2.

Election of BIC President and Vice-President

 

Item 2 was continued as Commissioner Murphy was expected at the meeting.

3.

Presidents Announcements

President Walker thanked DBI staff and in particular interim team, Acting Director Amy Lee, Deputy Director Wing Lau and Acting Deputy Director Carla Johnson for an amazing year and a lot of hard work. 

 

President Walker stated that she appreciated the opportunity to serve as President.  President Walker said that later in the meeting the Commission would be working on reappointing people to the various subcommittees under the jurisdiction of the BIC.  President Walker stated that the Commission would be putting forward an initiative to gather a team to look at tall building issues at a future meeting.  President Walker stated that she wanted to let the public know that the Commission is really focusing on the issue of tall buildings.

 

Commissioner Sattary said that he was working with the Fire Marshal, Planning Department, the Structural Engineer’s Association of Northern California (SEONC) and various other City agencies on drafting a new Administrative Bulleting to address some of the issues that need to be discussed.  

 

President Walker reported that the Commission was well on its way in the search for a permanent Director.

 

4.

Director’s Report.

a.    Status of MIS.

Acting Director Lee stated that the reports were for December and were similar to November because of the holidays.  Ms. Lee said that the backlog days had a significant reduction and said that DBI continues to make strides in reducing the permit review time.  Ms. Lee said that new positions for the Electrical Division were being included in next year’s budget.  Ms. Lee stated that there were four positions vacant in Housing and those would be posted this month.

 

     c. Financial Report.

Acting Director Lee reported that DBI’s revenues are not reaching the budget estimations.  Ms. Lee stated that one of the reasons is that DBI deferred abut $2M in permit fees for projects for Housing and Development and having affordable units.  Ms. Lee said that the Department would receive these fees when the projects are completed.  Ms. Lee said that the Department would be revisiting this policy of delaying these fees because of the impact on DBI’s revenues.  Ms. Lee said that the Department had hoped to have the Administrative Bulletin regarding tall buildings issued and said that there are four or five high rise projects that are currently waiting to be submitted so that was affecting the revenues as well.  Ms. Lee said that at this point, she did not feel comfortable with moving forward with the AB so the Department would not realize those revenues of $2-$3M.  Ms. Lee stated she thought the Department would be about $3M short by the end of the fiscal year in June. 

 

Acting Director Lee said that the Department was managing expenditures and said that she expected revenues to increase after the beginning of the year. 

 

Acting Director Lee spoke about training and how it affects turnaround time and said that in the coming year it was expected that all Inspectors and Engineers would be doing at least 10 days of training.  Ms. Lee stated that management was watching this very closely to try and balance the training with the workload.

Acting Director Lee stated that there would be an additional meeting on February 16^th regarding the SIA and said that the Department was continuing to work with the Ethics Commission.  Ms. Lee said that the Ethics Commission had just hired a training officer to work on the SIA’s and to be more responsive and serve DBI in terms of additional training. 

Mr. Henry Karnilowicz said that he appreciated getting a building inspection scheduled within 24 hours, but said that there is a three or four day backlog in plumbing. 

 

Mr. Karnilowicz said that he hoped the Ethics Commission would take a good look at the SIA and said that City employees should have the right to be able to work on their own properties and should be able to work outside the City if they need too.  Mr. Karnilowicz said that he did not see a problem with an employee having a job on the side as long as it did not conflict with their work.

 

5.

 

6.

Election of BIC President and Vice-President

 

Commissioner Grubb made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Romero that President Walker be reelected.  The motion carried unanimously

 

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 006-07

 

Commissioner Grubb made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Romero that Vice-President Lee be reelected.  The motion carried unanimously.

 

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 007-07

 

Mr. Henry Karnilowicz congratulated President Walker and Vice-President Lee on their reelections and thanked them for a marvelous job over the last few months.

 

President Walker said that she appreciated the Commission’s confidence.

 

Vice-President Lee said that he thought that it was good that the President had recognized each of the Commissioner’s strengths and put them in a position to help the Department.  Vice-President Lee said that the Commission was moving forward and that is a good thing.

 

Commissioner Romero said that he thought that this group of Commissioners had made staff and the public feel safe in coming before the BIC and said that things were not as contentious.

 

Acting Director Lee said that staff worked really hard this last year and a half with the support of this Commission.  Ms. Lee said that staff was not afraid to come before this Commission.  Ms. Lee thanked the Commission for its support.

 

6.   Discussion and possible action to select Commissioners to serve on the Litigation                   Committee.

 

President Walker said that the current members of the Litigation Committee were Vice-President Lee, Commissioner Romero and herself.  President Walker stated that Vice-President Lee had expressed a desire to serve on another subcommittee. President Walker suggested Commissioner Murphy for this subcommittee.  Vice-President Lee said that Commissioner Murphy had expressed a desire to serve on this subcommittee.

 

Commissioner Theriault made a motion, seconded by Vice-President Lee that the members of the Litigation Committee be President Walker, Commissioner Murphy and Commissioner Romero.  The motion carried unanimously.  

 

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 008-07

 

7.

Discussion and possible action to select Commissioners to serve on the BIC Committee to recruit and make recommendations to the BIC regarding appointment of  members to the various Committees and Commissions under the jurisdiction of the BIC (the Access Appeals Commission (AAC), Board of Examiners (BOE), Code Advisory Committee (CAC) and the Unreinforced Masonry Building Appeals Board (UMB).

 

President Walker said that she had spoken with Commissioners, Theriault, Lee and Grubb and they have agreed to serve on this subcommittee.  President Walker said that all but one of the appointments to the various subcommittees had expired and said that the Commission would be looking at these appointments with a new eye.

 

Commissioner Romero made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Sattary that Commissioners Theriault, Grubb and Vice-President Lee serve on this subcommittee.  The motion carried unanimously.

 

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 009-07

 

Commissioner Theriault said that he wanted to thank all those who have been serving on these committees for their service and to express the Commissions gratitude for their involvement.  Commissioner Theriault said that a letter would be sent to all those serving asking them to reapply.  Commissioner Theriault asked that all of the Commissioners try to do outreach to get as many candidates as possible to apply for these subcommittees. 

 

.    Status of Seismic Initiatives including Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety  (CAPSS).  [Manager Raymond Lui, Structural Safety & Emergency Management Division]

 

Ray Lui reported that the Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety (CAPSS) would be starting on February 15^th.  Mr. Lui stated that the soft-story wood frame program is moving a little slow, but is moving ahead.  Mr. Lui said that a city-wide survey of buildings was scheduled for February 24^th which will be conducted by volunteers from SEONC and students at local universities including Berkeley, Stanford and San Francisco State.  Mr. Lui said that he was hoping for a large number of volunteers to get the survey done quickly.  Mr. Lui explained that DBI does not know the magnitude of the soft-story issues until data is received telling how many buildings there are of the soft story variety. 

 

Mr. Lui said that another item that is under review by SEONC is Administrative Bulletin 83, the tall building bulletin.  Mr. Lui stated that SEONC has formed a task group to review the document.  Mr. Lui said that SEONC anticipates the review being finished by the end of February.  Mr. Lui said that once the Department comes up with a final draft the Code Advisory Committee will move forward with their review.  Mr. Lui stated that the Department is not allowing any tall buildings that were using alternate rational analysis to circumvent different portions of the Code; Code conforming buildings are allowed to be brought in front of the Department.  Mr. Lui said that all tall buildings would be subject to peer review.

 

Acting Director Amy Lee said that the Department had a very positive meeting with Office of Emergency Services (OES) Director Laura Phillips last week regarding DBI being able to access some available grants for studies or surveys.  Ms. Lee said that there might be an opportunity to get reimbursed or payment back from DBI studies not only with the CAPSS program, but with such things as the soft-story survey and the tall buildings initiatives. Ms. Lee stated that DBI is laying out the technical aspects of redirecting UMB bonds, but Ms. Phillips said that OES could help in how it should be introduced to the voters or submitted to the Supervisors or Mayor’s Office.

 

President Walker said that she had been working with the Mayor’s Office of Housing that is currently managing the UMB loans fund which was voted by the public to offer funding for doing the UMB renovations.  President Walker stated that since very little of the UMB funds had been used she was trying to get the money transferred to a program for soft story buildings to make them seismically safe. 

 

Vice-President Lee said that he had a couple of questions about the survey regarding soft-story buildings.  Vice-President Lee asked how the Department would determine whether those buildings have already undergone some sort of retrofit.  Mr. Lui said that the survey would give the City good data and then DBI would go back and find out when those buildings were built and if they had permits for retrofitting.  Mr. Lui said that not all buildings that are three stories or more than five units were going to be soft story buildings, but this was the criterion that was being studied.  Mr. Lui stated that right now someone could retrofit a building without meeting the full code level so that would be one of the major issues in terms of retrofitting.  Mr. Lui said that the focus of this study and the soft-story survey would be building safety. 

 

Mr. Lui said that once the wood frame program gets underway the Department would be addressing the non-ductile concrete issues.

 

Mr. Lui said that he attended the Pacific Earth Information Engineering Research Center tall building initiative that was a one day workshop with many famous engineers and architects discussing issues that the code does not address very well. 

 

Mr. Lui said that regarding the auto gas shut off valve there was a public meeting held a couple of weeks ago that was very well attended.  Mr. Lui stated that there were some good ideas discussed, but said that he thought the concept still needs more work. 

 

Mr. Henry Karnilowicz said that the Department should move quickly with the soft story survey as the clock is ticking.  Mr. Karnilowicz said that it was important to make all buildings accessible and said that he hoped that the funds for the soft story program would be easier to obtain than they were for the UMB program.

Discussion and possible action regarding DBI’s 2007 Cost Schedule of Building Valuation Data.  [David Leung, Civil Engineer]

Acting Director Amy Lee said that this item comes before the BIC every six months to approve any increase to cost valuation only; this does not mean that the fees are being increased.  Ms. Lee said that this was based on the nationwide Marshall Evaluation Service. 

 

Commissioner Theriault made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Grubb, that the 2007 Cost Schedule of Building Valuation Data be adopted.  The motion carried unanimously. 

  

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 010-07

 

CLOSED SESSION (ACTION ITEM)

        Public Employee Appointment – Director of the Department of Building Inspection.

      a.  Public Comment on all matters pertaining to the Closed Session.

 

There was no public comment.

 

b.  Possible action to convene a Closed Session.

Commissioner Theriault made a motion, seconded by Vice-President Lee that the Commission convene into Closed Session.  The motion carried unanimously.  Commissioner Romero left the meeting at this time and did not participate in the Closed Session.

 

c.  CLOSED SESSION:  Pursuant to Government Code Section 54957(b)(1) and the San Francisco Administrative Code Section 67.10(b).

 

The Commission went into Closed Session at 10:18 a.m.

 

d.  Reconvene in Open Session to vote on whether to disclose any or all discussions held in Closed Session (Administrative Code Section 67.10(b).

 

The Commission returned to Open Session at 10:40 a.m.

 

Commissioner Theriault made a motion, seconded by Vice-President Lee, that the Commission disclose a portion of what was discussed in Closed Session.  The motion carried unanimously.

 

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 011-07

 

President Walker announced that the Commission had unanimously voted and chosen a new director, but said that there were a few details left to be determined.  President Walker stated that the Commission would announce who the new Director would be as soon as possible

Review and approval of the minutes of the December 4, 2006 regular meeting.

 

Vice-President Lee made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Grubb, that the minutes be approved.  The motion carried unanimously.  Commissioner Sattary did not vote as he was not on the Commission on December 4, 2006.

 

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 012-07

Review and approval of the minutes of the December 18, 2006 regular meeting.

 

Vice-President Lee made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Theriault, that the minutes be approved.  The motion carried unanimously.  Commissioner Sattary did not vote as he was not on the Commission on December 18, 2006.

 

RESOLUTION NO. 013-07

 

Review and approval of the minutes of the January 2, 2007 special meeting.

 

Vice-President Lee made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Sattary, that the minutes be approved.  The motion carried unanimously.

 

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 014-07

 

Review and approval of the minutes of the January 8, 2007 special meeting.

 

Vice-President Lee made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Theriault, that the minutes be approved.  The motion carried unanimously.

 

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 015-07

 

Commissioner’s Questions and Matters.

 

 

President Walker reminded everyone that the Commission would hear the budget at a Special Meeting on February 12^th.  President Walker said that the Planning Commission was requesting a joint meeting with the BIC for the end of March or early April

 

Public Comment:  The BIC will take public comment on matters within the Commission’s jurisdiction that are not part of this agenda.

 

There was no public comment.

 

Adjournment.

 

Vice-President Lee made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Sattary, that the meeting be adjourned.  The motion carried unanimously.

 

RESOLUTION 016-07

 

The meeting was adjourned at 10:50 AM.

 

 

 

Respectfully Submitted,


______________________
Sonya Harris
Assistant Secretary

Edited by,


______________________
Ann Marie Aherne
Commission Secretary