2.

President’s Announcements

 

3.

a. Status of MIS.

Acting Director Lee reported that over two-hundred new computers and flat screens had been deployed to DBI staff with no unexpected problems and the remaining installations should be completed by January.  Ms. Lee stated that the application is nearly 40% complete as the Department is trying to upgrade all of its Oracle Applications with the most recent versions.  Ms. Lee said that the Department is finishing up on web enhancements and should be launching the plumbing and electrical enhancements by early next week. 

Ms. Lee said that the Department had sustained the issuing of a second RFP as there were issues raised and the Department was concerned about cost that was extremely high and a timeframe that was extremely long.  Ms. Lee said that DBI was working with DTIS and said that she would have a more thorough update at the next meeting and perhaps ask DTIS to do a presentation at that time.  President Walker asked Ms. Lee to tell the Commissioners more about what happened to delay this project.

Acting Director Lee said that the Department’s strategy was to reengineer its business processes and then try to get something more meaningful on the Permit Tracking System and the Street Address Mapping System (SAMS).  Ms. Lee said that the Department had separated these projects into two separate processes, but the cost came out extremely high and SAMS was going to cost upwards of $2M with a year and a half timeframe for completion.  Ms. Lee stated that the Department decided to prioritize its business processes so rather than do a complete overhaul right away of all of the processes the Department was now going to look at the top five or ten issues.  Ms. Lee said that the Department would assess those processes and get a system to fix those ten and then work on the next ten to get more meaningful results in a timelier manner. Ms. Lee said that with SAMS, DBI does issue addresses, but that is not a main function of the Department; that is the function of other City Department such as the Recorders Office or the Assessors Office.  Ms. Lee stated that DBI was working with DTIS and other departments to make this a citywide project that DBI would not be primarily responsible for as DBI’s function is to issue permits and do inspections.

Acting Director Lee said that DBI was working with Planning as Planning had already done some business process reengineering.  Ms. Lee said that the Departments would be working together and hopefully would see some meaningful tracking systems in place within the next eighteen months.  President Walker said that Commissioner Grubb had been working with the Department on MIS issues and asked if he had anything to add.

Commissioner Grubb said that in working with DTIS it was evident that with the Gartner report the Department got a pretty solid base to work from.  Commissioner Grubb stated that with some new eyes in the Department working with DTIS he thought that there was now a proposal that is being put forward that would be quicker, more efficient and less costly than what was coming up.

President Walker asked when the RFP would be sent out again.  Ms. Lee said that the RFP would go out in February with bids due back in March.  Ms. Lee said that she would ask DTIS to provide a more detailed report at a future meeting. 

Commissioner Murphy asked who was coordinating all of this.  Ms. Lee said that it was DBI staff as well as DTIS staff and said that DBI was in the process of hiring a kind of super project manager that would have complete ownership of these projects.  Ms. Lee said that the Department did not have a formal MIS Manager at this time.  Commissioner Murphy stated that he was worried about spending the money and not getting what the Department really wants or needs. Commissioner Murphy said that people in the Department have told him that they have a system right off the shelf that works just wonderful, such as in Streets Use and Mapping.  President Walker said that one of the things learned from talking to people in San Jose is that San Jose did buy off the shelf but then spent a lot of money and time customizing those projects. 

Acting Director Lee said that DBI did not realize how much work the City has done around GIS and after talking to DTIS realized that DBI did not need to start from scratch and it did not need to cost $2.3M.  Commissioner Grubb said that the person at DTIS is very familiar with GIS and is familiar with what is going on in the City so would hopefully be able to unify this and make it a much less expensive proposition than what DBI was looking at.  President Walker said that DBI has to work with other City departments, such as Planning, the Assessors Office, the Recorders Office and DPW to have all of the information from these different departments accessible without each doing work and spending money by doing overlapping studies. 

Commissioner Grubb said that the Department would have to consider getting a product that would not be tethered to a contractor in terms of maintenance and would need something that could be modified in house on an ongoing basis.   

 

b. Performance Statistics.

Acting Director Lee said that she was reporting on the month of November 2006 and said that permit applications had significantly decreased because of the holidays and because of short staffing.  Ms. Lee said that 2,934 permits were received and only 2,809 were approved.  Ms. Lee said that now that the holiday season was over the Department would make better performance strides. 

 

Ms. Lee reported that the backlog days for major projects are increased from 17 in October to 25 days in November.  Ms. Lee said that the Department was able to make some strides in Residential Plan Check going down from 10.7 to 8.7.  Ms. Lee said that she was working with Deputy Director Wing Lau to figure out how to redefine some major projects as even a new two unit building goes to major projects along with super high-rise buildings.  Ms. Lee said that the Department was trying to figure out which projects are better off in residential plan check because there is a more timely review in that division.  Ms. Lee stated that she would report the changes in this policy next month.

 

Ms. Lee said that with the inspection progress, the plumbing division is achieving 100%, building inspection 98%, and electrical inspection  94%, but said that the electrical division is short staffed.  Ms. Lee stated that the Department was looking to hire new Electrical Inspectors as there were no new hires in that division last year.  Ms. Lee said that with the Housing Inspection there had been an improvement in life hazard responses to 82% up from 70% last month.

 

c. Financial Report.

Acting Director Lee reported that to date the Department’s revenues are not meeting the projected budget, but stated that the license fees of $5M+ will be received in this quarter.  Ms. Lee said that the Department had deferred about $2M worth of permit fees for public/private partnerships through the Redevelopment Agency and the Mayor’s Office of Housing until the addendums are issued and said that those monies should be realized in the next six months.  Ms. Lee said that she fully anticipated revenues to meet or exceed the budget slightly this year.

President Walker asked if the Department would be projecting less permitted activity this year.  Acting Director Lee said that the Department was expecting some decrease in permit activity for next year as the past year revenues included several high-rise buildings that she did not see happening next year.  Ms. Lee said that she did not think that there would be any reduction in the revenues, but said that she did not want to make any increases that would not be achieved. 

Commissioner Murphy said that he wanted to go back to something that was mentioned earlier about smaller projects lining up behind big commercial projects. Commissioner Murphy stated that this was troublesome to him and something he was not aware of.  Acting Director Lee said that this process was going to be changed by the end of the month.  Commissioner Murphy said that would be a very good move. 

Commissioner Theriault said that going back to the same section he wanted to know about the performance statistics on life hazard situations and said that it is improved, but wanted to know if the Department had identified the issue that led to the delays.  Acting Director Lee said that it was not so much that there were delays if there was a life hazard, but the way a life hazard is described the statistics include abandoned buildings.  Ms. Lee said that the Department is going to be changing those statistics as they are misleading.

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

Acting Director Lee stated that the Department had prepared details and comments on this issue, but said that since this is a meet and confer issue those details cannot be publicized.  Ms. Lee stated that the Department had made some concessions in terms of Contractor’s licenses and now the second round of meetings was taking place. Ms. Lee stated that DBI was a priority Department, but now other departments are going through this process and said that some of the other departments could not accept the things that DBI put forward in its Statement of Compatible Activities so how the City handles that remains to be seen.  Ms. Lee said that she had talked to the Mayor and this Commission to emphasize that if this is going to be a strict policy for DBI then it should be for other departments as well, such as DPW, Fire and Planning because they are also permit issuers.  Ms. Lee stated that one of her primary goals is that there would be a minimum disclosure even if a certain activity was no prohibited. 

President Walker asked if Acting Director Lee could update the Commission on the Ethic’s Commission assigning someone to DBI to deal with these issues.  Ms. Lee said that she would update the Commission at a later meeting when more information is available, but stated that the check had been cut to cover that expense.

e. Update on Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety (CAPSS).

Acting Director Lee said that the Department normally reports on the CAPSS program as a separate item, but stated that Manager Ray Lui had just returned from vacation so this would be on next month’s agenda.  Ms. Lee said that the Advisory Committee was being formed and said that she was looking forward to having Commissioner Sattary’s participation in this process.  Ms. Lee said that hopefully the work would begin in February as DBI had signed the contract.

Commissioner Sattary said that he had a question on the financial report and said that the projected revenues for the fiscal year are $45.6M, but that expenditures are $58.M and asked if that was a shortfall.  Acting Director Lee said that the Department has a fund balance of nearly $8M that will be used for IT upgrades and the office moves and those funds are not included in the budget.  Ms. Lee said that she suspected that the revenues would be over by a couple of hundred thousand dollars.

Patrick Buscovich said that he wanted to thank the Director for staying on top of the CAPSS program and getting ATC to sign the contract.

 

 

 

4.

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

Mr. Henry Karnilowitz welcomed and congratulated Vahid Sattary on his appointment to the BIC. Mr. Karnilowitz said that he very much appreciated that the Department was getting building inspections done within twenty-four hours.

5.

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

 

President Walker reported that the search is underway and said that the Commission was in the interview process that would spread out through the month of January.  President Walker said that there had already been one interview and the Commissioners were scheduled to do a couple more this afternoon; the balance of the others would take place on the 22^nd.  President Walker stated that everything was going amazingly well and said that she wanted to go on record thanking the Search Firm of Bob Murray & Associates for a job well done.  Commissioner Murphy asked if there was a date when everyone would know who the new Director is going to be.  President Walker said that would be up to the Commissioners, but said that her schedule is to have hired a new Director by the end of the month. 

Acting Director Lee said that she had relayed to DBI staff that the Commission intended to pick a new Director by the end of the month.  Commissioner Theriault said that from the resumes he has seen the candidates are very impressive and said he looked forward to making a choice.

6.

Commissioner’s Questions and Matters.

 

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

President Walker said that BIC Secretary Aherne and Secretary Harris were updating the list for appointments and expirations on the Sub-Committees appointed by the BIC, such as the AAC, BOE, CAC and UMB.  President Walker said that at the first meeting in February election of officers would take place and said that she wanted to agendize appointments to the Commission sub-committees such as Litigation, etc. at that time.  President Walker said that Commissioner Grubb was working with the Department on IT issues and Commissioner Sattary would be focusing on CAPSS and other seismic issues. 

President Walker said that the Commission would be reviewing the budget over the next few meetings as the budget would be due at the Mayor’s Office at the end of February and needs to be heard twice before the BIC before submittal. 

President Walker said that she wanted to remind the public that the regular meeting dates for January fell on holidays and that is the reason why the January meetings are posted as Special Meetings.  President Walker said that after this meeting the Commissioners would be holding a Special Meeting in Closed Session to do the interviews for the position of Director of the Department of Building Inspection. 

Acting Director Lee said that the Department needed to follow up with the Joint Planning and Building Inspection Commission meeting issues and said that there would be some Abatement Appeal cases that would have to be heard.  President Walker said that it would be good if one of the Commissioners would think about joining the Planning and Department of Building Inspection group that are getting together to discuss the issues that came up at the Joint meeting.  President Walker said that there was going to be a follow up meeting in June.

Adjournment.

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

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 004-07

 

 

Respectfully Submitted,


______________________

Ann Marie Aherne
Commission Secretary