2.

President’s Announcements

President Walker said that she wanted to express how proud she was of the Department and how staff have been handling the North Beach land slide.  President Walker stated that everyone has seen the news coverage, and Bill Strawn has done an excellent job being DBI’s press person.  President Walker said that it is really a huge step forward to be watching television that is informational and factual. President Walker stated that she had visited the site with incoming Director Isam Hasenin.  President Walker said that DBI is the lead department in the resolution efforts to clean up some of the fallen debris, and to stabilize the hillside while working with numerous building owners.  President Walker stated that DBI has the emergency van at the site, which is fully operational.  President Walker thanked Amy Lee, Carla Johnson, Bill Strawn, and Ray Lui for the Department’s efforts, and said that DBI staff has volunteered to man the command post 24/7. 

President Walker thanked Ray Lui for coordinating a portion of the CAPSS Program a few weeks ago, because he along with 150 members of the public, architects, and engineers went out across the City and inventoried potential soft story buildings throughout San Francisco.

President Walker stated that regarding the Joint Meeting with Planning, there were some concerns that were brought up around the tall building issue and she has asked Dr. Sattary, the Commission’s Structural Engineer, to put together a group of stakeholders and experts to discuss and identify some of the issues. 

Commissioner Sattary said that there is an evolution in building construction, and it is a natural part of this process.  Commissioner Sattary stated that the new high rise designs are using systems that were previously used for shorter buildings, but the inventory allows them to go higher.  Commissioner Sattary said that approval of this process is allowed through rational design and the peer review process that has been labeled “performance based designs”.  Commissioner Sattary stated that there are some inconsistencies from one project to another, so the Building Department has temporarily put a moratorium on the performance based designs until the coherent and transparent provisions have been established.  Commissioner Sattary said that the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California (SEONC) is currently reviewing Administrative Bulletin 83, and once they are done it would come back to DBI, and then go to the Code Advisory Committee (CAC).  Commissioner Sattary stated that there is another document being developed alongside AB-83 to address additional issues regarding performance objectives of buildings, and how they are expected to perform during an earthquake.  Commissioner Sattary said that his desire is to have both documents released together, and urged any experts or individuals who have informed opinions about these issues to contact him.

President Walker stated that the Commission is leading up to the beginning of a new era at DBI, with a new Director who begins on March 19^th.  President Walker thanked Acting Director Amy Lee for all of the work that she has done at the Department of Building Inspection and said that it has been an amazing opportunity to work with her, and to watch as staff responded and how the Department has actually turned around under Ms. Lee’s leadership, and that of her team.  Vice-President Lee, Commissioner Murphy, Commissioner Theriault, Commissioner Grubb, and Commissioner Sattary all expressed their sentiments about the great job that Acting Director Lee has done at DBI and thanked her for her outstanding service.  The Commissioners said that some of Ms. Lee’s attributes were: 

• Taking on the job during a really stressful time for the Department.
• The Department has moved in a better direction, moving to a more transparent Department.
• DBI has tried to clean up the perception of favoritism.
• The Department has transitioned into a place where a number of people feel comfortable, including the employees.  The staff also feels more comfortable coming before the Commission.
• Acting Director Lee was able to really bring the mission of the Department to the forefront and put the agendas aside.
• Overall the Department is in a very good place, and Ms. Lee was congratulated for leaving that legacy.
• Ms. Lee has worked against incredible odds to get DBI to its current state.

President Walker called for public comment.

Mr. Henry Karnilowicz said that he applauded outgoing Acting Director Amy Lee for keeping the DBI ship afloat when it was going through turbulent waters.  Mr. Karnilowicz stated that this was really commendable of Ms. Lee to do so when there was a lot of pressure out there from both directions, with the FBI and everything.  Mr. Karnilowicz said that Ms. Lee helped with the recent land slide situation, and he thanked Ms. Lee for her perseverance.

3.

Director’s Report.

a.  Status of Broadway Street slide.

Acting Director Amy Lee stated that the Broadway Street Rock Slide occurred on Tuesday, February 27^th.  Ms. Lee said that at around 3:30 a.m. the Police and Fire Departments were contacted, and initially thought it was some sort of water leakage, but discovered that it was related to the rock slide and the buildings.  DBI’s emergency team was contacted and arrived at the site shortly before 6:00 a.m., and that day was mostly focused on vacating all of the residents.  Ms. Lee stated that the rock slide has affected 87 housing units, and displaced approximately 120 residents.  Ms. Lee said that she returned from Las Vegas on Tuesday evening and decided that because it was building related and rock land related that DBI should take over as incident command, and then have the Fire and Police Departments second.  Ms. Lee listed the addresses that were red tagged:

• -  455 Vallejo Street
  -  432 – 434 Broadway Street
  -  426 – 430 Broadway Street
  -  412 Broadway Street
  -  1035 Montgomery Street
  -  1047 – 1051 Montgomery Street

Ms. Lee stated that DBI has been getting support from the City, the Office of Emergency Services (OES), and the Red Cross.  Ms. Lee said that DBI has been working with the Human Services Agency and the Red Cross to make sure that people have some sort of shelter.  Ms.  Lee stated that the Police Department has had 24 hour surveillance on Montgomery and Vallejo Streets, and residents are allowed with police escorts to enter their buildings to retrieve any personal possessions.  Ms. Lee said that now that it is known that nobody was harmed, this is a wonderful opportunity for lessons for emergency response and DBI found out what could be done to better stock the Emergency Command Vehicle which is on site.  Ms. Lee stated that there are several categories of hazards that the Department needs to address such as:  the upper portions of the area, which is the remaining deck that is overhanging, and a retaining wall on the side, and underneath the deck there is a large rock stuck to it.  Ms. Lee said that the Department is waiting for some geological and engineering reports by the property owners so that staff could look at them and hopefully by tomorrow see which buildings can be reoccupied.  Ms. Lee stated that this situation is difficult because there are some confusing property lines, and DBI has had to be a forceful to let the owners know how imminent the danger is.  Ms. Lee said that it has been determined that the best way to resolve this issue is to have the property owners pay for it themselves, because it would be cheaper for them in the long run than to have the City to do the work and the owners reimburse the City.  Ms. Lee stated that Bill Strawn has been handling the press, but the amount of press received added to the complexity of the issues that DBI had to address.

President Walker mentioned that it was a very tight area to accommodate all this activity.  Acting Director Lee gave out the # 558-6089 as an updated phone line, and said that there was a portion added to DBI’s website to have updates as well.  Ms. Lee said that there was an emergency order issued for 1041 Montgomery Street, because the owner has forfeited his right to do the work required as well as forfeited the right to protest any work that is done on his property.  Ms. Lee stated that the sister agencies helped DBI a lot such as: Laura Phillips of the OES helped with ordering food, gas, etc.  DPW, Police, and Fire helped also.  Ms. Lee said that there will be a city-wide debriefing effort.

Vice-President Lee said the Department did a fabulous job to help owners resolve their issues, and to protect their privacy.  Commissioner Sattary thanked the staff for the work that was done, and said that it was good that property owners were given the chance to fix their problems and work together.  Commissioner Sattary stated that the issue is that the hill as a whole could not be stabilized, so he mentioned the owner’s liability since Property A may affect Property B, hence it would be good to come up with a unified approach.  Ms. Lee said that the Department hired Frank Rollo, who is an Engineer, to address this issue.  Commissioner Sattary stated that a long term measure would be to survey the area, and have an emergency response plan for the future.  Commissioner Theriault said that Supervisor Elsbernd came up with this proposal for Mt. Sutro Hill that actually seemed to provide a model for that.  Ms. Lee stated that the Department is meeting with Supervisor Peskin to discuss any changes that could be made to the Planning and Building Codes regarding this sort of issue. 

Commissioner Murphy said that he has been out of the country for three weeks and he woke up last Tuesday morning and was surprised to see Carla Johnson on CNN.  Commissioner Murphy stated that he visited the site yesterday, and met Carla and Ray Lui and it looked like they had everything under control. Commissioner Murphy stated that this should be a wake up as to what could happen if there was a major earthquake in this city, and he also mentioned that it scares him to know that there was only one emergency trailer.

b.  Status of MIS.

Acting Director Lee said that letters had been sent to all of the people who bid the contract, and said that DBI is not accepting bids under the former contract.  Ms. Lee stated that currently there is a steering committee that will be overseen by Isam Hasenin, Dean Macris, and others who will make sure that this is a high priority issue.  Ms. Lee said that the Department is in the process of hiring a project manager and trying to do some of the MIS work in-house, while also working with DTIS since they are going to redirect some highly skilled staff to help with the process reengineering.  President Walker said that she wanted Commissioner Grubb to be included in the process as well.

c.  Performance Statistics.

Acting Director Lee stated that she was reviewing the January report which reflects a decline due to the December holiday season, and because of the weather.  Ms. Lee said that the Department is working on making sure that the inspection data reflects the same month as the plan check permit data.  Ms. Lee reported on the following statistics:  Life Safety Hazard, Heat Complaints, and the Plan Check Backlog.  Ms. Lee stated that in the past some of the statistics were incorrect due to the way the data was being captured or not captured in the computers, so now the Department is doing a better job as reflected by the big jump in the numbers.  Ms. Lee said that the staff was able to make some strides in terms of major projects, and is working on a better turnaround time.

d.  Financial Report.

Acting Director Lee apologized, but wanted to continue this item as the reports were incorrect. and would agendize this item for the next meeting.  Ms. Lee said that it looks like the revenues are down by $6M to date, as there was a problem with the Department’s initial projections that were made last year, and also a lot of projects have been put on hold.  Ms. Lee stated that on the expenditure side DBI will not be in the red, because monies for certain projects will not likely be spent in this fiscal year, so the revenues are bad but the costs are maintained so that there would not be a deficit running for the end of this fiscal year.

e.  Update on the progress of the Statement of Incompatible Activities with the Ethics Commission.

Acting Director Lee stated that unfortunately it is not in the Department’s jurisdiction, since the Statement of Incompatible Activities (SIA) is really with the Ethics Commission and the Department of Human Resources (DHR).  Ms. Lee said that there have been meetings to try to work out different issues with the SIA.  Ms. Lee stated that in the next two weeks all staff is required to attend mandatory training on Ethics.

5.

Status of Seismic Initiatives.  [Manager Raymond Lui, Structural Safety & Emergency Management Division]

Mr. Raymond Lui thanked Acting Director Lee for initiating this program in terms of seismic safety, as well as some other programs within the Department about building safety in general.  Mr. Lui said that it is very commendable what Ms. Lee has done in the short time that she has been Acting Director.  Mr. Lui stated that regarding the Soft Story Wood Frame Program on February 24^th that there were over 150 volunteers to help survey and inventory the City’s wood frame buildings to see whether or not they had a soft story.  Mr. Lui also reported on the following items:

• There were 10 DBI staff volunteers, including Wing Lau and Hanson Tom.
• ·     The volunteers covered about 75% of the potential soft story buildings in San Francisco.
• ·     Based on the stacks of paper that he has received he believes about 80 – 90% of the planned areas were actually surveyed.
• ·     The Soft Story Wood Frame program is well on its way, but the data has not been broken down yet.
• ·     Chris Rojan of the Applied Technology Council (ATC) was one of the volunteers, and he walked with everyone and helped gather information for the CAPSS Program.

Commissioner Theriault said that there is virtually no neighborhood in town that does not have some of those types of buildings and asked Mr. Lui if there was going to be a point in the future where the survey would be completed for the entirety of San Francisco.  Mr. Lui said that there would be a broader survey in the future, and stated that Vernon Takasuka has been very instrumental in producing the maps for the walkthroughs so that staff could either walk those areas or bicycle them while on their regular duties or on overtime.  Mr. Lui stated that the Housing Inspection Division would supplement inspections in buildings that have been missed, and would help with quality control. 

President Walker called for public comment.

Mr. Henry Karnilowicz stated that he was one of the 150 volunteers who participated in the survey for the soft story buildings and said that it was well organized.  Mr. Karnilowicz said that the group attended abbreviated workshops before starting the survey, and everybody went out in teams of two. Mr. Karnilowicz stated that there were two people looking to see what percentage of the buildings were soft story and what was not.  Mr. Karnilowicz said that staff did a great job in giving the teams a list with all of the addresses, but there was not enough time to get to all of them.  Mr. Karnilowicz stated that the survey started at about 9:00 a.m. and finished just after 2:00 p.m., so about 80% of the buildings were covered.  Mr. Karnilowicz said that the volunteers noticed that commercial buildings with large store fronts are one of the main candidates, particularly on corners.  Mr. Karnilowicz stated that there were a few buildings that had the garage right on the whole bottom floor, and these are ones that will need to have some soft story work done.  Mr. Karnilowicz stated that this is a great program that Ray Lui is working on.

Mr. Francisco De Costa said that his organization has a website and he would like to have a survey and statistics on the website that cover those areas where there is a heavy population of residents in homes, especially in the avenues.  Mr. De Costa stated that since he lives in San Francisco he has been following a lot of the seismic retrofits from 1985, and has been interested in this issue ever since he worked at the Presidio.  Mr. De Costa said that he has been keeping track of buildings all over San Francisco, and it is good that in the last five years there are certain organizations and programs within the City and County of San Francisco that are taking a keen interest in seismic retrofit.  Mr. De Costa stated that there should be reports on the older and newer buildings since there have been some tremors in recent weeks which have affected them.  Mr. De Costa said that certain areas towards the financial district are important to look at, since some of the buildings are going to be over 500 feet tall.  Mr. De Costa said that even in the year 2007 it cannot be taken for granted that everything is known about earthquakes, and about how buildings will withstand earthquakes of magnitude 8 and above.  Mr. De Costa stated that the recent landslide at Telegraph Hill gave everyone a sense of what could happen if the big one hits, and communication is very important.

6.

Update on the BIC Subcommittee regarding recruitment for members of the AAC, BOE, CAC and UMB.  [Commissioner Michael Theriault]

Commissioner Theriault stated that he wanted to spell out what the alphabet soup stood for:  AAC is the Access Appeals Commission, BOE is the Board of Examiners, CAC is the Code Advisory Committee, and the UMB is the Unreinforced Masonry Appeals Board.  Commissioner Theriault said that most of the member’s terms have expired, and there are vacant positions on some of the committees.  Commissioner Theriault stated that the BIC Subcommittee consists of himself, Commissioner Grubb, and Commissioner Lee. Commissioner Theriault said they have drafted a couple of letters, and one went out to members who are currently sitting on those committees on an interim basis, asking them to reapply and honoring them for the service they have already given.  Commissioner Theriault stated that the other letter is to organizations and individuals who might conceivably want to apply for those committees and commissions.  Commissioner Theriault said that they are preparing attachments to the letters and those should be sent out within the week by Secretary Aherne.  Commissioner Theriault stated that April 18^th is the deadline for resumes to be submitted for positions on the subcommittees.  Commissioner Theriault said that it is usually difficult to fill some of the positions, so he encouraged anyone who might want to sit on one of the committees or commissions to apply.  Commissioner Theriault stated that the terms on the subcommittees generally last for about 3 years, so the odds are good to excellent that anybody who comes forward with an application and is accepted for it will be reappointed at the time the term expires later this year.  Commissioner Theriault said that generally committee seats are delineated by the Code as belonging to persons of particular qualifications, backgrounds, or occupations. Commissioner Theriault stated if anyone was interested in applying that they should go to sfgov.org and then to the DBI website or call the BIC office at 558-6164 to ask Secretary Aherne for the information, and she would be happy to provide it.  Commissioner Theriault said that they welcome applicants for any of the committees or commissions, but said that the AAC is a priority because they have been having a hard time getting a quorum for a meeting.

President Walker called for public comment.

Mr. Francisco De Costa said that he was the Director of Environmental Justice Advocacy, and when he worked at the Presidio he was also a program manager for the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).  Mr. De Costa stated that there needs to be an evaluation of the demographics of the city’s population, because there is a huge population of baby boomers, elderly people, and a huge percentage of those who are physically challenged.  Mr. De Costa said that he understood that access problems are expensive to enforce, and some problems should have been corrected years ago but because of enforcement there is a backlog.  Mr. De Costa stated that he hoped that at least certain public facilities are prioritized so that they could be brought to the attention of the State and Federal Government for assistance.  Mr. De Costa said that it is important to really have access at public facilities such as libraries, gymnasiums, and swimming pools since these are the only places some disabled people go for recreation.  Mr. De Costa stated that he was glad that there is a task force in San Francisco that is sensitive to this issue.

Mr. Henry Karnilowicz said he understood that one of the requirements for serving on these committees was that the applicant lives in San Francisco and asked if the Commission thought about having people who work in San Francisco, but live elsewhere serve on these committees.

President Walker stated that people actually have to be residents unless there is no one else to fill the categories in which case the Commission could vary that, but it is a Charter requirement that they are a resident. 

Mr. Karnilowicz asked if there was a position that could not be filled, if the Commission would consider taking somebody else.

President Walker said yes.

• Inquiries to Staff.  At this time, Commissioners may make inquiries to staff  regarding various documents, policies, practices, and procedures, which are of  interest to the Commission.

Vice-President Lee said that he attended the Chinese New Year’s street fair on Sunday, and was happy to see a DBI table there doing a fabulous job of engaging the citizens of San Francisco by having them answer Code questions for a prize.  Vice-President Lee asked for a calendar of future events where DBI participated in different neighborhoods to be included on the Director’s Report.  Vice-President Lee asked that the Commission send Bob Murray and Associates a letter thanking them for all of their hard work, and coordination regarding the search for a Director.  Vice-President Lee also suggested that the Commission send a letter to Deputy City Attorneys John Malamut and Beth Salveson thanking them for their help in making the interview process go smoothly.

• 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.

President Walker said that there would be a Joint Planning Commission and Building Inspection Commission meeting on March 29^th, which would be starting at 5:30 p.m.  Commissioner Theriault stated that he would be out of town.  Secretary Aherne said that the meeting would be held in the Board of Supervisors Chambers.  President Walker stated that she would be forwarding a proposed agenda within the next week for Commissioners to look at through Secretary Aherne. President Walker said that she would discuss the agenda with the interim Director and the new Director, along with the senior staff to make sure that all of the issues that the Commission has been working on within the Department are included.  President Walker stated that the BIC would not have a meeting on March 19^th, and the Commissioners should plan on March 29^th as their next scheduled meeting.  President Walker asked if Acting Director Lee could give the Commission the financial report in the interim.  Acting Director Lee said that the Department could give the Commission the financial report, along with a report that they have been working on in terms of the joint Planning and DBI issues.

Commissioner Grubb made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Theriault that the meeting be adjourned.  The motion carried unanimously.

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 021-07

Respectfully Submitted,


______________________
Sonya Harris
Assistant Secretary

Edited by,


______________________
Ann Marie Aherne
Commission Secretary