Good evening everyone.

Welcome to first meeting of the Sacramento Ethics Commission for the year of 2026.

Today is Monday, February 23rd, 2026.

The meeting is now called to order.

Mr.

Breedberg, would you please uh call role to establish a quorum?

Thank you, Chair.

Commissioner Commissioner Kelly.

Here.

Commissioner Velasquez.

Commissioner Tao.

Commissioner Emory.

Here.

And Vice Chair La Faso.

Here.

Thank you.

We have quorum.

Thank you.

I'd like to remind members of the public in the chambers that if you'd like to speak on an agenda item to please turn in a speaker slip before the item begins.

Sorry, Mr.

Brieber, where are the speaker slips?

If somebody wants to fill one out, uh the speaker slips are uh right outside the doorway on the table, along with uh some pencils for folks to fill the forms out.

Excellent.

Thank you for that.

Um after the item is called, we will no longer accept speaker slips.

Uh, you will have two minutes to speak once you are called upon if you want to speak on a particular item.

We will now proceed with today's agenda.

And the, oh, uh, we were going to do the pledge of the land acknowledgement.

Thank you, Vice Chair La Faso.

Please rise for the opening acknowledgments in honor of Sacramento's indigenous people and tribal lands to the original people of this land, the Nissanon people, the Southern Maidu, Valley and Plains Miwok, Patwinguinton 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 acknowledgment and appreciation for Sacramento's indigenous people's history, contributions, and lives.

Thank you.

Please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Salute, pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag.

United States of America to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation, indivisible, liberty and justice for all.

So everybody, today is an interesting milestone for the City of Sacramento Ethics Commissioner.

Today is the very first time that the Ethics Commission meets without one of the original inaugural five members of the Commission.

As such, we have two new members, Commissioners Kelly and Tao.

And if uh you'd like to introduce yourself, uh we would very much like to hear your thoughts about your new service here.

Commissioner Tao.

Yes, thank you so much, and um it's a pleasure to be here with all of you.

Um I am excited and looking forward to the appointment here, and and really uh it's an honor uh to be here.

Linda Yng, who um has been here for a long time from the beginning, really is an inspiration to all of us in our Asian American Pacific Islander communities, and I really look forward to um bringing not only that perspective but all of our perspectives and communities here in Sacramento.

So uh being a part of of this commission means a lot, and I look forward to learning from all of you here today.

Thank you.

Commissioner Kelly, thank you.

Um just by way of background, I was a longtime attorney.

I'm now an inactive member of the bar, worked for the state of California, spent the last 20-some years at the office of the legislative council, followed by about 12 years of working for a private law firm by the name of Nielsen Merksimer, which is a compliance firm.

That's where I worked in ethics issues, lobbying, campaign finance, and so forth.

Uh so I kind of bring that perspective.

And I was also a longtime volunteer with uh an organization called KOGL, the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws, which is kind of a trade association for governmental ethics agencies.

And I I bring a little perspective from that.

I will say I don't have any particular agenda.

I'm happy to be a resource here and help out in whatever way I can.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And I'll just interrupt really quick.

Jacob Redberg from the city clerk's office.

Before we begin our meeting items here, uh discussion calendar item number four, discussion of firms the city attorney may use to perform investigations, will be continued to a future meeting.

Thank you, Mr.

Breedberg.

Moving on to our agenda, the first item is the consent calendar, which of course contains the minutes approval and our complaint log.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I have no public speakers.

Great.

Thank you very much.

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

And since we don't have an electronic queue, I'm just going to try to take hands and call on you in the order you asked to be you asked to be recognized.

Any uh anyone want to speak on this item?

Or on the consent calendar, minutes and complaint log.

Good.

Okay, does any commissioner want to make a motion?

I still move.

I still move the um send calendar.

Is there a second second second okay?

Motion by Commissioner Emery, second by Commissioner Kelly.

Uh all in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Nays.

Abstentions?

Motion passes.

That takes us to the discussion calendar, and our first item is item three, the City of Sacramento Ethics Commission 2025 annual report, which of course is continued from the October 27, 2025 meeting.

And I'll bet there's a staff presentation because Ms.

Cuppy is at the as at the Rostro.

Good evening, Commissioners.

My name is Mindy Cuppy, your city clerk.

The item before you is the City of Sacramento Ethics Commission annual report.

That's for January through December 2025.

Before you is statistics from what we did last year.

And then if there are options if you'd like to do if you have projects that you would like to undertake next year, we can include those in the annual report.

The typical practices for the staff to create the draft report presented to you.

If you have any questions, updates, I can either move that forward to the city council or bring it back here for you to review one more time.

So I am available for any questions.

Do any members have any questions of staff?

Mr.

Kelly.

I have three, and again, I apologize because I know this has probably been discussed.

I went back and I had three things that I couldn't figure out the answer to.

So on page four of the report, there's a reference to the FPPC contract.

Am I correct that that has lapsed and and there is no contract with the FPPC?

They're not doing audits.

That is correct.

We do not have an active contract with FPP.

So no one is is no one doing audits of any of the reports?

Correct.

Okay.

And second question, which is fairly easy.

On page nine, there's a blank for how much was spent on commission meetings to be filled in.

Is there a number for that?

There is.

So the estimated cost to support the commissions was 29,566.

The additional expenditures for the independent evaluator was 27,500.

Okay.

Can I ask maybe this is is beyond the scope?

What the total amount spent for commission activities.

I'm that that number seems to pertain to just the meetings.

And I'm just curious because obviously there's a tremendous amount of staff time, I assume.

Correct.

And that's a ballpark number.

We do include staff time to create your annual calendar to create your staff reports, to input staff reports, to review any complaints that come in.

Um and that is I would say a low number.

We estimate fairly low.

I think it's I say state 15 minutes for every complaint.

However, if it moves to the independent evaluator stage, it takes a lot more staff time to process that to create a staff report.

It includes a little bit of time for your city attorney to review any staff reports that are entered.

Includes the time here in this meeting.

I have three staff members from my office, includes stipends from the commission.

And my last question, which I don't know if this is appropriate or not, because it's kind of incorporated by reference, the reference to the auditor's report or whether I should bring up issues at some future date.

It just seemed like there were a number of I guess I would call them lingering issues, and maybe those are to be discussed in the future, most notably about training, seems to be an issue.

And I'll just, if you'll indulge me for a moment.

In my own background, I've seen so many instances where people get caught up and assessed penalties for things that basically they just said no, it's the ignorance of the law issue.

Most people think of a gift as something in a box with a ribbon, and that's not necessarily it, it can be the neighbor handing you tickets to the King's game.

Similarly, conflicts, same kind of thing.

People don't necessarily know that if their spouse is involved in something that that can be a conflict, so it seemed to me that there were a number of issues that focus training being one, and also kind of a what direction this commission is going in.

We don't have apparently audits anymore, which just kind of surprises me because it seems to me that the nature of an ethics commission is to ensure that there's a level playing field for everybody, incumbents, non-incumbents.

I mean, you're really creating something that's fair to the incumbents and fair to people who are uh running against them, and by that I mean that campaign finance reports get audited in some fashion, whether it's random and a few, whether we do that through the FPPC or at some point have staff time uh devoted to that.

And I guess in that regard, and again, this comes from my experience of having observed commissions throughout the state and actually around the country.

Sacramento is kind of in this awkward position where we're a big city where but we're not the biggest.

So if you look at a San Diego or LA or San Francisco, they have big standalone staffs.

They would have an executive director who is commonly someone from the city attorney's office, and a staff with at least one auditor and at least one investigator, and so forth.

And then the smaller cities that are smaller than Sacramento in it's commonly just some little thing that's nested in the city attorney's office where you have an ethics complaint, you take it to the city attorney.

We're in this awkward thing, and I I just kind of wonder whether it isn't something that we should explore in the future as to what direction Sacramento wants to go.

Do you want a full blown commission with audits and so forth, or are we just going to be a passive commission that reviews complaints made to the city attorney's office?

And I will also say, in fairness to the city attorney's office, if the current organization puts a tremendous amount of burden on the city attorney who is appointed by the city council and then going to turn around and be in charge of these investigations of the city council.

It's a very awkward position to be in.

And I just throw that out that these were my takeaways from reading the audit, like I say, which is sort of subsumed in the annual report.

And here at the city of Sacramento, uh it actually lies in the city clerk's office as your neutral um body, your neutral charter officer, complaints come into my office, and then we have an independent evaluator that does any investigation.

I oftentimes, of course, consult with my attorney, if I'm not sure where if it should be going to an independent evaluator, if it should go to the FPPC.

So we do consult, but typically it's my office that manages input of complaints.

Yeah, that those are my comments, I guess, about the annual report.

We can bring up other issues in the future, things that we might want to discuss as a commission as far as direction.

Thank you.

With that, Commissioner Kelly.

Um are there any other commissioners who have comments or questions about the annual report draft?

Commissioner Emery.

I'm glad you brought this up because the audit was we actually never finished.

I want to make sure that your voice is being captured in your microphone.

I know it's on, but I just want to make sure it's being uh we we were going through the audit at our last meeting and never finished it.

And a lot of these issues are exactly those sort of the FDPC, the training, um the staffing, whether it's independent or not.

So these are things as a commission, we have to continue.

You know, right now, the budget the city has does not does not help at all, and we're aware of that.

But I'm really glad that um you brought that up because I think as a I've been on commission for two years now, those and those are just frustrating issues.

We're sort of stuck in some ways with not being able to have um, you know.

I I do I speak to a lot of neighborhood groups.

I'm just that's sort of my thing, and is I always say it's transparency trusting government, but it'd be really helpful to go and have some of those pieces that are in there.

And I'm really sorry, I forgot, I forgot mine at home.

I was going through everything and that got left behind.

So thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Emory.

Any other uh questions?

Yes, uh, thank you, Commissioner Velasquez.

I would just I don't know how everybody else feels, but I would like to revisit this um in the next meeting uh for more questions to read to continue to evaluate.

I'm sorry, for my benefit, Commissioner, you want to what would you what would you like to continue?

I'm I'm just asking for more time.

Oh, okay.

To review, so we'll bring so I would like to bring this at the next or it's a not to conclude it now, but to continue to read through it and pose more questions, possibly.

Okay.

I very I I appreciate that comment.

Um I have some comments, but chair speaks last.

So any comments, Commissioner Tao, before the chair goes.

Um yes, I would just um like to also second that.

Um, I know being fairly new to the commission, I had a chance to review as well, but um, very curious and interested in the um the proactive aspect of of what um commissioner Kelly mentioned.

I think it's important to get out in community, and I know that that was also a priority of of making sure that we are um you know actively going out to support and make sure that uh community groups know about this commission as well, and so I look forward to that continued discussion on our next meeting as well.

Comments, thank you, Commissioner Tao.

Um, so appreciate all your comments.

Um you raise a number of issues that I struggled with in my first two years, Commissioner Kelly, but I'm gonna steer us to uh focus a little bit on our task tonight, which we don't have to complete, but I think will benefit from discussing it from the standpoint of what our specific work to do to accomplish this evening is, and that is so for us to do things outside our core function, which is to do hearings.

There's a process whereby commissions adopt an annual report, and we can have a work plan where we can sponsor initiatives, and that decision that we make in the form of this annual report has to go to the city council's personnel and public employment committee, and they have to approve it.

That's how we dialogue.

And just by way of a little history, this I'm gonna make two quick comments on this sort of big picture question of like what kind of commission are we?

The two, and this is one that um will certainly is returning members, Commissioners Emory and Velasquez recalled that since the commission's inception in 2018, it has been raising this issue.

And there is something that has been bandied about over time, that has under the rubric of the 2018 recommendations, which were recommendations adopted by the original commission in its first year that were reviewed by the city council somewhat inconclusively in 2019.

And if you drill down in the audit, you will see that the auditor comments that there was some manner in which that process sort of got lost without record keeping, and that's why better record keeping is one of the recommendations in the audit.

But then in 2023, in the 2022 report, which is also adopted the following year, the commission resuscitated those 2018 recommendations, and they went back to P and PE over the course of three or four meetings during the end of 2023 and through 2024.

And there wasn't a whole lot of interest from the uh city council to revisit our functions in a major way.

I'm not saying we shouldn't try, I just want you to have the benefit of that.

I do want to underscore two subpoints to that, which is one, in my experience, having gone to PNP a couple times, they've been warm to initiatives from our part on the general area of training.

Even that was the fourth of the 2018 recommendations, and my recollection was they were warm to that.

They were also warm to the training matter that was in our 2023-24 annual report.

All that background is I was hoping that we would steer back into filling in the blanks for our work plan.

Again, we don't have to decide this tonight, but I think a discussion would help us.

And I had a recommendation, and they were to, in some form or fashion, continue the two matters that we put on our annual report in 23-24, which were the training item and the outreach item.

Um the training item, and I have to make an aside.

Well, I'll do that in a minute.

The training item is something that in my opinion we didn't really finish.

My recollection is we had a discussion in April of 2025.

There were a number of comments.

The ones that I recall specifically were my own, which was to perhaps track that initiative along the line of some training issue that's discussed in the audit, and follow along the city clerk and the city attorney's office relative to the recommendations from the audit that I understood that they supported.

I will say if I learned anything since the audit was released, it's that this process moves a lot slower than I ever imagined it would.

So on the training matter, my suggestion to you all, which you may want to go with or you may not is to write some language that sort of resuscitates the uh item we had from the last report, acknowledge that we want to continue it, and say something about aligning it with the timing of the implementation of the related item from the audit.

And I will say, I mentioned this to you before the meeting, Commissioner Kelly, that when we did discuss that matter in April, one resource that the clerk made available to us as potentially finding some training resources that wouldn't burden the city financially was the council on government ethics laws.

I personally have used some uh access tools that the clerk made available to the commissioners.

I'm hoping she'll now share that with the two new commissioners, like she shared with the previous ones.

And I attended two meetings.

One was kind of a lunch brown bag with like 70 people in a Zoom meeting, with like chairs at the Ohio Fair Political Practices Commission, and then like a compliance officer down in the staff level of the Missouri, whatever it's called.

And it wasn't quite on point to what we did.

I also did actually go to another one, I think this was in September, that was on the area of training in general, although what I understood it to be was about the a commission's role training the people who potentially might have ethics violations, quick side.

Most of them aren't under our jurisdiction, but uh, but I contrast that with with training ourselves.

I think there's lots of opportunity for us to get grounding in both the substantive law issues, which I find to be more nuanced than sometimes maybe meet the eye, as well as some procedural uh matters about how to conduct hearings, how our own process works, the the basic steps in my understanding are the the jurisdictional step, the no cause step, and the full blown hearing step, just as an example.

Again, the contrast I'm I'm I'm drawing is training other people who have ethics compliance requirements under Sacramento City Law, in contrast with training ourselves.

My belief is we're gonna get the most fruitful uh accomplishment if we focus on the latter.

That's my point of view.

The second matter, which is also continued from our uh annual report from 2025, is before even I arrived, the commission was working on an outreach program, which was being solidified when I arrived.

There was a draft presentation that the clerk created that in a informal non-quorum working group, Commissioner Emory and I worked on at the beginning of 2024.

That presentation is available to the new commissioners and maybe a refresh to the um the old commissioners, the returning commissioners.

As you may recall, maybe you don't, there's a listing of the number of presentations that we did.

Uh I did a couple, Commissioner Velasquez did one, Commissioner Emory is the star who did the most.

Hopefully, we'll do more of those.

We had an item agendized in October, which we haven't seen since, to talk about our outreach program per se.

I don't want to get into it now, but I I've I I wanted to I wanted to uh have an opportunity for us as a commission, well, to bring the new commissioners up to speed, but for the remainder of our of us to talk about our experiences with those neighborhood uh meetings.

I have some thoughts about how we might revise our presentation based on that experience.

And finally, um before I arrived, there was a member of the city staff who does this kind of stuff, Lynette Hall, who I think works with the neighborhood services uh uh department of the city.

She made a presentation to the commission in August of 2023.

There was an email that she sent us, it was actually received by the clerk, and the clerk forwarded it to us last year.

I believe that occurred on June 30th of last year.

And there are about seven items that suggest strategies that we might do to broaden the reach of our outreach program.

I also hope that we can talk about that at a future agenda item on the outreach.

Um I'm recommending to my colleagues that we design a work plan that in essence continues the last two items, but it counts a little bit for what we've done, and we make an effort to agendize in the near future some items where we can talk about that in greater detail.

Questions or comments from commissioners?

Oh, Commissioner Emory.

I do want to, you know, um I did, you know, they always had the City Connect once a month, and last Thursday ran in late, and Lynette saw me and, like, okay, come on up by wearing my ethics commission so I could do a quick presentation.

But um I will admit I totally forgot about grabbing the postcards and stuff because I've just come from another meeting.

So I think that sort of thing, maybe we can discuss strategies, how to reach out to people, because I was talking to neighborhood group, you know, it's it's trying to just reach out to people.

In fact, one one mataku, she works for a member of the assembly who she said, I'd like to know more about it so we can introduce that to the city she was from.

So I don't, and I didn't really catch where that was.

It's very noisy.

So, but I I do like these ideas about the tra and the outreach, but also I do want to say the training.

I know one thing I felt really needed was more of that, uh, and we did have some which I appreciated, but I think it would be a regular thing.

Um, the the training on on what how what the evaluators looking for so that we have a stronger sense on when the evaluators look as looking at the complaint that we as commission will understand that more and and I know we had one last year but I think that needs to be maybe a semi regular thing especially um this is an election year so I expect we're going to be getting some complaints about candidates for office and things like that it'd be good just to have just an update on that yeah thank you commissioner I mean just for my clarity you I think what you were talking about was the future agenda item or were you talking about an initiative in our work plan?

I'd say future agenda item appreciate that very much so my goal colleagues apropos to Commissioner Velasquez's request and we did this at the end of 2024 which is we had a discussion about the work plan in one meeting and then we let the staff the clerk take notes and revise the document to draft up some more concrete language so that everybody had it in front of them in writing at a subsequent meeting so that they understood what our final report adoption might look like that but I am trying to to land at a at a whether there's enough interest from commissioners that the clerk wants to write up what I said Commissioner Velasquez before we um go ahead and vote on um continuing the discussion on the the annual report can we make a note um clerk cuppy that if to your point about the um the political thing coming up um that we can I know we've discussed this last year with um auditor investigator I forgot his name um and that they didn't really have something to teach us on on what they look for but if they if we can touch base with them again and see what they could put together because she is right we are going to have more complaints and those can and we need to be more efficient on how we analyze them and assess and decide we need to meet more decisive on that and we're gonna need we're gonna need some training on that before that all happens appreciate that I have one more issue on the text of the audit to talk about in a second but I just want to I just want to support the staff in making sure that we have enough of a of a assent from the group to follow the direction I suggested so that the clerk knows that the notes she's taking are something she should put in the um in the next draft one final quick item um this this is this makes me a little uncomfortable and you'll understand why so the the report contains a a cover letter by our former chair Ms Ng and I had some conversations with her back in October when it was um going to be on the agenda back then and her response to me is great let's talk about it in the meeting and then I realized we were going to talk about it again but Commissioner Ng isn't present.

So I contacted her over the weekend there's a paragraph in her letter that I told her I had a concern about um because in essence it implies that we finished the training discussion but I didn't think we did so with Commissioner Ng's permission I am asking that we remove that um paragraph from the 2025 chairs cover letter and I apologize I am scrolling to here we are this is what happens when I load too many documents.

There we are.

I was looking at the other one.

Thank you for your forbearance.

Thank you.

Page eight.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um in essence, what I'm asking us to do with former Chair Ian's permission is to remove the paragraph that starts out as part of our 2025 work plan.

We took a closer look at the city's existing ethics training program.

It implies that we develop something that in my opinion we never finished.

I also think in the paragraph that talks about this, we should somehow say that we we didn't finish that uh discussion, and that's why we want to continue it to the 2026 work plan.

That's my request if you will.

And uh to get too ahead of things.

Uh Mr.

Bredberger, Mr.

Lindsay.

If we continue this matter, do we need to take a vote or do we just need to nod our heads and um okay?

This item, this item.

Yes, all right, appreciate that.

Okay, so I don't want to rush anybody, but uh, if the discussion is complete, and I'm not sure that it is, if somebody wants to make a motion to continue this meeting.

Make a motion to continue the annual report review and uh discuss further the next meeting.

Is there a second?

Second.

Uh Mr.

Kelly.

Okay.

Uh motion by the motion is to continue.

Uh motion by Velasquez, second by Kelly.

Uh all in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Motion passes.

Okay.

For the record, we had no speaker slips on this item.

Thank you.

Did I forget to do that?

I believe so.

Oh, thank you.

But if you did it, it will we're just doubling up on it.

Got it.

Okay.

I believe that takes us to item five.

Am I correct, Mr.

Bredberg?

Yes, as stated at the beginning of the meeting, item four discussion of firms the city attorney may use to perform investigations, is continued to a future meeting.

All right.

Okay.

Item five is selection of a chair and vice chair for calendar year 2026.

Okay.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Um, good evening.

My name is Jacob Redberg from the Office of the City Clerk.

There's no staff presentation on this item.

All information is detailed in your staff report.

However, I will remind members of a few things.

Members may nominate another member or themselves for chair or vice chair.

Typically, nominations will be heard for the chair position first and followed by nominations for vice chair.

Uh a member may serve as the chairperson or vice chairperson for no more than two calendar years.

Um, and the newly elected chairperson or vice chair and vice chairperson will start their terms at the next regular meeting.

So, every member on this dias is eligible to serve as chair.

Um, and all members are eligible to serve as vice chair except for uh current vice chair LaFaso as they have served uh calendar year 2024 and 2025 in that designation.

Thank you, Mr.

Bredberg.

Do we have any nominations?

Sorry, I nominate myself for chair.

Do we have a second?

Do we have any other nominations?

Commissioner Emery.

I notice that um the way this commission work is I've noticed since the beginning, whoever served as vice chair has then generally gone on to be the chair, and actually every single time.

So I'd like to nominate uh vice chair La Faso to be the chair.

Second.

We have a second.

Uh I accept the nomination.

Uh do we have any other nominations, which we can do by a substitute motion?

Seeing none.

Uh any questions or comments by members on the motion to elect a by to elect a chair.

Seeing none.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

I heard at least four ayes.

The motion passes.

Members can ask for a roll call if you want.

But the chair said the motion passed.

The motion passes.

Thank you for the record.

I heard uh four um four uh yes.

Um if you'd like to call for nays or abstentions.

Thank you.

Are there any nays?

Nay.

Okay.

Thank you for that.

I'm not used to that part.

Are there any abstentions, even though everybody's called to vote?

Okay.

So the motion is is four to one.

All right.

Thank you for helping me through that, Mr.

Brentford.

Of course.

Okay.

I believe we are now open for nominations for vice chair.

I nominate Commissioner Velasquez.

Is there a second?

Second by Commissioner Kelly.

Are there any other nominations?

Seeing none.

Any questions or comments on the motion to elect Commissioner Velasquez vice chair?

I see none.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any nays?

Any abstentions?

Appreciate that.

So the vote is four to zero with one abstention.

And congratulations, Vice Chair Velasquez.

And thank you for all that.

I forgot to ask if you accept the nomination, but I think you did.

Okay.

I have too much of me to get out of it.

Okay.

Okay.

So I believe, for the record, we had no speaker slips on this item as well.

Thank you.

Okay.

I got too much paper here.

Okay.

I believe we are at the commissioner comments ideas and questions item on the agenda.

I think this is the item for brief comments.

It's also the uh the opportunity if we didn't already do it under the previous item to ask the staff to agendize an item for the future.

Um I've already requested that we agendize uh item about our outreach initiative for the next meeting.

Commissioner Kelly.

So just to follow up, I would like to follow as well on the training issue.

Um, and I'd also like to follow up on the audit issue if we could at some future meeting.

I don't know that it has to be next.

I and I will say I'm not going to be at the next meeting, which really troubles me.

It's the only meeting on my calendar this year that is in conflict.

Um, but I would like to talk about the audit issue.

It tur disturbs me that absolutely no one is auditing any of our things filed with the city.

Can I ask for point of can I ask for point of clarification?

Oh, yeah, the FPPC.

I'm sorry.

So with respect to the lapsed FPPC contract, that you know, I don't think the city is gonna go out and hire a bunch of auditors, but it it just seems to me that whether it's random or what have you, somehow that there should be some enforcement mechanism.

Okay, I said uh and final comment is I also know that money is tight and it's a matter of priority of the city council.

So we'll leave that to them.

And one other to go back to the training.

I wanted to uh amplify something that you said earlier.

Uh in the interview that I had with the city council's uh subcommittee.

Councilmember Kaplan brought up the training issue, and it I got the impression that she had a vigorous feeling about the expansion of training or the development of training, that it sounded like it was a priority of hers as well.

So I'll defer to those of you who've been here longer.

You may have a better sense, but we can discuss all that, hopefully, at a future meeting.

Oh, go ahead.

Uh well I I will quickly say that I mentioned earlier that I had appeared before PNP, and my recollection is the Council Member Kaplan was among the council members who would express support for training initiatives on the commission.

So I concur in that understanding.

Would you have a comment, Commissioner Belas?

Vice Chair of Alone.

No, no, no.

That's next meeting.

I don't get paid for that just yet.

Okay.

I do have a couple of questions.

One, I'm just piggybacking on what Commissioner Kelly commented on the audits.

Clerk Mindy, is it unusual for an audit contract or any contract as such to expire before a new one is renewed?

Um or is it because in my in my experience audits are done periodically?

It's not an everyday thing, all day long full-time staff.

So is it expired because it was unplanned, or is it is it um is it normal for a new contract to come up later in the year when it's audit time?

So um Mindy Cuppy, City Clerk.

So with the FPPC audit, I'd be happy to bring back a staff report to explain what happened with the contract, but we came to a standstill with the FPPC attorney, um, and at the time they would not give us a um not to exceed amount, and we weren't comfortable entering to a contract with an agency that could not give us a sealing.

Okay.

So we essentially, if I'm hearing this right, the amount that we the parameters we were given wasn't going to be effective enough to have uh an effective audit.

Correct.

Um and the one round of audits they did uh we I believe received almost two years after the campaigns.

Okay, thank you.

Um and then I just have a general question.

Are the these the is this comment commissioner comments sort of also a round table?

Can we ask anything?

Is there is it pertained only to what's been on the agenda already?

Okay, so is it okay to ask questions of our new board members to get to know them better?

Is that I believe it is, and uh I I hope I hope we gave them some opportunity to speak at the beginning of the meeting.

That was a beginning, not an end.

So okay, so I do have a welcome.

Um do you it sounded like earlier you've been listening to our meetings?

You guys do either of you have you been kind of tuning in?

Happy to share.

Um, so I for me, I I had a chance to review some of the earlier meetings at the end of last year, and I think um that provided me a lot of context for this body of work.

Um, and I had you know previous conversations really, um, Commissioner Ng, who had encouraged me to um, you know, apply, be a part of this as well.

And so uh apologies.

I uh also realize I didn't share much of my background, but I I have been um here in Sacramento for about six and a half years.

My background is in um uh strategy consulting as well, worked uh previously at everyday impact consulting, and a lot of my work was centered around uh community outreach and engagement as well.

So I did a lot of um work there.

I also sit uh on the board of a local nonprofit, Mmong Innovating Politics as well.

So um, you know, I'm also a current grad student at UC Davis uh in my Master of Business Administration.

So just a couple more things um to add to the list, but uh when uh Commissioner Ng approached me, you know, she's a respected uh leader within the API community here.

And so um what I always say is we we always uh say and do and listen to Linda.

So that is exactly um one of the one of the motivations, and not only that really um, you know, I've been on the other side as well on the community side, and it's really exciting to uh be a part of of a commission for the first time, and I really look forward to serving um with you all in that aspect.

Nice, thank you.

And are you a familiar already with any of our current members?

Um not yet.

So I look forward to getting to know all of you.

Nice.

Okay.

Commissioner Kelly.

Yeah, I'll just um add to what I said earlier.

In my last life, I've spent 12 years at Nielsen Marksmore.

I probably watched more at other ethics commissions.

Um I regularly watch the Oakland Ethics Commission, the San Francisco Ethics Commission, the Federal Election Commission in Washington, DC, and the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission, just because of the all commissions have their own sort of personality.

And this I'm sure will have its own personality.

I went back and I did watch the October meeting and a couple other snippets here and there.

And you know they all have similar but different laws.

And my interest in this commission is just to bring some of the experience that I have and some of the background I have and share it to the best ability I can.

I have no particular agenda.

I'm not here to be a reformer or make any changes, but I do have questions, and I I will continue to question why things are the way they are.

I know it's oftentimes history.

I work for the legislature, and the legislature does not change their practices very often.

Um it's very slow.

Um I will also say just I don't know what your experience is here.

Ethics commissions go through big changes when there is a um I won't say a disaster, but usually a scandal of one sort or another.

Um I'm not sure whether anyone here is familiar.

Anaheim, for example, lost its mayor and a couple of city council members within the last year or so because of a scandal that involved the developer of the angels stadium.

And that's all it takes, and that's why I guess my concern about lack of auditing and and other things and training to get people to follow along because all it takes is one scandal, and people lose their um lose their their uh it's a slippery slope.

Well, it's a slippery slope, and you you you kind of lose your confidence in government.

And again, that gets back to this whole notion of transparency.

This is the agency, we're one of the agencies in the uh that fosters transparency, and I just hope that I'll bring whatever experience I have and probably chime in every time there's an issue, or just with my own perspective, but I don't have any agenda here.

I'm just here really to help, I hope.

Good.

And are you already familiar with anybody on the board?

No, I am not.

Well, uh other than Mr.

LaFasso was a staffer at the legislature.

I don't really remember him very well.

I remember his name.

Okay.

Betty E, who that he worked with for many years.

Well, and just to be fair, um since you for you two are new, um I think this is maybe my second year, I don't know anymore.

Um, and um previously I was on the Midtown uh neighborhood association board, and um I felt like I could do more.

So then I joined this board, and somebody that was on that board told me about this board.

Um so I got involved.

I worked for been working for the state for since 2011.

Um I've worked with um the prison um agency to um in regarding uh staff misconduct um complaints.

So I've got a little bit of um of that experience that helps me here.

Well, I will just say I was a state employee from 1974, probably before some of you were born.

Commissioners, there's a point at which a colloquy breaches the decorum of Rosenberg's rules of order.

So I'm gonna ask you to bring your colloquy to a conclusion.

Okay, thank you.

Um are there any other, I have two items.

Are there uh Commissioner Emory?

Just a quick one I when I mentioned about um some of the training.

One of the things is commission overseas, and I think we tend to be overlooked sometimes is other commissions in the city.

And I have gotten sometimes some of the commissions and of commissions of the commissions said this is an election year, and this has been coming up there, you know.

Like, are we allowed?

What are we allowed to do?

And it's like, are you directly working with that city council member or member of the staff?

So that would be a nice little thing to add uh a little something more on um advice for uh for commissioners on other commissions that are being asked to endorse candidates, things like that.

So, appreciate that.

Yeah, just some clarification there.

I get that.

I'm uh Mr.

Lindsay, you did a brief overview of the commission at the beginning of the meeting when Commissioner Emory and I started.

I'm wondering if you might want to resuscitate that just as it just as a just as a as a first foundation for our new commissioners.

Yes, that I I had to think back to what you were speaking of and then it clicked.

Yes, we can definitely do that.

Okay, appreciate that.

And I I don't I don't remember I actually I'll be candid with you.

I watched it in the fall because I was thinking of mining it for some suggestions for revising our our outreach presentation, so any recollection I have is not from two years ago.

Um, but if if there's an opportunity to amplify the issue that Commissioner Emory just referred to about some of our outside limitations, um, and to add to that, um, before I was an ethics commissioner, um I was involved in politics and I endorsed candidates and I wrote checks and I was involved in political clubs and all that kind of stuff get me in lots and lots of hot water.

And I've only learned over the last of the course of the last two years that it can touch us in all sorts of ways that we might not anticipate it.

If there's an opportunity, at least to underscore Mr.

Lindsay, the proscription or involvement in city council campaigns and the other limitations, like I think we can't serve on another city commission for a year after we leave and some things like that.

But more, what I really wanted to make on that point is to the extent that any of any commissioner here is still involved in some kind of political activity.

It is not expressly prescribed by our authorizing ordinance.

I strongly encourage you to engage Mr.

Lindsay with any potential conflict, conflict matters that you might have just to make sure that if a matter comes up before us, you've had an opportunity to explore it with Minster Lynn Mr.

Lindsay before the matter comes to us.

I think it will help you fulfill the totality of your responsibilities, but just also to steer clear of things.

I'll be honest with you.

Um who was running for a school board seat.

That individual did not win.

I don't know if that individual is even um a member of that commission still.

It's highly, highly unlikely that there would be a complaint filed against that other commissioner that will come to us.

But that's a conflict issue.

And it even occurred to me that I was creating a conflict issue when I wrote that check two years ago.

That's just an example of the kind of things that that all it's easy for us not to think about that I'm just encouraging you to avail um yourself of Mr.

Lindsay's services.

Mr.

Lindsay.

And I would uh concur with uh what Chair Lafaso just said, and just so you know historically that's also been the case, feel completely free.

Um, actually, I should probably make sure you have my email address for both of you, but yes, do indeed.

If you have any ideas, any concern, that sort of thing, please reach out to me.

Thank you.

My last quick comment is I wanted to circle, so I think we clarified the issue with the audit.

I support you, Commissioner Kelly.

I appreciate the item I understood uh Miss Cuppy to offer up for a future meeting.

Maybe it might be good if it comes in April instead of March, since you don't plan to be here in March.

Um I'm just gonna draw a picture.

Um I'm gonna refer you.

Uh you indicated that you read the audit from last year, and I'm just gonna highlight two parts of it.

One, you might notice under finding five.

It's kind of an issue about how we treat this in jurisdictional terms.

I think you might um I think you might refresh your your your your recollection of that.

Secondly, um, when we talked about the audit at our last meeting in October, I made my myself a chart because there were 15 benchmark commissions that the auditor used to kind of sort of compare and contrast us.

And I was only zeroing in on some very specific things.

I was reading their websites and some of their rules just to look at a few issues, but it um it drew a picture for me where I think there's a standard sort of set of ethics functions that a city looks to.

But every city kind of parcels them out in different ways.

Um I believe Ms.

Cuppy alluded to that.

A lot of the traditional what I think people call compliance functions are vested in the city clerk's office, and as I understand it a designation that was created in in the same set of enactments that created our commission in 2017 that I believe is called the Office of Ethics and Compliance it's it's still the clerk's office it's just and I think it's helpful for it now my personal perspective some would say those are outside of our jurisdiction because of the issues that you have alluded to I believe it's it's responsible for us to ask questions about them for that issue that I heard you say which I have said which is fostering an environment of compliance I think it smooths things over a little bit if we understand that even if it's adjacent and maybe could come up in one of our hearings because there are some jurisdictional officers who maybe didn't do one of those compliance functions and could have a complaint against them and it could get to us.

So there is a there's an adjacency relationship but I think it smooth things over if just we just get it clear in our head about how the city organized its ethics it's good government initiative in 2017 and what's ours what's adjacent um and that kind of thing I think it just it'll it just helps our dialogue um my last comment and I will stop talking is I also hope we'll have a some kind of training item again probably the launching point is what we talked about in April since um I'm very much hoping to deputize Commissioner Kelly and his Kogel experience.

Also hope we don't do that until April if Mr if Commissioner Kelly won't be here in March.

Before we move on to the opportunity for members of the public to speak on items not on the agenda because I'm not going to forget it the third time I need last comments from commissioners seeing none okay are there any public comment on matters not on the agenda Mr.

Bradburg thank you chair we have none.

Okay thank you.

So without further ado, I believe we are ready to adjourn.

Okay we are adjourned.

Thank you.