That's very loud.

Is that better?

Okay, it's still loud.

Someone fixing it.

So I'll remind people, as we have comments if the uh if they're on Zoom, to uh go ahead and make the comment.

So we're going to now move on to item three open forum.

Before we start, I want to go over the public comment process so we all know what to expect.

A member of the public may speak on any item appearing on the agenda.

If you wish to speak during open forum, or on an item that is uh or on an item that is on our agenda site, please stay seated until that item is called.

And when I open the floor for public comment on the item, please come to the podium.

Tonight we will also be accepting public comments from participants joining via Zoom and by phone.

When an item is called and you wish to comment on that you wish to comment on, please use the raise hand feature on Zoom or press nine if you are participating by phone.

When it is your turn to speak, staff will call your name and unmute your line.

Speakers are generally allotted one three-minute turn to speak per item, subject to change by the chair based on the number of speakers.

So everyone gets a chance to speak and be heard.

Please leave the podium promptly when your allotted time is up.

Participants on Zoom will be muted when their time is up.

I also want to clarify how we handle public comment, both during open forum and during public comment periods later on in the agenda, so that everyone is confident that they'll have a chance to be heard and knows what to expect.

Open forum is a time for members of the public to comment on any matter within the jurisdiction of the PEC that is not on tonight's agenda.

Commissioners cannot discuss the substance of any comments made during open forum, not because we're not interested, because the item, but because the item is not on tonight's agenda.

However, we listen to what you have to say.

The purpose of public comment is for us to hear from you.

It is not a time for commissioners to talk, answer questions, or have dialogue.

It is a time for us to listen.

Again, public comment is not a time for commissioners to talk or answer questions.

After the close of each public comment period, we may address questions or concerns that you have raised.

For example, I may ask you to give the staff your contact information so that they can follow up with you and give you information you've requested.

Or I may ask the city attorney for information about an issue raised in public comment.

A commissioner may address questions in a general manner to clarify the commission's policies, or I may ask staff to explain their procedures.

However, once each public comment period is closed, it remains closed until the public comment is reopened on the next agenda item, which you will again have a chance to speak during public comment.

Lastly, while you are free to express yourself, the commission urges members of the public not to make complaints or ask the commission to investigate alleged legal violations at public meetings, since public disclosure of such complaints or requests may undermine any subsequent investigation.

Please contact staff at Ethics Commission at Oaklandca.gov for assistance in filing a complaint.

If there's anyone who would like to be heard during open forum tonight, I invite you to line up at the mic.

And if you're participating virtually, please use the raise hand feature on Zoom or press nine if you wish if you're participating by phone.

Please state your name each time you make a public comment if you wish it to be recorded.

Again, you will have three minutes and the timer is there, so you'll know when it's time to wrap up.

And I also note we have one written comment as well.

Does anyone want to make any public comments?

I'll ask me that.

Oh, okay.

Gene has it.

When the most recent three members were appointed to this body, they came in and they voted on something they knew nothing about.

There were three dismissals I had put forth.

And it's an installed to the public when you don't even know what you're voting on.

And that related to the ballot measure.

When the enforcement chief, that the special election ballot measure, April 15th, 2025, which the enforcement chief summarily dismissed it.

It's within the jurisdiction of the body, ballot measures.

And what happened during that time in the court, they miss routed my writ that I filed on May 19th, 2025, right before the city council certified the election results.

They could not do that.

But because it was rerouted to a general civil matter and not a writ, a temporary restraining order, for 333 days, I've been dealing with this.

And they're correcting that error.

If you had read what the issues were rather than rubber stamping what the other members on this body did, you wouldn't be in this situation right now.

I provided you a couple of things.

A complaint I made, and also issues around that's going to come before this body related to what the mayor did in a tie vote on April 14th, which finalized that matter.

It cannot be continued to the subsequent meeting.

Opining that a tie vote fails right there.

That matter could not be continued to May 5.

This is the issue around the protected tree ordinance 12.36.

That's coming before this body.

And so I'm letting you know in advance, so if the enforcement chief tries to dismiss it, it'll be wrong.

You got the information in front of you with regards to the core legal issues around a tie vote.

Thank you, Mr.

Hazard.

Any other public comment?

Good evening, Ralph Cans.

Case you were unaware this last in about the last week, the judge in Fresno County brought down a ruling that the ad hoc subcommittee scheme that the Fresno City Council was using was a violation of the law.

It's very similar to the ad hoc subcommittee scheme this commission's been using.

And if you want to go on the First Amendment coalition website, they have all the legal documents associated with the case, and you can see what happened.

But one of the key items in whether or not a committee must be publicly noticed committee meeting is continuing subject matter jurisdiction.

So when this commission has democracy dollars committees, and then says, oh, we're going to shut it down before 12 months and then start it up over again.

That's not legal.

It's continuing subject matter jurisdiction.

You cannot do that.

It's well established law.

And I don't understand why you don't want to have public meetings when the public, it would be well served, and you'd be well served by having public involved.

I would encourage all you to look look at what went on in that case because what you're doing is not legal, and you've refused to ask the city attorney for a written opinion.

And this city attorney misrepresented the law to you when he stated that the Brown Act defines an ad hoc subcommittee because the Brown Act never defines an ad hoc subcommittee and never mentions the term ad hoc.

And that comes back to another problem, that this commission should have independent legal advice independent of the city attorney's office, because and that should be in the charter just like it is for the police commission.

And tonight is a perfect example where you have a proposal by the mayor to alter the charter, and you have the same attorney who represents the mayor giving you legal advice about the legality of the process that's been used to make that proposal.

It's a conflict of interest under the bar rules, and there's a number of people in this room that know better.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Cannes.

Any other public comment?

Do we have anything on anyone on Zoom?

Or okay.

Uh I noticed that we did not quite get to item two staff and commissioner announcements.

So open forum is done.

Let's now do item two staff and commissioner announcements.

Are there any staff and commissioner announcements?

Chair, if I may, um can I have a brief comment before we move on to item two on public forum?

Sure.

Uh first of all, I absolutely agree with Mr.

Cannes that we should have independent legal uh guidance here.

That's something that this commission proposed a couple of years ago as part of our proposal for charter reform, and I agree with it.

Uh, second of all, um, there was a as you mentioned, there was a written comment that we received from Jesse Lucas, and it suggests an item for a future agenda, and includes a link.

When I went to the PEC website to click on the link, the PDF did not have the link as clickable.

I wanted to find out if anyone here had actually been able to click on that and find out what this comment is suggesting we add to the agenda.

What what do we do with how do how do things get on our agenda?

I think we add them right.

Right, but this would be this is just a public comment though, suggesting that we that we add it.

Um so we added that because that's our practice when we receive public comment, but this is someone that staff has assisted and responded to, um, and the reference complaint is something that was uh we already had administrative hearing at closed several years ago.

Um so that's that's basically the status.

If if there was anything to be done with it in terms of our enforcement program, it wouldn't be something appropriate to discuss at the meeting because that would then be about uh an open complaint.

Okay, I understand.

That's all.

Okay, any other anything else for open form before we all right.

Now we're at staff and commissioner announcements, any staff and commissioner announcements.

Good evening, everybody.

Just very briefly, I'll talk about this more under the executive director report, but um an item of discussion has been the scheduling of our um strategic planning retreat special meeting, and so I just kind of I wanted to let everybody know to hold the dates of um August 12th and 13th, and then the following week the 19th and the 20th, and I'll give more information on that later in the report.

Great, um, and we need actually public comment for staff and commissioner announcements.

Any public comment on that?

All right, so now I think we are at item four, which is uh the local public financing update presentation.

Uh Dee, please.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

Um, thanks for having me.

My name is Dee Azarmi, and I am here on behalf of Common Cause California.

I'm the money and politics program manager there, and I'm just gonna be giving kind of an update on local public financing for y'all this evening.

Um, I'm gonna try to not talk too fast, although there is a lot of information, so that we'll have time for discussion at the end.

Um, but uh I do have a slide deck.

Are you all will you have to turn to view that?

Or okay, let's see.

Let's see if I can get myself situated here with tech.

Um, so I don't know if I can make it expand on the whole screen.

Showing your speaker.

Um, yeah, that's just gonna zoom in.

Let me see.

Sorry, I can't see very well with that glare.

Yeah, on my end it's full screen, but up there it's not.

If I just watched it, I don't remember how to do it.

I just studied last.

I mean, if that can work for y'all, it's fine with me too.

I just looks a bit smaller.

Yeah, um, thank you.

I think it's good.

Not my member, right?

Not my best area, I'll admit.

So um, so yeah, I uh just kind of go into uh a higher level overview nationally, and then we'll talk about California, some of the models here, uh, and then uh as well as in Seattle.

So um we'll just start off with a quote here and I'll just read it because I know it's kind of hard to see.

Um so this is a quote from uh a Brennan Center report that's uh heavily cited.

Um it says public financing of campaigns counters the outsize influence of wealthy special interest money in elections, invites more candidate competition and voter choice, encourages candidates to seek small dollar contributions from a broader base of donors, and promotes a candidate pool that's more responsive to constituents and less beholden to money interests.

So I thought that was a pretty comprehensive description and thought we could start there.

Um so just for a high-level update, so we're kind of on on the same page.

Um the government accountability office recently published a report that assesses public financing uh across the country, across 14 different states and 26 different municipalities, and just to kind of level set uh the models that they looked at, the three primary models are uh grant-based, so that are those are uh lump sum grants of public funds.

Um, one of the most popular is matching funds, where public funds match private contributions at a set rate, and then also vouchers, um, which uh where all eligible residents receive credit uh so that they can use public funds to candidates that they choose.

So across the board, all of the programs that were analyzed, and there were nine of them nationally, um, uh, there the analysts found that uh that candidates are attracted to public campaign financing because it provides an accessible source of funding, and especially uh that extends to folks who don't have extensive fundraising experience.

Um, and again, across the board, they considered uh public financing, and this is a powerful quote, but likely the best reform for addressing the negative impacts of unlimited money in US elections.

Um, and just a side note, I'm I'm sure I'm not sure maybe some of you saw today, but um there was a new um bill introduced by Senator Sanders and the Senate and a companion bill uh by Representative Lee in the House, and that that is another avenue for a solution that would cap campaign contributions across the board at $5,000.

And the attempt of that, that's an attempt to undo some of the damages done by Citizens United.

So maybe they weren't aware of that when this quote was said.

But just to say this is seen public financing is seen as one of the strongest ways to push back against the influence of money in our elections.

And so going from national just to zoning in on California a bit now, likewise, some of you may know the California Fair Elections Act, or also known as SB 42, that was legislatively referred last year, is going to be on the ballot this fall.

And so that is something common cause and a lot of organizations in California are looking at.

But that being said, you know, there are about around a quarter of the cities in California are charter cities, so like what is that 121 of the 482?

So around about a quarter.

But all of the public financing programs that exist are in charter cities that are larger with, you know, with average larger populations, and so those include Berkeley, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, Richmond, Sacramento, and San Francisco.

That being said, there's a diversity of types of public financing programs within there.

So the most common is the matching program, which Los Angeles was the second municipality, large municipality in the country to implement.

And alongside San Francisco and Berkeley, they do six to one matching.

And then in Richmond, it there's a bit of a unusual lump sum model that's kind of a standalone.

And then likewise here in Oakland, there's kind of an older model that is based on candidate expenditures and directly reimburses candidate expenditures.

And again, those are when you kind of think of like the waves of public finance, those are kind of in the older wave, if you will, in you know, in uh when uh financing first came about there was kind of the the matching, and then it expanded into lump sum and kind of grant funding.

You saw growing uh of that in uh you know the 90s and 2000s, and you know, Connecticut and Arizona, and then most recently I've if I'm thinking of the waves of feminism first wave, second wave, and the third wave would be like democracy dollars and vouchers, right?

Um, but so that's just a little more context on what we have here in California.

Um, and you know, it's been working um for decades in many of these places.

So just as kind of high-level impacts of these programs in our state.

Um, so uh, and you can just see kind of the bulleted main points here.

I'm won't go through everyone in the sake of time, but um, you know, the first and foremost is the amplification of small donors and you know, giving everyday uh residents a chance to be more involved in elections.

So it's not just seen as something for um you know wealthier folks, um it reduces dependence on big money, you know.

Obviously, we'll look at some graphs specific to San Francisco and LA in a moment that show that, but you know, broadening candidate access, um again, giving folks who are more in, you know, uh grassroots first-time, you know, uh non-wealthy candidates, the ability to run and get involved in politics, and that ties in with you know strengthening competitiveness, um, you know, when more folks are able to access elections and get actually run, that increases competitiveness and it decreases incumbency advantage, which is frankly something that really is prohibitive in politics and and discourages people from running.

Um and of course, that goes along with improving transparency and public trust.

Um, and uh again, California really has decades of evidence of the impacts of these programs.

And so just a quick quick little story time before going into some graphs.

Many folks are familiar with, you know, I guess most recently in New York, you know, there's Zoram Mamdani's victory was something that is on a lot of young people's minds, and it wouldn't have been possible without campaign finance matching funds.

But here in California, we have two great examples, you know, that are both very recent.

And so probably the better known is in 2022, Mayor Karen Bass was running a campaign against a self-funded billionaire who put 22.5 million dollars into his own campaign, and she was still able to compete by securing over a million dollars in matching funds from everyday people, and she still won the race.

And so there's a quote there from her, but you know, I just paraphrase for you the story there.

And then also in San Francisco in 2024, you can see Mayor Breed was able to secure her graph is at the very top there, and she was able to secure double the number of campaign contributions than two of her components that you see there at the very bottom.

And again, that's amazing, and we'll talk more about that.

But what these programs do is they give people the ability to connect with voters.

That's one of the things that you hear the most about people from people when they run, is it gives them the ability to connect with folks and not spend all their time fundraising.

So look, let's look deeper at Los Angeles, and you can see here.

I have a graph that I'll break down for you all a little bit, but just high-level background.

So you know, it was established through voter-approved reform in 1990.

Uh, it's six-to-one matching funds, it applies to mayoral, city attorney, controller, and city council, um, and it just matches you know public funds with with private funds, and there are you know, specific rules and contribute contribution thresholds and things folks have to agree to before they can you know uh be part of the program.

And just like a high-level difference to um is that uh I I read that there was a framing of in Los Angeles, there's a framing based on competition.

How do candidates compete with a heavy media market in mind that's often saturated with lots of money and is very prohibitive to many folks, and that's kind of in contrast to the San Francisco model, which I'll talk about in a second.

Um, but but it's very impactful if you look at the graph here on the page.

Um, there are really staggering uh results that that came from the LA program.

And so at a high level, you know, you can say there's expanded grassroots and small donor fundraising, helps candidates compete against wealthy or self-funded opponents, um, it allows candidates to spend more time on engagement, as I said, but if you look at these graphs here, something that's uh very interesting is that there's in so and we'll look at 2020 and then 2022, because 2022 ties into the story that we just talked about, and you can actually see the direct impact that one individual's bankrolling of the election had on across all candidates.

And so let's look at the 2020 um results here.

You see that there's about four times the number of folks who participated in the public financing program versus those that did not.

So there was around 1,200 uh that participated and 480 that did not.

Um, and you see that there um it's interesting because their contributions were about a third less than the folks who uh who did not participate, which makes sense.

But fast forward to 2020, and when you look at these numbers, it's it's just staggering is the only word I can think of.

Because if you look at city council, you see a very big difference between city council and then mayoral and the other offices.

And so city council, there was an average of 12 times of the amount of contributions for folks who participated in public financing versus those that did not.

Um, and you can see there on city council there's a similar similar level, not a huge difference in the amount of money that they received, just a big difference in the participation.

When you look down at Mayoral and the other offices, so there's a there's a 12-time increase in participants versus not participants, but the amount of money, there's 40% the the average amount of money for non-participants was 46 times higher than those who participated.

So you're talking about an average campaign contribution for participants of 533 versus a non-participants average of 24,782.

And that goes back to the story that we just talked about with how much outside money, outside expenditures are coming in.

And this is happening everywhere.

This is just, you know, one recent example from Los Angeles.

So I just wanted to point that out because it's not immediately noticeable in the graph until you do a little bit of the calculations there.

Um now let's hop over to San Francisco, and again, just kind of talking about the framing.

Whereas in LA, they were really focused on competition and how to get folks in.

Um San Francisco's system really came about with more of a question around how do we build an accountable campaign finance system.

And so that led to there being a kind of an oversight centered model, a lot more tracking.

You know, the the San Francisco also created a public ethics commission.

So a lot of times when you read about these programs, there's a lot more siding of San Francisco, and that has to do with that kind of difference in the framing and the priorities and the rollout, if that makes sense.

It doesn't necessarily mean that one is more effective than the other.

Obviously, there are very different cities with you know a lot of nuance and differences, but I just wanted to break that out as a at a high level before we just go into some of the basics.

Um but again, also approved by voters in the year 2000, again has the six to one matching, applies to Merit and Board of Supervisors, and there's a big difference between the amount of money that goes to mayoral candidates versus public financing.

Um it's about one fifth for supervisors versus the mayoral.

Um, but again, it's it's the same matching small donor private contributions with public funds.

Um, and so some of the high-level impacts that uh they've tracked in San Francisco are that public financing became a big share of campaign expenditures overall.

So if you look at the graph there, you know, as opposed to when it didn't exist, you can see on the left that private funds are around 55%, whereas public funds are around 45%.

So it's significantly increased the amount of money going into that, which indicates how many people are using the program.

Um, and beyond that, um there they've seen a decrease in um in third party spending, and I know that you know there's some back and forth on that.

Um, you know, things are static, right?

It's not going to always remain the same, but generally speaking, that is the trend that they have observed.

Um, and uh there's also been um you know viability of candidates in incumbent heavy elections, uh, you know, which has been an issue there, um, and just generally again um long-term transparency and oversight infrastructure that has remained as a result of um the implementation of the program.

Um now let's hop track.

So so the idea there was just to kind of think about California and the matching programs that you know exist here, and then hopping over to Seattle, where democracy dollars does exist, and go a little bit deeper into that, talking about some of the impacts of the program, some of the public opinion surrounding the program, and um it's it's recent uh reapproval and some of the dynamics around that.

So, just kind of off the cuff, um that program has been it was passed by voters in 2015 and it was implemented in 2017, um, and so it kind of just completed its you know its first 10-year run, and we'll talk about how it was refunded in a moment, but it provides residents with four 25 dollar vouchers, um and it was really uh designed to reduce the role of big money in politics by giving everyday people you know a voucher, um, and um obviously this inspired some reform here in Oakland.

Um, and so some of the impacts there are um just generally expanded political participation.

So 88% of the for uh voucher users were first-time local political political donors, which is amazing.

Um, low propensity voters became 7.4 times more likely to vote.

Previous non-voters became 10.2 times more likely to vote, and there was a five-fold increase in small donors between 2015 and 2021.

Beyond that, there's increased turnout and civic engagement, um, so uh increased general turnout by 4.9 percentage points, low propensity voters are engaging and using the vouchers in the elections, and just an increase in grassroots outreach and voter engagement.

And then there the city saw a lot more diverse and competitive elections.

So over 80% of candidates were participating in the program.

This is increasing participation for younger women of color and women.

And then there was just an overall 86% increase in the number of candidates in general per race, not necessarily in those categories that I just named.

But so that being said, there's been a lot of effects.

Oh, and another big one was that large contributions over 250 dollars decreased by 93%.

So again, these are significant impacts that were experienced in Seattle.

And beyond just the kind of impacts in the city, thinking about the voter satisfaction and what voters felt about the program, because we all know how important that also is, 90% of the voucher users reported, and this is from a report from you know from the Seattle office.

So 90% of the voucher users reported satisfaction with the program.

More than half of them said that they were extremely satisfied with the program.

And again, this is coming from all voters, but um especially there were increases in residents in areas where there was less participation or donor diversity, and just generally, again, low-income residents, people of color, and first-time political donors all saw increases in representation.

And so this all leads to just a general sense of increased civic trust and engagement that the staff and the community feel about the program.

And so, you know, the general takeaway was that voters felt like they could influence an election more despite you know attempts of special interest to come in and quite literally purchase seats and elections, and so you know all of that is very um, you know, inspiring to me at least.

But um when it comes down to polling, um, there's a group called People Powered Elections, and they projected that it would uh that the voucher program would pass again at around 66%.

And so they were a little bit off it passed with 59% of the support of voters last August.

So the program has been refunded, and um, you know, that is despite ongoing city budget pressures and and deficits.

They were actually able to not only renew the program, but they managed to increase the funding of the program by a third going from three million dollars annually to 4.5 million dollars annually, and these budget documents are available on their website if you're interested to view that further.

Um, all that to say um there, you know, there's a there's a history there of over 10 years of this program working, and it was just reapproved due to the impacts that it's made in the city.

Um, and so when we look back to California, while it may seem that there hasn't been as much momentum in things being passed, there are active coalitions that are working on this, and we actually just supported coalitions in Southern California by uh producing a new report.

It's not available uh yet, it's still in a draft form, but I'll be sure to send that to y'all whenever it's finalized.

And so it's called outspend and outvoiced, and um it really analyzes uh the risks of pay-to-play and talks about how uh voucher programs can be a big asset to addressing some of the problematic dynamics in those communities, and this is under the direction and in partnership with the coalitions that are pushing this work forward.

Um, so that being said, um, there is a there is a wave effect.

You know, we've seen this with independent redistricting commissions, um, and it is happening as well with public financing, it may just not be as centered.

Um, so that being said, um, just taking it back to Oakland and kind of where where we are now, um, you know, Oakland has seen an increase in in independent expenditures coming from outside.

This is again not unique uh to Oakland, this is happening everywhere, but this is especially uh prevalent in the recent recall elections.

There is a lot that goes into that.

There's a lot that can be analyzed, a lot of different angles, but what matters is folks in the community see that and they know that that something is up with it and something is uh something is not normal when you know two uh major positions in a city are recalled and you're having hundreds of millions or sorry, hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars of outside expenditures coming in and influencing local elections.

And so that being said, I think that's probably why Oakland voters passed this program with such a high percentage of the vote.

You know, 74% of voters are agreeing on on a program like this and implementing it is a really big deal.

Um, and while it's somewhat common with programs like this because they are popular with the public, again, that's a very high number.

Um, and so that being said, um, you know, democracy dollars programs, like uh voucher systems in particular, they can't eliminate the problems that we face.

But again, going back to the government accountability office report and the quote that they said they are it's one of the best solutions that we have, um, you know, that is agreed upon.

Um, and so that being said, um I just wanted to throw that last slide up here because um, you know, it really is something that folks know um, they know they voted for it and they're kind of wondering, you know, where it is and and where things are moving.

So that's all I really prepared for us today.

Uh, and I'm happy to, you know, have any dialogue or answer any questions you might have.

Anyone want to ask questions?

Thank you, by the way.

No problem.

Yeah, I do have a question, Chair.

Uh, thank you.

Uh, great, great presentation.

I did just have two questions.

In your research uh with these other um cities, especially Seattle, what was the minimum age uh requirement to participate in the programs?

And then, secondly, in community engagement, what are some examples of successes of enrolling or encouraging our citizens to their citizens to uh participate?

That's a really that's a really great question.

Thank you.

So, you know, in order to run for office, you know, folks need to be 18 most of the time.

Um, so that is um the age that I came across in terms of the impact of who turns out.

Uh actually, um, and this is something I had a conversation with um the um the director in Seattle about, um, was about who is participating in the program, and they did see somewhat of a shift, you know.

Initially, there weren't as many young folks involved, but as you know, they got the program implemented, and as there was more awareness around it, and they started using social media and different ways of getting the word out, um, there there actually are some really interesting graphs that show um turnout by district, and you can see measurable increases in the youth vote, and uh and I think you know, she said it really depends on who's running and who who there's excitement around as well.

Um, and so there is it's not like across the board all districts had the same level of increase, but you can see some districts sometimes outperform others based on who's running.

Um, and so um some of the successes um that they had actually one of the questions I asked was around um I was surprised to learn that um the vouchers are paper, and they actually didn't start the program off um you know with uh you know e-ballots or anything like that, and but that actually is something that you know it just works for everybody, right?

So, although it is something that maybe um is kind of associated with with older voters, it's actually something that you know everybody is excited about using and they get their vouchers in the mail and they you know they take them.

Um so um, so yeah, there was I'm happy to talk more about you know what uh what they found success in, but um, you know, it's it's just gone up in participation.

There has not been like dips in participation in the program at all.

Um, and she felt as though it really impacted the politic of the community by continuously encouraging candidates who were not kind of who were in politics um, you know, before and so I I'll just say that.

Yeah, other questions.

Uh thank you very much for the presentation.

That was that was great.

Um, we've had obviously a lot of conversations here about the Seattle experience with uh their voucher program is an instructive experience for our implementation of the program.

Uh, but I was hoping to get your additional insight on that as well, since you've looked at it and you've talked about it in this report as to um what some of the growing pains have been there, what's some of the the challenges that they've faced there, and how that could be instructive for our implementation of the program, for example, with making certain that the communities that we really want to be helped by this actually get help and actually use the program in terms of traditionally underrepresented communities, and just general uptake of the program.

I know that Seattle has had a usage rate that some people were uh disappointed by and that they've worked hard on getting that up.

So what can you tell us about some of the initial pitfalls that they've had there that we might find instructive as we work towards implementing this program?

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, and I think when you're the first place to do something, you know that that's something that you don't have a baseline to compare to.

And I that's a specific question, you know, I did ask was, you know, what were some of those challenges, and that is why they have focused so heavily on outreach.

For example, they've really leaned into the trusted messenger model uh to giving local organizations grants and working in in partnership with them to make sure that you know folks are going out into their own communities and having those conversations.

Um they had a fairly significant amount of money in in their budget.

I can't remember the exact dollar amount right now, but um, but it was something that caught my eye.

Um, and and she said, you know, yes, that's absolutely something that um has helped because that was a struggle, you know, at first.

Is you can see, well, who's going to participate?

Well, who typically participates off the cuff, right?

Without certain types of, you know, innovating outreach, um, or um, you know, another thing that they did was uh they did like a bus campaign and uh and on the tram where they you know they had that um information about the program and QR codes and stuff like that, so folks could see that information and access it again, casting a wider net.

Um they I um thought that the paper would be kind of a hurdle, but again, um I I asked about um you know the cost also um if they felt that there was a uh higher cost associated with using paper only.

Um I think again they didn't have much to compare it to, so they're like, you know, it hasn't been an issue, it's working well, but that that could be an area where they weren't they didn't start with that.

They didn't really jump in using electronic, you know, forms or or uh you know leaning towards online.

Um, and so that might be an area, it's an area where they haven't really expanded as much.

They're just kind of going with what works, but I think that again, that's an area where um, you know, I they do have to print and then they mail it out.

And so I think that that might be, you know, definitely an area to look further into that could, you know, have some cost savings associated with it, and also speak to a different um, you know, demographic of people, um, and again putting that together with some of those other outreach methods that they had.

But certainly the number one issue was kind of getting the word out and getting people to um you know expect the vouchers and consistently use them, but um again, using these kind of innovative um outreach methods uh has been successful, um she felt, and then um you know uh beyond that there um there's just been an excitement around who's running in the community that has kind of worked um for itself, and so I think that's something that you know is to be expected.

It may not be immediate, but as as a program continues on, um, is something that kind of naturally seemed to happen there.

Thank you.

Um you talked in your presentation about this building momentum for additional public financing of elections that's happening right now.

As I'm sure you're aware here in Oakland, we had the passage of Measure W, but since then, due to uh difficult budget situation, it's been hard to keep that momentum going here because when there's a scarce budget, it's a hard sell to divert funds into public financing of elections.

As you looked across different jurisdictions in California and you saw uh still continuing support, at least among some folks for increasing the amount of public financing of elections.

What do you think resonates with folks?

What's some of the pushback that you hear and and and how do you see that sort of playing out when you have this this balancing act that policymakers have to have between uh this priority and other priorities that other folks might find more pressing?

Yeah, and I mean, you know, that it's a really real issue.

And I I think that the thing that stands out is like when voters pass a thing, they remember that they did that, and when that doesn't come to fruition, um, you know, that that is an area of concern, just like every other issue, right?

Um, and so although we are facing a fiscal crisis, they also see where you know pub public works or public safety or other places are still able to secure funding.

Um, and so, you know, I would say that when it comes to other places, they have basically just delivered on what they were legally required to deliver upon.

And I think that the effect of doing that um is that you know folks see that, um, and then that excitement builds, and then that is when I was talking about kind of the ripple effect, that catches on and and it grows.

Um and so I didn't do in-depth interviews with each individual place.

Um, so I'm not gonna speak as if I did do that, but generally speaking, a lot of coalition spaces and a lot of organizational folks that I've spoken with, that is kind of the general feeling, is like there's this there's an aspect of ownership about this um that people feel connected to, and it lands a little bit differently than other um, you know, areas of policy, if that makes sense, and it's totally different than a lot of the other real policy struggles that we see and face, but again, it leads to a solution that can invite people in to politics which in an eventually has an effect on the policies that they see in their communities, and that's something that was very clear in Seattle.

Thank you very much.

I'll just I'll I'll let other folks chime in, but you mentioned the uh the California Fair Elections Act uh expanding public financing uh throughout the state.

Is that is that something that would have any impact on us here in Oakland, or is that just since we already have it, it doesn't.

Thanks for asking.

Yeah, so it will open the door to public financing.

So we're expecting to see again, just going back to the numbers and just quick answer.

Um it's not gonna have an effect on Oakland or any specific place because it doesn't mandate any implementation.

It simply allows it.

That being said, um, given the number of charter cities that there are in the state, which is again around a quarter, it was like a hundred and twenty or one or so, according to the League of California Cities, um, those are only a quarter of places can implement these programs right now and already look at this the seven that have are comprising 16% of the population, and that's working around this ban that is in place.

So once the ban is removed, the expectation is that the programs are going to expand um bec uh possibly rapidly because this is something that communities are aware of and do want, um, despite the cost, again, it just passed in Seattle with you know, uh with a majority of of folks voting to reimplement it, despite some of the concerns, you know, that you said about productivity or um you know or what have you, you know.

Um, so so we're we're expecting it to to grow for sure.

And this ban has been in place for decades.

Um so I have I have a few questions.

Thanks again for that excellent presentation.

So in either San Francisco, LA or Seattle, um, are the public financing programs or voucher programs in the case of Seattle funded through just the general fund for those cities, or is there a dedicated funding stream like a tax measure or something that that provides dedicated funding?

Yeah, so that's a really good question.

And that is uh, you know, part of the struggle is often the uh parcel taxes or there's a certain there's a specific funding mechanism that is built in.

Okay, is that true for for much of these three?

Um I I believe I'm I can't say for sure.

I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure, um, but I I don't think any of them are coming from the general fund actively.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Seattle's got a parcel tax or something like that.

Yeah, Seattle had definitely has a parcel tax.

Um, I can I can double check on um SFN LA and let you know, but um I'm pretty sure that they're I think I think that would be helpful just because there are in our state and you know, yeah, yeah.

Our cities we compare ourselves to.

Um, I guess my second question is somewhat in a way hypothetical, obviously, since we have Measure W, but you know, you talked about you've given us data on each of these the matching funds in in LA and San Francisco and the vouchers in Seattle.

Is there any data on the comparative efficacy of a public financing program, either a matching program like in LA and San Francisco or what we used to have versus the efficacy of a voucher program?

That is a real that's a really niche area.

Um the G the GAO report is really awesome.

It's really long and it's comprehensive.

It does not specifically give that comparison, but you would be able to get from that some of those differences.

Again, what I'll say is just like all other things, like there's there's trends and there are kind of these waves of the type of reform that was, you know, palatable or popular, you know, just possible at the time, and that has just shifted with time.

Um, and so I it'd be a bit of an apple to an orange because when you're talking about vouchers, you're talking about giving every eligible voter money to directly and vouchers are seen as the most direct democracy and and I'll say seen and regarded by people who are, you know, who who study public financing and typically are proponents of it, um, that it's regarded as kind of the best way to give people an ability to affect the you know the election, whereas a you know, the campaign reim reimbursement of expenditures, there's a big hurdle there, um, even between the matching funds and the vouchers to get into the political process.

So you're really talking about layers of equity within policy that you can't really quantify by comparing two really different things.

Um, I mean you could, but it doesn't it's not really a direct comparison.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, I guess.

But I'm and this might you'll see with the next two questions where I'm kind of going is there's a difference in the cost of administration of um public financing programs versus a voucher program.

Because we do have to balance benefit and cost, and obviously we have democracy dollars now, but I'm sort of interested in in that balance.

Yeah, and I mean there's definitely a difference in cost because you know, one is is it just depends and it and they're kind of different, right?

Like one depends on what comes in the door from outside, and one depends on how many eligible voters you have and what you're generating, right?

So these really depend on the situation that you're looking at to give a a really valid answer to that question, but generally I would say, you know, yes, there there is a higher kind of ingrained cost associated with vouchers because again they're equitably distributed across all eligible voters, whereas reimbursements are based on who spent money and matching is based on who put money in and who how many people and that's the thing with matching that can make matching um more of a a wild card in this sense too, because look at how much more money is coming in from where and that and it's increasing, increasing, increasing, and that's why there are caps, and again, each different programs have different caps.

So it's really something you really have to look at specifically rather than generalize.

Um, okay, so I mean I guess one question, you know, in in your presentation you talked about the the no average number of contributions and the dollar amount of those contributions, the decrease in sort of outside money.

I guess what I understand it's an apples to orange comparison between public financing and vouchers, but are there any quantitative metrics we could look at to analyze the efficacy across both of them?

Yeah, I mean I would strongly suggest like again, because San Francisco, like they LA does not have as as good of records because of you know, different some of the differences that they outlined in implementing the program.

San Francisco has really specific measurables, Seattle has really specific measurables, and that GAO report spans nine different programs across nine different states with several municipalities, and so I think those were kind of the best consolidated sources of data that were specific to these programs that I could find.

Um, and so I would I would recommend those as kind of a good starting point to like wrap because it's a lot, you know, to wrap your mind around.

Got it.

Um, and then I guess my last question um is between matching funds like LA and SF have and the reimbursement model we used to have.

Do you have a view as to whether one is better than the other?

Um I mean, um again, they're they're quite different because the dynamics around the matching are so specific to the community, they're so specific to the election, they're so specific to the candidates.

Is it a recall?

Is it not, you know, whereas um the other method is really just a completely different um approach, and it's re-im-I guess in a hypothetical world where Oakland didn't have any of these things, and you were to recommend something between matching or um the reimbursement model for Oakland to adopt.

What what would you say given our context as a city?

I don't know if I could really say that to be honest.

I think there's just so many things to be considered.

Um I think certainly matching is is more effective.

Matching has more results, but I I question I guess where the voucher piece then comes into play in that because the vouchers are what the voters passed, whereas these other models are models, but they're um they're different and they're not um you know what they voted for.

Yeah, no, understood.

Um I understand that most of my questions were somewhat hypothetical, pending up different measure, but I love a hypothetical question.

I also just like, you know, want to be transparent in the answer.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Other questions?

I do I I have one.

Um it has been said in this room by people by members of the public that the Seattle administrative costs are way out of control.

Um, and I I know do we have any data or uh on the proportion of administrative costs uh that they're having for the program and and what what would be a good benchmark there and anything on that?

Um yeah, so certainly again they have like comprehensive finance records, um, and I can't remember right now in my mind what those percentages were, but they are available, and what I would say to that is um you know, again, Seattle is using administrative costs.

I presume like you know, a good bit of that is going to be the methodology they're using is the sending out mailing, you know, so somewhat antiquated a little bit.

So I think there's room there again to innovate a different way, but even regardless of that, the voters have access to the budgets.

They're all on the website.

Not that all voters are going and looking at that, but for folks who have questions, they can go find the information readily.

And again, um it just passed with uh was it 59% of the vote?

I mean, almost 60% of voters just reapproved it and actually increased the budget because they like the program.

They increased the budget by one-third.

And so that required mod you know, modifying um their sourcing, but they were on board with that.

Thank you.

Other questions?

Thank you very much.

It was very, very informative.

Um, public comment?

Oh, if I might um I believe there may be representatives from Seattle and uh possibly New York on online.

So I don't know if maybe their hands are raised.

They might have some comments.

No, no hands raised.

Okay, thanks.

All right, thank you so much for your time.

Alright.

Uh so if anyone wants to make public comment, and if you're on Zoom, raise your hand or on the phone, uh push nine.

Good thorough presentation.

I just have a couple of questions.

One, how do they assign the value of the voucher?

And uh how do you see in terms of the comment about the administrative cost?

How do you see AI playing into all of this?

Um, I actually am not sure.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Um I'm actually not exactly sure how they came up with the $25, but I know that that intersects with the number of vouchers, and so it's a total of a hundred.

Um I can't speak to exactly how they came up with that.

AI, I mean, that is a that's a slippery slope, and um, I think just as you know, that threat exists with everything, that is a possibility, but I think that um you know that's that's something that I hadn't read about anywhere um yet, so I'm not sure.

Thank you for your question.

Good evening, Ralph Cansley.

Uh Seattle does have a parcel tax, the only one that does something Oakland doesn't have.

Oakland's not gonna have money in 2028 for this.

Um Seattle through 2023, over 46% of the money went to administrative overhead in 2024, the administrative overhead was about 1.4 million dollars and about $700,000.

These are rough figures, went to candidates.

So I would say through 2024, the administrative overhead exceeded the amount of money that went to candidates, and it's worse than that because there's a significant amount of administrative work that the campaigns have to do to deal with all those vouchers, which if you factor that cost in, that's not included in the city's administrative overhead.

So it makes the administrative overhead way over 50% of the money, which makes it a very inefficient way of funding public financing, and it has not increased voter turnout the way everybody hoped it would.

I mean, it sounds conceptually it's a great program, but the reality of it is it doesn't match up.

If you really go read the reports, read what different people say about it up there.

There's a lot of you can go a lot of different ways on it, but the fact is it costs too much, and until you have a parcel tax to pay for it, it's absurd to even be working on this project to put any resources into it, all the other things you need to be dealing with.

I it makes absolutely no sense.

There's no logic in the amount of money that's gone into this program without funding, and I think what you really had to do is sit down and go what is the most cost-effective way to get money to candidates for both for all sides concerned, because democracy vouchers is not it, and most of the reports will tell you that the independent expenditures of the outside money has skyrocketed during that program, as it is in all other campaigns across the country because of Citizens United, and that's only gotten worse and worse over time.

So it's it's absurd to think that this program could in any way counteract citizens united because it can't.

Thank you.

Any other public comment?

Okay, we are on to the next item, which is the approval of commission meeting draft minutes from April 15th special meeting.

Um we do public comment after a motion on that, I think is what we're gonna do, right?

So move.

So all right, got a motion to approve these minutes.

I'll second the motion.

All right, any discussion?

Uh all right.

Any public comment?

Let us vote.

Okay, Vice Chair Talok.

Aye.

Commissioner Apfel.

Hi.

Commissioner Baiva.

I abstained since I wasn't present.

Commissioner Brandon.

Aye.

Commissioner Fisher.

Aye.

Commissioner Mitchik?

Aye.

I'll vote yes as well.

So that is approved.

Chair.

Yes.

And I'll just note that I wasn't present in person, but I did attend the last meeting uh via Zoom and listen to the whole thing.

Um, so that's why I feel comfortable voting.

Yay.

Thank you for your vote.

All right.

So that's approved.

So the next item is the charter amendments.

And do we have people from the mayor's office to talk about that?

Yes.

Wonderful.

So I thought I'll just uh introduce it a little bit.

So as you know, we're we're reviewing a proposal from Mayor Barbara Lee to amend city charter sections 202, 218, 300, and 603.

A copy of the proposed legislation, a staff report from the mayor's office, and a PEC staff analysis were all included in your agenda packets.

We have the mayor's deputy chief of staff, Preston Kilgore here with us tonight to introduce the proposed legislation on behalf of Mayor Lee.

Awesome.

Thank you, Director.

Good evening, Chair, Commissioners.

Thanks for taking the time.

So, yeah, as the director mentioned, names Preston Kilware, Deputy Chief of Staff to Mayor Barbara Lee.

Again, appreciate the opportunity to be here.

So y'all are here to kind of weigh in and give some feedback related to the specific proposed changes related to section 218, council member compensation, mayoral compensation, and section 603.

So I'll give a little bit of background, very brief.

The mayor convened the charter reform working group in August of 2025 as part of our 100 days to propose recommendations to Oakland's governance structure and identify reforms that could improve effectiveness, transparency, and public trust.

The process was co-facilitated by the League of Women Voters of Oakland and Spur and included 60 stakeholder interviews, including city employees, 16 public meetings across every council district, and a direct engagement with about 750 residents.

So the first section is section 218, which you all will be given providing feedback on, which would modernize the relationship between council offices and city departments by affirming council members' role in constituent services while preserving prohibitions against directing or coercing staff in administrative matters.

The proposal, the attempt is to create clear communication pathways and require timely responses from departments while maintaining appropriate separation between the legislative and the executive branches.

The second piece that you're considering feedback on is explicitly defining council service as full-time and prohibit outside employment.

In practice, um a lot of our council members are already performing full-time work, and this proposal simply aligns or is an attempt to align the charter with that reality while strengthening their independence, reducing potential conflicts, and supporting a more effective legislative branch.

And relatedly, the proposal also aligns the there's an intent, and you all had raised this in your recommendations in 2024, I believe it was, which was to align all of the elected official salaries, and align them to have them go through the public ethics commission.

And that is something that the working group lifted up as well in turning in terms of aligning those um together.

And then um, and what I'll what I'll finish with is these these uh recommendations are rooted in equity.

Um, when public service effectively requires full-time work, but compensation and expectations are not aligned, it can create barriers for working class residents and people without independent wealth from serving in office.

Um, one of the attempts with the city council recommendations in terms of aligning salaries is really to ensure that we're allowing folks um who may not who may not be able to run for office unless they can get a a full-time council member salary.

So we're promoting equity, promoting uh folks of color, folks who um have modest means to be included in that process.

And then what I'll finish with is um as it's been a joy working with the director as we kind of discuss some of these amendments.

Um what I'll say is the first section uh for the for section two, or sorry, let me back up.

For the recommendations related to section 603b, um the full intent of the mayor's office is to really keep the independence of the ethics commission um independent when it comes to setting elected official salaries.

Um, one of the recommendations in the uh charter measure is to allow um you all to tap in the city administrator in a way that allows them to support that work, um, particularly in the early years as you develop those formulas and things like that, but then to also through the city administrator um or using your own budget to tap in a contractor or consultant who can also do some research and help you with that work.

And then the last piece is related to section two eighteen, and I'll be very brief with this one.

Sorry, two main papers.

And for the yeah, for 218.

So the intent with 218 is really to allow council members have been very clear that they want some level of independence or independent body that can help mediate and address some of the sections of 218.

Our intent is not to have you all micromanage whether a department is not responding to an email, but to really kind of allow you all to weigh in in matters where there is a very direct attempt by a senior leadership, both director, future mayor, council member, whatever it is, who's not being responsive.

The intent is really to allow you all to weigh in on those matters, not necessarily the micromanaging of when folks respond and when they don't.

And what I'll say also is I also understand through the the GIA, GIA, that there is potential you have a commitment from our office to work with to you all if there's an interest and a willingness to include section 218 under the ethics commission, that there's a willingness and commitment from our office to work with you all to within the GIA to provide some language that helps kind of clarify that to make sure that you are not micromanaging it in the way that the concerns in the report um were raised.

And then we have another request, which is if you are open and willing, we would be more than happy to um propose, assuming that you all supportive, uh language that would allow the director as we go through this process to continue to work with us to provide amendments or recommendations, assuming that sections of 218 can be included, including section D or taking out some of the other sections.

That was a lot, but I will I will finish there and say thank you all again for working with us.

It's been lovely to work with the director and have substantive conversations related to this.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Thank you.

Yeah, no problem.

Um I actually do have some questions.

Yes.

Okay, Commissioner.

Um sorry, I was waiting to see if someone else jumped in.

Anxiety inducing it.

Um thank you for that for that presentation and emptying this up.

Um, you know, I think I actually have questions on the uh I believe it's section 218, the non-interference um provisions.

Yeah.

Um I guess I'm trying to understand how this would work.

And I'm looking at um subsection B of the draft language that says council members and their designated staff may communicate directly to the mayor, city administrator, uh elected officers, heads of department, designated liaisons, or any city staff for the purpose of requesting information or data, et cetera.

And then subsection C says the city administrator, et cetera, shall respond to reasonable requests.

But subsection C doesn't refer to all city staff, it just refers to city administrator, elected officials, heads of department, and liaisons.

So is this the understanding that city council members can make requests of any city staff, and those city staff would have a mandatory obligation to respond, or is that mandatory obligation only at the level of the department head?

Yeah, it's a good question.

So we're attempting to solve two things.

Um the feedback we received from city council was if there was a future mayor who would restricted kind of communication with various departments or even city staff, um, that wouldn't be prohibitive and kind of streamlining communications with those various folks.

We also heard from council was feedback related to they wanted this to be a they want to allow, and in a lot of ways, the spirit of the recommendations, which is like promoting collaboration and coordination and allowing tools to facilitate that.

The feedback we got from council was that they want to make sure that they can still talk to staff, discuss ideas, have conversations around how to solve various issues in a very collaborative way.

And so we want to keep the door open based on that feedback to allow them to have those conversations.

There's a question of well, are those staff required to kind of respond to that?

But we don't want to restrict that those that basic like interaction.

Um, with respect to the liaison, one of the things that we wanted, the intent around the liaison position was in another cities, a lot of cities have like a government affairs person that exists where you have an inquiry, constituent inquiry, or a council has a general basic question.

Say, hey, what did the department say about this?

What's the departmental policy?

Or something happened late at night.

Like what is going on?

By providing a liaison, it would be ensure that every department has that person to have those conversations.

That could be the director, it could be someone that they designate.

The feedback we got from council was like, well, a future mayor could like just funnel everything to that person.

And so that was the balance between I think it was B and C was to ensure that balance that we're doing both, allowing that point person, but simultaneously allowing that that spirit of collaboration and conversation.

That makes sense.

Got it.

No, that's that's very helpful.

And I think where my concern was coming from was, you know, obviously there's this part in D about council members not coercing, but if a council member is like reaching out to like a very low-level city staff member and there's some obligation to respond, I think the risk of feeling a sense of coercion on the part of that city staff member might be higher, as opposed to someone who is in a more management or senior level within a department.

If you see kind of yeah, it's it's definitely a risk and something we considered.

And I think the balance really is um like allowing that protection.

And so there was feedback we received of can we remove that the section D from certain council members.

And I think the attempt was every city, almost every city has language that prohibits that, but that balance between like collaboration and coercion is a very fine balance.

And so we're hoping by allowing kind of that oversight, um, that very clear oversight of this independent or you all as independent arbiters of that, that that can help facilitate like what that is and what that isn't.

But yeah, it's a fair point and something that we have to balance.

Got it.

Um, and I think the only other point is more of an observation, which is conceptually, we've obviously recommended that it makes sense to align um salary setting and the methodology we use, but that methodology takes an incredible amount of effort on the part of our staff.

I believe commission uh executive director Duran said that basically took all of her month leading up to the last time we did it for two elected officials.

Um, so um really appreciate and think it is incredibly necessary that we be able to tap the administrator or an outside consultant, and we would love the extra budget to do it, because our current budget barely goes far enough.

So, yeah, and what I can say is um one, I can't commit to that funding with respect to where the city's at, but what I can say is the mayor is committed to supporting the public access mission, finds you all to be extremely valuable in terms of being those arbiters of of um of both coordination but also of weighing in on kind of uh of independence that is super important in the city, and so I I can't make that commitment, but what I can say is the mayor's committed to supporting that work in a way that's transparent and uh and uh helpful to your director.

Understood, thank you.

Um thank you so much for presenting the amendments uh to us.

Um you mentioned that um you will attempt to reconcile based on um executive director's report to consile the GIA framework and section 218.

Could you give a little bit more color on that?

Yeah, the um, and so for the for the GIA, um, one of the things that was brought to our attention through the report is that um some of the things in the GIA kind of are overlap with section 218.

And upon review of the city attorney, I think there's some like gaps within if we include all of those sections in 218 that um would I think we're very clear would have to be kind of further defined and further discussed with respect to like how it's enforceable or um what or how when and how it's enforced um and when you all even receive complaints.

And so the the intent is one, we don't want to be too prescriptive in the charter, um, that it kind of locks us in to a to approach both for you all but also the city.

And so the I think the attempt is to um or make a commitment to working with the director, city attorney, and city council to kind of fill in those gaps through and seeing the GIA as kind of a resource to do that.

What that looks like, I think that's part of the request for is for you to authorize the director to continue to work with us on that, both um assuming that this can move forward, but also um simultaneously while we bring this through council, just based on the timeline and the the speed to which this is moving.

Thank you.

So it's a general intent, not not anything specific, just recognition that there are gaps and you will work to address them in the final amendment language.

Yeah, yeah.

I think there's spaces that need to clarify in respect to like the public ethics commission's role.

And I think our request would be to continue to what that work with the director and have those conversations.

And the feeling is that we have enough, there is enough time before the amendment is presented to the council for the for the vote, or I think it's both.

I think there's time between when the language is brought to council.

Um so that the existing timeline is um the mayor's going to rules committee tomorrow, but there's two future council meetings um that'll happen throughout June.

And so I think between between those dates and I think again, as this moves forward, there's also gonna be space to um balance when it goes into effect to allow us to work with the commission to further define those, whether it's through GIA or some other kind of means to further define.

Okay, thank you so much.

So just to be clear specifically, um there's two things that want to happen, right?

The charter amendments, which obviously have to go to the voters and we weigh on them, council approves those.

But would you imagine um uh a revision of GIA in particular uh 225070 part E to make sure it's aligned properly with uh Charter Section 218?

Is that what I'm assuming Director Duran that you have uh stuff in your report about that?

Sure.

Yeah, well, so as you know from my recommendation, it was that you know this is really these are really novel uh provisions.

They are not, this is not uh legislation that's in it's in any other California jurisdiction.

So there's some uh need there for definition and exactly like what would be our role in enforcement.

Um I really appreciate that um the mayor's staff is willing to keep having a discussion about this because maybe it can be refined in a way that that would meet their goals and could you know also be fitting with our mission and our capacity.

Um but I you know that has not been we haven't had the time to like wrap our brains around this and and analyze it enough to give you like some a direct way that we we might do that.

I I guess I just would say I am still I um well on the one hand I I really support the a lot of the intention here.

I am concerned about adding novel new duties to the commission without any like corresponding increase in capacity because you know, especially the way the language is written, you know, it it basically adds an enforcement duty over some of these assignments that are really administrative affairs, um, and then there's no corresponding uh enforcement mechanism outlined there, um, and there aren't like really clear standards or kind of outside of the normal realm of what we would consider ethics law, which is more focused on you know preventing corruption, conflicts of interests, making sure city resources are used for the public good.

So there's kind of a lot to flesh out there.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, specifically, I I was asking um in conjunction with this, would we look at it in the same time frame amending GIA?

Um, which would only require council approval, right?

Since it's part of the municipal code.

Yeah, what I'd say I I can't commit for council to move something like that.

What I can what I can commit to is our office working with um the director and and all of you to um explore what that would look like, um, both in both in terms of the immediacy, but also in the interim between assuming this is where to get on the ballot in the interim between when it would pass and and when it would go um or go through the council process.

Um one of the other things that the the director um and hopefully I'm at liberty to share this that we had discussed was and I think it's in the report is um looking to explore um potentially removing section A and B and C from the public ethics commission kind of jurisdiction.

That's something that um I back to my one of my AB and C.

Sorry, two eighteen.

Sorry, thank you for clarifying that uh chair um Upton.

But uh yeah, so that's something that we're open to also exploring.

Um can't commit to that now, partially because it's just more conversation that need to happen.

But the intent um from council and the mayor is really to allow an independent body to kind of facilitate those sections in 218 A, B, and C.

Um, but we do retain the option and the openness to exploring with the director um of what it would look like if we were to remove those, but those are from section two eighteen, A, B, and C from the Public Ethics Commission.

But those are just conversations that we would have to have with um both the co-sponsor, um some of the working group members, and others, but we'd also in the interim love to explore um uh legislative changes to GIA simultaneously.

I I have a quick question just for um context for me.

Um was the public ethics commission or um executive Duran, was she part of any of those earlier conversations?

Um how was she plugged in to these conversations that you're currently having?

It's a great question.

Thank you for that, Commissioner.

Yeah, what um so uh in conversation we so we initially got the draft, the working group draft in January.

We worked from we worked with the um the city attorney from about end of February till about April upon learning that one of the uh sections in the charter that any changes related to the ethics code in the charter requires ECHO's approval.

Um, as soon as we had learned that we had reached out to the director to kind of like facilitate a conversation of both the process and um what some of that language could look like.

Um but yeah, it would it was yeah, I would say uh the conversations began probably in about let's say May, about three or four weeks ago, maybe closer to three weeks around um explore or exploring the path to going through the ethics commission to have you all weigh in on the uh the specific sections within the charter that uh overlap with your duties.

Did I say that yeah?

Was it three weeks, two weeks?

Yeah, so so I guess I would say so we weren't part of this drafting of this um of what you're looking at tonight, if that's the part of the question.

Um, I was invited, as was our chair and um Commissioner Mitchik all we all did give input to the task force though, and at that time we did share the positions that the commission already taken on on things that we thought should be um changed in the charter to uh strengthen our autonomy and improve accountability in the city things that we felt were within the the um the mandate to the task force basically.

So so those were shared.

It's reflected in their report as well.

They they kind of note some of the things that they didn't take on that were outside they felt of their scope.

So we did participate in that sense, but not in creating the the initial draft where uh the input has been since that we got the the version that you're seeing tonight.

Yes, uh just as a point of process here.

Um we haven't um director Duran, you haven't presented the staff report which has recommendations, and I'm wondering if if that would be a good time to do that now because probably having all of that information would help us have better questions.

Uh fair point.

So please, uh thank you very much.

Sure.

And um I think I um I think it was more more appropriate for uh Mr.

Kilgore to give the the explanation of the intent of the legislation and all that.

I'll I'll skip some of that background and maybe focus more on the background that has to do with our role and our duties.

So I think it also might make sense to look at the salaries as one piece and then section two eighteen separately since they're they deal with really different things.

So I think that commissioners are are pretty familiar with the salary setting process in our role because we we just went through it in the last um in our last two meetings.

But um, so Charter Section 603C establishes our role in setting salaries for Oakland elected officials under the current law.

We set the salary for 10 of Oakland's 11 elected officials.

Um so as you know, we adjust the salary of the eight-member city council every two years for inflation, and then we adjust the salaries of the city attorney and city audit by annual biannually uh based on a salary serving uh process for selected salaries that are um at our discretion.

And then in 2023, City Council had passed a motion directing the city administrator to bring a proposal back to city council for a potential ballot measure that would have transferred the duties of setting the mayor's salary from the council to the PEC.

The PEC held three public meetings on that topic.

We solicited public input while considering whether we were the appropriate body for setting the mayor's salary and what criteria we should apply.

And we transmitted the results of that review and discussion to council.

I thought it was really important to remember what the principles that the commission came to consensus on for that role would be.

One was that they recommended that the PEC did take on setting of the mayor's salary, that the charter should have a politically neutral objective criteria for the PEC to follow, that the PEC should have discretion to waive or reduce a salary increase.

If either the city council declared that the city is facing an extreme fiscal necessity or crisis or emergency, or if the general purpose fund revenue for the current fiscal year was projected to be lower than the prior fiscal year, and then lastly that the PEC should not adjust the mayor's salary more frequently than once every two years.

So I think in general, these proposals are in alignment with those recommendations, with the exception of and this has been long concern of the PC that not having the explicit ability to recognize the city's fiscal condition and considering whether to do salary increases.

So let's see, go on.

So essentially, the proposed legislation would replace the method for setting the mayor's salary, mirroring the process that we've been using for the city auditor and city attorney.

Similarly, it couldn't be reduced unless there was a general reduction of salaries for city officers and employees.

And it would take place every other year.

The impact of that, I would say, I think in general it's it would be good to go to move towards standardizing the method for determining the salaries of elected officials so they're all aligned and generally consistent.

The proposed legislation, I think it's uh important that it recognizes and has an explicit reference to adding assistance by the city administrator andor outside consultants.

I think that would really benefit the commission in this process.

It's important that the sort of the intention behind this is to have an independent, neutral body to be the one to set these salaries, and so providing us with resources to do that independently and in a professional way would be advantageous to all four salary setting setting processes.

Um did mention was that it would be good.

I know that I believe that's from our discussions.

The intention there is that that would be sort of at our discretion to get that assistance.

But we talked about maybe clarifying that in the language.

So it's clear that it's an independent process conducted by the PEC.

Um, in terms of the impact of taking on these new duties, uh, if if this is adopted, the new legislation would take effect in 2027.

Um that would require a very big commitment on behalf of commission staff.

We would have to prepare the recommendation for the commission's consideration in the first quarter of 2027 when this would we'd only know if this was ratified in November.

So that's a very quick turnaround time.

It would be a major increase in staff activity in that year to determine the method to select comparable positions for both offices and the California cities that we want to survey.

I think another important thing that we've noticed in the prior processes is that we need a reliable data source that that will reduce the kind of streamline this process.

What we've been doing is direct surveying of all the different places, and so I think that would be an important thing to do um to create a more efficient process for doing this.

Um I do think it would be really important for us now.

We've kind of had discussions about this the last three times we've done the salary setting, but you know, to maybe dig in more and really identify the best practices um based on professional HR industry definitions of some of the undefined terms that that we're using in these in the salary setting process so words like competitive comparable equity I think we have to come up with some uh strong um rationale for uh how like how we're defining those terms when we're doing the salary setting um in addition uh well and I just want to know I I really think that we would need to uh consult with an outside person with uh subject matter expertise because this is just something that's outside of our our mission and and uh legal knowledge and in the PEC the other thing consideration is that the new legislation will have ongoing staff costs because um there's gonna be the administration contracting commission processes that will now be would now become every other year and I mean every year instead of every other year.

Overall for the salary setting staff is supportive of the proposed amendments because it would um assign authorization for salary increases for all elected officials to the PEC as an independent city body it would standardize the process align the method um and provide support from city administration to enhance our capacity to do that work um and execute the policies professionally in the in the proposed time frame.

So for um these provisions we recommend the commission support um the amendments to sections two oh two three hundred and six oh three C and direct staff to work with the author on amendments as needed and if there are any significant changes bring it back to the commission for review.

Yeah would we want to have discuss that part before we go to the next since it's so different.

I I think so I I if it's yeah I think let's try to do the salary thing because I think that's probably going to be non less controversial.

And so just to remind us what we're doing we are making comments to uh city council I guess right uh on uh according to what we're required to do by the charter of of changes in laws that relate to our jurisdiction yeah I guess it might be good to just start sort of clarify the commission could vote to support these amendments they could vote to oppose them you could remain neutral on the proposal you might suggest amendments or you can provide extra commentary to the sponsors and city council um that we would forward prior to their adoption.

And it's also not necessary that we uh uh come to a consensus so it's it's possible that different commissioners have may have different views on this and we can forward those with our comments as well so um let's uh so we heard everything about the salary part of it so let's entertain questions about the salary uh pieces and and particularly the the the first staff recommendation here which is the staff recommends that we support the the salary related amendments so any questions on that anyone having anyone not wanting to do that uh I'll ask uh one question related to that when we um and I don't know if the folks in this room are able to answer this thoroughly or not but uh when we went through this process a couple of years ago uh making our set of recommendations for setting the mayor's salary uh we had recommended that it uh be reset every four years as opposed to every two years and so um my question is uh um why two years instead of four years.

Thank you for my question.

Um question it's not something that soldly came up oh sorry what's up the the mic wasn't on that is now yes situations yeah it's left super low.

Um yeah so it's a full transparency it wasn't something that kind of came up through both the working group's recommendations or through our um drafting process of examining salaries um the the intent was really in terms of the framework was just aligning all elected official salaries across the board through the public ethics commission and keeping some level of consistency um related to some of the languages already in there to ensure there's um both consistency but also transparency across all elected officials.

So yeah, the short answer is not something that we had considered.

Well, the the advantage of of doing it every four years uh that we had identified when we made the recommendation is one just reducing the level of staff burden for the PEC.

Uh but it's also serves to take uh politics out of it to some degree because you would be uh setting it uh as a new mayoral term term starts frequently when a new mayor is taking office, and that just makes it more clear that the uh salary is being set more objectively as opposed to a response to what that individual who's in the mayor's office at the time deserves to be getting based on performance.

Uh so um, you know, I don't know if this rises to the level of I want to put that in our guidance, but I do want to point that out, especially hearing from you that this wasn't something that got a lot of air time in the conversations that that would be something to consider.

Yeah, I appreciate that recommendation.

Um what I would say is um, can I ask a question?

In terms of the um recognition around four years, was that something that the uh commission maybe this is for the the director, was that something the commission had recommended for um elect officials across the board or was that just the mayor's office?

Uh that was specifically to the mayor.

Got it, got it.

I I think hearing that um one would have to have a conversation.

I know one of the um recommendations in the report is to allow um or explore potentially allowing the director to continue to um uh facilitate dialogue with respect to potential amendments.

I think for that one, in terms of aligning it again with the consistency across the board for all elect officials, I would be a bit concerned of uh kind of special or separately kind of pointing out the mayor's off or the mayor um relative to the other positions, just in the spirit of the working group, which is aligning all across the board.

And also I I want to remark on that.

It would probably came up in the commission for the mayor, just because we were dealing with the mayor at this time.

We deal with other ones at different times.

So we we didn't have a full discussion about all of them.

So it's unclear that the commission would have supported four years for everything or not.

It shouldn't be read too much into that we're just doing it for the remote.

Right, exactly.

It was because it was that was a conversation we were having at that time.

Yeah, gotcha.

Yeah, Commissioner, I wanted to ask, because for my edification, if we're taking uh talking about taking politics out, uh council is power uh that's political as well.

So Joseph, what was the but you said the rationale at the time were you just dealing with the mayor?

So going forward, I'm in agreement with the proper alignment that all public officials every two years if we're gonna do it that way or if we're gonna change it to every four years.

You know, I'm I'm loving the conversation in regard, but proper alignment is is important to me.

Right, yeah, and the and the other the other, you know, in regard to the difference between mayor and council, the other thing to keep in mind is that you know, the present law, it's being recommended to perhaps change here, but the law was that uh the council salary adjustment was much more simply wrote, it's just uh cost of living adjustment as opposed to the mayoral salary adjustment was being discussed as taking into account equitable alignment similar to uh the city attorney and city auditor.

Sure.

I'm in agreement with that, but when I heard the taking politics out, you know, that kind of threw me.

Thank you.

Uh one uh one related thing, and and um Director Dorian and I talked about this um uh privately, but the uh uh the current proposal would wind up with, and I think you mentioned this, um, uh some salaries would be adjusted salaries would be adjusted every two years, but they're not um but the cycles are off in a way that the commission would be doing salary work every year because some salaries would be adjusted in odd number years and some salaries would be adjusted in even number years because of the way it starts.

And you like that, I think.

And I I want I I I would like you to weigh in on that because uh, you know, one argument is like, oh, well, let's do them all every two years, and that way that should save work and all that.

But the other argument is if you do half of them every year, then you keep remembering how to do it and maybe keep getting better faster.

So if you could weigh in on that, because I guess I'd say I'm I'm more neutral.

Okay.

You know, I think it could work either way.

Um I think the key point is is standardizing and rationalizing the process so that it goes simply and and quickly and we can do it, you know, faster and um maybe more transparently because we spell out our guidelines for how we're how we're um determining, you know, or weighting the different criteria.

It would be good for me, because like I I think it would be better every other year and you know, in terms of like saving work and and all that, it seems like and and the language of the current proposal kind of precludes that, but it could be tweaked to fix it, right?

We could we could make one three years or something like that to get it aligned.

Um so I think we should consider how we want to how we want to do with that.

Yeah, and through the chair.

If I can add, uh if the goal is to achieve consistency, I think doing it sort of in the same cycle with you know, further that objective because we are considering kind of similar factors, I mean granted for different roles, but at the same time.

Just my view on this.

Yeah, I I I kind of tend to believe that uh I'd rather do them all at the same time than stagger it out.

I also executive record, can you refresh our election as to how much time staff spends um calculating and and running the numbers behind the proposals?

I mean, I don't know if I'd give you uh uh a perfect like uh quantify.

But I guess what I the way I would say is it's it's a focus, you know, it would be like the major focus.

Of of course, like right now we have, you know, several long standing vacancies, which also has an impact.

If we're fully staffed, you know, that would also sort of change how it goes.

But yeah, I mean, you know, um I feel like we do our work really well.

We take it very very seriously, and um really we can only um in our current capacity we you can't take on like really complex policy processes maybe more than than one at a time during different phases, and so if that makes sense.

It kind of would dominate, it dominates say the first quarter of of work, but but I but I'm hopeful with the um with the right attention put into developing some guidelines that we could cut that down and make it a simpler process.

Yeah, I I agree, and thank you for that.

I guess my concern would be, you know, if the process is gonna dominate, um, is it easier to uh evaluate all salary issues at the same time or have salary issues dominate the first quarter of every year um as opposed to every other year.

Um and I would think that uh every other year might allow for bigger projects to be taken up in those other first quarters of those other years, but I don't feel too strongly just concerned about staff resources.

So I mean I I tend to also agree that we should align them and all do them at once um so that we have a systematic review for all elective officials, whether it's every two years or every four years, I don't have a strong view.

I think I tend to agree it should be consistent.

Looking at the language, I think it I think it would work if we just said that the proposal would start in 2028, because in 2026 we just set the city attorney and auditor salary.

So if the proposal were to take effect in 2028, then everyone would be on the same cycle.

Um and then I think on like uh director Duran, I think you flagged um making clear that uh retaining the city administrator or consultant would be at our discretion.

I think it would be helpful to have that language explicit.

I understand that's the understanding, but just so there's no questions there that it is our choice.

Um then the last point you raised was about the explicit whether it should explicitly mention that we're allowed to take into account the city's financial condition.

To me, I don't feel super strongly because that has been our longstanding practice implicitly to to do that.

Obviously, we can't reduce the salary, we can just reduce the increase and take that into account.

I'm comfortable just leaving that as our longstanding practice rather than making it explicit in in the charter, but I also wanted to get folks' thoughts on that piece.

Because I know we mentioned it very recently when we looked at the city attorney and auditor.

Yeah, and what I wanted to add was I do agree with you with what what you were saying around the consultants because I think it would be helpful to have a third party that that pulls that data from some agency that you can get that data from, because I know a lot of the work that you and your team have done is trying to pull all the data together.

And if you have an independent um group that's pulling that data together, we might get richer data that's gonna help us to be able to make a better informed um decision.

So it would be helpful to at least have some of that language in there around consultants and so if we can or or you know, from a standpoint or other resources like the administrator's office.

I also want to caution though, we're speaking of the city charter.

This is an any word change in here has to be approved by the voters.

So I wanna be uh, you know, with details about who what kind of resources we get to get help and stuff like that.

I'd like to kind of be a little vague in the charter, not not so prescriptive since it's it's since it's hard to change that stuff, and maybe somewhere else in some code we could put that that's more easily changed.

So my understanding is the proposed language right now says that uh the ethics commission with the assistance of the city administrator and our outside consultants.

Um what I would suggest adding is something that says with the assistance of the city administrator and our outside consultants at the discretion of the ethics commission, so that it can't be someone in the administration who decides whether we get to use the city administrator or an outside consultant, we get to decide that.

So I I'm just suggesting a small tweet that makes it clear it's at our discretion who we who we choose.

On this point, and I'm not sure if that's addressed in the charter or sort of otherwise, how do we want to think about uh funding for that sort of outside work?

Like, is it you know city auditor clearly it will be sorry, administrative will be probably funded by the by their office, but what about the consultant?

What is could that question to me?

I guess yes, yeah, no, appreciate the question, Commissioner.

Yeah, so I I think the I as I led with, um, there's an op openness, so one in it it's a conversation related to the the budget.

Um in our in our opinion, it'd be a conversation related to the budget process.

Adding language in the charter that um would require a certain level of funding would be would be a set aside.

I think that'd be a bit something that'd be a little more difficult.

But as I mentioned earlier, I think there's an openness and willingness from the mayor's office.

I I can't speak for um uh for city council, but I what I can say from the mayor's office is a willingness to have conversations around what that funding could look like um and cost and and having it through the the future budget conversations.

Okay, thank you.

I do want to something I just thought about in in terms of uh uh having it only be done every of the year, and then when we do it, we do all of them.

And and I think there's potentially an economy of scale benefit there, like if we hired some consultant that did the survey, right?

They can do the one survey, even though it's different positions, we still ought to be able to get it kind of cheaper and or whatever, you know, for doing all of them in one time.

So I think that should save money and do that.

And and also we just had the meeting where we just do all the salaries instead of like each time we do them all different.

Yeah, I agree with that.

And then you're also using the same methodology every for each position that you calculate.

Yeah, you're not, you know, based on budgetary regions or reasons or whatever.

If you do it every year, you could be using a different methodology, which defeats the purpose of trying to have a uniform approach.

Um may I ask whether do you want to do separate motions on the two aspects?

Yeah.

And then may I attempt to make a motion and see if I can convey what we seem to be discussing.

You may.

Um so I'll make a motion to um support the proposed amendments related to salaries with the following amendments that the um salaries be aligned to all occur on the same year for mayor city council with the existing uh cadence for attorney and auditor, um, and that the language about our ability to retain um the city administrator or outside consultant make clear that that choice is at our discretion.

I second.

Okay.

Um so there's the issue of public comment here, which we can take.

We're gonna do two motions, I think, on this item.

So should we take the public comment after both after what should we do here?

Uh city attorney uh deputy city attorney Louby, you should uh request public comment before taking any on the entire item before taking any action on the item.

Okay, so um, then that means that we don't get so I should take public comment now, but we're gonna and then presumably vote on that one, and then we're gonna do another motion, presumably with the stuff related to 218, and have another round of public comment there.

Is that well, normally it's just one round of public comment per agenda item.

We're doing two motions in this item is the issue.

You have the discretion to increase the time for for public speakers.

Can I think of an alternative here?

So we have this motion on the first item, and it's kind of like I took notes, and I think uh also it took notes right.

So we can and it received the it was seconded, right?

So we can table that, move to the other one, and then have the list and then vote on like items A B C and then it could be I'm in favor of A B, but against C.

I'm okay with that.

So this maybe address everything and then.

As long as Mr.

Luby's okay with that, so now then thermostat.

You you can just withdraw the draft motion and bring it back if you're not gonna vote on it right now and you're gonna you're gonna discuss a different motion.

You can well, we're I think the intention is we will vote on this motion, but we want to you want to table it for now.

We'll table it for now, and we'll we'll uh integrate it with public comment when we're when we're finishing the item.

Is that okay?

Any commissioners have a problem with that?

Are we trying are we just trying to avoid doing two rounds of public comment?

No, we're not.

I'm I'm happy to do two rounds of public comment.

Okay, well, then why don't we just do public comment now for and then do this vote and then do the next thing?

That's what that's allowed.

All right, so we'll just do it that way.

All right, public comment.

The insensitivity of this body talking about cost of living.

You got 425,000 residents in this town.

They don't get an opportunity to have a body determine their cost of living when cost of living is tiracking rent, food, they gotta bite the bullet, and you're sitting here so insensitive that.

When this body was first created, I was I applied for an interview.

One of the first questions they asked.

Should the city council get a pay increase?

You know what I told them?

Let the voters decide 1970 Wilson.

They said then the mayor can't have any outside activity.

2016, when this body was created, there's about and going to no 1998.

Where Jerry Brown became the mayor, there were three provisions, the misnomer's strong mayor, secondly, John Russo, who was District 2 council approaches, said to the mayor, potential mayor at that time, I would support it if you make the city attorney an elected position.

But neither one of those two had the voters to approve, it was that third one, city council's pay increases.

So when Jerry Brown said that city council's pay increases would have to go to the voters.

There was never a ballot measure to that extent.

There was when Jerry Brown left office the year before, and that's when it back went back to the to the public ethics commission to determine that.

So why are you talking about this endless discussion over increases when the 425,000 people in this town can't get an increase in their rent, uh reduction in their rent in the cost of living?

Look at the oil thing right now.

This is insulting, insulting.

You're so insensitive to the concerns of the voters in this town, talking about a cost of living increase.

Annually, and they work probably about nine months out of the year, and so you're gonna look at giving them a full-time position.

Was that with commiserate increase?

They get six figures already.

Thank you, Mr.

Hazard.

Any other public comment?

Um, good evening.

I'm Helen Hutcheson, and I am speaking on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Oakland right now.

Um the league along with Spur co-facilitated the whole the working group that brought this proposal, and the process was incredibly intense, but it was also inclusive and comprehensive and thoughtful.

And it the whole proposal will bring a coherence to the overall structure of Oakland's government.

You're looking at one piece of it tonight, one, but it's it's critical, but it's one piece of an overall proposal.

The league strongly recommends and supports that this proposal be put before the voters in November, and so uh we hope that you will support that and send send that message to the city council.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Kans.

Is there anyone on Zoom that is?

Good evening again, Ralph Cannes.

Article 1 section three of the state constitution.

The people have the right of access to information concerning the conduct of the people's business, and therefore the meetings of public bodies and the writings of public officials and agencies shall be open to public scrutiny.

That is not the case with the Charter Reform Working Group.

It meant in secret.

There was never a single public meeting of the group.

All these people that supposedly gave gave information to the group, much of that was filtered through other people.

The funding for it was private money outside the city.

San Francisco Foundation gave $50,000 to Spur.

So how do we know that the working group ever even met?

All we know is this is the mayor's proposal.

The mayor is also apparently held serial meeting, a serial meeting with the city council by getting input from every city council member on what they want to have in this.

That has to be done public.

That is a violation of the Brown Act and the state constitution.

And what was done with the money?

I mean, it looks like the San Francisco Foundation paid $50,000 at the request of the mayor to have the chairmanship of the working group.

What did the legal women voters get paid for their support?

And all this stuff got filtered through all these different people, and the public had no opportunity to watch the working group or talk to the working group having input, and the public records requests I made to the mayor's office, should have provided all that information.

And I've none of it, other than a few emails and this and that.

There's no text messages.

I know there were text messages flying all over the place about this.

And it's a rushed process.

If you want to advise the city council, the city council must pass a resolution setting up a group to be an advisory group, which makes all the meetings public.

This thing was not a public process.

We don't know what happened.

We don't know if there was even a meeting of the working group.

How do you approve something if it's not even there?

All we know is this is what Mayor Lee wants.

What are the city, what are the residents of Oakland want?

And we don't know that.

Thank you, Mr.

Cairns.

Any other public comment?

Okay, we have a motion.

Um that's been seconded, so uh let us vote.

Can I can I add can I just ask if if folks would be open to something?

Um not to uh amend it to say that we only support it if it's this way, but to uh add some language asking that the uh city council consider moving it to every four years as opposed to every two years just for the fact that it would cut the significant costs in half, um, and also serve to towards the goal of depoliticizing the process a little bit more than it is.

Is there support for that?

Are you requesting only for the mayor?

Um, I think I would be requesting for all.

So so the so the way the reason it gets more complicated is because the city council terms are staggered, so you wouldn't be doing it right at the beginning of uh council term, but you but the council I think is less important because uh uh it's you're increasing everybody's salary as opposed to an individual's salary, whereas the mayor that's the highest profile one, and that's the uh uh and that's really focused on one person.

But you you would ask the same for city attorney and city auditor, understanding those aren't as high profile, but are still single elected officials.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

Um I'm I'm not opposed to just adding language saying that the drafters in the council should consider whether in aligning all elected officials to be on the same year, whether that cadence should be two years or four years, expressing the commission's view that uh every four years may further depoliticize the process and conserve staff resources.

Something to that effect?

Yeah, you I'm in agree.

Okay, you were the two motions, yes, right.

All right, um Mr.

Chair, uh technically since the motion's been seconded, you could make a motion to amend now to add that provision.

Uh normally you could do it by unanimous consent, but now you have to do all motions by roll call since it's a hybrid meeting under the Brown Act.

So you'd have to do a formal motion to amend.

All right, would you care to do that?

Um so I would move to amend the motion that I made that was seconded by Commissioner Brandon to add the language that I just mentioned about encouraging the drafters and city council to consider um shifting the cadence from every two years to every four years for all elected officials for reasons of staff conserving staff resources and further depoliticizing the salary process, and should I second uh I second the amendment?

So we're I just want to be super clear about this because we're the the original motion was you know we are taking a position that we want it this way, right?

We want it we want it aligned on every two years, we want to have the whatever the other two things you you put in there, and this is more of an advisory thing that uh we say if if you want to do four years, we we'd be fine with that.

Yeah, okay, all right.

Okay, so can we vote?

Let us let us vote.

I heard a second.

Yeah, we got we got a second, yeah.

Yep.

All right.

Um, Commissioner Affeld, by Ava.

I, Commissioner Brandon, Fisher, aye, Mitchick, aye.

And I vote aye as well.

Okay.

We're not.

Now how are we doing on uh sorry?

So just to clarify, that means that your motion was amended.

The motion on the floor was amended.

It was amended and that motion has.

But it hasn't yet passed.

The motion to amend passed.

Right.

But having all the motions are called.

So that's just the amendment.

Got it.

All right.

That was to the original motion.

All right.

Anything anyone wants to say before we all right?

Let's do it.

Vice Chair Talak.

Aye.

Commissioner Apfel, Mr.

Baeva.

Commissioner Brandon.

Aye.

Commissioner Fisher.

Aye.

Commissioner Mitchik.

Aye.

And I vote aye.

All right.

So we did the salary part.

So now we're on the fun part.

How are we doing?

We've been meeting for two hours.

So how are we feeling about break?

Maybe after this item.

Let's get through this item and then we can have a break after the slide.

All right.

Director Duran, would you like to do any presentation on the 218 stuff?

Yes.

You may proceed.

Okay.

So all right.

So just to just to note that there's this section in the charter 218, it's non-interference in administrative affairs, and it's included among the provisions of the law that the PEC has the duty to foster compliance with and enforce.

So the proposed legislation would rename that section, really reframing it to the right of inquiry and access for constituent services.

So as I as I mentioned, so this language kind of reframes the section from one that specifies only prohibited actions by council members and their staff to instead add new elements that specify duties of the city administration to respond to council inquiries and affirms council members' ability to request information or data, report constituent complaints, follow up on service requests, and make proposals for projects or plans and obtain updates.

So the new section retains the prohibition on council members and their staff attempting to direct or coerce city employees under the jurisdiction of the mayor, the city administrator, or other appointed or elected officers and conducting their administrative actions.

But I think it's important to note that the that sentences are removed that detail the types of prohibited activity and the enforcement mechanism and the penalty for violation.

So in the older, you know, in the in the current language, um it actually, you know, it notes that that uh a violation of the section would be a misdemeanor.

Um it notes that uh that being found um convicted of it would cause a council member to forfeit their office.

So that language is removed.

Okay.

Um so the interesting thing about the section 218 is um as I mentioned it's it's unique.

This is not um a duty that's typical of of ethics commissions.

There's no other California ethics commission that governs this.

Um it predates adoption of the government ethics act, and it really reflects earlier attempts to address issues without the benefit.

This is from the time before our modern iteration of the commission with our independent authority and in effective enforcement um authority or a modern legal framework, and um subsequent charter amendments and enactment of the government ethics act provide that framework for us now.

So for example, if a council member did attempt to direct or influence city staff in a personnel matter, an operational decision, procurement, or any other type of administrative action for their personal benefit or material gain, or if there was a conflict of interest there, the PEC could enforce that violation under the Government Ethics Act, and it's clearly defined what those violations are and what the penalties are, and our ability to enforce that.

So I think another thing to consider here is that one of the stated purposes of this legislation is to um quoting the the um report, a clear separation between the council's legislative oversight and the mayor's executive administration and well-defined channels for communication inquiry.

So the pros, the proposed amendments are really significantly changing the focus of 2018 from prohibitions on council members' actions to affirmations, say of their rights to make inquiries and receive timely responses.

So, you know, that's not to say that these are not uh positive changes or important clarifications to make, but it kind of turns this from a uh a punitive uh section to one that's more instructive and providing guidance.

Um but it keeps that punitive mention with the penalty being removed.

So I think that that's kind of the messy part of this, that the section remains, and with these additions, uh it's both the instructive language and prohibitions are still within our enforcement jurisdiction.

Um that the PEC enforces the Government Ethics Act, I feel that the PEC doesn't really need to be in the position to be enforcing provisions related to interactions between council members and and administrative staff.

So that was why I had the recommendation that we would just simply we could have that language, they could have those clarifications, but we would just simply remove it from the types of laws that that we enforce.

Um I think we're in a bit of a a conundrum of what would make this an effect something that we could enforce effectively or um appropriately.

But I mean, I am open to the discussion, and I'm I'm very curious to hear what the commissioners think.

Do commissioners have thoughts?

I have a question for the director.

So up to now, how did we?

So the section that is still in the charter, section 218, the language without amendments, how did we deal with enforcement of any violations under 218?

So, yeah, so when this came up, I did take a look at our enforcement history.

Um, and definitely since 2014, I I couldn't find one case that involved um section 218 that resulted in enforcement action.

Um so I mean that kind of gives you an idea.

Um but there are we have you know many cases that involve misuse of city position, conflict of interest, um, etc.

So I I think one thing I would note is that you know, even if there were an ethics violation in this area, you know, our more are more powerful and um effective tool, the more impactful tool is to use the government ethics act, not the language that's in 218 currently.

Thank you.

And then when the commission had previously worked on sort of suggestions for their charter amendment, did it come up at all to change section?

I think it's 603b vis-a-vis 218, just because 218 was never utilized, it looks like.

So I guess I I um I couldn't speak to if it ever came up in discussion at all when we were doing the charter review, but it wasn't included in the recommendations.

Revising this section was not something that was included.

We actually have kept a table and of all the things that were incorporated into uh measure 00 um versus the ones that the commission had recommended that weren't taken up in that in that legislation, and so uh changes to 218 were not included there.

So it sounds like it's a kind of new and maybe timely focus on that section, and maybe that's something that may have escaped before when we did a thorough review, right?

Of the charter, but given the sort of the reasoning that you put forth would you if if let's say there were no amendments, would you still think would you would you be up for changing the language, the regional language?

I think yeah, I I guess I would say yes, I think that would be a good way to to focus the um legal framework we have where we have very specific standards and enforcement authority and the teeth to make impactful decisions, and I think that the languages that exists is outdated and doesn't really support that.

Thank you.

And I guess I have another sort of follow-up to the uh city attorney in terms of um I guess interpretation in light of um you know so we have a number of um sort of framing concepts here right the charter that has you know some of the penalty language um we have GIA that came in effect later than the charter so how would you um I guess what's your view on the uh hierarchy like would you interpret charter by reading into GIA like how would you given since we didn't have any two eighteen enforcement it's just it looks like it's a novel issue.

So how would you think about that through the chair can you please repeat the question what we you're asking a question about what's in the law now.

Yeah so we have two conflicting right even without amendments to two conflict to conflict conflicting frameworks right or at least not entirely consistent.

Yes well 218 is the under 603 the commission has inherent enforcement authority over 218 but then in addition uh there's no penalties though uh but then under GIA GIA creates a penalty framework essentially for two it basically mirrors 218 a section of GIA mirrors 218 and then allows GIA penalties to be enforced if it's violated.

So section 218 as it exists now is very similar to 218 D in the new proposal except that they've removed yeah I think 218 actually specifies penalty.

I think it's misdemeanor and etc that is that's been so and then GIA has a different scheme of penalties so how would you apply those penalties?

Well the two the misdemeanor penalty under 218 now is only enforceable by the district attorney not by the public ethics commission it's the criminal it's a crime.

So like removal from office also I guess right so the commission can inherently under 218 investigate uh 218 by violations but there's no penalty authority the commission has no penalty authority at all unless it's specified in an ordinance okay all right okay thank you um so I have a uh I I look at this from kind of a software perspective and in software you're not supposed to duplicate code you know you're supposed to have one thing does one thing and if as soon as you make a copy of it and and all that then things get messy and things get changed and all that and we currently have this situation in the current charter section two eighteen and the last provision of of the GIA that last bullet on the GIA which are essentially the same thing right and it's there I think is a historical you know the section two eighteen was done a long time ago as you point out the GIA was a modernization of that and um what I would like to see and I and I I respect uh your proposal in the sense of you're saying okay if you're gonna change all this stuff in 218 this is not enforceable by the ethics commission and so we just don't want to be part of this you know we'll focus on whatever's in the geo which is what we do which I think is what you're what you're saying and and that is a very reasonable approach in my view but I think having this duplicate language in there uh the the the proposed two eighteen D, which is substantially similar to the G the corresponding GIA provision I would like to see it go away from the charter and GIA just cover that because there's already a mark a mechanism there it's you know we it's a well understood thing and I don't think it takes anything away from what you're wanting to do in terms of uh you know you're helping the city council relate to the city and all that in the first three provisions of two eighteen that you're that you're amending but that last one doesn't seem to have a place there anymore, I think and and I would I would prefer it to go away and then just be covered by what's in GIA.

And if we want to modify GIA somewhat to you know improve that or whatever, that's fine.

So I had a question.

Um so currently in 603 B1, small room numeral one, it references section two eighteen, but also 907, 1200, and 1202, nepotism, conflicts of interest, etc.

Are those similarly provisions where we have inherent authority to investigate but no specific penalty authority under the charter and it comes in through a different statutory provision?

Correct, and they're also in there's incorporations under GIA as well.

So the Section 218 problem is not unique to 218.

It's in other provisions that we are not the proposal currently does not touch.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's correct.

Um I guess I had I I totally agree with you, Chair Upton, that this language is duplicative, but I think I also particularly because this is a charter amendment that goes to the voters.

I think there is a communication piece that makes clear that when we're when voters are giving this power to the city council to ask of city departments and city employees certain things that there are limits on it, even though that limit in a much more powerful way lives in GIA.

I think there is a public messaging value to having that in the charter.

Um I wonder commissioner uh or executive director, whether it would somehow somewhat address your concerns if our enforcement authority in the charter was just limited to a team D and not 218 A, B, and C, which to me don't really raise corruption and and trans and ethics issues, but 218 D does, it just happens to be duplicative of a statutory authority we have.

Yeah, I think that could that could be one compromise and also possibly um, you know, maybe doing technical amendments to D, just to me, you know, if if there's a way with that we could um bring the two the two things, you know, into harmony in some way or reference GIA.

I think that could be positive, but I don't have like a a specific proposal around it.

I don't imagine that the charter would would be allowed to reference the municipal code, would it?

So I haven't gone that far as the details, so I'm not suggesting it, but I'm just saying that that if there is a way to um, you know, to flesh out like how um we would set the standards, you know, for this.

Um I think that I mean off the coffin might be something as simple as saying, you know, the um as provided for in the Oakland ordinance code or something like that, because we probably don't want to reference specific provisions, even if we were able to, because those might change over time, but presumably we'll continue to have some authority to enforce that.

So I I have a question for you, uh, which is that you you introduced this by saying, well, we want to have that 218 D thing in the charter so the voters can see we're we're not taking that out or whatever, right?

Is there's a means of communication to voters, and I think we could do that communication in another way, right?

We could in the language, you know, not in the charter law, but we can say, by the way, this is also completely adequately covered in this provision of GIA.

So we so we're just we're just doing some housekeeping by removing this duplicate item, and that can be that can communicate to the voters about that because it because I don't think there's any benefit to having the duplication in the laws.

It's just adds more complexity through the chair, just to clarify the it's not that GIA is exactly duplicating the charter.

GIA is essentially making the charter provisions enforceable.

I get that.

It's it's the preferred language, and we have a mechanism for it, and it in fact duplicates a piece of the charter.

Right.

And so for example, if a charter provision that's mentioned in GIA is removed, then that GIA provision would be impacted by that removal.

Sure, but but that doesn't apply in this case because it's a very specific thing in GIA that says exactly this, you know, you can't tell people what to do and all that, right?

So well, all the charter sections that are referenced in GISA as provided by charter section so and so.

So if that charter section changes that GIA section is impacted by the charter.

Well, I so I'm talking about uh 22570E, which has a lot of language in here which is substantial which is very similar to uh the 218 current two eighteen and proposed 218 D.

I I think it covers it more comprehensively is my point, and and so that it leaves doubt as to the purpose of the provision in the charter.

Well, uh that particular section, all the different sections that reference these charter sections that are under the enforcement authority of the PEC, they all all the sections in GIA that give enforcement authority for those provisions.

They all begin with as prohibited by city charter section, so and so they're all they're all dependent upon the language in the charter.

Well, we can fix that now because we're changing the charter, right?

And so this this is this is this can clean that up.

I guess the one thing I I would just want to caution, like I don't think um like if you're gonna get very specific, I'd be concerned about making it off the cuff.

This is like a big change.

It's not something that we've discussed or even thought of, you know, that we only just became aware of these uh proposals very recently.

So I I am a little bit concerned without you know the ability to, you know, further analyze what the impacts are, making a decision on what exactly would be the right or appropriate thing to do tonight.

So that's just a caution I wanna.

Sure.

I I and I completely agree with you.

I mean, I I think the the there's a lot of detail in this text which shouldn't be casually considered, but I I do think we should look at this issue of of uh maybe that could be the scope of our recommendation is just that to look at it and do more work.

Please, like to the chair.

Um, yes, so right.

Your mic oh mic's off.

Thank you all, plugging me back in, appreciate it.

Um I I would request caution with respect to making recommendations around removing section two eighteen.

Um D.

218 D.

D.

So thank you.

218 D.

And part of the reason is in the and when the working group looked at other charters across other jurisdictions, that was something that was um that that similar language is in other charters to protect kind of potential cases of coercion with employees and some of our um lower level staff to feel kind of pressure to have to do certain things based on certain requests.

And uh not to direct a question to the city attorney, but I I would be curious if um it would make sense to not make that recognition around removing section two eighteen D.

Um, but my understanding is it would it allowing the inclusion of to section two eighteen D to remain wouldn't preclude you from further clarifying different aspects in the GIA um related to um if you want to further elaborate on what that protection means, fines, things like that of um for folks who would violate section two eight D.

The other piece of it is to just for consideration is um if if it if you were to recommend removing it, uh changing the charter is as a much more rigorous process.

Um and so when it comes to like kind of protecting employees from being coerced and things like that, um, not to indicate that you would all do this, but there is a world where uh there could be a legislative proposal to kind of whittle down some of the the GIA recommendations in ways that it might be a little more difficult to do through the charter, um again, in the in the spirit of kind of protecting employees and things like that.

That makes sense.

It does make sense.

I'm not very convinced, but thank you.

I mean, I don't think there's a lot of motivation to go and water down the GIA to do this, so uh, yeah, and sorry, through the um through the chair.

Yeah, not suggesting that this commission would, but future commissions um potentially could in a way that um could be harmful.

Just throwing it out there.

Okay, thanks.

All right.

Any other comments on?

Um so well, we're talking with the representative of the mayor's office.

Um you had indicated during your original presentation, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but uh the sense that I got from you was that you were uh uh more in favor of the original language as proposed.

I I think when when I originally read this analysis, it kind of sounded like maybe it was an oversight that the PEC was being left with this uh uh enforcement authority over some of these provisions when it really doesn't make sense.

Um but it sounded like from your presentation that you believe that the PEC should be uh maintaining that authority as written over all of the sections of uh 218.

So I wanted to to get your sense on why that's important from the sense of the mayor's office, and also would you be open to the idea of uh the PEC maintaining authority over just two eighteen D?

Yeah, appreciate that question, Commissioner.

Um Yeah, so I mean I th so one it was intentional, um, and the spirit was to allow with the within those sections 218A, B, C, and and D, the and the intent was really to allow some independent body, not for you all to kind of micromanage whether someone responds or is responsive or departments like providing a government affairs liaison or uh a liaison at all.

The intent really is to have an independent body to mediate for instances where there it may be an overreach, where you may have a future elect official who makes very clear demands of staff to not do something within that section.

Um, and so the intent is to allow the ethics commission to still have the jurisdiction to weigh in um and be that mediator um of sorts when there isn't an overreach within those sections.

Again, the intent is not to micromanage those sections.

And I in my opening remarks, I had mentioned um a willingness to kind of work with the director to explore language that would allow you to kind of modify or make recommendations to the GIA that would further kind of spell out what your role would be in within those sections.

Um but the real spirit was just to allow um there to be some mediator when the issue arises to the level where it's not someone that's uh there's uh someone uh of the mayor or department head who's making a decision on whether or not these sections are being enforced or not, um in extreme scenario scenarios.

And is the idea is the idea that in the absence of the PEC explicitly being named as that mediator, there's nobody else in the city that would be qualified to do it?

Um to my knowledge, there's uh I think from our view it's the preferences to have the public ethics be that body because of the role that you already have within respect to some of the um within section two eighteen D.

But we uh to my knowledge, there's not in our view, kind of another body that could kind of play that mediator role in a way that we um feel confident would kind of follow the spirit of the charter reform working group.

So the long way of saying is I I we don't have a body um that we've been able to identify that would be able to serve that role.

Okay, I have so my my reaction to your thought, your sort of expression.

I mean, our roles are public transparency, ethics and government corruption.

This playing a mediating role between two essential political actors over what seems like a political fight seems a real extension of our jurisdiction and one we are not historically been well equipped to deal with.

Well, we do mediate, for example, in public records act, it's between a department and member of the public in the interest of furthering public transparency.

I can't think of anywhere else where we play a mediating role between two political actors over operational and political considerations.

Can anyone else this th this just seems like a real can of worms?

And I think that's what Director Duran was going with this is that how do we even potentially get involved with with this new like you know, with provisions A through C.

What you know, what are the enforcement actions?

How does that work?

That's that requires a lot of study, I think.

And again, this is a charter change, right?

That has to be very carefully reviewed.

So it just doesn't feel baked that we should be have any involvement in in those three provisions.

Um may I sort of uh kind of dig a little bit deeper here, and I don't know if it's allowed, but can we ask the enforcement chief to alpine on the visibility of us enforcing and how would those sort of uh preferred amendments to GIA would look like if we go that dropped?

In other words, we leave all A through D closes, but then specify potential involvement enforcement in GIA, like um, so Director Doran and I have discussed this at length, and I think she's well represented my concerns about um these changes that are proposed to 218.

I think I would say that um the way I see this playing out would be a huge influx of complaints about small level matters that we don't have guidance on how to weigh in.

I would also say that enforcement is just our role is not as mediators.

That is not how we show up for the city.

Um, I don't I do agree with some members of the commission that it would be a huge extension of our obligations in if we if we accepted that as part of enforcement's role.

Um I I suppose there's a mechanism.

That's okay, because you have plenty of extra staff and yeah, yeah.

It's fine, we can handle an influx of complaints.

No problem.

Um, you know, I I could see a way that we could figure out because we have the mediation procedures, we could figure out a way that this could be a mediation thing, but I don't see a way that these sort of positive obligations become part of our enforcement lexicon.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

That's I think very helpful.

Yeah, I I agree with that too.

I'm just reading these these various provisions and trying to figure out what it would even look like, you know, if there wasn't a designated council liaison, or if coordination wasn't insured um section B.

I'm not even sure what the obligations are in section B.

Um, so I I think we would have more questions and more problems and potentially answers, um, to the extent we have oversight over this, at least in the way that it's written.

Um, so what I'm hearing is that there's there's uh pretty universally no appetite for the PEC to get involved with 218 A B and C.

I have a particular position about 218 D that it should go away, but there doesn't seem to be much appetite in my position.

So I'm willing to, you know, withdraw that piece.

Um and it seems like uh the proposal by Director Duran, which is to simply say, okay, we're not involved.

Your language, your proposed language and the staff recommendations that we're not going to be involved with um 218 at all, right?

Um, then I would support that, and I think that's consistent with what the commissioners are saying.

I think so.

I just want to confirm one thing with um the city attorney's office.

You had mentioned that if the charter provision changes that might affect the GIA provision or authority.

If it if our the charter change is limited to removing the reference to 218 in charter section 603, would that create any issues?

Yeah, and I'm not I can't advise on what those issues would be tonight, but when you have a section of ordinance that's based that you know directly cites to as required by or as provided by a section of the charter, and that section of charter goes away that absolutely impacts the ordinance section.

We have to fix the ordinance too, yeah, right.

So I guess so.

I mean, I I I want I just wondered I if we f I I'm okay with supporting that, but then we have to ensure that the GIA is fixed before voters you know potentially approve.

I I don't think so.

Can we just clarify?

I think it wasn't that we would remove the language from 218.

It's just that we would remove it from uh three B or whatever.

From 603B of uh provisions that we're required to enforce.

Yeah, but um through the chair, I think we wouldn't be allowed to enforce based on uh the attorney's view because the GI of cross-references CC charter, so right?

Through the chair, you can the council can add additional enforcement obligations to the PEC by ordinance.

It doesn't have to be covered by the 603.

It has to be within the subject the overall subject matter, but the council's already added various provisions to the to the uh enforcement purview of the commission via ordinance, such as the provisions for uh regarding the police commission and the CPRA.

So it's it seems like we could we could either say take out reference to two eighteen in 603, which is the staff recommendation, which is the staff recommendation, but you know, we would want to ensure that that does not affect our authority to enforce GIA.

It seems like that's okay, but through the chair, it's not that it your authority under GIA would be gone, it's more that the if a provision of GIA is dependent upon uh provision in the charter, then that provision being eliminated, obviously would involve it.

But we're not doing we're not.

But if you're not doing that and you're just removing your authority under the charter, it doesn't change your authority of GIA.

Okay.

Perfect.

Thank you.

So just for my own edification, so removing cross-reference does not remove our enforcement authority, but removing the section.

So the section was the issue because then there is no underlying authority.

I think I heard you correctly, yes.

If you're just removing, if you were just to, for example, remove two eighteen from 603, 218 would still be viable and GIA would still be viable.

Okay.

But she's not the mayor Barbara Lee.

Um so hearing loud and clear, it sounds like there's a um a consensus on the commission relative to removing uh section two eighteen A, B and C from Section 603 in terms of enforcement.

Um if I could request one maybe recommend or accommodation or consideration, um it sounds like there's with respect to section six oh three or sorry, two eighteen D.

If there's a willingness to um authorize or to allow ongoing conversations with respect to section uh two eighteen D, and so authorizing the director to continue to uh engage our office around accommodating potential either changes to that or additional accommodations.

I do think in it from our perspective, allowing two eighteen D to just continue to fall under the public ethics commission, I think um would align both with the working group, but I also think with council's the will of the will of folks to ensure that there is some level of oversight with respect to um co um coercion with respect to city staff and and allowing kind of some level of um venue to um facilitate complaints related to that, I think would be really important.

I think uh uh and I apologize if I'm pronounced mispronouncing your name wrong, uh, Commissioner Talak, but I think there was uh you had raised at one point um kind of the the message and the optics, I think, relative to kind of what you're putting in in terms of like selling to the public and things like that.

I do think having language and having a body that um provides oversight relative to that section would be really important.

And so our request, I think if there's not a willingness to include section A, B and C is to authorize the director or to uh allow us to continue to have engage in that conversation.

So, but that's exactly what GIA does right now.

We already have that.

We are we have a clear provision in there with enforcement that works.

So we're not, I mean, right?

So we're not changing that.

Yeah, my yeah, my understanding is that, but it also wouldn't preclude you all from a pat or amending and changing GIA as well, but would it again ingrain it in the charter in a way that I think is important.

So what if we said something that like you know the that we would support or you know, we would be open to considering including two eighteen D in our in the enforcement uh with direction to the director and the mayor's office to have ongoing discussions about how best to align section two eighteen D and GIA to avoid duplication or something like that.

Yeah, I think the only request I think would be to add city council into there as well.

Yeah.

Whoever the relevant stakeholders are.

And in fact, even to do it just occurred to me.

So even with the staff recommendation, um and with the existence of the proposed two eighteen D, we still would need to amend GIA because that that last bullet point in GIA would need to refer to section two eighteen D instead of Section 218.

Right.

It's not no, it wouldn't be GI, it would be the the Charter Section 603B.

I understand that, but in GIA, that that says as provided by section 218 in the charter.

Right now, that's what the law says.

So we would need to fix that to say 218 D.

Right?

I mean, because other otherwise it's referring to all of 218.

It's correct that if uh your enforcement authority was limited to a hypothetical two eighteen D and your GIA remain referencing T 218 in general, that would create uh a disparity, but in in general, any change to 218 D relative to two eighteen now, if any change in the text creates a similar disparity for that section as a whole.

Sure, but I mean this this will create a really bad one, right?

Because we're saying specifically we do not want the PEC to be involved in two eighteen A B and C.

As we're fine with it to continue to be two eighteen D, which is what GIA refers to.

So I think we should definitely see to it that that's clarified.

Otherwise it's it creates an ambiguity, right?

I mean, G is referring to all of section two eighteen.

Um I'm looking at the language and it's very specific to non-interference in administrative affairs so and but I agree that it needs to be changed because it quotes the you know, misconduct in uh what is it contract supplies, administrative action stuff that was will be removed.

So we we do need to clean it up, but also re reading this language suggests that we do need to I I am for preserving reference in 603B to 218 because it ties everything together, just like we have D D not the things.

Yes, because we do have conflicts of interest nepotism, which is very I think uh you know it's a parallel structure.

So it's uh it's like a code through that is connected through the you know triggers through this particular thing as opposed to just mere duplication in my view.

Through the through the chair, um I would just say that I think that our role as the commission is to provide guidance on our intent with uh how we feel about what the commission should be responsible for enforcing and in terms of making sure that works technically with the charter and with GIA, we can lip the uh the folks who are working on actually drafting this, work that out.

So could I try and summarize maybe again two for see if I can go two for two?

Um so I if I could maybe make a motion to um support the inclusion of 218 as is, but only limit the PEC's enforcement authority to two eighteen D in the reference in charter section 603 with direction to the staff to work with the mayor's office and city council to align section two eighteen D with GIA to minimize duplication, and with further direction to staff that should this uh proposal be enacted by the voters, the requisite amendments be made or offered to to GIA Um to uh fix the issue and make sure that our our enforcement is limited to 18 D.

I don't think I can give that last direction to staff, but I just want to note that we need to do that if this passes.

So I agree with that.

Does anyone have a problem with that that in terms of the the where with where this is going?

So how are you with the language?

I was just hoping maybe we could simplify the motion.

Yeah.

Um a little bit.

Okay, it might be hard to communicate it.

So I think it's I think what I'm hearing is just that that um, you know, if you want to direct staff to work with the authors and the city attorney to to clarify that you know, to restrict our jurisdiction to um the new two eighteen D and do whatever technical amendments are necessary for clarity.

Yes, that is exactly what I think I meant to say.

Score, okay.

That sounds like a great motion.

Do you want do you want to should I restate the motion?

Um, so the motion is um to support the changes to 218, um, and but only support having the PEC have enforcement authority over 218D as referenced in 603 and direction to staff would work with the authors and city council um to effectuate that and make any technical amendments.

Second, all right.

Let's have some public comment.

Now I can write that down.

I support the deputy uh mayor proposal for independent mediator arbitrator because there's too much politics here because I've been the victim of your politics, and contrary to what staff has indicated, there's been very few violations under 218.

Let me give you a laundry list.

2012-2013, cultural interference audit.

The most significant documents section 218 matter arose during the administration of Oakland City Auditor Courtney Ruby.

Dates 2013, uh conduct investigation, primary 2011-2012.

The city auditor issued a performance audit titled commonly referred to as the cultural interference report.

The audit concluded that several council members are on their age and properly interfered in administrative matters involving contracting personnel decision and procurement and direct city staff.

The audit especially stated that five council members are aides engaged in contact and consistent with 218.

The report described a systematic problem where elected officials allegedly pressured staff regarding contract intervene in hiring matters, tempted to direct administrative employees and bypass administrative structure required by the charter.

Legislative uh ethics.

This was one of the strongest formal findings ever issued under 218 and led to internal reforms, ethics commission, and increased attention from the Alameda County Grand Jury, Alameda County Grand Jury finding 2012 to 2013.

Grand jury reported.

Uh the Alameda County civil grand jury reported echo concerns about widespread interference by elected officials.

Uh administrative operation, the grand jury findings reinforced concerns.

Council members were in properly inserting themselves and operational decision.

The city lacked clear boundaries between policymaking and administration, and staff fear retaliation political.

Section 218 was specifically identified as central to the controversy, central controversy involving Desley Brook.

Circumstance 2012-2013.

Allegation involved attempts uh influence staff involvement in personnel matters operation matters and conduct allegedly inconsistent with uh with 218.

Uh uh while controversy and censure discussions occurred publicly, not every allegation resulted in a formal adjudication misconduct.

203, uh non-interference dispute dates.

Uh this council member Nancy Nadell reportedly sought a formal legal opinion from the city attorney, John Russo, concerning the limits of council authority over administrative operation while Robert Bob served the city administrator manager.

Thank you, Mr.

Hazard.

Just give me a just give me uh a minute and a half.

No, sorry, your time is up.

You need to understand you're making the decision on something that staff had indicated to you that there weren't any real violations.

I'm giving you the laundry list.

I hear you.

Your time is up.

Thank you.

So I just give me a no, your time is up.

Don't be shaking your hand at me.

Your time is up, sir.

Okay, I'll sit up.

This is please sit down.

I'll be back.

I'm gonna finish this, but I come back.

You are welcome to come back.

Okay.

Good evening again, Ralph Cans.

Uh, this is getting into the thing I experienced I had quite a number of years ago with a meeting of the city staffer who said I have eight mayors I have to answer to.

That's what two eighteen is about.

And it's been a, as Mr.

Hazard said, it's been an ongoing problem.

And the conflict here is you have city council members who want to be able to give instruction to city staff because they want to take political credit.

It's like I got I got your street paved.

Well, that's not how it works, and they don't understand how it works.

What they do understand is the politics of it, and this is about politics, it's not about good government and how things should function.

And your discussion here really highlights the problem of this working group never having a public meeting.

We don't know what the working group actually did here relative to this issue because there's no meet meeting minutes, there's no agendas, we don't know who discussed it.

We don't know who wrote any of this stuff.

We don't know what it came from, other than the mayor's office released it.

I mean, was Sean Dugar one of the people who wrote this?

I know who's Sean Dugar.

Well, Sean Dugar is a political operator who was hired to do staffing for the working group.

How much did he get paid?

I mean, I've asked for that information.

The mayor's office won't provide it.

Who wrote the report?

Most reports like that will give credit to the authors.

It's completely blank as who actually wrote that.

And because we don't have the meeting minutes and agendas of the working group, we don't know if they ever even discuss this issue.

This might have simply been something that the mayor's office wrote up.

We have no proof of how this ever came to be, which is a complete violation of the state constitution.

The people have the right to know that.

And an issue, your discussion here highlights the failure to have a public process to discuss and hash out these kind of items because this is the kind of thing that takes a number of people sitting around a room for it could take a number of hours to hash this out and really get it right because you do this, then that, and you know, all the potential effects of how you word the law to understand what the ramifications might be, and to have this being rushed through the city council in the next like three weeks is no way to do it, and you cannot allow your executive director to make decisions for the council.

I mean, for this commission about what should be in that language for to the council.

There could be negotiation, but it still needs to come back to this commission for approval of what it might be.

Thank you.

Any other public comment?

Let us vote.

Uh Vice Chair Talak.

Hi.

Um Shrafeld, Commissioner Baeva.

I.

Commissioner Brandon.

Aye.

Commissioner Fisher.

Aye.

Commissioner Mitchick, I vote aye.

Alright, so that motion passes.

And now it's time for a little break, don't you think?

So let us reconvene at 9:34.

All right, we're uh reconvened.

And our next item is uh action item seven, the case closure plan.

Good evening, commissioners.

Um I'm gonna talk briefly.

There's only two cases um in the backlog that we're requesting closure, no action on, but I'm gonna um discuss them just briefly to give you some some more information on them.

Uh the first case is straightforward.

Um this was one of the cases that was uh slated for an administrative hearing, um, but when we looked into it further, the respondent is deceased, and the organization named as a respondent is his organization, which is now defunct.

So um there's just no merit in pursuing it any further.

Uh the other case um it's regarding the alleged failure of the redistricting commission to send agendas um and agenda-related meeting materials to agenda subscribers for the commission's um last three meetings when the complaint came in.

The um previous staff did some preliminary review on this um and discovered that um it looked like the the complainant was inadvertently dropped off the email list, but the agenda had gone out.

Um there's no evidence in the file of intent to conceal, deceive, mislead, or exclude um the response the complainant in particular.

Um so I think this is most accurately characterized as a potential administrative email list maintenance issue, and less of a um a corruption issue, for example.

Um in addition, uh, from what we understood at the time, the meetings occurred after the redistricting commission had adopted its maps um and were um these were made basically follow-up meetings to wrap up the body's work, so there's reduced um value in prosecuting these cases or reduced value to the public.

Um in addition, these occurred in late 2022, 2023, so they're three to four years old.

Um any attempt to investigate at this point is gonna be hampered by stale evidence and stale memories.

Um and so we determined that the level of resources needed to investigate would be disproportionate to the potential gain um in prosecution.

And so those are the two cases that are on the docket for a closure no action.

And just a question about the second one.

Absent some intent or I mean, if it was just an administrative error that someone got left off, then that's that in itself would not be a thing that we would take action on.

It could be a sunshine violation in and of itself still, um, for someone to be left off uh a list.

Um it would involve us determining that the person was originally on the relative importance or um just a number of things would have to go into laying out the case is lessened because there's no apparent intent to deceive.

Gotcha.

Okay.

Any questions?

Uh okay.

Um I will entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion.

I'm allowed to do that.

Uh, let's that we accept the staff recommendation to close these two cases, I think.

All right, and let us have some public comment.

Gene has conflict of interest allegations.

Oakland City uh Oakland Charter separate prohibits financial conflicts of interest and incompatible office conduct.

The public ethics commission has authority to enforce those provisions.

Examples of recurring conflicts of interest concerns include streaming contracts to political allies, participation in decisions involving donor or business associates, uh, campaign finance coordination, and officials participating in matters affecting uh interests.

Uh you previously referenced allegations, Ken Houston, Kevin Jenkins, Justin Johnson's Harold Duffy.

Those allegations concern possible steering of contracts, extortion coercion concerns, government code, 1090 conflicts, and potential uh section two eighteen interference question involving procurement of administrative influences.

If you allowed me to finish this, this could have been completed.

But this is what I'm talking about, okay.

You want to skirt the issue, when the matter and the discussion, I understand time, but when the public asked for just another minute or so to complete, because this could have impacted how you voted in the matter.

You need to understand the public is watching.

You're losing your credibility and your integrity because you engage in political.

It took me a while to come up with the appropriate language.

But y'all need to wake up.

You need to wake up because I do my homework, and I know what the four corners of the law is for these attorneys on there.

So for you to rubber stamp something that you should under your own ethic swearing in, you need to speak up because it's gonna come back and bite you where the sun don't shine, because when I come before this body, I've done my homework, and the way you try to ask these esoteric questions that has nothing to do with the substance of what the law is and what the regulations are.

You ought to be shamed of yourself.

Posture yourself as beacons for the community.

You're not when you engage in the same conflict, political conflict.

Thank you, Mr.

Hazard.

Give me again, Ralph Cans.

Um, I'm the complainant in that second matter.

Um this is speaks loudly to the whole issue that Brown Act violations should go right to the front of the line because there's a time issue with them.

I mean, there should be any cure and correct.

Happened shortly after the complaint was filed.

Now, this particular complaint has some other issues to it in that I filed a complaint about the December 13th, 2021 meeting of the redistricting commission, where the agenda was not sent to anybody, zero people received it, and they held the meeting.

And I happened to find about the out the about the meeting after it commenced.

So this time all meetings were by Zoom.

There was no it was not a live, you know, in attendance meeting.

So I joined the meeting after it had started quite some time after it started.

And then I filed the complaint because staff said we didn't send the agenda to anybody, which is a violation right there.

End of story.

So at that point I'd already had a complaint against the redistricting commission, and then those last three meetings had to do with writing the final report to the city council, which did not adequately explain all the problems they had with staffing and noticing of meetings, which was what I would have attended the meeting to make sure was included in that report.

Now why would I get left off?

If I got left off of one of the meetings, I could see it, you know, some little glitch.

But the fact that I left out three consecutive meetings after what had happened previously, raises a real concern about what happened there.

It doesn't feel inadvertent, and we still have another complaint going about the redistrict commission.

I have regarding conflicts of interest.

It is way past being dealt with.

Plus, there's a couple other complaints about the registration commission is still having to dealt with.

So anyway, we look forward to seeing those.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other public comment?

All right.

We have a seconded motion, so let us vote on the case closure plan motion.

Uh Vice Chair Talok.

Aye.

Commissioner Apfeld.

I Commissioner Baeva.

I.

Mr.

Brandon.

Aye.

Commissioner Fisher.

Aye.

Commissioner Mitchick.

I vote yes.

So that passes.

So now we're on to the informational items.

Uh item eight, Oakland Campaign.

Reform Act Guide for 2026.

Good evening, Commissioners.

Jelani Killing, senior analyst.

Uh so the PC puts out educational guides uh for the regulated community to help them understand and comply with our laws.

Uh so the Oakland Campaign Reform Act has been updated uh for the 2026 election, and it will be a resource for candidates and campaign committees.

Uh staff will distribute the new guide to our campaign filers list as well as publish it on our website.

Uh, this is an informational item, so there's no action, but I'd be happy to answer any questions or take any feedback that you may have on the guide as we get ready to publish it for this election season.

Anyone have questions or feedback?

My only feedback is it's very thorough and and helpful, and I appreciate the effort that went into preparing this.

Anything else?

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Okay, next item is enforcement program report.

Oh, public comment, public comment.

Any public comment?

Okay.

Uh enforcement program report.

Good evening again.

Um I want to make one note on the enforcement report itself.

Um, we realized that the second chart, which is titled Preliminary Complaint Review Completed by Outcome.

Um it was not including backlog preliminary review memos, so we've adjusted the chart for this meeting, and and we'll be using this procedure this sort of chart going forward.

Um we're including backlog complaints that were still in intake or preliminary review when we wrote the backlog memo determining whether to close or keep open.

It's essentially functioning as a preliminary review.

And we are not including cases in the investigation stage or later for which we write a backlog memo because we would not consider those preliminary reviews.

So just with this method of counting, our total number of preliminary reviews completed this year rises to 16.

So I just wanted to note that change in the way that we're presenting our data to you.

In addition, I'm just again quickly going to go through the two cases that we have dismissed in this last month.

It was an allegation that the complainant had reported fraud, corruption, and overtime abuse to the then city auditor, Brenda Roberts, and that she then compromised his whistleblower confidentiality, and as a result, he was harassed, retaliated against, and ostracized.

I think it's notable that this complaint implicates the whistleblower act, but the whistleblower act has no specific language about the PEC's role in enforcement.

The city charter that at 603B, which we've been discussing tonight, does say that we have jurisdiction over any ordinance intended to protect city whistleblowers from retaliation.

But the whistleblower act itself does not provide us with any remedies in the event of a violation.

So the law would have to be changed for our enforcement authority here to be strong.

And for that reason, but also because this case is so very old, we have dismissed the case.

As far as 2039, this allegation is that then Mayor Schaff used a city mailing list to endorse several candidates and ballot measures up for vote in the 2020 election.

So I understand that this matter concerns a high-ranking individual who has previously come before this commission.

But we determined that the probability of substantiating a violation is relatively low, and again, that the relative resources required to investigate compared to the likelihood of uh proving a violation weighed in favor of dismissing the case.

I can answer any questions you might have.

I have a color question about your graphs.

Yes.

And the one on the left, complaints are blue and cases are yellow.

One on the right, cases are blue.

And and the the, I know there's a big difference between cases and complaints, and having a uniform color scheme on everything so that it emphasizes all that would be more helpful for people like me trying to figure this out.

I totally understand that.

I would say that the one on the right, actually, because it includes dismissals, it is uh a graph of both complaints and cases.

Um but we'll take that back and we'll we'll figure out a way of sort of.

I mean, maybe you just say complaints and cases.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, thank you for bringing that up.

If you can be super precise about kind of the language there, it helps.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Any other questions on the enforcement report?

I'll uh I'll ask a couple questions.

So um regarding to regarding the 2018 case, um you mentioned that uh the PEC doesn't have an enforcement mechanism for these sorts of whistleblower uh retaliation cases.

Is there any jurisdiction or body that does?

So it's a it's a little unclear in the so we we do have our own retaliation um code, which um covers if somebody's trying to report something that we have jurisdiction over.

Um the whistleblower complaint refers to um complaints to the city auditor about waste fraud and abuse, but we only have authority over it because of 603B because of this mention about whistleblower um retaliation in 603B.

The whistleblower ordinance states that the auditor can investigate, um, and if if it's regarding the auditor, then the city attorney has to investigate.

And then the remedy is um that there can be um basically professional response, like someone could be dismissed or suspended or without pay or something like that.

But it's a little to be honest it's a little unclear in the ordinance.

I actually I spoke with City Auditor Houston today, and I think there might be some updates that are coming down the pipeline on it.

Okay.

And so I mentioned my concern about how we have technically have jurisdiction but no no enforcement mechanism.

Yeah that's very frustrating because as you've described the allegations in the summary it's they're pretty serious.

Was it was the um was the complaint against the auditor or against this person's supervisor or no it was against the city auditor herself.

For compromising the confidentiality.

Yeah and that doesn't fall under anything that under not within GIA no.

Okay.

Uh yeah I hope that gets that gets fixed.

That's interesting.

Yeah.

Is there a list that this is going to go on of stuff that we should think about because this is for us to do right we're we're the custodian of these laws.

Uh this one um I this one might be on the city auditor's office but I am like I said I I am in touch with him.

I definitely I have a I have a list going about um complaint procedure I I do have a list going on things that need to be modified.

I'll keep this on the list just to make sure it doesn't disappear um when and if updates are interrupted you yeah no thank you yeah th please please update us on that.

In regard to the 2020 case uh based on the way you've described it it sounds pretty straightforward somebody was accused of using their city email for a political reason and a city email list for a political purpose.

But it sounds like it it was hard to prove and it went on for years.

What am I missing there?

Um so the it's not that she used her own city email to send out the the um the uh sorry sounds like some endorsements for endorsements thank you thank you um it's not that she used her own city email it's that she the allegation was that she used an email list that had been compiled for city purposes and there's really especially at this late date but but there's really no there are so many plausible ways that she could have collected those names that um that the the act of trying to prove that it was in fact a city list just feels too high too high of a burden for us at this point in the case.

Are we do we feel like uh city officials especially supervisors and elected officials are fully aware of what's legal and what's not in terms of using city accumulated resources for political purposes like that.

I've seen other I think I can say this I've seen other cases involving this type of issue.

I don't know how widespread it is um so I don't know if I can answer whether that what uh I guess that would be a a um education part of it yeah yeah I guess that that's what I'm getting at is is that is this a point of emphasis in our trainings.

I believe it's in our Form 700 trainings maybe uh Mr.

Killings can answer that.

Yeah thank you senior analyst Jelani Killing so we do provide uh education around uh misuse of city resources which this would fall under uh we have put out advisors we put out every election season around abuse of city resources as it relates to city email use as well um and we also during our ethics check in one on ones with elected offices also do share about in terms of um the collection of email databases, and once those are used for officeholder purposes, that they can then be used for campaign purposes later down the row.

So we do provide some information and education around uh email list and distribution.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't know what obviously I don't know what the specifics of this case were, but it strikes me as the kind of thing where there might be some gray area, there might be some uh level of, you know, I could have gotten these names from somewhere else, and um so I guess like when I see things like this that come up, I just want to make sure that um we're using this, not just looking at this in isolation for oh, we can close this case, but oh, maybe we should update our education materials.

Maybe we should make this something that we emphasize more to folks like, you know, just be careful with these sorts of uh lists and how we use them.

Does that make sense?

Totally, and and something that we um have been talking about internally is is more of a I think in the past there's been a uh silo effect between enforcement and program, and we're trying to create more avenues of of cooperation.

So I think that's that's that absolutely falls within that purview.

Great, thank you.

Um I just had one more of a process question um related to case the 2020 uh case.

Um so I understand when you you know note dismissals for allegations that are outside our jurisdiction or don't say to violation, but the justifications provided here were based on the age of the complaint, difficulty of substantiating um a violation, um, and things like that, which seem to go more to the factors that you have for the case closure plan.

Um so I'm just wondering why this was brought forth as a dismissal without an action from us versus uh a case closure.

I think that's a fair point.

Um, and I think I think perhaps based on our past practices, it should have gone on the case closure memo.

I don't think it has to.

I think when I presented uh I think enforcement retains discretion.

Um, and so and also when I pr presented the May plan, um I talked about the use of discretion more.

So I don't think I don't think it has to be remedied at this point, but I I agree in in past practices I have been only dismissing cases that are clearly outside of our jurisdiction and bringing to you cases that um require more of a judgment call.

So I apologize.

Yeah, no, no, to be clear, I have I have no issue with that.

I'm just trying to keep straight in my mind what cases are gonna come to us under case closure versus dismissal.

Yeah, and I can be more careful of that moving forward.

I'll I'll make sure that question.

So these are referred to as complaints.

Are they complaints or cases?

These are complaints.

Okay.

So the case is something that's past a case is something that past preliminary view, and the closure plan is more to deal with cases, right?

And and complaints that is true.

As far as I understood it, that's that was the intent, and that's why I'm thinking that's why this appears here and the other ones appear there.

That is true, and and we could never use discretion our own discretion to close something that had moved into a case status.

Um, so I I agree.

We we do have authority to dismiss this.

Um, but I I I also agree, Commissioner Tilac, that in past if we were going by past practice, it it could have been on the closure.

Yeah, to be clear, no, no issues.

I just it's late and I was trying to keep it.

It gets complicated.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Thank you so much.

Um public comment.

Procedurally, they're going to be given an in service thoroughly.

They choose to ignore what the rules say.

On uh, I gave to you uh the complaint with regards to the April 14th uh public hearing that the mayor chose not to break the tie.

I read to you, if the mayor declines, the item fails under both John Russo and Barbara Parker.

Legal opinions as a city attorney.

So I defy your enforcement chief to dismiss this.

It's real clear.

I didn't send this to her, because I went to the legal opinion.

One was in 2003, and the other one was in 2022, saying the same thing.

A tie vote means there's no majority affirmative vote, and therefore the motion or legislation dies.

So what the council did illegally, they continued the matter to May 5th.

Similar to the April 14th, 2026 transcript.

I got another transcript I've read through as well on May 5th.

It's illegal.

They can't continue it.

So your enforcement chief better come up with a sanction on what the council illegally did with respect to that public hearing related to the protected tree orders, uh 12.36.

Total violation.

Don't put your head in the sand on this.

Don't come back and bite you.

I've been real clear.

And I highlighted so there won't be any ambiguity.

Oh, what did he mean by that?

The core legal opinion of the city attorney, the first elected city attorney, John Russo, in 2000.

And then Barbara Parker legal opinion that corresponds with John Russo's opinion.

What happens when there's a tie vote, and the mayor declines to exercise a vote that is make making the matter pass.

Be clear, she bet not come up dismissing this.

Thank you, Mr.

Hazard.

Any other public comment?

Okay, now I think we're the ED report.

Good evening again.

Um I do have a few updates since the report was published.

Um first on budget.

Last Friday, uh Mayor Lee published her proposed budget for the fiscal year that starts on July 1st.

Um and so I wanted to note that in the in the draft budget that's going to go to council, there are no cuts to our staffing or additional uh positions being frozen, which is good.

Um, and so we will be able to fill the positions that are budgeted for 2627, which are vital to us, including a third investigator and a third analyst.

Um the mayor's draft budget did include cuts to our demarc the democracy dollar startup funds that were allocated for the maplight contract.

However, the funds that were allocated for 2627, I believe are sufficient for the projected contract costs in that year.

So sort of the the you know, the way that the Oakland Fair Elections Act is written, it gives an amount for startup.

Um we weren't gonna spend that amount in 2627, so I feel these are absorbable, they're not gonna delay anything that would impact you know the timing for implementation.

Um let's see, the other thing I did want to note that there were a couple projects that were noted in our 2026 initiatives that I now kind of created an on-hold status, so you wouldn't wonder where they went, but with that cutback in the contracts, I just to be um really careful.

We had we were hoping to get some case management software and also um our move to the new office suite, which is very different from our previous location and needs to be renovated to um account for like our our needs around security and confidentiality and processing, you know, of the of the programs gonna need some renovations, but um there isn't there aren't really funds in that 2026-27 budget to do that.

So I just moved those to on hold.

That's why.

Otherwise, um, I guess the only other thing I want to note was if commissioners would please uh make a note in your calendars.

We I wasn't able to find a date that worked for most commissioners um for our strategic planning retreat in June, and also we had a lot of new business come up that we've been needing to deal with.

So um I think that uh the best plan for now is we are gonna be required to have a special meeting in August.

Um so commissioners who've been on for a while uh are familiar when we administer the limited public financing program for an election.

Part of that process is when we see how many candidates are um certified for the ballot, then the commission has to do a calculation of how much funds are available to the to each candidates based on that, and then we have to hold a special meeting where we um recognize the amount of money available to the candidates, and if it's not up to the maximum that the law allows, then we have a memo that describes how we're going to distribute that fairly, but it's very um what would I say?

It's it's just a very straightforward thing.

This is not like a heavy meeting topic.

You know, we have a process that's worked.

So I think that's since we have to have a special meeting in August regardless, and we'll need a quorum for that meeting so we can administer the program.

I think that is a likely a great date for us to do the our retreat, and um it's dependent on when the city clerk certifies the election.

So the two weeks that are possible, I think it's either gonna be August 12th or 13th, more likely on the Wednesday night.

I think that's easier for people, or it would be on August 19th.

So if everybody could kind of make a note of that, that you're gonna want to try to be available those weeks, and if and I I'll probably send a follow-up message to the commissioners, but if you know already that you have weeks during the summer when you're absolutely gonna be gone, that would be great if you would share that information with staff.

So I think with that, those are all the updates I have for the executive director's report.

Thank you.

Any questions?

I'll just say uh congratulations to Neils for more permanent employment with us.

Thank you for your work.

All right, oh he's gone.

Yeah.

All right.

Um anything else with that public comment?

Anything else with the ED report besides public comment?

Public comment.

Okay, then uh next item is reports on subcommittees and other commissioner assignments.

This is highlighted so I get to read this.

Commission chair may appoint individual commissioners to perform specific tasks or functions by serving on standing or ad hoc committees.

Uh current standing and ad hoc subcommittees assignments are posted on the commission website.

Commissioners may discuss subcommittee assignments, create a new subcommittee, report on work done in subcommittees since the last commission's regular meeting.

Commissioners may also provide updates on assignments efforts and initiatives that they untake to undertake to support the commission's work.

So there's two uh subcommittees.

There's the transparency committee, which will meet tomorrow, and I've finally set out an agenda for that.

So we'll uh be able to report next time on that.

And then we want to have a report on the uh democracy dollars pilot ad hoc subcommittee.

Did you guys meet?

Uh we did meet.

Uh we had our first meeting.

Um, and so again, the subcommittee is the democracy dollars pilot subcommittee, and the background is that uh especially for uh the new folks on the commission just to reset uh democracy dollars was approved in 2022 with measure W.

Uh and the PEC is the agency in charge of implementing it due to the fiscal emergency of the council has yet to fund the program.

And now the earliest it could potentially be implemented would be 2028.

Uh presumably funding will still not be available for a full program rolled out this year uh or that year.

If anything, it may be possible to secure funding for a limited pilot of the democracy dollars program in 2028.

So with that in mind, the purpose of this subcommittee is to provide input to staff exploring viable options for a democracy dollars pilot in 2028 and determining if and how to pursue it.

So uh so we met last week.

Um Commissioner Bayeva was there, uh Commissioner Brandon uh uh had to travel that day, but we are gonna be looping him in on uh everything that was discussed briefly.

Uh we set our goals and deliverables.

Um our plan or and our charge is to uh work with staff to develop a pilot design consensus uh for what it would look like and how much it would potentially cost to determine if sufficient support and a viable plan exist to pursue to pursue attempting to secure funding and community support for a pilot, uh, and to be settled on that um uh in time to work to advocate through the budget process for next year to make sure that we have the funding uh for that.

Uh to that end, we are working on revising some talking points that the staff has prepared um as well as doing some research and gathering materials uh in order to help make these determinations and help to make our case if possible.

Uh and uh we also resolved to keep the full commission uh as informed as possible during these meetings to make sure that uh there's buy-in and consensus among the commissioners as to the direction that we're taking uh for this program that we are in charge of implementing.

Uh Commissioner Bayeva, do you have anything to add to that?

It was a great time, right?

Thank you.

Sorry, no, nothing to add.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you for that report.

Uh any other uh things on Commissioner Simons or Okay.

Uh public comment.

So let me understand this whole thing around democracy dollars.

Uh so the funding right now, what they have about 155,000 here or take a few dollars.

Um, and what remains to be seen whenever it goes into effect is how many candidates there will be uh would be in any given race that would dictate the amount that's spread out over all these candidates.

And my understanding, basically, we're looking at a $25 voucher that then would be given out.

Is that correct?

Well, the so I'll just if I may um just to clarify uh so the uh uh the shape of what a pilot would look like hasn't been developed yet, but the full program, it would be four twenty-five dollar vouchers uh per voter.

And so the amount of the and the and the way it was conceived was that there would be funding that would be provided in a flat amount that would be sufficient to uh uh cover the projected amount of uh how many vouchers would be used.

So uh would that be an additional some type of tax?

Partial yeah, we're we're in public comment here, so we're not we're not doing that.

Sorry, okay.

I'll I'll respond when you're when you're done with your three minutes.

Oh, okay.

So the um so the way the law is set up is that it comes through the general fund.

Um, and uh, you know, I'd say this not just to respond to you, but I think everybody, you know, could always use a refresher on this.

The money is is the way it's set up is supposed to come through the general fund.

It's required to come through the general fund.

Because of the fiscal emergency, the council is not required to allocate that as long as there's uh fiscal emergency declared.

So there has been an idea floated of potentially funding it in some way other than the general fund, but there's no concrete proposal on the table to do that right now.

Any other public comment?

Okay, uh future meeting business.

Okay, any public comment?

We're done.

Thank you.