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Committee approves language to set standards for city public information officers, forwards resolution to full board
Summary
Supervisors approved an amended resolution setting conduct expectations for city public information officers — including truthfulness, prompt correction of misinformation and an explicit duty to retract false statements by other employees — and forwarded it to the full Board of Supervisors.
A Rules Committee member introduced a resolution aimed at clarifying standards of conduct for the city's public information officers (PIOs), citing national codes of ethics from professional communicators' groups as a model.
The sponsor (Supervisor identified in the transcript as Speaker 19) said the resolution restates guiding principles such as truth, accuracy, fairness, accountability and a duty to promptly correct false information. Another committee member asked to add a provision explicitly directing PIOs to make immediate efforts to retract false or misleading statements made by other departmental employees; the sponsor agreed to include that language. The committee approved the amendment and moved the resolution to the full Board of Supervisors for consideration.
During the same meeting the committee went into closed session to discuss pending claims and litigation, as requested by the City Attorney's Office; the deputy city attorney cited applicable government-code and administrative-code provisions authorizing closed deliberations on pending litigation.
