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Ethics Commission completes 2011 random audit draws; director reports progress on electronic filing and scheduling of sheriff matter
Summary
The commission followed a public, hand-drawn process to select five committees for random audit across three financial-activity levels, announced the selected committees, and heard staff's public finance report and executive director updates on scheduling the sheriff preliminary hearing and on pending legislation to permit electronic filing.
The San Francisco Ethics Commission publicly drew committees for random audits of 2011 electoral committees using a three-tier process staff described to commissioners: one draw from the $10,000'$50,000 pool, one from the $50,000'$100,000 pool, and three from the $100,000-and-up pool (staff recommended selecting five committees total). The commission invited members of the public to read committee names and pull slips from a box to ensure transparency.
From the $10,000'$50,000 pool (22 names read into the record), the public-drawn winner was Terry Baum for Mayor (02/2011). From the $50,000'$100,000 pool (10 names), the draw selected the San Francisco Labor Council "Labor and Neighbor" PAC. From the highest-activity pool (100,000 and up), the drawn committees included Ed Lee for Mayor (2011), Miyamoto for Sheriff (2011), and Adachi for Mayor (2011). Commissioners and staff thanked volunteers who assisted with reading names, folding slips, shaking boxes and drawing winners.
During the meeting staff also presented the public finance report on the limited public financing program following the election cycle. Commissioners praised staff for producing the report and for adding charts and online data; public commenter David Pilpel asked staff to reconcile a near-match discrepancy in the report's total third-party spending figures on page 6 before final publication.
In the executive director's report staff said scheduling the sheriff preliminary hearing has been difficult because of participants' availability and room constraints and that staff will continue to work on dates; the executive director also said Assembly Member Amiano had introduced legislation to allow jurisdictions to move to all-electronic filing, that the city's legislative affairs committee had voted to sponsor it, and that FPPC staff was expected to recommend endorsement at an April 5 meeting.
Commissioners considered but did not adopt a proposal to change the number of audits (a public commenter suggested increasing the total from five to six to improve proportionality in the $10,000'$50,000 category); staff and commissioners said they were mindful of resource constraints and accepted the staff recommendation to proceed with five audits.
