1.

Call to Order and Roll Call – Roll call was taken and a quorum was certified.

COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENTS:

Rodrigo Santos, President
Bobbie Sue Hood, Vice-President
Alfonso Fillon, Commissioner
Esther Marks, Commissioner

Denise D’Anne, Commissioner
Matt Brown, Commissioner
Roy Guinnane, Commissioner

Ann Aherne, Commission Secretary

D.B.I. REPRESENTATIVES:

Frank Y. Chiu, Director
Amy Lee, Assistant Director
Ken Harrington, Special Assistant to the Director
Jim Hutchinson, Deputy Director
William Wong, Deputy Director
Wing Lau,Chief Building Inspector
Hanson Tom,Permit Services Program Manager
Sonya Harris, Secretary

2.

President’s Announcements.

President Santos stated that he wanted to respond to Mr. Jerry Adams’ article in the Chronicle and stressed that the BIC is fully committed to implementing and enforcing seismic safety issues.  President Santos stated that the Commission simply postponed the second phase of a seismic report purely because of funding and given the current financial crisis of this City the Commission could not justify going into Phase II of the project.  President Santos offered his services, pro bono to assist DBI in reaching a compromise with regard to some outstanding invoices with the primary goal of releasing the recommendations and conclusions of Phase I to the public.  President Santos invited former Commissioners and fellow engineers Patrick Buscovich and Sig Freeman to aid in coming up with a compromise with ATC. 

Mr. Joe O’Donoghue said that he was glad the President brought up this article.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that the Chronicle will never write a favorable article about this Commission as they opposed the forming of this Commission as did the Chamber of Commerce and SPUR.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the process of this report was really about a shakedown for money because Buscovich who was a part of this was a former Commissioner and is the personal expediter for Walter Shorenstein.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that there would be a different headline if this had taken place between former Mayor Willie Brown and himself.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that Mr. Buscovich and his kind were nowhere to be found when the Residential Builders got emergency legislation through the Board of Supervisors that allowed the rebuilding of the Marina in record time.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that it was pointed out after the Mexican earthquake about liquefaction and the only person to make a visit to Mexico and to Russia after an earthquake was Jeffery Heller who is not an engineer.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that Walter Shorenstein is the big money interest through the Chamber of Commerce looking for hundreds of millions of dollars of tax reductions during an economic crisis and the Chronicle has never written a negative article on that.  Mr. O’Donoghue pointed out that President Santos is a friend of Mayor Gavin Newsom.  Mr. O’Donoghue referred to the parking garage that was supposed to be built in Golden Gate Park.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this Commission needs to keep speaking out and getting its message out on TV.

Ms. Patricia Vaughey said that the expediters who are lobbying viciously not to report their earnings and not to report the people who work for them and go into DBI everyday for them under another name have tried it again.  Ms. Vaughey referred to the UMB ordinance that was written and said that it was written by a cartel of engineers for their own personal benefit and had nothing to do with City safety.  Ms. Vaughey said that this same cartel has tried to do this demolition ordinance, expediters and engineers who went around this Department’s Committee and took it to Jake McGoldrick all interface with each other.  Ms. Vaughey stated that the BIC had to do something to break this cartel because they are trying to run this Department with their own rules.  Ms. Vaughey asked the Commission to support the legislation where the expediters have to report their business, just as lobbyists have to do in this City and said she highly supported that this Commission is speaking up on this issue. 

Mr. Randy Shaw thanked the President for bringing up this issue and said that he thought that this was the only Commission in the City where a Structural Engineer is mandated to serve and yet there is a criticism that this Department doesn’t care about safety.  Mr. Shaw went into the history of what happened about seismic requirements after the 1989 earthquake and said there was a balance between safety and what was feasible financially for owners.  Mr. Shaw said that the Chronicle was basing its article on a four-year old study saying that somehow San Francisco’s buildings are all unsafe and millions and millions more need to be spent which sets the grounds for a new retrofit ordinance.  Mr. Shaw stated that he did not think that the voters would support this and thanked the Commission for bringing up this issue.

3.

Director's Reports.   [Director Frank Chiu]

a.

Update on a resolution by Board of Supervisors urging the Mayor’s Office of Homelessness, the Department of Building Inspection and the Planning Department to investigate the viability of Jim Reid’s Shelter One House for use as a model homeless shelter.

Director Chiu reported on the Jim Reid Shelter One site visit by DBI staff members along with Commissioner Guinnane.  Director Chiu said that the most important issue with this project is the room size because currently the Code requires a habitable room to be at least 120 sq. ft. and if it is an efficiency-drawing unit that minimum is 220 sq. ft.  Director Chiu said that the Code could be changed for this type of shelter only and stated that Plumbing and Electrical could not be inspected in the building because all of the walls were covered up.  Director Chiu recommended forwarding this to the Code Advisory Committee to report back to the BIC for recommendation to the Board of Supervisors because it did impact some policy issues.   Director Chiu said that the building was functional. 

President Santos asked what the single most issue would be aside from the fact that the Department would have to reclassify the size of the room; were there handicapped issues or other issues.  Director Chiu said that if it were not classified as a mobile home it would have to be tied down to a foundation, but it could be bolted down.  President Santos asked if it would need a ramp.  Vice-President Hood said that it did not really meet ADA requirements and said that would create a lot of problems, but this would be a lot better than the homeless living out of a shopping cart.  Vice-President Hood said that she thought the new Mayor was trying to find some new innovative solutions to the homeless problem and said that the BIC and DBI ought to find a way to try and legalize these units even if only on a temporary basis and should be very careful about the foundations.  Vice-President Hood said that biggest problem is usually finding land to put these shelters on and changing the Code.  Vice-President Hood said that everyone should be forward thinking with this because housing is such a desperate problem and everyone should just find a way to make this work.

Ms. Ernestine Weiss said that there is no land to put these units on so this is like a dream pie in the sky and it’s not going to happen.  Ms. Weiss said that the only answer to the homeless problem is big housing and the City does not have the money and until there is money nothing is going to happen.  Ms. Weiss said that the 1906 earthquake leveled all of the houses and then there was land to put up temporary structures, but these little boxes are impossible.

Ms. Patricia Vaughey said that after the 1906 earthquake there were cottages for people who did not have homes and even if something is done like these Jim Reid little houses on vacant land it might be worth it to get something done until something else can be done.  Ms. Vaughey mentioned the Pink Palace in the Western Addition that became one of the most horrendous issues in the City and it didn’t work.  Ms. Vaughey stated that Jim’s idea is very creative and if there is some land out there said that the City should try this to give people some dignity.

Commissioner Marks said that she was very impressed with the staff report and with the staff’s open-minded attitude about this situation.  Commissioner Marks said that she was concerned if there was additional work that would have to be done to meet the Code that this would no longer be cost effective.  Commissioner Marks said that she agreed that this should be pursued.

Commissioner Fillon said that it is the Building Department’s job to look at this from a Code standpoint and a livability standpoint and staff has done a great job on those issues.  Commissioner Fillon stated that he agreed that DBI should not put up any roadblocks on this project and said that it was up to the Mayor’s Office to see how this particular problem fits into the solution and maybe this is just one option.  Commissioner Fillon said that he would agree to support it and if some exceptions need to be made in the form of an Administrative Bulletin then the BIC should be open to doing that.

b.

Update on status of Board of Supervisors Rules Committee hearing of April 21, 2004 concerning regulation of permit consultants.

Director Chiu reported on the April 21, 2004 BOS Rules Committee meeting the Committee took more comments from Architects, Engineers and Permit Expediters who opposed this legislation. Director Chiu said that since this meeting the Committee has new Committee members and now the Rules Committee is composed of Chair Maxwell, Supervisor Alioto-Pier and another new member who have asked for more time.  Director Chiu stated that this ordinance has been put on hold and said that he thought this legislation would not be moving forward anytime soon.

Vice-President Hood said that she received a letter on this item from the local AIA Chapter and the Architects oppose it for reasons that were brought up earlier on this Commission.  Vice-President Hood said that the Architects thought that this legislation did not adequately address the problem for which it was proposed, which was to weed out favoritism and created lots of problems for other people.  Vice-President Hood gave a copy of the letter to the Secretary.

Mr. Randy Shaw, Director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic said that in Beyond Chron he was going to do a “google” search on all of the articles that have been written about the Department of Building Inspection since 1995.  Mr. Shaw said that there are probably about a dozen articles in the last twelve months in the Chronicle condemning the Department for favoritism in the permit process.  Mr. Shaw said that there were two hearings about this legislation and it was very unclear and there was no one from the public testifying about favoritism.  Mr. Shaw stated that hopefully the Chronicle will stop printing articles about this because it becomes more and more silly and imposes a financial cost on the Ethics Commission. 

Ms. Patricia Vaughey stated that she disagreed with Mr. Shaw about this issue because she said that there is about five or ten people who ruin things for whole departments and now that they know that they are hot they are sending in their front men.  Ms. Vaughey said that several of these people have others bringing in their applications because they know if their names show up someone is going to look at the application more stringently.  Ms. Vaughey stated that she thought the problem could be solved by changing the application form to show who people are working for and if they are working for another agent.   Ms. Vaughey said that people could provide the information that they are working for any agent.  Ms. Vaughey said that if someone is a lawyer who comes to DBI or the Planning Commission the lawyer has to register with the Ethics Commission, but an Expediter or an agent for an Expediter does not. Ms. Vaughey said that she was going write up a new application form to see if DBI can start trying to remedy this problem. 

Mr. Joe O’Donoghue of the Residential Builders Association said that the Chronicle is the twelfth unelected Supervisor on the Board of Supervisors and actually set policy in this City and because they are a Supervisor defacto they will therefore come after and punish their enemies; in addition to that they are the spokesperson for the committee on jobs in the Chambers of Commerce who are the traditional enemies of small businesses in this city including the residences.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that at 5:00 p.m. everyday the Hellmann’s and the Shorenstein’s can go down to Atherton and to the places outside this City where they live; they could care less about this City, but they still want to rule it from 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. and they care less about what happens after dark.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the fact is that this same newspaper that calls for these hearings based on fiction, which was basically a lie because they produced not one item of evidence or anyone who benefited from it and suddenly the problem went away.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that it was directed against Walter Wong because he, like Mr. O’Donoghue, dared to oppose the Chambers candidate for Mayor, which was Gavin Newsom.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that Walter Wong did not oppose this legislation, but there were twenty expediters who testified against it and they were the representatives of the downtown corporate interests.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that these people were the beneficiaries of any undue influence that may have been allegedly created as a result of using expediters, the downtown corporate interest.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that these people came out in mass to oppose this legislation and said that the RBA supported this legislation, believe it or not, because in order to eliminate the cloud of suspicion that has been improperly cast upon this Department, the RBA felt that, dumb as it was, this legislation needed to be put on the books.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the Chronicle then reported that “O’Donoghue Opposes Legislation” and that was what was reported by Katia Hetter last week in an article and this was another lie.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the legislation should not have gone forward at the Board of Supervisors as there was no evidence whatsoever there and once again the Chronicle did not bother to offer a retraction.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that contrary to what Ms. Patricia Vaughey said she has not one scintilla of evidence, but she dislikes Walter Wong even though she did not mention his name today it now goes to five other people and that is the kind of thing that has led to bad legislation in this City.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that no one has the courage or the conviction to speak out against it in the City and said that he at least admired Patricia because she is up speaking her mind unlike others.  Mr. O’Donoghue thanked the Commission.

Mr. Henry Karnilowitz said that he wanted to echo what Randy Shaw and Joe O’Donoghue had just said.  Mr. Karnilowitz stated that he has been a customer of DBI for over thirty years and has also been a customer of other jurisdictions including Sacramento, San Mateo and others and said that DBI is the best of the bunch when it comes to getting permits.  Mr. Karnilowitz stated that the majority of the permits get issued over the counter and if an application is complete there is no problem; the problems happen when people turn in incomplete or incorrect applications.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that as far as this legislation is concerned it would be very difficult to enforce because the Department would have to notify all of the employees at DBI, at DPW, the Health Department and any department in the City that issues permits and they are going to have to ask people who call in if they are an expediter.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that only if someone is a registered expediter would the departments be able to answer questions so he said this thing is totally insane and should be dropped.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that he thought that DBI is doing a wonderful job and thanked the Commission.

c.

Update on Mayor Gavin Newsom and Supervisor Sophie Maxwell’s Town Hall meeting held on April 24, 2004 in District 10.

Director Chiu reported that he attended this meeting on April 24, 2004 and said that about 400 people attended.  Director Chiu said that most of the meeting centered around crime, policy policies and childcare; there were no land use or any building inspection items to be discussed.

d.

Report on the survey results of plan check time duration conduction by City of Los Angeles.

Director Chiu said that Los Angeles sent a survey out to Long Beach, Glendale, San Diego, Chula Vista, Santa Clara and Los Angeles and said the language in this survey makes it difficult to compare with San Francisco because is it like comparing apples to oranges.  Director Chiu said that ten to fifteen years ago this survey would have been comparable to the way things were done at DBI, but since then DBI changed the way the Department reviews when a permit has been checked or approved.  Director Chiu said that in the past for example in Major Plan Check it was required that 75% of the plan would have to be checked within twenty-one days and that meant that all staff had to do was simply open the plans, review the project and send out comments in order to meet the goals.  Director Chiu stated that in the past the Department consistently met all the goals whether it was for two weeks or thirty days because staff just had to check the plans and put them on hold.  Director Chiu said that this survey illustrates that this is the way all of these other cities are still doing, but DBI has changed all of its MBO goals to show plans approved within so many days.  Director Chiu said that when DBI says approved that means that the customer has the plans approved and not just checked into the Department.

Director Chiu said that Los Angeles claims to have plan checked all plans within six weeks; Long Beach 90% and Glendale 97% within six weeks, but these are just checked, not approved.  Vice-President Hood asked if Director Chiu had any surveys from these Southern California cities that showed when they actually completely approve and issue the permits.  Director Chiu said that he did not.  Director Chiu said that in looking at the statistics DBI is doing very well. 

Mr. Joe O’Donoghue of the Residential Builders said that it was good that the Director reported on this however it was a pity that the Director did not report that DBI processes 55,000 permits per year and does approximately 175,000 inspections all in a very timely fashion.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this should be articulated for the benefit of the public and there should be monthly reports on this to educate the public on the excellent performance that is being done by DBI employees.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that if this is not articulated then the perception with the public is going to be that somehow or other DBI is not doing its job.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that it is not enough to talk about comparisons to Los Angeles without laying the foundation and that needs to be reinforced at every hearing as to the progress that was done in the Department.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that Commissioner Marks pointed out recently and properly how come the Department had gone down from 98% to 80% and this is the kind of thing that needs to be discussed to educate the people as to what is actually being done.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that if the Department fails to do that then the perception will continue to lag out there and the Chronicle will continue to print its lies and distortion of the facts.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the Examiner editorials are now the water boy for the Chamber of Commerce and are going to ape the Chronicle’s line and be maudlin as they are about the Mayor and his accomplishments and the negativities of this Department.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that he hoped that the Commission would instruct the Director, because public comments have fallen on deaf ears, to come to the Commission meetings with a biweekly report as to the progress of the Department.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that these statistics would show if productivity is falling and if it is because the morale of the employees is upset because they are continuously under indictment and continuously under attack.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that obviously if he were an employee in this excellent Department he would be upset and would say to heck with it why should he work hard when he would be getting only negatives from the press and the Director is not coming before the Commission and defending the employees.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that the only one he had heard defend this Department is Deputy Director Jim Hutchinson who stood up for the employees; the unions are missing in action, Local 21, Local 22 and SEIU have never come before the Commission to defend the stigma and the negatives that have been said about the employees of this Department.  Mr. O’Donoghue thanked the Commission.

Mr. Henry Karnilowitz said that he wanted to follow up on Mr. O’Donoghue’s comments and stated that he has a lot of inspections, probably three or four a week, with different departments, electrical, plumbing and the whole gamut.  Mr. Karnilowitz stated that if he calls in the morning he will be given a one or two-hour window for his inspection and the Inspectors are really good about that.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that the public really doesn’t hear this and said that the Inspectors are very good about being on time and are really responsible.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that if there are problems the Inspectors will give the contractor a correction notice and give the contractor a chance to correct any problems before writing a notice of violation.  Mr. Karnilowitz said he wanted everyone to know about the great job that these Inspectors are doing.

Ms. Patricia Vaughey said that every time she has dealt with an Inspector she has felt that they have done a good job.  Ms. Vaughey said that the Inspectors have a hard time with complaints because sometimes they are valid and sometimes they aren’t.  Ms. Vaughey said that personally the Inspectors she has dealt with have always followed through on complaints and said that she wanted to say that publicly.  Ms. Vaughey said that if a company hires ten people, more than likely there will be a problem with one and with the numbers in City departments there are going to be employees who skirt the issues from time to time and the Department just has to be able to identify those people.

e.

Update on the information technology discussed at California Building Officials Conference in Long Beach.

Director Chiu said that initially he was just going to report to the Commission about what was available as a result of the visit to Long Beach.  Director Chiu said that nine or ten years ago the computers would crash maybe four or five times a day and he would have to report on this at the Commission meetings about what the Department planned to do.  Director Chiu stated that this went on for a number of years and it was decided that the Department needed a new permit tracking system.  Director Chiu said that although there is a permit tracking system in place he was not saying that it was perfect and continuously needed to be upgraded.  Director Chiu said that the Department keeps track of all of its activities and all of the information must be kept in the system and as a result the computers are now aging.  Director Chiu said that at a MIS Committee meeting it was decided to move forward with replacing those aging computers.  Director Chiu asked Sue Metzger to come forward to let the Commission know what kind of systems the Department now has and what was learned at Long Beach.  Director Chiu said that as far as he knew there was no major city that had the portable or hand held computer, nor the bar coding system in place right now, but the smaller cities tend to have some of those systems in place. 

Ms. Sue Metzger introduced herself as the MIS Manager at DBI right now and said that she had a presentation for the Commission.  Ms. Metzger said that she would be giving a presentation that would talk about DBI’s strategic plan for MIS and said she had a lot of material to cover so would request that the Commission would hold any questions until the end.  Ms. Metzger said that she would tell a little about San Francisco’s existing applications and would talk about the Information Technology that was showcased at the California Building Officials conference a few months ago and would then share the strategic plan that she and Director Chiu had been working on since August and finally take any suggestions from the Commissioners.

Ms. Metzger started her presentation by talking about all of the custom applications built for San Francisco and how the Department interacts technically with other departments in the City.  Ms. Metzger reported on the Permit Tracking System, the Plan Check Daily Activity System, an Inspection Scheduling System and an On-line Permit Tracking System to provide information to the public over the Internet.  Ms. Metzger talked about the Complaint Tracking System. 

Commissioner Guinnane said that the Commission had already gone through all of these items and said that he did not think that the Commission had to go through this piece by piece as it was a waste of time for the public and the Commission.  Commissioner Guinnane stated that what he wanted from the Director and the Manager was for someone to come to DBI and evaluate the system.  Commissioner Guinnane said that members of the Department went down to Long Beach and he wanted a report on that as the Commission knows what is going on because it has been going on for years.  Commissioner Guinnane said he was tired of slide shows and wanted an evaluation on the system and the individuals working on the MIS and said that he was frustrated with the MIS for all these years.  Director Chiu said that at the last meeting he told Commissioner Guinnane that he was going to go over this report and it was his understanding that Commissioner Guinnane wanted this to be shared with the entire Commission.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he wanted a report from Long Beach and did not want a report on San Francisco because he did not have any faith in the system in San Francisco or some of the individuals who are running it.  Director Chiu said that if the Commission did not know what the Department has and what is or is not working then how does the Department know what it could implement.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he wanted the Director to bring in the individual to do an assessment on the MIS and that is what he has been asking to happen for many months.  Commissioner Guinnane stated that he wanted two parts; the whole system evaluated to come up with a system for the future and he wanted to look at the individuals and wanted to know exactly the Department was doing to get a Manager in MIS.  Commissioner Guinnane said that was what he was after; it is very simple and he keeps saying it all the time so he did not know what the problem was.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he did not think that the Commission needed to waste time going through all of this today as there are more important issues than this item.

Vice-President Hood said that one of her concerns was that the agenda item was for an update on the Information Technology discussed at CALBO and what she has heard thus far is just a discussion of what is already at DBI.  Vice-President Hood said that from the Sunshine Laws and proper agendizing that it would be nice if Ms. Metzger could skip ahead to what was discovered in Long Beach. 

Director Chiu said that Ms. Metzger could go to that information.  Commissioner Guinnane said that was what he wanted because he was tired of listening about San Francisco’s system.  President Santos asked the Director to skip to the Long Beach information in order to adhere to the agenda item.

Ms. Metzger reported that the IT that was showcased at CALBO held in Long Beach in March of this year was not about a system that any jurisdiction or vendor has, but was presented by the technology committee of the Los Angeles Basin Chapter of the International Code Council.  Ms. Metzger said that they talked about the ways some of the various jurisdictions in their chapter are using technology.  Ms. Metzger stated that all of these jurisdictions are using custom made systems and said that some were similar to San Francisco.  Ms. Metzger spoke about Geographical Information system (GIS) where layers of data are superimposed over a map and most jurisdictions have a base map with multiple layers, as does San Francisco.  Ms. Metzger said that DBI is not currently using it.  Ms. Metzger said that in the Los Angeles Basin jurisdictions are using the GIS to obtain zoning information, street centerlines to find out information about the sewer system, to locate storm drains, to calculate the near source systems for parcels based on earthquake fault maps and to look at too deep building footprints on a map.

Ms. Metzger said that Internet was the second item that was discussed and just like San Francisco most jurisdictions are using the Internet to display a lot of static information such as information on anchor bolting and city codes.  Ms. Metzger pointed out that San Francisco has most of this information on its website and San Francisco displays its building codes so people can look at them.  Ms. Metzger mentioned permit tracking and e-permitting, which DBI is also doing with certain types of electrical and plumbing permits.  Ms. Metzger said that some jurisdictions are using it for any kind of over the counter permit application and others are more restrictive.  Ms. Metzger said that one jurisdiction is allowing clients to request inspections over the Internet.

Ms. Metzger reported that the third technology that was discussed was the Interactive Voice   Response (IVR) technology, which is a fancy name for doing business over the telephone in an automated fashion.  Ms. Metzger said that the system that was talked about was a system for scheduling inspections that the City of Los Angeles has that has a call back feature.   Ms. Metzger said that approximately 34% of the inspection requests received by the City of Los Angeles are received through this system and the system automatically telephones the customers back on the morning of the inspection and gives them a two hour window telling them when their inspection will take place. 

Ms. Metzger said that another technology that was discussed was Records Management or Contents Management as it is often called.  Ms. Metzger said that Records Management are applications that enable entities to store electronic files and then to retrieve them and manipulate them.  Vice-President Hood asked if the plans are stored electronically or on microfilm.  Ms. Metzger said that they are doing it electronically.  Ms. Metzger said that DBI was in the final stages to implement a Contents Management system and the first application will be to store the permit related records, particularly plans.  President Santos asked if the plans would be scanned.  Ms. Metzger said that was correct, but any type of document could be scanned. Ms. Metzger said that the system could pull up any document that was stored in the system by address regardless of whether it is a word document, plans or whatever else would relate to that address.  President Santos said that currently someone would need the permission of the property owner to access these documents.  Ms. Metzger said that she was talking about retrieval that would be internal within the Department. 

Ms. Metzger said that the last technology that was talked about was wireless computing.  Ms. Metzger said that the City of Glendale had done about four years of doing pilot projects to use wireless computing to support their inspections in the field.  Ms. Metzger said that the wireless computers can access the Internet out in the field so they are able to look up the ICC Codes on-line or look up product websites from the field and can put the results of their inspections into the computers out in the field.

Ms. Metzger said that these were the technologies that were presented, but none of these applications were items that could be purchased without being customized.  Ms. Metzger stated that there were some things that were observed that DBI would like to incorporate into its Strategic Plan.

Vice-President Hood said that she thought that the greatest weakness in DBI’s system and one of the things that has contributed to the problems that have come before the Commission is the disconnect between the disconnect between the storage of documents between one media, microfilm, and the retrieval about those documents through paper.  Vice-President Hood said that when somebody looks at the permit history they can only tell when the permit was issued, but cannot look at the permit document itself or any of the very valuable information that goes along with the permit.  Vice-President Hood said that the public has to go down to the records counter and has to wait up to a week or more to obtain past documents.  Vice-President Hood said that this should be a top priority at DBI. 

Vice-President Hood said that with the GIS system this is now a terrific burden on the applicant in San Francisco because the zoning is very complex and then there are all sorts of neighborhoods and special districts and some of the information has to be retrieved from DPW and it can take weeks to get all of this information together with the contingent costs in consultants fees that occur.  Vice-President Hood said that another thing that would be helped by the GIS is that there are notices that have to occur with planning, for example, and the notices would be extremely easy if the Assessors records were available to the public over the Internet.  Vice-President Hood said that another problem is the 3-R report, which takes several days to get, and it doesn’t have all of the documents related to it, but just shows copies of the permits so it can take many months to get all of the documentation together.  Vice-President Hood stated that she was not cognizant of any effort to put the drawings on a digital form.

Commissioner Guinnane said that once again he wanted to get somebody in to DBI to evaluate the system and then this could be brought to a head once and for all as this has been going on for years.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he wanted two things done; someone to assess the system and someone to assess the individuals who are working on the MIS.  Commissioner Guinnane stated that he thought a lot of time was being wasted on this. 

Director Chiu said that he wanted to respond to Vice-President Hood’s comments and said that she was absolutely right about records retrieval being a problem.  Director Chiu said that a couple of years ago the Department had scanned all of the plans and documents and now Ms. Metzger is saying that DBI is at the final stages to put all of these things into the system so that anybody could get to see all of the documents and plans.  Director Chiu said that now in the Department there are five people with an address can actually look up the actual documents so the Department is working on that.

Commissioner Marks said that she would like to hear Ms. Metzger’s response and said that she personally did not think that, as Commissioner Guinnane seems to think, that the Department has to have an outside evaluator come in and do an evaluation of DBI’s MIS and make recommendations.  Commissioner Marks stated that she felt that this was Ms. Metzger’s position now and it was her job to come in and do the evaluation and make the corrections.  Commissioner Marks said that it sounded to her that Ms. Metzger was making significant progress and that is why she would like her to respond to Commissioner Guinnane’s comments.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he would totally disagree with Commissioner Marks 100% as he has been on this Commission for eight years and has seen nothing but millions of dollars being wasted on the MIS.  Commissioner Guinnane said that the only way to resolve the issue is to bring somebody in from the outside to evaluate the system once and for all.  Commissioner Guinnane stated that he tried to do that five years ago, but had a lot of pressure put on him and said if he had been let go the way he wanted to go the Department would not have this problem today.

Director Chiu said that he wanted to respond.  Mr. Joe O’Donoghue stated from the audience that this item was not properly agendized and as a point of order should be agendized as a separate item.  Mr. Joe O’Donoghue said that the Director’s report as it has been conducted today is in violation of Robert’s Rules of Procedures and is in violation totally of the way Director’s reports are done at Planning and in all other aspects of the Department.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that under the Director’s report no one is allowed to come in and substitute on the report for the Director.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this item while it is proper and illuminating should have been agendized as a separate item on this Department’s agenda so that the public could be here to involve themselves in the discussion.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that instead of that there is an absolute violation of the rules and with all due respect to Sue Metzger she should have been agendized separately.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that there are issues with this lady, and said that he carried no flame on this, but the Union has severe issues in terms of backlog and employees and this is totally out of order.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the Director should not have done this and should have agendized this because the Union would have been present to protest, as he is, standing up on behalf of the employees who feel a sense of grievance about this.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this discussion needed to be terminated right now and agendize it for another meeting because people look at the Director’s report as being concise and that is not what happened today.

President Santos asked Commissioner Guinnane if his intent was to have this as a separate item.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he kept hearing about this elaborate system that existed down in Long Beach and as far as he is concerned he has seen nothing to date.  President Santos asked if Commissioner Guinnane would like to agendize this item for the next meeting.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he would like to agendize this, but what he really wanted was for someone to come in either from San Diego, Long Beach or wherever to evaluate the system, evaluate the Manager and the employees and wanted to know what the Department was doing to get a permanent Manager for MIS. 

Vice-President Hood said that she would like to get a copy of Ms. Metzger’s report and said that she is also a member of the MIS meeting.  President Santos said that it was important that Miss Metzger not leave the Commission with the idea that the Commissioners are not interested in her responses or in discussing the items.  Commissioner Marks said that she did not know why people were so focused on what was presented in Long Beach because as with any conference all that happens is that someone presents technology that is available and then gives reports on certain jurisdictions and what they are doing.  Commissioner Marks said that there is no cure all that comes from a conference.  Vice-President Hood said that the Commission is looking to see what was available in these other jurisdictions.  Commissioner Marks stated that she was not a member of the MIS Committee and said that she could understand Commissioner Guinnane’s frustration because years ago he was asking for an evaluation.  Commissioner Marks stated that she thought that Ms. Metzger was making significant progress and said that she did not feel that DBI needed someone coming in from the outside to tell the Department what to do.

Secretary Aherne said that normally the Director’s report is just to give information to the Commission for future agenda items and normally this much time is not spent on an item that is just supposed to be an update so the Commission should be moved on.  Vice-President Hood said that items are being agendized under the Director’s report that deserve their own special topic and thought that the ability to take action on the items should be an option. 

Ms. Metzger said that she would like to comment on the Content’s Management just briefly.  Commissioner Guinnane said that it was time to move on.  President Santos said that the BIC would agendize this item and Ms. Metzger would have ample opportunity to present her report.  Vice-President Hood said that she would talk to Ms. Metzger to get an update on her own.

Discussion and possible action to approve the proposed 2004 Cost Schedule of Building Valuation Data.

Mr. Alan Tokugawa introduced himself as a Building Code Analyst with Technical Services and stated that he believed that this Building Cost Schedule had been before the BIC before, but that the BIC would be taking action on it today.  Mr. Tokugawa said that he thought that the report was very straight forward as the attempt was to make this as simple as possible for both the public and Plan Checkers who are not cost estimators, but merely checking the cost valuation that the applicant has put down on his application.  Mr. Tokugawa said that the ratings had been increased by 1.38% throughout. 

There was no public comment on this item.

Commissioner Guinnane said that he had gone through the Cost Schedule and stated that he thought that it was very fair to individuals and said that he would like to make a motion to approve it as submitted.

Commissioner Fillon seconded the motion.   The motion carried unanimously. 

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 023-004

Discussion and possible action to approve billing invoices and final review of contract deliverable draft CAPSS report.

Deputy Director William Wong of Permit Services said that he wanted to give a brief history of the CAPSS projects.   Mr. Wong said that CAPSS stood for Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety and the detailed report of this program in three large binders was provided to the Commission last year.  Mr. Wong stated that the proposal for the CAPSS project was introduced by the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California (SEAONC) in 1997 so that was when the project started.  Mr. Wong said that Commissioners Sig Freeman and Patrick Buscovich presented the proposal to the BIC in 1998 and after several discussions the Commission approved the project for implementation.  Mr. Wong said that after several budget meetings the project was funded in two phases, CAPSS I and CAPSS II.  Mr. Wong stated that CAPSS I was started in 1999 and a final report was issued in May 2000 with the cost of that project being $49,841, which was basically to outline the plan for Phases II and III which would be the impact study and implementation.  Mr. Wong reported that CAPSS II, which is the subject of this discussion, started in September 2001 and in the middle of 2002 the Commission and the Department were looking very carefully at major projects in the entire Department so it wasn’t just CAPSS, but all of the other major projects.  Mr. Wong said that the Commission was working very hard with the Department to balance the budget.  Mr. Wong said that the Commission held several meetings regarding the CAPSS II project in 2002 and again in 2003 and after careful consideration the Department at the direction of the BIC sent a letter on March 6, 2003 to ATC to suspend the CAPSS II project.  Mr. Wong said that in order to wrap up this contract he was asked to look into the outstanding invoices and stated that he sent a letter to ATC dated February 9, 2004.  Mr. Wong said that presently there are seven outstanding invoices from October 2002 to April 2003 and said that his comments to ATC were presented in two parts; the first part were for the invoices asking justification for certain line items and the other part, his comments, were about the work product and the final report.  Mr. Wong said that he would highlight some of the numbers that were addressed. 

Commissioner Marks said that people wanted to cut off discussion about MIS and said that with this issue all of the Commissioners have looked over all of the information and her only question would be that in the last letter ATC had said that they would respond to Mr. Wong’s itemized questions.  Commissioner Marks said that when she brought this up several months ago it was with the intent that the final Phase of this study be completed somehow showing what mitigation measures needed to be considered so she did not want to spend a lot of time on the invoices.  Mr. Wong said that he just wanted to give an overview.

Commissioner Guinnane said that in past discussions Vice-President Hood was concerned about Phase II that a lot of the information that was being put forth into the report could be gotten in public records such as at the library.  Commissioner Guinnane said that another concern was that the Department had already spent $440,000 and the report was basically done except for to come up with a magic number to cover the printer.  Commissioner Guinnane said that the Commission had come up with $25,000 that was not part of the initial contract, but Phase II was done except to print it.  Commissioner Guinnane said that in reading the Chronicle they basically say that DBI abandoned it, which is not true at all, but the Department wants to get the money issues under control and get a number for the printing. 

Vice-President Hood said that she did not say that all of the information in Phase II was available from other sources, but a lot of the information that was being determined was available.  Vice-President Hood said that she did not think that this issue should have any bearing on whether or not ATC got paid because if the City signed a contract to pay them for doing it then they have to pay them.  Vice-President Hood said that she understood this item to be about these latest invoices and asked what was the amount of the dispute.  Mr. Wong said that the total outstanding amount was $82,507.  Vice-President Hood asked if that included $25,000 for printing.  Mr. Wong said that in reviewing the contract the printing was not included in the contract.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he came up with $25,000 for printing. 

President Santos said that in fairness to Commissioner Marks he understood that her intent was primarily to ensure and respond to the public as to whether or not the BIC has some sort of conclusion on the accommodations of the report.  President Santos said that the public was given the perception that DBI has nothing to show for the money spent and there have been no recommendations.  President Santos asked Mr. Wong how much time he estimated it would take for there to be a conclusion to the dispute and the publication printed.  Mr. Wong said that DBI did stop the project prior to the conclusion of the CAPSS II phase, but felt that there should be a usable product to produce at that point.  Mr. Wong said that some of the graphics are unreadable and it would be better for ATC to make the corrections on this product and some of the areas in San Francisco were left out of the report, such as Golden Gate Park and Treasure Island, which were included in the original contract.  Mr. Wong said that ATC could either include these as part of the report or credit the Department on that portion of the report and that is why he is withholding these invoices.  Mr. Wong stated that he did not feel that the report was complete for publication at this point.  Mr. Wong said that Commissioner Guinnane was concerned about printing this report, but said that these items should be cleared up first and then it could be printed.  Mr. Wong said that he had several requests for a copy of this report and said he wanted to make it clear that the April 3, 2003 report was always available, but was only a draft report.  Mr. Wong said that he thought that these items should be addressed before any printing is done.  President Santos said that the public should be able to get a copy of this report even in an abridged form and one of the things he mentioned was that he would be pleased to be a mediator to get this sorted out.  President Santos said that it is important to get the report out in a manner in which it is readable by the general public and the Commission does not want another article saying that the Commission is not interested in seismic safety.

After much discussion Mr. Wong said that ATC did not want to respond to the questions he had about the invoices and the report and said that he would recommend to the BIC that ATC should still respond to those comments.  Commissioner Fillon stated that he had read through Mr. Wong’s comments and said that he was absolutely doing his job and ATC should respond because this is the taxpayers’ money and DBI is not a cash cow that can be writing blank checks to Consultants without answers to his questions.  Commissioner Fillon said that ATC knows that they are supposed to provide supporting information for reimbursables and asked Mr. Wong to continue doing his job and not be pressured by these Consultants or any articles in the newspapers.  Mr. Wong thanked Commissioner Fillon for his support.

Vice-President Hood asked if there was anything in the contract that says the final report has to be printable in black and white.  Vice-President Hood said that the maps could not be read in black and white and asked what was in the contract.  Mr. Wong said that it was in the contract that it be in a readable form.  Mr. Wong said that ATC has offered to print the report at their costs providing DBI pays all of the outstanding invoices.  President Santos asked how much that would be and how many copies would be printed.  Mr. Wong said that would depend on how this report would be distributed.  President Santos asked if there was still an open dialogue with ATC.  Mr. Wong said that originally ATC agreed to answer his written questions within thirty days and now after all this time is saying that he is being overly harsh and have not responded. 

Vice-President Hood said that perhaps Commissioner Marks and President Santos could meet with ATC along with Deputy Director Wong and go over these things to get it resolved.  Vice-President Hood said that the finished product should be readable and that is a big problem and stated that it should be printable in black and white to reduce the cost.  Mr. Wong suggested putting this on the DBI website.  President Santos said that he would be happy to meet along with Commissioner Marks with the consultants.  Commissioner Marks said that she thought that the mitigation phase is very important.

Vice-President Hood said that she wanted to clarify what she said before and stated that she said that the usable information that was going to come out in the end which is getting rid of the soft first floors and so on could have been done on information that is readily available from sources such as the USGS and didn’t say that none of the information in the report is new.  Vice-President Hood said she never said that and wanted it clear for the record.

Mr. Wong said that he wanted to clear something up and stated that by completing the CAPSS II programs the Department is not going to get the recommendations because that portion was taken out of CAPSS II.  President Santos said that he would suggest postponing this item and meet with ATC to resolve this issue.

Mr. Joe O’Donoghue of the Residential Builders said that he did not think that the Commission should approve the invoices contrary to what was stated in the Chronicle article yesterday and said that he would have been more pleased if the Commission had brought up, rather than President Santos, about the negativity, which is tied into these invoices.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that it is no coincidence that prior to this item being agendized an article appeared in the Chronicle and the Commissioners need to be more politically hep as to the negative aspects of the negative campaign against this Commission.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the Commission should not constrain themselves and contrary to what Commissioner Marks said, whose silence was deafening originally on any negative articles in the Chronicle.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that when the Commission tries to defend the Department then she speaks out, so the fact is that this contract which now lead to this invoice problem, was given at a time when this Commission was politicized by the President of the Board of Supervisors, Barbara Kaufman.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that people were selected, contrary to what Kevin Shelley had done and Angela Alioto, not on the basis of their qualifications, but on the basis of their political ideologies and political affiliations.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this was continued on with Tom Ammiano so there was a contract that was given out that has lead to this problem on a political Commission that had an incestuous relationship that went right into the Department itself.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the project manager had a business relationship with previous Commissioners so this contract that never went out to public bid and was done at a time when he was not appearing before the Commission and had not appeared for two years.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated he later discovered that this was a rip off, a money shakedown and the Commission has an obligation and the RBA has an obligation because they were the ones who created this Commission contrary to the opposition that was out there and the people then got their contract.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that if Commissioner Guinnane had resigned from this Commission and then was involved in a contract like this and his friends got money the headlines would read “Friend of RBA President O’Donoghue on Money Rip Off of the City”.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the newspapers have been silent on this so then there was a negative article by Gerry Adams of the Chronicle in the last few days and that is what this is about.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that he hoped that Commissioner Marks would stand up for once and defend the employees in this Department, but she is a political appointee by Tom Ammiano and she never will defend this Department from negative connotations because when Debra Walker was on this Commission with Commissioner Marks they were pounding on this Department and some of the problems publicity wise are a result of that kind of attitude.

Mr. David Prowler introduced himself as the Project Manager for the CAPSS project and said that first he wanted to say that he was aware that there are deficiencies in the draft report and that is why it is called a draft and said that the consultants were not happy with the graphics either.  Mr. Prowler said that he wanted to make it very clear that it is not a refined report because they were told by DBI to stop work and this report has not even received the comments back from the Citizens Advisory Committee.  Mr. Prowler said that he wanted to respond to Commissioner Fillon’s comments about a blank check and no documentation for bills by saying that binders of back up information was submitted with each billing and it has been a year and a half since some questions were raised about these bills.   Mr. Prowler stated that he understood that it is difficult for ATC to go back and reconstruct what was happening at that time and what phone calls were made, etc.  Mr. Prowler said that at the time when these bills were submitted, ATC is a professional organization audited by the Federal Government and they did submit backup for each of these bills.  Mr. Prowler said that he wanted to clarify two things, one being that they were not asked to look at public buildings, only private buildings, so the Presidio, Golden Gate Park and Treasure Island were never included in the contract.  Mr. Prowler stated that finally this was not a closed bidding process as there was an RFP and ATC responded to that RFP and were granted this contract by this Commission so it is not accurate to say that this was a closed bidding process.  President Santos asked if the exclusion of public buildings was actually in the contract.  Mr. Prowler stated that was correct.  Commissioner Fillon said that if there were binders to justify a particular line item then ATC could have responded to Mr. Wong and suggested that when ATC gets together with the Commissioners and the Department that they bring all of that information.  Vice-President Hood said that she thought that it was important that ATC respond to Mr. Wong’s letter because a blanket response just saying no is not an accurate response.  Vice-President Hood said that she was anxious to get this resolved and said that never should it be implied that this Commission or the Department are not trying to improve the earthquake resistance.  Vice-President Hood said that she thought this was just an accounting problem at this time.  Mr. Prowler said that the letter being referred to went to ATC and not to him. 

Secretary Aherne said that she wanted to say for the public that when Mr. Wong sent a copy of his letter regarding ATC to Mr. Adams of the Chronicle he did include his list of concerns regarding the invoices and the report.  President Santos stated that he also gave his cell phone number to Mr. Adams so he could call him at any time.  Vice-President Hood said that she gave her number to Mr. Adams as well, but this article was already planned before any Commissioner was spoken to or contacted.  Vice-President Hood said that in all of these political wars the Commission has to remember who they are trying to help and that is the people of the Sunset, the Richmond and the Mission, all through the City to show them what they can do to their buildings to improve them to the extent they can afford it. 

9.

Update regarding DBI’s progress in meeting recommendations of the 2001 Controller’s Management Audit.

Commissioner Marks said that since the Commission was running out of time for this meeting Ms. Lee had told her that she had a response in writing for this item and asked that it be carried over until the next meeting so the Commission could get time to read the written report.

Ms. Lee said that she would be happy to give the updated report to the Secretary to give to the Commissioners.

10.

Review of Communication Items.  At this time, the Commission may discuss or take possible action to respond to communication items received since the last meeting.

a.

b.


c.


d.

Copy of letter dated April 10, 2004 from JoAnna and Leo Mankiewicz to Mr. Rudy Nothenberg regarding work at 189 Farnum Street.
Letter from BIC President Rodrigo Santos dated April 12, 2004 to Mayor Gavin Newsom regarding the City’s mandate to reduce the vehicle fleet and cellular phones.
Copy of letter dated April 21, 2004 from Chairperson Fredric S. Freund of the Code Advisory Committee to President Santos regarding vacancies on the Code Advisory Committee.
Copies of thank you letters received from the public commending DBI employees and   Director Chiu’s response letters to the public.

Commissioner Guinnane stated that he wanted to comment on item #10b.  Commissioner Guinnane said that since President Santos was a very big supporter of the Mayor to date and was now President of the Commission he thought that President Santos should go over and meet with Gavin Newsom to lay out all of the items for this Department regarding the cars and cell phones and the actual money being taken away from this Department.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he thought that rather than writing letters it would be more beneficial to personally go before the Mayor and convey that this Department is not tied into the General Fund and is the only Department making money because of being prudent in prior years.  President Santos said that he welcomed that challenge and asked if Commissioner Guinnane would be interested in going with him.  Commissioner Marks said that she had already offered to go before the Mayor.  Vice-President Hood said that she would like President Santos to bring up the comments made by the gentleman who spoke saying he had been waiting a year for his permit to come out of planning and the issue of spending money for long range planning instead of immediately reducing the backlog in Planning.

Mr. Joe O’Donoghue said that he thought that it was excellent that President Santos should go and see the Mayor, along with Commissioner Guinnane or Vice-President Hood as they would not be afraid to throw out the issues to the Mayor.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that being that the Mayor has a penchant for press conferences perhaps he would have a press conference about all of the good he is going to do as a result of this meeting.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that it would be an opportunity for him to get another photo op ad into the Chronicle.

Vice-President Hood said that she wanted to comment on item #10c and said it would be a good idea to identify those vacancies and try to fill them as some of them are very hard to fill.  Secretary Aherne said that she would be sending a letter to the AAC, CAC, BOE and UMB because there are vacancies on all of those Commissions and that would be a future agenda item.  Secretary Aherne said that there is a Committee to review agendas submitted for these vacancies.

Mr. Alan Tokugawa said that he would be remiss if he did not bring up the vacancies needed for the CAC and announced that there is a need for one member at large from the City, one for a residential contractor and another for the major building contractors.  Vice-President Hood said that she wanted to let the public know about these openings right now and said anyone could apply by contacting the Secretary at 1660 Mission.

11.

Review and approval of the minutes of the April 5, 2004 meeting.

Commissioner Guinnane made a motion, seconded by President Santos that the minutes be approved.  The motion carried unanimously.

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 024-004

SUMMARY OF REQUESTS BY COMMISSIONERS

Vice President Hood said that perhaps Commissioner Marks and President Santos could meet with ATC along with Deputy Director Wong to resolve the problem with the invoices. – Vice President Hood

Page 22

Vice President Hood said that she would like to request that every agenda item in the future have the words “and possible action” attached to it.   – Vice President Hood

Pages 25, 29

Commissioner Guinnane would like President Santos to meet with Mayor Gavin Newsom to discuss the cars and cell phones, and the actual money being taken away from this Department.  – Commissioner Guinnane

Page 27