Department of Building Inspection

Building Inspection Commission

MINUTES

The regular meeting of the Building Inspection Commission was called to order at 1:15 p.m. by President Fillon.

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

COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT:

Alfonso Fillon, President
Denise D’Anne, Commissioner
Bobbie Sue Hood, Vice-President
Esther Marks, Commissioner
Roy Guinnane, Commissioner
Rodrigo Santos, Commissioner
Matt Brown, Commissioner, excused
Ann Aherne, Commission Secretary

D.B.I. REPRESENTATIVES:

Frank Chiu, Director
Jim Hutchinson, Deputy Director
William Wong, Deputy Director
Rosemary Bosque, Chief Housing Inspector
Taras Madison, Administration & Finance Manager
Sonya Harris, Secretary

2. President’s Announcements.

President Fillon had no announcements.

3. Director’s Reports. [Director Frank Chiu]

a. Status on televising of BIC Meetings

Director Chiu said that item #3a was to give the status as to where the Department is regarding the request of the Commissioners at the last several meetings. Director Chiu said that the Commission had directed Ann Aherne, the Commission Secretary, and Director Chiu to look into talking to Cable Channel 26 staff to see how the Department could televise the Commission meetings. Director Chiu said that the Commissioners had a copy of the e-mail from Ann Aherne to Director Chiu showing that Secretary Aherne had done a lot of research as to how the Department could proceed with the Commissioner’s request. Director Chiu said that the Commission could see from Secretary Aherne’s e-mail to him, there is a conflict of televising the Building Inspection Commission’s Meeting with some of the televised Board of Supervisor’s Finance Committee Meetings, which meet on the same day and at the same time. Director Chiu stated that if the Commission wanted to pursue this, they would probably need to change the meeting date, so this is the first thing the Commission would need to do. Director Chiu stated the second thing is that Room #408 is not equipped to televise the meetings, so the Commission would have to look for another room or see which rooms are available. Director Chiu said that at the same time Secretary Aherne did a good job in trying to get some estimate as to what this would cost, and according to the information she received so far, it would probably cost approximately $93.85 per staff person, per hour. Director Chiu stated that typically it would probably take about four hours to set up and run the meeting, so the cost would be approximately $1,200.00 to have the meeting televised. Director Chiu said there were other departments also requesting similar things that the Commission was asking for so details had not been firmed up yet, but essentially two or three things need to happen from the BIC. Director Chiu said that the BIC should discuss whether or not the current meetings should be moved from the first and third Wednesday of each month to other meeting days in order to avoid the conflict with the Board of Supervisor’s Finance Committee meetings. Director Chiu said that the Department would have to seek other rooms, which are already equipped to televise these hearings. Director Chiu said he would be happy to answer any questions that the Commission had. Commissioner Santos addressed Director Chiu and said the Commission was talking about the cost at the last meeting, and Director Chiu mentioned $1,200.00. Commissioner Santos asked if this would be the cost for a one-time showing. Director Chiu stated that was correct; it would be a one-time showing. Director Chiu said that most hearings air more frequently, than just during the live meetings and are aired several more times, but that would be an additional cost.

Vice-President Hood said that she thought the Commission should look into this because it would be one way of perhaps dispelling some of the inaccurate information that has been in the press about the Department and the Commission would be able to have a visual record of the Commission’s meetings and the issues that were brought up. Vice-President Hood said that would be in addition to the written records, or the minutes because this is a visual society now and this would be more accessible to most people. Vice-President Hood said even though it would mean that she would have to get her hair done before the Commission meeting, she thought it would be a great idea. Director Chiu said that if that is what the Commission desires, he would continue to work with Secretary Aherne to look into the rooms and the possibility of rescheduling the Commission meeting dates as well, and then as soon as more information is available he would be happy to report back to the Commission.

Commission Secretary Aherne said that she was told by the staff at Channel 26 that more information would be available after July 1, 2003 because apparently at one time there were seven other Commissions that were ahead of the BIC, in their requests to have their meetings televised. Secretary Aherne stated that the schedules would be set up in the next couple of days and she would then know what was available to the BIC. Vice-President Hood asked if there was any way of having a portable set-up in Room #408. Vice-President Hood stated that she knew the other rooms were set up and it’s a beautiful system and there are little TV screens on the seats and so forth, but asked if the meetings could be televised by some portable device. Vice-President Hood stated that the Commission has had people come to Room #408 and televise them before, so this would perhaps be something else to look into. President Fillon asked if there were any other comments from the Commissioners on this item; there were none. President Fillon asked if there was any public comment on this item.

Mr. Joe O’Donoghue of the Residential Builders Association said that he thought the Commission should post haste, get and secure a room to be televised. Mr. O’Donoghue said if the Commission procrastinates then they are going to get a continued barrage of negative press, that the Department is getting continuously because we are in an informed society and if only one story is heard and then other people are not coming forward to defend the employees of this Department and the Commission from scurrilous vitriolic remarks then that’s going to continue. Mr. O’Donoghue stated that the Grand Jury report, which was obviously one-sided, was a demonstration of this. Mr. O’Donoghue said how it worked prior to the setting up of Channel 26 in the Planning Commission, every other week the Residential Builders were listening to some uninformed politically agendized remarks that were castigating their membership. Mr. O’Donoghue said once the Residential Builders got on Channel 26 at the Planning Commission, then suddenly the press changed their aura because they could see the RBA members testifying in a professional manner. Mr. O’Donoghue stated they were able to respond to the allegations and before you know it, those people making the allegations were turning out to be the whackos and were considered as that, so it is the same way with this Department. Mr. O’Donoghue said this is a money generating Department, and when this Commission was first created $100,000.00 was set aside in the budget because they anticipated ad-homonym attacks by enemies out there who have political agendas, and that $100,000.00 was intended to be used for televising the Commission meetings. Mr. O’Donoghue said it’s not a matter of the cost. Mr. O’Donoghue mentioned the Taxi Commission, which is going to be folded into the Muni System, so they’re not going to be televised, and said that DBI needs to move aggressively. Mr. O’Donoghue said he heard the explanation four weeks ago that the Department had a problem with finding a meeting room and said that this is only a matter of scheduling. Mr. O’Donoghue said if the Department is going to go at this nimbi pamby, in other words, then it’s not going to get done. Mr. O’Donoghue said that he hoped the Grand Jurors were reporting this and televising it or noting it for their future report because the meetings are where the public advocate, not sub-rose as their report implied, but it is done here on a policy level overboard, which is the way policy is changed and policy should be changed. Mr. O’Donoghue said that with all due respect to the Director, the Director needs to move more aggressively on this. Mr. O’Donoghue said he was shocked today that there were no union representatives down at the Press conference defending Department employees. Mr. O’Donoghue stated that the planners and the engineers union was missing in action as was Carpenter’s Local 22; it’s for all industry again, because the bottom line for builders is that they want to see an efficient Department; builder’s money supports this Department, and they want to ensure that the work gets done and everyone gets treated the same. Mr. O’Donoghue said for this reason he thought the Commission had the authority to direct, in total advocacy, the Director to move more aggressively than that, which has been happening. Mr. O’Donoghue thanked the Commission.

Mr. Ken Cleaveland of the Building Owners and Managers Association introduced himself and said that he works for this association which is an association of commercial property owners in San Francisco. Mr. Cleaveland said he would like to second what Joe O’Donoghue said, and certainly said that he thought that government in the open is a lot better. Mr. Cleaveland said the Department was under criticism right now for being ineffective; there is a movement at the Board of Supervisors office to abolish the Building Inspection Commission and this is not the time to hide, it’s the time to tell the public what the Department is doing and let them be informed about the function of the Building Inspection Commission, what the Commission is doing and how regularly the Commission meets. Mr. Cleaveland stated that the Commission spends many hours studying all of these things and none of it gets out to the general public. Mr. Cleaveland said all the public hears about is what they read in the press, which may or may not be favorable to the Commission’s existence and to all the work they put into being a Commissioner, so he would second what Joe O’Donoghue said and get the good word out to the people of San Francisco about what the Building Inspection Commission is doing, the issues the Commission is addressing, and the solutions the Commission is coming up with. Mr. Cleaveland thanked the Commission.

Mr. Chester Zemany said that he agreed with the two people who spoke before him that public relations are probably important. Mr. Zemany said that he read part of the report and the remedies looked really easy to him. Mr. Zemany stated that even the computer system didn’t look that difficult. Mr. Zemany referred to a newspaper article that was recently written that was an issue of substance and said that this kind of publicity does not help.

President Fillon said that Mr. Zemany made a good point and stated that if there had been television coverage all this time it would have been a lot clearer how that whole situation occurred. Vice-President Hood said that the BIC could just go back and get a few clips and give it to the TV people so things would really be on the record.

President Fillon said that there was no further comment on this item and moved on to item #4.

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 on this item.

5. Discussion and possible action to form a committee to review and respond to the Civil Grand Jury Report on the Management of the Department of Building Inspection.

Commissioner Guinnane stated that he had asked for this item and had been talking to Director Chiu about forming some kind of committee to respond to the Grand Jury. Commissioner Guinnane said that this was a problem because it is very hard to respond to the Grand Jury unless the Commission gets more specifics about the individuals or addresses where there was preferential treatment given. Commission Guinnane said that in talking to Ann Aherne, the Commission Secretary, she informed him that the foreman of the Grand Jury cannot be specific, and cannot give addresses so the BIC could look in to these allegations. Commissioner Guinnane said that it is very hard for the Commission to take steps and try to resolve any issues without getting these specific names or addresses. Commissioner Guinnane stated that unless something is different the BIC is really impeded from doing its job.

Commissioner Santos said that he would agree with Commissioner Guinnane, as the findings are too generic, too general. Commissioner Santos stated that perhaps the Grand Jury could assist by some sort of indication as to areas of emphasis and potential areas that could be reviewed, studied and improved upon. Commissioner Santos said that the report is too general for anyone to be able to have any sort of consistent form of response; it needs to be more specific.

Vice-President Hood said that she did not agree with that and said that she thought that there are statistical methods of looking at the processing time of various groups that the Department could do a sampling of. Vice-President Hood said that even if the Commission could not get the names, which she was not sure was true, stated that perhaps the Commission could get a subpoena or something to get the information from the Grand Jury. Vice-President Hood said that the Commission could look at some of the statistics as all of this is supposed to be on the computer and said that she thought the Commission could draw some conclusions from that. Vice-President Hood stated that in addition there are certain charges made that are refutable in a factual way. Vice-President Hood said that one of the issues that stood out in her mind is the implication that the Commission never did anything about MIS and the Commission could go back and quote on that subject by date, chapter and verse because the BIC did very much care about it. Vice-President Hood said that she knew that Commissioner Guinnane had been bird-dogging MIS for years and is on record for going after it. Vice-President Hood said that there is a demand that the BIC reply and said that she thought the Commission needed to come out and reply very specifically to those things that were within the Commission’s purview to explain certain things and if there is a valid criticism of something that the BIC didn’t do then the Commission should own up to it. Vice-President Hood said that in reading the report she did not see anything like that, but there might be something there. Vice-President Hood said that there was a lot of effort behind this and it is not just going to go away, but it is like innuendo by bad-spirited people. Vice-President Hood said that there are many factual errors in the report and said that was because the Grand Jury did not go to the documents. Vice-President Hood stated that she thought the Grand Jury went to gossip and went to people who are malcontents who are unhappy because the Department and the Commission had enforced standards and tried to do things. Vice-President Hood said that the Commission stepped on a few toes to make things run better and now the BIC and the Department were being criticized by, perhaps, those people who weren’t getting promoted or whatever.

Commissioner Guinnane said to echo what Bobbie Sue said four and a half years ago looking at the MIS issue and the millions of dollars that was being spent, he took it upon himself as a Commissioner to go over and meet Harvey Rose and a gentleman by the name of Stan Jones. Commissioner Guinnane stated that he wanted to bring in individuals to assess the MIS, the actual system itself, and then wanted another company to come in to evaluate the individuals and the management of the MIS. Commissioner Guinnane said that he talked to Mr. Harrington about this and said he got assurances from Mr. Harrington and other individuals to leave it alone, that there were problems there, but they would correct them. Commissioner Guinnane said that for the last two-and-a-half years he has been trying to get Director Chiu to come along and make the Manager of the MIS fill out an economic statement and to this date cannot figure out why that was not a requirement of the job. Commissioner Guinnane stated that he read the amended complaint and discovered that all of these contracts were being approved and did not know this previously and if he had, would have done a lot more about it. Commissioner Guinnane stated that Building Inspectors have to fill out the economic statement and they don’t handle contracts or money; yet, there is an individual that is doling out three and four million dollars worth of contracts and there is no statement being required. Commissioner Guinnane said that he had even asked this question of the City Attorney’s Office and to this day had not received a good answer. Commissioner Guinnane said that the Commission could only do so much because the Commissioners hands are basically pretty tied, as they can’t go into personnel issues. Commissioner Guinnane said that when the BIC tries to hit on those areas the Commissioners get beat back, and it’s not for lack of trying as he has put a lot of time into this Commission and looks at a lot of areas to gout out there and help individuals that are underdogs. Commissioner Guinnane said that when he was building there was no commission in place and said that he thought this was a good commission with some good Commissioners who have put a ton of time into this.

Commissioner Marks said that she would agree that there should be a committee and stated that she spoke with Matt Brown before he left on vacation and he stated that he would like to serve on the committee. Commissioner Marks said that she wanted to point out to Commissioner Guinnane that item #6 on the agenda does point out that it was requested as far back as 2001 to have the Manager of MIS be on the list to complete an economic interest statement and for some reason it was never carried out.

Vice-President Hood said that she thought this was a very good thing and could not wait to get to the item. Vice-President Hood said that she thought that the committee would be a good thing and said that she would like to be on the committee and perhaps Commissioner Guinnane would reconsider being on the committee as well.

Commissioner Guinnane said that he had no problem being on the committee, but said that he felt that sometimes he is just spinning his wheels. Commissioner Guinnane said that he has come up with some good ideas but for some reason feels like he is doing all of this in vain and it is very disheartening at times.

Vice-President Hood said that there is a thing called a fish bone analysis where if someone has a good idea and said something about it, it could be traced back as to why nothing was done about it. Commissioner Guinnane said that he has had some good ideas and the records could speak for themselves. Commissioner Guinnane said that he is probably one of the most vocal members on the Commission and sometimes that go him into trouble, but it did not take much to see what’s going on. Vice-President Hood said that maybe now is a good time to revisit those because it is in the spotlight.

President Fillon asked Commissioner Guinnane if he was interested in being on the Committee. Commissioner Guinnane said yes. President Fillon asked who else would be interested and said that he knew that Commissioner Brown was interested in being on the committee. President Fillon said that he wanted to be on the committee because he thought that that the message that gets sent back to the Grand Jury needs to, in addition to pointing out the flaws, be very honest. President Fillon said that the findings should be looked at with an open mind and evaluated fairly and then the evaluation that gets back to the Grand Jury would be one that is based on that and not on any knee-jerk reactions or anything. President Fillon said that he would like to be on the committee to make sure that happens because he did not want to see something come out as reactionary, an angry thing that the Grand Jury are not going to listen to. President Fillon said that it should be very factual. Commissioner Guinnane said that he did not mind if he were on the committee or not. President Fillon said that he thought Commissioner Guinnane needed to be on it.

Commissioner Guinnane said that he would urge the individuals that do go on the committee to spend the time to come up with a proper response and really thoroughly look into the allegations. Vice-President Hood said that she wanted it to be absolutely factual as that is the way she sees making the Commission’s case is on the basis of the facts, not through any kind of bs-ing because basically the Grand Jury didn’t address the facts. Vice-President Hood said that she thought that when the facts are addressed there would be clarity and if there were problems in the issues that they raised then the Commission would say so and deal with it. Vice-President Hood said she wanted to point out that the BIC was under a time constraint to respond to the Grand Jury report. Commissioner Guinnane said there were approximately five-and-a-half weeks for the response to be done. President Fillon said that since three of the Commissioners were present perhaps those three should be on the committee. Commissioner Marks said that she would like Commissioner Matt Brown to be on the committee. Vice-President Hood asked when Commissioner Brown would be back. Commissioner Marks said that he would be back after the weekend. President Fillon said that there could only be three Commissioners on the committee otherwise it would create a quorum of the Commission. Commissioner Guinnane said that he would like Commissioner Brown on the committee because he has the lawyering skills and said that he could look at some of the allegations and give input to the individuals without being on the committee. President Fillon said that any of the Commissioners could get comments to the sub-committee through the Secretary. President Fillon said that the committee would be himself, Vice-President Hood and Commissioner Brown. President Fillon said that he definitely wanted input from any of the Commissioners because again he would agree with Commissioner Santos that the Commission has seen these kinds of audit things done before and again it is a little disappointed. President Fillon said that the report makes statements like "there is a lot of this happening, or it’s been said that this is happening." President Fillon stated that this sounds like gossip being repeated and said that he knows that the Grand Jury cannot give specifics, but that is another problem with this whole process as it just puts the Department up as a big target on the wall. President Fillon said that the issues have to be taken seriously as the Department is not perfect, but there are issues that the BIC is in the process of addressing and have been dealing with for a long time. President Fillon said that when the Commissioners meet as a committee those things would be addressed, but the response would come before the entire Commission so that everything is out on the table. President Fillon asked for any comments from the public.

Ms. Mary Powell introduced herself as the foreperson of the 2002-2003 Grand Jury that issued the report. Ms. Powell said that all of the members are sworn in as officers of the court and there is an oath of confidentiality. Ms. Powell stated that anybody who is interviewed by the Grand Jury can say whatever they want about the process, but the Grand Jury is sworn to an oath of confidentiality and cannot say who, what, how, where. Ms. Powell said that she did not think that any grand juror came to the surface with any desire to pursue malfeasance and said that personally she is a lifelong resident of the City and came to the service in order to make a constructive contribution. Ms. Powell stated that she is a property owner in San Francisco and has had nothing but the most positive experiences with DBI. Ms. Powell said that this was not about her and her experiences. Ms. Powell called on Jack McNulty, the designated spokesperson for the investigation to talk to the Commission.

Mr. McNulty said that he wanted to echo Ms. Powell’s comment that there was no political hidden agenda in the Grand Jury as the Grand Jury are nineteen citizens wanting to have a better government in the City. Mr. McNulty said that Penal Code 929 is the specific code that restricts the Grand Jury from identifying individuals who were interviewed or what they said. Mr. McNulty said that if this could be done some of the Grand Jury’s recommendations would be very clear and the Commission would be very much impressed with the recommendations that the Grand Jury has made. Mr. McNulty said that he would give a little background. Mr. McNulty said that during the Grand Jury’s examination of the Department, which lasted about ten months, they received wonderful cooperation from the Director, the assistants and what have you as they allowed the Grand Jury to speak to anyone they wished. Mr. McNulty said that management did not necessarily know who the Grand Jury was going to speak to and a number of people were interviewed at the 400 McAllister office. Mr. McNulty stated that other people who felt comfortable were interviewed at 1660 Mission. Mr. McNulty said that if any comments indicated a problem it was verified by at least two individuals and there was no prompting in their questioning. Mr. McNulty said that there was no pat answer such as "What do you think about undue influence," or something like that as the interviews tended to be more of a discussion and as topics arose they were discussed more fully. Mr. McNulty said that the Grand Jury reviewed the BIC minutes from September backward and said that he agreed wholeheartedly that the Commission spent a lot of time talking about MIS issues, bar coding and what have you. Mr. McNulty said that the Grand Jury’s problem is that the discussions have been going on for a long time and there are funds to institute these changes, which would greatly help, at least eliminate the perception, of undue influence. Mr. McNulty stated that if the Commission chooses to say that there is no undue influence, he did not believe that the BIC could argue that there is not a perception that there is.

Mr. McNulty said that the Grand Jury’s investigation did not cover the housing division and only covered the plan check and building inspection. Mr. McNulty said that it was interesting to note that many of the Grand Jury’s recommendations were just a verification of what the controller mentioned in his audit of July 2001 and some of them are what the Grand Jury would call an improvement on things that the Building Department has tried to put in. Mr. McNulty said that two years ago the Department instituted a one-stop permit system and said that he believed that most people in the Department would say that it has not been as successful as they had thought it was for various reasons. Mr. McNulty said that the Grand Jury thought that something should be done, but it should be mandatory that every permit go through that system. Mr. McNulty stated that people that staff it should be highly technically competent and there should be no way of selecting who is going to do a certain person’s plan check or that type of thing. Mr. McNulty said that the Grand Jury would hope and expect that the Commission would review this report and look at it not as a condemnation of the Building Commission or of the employees of the Department, but as an effort to improve the Department. Mr. McNulty said that this was the aim of the Grand Jury and if the BIC finds factual errors, that’s fine; if the Grand Jury made a mistake they will admit it. Mr. McNulty said that he thought that the Commission would find most of the recommendations to bear serious consideration amongst the Commission and said that he thought they would be supported in a large measure by the employees of the Department.

Mr. McNulty stated that the report, on the first page or the cover sheet of the report, indicated not only that replies are required, but also they indicate what the replies need to be. Mr. McNulty said that there were different ways to reply: one, the recommendation is accepted and will be put in place in a certain way; two, the recommendation has not been implemented, but will be in the future in some timeframe; three, the recommendation requires further study and indications of the type of study that’s required and, again, a timeframe; and four, the recommendation will not be implemented because it is not warranted or reasonable and an explanation as to why. Mr. McNulty said that the Grand Jury was not saying that the report is infallible and if there is something that is impossible or impractical or just plain wrong then the Commission should just tell them.

Commissioner Guinnane said that he had a couple of questions for Mr. McNulty. Commissioner Guinnane said that there has been a lot of talk over the years about the MIS and within the last year it has come to Commissioner Guinnane’s attention that the Controller, himself, gets 1.9% of the total MIS fee to oversee all of the MIS. Commissioner Guinnane stated that Mr. Harrington’s office has come into DBI and audited DBI for numerous years and never discovered any fraud or any kickbacks or anything. Commissioner Guinnane said that all of a sudden there is a change in DBI from William Wong to Amy Lee who is probably in place for a little over a year and she discovers this problem and makes a referral to the Director who, in turn, makes a referral to the City Attorney’s Office and the Controller’s Office. Commissioner Guinnane asked where was the Controller who is getting about 1.9% in fees and how come he didn’t detect any of this stuff.

Mr. McNulty said that the Grand Jury did not investigate the Controller’s Office. Commissioner Guinnane said that maybe the Grand Jury should be looking at the Controller’s side and not DBI. Mr. McNulty said that perhaps he could recommend that to the next Grand Jury.

Mr. McNulty said that to address this situation, it has to do with what is called the city stores and said that it is a concept that he is not completely familiar with, but they also get a fee, part of the allocation and the Controller gets a fee. Mr. McNulty said that he would agree that it would seem that a lot of people, perhaps aren’t doing their oversees of the process. Mr. McNulty said that with DBI the contract for MIS was awarded through one of the approved vendors on the city store’s list, but what doesn’t seem to occur is that the subcontractors are not necessarily reviewed or approved by city stores. Mr. McNulty said that since most of the work is awarded through a contractor who in turn turns it over to a subcontractor, it seems the city is looking at the wrong person and should be looking at the subcontractor. Mr. McNulty stated that he did not know that Ms. Lee was the one that brought the matter to attention, but said that he knew that part of it was brought to attention by the fact that the subcontractors weren’t being paid although the city had paid the contactor and that seems to be a gap in the system. Mr. McNulty said that this could be the Controller, City Stores or maybe Purchasing, but in ten months the Grand Jury really did not have time to look into the whole City government.

Vice-President Hood said that she had a question regarding the Grand Jury’s statement that it did not look into housing and yet there is a recommendation in the report that more housing inspectors need to be hired. Vice-President Hood asked what was the basis of that recommendation. Mr. McNulty said that if it said housing he thought it meant building inspectors because the Grand Jury did not look at housing, which does three or more units. Vice-President Hood said that this is a tremendous error and said that she did not see how the Grand Jury could make that kind of error if the report was carefully considered. Mr. McNulty asked if Vice-President Hood was referring to a footnote and said that the footnote was just explaining that the Grand Jury did not look into housing. Vice-President Hood said she was not talking about that, but would find it later and send it to Mr. McNulty and make it very clear.

Vice-President Hood said that it was her understanding that the law does not permit the Grand Jury to identify sources and said she respected the need for grand juries to investigate things that people might not feel comfortable coming forward with. Vice-President Hood stated that the Commission did need to understand statements that were made, for example, about influence or other general terms like that as the Commission also heard this from the auditor last year. Vice-President Hood said that the Department could look into records and go through and look at various classes of people, for example, and find out if some classes of people get processed more quickly than others. Vice-President Hood said that as an architect she wanted to say that if a person turns in a good set of drawings they get processed faster because they know the code and put down all of the information. Vice-President Hood said that the people who do well at that are people who have code checks before they turn the permits in to be checked and that would be another way of responding to that. Vice-President Hood said that she understood that perception is reality and what the Grand Jury got in their interviews was a perception of that, but if it is only perception it is going to be a phantom for the BIC to deal with, which is her frustration. Vice-President Hood said that when there is a broad statement about something such as undue influence the BIC needs to have some kind of statistical basis and there has to be some kind of methodology that led the Grand Jury to that conclusion and that is what the Commission needs to know.

Mr. McNulty said that he understood what Vice-President Hood was saying and said that in the Grand Jury’s discussions more than one employee described to them how people process their documents through the Building Department and some got more favorable treatment than others. Mr. McNulty said that on the whole, the Grand Jury had no problem that over 90% of the permits are processed immediately and that is not a question. Mr. McNulty said that some of them are either jumped ahead of others or they are routed to people who, perhaps, are less rigorous in their plan check. Mr. McNulty said that he would not reveal who said that, but said that he actually thought that the Department knows what the Grand Jury is talking about.

President Fillon said that this is something that the Commission has been working toward for a long time, but with any government there are going to be people who have been coming into a department for years and they are familiar to the person at the counter so he is going to know how to treat them. President Fillon said that this is something that happens in every department, in every City and County. President Fillon said that the BIC has been trying to make the process work equal for everybody by having it be more efficient and more standardized and having all of the policies be straightforward and this Commission has taken this approach with that kind of thing. President Fillon said that this happens in every business, but when dealing with government it is a totally different issue. President Fillon stated that in doing his private business, he uses a lot of the same people because they know him and it’s easier to deal with somebody you know. Mr. McNulty said that he would agree that this concept is not limited to government. President Fillon said that the difference is that in private business it is an acceptable practice, but with the government it is not acceptable. Mr. McNulty said that the recommendation of the Grand Jury regarding the improvement on the so-called one-sop would certainly not eliminate any undue influence or favoritism, but it would make it much more visible to someone who wanted to check.

Vice-President Hood said that she had been bird-dogging one-stop permitting ever since she got on the BIC in 1995 and the leadership in the Department was wholly committed to one-stop permitting. Vice-President Hood said that management set it up, got it remodeled and it worked very well, but there were people who did not get into that group initially and there was resistance from the rank and file in the Department. Vice-President Hood asked if this came out in the Grand Jury’s research. Mr. McNulty said that the Grand Jury discovered two things: one, that there was some resistance as there is resistance to any change. Vice-President Hood said that there was resistance from the labor unions and it was not trivial.

President Fillon said that in getting back to the processing thing that he was talking about he thought that in looking at the history of the Department the gap between favoritism has really narrowed, incredibly in the past ten years. President Fillon said that every year the Commission is forced to track performance goals of the Director and one of those performance goals always has to do with how long it takes to process permits and what the turnaround time is and the amount of permits lost and those kinds of issues. President Fillon stated that there has been consistent improvement every year in terms of how long it takes to process any permit and all kinds of different permits. President Fillon said that he thought this was something that was important to take into account in terms of what the Grand Jury is looking at, the bigger picture not just a snapshot of where the Department is right now, this second, but where it has been and where its come from and where it is going to as this is a continuous process. President Fillon said that the BIC is involved in continuously trying to make this process fairer and more efficient while protecting the concerns of the public at the same time.

Mr. McNulty said that there was no question that even since the Controller’s report of virtually two years ago that the Department has taken steps by blocking off areas of access and stated that the Grand Jury was not saying that the Department has not done anything. Vice-President Hood said that the Grand Jury did say that in the report. Vice-President Hood said that it was said by omitting mentioning any steps that had been taken to make things better as a result of the report two years ago and leaving out anything positive about the Department.

Mr. McNulty said that he thought that the Grand Jury said that there are competent people who perform their duties in an efficient way. Mr. McNulty said that this was written in the forepart and the overview so he would beg to differ with Vice-President Hood. Vice-President Hood said that was such a general statement that it didn’t deal with that particular thing. Vice-President Hood stated that one of the things that the press has brought up is that it is made to seem like the Department for some ulterior motive, like bribery or whatever, lets certain people get through in an unfair way either by moving their permits more quickly or not applying the same standard to some as to others. Vice-President Hood said that this is in effect accusing people of graft and bribery. Vice-President Hood stated that the reason she was dwelling on if there was a class of people, such as permit expediters, and asked if it is the permits that are with permit expediters that appear to be moving through more quickly. Vice-President Hood said that the Grand Jury could have said something like that as it would not be pointing at any one person, but would be pointing at a group so the Commission could go through and look at that and see if there was anything happening. Vice-President Hood said that her problem with the report is that it is so general and the statements are so wide sweeping that they are not factual. Vice-President Hood stated that it boggled her mind that anything could get by that is so non-specific. Vice-President Hood said that the Commission is not asking for sources and does not want to target any people as the Commission supports whistle-blowers, but the BIC has been given a report that is such a general criticism and such a biased one that it doesn’t talk about positive steps that have been made. Vice-President Hood said that she thought this is really doing a disservice to the public that the Grand Jury is supposed to be helping. Mr. McNulty said that it is very difficult to identify people who are getting away with something and not identifying them.

President Fillon said that if the Grand Jury can’t identify them then they are tried in the papers and with a Grand Jury. President Fillon said that he did not think that was right. Mr. McNulty said that the Grand Jury did not write the newspaper articles. President Fillon said that this is what is happening because there are general comments being made and then they are being picked up by the media because the Commission cannot ask the Grand Jury where it got the facts and can’t ask what the facts are because it is a Grand Jury; therefore, this is just out there and being that it is from a Grand Jury the Department or the people referred to can’t be proven innocent. Vice-President Hood said that with the law that Mr. McNulty cited, it was her understanding from having dealt with other grand juries and watching Court TV a Grand Jury needs to protect its sources, but it doesn’t need to protect someone who is found of wrongdoing. Vice-President Hood said that this is the Grand Jury’s instruction, that if they find that there is a person or a group that can go to the Building Inspection Department and get special treatment, the Grand Jury should name that group because then the BIC could deal with it or if there is a person who does it then the BIC will investigate that person. Vice-President Hood said that the Department could go back and check to see how fast they got their permits done, who checked off on them and did they always go to the same person, etc. Vice-President Hood said that if the Grand Jury says that it hears from a lot of people that some people get preferential treatment, the BIC couldn’t do anything about it because there are no specifics.

President Fillon said that the entire DBI has been slandered and stated that a neighbor came up to him to say that he heard that all someone has to do is pay people off to get what he wants. President Fillon said that this happened after this report came out and that is the impression that the public has of the Department and all of the staff are thrown into this one pool.

Commissioner Santos said that a member of the Grand Jury mentioned the fact that she did not have any problems obtaining permits in the City when she needed one and asked Mr. McNulty if he had ever attempted to get a permit outside of San Francisco, in say, San Bruno or Millbrae. Mr. McNulty said that he was a lifelong resident of San Francisco. Commissioner Santos said that Mr. McNulty would be amazed by the source of knowledge and free information that someone gets at DBI and that goes for architects, consults or just a citizen who wants to get a permit. Commissioner Santos said that Mr. McNulty would be amazed by the amount of information that he would get in the City and the amount of assistance given by DBI, particularly with the pre-application process, which is extremely helpful. Commissioner Santos said that there are a large percentage of licensed structural engineers and civil engineers at DBI to help the public. Commissioner Santos stated that he was shocked that the Grand Jury put out this sort of generic paper that there is potential conflict of interest because some people get preferential treatment. Commissioner Santos asked what it meant because it is so general that it doesn’t mean anything.

Vice-President Hood said that Mr. McNulty was a past client of hers and stated that she provided architectural consulting services for him about two years ago. Vice-President Hood asked Mr. McNulty if he revealed that information to the Grand Jury when he came on board. Vice-President Hood asked Mr. McNulty if he remembered that he was having a problem with his garden being shaded by the apartment next door and Vice-President Hood said that she represented him with the Planning Department and Building Department, which she is allowed to do because this Commission is exempt from conflict of interest rules. Vice-President Hood said that in a very short period of time she got the Building Department to agree to allow the use of a joby ladder next door to Mr. McNulty’s property so his front garden would not be shaded. Vice-President Hood asked if Mr. McNulty would consider that preferential treatment.

Mr. McNulty said that he wanted to respond to Commissioner Santos first because the questions were coming at him three at a time. Mr. McNulty referred to page two at the top of the page that read "The investigation confirmed that DBI has many competent employees in managerial and line capacities. Those employees are dedicated to protecting the public, providing equal service to all customers, and evenhanded code enforcements", so Mr. McNulty said that he did not think that the Grand Jury condemned the entire department.

Vice-President Hood said that in the Grand Jury report everything that was talked about was negative in each one of these things. The report did not say that 2% of the people get special treatment or anything like that. Vice-President Hood said that this was a sweeping statement and it got picked up by the press in that very negative way and the BIC was unable to go and point to anything specifically positive. Vice-President Hood stated that this was the impression that went to the public that was so wrong and said that she would like to hear the answer to her question to Mr. McNulty before Ms. Powell would speak.

Mr. McNulty asked if it was a question about Vice-President Hood doing something on his behalf. Vice-President Hood said that was correct because Mr. McNulty was very concerned about a project going up next door to his home on Buena Vista that was going to shade his front garden. Mr. McNulty asked if this was a hypothetical question because he does not live on Buena Vista. Vice-President Hood said that she must have confused Mr. McNulty with another Jack McNulty. Mr. McNulty said if he had a problem he would come to Vice-President Hood. Vice-President Hood said she would not advise that now.

Ms. Powell said that she was sure that the Commissioners were aware, but said that she needed to say for the record, that these reports before they are published go to the presiding judge of the Superior Court, in this case, Donna Hutchins. Ms. Powell said that Judge Hutchins does not allow the reports to be released if there is any kind of concern of factual error. Ms. Powell stated that it does not mean that Judge Hitchins can fact check everything, but these reports go to her for her review before they are released. Ms. Powell stated that anyone who has participated in the community knows very well that as much as they would like to have the press tell the story in a certain way, the Grand Jury has no control over the press. Ms. Powell said that the media is her professional background and said that she could tell for a fact that in her entire life, her entire professional life, she has never had any control over the media. Ms. Powell said that she could not determine what they are going to pick up, what they are going to leave out and nobody else could either. Ms. Powell said that she wanted to repeat that this was approached with fairness and was not approached looking for malfeasance and the presiding judge clearly felt that the report should be released or it would not have been released.

Vice-President Hood said that she wanted to respond to this and stated that she is familiar with the judges of the Superior Court because her office was responsible for the design and the construction of the courthouse at 400 McAllister Street. Vice-President Hood said that her familiarity with the judges, admirable a group as they are, is that they are not familiar at all with the building code or the enforcement of the code. Ms. Powell said that this was true. Vice-President Hood said that she did not believe in any way that Judge Hitchins could have reviewed this except for sort of a general conformity to the law for a factual basis. Ms. Powell said that she thought that was true and said that she did not imply that. Vice-President Hood said that Ms. Powell said that this wouldn’t be going out if it weren’t factual because the judge reviewed it. Ms. Powell said that she said that she could not fact check every single thing and that Vice-President Hood misunderstood her. Vice-President Hood said that when Ms. Powell said every single thing she implied that Judge Hutchins could do it on a general basis. Ms. Powell said that it was absolutely on a general basis. Vice-President Hood said that she did not think that it had been reviewed even on a general basis, but it was reviewed for form, which is the typical review that a judge would do, not for content at all. Ms. Powell said that she did not think that this could be argued successfully. Ms. Powell stated that what she could tell the Commission as a representative of nineteen people is that this was done with only the most decent intent. Ms. Powell said that members of the Grand Jury were present to answer whatever questions they could, but said that she would like to strongly urge the Commission’s consideration of the report to what the Commission could come up with as President Fillon has said earlier about meeting and going through this on a line by line basis.

President Fillon said that absolutely, the Commission would look at every item and consider every item fairly, as much as possible. President Fillon stated that there is just a main body of things that the BIC would be responding to that are really difficult and it’s those abstract ones that are vague and that is what the BIC is honing in on.

Vice-President Hood said that she had one specific question. Vice-President Hood asked if it were the permit expediters who were complained about by the staff of DBI. Mr. McNulty said that the permit expediters are one of the groups that came up, but it would be unfair to say that all permit expediters get preferential treatment. Vice-President Hood said that this would narrow things down and now the Commission could look at that group. Vice-President Hood asked if there was another group like builders that were a problem group. Mr. McNulty said that it was individuals and not necessarily groups. Mr. McNulty stated that he would not want to condemn a group and wouldn’t want to condemn expediters as a group. President Fillon said that he would like to hear from the public.

Mr. McNulty said that he wanted to speak about two things. Mr. McNulty said that there were questions about facts to back up things. Mr. McNulty stated that recently the City won a lawsuit against an individual, a substantial amount for he thought flagrant continual violations of the building code and said if the BIC looked into to that it would find examples of either benefiting from influence of just plain poor professional work. Mr. McNulty said that after this report was issued and the newspaper article came out he was contacted by a citizen who had a complaint about how he was treated. Mr. McNulty asked if there was a Mr. Chen in the audience as he had called Mr. Chen to let him know that this would be a very opportune time to address the Commission. Mr. McNulty said that he spoke to Mr. Chen and invited him to the Commission meeting, but he said that he might not be present. Mr. McNulty said that he had Mr. Chen’s phone number and was authorized to give it to the Commission. Mr. McNulty said that Mr. Chen told him that in his case he reported a violation of a neighbor and it turned out that the Inspector came after a year-and-a-half or so and looked at Mr. Chen’s property. Mr. McNulty reported that Mr. Chen told him that the Inspector came up with a lot of deficiencies that were corrected and when Mr. Chen asked the Inspector to come back again so he could get a clean bill of health, the Inspector found more deficiencies. Mr. McNulty said that he would say that this is an indication of somebody having influence or the Department overlooking one wrongdoing and punishing somebody who made a report.

Commissioner Guinnane said that he wanted to go back to the case that Mr. McNulty cited in the paper and said that he was assuming that it was the Jimmy Jen case. Commissioner Guinnane said that this particular case was brought to the litigation committee and was referred over to the City Attorney. Commissioner Guinnane said that on this particular case the individual took out a permit for $7,500 or $750 to do termite work and put an addition on the back of his building that was sixty-three feet long, twenty-five feet wide by three floors high. Commissioner Guinnane said that if there was that much corruption in the Department how come the referral was made over to the City Attorney’s Office and that it wasn’t squashed. Commissioner Guinnane stated that this individual was sued and tried and the Department spent probably $800,000 even though DBI might never recoup the $800,000. Mr. McNulty said that he would suppose the question is how did it occur in the first place. Mr. McNulty said he understood it was converted into a three-unit apartment so clearly there was a violation, but that individual has had numerous problems and has been referred to as a renegade.

Vice-President Hood said that if Mr. McNulty read the BIC notes he would realize that the BIC dealt with people complaining about Jimmy Jen many times and the BIC would do everything it could to help those people and kept bird-dogging Mr. Jen and suggested things to the Department so he would stop getting permits. Mr. McNulty said that he did see numerous references to Mr. Jen. Vice-President Hood said that she wanted to point out, with respect to Mr. Chen, and stated that she did not know if he was one of the people who came before the Commission complaining about his situation. Vice-President Hood said that very often the BIC gets these types of cases where a neighbor starts building something next door that a person doesn’t like; they call up with a notice of violation and the person, although they are kept in confidence, the neighbor next door knows who it is and then the neighbor doing the remodeling calls the Department and complains about the neighbor who made the initial complaint. Vice-President Hood said that the Department, by law, is forced to investigate those violations. Mr. McNulty said he would agree with that. Vice-President Hood said it was like the pot calling the kettle black because if someone has a violation in their house they better keep their mouth shut about their neighbor because that neighbor can retaliate. Vice-President Hood said that this is not something that is the Department’s fault and doesn’t show undue influence as Mr. McNulty stated.

Mr. McNulty said that if Mr. Chen was correct, this particular situation went on for almost two years and finally an expediter was hired by his neighbor and the next thing he knew there was an Inspector at his home. Mr. McNulty said that he did not know if this was factual, but because the Commission was asking for specific instances this was one where he could give them the information. Vice-President Hood said that she just wanted Mr. McNulty to know that this type of case comes up all of the time and said that she would like to get the information to look into this particular case.

Mr. McNulty said that the final thing he wanted to say was that the Department has either a practice of a policy of not keeping track of people who violate permits continually as the Notices of Violation are kept by address. Mr. McNulty said it should be kept by architect, engineer, builder or what have you and then the Commission or the Department would have an idea of who is either habitually ignoring the rules or somehow is circumventing them.

President Fillon asked the Director to respond to that. Director Chiu said that it was his understanding that in the past staff had tried to profile some group or some individuals who failed to comply with something and were told by the City Attorney’s Office that the Department could not profile anyone and would have to treat these cases on an individual case-by-case basis. Director Chiu said that he believed that the Department could not profile someone who had a couple of problem projects or who had a bounced check on a previous project or could post most wanted posters like at the Post Office, but the Department would have to treat each case or project on the project’s merits. Director Chiu said that he would be happy to check into this issue again.

Vice-President Hood said that the Commission did recognize that there were sort of scofflaws like Mr. Jen and stated that Mr. Jen had been written about in the papers and was accused of arson and all kinds of things. Vice-President Hood said that the Department had to find a legal way to go after Mr. Jen and that is what was done. Vice-President Hood said that she did not see any mention of that in the Grand Jury report and it would seem to her that a Grand Jury report does not just look for bad stuff and should put this in some context.

Mr. McNulty said that in the Grand Jury’s overview it tried to address the overall, but if the recommendations on how to improve the Department said that 99 things were being done correctly and there was only one thing wrong then that one thing wrong would never get any attention. Mr. McNulty said that it turned out that there are fifteen recommendations from the Grand Jury. Mr. McNulty said that the BIC should look at them carefully as they deserve some consideration and as Ms. Powell mentions, he would be glad to come back and discuss them further, but could not give names or numbers.

President Fillon asked for comments from the public on this item.

Mr. Randy Shaw introduced himself as Director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic (THC). Mr. Shaw stated that Commissioners Santos, Fillon and Hood made some good points and said that he came to the meeting with a very negative view of the Grand Jury report. Mr. Shaw said that now his opinion was even lower. Mr. Shaw stated that it is frightening to think that Miss Powell believes that Judge Hitchins reviewed the report because under the California Constitution, the judge is not permitted to make changes to the report unless they’ve exceeded the legal basis of it. Mr. Shaw said that changes could be made if the Grand Jury started talking about some other department or something like that and are even allowed to make libelous statements in the report, which cannot be edited by the presiding judge, so Judge Hitchins did nothing at all. Mr. Shaw said that there was no judicial review, which is the whole problem with this report; there were no brakes, no rules of evidence, or no jury instructions as there would be in a normal case. Mr. Shaw said that what was really disturbing about Mr. McNulty’s testimony is that he came before the BIC and said that the BIC would have to understand, that’s the perception. Mr. Shaw said that he first thought that if he asked Mr. McNulty twenty or twenty-five years ago, say, to do a report on whether African-Americans are an inferior race he would have looked at the 200-year legal history of the United State which showed that they were inferior, which was the official law. Mr. Shaw said that Mr. McNulty would have interviewed people on the street who would have said, "Yeah, blacks are inferior, we all know that, and he would have produced a report saying that African-Americans are inferior. Mr. Shaw asked if that was factually correct and said no, but that’s the perception and that’s all he cares about in this report and that’s what is so absurd about it. Mr. Shaw said that it was also learned that the perception was framed by what Mr. McNulty read in the newspaper about Jimmy Jen’s case or by at least five or ten Chronicle stories about the Jimmy Jen case. Mr. Shaw stated that it is the only thing anyone in this building or the City knows about, and the same case is used repeatedly to prove the widespread corruption in the Department. Mr. Shaw said that what is astonishing about the case is not simply that a jury verdict was rendered against the man due to Department prosecution and no credit is given the Department, but that Jimmy Jen is a nobody and was a nobody. Mr. Shaw stated that Mr. Jen is not the people you read about who have this major influence in this Department and no one said Jimmy Jen had undue influence. Mr. Shaw said that Mr. Jen was an incompetent contractor. Mr. Shaw said that he brought up at the Board of Supervisors two years ago that if they wanted to pass a law that says if someone commits two violations of a permit they can’t get a third permit, the three strikes thing, then the Board should pass a law. Mr. Shaw said that none of this was in the Grand Jury report. Mr. Shaw stated that the report is based on people who only know what they know about this Department from what they read in the San Francisco Chronicle, hardly a reliable source. Mr. Shaw said that favoritism was talked about and as President Fillon pointed out every government agency in this City practices favoritism. Mr. Shaw stated that the Tenderloin Housing Clinic has had a contract for the Tenderloin Housing Clinic since 1983 for CDBG Service, counseling tenants in the Tenderloin and South of Market areas. Mr. Shaw said that regularly THC gets referrals from the Mayor’s Office or a Supervisor would send a tenant over to the THC who wasn’t in their service area. Mr. Shaw said that after the Mayor is funding your program, but sends someone who is not in their service area over for help did the Grand Jury think that the THC would not help that person. Mr. Shaw said that this would be considered favoritism because the people went to the Mayor or a Supervisor, but that is how government works. Mr. Shaw said that in the case of this Grand Jury report he felt that it was favoritism by anecdote and it was produced as a result. Mr. Shaw stated that the Grand Jury should have checked the particular addresses, at least two addresses, one of say a residential builder member and one of Walter Wong and say that these people got their permit in two days and here is Tom Smith who is nobody and it took him two years to get a permit. Mr. Shaw said that this would produce real evidence that could be proven and is a public document. Mr. Shaw said that Mr. McNulty said that someone called him with a problem and he is testifying that this is the truth, but Mr. Shaw stated that he had been at so many Commission hearings where people come down and complain that they have been unfairly sighted with one set of facts and then the Inspector explains how it really is. Mr. Shaw said that the Grand Jury made no effort to verify allegations made by people they interviewed. Mr. Shaw stated that he felt the Commissioners were right on this and said it was very disturbing to hear the testimony of the Grand Jury and it should even make the public more concerned about this entire process. Mr. Shaw thanked the Commission.

President Fillon reminded the public to keep their comments within the allotted three minutes.

Mr. Ken Cleaveland once again introduced himself as a member of BOMA. Mr. Cleaveland said that he was not going to bash the Grand Jury or the Grand Jury report. Mr. Cleaveland stated that he hoped that the exercise that the Grand Jury had been through and that was done for no pay and included many hours of hard work would be used as a constructive exercise by everyone to look at DBI and its performance and see where things could be tweaked to make it better. Mr. Cleaveland stated that BOMA represents people who pull permits all of the time and are probably the single largest client as a group in the City in terms of dollars with the Department. Mr. Cleaveland stated that BOMA uses expediters all the time because the property owners of a downtown office building are not going to run down and pull their own permits, but are going to have an expert do it. Mr. Cleaveland said that BOMA builds relationships and the organization works with Director Chiu, all of the senior staff and DBI staff to understand the process. Mr. Cleaveland said that everyone sits down to talk and seminars have been put on that have been very good. Mr. Cleaveland said that DBI have come forward and told industry what the process is and have told them what how to apply for a permit. Mr. Cleaveland stated that DBI honed in on the OTI process, the Office Tenant Improvement process, to help BOMA make it more understandable to their members. Mr. Cleaveland said that DBI has done a marvelous job in reaching out to the BOMA community and BOMA uses DBI’s services all the time, relationships have been built and they have made friends at the Department. Mr. Cleaveland said that he did not think that this was illegal and said that it was an aspect that was lost in the Grand Jury’s report. Mr. Cleaveland said that a lot of quality control systems that address commercial plan check and commercial plan review have been created in the OTI process. Mr. Cleaveland said that the report does say that DBI should combine all of the processes for residential and commercial and said that he would respectfully disagree because BOMA thinks that it takes a higher degree of expertise to review commercial plan check and don’t want to see the OTI process combined with residential back porch additions. Mr. Cleaveland said that a whole series of administrative bulletins to review disabled access compliance in commercial office buildings had been created and these administrative bulletins are so good that they are now pat of the San Francisco Building Code. Mr. Cleaveland stated that they were adopted as appendices and BOMA is grateful to DBI for working with them to come up with these procedures that define what disabled access means in a particular situation in a commercial office building so BOMA members know when they are pulling a permit that they have to do these things. Mr. Cleaveland said that there is a checklist, and members know exactly what to do or the architects know what to do. Mr. Cleaveland said that he would consider this part of the quality control measures that the Department has in fact been doing, maybe not formally, but it has been happening. Mr. Cleaveland said that there were a lot of good things in the report, but stated that BOMA would like to, as an organization, work with the Department, staff and this Commission and the members of the Grand Jury to make sure that the wheat gets separated from the chaff and the good stuff that rally is relevant to the future of the Department and the future of all working with the Department is what rises to the top. Mr. Cleaveland thanked the Commission.

Vice-President Hood said that she presumed that Mr. Cleaveland had read this report and had a list of the good stuff. Mr. Cleaveland said that he did not go into all of the details. Vice-President Hood asked if Mr. Cleaveland could put his comments in writing and give it to the Committee. Mr. Cleaveland said that he would be happy to.

Mr. John Carney said that he lived on Rhode Island Street and said that when he looks at this organization he wanted to make a few positive suggestions. Mr. Carney said that DBI accepts plans, which come to the Building Inspection and don’t seem to look at them and a lot of them don’t even have the dimensions on them. Mr. Carney suggested that DBI should have a quality assurance man who looks at every set of plans because the architects are getting sloppier and sloppier about putting dimensions on their drawings. Mr. Carney stated that he works for the Bechtel Corporation, a big engineering contractor, and said that Bechtel would not think of submitting a drawing that didn’t have all the dimensions on it. Mr. Carney said that he looked at one set of plans the other day, at windows and doors and said no one could tell the size and it said, "scaled." Mr. Carney said that those plans should never have gone to the Planning Department for them to even review it. Mr. Carney said that maybe DBI could stop this by telling architects and anybody else who submits plans to have a certain standard and send them right back to them right then. Mr. Carney said that his other suggestion was fort of a quality assurance thing. Mr. Carney said that the Department could look at the number of stop work orders that have been issued and evaluate them as to why they are being issued. Mr. Carney asked if it was because Planning goofed up or did somebody else goof us. Mr. Carney said that he has always had good luck when he calls an Inspector because the Inspector usually gets back to him within a day or two to give him an answer, but sometimes it is stuff that the plans have been changed and the Planning Department has not checked them. Mr. Carney said that he thought these things could be solved by having a little quality assurance department that looks at every phone cal and what was going on; why did the person call and the Inspector did. Mr. Carney thanked the Commission.

President Fillon asked Director Chiu to comment on Mr. Carney’s suggestions. President Fillon said that he understood that downstairs when a plan is submitted it has got to be a certain size, type, coloring, etc. and it is quality checked before it is even taken in.

Director Chiu said that President Fillon was correct. Mr. Carney asked if that meant window and door sizes and everything spelled out. Director Chiu said that it is mentioned in detail, but if Mr. Carney had a specific case that he wanted the Director to look into he would be happy to do so.

Vice-President Hood said that one of the things that Mr. Carney might be thinking about, and she could understand why because she is an architect and knows that not all architects are really careful about dimensions. Vice-President Hood stated that the Planning Department is separate from DBI completed and because the Building Department is responsible for enforcing any violation so if the Planning Code, DBI is often perceived by the public as to having some control over Planning. Vice-President Hood said that she did not know the specific instance, but if the Department could know where a drawing came through without the proper information on it that was the Planning Department’s fault for having approved it, DBI would send that information back to Planning and ask them to get the additional information. Vice-President Hood said that DBI is just enforcing the Building Code and for the Building Code, it is not required, except in certain circumstances, for the measurement of the windows to be shown.

Mr. Carney said that the case he was talking about was 879 Rhode Island Street. Mr. Carney stated that they have windows drawn in on the sides of the building and it doesn’t even show how far they are in from the wall of the building; there are just no dimensions there. Mr. Carney said that the plans were sent back to the architect with seventeen complaints so it is really awful, but the same drawings were sent to the Planning Department and they have no idea where these windows are at all. Mr. Carney stated that the Planning Department also is not looking at them very carefully and the set of plans that the Planning Department sends out to the neighborhood are very small and if someone could read them they should probably tae up mind reading. President Fillon said that this was getting off of the topic. Commissioner Guinnane asked Director Chiu to look up 879 Rhode Island Street to answer Mr. Carney’s questions. Commissioner Guinnane and Vice-President Hood said that they would like to see a copy of the plans that Mr. Carney was talking about. Director Chiu said that he would be happy to do that, but based on what this public member said, it looked like the plans that he is talking about is where the general public get notification without going through DBI. Mr. Carney said that that the plans immediately move from the Planning Department down to DBI for plan check once they are approved and meet the requirements. Vice-President Hood said that DBI only checks for conformance with the Building Code not with the Zoning Code and unless the windows affect the structural design or a bedroom window, the size of the windows are not determined by the Building Code.

Mr. Joe O’Donoghue of the Residential Builders said that he found it rather disingenuous for grand jurors to stand before the Commission and say that they can’t name instances, can’t name individuals, but on the other hand when you read the report, as Commissioner Bobbie Sue Hood just pointed out, by generality to have indicted people, and they did indict the Residential Builders and me personally. Mr. O’Donoghue said for the grand jurors to stand her and say they are prohibited by prescription, they can’t do it when, in fact, they do it is absolutely absurd and it is an outright lie. Mr. O’Donoghue said secondly, he wished that the grand juror, Mrs. Powell, when she came her today had brought the two women who came in to the Department with a political agenda so that this Commission could have questioned them as to why from day one, on the first person they interviewed in the Department, they wanted to know about O’Donoghue and wanted an reference to me in terms of documentation be provided to them. Mr. O’Donoghue stated that the fact that they have kept them from here means that they are hiding, in other words, something from being revealed. Mr. O’Donoghue said that for them to say that the press, they have no control over the press when they by indictment and generalities then proscribe the RBA in a negative manner is absolutely absurd. Mr. O’Donoghue stated that also in the report they talk about the Department indicted the Department by innuendo by saying that whistle-blowers are under siege in the Department. Mr. O’Donoghue said that what they failed to reveal, which they should, was who were the two people they relied on. Mr. O’Donoghue stated that he could name four people right now, disgruntled employees, one of whom calls himself a whistle-blower, but if you look back to his record you will find out that in the previous administration they themselves were under indictment and investigation by the City Attorney’s Office. Mr. O’Donoghue said that the best way, if you want to do some nefarious actions within the Department as an Inspector, you call yourself a whistle-blower and that way you are able to issue permits beyond your job classification control and give favoritism to friends and the when someone exercises their rights, as I did in one instance and filed a discretionary review complaint on such a member in the Department then they call themselves whistle-blowers. Mr. O’Donoghue asked how come the grand juror made no mention of that and so you need to bring those two members here before the Commission to ask them why did they come in and on day one begin to make inquiries about the RBA and its members. Mr. O’Donoghue said that he wanted to talk about the fact that not one single member of the RBA was interviewed by these grand jurors who are supposed to have credentials and experience in this whole field of investigation. Mr. O’Donoghue stated that they relied on a Controller’s report, a report, by the way, that is totally skewed, that was politically motivated when they came into the Department about three years ago; spent one year in the Department and the Director should have sent them out of the Department because the fact is that Harrington gets 1.9% of all contracts and instead of looking as he did and trying to indict Inspectors who do a good job, he ignores and indicts the Inspectors and allows a man, in other words, to run off with $500,000 that was directly under his charge that his audit never caught. Mr. O’Donoghue stated that it was disingenuous of Mr. McNulty to stand up at the meeting today and say, "Well, Amy Lee didn’t really catch it, someone else blew the whistle." Mr. O’Donoghue said that indicates that they didn’t do their job. Mr. O’Donoghue stated that this is a political setup, it was a political indictment, and this Commission in the future should not adhere to any grand jurors comings in except they put their credential before the BIC. Mr. O’Donoghue said where were they ten years ago or fifteen years ago when this Department was a shambles; it was absolutely a disgrace as there were no permits being processed. Mr. O’Donoghue asked where were these experts with credentials, so-called grand jurors who have nothing else to do except whittle their time away and come in and indict a good industry. Mr. O’Donoghue said that the industry has policy influence to ensure that the promise that was made to the 70,000 citizens who signed the petition immediately to make this an independent department, that the industry is going to carry out their function and tell the people as they told them that you will get an expedited process, you will get a fair process and Mr. O’Donoghue said that he tells his members that they will in fact get fairness. Mr. O’Donoghue stated that one final thing he wanted to say is that his organization which probably does fifty buildings a year, four permits per building, two hundred permits probably is what the members take out from plumbing, electrical, mechanical, planning and building and suddenly it is being said that they are getting influence. Mr. O’Donoghue stated that it takes RBA members one year to one year-and-a-half to get their permits processed, but 95% of the people of this City, the little people, get the process within 48 hours. Mr. O’Donoghue said that for Mr. McNulty to put the knock on the One-Stop permit based on the veracity of four disgruntled employees is absolutely shameless and should not be tolerated. Mr. O’Donoghue said that strong action needs to be taken and said that he would be asking this Commission at the next meeting to put on that the BIC will not cooperate with any more Grand Jury investigations. Mr. O’Donoghue stated that this is a witch-hunt that started with the Comptroller, the City Attorney and some disgruntled politically agendized supervisors. Mr. O’Donoghue thanked the Commission.

Mr. Angus McCarthy introduced himself as a builder, developer and part-time public speaker with the City and County of San Francisco, instead of building buildings anymore. Mr. McCarthy said this is what building has become in the City because the builders have become part-time public speakers. Mr. McCarthy stated that it was very refreshing to come to a Commission hearing and see such intelligent, straightforward, brutally honest questions being asked. Mr. McCarthy said that there always seems to be in the other Commissions, especially when there are very hot issues that questions are not asked and for a point of interest, this was the first time he had ever been to a Building Commission hearing. Mr. McCarthy said that everybody knows and you can usually get this consensus when you get a chance to hang out with Building Inspectors and that might come in the form of a retirement dinner/dance, etc, and you have a few beers that morale is at an all-time low and it’s at an all-time low for many reasons. Mr. McCarthy said that an individual Inspector could once upon a time hold their head up high and be proud of what they did, but now they have a job that everybody seems to want a piece of them, there seems to be this cloud over their head everywhere they go on a job site. Mr. McCarthy stated that if someone builds in this town, or other towns, he dared anyone to find a City that is tougher to get a final on a building than this City. Mr. McCarthy stated that even when the builder gets the signature on the job card he still has to get letters from special engineers, special this, special that, special Holy Mary’s and anything they can get their hands on before that final certificate is issued. Mr. McCarthy said that this is a tough City to do business in and that is okay, but there is a very, very ironic situation here, especially with this committee, that has come up with these innuendoes and have been asked straight up about these innuendoes and all they have to say is that the Commission should not confuse the grand jurors with factual information as they don’t want to deal with that. Mr. McCarthy said they were just happy to find some sort of cloak and dagger stuff and leave it at that and let your minds work overtime and off they go. Mr. McCarthy said that he thought those days have got to stop and said he would like to bring Mr. McNulty into his world. Mr. McCarthy stated that in his world he takes a set of plans and spends three weeks looking over that set of plans before he gives it to any Inspector because he knows that between architects, engineers, and himself they will find stuff. Mr. McCarthy said that when he submits a set of plans he really doesn’t want to get a punch list back, but he does get that punch list back. Mr. McCarthy said if Mr. McNulty is getting him confused with a guy that goes in with papers underneath his arm and had no clue of the process and spends three or four months in DBI giving in crap paperwork to the Building Inspector and he is wondering why he doesn’t get out in efficient time versus Mr. McCarthy who goes and spends his time, who is a full-time builder developer in this town, and he submits a set of plans and still can’t get it right and he gets out in a reasonable time, is that his idea of favoritism? Mr. McCarthy said that this is a real problem and stated that he speaks on Channel 26 often. Mr. McCarthy said that the BIC should be on TV because when you are on the TV the papers kind of seem to project the proper thing that will happen that night. When meetings do not get televised there seems to be these innuendo kinds of stories coming out all the time. Mr. McCarthy stated that it is very important that this Commission be televised just like the Planning Commission needs to be televised again. Mr. McCarthy said that there is a lot of good work, there are a lot of people who sit at home who don’t have the time to come down during the day, but have a passion about what happens in this City and that is their one way of connecting to the City. Mr. McCarthy said that it is a way to keep people informed, it keeps them educated and it keeps the ignorance away from everything in this town that builders are afraid of at this stage. Mr. McCarthy thanked the Commission.

Ms. Amy Lee introduced herself and said that she was not speaking today as the Assistant Director of DBI since she is on maternity leave, but as a City employee. Ms. Lee stated that when she received the Grand Jury’s report she was a little bit disappointed that it did not acknowledge the fact that this Department is a department within the city and County of San Francisco and has to work within the confines of politics and the guidelines and the restrictions and the policies and processes that exist in the City and County of San Francisco. Ms. Lee said that yes, the Department does have pressures, an enormous amount of pressures, from the Mayor’s Office, the Controller’s Office, DTIS, every office pressures DBI on top of the everyday citizens and the builders and the communities that DBI serves. Ms. Lee said that some of her staff may resent the fact that she wants a report right away because the Controller’s Office needs it or the Board of Supervisors needs it and they may believe that this is undue influence or political pressure. Ms. Lee said that this exists in the City, the Department has to respond, especially with these new district Supervisorial districts, there are even more pressures. Ms. Lee addressed the grand jurors’ comments on management skills. Ms. Lee stated that she would love to attend more management training and has tried to have staff attend more management training, but for every budget year it was cut by the Mayor’s Office or the Board of Supervisors because they thought it was unnecessary. Ms. Lee said that she was only allowed to budget for AB717 training and said that she guessed that she was just a little bit frustrated working as a City employee because she could not always go to the cheapest car vendor or go to the cheapest gas station. Ms. Lee said that she has to go through a Purchaser, or through some other agency to provide the services not only to the community, but to all her own staff and it is very frustrating that this report did not highlight that; especially when they mentioned emphasis of DBI’s hiring and the surplus, just the fact that the Department had a surplus. Ms. Lee said that this past weekend the Port was criticized in the Chronicle saying that they misspent their monies in the good times; DBI did not do that, but yet are still getting criticized because there is a surplus, because DBI was managing its money and saving for a rainy day. Ms. Lee said that part of that surplus was made mandatory because the Commission had asked staff to keep an eye out for the rainy day, but another part of that was forced upon DBI. Ms. Lee said that she did not ask for the budget to be cut every year by over a million dollars at the Board of Supervisors or the Mayor’s Office when she told them that DBI needed to spend certain things for staff or to provide these services. Ms. Lee said that she did not ask for that money, once it got cut from the budget, it was just moved to DBI’s surplus and then it was out of her control or anybody in the Department’s control and that happens department wide, citywide. Ms. Lee stated that she was a little bit disappointed that the Grand Jury report did not acknowledge the frustration it is to run a City agency and have to deal with not only the constituents and residents of San Francisco, but the other agencies within San Francisco and especially the Board of Supervisors and the Mayor’s Office.

Commissioner Guinnane asked Ms. Lee how long she had been handling the MIS. Ms. Lee said

that she returned from maternity leave in 2001 until just recently. Commissioner Guinnane asked if it was on Ms. Lee’s watch that she discovered the misdeed and made the referral over to the City Attorney. Ms. Lee said that yes, it was brought to her attention that there was some issues of pre-payment and as a result she requested the Controller’s Office to do an audit to verify what had happened and she also provided them information as to some other things that might be appropriate to look at. Ms. Lee said that during that investigation, which took over a year, some other issues were raised, brought to her attention as well, so after speaking with the Director this was referred to the City Attorney’s Office through the Mayor’s Office, John Holtzman. Commissioner Guinnane asked who handled the MIS before Ms. Lee took it over. Ms. Lee said that she believed that there were several other managers, Deputy Director William Wong, Director Chiu and others that she did not know. Ms. Lee said that there was a PTS Committee. Commissioner Guinnane said so it wasn’t Harrington that uncovered this potential fraud in the MIS; it was actually Ms. Lee and she made the referral to Director Chiu and Director Chiu referred it over. Ms. Lee said that was correct. The Controller’s Office had raised some issues about some subcontractors not getting paid and DBI brought it to their attention that there were some other issues of concern. Ms. Lee stated that she remembered when she returned from maternity leave in January that she oversaw MIS for several months and got a little concerned about things. Ms. Lee said that she went to COIT, Ms. Deborah Vincent James, in April of 2001 asking whether or not they reviewed all of MIS contracts and subcontractors and was assured that they did. Ms. Lee stated that she subsequently received an e-mail in late April demonstrating that COIT was indeed reviewing Marcus’ actions as well so that assured her temporarily until September when DBI management got more concerned.

Commissioner Guinnane asked about the 1.9% that the Controller’s Office charges and what does the office do to earn that 1.9%. Ms. Lee said that she was not sure because she never really understood COIT’s process and said that she could not answer that. Commissioner Guinnane thanked Ms. Lee.

Deputy Director Jim Hutchinson said that he was interviewed by the members of the Civil Grand Jury for approximately three to four hours. Mr. Hutchinson said that two of the gentlemen that he met with were present at the meeting and there were also two women that interviewed him that were not present. Mr. Hutchinson stated that by and large it was a difficult experience that he wanted to tell the Commission about. Mr. Hutchinson said that his thoughts going into it were that there was going to be a frank discussion of how business is done and then maybe some suggestions for improvement that could be taken back to the Managers to discuss and collectively work together to better the system. Mr. Hutchinson said that though there was some discussion of how DBI does the program, the primary discussion with him was the focus on the many mentions of him in newspaper articles, particularly in the San Francisco Chronicle, which is fine because that goes with the territory. Mr. Hutchinson said that what he found particularly disturbing was that it was not with the two gentlemen present that he had a problem with, but with one of the women when he began to answer the questions and describe in detail the background information, she summarily dismissed him. Mr. Hutchinson stated that they didn’t want to go into it because obviously his answer was not going down the track of what they wanted to hear; in particular, one case. Mr. Hutchinson said that since he wasn’t allowed to answer with them he thought he would do it in public comment. Mr. Hutchinson stated that one of the cases he handled was a case on Montecito that he thought received a lot of press from Susan Sward in the Chronicle. Mr. Hutchinson reported that the allegation was that one of the staff members accepted a bribe. Mr. Hutchinson said that the basis of that case and how it turned out was that a former member of the City Attorney’s Office came into Mr. Hutchinson and said that one of the Inspectors had solicited and accepted a bribe. Mr. Hutchinson said that it was in the form of a check and the check was cashed. Mr. Hutchinson said that he met with the homeowner and his wife and immediately asked them to bring in the evidence. Mr. Hutchinson stated that the homeowner brought in a check which was made out to this Inspector, but it was not endorsed and then began to say that no, maybe this wasn’t criminal misconduct because the check was never cashed. Mr. Hutchinson said that he asked the homeowner if he wanted to pursue this, as it seemed ridiculous to pursue that a bribe was made when no Inspector had cashed a check. Mr. Hutchinson said that the individual then stated that he just wanted his job taken care of. Mr. Hutchinson said that the individual went to him, to Planning Director Gerald Green and Director Chiu, wasted enormous hours of City time and basically was trying to rectify illegal construction that this person, a former City employee had done. Mr. Hutchinson stated that when this individual persisted in his argument to everyone that a bribe had been accepted, the staff member hired an attorney and was prepared to go forward and clear his name. Mr. Hutchinson said that this gentleman then admitted that he lied and withdrew the charges. Mr. Hutchinson said that this case was printed to no end in the newspaper. Mr. Hutchinson said that he was not allowed to give that story to the Grand Jury members and said that he thought it was important to talk about the whole story. Mr. Hutchinson said that the other part of the Grand Jury report in talking about that it is not a condemnation; surely it has been discussed here today. Mr. Hutchinson stated that when the employees go forward, they go to church, they go to school, they meet their families, or whatever, and whenever you read this stuff it is a condemnation. Mr. Hutchinson said that the report also talks about weak Managers and said that he would submit that weak Managers could not get 90% of the permits processed in one day, could not perform 52, 114 inspections or 98% of all inspections in 24 hours, could not have the Department receive 1999 complaints in a year and looked at 1922 and on and on and on. Mr. Hutchinson said that he thought the Management is good, the employees are hard working and honest and stated that he thought it was time that people acknowledge that and respect them for what they are. Mr. Hutchinson stated that DBI employees are civil servants doing a good job. Mr. Hutchinson thanked the Commission.

Deputy Director Wong said that he was responsible for DBI’s Permit Services Program and was also interviewed by the Civil Grand Jury for many hours. Mr. Wong stated that one of the things he found when he got this final report that was very disturbing was that a lot of the facts that the Department had spent all that time to provide to them were actually not in this report and actually came out to be exactly the opposite of what they were told. Mr. Wong said that he would agree with the Commission that there is a need to look at the facts. Mr. Wong said that he wanted to spend some time with the Commission to provide that information so that the Commission can respond to the Grand Jury item by item. Mr. Wong said that essentially the Civil Grand Jury is asking DBI to throw out all the good things that have been done over many years to make the improvements out the window. Mr. Wong reported that right now DBI has a special commercial counter to serve the businesses and there is an express counter to serve the plumbers, electricians and roofers that need to get permits in a hurry. Mr. Wong said that DBI has the One-Stop program to help people coordinate projects at no cost to them. Mr. Wong said that now the Grand Jury is saying to forget all that and have this one central permit intake counter which is what the Department had fifteen years ago; take in everything, create a clog, don’t issue any permits over the counter or just hold up the whole permit process. Mr. Wong stated that he found this very disturbing. Mr. Wong said that he wanted to summarize for the Commission things that the Department provided which was not in the Civil Grand Jury report. Mr. Wong said that he wanted to read from a report that said, "In 1992 a survey was conducted which said 62% of the respondents generally felt that the permit process was poor." Mr. Wong stated that this was many years ago and today, in the March 2001 survey which was done by an independent party for the Controller’s audit, which was attached to the Grand Jury as an appendix, most customers, 65%, rated DBI’s permit application services good or excellent and most respondents, which was 86% felt that DBI staff have been helpful and courteous during the application process. Mr. Wong said that an employee survey was also done by the Controller’s Office and 85% of employees felt that DBI contributes to improving the City’s quality of life and has made good progress toward improving customer services. Mr. Wong said that he wanted to mention and remind the Commission that the Civil Grand Jury came out in 1996 through 1997 and after doing an audit of eleven City departments gave DBI a thumbs up. Mr. Wong said that basically that 1996-1997 Civil Grand Jury review of DBI said that it lead them to conclude the DBI had made outstanding progress in this effort. Mr. Wong said that for findings that DBI is going backwards, he had a real problem with that. Mr. Wong stated that he is really proud of all the work that the men and women of DBI are doing right now. Mr. Wong said that he was very proud of them for all their dedication and hard work and this report is really setting DBI back with respect to morale and with respect to having to look at this; it is really a problem especially in the Permit Services Program.

Mr. Wong said that he wanted to touch on one area that wasn’t really touched on today, which is the quality control. Mr. Wong said that if someone did not have any idea what DBI is doing and read that report it would seem that DBI has no quality control whatsoever. Mr. Wong said that he repeatedly mentioned to the Civil Grand Jury that DBI not only has one checkpoint for quality control, but there are two checkpoints and none of that was mentioned in the report. Mr. Wong reported that there is one checkpoint during the primary review process, the technical review, and the Department does a sampling of all the projects. Mr. Wong said that not all of them are reviewed, but DBI looks at the projects that need to be reviewed, especially those done by new employees. Mr. Wong said that the second checkpoint, and 100% of them are done here, is at the One-Stop, so DBI has two quality control points, which is not at all mentioned. Mr. Wong said again, the Department wants to see examples of all the problems that were cited otherwise it would be like chasing something that is not there. Mr. Wong said that the Department wants to look at specifics. Mr. Wong stated that another thing that was not mentioned in the report that DBI staff is very proud of is that the majority of staff are certified and trained; DBI sent staff through the training process and staff have met the state requirements for certification. Mr. Wong stated that over 90% of the staff is certified in their respective field, but none of that is mentioned. Mr. Wong said that the Grand Jury makes it sound like they want every project that is plan checked to be reviewed by somebody else, 100%, so the Department would be doing the work three times. Mr. Wong said that this would be a major problem with respect to issuing permits. Mr. Wong thanked the Commission and said that he was looking forward to working with the Commission to respond to the Grand Jury.

Commissioner Guinnane said that back about six months ago there was a problem in the Department that came to the Commission regarding quality control about checking them and re-checking every one again. Commissioner Guinnane said that Mr. Wong got some direction from the Commission not to be checking every plan; it was to be a spot check. Commissioner Guinnane stated that if there were any blame on this issue, it would come back to the Commission and not to the individuals of DBI. Mr. Wong said that he appreciated Commissioner Guinnane’s support and stated that one of the reasons that direction was given was because the Commission was getting complaints about the backlog with plans sitting on the plan checkers’ desks for rechecking. Mr. Wong stated that DBI does do a good number of quality control checks. Mr. Wong said that the report seems to summarize that DBI is doing a very poor job of it and said that he would challenge the Civil Grand Jury to find another Department that does a more extensive quality control than DBI.

Commissioner Guinnane asked if Mr. Wong were to take the recommendation of the Grand Jury and take the approach they want to take by submitting every plan in or every permit in and not do over the counter, what kind of backlog that would create. Mr. Wong answered that it would create a lot of problems because; first the Department would not be doing plan check, but would be answering phone calls asking why plans have not gotten out. Mr. Wong state that he could remember years ago and could cite two sources back in 1989 because there were so many problems with permit processing that the budget analyst reported to the Board of Supervisors on the management audit of the City permit processing system and they specifically created a task force. Mr. Wong said that as a result of that task force in 1992 three recommendations were made; one was to create a one-stop center and they gave very specific direction for issuing permits over the counter and gave a list of permits saying that the Department should not hold them up, but should issue them, like kitchen remodels. Mr. Wong said that when he worked at the counter fourteen years ago people couldn’t get a simple permit; the permit was taken in and would not be issued for three or four weeks. Commissioner Guinnane asked if this were implemented today, how long it would take to get a permit for a kitchen. Mr. Wong said that the quickest would probably be three to four weeks because everything would have to be put into backlog behind big projects.

Director Chiu said that he shared with both Deputy Directors that the Department has come a long way; for example, ten, fifteen years ago DBI was processing about 45% of all the permits within one or two days. Director Chiu stated that today 93% are done in one day, and three or four more percent are done within two to seven days. Director Chiu stated that this means that DBI is doing about 96 - 97% of all projects within seven days so DBI has come a long way. Director Chiu said that he totally agreed with Deputy Director Wong that going back to taking everything in and not approving projects would be a sad day for the Department.

Vice-President Hood said that she wanted to point out one more thing to the Grand Jury and that is the Department’s pre-application meeting process. Vice-President Hood said that for people who really want to do good sets of drawings and get them quickly done, the Planning and Building Departments will meet with the client in advance of them submitting permits and will look over the drawings in a schematic design phase to tell the client exactly what the departments want to see and what they see as the problems that might exist on that project. Vice-President Hood said that the meeting costs about $100 or some relatively trivial amount of money. Vice-President Hood said that then the customer turns in a set of drawings based on the preliminary comments and all of the things that might otherwise have been overlooked are corrected as a result of this meeting and the permit gets issued faster. Vice-President Hood said it might be the disgruntled people who don’t take the time or spend the money to do the right thing at the beginning and see these other people who are prepared getting their permits faster.

Vice-President Hood said that she now wanted to answer the comment about how the Grand Jury did make a recommendation about Housing Inspectors and it is in the footnote. Vice-President Hood stated that frankly it is something that she did not understand completely so maybe there could be some clarification. Vice-President Hood said that the footnote stated, "The Grand Jury did not investigate the operation of the housing inspection program which handles code enforcement related to code violations in existing buildings with three or more units including transient and residential hotels." Vice-President Hood said that this was a reasonable thing to say, but then it goes on to say, "The Grand Jury notes, however, that staffing shortages have contributed to a backlog in the inspection of residences for illegal units and for unsafe decks and balconies in multiple unit buildings." Vice-President Hood said that the Commission dealt with this issue ad infinitum and identified, first of all, if anybody calls up and complains about a deck or an illegal unit, the Department goes out there the next day. Vice-President Hood said that politically the Commission knows that much of the affordable housing is in illegal units in this City and everybody knows that and they are not enforced because to do so would greatly diminish the housing stock, when they are found, when they are determined, when there is something done about it. Vice-President Hood stated that those illegal units are very often not in multi-family units, they are in one and two-unit buildings. Vice-President Hood said that she thought that there was a misperception that Housing Inspectors are not primarily to enforce the illegal thing. Vice-President Hood said that the Housing Inspectors would enforce this whenever they find an illegal unit, but it is not and never has been a priority of the Commission. Vice-President Hood said that politically it would cause a lot of problems. Vice-President Hood stated that the other thing was the balconies in multiple unit buildings and said that the inspection of the balconies is something that is covered by the building Inspectors.

Chief Housing Inspector Rosemary Bosque said that when a Housing Inspector goes out on a complaint or does a routine inspection they are looking to see things such as dry rot, decay, alterations that may not have been done with proper permits, etc. and those are done on a routine inspection or as complaints. Ms. Bosque stated that she wanted to point out the this footnote is incorrect as the Housing Inspection Services Division deals with complaints on all residential buildings be it three units or more. Ms. Bosque said that this means that they also deal with complaints on one and two-family dwellings, but do not deal with illegal unit complaints on those. Ms. Bosque said that is now handled as of recently by the Building Inspection Division. Ms. Bosque said that as far as all other complaints, the Housing Inspectors do deal with those on one and two-family dwellings so this footnote is actually incorrect. Ms. Bosque stated that the other thing that she wanted to mention, which was not part of this because she was never interviewed, is that Housing has done a tremendous amount with respect to dealing with issues like this such as adding code sections, additional information when letters are sent out for getting appointments with the property owner to do routine inspections. Ms. Bosque said that she personally developed a four or five-page list of quality control that not only deals with the field performance of the Inspector, but how they take care of their car, how they organize their field, what they do as far as case management, how their desks are organized, how well they deal with the computer, do they put the data into the computer, all that. Ms. Bosque said that none of that appears in the Grand Jury report. Ms. Bosque stated that all the things that were mentioned in the Controller’s report with respect to housing inspection where the division has taken very specific measures of improvement were not addressed here and it would have been nice, in fairness, to say that certain improvements have been made.

Commissioner Guinnane said that Ms. Bosque got some direction from the Commission back about six, eight or nine months ago and said that he thought it was effective January 1, 2004 where all the decks have to be certified on a five-year basis. Ms. Bosque said that was correct and said it was Section 601 of the Housing Code that went into effect on November 1^st of last year. Ms. Bosque said that the Department was in the process of dealing with that right now to do an informational mailing to all the applicable property owners so that they know that this process must begin. Ms. Bosque said that the program would be starting that early in the fall.

Vice-President Hood said that it is absolutely factually untrue that the staffing shortages have contributed to a backlog in inspection for unsafe decks and balconies; that is absolutely untrue. Vice-President Hood stated that in fact, the DBI has totally changed the process for doing that because when there were problems in the City, the Commission sponsored this new legislation to change the Code to require them to be inspected. Vice-President Hood said that this was another example of the lack of basis for this review.

Commissioner Guinnane said that if the Grand Jury went back and looked at the minutes of this Commission from maybe a year, year-and-a half ago, this Commission voted to put a freeze on

the hiring of Housing Inspectors for the simple reason that the Commission wanted to have people coming in from the outside trades that were qualified. Commissioner Guinnane said that what prompted that was failures in decks and stairs and stuff and there was a lot of concern on his part about that. Commissioner Guinnane said that all of the Housing Inspectors have agreed to take training; Commissioner Santos has offered to give training so that when the Inspectors do go out there they can perform a good job and know exactly what they are looking at. Commissioner Guinnane stated that the BIC also came up with the idea of getting the decks certified on a five-year basis where the owner will have to hire an engineer, architect, or contractor that will give a certification guaranteeing the structure and integrity of the decks and stairs themselves.

Vice-President Hood said that she would like to say that in, say comparison to Chicago where they just had a terrible tragedy and they had a previous tragedy just two years ago on their decks and they did nothing about it. Vice-President Hood said that this is an example of how responsive this Commission has been because the moment the first deck problem occurred here, the BIC immediately did forensic investigation of all the inspections and everything else on that property and wanted to find out what caused it and what needed to be done in the Code. Vice-President Hood said the Commission wanted enforcement not to have that happen here again and it was done; the Commission took action. Vice-President Hood stated that she thought this footnote is just totally contrary to fact and makes her question exactly how much research was behind this and how fair the investigation was because these things were easy to retrieve.

President Fillon asked for any further pubic comment.

Sean Keighran stated that he was present to vent his frustrations with this Grand Jury report. Mr. Keighran said that this incomplete report has had a major effect on the general perception in the City and County of San Francisco and had cast a dark cloud over the Building Inspection Department and over him as a builder. Mr. Keighran stated that it has also cast a dark cloud over him as a member of the Residential Builders Association. Mr. Keighran stated that what really bothered him about this dark cloud was that this misperception, this negative slant is all done on what he would call half-truth reporting. Mr. Keighran said it is half-truth reporting because there was never interviewing done by architects and asked why weren’t the builders interviewed for this report. Mr. Keighran said that when things affect his reputation and his perception, he is owed an explanation, and when the general perception is altered like this has been, the people of San Francisco deserve a better explanation. Mr. Keighran said that this report is clearly incomplete and the Grand Jury’s work is not done. Mr. Keighran said that perhaps they have started, but said that he thought that DBI deserves a complete report and said that it is the Grand Jury’s responsibility to go back and finish the report for the people of San Francisco. Mr. Keighran stated that the Grand Jury needed to do their homework to bring something to the BIC and the Department that could be responded to. Mr. Keighran thanked the Commission.

Mr. McNulty said that he would hand over his notes from his conversation with Mr. Chen and thanked the Commission for all the attention, comments and questions. Mr. McNulty said that the Grand Jury looked forward to seeing the Department and DBI’s responses and would be available to help in explaining the report any further.

President Fillon asked if during the course of the committee meetings if the BIC comes up with some questions they could send them to Mr. McNulty in writing and have him address some of those. Mr. McNulty said that however the BIC wished would be fine. President Fillon asked if that was within the rules that govern grand juries. Mr. McNulty said that it was okay as long as they did not disclose any provided information, but could amplify their report.

Vice-President Hood asked if Mr. McNulty could answer her question that she raised earlier about the Grand Jury having to protect their sources, but if they found wrongdoing in an individual or a group, as this construction industry group is mentioned in here, can’t the Grand Jury name that particular one. Vice-President Hood stated that there was nothing n the law that keeps the Grand Jury from doing that. Mr. McNulty said that the Grand Jury had not found any criminal activity and that was not what they were attempting to do. Ms. Powell said that if there is evidence of criminal wrongdoing it is immediately referred to the District Attorney, but this report isn’t about criminal wrongdoing. Vice-President Hood said that if this were to be corrected, it would be so helpful to the BIC to have a label on the wrongdoers. Ms. Powell said that she thought what would be best is what President Fillon suggested which is if the BIC has questions they could be resubmitted to the committee, to Jack’s attention, through the Grand Jury office and that which they can answer, they will. Ms. Powell stated that the investigation had to be limited in scope because there is only eleven months essentially to complete it and the details that the Grand Jury can share with the Department and the Commission would be shared. Vice-President Hood asked that in cases like the footnote where there is factual misinformation would the Grand Jury be issuing a correction. Ms. Powell said that if in fact it were factually incorrect it would be corrected and sent out to the public.

President Fillon asked what was the exact charge of the Grand Jury in this investigation. Ms. Powell said that she would give a little background about the process and said that she did not want the Commission to think that she was avoiding directly answering President Fillon’s question. Ms. Powell said that she could not tell the Commission the details of what that charge and that discussion was. Ms. Powell said that the Grand Jury self-selects into groups into that which they are interested and the group has to present a work plan, a detailed work plan that must be approved by twelve of the nineteen grand jurors and the report cannot be issued unless it has a minimum of twelve votes to publish it. Ms. Powell said that there were very heated discussions about many of these work plans before they were approved. President Fillon asked how the Grand Jury decided what areas to ask questions about or what to delve into and what was driving that. President Fillon asked if it was just the particular interest of the members of the Grand Jury itself.

Mr. McNulty said that at one of the initial meetings of the Grand Jury there were probably a hundred different categories and some of those were eliminated because obviously there was no interest. Mr. McNulty said that nine reports were issued so DBI was one of the points of interest. Mr. McNulty stated that there was no direction as to the Grand Jury looking into DBI for wrongdoing or anything like that. Mr. McNulty said that the Grand Jury went in to first learn about DBI and then looked for suggestions as to how the Grand Jury through it could be better. President Fillon asked that when the Grand Jury is putting together questions that are going to be used to interview employees and staff or members of the public how does the Grand Jury determine what those questions are going to be if they don’t have any structure. Mr. McNulty said that he had a suggestion as to how they got DBI. Mr. McNulty stated that basically, the Grand Jury starts off with, "Mr. Smith, how long have you been at DBI, what is your role, the Grand Jury just starts a general conversation and one questions leads to another as it is not meant to be an interrogation. Mr. McNulty said that it is meant to be an information determining or gathering session and on some occasions the Grand Jury have gone back to an individual and had additional conversations.

Commissioner Guinnane said that he wanted to talk to Mr. McNulty about the individual that was brought up by the name of Mr. Chin. Commissioner Guinnane said that the name was never put with the address and now Director Chiu had just given Commissioner Guinnane the information that it is property located at 17^th and Lake. Commissioner Guinnane said that he personally, along with Commissioner Santos went out to this property and allowed this individual to come and speak at the Litigation Committee. Commissioner Guinnane stated that this whole issue was about a dispute about an egress problem where Mr. Chin gave his neighbor a key to use the gate next door and then he wanted DBI to refer it over to the City Attorney’s Office to stop the neighbor from using the egress. Commissioner Guinnane said that he told Mr. Chin to change the lock and stop the egress because DBI does not get involved in that, but there were legal issues about that. Commissioner Guinnane said that then there was an issue about an illegal unit next door and Mr. Chin was making a big deal about the unit when in fact the unit was empty and there was nobody in there. Commissioner Guinnane stated that Mr. Chin has come to the Commission three or four times, he has come to the Litigation Committee and the Department and two Commissioners have gone out to the property and looked at it. Commissioner Guinnane said that he just didn’t put the name with the address, but now knew exactly what case it was. Vice-President Hood said that this is one of those issues that she was trying to talk about when somebody tells you something and said that this is true of reporters. Ms. Powell interrupted at this point to say that this was not part of the investigation, but Mr. Chin called after the release of the Grand Jury report. Vice-President Hood said that Mr. McNulty said that this was characteristic of all these problems so she wanted to use this as an example. Commissioner Guinnane said that he and Rodrigo Santos went out there personally on their own time and allowed Mr. Chin to talk at the Litigation Committee. Vice-President Hood said that she did not think that the Grand Jury understood how really caring this Commission is compared to many in the City. Vice-President Hood said that there are people on the Commission such as Rodrigo Santos who has provided drawings for stairs that are used for exiting and things when people didn’t do it. Commissioner Guinnane said that it was done pro bono. Vice-President Hood stated that she thought that one of the charges as ethical members of the Grand Jury would be to try to understand when anything comes to you what the opposing argument might be. Mr. McNulty said that as Mary indicated, this was received after the report was issued. Vice-President Hood said that the Commission heard that. Mr. McNulty said that he thought that he was doing Mr. Chin a favor by saying that he could show up or if not Mr. McNulty would present this to the Commission. Commissioner Santos said that Mr. McNulty could do a favor for Mr. Chin by telling him that he is a moron. Mr. McNulty said pardon me. Commissioner Santos said that he would like Mr. McNulty to tell Mr. Chin that he is a total moron and said that he wanted to go on record on that.

Vice-President Hood said that she thought that the Grand Jury has done this on more things than this, that the Grand Jury did not present both viewpoints because some of these things are so directly, like 180 degrees opposite of what actually happened. Mr. McNulty said that he thought that the Grand Jury would be able to address that when the BIC has had an opportunity to either ask him other questions or comments and then they can be discussed. Mr. McNulty said that the footnote was intended originally just to tell the BIC what part of DBI the Grand Jury did not look into. Vice-President Hood said that the Grand Jury went further than that and said there were shortages and that is what she was talking about; the Grand Jury extrapolated too much out of the limited information and made it sound like that division wasn’t staffed. Mr. McNulty said that if that division had five years to look at decks they could do it faster if there was more staff.

President Fillon said that the BIC had to move on because there were other items on the agenda, but said that the Commission would be in touch with Mr. McNulty.

Ms. Powell said that she needed to say one more thing and said that she did respect Commissioner Hood and knew her reputation in the Community. Ms. Powell said that Commissioner Hood might not know her reputation. Ms. Powell stated that she wanted to speak to the ethics of the work that the Grand Jury did. Ms. Powell said that there were several backgrounds represented on the Grand Jury, there are social workers, retired and active attorneys, one of the people on the Grand Jury was the Chief Administrative lawyer for Chief Justice Roger Traynor. Ms. Powell stated that these are law-abiding citizens. Ms. Powell said that at the press conference every single time she said that nothing is error free, and no one is perfect so she was not here to say that mistakes aren’t made. Ms. Powell said that everything was made with best effort and as she assured earlier if there are factual mistakes they will be corrected and they will be corrected publicly. Ms. Powell thanked the Commission.

President Fillon thanked Ms. Powell and said that before the Commission moved on he would like to thank the members of the Grand Jury that did come to the meeting and for being present to face the BIC personally. President Fillon said that he thought it meant a lot that these people were present and said that he also wanted to thank the members of the public that spoke on this item.

Vice-President Hood said that she wanted to thank the members of the Department who do such a wonderful, dedicated job in the face of this very, very unfair criticism. (Applause)

At this time the Commission took a break at 3:27 p.m.

The BIC reconvened at 4:00 p.m.

President Fillon said that the Commission was going to skip to item 9, review of communication items while waiting for the Director to return. Commissioners Santos and Marks did not return.

9. Review of Communication Items. At this time, the Commission may discuss or take possible action to respond to communication items received since the last meeting.

a. June 17, 2003 memorandum from Jim Hutchinson, Deputy Director to All Inspection Program Managers regarding a Press Release authored by Randy Shaw of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic regarding the Grand Jury report. Press Release attached.

b. June 13, 2003 letter from Director Chiu to Mr. Ken Cleaveland of BOMA San Francisco thanking him for his e-mail and support for the Department of Building Inspection regarding the Grand Jury Report. E-mail attached.

c. June 17, 2003 letter memorandum from Director Chiu to All DBI staff regarding Online Permitting.

d. June 17, 2003 issue of the BOMA-San Francisco Advocate.

e. Copies of thank you letters received from the public commending DBI employees and Director Chiu’s response letters to the public.

President Fillon asked if there were any items that the Commissioners would like to discuss. There were no items discussed.

There was no public comment on this item.

10. Review and approval of the minutes of the June 4, 2003 meeting

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

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 030-03

President Fillon said that the agenda would now go back to Item #6 because the Director had returned.

6. Discussion and possible action to require the DBI MIS Manager to complete a Statement of Economic Interests. [Commissioner Guinnane]

Commissioner Guinnane said that about two-and-a-half or three years ago he brought this up numerous times to this Commission to have the Manager over the MIS do an economic statement. Commissioner Guinnane said that he found it very troubling for an individual that has authority over contracts not to be required to fill it out. Commissioner Guinnane stated that he had talked to Frank Chiu numerous times about this thing and was told that the Director would look into it. Commissioner Guinnane said that he was really concerned that the Department still had not done this and said that he thought that the Director had the authority to make it mandatory that all individuals fill it out. Commissioner Guinnane stated that he was not saying that if the Department had this economic statement from Marcus Armstrong that it would have uncovered the fraud of whatever, but was just saying that it is just another layer of paper that should be in place because looking at the amended complaint and stuff with the litigation he did not realize how much authority that this individual had in DBI. Commissioner Guinnane said that he would strongly urge his fellow Commissioners to direct Frank Chiu to get this done immediately and if he can’t get it through the process then he should make it mandatory himself, as the Director.

Director Chiu said that he wanted to thank Amy Lee because shortly after she became the Supervisor of Marcus Armstrong she was made aware of several individuals, whom she felt needed to fill out the Conflict of Interest, Statement of Economics Interest form and she forwarded a memo dated May 3, 2001. Director Chiu said that several people complied with it even though it is not required by the City. Director Chiu stated that he remembered discussing this with Ms. Lee that Mr. Armstrong refused to sign one because it was not mandated by the City Charter. Director

Chiu referred to several memos from the Department to the Board of Supervisors regarding this issue.

Director Chiu said that Ms. Lee talked to him when she confronted Marcus Armstrong to fill one out and he refused to fill one out because he felt he was not required to and for that to be required the Department needed a Board of Supervisors Ordinance to mandate that these individuals need to fill one out. Director Chiu said that as a result of Mr. Armstrong refusing to voluntarily fill one out a memo was drafted to the Board of Supervisors requesting that the Department immediately wanted this changed. Director Chiu said that this was not done and was missed again a year afterwards and there is another memo to the Board dated July 18, 2002 asking for the same thing. Director Chiu said that he could not tell the Commission what the problem was on the other end, but about fifteen minutes ago, John Marquez e-mailed the Director that finally the Board of Supervisors did pass a resolution mandating that this individual or this classification be required to fill one out. Commissioner Guinnane asked if Director Chiu was telling him that in order to get that classification approved the Department could only go to the Board of Supervisors one time a year to get that classification included. Director Chiu said that he did not have all of the information, but it was his understanding that it is done every other year so he didn’t know what happened because DBI requested it in 2001, but it was missed and the request was not considered until just now. Commissioner Guinnane asked how it was left off because a Building Inspector has to fill out an economic statement and they don’t handle any money or contracts and here is an individual who is handling millions of dollars in contracts with no controls in place whatsoever and he doesn’t have to fill it out. Commissioner Guinnane said that he did not see aggressiveness on the part of the Department to make him do this. Commissioner Guinnane asked why Director Chiu did not go to him and say that he should either fill it out or be removed and make an issue of it then and bring it to a head. Director Chiu said that Assistant Director Amy Lee probably confronted him and his understanding in talking to Amy was that Mr. Armstrong flatly refused because he said he was not mandated to fill one out. Director Chiu said that is the reason why the Department followed-up with a memo directing the Personnel Officer to make sure that this request got on to the Board of Supervisors. Commissioner Guinnane said that at that point, if he was the Director of DBI and an employee refused to sign it, then as the Director he would have one option and that would be to call up the City Attorney’s Office and ask what the options were and get an opinion within about five minutes. Commissioner Guinnane said that in looking at the documentation it was May 3, 2001 and July 2, 2003 and all of these years have gong by and all of a sudden it’s on the calendar and Marquez is calling up and saying that it has just been approved. Commissioner Guinnane said that if he didn’t put this on the calendar he was sure there would be no call today saying that it is approved and it would be going on for another year.

Director Chiu said that he could not explain how the Board of Supervisors calendars their items or what not, but if this was not mandated then the individual could refuse to sign it and that is what happened. Director Chiu said that he did not have the conversation with him individually, but was aware that Ms. Lee tried her best to have him fill it out and the Personnel Officer was also involved with it. Commissioner Guinnane asked Director Chiu if he did not get any sense that since Mr. Armstrong did not want to fill it out that he had something to hide. Commissioner Guinnane asked how come Director Chiu was not suspicious. Director Chiu said that a lot of employees voluntarily turned them in for example his secretary and a few other people when asked to do so, but there are some employees who refuse to do anything as long as they are within the law and that is what happened in this case.

Vice-President Hood asked Ms. Lee if in the law there was any list of all these positions generally and there is also a kind of statement in the intention of the law that says people who hold these types of responsibilities or powers have to do it even if each position is not listed. Ms. Lee said that those kind of guidelines were given to the Department for the Department to decide which specific positions should be required to fill out the form. Ms. Lee stated that based on those guidelines the Department each year added various individuals even to the extent of recently adding the 1054’s which are the development people from DBI’s MIS staff because they are in the position to approve performance of services rendered by contractors and even to some extent central permit staff because they have the ability, based on the criteria set forth in the legislation. Ms. Lee said that the legislation was not written in a way to encompass other people not listed. Vice-President Hood said that she didn’t quite understand that because it lists the criteria for the departments, but then the departments can’t implement it. Ms. Lee said that the Department implements it by giving them a list of those people.

Ms. Lee stated that when she requested Marcus to submit his economic interest statement, he told her that he was advised by the City, by his attorney or somebody that he was not required to do so because he wasn’t in the legislation. Ms. Lee said that she actually called the City Attorney’s Office and they confirmed that to her that if the person is not set in the legislation the Department cannot make them fill out an economic interest statement. Ms. Lee said that she was really surprised every year when she found out that it was still not put in and said that she did not know what happened there. Ms. Lee stated that at one point she called the Board of Supervisors clerk herself and was told that there were two people working on that. Ms. Lee said that she was working with DBI’s Personnel Officer to make sure that everyone was included on the list. Vice-President Hood asked if the list came from Frank’s request. Ms. Lee said that she would recommend to Frank what individuals should be required so she prepared those memos for him as well. Ms. Lee said that for the people that were not listed, she sent out individual memos to them still requesting that despite the fact that they were not listed per se on the legislation the Department would like them to complete a form. Ms. Lee stated that for the most part, most of the individuals did except for Mr. Armstrong. Commissioner Guinnane asked if it was true to say that the Department could only put names on the list once a year or once every two years. Ms. Lee said that she believed it was once a year, something of that nature in the sense where it has to go through the Charter changes with the Board and the Board does it every July. Commissioner Guinnane asked how is it that a person in this position was missed. Ms. Lee said that she did not know and that is why when she began to be responsible for the MIS division in 2001 she tried to make sure that it would be covered. Commissioner Guinnane asked if the MIS is now required as of today. Director Chiu said that he had an e-mail from John Marquez just now that the Board of Supervisors had adopted it.

Commissioner Guinnane asked if a new MIS Manager was brought in tomorrow would that person have to fill one out within 60 days or does the Department have to wait for the next anniversary date. Director Chiu said that the person could be required to fill out one when assuming the office and then one for the annual report. Commissioner Guinnane said that is what he wanted.

Vice-President Hood said that she had a question regarding a memo dated June 30^th that says "effective immediately and until further notice I’ve turned over the management of MIS to DTIS" and what is DTIS. Director Chiu said that it was the Departmental Telecommunication and Information System. Director Chiu said that this was the department that he went to for an expert on reviewing DBI MIS division. Director Chiu stated that the Commission had formed a MIS committee to work with staff to try and make changes to MIS and initially he was going to wait to give a full report to the Commission. Director Chiu said that the Commission has been briefed as to some of the things, the development going on and just some of the things that happened within the last couple of days that he decided was the best thing to do. Vice-President Hood asked if Sue Metzger was going to actually be working at DBI. Director Chiu said that Ms. Metzger had actually been working as a consultant through work order for DBI for the last few months, but again she is just a staff person working for DTIS. Director Chiu stated that he had been working directly with the Director of DTIS and mainly the chief MIS person from DTIS to seek a lot of their expertise as to what is going on in DBI’s shop. Vice-President Hood asked if DBI checked Ms. Metzger’s references when she came on board. Director Chiu said that he did. Vice-President Hood asked if this included calling the people who gave the references. Director Chiu said that he did and additionally, all 1071’s in that position from DTIS are required to fill out the Conflict of Interest forms. Director Chiu said that he spoke with Ms. Metzger and she had no problem filling one of those out. Commissioner Guinnane said that this is part of the plan where he told the Commission at the last meeting that the Committee would be coming back between four and six weeks with a new update on the MIS and this is actually part of it. Commissioner Guinnane said that some of it had to be implemented a little sooner because there were problems. Vice-President Hood said that she was very concerned that the Department would not repeat the mistakes of the past where the Department did not look at the reference of Marcus or call his references. Commissioner Guinnane said that the Department was not going to do that anymore. Commissioner Guinnane said that he talked to the Director about that, about the individuals and stated that there is a plan in place that the Committee is working on right now with all the individuals that are now working for MIS. Vice-President Hood asked if the Commission would be getting a report from Sue Metzger. Commissioner Guinnane said that it would probably be a report from himself and Frank together. President Fillon asked for any public comment and said that the Commission would move onto item #7.

7. Discussion and possible action to review and approve Adoption of AB-038, Investigation Fees and Penalties for Work Without Permits or Exceeding the Scope of Permits. [Chief Building Inspector Laurence Kornfield, Technical Services Division]

Laurence Kornfield introduced himself as the Chief Building Inspector with the Technical Services Division. Mr. Kornfield said that over the past couple of years at the request of the Commission, Technical Services has prepared and is bringing forward an Administrative Bulletin about how the Department can consistently impose investigation fees and penalties for work that exceeds the scope of the permits or work that is done without permits. Mr. Kornfield stated the draft in front of the Commission is the eighth draft of this bulletin and said that it has gone through two meetings of the Code Advisory Committee as well as their subcommittees. Mr. Kornfield said that it had been distributed to all of the DBI staff and managers for comments and was extensively reviewed and revised. Mr. Kornfield said that it was before the Commission for adoption and then would be printed in the Building Code and distributed to everyone who is a subscriber to the Building Code updates. Vice-President Hood asked if the Planning Department had signed off on this. Mr. Kornfield said that it had not been reviewed by Planning, as they are not actually part of the enforcement of investigation fees. Mr. Kornfield said that if DBI got a complaint from Planning saying, for example, that there had been a change to work that they had observed either in style, type of work or in the scope then DBI would go out and issue a stop work notice and a notice of violation and would impose the fees per this bulletin.

Vice-President Hood said that she thought that since Planning is sort of DBI’s sister department, and because very often the issues that arise come out of planning considerations, Planning ought to look at this before it is passed. Vice-President Hood said that she knew that Mr. Kornfield must feel as if he had been doing this all of his life, but said that she would like Planning to have input into it before it is adopted. Mr. Kornfield said that he would be happy to send it to Planning for their comments. Mr. Kornfield said that he would do that and bring it back to the BIC after Planning has submitted comments. Vice-President Hood asked if any other like stakeholders in the community had reviewed this bulletin. Mr. Kornfield answered that it had been submitted through the Code Advisory Committee’s broad membership and it was sent out through a large mailing list. Mr. Kornfield stated that he took it to the Building Owners and Managers Building Code Task Force and went over it with another large group so there has been a lot of public comment.

Vice-President Hood asked if any of the neighborhood groups had been contacted because this was a big deal to them. Mr. Kornfield said that he did not think it went out for any neighborhood input other than the Department’s mailing list. Vice-President Hood said that she remembered things like the famous Jimmy Jen case where it was the neighbors who actually caught the problem.

Director Chiu said that he wanted to refresh some of the Commissioner’s recollections. Director Chiu said that this was started and was intended more for the staff rather than the public. Director Chiu stated that the ten times penalty versus the two times penalty is important because it depends on when the violation was observed. Director Chiu said that right now if someone does work without a permit and gets cited there is a ten times the permit fee, but there is some illegal work that was done years ago and that is where the department has had some problems as to what was the effective date. Director Chiu said that suppose a room was added back in 1950 and there was no permit filed and somebody files a complaint and the Department then observes that those are the types of properties that are penalized only two times rather than ten.

Commissioner Guinnane said that there is only one problem and said that suppose he brought a house from Supervisor Hood today and there is an illegal unit or room in the back that was built in 1950. Commissioner Guinnane said that the new owner should not be penalized for the work that was done by the previous owner. Commissioner Guinnane stated that he did not think this was a fair assessment. Mr. Kornfield said that this bulletin and the Code says that any work that was done prior to 1960 has no penalty and any work that was done by a prior owner would have a penalty of two times. Commissioner Guinnane said that the only problem with that is if he puts in a room and then tells the Department that he didn’t do it, but it was done by a previous owner what burden is put on him to prove that the old owner did it versus himself. Commissioner Guinnane asked who could distinguish who is telling the truth. Mr. Kornfield said that this problem comes up a lot of times because people claim that they bought the property with the illegal work. Mr. Kornfield said that the Department asks the owner to prove it to the Department by showing some confirmation and almost invariably they can come in with a statement, the signed agreement, that has some conditions at the end showing "non-warranted room in the basement" or something like that.

Director Chiu said that Commissioner Guinnane was right in his concern about the previous owner problem. Director Chiu said that if a new owner knows that the work is illegal and comes forward to legalize the work there is no penalty. Director Chiu stated that the penalty is only assessed when the Department detects the owner bought the building, but for four or five years did not make any attempt to legalize it and that is when the investigation fee kicks in, but if the owner comes in voluntarily to legalize the work there is no penalty.

Commissioner Guinnane said that he thought this was very far-reaching. Commissioner Guinnane said that it would be like him building a set of flats and there are rooms downstairs and everything is legal until a range is put in. Commissioner Guinnane said that he would have a hard time supporting this legislation the way it is done. Commissioner Guinnane said that he understood the penalty structure to say that if he got a permit for $50,000 to put on an extension and then went beyond that extension or did a lot more work, he would be penalized right then and there for the work, whatever it is. Commissioner Guinnane said he could not support going back on a witch hunt or going after people that have had something in place for the last seven years, four years, ten years or fifty years. Commissioner Guinnane said that he thought this should be set up to catch the people doing the work right now, they are beyond the scope or they are doing work without permit, then there should be a stiff penalty in place for those issues.

Vice-President Hood referred to case five on the documents and quoted "If the owner of a building voluntarily applies for a permit to legalize work done without a permit and no notice of violation has been issued or other action has been initiated by any City agency, the investigation fee of nine times or two times the permit fee may be reduced to two times the permit fee or entirely waived." Vice-President Hood said that it seemed to her if somebody is trying to correct something that they bought or inherited or might not even have had a clear idea that they should just have to pay for the permit to get it fixed.

Commissioner Guinnane asked who had the authority to waive the two times or nine times penalty and said that he had heard different versions in the Building Department that it is really up to the Board of Permit Appeals as they are the only ones that can waive it. Commissioner Guinnane said that a person would have to pay a fee for the appeal, go in front of the Board and this is burning up a lot of money. Commissioner Guinnane said that a person might be trying to save $500 and it would be costing them $2,500. Vice-President Hood said that it would probably take six months to get it solved. Commissioner Guinnane asked if the Building Department had the authority to waive the fee.

Director Chiu said that he thought that Deputy Director Hutchinson had delegated to his manager that if the property owner came forward, on a case-by-case basis, and they have a legitimate reason why it was done then normally a Chief Building Inspector could waive the fee down from nine times to two times.

Commissioner Guinnane said that he would like to see the particular legislation that was before the Commission remove existing stuff that is there and would like it to basically entail that if somebody is building something out there or doing work out there and going beyond the scope then DBI would fine them. Commissioner Guinnane said that if they are caught without a permit then he thought they should be fined, but said that he did not want the Department going out there on a witch hunt and then someone comes into legalize the work and they get slapped on the wrist. Commissioner Guinnane said it was like saying that if the Department is not open on Saturdays it is encouraging people to do work without a permit.

Director Chiu said that this discussion illustrated that the Commission needs to thoroughly look at this policy again and said that he would strongly urge that the Commission seriously look at whether it wants to waive all the illegal work that was done by a previous owner because that is just encouraging people to just keep on not coming in to legalize the work. Commissioner Guinnane asked how anyone would know that the property owner knew that the work was illegal. Commissioner Guinnane stated that he would never hang his hat on a 3-R report.

Vice-President Hood referred to item #2a and 2b and quoted "Work which alters the visual appearance through changes and exterior wall materials or windows." Vice-President Hood said that it seemed to her that this was a Planning consideration in many cases and said that is why Planning really needs to be involved in this. Vice-President Hood said that Planning should look this over to make sure it is covering all of the things that they have a problem with, but also to look it over to make sure it is not too onerous. Vice-President Hood stated that Larry Badiner had been concerned in the past that Planning not get overwhelmed with work because they are already so far behind by having things too minor. Vice-President Hood said that somebody could switch from shingles to wood siding just as a matter of value engineering, cost reduction during the process and that should not trigger nine times whatever. Vice-President Hood said that she felt that she needed to review this longer and wanted to get the input from Planning so maybe today should be just fact finding. Vice-President Hood asked Mr. Kornfield about "work which altered the visual appearance through changes in exterior wall material or windows" and stated that it cites the Building Code Section 106.4.7, Item 2. Vice-President Hood stated that she did not know what that was offhand, but asked if those changes would affect the Building Code. Vice-President Hood asked about someone going from a one-hour wall or putting in windows that open on the property line, if these changes would go over into the Building Code. Vice-President Hood said she did not realize that if someone just had a window that was four-feet wide instead of three-feet wide it would trigger a Building Code issue.

Mr. Kornfield said that Section 106.4.7 is the section of the Building Code that says, "Additional work permits required" and that is where someone is going beyond the scope of the current permit. Mr. Kornfield said that it was clearly within the discretion of the District Building Inspector to say that it is minor or not, but stated that Planning is very sensitive to windows, sizing and often to materials and so on. Mr. Kornfield said that unfortunately, DBI is the enforcement agency out in the field so that is authorizing DBI to enforce Planning’s requirements.

Commissioner Guinnane said that he thought that a builder was allowed to make changes on the outside of a building as long as it is not more than 10% of the outside of the building itself. Commissioner Guinnane asked if he got a permit out and it called for wood shingles and he decided to put stucco on there it would be legal as long as it did not go through design review or was approved that way through the Planning Commission. Mr. Kornfield said that he would have to ask Mr. Hutchinson as to what the field inspection standards are.

Director Chiu said that the Planning Commission is very concerned about changing materials and they want to know about it. Director Chiu said that even though the project might not have gone through the Planning Commission, a neighbor may have seen that the plans had stucco or vice versa and that has caused a lot of problems. Director Chiu said that Planning wants to be informed about any changes to materials or the designs so DBI has been playing a very active role in making sure the plans are conformed to.

Commissioner Guinnane said that he had no problem with the new stuff going beyond the scope and doing it without a permit, but said that he did not want the Department to go on a witch hunt looking for illegal units that have been in existence for four or five years and then all of a sudden it becomes a big issue. Commissioner Guinnane stated that when the BIC was put in place, and as Bobbie Sue said earlier today to the grand jurors, there is not a big emphasis on illegal units unless the workmanship becomes a life safety hazard. Commissioner Guinnane said that the Department had more important things to be doing besides chasing down illegal units.

Director Chiu said that he understood what Commissioner Guinnane was saying, but in looking at Case No. 3 the entire work was completed prior to the current building ownership and this would be an area where Commissioner Guinnane would be concerned about.

Deputy Director William Wong said that he wanted to clarify that the document that was before the Commission did not have any changes, as it is not legislation. Mr. Wong said that all of the items that were cited were going to be an enforcement of the Building Code, the Electrical Code, Mechanical Code, and so on. Mr. Wong said that all of those items listed on page 2, A to K, are already in the Code so the Department is not proposing any changes. Mr. Wong said that what the document does is to put all the relevant sections together so that there is an internal document for enforcement. Mr. Wong stated that once this would be approved by the Commission it would be signed by the Director and put into the rules and regulations and would not need to go to the Board of Supervisors. Commissioner Guinnane said that if it was already in the Code then there was no need for this document. Mr. Wong said that a lot of them were being repeated because they are in different areas of the Code and the Department just wanted to collectively put it in one area and give cases as an example for Department policy. Mr. Wong stated that none of the information was new as far as amendments or changes. Mr. Wong said that he was now hearing that if the Department is looking at some of the items of concern it would be a different process, which is the Code Amendment process, which would need to go through the Code Advisory Committee, come back to the BIC and then would have to go to the Board of Supervisors. Mr. Wong stated that this document was only created as an Administrative Bulletin.

Vice-President Hood said that what the BIC wanted, and said that a policy was passed, that when there is this kind of thing proposed rather than being stuck in this position where Mr. Kornfield gets up and says eight groups or however many it was have already looked at this and passed on it. Vice-President Hood said that this puts the BIC in a difficult position because it seems that the Commission is not valuing their work, which is not the case, but the Commission might just be looking at it from a different viewpoint. Vice-President Hood said that she did not believe the BIC had seen this document previously. Mr. Wong said that it has been over two years since the Commission has seen it. Commissioner Guinnane said that the Commission has gone through a lot of paperwork in the last year-and-a-half and said that he did not believe that he had seen this one. Vice-President Hood said that this was of great interest to her. Vice-President Hood said that whenever there is a Code change proposed the BIC is supposed to get a copy of it at the same time the Code Advisory Committee does. Vice-President Hood stated that this was specifically directed at a meeting to avoid this very situation. Director Chiu said that he remembered discussing this, but said it was a long time ago. Vice-President Hood said she would be interested in finding out when it was discussed. Mr. Wong asked if Vice-President Hood wanted a chronology and Vice-President Hood said that she just wanted to know when she got a copy of this bulletin.

Commissioner Guinnane said that he was concerned because in looking at some of the divisions such as the electrical division and the amount of penalties that they bring in, it is like it is drilled into the Inspector’s head to get another penalty or reinspection. Commissioner Guinnane said that he did not want to see this go the same way for these divisions to be strictly generating penalties an aggravating people.

Vice-President Hood said that she was very concerned about "When work done is incidental to already permitted work," for example in cases that come up on job sites, especially with excavation and suddenly there needs to be a change because some situation is encountered that was not seen previously or not understood until there was an actual investigation. Vice-President Hood stated that what happens if that people deal with it because it would dangerous not to take care of it right away and then later on they get "as-builts" and they submit them to the Department. Vice-President Hood said that she did not see why under that situation anyone should pay two times the investigation fee; it should be just the fee. Director Chiu said that he agreed if it is on a voluntary basis that people come in and revise the form that is not a problem. Vice-President Hood said that it says that the Department could count two times the investigation fee and the Department sets the investigation fee and then it is twice that. Vice-President Hood said that she thought this was very onerous. Director Chiu said that many times the Department works with the developer, contractor or property owners to put in a revised plan and this is not what this bulletin is talking about. Director Chiu said that the intent was not to penalize these people who are working with the Department, but it is more for people who actually get caught later on when they exceed the scope of work. Vice-President Hood said that the bulleting says "incidental work to the same areas of a structure for which a permit has been issued," and said that she thought that what Director Chiu was saying is the intent is very different from what is written. Commissioner Guinnane said that Director Chiu said that people who go beyond the extent that get caught; the remedy is already in place at 2% or 9%. Director Chiu said that there are some cases where the plans clearly show that only termite repair needs to be done and then somehow the permit holder uses that permit to do some more bathroom remodeling or something. Commissioner Guinnane said that would be fine and then the Department should cite them nine times the permit fee. Commissioner Guinnane said that this is not needed because this is already in place. Mr. Wong said that all of this is already in the Code and one way to do this would be to leave it up to the individual divisions to let them enforce it the way they see fit; however, all of this evolved as part of the unlawful demolition issue and stuff done beyond the scope of the permits. Commissioner Guinnane said that the unlawful demolition was completely different to this and should be put aside. Commissioner Guinnane said that the unlawful demolition was very, very vague and there should have been like a five-tier step if someone was supposed to leave three-quarters of a house up there and took down half, there is a penalty in place. Commissioner Guinnane stated that if someone were to go full demolition then the property could not be built on for five years. Commissioner Guinnane said that issue was very straight and this issue is completely different. Commissioner Guinnane said that this was going after stuff that is not on the demolition issue, but is for illegal rooms or illegal bathrooms.

Mr. Wong said that Commissioner Guinnane was absolutely correct and stated that he had copies of all the relevant Code sections that are cited. Mr. Wong said that the Department thought it should be put together in a document to get some uniformity in the Department. Commissioner Guinnane said that he was concerned because people have a hard enough time getting a permit and if they have to come in to demonstrate what happened they have to go back and look up different things and they get confused; they get disgusted and then all of a sudden they are caught up in this big web and they can’t get out. Mr. Wong said that certainly that is a policy decision if the Commission would like the Directors to let the divisions do it as it has been done in the past or if the Commission would like the Department to continue to develop this uniform administrative bulletin that could be done also.

Vice-President Hood said that she wanted to get copies of all the relevant Code sections in existence now, a total package. Mr. Wong said that he would be happy to provide that. Vice-President Hood stated that she wanted to read page five one more time because she wanted to be clear where it totally contradicts what the Director had just said. Vice-President Hood said that in this particular case work was completed without a permit, but is being voluntarily legalized under the permit and the language is "the fee shall be the investigation fee of nine times or two times the permit fee based on the above cases and it may be reduced to two times; it does not say that it will be. Vice-President Hood said that this could mean that someone would buy a house and find out that there is an addition that was never permitted so they come into DBI to get the permit and are told that the permit would have been $2,000, but now it is $18,000. Director Chiu said that this section says "or entirely waived upon review." Mr. Wong said that this was the second part to this bulletin. Vice-President Hood said that this is only something that the Department may do and she has seen in the past when that might not have gotten waived. Director Chiu said that he was glad that the Commissioner’s were interested in looking at prior ownership because this is the first time he heard of it. Director Chiu said that certainly this issue should be looked at more carefully and discussed because this was new to him that the Commission was now trying to tell the Department that the BIC does not want to look at the ownership. Vice-President Hood said that even if somebody brought a piece of property and it says "urwarranted room" on the disclosure, a layperson walking into that room just sees a room. Vice-President Hood said that they don’t know that if they out of the goodness of their heart, decide to get it warranted it might end up costing them $18,000 for the permit of a room that is probably only worth $18,000.

Commissioner Guinnane said that he had a scenario in which he buys a house from Bobbie Sue and there is room downstairs in the Sunset and Bobbie Sue unwarrants the room, but he waits nine years to come in and apply for a permit to put a bathroom in and then all of a sudden this room is there. Commissioner Guinnane asked what would happen and would he be penalized. Director Chiu said that if Commissioner Guinnane would go back and take a look at what the penalty is, it is called an investigation fee. Director Chiu stated that his policy has always been that if a property owner voluntarily comes in and the Department did not have to spend time sending an Inspector out to follow up on a complaints, then that is a regular permit fee because the Department did not have to spend time on an investigation to drag the homeowner into the Department. Director Chiu said that the Department and the Commission would want to encourage people to come in just as in the case that Commissioner Guinnane was talking about where the homeowner finally realizes that they need to come in and legalize it. Director Chiu said that in this case the Department would want to waive the fee and that is the intent, but however, if the homeowner does not come in and they know it is illegal and wait until a complaint is filed then this has initiated an investigation process. Director Chiu said that this would impose the investigation fee. Vice-President Hood said that this is not what the bulletin says; it says nine times the permit fee and does not say who has discretion over this scenario. Director Chiu said that it would not be at the discretion of the Inspector because in the past there was a perception that the Inspectors were making the wrong call or there was no consistency and they were waiving the Code because of friendship or what not. Director Chiu said that this was brought it to the Department’s attention that maybe there should be a policy. Vice-President Hood said that it could be from nine times the permit fee, the $18,000, to just the regular permit fee and not the two times the permit fees unless its appealable to the Board of Permit Appeals. Vice-President Hood said that with the two times, if it were a $20,000 permit fee all of a sudden it would be $40,000. Vice-President Hood said that she did not know what this was meant to solve.

President Fillon said that the discussion would have to get moving, as there was not much time left for the rest of the meeting. President Fillon asked if there was going to be a motion on this. Commissioner Guinnane said that he would move to table it as he thought the Commission had a lot more important issues in this Department than fooling around with penalties. Vice-President Hood said she would second that. President Fillon said that there was a motion to table this indefinitely and there was a second. The motion carried unanimously.

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 031-03

There was no public comment on this item.

8. Discussion and possible action to review and approve Technical Corrections to the 2001 San Francisco Building Code. [Deputy Director William Wong]

Deputy Director Wong thanked the Commissioners, said that it was late in the day with the Commissioners having a large package before them, but it was fairly simple. Mr. Wong said that the Commission had Building Code Amendments to the 2001 San Francisco Building Code in front of them, which were technical corrections. Mr. Wong said that the corrections were either publishers or clerical errors and the Commission was not seeing anything that was new or no addition to the Codes. Mr. Wong said that the action that is requested is that the BIC approve this if it is acceptable and it would go to the Board of Supervisors for review and adoption. Mr. Wong stated that the report was in two parts; the first one is the language that is officially going to go before the Board. Mr. Wong said that to help the BIC compare all of the items, further down in the report there was a reconciliation record, which is in a matrix form that breaks it up into the Code section, the error, and then the corrective action. Mr. Wong asked for any questions and said that he would bring Lawrence Kornfield forward to answer the Commission’s questions on any particular sections.

Vice-President Hood said that she had a questions and stated that she knew that the Commission went over this item before in great length regarding making it okay to put in a pellet-fired fireplace. Vice-President Hood stated that she still wanted to say that she was so opposed to that because the pellets could actually be made of a far more environmentally damaging material than just regular old wood. Vice-President Hood said that she saw this as lacking any scientific basis. Commissioner Guinnane said that this was taking people’s rights away because he liked having a wood-burning fireplace in his home. Commissioner Guinnane said that he might have it in there for thirty years and never use it, but said he would sure like to have it in there. Vice-President Hood said that she felt the same way. Director Chiu said that he believed that this was discussed at a previous meeting and stated that he thought that the Board of Supervisors went ahead and made it an ordinance even over the BIC’s objections. Commissioner Guinnane said that if the Board wanted to do it over the BIC’s objections then let them do it, but said that he would not support it. Vice-President Hood stated that any approval would take out the entire bit about certified wood heaters and fireplaces. President Fillon said that the BIC had this discussion about a year ago and at that time the BIC was okay with it and now the Commissioners are saying that they are not okay with it. Vice-President Hood said that now it was coming back to the Commission. Commissioner Guinnane asked if this item could be tabled. Mr. Kornfield said that it was important for this to move forward because there are so many minor technical corrections, which, so far, have not caused any problems, but are still open. Commissioner Guinnane said that Mr. Kornfield could just take out the issues about the wood-burning fireplace and take that whole paragraph out of there. Vice-President Hood said that it was kind of a conflict because it allows pellets, but it says someone can’t use waste petroleum products, which are in some pellets. Mr. Wong said that he did not think that the BIC could leave this out because it had already been approved by the Board and is a legal document. Vice-President Hood said that she thought the Commission should exempt those pieces and not be on record as approving something which the Commissioners know as licensed professionals is in disagreement with the goals of the legislation. Mr. Wong asked Vice-President Hood if she was talking about item #6.

President Fillon asked if there was a motion from the Commission to take a position on this. Commissioner Guinnane said that he would move to take out what Bobbie Sue just said about the fireplaces and the petroleum. Vice-President Hood seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously.

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 032-03

President Fillon said that the Commission had already done items 9 and 10.

11. Review Commissioner’s Questions and Matters.

a. 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.

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.

Vice-President Hood said that she would just like to know because of the article that came up in the paper about Marcus’ hiring what the procedures are for hiring new people and what sort of things they have to go through. Vice-president Hood said that she knew in the case of promoting people to important positions there were very specific civil service things. President Fillon said that there was a civil service code and that is how Marcus got into the Department. Vice-President Hood said that she wanted to know what rights the Department had to check references and what the Department’s policy is on that. Director Chiu said that he would invite DBI’s Personnel Officer to give the Commission the background as to how that is done. Vice-President Hood said that she wanted to know from the Director what the policy is of the Department about hiring people with respect to checking their references and would like to include an action item when it is agendized. Commissioner Guinnane said that on this particular item everyone is pointing the finger as DHR is maintaining that it wasn’t their responsibility, it was the Director’s responsibility so the Commission needs to figure out whose responsibility it was. Commissioner Guinnane said that there was some discussion about that Mr. Armstrong wasn’t on the DHR list either and if he wasn’t on the list how did he get hired. Director Chiu said that he was on the list. Commissioner Guinnane said that he would like to know who hired Mr. Armstrong and who brought him in. Vice-President Hood said that she would like to know if somebody is hired for an important position like that, one that’s already been under intense scrutiny by this Commission why aren’t references called. Vice-President Hood stated that she had never hired anybody in her life without calling their references and regardless of DHR and everything else; it is so easy to get stuck with somebody who is in not credible. President Fillon said that DBI was in a position a week or two ago where the Department was going to be forced to take somebody who was lateraling over from another department and DBI had no choice in the matter whatsoever. President Fillon said this person was being moved from another department and this was the only position that could be found for them and this is how civil service works. Director Chiu reported that this person is still coming on board. Vice-President Hood said that the Department should be able to ask this person for his references if he is coming over. President Fillon said that if the Department did not like his references there is nothing that could be done about it. Commissioner Guinnane said that this was a personnel matter and the Commission should not be talking about it. Vice-President Hood said it would be a different story if a person lied about their references, as that is the one thing where a person could be fired. Commissioner Guinnane said that this is one of the things that he and Director Chiu are working on right now regarding all of the MIS employees. Vice-President Hood said that she believed that it there are a few simple things that are really egregious the Commission could deal with it. President Fillon said that there would be an action item on this on a future agenda. Commissioner D’Anne asked if someone came over from another department if they were on probation. Director Chiu stated that they are on a reduced probation. Commissioner Guinnane asked what reduced probation meant. Director Chiu said that typically, these types of positions probably have one year of probation, but because bumping rights and all these things it is usually reduced by half so in this particular case it would probably be six months probation.

President Fillon asked if there were any other items.

Commissioner Guinnane said that he would like to look at the permit tracking system and the bar code system and would like to get on this right away to get it implemented. Commissioner Guinnane said that he has been talking about this permit tracking system until he gets blue in his jaws. Vice-President Hood said it has been eight years. Commissioner Guinnane said that he would like to get going and stated that he has some ideas on it and would like to put it in place right away and that would take care of some of the problems with the so-called Grand Jury with favoritism. Commissioner Guinnane said that he had some other things that he would submit later on for the calendar. Vice-President Hood said that she would like somebody in the Department to go out and look at what is available at Office Max or Best Buys and other computer stores, even at Costco, in the way of bar coding systems which interact with a notebook.

12. 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.

13. Adjournment.

Commissioner Guinnane made a motion, seconded by Commissioner D’Anne, to adjourn the meeting. The motion carried unanimously.

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 033-03

The meeting was adjourned at 4:55 p.m.

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Ann Marie Aherne Commission Secretary