Department of Building Inspection

Building Inspection Commission

BUILDING INSPECTION COMMISSION (BIC)

Department of Building Inspection (DBI)

Wednesday, April 23, 2003
City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 408

Special Meeting
Adopted June 4, 2003

MINUTES

The Special meeting of the Building Inspection Commission was called to order at 2:18 p.m. by President Fillon.

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

2. President's Announcements.

President Fillon had no announcements.

3. Report, discussion and possible action regarding the request by Supervisors Dufty, Peskin, and McGoldrick that the Controller prepare a Supplemental Appropriations Ordinance transferring $2.5M from the Department of Building Inspection to the Planning Department for items including, but not limited to, the implementation of the CEQA process for community-based planning initiatives such as conducting Environmental Impact Reports and for additional

Director Chiu said that Item #3 was to discuss a request by the Board of Supervisors because a couple of weeks ago the Board passed a resolution urging the Controller's Office and the City Attorney's Office to prepare a supplemental for the Department of City Planning transferring $2.5M out of DBI's funds to allocate for Planning to hire additional staff and do certain tasks during this fiscal year. Director Chiu stated that he wanted to clarify that this $2.5M request from the Board of Supervisors was not for the next fiscal year, but actually for the current fiscal year. Director Chiu said that as a result of this introduction at the Board of Supervisors, Controller Ed Harrington called for a meeting that he and Taras Madison attended last Friday to discuss, not the policy issue of whether or not the Board has the right to take the money away, but the workload in general and what DBI does versus what Planning does. Director Chiu said that another purpose of the meeting was to find out approximately what percentage of projects Planning should have reviewed, but did not review. Director Chiu said, as the Commission would recall, the Department of Building Inspection and City Planning, among other agencies, have an agreement as to what types of projects should be referred to those departments for review. Director Chiu said that anytime there is a change of use for a building there is a policy that this type of project would be referred to Planning and the applicant is paying a Planning fee in addition to the DBI's inspection's fees. Director Chiu said that this policy is in place anytime there is a horizontal or vertical addition or any outside change to the building structure, those types of projects need to be referred to Planning, but those fees are already collected by DBI and Planning. Director Chiu reported that what is being looked at are those projects that have not been referred to Planning, but now somehow Planning is trying to figure out that somehow those projects should potentially have been reviewed by Planning and the Board are trying to figure out how many projects would fall into that category. Director Chiu said that since the Board's perception is that DBI has so much money now the assumption is that Planning should have reviewed 80 - 90% of those permits, and maybe the entire DBI fee related to that percentage should have gone to Planning. Director Chiu said that he believes that this is the analogy that Planning and the Board of Supervisors is trying to make to find some way to tap into DBI's funds. Director Chiu said that currently the City Administrative Code is very clear as to how DBI funds should be used, for example the Plan Check and permit fees should all be retained in DBI because DBI has rendered those services. Director Chiu said that he believed that some of the Supervisors wanted the City Attorney to revisit that language to see if Planning could potentially take some of the money away under a new interpretation. Director Chiu said that he wanted to put it on record that the perception that DBI has so much money and a huge surplus is not because the fee that is being charged is too high, as years ago Director Chiu said he reported that San Francisco's permit fees are one of the lowest in the Bay Area. Director Chiu said that two and a half years ago the Commission should recall that it was under the direction of Commissioner Roy Guinnane that the Department needed to start looking at how the Department's money was being spent. Director Chiu stated that two and a half years ago under the direction of the Commission and the Department he took a very aggressive approach in looking at how the money was being spent and for the past few years the Department has spent a lot less than what was approved by the Board of Supervisors, the Commission and the Mayor. Director Chiu stated that the Department had not purchased a lot of vehicles even though the Department had the right to do so because the Department knew that the future was not going to be rosy for another four or five years. Director Chiu said that the Department wanted to maximize funds so there were not a lot of layoffs in DBI; two and a half years ago the Department put on a voluntary freeze to not fill a lot of the vacancies when the Department could have hired people, but didn't because DBI wanted to make sure that the positions that were backfilled were absolutely necessary. Director Chiu said that he would ask Amy Lee and Taras Madisonto talk in detail about the areas where the Department worked very hard to save as much as possible.

Director Chiu said that another big item where people think that DBI has a lot of money is the $7.4M for capital improvements, as the Commission would recall, the Department has not abandoned the project; however, because the economy is not looking rosy the Department sort of put the project on hold. Director Chiu said that even with this kind of economy the Executive Management at DBI is looking at ways to increase efficiency to make the permit intake on the ground floor much more accessible and wanted to use some of this money to do the ground floor remodeling. Director Chiu said that these are some of the things that DBI is still thinking of doing even though the capital improvement of the annex project at 1660 Mission Street was put on hold. Director Chiu stated that he did not want people to think that DBI's fees are so hefty that there is just so much money available to be spent left and right. Director Chiu asked for Assistant Director Amy Lee to come forward to help point out some of the major areas where DBI has actually eliminated some of the customer service, for example the weekend service that was previously provided on Saturdays from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. that got cut. Director Chiu reported that the Department had eliminated the express plan check for plan check where the customer enjoyed that type of service in the past, so those are some of the examples for the reason why the Department has some cushion for the next couple of years. Director Chiu said that if DBI had to move this $2.5 to Planning for this current fiscal year one of the problems the Department would have is that in the next year or two DBI would be in the similar position of other departments that are going to go bankrupt because there would not be enough money to run the Department.

Commissioner D'Anne said that she did not see the relevance of how DBI spends its money having anything to do with Planning asking for money from DBI. Commissioner D'Anne said she did not see the point of it where Planning comes off trying to get money from DBI whether there is a surplus or not; it shouldn't make any difference. Commissioner D'Anne asked if Planning had a right to take DBI's money. Director Chiu said that under the current City Charter and State law, particularly the City Charter, it is very clear as to how the plan check fee and the permit fee for Building Inspection should be spent. Director Chiu said that he had given a copy of the City Charter to all of the Commissioners and said that it says that the fees generated from these fees should be kept in DBI and should only be rendered for that kind of service. Director Chiu said that Commissioner D'Anne was right, but somehow some Supervisors think that they could have the City Attorney's Office revisit this language and might want to expand City Planning's role. Director Chiu said that he felt that it was not right to do this.

Commissioner Guinnane asked if the $2.5M is for the year 2003 or would it be ongoing every year. Director Chiu said in looking at the introduction form from the Board of Supervisors it is not clear as it only talks about the supplemental appropriation for this current year and DBI does not know what would happen next year. Director Chiu stated that this is a policy matter that, at some point, the Board of Supervisors would need to discuss, but said that since the Board of Supervisors requested this appropriation it would be necessary for the Commission to start debating about the policy. President Fillon said that this did not seem like just a one time thing, but could be in perpetuity. Director Chiu said that it could be, but right now it only addresses 2003. President Fillon said that it does not say that this is a one time only thing. Director Chiu said this correct.

Commissioner Guinnane said that the $3.6M surplus that is available for appropriations and the budget revenue for 2002-2003is about $27M, but the expenses are about $31M. Commissioner Guinnane said that the first quarter of the budget is gone and asked if the Department was on target for the actual projected revenues versus expenses because right there alone DBI is upside down by $4M and there is only $3.6M left in the surplus. Director Chiu said that was correct and was part of what he was concerned about. Director Chiu said that he would have Taras Madison, Manager of Finance and Administration respond to Commissioner Guinnane's question.

Ms. Madison said that actually the $3.6M does not include the $2.9M as the Department had already taken money from the surplus to balance the current fiscal year so there would be no additional money taken. Ms. Madison said that the reason Department is at $3.6M now is because in order to get DBI to meet where it needs to be for the current fiscal year, $2.6M of that money was used, so that wouldn't be a problem of taking money for this fiscal year to balance. Ms. Madison stated that DBI's revenues are on track and might in fact exceed the projected amount because of one CPB processing fee. Ms. Madison said that the revenues are on track and the Department is keeping expenditures down because once again although DBI has had a pretty low budget, the Department is still watching out for expenditures in order to keep them in line with the revenue. President Fillon asked if there were any other questions from the Commissioners.

President Fillon said that there was a lot of speakers present at the meeting from the public and asked that those public members please keep their comments to three minutes. Director Chiu said that there was a representative from the Mayor's Office, Mr. Steve Kawa, Deputy Chief of Staff who wanted to speak on a similar subject.

Mr. Steve Kawa introduced himself as the Mayor's Deputy Chief of Staff and primarily responsible for legislative and financial matters in the Mayor's Office and the City's annual budget process. Mr. Kawa said that in consideration of item #3 he spoke with the sponsor of that item, Supervisor Dufty, and said that on behalf of the Mayor's Office he wanted to bring all of the parties together so that everyone is on the same page. Mr. Kawa stated that in the Mayor's budget office they are already crafting a supplemental for the Planning Commission Department separate from this with DBI funds. Mr. Kawa said that the Board of Supervisors was unaware of that. Mr. Kawa said that he had informed Supervisor Dufty about that because some of the concerns that Supervisor Dufty has with the Planning Department's budget and staffing would be addressed by a separate supplemental in a different way. Mr. Kawa stated that Supervisor Dufty has agreed to meet with the Mayor's Office and all of the departments. Mr. Kawa said that he begged the Commission's indulgence to come back to this Commission if there is anything affecting this Commission in the current year. Mr. Kawa said that he did not believe that this was the case. Mr. Kawa said that he was present to beg the Commission's indulgence when the Mayor's Office and Board of Supervisors come back in a week or two, as the Mayor is trying to craft a budget on behalf of the City and County of San Francisco, with a historic deficit of $347M. Mr. Kawa said that the Mayor's Office is clearly looking at everything and everyone in order to come to balance. Mr. Kawa stated that the City was asking all of its employees to give back 7.5% and sending out hundreds of layoff notices. Mr. Kawa stated that this is an unprecedented time. Mr. Kawa said that he knew that the Administrative Code had specific requirements for the use of DBI funds and said that nobody ever wanted to go against that, but the Mayor's Office wants the ability to work with DBI staff and the BIC to see, if in fact, there is any way that the BIC could be helpful to the rest of the City next year as well as to DBI. Mr. Kawa said if this works out, it does and if it is legal, it is and the Mayor knows that the City needs the Commission's approval to come back and would like to do that. Mr. Kawa said that he would like to work with Supervisor Dufty, the Board of Supervisors, the BIC, DBI staff, as well as to inform the Planning Commission and other folks about what is happening in the Board of Supervisors. Mr. Kawa said that this was sort of a bifurcated thing, one to let the Commission know that the Mayor's Office is going to be working with DBI staff and coming back with something on the 03-04 budget that the Mayor will be proposing to the Board on June 1^st and then to inform the BIC that Mr. Kawa has spoken to the sponsor of Item #3 and that he has agreed to work with the Administration and the departments to see if there is an alternative to that because the Mayor's Office is doing a separate supplemental in a different way. Mr. Kawa said that he would be happy to answer any questions from the Commissioners.

Vice-President Hood said that she had a question about legality and asked if the City Attorney had already rendered an opinion to the Board of Supervisors regarding the legality of this transfer. Mr. Kawa said that, to be honest with the Commission, the Mayor's Office was not in the loop when the Board of Supervisors introduced it. Mr. Kawa said that this did not have, nor did the Board of Supervisors need, the Mayor's approval because under the new Charter passed in 1995 the Board could author their own supplementals. Mr. Kawa stated that the Mayor's Office was not in loop and did not participate in the meetings regarding this supplemental and that is why he informed Supervisor Dufty that the Mayor's Office was already working on a supplemental for the Planning Commission to address some of these planning issues. Mr. Kawa said that the Mayor's Office, as a policy, believes that it needs to get some of these things done for the economic development of the City because that would in fact increase the City's budget because of the revenue that will come in from economic development. Mr. Kawa said that the City's money comes from people, as the City does not print money, only Washington can print money; the City has to take money from people through taxes, fees and fines and that is only through economic activity in this town and that needs to be generated. Mr. Kawa stated that the Mayor's Office knows that the Planning Commission is going to be an integral part, as the Department of Building Inspection is an integral part, of that economic development team so the Mayor's Office does not want to hurt anybody, but the Mayor's Office believes that there may be a better way and a different way than with DBI. Mr. Kawa said that the Mayor's Office would probably look to the BIC to see if DBI can legally help the City out next year with good public policy that in fact helps the economy and helps all of those other things that everyone is trying to do as a City together.

Commissioner Brown asked if the supplemental that was being prepared over the last week covered the entire $2.5M that is being sought. Mr. Kawa stated that no, it did not. Mr. Kawa said that this gets to Commissioner Guinnane's question and said that the Mayor's Office was not sure whether the $2.5M was for the remainder of this fiscal year because this fiscal year ends on June 30, 2003 and to spend $2.5M in that short a period of time raises questions at the Mayor's Office too. Mr. Kawa said that the Mayor's Office current year supplemental is not in that range at all. Commissioner Guinnane said that over the past two and a half years, as Director Chiu reported, this Commission has been very, very adamant about spending. Commissioner Guinnane said that he did not know how many vacancies there were at DBI that need to be filled and they haven't been filled because of revenues. Commissioner Guinnane said that the 1660 Mission Street addition was put on hold because of revenues. Commissioner Guinnane said that he thought that this Department and the Commission have done the best job possible for the City and County of San Francisco and have worked very, very hard because the handwriting was on the wall two plus years ago, that revenues were going to drop and the Department and the Commission took action to look out for DBI. Commissioner Guinnane said that he did not know what happened to the rest of the City of San Francisco and the other departments, but DBI starting cutting two and a half or three years ago. Commissioner Guinnane said that he could clearly see the economic problems coming and now for the City to come along and take this money when DBI has spots to fill he thought was very unfair. Commissioner Guinnane said that it would be especially unfair if this is going to be an ongoing policy. Mr. Kawa said that he hoped that as the Mayor's Office worked with DBI staff, the Mayor's Office would come back to the Commission with something that the Commission would not view as something taken from DBI. Mr. Kawa stated that the Mayor's Office had tried to be prudent with the City's budget, but the Mayor's Office did not budget for a war, did not budget for 911 and did not realize that the dot com implosion was going to happen. Mr. Kawa said that the Mayor's Office had historic high reserves and did save for a rainy day, but did not save for raining years and in fact the City is in the twenty-second month of economic decline. Mr. Kawa said that the City has lost 60,000 jobs and is still losing people; nobody anticipated that and that is why historically the City is in bad straits. Mr. Kawa said that the City would not be asking employees for a second year in a row to give back in their paychecks to help the City out if this wasn't a historically bad time. Mr. Kawa said that all he could ask of this Commission is for the Commission to try to help out, not to do anything that the law doesn't require or allow, but to please help the City out.

President Fillon said that he thought that the Commission should continue this item and not take any action, as there was a lot that had to be worked out. President Fillon said that the Commission could still hear public comment, but said that he thought that when this issue came back to the Commission it would be a different animal. President Fillon said that he was informing the public of this because they would be giving testimony on something that may or may not be relevant. President Fillon asked for public comment.

Mr. David Barnard introduced himself as a retiree of the Department of Building Inspection. Mr. Barnard said that for most of the twenty-four years that he worked at Building Inspection he worked in the Administrative Services and was working there when DBI became an enterprise department. Mr. Barnard said that at time and in the years before he transferred into Customer Services, discussion came up that this situation could arise, that other department might take a look at this. Mr. Barnard said that this could not be done and said that it had been pointed out that the economic condition here in the City of San Francisco, in the State and in the United States precludes this because what is going to hit in the next fiscal year. Mr. Barnard said that next January when the City is discussing the budget for fiscal year 05 and there is a deficit situation again; if this money is going how is the Department going to survive without having layoffs and other serious things. Mr. Barnard thanked the Commission. Vice-President Hood asked Mr. Barnard if after the time that he described as the enterprise time for DBI came along, did things work better in the Department as a result of that. Mr. Barnard said that it was better because being that the Department was an enterprise Department the budget as a whole was not as much as other departments. Mr. Barnard said that one area that was cut was personnel because there was a blanket City policy about cutting personnel and there was nothing that DBI could do about that because it came from the Mayor's Office. Mr. Barnard said that most of the time for other items, such as equipment and other special things in development of projects the Department was able to approach the Board and get certain things that other Departments couldn't get because DBI was able to prove that DBI could afford those items with a little bit left over. Mr. Barnard said this is the time when the Department needs that money.

Mr. Ken Cleaveland said that he was speaking on behalf of the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA). Mr. Cleaveland stated that BOMA represents about three-hundred office buildings in downtown San Francisco and said that they are probably the single largest user of DBI services on a recurring basis because pulling OTI permits is about the only business in the commercial sector that DBI is getting these days as there is not a lot of new commercial construction going on. Mr. Cleaveland said that DBI permits have never been a problem for BOMA, no matter how high they go, as long as BOMA gets service that is commensurate with the cost of the permits. Mr. Cleaveland said that BOMA is willing to pay the freight as long as they get the service. Mr. Cleaveland stated that the funds are kind of sacred and said that Commissioner Guinnane was right on because when BOMA pays money to DBI they expect to get good service and does not expect the funds to go to other projects however worthy they may be throughout the City. Mr. Cleaveland said that if the City starts using DBI as sort of a piggy bank and starts taking the money contrary to what the Administrative Code says, to pay for other services, it is a very, very bad precedent. Mr. Cleaveland said that he was concerned about this particular City Attorney's interpretation that it is okay to do that and said that he would question that. Mr. Cleaveland said that the Commissioners would seriously have to consider if they were opening Pandora's box here and allowing funds that are supposed to go for DBI's service to its customer base, which is the property owners of the City and the residents who pull permits on a daily basis to start using those funds for other things. Mr. Cleaveland said that he hoped that this would not happen and said that these were his cautionary few remarks. Mr. Cleaveland thanked the Commission.

Mr. Steve Powers introduced himself as an Electrical Inspector and said that he was present to say that this money has been generated by DBI for the contractors in the City of San Francisco. Mr. Powers said that maybe the Department was wrong by trying to save money for a rainy day as maybe that is not a City policy and maybe the Department was supposed to blow all of the money and come back asking for more. Mr. Powers stated that DBI has been trying to save and has been cutting back by not hiring and cutting back in any way possible. Mr. Powers said that now the Mayor's Office wants the money and asked why the Mayor's Office doesn't cut back on their staff and their aides. Mr. Powers said that if the Mayor's Office took all of that money they might get the $2.5M that they need and leave DBI alone to do its job. Mr. Powers thanked the Commission.

Mr. Leo McFadden introduced himself as Vice-President of the Building Inspection Association and said that he wanted to speak on this item for the record. Mr. McFadden said that this proposed legislation hampers DBI's ability to provide services to the general public and hampers the Department from hiring and backfilling any vacant positions, in particular vacant Management positions. Mr. McFadden said that this Department and the Commission have taken proactive efforts to reduce expenditures and save money and this Department should be a model for other departments. Mr. McFadden stated that maybe the Mayor's Budget Office could use this Department as an example. Mr. McFadden stated that this Department should not be penalized for sound money management. Mr. McFadden thanked the Commission.

Mr. Stan Warren said that he was present representing the San Francisco Building Trades Council. Mr. Warren stated that he wanted to preempt his remarks after hearing Steve Kawa's remarks about working out a supplemental process that might be legitimate and work for everybody, by saying that he thought this was encouraging and said he wanted to follow this process as it goes along. Mr. Warren said that he was concerned about the efforts to transfer $2.5M from the Department of Building Inspection to other departments such as the Planning Department. Mr. Warren said that while some aspect of the plans for the money might make sense, the part of adding staff to Planning runs counter to keeping DBI's own Inspectors employed. Mr. Warren stated that as he understood it Administrative Code Section 10.100-45 clearly outlines the designation of all funding to be earmarked for DBI. Mr. Warren said that these efforts are in direct violation of this Code and said that these efforts to acquire DBI's surplus funds will undoubtedly affect operations in the current financial climate and leave no money to pay salaries resulting not only in layoffs, but a real negative set back for field inspections in the prompt services the public has come to expect. Mr. Warren said that DBI has run its operations in a professional, sound business manner and to punish them for the poor management procedures of other departments or other agencies is incomprehensible. Mr. Warren said that everyone should recognize the fact that DBI has tightened its belt and has forgone planned actions through the reduction of overtime and has even suffered the loss of vehicles over the last two years. Mr. Warren stated that he would respectfully request that the Commission do everything in its power and if so deny efforts here today and in the future that would only result in effectively defunding and weakening the Department of Building Inspection. Mr. Warren thanked the Commission.

Mr. Joe O'Donoghue of the Residential Builders Association said that it was important to know what was the Genesis of why the Department is financially and fiscally independent and why this Department has done no layoffs even though there have been layoffs in the entire City and the Department has kept its costs under control. Mr. O'Donoghue said that this Commission, while he finds it ironic, that there are Building Trades present today because in its creation this Department was opposed by the Building Trades Council and in particular the nomination of Roy Guinnane as Commissioner who is fiscally conservative was opposed by Stan Smith. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he was not doing this to put the knock on them, but was doing it to put things in perspective, as to what the philosophy was about during the creation of this Commission. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that it was to help the entire industry that had no jobs and to help the industry get inspections in a proper and efficient manner and to make the Department independent of the General Funds. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he was the one prior to the creation of this Commission that got the surplus General Funds made independent of the present system where the surplus did not go into the General Fund, but went in and stayed with the Department. Mr. O'Donoghue said that being said, a Department was created that was sensitive to do what was good for the construction industry and this was done exceptionally well as part of the advocacy for jobs for all people in this City. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that the fact is that the Mayor's Office can take all of DBI's money if they want to do it tomorrow by enacting a state of emergency. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he wanted to put aside the issue of whether or not the Mayor's Office has or does not have the right to take the money, but wanted to look at what's happening in the City. Mr. O'Donoghue said that when the City has a Board of Supervisors who embrace a philosophy of anti-construction such as the moratoriums and job shutdowns that hence impacts the revenue and building leaders embracing those no growth activists then there is going to be a fiscal crisis. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the fact is the City's ship is sinking and DBI is on a lifeboat that got off that sinking ship with the money and DBI has a moral obligation to help its fellow brothers who could be unemployed tomorrow. Mr. O'Donoghue said that DBI could help the Fire Department personnel that might be liquidated or DBI might be liquidated if there is not enough personnel. Mr. O'Donoghue said that if the Mayor's Office could come back and demonstrate that the money is being used to bring back pro-growth against an anti-growth Board of Supervisors, and hence bring in more revenues, and then DBI should be looking at how to spend that money. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that certainly if the money is going to used in other departments it should be used to save layoffs of union members. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he is supposed to be the one who is anti-union and said that anti-union is not anti-labor, as he is pro-labor and anti-stupidity with some of the unions even though there are some exceptionally good unions. Mr. O'Donoghue said that if David Novogrodsky decides to take the cut that impacts employees the Department has to look at the overall situation and said that he thought that more information needs to come back from the Mayor's Office in terms of how they would propose to spend this money. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the reality is that notwithstanding that there may be a technical inability to do this, which Mr. O'Donoghue said he believed the Mayor's Office could take the money if they want to do it, the Department should be looking for facts. Mr. O'Donoghue said that this Commission should take the offer of Steve Kawa and ask for more facts, get Gerald Green at a Commission meeting to see how he could do some of the neighborhood implementation policies that would benefit neighborhoods in terms of their needs and also growth and bringing in business. Mr. O'Donoghue said that this Commission is one of the best Commissions because it is so well balanced and is exceptional because the BIC has this opportunity to show that the BIC should be used as a paradigm for other Commissions. Mr. O'Donoghue said that if money is going to be given out there would be exactions for it and extractions for it, and labor could get together with the so called non-union groups such as the RBA, which is a myth. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that the BIC had a big task ahead of it. Mr. O'Donoghue thanked the Commission.

Mr. Hanson Tom introduced himself as the Program Manager at DBI for the Permit Services Program. Mr. Tom said that this program is in charge of doing permit intakes by handling three counters in this division. Mr. Tom said that this division provides plan checks, does pre-application review, Code interpretations, Code developments and also perform a lot of special projects reviews. Mr. Tom said in addition, the division does a lot of emergency response and handles complaints from citizens. Mr. Tom stated that he was a little distracted by this request to withdraw $2.5M from DBI's budget because DBI has put forth sound fiscal policies for the past two years. Mr. Tom said that he wanted to give some data to the Commissioners. Mr. Tom said that the Plan Check Service Divisions for the fiscal year 2001/2002 the Plan Check staff consisted of forty-two people, as of now 2002/2003 that number is down to thirty-one for a reduction of 33%. Mr. Tom said that the impact of this is that there will be slower permit review, an increase in backlogs and more complaints from the public. Mr. Tom said that, as a result of this, there would be lower quality of plan checks and slower response. Mr. Tom said in reading the Mission Statement of the Department, the Mission statement says that DBI should protect the safety of the citizens of San Francisco. Mr. Tom stated that he hoped that the staff level in Plan Check would not be reduced. Mr. Tom said that he was seeking the help of the Commissioners to really look at fully staffing this division to provide the level of service that the people of San Francisco deserve. Mr. Tom thanked the Commission.

Commissioner Guinnane asked Mr. Tom to break down the shortage of people regarding how many Engineers and Plan Checkers it included. Mr. Tom said that last year there was a reduction of eight Engineers, five from the civil engineering classification and three from the mechanical engineers. Mr. Tom reported that there was a reduction of three Building Inspectors in the plan check divisions and four Managers. Commissioner Santos said that this was a reduction from forty-six people to thirty-one. Mr. Tom said that was correct. Mr. Tom stated that the reason the Department has $3.6M is because that was the money that was reserved to recruit staff. Mr. Tom said that the City's process for recruitment is a little slower so that means that out of that $3.6M some of the money belongs to staff shortage. Mr. Tom said that there was a staff shortage because of staff retirements and promotions and it has been difficult to replace staff in a short time frame. Commissioner Guinnane asked that with the fifteen people Mr. Tom was talking about and assuming that the Department had forty-six people today and there were x amount of plans going through today and now the Department is down to thirty-one people, how much time delay did this add to getting a permit checked, a full staff versus a shortage of fifteen people. Commissioner Guinnane asked if the time delay was a week, two weeks or three weeks. Mr. Tom said that right now there is a pretty long backlog. Commissioner Guinnane asked how long. Mr. Tom said that it was about two months. Mr. Tom said that the Department actually has the $3.6M appropriation, but in reality if the division was fully staffed there would not be that much money left. Mr. Tom said that he really wanted the Commission to look at this situation.

Mr. Kevin Shannon introduced himself as a third generation San Franciscan and an electrician out of IBEW Local 6. Mr. Shannon said that he was a little bit familiar with the Plan Check process both through a remodel at his house and obviously on the job site. Mr. Shannon stated that if the Commissioners went out to some of the jobs they would see that some of them are extraordinary to get as much stuff in as gets in. Mr. Shannon said that sometimes the workers even joke about how sometimes just doing a remodel becomes a dog race because it's like letting the rabbit out and chasing after it. Mr. Shannon said that without the help of the Building Department these things would never get done because it takes some real exquisite timing sometimes, and for a lot of jobs whether it is a $5,000 remodel job, or a $26M job there is an impact. Mr. Shannon said that the impact is on the customer and that customer really is the tax base and to cut anything out of this Department would be cutting the Achilles. Mr. Shannon said that he knew that there was concern, and being a San Franciscan he had the same concerns, but despite all the bureaucracy and everything that goes on, DBI does a fine job and from some of the comments earlier, an exemplary job. Mr. Shannon said that he was not saying that there couldn't be improvement, but this Department does real well. Mr. Shannon said that it would be a mistake from his view to make any kind of cuts in the Department.

Mr. John Hinchion introduced himself as a Building Inspector and Association Executive member. Mr. Hinchion said that he wanted to thank the Commission personally for the extraordinary work it had done over the past three years. Mr. Hinchion stated that because of the BIC taking action in advance of the major economic downturn that has taken place and by pressuring DBI to cut back in advance of this downturn there is discussion today about how the Department is going save the major surplus that it has. Mr. Hinchion said that one suggestion he had was, being that the Department is in contract negotiations at the moment, this Commission should suggest to the Board of Supervisors that the Building Inspectors that generate the revenue for the Department be given a 4% cost of living increase to counteract the 7.5% give back that they are being asked to consider at the moment. Mr. Hinchion further suggested that the Commission could further go ahead and give a 2.5% contribution to the charity of their choice. Mr. Hinchion thanked the Commission.

Mr. Matt Altman said that he worked for Sasko Electric, a large contractor in San Francisco, and was a member of IBEW Local 6. Mr. Altman said that overseeing manpower, lack of timely and quality inspections concerned him for numerous reasons. Mr. Altman said that slowing projects down because of not being able to get a timely inspection would cause his company to reduce manpower and result in more layoffs. Mr. Altman said that he was concerned about the quality of inspections and safety because the workers rely on the Inspectors to provide an inspection for safety. Mr. Altman said that without the Inspectors he feared that contractors would do things that would jeopardize the safety of the City employees as well as Sasko's employees, which would be a mistake. Mr. Altman asked that the Commission please consider these issues when making any decision. Mr. Altman thanked the Commission.

President Fillon asked for any further comment from the public or the Commissioners. Commissioner Santos asked Director Chiu if DBI could lend Planning the money. Director Chiu said that he was not sure if legally that could be done, but said that this sounded a lot better than just having the money taken away. Director Chiu said that he would question whether the Department even had that ability because again the Department does not just look at one year. Director Chiu stated that just because there is $3.6M right now, as Commissioner Guinnane said, in looking at the current budget revenue for 2002 and the expenditures, the Department is already short by almost $3M. Director Chi said that the Department really needed that $3.6M because he would not call it surplus and maybe it should be identified in a different way. Director Chiu said that in response to Commissioner Santos' question, the Department and the Commission really needed to be careful as to whether the money should even be loaned out, but it sounded better than just giving it away. Commissioner Guinnane asked if the money was being given or loaned. Director Chiu said in looking at the resolution, it is not a loan. Vice-President Hood said that it stated that it would be a permanent transfer of funds. Vice-President Hood said that the Mayor's Assistant said that the Mayor's Office was going to be meeting with Supervisors who supported this. Vice-President Hood asked if it would be appropriate for a member of the Building Inspection to be a party to those meetings. Director Chiu said that he could certainly ask for that. Vice-President Hood said that Mr. Kawa was still present and asked him to comment on her question.

Mr. Kawa said absolutely it was his intention to bring all of the parties together, but could not violate the Brown Act so there could not be a majority of any of the entities present. Mr. Kawa said that the Mayor's Office wanted all of the parties in the room to come back to the Commission with a recommendation and whether it is staff or Commissioners that want to participate that would be appropriate. Mr. Kawa said that part of the problem with this issue is miscommunication and said that once the people communicate then there does not have to be lengthy hearing because people would understand the background of why people are making the recommendations that they are. Vice-President Hood asked President Fillon if it would be possible to have Commissioner Guinnane, if he were willing, to go to those meetings because he has been the BIC's budget watchdog. Commissioner Guinnane said that if the BIC had him go the meetings, he would give away no money at all. Vice-President Hood said that she thought that Commissioner Guinnane would be a very good representative from this Commission. Commissioner Guinnane said that he would except that challenge because he had been very, very vocal for the past three years about spending and said that he thought that it had actually paid off in looking at the way DBI is today versus other departments in the City and County of San Francisco. Commissioner Brown said that he wanted to warn Mr. Kawa that if Commissioner Guinnane went to these meetings, DBI might get some of the Planning Department's money. Commissioner Brown said that, with that said, he wanted to make a motion.

President Fillon said that he was just going to continue the item and thought that there did not need to be a motion to do so because the agenda says possible action.

President Fillon asked if the Planning Department and other City Departments were still hiring and filling new positions. Director Chiu said that in looking at the introduction from the Board of Supervisors that is their intent. Director Chiu stated that the intent was to transfer $2.5M during this fiscal year so that Planning could hire additional staff to do a lot of the things that they listed on the agenda. Mr. Kawa said that answer was really mixed because there were about 7,000 requisitions held up in the Mayor's Budget Office right now because of the budget crisis. Mr. Kawa stated that there are layoff notices being sent to existing employees so the Mayor's Office does not believe that it is appropriate that new people are hired when fellow employees might be getting laid off. Mr. Kawa said that these employees might have an opportunity through the layoff process to have one of those jobs, so there is in fact a freeze on hiring. Mr. Kawa said that the caveat is that there are divisions that are required under law, by mandates or MOUs that there be certain hiring, so those in fact happen. Mr. Kawa said that the supplemental that is being talked about with the Planning Department would allow them to hire more positions that are already budgeted, but there is no money behind that. Mr. Kawa said that this would require additional money and that is why a supplemental is being worked on. Mr. Kawa said that the proposal today is the Board of Supervisors' proposal and not a proposal by the Mayor's Office, but this would allow the Planning Department to hire, so there is some hiring, but very little. President Fillon said that he wanted his opinion on record that he was laid off when the economy went bust and said that Roy Guinnane took a very strong role in helping the Commission to see that things were not going well. President Fillon stated that the Commission tried to make sure that DBI would have enough money saved so the Department would not have to lay off people and be able to maintain the level of service. President Fillon said that the Commission tried to keep jobs safe and said that he was worried that the Commission made that effort and now it could be for nothing especially in looking at the numbers in terms of revenues and expenditures; it doesn't look good for this Department to be giving out all this money that was kept as a safety net. President Fillon said that he understood that Mr. Kawa was concerned about managing the City and that was his job, but this would be a little hard to stomach for a lot of the staff and for the members of the Commission that had worked so hard on this. President Fillon said that the BIC was a smaller world than what Mr. Kawa was dealing with, but wanted to say this for what it was worth.

Mr. Kawa said that he had been to a number of Commission's and Board of Supervisors' hearings and groups and said that he hated being present at the BIC asking for the Department to give money back and hated going to the Health Service System Board and telling them to raise co-pays and to use $14M of their surplus because they had strong feelings about that too. Mr. Kawa said that the things that are being done to balance the City's budget this year are not things that the Mayor's Office wants to do, but under the law there has to be a balanced budget on June 1^st. Mr. Kawa said that everyone would see a budget from the Mayor and the Mayor's Office on June 1^st that is going to try to avoid as many service reductions as possible, but the City government will be different, services will be reduced and the Mayor's Office is trying to do the best it can under public policy to do things where things are not done to exacerbate the problem by hurting the economy. Mr. Kawa said that the Mayor's Office was trying not to lay people off because these people become part of the burden of the City government with the health care system and other things that need to go on. Mr. Kawa said that to defend the Mayor's Office a little bit, DBI has done a great job in managing its revenues, but the City lost 50% of its discretionary hotel tax after 911 because 85% of the people who come to visit San Francisco come through SFO and when their travel is down that really impacts the City. Mr. Kawa said that the City gets its revenue from very few sources such as property tax and that is stable, but hotel tax, payroll tax and sales tax are down because people are not buying as much and are not visiting as much. Mr. Kawa said that the City lost 60,000 jobs so all of those revenue sources are down and yes, the budget office tries to budget as best it can for those uncertainties. Mr. Kawa said that the office did budget a slow down in the economy, but that is not where San Francisco is right now and everyone knows that the City will get out of this, but no one knows when.

President Fillon asked Mr. Kawa what could be done to make sure that these appropriations are not set in motion in perpetuity and when things get back to normal or at some point they are stopped. Mr. Kawa said that under the Charter no appropriations are in perpetuity unless it is in the Charter and the budget of the Mayor and the Board is an annual budget that has to be annually appropriated. Mr. Kawa stated that it is only the voters of the City through the Charter that can set aside certain funds, like they did with the library fund for the library Prop B in 1994, or with the Police Officer where the City shelled out for 1,971 full duty Officers in Prop D. Mr. Kawa said that this was done with a Children's Fund that was passed in 2000 and said that the voters can do those sorts of things in perpetuity, but the City government cannot do that as there is a budget that has to be annually submitted by the Mayor and approved by the Board of Supervisors.

Commissioner Brown said that if this money were earmarked to hire staff then he would assume that this would be a yearly request to whoever appropriated that money for those positions unless those positions would be eliminated after that year. Mr. Kawa said that he did not want to speak for Director Green, but said that it would be hard for him to imagine that Director Green would be asking for money giving him the authority to hire and then on July 1^st would be laying off those people. Mr. Kawa said that the fact is that there will be layoffs on July 1^st and Director Green's budget might not contain the money that it needs to sustain his current staff. Mr. Kawa said that he would assume that Planning would think that this would be in perpetuity, but Planning's staffing level is going to depend on how much money it has in the Mayor's budget. Commissioner Brown said that he thought that before the BIC made any decision on this, the Commission should hear from Planning Department staff. Commissioner Brown said that he thought that it was very important that the Planning Department come before the Commission to submit a proposal. Mr. Kawa said that in the meeting with Commissioner Guinnane the Mayor's Office would want Planning there as well because Mr. Kawa said that he did not know who was the motivating factor behind this proposed supplemental to the Board of Supervisors, whether it came out of the Board of Supervisors because of their concern for the Planning Department, but it did not come from the Mayor's Office.

Vice-President Hood said that this issue came up a number of years ago and the BIC's Attorney at the time, Judy Boyajian, advised the Commission that funds collected for Building Department permits were required by the State Administrative Code to be spent only for life safety Code Enforcement. Vice-President Hood stated that this would indicate to her that this proposed transaction is not legal. Vice-President Hood said that if there were any exception to that, as someone had mentioned an emergency, then she would like to know about the legality of that. Vice-President Hood said that she would like to get an opinion in writing from someone in the City Attorney's Office as she thought it contradicts what she had heard in the past repeatedly. Vice-President Hood said that she always understood that the Charter was in keeping with the State Administrative Code. Vice-President Hood said that this came up with the BIC was thinking about changing fees, increasing fees, and as part of that the Department had to show that the additional money would in fact be spent for Building Inspection Code Enforcement and those issues as defined by the Building Code are all life safety issues. Vice-President Hood stated that the Planning Code deals with environmental and sort of abstract goals to make the City theoretically a more pleasant place to live. Vice-President Hood said that it seemed very clear to her whether any proposal falls into one of those or not. Vice-President Hood said that if there were exceptions in the State Administrative Code she would like to know in writing what those are. Mr. Kawa said that he thought that was a very good point and said that he was an Attorney, but not a member of the California Bar or a City Attorney so he would not give any legal advice, but said that a City Attorney would be present at Commissioner Guinnane's meeting so he could report back to the Commission when those questions were asked.

Commissioner Guinnane asked how many spots were unfilled in the Planning Department. Mr. Kawa said that he did not know off the top of his head. Mr. Kawa said that Planning had been struggling and the Mayor's Budget Office had not approved some requests for hires because Planning need to get to a balanced budget. Mr. Kawa said that Planning was affected by the slow down in the economy so the Mayor's Budget Office has been trying to figure that out, as it was sort of a catch 22, because they are below budget on revenues and yet they need more positions. Mr. Kawa said that was why there would be a proposal for a supplemental that would be prudent and would allow more money to come in, the economy to grow, and for Planning to hire. Commissioner Guinnane asked if Planning had looked at raising their fee schedule. Mr. Kawa said that they have looked at this in the past and are currently looking at it right now, however the Planning Department has the same California requirements that DBI has in that they can only raise fees pursuant to cost recovery and cannot go above those fees for cost recovery purposes so they can't just raise it so high so they can fund what they want. Mr. Kawa stated that Planning could only raise their fees to recover costs actually associated with the work that is directly being done by those Planning employees. Commissioner Guinnane said that based on that there should be no problem raising the fees in talking about cost recovery for the work being done if Planning is doing the work. Mr. Kawa asked Commissioner Guinnane how he would define work because the Planning Department doesn't do work that is generally direct with developers like DBI does because they have City wide issues and moratoriums and other things that they have to look at and they don't charge the Board of Supervisors for all of their legislation. Commissioner Guinnane asked what the $2.5M would be used for at City Planning. Mr. Kawa said that the Mayor's Office was not the sponsor of this $2.5M and said that he was not going to defend this $2.5M because he knew nothing about it other than that he became aware of it. Mr. Kawa said that he then talked with Supervisor Dufty and asked if the Mayor's Office and the Board of Supervisors could come together and Supervisor Dufty agreed. The Commission thanked Mr. Kawa.

4. 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.

5. Review Commissioner's Questions and Matters.

b. Future Meetings/Agendas. At this time, the Commission may discuss and take action to set the date of a Special Meeting and/or determine those items that could be placed on the agenda of the next meeting and other future meetings of the Building Inspection Commission.

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

7. Adjournment.