2.

President’s Announcements]

 

President Walker welcomed Supervisor Aaron Peskin, President of the Board of Supervisors.  Supervisor Peskin said that he had the pleasure of attending DBI’s summit and said that he was extraordinarily impressed.  Supervisor Peskin stated that he wanted to applaud a job well done and said that he wanted to commend Acting Director Lee and DBI staff, on behalf of his colleagues on the Board of Supervisors.  Supervisor Peskin said that the summit was a very impressive public outreach initiative.  Supervisor Peskin presented President Walker with a proclamation. 

 

President Walker announced that Wade Crowfoot and Miguel Bustos were present from the Mayor’s Office.  Mr. Crowfoot said that on behalf of the Mayor’s Office he wanted to echo Supervisor Peskin’s remarks and said that the Mayor’s Office was very impressed with the seminar and with the positive comments that the office received from citizens who are often confused by the permit process.  Mr. Crowfoot stated that the Mayor’s Office was looking forward to more of these types of public outreach and offered the Mayor’s Office staff as a resource.  Mr. Crowfoot introduced Mr. Miguel Bustos as the Mayor’s Office liaison to City Commissions. 

 

President Walker said that she wanted to applaud staff on the summit and said that the Commissioners had gotten nothing but very positive feedback.  President Walker thanked President Peskin and the representatives from the Mayor’s Office for coming to the meeting to acknowledge DBI and said that it was imperative that everyone works together.

 

President Walker read the resolution from the Board of Supervisors.

 

3.

Director’s Report

a.  Status of MIS.

Acting Director Lee said that she would be giving a brief update monthly, but if the Commission needed a more detailed report this could be agendized separately.  Ms. Lee reported that the Department is about 60% complete with the refresh project, which includes such items as the hardware, networks and servers. Ms. Lee said that DBI staff and the public should see new computers and desk monitors by the end of November.  Ms. Lee stated that the reengineering projects as well as the street address mapping systems project was sent out for bid last month and said that bids were due on November 7^th.  President Walker asked if there were vendors responding to the Request for Proposal (RFP).  Ms. Lee said that there were bids received.

 

b.  Performance Statistics.

Acting Director Lee said that in the past year and a half the Department had reduced the backlog from 45 days down to 20 days.  Ms. Lee said that Management is trying to maintain a careful balance of responding to the current demand, addressing the backlog and also trying to make staff available for training.  Ms. Lee said that residential projects are down to 3.8 days.  Ms. Lee stated that in August the backlog was up because many of the staff was at training and said that the Department hoped to catch up during the wintertime when the volume should slow down.  Ms. Lee said that on the inspection side the Department was trying to get more accurate and consistent data.  Ms. Lee said that many times an Inspector will do an inspection, but not put the data in the computer for several days so that makes it look like there was a slow response.  Ms Lee stated that with Housing the data showed 841 inspections being done when the numbers should be 1500 and said that staff was working with MIS to make corrections and to make sure that there is more real time linkage in terms of the activity.

 

c.  Financial Report.

Acting Director Lee reported that the expenditures and revenues were matching so the Department is not overextending.  Ms. Lee said that it looked as if there was a $2 - $3M shortfall in the budget, but said that there were some large projects in the pipeline that had not yet filed for permits and said that she expected those projects to make up the estimated projection of the budget.  Ms. Lee stated that the process for next year’s budget would begin in December.  President Walker asked that all Commissioners be present for the meetings in January when the Commission would have to hear the budget twice before submission to the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors in February.  Ms. Lee said that the Commission might want to have a Budget Committee.  President Walker asked that any interested Commissioner let her know if they wanted to be on the Budget Committee.

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

Acting Director Lee said that DBI had been coordinating several meet and confer meetings, as DBI is one of the first round departments.  Ms. Lee said that the meetings are organized by DHR Employee Relations Divisions and they include representatives from DBI, employee relations division, Ethics and the City Attorney’s Office.  Ms. Lee stated that there had been several meetings, but said that it would be great if all of the unions could meet together in the same room as it makes the process a little smoother.  Ms. Lee said that the unions had concerns about many of the provisions and requested follow up meetings and said that some unions are waiting for their attorneys to review the SIA’s and will provide additional comments at a later date.  Ms. Lee stated that the major concerns are regarding restrictions on active construction licenses, the requirement to both own and occupy property, and the clarification concerning when a property can be purchased that has been under Code Enforcement.  Ms. Lee stated that the unions think that some of the overall statements are too broad so the Department is trying to get a comprehensive list of all of the concerns in order to address them.  Ms. Lee said that there will be additional meetings and hopefully there can be a happy medium.  Ms. Lee said that the Ethics Commission will be making the determination and said that some of the concerns are out of DBI’s control.  Ms. Lee said that the goal for the entire City is to have all of the SIA’s adopted by June 2007.

e.  Update on mold and mildew training for DBI Inspectors.

Acting Director Lee said that the Commissioners had asked for an update on mold and mildew training for inspectors.  Ms. Lee stated that the Department was able to identify a trainer, the purchase order has been approved and training is scheduled for sometime in January or February. Ms. Lee said that the Department has set aside funds to train up to eight people.

 

President Walker asked for public comment on the Director’s report.

 

Mr. Henry Karnilowitz said that he wanted to comment on the SIA.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that he thought that the Inspectors should be able to keep active licenses and said that taking away those licenses would be unfair and would hurt morale in the Department.  Mr. Karnilowitz stated that he thought it was unfair for Inspectors not to be able to work on their own properties as many Inspectors owned rental properties in the City.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that he would agree that Inspectors should not be allowed to inspect properties that they own, but they should be allowed to work on them.

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.

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

Mr. Raymond Lui said that he was asked to present the status of some of the Department’s seismic hazard reduction programs.  Mr. Lui stated that DBI is embarking on some new initiatives such as the soft-story frame program, the building occupancy resumption program and the CAPSS program.  Mr. Lui said that he had asked Chief Building Inspector Laurence Kornfield to speak to the Commission about the CAPSS program. 

 

Mr. Laurence Kornfield said that it is very exciting to have a new division that focuses on these very vital issues and said that he looked forward to working with Ray and having the CAPSS program under Mr. Lui’s careful oversight. 

 

Mr. Kornfield said that the Commission authorized the Department to reinstitute the CAPSS program in the middle of last year, but it has taken until fairly recently to get through the contract to issue an RFP.  Mr. Kornfield said that there was a single response to the RFP and that response was from the same agency that did Phase I and the beginning of Phase II, Applied Technology Council.  Mr. Kornfield stated that a committee of Department personnel as well as members of the community met and sent back substantial comments, which require that the proposer revisit some of their concepts. Mr. Kornfield said that these comments included how much time and effort ATC is spending on engineering issues verses what are the public policy impact of those engineering issues, which is really the bottom line of the CAPSS program.  Mr. Kornfield stated that the goal is to look at what the damage might be to different facilities and then based on social, economic, cultural and other impacts to propose mitigation strategies to the BIC and then to the Board of Supervisors that mitigate the most serious impacts. 

 

Mr. Kornfield said that the Department expected to have ATC’s review, their proposal revised and submitted in about a week.  Mr. Kornfield said that then the Committee would reconvene and take a look at the proposal to see if it is acceptable and then proceed with the contracting and the award of the contract.  Mr. Kornfield stated that because this is such a complex issue and with the holidays coming up he thought the actual work would begin in January.  President Walker asked if the Advisory Committee would be the same advisory panel as appointed previously.  Mr. Kornfield said that Amy would appoint an advisory panel and said that some of the members would be the same, but said there was a lengthy list of people recommended and there would be some new faces on the committee.  Acting Director Lee said that it might be a good idea to start the Advisory Committee meetings as soon as possible as the vendor is already chosen and the Department is obviously going forward with the CAPSS program.  President Walker said that this was something that could be done immediately.  Mr. Kornfield said that he would put together a recommendation list for the Advisory Committee by the end of the month. 

 

Mr. Kornfield said that he knows that there is frustration among many of the people, including the Advisory Panel Members that this is not moving forward faster, but said that the contracting process is difficult in a complex City.

 

Commissioner Grubb asked what time frame is anticipated for the first phase of this study by the contractor.  Mr. Kornfield said that the contract is essentially a two-year contract.  Mr. Kornfield stated that the first piece of work that has to be undertaken is to give DBI a detailed time line of exactly which pieces are going to be done in what order, what the deliverables are and how the money is proportioned to those pieces.  Commissioner Grubb asked if the mitigation phase was going to be a separate contract.  Mr. Kornfield said that the Department had built into this Phase II, ATC’s and the Community Working Group’s concept of what mitigation activity should take place; another future Phase is intended to be demonstration projects of those which the Commission thinks are appropriate mitigation tools.  Mr. Kornfield said that the outcome of this two-year project should be a list of possible mitigation strategies.  

 

Commissioner Murphy asked how many people were going to be on the Advisory Committee.  Ms. Lee said that the Department wanted to make sure that there is a wide range of people serving on this Committee.  Commissioner Murphy asked who was going to make up the Committee.  Ms. Lee said that it would be some City agencies, and people representing homeowners, contractors, builders, tenants and groups that would be affected.  Ms. Lee said that the previous Committee had eighteen members including some Engineers.  Commissioner Theriault said that it might be appropriate to agendize the reformation of this Committee.  Ms. Lee said that she would work on the Committee list and present it to the Commission before a final decision is made. 

 

Acting Director Lee said that the Department had been working on trying to improve data collection, because right now the CAPSS data is based on square footage and a building-by-building analysis has not been done.  Ms. Lee said that Ray Lui had been working with the State to get additional funding so that the Department could get better data collection, not just for the CAPSS Program, but also for an overall City-wide assessment in terms of safety. 

 

President Walker asked Mr. Lui to speak on soft-story buildings.  Mr. Lui said that the CAPSS Phase II draft reports indicated that soft story with wood frame buildings are one of the more vulnerable types of buildings in San Francisco.  Mr. Lui said that at the direction of Acting Director Lee the Department had started to implement and put together a program for soft-story wood frame buildings or retrofit of such.  Mr. Lui said that at the moment the Department was still trying to put together the technical requirements for it and pulling data from the computer for apartment buildings and condos.  Mr. Lui said that the intent is to actually put feet on the ground and do a better survey of all the buildings in San Francisco.  Mr. Lui said that with that in mind the Department has been talking with ATC, the Research Institute, the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California and the Office of Homeland Security to try to figure out a way to collect that data in a more precise way.  Mr. Lui said that this data would not just be collected for the soft-story buildings, but hopefully for all of the buildings covered under the CAPSS program.  Mr. Lui stated that this was kind of a dream thing right now.  Mr. Lui said that the Department was charging ahead with the Soft-Story Program and said that the Department had gotten a lot of public comments out of its first meeting. 

 

Acting Director Lee said that she had attended a Disaster Council Meeting with the Mayor, Board of Supervisors and major Department heads she brought up the fact the DBI is working on a secondary program following along the lines of the UMB Program.  Ms. Lee said that she gave notice that the Department will be using the remaining funds in the UMB Program for the Soft-Story Program.  Ms. Lee said that this would have to be a ballot measure and would have to detail out what the City is looking at in terms of what kind of program would be implemented.  Ms. Lee said that there was support from the Mayor and from the Board of Supervisors about this issue.  Ms. Lee said that the Department would not be raising more funds, but using existing funds or redirecting the remaining funds. 

 

President Walker said that Secretary Aherne had put her in contact with a gentleman at the Mayor’s Office of Housing who is administering the program and said that he was getting all of the language from the previous UMB loan fund ballot measure.  President Walker said that she would work with the City Attorney’s Office to look at how that program could be amended so that the Department could move forward to switch those funds to be available for the next level of programs. Acting Director Lee said that everyone from the State as well as the Federal government mentions that the major vulnerability for San Francisco is the soft stories.  President Walker said that this issue would be discussed at a future meeting.

 

Commissioner Theriault asked if the City would be offering low interest loans.  Acting Director Lee said that the Department was still in the process of gathering information in order to get a good sense of the numbers and then at the characteristics of the owners to determine whether the program would offer interest free loans or if it would be better to do a direct grant. 

 

Mr. Henry Karnilowitz said that there was no doubt that soft-story buildings are the most vulnerable and said that the next earthquake will come so he wanted the Commission and the Department to move on this issue quickly.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that it would be important to educate the public and to not drag this out.

 

6.

Report on DBI’s “Meet the Pros” Summit held on October 25, 2006. [Acting Director Amy Lee and Manager Patty Herrera, Public Services Division

President Walker thanked Ms. Herrera and said that the President of the Board of Supervisors and representatives from the Mayor’s Office were present earlier commending the Department for the work that Ms. Herrera and her staff did for the Summit. 

 

Acting Director Lee said that she would give some brief comments and then ask Ms. Herrera to provide more details.  Ms. Lee stated that DBI Communications Manger Bill Strawn worked very hard on the summit and was on a much-deserved vacation and was unable to attend.  Ms. Lee stated that when the Department decided to hold the Summit it was to educate DBI’s customers and to relieve some of the public’s stress when coming to DBI to obtain a permit.  Ms. Lee said that the Summit not only improved the education of DBI’s customers, but also gave DBI staff more exposure to public speaking and making presentations so there was professional development as well.  Ms. Lee stated that staff worked very hard and did a great job in such a short time.  Ms. Lee stated that the presentations were taped by SFGTV and would be available on the Department’s website.  Ms. Lee said that as a result of the Summit one homeowner came into the Department and filed a permit for a voluntary retrofit of their property.  Ms. Lee said this is a goal of DBI to have people improve their property and the safety of their buildings.  Ms. Lee said that she was really pleased with the Summit and said that she wanted to continue public outreach by DBI and to encourage other departments to participate in the coming years.  Ms. Lee said that the overall cost of the Summit was under $35,000 with a lot of the expense being advertising. 

 

Acting Director Lee called on Public Services Division Manager Patty Herrera to give the Commission further information.  President Walker thanked Ms. Herrera for her work on the Summit.  Ms. Herrera reported that there were 447 advance registrations, but actual attendance was 282.  Ms. Herrera said that staff worked very hard and were very well prepared.  Ms. Herrera stated that many of the registrants signed up for all of the workshops and realized that after lunch it was a little bit too much information so about half of the people left at that time.  Ms. Herrera said that, nonetheless, there were about 100 people for each workshop and the feedback was excellent.  Ms. Herrera stated that there was coverage from seven or eight different sources of news media and the presentations that will be available on the Department’s website will be used as training material.  Ms. Herrera said that the Department was planning to do more community neighborhood meetings starting off with quarterly meetings and then moving to monthly meetings, or as needed. 

 

Acting Director Lee said that the Department has monthly brown bag lunch meetings and several people who attended the Summit submitted ideas for topics to be discussed.  Ms. Lee said that most people were interested in “How to Obtain a Permit”, but “Illegal Units and Tenant/Landlord Enforcement” were another hot topic so the Department is going to try to address those as much as possible in future presentations.  

 

Vice-President Lee said that he attended the Summit and was very impressed and said that the public were very interested in the topics and in learning what DBI is all about.  Vice-President Lee said that he really appreciated the Department hosting the Summit. 

 

Commissioner Grubb said that he was unable to attend the Summit, but said that he had gotten nothing but positive feedback.  Commissioner Grubb said that this type of activity puts a good face on the Department, on the people in the Department and also demystifies what the Department is all about.  Commissioner Grubb said he thought this was critical for going forward and reestablishing the credibility of the Department and the employees.  Commissioner Grubb stated that this kind of outreach and face-to-face time really services everybody well and thanked everybody involved. 

 

Mr. Henry Karnilowitz said that he found the Summit to be very informative and educational and recommended that next time the Department set up booths so that people could walk around and mingle and not just sit at workshops.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that it was a great turn out for the first time and it was a job well done. 

 

7.

Update on DBI’s search for a permanent Director. [President Walker]

President Walker said that quite a few people were applying and said that the deadline for applications was November 20, 2006.  President Walker said that after the applications are received by the search firm Bob Murray & Associates would be going over the applications.  President Walker stated Regan Williams of Bob Murray & Associates had spoken with all of the Commissioners and some key Department staff to identify the priorities for this position.  President Walker stated that the search firm would be doing interviews through December and because of holidays would probably come forward at the end of December with recommendations.  President Walker said that the Commission could probably get into the interview process in January.  President Walker stated that she had spoken to the City Attorney about how to proceed with Sunshine Ordinance Rules and all of the rules about public meetings and the ability to also honor some confidentiality of applicants until such time that the Commission knows more about the direction it will be taking.  President Walker said that at the next meeting she hoped to have a whole scenario for how the interview process with the Commission will pan out.  President Walker said that she had asked Ed Lee, Ed Harrington and Fred Abadi to meet to go over the initial recommendations of the search firm before getting into the process.  President Walker said that she would give the Secretary some of the brochures that were sent out by the search firm to distribute to the Commissioners.  President Walker said that she thought there would be a good group of candidates to choose from. 

 

Commissioner Murphy asked if Controller Harrington’s role would be to check individual applicants to see if they have any baggage.  President Walker said yes, but said that Ed Harrington, Ed Lee and Fred Abadi have been part of the City family, have worked with DBI and are familiar with the Department’s process.  Commissioner Murphy said that these individuals would be involved in an advisory capacity.  President Walker said that was correct.

8.

Status of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between DBI and the San Francisco Housing Authority concerning DBI’s Building Code enforcement activities in Housing Authority projects.  [Chief Housing Inspector Rosemary Bosque]

President Walker called on Chief Housing Inspector Rosemary Bosque to report on this item.  Ms. Bosque said that this MOU has been a long time in the making and earlier this year she, the Director and the Deputy director met with the Executive Management of the Housing Authority to come up with a plan in which the two agencies could work together to address the complaints generated in buildings that the Housing Authority owns.  Ms. Bosque stated that one of the major differences between this process and the previous process is that the complaint will now go directly to the Housing Authority’s General Counsel in order to spear head a more timely response on the part of the Housing Authority.  Ms. Bosque said that the draft document includes all of the various recommendations that various groups have made, but said that Deputy City Attorney John Malamut wanted to make some minor text changes before it is transferred over to the Office of the City Attorney for review.  Ms. Bosque said that the MOU would be transferred over to the City Attorney’s Office in the next day or two.

 

Acting Director Lee said that she was very optimistic about this MOU as this is a good partnership opportunity for the benefit of the residents of the Housing Authority because DBI will be able to monitor the Housing Authority and giving them the opportunity to make necessary repairs rather than issuing Notices of Violations and generating legal fees. 

 

President Walker asked what the timeframe for this being implemented was.  Ms. Bosque said that the MOU is being sent to the Housing Authority for their review and once both parties agree and sign the document it would go into effect immediately thereafter.  Ms. Bosque said that the Department was within a day or two of transmitting this to the Housing Authority.  President Walker asked for an update at the next meeting.

 

Vice-President Lee asked how the resident’s complaints were coming to DBI.  Ms. Bosque said that it was a combination of things and said that it could be a referral from the Health Department that DBI in turn refers to the Housing Authority’s maintenance crew.  Ms. Bosque stated that with this MOU the Housing Authority’s General Counsel would also be notified because DBI has found that in the past with their involvement early on in the process there is a more timely response.  Acting Director Lee said that once the MOU is completed DBI could publicize more and do outreach to let people know that they could complain to DBI.  Vice-President Lee said that it would be a good idea to have a hot line available for these complaints.  Ms. Bosque said that was a good idea and stated that the Department already has outreach that is in place with such organizations as the Housing Rights Council.

9.

Review and approval of the minutes of the September 18, 2006 meeting.

 

Vice-President Lee made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Romero, to adopt the minutes.  The motion carried unanimously.

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 052-06

10.

Review and approval of the minutes of the October 2, 2006 meeting.

 

Vice-President Lee made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Romero, to adopt the minutes.  The motion carried unanimously.

 

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 053-06

11.

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.

Commissioner Grubb asked if there was any meeting scheduled with the Planning Commission.  President Walker said that she believed that a meeting was scheduled for Thursday, December 7, 2006 at 1:30 p.m.  President Walker said that the Planning Commission and the Building Inspection Commission would meet jointly to address issues such as the 311 notices, the demolition policies and any other sort of communications. 

 

Acting Director Lee said that perhaps the Commissioners could give topics to President Walker and she could work with the Planning Commission President to set an agenda.  President Walker said that she would get the agenda out quickly so that the community would have ample notice to participate. 

 

President Walker stated that the next regular BIC meeting would be held on December 4^th and the meeting after that would be December 18^th   Secretary Aherne said that the next regular meeting would be November 20, 2006 and then the two December meetings.  Secretary Aherne reminded everyone that the first and third Mondays in January are both holidays and said that she would check to make sure that there could be meetings on the second and fourth Mondays, as the budget would have to be heard.   President Walker asked that any Commissioner interested in serving on the Budget Committee contact her.

 

12.

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

A member of the public whose property is located at 606 Capp Street spoke about a problem created by her next-door neighbor located at 3189 – 21^st Street when construction of a five-story building and a parking lot were started.  The owner stated that her foundation is now constantly damp and said that when it rains the water from the parking lot is diverted into her light well.  The owner said that the parking lot was completed without permit.  President Walker had the owner speak with Acting Director Carla Johnson so that a Building Inspector could be sent to the property to aid in solving this problem.

 

13.

Adjournment.

 

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

 

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 054-06

The meeting was adjourned at 10:15a.m.

 

 

 

Respectfully Submitted,


______________________

Ann Marie Aherne
Commission Secretary