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Ethics Commission finds no Sunshine Ordinance violation in Hartz v. Clerk of the Board referral
Summary
After testimony and task‑force background, the Ethics Commission voted unanimously to find no violation in a Sunshine Ordinance referral concerning whether 150‑word public‑comment summaries must appear in the body of minutes rather than as appendices.
The San Francisco Ethics Commission voted unanimously Oct. 23 that the Clerk of the Board did not violate the city—s Sunshine Ordinance when public‑comment 150‑word summaries were included as an addendum to the minutes rather than inline in the minutes.
Background: The referral arose from a complaint by Ray Hartz, who argued that section 67.16 of the Sunshine Ordinance requires that any 150‑word summary submitted by a speaker be "included in the minutes" at the point where the public comment occurred. Hartz presented task‑force rulings and a 2012 memo he said supported that interpretation, and invoked First Amendment concerns about marginalizing public comment.
Hartz told the Commission the task force had "ruled 10 times" that 'in the minutes' means the summaries must be placed within the body of the minutes and that attaching summaries as addenda was inconsistent with the ordinance—s plain language. He urged the Commission to treat the addendum practice as an erosion of open government.
Response and staff position: The Clerk of the Board (via a written letter entered into the record after her inability to attend) and city attorney staff argued that attaching summaries as part of a single paginated set of minutes satisfies the ordinance. Legal counsel noted prior Ethics Commission findings on related complaints in which minutes paginated with addenda were treated as a single document. Members of the public and some commissioners expressed concern that placing summaries in an addendum could make them easier to overlook.
Commission action: After public comment and deliberation, Commissioner Copp moved that the Commission find no violation; the motion was seconded and passed unanimously. The Commission also considered, and declined, a follow‑on recommendation to require departments to place such summaries inline as a policy matter; a later nonbinding recommendation to encourage better placement failed for lack of a second.
What it means: The Ethics Commission resolved the particular administrative complaint in favor of the Clerk of the Board—s current practice as applied in the cited instance, but the debate underscored continuing disagreement between the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force—s interpretive guidance and the city attorney—s Good Government Guide. Commissioners discussed the option of seeking a judicial declaration if local remedies continue to conflict.
Provenance: The referral matter and Ray Hartz—s presentation appear in the public transcript beginning at SEG 421; the formal motion and unanimous finding that there was no violation appear at SEG 1686–1689.
Quote: Ray Hartz: "The task force finds the ordinance states in simple, plain language that the summary of 150 words or less must be in the minutes, and that requirement is not satisfied by attaching the statement as an addendum."
