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OPENPUBLICA · PUBLIC MEETING RECORD

Record of Proceedings

Oakland Public Ethics Commission Special Meeting – February 15, 2023

Public Ethics Commission — Wednesday, February 15, 2023

BodyOakland, California

SessionPublic Ethics Commission

DateWednesday, February 15, 2023

StatusFILED

Video Record

0:00 / 2:15:40

Transcript — VerbatimClick a timed line to jump · ⧉ to share it

0:29

All right.

0:30

It looks like we have our lineup that is set to appear tonight.

0:37

So K top, we can start the recording.

0:42

Recording in progress.

0:44

And we can start uh recording on our end.

0:53

Start the webinar.

0:57

Great.

1:00

Okay.

1:02

Welcome everyone to the February special meeting of the Oakland Public Ethics Commission.

1:12

Let's start by taking the role.

1:18

Vice Chair Hill is absent.

1:21

I should note that Vice Chair Hill informed me that she would not be at the beginning of her meeting tonight, but may be able to attend a little bit later on.

1:32

So Commissioner Hill is absent.

1:34

Commissioner Gage.

1:37

Present.

1:38

Commissioner Pertit.

1:42

Present.

1:43

Commissioner Steele.

1:46

Present.

1:48

Commissioner Upton.

1:49

I'm here.

1:51

And I am also present.

1:54

So we have a quorum.

1:56

We can start the meeting.

1:57

I will start things off tonight by welcoming our new commissioners, Commissioner Gage and Commissioner Steele.

2:05

We are very happy to have you join us and we look forward to your contributions.

2:12

And also wanted to start off tonight just by reminding folks who may be in attendance and uh reminding commissioners that uh the PEC works to ensure compliance with the city's government ethics campaign finance, transparency, and lobbyist registration laws that aim to promote fairness, openness, honesty, and integrity in city government.

2:33

And a big item on our agenda tonight is a new law, Measure W that aims to enhance these ideals.

2:40

So we're looking forward to having a great discussion about that tonight and uh and hopefully a robust and productive one.

2:48

Um so uh with the table set, let's move to staff and commission announcements.

2:54

Are there any announcements from staff?

2:58

Yes, this is uh acting executive director, Suzanne Doran.

3:03

I do have a couple announcements.

3:05

One is just to acknowledge that um as as commissioners and the public may have seen from the website and um public announcements, there is a network outage resulting from a ransomware attack that started on Wednesday, February 8th.

3:22

Um we're still dealing with that citywide, and it has left several non-emergency systems offline.

3:29

It is impacting some of our work um in the city.

3:33

So that may be affecting timeliness of some of our response times.

3:38

Um the other thing I really wanted to remind everyone is that um the COVID-19 emergency declaration by the governor is been rescinded now.

3:51

So we will be meeting in person in March.

3:54

So our, you know, we've been meeting virtually for a couple of years now, but we will be meeting in hearing room one in in for our March meeting.

4:02

And just want to make sure everybody knows that.

4:04

We are hoping to to move to hybrid meetings in the future so that we can um add that avenue of accessibility to participation, but we're not there yet.

4:15

So we'll keep you in the loop on what's going on with that going forward.

4:19

And those are the announcements.

4:22

Thank you.

4:24

And uh looking forward to meeting in person and uh some of you for the first time.

4:30

And uh did want to also remind members of the public um that um as usual, uh, we do accept public comment by email.

4:42

Um so if you cannot attend an in-person meeting uh and you wish to comment, you can submit that comment um to our email address and um does someone from staff want to remind folks what that email address is.

5:01

That's ethics commission at Oakland CA dot G-O B.

5:07

Great.

5:08

Uh Commissioner Pertit.

5:10

Yeah, um Ms.

5:12

Doran, can you clarify whether or not when you say hybrid, are you speaking to the ability for um commissioners to appear hybrid in a hybrid fashion, or you're talking about the public to be able to participate through like Zoom presentation, like we're currently doing.

5:31

I guess I would say both and, but we don't have a process yet that will provide access for everyone at equitable access.

5:43

So that's not been um implemented yet.

5:47

So we're hoping to do it, but that's not available for the March meeting, and we'll keep everybody informed.

5:54

Thank you.

5:58

Um also bring up um that uh uh you and I discussed uh acting executive director Doran, um, was um that we may be asking commissioners to take part and helping to record uh the meetings in terms of uh just keeping track of of what happened.

6:22

Um and um I think that uh you know we'll be following up on that, but it may be something that we uh rotate between commissioners, and it's a it's a pretty simple task just of tracking what goes on at the meeting, and the reason why is because we're uh you know, we've got a lot of stress on staff time right now, and it's and it's something that uh uh as a commission um I said that uh we'd be able to uh help ease the burden on staff, and and it's also a way to uh uh have another set of eyes on it and make sure these meetings are recorded accurately.

6:57

Um, so that's something to be looking out for.

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting

Procedural█████████████████████████████████████████████56%

Public Ethics███████████14%

Public Engagement████████10%

Subcommittee Management█████6%

Measure W Implementation█████6%

Public Records Management███4%

Public Records██2%

Election Policy██2%

Summary of Proceedings

Oakland Public Ethics Commission Special Meeting – February 15, 2023

The Oakland Public Ethics Commission held a special meeting on February 15, 2023, at 6:30 p.m. via teleconference. The meeting addressed virtual meeting authorization, subcommittee updates, a cure and correction item, and an update on Measure W (Oakland Fair Elections Act) implementation. New commissioners Alea Gage and Vincent Steele were welcomed. The meeting concluded with a closed session on executive director recruitment.

Public Comments & Testimony

Ralph Kanz (multiple appearances) raised concerns about:
- The process for selecting commissioners at the January meeting, alleging that Ms. Gage received only three affirmative votes and questioning whether Mr. Steele's employment with Alameda County (which contracts with the city) disqualifies him.
- The lack of written, publicly discussed policies for selecting commissioners.
- The need for the city attorney to provide a written opinion on Steele's potential conflict of interest.
- Missing leaving-office Form 700 filings by former PEC members.
- The importance of making all subcommittee meetings public and updating the Sunshine Ordinance to reflect recent Brown Act and Public Records Act changes.
- The inadequacy of the cure and correction for the September 2022 agenda subscriber issue, arguing that the full item was not reheard and the communications representative was not present.
- The timing of Democracy Dollars voucher distribution (May 2024) before candidate qualification, suggesting it may allow non-candidates to collect funds.
- Objected to the closed session for executive director selection, asserting the process could be public and that applicant materials should have been attached to the agenda.

Discussion Items

Virtual Meetings (Resolution 23-02): The commission reviewed and adopted a resolution finding that in-person meetings present imminent health risks due to COVID-19, authorizing continued teleconference meetings. The resolution passes 5-0 (Vice Chair Hill absent). Staff announced that the state COVID emergency declaration had been rescinded and that March 2023 meetings would be in-person, with hopes for hybrid in the future.
Approval of January 11, 2023 Meeting Minutes: Deputy City Attorney Trish Shafie advised that the two new commissioners could not vote on the minutes because they were not seated at that meeting. With only three eligible voting members present (needing four for a quorum), the item was tabled by a 5-0 vote to the next meeting.
Subcommittee Reports:
- Outreach Subcommittee (Upton, chair) – not met; planning to meet in March.
- Measure W Implementation Subcommittee (Perteet, chair) – met informally; staff report provided update; larger policy questions to be discussed by full commission.
- Executive Director Selection Subcommittee (Micik, chair) – upcoming closed session.
- Chair Micik floated creating a new Sunshine/Transparency subcommittee to address public records and open government issues.
Cure and Correction (Agenda Subscriber Issue): Staff presented the item out of an abundance of caution. No action was taken; it was an informational item from September 2022. Public comment criticized the process. Chair noted commission is working to improve agenda transparency.
Measure W Implementation Update (Acting Executive Director Suzanne Doran): Doran reported on budget deliverables, staffing, technology system business requirements, outreach, and a revised timeline. She described Democracy Dollars packets – physical vouchers and educational materials – to be sent to all ~246,000 Oakland registered voters by April 2024, with options for paper and eventual online use. Discussion included success metrics, public input, and the possibility of inviting Seattle or Bay Area Political Equality Collaborative representatives to a future meeting. Commissioner Gage sought clarification on voter interfaces.

Key Outcomes

Adopted Resolution 23-02 (virtual meetings) – unanimous 5-0.
Tabled approval of January 11, 2023 meeting minutes to the next regular meeting.
Noted subcommittee reports; new commissioners asked to consider committee assignments.
Cure and correction item discussed with no action taken.
Measure W implementation update received; staff directed to bring success metrics to the March meeting and consider inviting external experts.
Commission entered closed session at approximately 7:46 p.m. to discuss executive director recruitment (Commissioner Perteet exited at 7:46, Commissioner Hill joined at 7:54). Meeting adjourned after closed session without further public action.

Meeting Transcript

All right. It looks like we have our lineup that is set to appear tonight. So K top, we can start the recording. Recording in progress. And we can start uh recording on our end. Start the webinar. Great. Okay. Welcome everyone to the February special meeting of the Oakland Public Ethics Commission. Let's start by taking the role. Vice Chair Hill is absent. I should note that Vice Chair Hill informed me that she would not be at the beginning of her meeting tonight, but may be able to attend a little bit later on. So Commissioner Hill is absent. Commissioner Gage. Present. Commissioner Pertit. Present. Commissioner Steele. Present. Commissioner Upton. I'm here. And I am also present. So we have a quorum. We can start the meeting. I will start things off tonight by welcoming our new commissioners, Commissioner Gage and Commissioner Steele. We are very happy to have you join us and we look forward to your contributions. And also wanted to start off tonight just by reminding folks who may be in attendance and uh reminding commissioners that uh the PEC works to ensure compliance with the city's government ethics campaign finance, transparency, and lobbyist registration laws that aim to promote fairness, openness, honesty, and integrity in city government. And a big item on our agenda tonight is a new law, Measure W that aims to enhance these ideals. So we're looking forward to having a great discussion about that tonight and uh and hopefully a robust and productive one. Um so uh with the table set, let's move to staff and commission announcements. Are there any announcements from staff? Yes, this is uh acting executive director, Suzanne Doran. I do have a couple announcements. One is just to acknowledge that um as as commissioners and the public may have seen from the website and um public announcements, there is a network outage resulting from a ransomware attack that started on Wednesday, February 8th. Um we're still dealing with that citywide, and it has left several non-emergency systems offline. It is impacting some of our work um in the city. So that may be affecting timeliness of some of our response times. Um the other thing I really wanted to remind everyone is that um the COVID-19 emergency declaration by the governor is been rescinded now. So we will be meeting in person in March. So our, you know, we've been meeting virtually for a couple of years now, but we will be meeting in hearing room one in in for our March meeting. And just want to make sure everybody knows that. We are hoping to to move to hybrid meetings in the future so that we can um add that avenue of accessibility to participation, but we're not there yet. So we'll keep you in the loop on what's going on with that going forward. And those are the announcements. Thank you. And uh looking forward to meeting in person and uh some of you for the first time. And uh did want to also remind members of the public um that um as usual, uh, we do accept public comment by email. Um so if you cannot attend an in-person meeting uh and you wish to comment, you can submit that comment um to our email address and um does someone from staff want to remind folks what that email address is. That's ethics commission at Oakland CA dot G-O B. Great.

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