed in the regs, which is that the regs used to address when llcs might be actually captured by the rule and it was based on how the l. L. C. S had elected to be taxed. I found the taxation principles to be complicated, and i am not familiar with an actual application of that regulation to an entity, so i cant tell you too much about how it worked. But thats the only thing i saw in here about noncorporation business entities making contributions. And i really couldnt tell you how common that was, only that we didnt get any advice questions that ever came to me about it. Thank you. So the next bullet point, theres a new contribution prohibition now in section 1. 127. And the basis of this rule is that the person who has a financial interest in a land use matter, as defined, may not make a contribution to any candidate or Office Holder of mayor supervisor or City Attorney, so anybody currently holding the positions or running for them. And financial interest in land use matter are both defined terms in the code. And thats where a lot of the clarification in the regs focused on, what does it mean for something to be a land use matter, what exactly does that term encompass, and what does it mean to have a financial interest. So the third bullet point is related to 1. 127, to that contribution prohibition. And it essentially requires that certain departments post a description of this rule in their agenda materials and on their websites. And those departments are the same list of departments that is used in the definition of land use matter. So we are talking about the Planning Department, commission, board of appeals, essentially, any of the city departments that would be making decisions on land use matters. They have to put a notice thats publicly available that just tells people that the rule exists, that they should be aware of it. So just to clarify the prohibition on making contributions. So this is the 500 political contribution so that 500 is now going to zero . Correct. Its similar in its format to the contractor contribution prohibition, which says that if you are someone who is currently bidding on a city contract or who has had a city contract approved in the last 12 months, you cant give a contribution to an elected official who is considering that bid or approved that contract. This is loosely similar, saying that if you are someone who currently has a land use matter pending or a land use matter that was resolved within the last 12 months, you cannot make a contribution to a certain set of officials and candidates. Its not pegged in the same way as the contractor rule that you cant make a contribution literally to the officials who approved that land use matter. It instead takes a different approach and defines a fixed set of officials and candidates and says you cant make a distribution to that entire set of people, regardless of whether they were actually involved in the land use matter. So if you are remodeling your house because of flood damage and you need to get permits, does that qualify as a land use matter and therefore that person would be prohibited from making a contribution . Most likely not. There is an extension in the code for primary residence. Thats carved out of the definition of land use matter. Theres also a dollar threshold thats baked in. So you have to have a financial interest of 5 million or more in the project or in some cases the project has to have an estimated Construction Cost of 5 million or more. So depending on which type of financial interest applies, theres different ways you can have a financial interest. In each one of those ways, theres a 5 million threshold thats baked in. So that would probably exclude the scenario you were describing. Thank you. So the one, two, three, four, the fourth bullet point moves on to a different part of prop f. And the next few are all related. And its about disclaimers. So the fourth bullet point refers to an existing requirement in state law, and it builds upon it. So state law requires that certain political advertisements contain disclaimers and that the disclaimers state who the committee paying for the advertisements top funders are. So if a committee pays for independent expenditure and theyve received contributions of over a certain amount from other individuals or committees, they have to put the names of those individuals or committees on the advertisement. Even before prop f was passed, San Francisco law expanded on that and made it the top toledo nowheres and lowered the thresh the top three donors and lowered the threshold. This lowered the threshold to 5,000. And it also requires that the dollar amount contributed by each of those people be included in the disclaimer. And further more it requires that if any of those major donors i shouldnt use the term major donor. Thats something thats used elsewhere. Top contributor, well say. If any of the top contributors are themselves political committees that have taken in political contributions that the disclaimer must additionally list the top two contributors to those contributors. So to phrase it differently, you could have a disclaimer that says this ad paid for by abc committee, Major Committee funding from xyz committee, which is funded by these two people. Additional funding provided by california Voter Committee with funding from these two people. So you could have up to, i guess it would be nine different funders listed in a disclaimer. And with each of them it would have a dollar amount that they contributed. And from what i saw in the voter information pamphlet talking about this measure, the idea is to put more information in front of viewers or readers who see political advertisements about who paid for the advertisement and who that person got their money from. So trying to give you a glimpse into the chain of funding. Sometimes people talk about nested committees or gray money when committees give money to other committees. So the policy rationale here is to try to shed some light on that series of transactions that is behind a particular advertisement. And aside from the merits of that idea, it comes with some degree of confusion for people making advertisements. Some of the regs try to provide people with guidance about how to put all that information because it is a lot of information, into a disclaimer that both complies with state formatting requirements, which say nothing about any of this material, the funders of the funders or the dollar amounts, and also something that looks readable and legible to people. So thats what the regs endeavor to do. Ill go over that in a moment. So the following bullet point, prop f changes the font and format requirements for disclaimers. The highlight here is that it changes the font requirement to larger. Its now 14. 5 for all disclaimers. So leaving the disclaimer world, the secondtolast bullet point prop f requires committees making independent expenditures to disclose separate cost associated with any independent expenditures during what we call the late reporting period, the 90 days before the election. So during that 90day period, as you know, any time a Committee Makes an independent expenditure of 1,000 or more, they have to file a form 496, the late independent expenditure report, within 24 hours. What prop f says is not only must you file that form, which the form basically just says what expenditure did you make and how much did it cost. Additionally you need to disclose the separate costs associated with that communication, which the code says includes things like that photography, design, printing, postage, et cetera. So basically the different costs that the committee incurred in putting out that communication. Thats not included right now on the 496. But prop f says you need to disclose this information as well. So just to make sure i understand, what is required to be disclosed right now is the aggregate cost, and this prop f is requiring a breakdown of those separate cost components . Yeah, i think thats a good way to phrase it. The 496 requirement is aggregate. You typically would just put out literature supporting this candidate for supervisors 10,000. Now we need to know how much the printing was, the photographer, the design . Is there a policy rationale underlying this . I dont recall that this particular requirement was addressed in voter information pamphlet, which is usually where you go to look for legislative intent, what the voters were thinking when they approved this. I dont recall that this was addressed in those materials. I can tell you that a similar requirement already exists for candidate mass mailings. When candidates send out 200 or more pieces of identical mail, they have to file whats called an itemized disclosure statement that discloses the total cost of the mailing and breaks down the separate costs associated with the mailing. And essentially what prop f does is it duplicates that requirement for i. E. S. So the final bullet point here, its a good segue, i was just talking about candidate mass mailings. The final bullet point expands that disclosure requirement in mass mailing disclosure requirement, to i. E. Committees. So this is kind of a technical thing, but the interaction between these final two bullet points is a little complex. But the way that it works is before the 90th day before an election, lets say 91 days or more before an election, if a committee incurs an independent expenditure, they will only have to make a filing, an immediate filing. They always have to do statements but they only have to do an immediate filing if the i. E. Is a mass mailing. So if they do a mass mailing, 200 or more identical pieces of mail, within five days theyll need to file the mass mailing form which breaks down the separate cost of the mass mailing, and they have to include a copy of the mass mailing. Once they hit that 90th day before the election and they enter the late reporting period, now it doesnt matter what form the i. E. Takes on. As long as its 1,000 or more, they have to file a 496. And already under existing law, when you file a 496, you have to attach a copy of the ad. And as i was describing under prop f, when you file a 496, you also have to break down the separate costs. So i think the easiest way to think of it is the disclosures are now going to be the same no matter what, for i. E. S. Whenever you do an i. E. That requires immediate disclosure, you have to disclose a copy of the ad, you have to disclose the aggregate cost, you have to break down the separate cost related to the i. E. The difference between the late reporting period and prior to the late reporting period theres no distinction anymore. Not in what you file but whether you have to file. So if you are before the late reporting period, you are 91 days or more out, you only have to do the immediate filing if its a mass mailing. If its not a mass mailing you dont need to file immediately. Once you reach the 90day late reporting period, than any i. E. Of 1,000 or more triggers that immediate reporting. Prosecution please stand [br what the conversation was that his Public Comment relates to is that eye reached out to a number of treasurers and political attorneys to get feedback. Especially i wanted to hear about them of whether or not from a technical and compliance perspective, if they thought that was feasible and what they highlighted is it is feasible but only if done in certain ways. The concern that they had is that on the 496, theres a section thats called park 2 where you actually list the independent expenditures and you do those in aggregate disclosure style. If you do a 10,000 mailing, one line item in part 2 says, june 1st, mass mailing. Cost 10,000. Thats one line item. What the treasurers flagged for us was that its not feasible to do separate line items in part 2 for each of the separate costs. Its not feasible to say june 1 printing of the mail, 400. June one, design of the mailers. That would not be feasible because that schedule is populated from information in that file and that information also feeds into a schedule on the form 460. The preelection statement. By requiring filers to enter into into the file that would produce that breakdown, that would disrupt their 460 filing and that would populate schedule d on the 460 which is a schedule of expenditures that support or oppose a candidate. That would populate that schedule and with that broken down information which is not sense cal on schedule d. They flagged for us we should not require that could be given in part two. What they suggested and what i think we will suggest to filers is that they do either one of three things. That they even provide the breakdown in the description, for each i. E. , so when you do a line item, on the 496, its possible to enter a description of the line item so this one, he made a specific example. This is that acceptable to you . That is what i was getting at. You dont need to know into the details. I commend them for their skill at filling out these forms but i dont think we have a policy discussion about that because i do want you to talk about the other definitional aspects and make sure weve got that right and there arent any unintended consequences or whatever sounds good. The bottom line is that i dont think any amendment to regulation 1. 1612 is needed. Filers will use the 496 and its the most feasible and i think ultimately the most useful way to have this information provided. Ok. Great. So i will go to the amendments at this point and talk about one amendment i do think should be made based on the response ive heard from stakeholders. Can you tell us who you talked to . I mean, not everybody that you talked to but most particularly since this was measures sponsored by the board or the boards legislative aids that they review it and the City Attorney get a chance to review the definitions yes. The City Attorneys office as and the people who propose the amendments all work with the regulated community to do the disclosures. So the amendments that they proposed are all in the nature of either technical amendments or those who clarify or correct things to make them more accurate. Ok. Great. The first mendment is to regulation 1. 1612. Is that the one we were just looking at . A treasurer asks that a cost estimate provision be added to this regulation. And if you look back on the previous page, in regulation 1. 161 you see the cost estimate provision and what this says is that even though you are required to disclose this information short lie after the communication goes out, you have to disclose the separate cost associated with it and if you dont actually know the separate cost yet, because maybe your vendor hasnt billed you for them. Its ok to put an estimate and to amend the filing later when you get the invoice and you know the separate costs. That is already in effect here for mass mailing disclosures and its something that also acceptable for the 496 so the treasure asked that we also institute that concept here with the 496 separate cost disclosure in regulation of 1. 162. I would recommend to break that regulation into two parts. The text in there rit now, just make that part a. And then add part b the cost victim provision for that proceeding regular. Just for the record, same as 1. 1611 sub section c you will make that same language and of 1. 1612 with some changes. I should read them right now. I read what i would suggest so its in the record the provision would say sub section b estimated cost of independent expenditure, period. Filers who do not know the actual costs associated with an independent expenditure when they file form 496 as described in sub section a of this regulation, may provide a good faith estimate, provided that they amend the form within 48 hours of receiving more information about the actual costs of the independent expenditure. Ok. How do you propose to move these amendments one by one or . I think i would leave that we dont have a written substitution, right. We have to im just trying to figure it out. What your system is for making clear how were going to move each one of them sure. They call this amendment number one . Sure. Ok. Three of them are in writing. Three of them are in Public Comment. Its in front of you. This is not so this is the this one is not. Ok. So, i think what id like to do is tell you the two that are not. First the two that i am just going to head into the record because it is not submitted to us in written form. For the three that were submitted to us in written form, you have that in front of you ok. Great. The second one is on page 8 of the agenda item under regulation 1. 1273. This regulation relates to the land use matter contribution prohibition. Theres a safe harbor that says if a committee gets a written attestation from a kin contributor saying the contribute or does not have a financial interest in the landuse matter if the candidate accepts a contribution from that person, the candidate will not be liable for the violation if it does turnout that the person in fact does have this provides language we would accept from a candidate in order to trigger that safe harbor so it gives them something to copy and paste and run with into their contribute orchard. Someone proposed we add clarification that this can be accepted in electronic form. That when it says in written, that does not mean a physical writing, exclusively it could include an electronic writing. The purpose is that a lot of contributions these days are received over the internet and they go on the website and they enter the credit card information and these as testtations, can you do it for contribution and prohibition as well, its a check box that someone clicks. So what i was suggesting is that these first line of the regulation be amended so that it says the candidate will meet the Due Diligence requirements of section 1. 127c if the contribute or certifies in writing in electronic format to the candidate at the time the contribution is made that the following is true. So ragged the words includinn electronic format. Correct. Can we call that amendment number two and then i wanted to ask you though, sta substantive, say this form comes up and you are making a contribution, the regs wont come up so i see people asking questions about what a land use matter is and whether or not the commissioner was asking and said if you are remodeling your bathroom you cant contribute to anyones campaign so is there some citations or link or something that people are going to find when they have to sign this attestation i sought to put the minimum of what we would im still thinking if were going to get a lot of frustration because theres a lot of people who arent going to be able to sign and wont attest to this because its so broad. Anybody that has had to rebuild the deck on their house has had a land use matter at the Building Inspection Commission right, because you have to get a permit for it so just trying to anticipate that and and the regs if someone can find it or then they could put a link in on the candidates website because well just confuse a lot of people and you will get a lot of phone calls. Im fine with that you get a lot of phone calls anyway. Im just trying to think out loud if you are looking is there some were all lawyers up there, is there a way you can give people a clue where they would go to figure out if they can check this box or not . Or do they just need to go back to the candidate . So, im hoping and kind of assuming that committees and their council are probably going to be tangling with us and developing their own approaches to how to best present this. Its fine if some kind of parenthetical is added as those terms are defined by statute and regulation. I think thats fine. I would probably advise against including those definitions here or starting to. You could reference the code amended, you know, they do define land use matter in section 1. 127 in prop f. That gives someone a towhold into where am i looking. I dont know if adding that just one little citation i mean im a lawyer and maybe im looking at citations and i know we need to do this today. Obviously, as this rolls out well get feedback and we can make improvements to make it more workable. Im sure a lot of people want to try and get this information from their donors at the outset because chief want to end up with the liability on the backside so i want to try and make it as you user friendly as you can. You do include the Building Inspection Commission in here and building inspection is usually just Building Permits so im trying to think of what discretionary entitlement comes in front of the Building Inspection Commission. Did you get any feedback on that from the folks you consulted . We talked with folks at the Planning Department to dig into all of the mechanics of this new co section. For the reasons that department and that commission handles the vast majority of land use matter as defined. I can tell you what we found is that 1. 127 is not perfect. It does not match up perfectly with how land use matterser dealt with in the city. What the regs endeavor to do is faithfully carry out that code section. Warts and all. You make a valid point about the Building Inspection Commission but we thought to include the departments included in the code so to not artificially limit it and not impose the elementtation that was not imposed by the voters. Looking at this further highlights in my mind i would like to at least put in, i do not have a financial interest in the land use matter as defined in code section 1. 127 and Everything Else flows from that so im trying to think of there are Code Violations issues that might be tied up with the building permission. The building inspector does have some incre incres ary authority. I appreciate you were trying to be all encompassing as possible. So, that would be my recommendation we put some tie into what a land use matter as defined in some code section and that at least gives them a starting place. Should we call that amendment 3 . You can do that to add the words as defined in campaign and governmental conduct code section 1. 127 immediately following the term lapped use matter . Right. Its 1 point im just looking at the prop f. Its defined in where did it go . 1. 127. 1. 127 sub section a right, thanks. Thank you for that. So the i guess well call it amendments four, five and six, are contained in written form in the Public Comment that you have in front of you and its also on the public table from anita mayo. She has amendments 1, 2, 3 and well call them four, five and six. All of these are good amendments. I would recommend all three of them. And i would call them technical in nature. Just correcting the language to make it more concise. The first one is to clarify in regulation 1. 1141 that it is ok for partnerships that have business entity members to make contributions to committees as long as they do so through a separate segregated fund. So if you look at the regulation itself that is on page 6 of the agenda item, you can see that in section sub section a. That already talks about the separate segregated fund. It clarifies if any of the business entities that use a separate segregated fund, that they can its something because we are not able to prohibit. We have to allow that. Go to the next page and sub section i its just to make sure i understand, so that if these business entities companies and partnerships and corporations wanted, really wanted to make their 500 contribution they could set up a separate fund. Correct. A separate segregated fund is a type of pack so essentially a corporation can set up a pack and they can raise money for the pack. If they dont actually put funds from the Corporate Treasury into the pack and then give to the candidate. If they were to use the pack to solicit contributions from us, lets say, then they could use the treasury of the pack to make contributions. That kind of use of a pack is called a separate segregated fund its important to clarify that here in the regulations. I appreciate ms. Mayo in the audience. Thank you for this and the other feedback. So her amendment essentially is to just call out that sub section a that use of a separate, segregated fund down here in sub section i. Sub section i is different. It talks about partnerships that are made up of business entity partners so if lets say two corporations enter into a partnership, this is talking about whether or not the partnership can make a contribution to candidates. In the first line, she pointed out is too narrow and too constricconstrict tive. Its prohibited under 1. 14b for make a contribution to a candidate committee. This proposes adding the action unless its made by the partnership separate segregated fun pursuant to sub section a of this regulation so basically just making that first sentence not overly restrictive because if you read it in isolation, could you read it to mean that the partnership cannot have a separate segregated fund but under sub section a it could. I would suggest adding that. The next amendment, well call it amendment 5. Its just to make the definition lineup with how it appears in the code. This is on page eight and now were in the land use matter rule. So one of the defined terms or one of the terms that is used that is defined in the regs is discretionary review hearse because as you can see i only called it discretionary review but it should be called discretionary review hearing because its how the term is used in the code. Ms. Mayo points out it needs to lineup. Amendment 5 is to add the word hearing in that subsection b after both uses of the term discretionary review. The title would read discretionary review hearing and in co quotations it would say discretionary review hearing it means the process by which, et cetera. Again, from a citation point of view, when you talk to the Planning Department staff, i mean, i think discretionary review is like an obscure part of the municipal code. Did they have a citation that they could give you for that . No, so, it is in deed obscure but its not an obscure part of the code. Its a special power of the Planning Commission that is not set fourth in code or in the charter. So theres no citation to make right. What about dish think they have adopted regulations like outlining. Im sure they have very elaborate provisions for how you seek discretionary review on someones project. Because again, it is just seems so discretionary review is hearing when a hearing is not required. I mean, if no one else is brought it to our attention or worried about it, its a fairly hefty part of the Planning Commission calender. Theres a fair amount of discretionary review hearings that they process all the time. I mean, probably it doesnt matter because im hug there are some that involve 5 million worth of construction. Anyway, i just dont have a citation for the regs so i cant really help. If there was someway to pin it to something a little bit more than just so my initial plan and approach for all of the 1. 127 definitions was just to have references to the planning code. Ideally those dont exist. They dont exist. I can tell you that a lot of the work that went into the regs was devoted to this particular regulation and trying to identify or define rather terms that are not defined. But that everyone seems to understand. But that are not defined. So, this represents my best effort at doing that. You might want to do it for your own staff implementation. I imagine that you can go to the Planning Commission and get the discretionary review packet that describes how one goes about seeking that that might, at least if someone gets fancy and tries 20 argue theyre entitled to this ex semmion because, anyway. We have that material on planning website about what a discretionary review it. This is the best we could do at boiling that down to a definition but beyond this, theres definition going to be a degree of interpretation and advice giving around 1. 127. Theres no way around it. It is a morfis and its complicate and a lot of it we have to figure out as we go maybe it helps by referring the hearing they do that. So its a discretionary hearing and its at issue. So ok, ill let us move on. The final amendment we can call amendment 6, is regarding the displacementer formatting rules in regulation 1. 1613. So that is on page 11. Of the attachment and ms. Made owe called out where language needs to be added thats in subsection a2. And this is talking about how to format the names of the contributors to the top contributors. So if you are listing your top contributors and the advertisement and those are committees and you are additionally listing the contributors to those committees, she points out that the words and contribution amount need to be added in the first sentence so it would read for any major contribute or that is a recipient committee the names of the top two major contributors of 5,000 or more to that committee, which i defined as a secondary major con contributor must be following the name, contribution amount of the major relevant contributor. You need to put the dollar amount after the name of the contributor and after that, you put the names of the contributors to that contributors. That is correct. What she points out here is you would not want to put the name of the contributors immediately after that because that would get in between the name of the contributor and how much money that person or entity gave. I agree. Its a good addition to add that language there in the first sentence. Ok. Those are all the amendments that i would suggest. Im glad to answer any questions about those or anything else in the regulations that you might have questions about. Just more broadly, stepping back for a moment, with this new ordinance and the regulations that are implementing prop f, how will the Ethics Commission be in a position to enforce this ordinance. Is there a data base where all land use matters so defined can be searched to know whether or not Entity Company x and properly made a contribution improperly. These ordinances are only as effective as the enforcement ability. Is there a data base that contains all land use matters . Yes and no. Theres not one that solely contains land use matters as defined here. Theres nowhere that you can just call up a data base and it has all land use matters exactly as that terms is defined and interpreted here in 1. 127. That does not exist. Land use matters are public information. So that they are out there and you cant find them. But its not as easy as just calling up a data base. Its not like 1. 126, the contractor contribution rule where we have two sets of notices that are actually creating a data base and when they file notice you have a data base of approved contracts and you can use that for compliance. What you would be doing is essentially asking the contribute or to identify parcels of land they have a financial interest in or parcels of land has a financial interest in but their shareholders for. You would check to see, for that parcel of land, are there any on going city processes that constitute a lappeduse matter. The best way to do that is to use the Planning Department planning information map, call up the address of the parcel, that will give you a list of any Building Permits or discretionary or anything going on with that property you would want to preview all of those processes and see if there are any, within the relevant time period that constitute what is defined as entitlement, request for an entitlement in the code. And again, thats kind of a ambiguous term. Its not defined in the planning code and so there would have to be some work there to determine our any of these entitlements and we worked with planning to identify which ones are not titlements and its on going advice giving because the fees you played to the Panning Department are based on the value of your project, which are always underestimated and now theyll probably be over estimating or never mind. And any event, i think that you might want to get your i. T. People together because it might be a slightly more simple cross tab. If you are talking about over 5 million projects, there are fewer of those than everything thats spendin pending before te Planning Commission. At least when you its something to think about comparing and they also have to list the owner of the property. They have to give authorization for an application at Planning Department and you can that would tie in with your list of potential contributors. Putting the machine to work for you. To fer et some of that out. It has to be the donor how will the donor make they cant make their 500 contribution . Well, hopefully they will work with the committee to try and identify it. If they did not make the written attestation to the committee and they declined to do that but the committee wanted to accept the contribution, the committee would have to ask the contribute or why did you not make this written attestation to us. Is there a financial interest you have in a land use matter and work to try and identify what they are and then do the Due Diligence with them of actually looking those items up and seeing if they are in fact land use matters as defined. There are certain things you can rule out off the bat. If its under 5 million and it has to do with their primary residents you can rule it out. If its not a primary resident and its over 5 million, would you have to go through that more detailed process of looking it up and evaluating it. Link particular to the name of the person or corporation or whatever that was the entity and making a contribution. Correct what makes it challenging and impossible to create a data base right now, of people who are prohibited for making contributions, even if there were perfect data base, of all land use matters, no department keeps track of every person who has a financial interest in the land use matters. They dont know who all those people are so they bridge that gap. We have a running list. Im just seeing there is information that gets filed with the Planning Department that when you are looking it will be easier to find than just randomly going through their agenda for a year or something. They have a robust data base on the matters that are pending before that commission. They do have a data base and were trying to figure out what materials to make available to people. They wouldnt have a end product of a data base of names. Theres always a good a leg work and well make it easy and spell it out for them but the pieces are not there to put together in a full proof compliance tool. Theres not. Well, i guess well have to just try and work through the issues as they come up. Hopefully it wont be too much of a budget buster. I dont want to hold this up any longer on this holiday eve so its move we have Public Comment. So i talked about the six amendments. Im glad to talk about those or anything else in the regs that you might have a question about any other questions . Call for Public Comment on agenda item number 6. Good afternoon, commissioners, i wanted to thank mr. Ford for presenting my amendments to you and i think they will provide clarity and to the regulations and the only other additional item i thought about, as you were discussing regulation 1. 13 were you going to do after the land use matter as defined in section 1. 127a. Say excludes a persons primary residents and it leads that way fight a few people will know the primary residents are not if they have issues or matters before the Planning Commissioner entities of the boards regarding a paper ary residents they wouldnt have to worry about that. Prohibiting them from making a contribution. Thank you. Thank you. We would add that parenthetical into the language . The amendment for regulation 1. 1273 yes, definitely. I would move that any other Public Comment foray again da item number 6 . So, i would like to make a motion to adopt amendments numbers 16 as previously discussed. Do we need to read out everything for the record . I dont think so. I second that amendment for a motion amendments 16 for the regulations all in favor. Aye. So the motion is carried. The amendments 16 are approved unanimously. Thank you. Agenda item 7. Discussion of monthly staff policy report. Thank you, agenda item 7 is my monthly staff policy report. I need a clarifying point. Its unclear on the record whether or not we actually adopted all of the amendments and their totality or just the amendments you itemized. The regulations in their totality ms. Mayos not just the stakeholder suggestions but you have a variety of other suggestion thats you put forward to the commission that you did not itemize, right. You mean the amounts you are revising for the new thresh holds so we didnt talk will be i would propose adopting attachment one with with the edits proposed so theres not any ambiguity. As opposed to the edits before the commission and the attachment, right. Maybe before we move on we can go back and make a motion to adopt, also adopt, everything proposed in attachment one attachment one as amended by amendment 16 that were read into the record yes. So theres, mr. Ambrose making a motion to adopt attachment one as amended by amendments 16. Correct the list there was a suggestion to number the amendments, right and we were talking about specific subject matters and im concerned those topics are notten campusing of everything. Were going to adopt all of attachment one which has all of the written everything the staff but then as further amended by the ones that we talked about that are all numbered. His other stuff amending the dollar amounts is already written in attachment one. Just as long its clear were adopting everyone in attachment one and the suggestions that were previously proposed as amendments 16. I think you made the motion. I move that we adopt attachment 1. The amendment to the regulations that are proposed by staff and tapment one to agenda item number 6 as modified by what weve referred to as amendments 16 as discussed and read into the record and attachment number one. That make sense . Yes, thank you. All in favor, aye. The motion is passed unanimously. Back to agenda item number 7. Agenda i 7, the monthly poy report. I will make this brief and only provides updates that arent already here in writing since i know you already read this. So the first item under policy prioritization plan updates is the Public Financing review project and you approved some regulation amendments related to that project and another thing is to help other divisions in the office who are implementing these changes so they can go live january 1st, 2020. As you know the ordinance lowered the match able amount of a contribution from the full 500 to 150 and weve discovered that net file in its matching request function, when you enter in contributions and submitting matching requests to ask them to be matched, the way it was set up in the code of code meaning like the software code, not our code, but in the net files code, was that net file would search all the contributions that you had entered as receiving. Remember net files is all encompassing system that you use, not just for Public Financing for all of your reporting. So it will search all the contributions you entered and it will essentially generate a request for you and based on your San Francisco contributors that have not been matched and it will build, you can call it the best available match air class for so you it find all of the contributions and put the full amount up to 500 on the matching request. We discovered that mechanism is hard wired into the marching request. Theres not an easy way for us to institute automatic 150 cap on that. Net file will put full 500 contributions on to peoples match request. Theres no way for them to make it just 150. Theres no manual override so it will just kick 500 onto the request every time. That cannot be changed. What that means it cannot be changed by january 1st or at all . It cant be changed by january 1st. As you know, net file has a number of projects for us, including other jurisdictions but always a number just from us of changes to their system that were requesting and theyre always competing for bandwidth and this is big enough for my understanding is it would require enough work even if they did turn to this it would be hard to roll it out by january 1. What were going to do for this election only, is is to allow candidate committees to use the net file and we realize they have no way to limit their matching request contribution to 150 so well allow them to submit full 500 contributions for matching. We wont consider it a violation and we wont get them in trouble for asking for more than theyre entitled to but well have a manual auditing process where our auditors, who add straighted the program, have to keep track of all of the contributors themselves and make sure they never match over 150. Essentially, that process is not automated. That file cant be right now. Were going to have to manually do that for 150 limiting process ourselves is there an e. T. A. On when they could complete the update to the source code . It would be some time during next year. In any event, it will not capture this election and we dont think its a good idea to change the system on people midway. So you mean the march 2020 election or the november . They cant fix it before november 2020 . He cant fix it for november 2020 election period. Thats a year from now . Well, although the election is almost a year from now, the time that people are starting to use net file it would be six months from now well, its now honestly. Committees are already out there and i believe they can submit matching requests earlier in the year. I want to say february i have to check but some time in february they can start submitting. So its a little sooner than you might think. The roll out period would have to be now. We want it to go now so what weve come up with is the best solution to manually do this 150 limiting process for this election in the meantime, work with net file to institute an automated 150 cap that will be in place in time for the following election is there anything to check the manual work on the back end . Just to run a script to test . The math . Yeah, i would have to touch base with our team to see if they can do Something Like that. I dont want to speak for them. Im sure they are automate it and we dont want to be doing everything manually and we have the matching request point in terms of auto make where its automated with a lot of manual oversights that were keeping close tabs on things. Yeah, more on that later. I just wanted to flag that for you because it will be a little strange that were actually telling committees its ok for them to request 500. Because, thats all they can do. I should also note, this is for the free net file. This is for the basic netfile that we make available to filers for free. The net file professional program which is a related separate but private Product Available to committees, its a private transaction between them and net file which we dont get involved with but our understanding is that the net file pro efficientl professionaa way for committees to say how much of a contribution they want to appear on a matching request. They could actually only request 150. They have the technical ability to limit that request is that being communicated to them . Were talking to them. My understanding is that most candidate committee whos are participating in the program, are working with the treasurer who uses net file professionals. So, it could turnout being for more candidates, their treasure will have access to a way to limit their submission to 150 but if they are use our system it will be weird where they wont have that ability communication is critical to make sure that they understand that even though the system is generating a 500 match, theyre actually only entitled to 1 othe150 sothey dont become or e disappointed when the amount they receive in terms of matching funds dont correspond to what the request was absolutely. Were focus recogniz focusing o. On the next page, e filing for all projects, as had he update you had at the last meeting, we concluded meet and confer i havent heard anything that and that suppose done and we are moving forward with that project full steam now and the next thing is i will bring you a draft regulation at the january meeting that would institute efiling for all and it will have january 2021 effective date. Thats a preview of what to expect next month. Another update thats not contained in here is that since writing this, i went to the conference with a number of other members of staff and ill let the director give you the full update but i can speak to my experience there and i was on a panel that focused on relationships that fall outside of the traditional scope of contribution and gift rules so i focused on the payment laws that were created in San Francisco and went into effect this year so those are the new prohibitions on using your value to an organization that you are affiliated with. And also the payment disclosures. That brought into the disclosure to appointed officials as well as elected and lower the threshold to 1,000 so i was giving an update to Ethics Commission staff from around the country and in canada too about this. I got some interesting questions and feedback about that. Its something that not all jurisdictions have on their radar. New york and l. D. Are doing this so it was added context to commission did earlier are did they go for an outright ban . In new york, they have actually created the rule that the commission did not approve last year. Which was to prohibit officials from soliciting from individuals who have matters before them. New york has that rule in place. So that was interesting to learn. Los angeles, i think the Los Angeles City Council Approved a developer contribution rule similar to the one we were just talking about in prop f and there was some discussion in los angeles about whether that prohibition should extend to payments made by developers. I dont think they have that but its been part of the discussion down there. So, to answer your question, yes, its regulated in some cases considering being regulated in those places in a future meeting, if its inappropriate to discuss here, i would like to actually sew a report if possible, just on if theres any trends in terms of the reporting that thats been received to date to see how many payments have been made, how much have been made and to whom. It could be maybe are you talking specifically about the new payment disclosures created here . Yes. Yeah, i would be glad to. I can tell you right now that there have been very few. Of the 3. 610 disclosures by the officials making the ask for the payment, i think weve had a dozen or fewer disclosures and four filers and theyre all members of the board of supervisors. And not a really high aggregate value of the payments and i dont believe theres been any disclosures by people making the payments nor by organizations receiving the payments. The reason could be that the thresh holds were set high for people making payments and you only have to foil a disclosure if you make 10,000 or more in one year. And for organizations receiving the payments, you only have to file if you receive 100,000 or more in one year at the official. Its possible no one hit those thresh holds yet. I dont know. But thats the high level of review of the state of those disclosures right now. Thank you. I would be glad to provide more information and deeper dive into the disclosures we have received, if thats of interest. The only other update i wanted to mention is just to highlight that next month, in addition to the [please stand by] process with other departments. So thats something i would like to put on the policy prioritization plan. But i think there is some bandwidth now that the regulations have been approved and now that he efiling has been discussed, there is some room to have another project. Ill be working between now and next meeting with colleagues on staff to identify some good projects to put before you. So i look forward to that discussion. Likewise. Thank you. Ill be glad to answer any questions that you have. Any questions . Public comment on agenda item number 7 . 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. Good morning and welcome to lacasa. We are so honored to have so Many Community members here today. I am the Deputy Director here. This has been a very long journey to this moment today. I thank you all. We would not be here with each and every one of you. I have a lot of wonderful people speaking today and the amazing work that the organization does in the community. I would like to start by introducing our board president. Michelle is the board president of casa d casa de las madres. As a member of the board for over 10 years she has helped guide us through the unprecedented growth. As chair of finance committee she helped strengthen the position to creativity and passion for ending Domestic Violence in San Francisco. I will hand it over to michelle. [applause] thank you for that lovely introduction. We are just thrilled today. This is such an exciting and special moment. I started volunteering about 15 years ago and joined the board 10 years ago. In year i was honored to be made the board president when our previous president retired. During my time with lacasa i have seen the Organization Grow and some impressive milestones. One thing that made me proud is the unparalleled ability for our organization to partner with Service Providers in San Francisco. Today we stand together it is important to remember the work to end Domestic Violence is not done yet and not done alone. La casa spent many years to build relationships to ensure no survivor feels like that is nowhere to turn. Many Community Partners are here today. We are proud to stand next to other Amazing Community Service Providers like the San Francisco General Hospital and u. C. S. F. , the San Francisco Police Department special victims unit, housing authority, Human Services authority, hamilton families th the count less other programs. Your work is live saving. Looking to the future on behalf of the board, we look forward to continuing to innovate and evolve the Expert Network of systems to ensure no woman or child is forced to choose between safety and their health or home. Now for the moment you are waiting for. I am introducing our mayor, mayor london breed. She is the first africanamerican woman mayor in the citys history. Her priorities include the homelessness crisis, new shelter beds, expanding mental health, more housing and keeping the city streets clean and safe. Please join me in welcoming the 45th mayor of the city and county of San Francisco, mayor london breed. [applause] mayor breed thank you. Thank you for your work and all members of the board and the staff and the people dedicated to this work. We appreciate everything that you do every day to provide a safety net for those who often times feeling hopeless in the midst of the trauma and everything that they are dealing with. We know that this organization supports and welcomes people with open arms. We are so grateful for the work that you do every single day. What an incredible day it is today. I want to take this opportunity to recognize our interim attorney who has been at the forefront of supporting women and children for decades, dealing with challenges around Domestic Violence. We know the city handles over 3,000 cases every single year. 3,000 families or people that are impacted by Domestic Violence. We know that we want to make sure that not only are people held accountable who are victimizing people but the survivors get support and resources they need. It is not just one department versus another. It is a partnership. Working with the victims unit and the San Francisco Police Department, the district Attorneys Office and so many amazing Nonprofit Organizations, including la casa is important. The work they do to help raise the money to support the organizations. I am proud of the work they have done to work with San Francisco to allocate more resources because we know that this is hard work. We also know that often times many of the survivors end up working in this arena themselves from their experiences. We know that it can be so helpful to helping to change peoples lives. You know, it is just i am looking at this building and just this is your permanents home, cathy. I know this organization has moved around quite a bit, but has never lost the essence of who they are, a hot line to provide support to people, a drop in center, place of comfort and care for so many years, and now a permanent home. It means so much because when people are dealing with a situation and in the middle of the night or any other case, working with San Francisco general and others, they will have this organization to depend on for years to come. We have this Incredible Program in San Francisco. Some of you know that i used to be the executive director of a Nonprofit Organization africanamerican art and culture complex, for someone who has run a nonprofit, they know how difficult it is to raise money and to make sure that you have a permanent home, to care of the home to buy the toilet paper and keep the lights on. There is a lot of work and resources that go to places like this, and the nonprofit sustainabilitynishsive is a resource that the city now provides to Nonprofit Organizations to help with support to purchase buildings like this so that some of our important nonprofits have a permanent home. They dont necessarily have to worry about the space that they are in and whether or not the lease is going to expire or the costs are going up for the space because there are so many other things that they are going to continue to need to raise money for. This nonprofit sustainabilities fund provided 1 million towards the purchase of the building. I couldnt think of a better way to use this kind of fund than to support lacasa. I am grateful to be here today. I know so many of you here are people who have been working in this arena for so long, and this although it is challenging and it can be sad and emotional to see what we have done here today and to see how this is going to help turn lives around and to change lives for the better, it is absolutely amazing. You should feel good about the work you do and the role you played to making this possible. I am here to just see the place, of course, and to thank all of you for the work you continue to do and to especially commend cathy black and your team for just cathy is standing over here to the side. Come up here. Today i want to do Something Special because of the work that you all do and you do it, you know, in such an amazing way every day without a desire to be recognized but you want the results, and i want the results. It makes for a better city for each and every one of us. It is casa d cass de la madres n San Francisco. I want to thank the folks at the office of economic and work force development. Thank you so much for your work in organizing and helping with the loan documents. We know how challenging it is to get the city to move quickly and the people that we have in this offers really care about this work and they worked hand and hand to make this happen as quickly as we could. I am grateful to be here. Ladies and gentlemen, the executive director of la casa, cathy black. Next up we have our District Attorney here to speak with us. She is a leading authority on crime prevention, experienced executive and led the Police Commission and served add general counsel of the California Department of justice, also served as prosecutor and advocate for survivors of Domestic Violence. We are honored to have her here today. She is a Community Advocate coo of center of youth wellness and in 2014 honored for her work to found and center, the nonprofit to heal children suffering from impact of violence. She served as president of Police Department from 2012 to 2017. The Police Commission provides the use of force policy and instituted body cameras to increase transparent and incommunity relations. She has improved Police Response to violence against women and children to make the streets safe. Our work isnt possible without the work of people like susie loftus. Thank you. That was very kind. Thank you, mayor breed for being here. What i want to offer to you is a story from my time as a courtroom prosecutor when i was prosecuting Domestic Violence because i think when we talk about what la casa means. I want to ground it in what this looks like. To Law Enforcement i can speak to today, it occurred to me when i got my first Domestic Violence cases they were not like other crimes i had prosecuted. What i was asking someone to do was picking up the phone and i was asking them to come in and testify against someone who they either loved at that moment or at one point loved or thought they loved, and my job was to encourage them to come and testify against that person, to encourage them to come in and be crossexamined. We know what that looks like, right . What i needed most was to have someone who could addvo indicate for that survivor through advocate for the survivor. That is cathy black. That is all of you. It is not always the answer to Domestic Violence there is a prosecution. Sometimes it is the answer. Sometimes it leads to the stay away order to save a life, sometimes it leads to a program that an offender does that can change his life or future, let him reclaim his life and future. The partnership Law Enforcement has with lacasa is i often say safety is a team sport. We have learned lessons in San Francisco about how we actually build safety. It is in partnership and in service of shush fivesors and their strengths and resilience and we serve them. Everything i know about Domestic Violence i learned from someone probably in this rumor cathy black. Let us continue to learn from each other in service of this idea. There is an irish proverb that says it is in the shelter of each other that the people live. This is a shelter, this building, it is also a reminder that we are the shelter for survivors and people escaping violence and that when we lean into each other and solve problems in the way lacasa has modeled we build safety for the people that need it the most. I couldnt be more delighted to be here today and to congratulate the city and City Partners for coming together. This is a reminder of the best of who we are and the work that we have to do. Congratulations to lacasa. [applause] we often say that we are only as strong as the community that supports us. We talk about bringing community into our work. Often times our work is in confidential spaces. Comemestic violence is challenge domestic challenge is scary and bat. We only solve this when we bring it out to the light. The next speaker is cassandra pogie. Show brings this to the light every day. She is an employee at black rock and one of the strongest allies in the community. She addvo indicates for survivors advocates for survivors. We are lucky to have her with us today. [applause] thank you. I am cassandra pogie. I am a survivor of Domestic Violence. I was in a relationship for two years. She was charming and created the illusion and he was good to me and i started to fall for him. As things became more serious he was jealous. He introduced intimidation and isolation. I was trapped with someone who used manipulation and violence to control my life every day. I became a shell of myself. I was his captive. The abuse was constant happening all hours. I lost count of the slaps and the punches. There are nights that he would abuse me sexually. Those were the darkest and loneliest days of my life. I was able to leave after one extremely bad beating. I dont remember how many times he punched me because i started to blackout. When he finally stopped, i was able to stagger to my bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror and i knew if i did not leave he would kill me. So i ran out the door. As i was running down the street i didnt be know where i could be safe, but the la casa image popped in my head. A few weeks earlier a colleague was doing a presentation. I looked for a second. I was running down the street. I stopped and hid in a dark corner of a garage and googled them. I found the emergency hot line number and gave them a call. Not knowing what to say, all i was able to tell the woman on the other line was that i was just beat up, feared for my life and i needed somewhere safe to stay. She gave me instructions to an indisclosed shel shelter where e would not be able to find me for the night. The comfort and security that night is invaluable i will nerve be able to put it in word. I will never forget the feeling i had laying in a bed that night. A feeling that i havent had in over the past year. The feeling of safety. But what they did for me did not end that night. They provided Legal Council to file for a civil restraining order, made sure to keep in contact with me as i got on my feet. One of the advo cats attended every court date to make sure i was not alone. I faced my abusers. In each trial the following year. I cannot change my past. I can only learn and share my experiences and hope to just save one other person from a similar story. Abuse thrives in silence. I could not be more proud that we are here today to bring a voice to the social injustice that holds so many in darkness. Fortunately for us in San Francisco bay area, lacasa is a bright light in the darkness. This beautiful new home is a bright light. Thank you la casa for saving lives and thank you for saving my life. [applause] next up we have a woman who needs no introduction. Here we go. Cathy is the executive director and she joined la casa in i is. She has met the needs as they have evolved and globe. Grown. Three increased number of services by 300 . She is on oversight panels and worked to bring the gaps and service and champion Domestic Violence with policymaking bodies throughout the city. She brings a wealth of program and strategic experience to la casa. Each day hundreds are made safer because of her leadership. As someone who has been here through the process of the moving into this building, we really cathy did it almost entirely herself. It was amazing to watch and wish i could be more helpful. We are lucky to have your leadership at this organization. I think you touched the lives not only the survivors in the city but the people in the room individually. Without further ado, kathy black. [applause] thanthank you, mayor breed, d welcome everybody here with us today. I was telling somebody earlier that i was nervous and fearful. Then i listened to cas cassandrd realized the real fear. It puts it in perspective. It is easy to stand in front of you now. I get the best part of this event today. Everybody said such wonderful things about la casa and how it has touched so many people. I get to say thank you. Almost without well maybe not media but some of the media people have played a role in bringing la casa to where we are today. When i joined la casa in i in 1e are omission street. On the mission street. We werent offered the opportunity to stay. We moved to a loading dock that was in the back of the old electrical workers apprenticeship building. We were hidden in the back on the loading dock. We fixed it up and were there for a period of time until they moved in next door. They werent the ideal neighbor. They thought they were. We definitely sudden lie a light was shown in a way that made it scary for the employees and the victims and survivors to get help. We moved to the old ben davis factory at 1663 mission street. Our lease was coming up and they didnt want to renew the lease. We knew we needed more space because we were providing more and more services, and there seemed to be an unending demand for what we had to offer. You know, there was a crazy journey to end up with this building. We ended up getting the second time i applied to the nonprofit sustainability fund. First time i couldnt get the owner to sign the purchase agreement, but i submitted the application in hopes i could convince him before the decision was made. Luckily, after a little bit of time he came around and he was offering it for lease. A payment we would not be able to afford. 14,000 more than our Mortgage Loan for this. Keeping good financial, being frugal, i said, no, buys is better. We were able to convince the owner to sell it to us, and we applied to the nonprofit sustainability fund. It is an awesome opportunity, and i tell other nonprofits when they say we dont have any office space, i tell them, you have to check out this program because it is a great deal. You know, it keeps nonprofits like la casa from moving further out of the hub of where we are needed most, right . We are in a neighborhood where we are accessible, people can come here, get services in a safe way, and we are able to we call it hub and spoke model in the center of the partnership with the Police Department, with the General Hospital and the rise program, rally family visitation program, one of our founders, we are close to hsa for the program, the Mary Elizabeth inn which provides 157 Housing Units. We do Case Management there. It is unending amount of work that we are able to provide. This is the most amazing spot to do it. I didnt write any of these words down. This is me talking. There are some, you know, one of the things that happen is we rallied a community of al lies, and a lot of them are here today, including the Mayors Office, oewd. And every time i see them at something it makes me smile. I feel good about it. They were supportive of me. I sent many times weeping thinking this would not happen and the lease was coming up. The department on status of women, emily and carol and Staff Members are here. Without support we wouldnt be doing what we are doing. The Giants Community fund, 49ers foundation, georgia sandy and cameron foundations, businesses like back rock are just awesome. Cb os, prc across the street is collaborating and helping us move in and get situated. Then the individuals that have shown up and supported our work is amazing. It is because you are with us on the mission. Receiving this 1 million grant gave us a boost that we needed and inspired other people in a way that has just been such a surprise. I mean people just call up and say can i come over . We want to make a donation. Not that we i mean it is hard to raise money for programs like this. This year has been a change. I think people see us as a force to be reckoned with. I am not going to read this gigantic printed words but i feel my message today is that we are here and we are available and if you know anybody who needs our help, please send them to us or collaborate with us. We want to be good partners. I owe everyone here a debt of gratitude, board members, employees, volunteers, and it all comes together to make this happen. With that we are looking forward to 2020 and thank you all very much. applause . I am going to invite everybody up for the ribboncutting. This is most excite being. They have these awesome scisso scissors. laughter . Five, four, three, two, one. There we go. [applause] working with kids, they keep you young. They keep you on your tones on your toes. Teaching them, at the same time, us learning from them, everything is fulfilling. Ready . Go. [ ] we really wanted to find a way to support Women Entrepreneurs in particular in San Francisco. It was very important for the mayor, as well as the Safety Support the dreams that people want to realize, and provide them with an opportunity to receive funding to support improvements for their business so they could grow and thrive in their neighborhoods and in their industry. Three, two, one because i am one of the consultants for two nonprofits here for entrepreneurship, i knew about the grand through the renaissance entrepreneur center, and through the Small Business development center. I thought they were going to be perfect candidate because of their strong values in the community. They really give back to the neighborhood. They are from this neighborhood, and they care about the kids in the community here. When molly molly first told us about the grant because she works with Small Businesses. She has been a tremendous help for us here. She brought us to the attention of the grand just because a lot of things here were outdated, and need to be uptodate and redone totally. Hands in front. Recite the creed. My oldest is jt, he is seven, and my youngest is ryan, he is almost six. It instills discipline and the boys, but they show a lot of care. We think it is great. The moves are fantastic. The women both are great teachers. What is the next one . My son goes to fd k. He has been attending for about two years now. They also have a summer program, and last summer was our first year participating in it. They took the kids everywhere around San Francisco. This year, owner talking about placing them in summer camps, all he wanted to do was spend the entire summer with them. He has strong women in his life, so he really appreciates it. I think that carries through and i appreciate the fact that there are more strong women in the world like that. I met dandrea 25 years ago, and we met through our interest in karate. Our professor started on cortland years ago, so we grew up here at this location, we out he outgrew the space and he moved ten years later. He decided to reopen this location after he moved. Initially, i came back to say, hey, because it might have been 15 years since i even put on a uniform. My Business Partner was here basically by herself, and the person she was supposed to run the studio with said great, you are here, i started new Nursing School so you can take over. And she said wait, that is not what i am here for i was by myself before for a month before she came through. She was technically here as a secretary, but we insisted, just put on the uniform, and help her teach. I was struggling a little bit. And she has been here. One thing led to another and now we are coowners. You think a lot more about safety after having children and i wanted to not live in fear so much, and so i just took advantage of the opportunity, and i found it very powerful to hit something, to get some relief, but also having the knowledge one you might be in a situation of how to take care of yourself. The selfdefence class is a new thing that we are doing. We started with a group of women last year as a trial run to see how it felt. Theres a difference between selfdefence and doing a karate class. We didnt want them to do an actual karate class. We wanted to learn the fundamentals of how to defend yourself versus, you know, going through all the forms and techniques that we teaching a karate class and how to break that down. Then i was approached by my old high school. One once a semester, the kids get to pick an extra curricular activity to take outside of the school walls. My old biology teacher is now the principle. She approached us into doing a selfdefence class. The girls have been really proactive and really sweet. They step out of of the comfort zone, but they have been willing to step out and that hasnt been any pushback. It is really great. It is respect. You have to learn it. When we first came in, they knew us as those girls. They didnt know who we were. Finally, we came enough for them to realize, okay, they are in the business now. It took a while for us to gain that respect from our peers, our male peers. Since receiving the grant, it has ignited us even more, and put a fire underneath our butts even more. We were doing our summer camp and we are in a movie theatre, and we just finished watching a film and she stepped out to receive a phone call. She came in and she screamed, hey, we got the grant. And i said what . Martial arts is a passion for us. It is passion driven. There are days where we are dead tired and the kids come and they have the biggest smiles on their faces and it is contagious. We have been operating this program for a little over a year all Women Entrepreneurs. It is an extraordinary benefit for us. We have had the Mayors Office investing in our program so we can continue doing this work. It has been so impactful across a diversity of communities throughout the city. We hope that we are making some type of impact in these kids lives outside of just learning karate. Having selfconfidence, having discipline, learning to know when its okay to stand up for yourself versus you just being a bully in school. These are the values we want the kids to take away from this. Not just, i learned how to kick and i learned how to punch. We want the kids to have more values when they walk outside of these doors. [ ] this is the regular meeting of the commission on Community Investment and infrastructure act Successor Agency for the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency for tuesday, december 17th, 2019. Welcome to members of the public please call the first item. The first order of business is item one, roll call. Please respond when i call your name. [roll call] the next order of business is