Good evening.

Welcome to the October 27, 2025, Sacramento Ethics Commission's meeting.

The meeting is now called to order.

Would a clerk please call the role to establish a quorum?

Thank you, Chair.

Vice Chair LaFaso.

Here.

Commissioner Adams?

Present.

Commissioner Velasquez?

Here.

Commissioner Emory?

Here.

And Chair Ng.

Present.

Thank you.

We have quorum.

I would like to remind members of the public that if you would like to speak on an agenda item, please turn in the speaker slip when they when the item begins.

You will have two minutes to speak once you are called on.

After the first speaker, we will no longer accept speaker slips.

We will now proceed with today's agenda.

Clerk, would you please do the land acknowledgement and pledge of allegiance?

Thank you.

Please rise if you are able for the opening acknowledgments in honor of Sacramento's Indigenous People and Tribal Lands.

To the original people of this land, the Nissanan people, the Southern Maidu, Valley and Plains Miwok, Patwin Winton peoples, and the people of the Wilton Rancheria, Sacramento's only federally recognized tribe.

May we acknowledge and honor the native people who came before us and still walk beside us today on these ancestral lands by choosing to gather together today in the active practice of acknowledgement and appreciation for Sacramento's indigenous peoples' history contributions and lives.

Thank you.

Please remain standing for the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation undergone indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

I just have a couple of announcements, and uh before we go to the consent calendar, um because of today's agenda, we're going to do uh the uh audit report.

So I would like to propose that we move the agenda seven up between four and five.

That means to say do it right after the audit report, and before the annual report, and number six, as I understand the city attorney is gonna continue working on this.

So we're going to move item number six to the November agenda, okay.

Our first business today is that Commissioner?

I mean, um, Chair Ing.

I have a question.

You said to move um seven to where?

To uh after number four, after item four okay before we discuss the annual report, got it.

Thank you.

Okay, great.

Our first business today is approval of the consent calendar.

Clerk, are there any members of the public who wish to speak on the consent calendar?

Thank you, Chair.

I have no speaker slips.

Thank you.

Are there any commissioners who wish to speak on this item?

No.

Is there a motion and a second for the consent calendar?

So moved.

Second.

I have a motion by the Vice Chair Lafonso and a second by Commissioner Emery.

Would the clerk please call the roll for the vote?

Thank you, Chair.

Vice Chair La Faso?

Yes.

Commissioner Adams?

Aye.

Commissioner Velasquez.

Aye.

Commissioner Emery.

Aye.

And Chair Ng.

Aye.

Thank you.

The motion passes.

We will now proceed to the discussion calendar.

Item three.

Is the receive independent invalid does no claw, no cause and report complaint against Lenny Milstein.

Is there a staff presentation?

Yes.

Thank you.

Good evening, Commissioners.

Trevor Tanaguchi on behalf of the independent evaluator, Hanson Bridget.

Tonight we have a complaint filed by Don Basciano against the former interim city manager.

The complaint alleges that the interim city manager improperly contacted the complainant to interfere with an ongoing litigation between the city of Sacramento and Burgess.

Additionally, the complaint alleges that the interim city manager also engaged in conduct that appeared to be intimidating or discourage a witness from testifying at trial, and that she used the authority of the city manager's position to influence testimony statements and depositions made public by the city.

And the last claim is that she violated ethical standards requiring public employees to act with impartiality, integrity, and respect for the law.

So in sum, there's four categories of complaints that were alleged against Ms.

Milstein.

As we went into great depth at our last commission meeting, there are specific bodies of law that are under this commission's authority, and so I won't go into detail with all of them unless one of you would like me to.

But to give the complaint the benefit of the doubt, we look at all the laws.

And so in going through all the laws that are subject to this commission's purview, we didn't find any violations of those laws and regulations.

Additionally, we went through, and I specifically, we specifically analyze the two provisions that were contained in the complaint.

So the first is chapter 2.16 was an alleged violation, which is within this commission's jurisdiction.

That is the municipal code provision dealing with conflicts of interest.

The second body of law deals with chapter 4.02, which is the municipal code's code of ethics.

The relevant provision, although it wasn't directly cited by the complainant, but the one we thought most applicable that could be potentially violated was municipal code section 4.02.030, which requires that city officials use their offices and powers for the benefit of the public rather than any employees' personal benefit.

And so we read that to mean you must use your position of power in office for the general public's good, not for your own personal benefit.

And from the facts contained within this complaint, there's nothing that if taken true or if um believed to be true, would uh even suggest that Miss Milstein used her own position as an interim city manager for her own personal benefit.

So that is why we concluded that uh there was no violation that would necessitate a further investigative report.

We did highlight within the investigative report that there are other avenues in which this complainant could seek further uh secret further investigation by reporting the conduct to the attorneys who are referenced in the complaint regarding what was alleged to be improper behavior and communicating uh a subject witness, and also direct her concerns to the city attorney's office if she felt something was improperly disclosed pursuant to a lawsuit between the city uh and a private individual.

So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Clerk, are there any members of the public who wish to speak on this item?

Thank you, Chair.

I have no speaker slips on this item.

Well, thank you.

Are there any commissioners who wish to speak on this item?

Vice Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Welcome back, Mr.

Tonaguchi.

Thank you for answering my first question about looking at all of the laws, not just the two that were cited in the interface.

The one aspect about this matter that concerns me is, and as a parenthetical statement which might be out of your ability to answer, but I think we've had some changes in our online interface.

And I think the way members of the general public input into the online portal has changed recently and I only realized that this week when reviewing um this matter but pertinent to this matter there's a comment that the complainant makes about having some items of evidence the complainant wanted to upload and the complainant said they couldn't upload I have copies of emails both my call log text messages from both Hanson and Milstein and voicemail messages from Milstein I need to provide however I'm unable to attach please advise how to submit thank you says the complainant and I was surprised when I read that I thought we don't let people upload things and then I looked at the current uh the current um interface and it does at least to the extent that's able to see I was able to see accommodate uploading things um I I guess my question to you is did you see any of these copies of emails the call log the text messages or any of these other things that the complainant made reference to in that in that comment in our printout here.

No, we just received a copy of the complaint as it was submitted to the system.

Okay.

Appreciate that I'm I again I was initially surprised at the idea that somebody wouldn't be able to upload items of evidence that they wanted to provide I kind of did a little bit of my own background research and I'm kind of not believing this complainant wouldn't have tried hard to do that and I'm I'm troubled by why that stuff wasn't able to be included in the record and I'm wondering if the clerk could answer a question or two to a comment on whether the there's any reason to understand why we should be looking for these things that the complainant attempted to upload and maybe if you could help me understand what maybe some of the upload limitations are say are they just PDFs but they don't allow uploading voice memos or or that kind of thing.

Again the thrust of my question is I'm troubled by the fact that the complainant didn't seem to be able to upload those items.

Good evening Commission my name is Mindy Cappier City Clerk the only limitation is a 10 megabytes I'm not sure we can upload voice messages but I don't know why not I don't believe that there's a limitation to that but I believe those would come into play if at the once the independent evaluator determined that there possibly could be a violation of an ethics law that they would do a further investigation and ask for that data.

I appreciate that and I did consider that very step so I have a follow-up question to Mr.

Tonaguchi appreciate your response.

So I did think about this Mr.

Tonaguchi and again you know we talked about it last time you generally speaking you don't look at extrinsic evidence.

What's extrinsic is a central question here my personal opinion is if the complainant had been able to upload it it wouldn't be extrinsic you'd look at it in your first look and then I thought to my and of course it says that if we find sufficient cause that there could be a violation we can choose the option of asking you to investigate further and I'm having a trouble deciding that any of that evidence could lead me to that conclusion, and if I can't come to that conclusion, notwithstanding my discomfort about the complaint and not being able to upload that information, I don't think I can fairly decide there's sufficient cause to ask you to go further.

But strangely, when you were walking through the 4.02, the personal benefit uh provision, an idea popped in my head, and that is I'm just going to give you a hypothetical.

And I gotta say, now that we're talking about all these high-level city officials in these complaint matters, I feel obligated to say that anything I talk about here is pure hypothetical and speculative.

This is an accusation against the interim city manager.

There's no evidence that the interim city manager has done anything inappropriate at this juncture.

But suppose one of those messages revealed some kind of information that suggested that Ms.

Brasciano, Ms.

Brasciano's testimony was going to look disfavorable to the interim city manager individually regarding the testimony she was going to provide in the lawsuit.

And the interim city manager had a desire for that personally damaging information that was going to be provided in evidence not to be uh not to be entered into evidence in this particular case.

Again, this is highly speculative, but it occurred to me that it's possible, it's pretty speculative, but it's possible that one of those email messages or voicemail messages that the complainant was unable to upload could conceivably lend itself to that interpretation of personal interest.

Any comment on my hypothetical?

I think certainly if there was email or some type of record suggesting that the interim city manager was attempting to influence testimony to personally benefit from that would potentially implicate that chapter.

But I think when we looked at the substance of the complaint, the allegation was that she was trying to influence her testimony or improperly contacting her regarding her testimony.

And so with your hypothetical, yes.

Um I think there would be a potential for violation that would necessitate a further investigation.

However, when we read the actual substance of her complaint, nothing suggested that she was saying that the interim former manager was specifically trying to personally benefit from these communications that were alleged to have occurred.

Got it.

I appreciate that response.

So that's the end of my questions and comments.

I'm leaving it to you, colleagues, that I'm I'm really bothered that the complainant wasn't able to upload all of what they wanted to upload to make their complaint.

You've heard my comment about is it sufficient to go forward, and you've heard you know the independent evaluators' response to my comment, so I'll just leave it with you all as to whether my concern resonates with any of you all.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Commissioner Amory.

Okay, this is, and I guess I'm throwing out as a question.

When I read this, what struck me is Ms.

Bassiano is a personal friend of mine, and I feel like I should really recuse from the vote.

She's never spoken to me about this.

But I don't know what would be the advice on this one.

She never talked to me about it.

The first I heard about it was reading this, but she is a personal friend of mine.

So I guess I guess I'm asking for advice on whether it's appropriate for me to vote or shadow recuse myself.

Gary Lindsay, uh general counsel for the uh commission.

In light of uh what you had just um uh mentioned, Commissioner Emory, I I don't know all the details.

I would just say probably in abundance of caution.

Uh you'd probably want to recuse and step down from the dias on this uh matter and leave the room and be called back just um at this point and come back for the um next matter.

It may or may not in fact be a conflict, but I would without further details, and I'm sure we can't really get into them.

I don't want to have you in any way be in a position where you um might dig yourself in a deeper hole if there is a hole to be dug.

That's what I was thinking, thank you.

Cause I I do transparency is what this commission is about, and I'm trying to be very, very transparent.

So you should say I should actually leave that.

Yeah, and abundance of caution, I would suggest that.

Yeah.

So we should know that.

We should know that Commissioner.

Um, is abstain from voting and have uh recuse from voting and it's left a room.

Okay, next is the commissioner the last question.

Thank you.

Um Mr.

Tanagucchi, I have some questions.

So as it stands, I'm seeing if I'm understanding this right.

As it stands, the allegations and the actions that were claimed in the gray areas, which is the portion that the um complainant entered into the system, just based on those, as far as um uh Milstein contacted so and so and contacted so and so.

Those actions that are described on the complaint are not a violation according to the rules.

Is that correct?

If we take what was inserted into the complaint as true, our conclusion is that the way in which they're phrased the conduct that was alleged, if we take it all to be true, there is no violation that we can find that's within this commission's purview.

Okay, second question is if you had the emails, if there was anything outside of the actions that were um the things that that happened in again, the gray areas where the complaint entered it online.

If there's anything outside of that that weren't specified here, would that be something we would take upon ourselves?

Would would you take upon yourselves to investigate that were not mentioned in the complaint?

Without further direction from the commission, no, it's something we would just look at what was contained in the complaint itself, and that's what we're evaluating.

Got it, perfect.

Thank you.

Okay, well, uh thank you.

So um there's no more speakers, no more uh comment.

Um, I have a request.

Oh, I didn't see your name together.

Please, uh yes, Gary Lindsey, General Counsel, uh, for the commission.

I I think I should point out for the commission, um, given the what seem to be the particular circumstances of this matter where I don't know the veracity or not of whether or not there was an attempt to upload other information and rejected or if it was indeed rejected on a technical issue on the technical side, that sort of thing or not.

Um but uh it's apparent to me that I at least want to make sure that all the commissioners know that they do have the option to um direct the uh independent evaluator to do a um full investigation beyond the no, even as part of the no cause report um to follow up and possibly try to track down the uh other information that may or may not have been attempted to be a part of the original complaint itself.

Well, um thank you, Mr.

Legacy.

Um since uh I don't hear oh vice chair, you have a comment.

It's a quick question just to be clear.

I think I heard you say, Mr.

Lindsay, that in fact we could ask the independent evaluator to go forward, get that information to do the investigation.

Just a hypothetical, suppose uh the independent evaluator didn't in fact did that, and without with all of that information, they still concluded that all of the allegations couldn't result in a violation as it relates to the ordinances that are within our jurisdiction.

Um Mr.

Tanaguchi may want to answer this question, but I think it's pretty simple.

In that case, do I assume that it would be appropriate for the independent evaluator to come back again with another no cause report, just one based on more information than this one?

Um yes, well, it and it would be a report about the investigation, and there might be the conclusions might be similar, but they might not.

So I it's it appears to me that there might be concerns um that uh there might there may have been attempted to be pertinent information in the um in the original attempt to file a complaint that may have caused what ended up being a no-cause report here to not be a no cause report.

And I'm just uh seeing as far as how the procedures are laid out that if the um if uh the commission sees an issue that needs to be rectified along those lines that there is a path forward in doing so.

I appreciate that.

I was trying to imagine that it would be the leanest path forward in a series of choices.

I'm not quite clear that our rules say that you can do two subsequent no cause reports, that is to say, if the commission says no to a no cause report, it might actually have to come to us in the form of a hearing where the independent evaluator recommends that we find no violation, kind of like what happened with the Steinberg case last year, as opposed to a no cause report, which is a leaner, faster process, and that that's why I'm asking.

Oh, uh yes, you're uh Commissioner Lafazo, you're correct.

I was saying that substantively that at what may end up being a hearing if you direct an investigation, um the substance might end up being the same as far as from the independent evaluator as to conclusions, but we do not know right now if it will or won't.

But it might end that we might end up in the same um situation as far as um what is ultimately.

I hear you.

Can can on do our rules allow an independent evaluator to do two successive no cause reports?

Uh no, it's not it's not two successive.

So it would either stop here as far as no no cause and then or go on to investigation where there's wider look at extrinsic evidence.

Um in this situation, basically, whether or not there was a technical glitch or not, it appears that what is um being alleged to have been a technical glitch may has made what could arguably not be extrinsic evidence because it would have been part of the complaint now, extrinsic evidence and the manner by which if it is indeed extrinsic evidence or now it's being treated as such for the um independent evaluator to get to that point of actually looking at evaluating and see if there um any gravitas to it, at least from the independent evaluators' point of view, would be for further direction to from the commission to do an investigation.

I appreciate it.

I understand you, Mr.

Lindsay.

I uh I appreciate it.

Uh for my commission for my colleagues' benefit.

I did not think I was going to do this when I walked in this morning, but I'm gonna take the position that I think we should ask for further investigation and see what those items say, and uh I'll act accordingly depending on what the motion my colleagues choose to make.

Thank you.

Okay, um, I'm I'm sorry, I'm done.

Okay, very good.

Uh Commissioner Velasquez, do you have a question?

Are you unmuted now?

No.

I don't have a question.

I'm just ready to vote.

Oh, all right.

So uh we rarely to vote, so uh look at a recommendation.

We either pass a vote, number one, receiving the independent evaluators, no cost report, and two either adopting the evaluators no cost report and the findings therein, and dismissing the complaint and closing the file in this matter without further actions, or B, in the alternative, finding sufficient cause exists to warrant an investigation and directing the independent evaluator to conduct an uh investigation of the underlying complaint, pursuing to section 5.3 of the Sacramento Ethics Commission procedures, and if applicable three, a referring the complaint to a department of the city of Sacramento, the California Fair Political Practice Commission, or another government agency for more appropriate resolution of the allegations in the complaint or enforcement of the applicable provision of law, and B directing the city club to send all relevant information about a complaint to the governmental agencies to which the complaint has been referred.

Commissioner Lasque.

I make a motion.

I make a motion to receive the no cause report and dismiss the complaint.

So I have a motion by the Commissioner Velasquez to receive the evaluated snow cost report.

And I second, and I will note that I appreciate the uh paragraph and the report that directs the complaint that they can outreach to council and investigating the report if they have additional concerns.

But for the motion, I second.

You second.

Okay, um, so I have a I have a motion and seconded by Dove Commissioner Adams.

So will the clerk please call the role for the vote?

Thank you, Chair.

Vice Chair La Faso?

No.

Commissioner Adams.

Aye.

Commissioner Velasquez.

Aye.

Commissioner Emory.

Oh, Commissioner Mory is recused.

And Chair Ng.

I say yes.

Thank you.

The motion passes.

Thank you.

Item number four is the audit of the Sacramento Ethics Commission.

Is there a stop presentation?

Uh all right.

Um, good evening, ethics commissioners.

Uh, my name is Kevin Christensen.

I'm the assistant city auditor here to present our audit of the Sacramento Ethics Commission.

Uh, the report was presented to and approved by the city council on May 27th.

Uh, the report identified five findings and makes eleven recommendations aimed.

Excuse me.

Would you please?

Oh yeah.

Sorry, or you're gonna invite the commissioner back.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

Please proceed.

Okay, welcome back.

Um, so uh I'm Kevin Christensen and the assistant city auditor uh here to present the audit of the Sacramento Ethics Commission.

Uh the report identified five findings and makes eleven recommendations aimed at improving the city's good governance program and the ethics commission.

So the city established the ethics commission in 2018 as part of a broader good governance framework to build transparency and build public trust within the city.

So the framework had four key components as is illustrated up on the slide here.

So first was the passage of a sunshine ordinance, which expanded public access to city records and increased transparency and opportunities for residents to participate in decision making.

The second was the passage of a code of ethics, which set expectations for ethical conduct and accountability for city officials and employees to promote open government transparency, ethics, and accountability.

So third was the Office of Ethics and Compliance, which was housed in the City Clerk's office, uh aimed at providing training, education, and ongoing support for ethical practices, and finally the ethics commission was created to review, investigate, and act on complaints related to city ethics laws.

Now, the overall goal was to ensure compliance with city codes of state law through proactive training and consistent monitoring so that all of these elements work together to strengthen an ethical government system.

So, in terms of um enhancing enforcement, the ethics commission was created to serve as the enforcement arm of this four-part system.

It's authorized to review, investigate, and consider complaints involving city charter provisions on on post employment restrictions, city code chapters on campaign practices, campaign finance and spending, lobbyist registration and support and reporting, transparency, ethics and conflict of interest rules, and sections of the city, the city council rules of procedure.

So the commission is a complaint, is complaint-based, meaning it cannot initiate its own investigations.

And finally, administrative support for the commission is provided by the city clerk's office.

So the procedures uh adopted by the commission uh authorize the well, the city code authorizes the ethics commission in consultation with the city attorney's office to establish procedures for complaint intake investigation and adjudication.

So the procedures outline what must be included in a valid complaint.

First, the complaint should be submitted on a form available on the city clerk's website.

However, the clerk may accept other formats if enough information is provided to allow for an initial review to take place.

Second, the complaints should include specific details or information including the provision of the ethics law alleged to have been violated, alleged violations and supporting facts, and names and addresses of respondents and any witnesses.

Third, a complaint, the complaint should identify the complainant.

However, anonymous complaints are accepted if they include sufficient information.

So in terms of the ethics commission procedures, these outline how complaints are received, reviewed, and investigated.

So the first procedures were adopted in 2018 with major updates in 2021 and additional smaller updates in 2022 and 2024.

These updates form the foundation of how complaints are processed today.

So the process according to the most current procedures include three main steps.

First, the city clerk receives a complaint and performs an initial review.

The initial review outcome can happen in three ways.

So first, the city clerk can refer the complaint to the independent evaluator to conduct a preliminary evaluation.

Second, the city clerk can refer to another city department or agency such as the FPPC, or third, the city clerk can dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction.

Second, where the complaint is referred to the independent evaluator, they conduct a preliminary evaluation, which I think we heard tonight.

So the preliminary evaluation determines if there is sufficient cause for a full investigation to take place.

If no cause is found, a report is presented to the commission in a public hearing, and the commission may accept the recommendation or direct further investigation.

Finally, the independent evaluator conducts a formal investigation.

If warranted, the independent evaluator issues a summary of findings, determinations on each alleged violation, and recommended action for uh recommended action.

So, as mentioned earlier, the good governance program was built on three components.

The first establishing an ethic at ethical and transparency laws.

Second, providing training through the Office of Ethics and Compliance, and third, enforcing those laws through this body, the Ethics Commission.

So for our first finding, we found that opportunities exist to strengthen internal controls over these agencies responsible for administering the program.

Specifically, what we found was that the ethics commission and the good governance program overall would benefit from strategic planning to better define objectives, actions, and performance monitoring to improve coordination and cooperation between these different components.

So in terms of strategic planning as a process, this includes initiating the strategic planning effort, setting goals and objectives for this body and the different agencies and bodies that are included in this good governance program, developing an action plan, and establishing a monitoring plan.

Implementing this process, we believe would help the city provide clear direction, track performance, and measure the effectiveness of the ethics commission and the office of the city clerk's stewardship of the good governance program.

So our second finding highlights the need for greater transparency or greater training and advisory resources, both for the commissioners and for uh individuals seeking to comply with with the rubric of ethics laws.

So first, we found that commissioners would benefit from additional training.

We found that ethics commissioners lack a robust onboarding and ongoing education program on the complex laws they oversee, such a case such as campaign finance laws and contract conflict of interest rules.

In our benchmarking, we found that effective compliance programs evolve with the changing laws and best practices and seek to continually provide education to those overseeing these laws.

Without this adequate training, commissioners may struggle to fully interpret or apply the city's framework.

So as a result, we recommended that the mayor and the city council in consultation with the city attorney's office and the different stakeholders, such as your organization and the city clerk's office develop a structured training program for commissioners to include onboarding and ongoing uh ongoing efforts.

Second, we focused on guidance for the public, or in other words, individuals under the under the jurisdiction of the commission that are seeking to comply with these laws.

We found that individuals seeking to comply with the ethics laws have limited access to support or advice.

In other words, there's uh a lack of material available for individuals that have questions that are seeking to comply with the laws.

So we found that benchmark cities offer tools like frequently asked questions, videos, and informal and formal advisory opinions to help the public understand these requirements.

So as in to uh to address these, we recommended the city council first direct staff to develop clear guidance materials such as frequently asked questions that can be posted to the website, and second, to evaluate costs and feasibility in creating a dedicated function to provide ethics advice, such as a hotline where individuals can call or register specific questions and received tailored responses to help with their um in their compliance efforts.

Uh so our third finding focuses on improving the ethics commission's complaint intake and reporting can reporting procedures.

So for this finding, we had three subfindings.

First, we focused on automating the complaint intake process.

We found that complaints are submitted in multiple ways, online, by phone, or by email, and not all are consistently locked.

In one case, we found a valid complaint was not included on the complaint log.

This creates this, in our estimation, creates a risk that the commission may not fully meet its duty to review all complaints submitted to the body.

So as a result, we recommended the city implement an automated complaint system to ensure that all submissions are captured, tracked, and reported in a consistent fashion.

Second, we focused on protecting the identities of the respondents.

So the procedures prohibit including complaint and respondent names in the commission's complaint log.

However, we found several instances since the inception of the commission where identities were listed.

So to address this, we recommended the city clerk strengthen its review procedures to ensure personal information is properly protected.

Third, we for we focused on improving the dismissal trans in improving complaint dismissal transparency.

We found that robust disclosure of rationales for complaint dismissal can help inform complaint review and discussion by the ethics commission.

So according to the procedures, the first step of the complaint process is performed by the city clerk and allow three three potential steps.

First, refer the complaint to the independent evaluator.

Second, refer the complaint to it to a different agency, or third, dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction.

So the procedures state several reasons that a complaint may be dismissed by the city clerk for a lack of jurisdiction.

These include time limits, a complaint alleges facts that are not subject to any provision of the ethics law, or the respondent is not under its purview.

As the current procedures require, when complaints are dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, the commission only receives a brief statement in a complaint log that states that that states lack of jurisdiction as the reason without providing any any real background.

Now, um, during the course of our audits, we found that the during the course of our audit and the scope that we were looking at, we found that this statement was included in 20 in uh the complaint log 25 times between February 2018 and January 2023.

Now, notably, the original procedures that were approved by the by the commission in uh 2018 required what was called then a preliminary review memorandum to be issued when this determination was made to provide the rationale for the dismissal.

Um we believe the intent was to allow the commission to weigh the uh the allegation and weigh the veracity of of the uh of that determination.

Um so we believe that providing a more detailed we we believe providing more detail about the rationale for the dismissal in the complaint law can help the commission better understand trends, exercise oversight, and decide when further review is warranted.

So, as a result, we recommended that the city include that the city clerk include more information in the complaint log when uh when these dismissals for lack of jurisdiction take place, and the city clerk has already decided uh begun providing some of this information.

So for our fourth finding, uh we focused on clarifying expectations and improving consistency in how ethics commission seeks staff support and provides recommendations to the city council.

So we first focus on formalizing requests for staff support.

So recent legislative changes adopted by the city council sought to streamline operations across the city's uh boards and commissions.

Under the new model, most of the staff support provided to the city's boards and commissions is provided by the city clerk's office.

So, as part of this overall program, the commission as all as well as other as uh the ethics commission as well as other commissions must now submit an annual work plan through the city council's personnel and public employees committee outlining its priorities for the coming year.

We believe this work plan can also include estimated staffing needed to complete the work for the work plan to allow PPE to make more decisions on the on the resources to be allocated to the commissions.

So we recommended the city council require that the annual work plan also include the estimated staffing needs.

So, second, we focused on standardizing how recommendations are presented and tracked as they move through the uh the city's bureaucracy.

Um, the legislation we I just discussed also authorizes commission to make formal recommendations to the city council.

While recommendations are included in the annual reports, we found there was no consistent method for tracking or memorializing council or committee feedback as it works through the process.

So we recommended creating a standard form for submitting recommendations.

These forms would clearly outline what the issue is, the analysis, and the proposed action, as well as track its progress through the legislative process.

That way, the next step on um on its way to the city council, each step and recommendation is uh is memorialized.

So the city clerk has expressed interest in using this approach across all the city's boards and commissions for consistency.

And finally, uh our final finding focuses on the city's contract with the Fair Political Practices Commission.

So the city entered into an agreement with the FPP FPPC in 2018 for campaign law enforcement for campaign law enforcement and support, including audits investigations, advice and training.

That contract expired in 2019 and efforts to renew to renew it stalled over different cost issues, specifically um a uh uh a point that could not be resolved was a 55,000 annual minimum for a do not exceed clause.

So the the COVID uh 19 pandemic then disrupted the committee's meetings, delaying any public discussion or renewal.

Consequently, the contract expired without being renewed.

Today, the city clerk's office and independent evaluator provide most of the services handled that handled by the FPPC when the contract was still going.

However, some commissioners believe they should have a role in reviewing or recommending the FPC contract renewal renewals.

So in turn, we recommended that the city council clarify the ethics commission authority regarding the FPPC contracts, specifically whether it should review, advise on or participate in uh renewal decisions.

And that concludes the presentation, and we're available to answer questions should you have any.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Yeah.

Clerk, are there any members of the public who wish to speak on this item?

Thank you, Chair.

I have no speaker slips on this item.

Thank you.

Are there any commissioners who wish to speak on this item?

Vice Chair.

Uh thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm on, right?

Okay, thank you.

Um to start out.

I'm going to beat Commissioner Velasquez at the punch, and I'm going to be the nice one who says, I hope there's a chair for you, Mr.

Christensen.

If you find yourself up there long enough and you get tired.

We were caring for Mr.

Miller last time when we kept him in that position for a while back in August.

Anyway, um I I had a thought to suggest to you, Madam Chair, that since this could go a while, just to be efficient for all of our colleagues' ability to uh foment dialogue and hear other people's perspectives as we go that I'm gonna confine my questions one step at a one step at a time, finding by finding, which is to say I'm gonna ask some general questions, I'm gonna make my questions, comments about finding one, and then I'm gonna yield, but don't be surprised if I come back for two, three, four, and five.

Um, with that statement, um, I do want to say at the outset, Mr.

Christensen, I very much appreciate the opportunity that Chair Ng and I uh were able to have beginning in September of last year to engage with you in the final phases of the audit.

I'm a little unhappy institutionally that that opportunity was only afforded to two commissioners.

You understand the process that it had to be confidential.

I do understand that some current and former commissioners also had different opportunities earlier in the process, and I'm glad for that, but I just want to state that up front.

I want to ask you a general process question, because in the third week of September 2024, when Chair Ying uh first heard from you and the auditor, um, you you did a helpful job of sort of orienting us around the process at a high level by giving us an analogy to an audit of the police review commission about three or four years ago, just so we could get our heads around about what it looked like for a commission to be audited.

And continuing in that vein, um, right around the time of the exit conference in April, um, you were able to answer some questions for Chair Ying and I about how sort of the implementation post-release process of the audit goes.

And I understand you walked us through, of course, the audit committee approval, the city council approval, but I recall you also commented on something, some kind of six-month iterative cycle of establishing goals and how the reporting back to the city council worked.

And even though the city council is the entity that's in the driver's seat of this audit, I believe you made some comments about how the commission could stay updated.

And I think you said that in the police commission example, they had heard from you all three times during the course of the implementation of the police commission's audit.

So from my colleagues' benefit, I just wanted to get a reiteration of that kind of audit implementation process implementation perspective.

Sure.

So we have a um per our uh the standards that we follow, the generally accepted government auditing standards of recommendation follow-up process.

So every six, so we um we consult with an agency that has a software where we enter each recommendation into this recommendation tracking software.

Every six months, the department or the uh individual the recommendation was targeted at is responsible for responding to where they are in implementing the recommendation.

So the different categories for their processes include not started, started, partially implemented, implemented, or dropped.

So how that works is every six months they receive an email, they go in and they uh include information and backup materials to provide evidence on where they are in this process.

We then um we then validate uh both we validate the steps that they assert that they have taken.

We review the evidence.

If if required, we conduct additional testing, and then we uh we then confirm that label of partially implemented started um or uh or implemented, and that report is then presented to the city council.

It is also then updated on a dashboard that we operate through our website.

Are those progress reports public?

Sure.

Yes, sir.

Appreciate that very much.

Okay, moving on to finding one, which I think only has one recommendation.

And I think I said to you in the auditor a year ago that when I first learned about this audit, it was a revelation because I finally understood our commission's existence in the context of the overall 2017 good government reforms.

I think I've made that point in public outside the context of the audit.

Um, but there's a question that I'd been sort of burning to ask you all in and out of this process that I've hesitated because I kept thinking I know what the answer was, but I find myself wanting to return to it, and it is why did the auditor decide to audit the ethics commission and not the good government enactments as a whole, all four ordinances including those that created the Office of Ethics and Compliance?

Uh my understanding is that uh upon the initial passage of the uh the legislative package creating the good governance program and the ethics commission, it was anticipated that an audit would be done within a series of years after the ethics commission was created to get a sense of how the audit was functioning.

So it appeared on so we put it on the work plan in if I recall in 2020, where it remained until we had uh sufficient staffing to pick it up and do the work.

Okay, it's a good answer.

I one of the answers I thought of is had you done the compliance process, you could have find yourself pouring over samples of Forum 700 filings and campaign finance filings, and you could have spent a lot of audit time on that, which certainly wouldn't have reverberated much over here, but the reason it interests me so much is um the first finding and the first recommendation, which is about a strategic plan, which is largely tasked, as I understand, with the clerk and the leadership role, bringing in all the parties, the ethics commission, the careholders, everybody else.

But I understood the call of the question of the recommendation to be a strategic plan for the good government programs as a whole, that is bigger than us.

And I find that resonates with me because I think in many respects it's hard to understand our work.

I think it's hard to understand for the public to understand how we're going to be infected, effective to fulfill what I believe the city council wanted us and the whole broad array of ordinances to accomplish in 2017, if you don't look at them uh broadly.

So I think a strategic plan that incorporates all of them I think makes sense.

But given that your recommendation is the largest scope of the inquiry, do you want to comment on that?

Well, I think um one of the things that that became apparent to us is we started the program.

Um we did a number of interviews with uh the commissioners that were on the original board or the original commission, commissioners that had been appointed after.

And one of the things that that again became apparent to us is there was not a lot of understanding of how this a of how this organization is supposed to work in conjunction with the other uh with those other components of this good governance program.

Um looking back on the legislative uh on the legislative record and trying to interpret the legislative intent of the individuals that created it, was that it was supposed to function more as a stool, right?

Each leg was supposed to support each other, and it seemed to us that the commissioners in some instances in some instances didn't really understand how that operated.

I think um, you know, one of the uh stated intents was that the commission uh in providing authority to make recommendations to the city council, was uh specifically aimed at training.

You know, this body receives complaints, and then what I think how that how it was originally envisioned is that the commissioners would begin to see trends on complaint on types of complaints that were being uh were being filed.

As a result, the board would be able to make recommendations on things like training or things on updates to ethics laws or campaign finance laws that were really tailored to helping um address some of the complaints that that were coming through.

So um uh you know, as a whole, uh, we had we had just found that this that was kind of a gray zone, and if this strategic planning process was put in place, the different parties that are part of the good governance program would have a better sense of what their individual roles are.

They would be able to advocate in a more holistic way, things that they wanted that they wanted to do, and that would all be taken into account in terms of providing the objectives for the different um for the different components, um, goals that could then be measured, and then uh, you know, you upon the monitoring, you know, determine where weaknesses were, and you would come back through the uh strategic planning process and shore that stuff up.

I appreciate that answer very much, and it so resonates with me.

Um, one quick comment before I yield to my colleagues.

In in recent months, I've been struggling with this question at a more granular level as it as it applies to us, and you made a comment about our being sort of basically a complaint-driven commission, and I had proceeded with a bit of naivete that there's a clear dichotomy between types of commissions, and this speaks to the great talisman of the great independent commission that we want to be.

So I did myself a little research project last week, and I took the 15 benchmark commissions in the report, and I made a little table for myself to decide okay, which one are complaint-driven commissions and which one are not complaint-driven commissions, and with the exception of one that has very little enforcement responsibility whatsoever, I found out they were all complaint-urban commissions.

But what that means varies substantially, and in a funny way, what I'm saying to you, I think is a little bit a message across the bow to our city council, that I've had a strong sense that our city council has had a desire to make sure that the ethics commission doesn't overreach and a concern that there should never be a complaint initiated just on the personal feelings of a commissioner and the process should be more structured.

And I found that even the big commissions with lots of authority still had complaint-driven processes, but where the commission process was able to generate a complaint from some source other than the general public, it still was in some structured structured manner.

It was uh an inspector general report, a finding from an organization like yours, another city's auditor, um, for commissions that have the whole good government's functions under their purview, for example.

I read in a document that the Oakland Ethics Commission, whose staff is able to quote initiate complaints, initiated some 70 complaints in the last reporting period, but almost all of those complaints were the result of staff auditing of Form 700 and campaign financing uh documents, which is to say nobody was running amok inventing problems.

It was just people empowered to review the materials and to find concrete problems that actually existed.

So again, it's this big what responsible we we can't do that.

I understand those functions are outside of us.

I get all that, but understanding where that fits into in the in the context of the city's whole ethics apparatus, I do think is something that benefits the general public.

And with that comment, uh Madam Chair, I I'm done with finding one and I yield to my colleagues.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Let's go to Commissioner Velasquez.

Yes, you have.

And you give us plenty of opportunities to reach our full potential.

So I appreciate all the layers.

The commissioners, and it's 6 30.

So I just want to make us aware.

Not for you, just make us all aware of the time.

Yeah, totally.

Any other commissioners?

Commissioner Adams.

I was also going to just make a general thank you.

And I guess my question, which may be something to say for later, because I wasn't going to go finding by finding, but you know, there's a lot that you that's mentioned in the report, a lot of which I agree, but I also acknowledge that a lot of what would be needed to move this forward would be outside of the power of the commission.

So I guess this would be something again later when we're talking about the um the report uh for the year is just you know how we can move forward to put the you know, start whatever we need to start in order to have those who are in charge to move forward the findings to move those forward.

This is really a very good segue, you know, for us to um, you know, to do our annual report.

We really really appreciate you, you know, and the um the um auditors, you know.

Uh this is totally very thorough, so it's good to see you again, Mr.

Christianson.

Thank you so much.

Any other questions?

Vice Chair.

Finding two.

Do you have any other questions?

I do.

You do, and I have some comments.

Um, so my as a general matter, um, I'm already having a difficulty understanding what's happening as it relates to the implementation of the audit that relates to my work individually.

I've seen a lot of changes, but nothing's been stated concretely about that they occurred, what the thinking was, etc.

etc.

There's this discussion about training and oddboarding, and there's a comment somewhere that that the city attorney said they'd be happy to provide additional training, and there's some other actors mentioned in the report.

Are you able to are you able to tell us if there's anybody in the other parts of the city that have bearing on this recommendation, what they're up to and what they might be, what they might be doing to implement and when it might land on us and something might we might see.

Um I think the the recommendation period that this audit will be put into effect will be the next period.

So it'll be six months.

The city clerk will have an opportunity, I think.

Um the city clerk was who this uh the um the recommendation was directed to to begin putting together some of the training materials um discuss in the report um through uh discussions that we had throughout the uh through the report writing process.

Um we are under the impression that the city clerk has begun kind of uh kind of brainstorming what different um FAQs could look like.

Um I imagine that once these are drafted, they will be brought to the to the commission for input.

And um that is kind of where we are with that right at at this point.

Got it.

Okay.

Um two.

I guess this um this comments actually directed a bit to you, Mr.

Lindsay.

Um I made a comment to the audit committee in April in on the subject of onboarding, and my comment was to suggest to the members of the audit committee how different was my experience as a planning commissioner in 2012 in terms of city attorney onboarding versus the ethics commission.

And there was a thought behind that that I didn't completely have fully formed in my mind.

And uh I will say honestly that the the favorable comparison was in favor of my planning commission experience, where I was afforded an individual meeting with the city attorney at the time who went through my conflicts.

We even told me I had to resign as president of my neighborhood association.

Um, and one of the things that's challenged that I've thought about is I do think the planning commission is particularly attuned to how it onboards the commissioners because I think the city is attorney's office relative to that adjudicatory commission is very concerned about what things that commissioners over there might do that may create some kind of legal exposure to the city.

And I asked myself, is there a similar situation here?

And it's taken me a while to come up with some examples that I think are pertinent that I would ask the city attorney's office to think about, and I got three.

One, what actually is the external mechanism if somebody is ever found in violation by the ethics commission and they don't like it.

Can they sue the city?

Can they file a mandibus petition?

I'm not asking you now, I'm asking you to think about this.

Two, what other legal risks arise from things we might do or say in a meeting?

And we had a very trenchant example come up a couple times at our last meeting, and it only occurred to me afterward, which is to say there is a subset of the parties covered by our commission jurisdiction who are also employees of the city of Sacramento.

And I think there's some issues there that it would behoove the city attorney's office to thinking about advising us.

I mean, I freely admit uh I think Commissioner Velasquez was fast on the uptake about something maybe being an employment issue over an ethics issue while I was still, you know, pondering that.

The third one is I do think I think some more proactivity from the city attorney's office and exact on exactly how we manage conflicts.

ISTU will conflicts question around the time of the Steinberg hearing.

Um, I honestly truly believe that it would have been beneficial to give us more guidance up front on the conflict issue around the clerk and that matter where the clerk was the respondent, where there was clearly a balancing test.

Um I mean, I asked some questions at that hearing, and I actually never got answers, and I think they were very meritorious questions.

And candidly, in fairness to um Commissioner Emery, I I think telling commissioners that it would be good to manage conflicts before the hearing, so we don't put Commissioner Emory at risk of having partially participated before the matter came up.

Um plus you would have had the opportunity to ask her in more detail what maybe some of the nuances were, which was very clear to me you didn't want to ask in public because you didn't want to put her in a position.

I think that's a city attorney set of matters that I think would be very good from an onboarding perspective for new commissioners.

Um my general comment on this issue generally is I think more holistic explanation of our process.

I went by the seven and a half minute through the seven and a half minute presentation you did in January of 2024, and I would have loved for it to talk more about our rules of procedure and explain it and do something along the lines that actually Mr.

Miller did at our last meeting, which when he was explaining the independent uh what do we call this, uh independent.

Beg, independent evaluator, that he explain what they do kind of a little bit in a policy term.

He discussed it as a balancing act.

He made clear what the balance was, what the pros and cons were, what the fail-safes were.

You yourself were attempting to supplement that today in the same way by explaining to us what the consequences were if we said no, we want extrinsic evidence and we want to go forward.

But I didn't get any of that at the beginning in January of 2024, and that kind of thing would have helped me a lot.

And my last comment in that regard is I also think it would be very helpful to tell commissioners up front about the extra qualifications for ethics commissioners that, and actually, this might actually go to the clerk, that apply to ethics commissioners that don't apply to any other city commissioner, other than potentially the members of the city's independent redistricting commission.

As I think my colleagues know, not only do we have a long look back prescription that we cannot have worked for an elected official or the city or run for office, and that was discussed at the um the uh PNPE committee when I was interviewed two years ago.

But we actually have things that occur afterward, we are not allowed to participate in any city council candidate campaign.

And I will honestly say, in my first month as a commissioner here, I watched one of my colleagues go through the mental gyration of figuring out the consequences since an election was coming up.

And I watched my colleague kind of go through this mental process without the guidance of any city staff.

Very fortunately, my colleague had all the right ethical instincts to get to the right place, but I thought to myself, my goodness, this is the kind of thing that we really should get clear guidance on at the beginning, so that we don't um that we don't uh uh step in something we shouldn't step in.

And I will candidly say, the city's website says I was took office on January 9th, 2024.

I did not sign my oath until January 24th, 2024.

That's important to me because I did not rescind an endorsement I had made until the day before.

And that even that date in the city's law puts me at a slight risk that concerns me greatly.

And if anybody goes after me, I will defend myself profusely.

But again, the confluence of dates about entanglements we have might have related to the prescriptions that apply to us at this commissioners, I think is should definitely be part of the onboarding process.

I know I'm going for a long time, and I know other commissioners, uh, this is the finding that deals with the advice issue, Mr.

Christensen.

I'm sorry I'm talking and I'm not asking, I apologize.

So I've had the opportunity to comment on this.

Um I am a little intrigued.

The question of the FPPC audit doesn't really come up until finding five.

But I kind of get the funny feeling as I was rereading the text that in 2017, the city council contemplated some kind of advice function, and that we were gonna outsource it to the FPPC.

I mean, of course, this has major prof implications for the case that was heard here exactly two years ago.

Um, and it strikes me that I think the city council thought about this nine years ago, and that concerns me greatly.

But since there was obvious feedback at the audit committee in April about potentially outsourcing it, or should they wall off a part of the city attorney, and you commented, well, maybe it would be formal, maybe it would be informal.

I have a lot of experience with this process, more in the tax zone.

When I work for California tax authorities for nine years, the number one touchstone for this issue is what happens to the advice afterward.

If it's formal, usually somebody, if they're accused of doing the thing that they got the advice that said they're not supposed to do, they can come to the hearing and say, look, I asked, I can rely on counsel.

When it's informal, sometimes that remedy is not available.

Um, given that there was feedback from the audit committee in April and it's now October, do you have anything to update us on?

A, where the city council might be or the city attorney's office on thinking about this advice recommendation, and B, what your thoughts about how it might play in potential hearings, which is where of course it would affect us as commissioners most.

Um we have not had a uh recommendation update from um the city attorney's office pertaining to this recommendation, as um i think I said earlier, we're the recommendations will be answered in the next reporting period i think based on the benchmark research, this informal uh advice and formal advice is an extremely important distinction, as you pointed out.

The uh formal advice basically acts as a um a uh protector, if you will, kind of uh hey, the the formal advice was this, this is what i did i'm invited if i'm if if i violated after after following that advice your kind you're not going to be liable for for the violation the informal advice i think um based on some of the benchmarking research um that we did um serves as uh putting it in the commission's court as to whether they will go ahead and find that the violation occurred and that would that is taken account taken into account when discussions of amounts for um fines being uh fines being levied I think um perhaps a useful example is was uh were the two cases that you guys um adjudicated related to council member valenzuela and uh mayoral candidate coffer in that um there was the uh evaluator report did find that uh that a violation took place however this body came to the conclusion that a good faith effort was made to comply with the law in seeking advice and then when um when discovered that a uh uh violation took place and action was made immediately to remedy that so I think that is kind of the distinguishing characteristic um in the context that you're talking about and how would this kind of affect what you guys are doing in terms of adjudicating the case I don't know if I if that answered your question no I appreciate that since I've asked several times steps to you you you've you've mentioned the next reporting cycle process is there a time frame for that December January February something um so we are closing uh we just closed one out so it will um it so the clock will start running in the next month so we're probably looking at um June as the as the next closing of the uh of the reporting cycle and a report would come out um a month after appreciate it okay so I'm gonna yield to my thank you very much I'm gonna yield to my colleagues I'll be honest I got I I got a lot I've struggled with item with with the complaint process a whole heck of a lot in the last 12 months so I'm gonna have a lot to say but in deference to my colleagues it'll speed up after finding three I yield madam well thank you commissioner amory okay um yeah Mr.

LaFasso is I think ask a lot of questions a lot of us have but I and I did think it was interesting this checklist on what on what the commissioners do get on loading what they don't I'm thinking okay so it wasn't just me not always trying to figure this out but it you know when reading this because I think I think training is so important you know I've been going out really trying to spread the word about the ethics commission going out to community groups and questions would come up that they would just there were words on the page there but I really wasn't quite sure how to answer them so it'd be like I'll get back to you but there's another thing looking at this it did talk about how um you know the city clerk and the city attorney there are not statutorily responsible for providing advice and but when we do that training you know what I'm not training but when we're going talking to community groups there is a thing on there like there's the city portal we want to find out who's been donating and the city clerk will help you does that then start going into well now they're talking to can somebody take that as legal advice as you know statutory I think it's it's a it's a very fuzzy area that I hate to have staff get all of a sudden caught in going you know somebody saying well you told me this well no and I think that's why so much of this training and clarifying this is so important.

We want to make sure everybody is giving the proper information it does not get caught up on I thought I was supposed to do this because I talked to somebody at City Hall.

Um, you know, and and we want people to understand what our role is, and that will really help with our training.

So, and and I know uh Ms.

Cuppy has signed up for some of the COGO events, but I found that's a little maybe high levels of the you know, the nationwide, some of the ethics thing I found a little too high level for a lot of what we need.

So, due to time, but I just want to point out that those are things that have been weighing on me.

Going out talking to people going, I'm really not sure.

Sometimes get asked questions that are ones that I'm really not clear on, so uh, and I do like this idea a little more one-on-one training and specifically for for this group.

So, thank you.

Commissioner Last question, I don't know.

I never know if they're right.

It's green, supposed to be green.

Okay, um, I just want to make sure this finding two.

We're on finding two, right?

Okay.

Um, so I think I heard you earlier and you said um that your recommendations are will be reviewed by the would be reviewed by the city clerk, and um they would come up with um viable um recommend uh pull the viable recommendations and present them to us that I'm trying to find out what the process is.

So this is all great information.

What's next, in other words, um, where uh the city clerk would present what we can do based on your recommendations.

Is that how this process works?

So, in terms of um in terms of this finding specifically, um, where the recommendation is aimed is at um is that the the city clerk and the city council to come up with a training curriculum.

Now, I think one of the avenues that um that this body has is perhaps through its annual planning, um, uh do you can discuss and identify types of trainings that you believe would be most beneficial for this body.

For example, one of the things that we heard repeatedly uh throughout our interviews with current and past commissioners is this lack of an onboarding process where you're you're starting your role here and you just get a link to a variety of different city codes that you're responsible for reading and digesting.

And I mean, campaign finance law is not the you know it's not it's not the Sunday funnies.

It's it's it's very very dense, and without this kind of you know, walking, you know, walking through or providing some of this stuff in as we recommended in the reporting kind of plain English terminology, um, you know, there it you're being asked to adjudicate or weigh in on complaints and allegations without a more sophisticated understanding of what the law requires.

Um so I think that is one way perhaps to get started is get a sense of you know, as a body what you guys want, and then have discussions with the city clerk either through docketing items or through recommendations to having that stuff done.

Um in terms of our recommendations, um we so the the recommendation will get sent out for a response, it will come into the portal, we will review it, we will um we will assign that you know started, not started, partially implemented, implemented, and that and that will be um issued in the recommendation follow-up report, which comes out twice a year.

Okay.

So you you you follow up with the results of what we did with your recommendations sort of thing.

So what the um the mayor and the city council have done with the recommendations, so how these recommendations work is like for example on page 26 that says we recommend the mayor and city council consider determining a training curriculum, so they identify a liaison, and then we follow up with the liaison to determine what kind of work is being done to actually forward the stuff along.

Okay.

So I was just and I apologize, I I wasn't really referring to number two, I was just saying in general.

So the next step basically for me on this side of the table is we would just wait for the next presentation on discussion from the city clerk or for wherever it comes from to what what is needed from us or um or to for to provide any more input or questions or anything like that.

Sure, and I think um from our perspective, you know, part of the purpose or the objective of this report is also educate you guys on what other stuff is happening out in the world of ethics commissions, um, to you know, in a sense, empower you to, you know, docket things that you guys want to accomplish and help kind help, you know, illuminate your thought processes on how exactly you want this commission to operate.

Okay, thank you.

I appreciate that.

And then I'm just gonna say it one more time.

It's 653, and we have two more findings to go through, plus other things on the agenda.

So if we can just be mindful of time, not you.

Yeah, totally.

So um, you know, just one more question.

What if um, you know, all those findings that we're not able to comply, every single one of them.

Will you be able or so will you be continuing document this?

That means it's a in your next report, say, well, you know, the such item number, you know, so and so that is not being implemented, sure.

Um, each recommendation um for each for not only this report but for every report that we issue is tracked individually.

So um, if you were to um uh to go to the city auditor website with the dashboard, you can dig down and then to follow the specific life cycle of each one of these recommendations, great.

Well, saying no others, we appreciate your presentation, Mr.

Christian.

Thank you.

I think um, yeah.

Well, you know, we'll how long will it take?

Okay, go ahead.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Um thank you.

Please speak.

So um, apropos to Commissioner Velasquez's question, the changes are already happening, and one of the big changes is it looks to me like we have a new online complaint system.

The interface looks completely different.

I don't know if the clerk wants to share some information with us, but apropos to your recommendation, I've noticed a couple things.

One the recommendation focused on automating the process, and I appreciate why the auditor says that.

The thing that's concerned me is what about all of the sort of penumbral aspects about this where automation's not the best tool, and I think we had an example tonight.

Somehow somebody had a difficult had difficulty uploading some important information, which ostensibly our system allows, and that's an you can't automate a member of the public's ability to understand the interface.

Um I asked you lots of questions during the review process, and there is a matter that I'm going to truncate, given my colleagues' concern about time about an experience I had that I've waited 15 months to share with you all, and I will wait longer about receiving a complaint in my inbox as a commissioner and what all the implications of that were.

But I notice our our rules say that you should use the you should use the online portal, but you don't have to.

You can make a phone call, nobody likes because it's staff time.

You can send something to an address, um, and I was looking at the website today, and all the website says now is uh c click to this portal and the other stuff it said, which is um, you know, here's the rules of procedure.

If you want to know the rules, here's the jurisdiction orders.

If you want to know the jurisdiction, none of the old text that used to be there about making a phone call or if you can't figure out the the online system, and we had a profuse city commenter at one of our meetings recently saying I don't use systems like that, I'm an old man, I don't want to do that kind of stuff.

How do I do it?

Sure.

And I want staff to recognize that I was so kind as not to tell him that his first option could be to call y'all.

I soft pedaled that option, everybody.

Um, are we still is our automated system going to accommodate um anything?

Um anything that's not shot stroke completely through that online portal, and how are we gonna know that there aren't glitches with that online portal?

And I come to you with an example tonight about somebody who wasn't able to upload.

Sure.

Um, so one of the so the recommendation in terms of automating or in terms of automating the process, um, we use ourselves as an example.

We use the hotline system that we operate for the whistleblower hotline.

Now, that system specifically is online where you can go through a questionnaire and fill out a whole bunch of different questions, such as, you know, rules that you believed were violated and basic, you know, basic factual fields, if you will, to basically populate a complaint.

Now, this is the same system that uh that the city of Long Beach uses.

There is a 24-hour hotline that is staffed by this um by this agency where you call and then you go through, they go through the questionnaire with the caller, and someone on their end populates the fields and then that submits the complaint to you.

Um now one of the advantages with using one of the existing um one of the existing systems, if you will, is that they uh they publish and make available procedures on use of the system, where um, for example, the system that we use in instances where somebody can't upload, right?

We get the message, the case is assigned to someone on the staff, and then the staff is assigned to call that person to then to then or to contact that person through the contact information that they leave and then get that information from them, right?

So a lot of it, you know, no system is perfect, right?

I think when you do sign on to these, there are trainings that there are trainings involved, and there are policies and procedures that they offer for you to adopt in boilerplate format to adopt to basically streamline or um transpose the system over how you actually want to use it, right?

So um I'm not sure if if that answers answers the question, but um, you know, once the system is in place, you know, I think you know, you guys would have an opportunity to get some information on how how is it used?

Um, what happens if somebody can't it can't upload the information?

Um, so am I getting to I'm in in a great number of ways.

Um I'm gonna be very candid.

Um I'm feeling rushed by my colleagues, and I'm gonna go with it.

Um but I'll get my recompense in the future.

I will do that.

Um the bottom line is you mentioned the you mentioned a hotline and you mentioned a person out of the phone.

That sounds to me like that's an outsourced function, that's not one of the clerk staff performing that function.

That's correct, and that is that is part of the um that is part of I think what we were discussing on why you want that, right?

You want a level of separation to preserve the um to basically preserve the accuracy and independence of the receipt of the complaint.

I appreciate that.

I'm just trying I am saying I am registering a very major concern right now, but I see no evidence of that in the outside world from the viewpoint of a potential complainant today on October 27, 2025.

And given that we are going around the neighborhood associations and talking about the actual complaint interface itself is probably the most useful part of that presentation.

That's a great concern to me.

But in deference to my colleagues, I'll move on.

I got two other major issues.

So I expressed at our last meeting, you weren't here, my colleagues were here, about grave concerns about the jurisdictional review process, which in my opinion is a change substantially.

And again, apropos, I'm having a very hard time understanding what the changes are behind the scenes because I'm only kind of seeing them phenotypically as a commissioner and I'm not understanding them architecturally.

But I spent a lot of time with you, and I spent some time with Mr.

Lindsay regarding my concerns about the jurisdictional matter.

And I was very confused about this preliminary review process memo, and I understand it's very old in our process.

I'm gonna cut to the chase.

So I learned that if I as a commissioner have a concern about a jurisdictional matter, what I'm supposed to do is I'm supposed to understand that the clerk seeks advice from the city attorney, and I'm gonna view I'm supposed to view it as a staff legal advice matter, which is potentially confidential, and I'm supposed to call the city attorney and say, this doesn't make sense to me.

Help me understand it.

And I did call.

So the my threshold question, and maybe Mr.

Lindsay wants to ask this question.

If this is an if this is attorney client advice to the clerk on jurisdictional questions, what am I allowed to say in public about it?

Am I allowed to say that it happened?

Am I allowed to state the matter I asked about?

Am I allowed to say something about the substance?

Please help me understand what I'm allowed to say.

Do you have me in?

Okay.

Gary Lenzi, uh counsel for the uh commission.

I just want uh clarification first.

Uh Vice Chair.

Are you talking about um our conversation?

Are you do you think?

Yeah, I'm talking about our conversation, and I'll start with the one where the facts that I'm gonna disclose are already in public, and they were the issues raised by Mr.

Ahn, and his claim against the city manager and his among other things his citation of the code of ethics.

I only choose to specify those things because those are already in the public domain by Mr.

Ahn's own admission.

How am I allowed to say what you told me?

Am I allowed to name the issues in the other matter?

Am I allowed to say who the respondent was in the other matter?

Am I allowed to talk about the claims that were made and why I thought they should have been treated as jurisdictional?

Am I allowed to say any of those things?

I would say that there's no prohibition against against you saying so.

I I would not address them in response, but.

Okay, you would not address them, but I'm allowed to say.

Okay.

I'll say but for another matter.

I I I think this complaint issue is a robust one, and I think there's a reason why we've had nine no cause reports in the last two months and didn't have any.

Um, and I said at the last meeting, and I stand by this, but you're not giving me enough time to explain it to you, why we had some matters that were deemed non-jurisdictional last year that were substantially similar to some of the no cause matters we heard at the last meeting.

Um, I guess the last issue that I wanted to get into is there's this issue about transparency that's discussed in the latter part in finding three.

And this is this is where there's a discussion about the um the public review memo, and uh I do admit I was a little confused about the public review memo compared to the no cause report, because I had to understood that the not public preliminary review member was strictly on the question of jurisdiction, whereas I understand the no cause report pretty much assumes jurisdiction and then goes to the next question, which is should it be set for hearing?

Nevertheless, they um they speak to the same fundamental issue, which is enabling more commissioner engagement on the questions because more is put in front of us that we can that's properly agendized, or we understand the basic facts, or we can raise questions just like we did this evening.

Sure.

Um step back a second.

So I guess our rules say that we're not supposed to name respondents and complainants in the complaint log, and there's some preemp there's some preliminary language in the audit that talks about generally speaking, um, ethics commissions best practices are that names and such should be public so that the public can see the entire process.

And I've had a difficulty squaring that with the confidentiality of respondent and complainant in our complaint log.

I know it's our own rules, so I know we're responsible for it.

And and I said tonight I'm a little uncomfortable, you know, taking the interim city manager's name in vain, talking about her in the context of all these issues when she actually had there's no concrete demonstration that she did anything wrong.

But can you help me understand the the putting the talking about all these things in public issue with the not naming the respondents in the uh in the complaint log issue?

How do I juxtapose those two things?

So our understanding of where that rule came to place was out of concern uh that individuals during a campaign season may seek to weaponize the process in issuing complaints that they know are frivolous, but may gain traction because this person's name shows up on a complaint log of an ethics commission for violating a campaign finance rule.

These investigations typically take time if this and if these complaints are made at a at certain um high impact periods of of closely contested uh electoral races, it the concern is that it might sway the the electorate.

So our understanding was that was the intent to remove that from a possibility to remove the risk of weaponizing the commission in these in these electoral periods that these names should be held confidential.

Now I think you know the difficult, you know, there's a there's definitely downside risk to having a rule like that in that nobody all this stuff would kind of be black boxy.

Um I think that is um the our discussion in this report was limited to look, you guys have this rule, right?

We should follow the rule should be followed.

Uh appreciate that.

Okay.

I don't know if that I don't know if that answers.

No, I'm to be honest with you.

I uh I don't have time to develop this, and since the city council isn't asking me, hey, how do our law working out?

Tell me what is good about it and what's bad about it and what we should do to fix, since we never had a complaint in front of us when we decided all this kind of stuff 10 years ago.

Hey, tell us what you think.

Since I'm not benefiting from that conversation, I'm candidly not comfortable in delving into some of the nuances.

So I'll move on to my last sort of sub-issue, which is Mr.

Lindsay, you might not answer my question, but when I asked you all those questions about that two mat those two matters, uh one of your responses was, as I recall, and if you don't want to confirm this, I respect that is well, maybe we should just send them all for a no-cause report to the independent evaluator.

And I wasn't as sure about that when that comment kind of came up.

Um, but seeing the contrast between those two matters and the eight matters we had um at the last meeting.

Is that what we're doing now?

Are you willing to answer me the question as why the two matters that were so substantially similar last year were found non-jurisdictional, but they were but similar matters were found jurisdictional this year.

Can you give me any insights?

Uh Gary Lindsay, uh, for the commission, I I don't know that I necessarily agree that they are similar or that the similar so I I cannot comment on that, but I I don't know that I assume I think the underlying um maybe assumption in your question that they are similar in the first place.

I'm more interested in whether I'm more interested in whether our process has changed in terms of the way staff is approaching the jurisdictional analysis than getting bogged down in the comp in the comparison and contrast.

I would say that I have not advised any change.

I can say that.

Okay, I'm still very confused by that.

I think my commissioners don't have the wherewithal to hear me explain what the issues were that I was working on relative to what I thought were problems with the um uh jurisdictional analysis, so in all candor, I'll save it for city council members when they're listening.

Uh, with that, I yield, Madam Chair, until we get to matter number four.

Finding four.

Okay.

So um commission and just what state this part here is to be one of the most important because it is I it's really important, you know, when we this dismissed through lack of jurisdiction that there be more explanation.

So when people do these complaints, and they're getting that education they need about how to do we're here for transparency, make sure that government be trusted, and it needs to be that we're also explaining what what's being said, saying, Well, lack of jurisdiction, we're we're dismissing it, that people understand what that means.

So, to me, this is one of the most important parts, and I'll just leave it at that.

Thank you.

Thank you for the report.

We appreciate it.

I'm I'm I'm I'm not done yet, Madam Chair.

I've been trying to yield on each finding to benefit.

All right, that's that's great.

Let's direct the report.

You know, um, if we're gonna ask to, you know, anything about about the audit, please do.

Okay, but I I I will do that, but to be perfectly candid with you, the biggest issue here, madam chair, is we're not understanding, no one is disclosing to us what the changes are relative to our own processes.

It's happening in real time.

And I've illustrated concrete examples, and it would be really helpful for us to understand what's happening under the hood, and the absence of that I think should concern every single one of us, and frankly, every single citizen of the city of Sacramento.

I said after item three, I would go much quicker.

Okay.

Um please.

So this one, if I recall, is about sort of budgeting and staffing.

Did I understand correctly that this really is focused on commissions in general, that this issue about more concrete ways of seeking staffing and such.

Um, on the right matter.

Um, yes, yes, no, that that that's that's accurate.

That's a okay.

I'll just highlight for my colleagues that you cited a blurb from our last annual report showing how limited this is, and we have an annual report up, so there's an opportunity for us to talk about as a commission in a more concrete context.

Uh, so since other commissioners I think want me to get through one finding number five is about mainly the fair political practices commission audit.

Correct.

And it kind of reads like it's all about the jurisdiction.

Who controls it?

It has a kind of a bit of a he said she said vibe what the commissioner said, and then the clerk said, and the commissioner said, and the commission has authority over contracts, but the contract expired, so there isn't a contract, so whatever that says doesn't matter.

I I what concerns me most in this whole item is what was to be accomplished with this FPPC contract that the council envisioned in 2017 that's not happening.

And I know um I know there were four functions.

You stated them in the audit report.

Uh they were enumerated in a copy of the commission's contract, uh, you know, August 2019 ethics commission item, and I can't find it.

I I'm sorry, they were advice, enforcement, auditing, and one more I can't remember.

And is it of concern to the auditor and does the auditor know?

We've already talked about advice.

If the FPP was supposed to be the element through which advice was supposed to be provided, and it didn't work out, and in the present day we want to have a different advice framework, so be it.

City council's right to revisit its original thoughts and do it a different way.

Um it appeared to me that there was supposed to be some auditing of things like Form 700 filings and campaign finance reports and the kinds of things that cities that have a complete commission apparatus under the aegis of an entire commission.

Again, it's not the question about who has the power, it's a question from the perspective of the good government forms writ large and the the council's intent.

Do we know these things are happening?

Well, I think um going back to the legislative record, um, we couldn't find anything to support that the council when they approve the FPPC contract and sought to lobby the state legislature to allow the FPPC to enter into these kind of contracts with cities to engage in in this audit function.

Um the discussion at the time was focused on um the enforcement of the city's campaign finance laws and why that contract was necessary was or why we had to pay them to do that enforcement rather than the FPPC just go along and enforce the campaign finance laws that they enforce everywhere is that our laws went a little farther than what the FPPC normally enforces.

So there was a component of okay.

Well, the attorneys have to learn what the city of Saint or what the city of Sacramento does and then enforce those laws.

There was contemplated at that time that the FPPC would provide that advice portion of this kind of good governance framework, in that in the work that the FPC did actually did for the city, there was advice that in for I it's it's slipping my memory right now, whether it was informal or informal, but there was advice that they provided to individuals in the city of Sacramento engaging in the electoral process on how to comply with the campaign finance laws.

So that was a piece that was what that was occurring, and when that contract ended, that did go away.

Um so that I think was a sticking point in the contract renegotiation with the FPPC was this audit function, as in terms of was this something that was initially contemplated by the city council to empower the FPPC to do in terms of how it's gonna fit into this good governance process.

I appreciate that.

Again, we seem to be so bogged down on the expired five year ago FPC contract as sort of as the talisman of the thing we're talking about.

And you know, I know it's come up in city council committees, you know, expensive and expired, expensive it expired, expensive it expired, and expensive expired.

At some point that's not the point anymore.

But frankly, what I hear you saying is there's an aspect of Sacramento Sacramento City filings that aren't being audited.

That's kind of what I'm hearing you say, um, they're not being they're certainly not being audited by the FPPC in the way that they were when the contract was uh when the contract was in place.

Okay.

I mean, again, I drew a picture of you of other types of commissions, and I noted that the Oakland Ethics Commission has that function under them, and there's auditing, and they found a lot of violations.

I'm not saying that's happening in Sacramento, but if nobody was looking at it, certainly we wouldn't know that that's that's the issue that I'm trying to probe for, and I hope I hope y'all will get your head around it in a systematic way somehow when the implementation of this audit is complete.

Um, and with that, that was matter number five, and uh I will yield, Madam Chair.

There's no more coming.

Um there's no more coming.

So thank you again for that fine report is very important when you know for us to use that, you know, for our next two items discussion.

So thank you again.

Yeah.

Have a good night.

And Chair, before we move on, uh we do need to take a motion to extend the meeting per council rules of procedure um to extend the meeting past uh the two hour mark.

Um is there a motion to extend?

So moved a second.

Seeing no seconds, uh the meeting will end at the two-hour mark, which will be 7 30.

Okay, so what am chair?

I move that we extend, hoping that Ms.

Emery will second my motion.

I'm reviving the motion that Ms.

Emory just made that died for lack of a second.

To extend the meeting for one hour to 8 30.

So you're looking for a second.

Yes.

The move second.

Thank you.

I have a motion by Member LaFaso and a second by Member Emory.

I'll now do the roll call votes.

Yes.

Member Adams?

Nay.

Member Velasquez.

Absolutely not.

Member Emory.

And Chair Ng.

Yes.

The motion fails as the motion needs to be passed by a two-thirds vote, which would require four yes votes.

As such, the meeting will end at 7 30 p.m.

Okay.

So we're gonna uh put off you know whatever they mix agenda items to November meeting.

Um any items that you don't get to, we can move to the November meeting.

Um we are just going to so this uh concludes today's agenda.

Thank you, everyone, for your participation.

Uh oh chair, we still do have um about eight minutes to go if you wanted to uh uh state on the record that that the commission wishes to uh continue the annual report as well as the community outreach item.

Um and then there also is time for and also discussion of the uh comments and and public comments matters not on the agenda.

So the three agenda items, which is number, you know, five, the outreach, and then change the number six, the annual report, as well as the you know formal number six, as the investigation list to the November meeting.

Okay, so if we have a few minutes, then let's go to the next item.

Is it good?

Next item is member comments ideas, questions and meeting conference report.

Are there any commissioners who wish to speak?

Did you say this is the comment?

Yeah, members' comments ideas, any yeah, go ahead.

Uh, thank you.

Um quick comment.

Sorry, microphone is on.

I can hear it.

A if people want to have meetings that are two hours, we need to have more meetings.

Um, you know, we we've been meeting like once every four months these days.

So if you want to have shorter meetings, we need to have more meetings.

That's all.

Commissioner Bell.

My question is for um City Clerk uh uh cuppy.

Um is there and I realize that the um meetings start at 5 30 and kind of end whenever um is there a reason why on the agendas we it says 5 30, but there's not an approximate date that it ends.

I mean time that it ends.

Um good evening, um council, commissioners.

I mean Mindy Cupy City Clerk.

Um we don't typically um put the end time um because our council rules of procedures state that after two hours you do need to vote to extend, and that's up to the purview of this commission if they wish to continue.

We typically as staff try to um create an agenda that's about a two-hour agenda.

Is there is there um is that something is that an option to put an approximate end time on the agenda?

We could put an approximate end time or we could refer back to the rules.

Um if we do put a static end time, we would need to end by then.

Okay.

Um and that doesn't give this body the decision to move forward and another hour.

Um, for instance, we had a couple of reports last time that they could have gone a little bit longer, so we give you that one hour wiggle time.

Okay.

Since so just to reiterate, you you did say that when you guys put these um agendas together, it's about two hour content.

As staff, we try to approximate a two-hour meeting for you.

Okay, thank you.

Oh, okay.

Um Commissioner Amory.

Um, I guess having heard that there's this audit going on, I've been looking forward to this meeting and might be in the future when we have such an important thing that that be the only meeting item on there.

Uh maybe a special meeting just for that because there's a lot in here.

It's a lot to digest.

Um it it needed the time to be spoken about.

So uh that in future when we get something that's really fundamental to how this group uh operates, I think we need a special meeting just for that.

Thank you.

Yes, and I also uh suggest that, you know, for the next meeting, November meeting, since we we're not able to discuss the annual report.

So I'm just asking, you know, all of you all of the commissioners take a look at, you know, the annual report, which is a draft form.

Okay, so it's nothing set in stone, and also review that audit report and see what kind of goals and objectives you want to come up and put in the annual report.

So in this case, when you come when you when we come together and we can just go through it, okay?

So without, you know, guessing, you know, whether it's good or not.

Agreed.

Okay, very good.

The last item is public comments.

Matters not on the agenda.

Clerk, are there any members of a public who wish to speak on public comments?

Matters not on the agenda.

Thank you, Chair.

I have no speaker slips.

Yes, Mr.

Lindsay.

Um, Gary Lindsay Dellum Council for the commission.

This is for the maybe for the uh clerk.

When there was a continuance of items to November, I do not at least I didn't hear the um chair mention item seven.

I just wanted to make sure whether or not that was caught or not.

Um, I I heard item seven.

Um my apologies.

I did not take that, and and that'll be reflected in the minutes.

Okay, thank you.

My point.

Okay.

This concludes today's agenda.

Thank you everyone for the participation.

The meeting is adjourned at 7:30.

Thank you.