Sunshine Task Force Chair Doug Comstock
Photo by Luke Thomas
By Gino Rembetes
May 12, 2008
The Board of Supervisors Rules Committee could decide this Thursday which of four applicants they will recommend for two seats on the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, the 11-member body that monitors how well or poorly city officials, employees, agencies, and policy and advisory bodies comply with local and state open-meetings and public-records laws.
Both incumbents – Doug Comstock in Seat 6, who is task force chairman, and David Pilpel in Seat 7 – are among the candidates.
Calling them embattled would be making an understatement, according to well-placed observers.
Sunshine activists hope to see Comstock reappointed and would be positively elated if Pilpel were bounced. Watch for them to pack the hearing room on Thursday (City Hall Room 263; scheduled start time is 10 a.m.). The other applicants are Ray W. Hartz Jr., who wishes the task force had real enforcement power, and James Knoebber, who is active in Telegraph Hill/North Beach community matters and is an apparent favorite of Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin despite having little or no experience with sunshine issues – unless he’s acquired some since trying unsuccessfully to supplant Comstock last year.
Peskin is not on the Rules Committee. He represents District 3, which stretches from Fisherman’s Wharf to the Financial District, and includes Telegraph Hill and North Beach. The committee comprises chairman Chris Daly, Tom Ammiano and Bevan Dufty.
Comstock has his enemies in civic and political circles. He’s a political consultant who’s been in a bit of trouble with the city Ethics Commission – the five-member body that’s supposed to keep elections on the up-and-up – and some supervisors, notably Sean Elsbernd and Michela Alioto-Pier, have tried to use that as an excuse to push him off the task force. There’s really no surprise there, given that they find Comstock’s progressive politics distasteful. But relations between him and fellow progressive Ammiano have been chilly, at best, for several years.
Knowing all of this, progressives on and off the task force have several times rallied around Comstock, and he’s survived attempts at his ouster.
It could be different this time, though, because the appointment and vacancy rules have changed. Technically, Comstock’s seat has been vacant for two years, but he’s remained in it because the Rules Committee, which does the initial screening of applicants for most city bodies, hasn’t found anyone whom its members have felt would be an apt replacement.
Under new rules, a non-appointment means a vacant seat.
If the committee or, later the board, fails to reappoint Comstock, it would be a huge blow to sunshine and especially to the task force, said Richard Knee, whose appointment to a fourth term on the task force the committee voted to recommend on May 1. Knee, a freelance journalist, is part of the task force’s progressive bloc, and he and Comstock played big parts in a successful effort to strengthen the city’s open-meetings and public-records statute, called the Sunshine Ordinance, in 1999.
“We needed about 14,000 valid signatures to get a reform package on the November 1999 ballot. We collected about 18,000, and Doug got more than 1,000 of those on his own, and then he helped win the backing of the CFSN (Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods) and other organizations for the measure (Proposition G),” Knee said. “He’s also done an excellent job as task force chairman.”
Knee voiced mixed feelings about Pilpel, who has come under fire from open-government advocates, most notably a citizen watchdog group called the Sunshine Posse, which itself has drawn criticism as over-zealous and impeding the day-to-day work of some city agencies.
“David has a thorough knowledge of the Sunshine Ordinance, and he has made some very useful suggestions during the current review of the ordinance,” said Knee, chairman of the task force’s Compliance and Amendments Committee, which is spearheading the process.
The task force hopes to have a reform package ready in time for this November’s ballot.
Pilpel is often the lone dissenter in votes on whether to find city personnel or entities in violation of the ordinance, but Knee said that doesn’t bother him.
“He seems to think that making sure sunshine compliance isn’t too onerous a job is of primary importance. Sunshine compliance is part of the job of city government,” Knee said.
“But David has a right to his opinions and to vote his conscience. And, in fact, it’s probably good that there’s someone on the task force to play the devil’s advocate. It keeps the rest of us on our toes.”
Nor, he said, does he object to Pilpel’s tendency to pick apart to the nth degree virtually every item that comes before the task force and its various committees.
“Whenever he walks into the room, everyone – even the moderates on the task force – rolls his eyes. It means we’re in for a long meeting. It’s irritating but it’s not really that important,” Knee said.
He noted that Comstock pointedly praised all of the current task force members, including Pilpel, by name at the Rules Committee’s May 1 hearing, and urged the committee to grant reappointment to all those seeking it.
“It took a lot of people by surprise, but Doug has a gracious, generous spirit, and I’m guessing he agrees that frequent dissent is not cause for bouncing someone,” Knee said.
He added, “There are, however, some things about David’s conduct that should give the Rules Committee or the board pause when considering his reappointment.
“First, David at times speaks out of turn, even to the point of acting like he’s running the meeting. He’s certainly not unique in that respect, but that doesn’t make it right. He’s also failed on occasion to deliver promised document drafts. In that, too, he’s not unique. Most important, though, is that he seems to think it’s OK if he has private communication with parties in interest on matters that are before the task force.”
Knee recalled a case a few years ago that involved a complaint filed against the San Francisco Public Library: During the hearing, Pilpel informed the task force that he was friends with Michael Housh, then the library’s custodian of records, and that he had “received some information” on the matter from Housh.
“I raised the issue of a possible conflict of interest, but Pilpel didn’t think there was one. Most of us on the task force thought he should recuse himself, and Ernie Llorente (the deputy city attorney assigned permanently to work with the task force) agreed. But he refused,” Knee said.
The full agenda for Thursday’s Rules Committee meeting is accessible on the city’s web site at http://sfgov.org/site/bdsupvrs_page.asp?id=7266.
Gino Rembetes is a local freelance journalist.
The Hunger Site
May 20, 2008 at 3:13 am
The non-appointment means a vacant seat rule does not apply to the Sunshine Taskforce because it is not a chartered body.
May 12, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I’m amazed that Supervisor Alioto-Pier would consider Comstock’s Ethics fines as reason to disqualify him. She has been subject to similar fines at Ethics for her campaign finance filings. Her real view of these administrative fines is demonstrated by her failure to resign. The fact is that late fines happen all the time at Ethics, and no one is suggesting that Comstock”s late filing was done to conceal some political dynamite.
May 12, 2008 at 2:23 pm
A fifth candidate filed his application last Friday. He’s David Waggoner, the attorney who successfully represented Carolyn Knee pro bono with her problems with the Ethics Commission last year. I count David as a close friend and know that he would be eminintly qualified for the position.
David has extensive consumer advocacy experience from his years with Positive Resource Center and the Homeless Action Center in Berkeley.
For some reason his name did not appear on teh agenda. I’ve asked Supervisor Daly’s office to amend the agenda, but they tell me the agenda cannot be amended. I hope the Committee will allow consideration of his application, particularly since there is no time exigency that forces them to go forward under these circumstances.