Rules committee recommends Jay Costa and Jackson West for Sunshine Ordinance Task Force

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors Rules Committee recommended Jay Costa and Jackson West on Thursday to fill two seats on the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, directing the appointments to the full Board on March 15.

The committee heard from six applicants for two seats. Jay Costa, who works at MapLight, described his work tracking the influence of special-interest money and said his experience fielding requests from citizens and reporters would help the task force identify transparency concerns. "Transparency is one of the most important elements of a healthy democracy," Costa said during his two-minute presentation and urged the Committee to leverage technology to expand public access to information.

Jackson West described his background in media production and technology, said he recently joined a technology company and that he had stepped back from freelance journalism. Public commenters including Jeremy Pollock and others urged the committee to support West, citing his experience building popular local news sites and work on the city’s open-data issues.

Chair Jane Kim said she favored candidates with prior task-force experience but recommended Costa and West as a balanced slate. Supervisor Ellsburn moved the recommendation forward without objection; the committee will forward the recommendation to the full Board on March 15 for formal confirmation.

The Committee did not hold a formal vote on the two named appointments at the meeting; the recommendation will appear as a committee report before the full Board.