Allegations of corruption, and indictments and guilty pleas swirling around city Hall Contracting the city family is plugging along with another enormous bond for this november, much of it which will go to d. P. W. The ethics budget is not an expense. Its an investment that pays dividends and in cost savings and honest government. Thank you very much. If you are joining by the webex Browser Extension, if you wish to raise your hand for this Public Comment and other Public Comments, you may do so by clicking on the raise hand icon. Its located in the participants panel on the lowerright corner. To access that panel, you can click on the navigation bar located in the video screen by clicking on the participants icon. I do not see any additional callers concerning Public Comment. Im going to close Public Comment first, i want to say in response to the Public Comment, to the first specificker who had substantive points of information concerning City Contracting i do hope that the whistleblower and the Contact Number for the Controller Office is available to that individual so that information can be presented to the Controllers Office who is looking at those specific contracts. Second with respect to the second call fer we decide here today to it should be public as part of the boards records. I mean, ive been able to navigate the boards website to find letters to the board and just to be clear, we will post it on our own website so you will be able to find it and im trying to think if director pelham knows where that might be found. You can let us know if we decide to send a letter. And then, its good to hear you are an active participant that i am familiar with. With that im going to recognize commissioner lee, whose hand is up, if she intends it to be up and commissioner lee are you ready . I want to make a motion to have the board send a letter, the Commission Send a letter to be signed by you chair to sign the points you had made and in addition to add the recommendation the board consider designated certain parts of the money specifically the permit fees and other areas that have a direct connection to the work of the Ethics Commission. I think you are on mute. Im going to unmute myself and recognize commissioner chiu. If you want to speak, you have the floor. I would like to amend the resolution with commissioner bushs suggestion that we highlight the amount of the cost to San Francisco of corruption and the millions of dollars and compare that to the budget request the commission is making to really make the contrast clear and its worth pounds of pounds of cure. I am going to recognize commissioner bush. If you want to unmute your mic. Commissioner bush, you are still muted. Am i unmuted now . You are. Ill get it right one of these days. I just think we need to also visit the question of under what circumstances we can solicit outside contribution to our work. We looked at the coalition that completed major work and it was supported by groups like the California Press foundation, the craig newmart philanthropy, the first look media, there are options that are out there to the ethics work so i dont know if there should be or a sign off saying i would like to reach off to these following groups and do i have permission to do that and maybe andrew shin has thoughts on how to proceed on Something Like that. Also, sending and so fourth and if you could circulate that a number of that and before it goes and that would be great. Im going to ask you to hold and well take up the issue about outside Funding Sources and one of the things that while were finishing with the so everybody understands how the city works in terms of the intake of a nonprofit and back to the motion on the letter, this is one of the i was struggling with, if we can, only two commissioners can communicate outside. I dont want to, since we dont have time to meet again for everyone to comment on the letter, i want to be really clear in the motion and the delegation, if you want to review and comment on the letter. The two of us can go back and fourth in that regard and work with the executive director. We wont be able to share it with all five commissioners and be commenting back and fourth without violating the brown act and i want to make sure that in the motion im happy to post. I mean the letter to not ive not done this before with the commission where and i i understand about making the point that commissioner i can go back and replicate those. With respect to the permit fees, commissioner lee, i do have a question we could the board can take whatever permit fees and have them in a fund and have them deemed appropriate for the Ethics Commission but that 90,000 or whatever amount it was, it isnt going to i mean, if they just substitute in that money that would otherwise go into the general fund money, theres no net benefit to the Ethics Commission. What we really want, and i think we ought to focus on for purpose of the letter is saying, that at this critical time, we need to have the Ethics Commission fully funded and be allowed to take on the requirement that we have and not been able to achieve because of the levels of funding in the past as well as this new initiative to address culture. We can work ourselves to come back at a separate time to say that we want special funds created for our permit fees. Unless im missing something and theres a lot more money to be found in that source. Im just afraid, theyre capable of saying you can have your permit fees and thats where you are supposed to get your additional funding and that wont do it for us. Thats not going to solve our problem, right. Can i Say Something . I was going to recognize director pelham if she has any thoughts about how much money were talking about in that realm. I want to give commissioner lee the chance to explain, educate me further about what we might be able to do in that realm. So if you dont mind, commissioner bush, im going to go to director pelham or lee about thinking about how they would have the resources to think about creative Funding Source and do the leg work to think about where might there be other fee source thats could fund operations. In essence, the commission is looking back at the original proposal from february 21st. We talked about it at the top and having a level of resource thats can do the financial critical budget work thats necessary that we currently do not have inhouse. So, i think when we can look to those levels of funding to get that specificity to letter to the board and we have those examples. If that isnt sufficient we can work to try to identify more specificity. Were certainly looking at a minimum at what we requested in february in my judgment. And i guess, i mean, one of the things just in acknowledging the point, if we had the additional enforcement capability, its conceivable that our permit fee might be a more significant source. Its something we can reference to the board. The importance of everyone in government right now to be both ways we can identify sources of funds that will make up for the lack of tax revenue that we know sim pacting the general fund right now. You are raising your hand again, director pelham. I do understand from staff who were here back in the days before i was, that there was times where the city, other city departments actually provided funding for the eth i guess commission to hire training staff. We can do some further research on that and see if those might be models that we should be suggesting as well and obviously all Department Fees need to hold on to their resources but there could be places where they might be partnerships available for a defined period of time and top undertake department training. I think we can add that to the list of Grant Funding and permit source funding and probably it would actually i know that in some of the hearings on the corruption of public works, that was one of the first sort of corrective measures that was identified was to bring in the contracting staff there and this is an important point. Theres a good chance, i guess, at least in my mind, that the board is going to be receptive to this and the mayor. I want to make sure that we can deliver if the Funding Sources, you know, become available and one of the challenges is that this vacant position problem that you have had for at least for the duration that ive been on the commission. It seems, you know, either through transfers to other City Apartments or people moving on with their life and certainly under this pandemic the pressure on families and individuals. I want to be i want a request that you keep us apprised and you are sort of clear and honest with yourself too about whether or not were going to be able to do this. We have to be able toll fill positions and if we get that budget authorization, there is no coming back at the end of this fiscal year in saying well, thank you for the money but we really couldnt quite get it together and we need to step up. So keep us a surprise apprised. One of the issues that the controllers recommendations raised is exactly that point. In order for the commission to do the work before us with the controllerrers recommendations, the legislative recommendations and the work we know we have to do to fill those positions it cant be just the money, it has to be an expedited hiring process. Think about the framework were looking at. October 1st is when the new budget will be finalized. Positions wont be authorized and funded for any department until october 1st. Theres tha a hiring process and were able to have funding. That is at best, 150 days, 130day process and its taken six months and seven months in the past to fill positions we know there are its possible to conceive of a world where there are expedited hiring procedures in place they are when the city takes what they call a little itsed Term Position or permanent exempt position to be like a threeyear limited term role and that means you have maybe not all the same sorts of requirements for the Civil Service exambased testing process, which does take that time. I guess my point is simply that to yours, if we were to be in a position to have these positions or new resources, the only way its going to be effective in any expedited manner is to also have an expedited hiring process and its something that i think has been elevated, its on peoples minds, to question if this is something that is possible. We know that that would be required. You are right, if were starting in october, the bestcase scenario under an expedited hiring process with greatest flexibility is four months. Throw tthree to four months, and bringing people on board and training. Were looking at the end of this coming fiscal year. In terms of managing what we think is possible, i think what is incumbent on us is to identify the sequencing of bestcase scenario, here is what we can deliver over the following time horizon because we know that even when theres not a pandemic the bestcase scenario for hiring can be challenging so we would have to look at ways to alleviate some of that so we can get people in the chairs and get the work started. I do see some hands. I did want to say, i want to give other people a chance to talk. I want to come back to you i hear all that. I do think it needs to be reflected in the letter. I think that its important to say to the board in order to address corruption thats been identified and prevent it from happening in the future, were already i agree, the fact that and they are staffed away in some filing cabinet in each one of the respective departments, its not the kind of sunshine we need right now as we build our culture of ethical behavior and i want you to be prepared to speak to exactly what position, what funding is necessary in order to get that up and rolling by the time the next filing deadline comes up which would be april of 2021. So, if you are going to im going to start back alphabet tickly and recognize commissioner chiu. You have the floor if you want to unmute your mic. Thank you, chair ambrose. I have thro three point to make. There are many topics that we can cover in the letter but that the in the absence of having fully vetted research and being comfortable that these are avenues that would be viable for the Ethics Commission. To your point earlier, they could you can use your lobbying expenses and then just wash their hands of it. Two other points i wanted to make were, whether or not if you are consideration as you work through this with the director is tying our budget requests to the recommendations in the controllers report saying the controllers, preliminary report has identified a, b and c and this ties directly back to the budget a asset we made in februy of 2020. Not only by not funding the budget request from the Ethics Commission, it would also be not funding or pursuing the recommendations made by the controller after its investigation. And second, it would be whether or not i dont know enough about the city budgeting process but since d. P. W. Is the bad apple here, in terms of the acting, can parts of their budget be redirected to fund the Ethics Commission around the training, around the policy and legal and regulatory review. Since they have kind of blown everything up and that they have a budget as well and that they can help fund some of the remedial work. Its a question, i dont have the answers to it but its i do remember from the mayors meeting that it was floated. You are sure about the mayors meeting . At the mayors meeting, the mayor or someone had suggested or had proposed that in the past, the departments that the departments part of the Department Budget or im not clear on all of the budgeting inns and outs but the gist that i took away from it was that is it possible for d. P. W. Budget to fund to have some of their funds allocated to the Ethics Commission to finance the specific education outreach and regulatory and legal review that are identified as a result of this corruption scandal. Im going to director pelham, if you want to speak to that. I mean, i think those are all first of all, your main points, the message should be focused. I will definitely attempt to draft this reflect the controllers recommendation and how it ties into the february 20212020 original budget submittal. I think the points that you are making about alternative sources along with the points that commissioner lee made, and the points made is that we should work on to get a satisfied for oversight and i think its worthy of further investigation and discussion. Its something that is not really on the agenda right here so we should put that on for further review just maybe all of these topics. Grant funding, nonprofit funding, permit set aside funding and set aside work orders funding from other departments and i think maybe even august would be a good time for at least for the commissioners to think about and bring back further ideas along those lines and im not going to expect staff to have identified and we can put it on so we can have more flushing out of the opportunities and what would be required at the city level and i see that macali practicalities i will recognize our deputy City Attorney if you want to unmute your mic. Let me be very brief. So, speaking to what you just raised, chair ambrose, yes, there are ways city departments could receive money from grants and such and those would be subject to board approval as well as other contracting would ned to address and in terms of the letter and obviously only two or fewer members of the commission could review the letter or draft the letter and it couldnt involve more than a quorum in the drafting process. In the past, the commission has trusted whoever was delegated without Authority Just to leave you with his or her own. So thats something to keep in mind. Just very briefly lastly, the budget is before the commission at this point. So i dont know if the Commission Also wants to formally approve the budget as proposed. And as part of its final action on this matter. Although i do understand it sounds like the Commission Approved under protest or some sort of obligation. Thank you for deputy City Attorney. Well come back to the motion that is standing on the floor with respect to the letter. In terms of approving the actual budget attach, which is the budget that the Mayors Office required the executive director to submit reflecting across the board cuts that is part of what the mayors do every time theres a budget, you know, reduction, every department is supposed to show their work in terms of what they would eliminate if they had to eliminate 10 and i think based on the discussion that weve been having here today, that im unlikely to hear a motion that we recommend that reduced budget that is what the executive director was required to submit to the mayor on june 12th. Fell free to correct me if im the main content of the leather is our strongest statement possible that, given the circumstances, we really could not operate with a reduced budget. Nevertheless, it is what it is. You know, outlining everything that commissioner chiu hasom mentioned would be aio very strg letter. The reason i wanted to add onto the p permit fee possibility is because we need to be nimble and reality is, you know, everyone every department will say we cannot survive with a 15 and 10 cut and this being a budget season and a record from the commission to the board i think it would be good to at least start the paper trail. We want to entertain, we want to store this with you to take money from not take but share the resources and revenue from other departments, the permit