The filing responsibility is on the commissioner who did the recuse recusal. Right. Im thinking would there be some accountability that this person has recused him or herself and they filed this form. So should the Actual Department of the commission be notified . They would be aware of the actual recusal because it occurred that it occurred prior to the filing requirement. The filing requirement is a requirement imposed by the Ethics Commission. So i dont know that that would be something that they would be looking to ensure that its because the responsibility is actually on the commissioner who recused themselves. But there is again, in the public environment, you know, a department could they wouldnt actually receive notice from this process, but if they wanted to check that it happened, they could do that. Or implement another process where the commissioner had to bring a copy. But i think that would be a protocol that would have to be enforced at the commission level, that the commissioner belonged to the Planning Commission in this case. The form 700. We all know we have to file it. Sometimes its nice to have reminders that you need to file. And so and actually, thats a great segue into the i want to show you actually, if a member of the public or if the commissioner who just filed that wanted to see what i just filed is not going to be on what im going to show you now, but show you where that is laid out and how the information is made available to the public. So again, its going to be available in sf r data sf which used to be open data, but they changed the name. So if you have a member of the public that doesnt know that they can navigate from the commissions website that is familiar with sf data, they cannac citizens this from that website. We wanted to make it relatively easy and navigate from the commissions website. Im going to go to disclosures and in this case actually. Conflict of interest doesnt fall under my jurisdiction. Disclosures, i would navigate so we have it kind of itemized here. Campaign finance, city officers, lobbyists, campaign consultants, major developers, so all the disclosures relevant to these parties would be under the corresponding field. In this case it applies to city officers. The notification of recusal. And at the this is again it just yeah, there we go. This again just it highlights the requirements in the law and so forth again on this page. But at the bottom here youll see a dashboard. So lets say that the filing that i just filed, lets say this is live right now . This is live, absolutely. There was one specifically that i saw the other day that i wanted to show. But accessing it from this particular table would actually reveal the p. D. F. Of the filing. I did want to make sure to show you what that looks like in real time. Here we go. This was a file filed on june 24 and its i want to see i just want to show you the form is completed and at the end of it is the attached agenda. And a member of the public could just review it here if they wanted to print it out and so forth, theyre able to do so. I also wanted to show you how the information is parsed out to the to data sf. You can actualliac actually access that information as well. If the Planning Commission take it up in august and they dont decide and hear it again in september, would the commissioner need to file again in september, like an amendment, or is a single filing sufficient to cover that matter no matter how long it takes to be decided . I dont have the answer to that actually. I would assume that it would be each time the recusal took place, but im yeah. Im not id have to do that research and get back to the commission on that. Most likely it would be every meeting. Every meeting, okay. Thank you. So now ive entered data sf and it took accessing it from that page took me right to the recusal notification filings on data sf. So that same filing that i just showed, i just want to quickly show you what it looks like h e here. Here we go. The p. D. F. , but it is available on data sf. I dont believe we actually have dashboards because this really wouldnt work in a dashboard format, this particular filing. But it was a Campaign Finance form that had a contribution associated with it and so forth, it would also be available on the commissions dashboard. That concludes my presentation. Any other questions . Thank you for this. This was very illuminating and a tremendous amount of work clearly has gone into the development of the forms and the workflow and creating a experience that is streamlined and contemporary in feel. I think its utterly fantastic that this data is available not just to the Ethics Commission staff and commissioners, but to the public as well in a searchable and in an easytonavigate format. Thank you for that. Well done. Thank you so much. If i may add a brief comment. Thank you for your comments as well as the commission and public for this ability to present this information today. As i think you can see, theres a lot of information from the law that was enacted. I do want to take a moment to acknowledge the amount of team effort that went into getting us this far. I think everybody on staff who had a hand in this process is excited to seeing rachael present today because of the technology and the thought that went into it. I would acknowledge rachaels contribution. Rachael joined the commission in late february and her responsibility is in the Campaign Finance area. She has taken on a tremendous effort in shepherding this process and a great contribution to getting it this far. Two other things youll see as we go through this, a lot of the questions you might have on your minds today are things we will look to develop further as we do more outreach to departments and other officials so they know how to work these forms and they find it easy. At the bottom of every page rachael showed us, there is a green box that says provide feedback. We will be monitoring that closely so we can get feedback about the realworld users so we can continually improve this process. Thank you for your time because it is exciting to have gotten this far. This is a great presentation, by the way. Great job. I notice that even though the website is in different languages, that some of the materials are not made available in other languages. I would suggest that for the fact sheet be made in different languages because that was very important. The p. D. F. Thats available . The fact sheet that you would be producing. Thats an internal document that we actually dont publish, but we could potentially think about maybe translating the web content and maybe the p. D. F. Version of the form. Or maybe you can make a publicly available fact sheet because theres so much information. If people can just get a onepage fact sheet just to get them aware of whats happening with the new law in different languages, especially in the chinese and spanish language, that would be helpful. Thats a great point and well be sure to have those discussions. Thank you for that. That was a really important point, to make sure that the information and tools are accessible to everyone in the community. Thank you. Thank you. Now well move to agenda item number 12 and 10. Well take those out of order. Im sorry, we need to do im sorry, agenda item number 9, Public Comment. No Public Comment. Agenda item 12, discussion of monthly staff enforcement report, including an update on various programmatic and operational highlights of the enforcement programs activities since the last monthly meeting. Mr. Pierce, id like to ask you as you go through this, just bear in mind the level set all of us in terms of where we are and enforcement activities and use this as a background in framing item to teeup the discussion in agenda item number ten. Sure. Thank you, chair and comirge commissioners. I will also have an opportunity to teeup the discussion around item 10, given some of the statistics weve reported there. But youll see that in this months enforcement report in item 12, weve provided some additional data, given that we made it through the end of the fiscal year and have not had a meeting since we turned over into the new fiscal year, we provided for you at the top of page 2 some of the metrics that we keep track of as a division there. For comparison, weve reported them, both in terms of the fiscal year that just concluded, as well as the prior fiscal year. Some of these metrics youve not seen before. On the monthly enforcement report, we typically report on the number of matters in preliminary review and under investigation, as well as the average number of months that each of those matters might be. Here weve provided a wider snapshot of the things that division has kept track of for the last, i would guess, three years. You can see that comparing the two fiscal years we got twice as many complaints in fiscal year 2018 as we got in 19. I think one two reasons for that. One would be the Mayoral Election of 2018 took place in fiscal year 2018. We actually saw between march and june of 2018, the division received 89 complaints just during that fourmonth window leading up to the election there or leading up to and including the election, which accounted for more than twice the complaints of that fiscal year. For comparison, between august and november of 2018, november 2018 in which we had another election, we got only 41 complaints. So the public and others were substantially invested in the Mayoral Election in june of 2018. A second reason for the distinction in complaint numbers would be something that you may have noticed in item 10, which is a process improvement that the Enforcement Division has adopted, which draws on the distinction that the charter makes between formal and informal complaints, a distinction thats enforcement regulations reinforce, which is to assign to the enforcement director discretion to consider informal complaints. The charter requires that we consider informal complaints, but offers discretion to consider informal complaints. One of the changes to process we have adopted is if on the face of the complaint its immediately obvious to the enforcement director and to investigators that they lack jurisdiction, rather than assigning it to an investigator and turning it through the ordinary preliminary review machinery, i as the enforcement director will consult with the complainant, advise them about the scope of our jurisdiction and if i can direct them to some other entity that might be able to handle their complaint. So you will see in fiscal year 2018 we had 34 complaints for which we lacked jurisdiction. Those we had actually logged. So that 34 is a subset of the 163. In fiscal year 2019, the roughly 30 that we handled through this consultation and no further action process are in addition to the 83. Then a couple of other things to note would be that in each of the fiscal years we dismissed approximately dismissed or referred approximately twothirds of the complaints that we received and opened approximately onethird of those. Then finally, as to resolutions, we had fewer stipulations in fiscal year 2019, but larger penalties overall. But we did also resolve more matters in fiscal year 2019 than we had in fiscal year 2018, 22, as compared to 15. One reason for that is the regulations that this Commission Adopted i think in january of 2018 and which became effective in march of last year provide that the commission can close in the interest of justice an open investigation, meaning that we can decide, irrespective of the evidence, irrespective of potential liability in that matter, that there are overriding reasons why the commission should no longer invest resources in that particular matter. So i think if you look at the numbers there, in fiscal year 2019 we saw a 60 increase in the number of times we utilized that option. The reason is likely that the option came into existence only in the final quarter of fiscal year 18. If you go down to the statistics that we traditionally report in the monthly enforcement report, you can see again that we have an increased number of complaints that are awaiting preliminary review. The time that it takes us to review those complaints is somewhat down from our last reporting in june, but significantly up from our last reporting in july of 2018. One reason for that may be again that these numbers are averages, but considering the number of complaints that would have come in, in june of 2018, the bulk of the those awaiting staffs review at that time were effectively brand new. So that would be one reason, but potentially not all of the reasons theres a distinction in the amount of time it now takes staff to now move through these reports. It may be that we had four investigators at that time as well, but i cant remember with 100 accuracy. And then finally looking at the number of investigations open, weve reported for august that there are a full 95 investigations on this docket for a staff of three investigators. So every investigator has assigned to him roughly 30 investigations. A couple of them remain mine from the time that i was an investigator before i occupied the role as director. Given the commissions unanimous decision today to approve the proposed stipulations, this number will actually shift to 90. Once we close those particular matters, we should expect to see the average age of those investigations come down a couple of those that were on the agenda for today were some of the older ones. But as we turn in a minute to item 10, i would ask you to hold in your minds the size of the investigative docket at 90 or 95 and the amount of time overall that it takes staff, which includes for most matters, not just the investigators but also the executive director the enforcement director and the executive director and in some instances the commission itself, but if you contemplate overall from complaint receipt to resolution, 7 and 16, were looking at nearly two years on average from receipt of a complaint to resolution of a matter, whether thats by stipulation or closure or a determination that the evidence suggests an absence of liability. And then finally i would direct you to the numbers that we report each month in relation to the bureau of delinquent revenues. The collection officer continues to complete her review of delinquent late fees based on her calculations she had managed to sweep up 34,000 in previously unpaid fees at this point since her initial efforts finger since her start in february or march of this year. If you look at the status of matters before the bureau, you will see there are an additional four matters we have referred there on the basis of delinquent filers who did not or could not respond to the fines collection officer. I would note of those four, one of the entities listed there has already negotiated a payment plan with the bureau. The others apparently remain nonresponsive. Finally an update on the Lynette Sweet matter. Youll recall this matter is actually in litigation in superior court, which the city and county brought previously. That litigation was stayed as a result of a federal bankruptcy filing that ms. Sweet made. That bankruptcy filing has been dismissed, as we discussed last time, dismissed but not closed. I dont know whether judge smith could enlighten us on what a federal court means to dismiss a matter without i avoided bankruptcy cases. The superior court judge was interested to hear from the parties in august what the status of that bankruptcy hearing might be. The superior court judge has once again postponed that hearing to february of 2020. I was just over at the tax attorney at the bureau. That tax attorney and i have been in pretty close contact. We have been communicating with ms. Sweet and we have communicated to her that the commission would agree to a settlement of 20,000, which represents the amount of public funds for which she could not account. So effectively 20,000 is the minimum to which we would agree because thats the amount of damages that the city and county suffered as a result of her particular Campaign Finance misconduct, which was a failure to account for how that money was spent. And at my last communication with the tax attorney, ms. Sweet has made a proposal to pay that 20,000 through a payment plan, which would be longer than the commission would allow if this were a settlement negotiated with the executive director. Because it is, instead, a settlement negotiated through litigation with the bureau of delinquent revenue, were happy to allow that because it does not render the commission itself effectively the Lending Agent in this case. Ms. Sweet has agreed to that and i can provide further details at a future meeting, although nothing is yet written down. Well, thats great news because this has been pending for quite a while and it is a significant amount. Its if we can get to 20,000 in a reasonable payment plan, i think thats a terrific outcome. Good luck with that. The question i had is the matters with chris jackson. I think these have been on this report since i joined the Ethics Commission. Is there i think we talked last time about directing either the bureau of delinquent revenues or an alternative to the bureau to try and locate mr. Jackson or to send it to a Collections Agency. Is that something that we could do . Because were coming up now on six years. Actually, we passed the sixyear anniversary of when the referral was made for collection of this amount. I dont know how much the bureau invests in trying to locate him. I dont know if this is a heavy resource constraint in comparison to what they might get out of it. Im happy to follow up with them and even permit them to cut and run here or assign it to a Collections Agency as they did with others. Im happy to do that. And then do we have a payment plan for some and others did not . Obviously the Lynette Sweet is out of our control from a commission standpoint, but i see the Latino Democratic Club is on a payment plan. I thought at one point we were not doing payment plans and now we are. We are talk about this in agenda item number 10 as well, but whats the current play . My own understanding of that is the revisions to the enforcement regulations communicated newly a preference against payment plans. The executive director retains discretion to engage in a payment plan, but she would need to be convinced of the need of that. As the regulations are written, she would agree to a payment plan of not longer than six months. Again, my reading of the regulations is that they apply in instances where the executive director is, herself, ne