The Ethics Commission responds

This message from the Ethics Commission is in response to an earlier posting, which can be viewed here.

Dear Mr. Rob Anderson,

When a Campaign Disclosure Statement is received in the office, staff at the Ethics Commission does a facial scan of the statement making sure that all items are filled out at the time of receipt. If items are missing/incorrectly filled in, the candidate/treasurer is informed. While clerical staff does try to catch mistakes as they come in, the sheer volume of filings given the size of staff does not always allow for comprehensive review. The random audit process is designed to help find these errors, whether deliberate or unintended. Queried reports are generated periodically to analyze campaign filings. In addition, random audits are being conducted for each race. During the audit process, all documents are reviewed. The Committee to Re-Elect Tom Ammiano for the 2004 supervisorial race is currently being audited, and all of their documents are being reviewed.

If you have further concerns, please contact our office.

San Francisco Ethics Commission30 Van Ness Avenue
Suite 3900San Francisco, CA 94102
Monday-Friday 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
http://www.sfgov.org/ethics
phone 415-581-2300
fax 415-581-2317

Rob's comment:

Your staff, while friendly and helpful when asked questions, didn't appear to be terribly busy when I visited the office. If you need a volunteer to pull out the statements that are incorrectly/incompletely filled out, I'm your man. I'm encouraged that you agree that it's a mistake to let this stuff slide; the public is counting on you to look carefully at the forms that are filed and do what needs to be done. Thanks for the response.