Again, the phone number. Is 14156550001 access code. Is. 2663 095878. For again access code. Is 266 a3095878. For followed by the pound sign then press pound again to join as an attendee when your item of interest comes up, press star three to raise your hand to be added to the Public Comment line. Public comment is also available via the webex client application. Use the webex link on the agenda to connect and press the raised hand button to be added to the Public Comment line for detailed instructions on how to interact with the telephone system or webex client. Please refer to the Public Comment section of the this agenda document for this meeting. 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 sent to Ethics Commission at sf gov. Org once again written comments should be sent to Ethics Commission at sf gov. Org members of the public who attend Commission Meetings, including remote attendance, are also expected to behave responsibly and respectfully during Public Comment. Please address your comments to the commission as a whole and not to individual members persons who engage in name calling, shouting interruptions or other distracting. Behaviors may be excluded from participation. The following behaviors or activities are strictly prohibited during remote particip session. Applause or vocal expression of support or opposition lawn signs. Regardless of content or message, profane sanity, threats of physical aggression. The prohibition on signs does not apply to clothing, which includes signage pinned to clothing, messages displayed on clothing, pins, hats or buttons. This provision supplements rules and policies adopted by city hall. The Sheriffs Office or the board of supervisor hours related to decorum prohibited conduct or activities, noise et cetera, and is not meant to be exhaustive. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you. I now call the meeting to order. Roll call, please. Commissioners, please verbally indicate your presence after your name is called commissioner flores fang. Shes excused. Shes excused. Excused. Absence. Vice chair. Finland here. Chair lee. Present commissioner salahi. Present chair lee with three members present and accounting for you have a quorum. Thank you. Um, lets go to agenda item number two, which is general Public Comment. Anyone in the room wish to speak. Go good morning, ethics. You see, its very. We i keep this today. Im a bit. We have to Pay Attention. So you see, even the clock says its late. Its a bit late to. We have to Pay Attention. Uh it is impossible to fight against the eternal rules of existence. Which states that for any human being, the reason for being is happiness. And you cant achieve this happiness without exclusively working within yourself. Its. A mindset towards the eternal, all emotional aspirations towards beauty. If you dont do that, you cant be happy. End of the story. It means that you work indirectly or not towards ugliness and you finish your life unhappy much, mostly ugly. And the eternal rules of existence tells you you are not badge ever. Even if you dont believe in reincarnation. Its not the problem. The universe works by cycle of reproduction. Thats all life is about existence. So we have to Pay Attention because its late ethics rely on this understanding. Otherwise you dont have any basis. What ethics . Everybody decides ethics. No, no. If you dont rely on this idea that your reason for being is happiness according to these rules, you are then so you are free not to want to be happy, but humanity doesnt need you because exist sense says it doesnt need you anymore. Have a nice day. Its not for you. Its for i know, but i can be more specific because i work for everybodys happiness. You have to understand that. Are we clear . Thank you. Any other speakers . If not, lets go to the queue. Madam chair. We have two callers in the queue. Please stand by for the first caller. Welcome a caller. Your three minutes begin now. Commissioner my name is francisco da costa and the last Ethics Commission, i was there in person. I i want to bring to your attention that a role of the Ethics Commission is very important to the citizens of San Francisco. And i want to bring to your attention an that recently an individual angel who has hoodwinking everybody in broad daylight. And he took. 15 years, 15 years to bring this person to book. And the Ethics Commission was aware of this person. Dealing with Community Benefits and failed us. And the Ethics Commission was aware of another person that worked with him. And failed us. And you have one commissioner who worked for the Fair Political Practices Commission who is aware of the situation. We want a adjudication based on Empirical Data that i provided to the comptroller, not this City Attorney, but the past City Attorney, he said on the information and prepare the way for him to become the general manager of the San FranciscoPublic Utilities commission in and new Ethics Commission have to adjudicate this case because initially you fail to do due to justice. No fair play, no sound adjudication. But looking the other way. Thank you very much. Next caller, please. Okay please stand by. Will we get the second caller going . Welcome caller your three minutes begins now. Can you hear me now . Yes. Great its david pilpel. Good morning. So i just had one brief comment. Ive been working through some complicated issues with staff recently. Theyre not relevant for todays agenda, but i just wanted to mention that my interactions with staff have been entirely professional. Theyve been quite helpful and were in a big problem solving mode. Some of the results may come to you at some point, but i just wanted to say that i really appreciate the professional work of your small but highly competent staff. Thats all for me for now. Thanks very much. Thank you. Madam chair. We have no, we dont have any further callers in the queue. Okay Public Comment is closed for agenda item number two. Lets go to consent calendar. There will be no separate discussions on the consent calendar item unless a request is made by a Commission Member or a member of the public in attendance, in which event the matter shall be removed from the consent calendar and considered as a separate item. Colleagues, any know anyone in the any member of the audience . No reflected so lets open up for Public Comment on consent calendar, please. Madam chair, we have no callers in the queue. Okay. Lets take a roll, please. Oh, we need to have a motion. I move to adopt the consent calendar second. Okay roll call, please. Okay. On the motion to adopt the consent calendar, vice chair of a chair. Lee. A commissioner salahi. A madam chair with three votes in the affirmative and zero votes opposed. The motion is approved unanimously. Okay, lets go to agenda item number five, which is an update and discussion regarding the march 2024 Ethics Commission ballot measure focus on gift training and other city ethics laws. Lets have our acting policy and legislative affairs manager, mr. Michael kenny, to give us an overview and answer any questions we may have. Thank you. Chair lee. Commissioners just to briefly recap, what was in the staff memo since the last meeting, staff have delivered the commissions approved ballot measure to the department of elections and worked with the chair to issue a press release regarding the measure. Submission staff have also followed up with the Mayors Office and the department of Public Health to notify them of the amendments that were made during the last meeting. Staff is currently working on developing additional materials for the public that will provide factual information about the measure. The staff also met yesterday with the department of elections to get more information about how the commission can submit ballot arguments which the commission has done with previous measures and drafts of those will come before the commission in the coming months. Weve also been in the process of developing initial draft regulations, actions related to section 3. 218 of the measure for the commission to consider in the future. And lastly, the memo has attached to it the City Attorneys 2022 memo on Political Activities, which was included as a reminder for commissioners and staff and the public regarding whats allowed and prohibited in relation to the measure and im happy to answer any questions. The commission has and Deputy Attorney brad rusty is also available for any questions on the Political Activities memo. Thank you. The packet was really helpful seeing the old ballot measure argument was really helpful to see how that works. Im just curious whether anyones reached out from the Mayors Office or anywhere else about substantive proposed regulatory anything they want to address in the proposed ballot in the ballot measure, language nothing specific. We updated the Mayors Office in relation to the financial interest rule that was removed, and i think conversations around that are moved to what would be an item six in relation to the legislation proposed by supervisor safai. So we havent heard anything specific related to the measure since then. Okay great. Thank you. Lets open up Public Comment. No one in the room. Lets go to the queue, please. Madam chair, we have one caller in the queue. Please stand by. Welcome caller your three minutes begins now. So commissioners. The public. They dont have the latest amendments that have been made. But we are trying to work with the Election Department meant to put some language and the gentleman who gave his short presentation seems to think that thats the way to do it. Commissioners. When it comes to behalf donations, we. With us at the board of supervisors. When the Mayors Office came with a proposition to get a waiver on behalf of donations is linked to a pac, a conference thats going to be held in november. What is happening here is that when it comes to gifts, training and other city ethics laws, we do not have standards as we need a language on standards. We need a language on how this department can get their orientation and how the heads of department are evaluated. It we need to focus on standards. The generalities of stating that we said this and they agreed to it. And the Election Department is going to put it on the ballot measure. We have no clue if they meet standards. And if you cannot do that as the Ethics Commission, that we have to revisit this type of talk. We where some generalities and the language is very general, but it has no standards. Thank you very much. Thank you, madam chair. We have no further callers in the queue. Any other callers who wish to address this item . None. Okay. Public comment is closed. I do have a question for our assistant City Attorney. What happens if we are asked, as in vigils . But people know that we serve on this commission to do get out the vote activity is not specifically on this specific ballot, but just urge members of the public to vote. Um im sorry, i didnt understand your question. Could you repeat it, please . If youre asked about i understand we cannot comment on on any specific ballot measures, but what happens if we are called upon to urge members of the public to vote to do the civic duties next year . Would that be allowable without touching anything on this ballot, just say, hey, please go out to vote. You know, you know , urge to vote generally in the election, but not with respect to this measure. No, just for the march election. I think thats probably okay for you to do. There are specific rules that apply under the charter to the commission with respect to your Political Activities and generally, youre really not supposed to be involved in election in endorsing candidates or measures regardless of what they are, including your own measure. I think likely just as a statement, we urge everyone to vote is probably okay because normally we do use our titles. But members of the press usually would identify us, whether its a member of the Ethics Commission, you know, even though we dont use it ourselves. And ive caught myself, you know, being on the receiving end. But all we have to do is just say all members of San Francisco. Citizens please go vote in march in the march, as long as youre not not youre not specifically referencing any measure or candidate, i think thats probably fine. But the newspaper would say, you know, commissioners sarlahi, member of the Ethics Commission, urge members of the public to vote in the march 2024 election. Right. I mean, if the article is about this measure, you might want to decline to comment. I think that probably would be the better course of action because by making any comment with respect to this measure, its going to be perceived as you endorsing, urging people to vote affirmatively for this measure, which would be an issue under your sire and under the charter rules. Does that make sense . No longer applies to me, but for my colleagues next year, it would be a potential issue. Im sorry. Im done. Im done by next march so i could speak my, my, my free will, right . Im not. Do you have another . I couldnt understand what you said. Im sorry. No, im just saying that for the for this item, it would impact my colleagues more. Okay. Jerry is indicating she will. No longer be a i think a commissioner at that time. Oh, right. When the ballot when the measure. Yeah, right. You wont be on the commission anymore. Right okay. Um um. So no action is required for this item. Lets go to agenda item number six. This which. Discussion of legislative proposal from the board of supervisors prohibiting city officials from receiving compensation from departmental contractor was again, lets have mr. Michael kenny to give us a review and answer any, uh. Thank you, chair lee. Commissioners this legislation was introduced by supervisor safai, which would prohibit officers and employees from receiving compensation from entities that contract with their departments. This this legislation is intended to address both real and perceived conflicts that can arise when a city official is employed by or receiving compensation from an entity thats contracting with their department. Some departments already have similar rules to this in their cities. Others do not. There was a similar rule that was included in a previous draft of the commissions ballot measure that was removed during last months meeting. Also during last months meeting, the commission discussed potentially narrowing this rule. So it applies only to form 700 filers. The legislation is currently being discussed as part of a process with city units. Theres been a meeting on that thus far and additional meetings will likely occur and there is a. Uh, information being exchanged as part of that that meeting confer, which will need to be finalized before either the city can implement this legislation if desired. The item was agendized today for the commission to be able to ask questions, identify priorities and discuss the legislation with representatives from supervisor safiyas office. I believe bill barnes is here from the Supervisors Office and is prepared to speak to the commission and take questions as well. Thank you, michael. Bill barnes with supervisor safiyas office. Want to thank the Ethics Commission for all of its hard work on the measure that will appear on the march ballot this was one part of that potential measure focused on individuals who are City Employees who are then being compensated by contractors of their departments. In general, we believe that outside employment should be allowed for City Employees. Some people, because they need to or because of professional reasons, seek outside employment. For example, a nurse at San Francisco general might also be a nurse at ucsf for a doctor, might go to a different facility so that we think thats okay. But what is not okay is when people who are making decisions are then being compensated in addition to their city salary by a contractor or their department as michael noted, many departments already prohibit this practice. Government code section 1090 prohibits this practice where an individual is part of making the rfp, they then cant profit from it later. Thats a state law, but theres not a clear standard in the code. So we drafted something that we thought was effective. It was narrower than what was in the proposed measure. And let me just talk about those differences quickly and then ill take any questions. We exempt any local, state or federal entity that has a contract from this prohibition. So, for example, you, ucsf or the Veterans Administration would be exempted and employees would be able to generate income there if the measure were to pass and we also ex