We dont want in drafting, start with what is the problem that you want to solve, and that is we dont want people asking for donors to pay for their holiday party. I think theres some question, as we get into the legislation, why theyre getting around the gift role . So its perfectly legitimate for organization, a corporation, or contractor to give money to the city, say, to help with the clean streets program, etc. , but if its over 10,000, they have to go to the board or it has to be posted on the departmental website if its under 10,000. We need to look inhouse in terms of is that process too arduous to go through where they go through this funding or they dont go to the parks alliance, they just throw this money in a special fund to a fiscal agent, and then, they can spend it more quickly. Sometimes, lets face it. Contracting, you give the money to the city, and then, they want to go out and contract somebody to provide rain barrels for drought resistance, and by the time you put out the competitive year for the bid maker, youre going to be in the next year. So theres some city homework that we need to do to figure out charitiable giving to the city in a way thats timely, and per the Controllers Office is subject to expenditure control and disclosure. But any way those are my offthetop comment, and mr. Clerk, do we have any Public Commenters in the queue . Clerk if you have not already done so, please press star, three to be entered into the Public Comment queue. Youll have three minutes if youre online with the interpreter. Youll hear a bell go off when you have 30 seconds remaining. Please stand by. Also as a reminder to the public, Public Comment may also be submitted in writing and will be shared with the commission after this meeting has concluded and will be included as part of the official meeting file. Written comments should be send to ethics. Commission sfgov. Org. Once again, thats ethics. Commission sfgov. Org. Madam chair, there are no calls in the queue. All right. With that, then, im going to close Public Comment on agenda item 8 and call agenda item 9, which is discussion and possibly action on items for future meetings. And before i invite commissioners to comment on whether or not they have items that theyd like on for future discussion, im going to read the notice to the public that if any member of the public intend to offer Public Comment for this item, they should dial in now and enter star, three to be added to the Public Comment queue. A queue, a queue, and i will take their Public Comment after i discuss with my fellow commissioners if theres any items they want to see in future meetings. Commissioner bush, go ahead. Thank you. I ask that a newspaper article from San Francisco public press be circulated to the commission and be made available to the public, as well. It deals with incidences around the 2016 aleelection. It shows there was a meeting called together by the mayor and senior members of the board of supervisors with senior contractors, lobbyists, and others, laying down an edict, as it were, that they wanted contributions made to one candidate and not made to another candidate. That was the subject of some examination, though i wouldnt go so far to call it an investigation by the city attorney, but nothing was done. However, this was widely covered. It was in the examiner, it was in the public press, it was in mission local, and i think that it would be a good case study for us to talk about how corruption works in the city. The reason that i circulated it is because i wanted to see the public to have a chance to see what we were seeing about this particular incident and to have a view about what directive actions corrective actions are needed. Is it a question of enforcement . Is it a question of policy . Is it the way things were worded . I noticed in the article that director pelham is quoted as saying, Ethics Commission didnt have the resources to go much further than it had done, and that would include, i assume, the resources to pursue a subpoena for any of the witnesses who were unwilling to talk voluntarily to the city attorneys office. Since this is a on point with the issues that were raised by the u. S. Attorney, by the controller, by the city attorney, and now through our i. P. Meeting, i wanted to raise this because taking something off of the draft of the policy writing into the real world is, i think, imperative. Thank you. Thank you, commissioner bush. Yes, i did see that article that you referenced was at least shared with the commissioners and, thus, its within our public communications, you know, public file, and im i understand that these were issues that were going to raise at the interested persons stakeholder meeting, as well. I agree with you. I like the idea of a realworld example, and it almost reads like a law exam. Can you spot the potential violations of the ethics code as referenced in that news article, so i think that that would be a good way to illustrate some of the concerns that we could hopefully address as part of the conflicts of interest and code investigation that were going to take. With that, im going to stop and ask the moderator to see if we have any callers in the queue. Clerk madam chair, we are checking to see if we have any callers on the queue. If you just joined the meeting, we are on agenda item number 9, discussion and possible action on items for future meetings. You will have three minutes to provide your Public Comment, six minutes if you have an interpreter. You will hear a bell go off when you have 30 seconds remaining. Please stand by. Madam chair, there are no callers in the queue. Thank you. With that, im going to close Public Comment on agenda item number 9 and call agenda item number 10, which is an additional opportunity for Public Comment on matters appearing or not appearing on the agenda pursuant to Ethics Commission bylaws article 7, section 2. If any members of the public intend to offer Public Comment for this item, they should dial in now and press star, three to be added to the Public Comment queue. And can i ask the moderator, the phone numbers of the individuals who showed up for agenda item 2, which is general Public Comment, but then were silent, have they been carried forward on the Public Comment on any of the specific agenda items and or are they reappearing under this general comment opportunity now . Im still a little worried about the fact that we clerk no. Basically, they were carried onto other agenda items. They did sign in for those agenda items. Theres no Public Comment appearing on the queue right now. Okay. So we did hear from them on the appropriate agenda items. Clerk thats correct. Okay. So if you can check to see if there are any public callers in the queue for item number 10. We a clerk we are check to see if there are callers in the queue. If you have just joined the meeting, we were currently on Public Comment on the motion of agenda item number 10, additional Public Comment on items appearing or not appearing on the agenda pursuant to Ethics Commission bylaws article 7, section 2. If you have not already done so, please press star, three to be able to provide your Public Comment. You will have three minutes to provide your comment, six minutes if you have an interpreter. You will hear a bell go off when you have 30 seconds remaining. Please stand by. Madam chair, there are no callers in the queue. All right, then. So im going to close Public Comment on agenda item number 10 and call agenda item number 11, which is adjournment. Commissioners, do we have a motion to adjourn the meeting . So moved. All right. Commissioner smith, and do i have a second . Someone needs second. Ill second. Okay. Seconded by commissioner [inaudible]. So with that, can you call the roll on adjournment. Clerk i will now call roll. [roll call] the motion to adjourn carries, and thank you. That will conclude our october 9, 2020 meeting of the Ethics Commission. Skbl. Hello. Im shawnna loghorn with the league of women voters. Along with the league and sfgovtv, im here to discuss proposition b, a proposition that will be on the ballot and before the voters on november 3. The city has three departments tasked with cleaning tasks. The city administrator oversees the department of public works and appoints the director with the mayors director. Proposition b is a Charter Amendment that would create a department of sanitation and streets which would take over some of the duties of the department of public works. This new department of sanitation and streets would be responsible for sweeping streets and cleaning sidewalks, providing and maintaining sidewalk trash cans, removing graffiti and illegally dumped waste and maintaining city buildings, public rest rooms, and street trees. The department of public works would continue to provide all other Services Required by law. Proposition b would create a fivemember sanitation and streets commission to oversee the department of sanitation and streets as well as a fivemember Public Works Commission to oversee the department of public works. The mayor would select the directors of both departments. If you vote yes, you want to create a department of sanitation and streets with oversight from a sanitation and streets commission, and you want to establish a Public Works Commission to oversee the department of public works. If you vote no, you do not want to make these changes. Im here with honey mahogany, a legislative aide with supervisor haneys office. Were also joined by lari m larry marso, an opponent of the measure. Were going to start with some opening statements, and well begin with honey. Thank you so much for having us today. I think that as a native san franciscan, someone who grew up here, and a Small Business owner, its become very clear to me that San Francisco has really failed at keep our city clean the clean. There is trash all over the streets, some streets are covered with feces, and sometimes you cant find a bathroom when you need one. Weve been working on how the city can better address this issu issue. What we found is the system that we have in place is broken. No matter how hard the workers at d. P. W. Work, theyre unable to get the streets clean because the system is ineffective. D. P. W. Is too big, there isnt enough focus on the streets, and especially during the time of covid19, sanitations now more important than ever, so we are putting forward a new department of sanitation to effectively keep our streets clean, wash our sidewalks in our most busy corridors and also to establish commissions overboth d. P. W. And the department to ensure that both departments are accountable to the public. The commission will also set baseline standards for cleaning, something that really doesnt exist now under the Current System. Thank you, honey. Now, larry . Hi. Please vote no on proposition b, which takes a 400 million San Francisco agency and needlessly cuts it in half and politicizes what remains. Its the case chaos and paralysis that will worsen the squalor on our streets. San francisco has the political will to clean the streets. The board of supervisors does not. Proposition b creates two new bureaucracies and injects politics into the department of public works. This is a failed model of oversight. We have over 100 boards and commissions in San Francisco already. Proposition b sets no clean streets standards. Theres nothing in here that says we are going to deal with the needles, the syringes, the feces on the streets. Its not there. Matt haney writes in his argument that theyre in proposition b. Theres nothing in proposition b that sets baseline standards. We need we need we need to address the fraud and waste in the department of public works. Thank you, larry. Thats 1. 5 minutes, so were going to go into questions now, and the first question will go to you, larry, and then honey, youll have a chance to answer it. The question is the amendment would create a new department of sanitation and streets to perform duties thats currently performed by the department of public works. If thats the proposition, whats the argument for creating a new department . The city controller says its going to cost upwards of 6 million a year. Thats over 50 million in ten years. Thats a lot of money. But if you look at the paid arguments for proposition b, you see a long list of Public Sector labor unions. The seiu and the San Francisco labor locals representing the trades that engage in cleaning our streets and maintaining some of our parks. Theyre talking about we need more resources, we need more resources. They believe that this new structure, which is going to put the board of supervisors in the position of straiting political appointee placing political appointees into governing these agencies, they believe it will mean significantly higher spending. And nowhere do the proponents of proposition b stay straight to the San Francisco people that this is a major spending increase. Will it address any of the core issues of cleaning San Francisco streets . Not if it atdss drug addiction, homeless, and Mental Illness on our streets, the root of so much of our problem. Thank you. The same question to you, honey. Why create a new department . Well, i would like to first address some factual inaccuracies in some of those statements. One, the measure does require the department to set public standards for cleaning. We want to hold Community Outreach to set those standards. There is a metric to address that. Also, i do want to correct that the controller report says the updated controller report says this will be closer to 2. 6 milli 2. 6 million in costs to create this new department. The reason we have to create this new department is the Current Department is broken. There is not enough oversight over cleaning and sanitation in the Current System. It is less than a quarter of what d. P. W. Does. D. P. W. Is a department with 1600 employees, and like you said, a 400 million budget. Less than a quarter is dedicated to cleaning. We feel like a metro city in San Francisco where tourism is its number one industry, we need to have a focus on cleaning with metrics that are created in a very transparent manner, a method for us to have feedback, and for the public to have feedback, and again, really providing some very close oversight and accountability for a department that, up until now, really hasnt had any. Thank you, honey. Our second question, and itll start with you, honey, is again, about the cost. The office of the controller states that this amendment, in the report that i read, ranged from 2 2. 5 to 6 million annually. Honey corrected that it will be just over 2 million. Do we think this is the right way to spend the extra money on sanitation or is there another way that is perhaps more beneficial . You know, 2. 6 million is a very small its less than a percent or a fraction of a percent of the citys current budget. Its a small amount of revenue that the city would generate through improvement to its business districts. It has been very public how weve been criticized by all over the world, really, for our filthy streets. The travel industry has been impacted, our Hotel Industry has been impacted, so those are our Biggest Industries for our city. So for the city to spend 2 million on an issue that we havent been able to fix in decades is nothing. I will note that the legislation actually also reduces duplication in terms of staffing by putting some of the staffing as shared with d. P. W. For the back end, which larry referred to earlier, and it also required city administrator to also provide that support. So the additional hiring is really minimal. There is some costs for the commissions, but again, the controller actually the f. B. I. And the scandal recommended that supervision be placed over d. P. W. , so it is good governance. Itll put a commission over d. P. W. , and itll also put a commission over the department of sanitation and streets to oversee them. Okay. Larry, same question to you. Since 2014, the portion of department of public works spending on cleaning our streets has doubled. If you look around you, do you see that our streets are cleaner . Spending money is not the solution to cleaning our streets when we have significant significant endemic root causes of drug abuse and Mental Illness on our streets. The department of public works, if its split in half, its going to generate more costs than simply what the controller has documented. There are duplications of bandend services backend services. Okay. But why are the biggest unions in San Francisco pouring money into this measure . Theyre doing so because theyre looking for higher pay and more hiring. Sorry. I have to cut you off there as time is up for questions, but were going to move into closing statements, and we will start with honey. Thank you so much. Its funny because i think larry and i agree that weve been pumping money into d. P. W. , and things havent gotten any better. In fact, things have gotten worse, and that is why were establishing the department of sanitation and streets because the Current System is broken. We