Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Monday, April 27th, 2026 meeting of the City of Sacramento Ethics Commission.

The meeting is now called to order.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Commissioner Kelly.

Here.

Commissioner Vice Chair Velasquez.

Present.

Commissioner Tao is absent.

Commissioner Emory.

Here.

And Chair La Faso.

Here.

Thank you.

We have quorum.

Excellent.

Thank you.

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

And the speaker slips are outside of just outside the door on the table.

After an item is called, we will no longer accept speaker slips.

And land acknowledgement.

Yes, thank you.

So thank you for standing.

And we do we do the pledge first, the land acknowledgement first.

Okay.

To the original people of this land, the Nissanan people, the Southern Maidu Valley, and the Plains Mi Walk, Patlan Wintune peoples, and the people of the Wilson Rancheria, Sacramento Zone federally recognized tribe.

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

Thank you.

And now the Pledge of Allegiance.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God.

Thank you, Jason.

Thank you very much, Commissioner Emery.

And just uh for the colleagues who weren't here last time, after I started doing this at the last meeting, I indicated I was gonna pass the pass the torch around at different meetings.

Uh one of you, if you want to, uh, can be next.

This takes us to our um first agenda item, which is the consent calendar.

Uh are there are there any uh speaker slips on this item, Mr.

Bradbird Breedbury?

Thank you, Chair.

I have no speaker slips.

Thank you.

Are there any commissioner comments or questions on the consent calendar questions or comments?

Sorry, I was looking down my mistake.

Okay.

Uh is there uh is there a motion from a commissioner to approve the consent calendar?

I move we approve the consent calendar.

I second.

All right, we have a motion and a second.

Uh all in favor, please indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

Any nays?

Any abstentions?

Item passes.

That takes us to our first action item, or rather the discussion calendar, which is item four, uh City of Sacramento Community Outreach Program Update.

Good afternoon, Commissioners.

My name is Mindy Cuppy, your city clerk.

Um the Commission asks to have a standing item on their agenda to share if you had done any community outreach.

Um so this is you have the floor.

Thank you.

Are there any uh speaker slips on this item?

I have no public comment on this item, Chair.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

Uh any question or comments?

It looks like you're ready to go, Commissioner Ermer.

Well, thank you for bringing more of the postcards.

It's very helpful.

And no, I've been a little behind myself on this one lately, so I'm going to start.

Now that the weather is getting nice again, I'll start getting all that energy to go in.

And uh I especially would like to reach out to District 2 after all the news this week of their former council council person, and that I'd really love I've been trying to reach out to District 2 to say I would really love to make some presentations on this.

And that I'd really love, I've been trying to reach out to District 2 to say I would really love to make some presentations on this.

There are quite a few neighborhood associations.

So thank you.

So any other commissioner comments or questions.

Okay, hearing none.

My only final comment is uh I have sense this process ebbs and flows, and sometimes it flows when we do a little of our own outreach about our outreach.

And uh I've been a little remiss too.

So spring is coming and some other things are getting out of my way.

So unless there are any uh other final commissioner comments or questions, I believe we will move to item five history of the Fair Political Practices Commission contract for administration implementation and enforcement of the Sacramento City Code, etc.

etc.

Good evening.

I'm Mindy Cuppy, Sacramento City Clerk.

The item before you is an informational item on the history of the city's contract with the Fair Political Practices Commission, the FPPC as requested by the Commission.

The staff report has a lot of history in it, but I'll provide a high-level summary.

So the city entered into a contract with the FPPC in April 2018.

During the term of the contract, the FPPC created a website linking to the city's campaign finance rules, appeared before the ethics commission once, and in April 2020 completed audits of seven candidate committees from the June 2018 election.

During the term of the contract, the FPPC reported hours worked totaling approximately 40,000 dollars, and the city paid the FPPC 110,000.

In August 2019, this commission received a staff report to review the agreement with the FPPC.

So the powers and duties of the ethics commission includes the following.

Every two years, review any contract the city has with the Fair Political Practices Commission for the purpose of reporting to the council on the contract's efficacy.

The Commission may also make recommendations regarding renewal of the contract.

I am in August 2020, the Commission received a staff report regarding the results of that June 2018 election audit, which was for seven candidates.

The FPPC's report stated that the filers, in our opinion, have substantially complied with the disclosure and record keeping provisions of the Political Reform Act related to rules and regulations of the FPPC Commission and the City of Sacramento campaign finance ordinance.

So based on these details, their approximate cost per audit was $15,000.

City attorney staff attempted to negotiate a contract with the FPPC but was unsuccessful.

That floor remains $55,000 a year.

City attorney and city clerk staff analyzed the contract and determined that the efficacy did not support the taxpayer expense.

And that contract expired in December 2019.

So that concludes my report.

I'm available for questions.

Thank you.

Before we take any commissioner comments or questions, Mr.

Breedberg, do we have any speaker slips?

Thank you, Chair.

No public comment on this item.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Mr.

Kelly.

I have a few things to say.

Let me just say, first of all, I don't have any particular agenda and I don't have any particular solution, but I would like to start the conversation because I think we should come up with some kind of a solution, whatever that may be.

This is again sort of fundamental fairness and ensuring transparency that everybody plays by the rules.

So the city council members running for re-election, people running against them, everybody plays by the same rules.

In an audit, and again, I'm not an auditor, I have no background in auditing, but I do know that small jurisdictions, for example, do a very simple thing where they simply take the lobbyist employer reports, the lobbyist reports, and major donor reports, and they match them up with the recipient candidate committees and the uh public officials and candidates disclosure statement of economic interest, because one side is giving gifts and making contributions, and the other side is receiving gifts and contributions, and they should match.

The curious thing is they don't always match, and that's when a letter goes out, something is done.

So kind of in my experience, I know that not everybody follows the rules.

We're assuming everybody does, but I do think that as a commission we need to ensure that people know that we're enforcing the laws being enforced in some fashion.

Um I'm not sure what would happen if an audit turns up a violation because we have this notion that the commission does not prosecute matters.

But I assume in some fashion, whether either the city attorney would bring a uh a matter forward or in the name of the clerk or the city council, some fashion, if an audit turned up some wrongdoing, a complaint would be generated and come before this commission.

The original enabling legislation that I think was Dr.

Pan passed with the State Legislature to authorize the city and the FPPC to engage in a contract, contemplated this contract.

And I I don't know for a fact, I have heard through just hearsay that the FPPC had a hand in creating this notion that there would be a contract.

I think that in some fashion they saw this as a benefit.

But written in as the city clerk mentioned, is this notion that we review the contract every two years.

And I think even if there's an absence of a contract, we really have a duty to, again, either review it, and it may be that we need to amend an ordinance and do something different.

But I do think we need to do something.

And in that regard, I want to go back a little bit of history about the Political Reform Act.

And I say that because I'm in my 70s.

I was 19 years old.

So it's a long time ago.

It's a long time before people in most people in this room.

And Bob Stern, who wrote that, he did the drafting for, it was a Jerry Brown initiative, has admitted over the years that there were a number of errors that they made in drafting the state's Political Reform Act.

One of which is the auditing function.

And in that regard, they thought it would be great to nest auditing with the franchise tax board, because the Franchise Tax Board had a whole lot of auditors.

They could do a great job, what have you.

So they have very limited auditing.

So when you contracted with the FPPC, I assume they were sending this out to the FTB, and it was probably yet a lower priority than the audits that they were doing for the state.

Things have changed.

There was a bill last year that took effect, I assume this year, AB 359, which got rid of the old statutory authorization for the FPPC to specifically contract with Sacramento, San Bernardino, and there may be some others, and replaced it with a generic authorization.

It also granted to the FPPC the ability to engage in audits of local jurisdictions.

They still don't have the ability to audit statewide candidates, but they have a new ability to audit for locals.

And that's part of me is wondering whether things have changed, and I don't know.

It's something to maybe look at and consider.

And so kind of my final thoughts, and again, I really would love feedback, and I hope people think about this and think of other possibilities.

But to me, it seems like either we consider contracting with the FPPC and see if they can give us a better deal, because it sounds like a pretty raw deal what we had before.

My other thought is what about the city auditor?

100,000 is a lot and could fund probably what, a half a position, even allowing for benefits and things.

Would the city auditor be interested?

It may or may not take an ordinance change to provide that authorization.

But I just, again, thinking outside the box, we need to do something and that's just one of my thoughts.

My other thought is to invite someone from the FPPC since they are local to maybe come and talk to the Commission.

I know they have a lot of free services available on their website.

But I just think that we need to ponder this and do something proactive rather than sitting here passively and saying that our contract is expired and throw up our hands and we don't do anything.

Anyhow, those are my thoughts.

Love to hear feedback and what other commissioners think.

Thank you very much, Commissioner Kelly.

I have one quick follow-up question of you before I ask if another commissioner wants to question or comment.

You made reference to some enabling legislation authored by then, I assume Assemblymember Richard Pan.

Are you able to tell me if that legislation was Sacramento specific or was applicable to local jurisdictions in general?

So the original legislation in in 2017 was SB 2067.

So I guess it was Senator Pan then.

I don't know.

And that has been repealed by the more recent AB 359 in 2025.

Interesting.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Are there any other uh Commissioner Emory?

Oh, yes, of course.

The original legislation was Sacramento specific, and that was extended to all jurisdictions.

Yeah, right.

Let me say.

So there are everybody ran their own bill.

San Bernardino had their own bill.

And as I understand from somewhere I got this, I think it may be out the FPC website.

Only Sacramento and San Bernardino ever actually entered a contract with the FPPC.

I think there were others who either sought permission to do it or may have actually gotten bills passed, but they never actually contributed with the FPC.

Appreciate that.

Thank you for your response, both of you.

Commissioner Emory.

So uh thank you, Commissioner Kelly.

That was interesting.

And I started thinking in during the twenty, I believe it was the 2024 election.

Before it got on here, so that's why you you will be our historian on this.

There were some complaints with some of the candidates running for mayor and city council that had that were basically about finance and stuff.

And they came to the ethics committee.

How are those handles?

And if a and if somebody is running and they run afoul of the FPPC and get like a fine, are we then informed?

But so I guess it's it's what's been going on since 2019?

So um I can answer the question about the 2024 election.

There were complaints regards to campaign finance, but it was the city's campaign finance rules, not the fair political rules.

Um and the code was unclear.

Um so basically, um I and I can be happy to share the staff report in regards to this.

Um the primary election moves from March to June, typically we change our code.

Um and so the code wasn't clear.

There was a period in the middle um that was unclear which which campaign it would go to.

So um we have since changed our code to state that it's this many days prior to the election, so it doesn't make reference to a March or a June election.

So we have clarified that code.

Um there were two complaints they did come before this body because this body is who arbitrates that, not the FPPC since it's city campaign finance.

Um and they did determine and they dismissed both those cases.

So if a candidate does run a foul of like since 2019, have any candidates run afoul of some of those FPPC rules, and gets finished, is the ethics committee informed, is the city informed?

Well, I guess it's what's the process, so we'll know what to build upon.

Yeah.

Um yes, the FPPC has no requirement to notify the city.

However, I do watch those agendas and watch for our needs.

And I would probably inform you of that.

Okay.

And how big a difference is there between this you said the city, it was a city code um for finance and the FPPC.

How big a difference is there on some of those codes?

It was a reporting timeline that you had to make reports to the city, or if there's a city, the campaign finance limit.

Um you have different filing periods.

So pre-election, during election, and when you're an um so there's different filing periods.

And that was the big difference between limits based on what period you're in.

Okay.

So the FP because I keep thinking, are these like overlapping each other at all?

Could it be possible to use that city wanted to FPPC?

So I'll let other people ask.

If I may please Gary Lins, I just um uh Commissioner Emmer, I would just throw in because what you just mentioned about any overlapping, there is the potential though for, say, for instance, someone to file a complaint alleging both, say um well, just campaign finance in general, but um FPP C violations and also city violations might come into a complaint with which might end up coming before this body in regards to the alleged city violations and also being referred to FPPC, but obviously that's a um it would be a hit or miss situation.

That would be a situation where it would be occasional one-offs, it wouldn't be a consistent vetting area situation, as I which I think is the ultimate issue here right now.

Appreciate that, Mr.

Lindsay.

Uh Vice Chair Belasquez.

Um I'm gonna be the spokesperson for um uh not understanding all this fancy verbiage.

So if there's somebody out there in the universe that's listening.

Um starting with what do we what do we what is a floor?

So the floor, um the floor payment um in the contract that we had with the FPPC, we pay $55,000 if they work one hour um or they work up to that many hours.

So they provided us a that's a baseline.

The baseline.

That's that's they're getting that regardless.

Okay.

So my next question is the previous contract, the one where we said that um 40,000, one year.

Or actually it was to 2018 and 2019.

During that period for that contract, it was about 40,000.

Correct.

The floor was 110?

Correct.

That was a two-year period.

Okay, so this so this uh period for 55,000 is just for what a year?

That's one year period.

Okay.

So it would be the same as the last time.

It would be only it's it's it's right the ratio is the same as it would have been for the two-year-old.

It's entirely possible.

So they we pay them the $55,000 at the beginning of the year.

Yeah.

They provide us a statement that says we worked an hour on this project, yeah.

Okay.

So all we're trying to do is we're going to try to go from a 110, which we um we didn't use a lot.

And then um this time last time was 40,000 and they want 55 as a base.

Uh that two-year period is when we spent 40,000 dollars.

Okay, okay.

Um the website that was made, was this on their website or our website?

It was on their website and they linked to our website.

Do we know how many how much traffic we got for that website?

I have more questions, but I I yield for now.

Thank you, Vice Chair Velasquez.

Commissioner Kelly.

Um I'll follow up on and sort of express my ignorance here as well.

Um, in terms of contracting, and it's clearly it's not this commission.

Uh, my under my recollection is it's the city council in the ordinance that would contract with the FPPC.

Um is there a budget for that?

I mean, it's I I'm mindful that the city is in dire financial straights.

What happens if we think that a contract should be let?

Uh I assume you would communicate that with the city manager or something, and there would have to be a budget for that.

Is that correct?

So at right now we have budget for the ethics commission.

It's about 300,000.

That covers all of our software for compliance.

If we do any training, um, your stipends, those types of things are independent evaluator, a cost that typically um uh an investigation is about eight thousand dollars.

So depending on the number of complaints that we receive, that would be expended.

Um, and then the the FPPC contract.

So either with the FPPC or if you wanted to explore a different auditing process, um, we could do that.

But yes, annually in my budget, the city clerk's office budget um is a line item for ethics.

If I may, I I I really like the idea.

And I don't know, I because again, I know nothing about the internal workings of city government, but I love the idea of the city auditor sort of taking this on.

If it's not if it's not burdensome and it works for them, and I am not sure if if if that's something that you could ask the city auditor or if we need a motion or so that would go to the um you would make a recommendation, this body would make a recommendation.

I might encourage you to um I have an ad hoc come up with some ideas.

Um I like your creative ideas.

Are there other vendors out there other than the FPPC?

Um I have spoken to our independent evaluator, and that's something they could do for us.

Um right now, the auditor, the city auditor cannot um do audits on the council.

So we would either have to change their enacting.

I don't know if it's charter or if it's um just an ordinance change to the municipal code, but currently they do not audit um the city council.

And it probably would be a conflict as the city auditor reports directly to the mayor and council.

Is is that uh slow down a second.

So are you are you done, Commissioner Kelly?

I'm done.

I may have to do that.

For the moment.

Okay.

Mr.

Lindsey wanted to say something.

I was I would just I was just I would concur with uh what um the mentioned about the status of the situation as far as with the auditor.

Understood.

All right.

Thank you, Mr.

Lindsay.

Uh after Commission after Vice Chair Velasquez, everybody has spoken twice, so I'm going to take my slot and then we can continue, but I'm I've been holding off on taking my slot.

Vice Chair Velasquez.

So they in the couple of years that we had a contract.

Well, three years, right?

2018, 19, and then was that 2020.

The contract expired in December of 2019.

So how many what years did we actually have the contract with them?

2018 and 2019.

So two years they did seven.

Um, they did an audit for seven campaign.

And that was we got the results a year later.

Uh about twenty months later.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Thank you, Vice Chair Velasquez.

Um my turn.

And then others can have turns too.

Um a couple quick housekeeping items.

One, thank you, Vice Chair Velasquez.

I myself wanted clarification on what the floor was.

Number two, uh, Madam Clerk, thank you very much for including the entirety of the, I think it's March 21, 2017 City Council agenda item that created the Ethics Commission and all of the accompanying ordinances that I have frequently referred to as the good government program, good governance program.

That I thought was very helpful.

And it's there's some interesting things there.

And my uh quick aside, Commissioner Kelly, one of the reasons I asked about the Penn legislation, and I forgot he was a Senator in 17 and an assembly member, but um I was I was curious whether it was enacted specifically with Sacramento in mind, because the lens through which I've been refracting all of this has been my own legislative history that I've spent a fair amount of time on, and one that I will characterize as expectations.

The legislative history I'm most concerned about is what the council wanted to do when it created the ethics commission.

And I do think the council very intentionally wanted to limit our scope.

Um honestly, I think we've evolved even more limited than in my estimation the council even intended to.

I note that $350,000 figure is in the March 21, 2017 staff report.

Um but also had a it had a position in it, something that I know has uh waned or around 2020.

I know Mr.

Green left, and then there was somebody else, and none of the commissioners present there even ever met her because the commission wasn't meeting in person.

All I ever got from former commissioners I spoke to was, yeah, I think she moved to Oregon.

It's the most I got.

Um I think you I I When I appeared before the audit committee a year ago, one and by the way, there are only two members of the City Council who were on the City Council when the Ethics Commission was created nine years ago.

They are Mr.

Garrett and Mr.

Jennings.

And when I appeared before the audit committee a year ago, one council member said, you know, we really went through what we wanted to do, and that's what we wanted to do, and we knew we wanted to do.

And I've never followed up with that council member to say, are you sure it turned out exactly how you anticipated, and are you sure you don't want to do it?

What's in essence an after action report and say what happened 10 years later and it completely fulfill your expectations?

Because I read all those documents.

In a way that the council pose thought that the role of the FPPC and the FPPC contract was going to play a great weight in the ethics commission's overall program.

So the absence of it, for whatever reasons, legitimate or not, and I will say sometime when I first got here, I delved into the 2019 meeting it was, where I think this was last.

I even discussed it with former Commissioner Underwood about a year and a half ago.

Um It is what it is.

And then you made a comment about maybe we can get a better deal.

I think that was very much the focus of the Commissioners back in 2019.

Maybe it's changed, I don't know.

But I do know, I do know that's been tried.

I so my path forward thoughts are A, I believe it's valuable to firmly settle ourselves in what maybe the council that created us wants to do, understanding that there's time to learn from experience.

The power of our recommendations are in the quality of them, how well researched they are, how thoughtful they are, how implementable they are, and potentially apropos to a lot of your comments, Commissioner Cully, how many good options we give them to think about it.

Um I will cut to the chase, and I do think this issue needs to marinate a little bit, and I do think that the ad hoc suggestion that Commissioner, excuse me, Ms.

Cuppy, the clerk suggested, um, and I will do another aside, as I watched the process two or so years ago when the City Council reauthorized the ability of uh commissions to have ad hocs, and I recall there was going to be some kind of explanation to commissions on what exactly the technical rules are, uh, and we're going to have to get that, because an ad hoc is is subject to the Brown Act.

There's a number of implications to that that I don't know, including noticing.

Another implication, of course, is that the ad hoc has to be less than a quorum.

For us, that necessarily means two people, that the two members of those ad hocs can only communicate amongst themselves and probably only during meetings, and I think there has to be some kind of process of reporting out periodically to the big body.

I've seen I've seen this happen, and it's difficult.

I will say as an aside, I served as a member of the Sacramento Heritage Board for three years.

We had an ad hoc committee that wasn't called that because we didn't have those, just to plan a 40th anniversary of the um of the of the city's preservation ordinance.

And if you're in a little nonprofit board, you know, people meet informally and they talk past each other.

The number of times we had discussions with the city attorney on how to properly manage the the Brown Act in the context of that thing was quite an experience.

I'm not saying it's not doable.

I'm saying I'm putting it right out front of everybody that it's a management task and we need to be really conscientious about it.

Getting back to substance, um, and and and I think the technical way we create an ad hoc is that we all decided we want to do it, and then the chair creates it, and the chair gets to name it.

I'm gonna do what you all want, but I think that Mr.

Kelly needs to be, Christian Kelly needs to be one of the members.

Who the other thing is, Clara that process.

So city boards and commissions may create ad hoc committees.

Um I can give you it's a one-page guidelines, it's administrative rules, um, and basically you um determine the chair appoints, um, and then they have one year, so a a year duration to create do their project, bring it, then bring it back to this commission.

Uh Commission of five as you are, you can have two people on that ad hoc.

Um you can meet outside the public forum.

Um, and that's the intent is the ad hoc is created, you go do the work.

I think my best um example is the youth commission oftentimes does that.

They have four or five people that want to do a project, they meet, they create something, and then they bring it back to the full commission to vet that.

And then the conversation comes to this level.

Um you don't have any staff support, so that would be um on your own, basically.

You aren't calling the city attorney because you can meet as as you need.

Um, another opportunity too is not to create an ad hoc.

Two people can still meet outside the public forum, have coffee, talk about a project, um, bring that to a fruition, and then bring it back to this body.

Appreciate that very much.

I'm gonna ask you to send that one pager to all five commissioners.

And again, appreciate it.

Again, one of my points is if there are two members who serve at an ad hoc, they're obviously the principal actors.

But the other three commissioners are ultimately going to be consumers of their work, and they need to understand what the process is and how the information is gonna flow to them.

I'll stop talking about the ad hack.

I will say um I I favor that direction, and I think Commissioner Keller should be one of the members.

But getting back to substance, um, I want to want to understand a little bit better about what we're all talking about here substantively, campaign finance ordinances, FPPC.

Um question that's been chewing on me for a while, Madam Clerk, is you mentioned what specifically the FPPC did, and I guess it was 18 and 19.

Um have there been any auditing, and maybe maybe others know the answer to this question.

Has there been any auditing of campaign finance filings from the candidates who are under the jurisdiction of the of your office and the campaign finance ordinances?

So the city has done no auditing of campaign finance underneath our city codes.

Okay.

I can't speak to what the FPPC has done.

Um that's that's my second question.

Can you and you may want to chime in, Mr.

Lizzy?

Can you refresh our recollection?

Because I know that, again, I have been a candidate.

It was a long time ago.

The laws have changed.

The first thing you do is you file a force a set of 460 at the Secretary of State's office.

Many of your filings are at the Secretary of State's office.

Some of them migrate to the FPPC.

Even my recollection as the political officer of two Democratic Party organizations monitoring campaigns, I can't remember exactly where it all goes.

Um understanding that there is a backside that anybody who is, say, for example, running for City Council understands that many of their documents are going to the FPPC and some of the documents that initiate their candidacy go to places other than, or I think in my time running for a city office, I think they I I filed them with the clerk.

If I were running for school board, I would have filed them with the Secretary of State.

But I know they all go back to the Secretary of State because if you go on that Calaxa system and you want to see everybody who's filed their intention to run for City Council, you can look that up on the City on the Secretary of State's website as well as the City's website.

So there's some my point is there's interplay between the systems behind the scenes.

To the best of my of your ability, can you can you draw us a picture as to how these elements interact?

Absolutely.

So I'm going to speak to you as a candidate for local office.

Um if you are going to raise funds, um so you file a form to stay, I want to run for office.

So basically we get get that gets filed.

Um then if you want to have raise money, if you want to raise $2,000 or spend $2,000, you then have to create a campaign committee.

Um you create that committee with the Secretary of State, and a copy comes to my office, the office of the City Clerk at the City of Sacramento.

Um then you file all of your campaign finance forms with our office, so you file with the city.

Um your statement um your statement of um economic interest, your Form 700 is filed with the FPPC, but that's where you um your any financial interest you have or gifts you have received.

But campaign finance are all filed with the city.

Appreciate that.

And thank you for reminding me that candidates as well as city officeholders file Form 700s.

Does the City audit, I I know I'm slightly far afield, but not too much.

Does the City audit Form 700s either for uh commissioners, council members, employees, as well as candidates?

That's a great question.

So right now the um FPP uh office holders and candidates file with the FPPC, their Form 700.

So 87, 200 filers now file with the FPPC.

That's new this year.

Um all other city officers file with the city.

We've got over a thousand filers.

Um the requirement is that we audit um uh late reports.

So we spend uh an incredible amount of time making sure that people file the reports on time.

So we have to audit the late reports.

So if they're not, if everybody files on time, I don't do an audit.

Okay.

Um so so there's somebody, your office clearly a very circumscribed universe, but your your office does do some auditing of Form 700s, if I understood.

Absolutely.

Okay, that's helpful.

Um I'm gonna conclude my remarks on expressing intentionally great positivity toward all of the issues you offered, Commissioner Kelly.

Uh your you're creating work for yourself.

Um as it relates to the substance, I do think that oh, and I did want to say I have a brief, I have a brief past as a member of the franchise tax board, and I've read those FTB audits from the FPPC, and actually I thought they were pretty good.

Um but I I think it's very valuable to think about these different potential avenues of solving the problem.

I do think a future agenda item where the FPPC fills in the blanks and talks to us about their perspective just to better educate us, I think would be valuable.

So as I prepare to yield, I am I am interested in hearing Commissioner feedback on what particular avenues along the lines of Commissioner Kelly's suggestion that members think are potentially fruitful.

But again, apropos to my introductory comments, all we get to do is recommend to the extent that we come up with well thought through well thought through recommendations that thread the needle from where the Commission, excuse me, the council started in 17 to where we are today with our history.

I'm optimistic that we could have a very positive impact.

And with that I conclude my comments for this round.

Commissioner, excuse me, Vice Chair Hernandez.

Fine.

It still ends in a Z.

So of those seven that they audited those campaigns, was anything ever found uh worth noteworthy or um that needed required action?

Um I believe there was one uh small tweak, uh, but their report stated that um the filers have substantially complied with the disclosure and record keeping provisions of the political reform act related to regulations of the FPPC Commission and the City of Sacramento campaign finance ordinance.

Okay, thank you.

And my apologies for not calling you Vice Chair Velasquez, Vice Chair Velasquez, sorry about that.

Any other commissioners with a comment or question?

Commissioner Emory.

Because I know when I've given like the presentation groups, and that's the part I've always sort of muffled through, because I know we have not had a contract.

This was very helpful to understand that, yeah, they wanted all this money.

It was a lot more than the work they were doing.

Excuse me.

I'm falling apart my old age.

So um I just think it would be really I'm really not sure.

I I I'm really I think you have a lot of great ideas, Kelly, because I'm also thinking it would be really helpful to people writing for City Council and Mayor to know everybody is following the same rules, however that works.

So I'm open to any ideas.

Oscar we have currently have in I understand that we're not FPBC or whatever those acronyms were.

Our own website for campaign rules.

Is it significant?

I mean, it's it's we had that before.

They made their own for us.

Um we we have adequate information on our own website, yes?

That's correct.

Their website simply linked back to ours.

Okay.

Thank you, Vice Chair Velasquez.

Um one more quick round on this interaction between us and the state.

Um I'm gonna cut short my lengthy introduction, and I think I'm gonna direct my question to you, Mr.

Lindsay.

But I well, as I cogitated through a question that I asked at the last meeting about incorporation of the Fair Political Reform Act, and I reread the, I think it's March 21, 2017 staff report.

Part of that contained some revisions to the um revisions to the campaign fine ordinances that at least in the cover member were characterized as aligning the campaign finance ordinance with either the with the political reform act.

I read that, although I wasn't able to see the language in the ordinance text itself to understand 100 percent what that meant.

I interpreted that to mean that there's intentionally some alignment in terms of the specific requirements, requirements on city candidates governed by the city's campaign finance ordinances, and and whatever the the requirements of the political reform act is, at least the campaign finance parts of it.

Do you have any comment on that?

Very short comment.

I'm not the lead on those issues as far as in the city attorney's office, but this well, this is partial speculation.

I would just guess that a lot of it would have to do with um the city trying to avoid any situations where its ordinance might be challenged as preempted uh by uh state provisions.

Appreciate that.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um could you repeat that again?

I want to make sure that the question is.

Yes, so um just the general there's concept as far as uh conflicts in state law versus um say law local laws.

Um I won't get into the whole thing about charter in general, but long the long story short is that um depending on the situation, um if there are conflicts between what the state is requiring of someone in a law and what uh say local government is, that often you'd have a situation where the under the doctrine of presumption uh preemption that uh the state law would prevail in depending on situation effectively um nullify or invalidate the local law.

So a lot of times um local governments trying to be conscious of such things, especially if it's in a particular field or area that's already been uh regulated by the state, trying to not on the step on the state's toes and end up in a situation where the given ordinance is ultimately validated, say by a legal challenge, for instance, say uh say a council member or say a candidate, for instance, saying that certain requirements in this situation um by both by the city are too divergent from those of the state that uh maybe the city is uh out of line as far as requiring it, essentially.

No, those are in layman terms.

Again, uh appreciate that extended elaboration, Mr.

Lindsay.

So I don't know if there are some further comments or questions from commissioners.

Commissioners willing.

I think we have a direction, which is this ad hoc.

Uh you are nominated, Commissioner Kelly.

I'm willing to be the other culprit and join you.

Um my only primary hesitations, I think in anything we do.

Overloading an ad hoc with the lawyers, you know, has a downside.

So I favor the ad hoc, but my the number one thing I want to do is leave space for other commissioners who might want to participate this, participate in this in greater detail with Commissioner Kelly and be the other member of the ad hoc.

Commission uh Vice Chair Velasquez.

Uh so I would have said it'd be great to look at other um entities that could provide that's fine.

I don't think we need to um renew a contract for with FPPC.

Is that what the ad hoc is about that you guys are going to do that research?

What is what is the ad hoc about?

My opinion is I think this is a good opportunity for distillation, and I appreciate that.

My opinion is the ad hoc would be to explore avenues to incorporate audit auditing in these cities ethics compliance programs uh with options and details to be researched by the ad hoc committee.

Okay, so I'm gonna shoot that back to you.

In layman's terms, are you asking, are you saying that you want to create uh a proposal that you give to, I'm guessing the city council to have that included in our duties, or for that be included in somebody else's duties with the city?

Um the first part of your distillation I say is right on this question as to whose duty it is.

One of the reasons I sounded a little I wanted my language to sound flexible, is because I don't want the ad hoc to be constrained on that.

Again, one of my introductory comments was I think there are a number of things that the city council had strong feelings about regarding what it wanted to give to the ethics commission and what it didn't.

My opinion is also that uh my higher my highest level goal as an ethics commissioner is to improve the ethics climate in the city of Sacramento.

So if that means persuading the City Council that there's a function with the city should do that's about ethics, but some other actor in the city should do it.

Um I would opt for going that direction.

Either if A, it was the best answer, or B, it was that other entity were the only people the City Council wanted to entrust with the function.

Um so agnostic on the question of whose responsibility it becomes.

Okay.

So it wouldn't be the ethics committee, it would be whomever the city thinks would be with aside from the audit, because that would be a conflict.

Generally speaking, probably because generally speaking, we are not going to audit, because none of us are auditors.

B generally speaking, you know, commission-style government in Sacramento doesn't give a lot of direct staff of staff authority over staff to commissions.

It usually goes, you know, kind of through a process, you know, through the assigned staff and the charter officer, it's yada yada yada.

So the only gray area in my opinion would be, you know, would we have some kind of approval authority on the function at the high level?

Would we have some kind of review function on the activity at the high level, something like that?

Okay.

So before we move on, um, I think that if we were to put propose something to the city council, then we the the second question from the city council will be: did we call anybody else to um any other entities to to see what they would charge?

So if we're going to do the ad hoc to see maybe who internally would be as responsible, they're also going to ask the question, did we contact anybody else?

So I think we still need to do that as well.

Um Commissioner Kelly, you have a comment.

My understanding is I I as I hear this, there are sort of three prongs that should be explored.

One is whether the FPPC today, which has completely different management than it had ten years ago, and completely different authority over local auditing, whether that's viable, whether we use an outside vendor, which would be could be an accounting firm or a law firm, something like that.

Or whether there's somebody in-house, probably not the city auditor, but maybe some other employee could be designated.

And again, maybe there are other things we haven't thought of that we still need to again contemplate outside the box.

Oops.

I appreciate this.

And uh in my own, I will endeavor to break it apart a little bit.

I appreciate your questions, uh, Vice Chair Velasquez.

I'm trying to I'm trying not to rigidly write the charge of the ad hoc to the point where it can't pursue options.

But I think you make a great point that there are a couple things that can proceed outside the context of an ad hoc.

They can be one if the clerk is willing to re-engage some level of discussion with the FPPC along the lines of Commissioner Kelly's notion that it's a different entity than it was last time you spoke to them.

You know more about that than we do.

But I'm I'm trying to I'm trying to articulate something concrete with with out with with the appropriate level of direction that incorporates your expertise, your role, and your experience.

But the essence of it would be take another round at the FPPC.

That would be one thing.

You don't need the ad hoc to talk to you about that because it's being talked about here.

The second one would be, again, to the extent that it's worthwhile or you're willing you you have done whatever other options we've spoken about, and the one that you were specific about, I think, was having engaged the independent evaluator to some greater or lesser extent about something they might do.

Again, I'm just trying to put it concretely on the table.

And since you indicated you had thought about it or initiated it, it seems to me it's pretty reasonable to ask you to sort of to say, yeah, we like that.

Please, please, please, you know, uh uh please please follow through on that if you were if you were starting it up.

So thank you.

Um, Chair of I may I want to reread a comment you made.

Um, the power is how complete our recommendation is to the city council.

Um and so look at look at every creative aspect.

What vendors are there that do this type of thing?

Um I know the FPPC last time I looked into it, and I can't speak to that.

It's been a couple years.

Um they had adopted a contract, and that had a $55,000 floor, um and there wasn't there was no negotiating.

Um we spent months, the city attorney's office um and I spent months negotiating with the FPPC, and there they were not budging on that.

At that time, I reached out to our independent evaluator at the time and said, would this be a service you guys could do?

And they said, absolutely, we could quote it.

So um the I could see the ad hoc committee coming back with a recommendation to council, um, which would go through a PNPE.

There's more processes, but I can share that later.

Um to recommend we re-engage the FPPC.

We get an RFP, we get some quotations, we think of can it be in-house, can it be outside what's the most responsible method, and to propose you know, some creative solutions.

I appreciate that.

I'm gonna make one comment and then I'm gonna recognize Commissioner Emory.

So I appreciate that.

I I am trying to straddle, in essence, defining a functional, not too specific, not too general charge for an ad hoc and be responsible to Vice Chair Velasquez's specific concerns.

I wanted to itemize two that I thought were reasonable and feasible and and that you had taken steps toward that I thought were well outside the ad hoc.

My opinion is anything else, like like there's obviously issues with engaging the city auditor, but I just I don't want to debate the whole ad hoc process here.

I want to give it a charge and set it on its way and with this informed discussion.

So I'm going to leave it my view is to leave it to you, Madam Clerk, as to whether you have exhausted the opportunity to circle back with one of one of the two entities that I have named back to you, the independent evaluator in the FPPC.

Any additional one that you want to specify to us that's in your feasibility opportunity zone, that term makes sense.

And then leave everything, every other potential option to the ad hoc.

My hope is an ad hoc reports back to the main body, and if that ad hoc in three months has been saying, we've been thinking about this and thinking about this and thinking about this, then they might bring back to this body, we can have some more precise questions.

But better thought out with more homework being more concrete to you in what we are asking you to do or asking you to advise us on.

Um so that was a little bit long-winded.

But can you satisfy at minimum my colleague Vice Chair Velasquez and take on whatever you think is doable with relative to the FPPC and the independent evaluator, and then leave the rest to the ad hoc to come back to you after they've done their own research.

If I can comment, I the FPPC is dead, is what I'm getting from it.

That's my understanding.

Yeah, that's they're out.

Um I'm sorry, Commissioner.

So just for clarity, Vice Chair Velasquez.

We do not have to ask the FPPC one more time to do the ad hoc.

Got it.

Thank you.

Commissioner Wilmery.

I just want it one thing I heard when we were going through some of those bills that you mentioned earlier, and the question came up whether these were Sacramento specific, and they said there had been two, and the other one had been San Bernardino County.

So I think it might be worth the ad hoc committee finding from San Bernardino, what do they do?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that was just my idea for the ad hoc.

It would be nothing for them to look at.

So just one final thought.

In the bill that was passed last year, again, one of my points is that the FPPC now has the power to engage its own internal auditors, which is a different power than they had prior to January 1 of this year.

In which they they factored everything out to the franchise tax board.

And I wonder if the floor stuff has may have something to do with what the franchise tax board was going to do than what the FPPC was going to do.

And so I think we need to at least ask them the question can they give us a better deal?

Or are they fixated on a particular contract now in 2026 when their authority is different from what it was last year?

I appreciate that, Commissioner Kelly.

I think at this juncture, given we have gone around on the FPPC a couple of times, I think it's wise to leave with the ad hoc this question of refining how to best approach the FPPC if potentially there is opportunity there.

So unless there is no further comment.

If I am allowed to do this as chair, I hereby create the ad hoc on uh on good Sacramento Good Governance Program Auditing.

I set its scope in an answer to Commissioner Velasquez, excuse me, Vice Chair Velasquez a while back, and I liked it, so I don't want to restate it and screw it up.

Um I hereby appoint Commissioner Kelly as one of the members of the ad hoc.

And if there is no objection, and I hope there is, appoint myself the second member of the ad hoc.

Is there objection?

Darn it.

Okay.

Appreciate that.

Um have I done all the things I need to do to create an ad hoc, Madam Clerk?

Okay.

Um I think we are landing on a close to this item.

Any final Commissioner comments or questions before we close this item?

Commissioner uh Vice Chair Velasquez.

So I just want to reiterate the ad hoc has been created.

You guys are gonna uh create language, do some research and find out if there's something uh or someone or a unit or program within the city that could possibly be charged with um auditing for campaigns, correct?

In essence, yes.

Okay.

And then we're also gonna we're asked asking the city um Clerk Mindy Cuppy for her staff to look back at um or look at new um entities that have those kinds of services and what they would charge, what the floor would be, like the um independent evaluator.

So let me reiterate.

So an ad hoc um is uh appointed to do that work.

Um the ad hoc would go do that work bringing that back to this body.

Okay.

If they wanted to recommend that the city go find other firms, that would be the recommendation that they should move forward.

Okay.

That find other firms.

Um I believe the FPPC contract is on their website.

Um was last time I looked, I I wouldn't swear by that today.

Um, but that contract is out there.

If the ad hoc wishes to reach out to that FPPC and ask questions, they can.

Um but this body makes recommendations to the city council.

Got it.

Okay, so the ad hoc would be to create um a proposal that it that the audit can either be within this uh the city or that there's these other entities that provide services, and this is what this is what they provide, and this is what their baseline would be.

Um and the recommendation could be that we believe we should do audits, whether full audits, partial audits, random audits, whatever the ad hoc wants to bring back to this body, this body would then adopt it, forward it to the city council.

The city council then could give me direction to do any one of those things.

Got it.

Okay.

Do an RFP to find a vendor to do this.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair Velasquez.

Uh Commissioner Emory.

I just want to say thank you, uh, Commissioner Kelly and Chair La Faso for taking this on.

I'm gonna feel a lot better because that was always confusing to me about what uh what how this is supposed to happen.

So thank you very much.

And I know you're both lawyers, but I'm sure you'll be able to talk down to us little people enough to make us understand what you're talking about.

So thank you.

And and I'm sure Mr.

Lindsay can tell you how to do that.

He's he's plain spoken, which I appreciate.

Thank you, Commissioner Kelly, for initiating this.

So concluding item five.

That brings us to the generic Commissioner comments, ideas and questions matter.

Do we have to is there potential public comment on this item?

Do I need to ask you if there are speakers?

No, not for Commissioner Comments.

Thank you.

Are there any Commissioner comments or questions on this item?

Uh Commissioner Emory.

And I guess you know, the body is more important than ever, because I I think I I don't live in District 2, but live next door to it, and there had been rumors for a very long time about things going on with the city council person there, even when he was running.

And that's why I think it makes it more important than ever when we see that a Sacramento City Council member is, you know, has a huge fund, is going to have jail time for what their actions.

And um, and I have always been sorry because people are going, well, didn't anybody go playing the ethics commission?

I said there's only one towards the very end, but never anything about some of the real, you know, like where he lived and stuff.

So I think it just shows that this is an important body, and we just need to get people understanding that we are doing the work so that we can make sure that we do have good governance in this city.

And um it it just it was, you know, it raised like a really really bad novella or something instead of uh instead of somebody who was actually a city council member and should have been working with for his constituents.

So it just was a lot to think about.

Thank you.

And Chair, if I may, I'd be happy to um connect Commissioner Emory with the D2 council member if you wanted to get in front of those organizations.

I I have taught to him.

I'm going to talk to him again.

So yeah, I I know him quite well in his chief of staff.

So I will um I saw the NATO, oh, I should have bugged him again.

So thank you.

Although the allegations are unfortunate, um, none of those are laws that would be under the purview of this commission.

Thank you very much.

Any other commissioner comments or questions under this item?

My only last one will be to offer a friendly reminder to my colleagues that your form 700 is due on Thursday if you have not done it yet.

And I learned in this meeting that you want to do it because Ms.

Cuppy doesn't want to audit you.

I'm getting the weekly emails, thank you very much.

Very welcome.

We appreciate I love those constant reminders.

They'll be daily starting tomorrow.

And did I get mine done?

I think I did.

Yes.

Yeah, I did.

Okay.

Okay.

Can we still on just everybody now?

Okay.

Oh Mr.

Lindsay.

Chair LaFazo, if I may, um going back to just the tail end of uh uh Commissioner Emory's comment.

And also while while um while uh Clerk Cuppy is correct about say the violations that ended up being in question, that sort of thing, right?

Even if you have situations where it ultimately doesn't follow within the ethics commission, right?

If somebody is trying to essentially blow the whistle on corruption, that kind of thing, if they steal a complaint and there's still somewhere else, including Gremlin, to refer it, then there is we still have the process of if there's somewhere else to refer things, to refer things, and it might be a situation where incidentally or just some of us more comfortable doing it, mentioning first ledged wrongdoing to the ethics commission and through the ethics commission, even if it's not something that the ethics commission would have in its own process to review, might through the clerk's office end up ultimately with um those who have the authority to deal with the situation.

So uh the reason I say that is that um it goes to what you mentioned about outreach and people knowing about the ethics commission and that sort of thing.

And you know, get people might just based off of you know how they might feel about say the police or law enforcement or whoever, they might feel more comfortable depending on situation, having others that they initially want to complain to, even if it ultimately isn't that group that handles it, you know.

So I see uh that you know people have concerns, even if the ethics commission isn't ultimately the one to handle it, this might be an avenue for um situations to come to light one way or the other and end up where they need to be handled.

I appreciate that perspective very much, Mr.

Lynn.

Just quick follow-up question.

Do I understand that I've read somewhere that if some matter of the type you describe enters the ethics commission's intake process, and it is appropriately something that would have gone to the city's whistleblower hotline that it is diverted to that to that in that direction?

Uh yes, that's that's correct.

For instance, um I don't have the it right in front of me, but the provision you're referring to is to try to get it to it's the FPPC, law enforcement, it might be to say DA's office, whomever, um uh whistleblowers, the the auditor, that sort of thing.

We've had whistle, we've had um things that have uh, for instance, in the past, and actually been heard of matters here that started out with whistleblower that we figured out were actually complaints and with internally, for instance, referred to the ethics commission on a case, not regularly, but it has happened before, for instance, certain whistleblower or auditor where the they're the first point of contact, ultimately ended up with the ethics commission.

So very helpful.

Thank you very much.

Indeed.

So concluding this item, the last item is public comments, matters not on the agenda.

Do we have any speaker slips, Mr.

Breadburg?

Thank you, Chair.

I have no speaker slips for matters not on the agenda.

Okay.

Oh, yes.

Thank you.

Um on your follow-up log is to you have uh training from the independent evaluator on how they process a claim.

I just wanted to get confirmation that is still something you're interested in.

The cost is approximately $5,000 for the evaluator to make that presentation for you.

Um I'm seeing nods.

Um that's a significant cost.

Um do I have anyone that would like to work with the evaluator to determine what you really want?

What is the scope of that training?

Um, do we just want him to, and we can't talk about that now, but I don't know if there's somebody interested in collaborating on what you're like to cover, or if each of you would like to send me your thoughts on what you'd like to cover, um, I can share that with the evaluator so that he does cover what we need.

I think that's good.

Um, I certainly think it makes sense for individual commissioners to communicate with you individually.

If you wanted someone to take a little bit additional responsibility, I do recall that this started out as your request, Commissioner Emery, so I was going to nominate you.

But if you don't want that exposure, really that's okay.

That's okay.

Because I do think the idea that everybody who has a thought just send them directly to Ms.

Cuppy is perfectly fine.

Okay, we'll do that.

Okay, thank you very much.

Um we've dispensed with public comments matters not on the agenda, which means unless there is anything else to say or do, we are adjourned.

Thank you.