Unmuted this meeting will come to order.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Monday, May 8th, 2023 meeting of the Rules Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

I'm Supervisor Matt Dorsey, Chair of this committee.

I am joined today by my colleague Vice Chair Shimon Walton, and in a short time we would be joined by committee member Ashra Safaye.

On behalf of my colleagues, I want to express our gratitude to our committee clerk, Mr.

Victor Young, and thanks also to the team at SFGov TV for facilitating and broadcasting today's meeting.

In particular, I want to thank our producer Jason Goldhammer.

Mr.

Clerk, do you have any announcements?

Yes, the Board of Supervisors and his committee are now convening hybrid meetings to allow in-person attendance and public comment while still providing remote access and public comment via telephone.

Public comment will take in, we'll be taking on each item on this agenda.

Those attending in person will be allowed to speak first, and then we will take those who are waiting on the telephone line.

The public comment call in number is streaming across the screen.

When connected, you'll hear the meeting discussion, but you'll be muted and in listening mode only.

When your item of interest comes up and public comment is called, those joining us in person should line up to speak, and those on the telephone should now star three to be added to the speaker line.

If you are on the telephone, please remember to turn down your TV and all listening devices that you may be using.

Alternatively, you may submit public comment in writing in either of the following ways.

Email them to myself, the rules committee clerk at VICTOR.yo N G at sfgov.org.

You may also send your written comment via US mail to our office at City Hall when Dr.

Carlton B.

Goodlit Plays, room 244.

San Francisco, California 94102.

Finally, items acted upon today are expected to appear on the Board of Supervisors' agenda on May 16, 2023, unless otherwise stated.

Great.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Could you please call item number one?

Yes, item number one is a hearing consider appointing one member term ending February 1st, 2029, to the Ethics Commission.

Great.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

So I want to again express my uh apologies to colleagues and applicants for needing to continue this item last week.

Um we have needed to continue this item for a few different uh reasons for um a few different times.

Um as I mentioned last week, the San Francisco Ethics Commission is an incredibly important uh body within our city government, and it is vested with unique part powers under the city charter.

Um appointments to these seats are obviously very important, and I'm glad the committee was able to make an additional week to do our due diligence and consider all of the candidates.

Um I think we have three excellent candidates, so I did want to share that one of the applicants, uh David Sai, uh, last week, uh last Friday, uh communicated to me his decision to withdraw his application for this seat.

And I expressed to him what I always express to candidates of uh Mr.

Sai's caliber.

Um, you know, please don't give up on us.

There are many public service roles um that would benefit from the leadership of people like David Sai and others.

You know, we in the rules committee we are often in a situation where it's uh discouraging sometimes to say no to extraordinarily qualified people, but that is just the reality of we have a limited number of seats, but there are other opportunities to serve.

So I hope to see Mr.

Sai and uh and others who who don't make the cut for the first time back.

Um that still leaves us with a tough choice between two excellent candidates today, however, and today's hearing we'll be hearing from two uh uh applicants, uh Larry Bush and Yaman Salahi.

Uh so first let's see if Mr.

Bush is on the line.

Uh Mr.

Bush, uh, you should be uh able to unmute yourself and speak at this time.

Can you hear me?

This is Larry Bush.

Hey, Larry.

The floor.

Hi, thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to apply uh for a full appointment at the ethics commission.

I've been serving for the last two years on interim appointment.

And this is uh in line with my previous experience working uh on ethics issues, helping to found the friends of ethics, which I did uh more than 10 years ago.

So my experience is covers pretty much all the functions of government.

What that has exposed me to is ways in which we can improve uh our performance, most notably uh improving it in our relationship with the public.

Uh I've been dismayed at uh the sharp drop-off in public uh participation in the ethics commission hearings, in which sometimes there will be nobody who shows up or who offers comments at the end of a of a commission meeting, and that's a long cry from the way it was initially.

I think part of that is the fact that the public doesn't feel that the commission is as fully engaged and the issues that matter to the public as the public is.