Building Inspection Commission
BUILDING INSPECTION COMMISSION (BIC)
Department of Building Inspection (DBI)
Wednesday October 3, 2001 at 1:00 p.m.
City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 408
Adopted December 5, 2001
MINUTES
The meeting of the Building Inspection Commission was called to order at 1:15 p.m. by President Fillon.
1. Roll Call - Roll call was taken and a quorum was certified.
COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT:
Alfonso Fillon, President
Denise D'Anne, Commissioner
Bobbie Sue Hood, Vice-President, absent
Esther Marks, Commissioner
Roy Guinnane, Commissioner
Rodrigo Santos, Commissioner
Debra Walker, Commissioner
Ann Aherne, Commission Secretary
D.B.I. REPRESENTATIVES:
Frank Chiu, Director
Amy Lee, Assistant Director
Jim Hutchinson, Deputy Director
William Wong, Deputy Director
Sonya Harris, Secretary
2. President's Announcements.
President Fillon said that he wanted to acknowledge and congratulate Commissioner D'Anne on receiving the award for Women Who Make A Difference from the Commission on the Status of Women. Commissioner D'Anne received a round of applause from those present.
3. Director's Report. [Director Chiu]
a. Report on the status of DBI's certification of Staff as required per AB717.
Director Chiu said that he wanted to report on required certification for certain DBI employees. Director Chiu said that recently the International Conference of Building Officials (ICBO) held a Plan Check exam and 80% of DBI employees who participated in the exam received a passing grade. Director Chiu stated that usually the approval rate is 33% as this is a very tough exam. Director Chiu said that AB717 requires that Inspectors must also be certified and the State requires that 100% of these employees must meet the requirement. Director Chiu stated that there are five DBI employees who are not certified and said that he has been warning these employees that they need to be certified, as they have missed the State deadline.
Director Chiu asked for guidance from the Commission and said that he could give these employees three months to comply and if they failed the Department might have to let them go. Director Chiu said that the Department has done a good job in affording these employees every avenue to help them pass the exam such as sending them to class. Commissioner Guinnane asked what the problem was and Director Chiu said that the employees took the test and did not pass. Commissioner Guinnane said that Director Chiu's hands are tied as this problem is in the State's hands. Commissioner Guinnane stated that after an employee is hired the employee has one year to obtain certification and stated that he thought that this was ample time.
Commissioner Guinnane asked for the breakdown of the employees who had not been certified. Director Chiu said that the breakdown was: one Electrical Inspector, two Building Inspectors, one Mechanical Engineer and one Civil Engineer. Director Chiu stated that Housing Inspectors were not yet included in this requirement, only Building Inspectors and Plan Checkers as the Building Inspectors and Plan Checkers do rotation and only one certification is required, either Plan Checking or Building Inspection. President Fillon asked if there was some way to train these employees further in order to aid them in passing the exam. Director Chiu stated that the Department intends to work with the ICBO to do intensive training and thanked Deputy Director William Wong for helping to set up this training to aid the employees in passing the exam.
President Fillon said that under the present economic downturn it would be a hard time to put people out on the street. Vice-President Hood asked if these people could move to other departments. Director Chiu said that the law states that all Building Inspectors need to be certified, but maybe they could work at a department like DPW. Vice-President Hood said she was speaking about another department within DBI that did not require certification. Vice-President Hood said that her concern was that there were employees who did not know the Code, especially a Civil Engineer, working for the Department for a couple of years and could not pass an exam; these people might not be up to the usual standards of DBI. Vice-President Hood stated that this would be a problem for both the Department and the public. Director Chiu said that Vice-President Hood was right to be concerned. Vice-President Hood said that there is a minimal standard and said that while she is sympathetic to those employees she wondered if having uncertified employees working on plan checking would jeopardize the City's insurance and said that perhaps these positions could be downgraded. Assistant Director Lee said that she did not think that downgrading the positions would be an option. Ms. Lee stated that the Controller's Office raised the issue of the Department not being in compliance and the Department is making every effort to correct this problem. President Fillon said that perhaps the positions could be downgraded. Ms. Lee said that the only positions they could be downgraded to would be clerical and said that it might be possible to offer a choice to the employees. Vice-President Hood said that she did not think that would be a good idea, as the employees would be bitter if their position was lowered and they would not make good clerks.
Ms. Lee said that perhaps it would be a good idea to allow the employees six months to pass the exam for certification and to get the Department into compliance with AB717. Director Chiu said that 96% of employees that need to be, are certified, and the Department would continue to do its best to help these five people pass the exams. President Fillon asked that the Department make sure that the employees realize the importance of passing the exam. Ms. Lee stated that all of the employees know that this is a serious issue. Vice-President Hood suggested that the Department tell these employees that if they don't pass the exam by a certain date, say December 1, 2001 or January 1, 2002 they are going to be let go; the deadline needs to be specific because if the employees know that the deadline could be relaxed they won't take this seriously. Vice-President Hood said that if an engineer graduated from college he or she should be able to pass an exam. Director Chiu suggested a time limit of three months. Vice-President Hood said that the employees need to know that they are out of here if they don't pass. Ms. Lee stated that with Plan Checkers passing the exam is one of the contingencies of their employment and the Personnel Office sends them follow-up notices.
Commissioner Santos asked if the Civil Engineer was licensed. Director Chiu said that an Engineer can be licensed, but also needs to be certified; this particular engineer is already a P.E. Commissioner Walker suggested that a memo be drafted to these employees and they be given three months from the date of the memo to become certified. Ms. Lee said that the employees would be given full notice that, if not certified, they may lose their jobs or the Commission could make a decision to put them on leave. Vice-President Hood asked if this was a Commission decision or a Department decision. Director Chiu said that he wanted the Commission to be aware of the situation. President Fillon said that this issue was raised in the Controller's audit. Vice-President Hood said that she felt that this was a Director's decision.
Mr. Joe O'Donoghue of the Residential Builders Association said that he doesn't know about the Plan Checker's exam, but stated that he had been in the construction business for over 30 years. Mr. O'Donoghue said that some people fair well on written exams and others do better on oral exams. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he has a friend who could pass any multiple-choice exam and said that he wondered if the exam taken by DBI employees was validated to this local area. Mr. O'Donoghue said that someone could be an excellent Plan Checker, but not necessarily a good exam taker. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he did not want to sound like Judge Roy Bean, but stated that politics were at play when the Controller's Office couldn't find anything wrong when they did their audit, so they mentioned test taking and certification, which is minutia. Mr. O'Donoghue said that ethnicity could be an issue as some people do better on paper and some do better in practice. Mr. O'Donoghue said that this new Board of Supervisors have caused this undercurrent because they could find nothing of substance. Mr. O'Donoghue said that in the early 90's there was true accountability and on the issue raised by Bobbie Sue Hood of Plan Checkers being able to pass the exam, he said that he wondered if the questions on these exams were validated for local plan checking or were they statewide, as San Francisco is very unique. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that when his ancestors, the Irish, came to this country they were not very familiar with exams, but could use their oral skills as a weapon and in recent years have been fortunate enough to be educated in written skills as well. Mr. O'Donoghue said that all cultures did not have this benefit.
Ms. Anastasia Yovanopoulos said that on July 18th she received Appendix E in the mail. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that it was titled as being from the Controller's Audit Division and was the KPMG LL Executive Summary. Ms. Yovanopoulos stated that on the first page of the employee survey the results indicated that 50% of DBI felt that training was not adequate and said that she would appreciate better training for the employees.
b. Report on the status of Ethics Policy for DBI.
Director Chiu reported that staff was working on an Ethics Policy for DBI and said he had assigned this particular project to Assistant Director Lee. Director Chiu stated that Ms. Lee was recently working with the Controller's Office who was sharing their expertise on this issue. Director Chiu said that one of the goals was to learn more about the expediter's role at DBI. Director Chiu said that initially he would like to work on policy with one or two of the Commissioners, the Controller's Office and DBI staff. Director Chiu said that and Assistant Director Lee would welcome any comments or concerns from the Commissioners.
c. Update on future meeting to review DBI's Mission Statement and set goals and objectives.
Director Chiu stated that he wanted to arrange a special meeting to set new performance goals under the direction of the Commission. Director Chiu said that he would like this to be done at the regular October 17th meeting of the BIC. Director Chiu said that he would furnish the Commissioners with a copy of the Controller's Office recommendations and last year's performance goals. Assistant Director Lee said that she would prepare a package showing comparisons with other jurisdictions to set new goals and a new direction for the Department. Ms. Lee stated that the goals and objectives would be used as the basis for the upcoming budget. Commissioner Marks said that she would welcome this meeting as she felt that more time was needed to study last year's budget process. Vice-President Hood asked Ms. Lee if she would prepare a bulleted statement of goals for easier reading. Ms. Lee said that she was working on the project.
Ms. Anastasia Yovanopoulos said that she had only seen one Mission Statement for the Commission and stated that she believed that statement was from when Ms. Maria Banico was the Commission Secretary. Assistant Director Lee said that the current Mission Statement is on the DBI website and has also been included on the first two pages of each quarterly and annual report.
4. Public Comment: The BIC will take public comment on matters within the Commission's jurisdiction that are not part of this agenda.
Mr. Joe O'Donoghue stated that the makeup of the BIC is being calendared for the November ballot. Mr. O'Donoghue said that it was rather ironic that when questioned one of the Commissioners here said that it is part of all the agenda of the Board looking into various Commissions. Mr. O'Donoghue said that it was interesting that the only Commissions in question so far before the Board for some kind of Charter reform, which Mr. O'Donoghue said he looks forward to, are ones relating to the Board of Permit Appeals, DBI and the Planning Department. Mr. O'Donoghue said that nothing has been mentioned about Social Services, Police, Fire or any of the other Commissions, so obviously when a generalized allegation is made of politics interfering regardless of the double standards, and of course if someone is in a bipolar world they will have a double standard from Board Members over at the Board of Supervisors. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the fact of the matter is that this is a political issue and said he is looking forward to it, in fact, he said the Residential Builders would probably want this put out to the general public because DBI's record is exemplary in terms of 55,000+ permits a year being processed; 97% of which are done within 48 hours and it is time to get the message out to the public that the best permit expediter that the public has, is again the system that was set up through this Commission with the help at the time of Doris Ward. Mr. O'Donoghue said that any Commissioner that would be opposing this should have second thoughts on it and the message needs to get out to obtain a resounding victory like the last time when it was done with Prop R under Marsha Rosen, where it was tried to take away the rights of the citizens. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that the Residential Builders helped to finance that campaign and came in with a 75% to 25% resounding defeat again for the bureaucrats within the bureaucracy and the politicians who saw other wise at the time. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he just wanted the Commission to understand that, so that there would be no inconsistencies in his role when the Residential Builders take what will be considered a contradictory step. Mr. O'Donoghue thanked the Commission.
Ms. Anastasia Yovanopoulos said that on September 20, 2001 when she was at the Housing Inspection Division of DBI there was an incident that she wanted to let the Commission know about regarding Certificates of Final Completion. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that this was something that she could write a letter about and maybe it would be put on the agenda because she stated that she knew the Commission has a process and a calendar. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that there are incidences where a property is subdivided and the Assessor's Office has a different record from that of the Housing Department. Ms. Yovanopoulos said specifically there are procedures that need to be followed. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that she finds that sometimes these procedures are not followed and she also overheard some conversation going on between one of the Housing Inspectors and a contractor about a certain Certificate of Final Completion that did not reflect what the record really is. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that when there is a discrepancy in the Certificate of Final Completion that is a document issued by the City it should jibe with the one that is on record at the Assessor's Office. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that she needed to know about the guidelines for the issuance of the Certificate of Final Completion. Ms. Yovanopoulos thanked the Commission.
5. Update on Litigation Committee Meeting. [Commissioners Guinnane, Santos &
Walker]
Commissioner Santos reported that the Committee is continuing to meet monthly to go over different cases and the meetings have been very productive. Commissioner Santos said that the Committee is gaining a very deep understanding of the ability to obtain records, collect money and sort out the bad apples. Commissioner Santos thanked Commissioner Guinnane for sharing his expertise with himself and Commissioner Walker.
6. Update on Unlawful Demolition Committee "working group" meetings. [Vice-President Hood]
Vice-President Hood stated that the Committee has been making progress even through the vacation period of August. Vice-President Hood said that the Planning Department who really has major jurisdiction with respect to the issues that have been raised, with respect to demolition and major alteration, have become much more actively involved. Vice-President Hood said that for some weeks a group has been meeting consisting of people from the various constituencies such as neighbors, architects, engineers, permit expediters and staff from the Building Inspection Department including Director Chiu and Deputy Director Wong. Vice-President Hood said that Commissioner Rodrigo Santos had also attended some of the meetings. Vice-President Hood said that the group had come up with a document and have taken the lead in developing a draft for this change. Vice-President Hood stated that one of the goals has been not to talk about specific percentages, but specific descriptions that are easier to enforce; there is a concurrent process going on to define how the announcement or notices have to be written in order for the public to understand them. Vice-President Hood said that the group is just now moving on to the process as to how to describe all of the ways in which the constituencies represented, the Board of Supervisors, the BIC, the Planning Commission and other various groups and people in the City need to find out where the process is right now so they have the opportunity to edit the draft, expand it or whatever. Vice-President Hood stated that the next step was to try and come up with a final draft/draft that will help work out the process to take it to the next tier out. Vice-President Hood said that she would like the Commission, if they would be willing, to make a copy of the draft as it is right now and give it to their people to get comments before continuing. Vice-President Hood said that the other thing she wanted to let everyone know was that basically to enforce this process will require more people hired in DBI and the need for quite a few more people in the Planning Department. Vice-President Hood said that she was hoping that staff time would be saved by not having so many of these projects coming back that have to be solved. Vice-President Hood said that one example is that the new process will require the certification of information that is submitted for existing conditions. Vice-President Hood said that someone who is knowledgeable would go over the drawings and go out to the site to verify that work that is shown on the existing drawings is in fact really there. Vice-President Hood said that this is the first kind of misrepresentation to the public and to neighbors that has occurred on past permits. Vice-President Hood said that she wanted the Commission to be aware that these things are going on.
Commissioner Walker stated that there has not been an actual Committee meeting in a while and the work that the group is doing is really vital as they are ironing out some of the issues, but asked if it were possible to have a Committee meeting to review this. Vice-President Hood said absolutely. President Fillon asked if there should be a special meeting called with the Planning Commission or if there was a way to meet with some of the Planning Commissioners before a Committee meeting. Commissioner Walker said that these meetings have been happening outside of any Committee meeting, as the meetings would have to be noticed and whatnot so this is sort of a limited input, though it is representative. Commissioner Walker said that she was concerned that something may come up without proper input. President Fillon said that he would like the three Commissioners on the Committee to meet and prepare a presentation to the Commission as a whole in a Special Meeting on this issue. Vice-President Hood said that one of the reasons the Committee did not meet was because of vacations in August, but hopefully it could be done now. Vice-President Hood said she would ask that the Secretary find out when there was a room available and to allow for enough time for notice, but stated that she wanted this to happen as quickly as possible. Vice-President Hood said that in the meantime she would like to ask that the Commissioners distribute copies of the draft to everyone and try to get the comments back to the Committee so they can move on. Vice-President Hood said that this was not the last opportunity to get more input as there will be another opportunity at a Committee hearing, but she would like to get something out before the next meeting.
Commissioner Marks asked if there was a copy of the draft available. Vice-President Hood said that the draft was in the Commission package and that there was a draft every couple of weeks when the group meetings were held. Commissioner Marks said that she thought that the last draft that she saw showed that the process was moving along and that the process was being clarified, but said that when she saw the latest draft her reaction was that it is very cumbersome. Vice-President Hood said that the reason for this is because all of the people in the group make money from enforcement. Commissioner Marks said that from her perspective the purpose of having the changes is to prevent problems and if something is written that is difficult to enforce, or cumbersome to enforce, then it may be defeating the purpose and wasting time. Vice-President Hood said that she couldn't agree more as she wanted the document to be something simpler and said that she was not in the majority. Vice-President Hood said that this was something that needed to be looked at in the Committee meeting and go back to a larger group, as there are some complications because Planning is the Department making the requirements and they want to be able to have more discretion in what they are doing. Vice-President Hood said that there is some argument to that because if it is made too specific somebody who wants to fight a project can fight over any, single, little thing. Vice-President Hood said that this was hard to explain, but there has to be some discretion, but if there is too much discretion then it gets too political and too hard to enforce, and it is a very complicated thing. Vice-President Hood said that she appreciated Commissioner Marks' comments and would look into this issue as it is one of her favorite points of record. President Fillon said that he wanted the Commissioners to remember that one of the reasons for change was to eliminate the ambiguity and the Committee needs to stay focused on that. Commissioner Walker said that this draft contains not only Code changes, but also procedural changes and three different layers of recommendations all on one thing. Vice-President Hood said that one of the procedural changes she is working on with Director Chiu is looking into going to a single permit and this is complicated because it requires changing the way the permits are programmed for the computer, but Vice-President Hood said that she did not think that there was any reason at all to have nine different permit forms, as there should be one permit form with different boxes at the top that includes the property description, etc. Vice-President Hood stated that she thought this would simplify things greatly for the public and for staff. Vice-President Hood said that right now when staff talks about the different forms people just fog out and they think that the process is so arcane that they have to have a special person to guide them through it. Vice-President Hood said that it has been very difficult for her to have people look at this process just with the goal of simplifying it.
Commissioner Walker said that the Committee should meet and not bring this back to the next meeting, but perhaps the meeting after that. President Fillon said that each of the Commissioners still need to get a copy of the draft out to the public. Vice-President Hood said that she would like the Commissioners to call her with any specific packages or suggestions and would like to be sure to get the information by Friday. Commissioner Walker reminded the Commissioners that they had a copy of the draft in the Commission package. Commissioner Marks said that the Commission had already received a copy of the current draft and that it was totally different from the previous draft she had seen. Commissioner Walker said that the draft was from the working group and not the BIC Committee and it has not been adopted by the Committee, but is just a source of input. President Fillon asked if the public had seen the draft. Commissioner Walker said that they had not. Commissioner Marks said that in her mind this draft was not a proposal and it raised a question in her mind as the last draft was in more of a proposal form. Commissioner Walker said that it might not be a good idea to put it out in the public. Commissioner Marks said that her concern is that she would hope the draft would be in a language presentation that would make it a more workable document than it is. Commissioner Marks referred to one paragraph that stated that this program would require significant outreach and public information available; dedicated program staff will help in public assistance. Commissioner Marks said that this was sort of an aside comment and would not be part of a specific proposal. President Fillon said that he would like to see the actual form of the proposal. Vice-President Hood said that people did not want that yet as this is still a work in progress and the timeline to have this complete will probably be sometime next Spring.
Director Chiu asked if the Commission would be interested in having a joint Commission meeting with the Planning Commission. Vice-President Hood said yes, but thought that the meeting should be after a proposal is written. Vice-President Hood stated that Larry Badiner planned to speak to the Planning Commission and felt that the Planning Commission should be able to look over the proposal separately first and then maybe have a joint Commission meeting, but if everything is okay and both Commissions are on the same page it may not be necessary as when too many people are involved it gets complicated, and this Committee is very close to closure.
Ms. Anastasia Yovanopoulos stated that she was in Planning Department about three weeks ago when the issue of demolition came up and people were trying find out about something that was built and what it did to the neighborhood character. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that the issue of demolition came up and Mr. Green said that up until now there was a very loose way of looking at demolition, as there wasn't any clear definition. Ms. Yovanopoulos stated that Mr. Green deferred to Mr. Badiner and then Mr. Kornfield came in and Ms. Yovanopoulos said that she objected to what Mr. Kornfield said because personally he said that Mr. Badiner and he (Mr. Kornfield) made up this definition of demolition that was going to work. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that she did not know if Ms. Boyajian, the Deputy City Attorney, was present at that time, but on the record Mr. Kornfield gave all the Commissioners his own definition of demolition which is not the one that is in the Code right now, Ms. Yovanopoulos said that she did not know what Mr. Kornfield was doing, as a committee has been working very hard on this definition. Ms. Yovanopoulos said she objected to this and said that there does need to be a working definition of demolition, but the Commission is the one who calls the shots. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that she thought that the two Commissions should be working together, but there are definitions that are just out there that should be incorporated into the Code that both the Building Commission and Planning Commission are on line with.
7. Discussion and possible action to form a Committee/task force regarding ways to encourage owners to reenter burnt out multiple unite buildings into the housing inventory. [Commissioner Walker]
Commissioner Walker said that this came up when the Commission was talking about it at a previous meeting and stated that she has been very interested in following the fires that have been happening in the residential and multiple units. Commissioner Walker said that one of the issues that have come up is that many of the existing residential hotels that have been burned just sit vacant for a long time. Commissioner Walker said that she was interested in forming a sort of task force to look for ways of encouraging that these things be put back into use as residential hotels. Commissioner Walker said that there are a number of rooms that have been lost and there are not that many residential hotels in total. Commissioner Walker said that she was interested in getting some people from the tenant community and the building owner community to talk about this and see what could be done to encourage the building owners to make repairs. Commissioner Walker said she did not know if this could be done officially or how it could be done. President Fillon asked if Commissioner Walker meant a Committee of Commissioners. Commissioner Walker said that it could be a committee or task force that would include representatives from outside the Commission as well. Commissioner Walker said that she wanted to talk about this to see if people thought it was a good idea to get the public's input. President Fillon asked if there was any Commissioners that would be interested in serving on such a committee. President Fillon said that he would be interested in serving on such a Committee as it is worthwhile. Commissioner Marks said that she thought that it would be an excellent idea, but stated that she would not have time to serve. Commissioner Marks said that in the past Director Chiu had mentioned using a blight ordinance. Commissioner Marks said that in looking at the examples of blight ordinances, and at a previous meeting the Director had given the Commission a report on the status of these hotels and whether they were occupied or not; there was not a single one that would fit into the category of the blight ordinance. Commissioner Marks said that she thought that it would certainly be worth looking at this problem first from the financial aspect if the owners are indeed losing money. Commissioner Marks said that to go back to reality it would be difficult to get the hotel owners to a meeting. Commissioner Marks said that this would take up a great deal of the Commissioners time and said that when Commissioner Walker first proposed this she thought that this would involve a sort of task force consisting of hotel residents, hotel owners and representatives of the Department. Commissioner Walker said that she was interested in discussing it and said that it wouldn't necessarily be effective to use a blight ordinance for this purpose and that was why she wanted to talk about it and agendize it to get input from the Community. Commissioner Walker stated that she did not have a specific idea about how it would look or be formed, but said that she thought that it should include a member of two of the Commission and input from the Department and the community. Commissioner Walker said that encouragement was her focus because she felt that is the way to get things done. Commissioner Walker said that the Commission should hear from the community; the building owners, the construction community, the tenants and the tenants' representatives. President Fillon said that he felt that it was probably better to do this as a committee as then it is a matter of public record and also gives more legitimacy to invite other people to come or this could first be discussed in a sort of workshop. Commissioner Walker said that she would like to hear a little more from the community. Vice-President Hood said that one reason why these properties are not being fixed up is because whoever owns them does not see it as an economic advantage to them. Vice-President Hood said that the Commission first of all has to deal with that question, as all of the Commissioners want these properties fixed up and put back as good housing as do the public. Vice-President Hood said that the return that the owners would expect from fixing it up would not pay for the cost of fixing it up. Vice-President Hood said that year after year the cost goes up and buildings are blighting the area. Commissioner Walker said that this is why she would include the people who own the buildings so that this could be discussed. Commissioner Marks said that she was sure that economics was one of the reasons that these buildings were left sitting, but said that the owners are not getting any revenue and still have to pay taxes and mortgages. Commissioner Marks said that the City should try to develop a fund so that the non-profit organizations could take over these buildings. Vice-President Hood said that the Commission should have someone from the Mayor's Office of Housing come to a meeting and give a report on this issue and said that she felt this would be a good place to start. Vice-President Hood said that she thought this was a great idea and the process has to start with the reality of why these properties are not put back on the market,otherwise a great deal of time will be spent on discussing the specific properties and not really solving the problem. President Fillon said that this would be a good place to start as a whole Commission.
Mr. Joe O'Donoghue of the Residential Builders Association said that this issue has been around for about forty years in fact, even longer than that. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the SROs are primarily around the South of Market. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he would guarantee that the Commission would not get any owner to come into any meeting even if the National Guard was sent out, they would not come to sit down to discuss the issue. Mr. O'Donoghue said that is the reality. Mr. O'Donoghue said that it was great being in the land of Utopia and reading Gulliver's Travels because it can take you to the Land of Oz and that is where the Commission is in terms of this discussion. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the reality is that this issue is intended to be dealt with by the Redevelopment Agency, by the non-profits and by the other for profit sector and it is going nowhere. Mr. O'Donoghue said that is going nowhere, and this will come up on the next agenda item, because again the political will has not been to look realistically at the problem. Mr. O'Donoghue said that politicians are constantly robbing Peter to pay Paul and getting priorities confused and in the meantime people are homeless and the homeless problem is being aggravated as liberals sit there and engage in endless rhetoric without coming to concrete solutions. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the Commission would be a laughing stock if it starts popping off right now; the solutions are already there and the Code exists to do it by and it is not being done. Mr. O'Donoghue said that that the problem is aggravated by having a City Attorney's task force that can go out on Code compliance and through $500 per day penalties rather than go through eminent domain which has been the method of trying to take over these hotels; the method to do it is far speedier, but it is not being done for a number of reasons. Mr. O'Donoghue said that when the non-profits take over the hotels they are the ones that end up with more addictions and the buildings never get finished. Mr. O'Donoghue said that when the buildings do get finished the people generally can't afford to move into them and there is no one with a net out there. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he finds it ironic that he is supposed to be Atilla the Hun when the builders know the solutions and have advocated those solutions for the last twenty years. Mr. O'Donoghue said that because the RBA does not put itself under the mantel of Mother Theresa and call themselves non-profit no one seems to be listening. Mr. O'Donoghue said guess what, the RBA is down talking at the grass roots level with tenants who are now listening and will bring the solution through the Code Enforcement at the City Attorney's Office. Mr. O'Donoghue said that is the first step because otherwise the property owners will sit there with their buildings because there is no reason for them to do otherwise. Mr. O'Donoghue said that Commissioner Walker was right when she said there was no profit in the SROs right now, but there is a solution, but it is not bringing them together as the Commissioner is proposing. Mr. O'Donoghue thanked the Commission.
Mr. Nick Pavalatos introduced himself as the Project Director for St. Peter's Housing Committee. Mr. Pavalatos said that St. Peter's is also a member of the Mission SRO collaborative. Mr. Pavalatos said that strangely enough he found himself in agreement with some of the statements that Mr. O'Donoghue made as he agreed that this is a complex problem and said that enforcement does have a role to play in preserving affordable housing; however, fires do happen regardless of enforcement. Mr. Pavalatos stated that the fact is that close to 1,000 units have been lost in the course of the past three years. Mr. Pavalatos said that right now the City does not have an answer; the community does not have an answer to these problems and another fact is that the owners of these buildings have a vested interest in keeping these buildings offline. Mr. Pavalatos said that the owners cannot be forced to bring the buildings back on line, but as long as these buildings are kept off line that means that those tenants that had established tenancies in these buildings are eventually going to lose interest in coming back to these buildings and are also going to lose low income residences. Mr. Pavalatos stated that these people would have to move out of the City and locate affordable housing elsewhere. Mr. Pavalatos said that currently there is no solution and said that he thought that part of the answer is to bring owners and community members together to try to forge at least part of this puzzle together; and to create a means to bring the bad actors who are keeping these buildings off line to the table and giving tenants a right to return to the rent controlled units a means of doing so before they are forced to leave the City altogether. Mr. Pavalatos said that another aspect of this problem is that when tenants are displaced the City is having to pay for housing for these tenants in other SRO hotels; usually that means that the City is getting gouged by other bad acting SRO owners who are charging the City twice what they would otherwise be getting. Mr. Pavalatos stated that there are many different implications that are involved with this problem and said that there needed to be discussion between community members, City departments and owners to try to forge a common solution.
Mr. Dave Maguire from Mission Agenda stated that right now his organization is operating on Sixth Street as the Sixth Street Agenda and they are part of the Mission SRO Collaborative. Mr. Maguire said that he was burned out of his hotel in February of 1999 and since then has been a housing advocate. Mr. Maguire said that as everyone knows that there have been a number of hotels that have been fire damaged and still not brought back on line. Mr. Maguire said that he and a number of other people would be glad to work on any kind of task force or committee that was going to work on the definite problem of getting hotels rebuilt or rehabbed which would provide work for people in the City and also housing. Mr. Maguire said that there must be a way of making money by keeping these buildings empty because the owners of the buildings are very smart businessmen and said that he would assume that they are making money in some way by doing this. Mr. Maguire said that it might be that the owners have the insurance money and are investing it, or it could be that they are waiting for the tenants to dry up and blow away. Mr. Maguire said that some of these tenants have been in these units for ten or twenty years and are paying rents of $200 and numbers like that from 1965 and 1975, so that is a very definite factor. Mr. Maguire said that no one has ever figured out how to use eminent domain in order to take these hotels and make them public property so that there could be more public housing in the City. Mr. Maguire said that there hasn't been any public housing built in this country since about 1980 and that signal has gone down to the lowest levels of government so 15,000 rooms are actually needed which would be a ballpark figure. Mr. Maguire stated that he would like to say that there are some hotel owners who the City can talk to and it might be worth getting in touch with them to find out why the hotels are not brought on line. Mr. Maguire said that he is paying an average of $15.00 per day in his hotel room and if someone were looking for accommodations in a student traveler's inn, it is $30.00, and the going rate for a rock bottom room in San Francisco is about $60.00. Mr. Maguire said that business hotels are $120.00 to $240.00 and right on up. Mr. Maguire said that in light of the events of September 11, he thought that this would probably change, as occupancy rates are way down so the City needs to start thinking about some of the human values that have been neglected in the past. Mr. Pavalatos thanked the Commission.
Ms. Rebecca Logue-Bovee introduced herself as Director of the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco. Ms. Logue-Bovee said that she wanted to add the support of her organization to this idea as she felt it was a good idea to bring people together to talk about what to do. Ms. Logue-Bovee said that she did not think that the wheel needed to be reinvented, but there are a lot of people who have very specific ideas, concerns and opinions on this, but there are also other cities throughout this country, if not throughout the State, that have dealt with this specific issue. Ms. Logue-Bovee said that they have set up collaboratives to deal with SRO housing between City, non-profits and the public sector. Ms. Logue-Bovee said that San Francisco could learn from what these other cities have done and what they have accomplished and stated that she supported looking at this issue very carefully. Ms. Logue-Bovee said that she felt that non-profit ownership is a key here to ensure that there is long-term affordability and accountability to communities. Ms. Logue-Bovee thanked the Commission.
Ms. Anastasia Yovanopoulos said that she became aware of the hotel fires in 1995 when she attended a Board of Supervisors' hearing after the Delta fire. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that Supervisor Newsom was a rookie at that time and he vowed to take care of this problem and so did Mabel Teng, but nothing happened; then it came out that the sprinkler ordinance was not in both the Building and Housing Codes so that it could be implemented by the Department. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that she thought that what was required was some policy decisions by the Department of Building Inspection as far as getting the owners to make the repairs; this would require some decision that Frank Chiu had made some acknowledgement of a few months back, as he is also very interested in this problem and in providing the housing that is needed. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that she thought that it had to do with the point when there is a fire and then a permit needs to be issued and the follow up done. Ms. Yovanopoulos asked who was going to pay for the stuff once the owner gets the insurance money. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that the insurance money needs to be funneled back into that building. Ms. Yovanopoulos stated that she felt that people really need to put their heads together in the Department and these were only her suggestions.
President Fillon said that he did not suspect that any of the owners that any task force or committee would want to come to this kind of a meeting would come no matter what. President Fillon stated that he thought that the full scope of this problem is beyond the capability of this Department and this Commission to actually address completely. President Fillon said that the Department could focus on enforcement and some other options that are available within the power of the Department. President Fillon said that it is a worthwhile thing to at least get together to discuss. President Fillon said that he would like to invite anyone who would want to come when a meeting is scheduled, to come and share their ideas. President Fillon stated that he worked at Redevelopment for four and one-half years in housing and was involved in several non-profit projects on Sixth Street with SROs and stated that there are mechanisms in the City to do this, but they need to be utilized and the correct force needs to be behind it; that effort of people really pushing to make things happen. President Fillon said that this force has never really been there as strong as it needs to be to deal with the inadequacies of the housing situation in the City.
Commissioner Walker said that maybe the next step, because this is a very big, complicated issue, would be to put it on the agenda to actually get a report from staff as to what procedures currently happen and maybe invite somebody from the Code Enforcement taskforce, and invite the building owners, as she stated she is not willing to give up that they might come. Commissioner Walker said that maybe she was being naive. Commissioner Walker said that members of all of the different SRO collaboratives should be invited and actually have an agenda item that would make it a working meeting. Commissioner Walker said that then if there is a need for a Committee or taskforce to get more comprehensive, then do it that way. President Fillon said that the bottom line, and this is where this is all going, is what was found in the past, is that the only way to get owners to deal with their property is to fine them and make it financially worthwhile for them to fix the property, rather than to leave it sitting. Commissioner Walker said she agreed and this was done with either punishment, encouragement, or both. Commissioner Santos said that it is probably punishment and said that he wanted to give an example so that the Commission would know what they were dealing with. Commissioner Santos said that he is the structural engineer for the beautification program on Sixth Street and part of this program is to build concrete planters, trees and retaining walls that would line the sort of hotels that are being mentioned. Commissioner Santos stated that this is a program that is fully subsidized by the City, in other words it doesn't cost the property owners a dime to implement. Commissioner Santos said that as the structural engineer he had to come up with a design of a retaining wall that would be facing some of these properties and all he needed to do was get access to those properties for forty-five minutes to take measurements. Commissioner Santos said that he was unable to do that, not only for forty-five minutes, but he was asked not to get near the hotels. Commissioner Santos stated that he had to make the measurements on the basis of documentation that the City has regarding the properties, as these people are completely uncooperative. Commissioner Santos said that he totally agreed with Mr. Donoghue that the only way to do this is through enforcement through the City Attorney or some other mechanism. Commission Santos said that the program that he was involved in to beautify the street would cost the hotel owners nothing and they were unwilling to participate; this is they type of people that have to be dealt with and Commissioner Santos said that to get them to attend a meeting; it would never happen. Commissioner Walker said that she felt that the Commission needed to try. Commissioner Walker said that for the next meeting she would work with the Secretary to invite a group of the people to attend. President Fillon said, that as Mr. O'Donoghue said, this issue has been thrown around and dealt with and solutions have come up and several generations have dealt with this over and over. President Fillon said that he did not think that it would hurt to hear it again. Commissioner Walker stated that it is still a problem. President Fillon said that perhaps this should come up in a couple of months because he felt it was important to get some people to attend that represent the community. Commissioner Marks said that she appreciated Commissioner Santos' comments, but when a hotel is burned she questions whether Code Enforcement is the mechanism because obviously what Codes can be enforced when the building is burned and then the property owner will probably say that they haven't received the insurance money yet, so there has to be a way to find some mechanism to push the issue. Commissioner Marks said she did not believe that mechanism is Code Enforcement. Commissioner Santos said that Commissioner Marks was right and maybe it would take the National Guard, but as he said he was only going to measure the property and was not even able to get in. President Fillon said that as soon as the Commission leaves the enforcement area it goes into reconstruction and providing money to rebuild, and said that he felt the Commission was moving out of its capability and jurisdiction. Commissioner Walker said that was why she recommended a taskforce that is broader than just the BIC.
8. Discussion on status of reserve $250,000 DBI funds set aside for the Department to work order to the City Attorney's Office for prosecution of severe building code violations including those related to conditions in SRO hotels and other large privately owned low income housing developments. [Commissioner Guinnane]
Commissioner Guinnane said that about six or so months ago Deputy City Attorney Judy Boyajian gave each of the Commissioners documentation regarding this $250,000. Commissioner Guinnane stated that he read through it and, at that point from memory, there was about $124,000 that had been used, and estimating two months after the fact, he had guessed that there was roughly $175,000 used, of the $250,000. Commissioner Guinnane said that he had tried to make some inquiries about the $250,000 and did not really get a whole lot of help. Commissioner Guinnane said that he had talked to Tom Lakritz of the City Attorney's Office to see if he could help, as he was with Code Enforcement; Commissioner Guinnane said he had asked Mr. Lakritz if there were any minutes pertaining to this at the Board of Supervisors and Mr. Lakritz told him that there had been no discussion on it at all. Commissioner Guinnane said that he got a little frustrated and spoke with Amy Lee who went back and listened to some tapes regarding the $250,000 and typed up the conversation between Supervisors Ammiano, Leland Yee and Director Chiu setting aside $250,000 for Code Enforcement. Commissioner Guinnane said that in order to spend the $250,000, a proposal from the City Attorney's Office was to come to this Department or this Commission, to be approved by this Commission, and then go back and be worked out with the Board of Supervisors. Commissioner Guinnane said that did not happen, as far as he was concerned, and as far as he knew right now there was $200,000 of the $250,000 spent and it was never approved by the BIC or anybody else. Commissioner Guinnane said that he was really concerned about this and that was why he asked for this to be on the agenda.
Commissioner Marks said that she wanted to make a comment about this as she brought it up during the budget cycle this year because she did remember the money being appropriated. Commissioner Marks said that she asked about this during both the Committee meetings as well as the Commission meetings brought it up and asked Ms. Boyajian what the status of those funds were. Commissioner Marks said that Ms. Boyajian did acknowledge at the Committee hearing that she did not know what the status was and was having difficulty tracking it down, but subsequently she did report that City Attorney staff in her office was in fact using the position to try and prevent the musical chairs phenomenon from going on. Commissioner Marks asked Ms. Boyajian if that was correct. Commissioner Guinnane said that the way this was set up, through the Board of Supervisors, it was supposed to come to the BIC and be approved by this Commission. Commissioner Guinnane said initially when he found out about it there was $175,000 already spent and he had asked Ms. Boyajian about it. Commissioner Guinnane stated that Ms. Boyajian told him that there was an investigator hired full time and there were four cases pending. Commissioner Marks said that that money was appropriated for this current fiscal year and that is why she brought it up when the Committee was looking at the budget cycle for the coming fiscal year. Commissioner Marks said that the Commission had approved it for this current fiscal year. Commissioner Guinnane said that the money was approved as a set aside, but there was supposed to be a plan put in place for this Commission showing how to implement to spend that $250,000. Commissioner Walker asked where was that requirement.
Assistant Director Amy Lee said that she had asked the Budget Analyst from the Mayor's Office to come to this meeting because she understood that Commissioner Walker had some procedural issues or questions brought up at the Litigation Committee meeting regarding add backs and whatnot. Ms. Lee said that Katie Petrucione was present and would explain the process. Ms. Lee said that in general, Board add backs are done as the budget goes from BIC to the Mayor and then it is his budget and then it goes to the Board of Supervisors; at that point the Board of Supervisors has the discretion to cut places where they think that the services are not needed and add to other different areas and this is why it is called the Board add back. Ms. Lee said that this could be done in a general fund, or special revenue fund, or any fund, as it does not matter what fund it is. Ms. Lee said that for the Department's purposes it is a Board add back, but it is special fund money meaning that it is not from the general fund. Ms. Lee said that she wanted to get that issue cleared. Ms. Lee said that the process of the Board add back, and this could be confirmed by Ms. Petrucione, is that most Board add backs are placed on reserve, as this particular $250,000 is placed on reserved. Ms. Lee said that in order for DBI to spend the money or to provide it back to the City Attorney, DBI needs to get the approval sign off from the Controller's Office, the Budget Office and the BIC as well. Ms. Lee said that this is a separate procedural issue with all reserves. Ms. Lee said that in some of the minutes the Director did give assurances and discussed with Board President Ammiano that the money or the program would be subject to the Commission's approval and that was an issue as well.
Commissioner Guinnane asked what year this $250,000 was initially set aside. Ms. Lee said that it was set aside fiscal year 000-001and now the Department was in 001-002; however, Ms. Lee stated that in August she was in the position to carry forward funds, meaning all of the funds that were not spent the prior fiscal year were carried forward, and this $250,000 was carried forward as well. Ms. Lee said that the Department does still have this $250,000 from last year. Commissioner Walker asked if this was approved for the current budget. Ms. Lee said yes, the Commission as part of the project approved it. Commissioner Walker said that means this was reviewed and approved by the BIC. Ms. Lee said that it was a total item so the Commission was still deciding how the money was going to be spent, but now the Department is working with a total of $500,000, which is $250,000 from last fiscal year that was carried forward to this fiscal year and the ongoing $250,000 from this fiscal year. Commissioner Walker asked if someone from DBI staff was currently sitting on the Code Enforcement taskforce and asked if that is what this stems from. Ms. Lee said no, that she believed that President Ammiano's intent was just to address Building Code violations as they relate to single room occupancy. Commissioner Walker asked if this happened in a vacuum. Ms. Lee said that this was a separate issue, which should have been discussed at the Commission level working with the City Attorney on what kind of programs it should have covered.
Commissioner Guinnane said that surely from the minutes that Ms. Lee typed off of the tapes and Director Chiu could back up because he was at the meeting when the discussion took place, it was strictly for Code Enforcement only, and was to come to this Commission, get approval as to how the $250,000 was to spent, even though it was already allocated and carried forward on the budget, but it clearly said that it was to come to this Commission, be approved and then go back to the Board of Supervisors and then go for further discussion. Commissioner Guinnane said that not that it was just on the budget, but it was supposed to be discussed about the $250,000 and how it was to be spent. Commissioner Walker asked when that happened. Commissioner Guinnane said that it never happened. Commissioner Walker asked if the only thing that set this into motion was that it was subject to Building Inspection approval.
Katie Petrucione said that basically, when the Finance Committee placed the money on reserve during the budget process in June of 2000, putting it on reserve means that the Department, in this case the Commission, has to work with the City Attorney's Office to come up with some kind of plan to spend the money that the parties all agree upon. Ms. Petrucione said that the Department then returns to the Finance Committee and presents that plan to the Committee, gets the Committee's approval and the Committee then releases the funds to be used on the plan that everyone has agreed upon. Commissioner Walker asked Director Chiu why this has not been brought to the Commission because Director Chiu was present when he agreed to the program. Director Chiu said that he felt that Commissioner Walker should direct her question to the City Attorney's Office as to why they did not come back with a proposal, as staff from the City Attorney's Office was present at the meeting. Commissioner Walker said that she would ask them, but was right now asking Director Chiu. Ms. Lee said that she believed that the Department's initial request to the City Attorney was that the Department thought that the City Attorney's Office was going to come back with a proposal. Ms. Lee stated that she was surprised that it was already delineated in terms that a certain amount of funds were already expended and was under the assumption that the Department had asked the City Attorney to provide a program of what they thought would be appropriate. Commissioner Walker asked when this happened. Ms. Lee asked Ms. Boyajian when the Department asked for the information. Ms. Boyajian said that she thought Commissioner Guinnane was right, that it was about six months or so ago that someone had raised the issue about the $250,000. Ms. Boyajian said that she was unaware of the money and went back and talked to Kim Manolious and Tom Lakritz and investigated this through the City Attorney's Accounting Office and came up with the memorandum that they assumed would be put before the BIC as a agenda item so that they could talk about it. Commissioner Guinnane said that the money was allocated in June of 2000 and in February of 2001 there was $124,000 used and Commissioner Guinnane said that at that point he stated that this was two months after the fact and at the rate that the City Attorney's Office was going probably $175,000 was spent. Ms. Boyajian said that she did not think that the City Attorney's Office has spent any of the $250,000. Ms. Lee stated that the money was on hold. Commissioner Guinnane said that it had been billed out at $175,000. Ms. Boyajian said that the City Attorney's Office had been billing the Department every month for work on the Department's matters, as they have always done. Ms. Boyajian said that her understanding is that the money that has been paid has been paid for those services. Ms. Lee said that all of the funds that have been paid to the City Attorney were just related to City Attorney services, as they do not relate to this $250,000. Ms. Boyajian said that the $500,000 is still there. Commissioner Guinnane said that it is still there because himself and Ms. Lee went over to the Controller's Office to make sure it wasn't paid out. Ms. Boyajian said that it was an accounting issue. Commissioner Walker suggested that the BIC get an agenda item from the City Attorney's Office to put before the Commission a proposal for the BIC to approve. Commissioner Guinnane said that this is totally illegal as it is being done after the fact. Commissioner Walker said that there should be a proposal put before the BIC and let it be retroactive if that is what the City Attorney wants and the BIC can vote on it. Commissioner Walker said that from her point of view, it is important activity. Commissioner Guinnane said that this could not be done. Commissioner Walker said that the Commission could do anything they want. Commissioner Guinnane said that absolutely not, the Commission cannot do whatever it wants and said that Commissioner Walker just wanted to throw away the money because it is not hers. Commissioner Guinnane said that people ask him why he is so hard on the City Attorney's Office as it is not his money; Commissioner Guinnane said that it is principle. Commissioner Guinnane said that if Commissioner Walker wanted to do something retroactive then some of the Commissioners should just get off of the Commission altogether and they could just throw away the money. Commissioner Walker said that her suggestion was that the City Attorney's Office put forward a proposal that the BIC can look at and in the meantime maybe there is another solution.
Ms. Lee said she felt that the retroactive issue could be avoided if the services already provided by the City Attorney's Office in that proposal could just be provided by the City Attorney's Office as a good service and a proposal could be submitted for the $250,000 or the entire $500,000, a new proposal that is consistent with the directions from Supervisor Ammiano. Commissioner Guinnane asked when that proposal would begin. Ms. Lee said from the date of the new proposal on forward. Ms. Lee said that because the money was a carried forward amount it did not mean that it had to be spent last year, in fact, a carried forward meant that she could not spend it last year and it could only be spent in the next years coming. Ms. Lee said that this amount could be carried forward into the next fiscal year. Ms. Boyajian said that it was her understanding that the City Attorney's Office had been paid for what they had done and asked if they in fact hadn't been paid. Ms. Lee said that the money has not been paid and any monies transferred from DBI to the CAO are only to do with the services provided for Code Enforcement and advice to the Department. Ms. Lee said that the $250,000 is still intact in DBI's funds. Ms. Boyajian said that she understood that the $250,000 is still there, but said that there aren't any services that the CAO have provided that they haven't been paid for, so what they had been paid for came from somewhere other than the $250,000. Ms. Lee said that what she has been paying is based on the billing and that matches. Ms. Boyajian said that everything that was in that memo had been billed to DBI and had been paid. Commissioner Guinnnane said that he has been watching the legal bills and said in looking at the cases that have gone through and what has been billed out of $200,000, $8,000 of it is probably for Code Enforcement and the rest is not related to Code Enforcement at all. Commissioner Santos asked if Commissioner Guinnane was saying that the Department already paid this money. Ms. Lee said that in Judy's memo she was showing what monies had been spent by the City Attorney's Office, but just because this money had been spent, it did not mean that DBI paid for it. Ms. Lee said that the City Attorney's Office might have spent it and used general fund subsidies or whatever. Ms. Lee said that the CAO used the services of those two staff people, but might not have received the monies. President Fillon asked if the situation could be clarified. Ms. Lee said that she would clarify the issue with Ms. Boyajian and the City's accountants. Ms. Lee said that to move forward and bring this issue to resolution, the City Attorney could work with the Commission to determine a new program for the purpose of the $250,000 from the prior year and the $250,000 from the new year. Ms. Lee said that she would make sure that DBI did not pay for the $120,000 that Commissioner Guinnane mentioned earlier. Commissioner Walker said that she was concerned that activities around what this was intended to accomplish continue, as she felt they were very important. Commissioner Walker said that she realized that the BIC has not had a proposal to discuss this, which she hoped would happen soon with some sort of notice to the Board of Supervisors that the Department is not doing this, and said that she did not want the activity to stop. Commissioner Walker stated that she wanted the Board of Supervisors to be aware that the City Attorney's Office is not being paid as this is important. Ms. Lee said that she would write a letter to the Board of Supervisors as well as the Controller's Office and the Budget Office. Ms. Boyajian said that the City Attorney's Office clearly could not provide a service if they weren't getting paid from somewhere. Commissioner Walker said that this was her fear and now it is six months later, but there could have been a presentation by the City Attorney's Office and voted on something which might have been more productive.
Commissioner Marks said that when she reads the minutes of the Finance Committee it is quite clear that the intended use of the money was Code Enforcement; however, when it was presented to the Commission Director Chiu had said that the funds were to be used specifically to prevent musical chairs. Commissioner Marks said that she remembered that in August of 2000 it was really late after the budget had been adopted and Director Chiu said that the instruction was for the City Attorney and the Department to work together on coming up with a proposal. Commissioner Marks said that in her mind it was to go after hotel owners who were demonstrating that they were forcing tenants out before the four-week period, and then said that she specifically asked about the status of this program during this current budget cycle both in Committee and in full Commission. Ms. Lee said that she believed that is what had spurred Ms. Boyajian to look into what had happened. Commissioner Marks said that at first Ms. Boyajian could not identify what happened to that program and then subsequently was able to identify an attorney that was working on the project. Commissioner Marks said that in her mind there was nothing for the BIC to approve. Ms. Boyajian said that the City Attorney's Office are enforcing the musical rooms and her understanding was that this is part of the whole enforcement program on the SROs. Commissioner Guinnane said that in reading the minutes that were drafted from the Board of Supervisors it strictly said Code Enforcement of the hotels and SROs and now the Department is getting into rent control issues. Ms. Boyajian said that she understood Commissioner Guinnane's issue, but stated that her understanding is that there was a Board of Supervisors' taskforce created to look at an SRO taskforce and part of the recommendations that this taskforce made was to deal with the musical rooms issue. Ms. Boyajian said that she was still trying to track down if there was a written report from that taskforce or any recommendations to the Board of Supervisors while they were debating this.
Commissioner Guinnane asked through the Chair if the Secretary could go back on the dates to find where there was discussion on this item as in the past there was a lot of conversation about this $250,000 and he does not recall anything but the amount of $250,000, what it was for and what was spent. Commissioner Guinnane said that then he started following up on it. Commissioner Santos said that this was his recollection as well. Ms. Boyajian asked if she should work with the Department to come up with a proposal that would come back before the Building Inspection Commission. Ms. Boyajian asked what the timing would be and said that she would assume that it should be as soon as possible. Commissioner Walker said asap. Ms. Lee said that the next meeting would be devoted to the Mission Statement and goals of the BIC so perhaps the proposal could be agendized for the meeting following. Commissioner Marks said that at the beginning she remembers Ms. Lee stating that it was more than $250,000 that was allocated. Ms. Lee said that she never said that, but there was confusion as whether this was money similar to the CEOP Program which was $300,000, but there was a set amount of $250,000 and Ms. Lee said she never would say something like that as she was at the hearing and it was $250,000. Ms. Lee said she might have said it was about $200,000 but did not think that she said it was more than the $250,000. Commissioner Guinnane said that as a matter of fact when Ms. Boyajian gave him the document of that particular Commission meeting, there was nothing on there about SROs that was being discussed that day and Commissioner Guinnane said that when he looked at the document he did not know what it was. Ms. Boyajian asked if Commissioner Guinnane was talking about the memorandum. Commissioner Guinnane said that it was the memorandum and said that he and Commissioner Walker had talked about the memorandum and Commissioner Walker had suggested it be brought up at the next Commission meeting. Commissioner Guinnane said that at that time he said that he wanted to find out about it the following week and did not want a whole month going by as the money was being spent and the $250,000 would be gone shortly. Ms. Boyajian said that clearly the BIC has a directive from the Board of Supervisors and something has to get in front of the BIC so that it could go back to the Finance Committee. Ms. Boyajian said that she would work on this issue.
Ms. Rebecca Logue-Bovee of the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco said that first and foremost the issue that really needs to be looked at is that people are being displaced and being denied their rights as residents with the musical rooms issue. Ms. Logue-Bovee said that whether this was discussed prior or there was something that slipped by as she could understand that there is a misunderstanding or a miscommunication, the fact still stands that these people need assistance, this is still a law on the books and Ms. Logue-Bovee said that she would commend this Commission for taking that step and deciding to spend DBI monies to make sure that musical rooms does not happen. Ms. Logue-Bovee said that the second thing that she would like to state is that within this discussion she has been listening to carryovers so this isn't an issue of having enough funds. Ms. Logue-Bovee stated that she works very closely with Code Enforcement as her organization works with many organizations around the City and with DBI staff to ensure that things are kept out of litigation. Ms. Logue-Bovee said that sometimes there needs to be litigation. Ms. Logue-Bovee said that it seems to her that there are carryovers, so this is not an issue about how to use these resources because obviously there is enough, and said that she would encourage everyone to work together to ensure that musical rooms doesn't happen because these people live in SRO hotels and every twenty-eight days they have to move. Ms. Logue-Bovee said that these people have children and have nowhere to go and are three days on the street; to them this becomes a very real and horrifying experience.
Mr. Joe O'Donoghue of Residential Builders stated that he had an accounting background as this was one of the first jobs that he had so he knows something about accounting. Mr. O'Donoghue said that this is bordering on embezzlement and that is why Ronnie Davis has been indicted and that is why there is embezzlement and responsibility at the School Board right now where Peter has been robbed to pay Paul. Mr. O'Donoghue said that no one denies that the musical rooms issue is a real serious problem, but it is the problem of the Board of Supervisors when they talk about Code Enforcement; Code Enforcement comes from the fees paid by builders and by property owners who want to remodel and the Code Enforcement is plans, physical contact, not metaphysical. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the musical rooms is State law and is totally separate from this Commission as the Commission does not have jurisdiction, much as it would want to, in other words to deal with the musical rooms. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that he has been dealing with musical rooms because the Residential Builders have long supported Tenderloin Housing Clinic before most people present were involved in that issue going back years and that was part of the reason this Commission was formed, not to deal with the musical rooms issue which is separate from this Commission, but to deal with the physical problems of heat. Mr. O'Donoghue said if there is no heat ventilation, boom - Code Enforcement, improper ventilation, boom - Code Enforcement and that is what Leland Yee meant when he was talking about the SRO Code Enforcement in Chinatown. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he would be coming back to this Commission probably within two months asking the Commission to up the $500,000 for Code Enforcement on Sixth Street where they will go after the building property owners, including the fire people, and each Commissioner present was selected by choice, not by choice, but by design, that they would have an expertise in each of their areas of discipline. Mr. O'Donoghue said that not all Commissioners, as everyone is ignorant except in different subjects, and many Commissioners are totally ignorant on the fire problem issues. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he was not going to take up any more time on this, but said that he would be coming back. Mr. O'Donoghue said that if the City Attorney has made a mistake and confused Code Enforcement, which he knows she is too smart not to do it, she could eat it. Mr. O'Donoghue said that if builders do bids on jobs and underbid a job they have to eat it, and the City Attorney can eat the $250,000 that she misspent or go back to Tom Ammiano and Leland Yee and they will gladly give it, and the builders would support in giving it from another fund, but keep the funds straight and not mix politics in, and rob Peter to pay Paul here, and that is why there are problems in the City. Mr. O'Donoghue said that lines get crossed and the people suffer. Mr. O'Donoghue said let's all go back to the real musical rooms Code Enforcement issue to the Board of Supervisors and bring it to the proper jurisdiction and the proper Commission and this Commission can deal with housing, rat infested, termite infested buildings in SROs all over the City. Mr. O'Donoghue said on this issue, let's not get the politics confused.
Mr. Dave Maguire of the Sixth Street Agenda said that when he joined the housing reform movement in 1999 there were a number of things on the agenda and one of them was to bring into effect an ordinance requiring rent receipts so that tenants could not be cheated. Mr. Maguire said that this would require those records be kept and be available, and another was to require that tenants not be shuffled out of their rooms after 21 days, or 28 days and that was called musical rooms. Mr. Maguire said that the movement also wanted to enforce a sprinkler in every hotel room in the City and that was also passed recently. Mr. Maguire said that there was one other request that had slipped his mind at the moment. Mr. Maguire said that as far as he knew this was a kosher expenditure as it is expensive to hire attorneys in this country and this is where the rudder meets the road in the hotels; people are ignoring this ordinance all over town and evicting people in order to prevent them from obtaining tenancy. Mr. Maguire said that this is the exact wording of the legislation and that is the exact purpose that managers and owners are evicting people for. Mr. Maguire said that this really is a terrible thing for a person like him, who doesn't have any money to see a friend sitting on the sidewalk at 7:00 a.m. with all of their possessions in a plastic bag so this is a tragic sight that could have been seen in the 18th Century or the 17th Century and seems right out of Dickens. Mr. Maguire said that this is the reason that people lobbied so hard to get money for the City Attorney's Office to actually start the discussions which often resolve the problem without any legal action being taken, and sometimes just a phone call from the City Attorney's Office will scare the hotel manager into letting someone stay. Mr. Maguire said that once they stay they have tenancy, a vested interest in keeping their room clean, and reporting people who are engaging in crimes or unsafe activities; so tenancy leads to stability of housing, which leads to preservation of housing stock, which prevents homelessness and that is the problem that most San Franciscans think is the number one problem in the City.
Mr. Pavalatos of St. Peter's Housing Committee said that he would disagree with Commissioner Guinnane that musical rooms are not related to Code Enforcement habitability. Mr. Pavalatos said that he thought that the musical rooms situation is inexorably entwined with habitability. Mr. Pavalatos said that when there is a population of residents in a hotel that don't have vested tenant rights those tenants are not going to complain about habitability problems because they know that they will be evicted. Mr. Pavalatos stated that are going to be evicted anyway, but they don't have a stake in that hotel room as a home, and people will call the Department or will engage with CBO around repair issues if they know that it is there home and they are going to remain there for the long term, but they are not going to jeopardize their homes or their residencies, even if it is short term, if they know that as soon as they complain they are going to be evicted. Mr. Pavalatos said that the musical rooms situation, if it is not in fact eradicated, leads to a downturn in habitability and conditions in SROs, which leads to increased fires, which leads to displacement, which leads to increased crimes in these hotels. Mr. Pavalatos stated that all of these are conditions that they have tried to grapple with in a global manner and part of that global approach is dealing with habitability problems as they relate to tenancy. Mr. Pavalatos said that unless there is money to pay the City Attorney to investigate musical room situations that is just not going to happen. Mr. Pavalatos said that secondly, many managers or hotel owners will conduct a musical room eviction by claiming that a particular room is not in fact a residential room, but a tourist room and will often lie about the legal status of that room. Mr. Pavalatos said that it is within the purview of this Department to enforce the hotel conversion and the hotel conversion ordinance does in fact state which rooms can be listed as tourist rooms and which rooms can be listed as residential rooms. Mr. Pavalatos said that this relates directly to the mission of this Department and also relates to the work that Carol Stewart, who is the investigator that was hired by the City Attorney's Office, to do this sort of work, actually does as she will investigate tourist rooms where those rooms are not in fact tourist rooms, but are residential rooms. Mr. Pavalatos said that to bring this to a close unless the musical rooms situation is eliminated in SRO hotels the work of the Inspectors would be undermined because they are not going to get the calls and they are not going to have any tenants to work with to deal with the conditions that exist in these hotels. Mr. Pavalatos said that these conditions are not going to be discovered unless there are tenants in these places who feel they have the right and the capacity to make complaints.
Commissioner Guinnane said that in response to Mr. Pavalatos' comments, he has no problem with DBI enforcing the musical rooms issue, but the way it was set up at the Board of Supervisors, it was strictly for Code Enforcement for violations. Commissioner Guinnane said that this is what he wanted to get squared away as it never came to the Commission, and had the issue come to the Commission this wouldn't be discussed today.
Mr. Pavalatos said that was fine as those are technical procedural matters, but again that phenomenon of musical rooms is not separate from Code Enforcement as it undermines the capacity of the Department to carry out its mission. Mr. Pavalatos said that a certain facet of this issue, the HCO facet of it, is in fact within the purview of the Department and the work that the City Attorney's Office is doing is in fact related to Code Enforcement.
Mr. Tommy Avacomimeca introduced himself as Director of Counseling Programs at the Housing Rights Committee and said as someone who counsels tenants for sometimes five days a week, the one thing that is missing from this discussion is the urgency of this issue. Mr. Avacomimeca said that this is not an issue that has the luxury of being debating, and said that he understood that there have been procedural problems and understands that there may be politics involved, but speaking frankly Mr. Avacomimeca said that some of the people that he sees cannot afford to wait because this is a life or death issue for certain individuals, particularly when speaking about people with aids. Mr. Avacomimeca said that these people go to an SRO and wind up staying there and getting kicked out on the 21st or 28th day and that person with aids could be on medication. Mr. Avacomimeca said that as a gay man he knows how important it is that these drugs be taken on the exact hour and taken the right number of times in the day. Mr. Avacomimeca said that someone with aids who has been homeless or someone who has an alcohol problem or whatever and finds them self out on the street on the 28th day is not going to stick to their drug regiment. Mr. Avacomimeca stated that he has spoken with people in the aids field, to case workers and such, and they say that the chance is that they are not going to take their drugs on time. Mr. Avacomimeca said that this Commission is talking about people who wind up out in the street and might not end up in an SRO in twenty-four hours and may indeed die on the streets or wind up in S.F. General because they are not taking their aids drugs. Mr. Avacomimeca said that he understood that there were procedural problems and everything else, however as a counselor and someone who deals with these situations everyday, he would say that the people that he deals with everyday cannot wait while this Commission deals with procedural matters. Mr. Avacomimeca said that this has to be dealt with now as these people need to have some of kind of relief when they are being put out in the street after twenty-eight days because some landlord does not want them to gain the rights of a tenant. Mr. Avacomimeca asked the Commission, to please, think of these people first.
Ms. Anastasia Yovanopoulos said that the problem is implementing, how the Department is implementing the proposals and the ordinances that are handed down to them that they are mandated to implement and why isn't it being done. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that as far as the City Attorney and this money goes there are so many Code Enforcement positions that are open. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that she has looked on the chart that was given out a number of months ago and it shows that Ms. Stansfield is gone and who is taking over her job; three people are alternating on her job that she was the head of Building Inspection Housing Inspection and what about the Code Enforcement people in Peter Burns' Department; they are not even there, there are empty positions. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that these positions need to be filled as the Department has a budget and asked why people were not put into these positions to do their jobs for the City so people don't have to suffer and die on the streets. Ms. Yovanopoulos said she had had it and said that she has to spend half of her time talking to inspectors about the conditions in her apartments and still and all it comes to them saying they are working on it. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that together everyone has to work on it.
9. Review of Communication Items. At this time, the Commission may discuss or take possible action to respond to communication items received since the last meeting.
a. Memorandum dated September 10, 2001 from Violet Lee-Fong of the Office of Contract Administration regarding Awarded Contract 93300, Records Storage and
Management Services for the City and County of San Francisco.
b. Letter dated September 13, 2001 from the Lead Hazard Reduction Citizens Advisory Committee City and County of San Francisco regarding the Committee's
status on drafting legislation for the Board of Supervisors.
c. Copy of letter with attachments dated September 7, 2001 to Mr. Jeff Robison of Department of Human Resources from Mr. Peter regarding "Further Requests for Clarifications relative to DHR Rejection of Peter J. Fries' Applications for Classes 1823/1824 Senior/Principal Administrative Analyst Examinations.
d. Thank you letters received from the public commending DBI employees and Director Chiu's response letters to the public.
Commissioner Denise D'Anne said that she wanted to speak on Item #9c. Commissioner D'Anne said she just had some questions as it was her understanding that the Commission was not allowed to get involved with personnel matters, but this has come before the Commission so there must be a reason for this and if it comes before the Commission she felt she had a right to speak on this matter. Commissioner D'Anne said that she was concerned about this issue because it keeps on coming up. Commissioner D'Anne stated that she had her own background experience working with the City and in some cases what has happened to Mr. Fries is parallel to what happened to her so she was concerned. Commissioner D'Anne said that the Department of Human Resources are who rejected his bid for a particular job and Commissioner D'Anne said that they are not always as unbiased as she would like them to be and stated that DHR are subject to pressure and advice from department heads who do not want certain people in certain positions and this has been some of her experience. Commissioner D'Anne said that it was also her understanding that others in similar positions for which Mr. Fries is applying have less qualifications and even less time on the job and said that she would like to know if that is true or not. Commissioner D'Anne said that she does speak to a number of people in DBI and some of them are people in responsible positions who seem to have high regard for Mr. Fries. Commissioner D'Anne said that some of these people think that he is not being used to the fullest extent of his abilities and that is her concern on this particular issue.
Commissioner Marks said that she believed that this was an item or a matter that is not within the Commission's expertise or jurisdiction because there is no way that any of the Commissioners know whether Mr. Fries is qualified for the job or what the qualifications of the other applicants are. Commissioner Marks said that this issue is totally out of the Commission's jurisdiction and not even within the Commission's expertise.
Commissioner D'Anne asked if that were true why this issue was being brought before the Commission at all or is just because the Commission takes any correspondence at all. Secretary Ann Aherne stated that this was communication that Mr. Fries asked that it be put on as a communication item for the Commission. Commissioner D'Anne said that she does happen to know Mr. Fries and worked with him many years ago and said she had spoken to a number of people in DBI who feel that he has a quite a lot of ability and don't think his abilities are being used properly. Commissioner D'Anne said that this just reminds her of her own situation as she was in similar situations and said that she would question some of these procedures.
Mr. Joe O'Donoghue of Residential Builders said that he thought that the Department, like earlier the Commission spoke about tests being validated, when a test is set by the Civil Service staff as used to happen years ago, it comes as a result of input from the particular department to the Civil Service Department. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the particular department asks the Civil Service Department to set a test for probation officers, health care workers, inspectors or whatever. Mr. O'Donoghue said that it is the same way when there is a job opening in the department, the department because it has specific needs unlike general needs has an input, and in that sense Commissioner D'Anne is correct as someone can be excluded or included through bias into the classification qualifications of a job. Mr. O'Donoghue said that recently there was a position at the State level and a friend of his called him from Oregon and she was totally qualified education wise except it said two years experience as a public official. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he told his friend that this meant that the job excluded the population as a whole and included just one person for that job that the State had in mind. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the same thing could be happening here so as a policy of, as a previous discussion of what was in the Code, metaphysical or physical, this likewise needs to be discussed as to whether matters like this come before this Commission because the Commission sets the policy and if some employee within the Department feels discriminated against and they make a valid point at the Commission, Mr. O'Donoghue said he felt it was within the Commission's matters. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that the Department is specific about skills related to building and the Department has to have skilled people. Mr. O'Donoghue said that the Commission sets those standards and likewise set the standards that are then dictated to the Civil Service Department. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he might say that this particular Department (the Civil Service Department) does not have the best record in the world and he would not trust them to make up any objective, competent examinations, much like happened forty years ago when there was 10,000 limited tenure employees in the City and games were being played. Mr. O'Donoghue said that he thought before the Commission dismissed this issue summarily, like the other issue of what is Code or not Code, the Commission needs to say what is qualification and what is not qualification.
Commissioner Walker said that she thought that as in the matter when Commissioner Guinnane brought up the qualifications for Housing Inspectors, there is a procedure for inputting into that or wanting to change it. Commissioner Walker said that she thought that what the Commission could do was to make recommendations on qualifications, but not on particular people as she thought the Commission was excluded from personnel issues. Commissioner Walker said that if the Commission wanted to input for qualifications she thought that the Commission could do that. Commissioner Walker said that this went along with what Mr. O'Donoghue was saying, in that as the Commission goes along and looks at different existing qualifications the Commission could make recommendations but it does have to go through the Civil Service Department as well as the DBI Director.
President Fillon said that he was not sure from the wording of this item exactly what the item is saying. President Fillon asked what Mr. Fries was requesting. Assistant Director Lee said that she believed that Mr. Fries was requesting DHR to reevaluate their decision on certifying him as either a Principal Analyst or another position. Ms. Lee said that what might be appropriate was to request DHR to come and give the Commission some sort of guidelines or their methodology in determining who gets qualified for what. Ms. Lee said that she felt that would be a good first step. President Fillon said that would be fine.
10. Review and approval of the Minutes of the BIC meeting of September 5, 2001.
Commissioner Santos made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Walker, that the minutes be approved. The motion carried unanimously.
RESOLUTION NO. BIC 055-01
11. Review Commissioner's Questions and Matters.
a. Inquiries to Staff. At this time, Commissioners may make inquiries to staff regarding various documents, policies, practices, and procedures, which are of interest to the Commission.
Commissioner Marks said that she would once again like to apologize for being late for the last Commission meeting, but there was discussion before, and Commissioner Walker had brought up an ad in the Independent that had been sent to her where basically it was the Department boasting about its accomplishments. Commissioner Marks said that in that context the Commission did discuss the role of the Public Information Officer so in the minutes on Page 11, Commissioner Marks said that she was especially concerned that the Department has set aside a contract for $40,000 to consultants for a Code Enforcement Outreach Program because in her mind that really is the Department's responsibility and the responsibility of the Public Information Officer. Commissioner Marks said that she could clearly see the allocation of funds for direct service groups like St. Peter's Housing, but she felt that it was unnecessary to hire a consultant to do Code Enforcement Outreach as that is the responsibility of the Department and part of its normal activities. President Fillon asked what the consultant did for the Department and asked if this was a duplication of services. Director Chiu said that he could have Ms. Lee expand on this, but basically his understanding is that this particular consulting firm was hired to work with the various CBO people to promote an outreach program. Ms. Lee said that this consultant has been hired to work on increasing the awareness, as in the past several years back DBI has bus shelter signs about Code Enforcement, tenant issues and heat, and this person is going to go to the media to get those signs up again, hopefully for free or subsidized. Ms. Lee said this was to increase the citizen's awareness of the programs at DBI. Commissioner Walker said that one of the things that Commissioner Guinnane pointed out was an invoice and said that it might be nice to have some sort of report from them about what they are doing. Ms. Lee said that she had recently rejected several of their invoices because of the limited nature of the description of work. President Fillon said that the Department needs to quantify the effectiveness of this program, but said that he could see the value of this program especially with the very diverse communities in San Francisco and the need to reach out them. President Fillon stated that there is a large immigrant population in San Francisco and a special effort needs to be made to reach out to them. Ms. Lee said that hopefully this person will be working on getting news bulletins, radio spots and whatever. President Fillon said that a professional person is needed to do this. Ms. Lee said that the Public Information Officer works more on public requests. Commissioner Walker said that it is easier to see what the Tenderloin Housing Clinic does because the Commission knows what they do and they can say how many cases they have worked on in a month. Ms. Lee said that she was working with the vendor to make sure that their reporting is more accurate and they provide more detail. Ms. Lee said that the existing Public Information Officer is really concerned with responding to inquiries from the press as well as all of the public information requests that have gone up considerably this past year and one-half as well as nighttime outreach meetings. Commissioner Marks said she would like to raise the question, particularly when discussing specifically that ad in the Independent, as far as she was concerned, part of the role of a Public Information Office, which Ms. Lee described, would be to inform the public about access to the Department services. Commissioner Marks said that in her mind Code Enforcement and an individual's right to be protected in their home situation is part of that and that is why she cannot see the need of hiring a consultant to do this work. Ms. Lee said that the Public Information Office has been working with the consultant in a previous capacity. President Fillon said that the City Attorney had notified him that this discussion had far exceeded the amount of discussion allowed as a non-agenda item. President Fillon said that this could be agendized for a future meeting.
President Fillon said that in his initial announcements he had forgotten to welcome Sonya Harris to staff; Sonya is now working with Secretary Ann Aherne. Sonya received a round of applause and President Fillon thanked her for being at the meeting and said that the Commission looked forward to working with her.
b. Future Meetings/Agendas. At this time, the Commission may discuss and take action to set the date of a Special Meeting and/or determine those items that could be placed on the agenda of the next meeting and other future meetings of the Building Inspection Commission.
Commissioner Guinnane said that he did not know whether this item should be put on the next agenda or could wait for a while was the five people to be certified as there was some discussion about the actual test taking and some people's abilities to pass a written versus an oral test. Commissioner Guinnane said that perhaps the Commission needed to explore the situation a little more or if it could come up under the President's report. Commissioner Santos said that he was particularly concerned about the Civil Engineer. Commissioner Guinnane said that Commissioner Santos had asked if this person was a licensed engineer as Commissioner Guinnane said that he thought that the engineer would have to be licensed. Commissioner Walker asked if it was a standard test. President Fillon said that it probably did not need to be agendized, but a communication letter stating what the Department is doing as follow-up would be sufficient. Commissioner D'Anne said that if these people have been working for years in this Department under those classifications, they must have received evaluations every year according to the City Charter. Director Chiu said that was correct and asked if Commissioner D'Anne was talking about an employee performance evaluation. Commissioner D'Anne asked if that would have something to do with determining whether a person is qualified to do the job by their ability to do it through those evaluations and that should have some merit. Commissioner Guinnane said that would be at the local level, but certification is mandatory by the State of California so the Director's hands are pretty much tied on that. Commissioner Guinnane stated that the Director could give the employee the best rating going and they could be doing the best job out in the field, but if they can't get certified the Director's hands are tied. President Fillon said that given the fact that these people have been doing the job, and said he was assuming the job was being done responsibly and competently so far, they deserve to be given every opportunity that DBI can afford to get them to make the grade. Director Chiu said that he heard the Commissioners loud and clear and said that he would continue to do his best to provide additional training or coaching or anything that could be done to make sure that these individuals could pass the test next time around. Director Chiu said that he would be happy to report at a future meeting as to how this is progressing. President Fillon asked if the Department could make up some practice tests and said that he would be happy to help. Commissioner D'Anne said that a suggestion was made by Ms. Lee about having Human Resource People come to the Commission to explain how they evaluate people and said that she thought that might be useful. Commissioner Marks said that one problem that was pointed out in the audit was that most of the staff have not been given performance evaluations in a regular way. Commissioner Walker asked if Commissioner Marks wanted to agendize that. Commissioner Marks said that she did not want it agendized, but said that she did not know how much more could be said about this other than to provide assistance to these individuals. Commissioner Walker said that this item was for adding items to the agenda and not discussing them. Commissioner Santos asked if this was going to be agendized. President Fillon said that the agenda says that this can be discussed, but since it is not on the agenda there is not supposed to be much of a discussion. President Fillon said that this was more in line with responding to the audit. Commissioner Marks said that she was just responding to the discussion about these individuals who have been performing on the job adequately. President Fillon said that regular performance evaluations is a different issue than having these five people pass the exam.
Commissioner Marks said that what she would like to agendize is what specifically a consultant is doing in terms of Code Enforcement outreach and again her question is why isn't the Public Information Officer doing this and why isn't this one of that person's activities. Commissioner Walker asked if Commissioner Marks wanted to put that on the agenda.
Commissioner Santos said that one of the members of the public that has come before the Commission a few times regarding the placement of a particular building at 174 Brewster, as neighbors felt that the building was placed too close to the property line or beyond the property line and eventually this was cleared and it was found that this person was within the boundaries of the property line. Commissioner Santos said that now there is a construction project going on immediately next-door and said that this building appears to be located slightly forward from the construction at 174. Commissioner Santos said that he would like Director Chiu to review the actual parameters of that construction to ensure that it meets with the guidelines of the Bernal Heights Association as they have some slightly different guidelines regarding percentage of lot coverage, so that would be an agenda item related to Brewster Street.
Commissioner D'Anne said that she had some concerns about the SRO situation and stated that she had great sympathy for the musical rooms situation, but said that she would like to know if there is a specific Code that relates to that. Commissioner D'Anne said that it seemed to her that this would be a Rent Board issue and a City Attorney issue. Commissioner D'Anne said that she did not want to keep going back and forth about how this money is spent if there is not a specific Code that relates to this issue, or if there is such a Code then the Department needs to go forward immediately to use the money for what is proper in this case. Commissioner Guinnane said that there are two dates associated with the SROs and said that he did not understand the difference between twenty-one days and twenty-eight days. Commissioner Guinnane said that if a person stays longer than those days then they have rights as a tenant and it becomes a rent control unit. Commissioner Guinnane said that since this is a rent control issue and there is a Rent Control Board that charges $16.00 for every unit that is under rent control, then why don't they finance this and monitor it and, DBI will handle actual violations of the Building Code and that is his point. Commissioner D'Anne said that she agreed with Commissioner Guinnane. President Fillon said that this could not be brought up again. Commissioner Walker said that it was going to be on the agenda when the City Attorney comes back to the Commission with a proposal.
12. Public Comment: The BIC will take public comment on matters within the Commission's jurisdiction that are not part of this agenda.
Mr. Joe O'Donoghue of Residential Builders said that in watching the Board of Supervisors' Finance Committee hearings, that was somewhat indirectly alluded to earlier in the meeting, regarding Controller Ed Harrington's audit of this Department. Mr. O'Donoghue said that Dr. Mitch Katz was verbally raped, as was Doris Ward. Mr. O'Donoghue said that Mitch Katz had gotten a supplemental approval from the Board of Supervisors for X amount of dollars to hire in say ten employees at San Francisco General and the money had not come through, but the employees were already destined to be hired on August 1st. Mr. O'Donoghue said that Dr. Katz went ahead and hired the employees on August 1st and paid for their hiring out of a budget that he had for another department and when the supplemental came through Dr.. Katz then made a debit and a credit from one department to the other. Mr. O'Donoghue said that Dr. Katz got raped by the Supervisors for what was called an inappropriate accounting principle transfer and that is what the issue is in terms of the $250,000 issued today, is that if the Commission did not follow the Board's procedure, and Doris Ward had done the same and she got verbally abused also, then this Department will be subjected next year, because of politics coming from the Controller's Office to being written up and publicized in the Chronicle that this Department, and who knows at that time who will be in power, left wing or right wing, and depending on who it is, the Department would be flam blamed in the public's eye that somehow or other the Department was robbing Peter to pay Paul. Mr. O'Donoghue said that is one of the primary principles here and the no one is against spending money if it is legal and there are a lot of needed priorities out there. Mr. O'Donoghue stated that once again that the audit was an eye opener because there were different standards used in that audit against this Department then were used with other Departments. Mr. O'Donoghue said that DBI was under the gun and the proctologists were in looking at the Department's toenails trying to find something wrong and they couldn't find anything wrong. Mr. O'Donoghue said that everyone goes to the right people to get their toenails cleaned, but the fact is that the Department knows what is coming down the road. Mr. O'Donoghue thanked the Commission.
Ms. Anastasia Yovanopoulos said that this City has an obligation to look out for the lives and property of the people in the City and the property that belongs to the City and property of other people in the City. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that because of this the Mission Statement that she sees is a Mission Statement that the employees need to carry out. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that it is sad when things go through and they are not implemented and if the Commission puts things on hold that is even sadder. Ms. Yovanopoulos stated that the thing she wanted to comment about was the Code Advisory Committee, which is not representative; it is a vestige and is something that was put on the books a number of years ago. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that this Code Advisory Committee does not work, it doesn't function right, it doesn't have membership that is representative and it didn't do well on the last Code cycle. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that the person representing the disability community was frustrated and left and there is no public participation because at the meetings, as far as when she came to discuss an agenda item, the Committee says that they have already discussed the issue and had made up their minds. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that it seems that the people on the Committee are not open to the public and it just doesn't work and stated that she felt it should be stricken off of the Building Code. Ms. Yovanopoulos thanked the Commission.
13. Adjournment.
Commissioner Guinnane made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Walker that the meeting be adjourned. The motion carried unanimously.
RESOLUTION NO. BIC 056-01
The meeting was adjourned at 3:55 p.m.
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Ann Marie Aherne Commission Secretary
SUMMARY OF REQUESTS BY COMMISSIONERS
Ethics policy and the role of the expediter at DBI. - Assistant Director Lee working with Controller's Office. Page 3
Secretary to set up Unlawful Demolition Committee Meeting. - Commissioner Walker Pages 5-8
Set up taskforce regarding fire-damaged buildings, particularly SROs to get them back on the market. Invite Mayor's Office of Housing to future meeting. Also, report from staff on Code Enforcement practices. - Commissioner Walker Pages 8-13
Proposal from City Attorney's Office (Ms. Judy Boyajian) regarding monies set aside for Code Enforcement in SROs. - Commissioner Walker Pages 13-21
Invite DHR to meeting to give Commission insight into guidelines used for qualifying employees for classifications. - Commissioner D'Anne Pages 22-23
Report on progress of employees who need to complete certification process. - Commissioner Guinnane Pages 25-26
Report on consultant work in terms of Code Enforcement and role of the Public Information Officer. - Commissioner Marks Page 26
Report on property adjacent to 174 Brewster. Does the construction meet the guidelines of the Bernal Heights Assn.? - Commissioner Santos Page 26