Transcripts For SFGTV Ethics Commission 20240712 : vimarsana

SFGTV Ethics Commission July 12, 2024

Request. Justin, do we have any callers in the queue . Operator madam secretary, we have no callers in the queue. President knutzen okay. Hearing none, we will close Public Comment. Is there a motion to approve agenda item f . So moved. President knutzen oh, great. It has been moved by commissioner lum. Do i have a second . Second. President knutzen second from commissioner sklar. Madam secretary, will you please take a roll call vote. [roll call] clerk thank you, commissioners. President knutzen, the vote is unanimous. President knutzen thank you so much. And do we have any announcements . Hearing none, do we have a motion to adjourn the meeting . So moved. President knutzen Vice President spears moves to adjourn the meeting. Do we have a second from any of the other commissioners . Second. President knutzen great. Then on behalf of the commission, just want to say it again, thank you for the staff and everything youre doing this month. And commissioners, thank you for the extra efforts made to patch in audio, video, whatever we could do today. We made this happen again, and very, very pleased with it. So thank you for participating, a , a and thank you to the members of staff and public who are listening today. So until next month. Ill adjourn the meeting. Thank you. Thanks, all. Clerk we are ready to begin. Chair ambrose i want to welcome everyone to the september 11, 2020 regular meet of the San Francisco Ethics Commission. Some background this meeting is held by teleconference pursuant to the governors executive order and supplement to the mayoral proclamation declaring existence of local emergency dated february 25, 2020. Before we proceed, i like to ask the Commission Staff to explain the procedures for remote meeting. Clerk thank you. Minutes of this meeting will be held due to the covid19 Health Emergency to protect Commission Members and the public. The meeting rooms at city hall are closed. However staff will be participating in the meeting remotely. This precaution is taken to the various local, state and federal orders, declaration and directives. Commission members will attend this meeting through video conference. Please note that todays meeting is being live cable cast on sfgov tv and streamed live on sfgovtv. Org ethics live. Each member of the public will be allowed three minute to speak. Comments to speak are available via phone call by calling 4156550001. [indiscernible] then press pound to join as an attendee. You will hear beep when you you are connected to the meeting. You will automatically you will be automatically muted in listening mode only. When your item of interest comes up, dial star 3 to raise your hand and to be added to the Public Comment line. Please wait until the host calls on you. The line will be silent as you wait for your turn to speak. Please ensure you are in a quiet location before you speak, mute the sound of any equipment around you including television, radio or computer. It is especially important that you mute your computer if youre watching via the web link to prevent feedback and echo when you speak. When the system message say, your line has been unmuted, this is your turn to speak. You will hear staff say welcome caller. We encourage you to state your name clearly. As soon as you begin speaking, you will have three minutes to provide your Public Comment, six minutes if youre online with an interpreter. You will hear a bill go off when you have 30 seconds remaining. If you change your mind and wish to withdraw yourself from the Public Comment line, press star 3 again, youll hear the system say, you have lowered your hand. Once your three minutes expired, staff will thank you and mute you. You will hear your line has been muted. Attendees who wish to speak during other Public Comment period may stay online and listen for the next Public Comment opportunity and raise their hands to enter the Public Comment line by pressing star 3 when their item comes up. Public comment maybe submitted in writing and shared with the commission after this meeting has concluded and will be included as part of the official meeting file. Written comments should be to sfgovtv. Org please sent to ethics. Commission sfgovtv. Org. Chair ambrose i will call the meeting to order. September 11th. Can you please proceed with item number one, the commission roll call. Clerk commissioners unmute your microphone to verbally state your presence after your name is called. [roll call] we have five men o members pres, you have a quorum. Chair ambrose thank you very much. Welcome to our viewing audience. Folks have the capacity to tune in to ethics Commission Meeting with all thats going on in the city and state. I want to ask everyone to mute your microphone when youre not speaking so that the become background noise doesnt come through. With that, i will call agenda item 2. Which is Public Comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the agenda. Members of the public who already on the line and wish to speak should now dial star 3. If you not already done so, to be added to the Public Comment line. Please proceed with Public Comment. Clerk thank you. Ethics commission is now receiving Public Comment on agenda item 2 remotely in this meeting. Each member will have up to three minutes to provide Public Comment. If you joined the meeting earlier to listen to the proceedings, now is the time to get in line to speak. If you have not already please press star 3. Its important to you press star 3 once to enter the queue. Pressing it again will move you out of the Public Comment line and back in listening mode. Once you are in the queue, and standing by, the system will prompt you when its your turn to speak. Its important that you call from a quiet location. Please address your comment to the commission as a whole and not to an individual member. We are checking to see if theres calls in the queue. If you have just joined this meeting, we are currently on agenda item 2, Public Comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the agenda. You will have three minutes to provide your Public Comment, 6 minutes if youre on line with an interpreter. You will hear a bell go off when you have 30 seconds remaining. If you have not already done so, please press star 3 to be added to the queue. For those already on hold, continue to wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted. There are no calls in the queue. Chair ambrose thank you very much. With that, i like to call agenda item number 3. The consent calendar. The draft minutes for the Ethics Commission august 14, 2020 regular meeting. If any members of the public like to offer Public Comment for the consent item they should dial in now to be added to the Public Comment queue. Item 3 is on consent. This item is considered routine. If a commissioner rejects, the item can be removed. Any commission wish to sever any items from consent and call it for separate discussion . Commissioner bush i like to sever the minutes to have a discussion about the report that we used for minutes. Chair ambrose all right. Thank you. Actually we dont need a motion or a second on that because any one of the commissioners can move from consent. Im going to give you the floor commissioner bush. Do we want Public Comment first . I will defer to you on that . Do you want Public Comment first before you make your point or after . Commissioner bush it doesnt matter to me. Chair ambrose moderator are there any commenters on the queue on the consent item . Clerk not at this time. Chair ambrose commissioner bush, please go ahead. Commissioner bush thank you. According what i see in the admin code, there are certain requirements in minutes. I want to make sure that we are in compliance with that. Also, to ask deputy City Attorney whether the admin code on that applies to the ethics minutes as well . The things that admin code specifies is when Public Comment is given, the name of the person who is willing to be identified is included and whether or not they are speaking in favor or against an item on the agenda and what it is they have to say about that. Theres a little bit of disscriptive material from what the person from the public says. Thats what the admin code say. In my view, i think it will be well suited if the minutes showed if the commissioners made any comments or recommendations so that theres a clarification with the public and the staff and other commissioners whether changes were adopted at the request of the commissioners. Thats the point that im raising. Chair ambrose you ask for deputy City Attorney schenn to state whether or not those sunshine ordinance requirements apply to the Ethics Commission . Andrew, do you want good morning everyone. I dont know if lee ann want to jump in. There are meeting minute requirements that apply to the Ethics Commission as the target commission. There are requirements such as recording the beginning of the meeting and etcetera. Commissioner bush, you are correct. It requires a very brief summary of a Public Commenters comment. Theres no requirement that there be specificity about which commissioner suggest which changes. Thats not required. Its up to the commission if they want to proceed with that. Commissioner bush it was not intention to call that out. It was whether or not the commission itself was requesting changes or deletions on an item. Chair ambrose im going to ask for clarification on that. Whenever theres a motion to adopt or a motion to adopt with amendments, my understanding that will be memorialized in the minutes and that vote would be roll call and reflected also in the minutes. I want to be clear where were having a dialogue and building towards a consensus. Theres Rapid Exchange of ideas and comments. I worry about the usefulness of having someone memorialize all of that give and take in the written minutes. I know from my own personal experience as attorney to several different commissions to the city, if im looking for legislative intent or documentation of exactly what transpired in building to a resolution, i would go to sfgtv or back up to audio tape to get the precise exchange of communication. I want to make sure that i understand, are you talking about official motion, amendments, second, etcetera . Do you want every specific recommendation that an individual commissioner makes realized in the minutes . Commissioner bush no. Im not looking for every comment to be in the minutes. You bring up a good point about being able to refer to the tape. It might be an option to put a link to the tape so that in addition to what people can see in the minutes, they can also go and listen to the entire proceedings. Chair ambrose one thing thats useful too on sfgov tv, they have the agenda and under the video recordings you can click on a particular agenda item. Once you get in sfgtv, it will take you to that section of the meeting recording. You dont have to start at the beginning of the three hours and try to find your place. I agree with you having a link in the minutes that would allow somebody to get to the recordings would be a useful reference. Whether theres a significant substantive presentation or a motion amend that we can make a practice to memorialize that as well. Commissioner bush thank you. May i add note for suggestion about next steps . We do in the minutes, since weve been remotely meeting, we have added with each agenda item number, a link directly to where on the sfgov agenda. One of the things that we looked at, we may not commissioners might have had a suggestion or a comment that we should capture. We can take a look back at the minutes to make sure were consistent with that. Also, the requirement in the admin code for section 6716, it requires the name of the person speaking, the nature of their comments but also a brief summary. I wanted to point out those couple of items for clarification. Commissioner bush thank you. Chair ambrose thank you. Do you want to entertain a motion to defer the august minutes to the next meeting when these corrections executive director reference could be reflected . Commissioner bush i think that would be good. Thank you. Chair ambrose im going to ask is there a second this. Commissioner smith seconded that motion to put agenda item 3 back on the calendar in october with the changes that executive director pelham identified. Well take a look at it then. With that, can we have a roll call vote . Please call the roll. [roll call vote] chair ambrose wait, i just realized we didnt have for Public Comment. I caught myself just in time there [laughter] if we could please see if we have Public Comment on this matter. Thank you. Clerk thank you. The Ethics Commission is receiving Public Comment on consent calendar item 3. Each member will have up to three minutes. You will hear a bell go off when up 30 seconds remaining. If you joined the meeting early, now is the time to get in line to speak. If you have not already, please press star 3. Its important to call from a quiet location. Please address your comment to the commission as a whole and not to individual members. Im checking for the calls in the queue. Please press star 3 to be added to the queue. For those already on hold, please continue to wait until the system indicate you have been unmuted. If you have just joined in meeting, we are currently taking Public Comment on consent calendar item 3, draft minutes for the Ethics Commission augusd meeting. There are no callers in the queue. Chair ambrose please proceed with the roll call vote and the motion . [roll call vote] five in the affirmative to the motion. The motion is approved. I do apologize. Chair ambrose motion was approved to defer action on august 2020 Meeting Minutes until the meeting of october [indiscernible] clerk the motion is carried and with commissioners im sorry, i dont understand this language. I do apologize for that. Chair ambrose thank you commissioners. I will call agenda item 4 which is the discussion and possible action on revised draft Ethics Commission annual report for 20192020. Before i ask executive director pelham to make the presentation, i want to thank commissioner bush and commissioner chiu for working with the executive director and her staff to improve the draft that we have before us. In my opinion, it looks pretty good. Executive director pelham, if you want to walk us through the annual report and the changes . Great, thank you chair ambrose. I will echo the presentation for commissioner chiu and commissioner bush for providing insight and feedback on the draft report following the Commission Discussion last month. I think the feedback last month as the input in the following days did help tighten and clarify the report. Im hopeful with the information thats in front of you, youll have a chance to consider whether this reflects the consent that you want to see this year. We do know with the work that we plan to do in the coming year, the annual for next year going forward, will probably look different. It might be a bit more information flushed out in ways that we havent been able to with this report in prior years. This is a very helpful set of data and information to be able to share with the public about the work the commission has been doing in this past year. There were only two key differences i would highlight for you. One is at the outset of the report and largely feedback from last no months discussion, we listed some of the key data that the report contained. We wanted to highlight and give a flavor for the time kinds of work thats done on an ongoing basis. Thats something inserted right at the front of the report after the introductory page. The key change we attempt to reflect in this revised draft, was under the future Initiative Section at the back of the report. Last month, youll recall the discussion was focused on, where do we go from here. We didnt want to leave the report hanging in terms of the critical ongoing dynamics that we were looking ahead to tackle in the coming year. The last section of the report and future initiatives is a bit more of an expanded section to address some of the challenges, operationally that well continue to face as covid19 co9 continues to be on our horizon. Also more direct discussion of b. L. A. Recommendation report that was issued last month. We included the listing of recommendations with that report contained now. Lastly, a discussion about the allegations with the administration. We want to be very engaged making sure that we can do what we can to prevent that kind of activity from taking root in City Government going forward. With that, im happy to answer any questions or take any other feedback that you might have at this point. Thank you. Chair ambrose im not sure im clicking on the right butt buttons. Moderator, maybe unhel you can p me. I needed to get the dropdown list to see if anyone raised their hand. Never mind. Commissioner bush, you have the floor. Commissioner bush i like to thank executive director pelham for the work that went into this. I would say its a vast improvement over the last several years. There were no several years. We went from zero to 60. It looks very professional and it covers lot of the territory that needed to be covered. I think its a good snapshot. Its important in the future that we acknowledge to some extent that ethics

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