President’s Announcements.
Update on presentation by the City Attorney’s Office regarding the Sunshine Ordinance to be held on Monday, May 3, 2004 from 5:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. at the Herbst Theater.

President Santos urged all of the Commissioners to attend this meeting sponsored by the City Attorney’s Office

Deputy Director Jim Hutchinson asked if this item could be postponed for a short time as Director Chiu would be attending the meeting, but had advised that he would be late.  President Santos stated that the Commission would move to item #4 and later return to the Director’s Reports.. 

Mr. Joe O’Donoghue of the Residential Builders Association said that last week in the Independent and the Examiner there was an article that was once again full of falsities.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that it stated that the need for a Monitor was that there were many public complaints concerning the service from this Department.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that regrettably again the Director chose not to respond to what is a lie.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that he did not attend any of the hearings at the Board of Supervisors, but the Board of Supervisors just went through extensive hearings regarding public consultants or expediter’s legislation.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that it was interesting to note, while watching these hearings on TV, that there was not one member of the public that came forward to voice a complaint about the poor service alleged from DBI.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that some months ago he reiterated to Director Chiu that $100,000 had been set aside each year for public relations because it was anticipated when this Department was formed that, in fact, there would be nay sayers out there who opposed the creation of this Department, from the Chamber of Commerce to the Building Trades Council to SPUR.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that $100,000 was set aside to go and do advertising whenever that became necessary and never once has Director Chiu spent one nickel of that money in responding to any of these allegations.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that it would behoove Director Chiu and should be incumbent on him to have directed his staff to respond and ask the Chronicle and the editors of the Independent and the Examiner to give the proof because there are no allegations that have been made.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that there are nine disgruntled employees at DBI over the years and it is known who they are.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that there were also three Commissioners who were booted off previous Commissions who are disgruntled and Management that was terminated once the BIC was created so there are about twenty people out there who are not happy with this Department.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this Department and its employees have done an exemplary job and yet there is a Director that fails to come to the aid of the employees.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that the Commission should ask Director Chiu when he comes to the meeting today does he not read the newspapers and is he not interested in defending the morale of this Department of good employees, or is he not interested in rebuking distortions when they appear in print.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the reality is that if these things are not responded to people will believe it and that is one of the reasons that he wanted these hearings on TV.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that it was reluctantly over the opposition of the Director that the hearings are finally on TV to tell the public what is happening within this Department.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that along that line he asked Director Chiu to publish how many permits are processed every week including inspections and that has not been done.

Ms. Ernestine Weiss said that she wanted to thank all of the Commissioners, including Ann for her hard work, on getting her the minutes of the meeting of March 15^th.  Ms. Weiss said that the reason she was present was to make sure that the latest Notice of Violation (NOV) (Golden Gateway Center) was not abated until and unless the sink faucet in her bathroom is removed of the rust in it.  Ms. Weiss said this was for the record, as this had not been done yet.  Ms. Weiss stated that if the Management had to replace the whole sink and vanity then that would have to be done to abate this because this is the second time that this has happened since they removed the first faucet.  Ms. Weiss said that she wanted to make sure that this was not abated until this situation was corrected.  Ms. Weiss stated that also she wanted to know how she would find out what has been done on a list that she had submitted to Mr. Hutchinson.  Mr. Hutchinson said that he had been out on three visits to Ms. Weiss’ apartment and one of the issues there was the water.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that he cited Management because there was rust in the water and then went out after thirty days to revisit that issue with Chief Plumbing Inspector Dennis King and the water ran clean.  Mr. Hutchinson said that Ms. Weiss was concerned about hard water stains or residue between her faucet and the counter top.  Mr. Hutchinson said that he did speak to the Manager out there about replacing it or cleaning it, as it seems to be a housekeeping type issue at this point.  Mr. Hutchinson said that Ms. Weiss some weeks ago had presented him with a list of things that she felt were potential problems or Code violations in the complex she lives in.  Mr. Hutchinson said that there were some problems where anti-freeze had leaked out on the street, some issues with the elevator and some issues that he would be happy to pass on to other agencies.  Mr. Hutchinson said that the elevator issue has been forwarded to the State of California.  Mr. Hutchinson said that one of the issues that Ms. Weiss brought up was the fact that many of the doors that lead to the exit stairs are blocked open by the residents.  Mr. Hutchinson said that he told the Manager that the corridors seem to be extremely hot in that complex and apparently if there is no cross ventilation with the doors closed that hot air goes under the doors and into the tenants units.  Mr. Hutchinson said that he did explain to Management that those doors did need to be closed because of fire and safety and DBI is going to continue to monitor; there are also some other items on Ms. Weiss’ list that the Department are continuing to look into.  Mr. Hutchinson said that he would be responsible for responding to Ms. Weiss.  Ms. Weiss said that there were some major issues on that list including issues with asbestos.  Ms. Weiss said that the fire door at 550 Battery was defective and said she gave that information to Mr. Hutchinson.  Ms. Weiss thanked everyone for helping her and asked to make an appointment with Commissioner Brown to come out and check some things.

Mr. Henry Karnilowitz said that he wanted to echo what Mr. O’Donoghue had said about the public not coming out at all to protest what is going on at DBI when it comes to issuing permits and this so called influence peddling.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that quite frankly it is a very complex procedure to get permits at DBI and reported that he had submitted for a permit to put a Manager’s unit at a hotel and it has been over three months and he still does not have that permit.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that if the Department did not have over the counter permits people would not wait and would just go ahead and do the work and run the risk of being caught.  Mr. Karnilowitz stated that people would be willing to pay a penalty because they can not afford to be waiting three to six months for a permit while paying rent on a place or a mortgage just to get a permit.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that he had been to all of the hearings regarding permit consultants and said that he did not see anyone from the public there.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that he did not think that permit consultants should have to log in their clients; the Department should issue the permits because when all is said and done if someone is going to exceed the scope of the work they are going to do it anyway.  Mr. Karnilowitz stated that the Building Department has no control over that and what needs to happen is that when the Building Inspector goes out to the property that Inspector will have to look at what is going on and if then they can write up a Stop Notice if someone is exceeding the work stated on the permit.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that he thought that this latest legislation would cause a real boondoggle.

Discussion and update from staff regarding Commission inquiries about properties located at 4809 Mission Street, 4109 Irving Street and 1288 – 30^th Avenue. [Commissioner Guinnane]

Commissioner Guinnane said that 4809 Mission Street was first discussed about seven months ago and said that he did not know what the problem was, but according to the Department they are still working on a report as to what happened out there.  Commissioner Guinnane said that this was not going to go away as there are all kinds of violations out there and it was not the area of the Inspector who signed off on the property.  Commissioner Guinnane said that the same Inspector did all of the Plan Checking on a Saturday when there was no backlog on the residential, but there was a backlog on the commercial and that is very troublesome to him.  Commissioner Guinnane stated that there are two buildings standing out there, four story buildings, with no parking and the initial drawings show an underground garage with three lots merged into one and that never happened.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he did not know where the failure on that was in the Planning Department.  Commissioner Guinnane stated that he had already done his own report on this property and did not know what was taking the Department so long because the Department had completed its report in January.  Commissioner Guinnane said that it was his belief that there was criminal activity involved here in the Department and with the property itself.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he wanted to make a referral to the proper agencies, which would be the City Attorney’s Office or the DA’s Office on this particular job. 

Vice-President Hood said that she would suggest sending it to both, because if it is criminal activity it should be with the District Attorney.  Vice-President Hood said that she would like to have an opinion from the DA’s Office as well as the City Attorney whose jurisdiction it falls within.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he thought that if it went over to the City Attorney’s Office it is probably civil, but if it goes to the DA’s Office it would be for criminal activity.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he wanted this to move along because he did not want it to lie dormant. 

President Santos said that Commissioner Guinnane had stated that the Department had completed its report in January 2004 and asked who prepared that report.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he believed it was Inspector Carla Johnson.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he had a copy of this report and could not figure out why it was now April and nothing has been done.  Commissioner Guinnane stated that obviously somebody is trying to stonewall the Commission on this.  Vice-President Hood asked if this was the same property that has been brought up before.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he has brought this up three times, initially about seven or eight months ago.  Commissioner Guinnane said that in July 1999 the Inspector went out to inspect the rebar and there is not even an approved drawing; the addendum was not approved until August 1999.  Vice-President Hood said that she just couldn’t see how this could happen and asked who was assigned to follow up on this in the Department after Commissioner Guinnane brought it up seven months ago. 

Deputy Director Hutchinson said that many times Department heads or Management is fearful to comment fully and honestly on projects where there might be an investigation by an outside agency.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that he did not personally think that was right because he felt that Management could give the Commission the facts so there is a comfort level for the Commission and the employees, in particular this employee who is being questioned now, if he didn’t do anything wrong it would be in their best interest that there is a full and fair investigation.  Mr. Hutchinson said that the investigation is underway.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that the project is on the corner of Mission and Russia and is comprised of three parcels; the corner parcel on Mission and Russia is not built.  Mr. Hutchinson said that the two adjoining properties, 4809 – 4815 Mission are two buildings with commercial on the ground floor and residential above.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that once the Department became aware of the problems the project was stopped and began an investigation.  Mr. Hutchinson said that Senior Inspector Carla Jean Johnson along with Chief Inspector Wing Lau assisted him in those areas.  Mr. Hutchinson said that Orders of Abatement had been issued because of non-compliance on the two properties that are built and this will probably be referred to the Litigation Committee.  Mr. Hutchinson said that on the corner project where there is no permit filed for the Department has put a tracking on the computer to make sure that the Department would be alerted if anybody that attempts to file on that property.  Mr. Hutchinson said that the Inspector in question has been removed from the field and is serving office duty.  Mr. Hutchinson said that he was at a meeting with City Attorney Dennis Herrera where the Director and the Assistant Director handed over the entire package, all the fact and asked him to conduct an investigation.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that the City Attorney assured him that if there was any criminal misconduct that they would go and work with the new District Attorney so that is in place and the Department is looking forward to having that investigation completed.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that then DBI could go ahead and determine what the outcome would be.  

Vice-President Hood said that she understood that the Commission could not get into employee matters, but asked who the project sponsor was on these properties and asked if it was the same person for all three parcels.  Mr. Hutchinson said that the project sponsor was Hawk Lee for the original permits.  Vice-President Hood asked if Mr. Lee was a previous employee of the Building Department.  Mr. Hutchinson said that was correct.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that it might be more appropriate for the Director to keep the BIC informed of this issue in a Closed Door Session.    Vice-President Hood said she thought there should be a Closed Door Session on this as it was a real problem and said that she would like for a representative from the District Attorney ‘s Office to be there.  Mr. Hutchinson said that he would facilitate the scheduling of that.

President Santos said that Mr. Hutchinson stated that the Department now has a barrier in place for anyone that might apply for permit on the third parcel and asked if that would be automatic.  Mr. Hutchinson said that was correct and said in meeting with the three owners there was a lot of confusion as to how the lots were divided and not divided so the Department thought that the best thing to do would be to make anyone who might buy the corner lot would be aware of the problems.

Commissioner Guinnane asked when the referral was made.  Mr. Hutchinson said that he believed it was made within the last 30 – 45 days. 

Commissioner Guinnane asked what steps were being taken to resolve 4109 Irving Street.  Mr. Hutchinson said that last time he submitted a memo that he had written on March 3, 2004 and at that time there were four projects that the Department was very concerned about, which was 337 – 28^th Avenue, 4109 Irving Street, 1288 – 30^th Avenue, and a project that has since been cleared at 1461 – 43^rd Avenue.  Mr. Hutchinson said that DBI became aware of Irving Street some months ago and said originally the alteration permit said that 50% of building would remain; subsequent to that there was a revision that showed 67% of the building to be demolished and the last revision, which was not filed indicated that 95% of the building would be removed.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that along with some of the discussions he had with the Plan Check Staff and the Chief Inspector led the Department to believe that the best course of action would be to stop the work and that has happened.  Mr. Hutchinson said that there was testimony at the last meeting from the Project Engineer that they had considered filing a new building permit and a demolition permit, but began to speak about the Discretionary Review (DR) process and decided that this wasn’t the way to go and thought they could save the building.  Mr. Hutchinson said that this meant that they came in with an alteration permit.  Mr. Hutchinson said that he was particularly concerned when he saw that 95% of the building was to be removed and said that to date he has not seen a revision filed that would adequately show what was going to stay and what was going to be removed, hence the Stop Work Notice.  Vice-President Hood asked if that project sponsor was also a previous member of DBI staff.  Mr. Hutchinson said that was correct.  Vice-President Hood asked if the Planning Department weighed in on this project with respect to the 95% demolition.  Mr. Hutchinson said that he would ask Mr. Lau to come forward as Mr. Lau had visited the property with a representative from Planning to look at the site. 

Chief Inspector Wing Lau thanked the Commission for bringing this property to the attention of the Department.  Mr. Lau said that 4109 Irving Street is a one-story building and the project sponsor is proposing an additional two stories above the one-story.  Mr. Lau said that he visited the site three times once with Hanson Tom, once with Planning and recently with the Director.  Mr. Lau said that now the majority of the component of what they show on the approved plan remains and the    only portion that has been removed at this point is the sub-floors and one section of the foundation. Mr. Lau said that it is impossible to build on the existing foundation what was proposed on the revised plans.  Mr. Lau said that Mr. Washington of Planning and he saw that there is a lot of dry rot on the property and some unusual framing, which is almost impossible to keep.  Mr. Lau said that he discussed this with Planning and Planning does not have any problem with what they are going to remove and what they can keep at this point.  Mr. Lau said that the Department was very specific in telling the project sponsor what they have to maintain in terms of what DBI discussed with Planning, but the project sponsor has been told to hold off on everything until this is resolved with the Commission. 

Commissioner Guinnane said that in looking at the three addendums that were put forward initially with the first one that came in on 1/15/04 it showed 46% of the house being taken down; then it shows a scale of interior walls, exterior walls, roof, floors, ceilings and partitions total area.  Commissioner Guinnane said that then going on to the second part where the project sponsor goes from 46% up 64% and all those numbers are all consistent, but then when they come in with the third drawing at 94% the numbers have been moved around and they are not consistent.  Commissioner Guinnane stated that on the interior walls on the final one shows 716’, but in looking at the first two it shows 408’.  Commissioner Guinnane said that on the exterior walls on the final one it shows 1256’ and on the first two it shows 1563’ so obviously the project sponsor is trying to deceive the Department by moving the walls around and the square footage.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he did not know how the foundation detail got approved because it doesn’t work at all.  Mr. Lau said that so far two building permits have been issued, but the third one with 94% of the building being removed has not been accepted and this was only proposed. Mr. Lau stated that everything that was to remain as stated on the first permit is still there; the only additional element that was removed was on the second permit and that was the sub-floor, which is only about six inches above the grade.

President Santos said that there are two permits and the third one has not yet been filed.  Mr. Lau said that was correct.  President Santos asked if the current condition of the building right now is compatible and in compliance with the first permit with the exception of the removal of the sub-floor on the ground floor. Mr. Lau said that was correct.  President Santos asked what percentage would that add to the first permit.  Mr. Lau said that all of the framing has not been removed, particularly around the perimeter at this point except the sub-floor in the parcel where the foundation was removed so it would be about 15% more than the original one.  Mr. Lau said that he did not do the calculations.  President Santos stated that it would be 15% plus 46% for a total of 61% and obviously the project sponsor is aware that he is dealing with a dangerous mathematic equation here and what is there right now will have to be saved.  President Santos said that he understood that Mr. Lau was saying that the project sponsor might not be able to save this part of the building because there are issues with unusual framing.  Mr. Lau said that some of the elements over there could not be preserved at this point, but based on last Thursday’s inspection the Department told the project sponsor that the only thing that could be done would be to replace that particular element because of dry rot. 

President Santos said that this particular project has some unusual features that some elements there will have to be taken out which will potentially trigger this higher percentage and lead into a condition that would most likely be closer to an unlawful demolition.  Vice-President Hood said that it was her understanding that this is an unlawful demolition.  Commissioner Guinnane said that it was not quite an unlawful demolition yet.  Commissioner Guinnane asked how come the foundation was not included as part of the overall removal of the house.  Mr. Lau said that according to approved plan originally the project sponsor tried to reinforce the existing foundations by doweling into the existing foundation.  Commissioner Guinnane said that Mr. Lau knows that there is no way to make that wall work; the only way to make the old wall work would be to completely encompass it with a new foundation detail and that would put this property over on the adjoining property because there is no way to get on the left hand side of the property.  Mr. Lau said that he agreed with Commissioner Guinnane because everyone knew that if this is an existing single story building there would be no way the existing foundation would be capable of supporting more stories.  Commissioner Guinnane asked how many jobs had been approved like this in the last twelve months with this kind of detail and has that practice now been stopped.  Mr. Lau said that he is not in charge of Plan Check so he would not know the answer to that.  Commissioner Guinnane asked for Hanson Tom to come forward to answer his questions.   

Commissioner Guinnane asked Mr. Tom what was the practice of the Department regarding these foundations that don’t meet Code and why is it that they are getting approved with doweling into the side.  Mr. Tom said that he was Manager of Plan Checking and stated that usually for this type of remodel in looking at the structure demand there should be an investigation of the foundation systems.  Mr. Tom stated that if there is an existing structure of only one story and two stories are being added on above that the Department really has to look at the foundation system.  Mr. Tom said that from his understanding when looking at the drawing this drawing still shows that the foundation has some reinforcement in there.  Mr. Tom said that he felt that the foundation system really is not adequate so he asked staff how it was possible for this foundation system would be able to transfer the force.  Mr. Tom stated that since that the Department is looking at those foundations much more careful to make sure about the load being transferred to the foundation.  Mr. Tom said that as far as to how many projects have been done this way he would have no idea and said that he hoped it was not that many because every Engineer should be responsible for the structural design of the system.  Mr. Tom stated that with projects like these if City Planning approves three stories over additions to the existing one the structural demand has to be explored as thoroughly as possible to make sure the studs are able to transfer the forces and make sure the foundation is able to transfer the forces.  Vice-President Hood asked if when someone turns in that kind of permit if they have to turn in structural drawings and details.  Vice-President Hood stated that this is a three-story building so it has to be signed by a licensed civil or structural engineer or an architect.  Vice-President Hood said that it was her understanding that those structural drawings are accompanied by calculations that are checked and asked if this was not true.  Mr. Tom said that from what he saw on the drawings he saw that it was really sub-standard detail.  Mr. Tom said that he brought this to the attention of his staff to make sure from now on when they look at the foundation to make sure the force is able to be transferred because whatever existing foundation is being used has to be transferred to the new one.  Mr. Tom said that everything should be in accordance with the calculations and in accordance to the drawings to make sure that the foundation is adequate to support the additional load.  Vice-President Hood said that she was not getting into personnel matters, but asked if the person who signed off on this structural detail was a licensed engineer.  Mr. Tom said that was correct.  Vice-President Hood said that in other words, he or she approved something that did not meet the Code.  Mr. Tom said that at this point he wouldn’t say that, but there was not good standard detailing on this foundation.  Vice-President Hood asked if it met the Code or not.  Mr. Tom said that it did not meet the Code.  Vice-President Hood said that this was a real problem because the Department’s job is to enforce the Code, as Mr. Tom well knows and said that she knew Mr. Tom was very conscientious about that himself, but stated that this is a very serious problem.  Vice-President Hood said that the Commission happens to know about this one, but obviously there is a great deal of concern about the ones that the Commission or the Department does not know about.  Vice-President Hood stated that the public puts its trust in the Department to enforce the Code so she would like to know if there is some sort of patter and who approves these non-conforming plans.  Vice-President Hood asked if this comes about because the person wasn’t trained or does there appear to be some sort of inappropriate connection between the person applying for the permit and the person who checked it.  Vice-President Hood said that she really wanted to know what the source of this problem was.  Mr. Tom said that this person came over from Technical Services to assist his staff because of the workload, however he is a registered civil engineer.  Mr. Tom said that he had no idea as to why this was missed and said that it shouldn’t be in looking at that type of foundation reinforcement.  Vice-President Hood said that if this person is just on loan would it be possible to just return him to Technical Services.  Mr. Tom stated that this had already been done.

Commissioner Guinnane said that basically Mr. Tom was telling the Commission that this is an isolated incident that the individual from Technical Services approved in error, but no other drawings that have come through in the last twelve months have been approved with this type of detail.  Mr. Tom said that he hoped not, that this type of foundation system should not be approved. Mr. Tom stated that this person really came to provide assistance to Plan Check and might not be aware of the situations because someone needs a lot of experience with this type of structural retrofit.  Vice-President Hood said that it is the Department’s responsibility to make sure that anybody that is assigned to that kind of activity either has to have his work checked or has to be tested first to make sure they can apply the Code, otherwise DBI is having somebody who is not competent to check the drawings.  Mr. Tom said that the Department used to have quality plan check where 10% of permits would go through a senior to overview that so he felt that this was an isolated system.  Commissioner Guinnane said that at the last Commission hearing Mr. Tom was instructed to go back over the last twelve months and look at jobs that were submitted by the Engineer of Record on this job to see if there was a pattern.  Commissioner Guinnane asked where Mr. Tom was with that project.  Mr. Tom said that he did not know that he had that assignment and asked if the Commission instructed him to do that.  Commissioner Guinnane said that yes, the Commission did.  Commissioner Guinnane said that this would clear up any problem with the actual detail to see if this is an isolated incident or is it twenty jobs with the same detail.

Deputy Director William Wong of Permit Services said that this task had been assigned by the Director to Assistant Director Amy Lee who is working with MIS to search those problems so it would take a little bit of time.  Vice-President Hood said that she would like to go back about two years. Commissioner Guinnane said that twelve months would be sufficient and then if there is a pattern the Department could go back further. 

Commissioner Guinnane said that there was a case that did not come in front of the Commission, but there was a ruling on a building on 27^th Avenue as an unlawful demolition and said that he wanted to look at that foundation detail because he believed that it was the same detail on that property.  Mr. Wong asked for the address.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he believed it was on the 600 block, maybe 642 – 27^th Avenue.  Mr. Hutchison said that he would get that information.  Mr. Wong said that with respect to the foundation problem he knew that Mr. Tom has called a meeting with all the Engineers in the Department to point out that these are problems and to ask them to check into them more carefully.  Mr. Wong said that the Engineers should be using common sense on these projects where someone is coming in with a small existing building like this and then stacking two or three stories on top to make sure that these are going to calc out.  Vice-President Hood said that is such a common thing in this City and such a common structural engineering problem and said that she just couldn’t understand why it was a problem because it is not like this is unusual.  Vice-President Hood said that she would like to know when the Department borrows people from other divisions such as Technical Services how they are evaluated before they are assigned to Plan Checking.  Vice-President Hood stated that even if they are qualified Engineers it didn’t seem to her that they should be turned loose doing tasks that they never had any experience with.  Mr. Wong said that he took full responsibility for that because there was a time in Plan Check where there was a large backlog and the Department was looking for as much help as possible.  Mr. Wong said that this particular Engineer was pulled away from the Technical Services Division and he was put in there and possibly assigned him projects that were too big for him at that time.  Vice-President Hood said that was the very condition where there ought to be quality control.  Mr. Wong said that was a very good suggestion, but with the existing quality control the Department only does 10% random check and this project was not within that 10%. 

Commissioner Guinnane said that he had a real hard time buying off that this is an isolated incident.  Commissioner Guinnane asked how the Department determined the soundness of an old foundation and asked if there was a cylinder test done or is an x-ray taken or how is it determined if there is no rebar in it.  Mr. Wong said that the Department could put those new controls in place, but the way it is done right now is that the Department reviews and approves a plan based on the information provided by the Engineer.  Mr. Wong said that a lot of times these plans come in and they look good on paper and the calculations might even calc out, but when the Inspector goes out to the field it is a whole different matter.  Mr. Wong said that he thought this was the situation in this case that it may look good on paper and the project sponsor is saying that the existing foundation is being kept and they are showing the rebar that is there.  Mr. Wong said that when the Inspector goes out there they are working on it and the thing crumbles so there is a whole new problem there.  Commissioner Guinnane asked Mr. Wong how he knew there was rebar in the existing foundation and does the project sponsor come along and give an x-ray of that foundation.  Mr. Wong said that they don’t, again the Department is relying on the registered professional to provide that information to DBI on paper.  Commissioner Guinnane asked if they are claiming that there is rebar in the old foundation.  Mr. Wong said that he has not looked at the plan, but from testimony that he has heard it was said that the rebar was shown. 

Vice-President Hood said that for clarification and for the public record she wanted to say that the BIC President has prepared some sketches showing the foundations in question, the detail that is the problem and the way it should have done correctly.  Vice-President Hood said that President Santos would give these sketches to the Secretary and ask that they be entered in the record so that it is clear to the public and for the record what the Commission is talking about.  Commissioner Guinnane said that the comment he had about the demolition analyst with the moving around of the actual footage of the interior walls and the exterior and asked Mr. Wong if he had looked at that.  Mr. Wong said that he had not and stated that he understood that there is a third permit that is pending right now that has the 95%.  Commissioner Guinnane said that there is a discrepancy of 300 square feet of wall area that has been moved from the exterior walls over into the interior walls on the final revision that has been put in taking away 94.52% of the house.  Commissioner Guinnane said that if Mr. Wong looked at that he would see a difference on that between the first two and the third one.  Mr. Wong said he would look at the tables. 

Vice-President Hood said that one of the things that this points at again is the impossibility in using percentages of being absolutely black and white clear of what is allowable and what’s not.  Vice-President Hood said that she did not know if it was ever going to be possible to get that clarified in the Code as it has been tried several times in the past, but it is never going to be really easily enforceable until that is done.  Mr. Wong said that the Commission had approved an interim procedure back in October of last year where the Department wants to do more notification to the public above and beyond the ones that are done by City Planning and 50% was used as a trigger point.  Mr. Wong said that this particular project went through that notification and it was showing that it was removing 55% at that time.  Mr. Wong said that with the new permit coming in at 95%, if the Department was to take it in and process it the Department would do the same 300’ radius notification again.   Mr. Wong said that the question remains whether City Planning and the Building Department going to approve something that is going to tear down 95% because that is still under the 100% demolition so technically anything under 100% is not a true demolition.  Commissioner Guinnane said that there is a real breakdown here because he was watching the Planning Commission and they have a big issue with the Building Department and how this stuff is approved.  Commissioner Guinnane said that Planning is blaming the Building Department for all of these problems and yet DBI is trying to put it over on Planning.  Mr. Guinnane stated that the Department should come up with some good guidelines so everybody is on the same page.  Mr. Guinnane said that this Commission needs to look at existing foundations to make sure that the Department either gets some kind of a cylinder test or some x-rays to show exactly what is inside the concrete walls to justify the numbers that the Engineers are putting forward.   President Santos said that ultimately that would be the responsibility of the Structural Engineer that is signing the drawings so the Structural Engineer should have the ability to do exploratory work and to do destructive testing and said that there are many methods that the Structural Engineering community can use that are proven methods and they could be submitted as part of the package.  President Santos stated that this should fall within the responsibilities of the Structural Engineer that is providing the drawings, as he did not think that DBI would have the time or the inclination to review all that.  Vice-President Hood said that the problem is that the Structural Engineer has misrepresented what’s there so what does the Department do when that happens so that should be picked up by the Inspector and then halted until a fix is found.  President Santos said that is what happened here as the project is stopped.  Vice-President Hood said that this was found by Commissioner Guinnane and not the Inspector.

President Santos said that going back to 4109 Irving Street, right now the project sponsor is waiting at a 61% demolition, so they are within the parameters of what the initial application was and they have not logged in or submitted the later application with the 95% demolition.  President Santos said that at this point the project sponsor is talking with City Planning as well so City Planning is going to be reviewing what must be preserved as far as the Planning guidelines and in terms of the structural aspects of it, if they do replace the foundation perhaps that would trigger additional percentages.  Commissioner Guinnane said that the foundation should count and also they should not be allowed to go forward because obviously if the foundation didn’t calc out then this permit should be suspended based on that information.  Commissioner Guinnane stated that there is no proof of any kind that the foundation meets the Code.  Mr. Wong said that the big question right now is that there is this permit that is pending and how is the Department going to treat it if it is less than 100% demolition should it be taken in as an alteration and process it that way; or should the Department just require a new building permit.  Commissioner Guinnane said that as far as he is concerned it should be a new building permit because there is no way that this is going to work under an alteration; the foundation is not going to work and the framing is not going to work.  President Santos said that a new building permit would then have to go back into a conventional soundness report and that would create an automatic DR that would have to go in front of City Planning.  President Santos stated that this could take some time.  Mr. Wong said that either way the Department was going to do the 300’ radius notification because the interim procedure that was put in place in October of last year was to treat these major alterations with respect to notification the same as a demolition.  Mr. Wong said that the only additional requirement from City Planning would be that they would need to provide a soundness report to show why this structure is unsound to allow for demolition and that would have to go before the Planning Commission.  Commissioner Guinnane said that there was no way that this building could be built the way it was approved.

Vice-President Hood said that foundations are critical in earthquake country and the problems that have been seen after devastating earthquakes had a lot to do with the connection between the foundations and the buildings. Vice-President Hood said that she would like to know in general how foundations are handled because many in the City were made with salt in the concrete and the concrete isn’t bonding with the rebar and they are not in good shape.  President Santos said that when he was a member of the Unlawful Demolition Committee with Commissioner Hood his suggestion was to except foundations from any type of computation in regards to percentages of removal and the reason why is because as a Structural Engineer he thought it was important to encourage people to upgrade their foundations.  President Santos said that he did not want this to be caught up in these percentages and everyone can talk about trims and cornices and all that, but people should be encouraged to do the proper thing structurally.  Vice-President Hood said that she would agree with not counting the foundations in the percentages.

Mr. Wong said that the October interim policy did not count the foundations or the interior walls; the Department went with the exterior walls because those were the elements that would affect the neighborhood.  Mr. Wong said that any of the elevated floors, which mean that someone would elevate something from 10’ to 12’, would affect the exterior so those were the elements the Department was looking at and not the foundation.  Mr. Wong said that if the BIC wants the foundations included the Department could come back to the Commission with the interim procedures.  Mr. Wong stated that there is a very small percentage of projects that have these problems and said that he is hearing from the Commission that the Department should impose additional requirements such as asking for cylinder tests and asking for concrete compression.  Mr. Wong said that this might create a problem, such as more expense for the project and determining which projects would require the stricter rules.  Mr. Wong asked if it would be for all alteration projects.  Vice-President Hood said that it would be where someone is going from one story to three stories and with no change to the foundation.  Mr. Wong said that it would be for a vertical addition of one story or two stories.  Vice-President Hood said that was correct. President Santos said that burden would fall on the Structural Engineer. Vice-President Hood said that buildings that are over fifty years old should also trigger it. 

President Santos said that he wanted to conclude the discussion with 4109 Irving and said if the foundation upgrade is not counted and the Department encourages the project sponsor to upgrade the foundations and goes over another count of the percentages it is now at 61%.  President Santos asked what steps the project sponsor would need to take at this point if he wants the project to go forward.  Mr. Wong said that he would need to look at the plans and stated that Mr. Hutchinson had the pending revision to see if the Department would allow the project sponsor to go forward with the 61% then the Department could process it and notify everyone again.  Mr. Wong stated that he heard from Commissioner Guinnane earlier that he would prefer the Department to require a new building permit and a demolition permit.  Mr. Wong said he needed some direction.  Commissioner Guinnane said this is a brand new building, as the 94% does not include the foundation.  Commissioner Guinnane said that the numbers have changed because 300’ was removed from the interior over in looking at the first two details of the whole house and it has changed.  President Santos asked if they don’t file the last permit that they have attempted to file and they stay within the second permit what other requirements are needed.  Mr. Wong said that it is his understanding that the project sponsor cannot proceed unless another permit is filed to take care of it either with a new building and a demolition permit or with an alteration permit subjected to the 300’ notification.  President Santos said that either way the Department is requiring the project sponsor to file a new permit and it is not up to the project sponsor at this point to make an analysis as to what would be simpler.  Mr. Wong stated that this was his understanding because the work has been stopped.

Mr. Hutchinson said that it was his understanding that the Director visited the site and perhaps he could have some comments later this morning, but the Department’s concern at this point is that much of what is standing has to be removed, hence that revision that was going to show that 95% of the building would be demolished.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that even though a good portion of that stands on site today and is compliant and could probably go forward as an alteration as it stands today; what he is hearing is that the majority of what is standing today is deficient and this gets back to the issue of whether it is a new building and a demolition.  Mr. Hutchinson said that part of the problem with the procedure that everyone worked on so hard to get implemented is that the Director told Mr. Hutchinson that the Deputy City Attorney called the Department and said that the Department had no right to increase the notification parameters and such it can’t be done because that is a change to the Code.  Mr. Hutchinson said that the Department apparently needs to go back even to use this interim policy and seek a Code change to do the 300’ notification.  Mr. Hutchinson said that this project sponsor had done the notification before the Deputy City Attorney ruled, but the Department cannot allow them to do it again.  Vice-President Hood said that it would be helpful for the project sponsor if the big notification were done at the beginning saying that it was going to be demolished and then got it done.  Mr. Hutchinson said that he thought that the soundness report on this one would be a slam-dunk and if the Planning Commissioners come out and look at it they will find that it clearly can’t be saved unlike some buildings that might be questionable.  President Santos said that there was no such thing as a slam-dunk soundness report.  President Santos said that the Department did not want to encourage the project sponsor to preserve something that is not structurally adequate.  Vice-President Hood said that there is a feeling among some of the project sponsors that if a project is done serially they can get by with more things and something needs to be done to make that no longer a viable attitude. 

Commissioner Guinnane asked to move on to 1288 – 30^th Avenue.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that this is one of the targeted projects that he had indicated to staff that the Department does not want any permits to proceed unless it comes by the Deputy Director’s desk.  Mr. Hutchinson said that this was a two-story building, living over garage, built in 1917, type 5, wood frame and the project sponsors came in on December 12, 2003 and received an over the counter permit to add some rooms.  Mr. Hutchinson said that foundation repair was also going to happen and the project was valued at $30,000.  Mr. Hutchinson said that on January 5, 2004 a second permit application was submitted for a two-story rear addition and that was filed and is still in the Department of City Planning today.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that on February 11, 2004 DBI received an e-mail providing a complaint to the Department saying that the work was exceeding what was allowed under the December 12, 2003 over the counter permit and this began a flurry of activity with Senior Inspector Ed Sweeney who took the lead on this and did a very good job.  Mr. Hutchinson said that there were indications on February 11^th, 12^th, 16^th, 23^rd, 23^rd again, 24^th, 26th and 27^th that Inspector Sweeney was out there and it was found that work was ongoing; Senior Inspector Sweeney tried to stop it, Commissioner Guinnane gave assistance and even went to the Police Department because the project sponsor refused to stop.  Mr. Hutchinson said that the Department and Commissioner Guinnane were going to the City Attorney’s Office to see about getting a temporary restraining order so the Commission was a great help and the Department appreciated it. Mr. Hutchinson said that during this time period Senior Inspector Sweeney issued a number of Notices of Violations and monitored the site very closely.  Mr. Hutchinson said that on February 27^th the Structural Engineer came in and brought in some plans to deal with some “as built” conditions because when they were doing the construction there was a possibility that they were undermining adjacent structures and the Department was greatly concerned about that.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that Inspector Sweeney looked at the plans and the project sponsor was allowed to go back and do some repairs to assure that the adjoining structures would not fail.  Mr. Hutchinson said that on March 8^th Inspector Sweeney went to the site again and the job was stopped, on the 18^th the case was forwarded to the Code Enforcement Division to prosecute and go ahead and bring it to a Director’s Hearing, an Order of Abatement if they don’t comply, and then the Litigation Committee.  Mr. Hutchinson said that on April 1^st it looked like Inspector Sweeney was out there and the job still remains inactive.  Mr. Hutchinson said that it was his understanding that this is not a question of unlawful demolition; this is a question of the work that was done improperly and exceeded what was approved.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that the Department is attempting to get the project sponsor to comply by getting the proper documents and is watching this project very closely. 

Commissioner Guinnane said that there is a big pattern here and said that when he was out building if an Inspector came to his job and told him to shut down; he would shut down and leave.  Commissioner Guinnane said that these Contractors come back and keep on working.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he thought that the best remedy would be that if these Contractors go beyond the scope of the actual permit or they are doing fraudulent activity or they don’t adhere to building regulations and laws then the Department needs to make a referral of these individuals to the Litigation Committee and the Litigation Committee will look at these to decide whether or not to make a referral to the license board.  Commissioner Guinnane said that this might stop some of this problem.  Mr. Hutchinson said he thought this was an excellent idea.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that at one time the Department had an ongoing agreement with the Police Department that they would support DBI if it was found that there was work going on after a Stop Work Order was issued.  Mr. Hutchinson said that it was in the early nineties that the Department was having problems of this nature and now with the changes in command and the fact that DBI did not keep up those relationships with the Police that it then became problematic going to the Police and explaining to them that they have the authority to help DBI with this.  Mr. Hutchinson said that he needed to meet with the various Commanders particularly in the Sunset and Richmond districts to say that there will be times when DBI will ask the Police Department for support if work continues.  Commissioner Guinnane said that the Police Department was asking for something in the Code that would allow them to do that.  Mr. Hutchinson said that at one time those procedures were in place and the language does exist and stated that he needed to get together with the Seniors to go back and revisit that history and probably Chief Inspector Wing Lau and Mr. Hutchinson should meet with the Captains in those two areas.  Vice-President Hood said that the Department should get the support of the new Police Chief.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that he would look into this matter.

Mr. Joe O’Donoghue said that in the matter of order and procedure he wanted to say that there were three items calendared on this one item and stated that they should be scheduled separately so the public would have the opportunity to speak to each issue for three minutes.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that he understood that the Director did not want to place these matters on the calendar and said that he called in protest and wanted them.  Mr. O’Donoghue asked that the Secretary stop the clock because he was on a point of procedure.  Mr. O’Donoghue said he called to protest about the items not being calendared because there is a brushing over and a whitewashing of serious allegations.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this has happened before where the items were calendared together and now in talking about serial permitting it is now working in the inverse process, which denies the public a matter of three minutes per item and now nine minutes are reduced to three and three cases that are very serious reduced to one.  Mr. O’Donoghue said this is a whitewash and asked that it not happen again.

Mr. O’Donoghue said that he stated at the last hearing is that what is happening here is that good people who abide by the law, the majority of permit applicants, are now being punished and paying for the sins of the scofflaws.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that as the Department seeks solutions to this problem it is overlooking focusing on the scofflaws.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that the reality is that the Plan Check Division of DBI has hijacked the Planning Department and the fact is that the Planning Department does include foundations in order to merit whether or not a building is sound or unsound.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that meantime the Building Department is now saying that the foundation is excluded from that measure and the Plan Check Division has played games.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that he wanted to reveal for the first time that there have been two investigations ongoing, one on the quiet.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that he met with members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about a year and a half ago, who were very professional, and they had met with Administrators within the Department.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that they were told that at the proper time he would find, as a result of his own investigations, where the problem was.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that he has concluded his investigation and said that next week he would be turning over to the FBI evidence of a pattern, which he considers corruption within the Department and fortunately it is minutia.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that it involves the same people and this Commission is to be commended for starting its own investigation on another pattern of defacto demolitions.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that one involves what is a violation of the rules and another involves antics within the Department where a small group of people, very few, within the Department have been given unfavorable treatment, have violated the law and in fact may involve cash transactions and it will be for the FBI to check this matter out.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the reality is that is why the RBA asked for a Monitor to come in with subpoena powers because this Monitor coming in will not have those powers.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that he would be asking someone from the U.S. Attorney’s Office to send someone in with those powers so that people under indictment and under fear of prosecution would have to testify under oath stating what is reality.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that all of the cases need to be brought forward again and it is not just one, it is ten; fortunately it did not interfere with the processing of the Department or the productivity of the Department and this corruption needs to be wiped out.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the RBA had the evidence and would proceed on their own, even though there are only three people in the Department that were privy to this investigation that is now concluded. 

Vice-President Hood said that she did request at the last meeting that any addresses that the BIC were dealing with be addressed as separate items and said that she would like that to be done in the future.

The Commission decided to move on to item #6.

General discussion and possible action regarding DBI’s FY 2004/2005 budget. [Administration and Finance Manager Taras Madison]

Planning Department’s request for Supplemental Appropriation in the amount of $1.24M.
Update on affect of Mayor’s mandate to reduce vehicle fleet.
Update on affect of Mayor’s mandate to reduce cellular phones.

Ms. Madison said that she was going to give the Commission an update on the 2004/2005 budget and also information that pertains to the current year 2003/2004 budget.  Ms. Madison said that on February 20^th the BIC approved budget in the amount of $37M was submitted to the Mayor and Controller’s Office.  Ms. Madison said that it included some increases, the main ones being for salaries, equipment for vehicles and MIS equipment and materials and supplies.  Ms. Madison said that the Department projected about $30M in revenue so that means that some of the surplus and other funds will have to be used to make up the difference.  Ms. Madison said that she met with the Mayor’s Office to go over the basic submission and although DBI has been on a tight budget for the past three years and have been able to hold the budget except for some monies that were given to outside Departments.  Ms. Madison stated that the Department cannot continue to keep cutting because things have been happening particularly with vehicles, however, this fiscal year is the year that every other City department has been asked to cut so it is going to be quite difficult for DBI to get everything that the Department wants.  Ms. Madison said that the $37M budget does not include the revenue fund transfer to General Fund Departments because the BIC instructed DBI to take that out so if that approximately $3M was added back in the Department is up to over $40M in expenditures.  Ms. Madison stated that this only included the City Attorney’s cost at the current year budget, which is about $2.3M, and history has proven that this usually goes over budget; through December the Department has already expended over $1.5M so $3M will probably be spent with the City Attorney’s Office.

Commissioner Guinnane asked if the City Attorney’s Office would be so high next year because the two ongoing very expensive cases that the Department had, one of them has been resolved at a cost of over $1M and then there is one more left to go.  Commissioner Guinnane said that in looking at the revenue coming in he could not see why the Department would have to allocate over $2M.  Ms. Madison said that she had not received a request from the City Attorney’s Office on how much DBI will actually need for next year, so she left the $2.3M baseline.  Ms. Madison stated that she had not had any discussions with the City Attorney’s Office, but perhaps Mr. Harrington had spoken with them. 

Commissioner Guinnane asked where the Department was with actually getting the money transferred over from the City Attorney’s Office to DBI’s accounts.  Ms. Madison said that the Department has been getting the settlements, the fines and the penalties, however, the DBI is still not collecting the litigation costs and that has been for the past two or three fiscal years.  Ms. Madison said that through January or February there is approximately $474,000 that has not been transferred to DBI to cover the litigation costs.  Ms. Madison said that her assumption was that the City Attorney’s Office were anticipating that DBI would be overspending its work order and that money is being kept to make up the difference.  Commissioner Guinnane said that the Department is entitled to that money and said that he couldn’t figure out why it isn’t credited even though last year was an expensive year and that does not mean that there is going to be an expensive year going forward.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he would like to get somebody from the City Attorney’s Office to figure out what the problem is in getting that money because it seems to be an ongoing problem.

Commissioner Guinnane said that in looking at the Planning request last year DBI gave $3.7M and said that he was not very gung ho about it, but thought that it was a one time deal and now it looks like the City is going to come back every year looking for money and the Commission needs to be very vocal that this money is not going to be given.  Commissioner Guinnane stated that DBI needs cars and there are a lot of vacant positions to be filled so DBI is in no position to be handing over money to any of these departments this year.  Commissioner Guinnane said that Planning should look at their fee structure and raise the fees accordingly especially with the Discretionary Reviews (DRs).  Commissioner Guinnane said that in watching TV, Larry Badiner of Planning stated that Planning brings in $143 for a filing fee for a DR and the minimum cost to the Department is $2,500.  Commissioner Guinnane said that DBI and the Commission should be very adamant about no money leaving this Department this year because DBI does not have the money and if DBI runs short then what happens.

Ms. Madison said that she would submit a request to the City Attorney’s Office to see if someone could talk to the Department about next year’s projections and what is happening this current year with the litigation costs.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he has had people approach him about the transferring of these funds and last year there was $3.7M transferred out and there was no accountability to this Department.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he did not believe that the money actually went to those departments because if Planning’s General Fund budget was $20M and DBI gave them $2.5M, the General Fund just cut them back $2.5M and DBI made up the difference.  Commissioner Guinnane said that people have told him that if any money is transferred this year they are going to bring litigation and bring it to a head once and for all because it is totally illegal taking the money from DBI. 

Vice-President Hood said that the money that DBI collects is collected through fees and on those fees it indicates what amount of those fees are going to the Planning Department and the Building Department.  Vice-President Hood said that it seemed to her that if DBI is then giving a later transfer of some of the fees that were showing going to the Department of Building Inspection to another department then that is not being open and transparent with the public.  Vice-President Hood stated that the City Attorney made a ruling on this last year and when the issue came up none of the Commissioners wanted to transfer the money, as everyone thought that it was the wrong thing to do, and now the issue is again before the Commission. 

Vice-President Hood asked if Ms. Madison was telling the Commission that DBI has a $9M shortfall.  Ms. Madison said that she thought that the three other items would explain why it would not be $9M, first of all, because as part of the Mayor’s plan to reduce citywide expenditures are in vehicles.  Ms. Madison stated that she had included about $925,000 to replace vehicles that were ten years or older as this current fiscal year the Department had to submit a list to reduce vehicles by 15% so DBI is going from about 105 vehicles to 90.  Ms. Madison said that in addition to that she did not believe that the Department would get the 37 vehicles replaced, but if DBI got everything that it wanted there would be a $9M shortfall particularly if the revenue transfer were placed back in the budget. 

Ms. Madison said that item 3a is a supplemental appropriation which crosses two fiscal years because that supplemental appropriation is requested this fiscal year by the Mayor’s Office for the Planning Department.  Ms. Madison said that she was not sure if that $1.3M affects the current $3.5M.  Ms. Madison said that in the revenue transfer that was submitted to the Planning Department for this fiscal year the $3.5M that Commissioner Guinnane spoke about $2.5M went to the Planning Department and then about a week ago the Mayor’s Office introduced a supplemental appropriation for the Planning Department to provide another $1.3M from the Department of Building Inspection’s capital funds.  Vice-President Hood asked Ms. Madison how short she thought the Department is.  Ms. Madison said that she thought the Department was at least $5M short and possibly more.  Vice-President Hood asked what Ms. Madison would recommend to the Commission to cover the gap.  Ms. Madison stated that one of the things she thought the Department would have to do would be to lower the amount of vehicles that the Department wants to request because she did not believe that all of them would be approved.  Ms. Madison said that even though DBI’s budget is increasing the good thing about it is that most of it is for one-time costs, however the salaries are not one time costs as they are ongoing so there might be a need to look at some of those positions.  Ms. Madison said that the Mayor’s Office and the Budget Analyst’s Office would be looking at those positions so there are things that will probably be done. Ms. Madison stated that DBI does have about $3M in the surplus account and about $4M in capital and $6M in deferred, however, deferred has to be earned before it could be used.  Ms. Madison said that she thought the Department could get another $3M from the deferred account.  Ms. Madison said that even if the Department did everything that it wants to this current fiscal year, next fiscal year would be the problem because the surplus would be wiped out.  Ms. Madison said that revenues are looking better, but she did not see DBI approaching $37M or $38M a year to be totally self-supporting. Ms. Madison said that even during the hay day of 2000/2001 the most that was collected was $35M or $36M.  Ms. Madison said that a lot has not been done for the Department over the last three years because DBI has been cutting back a lot, but it is unlikely that the Department can make up for three years of low budgets in one fiscal year and that is what the Commission should look at.  Vice-President Hood said that if DBI doesn’t, then the monies would be given to other departments.  Ms. Madison stated that may or may not be the case.  Vice-President Hood said that this is what happened last year.   Ms. Madison said that there are no guarantees that the Department will get every thing that it wants and in all likelihood DBI will not get 37 new vehicles and all of the positions whether or not the BIC makes the cuts, but the cuts will be made for the Department.

Commissioner Guinnane asked Deputy Director Hutchinson what would happen if the Department cut back 15% of the cars how would the Inspectors do the inspections; would they go on the bus.  Deputy Director Hutchinson said that the Building Inspectors do an average of 12 inspections per day and the parking lot is now located ½ mile from the office so that has been difficult especially in bad weather to get the Inspectors back and forth.  Mr. Hutchinson said that if the Department was looking at cutting 15 cars with the Building Inspectors he has three new Inspectors coming in that were planned for some time and right away the Department will be reimbursing employees for use of their own vehicles, which is very costly.  Mr. Hutchinson said that the Building Inspector’s Union allows on top of the cost a $100 supplement, plus mileage and any tolls, driving to and from work costs and this could run $400 - $600 per month per employee.  Mr. Hutchinson said that the other option would be to take the downtown corridor and use public transit.  Vice-President Hood said that productivity would plummet.  Mr. Hutchinson said that the downtown interests have always said that they would pay more for better service and in reality he could not give fast passes to people out in the Sunset and it is going to be downtown that is going to suffer.  Vice-President Hood said that she thought that what needed to be presented to the Mayor is the fact that DBI deferred buying these automobiles for years and tightened its belt prior to the downturn to save for a rainy day and the rainy day is getting better.  Vice-President Hood stated that the BIC has carefully looked at the issue of the cars and the cost to maintain them would actually exceed the cost of buying a new car and this would be a cost saving feature to buy these new cars. 

Vice-President Hood said that she would like to look at saving money on the Cost of the City Attorney’s Office and said that the first year the Commission was started the cost was about $600,000 so in nine years the City Attorney’s Office costs have tripled and that seems to be significant.  Vice-President Hood said that the Department had spent a great deal of money on AAC cases, but recently the Department has been pursuing those cases aggressively and said that she hoped that the Department was recouping some of that money and would look to a reduction in what is being spent at the City Attorney’s Office because the backlog of Access Appeals complaints has been eliminated.  Vice-President Hood stated that she did not know where the backlog of the Housing Code violation’s backlog is and said that maybe the Litigation Committee could comment on that.  Commissioner Guinnane said that in fairness to the Litigation Committee initially the City Attorney’s Office budget was cut from $880,000 down to $448,000 at that point anything that was being spent was not being recovered.  Commissioner Guinnane said that to date looking at it versus the initial year the money now the Committee is trying to get $1.50 or $2.00 back for every dollar that is spent.  Commissioner Guinnane stated that unfortunately there have been two tough cases and both have been very expensive; both have gone over $1M and one will probably go over $2M.  Commissioner Guinnane said that the Department does not have cases such as these all the time.  President Santos said that the Committee is very close to settling those cases.  Vice-President Hood said that the BIC has to monitor the City Attorney’s Office fees to make sure that they don’t creep up again.  Commissioner Guinnane said that the Litigation Committee watches those fees very closely and review the billings very closely.  Secretary Aherne said as a point of interest when the Litigation Committee started there were over 90 cases on the docket and now that number has been reduced to 65 so some 25 cases have been eliminated in a short amount of time.

Ms. Madison said that on the vehicles DBI did let the Department of Administrative Services know that if DBI did not have enough vehicles for Inspectors the costs associated with employees using their own vehicles would be very expensive so DBI is waiting to hear back from the Department of Administrative Services.  Ms. Madison stated that DBI has reduced its fleet because in the past there were 120 vehicles and now the Department is down to 105 so at this point DBI is actually taking vehicles away from staff that does inspections.  Vice-President Hood asked if Ms. Madison could attach some sort of analysis that shows that after a certain year a particular type of vehicle has a record of requiring more maintenance and draw attention to the fact that the new vehicles would be the hybrid models so there would be a corresponding reduction in air pollution and in the use of gas.  Ms. Madison said that she did not attach that analysis on this request because this is a request to reduce the fleet and DBI was planning on getting new vehicles to replace 37 of the 105 existing vehicles.  Ms. Madison said that this would be done with hybrid vehicles or natural gas vehicles, but the purpose of this is to reduce the number of cars. Vice-President Hood said that the Department needs to make it known to the Mayor’s Office that the purchase of these vehicles lines up with many of the policies of the Mayor.  Ms. Madison said that the purpose of this is to reduce the fleet throughout the City and DBI is no exception, but DBI needs the cars for inspections.  Vice-President Hood stated that DBI would need the cars in an emergency.  Commissioner Fillon stated that these cars are critical for DBI to do its job.  Vice-President Hood said this is like trying to take cars away from the police who can’t do their jobs without the cars.

Commissioner Marks asked how the car-sharing program was working out.  Ms. Madison said that it is working out okay, but the difficulty DBI has in participating is that it is geared more toward departments that don’t have a need for every day use of a car.  Ms. Madison said that the program had been suspended for about six months, but has started up again and an Inspector will try to use a car if their vehicle is in the shop.  President Santos asked if Ms. Madison could move on to cellular phones.

Ms. Madison said that on cellular phones, along with another citywide initiative there is to be a 30% reduction with the cost by next fiscal year.  Ms. Madison said that the Department would be meeting with AT&T, the cellular phone provider, to see if they can come up with some suggestions for plans that would be better for DBI.  Ms. Madison said that the Department is looking at both pagers and cell phones and did not think that this would be difficult.  Ms. Madison said that the phones, like the cars, are an integral part of the Inspector’s jobs, but the goal is to have something in place by May.  Ms. Madison said that because this is citywide DTIS is actually coordinating this and have set up meetings for each department to work with the cellular phone providers.  Vice-President Hood said that she thought that these two issues should be brought to the attention of the Monitor, Rudy Nothenberg, because a cellular phone makes a person who has to be in the field twice as efficient.  Vice-President Hood said that if people are making personal calls on the phones then that has to be monitored and asked how many Inspectors had cellular phones.  Deputy Director Hutchinson said that it was about 40.  Vice-President Hood said that those are phones for people that have to be in the field.  Mr. Hutchinson said that a Senior Electrical Inspector even on his way home in the City would be scheduling calls and doing business on his commute home so that is very efficient.  President Fillon said that these two issues are very tied together.  Ms. Madison said that personal use was addressed and employees pay for any personal calls.

Secretary Aherne said that she wanted to let the Commission know before moving on to the next item that the Planning Commission was going to send a representative to the next meeting to explain how the $2.3M was spent last year.  Vice-President Hood said that perhaps that the Planning Department could be put off for another meeting because of the item with Mr. Nothenberg.  Secretary Aherne stated that she would contact the Planning Department.

Mr. Joe O’Donoghue said that what is forgotten in this whole dialogue is that DBI is one of the few Departments that does not get one nickel of subsidy from the General Fund, nor from grants.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that this was purposely set up at the instigation of the Residential Builders years ago and the reason was that the Department would be 100% dependent on fees and knowing the vagaries of upturns and downturns in the economy that the RBA wanted to immunize this Department from the vagaries of the downturns.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this Department is 100% free of the General Fund and dependent on fee money as the basis of sustaining this Department; therefore, DBI would not have applied to it the rules and regulations and the cutbacks and the unemployment that was going to hit other departments.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that this was the simple process by which this Department was founded so all Management has to do when meeting with the Mayor is to point out that the shortfall of $350M has got nothing to do with this Department because this Department depends on its revenue from the fees.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that since DBI is not dependent on the General Fund for resources or revenue; therefore the cutbacks that are being brought across the whole board to other departments such as reduction in the cars and cellular phones do not apply to this Department.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this industry from remodeling to new building to new homes and other construction methods wanted to be insured that there would be service at all times and were willing to pay for that service.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this service is now being interfered with because it seems to be lost in the paradigm what the basis of this Department is all about and it is ironic that no unions are present today, and there are three of them representing employees; they have been missing in action for years when it comes to matters like this.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the unions should be at the BIC, not he, because he is not paid to appear before this Commission and stated that he represents the builders pro bono and does not get a nickel of salary.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that he was a neighborhood activist on behalf of this industry and these unions should be present today spouting off what he is talking about because the employees have been ensured of no layoffs, but where are the unions today.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that with these kinds of things implemented there will be City employees in DBI that will be subject to layoffs and the union should be standing at the Commission today, not he.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that the Building Trades Council that supported the Mayor should be present advocating this and they are missing in action.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that it is again a paradox of what is happening in this City that we lose sight of the forest and don’t see the trees because we are so close to that forest.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this is what should be presented to the Mayor and said that he thought the Mayor would listen because he is a businessperson.

Vice-President Hood asked if the Commission could write a letter to the Mayor regarding these two items signed by President Santos that would particularly bring out why these two issues should not apply to DBI.  President Santos said that he would prepare a letter. Vice-President Hood said that the letter should go directly to the Mayor with a copy to Mr. Nothenberg.

Discussion and possible action to adopt DBI’s Strategic Plan. [Director Frank Chiu]                     

Deputy Director Jim Hutchinson stated that both he and Deputy Director William Wong worked on their portions in conjunction with Assistant Director Amy Lee, Special Assistant to the Director Ken Harrington and Director Chiu.  Mr. Hutchinson said that this was now up for adoption and said that he and Mr. Wong could speak to the portions that affect their programs.  Mr. Hutchinson asked if the Commission had any questions as they had time to review the plan.

Commissioner Guinnane said that personally he did not think that the Commission should move forward because at the last Commission meeting he talked to Director Chiu to give the Commission an update about the Long Beach trip regarding the system that was installed down there and now that Mr. Nothenberg is coming on board perhaps he should take a look at this plan.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he wanted a presentation on this system. 

Commissioner Marks said that she had a few other issues and stated that Commissioner Guinnane and herself along with Mr. Hutchinson and Ken Harrington went out on a site visit on Lake Street that was an unfortunate situation, but this homeowner found that over a period of fourteen years she had problems with construction going on at both sides of her property and at the back of her house where she was absolutely abused.  Vice-President Hood asked if this was abuse by the Department.  Commissioner Marks said that on the one hand after the earthquake there was a brick building and when some of the bricks came down the owner was required to place a firewall, but it was not properly done and when this citizen tried to call the Department to ask them to look and see if the firewall had to be corrected she was told that the case was closed and there was no way of opening it.  Commissioner Marks said that there was a subsequent tragedy in the neighborhood where a woman fell off the deck and it was reopened after that, but Mr. Hutchinson reports that she was not given correct information.  Commissioner Marks said that on the back lot the homeowner doing construction knocked down this woman’s fence, cut down her trees, went on to her property and again she called the police and the police refused to do anything, but these are examples where homeowners have legitimate rights even if there is no construction going on in their homes if they don’t know about it.  Commissioner Marks said she thought it was the responsibility of the Department to put in writing what these people’s rights are.  Mr. Hutchinson said that this was an excellent meeting about something that happened years ago and said that he wanted to commend the Commission for going out because Commissioner Marks and Commissioner Guinnane went out on this and spent 2 ½ hours at the property.  Mr. Hutchinson said that Commissioner Guinnane was up on a three story roof three or four times along with Ken Harrington and those sorts of things are important and as Commissioner Marks pointed out part of the discussion with this homeowner was that she felt that she almost needed a war chest to try and protect her rights and that the City was failing her.  Mr. Hutchinson said that the thinking was that the Department could go ahead and prepare some sort of a handout that would discuss various scenarios and the rights of a neighbor when a project is being built next to them.  Mr. Hutchinson said that there were other things that came out of that meeting that could be incorporated into the strategic plan and said he would be happy to do so.  Vice-President Hood said that was a fantastic idea and said that it could go out with the notice to adjacent property owners regardless of the radius of notice.  Vice-President Hood asked for a draft to be presented to the Commission for review.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that he would be going back to review this file.   Vice-President Hood asked if when Mr. Hutchinson went back to review this file if he could check to see if this involves the persons who are in the same web of malfeasance that is being seen on these other projects.  Commissioner Guinnane said that this owner identified the contact that she had with the Department and actually identified the individual who was very, very unproductive with her and the Inspector’s name was Rafael Torres-Gil.  Commissioner Guinnane stated that this owner had numerous phone calls with Mr. Torres-Gil and he told her that the file was closed, the job was signed off and the Department was going to do absolutely nothing to help her.  Commissioner Guinnane said that the owner did put out that name on Friday.  Vice-President Hood said that she has had people call her about the same individual many times with complaints and said that she knew that the Commission could not deal with an individual in this forum, but said that she would like to have a Closed Session meeting, not about this individual, but about repetitive behavior by members of the Department just a general topic and what could be done.  President Santos asked if Commissioner Guinnane was suggesting that the Commission not move forward on this item.

Commissioner Marks said that she had another question and asked why the performance measures were less than what the Department achieved.  Commissioner Marks gave the example of reviewing and approving at least 80% of residential building permits over the counter and historically the Department has done over 90% and stated that each of the performance measures were under what has usually occurred.  Commissioner Marks asked what the thinking was behind this.  Mr. Hutchinson said that he was not quite sure and said that he would be happy to go back and check on that. 

Commissioner Guinnane said that at the last meeting he had asked Director Chiu to bring forward some information on the Long Beach visit because he talked about the system that was in place being so elaborate and Ms. Lee spoke on it saying that Long Beach was about two years ahead of San Francisco.  Commissioner Guinnane said that from what has been told to him, DBI could be in the Stone Age regarding its systems so he would like to get a proper view of all of this before moving forward and spending any more money.  Vice-President Hood said that she faxed a copy of an article in the Wall Street Journal from last week regarding radio transmitters in barcodes so if the drawings walk across the street or take other paths that are dubious then it is known where the plans are located because little messages are sent to the computers.  Vice-President Hood said that cost was about $.25 per drawing so there are a number of companies that provide this. 

Mr. Joe O’Donoghue of the Residential Builders Association said that once again when this Building Inspection Commission was created it was created for the very purpose which has now happened with that person on Lake Street who has obviously been abused because prior to the creation of this Commission an employee had no right of redress against a Superior other than through the grievance procedure.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that a Contractor had no right of grievance against an Inspector unless it was done through the bureaucracy and an Inspector had no right of grievance against an abusive Contractor.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this Commission was created so that it permitted and gave the public a forum that if there were abuses occurring out in the public then the public had the means to redress it here at the Commission.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that by going on public television he believed that the BIC will now be able to address the public because Channel 26 is one of the most watched channels in the City so the public very rapidly will in fact be now educated as to their rights.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that when a remodeling job is being done and if the public is not satisfied with the response they get at the counter or over the phone then that person could come before this Commission and state their grievances.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this was one of the great features of this creation of this Department, that at the time historically 70,000 signatures were collected in order to get this issue qualified for the ballot.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that the 70,000 signatures were required because this was a Charter Amendment, not the required 10% that normally is 15,000 and at the time the 70,000 were gotten to qualify the issue for the ballot all these questions and all these issues were debated out in the public.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that since this is an educational process at the time under the incoming Monitor there were several employees who were falsely accused of nefarious dealings who were suspended from work including the Director where house visits were made from the City Attorney’s Office and not one of them were found guilty.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this all came about as a result of scurrilous and lying headlines from the Chronicle and there was no basis in fact for the allegations that were made so that was what propelled and propounded this advocacy on the part of the Residential Builders to create an independent body which has resulted in a great deal of success and productivity and service to the public.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the public today when they come in to get a permit don’t have to wait the three or four months and if they are waiting it is because of a tie up in Planning and not because of a problem at the counter of DBI itself.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that there are always improvements to be made, but they shall be made though the good work of this Commission.

Vice-President Hood stated that a Ms. Crystal Lei had asked to speak before the Commission with her lawyer and asked that Ms. Lei write a letter to the Commission first so that the Commissioners could have some understanding of the issues before the meeting.

President Santos asked Deputy Director Hutchinson about returning to Item #3. Mr. Hutchinson said that Zan Turner was present to speak about Item # 3c.

Director’s Reports. [Director Frank Chiu]

President Santos asked Deputy Director Hutchinson about returning to Item #3. Mr. Hutchinson said that Zan Turner was present to speak about Item # 3c.

Update on proposed Administrative Bulletin – DRAFT #1920 titled Mitigation of Asbestos Hazards during Alteration or Demolition.

Ms. Zan Turner, Building Inspector, said that the Commission had already received the Administrative Bulletin regarding asbestos and stated that she had been working very closely with David Mazzolo from the Department of Public Health who was present to answer any questions.  Ms. Turner said that the departments have worked very closely not to take the approach that it is not “my” department which happens a lot with City departments by coordinating with the Department of Public Health including information and running this through the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, CAL OSHA, the EPA and anybody else who might be involved with a person who might have any asbestos related construction.  Ms. Turner said that in setting this up and going through the Code provisions that require apartment owners to post notice when they are doing asbestos related construction that an affidavit was being required, but there was no format for that so that has been developed and offered in a pamphlet so there is a standard format. Ms. Turner said that the bulletin had been reviewed by the Code Advisory Committee favorably and also been put out the different agencies as well including the Fire Department for additional comment. 

Vice-President Hood asked if once this is approved and adopted would it mean that when somebody is doing a remodeling permit that they would receive this notice and told that they have to post it on their site.  Ms. Turner said that was correct if it is a residential apartment and is required. Ms. Turner said that every permit would have this warning notice listed to alert the project sponsor that if there may be asbestos related in that project that it should be checked out.  Vice-President Hood asked if when the Inspector goes out and there are other people living in the building if this notice is not posted, would the Inspector cite them.  Ms. Turner said that this is a Code provision so that would require a Notice of Violation or a correction notice.  Vice-President Hood said that this was like the lead abatement.  Vice-President Hood thanked Ms. Turner for a job well done.

Update on Permit Consultants’ Legislation (File No. 031876) from the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee.

Deputy Director Hutchinson said that Deputy Director Wong could speak to item #3a.  Director Frank Chiu was in attendance at this time. 

Deputy Director Wong said that Item #3a was regarding the legislation for Permit Consultants and said that the name had been changed from Permit Expediters to Permit Consultants.  Mr. Wong stated that he and Director Chiu attended a meeting at the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee on Wednesday, March 24^th where a couple of revisions were made so this version is ready to be finalized.  Mr. Wong said that one of the things that DBI has recommended to the Committee was on page three and that was to better clarify the Architect and Engineer of Record so DBI asked the Committee to put in language that would include who the Architect or Engineer of Record would be because they are the persons that prepare and sign the plans.  Mr. Wong said that the Department also asked language to be added to say who the person is who submits the application to the City so that this information is clear.  Mr. Wong said that there is some concerns about cost to implement this legislation from the Ethics Commission, but that is a separate issue for the Ethics Commission.  Mr. Wong said that the next meeting would be held on April 21^st and at that time he thought that the Rules Committee would be making a recommendation to the full Board for adoption on this.  Mr. Wong said that he would recommend to the BIC that if they had any comments on this version to let the Department have them and it could be taken to the Committee or the Commissioners could write to the Committee themselves.  Director Chiu said that the Committee was ready to approve or adopt this except that there was a fee structure change.  Director Chiu said that originally the initial registration fee was $100 per Permit Consultant and that fee was increased to $300 so as a result the City Attorney advised that a ten-day notice would be required and this was the only reason that this was postponed.  Vice-President Hood asked if the Architect and Engineer of Record was removed from this legislation.  Mr. Wong said that was correct, but the Department wanted to be more specific because they are the ones who actually prepare the plans and submit them to the City for permits.  Vice-President Hood said that she believed that the previous version just blurred the edges of everything and it was where a person was hired to represent another project rather than one that they designed that was the issue.  President Santos said that in terms of exempting the Structural Engineer or the Architect on the project as being the person responsible for preparing the drawings and asked if that would include an individual that would work for that Structural Engineer or Architect.  Director Chiu said that was correct.

Commissioner Fillon asked if Attorney’s still receive a blanket exemption.  Vice-President Hood said that Attorney’s always receive a blanket exemption on everything.  Mr. Wong read from the legislation and stated that “the permit applicants lawyer, if the lawyer provides only legal services” so they would be exempt.  Director Chiu said it is not totally blanket exemption.  Mr. Wong said that if an Attorney is advising how to get a permit through faster and if they get paid for it they are not exempt and that fee is $1,000 annually.  Director Chiu read from the legislation “the permit applicant’s lawyer, if the lawyer provides only legal services”.  Mr. Wong said that there was much discussion about the cost and it was only estimated that there were only 20 Permit Consultants, but with this ruling there will be a lot more than that.  Mr. Wong stated that at the time of registration and re-registration each Permit Consultant shall pay a fee of $100 per client and this would bring in more revenue. 

Vice-President Hood asked if a registered Permit Consultant also does work that is not related to being a Permit Consultant, say someone who was both an Engineer and a Permit Consultant, could they wear one hat at one time and another hat at another time or are they always then a Permit Consultant.  Mr. Wong said that the person would have to disclose that information if they did any permit consulting.  Director Chiu said that in the example Vice-President Hood asked about the Permit Consultant would have to register, but would not have to pay the client’s fee for $50.00 so there could be a dual role. 

Mr. Joe O’Donoghue of the Residential Builders said that he found it ironic that what started out as legislation to stop the quote the Chronicle “the corruption of Permit Expediters” has now turned into Permit Consultants.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that what actually happened in the hearings was that it was found that the allegations of the Chronicle were without any foundation whatsoever.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that in fact the charges were specious and some of those charges came from the Mayor’s Office when it singled out Walter Wong and to listen to the Chronicle and read their articles one would have imagined that Walter Wong was the only Permit Expediter in San Francisco.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that when the true story began to unfold low and behold it was found out that it wasn’t just Walter Wong who is doing permit expediting, but in fact there were twenty others and the beneficiaries of the expediting were the corporations and big buildings downtown from BOMA and their clients.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that the supporters of Mayor Newsom, in fact, were the benefactors of the Permit Expediters so now there is the great paradox once again which the Chronicle chooses to ignore and probably now the Independent and the Examiner being that they are the lackeys of the Chamber of Commerce might take up their arguments some more and there will be more specious lies.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the joke about it was the end result of this legislation was that it is now going to cost the industry more money from an article that had no substance.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that he wanted to point out that there was an investigation that was never revealed by the Chronicle and said that he would not expect them to admit to their sins was that one of the ones that got special treatment through an Expediter was in fact the Chronicle building itself including another one who got special treatment was Mr. Bronstein, the Editor in the Chronicle, who was probably editorializing on the wrongs of Walter Wong.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this was found out through these hearings and of course, this was all covered up so now the Chronicle claims that there are no Expediters only Consultants, but the reality was in looking at the substance behind these allegations, the fact is that 98% of all permits were expedited and processed by DBI within 30 days.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated at a meeting last week before the Mission Merchant’s Association Mayor Newsom went off again on a tirade against this Department and stated that there was going to be an investigation and people were not going to be required to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their permits processed.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that obviously while it has been stated that Mayor Newsom is a vociferous reader he should in fact read Mr. O’Donoghue’s lips and should read the reports put out by this Department that the biggest Expediter and beneficiary of expediting are the 98% of the general public out there, the small people who want remodeling or the small little business that wants to go through the over the counter process because they are part of the 98% who get the efficiency of this Department.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that to break it down further it turns out to be 94% of all such permits are expedited within forty-eight hours and that is an incredible record.  Mr. O’Donoghue asked where is all the wrong that even if Mr. Bronstein was getting special treatment including his employer the Chronicle, the Builders weren’t complaining because no one was being disadvantaged, but again what it points out is that if you are on the wrong side of politics then you are going to be considered a criminal by the victor.

Update on Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval’s Town Hall Meeting held on Saturday, March 27, 2004 regarding Building Permit and Planning Code Issues.

Director Chiu stated that he attended this Town Hall meeting and said that as a result he walked away with a list of about sixteen illegal work and illegal unit activity.  Director Chiu said that generally speaking the neighborhood was more concerned about people building larger buildings so the interest was more on Planning.  Director Chiu said that he has already written a memo to DBI staff to follow up on the neighbor’s complaints.  Vice-President Hood asked if the Mayor was present at this meeting.  Director Chiu said that the Mayor was not present as this Town Hall Meeting was held by Supervisor Sandoval, but there is going to be another Town Hall Meeting held by the Mayor in Bay View/Hunter’s Point on April 24^th.  Director Chiu said that he planned to send an announcement to the Commissioners and urged some of the Commissioners to attend.  Vice-President Hood said that she was thinking about the comments that Mr. O’Donoghue just made and said that there was a perception among big businesses in this City that they have to hire an Expediter to get through DBI and said that she did not think that was true.  Vice-President Hood said that she thought that someone could get through just as fast without an Expediter, but said that she had the experience in her own office building when the owner was going through extensive remodeling to save the servers in the building that he spent $38,000 for one of the well known Permit Expediters.  Vice-President Hood stated that she told the owner that he didn’t need to do that and could just send his Architect down to the Department and that person could have gotten the permit quickly, but his perception, even though he was having trouble with his budget and ultimately went bankrupt, was that he had to spend that money.  Vice-President Hood said that the perception is out there and said that she had to discourage small clients from thinking that they have to hire a Permit Expediter so this might be one of the things that the Department needs to get a bulletin out on.  Vice-President Hood said that the people who sell those services tell people that they are going to experience terrible problems with DBI if they don’t hire them so they hire them out of terror.  Commissioner Marks asked if it was that these people think that they have to hire an Expediter or is with a larger project that they need someone to take charge of the project moving through.  Vice-President Hood said that any Architectural firm becomes very familiar with how to get a permit and that is part of the job so she tries to discourage people from doing it because it is an added expense.  Vice-President Hood stated that there is an entrenched industry going here and they are the ones, in addition to the Chronicle, who have put this word out. 

Commissioner Fillon said that he is also an Architect and has worked on projects where there was a heavy hitter on board, an Expediter, and has worked on small projects where there were clients who thought they needed and Expediter and didn’t need one.  Commissioner Fillon stated that he thought that there was a public perception out there that it is very difficult to get permits and that the process is very Byzantine and people hear a lot of horror stories.  Commissioner Fillon said that if a project is not very difficult the public does not need that kind of help, however, said that he thought that part of the problem is kind of the Department’s fault by not getting the word out, as Mr. O’Donoghue was saying, as to how efficient the Department has been in getting permits processed.  Commissioner Fillon said the public could get a lot of help by just showing up at the counter and said that the Department was slammed in the past by trying to advertise in the paper exactly what the Department can do, but unfortunately people said that it was propaganda.  Commissioner Fillon said that the Department should try harder to get the word out as to what is available and the processes at the counter because there are Expediters in the Department of Building Inspection that help people get their permits.  Vice-President Hood said that the process has gotten a lot better because of the Commission’s involvement in making changes to make the process transparent to anyone who needs it. 

Update on DBI Management attendance at a Mandatory Seminar given by the City Attorney on the disciplinary process and conducting an investigation.

Director Chiu said that Department invited the City Attorney’s Office to conduct a seminar in the disciplinary process and how to conduct an investigation that was mandatory for all Managers.  Director Chiu said that he thought that it was a good seminar.

President Santos said that the Commission would now move to Item #8.

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..

Letter dated March 24, 2004 to President Santos from property owner Ms. Crystal Lei of 337-28^th Avenue requesting this address be agendized for the April 19, 2004 meeting.
Copy of e-mail dated March 17, 2004 from Deputy Director William Wong to Mr. Gerald Adams of the San Francisco Chronicle regarding his inquiry about CAPSS.
Memorandum dated March 26, 2004 from Director Frank Chiu to Deputy Director Jim Hutchinson regarding “Shelter One” (“Reid’s Little House”).
The BOMA San Francisco ADVOCATE, Volume 10, Number 2 dated March 30, 2004.
Copy of e-mail dated March 29, 2004 from Assistant Director Amy Lee to Mayor Gavin Newsom regarding his inquiry about 101 – 17^th Avenue and an e-mail received by the Mayor’s office.  Return e-mail dated March 30, 2004 from Mayor Newsom thanking Ms. Lee for her response.

Commissioner Guinnane said that he would like to discuss Item #8b and asked what prompted the inquiry from the Chronicle to Deputy Director Wong about CAPSS and asked about the $82,000 still due to CAPSS. Commissioner Guinnane asked if the final draft had been done by CAPSS and had it been issued.  Deputy Director Wong said that he did not know what prompted the call, but this message was referred to him from the Assistant Director’s Office saying that this reporter wanted some information about CAPSS.  Mr. Wong said that on the second question about the report, the reporter asked why the report was dated last April and had not yet been released.  Mr. Wong stated that he told the reporter that this has always been a public information document, but is as of now it is still not a final document.  Mr. Wong said that he took that draft report as part of his review of those seven outstanding invoices and copied the Commission on the report and the comments that he had on the line items on the invoices.  Mr. Wong said that he had comments on the actual report itself because some of the items in the report were not, in his opinion, in conformance with the contract.  Mr. Wong said that he wrote a letter to ATC asking them to clarify the items on both the invoice items and the items that were not in conformance with the contract on the final report.  Mr. Wong said that he has not had a reply.  Commissioner Guinnane asked how much had been paid out so far on Phase II of the CAPSS.  Mr. Wong said that he did not have those numbers available because he was not prepared to discuss this item.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he believed it was about $428,000 and said that this could be scheduled for another time, as he would like to get back on the final billing and look at the final draft.  Commissioner Marks said that this was part of an attachment that was sent out about a month ago originally.  Commissioner Marks said that she felt that the project was halted abruptly and personally felt that the final phase would include development of mitigation measures that should be in place and said that would be critical for the completion of this report and the value of the work that has been done.  Commissioner Marks said that she read in the newspaper that Mayor Newsom said that earthquake safety was his priority for the City so she wanted him to abide by that.  Vice-President Hood said that she thought that those mitigation measures could be developed less expensively.  Commissioner Marks said that was fine, but said that this needed completion.  Commissioner Fillon said that he did not think that there was ever a question about the value of this work; it was the fact that it the price tag kept going up.  Commissioner Fillon said that he did not think that this was the right time to spend more money.  Commissioner Marks said that unfortunately if there is an earthquake it is not going to wait for better economic time and said that she did feel that when the project was abruptly terminated it was discussed about alternative ways to complete the project, but nothing ever happened.  Vice-President Hood suggested calendaring this for a future meeting.  Commissioner Guinnane asked if when Commissioner Marks was talking about the final phase if she was talking about Phase III or finishing up Phase II that was to be printed.  Commissioner Marks said that Phase III was to be the conclusion of the project.  Commissioner Guinnane said that Phase III was going to be another $1.4M.  Mr. Wong said that Phase III was another project and this item was just talking about Phase II.  Commissioner Guinnane said that Phase II just needed about $25,000 to get the printing done.  Mr. Wong said that unfortunately in his review of the project the printing was not part of the contract.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he knew that, but was trying to come up with a number to set aside a maximum amount of money to be spent and had come up with $25,000 for printing.  Commissioner Guinnane said that Phase III in the amount of $1.4M was cancelled because DBI did not have the money and are in worse shape now.  Vice-President Hood said that just because the money was too high doesn’t mean that the task can’t be done and said that this should be revisited.  Commissioner Fillon said that he absolutely thought that the Department could move forward and get this done at a much lower cost and said that he always had concerns that the previous part of the project when it was initiated was like a big cash cow and the Department was paying out all of this money to all of these super high-end consultants where the information could be found in the library.  Commissioner Fillon suggested doing a pamphlet to the public to inform them of ways to mitigate the problems found by this study and it would not cost a lot of money. 

President Santos asked Deputy Director Wong if the end of this project could be handled within the Department.  Mr. Wong said that he had made that suggestion to the Director and said that the Department could check with the Engineering Community to see if some of these experts would be willing to work pro bono.  Vice-President Hood said that she thought that it was much easier than that because the information if readily available in other forms and it is just a question of making this easier to get to the public in an easily read pamphlet.  Mr. Wong said that he would have to look into how much staff time this would take.  Mr. Wong asked for any comments from the Commissioners.

Mr. O’Donoghue said that in 1987 after the Mexican earthquake when Jake McGoldrick was shutting down the Richmond and Sunset districts through demolition ordinances and prohibitions, the RBA brought it up before it became very apropos the whole issue of liquefaction based on the whole experience of the Mexican earthquake.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the Builders talked about what would happen if this City went along with the no growth NIMBY policy of stopping new building and remodeling as actually happened in 1986 thorough 1989 throughout the Richmond and no one seemed to be concerned about the danger that the Builders were predicting would happen in this City.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that when the Loma Prieta earthquake did in fact occur the City was really lucky because has the sound waves come in a different direction the sound waves the devastation would have been really severe.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that at that time the Residential Builders, over the opposition of the no growth, NIMBY people in the City, go passed at 11 – 0 emergency legislation that allowed the rebuilding of the Marina in rapid time, unlike what happened subsequently in Oakland after the devastation of the fires in the hills.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that at that time the builders were tired of talking about the boarding and the shear walling and the public was very well educated about the issue of earthquake safety.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that subsequently when the live/work came up in the South of Market Sue Hestor and Debra Walker and the other nemesis of this Commission and against the industry also brought up about earthquake safety and liquefaction in the South of Market.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the fact of the matter was that when David Prowler, who is an associate of Rudy Nothenberg, came in and got a contract for $1.5M or $1.6M to put out a report in which many of them were in the Planning Department and the Army Core of Engineers, the industry was inundated from Architects about how seismic safety should be resolved.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the RBA objected strenuously about the giving away of $1.5M to a bunch of consultants out there of fee money for consultants putting out a document that everyone was pretty much informed about.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that it is a simple issue to regurgitate all the information by going up to Planning and put out all the recommendations from ’86, ’87, ’88, ’89 and through the ‘90’s and put it on the internet to save $1.5M.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that if the Chronicle now decides to make this an issue, great, let them make it an issue because all of their issues turn out to be none issues.

Adjournment.

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

RESOLUTION NO. BIC018-004

The meeting was adjourned at 12:10 p.m.