Department of Building Inspection

Building Inspection Commission

SPECIAL MEETING
City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 400
August 9, 2004
Adopted September 20, 2004

MINUTES

The special meeting of the Building Inspection Commission was called to order at 9:10 a.m. by President Santos.

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

2. President's Announcements.

President Santos said that he wanted to welcome Commissioner Hanrahan and said that even though she had already attended one meeting he wanted to give her a chance to introduce herself.

Commissioner Hanrahan said that she has been a property owner in San Francisco since 1991 and is currently a residential landlord with a couple of tenants. Commissioner Hanrahan stated that she has lived in the Haight, the Mission and currently lives in Bayview/Hunter's Point. Commissioner Hanrahan said that she saw her role as someone who has been a consumer of the Department, of both Planning and DBI, over the years and would like to represent that. Commissioner Hanrahan said that she also has had a lot of experience as a tenant in this City and has gone through the process of Discretionary Review and fought an eviction for three or four years so she has a really strong interest in tenant's rights before the Board as well as landlords. Commissioner Hanrahan stated that she graduated from Stanford University and her profession is as a radio journalist, investigative reporter and TV news host. President Santos thanked Commissioner Hanrahan.

2. Discussion and possible action regarding the Rudy Nothenberg, Special Monitor's Report and responses to the report.

President Santos said that early in Mr. Nothenberg's report he recommends that the Mayor consider a Charter Amendment to be voted on at the earliest available opportunity that would eliminate specific destinations for Commission appointment. President Santos said that although Mr. Nothenberg's recommendations are quite insightful he believed that this one would have far reaching and negative consequences; due to the complex nature of the City professionals with education and expertise in various aspects of the building and engineering process are needed to assist the Department in navigating through the maze of issues they confront. President Santos stated that the structural engineering chair that he occupies is essential to ensure the highest standards of safety and building integrity in this geologically challenging area. President Santos said that Mr. Nothenberg points out that only one member of the BIC specifically represents the public and said that he honestly felt that all of the Commissioners represent the public despite the special designations. President Santos said that the safety and soundness of the City's buildings and neighborhoods is the first priority of every seated Commissioner no matter what other positions within the building community they may hold. President Santos said that as far as any apparent conflict of interest he would say that the staff of the Plan Checking Department reviews projects in which he is professionally involved with a greater level of scrutiny to ensure that no such conflicts are allowed to manifest themselves and said that he was sure that Architect/Commissioner Hood and Commissioner Fillon who happens to be an Architect feel the same way. President Santos stated that while he may disagree with the abolition of professional designations within the Building Inspection Commission he does believe that the drafting of a Professional Code of Conduct for the Commission and the Department is long overdue, although he did believe that the BIC adopted such a Code of conduct on July 19^th. Deputy Director Jim Hutchinson confirmed that this was true.

President Santos said that by drafting and faithfully implementing a series of procedures and protocols regarding the advancement within the Department's ranks and by avoiding any conflict of interest it would help ensure a positive working environment for all DBI staff by providing a truly meritoralcratic structural and eliminating the possibility of propriety. President Santos said that since Mayor Newsom was elected last year both the BIC and DBI have operated with greater transparency and under closer public scrutiny. President Santos stated that the BIC meetings are now televised on SFGTV and permit tracking has also been made available to the public online. President Santos said that this greater communication with the citizens of San Francisco makes the greater intradepartmental communication recommended by Mr. Nothenberg not only a requirement, but a necessity. President Santos stated that regular staff meetings are proposed on pages nine and ten of the initial report and combined with strong leadership from the BIC and the Department heads this is potentially the wave of the future for this age of greater public participation in building and permit process; the Commission and the Department cannot appear not to be on the same page. President Santos said that on page six of the report Mr. Nothenberg points out that the only power that Mayor Newsom has over the BIC and DBI is negative power derived by withholding funds; while Mr. Nothenberg dissuades the Mayor from using this power, President Santos said that he would like to point out that this power already has been exercised although not for punitive purposes. President Santos said that money that has been generated by DBI has been allocated for use elsewhere due to San Francisco's current budgetary shortfalls. President Santos said that it is his hope that as San Francisco emerges from these financially restricted times that future budgets will give DBI the needed funding to fully realize the Information Systems and other improvements recommended by both sections of this report. President Santos said that he would like to thank Mayor Newsom for his keen interest in both the Commission and the Department and thanked Mr. Nothenberg for his tireless efforts in gathering the information that went into this report as well as members of the Commission and staff for their open and honest participation in this process. President Santos stated that with the aforementioned changes in civil leadership the BIC and DBI have already changed its manner of operations from previous administrations, but with this information and proposals expertly gathered in these reports everyone could now proceed with greater immediacy as opposed to slow evolution. President Santos said that this concluded his remarks and asked for the Commissioners to add their comments.

Commissioner Guinnane said that on April 19^th Rudy Nothenberg came before the Commission and talked about his role in investigating DBI. Commissioner Guinnane said that at that time he asked Mr. Nothenberg about his opposition to the BIC when it was originally created and eight years later Commissioner Guinnane asked if Mr. Nothenberg still opposed it and he answered that he did. Commissioner Guinnane said that Mr. Nothenberg could not give any reasons for his opposition so obviously putting Mr. Nothenberg in a position to investigate the Department was a very bad move on the Mayor's part because Mr. Nothenberg was biased. Commissioner Guinnane stated that when Mr. Nothenberg ran the Department it was upside down and any money that was spent was never recaptured and there was never any enforcement of the Code of any kind. Commissioner Guinnane said that in looking at the report it looks as if Mr. Nothenberg simply went back and looked at minutes of the BIC and put them into his report. Commissioner Guinnane said that Mr. Nothenberg talks about the MIS and putting a new Manager in place, and getting the City Attorney's Office, the Controller's Office and DTIS on a panel to hire this new Manager. Commissioner Guinnane said that these were the same individuals who selected the last MIS Manager and there was over $500,000 embezzled from the Department. Commissioner Guinnane stated that the Controller's Office gets 1.9% of DBI's total budget for the MIS for enforcement and to oversee the Department so he could not see what they were doing for all those years.

Commissioner Guinnane pointed out that the report is dated June 4^th through June 14^th and said that it is very suspicious that it was turned over to the Mayor's Office and never disclosed until there was a request put in by individuals outside the Department and then it was leaked to the Chronicle so when the budget hearings were going on there was no mention of this report because part of it states that the surplus, or excess money that DBI had, should be used to revamp the MIS issues. Commissioner Guinnane said that when Mr. Nothenberg came before the Commission he said that he was going to look at the MIS issues only and was not going to look at any other issues. Commissioner Guinnane said that Mr. Nothenberg's report talks about corruption, but cites no dates, times or any other information. Commissioner Guinnane said that the report talks about Commissioners who do a lot of work that have an apparent conflict and stated that there are no issues here and if this is the best Mr. Nothenberg can find then the Mayor's Office is in big trouble.

Vice-President Hood said that she would like to hear from the public before commenting. Mr. Joe O'Donoghue said that he would like to hear from the Director first.

Deputy Director Jim Hutchinson said that he reviewed the tape of the April 19^th meeting when Mr. Nothenberg appeared before the Commission and said that he read the report thoroughly and said that while it is a twenty-five page document there are some very significant areas that should be broken out. Mr. Hutchinson said that he would recommend looking at the process, how this came about and what is the history of it. Mr. Hutchinson said that he thought it was important to understand why Mr. Nothenberg was brought in and also to put some of his recommendations into perspective. Mr. Hutchinson said that secondly he thought another key point was the budget because a lot of the problems the Department has had is with the budgetary process. Mr. Hutchinson said that as Commissioner Guinnane pointed out this report is dated June 4^th and that is the same time that the Director, the Assistant Director and the Deputy Directors were spending twelve hours at a time waiting to be allowed to provide probably one minute of uninterrupted testimony on a Department that has a $26 - $28M budget. Mr. Hutchinson said that he would like to look at the recommendations as a whole which would include the Charter provisions, some of the other topics and said that lastly he would like to look at the MIS. Mr. Hutchinson said that if he recollected the MIS was the major reason Mr. Nothenberg stated that he was going to come in and help the Department. Mr. Hutchinson said that he would like to suspend the time limits for public comment to allow people time to speak on each of these issues without worrying about trying to say everything in three minutes.

Deputy Director Hutchinson said that Mr. Nothenberg is clear that the Department has received an 85% approval rating conducted through an independent study by the Controller, Mr. Harrington. Mr. Hutchinson said that to this date he has never seen any other department, out of the hundreds in the City that has been rated. Mr. Hutchinson said that the employees of DBI have been given an 85% approval rating by their customers and said that this was a tremendous thing and said that he was proud of the employees. Mr. Hutchinson stated that this demonstrates the hard work of the employees and demonstrates that the Department is on the right track; Mr. Nothenberg stated that no department could not get 100% so 85% is a terrific rating. Mr. Hutchinson said that perhaps Mr. Nothenberg and the Mayor's Office might want to look at rating other departments and getting a baseline citywide rather than coming back to DBI's door over and over again. Mr. Hutchinson said that he would dare to say that 85% probably surpasses the Mayor's approval rating so he would say the Department is doing well.

President Santos asked if Deputy Director Hutchinson wanted to report on each of the sections he had broken this report into. Mr. Hutchinson said that is what he wanted to do and to let the public speak on each area.

Deputy Director Hutchinson said that on April 19^th Mr. Nothenberg appeared before the Commission and spoke for approximately twenty minutes to give a presentation of what he hoped to accomplish. Mr. Hutchinson said that there were a lot of hard questions at that time from the Commission and said that he thought Mr. Nothenberg was very candid in his responses; he likes the City Manager system rather than the system that is in place in San Francisco. Mr. Hutchinson said that Mr. Nothenberg stated that this was going to be a process where the Commission and the employees were going to be involved and that MIS was the biggest topic. Mr. Hutchinson said that the other thing he thought was important was the even though Mayor Newsom thought that DBI should have a Special Monitor, Mr. Nothenberg rejected that title and said that the Department could monitor itself. Mr. Hutchinson said that from the way that meeting with Mr. Nothenberg went he was under the impression that the Department would certainly get a copy of the final report to discuss before it was released to the press. Mr. Hutchinson said that he spoke with Director Chiu and the Department received no copy of the report even though it was completed over two months ago and would have been a very important tool during the budget process.

Mr. Randy Shaw, Director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, said that there were some new Commissioners who did not understand the history of this and said he wanted to speak about the process. Mr. Shaw said that if he were looking at a book written by Strong Thurman about the Civil Rights Movements or some other racist opponent of it there would be some suspect as to the integrity of that document. Mr. Shaw said that it was not only important to look at what Mr. Nothenberg represented on April 19^th, but the history. Mr. Shaw distributed copies of a flyer that was displayed around the City in January of 1994 that talked about the terrible lack of enforcement of Housing Code problems. Mr. Shaw said that in the Mission District there was no heat in apartments for Spanish speaking families and there was no Spanish speaking Housing Inspector during Rudy Nothenberg. Mr. Shaw said that his organization sued the City, on behalf of St. Peter's Housing Committee, to try to get a Spanish speaking Housing Inspector and even then it didn't happen. Mr. Shaw said that the only cases referred to the City Attorney's Office were illegal in law apartments and with items such as lack of heat there was no prosecution. Mr. Shaw said that this went on for years and said that Mr. Nothenberg would never meet with the public or rather he wouldn't meet with tenants or tenant groups. Mr. Shaw said that Mr. Nothenberg was the Chief Administrative Officer and was separate from the Mayor; there was no Commission and no one to yell at because the Board of Supervisors could only make recommendations. Mr. Shaw said that these problems led to the ballot measure to create the BIC. Mr. Shaw stated that when the proponent of this ballot measure met with Mr. Nothenberg as a courtesy his exact quote was that there were going to be seven "yahoos" on the Commission. Mr. Shaw said that Mr. Nothenberg has no building qualifications and is no more qualified than anyone in the general public, but that is the contempt with which he held people who have technical skills, "yahoos". Mr. Shaw said that as a result of the passage of Prop G all of the top leadership, all of the people Mr. Nothenberg appointed, lost their jobs by virtue of the ballot measure and Nothenberg lost all control of what is now the Department of Building Inspection. Mr. Shaw stated that some people saw the election results as a referendum on Mr. Nothenberg's lack of leadership so ten years later of course Mr. Nothenberg is still mad and said that this flavors the report.

Mr. Shaw said that he testified on April 19^th and Mr. Nothenberg stated that he was going to be talking to employees and that was how he was going to gather his information. Mr. Shaw questioned who Mr. Nothenberg talked to and said that he knew Mr. Nothenberg did not talk to the people in Code Enforcement. Mr. Shaw said that he stated on April 19^th that he feared that Mr. Nothenberg would talk to his friends and talk to the people who liked the fact that Mr. Nothenberg opposed the Department because those are the only people he knows. Mr. Shaw said that Mr. Nothenberg does not come to the City; he doesn't work in the City and has been gone for several years, but came back and got hooked up with the Mayor to do this project. Mr. Shaw said that this person is completely uninformed about what employees really believe and said that there was no employee sampling, no employee survey and none of the methods that would be required of the most basic college-level study. Mr. Shaw said that there was no survey data and this report could have been written on April 20^th because the conclusions were already there. Mr. Shaw said that he heard about the report from the Chronicle because they got a copy of the report before DBI. Mr. Shaw said that usually a draft of the report would be given to the Department to make comments so that if there was any kind of factual error made it could be corrected before the final report. Mr. Shaw stated that it was incredible that the San Francisco Chronicle got a copy of this report before the Director of Building Inspection or the President of the Building Inspection Commission. Mr. Shaw said that the fact that this report was handed into the Mayor's Office on June 4^th when the Board of Supervisor's were beginning their assessment of the budget and kept under raps by the Mayor's Office until after the Board had voted to take the $6.5M, that is what should be investigated. Mr. Nothenberg only made about five recommendations and one of them was to not take the money from DBI and yet that was ignored.

Mr. Shaw said that Mr. Nothenberg also recommended new Charter amendments and had the Mayor acted in June those amendments could be on the November ballot, but Mr. Shaw said that he thought it would be about an 80 - 20% defeat on a measure that would take qualified people and replace them with unqualified people. Mr. Shaw said that everybody liked the fact that the BIC has qualified people who are very technical.

Mr. Shaw said that while this is going on the Planning Department is holding up the entire City and said that he has an attorney in his office who just wants to remodel his bathroom and it has been held up for eight months. Mr. Shaw said that this is what Mr. Nothenberg should be investigating, but not only are Planning not being investigated, but it is to Planning that most of the $6.5M is going. Mr. Shaw said that he felt that Mr. Nothenberg had a real ax to grind and the Mayor continues to have an ax to grind even though he won the December election, but is still trying to go after who sided with who. Mr. Shaw said that this was unfortunate. Mr. Shaw stated that he saw an interview in the business section of the Chronicle where the Mayor still said, after Nothenberg's report, where the Mayor said in an interview that in order to get a permit at the Department of Building Inspection you had to ask Joe O'Donoghue. Mr. Shaw said that even Nothenberg doesn't say that. Mr. Shaw stated that this is the unfortunate context of this report and said it was too bad that both daily newspapers blew this up and took it at face value and provided nothing about the context or no background. Mr. Shaw said that most of the reporters in this City were not here in the 1980's and did not realize the mess that Rudy Nothenberg created. Mr. Shaw said that the big picture is that the deck was stacked and Mr. Nothenberg told this Commission that he wasn't going to get involved with favoritism, but was just going to focus on objective issues and the MIS system and he lied; he wrote about favoritism. Mr. Shaw said that if there is defensiveness in this Department it is for good reason because DBI is under relentless attack and unfair criticism. Mr. Shaw stated that he thought that it was very significant that this Commission was so open and non defensive toward Mr. Nothenberg when he appeared before the Commission.

Mr. Joe O'Donoghue said that Mr. Shaw gave his perspective on the process from the tenant's and said that he would be giving perspective from the building industry. Mr. O'Donoghue said that prior to the creation of this Commission no one could get an inspection and there was a total breakdown in the industry. Mr. O'Donoghue said that every year fees were increasing and there was no service; the costs were going up and the delays were enormous. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the morale of the employees was at an all time low and there were unwarranted investigations based on generalities. Mr. O'Donoghue gave examples of employees being disciplined on unfounded allegations and said that it was at that time that the employees unionized and the Inspectors joined the Carpenter's Union. Mr. O'Donoghue said that it was the downtown groups that were running the Department, SPUR and the Chamber and Rudy Nothenberg says in his report that the reason he doesn't want specialists is because policy makers from advisory groups could make decisions. Mr. O'Donoghue said that Mr. Shaw was correct when he said that Mr. Nothenberg stated that there would be seven "yahoos" on the Commission and said that he replied tongue and cheek that they would be the people's "yahoos". Mr. O'Donoghue said that right after this Commission was ratified by the voters Mr. Nothenberg resigned because he took the establishment of this Commission as an attack on his integrity.

Mr. O'Donoghue said that when Mr. Nothenberg came before this Commission it was the expectation of the Commission that at least Mr. Nothenberg would come back before the Commission and give an informal if not a formal report and that was the level of expectation and that was what the public presumed would happen in an element of fairness. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he never got a call from Rudy Nothenberg so he does not know who Mr. Nothenberg interviewed. Mr. O'Donoghue said that this report was a regurgitation of the report that came from the Civil Grand Jury, Ed Harrington's report and SPUR; all allegations without any substance, so it is the same reiteration as has been in the past. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that then the lazy press, like the Chronicle and now the Examiner, through laziness just pick up the generalities and through generalities make these broad generalizations. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the Department has been under a very defensive posture because every other week there are allegations of corruption and undue influence without any substance so the Department had to respond back as to what was happening to the morale of its employees. Mr. O'Donoghue said that this Commission has been on top of elements of impropriety or undue influence and if undue influence existed it existed with the downtown developers. Mr. O'Donoghue said that it existed because the expediters that the press was initially condemning, and the Mayor was condemning the expediters, these expediters were working on behalf of the downtown developers. Mr. O'Donoghue said that in his report Mr. Nothenberg says that there is nothing wrong with expediters because they are going to advocate on behalf of their clients. Mr. O'Donoghue said that Mr. Nothenberg is able to justify this when it benefits the downtown, but the stigma as to what is happening with expediters is then put on to the building industry, namely the Residential Builders. Mr. O'Donoghue said that as he has stated before 98% of DBI's permit are approved within 30 days and the other 2% take beyond 30 days and the RBA are part of the 2% who do not get their permits expedited and are not part of the 30 days. Mr. O'Donoghue said that regarding Mayor Newsom's statement that no one can get their permit approval before getting O'Donoghue's approval, he has never, ever filled out an application for a permit. Mr. O'Donoghue said that RBA members, out of 55,000 permits a year, process 300 permits and they are at the tail end of that 2%. Mr. O'Donoghue said that this reminds him of a quote he was reading in Shakespeare and quoted "Stars hide my fire, Let not light see my dark and deep desires, The eye winks at the hand." Mr. O'Donoghue said that this report fits right in to that Shakespearean aphorism wherein this report was set up to begin with to do a hit piece on this Department and that war has been won. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that because Mr. Nothenberg lives in Sonoma he doesn't realize that and it is time that the Mayor also woke up and established the fact that this is the best run Department in the entire City with the best record fiscally, with the best productive record; it meets his measures in terms of what he has scaled in terms of statistics and the Mayor needs to direct his attention to the Planning Department. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that the Planning Department under the process is the albatross around the fiscally responsible and asset driven orientation of DBI. Mr. O'Donoghue said the Mayor needs to direct his attention right to Planning and get the permit process over there and get off the political agenda because the RBA supported Matt Gonzalez. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he was proud that he supported Matt Gonzalez and said that friends of his who voted for the Mayor are sad that they voted for him today and said that he would do the same thing tomorrow were Matt to run. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he did not hold that against the Mayor, but said that the Mayor seems to hold that against the RBA because they exercised their first constitutional right of freedom of choice and free speech and would continue to do that. Mr. O'Donoghue said that Mayor Newsom should read his lips and get on with the business of the City, not through headlines in the Chronicle.

Mr. Henry Karnilowitz said that he has been a frequent visitor to DBI since 1972 and said that this is one of the best departments in the Bay Area. Mr. Karnilowitz said that what makes it the best is the guidance that it gets from the Commission and the Commission is successful because there are professionals serving on it. Mr. Karnilowitz said that he was appalled that this report came out on June 4^th because he attended all of the budget meetings and said that the last one was on a Friday with the DBI item second on the agenda for that Friday morning. Mr. Karnilowitz stated that it was 2:45 at night when there was nobody around to speak up when the DBI item came up. Mr. Karnilowitz stated that during this time there was no sign of Mr. Nothenberg and here was this money being taken away when he was recommending that the Department have this money to improve the MIS and the tracking system. Mr. Karnilowitz asked where Mr. Nothenberg was during this time and said that he was very disappointed. Mr. Karnilowitz stated that the public gives DBI a very positive rating and the public wouldn't if the Department was not doing well. Vice-President Hood said that she agreed with Mr. Karnilowitz because Mr. Nothenberg came out strongly in his report about the money not being taken from DBI, but then during the budget process did not appear to support the Department, or the citizens of San Francisco who everyone is here to support. Mr. Karnilowitz said that when it comes to gridlock, the gridlock is in the Planning Department.

Mr. Ritchie Hart of the Residential Builders Association said that he wanted to start by congratulating the Commission on a job well done, as has the Director and his staff. Mr. Hart stated that the Building Department is one of the best departments in the City and for the Mayor to take the money, he shouldn't have done it. Mr. Hart said that this report is garbage and said that it is Machiavellian as Mr. Nothenberg has been against this Commission since day one and is still totally biased. Mr. Hart said that the recommendation for a Charter amendment to eliminate the specific professional designations is total stupidity as the Commission needs architects, engineers and construction people when it comes to housing issues. Mr. Hart stated that the Commissioners knowledge of San Francisco Codes is very important. Mr. Hart said that he has one permit that was submitted over four years ago and another one that has been held up for one year because this is a complicated system and the permit has to go through the Fire Department, Streets and Sidewalks, Structural and Plan Checking. Mr. Hart said that a lot of it is because the Planning Department is very slow and completely incompetent; it is not DBI. Mr. Hart said that if he had undue influence he should have his permit out in five days, but it takes a year.

Mr. Patrick Spears said that he has been contracting in the City for the past twenty five years and said that in that time he has never seen DBI run more professional or efficient than it is run right now. Mr. Spears said that he gets the information that he needs in the office at DBI and the Field Inspectors do an excellent job. Mr. Spears said thank God there are professionals on this Commission as he was before another Commission one night and after seven hours of testimony the head of the Commission who was not a professional said that sometimes you just have to ignore the facts and go with your gut feelings and vote against something. Mr. Spears stated that with the BIC being professionals the Commissioners don't ignore the facts and said that it is great to have a Commission that can accurately decipher the problems and find the answers and solutions. Mr. Spears said that the Commissioners were doing a great job and asked them to fight for their spots because he said that the public could not afford to lose them.

Mr. Jim Keith introduced himself as a builder in the City and said that the report is a solution in search of a problem. Mr. Keith said that as in past testimony there is tremendous satisfaction with the BIC and with the Department. Mr. Keith stated that it is a Department where you can make a phone call, have someone answer the phone, and get an answer. Mr. Keith said that he appreciated the professionals and said that on the project that Mr. Spears was talking about there were peer reviews by the best in the business and still the Planning Commission rejected that out of hands and ignored those facts. Mr. Keith said that this model is doomed for failure because local expertise is needed as there are specific issues in San Francisco. Mr. Keith said that when this Commission was created by Prop G it was created by a mandate of the voters and was in response to a system that was failing. Mr. Keith said that the person responsible for that failure is now supposedly giving a solution and this is completely backward. Mr. Keith said that it would seem to him that the professionals on the BIC are something that should be mandatory.

Ms. Grace Shanahan read a sentence from Mr. Nothenberg's report that said "The Charter dictates that Commission appointees be members of various specific applications included are a licensed structural engineer, a licensed Architect and two residential landlords, amongst others." Ms. Shanahan stated that amongst others are one tenant and one member of the general public and said that this Commission does represent the entire broad section of the community as it should. Ms. Shanahan said that Mr. Nothenberg's report said that it could be argued that specific technical knowledge is necessary for the proper functioning of the Commission. Ms. Shanahan said that she would say that the implications of not having qualified individuals on the Commission are far reaching and it would impact on the safety of the residents of this City. Ms. Shanahan said that in listening to the other speakers it occurred to her that Mr. Nothenberg has enjoyed too many sour grapes while living in Sonoma rather than the vintage he is well able to provide for himself. Ms. Shanahan said that for the last week or ten days the Mayor has been talking about the various different appointments that he is going to make to Commissions and various different positions that have become available in the City and said that the Mayor keeps talking about the brightest and the best for the job. Ms. Shanahan stated that she thought that was what was before her on the Commission and that is what is working for the Department. Ms. Shanahan said that the 85% approval rating for the Department and the Commission and a 98% rate for turnaround for a permit within 30 days and said that she thought this reiterated the Mayor's statement that DBI does have the brightest and the best and they should be encouraged to continue to do their jobs. Ms. Shanahan said as the saying goes if it's not broken, don't fix it.

Assistant Director Amy Lee said that she wanted to discuss some of the process issues and said that normally when the Department gets audited or there is some report being conducted about the Department the Department meets with the auditors and then throughout the process there is communication with staff. Ms. Lee stated that she spoke with Rudy Nothenberg several times and said she was happy to see that one of the major things about the budget was included, but when the report is completed a draft is usually provided to the Department, at least to the Executive Managers to make sure that the report is correct or there might be some statements that need to be clarified. Ms. Lee said that with the Controller's audit the Department is given the opportunity to reply with a one or two page response. Ms. Lee said she was disappointed that the Department did not receive a draft and said that she received her copy from Katia Hetter from the Chronicle asked for a statement and Ms. Lee said she responded that she had not yet seen a copy; Ms. Hetter then kindly e-mailed a copy to Ms. Lee and told her that it was posted on the Mayor's website. Ms. Lee said that if she had the opportunity, as she has had with other audits, Ms. Lee said she would have explained to Mr. Nothenberg that the Department is already doing many of the things that were mentioned in the report. Ms. Lee said that one example was a strong Ethics Policy that goes way beyond the minimum requirements and said that this Commission approved an Incompatible Activities Policy on July 19^th. Ms. Lee said that she hoped that the Unions would support this policy and said that she hoped this would stop the accusations of undue influence in the Department.

Ms. Lee stated that she also would have explained to Mr. Nothenberg regarding his comments on construction costs versus estimates that the Department has incorporated One-Stop to do quality control checks and on many permit applications DBI staff will cross out an estimate of $10,000 for a kitchen remodel and change it to $40,000. Ms. Lee said that she would have explained this and given the opportunity maybe Mr. Nothenberg would not have included this in his report. Ms. Lee said that DBI is already engaged with the City Attorney's Office and Dennis Herrera with his MIS Director to help DBI in trying to move the MIS issues forward and this is another item that might not have been included as recommendations. Ms. Lee said that she is disappointed that some of the things that DBI is already embarking on were not included on the report and there are some misunderstandings on the report. Ms. Lee said that there is a particular misunderstanding regarding the personnel examination and the eligibility lists as there was a large part of the report that made it seem like there was preferential hiring or that DBI did not follow Civil Service regulations. Ms. Lee said that it made it seem like it was DBI's fault that some of the examinations were outdated and during the recent budget hearings the Department of Human Resources was severely criticized by the Board and it almost did not pass legislation to maintain almost 500 provisional appointments because DHR was not able to conduct examinations. Ms. Lee stated that it was also implied by the Board that there was some sort of preferential hiring of these 500 people citywide because there is no list. Ms. Lee said that DBI several months ago went to DHR to say that the Department needed the lists to be done and the examinations to be done and asked for help. Ms. Lee said that DBI even offered additional funds to DHR to conduct these exams and there was no response from DHR. Ms. Lee said that DBI staff wants to be permanent and want to take the examination, but all of the examinations have been closed out by DHR and there appears to be none scheduled for the future. Ms. Lee said that DHR is taking three DBI personnel employees and in the past DBI has conducted its own eligible lists despite the fact that DBI gives money to DHR to perform this task. Ms. Lee said that to intimate that DBI has control over this or that there is something flawed with DBI because of existing policies with DHR and that there is preferential hiring is just plain wrong. Ms. Lee said that in terms of the process, had she been given the opportunity to read a draft, those issues would have been clarified.

Commissioner Guinnane asked how many requests had been made to the Mayor's Office to fill vacancies and how many have been approved. Ms. Lee said that she did not know how many had been submitted, but said that there were at least a dozen still pending. Ms. Lee said that she has been trying to get a temporary MIS Manager for six months, but that has not been approved. Vice-President Hood said that she knew there were Inspectors positions to be filled. Vice-President Hood said that this began last year when $3M was taken from the Department and it has resulted in the Department not being able to fill positions that are vacant by attrition; the Mayor's Office have not approved those and now the Department is being blamed for not having filled them. Vice-President Hood said that it made her feel like a whistle blower for the FBI because if you tell the truth you are going to be shot down. Ms. Lee said that the Mayor's Office and the Controller's Office have approved some positions to be filled; however, DHR has made DBI wait over six to eight months to see if there are any potential layoffs or any other Civil Service requirements for DBI to move forward. Ms. Lee said that she cannot fill critical positions because DHR has not notified her that there are no potential layoffs or that there are people to bump into those positions.

Vice-President Hood said that one of the recommendations that came out of the budgetary hearings was for DBI to get rid of its Personnel Division, or some three Human Resources people, which would be standard for a department of 280 people, and even though DHR can't handle its job load right now they want to take DBI's Human Resources. Ms. Lee said that every policy argument that DBI gave fell on deaf ears and the reasoning the City gave was that it was going to centralize this task to gain some efficiencies. Ms. Lee said that she thought that DHR was very heavily funded by the General Fund and the General Fund was so burdened by other reasons that they wanted to use other department's monies to maintain existing DHR staffing. Vice-President Hood said that it makes no sense to take money from DBI that is being run efficiently and giving it to a department that is being run inefficiently and is unproductive. Ms. Lee said that DHR now has a new Director and the Mayor's Office feels that he will be able to turn DHR around within three months. Ms. Lee said that she thought that she would be coming to the Commission in three months to ask for a supplemental appropriation in order to hire more Personnel staff.

Deputy Director Hutchinson said that while the Department was in the budgetary process it was a case of three- card Monty. Mr. Hutchinson said that DBI specifically said that it had the funds to keep these people so it would not be taking away from any other department in the City and were told that one of these people would be going to DHR and said that last week he found out that this was not true. Mr. Hutchinson said that it doesn't make sense when the Department has the money and when things were working and the Personnel Division was able to save the Department and the City millions of dollars in claims if there are sexual harassment issues or employee issues to take these people away and it is all about money grabbing. Vice-President Hood said that when this Department was first started she was President and said that personnel was handled by the Department of Public Works and a fee was paid to them to handle it. Vice-President Hood said that there were a lot of lawsuits at that time regarding sexual harassment although they were never in the paper, but there was no control over training, monitoring or making sure that the performance of the employees in the Department was at the level that it should be. Vice-President Hood said that once DBI got its own Human Resources Department it was much better. Vice-President Hood said that with Human Resources in the Department if someone had a problem with an employee or with their boss it could be handled in-house with having this very bureaucratic, costly process. Vice-President Hood stated that it boils down to more money from the taxpayers pocket for a lack of performance and said that she did not understand why this Department is being gutted when it is the only one that is performing and is it because DBI is making everyone else look bad. Ms. Lee said that she even offered to give $70,000 to DHR if DBI could retain its staff and said that it fell on deaf ears because she thought that DHR needed some people to be laid off.

Ms. Lee said that this report spoke about Planning and Fire and said that she wished that these were kept out of DBI's report. Ms. Lee said that DBI already supports the Fire Plan Checkers as much as possible; DBI work orders funds for Fire Plan Checkers so that DBI can have on-staff Fire Plan Checkers to help DBI improve the permit process in general. Ms. Lee said that DBI always includes the Fire Plan Checkers in any training and they are also provided office space and materials and supplies. Ms. Lee said that DBI supports the Fire Department staff.

Commissioner Romero asked how many provisional employees were in DBI. Ms. Lee said that she was not sure exactly how many and said that it was perhaps fifty employees. Commissioner Romero asked when the last test was given for Inspectors. Ms. Lee said that it was perhaps a year or two and said that she could provide the Commissioner with a report. Commissioner Romero said that he did not believe that people got laid off because they were underperforming, but in many cases they get laid off primarily because of budget cuts. Commissioner Romero stated that it has been his experience with Civil Service employees is that they tend to over perform and not put in for overtime which is something that some of the downtown interests really disregard and do not look at the civil servants in the same way that they look at people in the private sector. Commissioner Romero said that he did not agree with the cuts that were made in this Department and doesn't agree with cuts made in other departments, but thought that it was a way of putting forth a political platform that made it look like there was a reduction in City employees. Commissioner Romero said that he believed that there may be a reduction in people, but not necessarily in spending and DBI is a very good example of that. Ms. Lee said that with some of the positions this Department is waiting to fill she would say that the Department is happy to take laid off employees, but she just needs staff that can be trained and DBI would be happy to do so. Ms. Lee said that this is very frustrating and said that being that there is no Personnel staff she thought there would be more delays.

Commissioner Hanrahan said that she had a question in terms of process and asked if there was an available document that Mayor Newsom created for the purview of Rudy; was it a memorandum or what was the Office of the Mayor expecting of Rudy. Commissioner Hanrahan asked if it would be possible to get a copy of that document. Deputy Director Hutchinson asked if that was regarding the intention of this report. Commissioner Hanrahan said that it would be the Mayor's outline, his expectations and a timeline. Commissioner Hanrahan said she would also like to know how many hours Mr. Nothenberg spent on this report and what his compensation was. President Santos said that Mr. Nothenberg received no compensation for his time. Vice-President Hood said that Mr. Nothenberg draws two retirement benefits so it is true that he did not receive any compensation directly connected to this document, but he does receive considerable retirement benefits from the City and the State. President Santos said that it came out in the papers that there was going to be a Monitor over DBI and that it would take approximately three months for an investigation performed. Commissioner Hanrahan asked if there was a document that the Mayor's Office issued. Deputy Director Hutchinson said that the San Francisco Chronicle was the document that he saw. Vice-President Hood said that the Commission raised the same questions that Commissioner Hanrahan raised because no document was received from the Mayor's Office; the BIC then invited Mr. Nothenberg to come and tell the Commission what he wanted to do so the Commission could assist him. Vice-President Hood said that what the Commission knows it learned from the public hearing on April 19^th. Commissioner Hanrahan said that she believed that Mr. Nothenberg's work was at the request of the Mayor so she would expect that there would be some paper trail in terms of what Mayor Newsom wanted. Vice-President Hood said that was a very good question and one would think that would be the case under the Sunshine Law, but the Commission has never been privy to anything. Deputy Director Hutchinson said that he would be happy to work with the Commission Secretary and staff to make a request for that information. Commissioner Hanrahan said that she would like that. Ms. Lee said that during the budgetary process she was asked to leave out some of the Department's requests to await Rudy Nothenberg's report, and some of the requests would have helped with the recommendations. Ms. Lee said that she would like to implement some of the recommendations, but now the Department does not have the funding.

Vice-President Hood said that she thought that one of the better sections of the report was the one on the MIS and said that this was a very complicated issue. Vice-President Hood said that rather than go into the details of the MIS recommendations she would like to agendize that for the next regular meeting. President Santos said that there was a MIS Committee within the BIC and asked is Vice-President Hood was suggesting that the Committee take a stab at what Mr. Nothenberg was recommending. Vice-President Hood said that she was suggesting that the entire Commission look at several items and have staff give a report on it and look at having a MIS Advisory Group.

Vice-President Hood said that she found the general report rather than the MIS report more problematic.

Mr. Redmond Lyons introduced himself as a contractor, developer and member of the RBA along with being a member of the general public who lives in San Francisco, is married here, has children going to school and has a business in San Francisco. Mr. Lyons said that he remembers back in 1985 when he got his Contractor's license and obtained his first job to repair dry rot on the back of a building. Mr. Lyons said that all he had to do was put in three, 3' x 3' concrete pads underneath two posts. Mr. Lyons stated that he called up the Building Department to get an Inspector out to the job and the first two days he could not get anyone to answer the phone so he thought he had the wrong number; then he got through and he got an inspection for about eight days later. Mr. Lyons said that he was left sitting for ten days looking at six pieces of rebar waiting for concrete to be poured until the Inspector came out. Mr. Lyons stated that people tend to forget about the past and what it was like in the `80's and the improvements that have been made since then. Mr. Lyons said that luckily for him everything went well and now he is building bigger projects; now he calls the Building Department and he is guaranteed an Inspector inside of 48 hours. Mr. Lyons said that to some people that might be favoritism, but it is not just to him that is to everyone that calls up the Department whether they are doing twenty units or back pouring two pads underneath the back deck on the back of the buildings because that is the system that is in place at the moment. Mr. Lyons said that a customer calls up between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. to talk to a Secretary to set up an appointment; she schedules an Inspector and he comes out within two days. Mr. Lyons said that because of that a contractor can schedule the concrete, the concrete finishers or the next part of the job based on a system where the contractor knows that the project is going to move ahead. Mr. Lyons said that is the biggest improvement he has seen in the last five or six years in the Department and said that he is delighted that it works like that. Mr. Lyons stated that a Contractor can also go down to the Department between 3:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. and talk to a Building Inspector and that is not favoritism; this is a process that is in place where a Contractor can have a relationship with somebody without somebody accusing you of favoritism. Mr. Lyons said that a Contractor can bring in his drawings and ask questions and this is the way it should be. Mr. Lyons said that at this stage he has been doing this for twenty years and if he cannot have that type of relationship with a Department then you cannot work in this City. Mr. Lyons said that he employs an expediter and said that on any project where he has employed an expediter it has taken at least eighteen months for him to get the project approved. Mr. Lyons said this is not favoritism this is the process that the expediter has to go through to get the plans and permits approved. Mr. Lyons stated that he feels very strongly about this because he has employees working for him; he pays payroll taxes and the builders spend a lot of money and invest a lot of money in doing buildings and said that he thought that builders do a lot for the City. Mr. Lyons said that going forward no one should ever forget about the past and said he can't help but to keep reminding the Commissioners about what it was like during the `80's when nothing was getting done. Mr. Lyons said that he could go through all of Mr. Nothenberg's report and find fault with it and go through for hours what the developers need in the City and the Building Inspection Department is only one section that builders have to deal with. Mr. Lyons said that he is just happy that DBI has improved so much in the last five or six years that at least now a builder can schedule stuff to move ahead. Mr. Lyons said that he was very happy with the Department of Building Inspection and the Building Inspectors' work.

BIC Secretary Ann Aherne said that she wanted to make a comment on the process and stated that when Rudy Nothenberg came before the Commission she never heard him say anything about investigating the Building Inspection Commission and thought that the investigation only involved the Department. Ms. Aherne said had she known that he was going to do anything regarding the Commission she would have approached Mr. Nothenberg because she felt that she knew the Commission and the Commissioners better than anyone whether they were appointed by the Mayor or the President of the Board of Supervisors. Ms. Aherne stated that maybe she could have explained to Mr. Nothenberg how important it is for the Commissioners to have the expertise that they have and given him some background as to how well the Commissioners work together regardless of who appointed them. Ms. Aherne said that Mr. Nothenberg never mentioned investigating the Commission. Ms. Aherne said that she wanted it on the record that she was called for comments from the Commission about Mr. Nothenberg's report and she was e-mailed the report from the Chronicle, not from the Mayor's Office.

President Santos asked Deputy Director Hutchinson to move to the second section of the report that he wanted to talk about which was the budget. Mr. Hutchinson said that this was the first year that he was actively involved with the budget process and stated that it was an astonishing eye-opener. Mr. Hutchinson said that he realized that the Supervisors had a very difficult job, but said that the process was very difficult for every Department head that he saw there. Mr. Hutchinson said that he would arrive with the Director at 9:00 a.m. only to be heard in the evening perhaps at 7:00 or 8:00 p.m.; there was no structure to it and the business of the City really came to a standstill. Mr. Hutchinson said that he also learned that someone has to be there for every session because when DBI wanted to try and retain the people in the Personnel Division the Department was put off the first night and came back a few days later at 11:00 p.m. were told that the Supervisors had already approved that item in DHR's budget three days previously. Mr. Hutchinson said that he did not realize that DBI Management would have to go and audit every other department's budget cycle to see if things were occurring that would affect DBI that could not be undone. Mr. Hutchinson said that he understood that when the Department got five minutes for a presentation changes could still be made and that was not the case. Mr. Hutchinson said that Mr. Nothenberg made some very strong recommendations regarding DBI personnel in his report, but now it is beyond anyone's power to have a good resolution on that.

Mr. Hutchinson said that the Department is in agreement with Mr. Nothenberg's recommendation that the monies should have stayed with the Department and DBI certainly argued its case for the need for those things. Mr. Hutchinson said that downtown came in with their SPUR report and said that they wanted more Building Inspectors downtown and it is never that they want less or have problems with the Department. Mr. Hutchinson stated that this Commission is the only Commission that ever opened a City office on Saturday and did not charge extra for it; this Department set up a system where when you come through the front doors there are people in red blazers that will come up to the customer and hand carry them through the Department. Mr. Hutchinson said that the monies that were taken from this Department critically were needed to improve services, to maintain staff and to provide additional services to reach out to the non-profits and tenants. Mr. Hutchinson said that Mr. Nothenberg appealed to the Mayor not to use his negative power which apparently already occurred because the Mayor's Office already had this report when the budget process was going on and they ignored it. Mr. Hutchinson said that now there is a suit to try and seek these monies back and said that he hoped they were successful. Mr. Hutchinson said that having said that he would like to hear the public's comment on the budget.

Assistant Director Amy Lee said that it was interesting because she was even criticized by her own staff that maybe the Department did not do a good enough job in trying to advocate for the budgetary needs and said that she tried to talk some logical sense to the Board and to the Mayor's Office. Ms. Lee said that her staff rightfully feels the DBI is getting screwed. Ms. Lee said that before the budget went to the Board she expressed frustration with the Mayor's Office that DBI needed certain things and put forth a lot of things that were not included in the Mayor's budget, but the Mayor's Office said they wanted to hold off until Rudy Nothenberg's report. Ms. Lee said that she spoke with Rudy several times and said that she was happy to see that he put that item in the report how critical it was for DBI to keep their funds to do what has to be done. Ms. Lee said that she even asked the Mayor's Office to put the funds on reserve meaning that if DBI would still have to go back to the Board, but it would at least still be included in the budget. Ms. Lee said that she believed that the Mayor's Office spoke to Mr. Nothenberg and now to find out that they had a copy of this report months ago it is extremely disappointing to her and said that she felt demoralized because she takes the Department's morale very seriously. Ms. Lee said that now she wonders if she will have the tools to do her job at all.

Mr. Randy Shaw said that following up on a couple of remarks made by Commissioners Hanrahan and Romero in terms of requests under the Sunshine Act or whatever, perhaps this Commission could ask Ben Rosenfeld, a member of the Mayor's budget team, if they had a copy of this report that said not to cut this money. Mr. Shaw said that he was sure that they had a copy, but did not reveal it. Mr. Shaw said that June 4^th is the very beginning of the budget process and the first scheduled hearing on the elimination of DBI's $6.5M was at the end of June early are needed in order to maintain staff, provide services, etc. and now everyone comes to find out that all of the deals had been made. Mr. Shaw said that had this been out and distributed to all of the Board members and there had been an actual public hearing on this, because there never was a real meeting where the public was around, then all of the Board members would have been aware of this. Mr. Shaw stated that he talked to a lot of the Supervisors about the Department having a surplus that was put into a capital budget their view was that the Department had $7M for a building that was not going to be built so the Department would not miss this $6.5M because it was capital funds. Mr. Shaw said that the Board was not aware, and could not be made aware because there was no public hearing and the Nothenberg report was submerged, that there were these cuts to the Human Resources Department and to the elimination of hiring positions. Mr. Shaw said that he believed that in February 1995 when the Commission was first seated there were fourteen Housing Inspectors and that became twenty and then as people left and the Department was not allowed to fill those positions, once again the Department is down to sixteen Housing Inspectors which is a 20% cut for a Department that has the money and want to pay them. Mr. Shaw said that this is a big City and the Department is trying to provide good service to the City. Mr. Shaw said that the Supervisors did not see the elimination of the money as affecting the operation. Mr. Shaw said that perhaps they are listening now and sort of waking up to the fact.

Vice-President Hood said that the copy of the report she had was dated June 4^th and said that when Mr. Nothenberg appeared before the Commission on April 14^th she told him that she wanted to get a copy of the report as soon as possible because she wanted the Commission to be able to respond to it. Vice-President Hood asked if there was any sort of Sunshine Ordinance or Brown Act rule about this report existing for such a long time even though it had been requested. Mr. Shaw said that this whole process was given the impression of some sort of official oversight investigation, something like the 911 Commission introducing its non-partisan report when in fact from a legal sense it was simply the Mayor telling a friend of his fathers to go out and write a report. Mr. Shaw stated that there were no written directives given as to what should be done, but Mr. Nothenberg was just to write a report that fulfills the Mayor's agenda to criticize the Department and the like. Mr. Shaw said that he thought that someone from the Mayor's Office should come before the BIC and explain why the report just sat there and tell if the report was amended and if that was why it sat there until after the Board of Supervisors voted on the budget. Mr. Shaw said that if there is an innocent explanation it should be provided to the Commission. Vice-President Hood appeared before the Commission and the Commission asked to be given the report as soon as possible so that was public notice. Mr. Shaw said that Mr. Nothenberg would probably say that he completed his report and gave it to the Mayor's Office so his job was done. Mr. Shaw said that any inquiry should focus on why the Mayor's Office held this up and essentially misrepresented to the Board that there would be no problems if they cut the $6.5M, but their own Advisory is telling them not to do it. Vice-President Hood said that the report says that DBI cannot solve the problems outlined in the report if the Mayor takes the money and the Mayor's Office is saying that there is no problem with taking the money so there is obviously some sort of Conflict of Interest. Vice-President Hood said that the buck stops with the Mayor.

Mr. Shaw said that he did not realize that the Department would not have an internal HR staff and said that he did not know who came up with that idea. Mr. Shaw said that perhaps this Commission could write a letter about this because in 1995 when there were fourteen Housing Inspectors he was very interested in getting those numbers up, but DPW was still doing the internal resources and said that at every Commission meeting there would be some discussion about not getting people hired. Mr. Shaw said that going back to those days would be a disaster and not having a HR division in DBI would be opening the Department to all sorts of liability. Commissioner Guinnane asked if Mr. Shaw knew of any other Department, other than DBI, that has had a Special Monitor assigned. Mr. Shaw said that unless it is court appointed, like with the Fire Department, he has never heard of it, even with the Juvenile Probation Division where there are terrible things happening to young kids, there is no Monitor. Mr. Shaw said that this is why people think it is politically motivated.

Commissioner Guinnane asked what Mr. Shaw thought about Mr. O'Donoghue's comment that this is happening because Mr. Shaw, Mr. O'Donoghue and other individuals who put Prop. G together actually supported Matt Gonzalez. Mr. Shaw said that he did not understand while a week ago after the Nothenberg report is already out, the Mayor in talking through the Business Section of the Chronicle said that Walter Wong and Joe O'Donoghue who both supported Matt Gonzalez are the people that the public have to go through to get anything done. Mr. Shaw said that he did not want to politicize things, but this has been a one way thing, and said that he could not think of any other reason why this would be occurring. Mr. Shaw said that there are so many problems in the Planning Department and yet, DBI tried to argue about money being transferred in the amount of $1.5 in the current year, 2003/2004. Mr. Shaw said that money had been transferred to Planning and it was not even used for what it was supposed to be spent on. Mr. Shaw said that the Mayor was supposed to have a meeting on this issue and it was cancelled so there never was an open public debate about that money either so it is very disappointing.

Commissioner Guinnane asked Mr. Shaw how much time he thought Rudy Nothenberg spent on putting this report together. Mr. Shaw said that in early September of last year the Grand Jury issued a report with very similar points that are in the Nothenberg report and Supervisors Dufty, Gonzalez and Hall held a hearing on the Grand Jury report where any member of the public could come and speak about all the wrongdoings of DBI and not one member of the public spoke. Mr. Shaw stated the head of the Grand Jury was there and Supervisor Gonzalez was asking very specific questions about the methodology and both Supervisor Gonzalez and Supervisor Hall were astonished when they heard that there was no methodology. Mr. Shaw said that there was no substance to the report because in claiming that there was favoritism the Grand Jury would not give any addresses or any specific incidences so the Supervisors were asking what the purpose of the report was. Mr. Shaw stated that the purpose of the report was to get a Chronicle story and to allow the Chronicle to say in every follow-up story that this echoes the Grand Jury. Mr. Shaw said that each report builds on the next report and now the Chronicle and the Mayor's Office can say that it must be right because now there are two independent reports. Commissioner Guinnane said that in looking at the Grand Jury report and the minutes of the BIC he asked Mr. Shaw what percentage of Mr. Nothenberg's report was taken from those. Mr. Shaw said that it looks very similar because it is all conclusionary and said that at the April 19^th meeting Mr. Nothenberg spoke about being against the notion of having conclusions without facts and said that was wrong, it was innuendo. Vice-President Hood said that Mr. Nothenberg should have recused himself from the report because he said that he did not want to do this report for the Mayor and he didn't have to do it because he is independently wealthy, lives up in Sonoma and is a very respected member of the community. Vice-President Hood said that she was sure that Mr. Nothenberg liked Mr. Newsom and was a close friend of his fathers, but the truth of the matter is that he did have a Conflict of Interest. Vice-President Hood stated that Mr. Nothenberg's Chief Administrator's Office was virtually gutted of its power after his tenure in that office for whatever reason. Vice-President Hood said that she thought that this was an embittering experience for him at least and moreover it came up that he was so adamantly opposed to the BIC. Vice-President Hood said that she respected Mr. Nothenberg and had known him for many, many years, but he should have recused himself because it colors the entire value of the report.

Mr. Shaw said that the report recommends that the BIC rely on Advisory Committees because experts are not needed on the Commission, but are needed on these Advisory Committees. Mr. Shaw said that when Mr. Nothenberg was controlling the Bureau of Building Inspection there was a Code Advisory Committee and other Advisory Committees there was not a single woman or person of color on any of them and 80% of these people were from outside the City. Mr. Shaw said that when the new Commission came in it ruled that these people from outside the City were illegal members and were not allowed to serve. Mr. Shaw said that Mr. Nothenberg had all of the people from downtown who were not representative of the City and that is what he wants to return to. Vice-President Hood said that these people were completely controlled by Mr. Nothenberg and did not have to file financial disclosures, they were not sworn into office to support the Constitution of the State of California and the Charter of the City and the U.S. Constitution and they were not open to public scrutiny. Vice-President Hood said that there meetings were technical meetings and did not get the same public scrutiny that a Commission gets. Mr. Shaw said that there should be follow-up as to why this public document was not revealed and the Supervisors should be informed that they were not just taking money from a cookie jar that was being saved for a rainy day, but the hiring of key staff is a dreadful problem.

Assistant Director Amy Lee said that working at DBI and overseeing the budget and personnel she really tried to separate herself from the politics of this Department and the controversy surrounding this Department by trying to make sure that this Department functions efficiently and properly. Ms. Lee stated the she had her masters from Georgetown University in Public Policy so all she wanted was for the Department and the Commission to implement good, sound, public policy for the benefit of all San Francisco residents. Ms. Lee said that in the budget that was given to the Mayor's Office, not the budget given by the Mayor to the Board, she repeatedly told the Mayor's Office that she needed to take care of the over-the-counter permits by remodeling the first and second floors of DBI. Ms. Lee said that this would allow for multi-disciplined plan checkers sitting per counter so that the Department could intake and review permits and this is exactly what the report said. Ms. Lee said this was requested and it was denied, even though excellent justification was submitted. Ms. Lee said that the Mayor's Office agreed that it was needed and it was just disregarded. Ms. Lee said that it was very difficult to move forward and have these kinds of things get ignored. Ms. Lee said that she wanted people to understand that no department is perfect and every department is a dynamic organization living within the City processes and if anyone wants to go to any department in this City they could find major criticisms and enough findings to fill a fifty page report. Ms. Lee said that this report is not unusual to any other department, but what is unusual is the politics of it all and the fact the DBI cannot move forward. Ms. Lee said that the Department was in a very difficult situation and said that she did not know what the solution is.

Commissioner Hanrahan said that since this hearing is publicly televised she did not know how the Commission would be able to make Mayor Newsom accountable to the Commission, but said that she would at least like to make it noted to the public that Mayor Newsom has the responsibility to be accountable to the BIC and give an agenda for his special consultants and meet with this Commission and be public about it and not have BIC business conducted with Mayor Newsom through the San Francisco Chronicle. Commissioner Hanrahan stated that she believed that the health and vibrancy of this City and the ability of the City to generate an economy and spend money is really crucial. Ms. Hanrahan said that the Department of Building Inspection is crucial to builders and residential landlords being able to get jobs done and also to be able to give tenants important and proper, safe places to live. Ms. Hanrahan said that she needed to have more accountability from Mayor Newsom and said she did not know how to get it, but wanted the public to know that this is something that the Commission would like.

Mr. Ron Dicks, introduced himself as Vice-President of Local 21 and said that he wanted to co-sign a scenario that was depicted by Randy Shaw and that was basically the environment in which the Budget Committee made their decision vis-à-vis DBI funds. Mr. Dicks said that he knew the DBI issue was coming up on the Friday and went down at the request of some Union members and it was as Randy described that the Supervisors had the perception that there was this money that DBI had that was sitting for a number of years that was not being utilized. Mr. Dicks said that he did lobby to avoid having the fines and penalties taken from DBI. Mr. Dicks said that it was extremely problematic and completely out of control and was a bad situation. Mr. Dicks stated that he thought that Jim Hutchinson, Amy Lee and the Department did the best they could, but this started to spiral completely out of control. Mr. Dicks said that perhaps the Department could learn from this and do better next time.

Mr. Joe O'Donoghue of the Residential Builders said that several of the RBA members filed suit against the City and County of San Francisco for stealing the $6.5M of fee money from this Department and in addition to that suit they have included last years $3.5M that was taken away. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he believed that in seventy-five days when the hearing will occur in the court that the RBA members will prevail. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that the Residential Builders itself could not sue because it does not have standing otherwise it would have done it because in order to sue someone had to be a taxpayer and had to have paid fees and gotten permits from this Department. Mr. O'Donoghue said that one of the reasons for suing was that this Commission was being shuffled over because the City Attorney said that this Commission did not have the right to sue and would have to hire the City Attorney who would represent that whom the Commission would be suing. Mr. O'Donoghue said that this would have been like the fox guarding the chicken coop so rather than wait for the ruling as to whether this Commission had the right to hire outside counsel, which he thought they did, the RBA members proceeded with this suit. Mr. O'Donoghue said that Steve Collier of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic also joined in the suit. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the reason for this suit is not that the RBA is insensitive to the budgetary problems of the rest of the City's departments, as they are very sensitive to that, it is because it was inappropriate to take the money that was due for expediting permits. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that 55,000 permits a year are processed through this Department, not counting the numerous inspections, 17,000 or more and so that means that approximately 15,000 to 25,000 people utilize the services of this Department. Mr. O'Donoghue said that over the last several years this Department has become very efficient so this Department is doing a great service to the people out there who want to remodel, whether it is a small business, a homeowner, a builder or a big developer. Mr. O'Donoghue said that more important to that this was structure so that the tenants themselves are getting service in terms of hotel inspections, problems with scofflaw landlords and things like that so the Department is doing a good social service policy in addition to the industry standards of building. Mr. O'Donoghue said that when the fee structure was set up, and stated that he was the one who set up the fee structure that led to the independence of this Department from the General Fund. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that prior to the creation of this Committee when Angela Alioto was Board President he went to her when budget cutbacks were pounding the City back in the late `80's and said that DBI would agree to become 100% independent of the General Fund. Mr. O'Donoghue said that by making the Department independent all of the fees would be generated for permits because he talked to a number of people in the industry from Architects, Developers and Contractors and there was a very simple premise in that the building industry is cyclical, but in addition to that the economy is also cyclical. Mr. O'Donoghue said that to prevent layoffs DBI is independent and has its own fund and this would allow the Department to provide against, for the employees that do a good job, layoffs and that was the purpose of setting an independent fund up for DBI. Mr. O'Donoghue said that this would reward the employees who over several years brought in a surplus of money so that when the layoffs come there are not going to be layoffs because the Department has a primary responsibility that if you do a good job and are hired into the City no one should be laid off. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the money that was put into the capital program was taken from the DBI funds and years earlier it was allocated for things other than the capital program, but it was put into the capital program and then realized that there was no need for the capital program so the reserve was there to ensure that there would not be layoffs. Mr. O'Donoghue said that there are more permits now being generated, but less money is coming in, so there is more work for the employees so the net effect of taking this money is that the service to the permit applicants is going to get worse and delays are going to increase. Mr. O'Donoghue said that Mayor Newsom chooses to ignore that and said that Mayor Newsom talks about being some kind of a Bernard Baroque and perhaps he is because he has successful businesses, bars and an upscale wine shop and stuff like that. Mr. O'Donoghue said that Mayor Newsom is following the Irish tradition of going into the liquor business and he is successful at it so good luck to him, but the fact is that he obviously does not have enough knowledge about the intricacies of this Department and what made it so successful. Mr. O'Donoghue said that as a businessman, Mayor Newsom, should have looked at the success of this Department and used it as a model for other departments not dismantle it because the effect of taking this money, # one dismantles this Department and the effect of taking DBI's DHR employees over to Human Services and transferring them out leads to more deficiencies because now the Department cannot hire effectively, there are no examinations given and the Department cannot hire temporary employees. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the service is going to go down and there is a purpose here to dismantle this Department and Mayor Newsom has said this. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that Rudy Nothenberg resented this Department from day one and stated before this Commission that he did not like Commissions as he thinks they are an abomination. Mr. O'Donoghue said that Mr. Nothenberg was not going to do an objective report on this Department, but said that he had one thing right in saying that the Department needed to keep its money. Mr. O'Donoghue said that there needs to be an investigation because this is no different than Watergate because Watergate at a National level suppressed information to the general public and the Mayor at the local level is suppressing information from the public. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he felt, as a resident of this City, and as a citizen of this Country, his Federal rights are guaranteed equally in the Constitution and equally guaranteed in the Charter. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that there should be an investigation as to why this report was held from June 4^th until after the budget hearings. Mr. O'Donoghue said that Randy Shaw was right in saying that the Commission should bring Ben Rosenfeld before the Commission and ask him if he had a copy of this report and if he did why he did not inform the Supervisors that this report's recommendation was that the Board should not take this money. Mr. O'Donoghue said that this would have prevented a lawsuit and would have saved money because the City Attorney will have to go to an enormous expense to defend this lawsuit. Mr. O'Donoghue said that not only is it going to cost the General Fund $6.5M, but it is going to cost the $3.5 that it took last year from this Department. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that this is bad policy and the question therefore is, is this policy decision from the Mayor's Office based on political vendetta, political expediency or is it based on misguided management principals. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the Commission needs a response to that and said the RBA would send a letter asking for an explanation. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that the Chronicle would not print such a letter as they would never criticize the Mayor because the City is getting government through headlines in the Chronicle. Mr. O'Donoghue said that there is total contempt for the process as the process is not to hijack this money.

Mr. O'Donoghue said that Mr. Dicks mentioned earlier that the Budget Committee did not take the fines and penalties from this Department due maybe to some lobbying on his part; that was not true as Acting Director Jim Hutchinson alluded to what actually happened earlier on. Mr. O'Donoghue said that in Mr. Dick's absence Larry Badiner was testifying at 11:00 p.m. when everyone had gone and low and behold during the Planning Department budget the issue of the fees came up and Supervisor Sandoval accepted a motion from Jake McGoldrick that they were going to take the fees and transfer them right into Planning. Mr. O'Donoghue said that this was going to be done by a process into the SRO Collaborative at San Francisco General Hospital which was truly Enron accounting and by moving the money over there then they were going to fund the General Fund money into Planning. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the money was being circulated. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that he, in anger, stood up and said that it was fortunate that he was still in the room, and informed them of the lawsuit. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he told Ben Rosenfeld and the Controller that this was Enron accounting and violated accounting principals and would certainly be challenged. Mr. O'Donoghue said that suddenly this was taken off of the table until later on in the evening. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the money was stolen from DBI in other department's budget hearings so the money was already gone out the backdoor, but thank God for the legal system. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that he doubted that the RBA members would fail at the legal process, but if they do they will go to the ballot and bring another Charter process forward. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the service that the building industry pays for and is then available for tenants and other groups out there is the best that is in the City and Newsom should take this Department as a model. Mr. O'Donoghue said that Newsom should admit that he made a mistake and got the wrong political advice. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he believed that Mayor Newsom got this advice from Julie Lee who was on his transition committee and Mal Lee. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that Mal Lee is one of Mayor Newsom's top advisors who got penalized by the court for in excess of $1M for an action that was illegal that he rammed through this Department. Mr. O'Donoghue said that this is where Mayor Newsom got his policy advice as to the undue influence over here. Mr. O'Donoghue said that no one would read about this in the Chronicle or the Examiner, but could read about it in BeyondChron.org, and said that there is no press in this City, but there are mouths like the RBA's and everyone would be hearing from them in the future.

President Santos asked for Deputy Director Hutchinson to move to the next item. Mr. Hutchinson said that it was agreed to hold the MIS at a separate meeting so the last thing he wanted to discuss was the recommendations of the report. Mr. Hutchinson said that some of the recommendations were directed at the Commission and these recommendations were troubling to the Department. Mr. Hutchinson said that even though the Department disagrees with the recommendations he did not know what the Department could do other than to show its support for the structure of the Commission and how well it works for the employees. Mr. Hutchinson said that some of the recommendations were talked about relative to the budget. Mr. Hutchinson stated that clearly Mr. Nothenberg in his report has begged the Mayor not to use his negative power and not to take funds away, but that wasn't the case. Mr. Hutchinson said that there were some other recommendations that came up regarding training and said that he had no problem with looking at training people in Disabled Access, but said that training came from budgetary dollars. Vice-President Hood said that the people who set up the training have been sent over to DHR. Mr. Hutchinson said that there are only three DHR staff and they take care of training for more than half of the employees who are professionals so it is quite an ordeal to get people on the schedule and get people to attend. Mr. Hutchinson said that the employees have to comply with State accreditation and all of this has to be kept in the employee's files.

Vice-President Hood asked if Mr. Nothenberg was criticizing the Department for being too strict on the ADA issue and said she didn't quite understand that. Mr. Hutchinson said that he did not take it that way, but clearly ADA is of prime importance. Vice-President Hood read from Mr. Nothenberg's report which said, "while such certification may be desirable as Disability Access Inspectors", Mr. Nothenberg has been informed that California's Title 24 Act is more stringent than the national standard. Vice-President Hood said that she could say from experience that Departmental personnel is very familiar with Title 24 in California as well as the national standard and every effort has been made in California to bring those into conformance as much as possible, but where there is any difference, the law is to use the more restrictive. Vice-President Hood said that enforcing the more stringent should be desirable for the Community and said that the Department has an excellent Access Appeals Committee that is very diligent in watching over projects and said that this was one area where Mr. Nothenberg made no sense at all. Mr. Hutchinson said that when the Commission first took over one of the first things it had to do was to work on a multi-million dollar lawsuit brought about by people because access features had not been provided. Mr. Hutchinson said that the lawsuit led to the Disabled Access section which was part of the settlement and training has to be done every year under that settlement. Mr. Hutchinson said that the Department needs the money for that training so some of the recommendations are contradictory from what happened on the budget cycle.

Mr. Hutchinson said that the report is about twenty-five pages for the first section and more than one-quarter of that deals with other departments. Mr. Hutchison stated that there was a whole section that deals with the Fire Department and then there is interaction with Fire and Planning so 25% of this deals with other agencies. Mr. Hutchinson said that DBI has no control over the Fire Department or the Department of City Planning so the recommendations could not be implemented. Mr. Hutchinson said that he wanted to go over the recommendations and have a public discussion about them. Mr. Hutchinson said that first of all he wanted to say that the Department is pleased with the composition of the Commission and said that he did not know that it could operate any other way.

President Santos said that he would like the issue of the composition of the Commission as a separate agenda item. Vice-President Hood said that she would like the public to know that every single thing that she does as an Architect is a matter of public record and could be obtained over the Internet. Vice-President Hood said that if any of her clients were getting any special favors then it would certainly have shown up on the records and she would have long since been tarred and feathered in the public eye. Vice-President Hood said that in a way the members of this Commission are more independent from the political vagaries because they can't be removed by the Mayor and the Commission was set up by public referendum. Vice-President Hood said that she thought that the Commission can respond quickly to problems that the public is having with the Department because of the professionalism of the Commissioners who understand technical issues. Vice-President Hood said that if there is a Conflict of Interest it is very visible. Vice-President Hood said that the Commissioners don't really have a lot of discretion about what they can do and said that she agreed that this should be calendared separately.

Deputy Director Hutchinson said that there are items in the report that the Department was in the process of doing and as Assistant Director Lee pointed out, had the Department had the chance to meet with the author, some of these things could be explained. Mr. Hutchinson said that he was hopeful that all of the four upper Managers would have been interviewed by Mr. Nothenberg and said that this was not the case. Mr. Hutchinson said that the Code of Conduct and the Ethic Standards are already in the works and said that there are inherent Conflicts of Interest in all Commissions and for all City employees; it is not unique for this Department and for politicians and the newspapers to somehow seize on that and to make it separate and distinct for all of the Commissioners or all of DBI employees it is simply not the truth. Mr. Hutchinson stated that human nature is human nature and there has to be checks and balances and strong management and oversight. Mr. Hutchinson said that when the Controller's Office came in and suggested guidelines, the guidelines that far exceed any other Department, have now been submitted to the Ethics Commission. Mr. Hutchinson said that at the last meeting the President of the Building Inspectors Association and a couple of other employees spoke on the recommendations to the Ethics Commission and they didn't get up and jump up and down and say that they were in disagreement with it, but were very supportive. Mr. Hutchinson said that he was proud of the employees and said that the employees are going to continue to work through the meet and confer process.

President Santos asked if there were any recommendations that were made in Mr. Nothenberg's report that are not tied to funding or connected to budget issues. Deputy Director Hutchinson said, not to his knowledge, as staff time has to be allowed and said that Assistant Director Lee and Ken Harrington put months of time into the recommendations to the Ethics Commission so everything is tied to monetary factors.

Commissioner Romero said that before this goes to public comment he wanted to say that he did not agree with some of the things that he saw in this report and said that at this point the integrity of the report is in question. Commissioner Romero stated that there still exists newspaper reports that question the integrity of the Department and said that he felt that this really needs to be undone somehow. Commissioner Romero stated that he did not think that this would be undone by another diatribe on Rudy Nothenberg. Commissioner Romero said that he did not know who Rudy Nothenberg was, but said that apparently some people have known Mr. Nothenberg for years and respect him and some people have known him for years and don't respect him. Commissioner Romero said that he would like to know more about the report and the rebuttals to the content as opposed to diatribes about individuals and who knew who, when and where. Commissioner Romero stated that although he is new to the Commission he does know a little bit about the Department of Building Inspection and said that he knew enough to make his own conclusions about the Department. Commissioner Romero said that in talking about Conflicts of Interest his Union has represented Inspectors for years and as a matter of fact has represented people in Human Resources and people across the board everywhere in the City. Commissioner Romero said that he is a little bit concerned about some of the elements in the report because his experience has been more different in that he has spoken to folks in the Department. Commissioner Romero said that as an example, at the last meeting, there was a statement that there was a meet and confer with different labor unions and that at that point the unions would be able to meet ad confer with the Ethics Commission. Commissioner Romero stated that he had checked with the Ethics Commission and learned that this was not true. Commissioner Romero said that this is where he gets a little bit concerned because when he is checking up on his own just to find out what he knows to be true or not true and then to find out that there was a report given before the Commission by an employee of the Department that is not altogether true, it does pique his interest a little bit. Vice-President Hood asked what report that was. Commissioner Romero said that it had to do with the Ethics Commission that there had been a meet and confer and that the unions would have a meet and confer with the Ethics Commission in order to change some elements of the Incompatible Activities. Assistant Director Amy Lee said that she had a letter from the Ethics Commission saying that the meet and confer process would take place at the Ethics and Civil Service Commissions. Ms. Lee said that she would be happy to show Commissioner Romero a copy of this letter with the direction that was given to all departments in the City. Commissioner Romero said that he would like a copy of that letter. Commissioner Romero said that he did know that if there are articles in the paper that come out and said that he had been in this City long enough to know that if there is a will to amend this Commission it will happen whether the BIC likes it or not. Commissioner Romero said that someone would put it on the ballot and the Commission would have to deal with it there, so it would be preferable to deal with it at the Commission. Commissioner Romero said that he did know some of the BIC Commissioners as they were friends of his and some of the issues that are coming up in the paper are issues that they had as well. Commissioner Romero said that for instance knowing who to call at DBI to get something through could be considered favoritism and if everybody were afforded the same ability then that would not be favoritism that would be the way the Department runs. Commissioner Romero stated that he thought this was the spirit of the dissatisfaction and said that it was not lost on him that many of the buildings that went up over the past few decades were buildings that a lot of people didn't like, he didn't, and said that he thought that there were ballot initiatives to change the way that this was done. Commissioner Romero said that he was hoping that any type of public comment would go to the spirit of the report rather than more diatribes about somebody that he doesn't know.

Vice-President Hood said that she had a question on Commissioner Romero's comment about buildings that were approved quickly and asked if Commissioner Romero thought that there were buildings that were approved by this Department that did not meet the Code that went up quickly. Commissioner Romero said that he was not saying that. Vice-President Hood said that it is the Planning Commission that determines what buildings go up and it is not the BIC. Vice-President Hood stated that the BIC does not have any control over what is built and the only thing DBI has control over is enforcing the Building Code and said that this was a popular misconception that DBI has any control over what kinds of buildings are built and where they are built. Vice-President Hood said that DBI only enforces the Building Code which is life-safety issues basically. Vice-President Hood stated that whether people hate lofts or hate high-rise buildings downtown is of no concern to this Commission whatsoever. Vice-President Hood said that DBI has a very narrow, technical area of interest and control and said that it is a total misconception that DBI has any control over what type of building is built or where it is built in the City. Commissioner Fillon said that the fact that Commissioner Romero would say that reflects the common misconception and said that this is very disturbing.

Commissioner Fillon said that he had some comments and did not want to repeat anything that had already been said because he agreed with the comments that came before especially with Mr. Shaw. Commissioner Fillon said that he wanted to address the fact that the BIC and the Department first found out about this study or report from an article in the Chronicle and there was no documentation or notice given. Commissioner Fillon said that no one came before the Commission to tell what they were planning on doing so the Commission contacted Mr. Nothenberg to come and speak at a meeting. Commissioner Fillon stated that Mr. Nothenberg was good enough to do that and the Commission was a little bit concerned, but Mr. Nothenberg was very accommodating and answered all of the BIC's questions and made everyone feel that this was going to be a positive thing. Commissioner Fillon said that he believed that all of the Commissioners trusted Mr. Nothenberg and listened to a lot of testimony about his history and that there was some reason to suspect that he had some ulterior motives, but said that he thought that the Commission overlooked that in the interest of being positive and supporting the Mayor and trying to do what was best for the City. Commissioner Fillon said that the Commission felt that it wouldn't hurt to have Mr. Nothenberg take a shot and give the Commission some positive feedback and were looking forward to Mr. Nothenberg doing something a little more positive in terms of the process and not just a rehash of things that the BIC heard before. Commissioner Fillon said that unfortunately he was expecting Mr. Nothenberg to come back to this Commission to have an open discussion about some of his findings with public participation and that didn't happen; again, the Commission got its information from the Chronicle. Commissioner Fillon said that in looking at the report anyone could put it together from clipping together pieces of the Chronicle and articles of the past. Commissioner Fillon said that this is not what the Commission was looking for or expecting and said that a lot of these items have been addressed or are in the process of being addressed. Commissioner Fillon stated that the MIS issues, staffing issues and training have all come up before in the BIC meetings as evidenced in meeting minutes and the Commission has been dealing with all of these problems for quite a while and have been making progress over the past few years. Commissioner Fillon said that this was the most disturbing thing to him and regarding Mr. Nothenberg's concerns about the Commission other people have expressed their feelings very well. Commissioner Fillon said that a qualified Commission is needed to deal with these issues and there is good representation of the people involved in the building trades and honestly if there was no professional expertise on this Commission the BIC could not deal with the issues that come before it. Commissioner Fillon said that a Commissioner has to understand the Building Code in order to know what questions to ask staff because it is that complicated and in terms of having the BIC's decisions clouded by any political agenda as Vice-President Hood said most of these issues are black and white because they are from the Code. Commissioner Fillon said that the BIC is not like the Planning Commission or the Board of Permit Appeals because there is not a lot of leeway; the decisions are made by the Code. Commissioner Fillon stated that he thought that the Commissioners with their expertise were the best people to make those decisions in a fast and efficient way. Commissioner Fillon said that anyone could look at the meeting minutes and the facts and the evidence is there to see what this Commission has done and how it goes about making its decisions. Commissioner Fillon said that Commissioner Santos and Commissioner Guinnane have spent a lot of their own personal time and given their expertise to help people by going out and looking at their projects that come before this Commission to help them work through their problems. Commissioner Fillon said that these Commissioners have no interest involved; it is just pro bono and you could not get that from Commissioners who had no technical understanding of the Code or the building process.

Vice-President Hood said that she wanted to say one more thing on the Conflict of Interest thing because it is obviously of great interest to one of the Commissioners and that is that whereas Mr. Nothenberg said that it is the two professionals, and he must not consider a Contractor a professional or a landlord of whatever, but the two professionals he referred to were the Architect and the Structural Engineer. Vice-President Hood said that what was very interesting to her was that the fallout from that statement is that anybody who is a licensed professional, structural engineer, civil engineer, mechanical engineer, architect, landscape architect or you name it there are a lot of people in the profession, but Mr. Nothenberg does not include Commissioner Guinnane who is a Contractor and must not consider him a professional, but Mr. Nothenberg would be saying that none of those people could serve on this Commission whether they were a slotted position or not. Vice-President Hood said that she thought that this would be a great loss to the people of the City of San Francisco to make sure that the Building Department is run properly and that the Code is enforced properly because they are the people that are most qualified by their training and experience to do that and what a loss that would be. Vice-President Hood said that this should be heard separately and unfortunately this is probably the only venue that the public can hear the truth about it in.

Mr. Joe O'Donoghue of the Residential Builders said that first of all, Redmond Lyons said it best that in order to understand the present and the future there must be knowledge of the past and the way it was. Mr. O'Donoghue said that in fact when this Commission was conceived and conceptually created one of the basis on the selection process as to how Commissioners were going to be selected was only arrived at after there were studies of the failure of the existing Commissions and the pall of criticism and the merits behind it which was that most of the Commissions in this City were political. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that most of the people on those Commissions were unqualified so in looking at the old Charter it said qualified, it did not say qualified Commissioners, but it implied qualified Commissioners that were in the particular field of discipline whether that was Adult Probation or Juvenile Probation there should be people from Law Enforcement, people in trouble with the law and people from all aspects of the users of that process at that Commission should come from that body. Mr. O'Donoghue said that in looking at the failures and the politicalization that existed with Commissions and which then impacted departments throughout the City the BIC Commissioners were then carefully selected to ensure that the general public was represented, tenants, landlords, a non-profit and then three from the industry, builders, architects and a structural engineer. Mr. O'Donoghue said that it was unique that there was such a broad representative body and the reason was in terms of efficiency and it was actually based on a General Motors model as it was not something that was picked out of the air, but there were actual studies of systems of success and General Motors happened to be one of the most models that existed in American industry in terms of efficiency. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the best was taken out of the industry whether someone is a tenant representative who can specify and discuss the tenant issues and the other Commissioners then pay homage and respect to that. Mr. O'Donoghue said that what the Commissioners bring as specialists input from the perspective of the best that there is in that discipline. Mr. O'Donoghue said that this is the most broad based Commission that there is and it is light years ahead because of the creation of the four/three, four from the Mayor's Office and three from the Supervisor's Office which now has become the paradigm for the Planning Commission and the Board of Permit Appeals. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that now because of the politicization when talking about the best Commission because of the politics they went to the Ethics Commission and the Ethics Commission is anything but a paradigm to be followed, certainly not. Mr. O'Donoghue said that it was a very limited Commission because of its application and its servicing so in that sense Mr. Nothenberg's report is very weak. Mr. O'Donoghue said that Mr. Nothenberg did not consult with the conceputalizers of this Commission because they would have showed him his model which is to go back to the old way to SPUR when there was a Code Committee when there were twenty-two representatives. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the rules and regulations called for twelve on that Committee and of the twenty-two representatives not one lived in the City and all of them did not reflect the homogenous nature and the eclectic nature of this City. Mr. O'Donoghue said that what was done when this Commission was created was to model the best that there is in the most productive manner and this has been demonstrated over the years because the Commission has brought great guidance into the Department. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that one of the reasons that there was the surplus of money was that the Commission foresaw the cyclical nature of the economy so the BIC took the necessary steps before the down cycles came and not at the expense of employees. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the ones who opposed the creation of this Commission were the Chamber of Commerce, the Building Trades Council and Local 21's members never voted on it; its executive board gave kind of a half-assed endorsement on this. Mr. O'Donoghue said that looking at the realities this Commission was created in an environment of great hostility and the success was enormous. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that the Commission had actually met the mandate that was created for the public; the Department has given great service at the counter. Mr. O'Donoghue said that this was created under Doris Ward where she brought Sue Hestor, Jerry Kind and a whole eclectic group in there and it was worked out how to expedite the permits. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the problem is if there is someone who is a onetime user the rules and regulations are going to be complex so that problem was solved by the public being able to go to the counter and getting the best expediter in the City free. Mr. O'Donoghue said that 94% of all permits are processed within 48 hours and said that this was an incredible record and no one can compete with that. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that this was not a diatribe, this is objectivity.

Mr. O'Donoghue said that on the diatribe aspect of it that if the Department used similes, metaphors or antidotal descriptions to describe as someone speaks, that is not a diatribe. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he was amused by the spirit of dissatisfaction led by Commissioner Romero's remark about knowing whom to call as Redmond Lyons said; knowing whom to call is there for every single person because when they come down to the counter their permit is out within 48 hours. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that there is not a jurisdiction in the State of California that can equal that record. Mr. O'Donoghue said that if someone has a problem with their Inspector or someone in the Department they have the right to come before this Commission and file a protest; that never existed before the creation of this Commission. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the public at large has been greatly served by this creation and a diatribe is not when the public takes apart a report, but a diatribe is when the Chronicle puts in an article and calls Mr. O'Donoghue an expediter. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that he has never expedited anything in his life. Mr. O'Donoghue said that every employee in this Department has had their character and their reputation impaired and the Union did not come forth to defend those employees, Mr. O'Donoghue said that he did and so did the members of the RBA. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the Unions have been quiet and missing in action and but for today with Ron Dicks that is the third time in the history of this Commission that he has seen anyone from any Union that has come and spoken before this Commission. Mr. O'Donoghue said that as a Union organizer has solemnly representative and would still do so, so the implication that somehow the diatribe and the abuse that these employees and this Commission have taken is in the spirit of dissatisfaction. Mr. O'Donoghue said that if the homework was done one would find out that the knowledge here is for everyone and the service is there. Mr. O'Donoghue said to excuse him if he has gone off a bit on this, but if someone wants to see diatribes read his poetry and then one would know what a diatribe is and not an articulation here when a report can be taken here and dissect it. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that at the same time if the opposition is described in graphic terms as they describe the Department at least this is a public forum where anyone can come in and respond to the description which they never do. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he and the Department do not have the same response to their unilateral castigation of one's reputation.

Vice-President Hood said that she wanted to respond to Commissioner Romero's comment about knowing the right person to call and said that she couldn't agree with him more, but prior to 1999 someone had to pay someone to call the right person; today there is a website that tells the public the right person to call and there are people in red jackets who come up to people who look mystified and asks to help them. Vice-President Hood stated that it is not perfect, but it is 99% better than it used to be.

Mr. Jim Keith said that he wanted to speak on the recommendation to eliminate the specific designations for the Commission. Mr. Keith said that he felt that this recommendation was just wrong and said that other people have spoken on this, but said that he wanted to say that this is one of the greatest benefits and the genius of this Commission. Mr. Keith said that the issues before the Commission are often times, in fact most of the time, very technical and the builder does not want it on the political or emotional realm. Mr. Keith said that with this Commission it is simply if the issue is Code compliant or non-Code compliant. Mr. Keith said that there are very specific issues that are not objective on this Commission that has the expertise to deal with it. Mr. Keith said that the tenants need to get response from the BIC and they get it now; this is an improvement on what was done previously. Mr. Keith stated that this report is like Back to the Future in a reverse way because Prop G was a response to the failure that existed. Mr. Keith said that this is the solution and said that everyone could make improvements, but to overhaul the structure of this Commission is wrong headed. Mr. Keith said that as a user of this Commission and DBI he just wanted to say that it really works well.

Secretary Aherne said that the Commission should move on because the Commission had to leave the room. President Santos said that item #4 would be continued and moved to item #5.

5. 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.

6. Adjournment.

Vice-President Hood made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Fillon, that the meeting be adjourned. The motion carried unanimously.

RESOLUTION BIC NO. 041-004

The meeting was adjourned at 12:55 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,