history for the future. >> may is asian american & pacific islander heritage good okay. good evening and welcome to the december 6th, 2023, meeting of the san francisco board of appeals. president rick swig will be the presiding officer tonight and he is joined by vice president jose lopez. commissioner john trasvina, commissioner alex lundberg. and we expect commissioner j.r. eppler shortly . also present is deputy city attorney jen huber, who will provide the board with any needed legal advice at the controls as the board's legal assistant. al and i'm julie rosenberg. the board's executive director. we will also be joined

by representatives from the city departments that will be presenting before the board this evening. tina tam, the deputy zoning administrator representing the planning department. matthew green, deputy director, inspection services for the department of building inspection, and chris buck, urban forester representing san francisco public works, bureau of urban forestry. the board meeting guidelines are as follows the board requests that you turn off or silence all phones and other electronic devices so they will not disturb the proceedings. no eating or drinking in the hearing room. the board's rules of presentation are as follows. appellant's permit holders and department respondents each are given seven minutes to present their case and three minutes for rebuttal. peter will, affiliated with these parties must include their comments within the 7 or 3 minute periods for jurisdiction requests. the parties are given three minutes each with no rebuttal. members of the public who are not affiliated with the parties have up to three minutes each to address the board and no rebuttal. mr. longwe, our legal assistant, will give you a verbal warning. 30s before your time is up. four votes are required to grant an appeal or

to modify a permit or determination, or to grant a rehearing or jurisdiction request. if you have any questions about requesting a rehearing, the board rules or hearings schedules, please email board staff at board of appeals at sec.gov .org. now public access and participation are of paramount importance to the board as govtv is broadcasting and streaming this hearing live, and we will have the ability to receive public comment for each item on today's agenda as govtv is also providing closed captioning for this meeting to watch the hearing on tv, go to govtv cable channel 78. please note that it will be rebroadcast on fridays at 4 p.m. on channel 26. a link to the live stream is found on the home page of our website at sf. gheorghe forward slash voa, now public comment can be provided in three ways. one in person, two via zoom, please go to our website and click on hearings. then the zoom link or three public comment can be provided by telephone call 1669 968 33 and enter webinar.

id 83708888150 and sf govtv is broadcasting and streaming the phone number and access instructions across the bottom of the screen. if you are watching the live stream or broadcast now to block your phone number when calling in first star six seven then the phone number. listen for the public comment portion for your item to be called and dial star nine, which is the equivalent of raising your hand so that we know you want to speak, you will be brought into the hearing when it is your turn, you may have to dial star six to unmute yourself. you will have three minutes. our legal assistant will provide you with a verbal warning 30s before your time is up. please note that there is a delay between the live proceedings and what is broadcast and live streamed on tv and the internet. therefore, it is very important that people calling in, reduce or turn off the volume on their tvs or computers. otherwise, there is interference with the meeting. if any of the participants or attendees on zoom need a disability accommodation or technical assistance, you can make a request in the chat function to alec longway, the board's legal assistant, or send

an email to board of appeals at sveaborg. now the chat function cannot be used to provide public comment or opinions. please note that we'll take public comment first from those members of the public who are physically physically present in the hearing room. now we will swear in or affirm all those who intend to testify. please note that any member of the public may speak without taking an oath pursuant to their rights under the sunshine ordinance. if you intend to testify at any of tonight's proceedings and wish to have the board give your testimony evidentiary weight, raise your right hand and say i do after you've been sworn in or affirmed, do you swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? i do. okay. thank you. if you are a participant and you're not speaking, please put your zoom speaker on mute. so i believe i just got a message from commissioner eppler. let me just check. he will be here shortly, but we can move ahead with our items. okay so, commissioners, we do have one housekeeping item. the parties

for item six appeal number 23, dash 052 at 1208 stanton street have come to an agreement that they would like you to grant the appeal and issue the order on the condition it be revised to allow for the removal of the subject tree with the requirement that the appellant plant a 36 inch box replacement tree. on the uphill side of the existing tree species to be determined by buff bureau of urban forestry. this motion is made on the basis that the location of the existing tree is the only feasible site for the underground electrical vault, which will provide power to the property and the bureau of urban forestry supports this outcome. um i believe it's item five. i'm sorry. item five. thank you. yes, you're correct. item five. so moved. okay do we have any public comment on this item? please raise your hands. okay. i don't see any public comment. so on the motion by commissioner lemberg, vice president lopez

high commissioner trasvina, president swig. hi. so that motion carries 4 to 0 and the appeal is granted with those conditions. thank you to the parties for working together. so we are now moving on to item number one, which is general public comment. this is an opportunity for anyone who'd like to speak on a matter within the board's jurisdiction, but that is not on tonight's calendar. is there any member of the public who wishes to speak on an item that's not on the calendar? mr. bruno, please approach. can you hear me through this or is it okay? i'm ready to start. my name is mark bruno and i live at 15 nobles alley. it's been commented by the board that you all don't want to hear too much about the same issues over and again. if you feel you've decided it. i don't want to come here over and again. and i wanted to point out here, if you can see the screen overhead, please, it's not that

important. it's i can show it to you here, but okay, overhead, please. they were wasting time. this is simply a pause. your time. pause your time. oh, you cut it out. you're giving me back the time? yes, because that was like 15. i have to use the three minutes. i'm sorry. okay overhead, please. govtv it's. it's good to have. okay. he's calling for something else. okay hello. i didn't touch it. so did you break it? no, i'm just kidding. i didn't break it. oh it looks like it's showing up there. oh, right there. yeah. it's strange.

it's weird. sorry about that. well, i have one of the fliers. if you do, you want to pass it down? it's. yeah it's about. you're going to interview the flier is secondary. the fliers, just to say so how are you going to do the time so that i know where i am? i just start over. okay? okay. thanks the fliers. just to show you what else i'm doing with my life other than coming here because as i'm interviewing john king next week and i'm supposed to have three interesting questions and so far i only have two interesting questions. so there's many reasons for me not to come here. i'm coming because the simple questions asked an important ones asked by this board on september 27th, have yet to be answered by the building department. they were very simple, i remember, and if you go back in time, you'll remember

too, because two of you got very passionate involved asking mr. green, why can't we know what else is going on in the building where mr. bruno lives? if there's other illegal work being done, we the board of appeals, would like to know. we think we have the right to know that. so why can't. and it went back and forth and eventually we the board, the building department agreed that you could know that and they would send out a man named robert farrow to find out. he eventually reported after your decision was made in favor of my appeal, the decision was in favor of the appeal that there's no work being done, no illegal work being done. and yet we have a report here now, now given to all of us, given to the public by mr. green that tells us on this my second page that when mr. farrow went, he only looked at the three units told by the owner to look at. well it's kind of a tautology to say, oh, yeah, you look at these three units that i've just decided to work on, you'll see i haven't started work on them. well, yeah, clearly you hadn't

started work, but at that same moment that a coworker of mr. farrow, another employee of the department of building inspection, another plumbing inspector, had already determined that there's a whole bunch of illegal work being done. and mr. allen, that other inspector who inspected it on the 25th of august, is all cited by the report just given to you by mr. green. he has all the knobs in the building and the third or fourth one down, says michael allen, plumbing inspector. and it has this long number, august 25th. that's pretty recent, and it tells you it's a plumbing violation working outside the scope of a permit. why should anybody in the building have their cake and eat it, too? in other words, you all said to the building department, go ahead and tell mr. owner the permit holder, that he may choose whichever three of the six units he wants to work on. so he chose three that he hadn't worked on yet at all. but he still has the one over here that he's working on illegally by your own record. so now he's really working on for

having his cake and eating it too. why wasn't the fourth why wasn't one of the three the building unit he was already working on that would make the most sense. that would be consistent with the code and it would be fair to the people who live there instead. and he now has four units he can work on. it's totally it's nonsensical and it's not consistent with what the board asked the building department to do. thank you. thank you, president wick. mr. green, i don't think your speakers, your microphone is on. oh, this is this mic. all right, we got dueling mics. i got. i got two mics to choose from. mr. green, you you submitted a document related to our request, but a couple of weeks ago. what? i would like you to do is please give us a clear summary of that document. and what i noticed in the document was a slew of and

i'm going to gloss over it, a slew of novels and, and what i was left with was, okay, what now? because sometimes times and this has this is not only has something to do with the subject at hand, but also so just always bugs me in the back of my mind when and it has nothing to do. this is not criticism on the with d.b. it's just like, what the hell happens when we have these cases where they have an outside standing and they have to deal with that and we're left with that and sometimes i wonder, well, what ever happened to the nof on that case that we found contentious? so so, so what i'd like you to do is, one, summarize for the public and ourselves your letter. but also would you address basically what the hell is going to happen with

all those novel where clearly there is there has been some work that is not exactly been, according to the way it's supposed to be. okay. i'm saying from the word illegal. are you asking for no or write a report because this item hasn't been agenda ized yet. i want to advise the commission against having a discussion on it. my recommendation would be that we put it on the agenda for a future meeting so that mr. green can address it. i'm concerned that we haven't included it on our agenda for this meeting, so we have testimony in public comment. i understand your point of view. we had a submission by mr. green, which is, is part of public comment. so it has been. so can i review my question and ask him not to comment on the

ncvhs, but just summarize, acknowledge that there was a letter that he sent and if he would summarize the substance of that letter since it's public information anyway, is that okay ? i think it would be fine for mr. green to summarize the letter and describe what was set forth therein. and i just advise the commission against engaging in a discussion about it or allowing mr. green to respond to the other points made. i think it's perfectly reasonable for him to discuss what was already disclosed. okay great. and which is posted on our website, the letter. so that's, that's fine as long as the other commissioners don't come in with a bunch of questions back and forth and we get into a big discussion, blah, blah, blah. okay. you got the drill. please so you want me just. you want me to summarize the letter? i'd like you to summary guys. the letter. and i guess you got to leave out the what's going to happen to the noves part. other than, say that i did discuss that in the letter. yeah. okay. as far as you went in the letter

then. okay. thank you. um, so this, this, it was an email. actually, it was an email in response to your some of the comments that mr. bruno has made in public comment here, when the main concerns was is well, i don't know which was the main concern, but he did discuss us using the phrase reinstated for the permits, which is the appropriate action. we do that with the permits that come before the board of appeals. all the time. once the appeal is filed, we suspend the permit. after you make your decision, we either reinstate the permit or we revoke the permit. so the first part of the letter was just correcting that item. the second part of the letter was, if you recall, i agreed to send out a senior building senior plumbing inspector to investigate the property that was subject to the plumbing permit that was originally appealed and i did. i sent one of the senior plumbing, very

senior plumbing inspector. he's been there nearly 30 years. he knows the whole process. he went out there with the property owner and he let me know that the work under this permit was in the three units at the front of the property, the ones facing union street. he also said there was no other work on at the time . mr. bruno disputed that. whether whether mr. or inspector farrell had gone to his unit, i agreed. i thought it'd be best. okay, i'll go out there with mr. farrell and meet mr. bruno. just so there's no confusion and no miscommunication. we did have an inspection scheduled. unfortunately, it had to be canceled. i say in the letter that whenever mr. bruno is ready, i'll be happy to go out there. then we mentioned the. the there are several notices of violation at this property. a current one's six. we have one order of abatement for the one about the wall at the basement. i know mr. in previous things

previous meetings mr. bruno has shown pictures of this wall role. the plaster has been removed. that is a violation. we have no violation and it's gone through the code enforcement process. there are a couple other notice of violation from our housing inspectors division for more general maintenance issues. those two are still outstanding. actually, all five more of those violations are outstanding too. i've been set up for the code enforcement process, meaning there's going to be hearings and, you know, the work is not done. another order of abatement will be placed against the property. i attached all the notices of violation and the complaint data sheets explaining the code history or sorry, the complaint history, the process is i would be happy to talk about what a director's hearing is and what that actually means, if that's okay. i did mention it in my letter. sure and also, what you might want to define is code enforcement and the process of code enforcement. sure is that

fair? thank you so i'll just start at the beginning of a general case. say someone files a complaint, an inspector will go out and investigate if they find that the complaint is valid, they'll write what's called a notice of violation. in general, you'll give a set amount of time and to make the corrections, it's generally 30 days. the corrections may or may not require a building permit or a plumbing permit or electrical permit, depending on the violations. if at the end of that 30 days or other time frame, the work is not done, what we'll do is we'll send a warning letter to the property owner if he still doesn't heed the property, the warning letter will set this case up for what we call a director's hearing. now, a hearing. it's a public hearing at the department of building inspection. we notify everybody with any interest in the property, meaning the property owners, the lenders, anybody with a recorded interest in the property. it's a public hearing. we want the owners can show up for any any anybody else can comment. in any case, there's a director's hearing.

officer he has several options of once the case is heard, he can return the case to staff if he thinks it could be resolved easily, he can give an advisement, say a 30 day advisement, meaning you're on the clock now. make all these corrections with permits signed off within 30 days. otherwise, in order of abatement is going to be issued. now, the order of abatement is a recorded document against the property. it's recorded against the property. once it's recorded, the property owner is responsible for all the assessments, the costs accrued by the department setting up the case. the order of abatement won't be lifted until all the all the work is completed and all the assessments are costs are paid. that's that's one tool we have. the next step is these order of abatements will stay there until the property owner makes a corrections, pays all the assessments, then we will

revoke the order of abatement. so you might be thinking, well, they could just not make the corrections and the order is going to stay there forever. we have we have other tools as well. after 180 days, we can notify the franchise tax board that this is a substandard building, meaning you can't you can't write off any expenses or taxes, stuff like that. that's one tool we have. we also have we have a litigation committee within the department of building inspection. if we think cases are serious enough, we'll refer to the city attorney. sorry we'll refer to our building inspection commission litigation committee, and they can decide whether they want to refer this to the city attorney for further litigation in and the litigation would be the final step or our biggest hammer. thank you very much. okay thank you. thank you. is there any further general public comment? please raise your hand. i don't see anybody on zoom. i'm sorry. you already had your

opportunity. lawyer told. us. could be better. i might. how is it going? well, you can contact me tomorrow and. and i will have a discussion with president swig . okay. thank you. okay so i don't see any further. general public comments. so we're going to move on to item number two, commissioner comments and questions. birx. any comments? and questions? okay. happy hanukkah to all of you. starting tomorrow for the week and have a merry, merry christmas season. okay john trasvina. thank you, president swig for following up on the previous matter. and it would be my hope that we can schedule a further discussion agendize it for next week's meeting rather than january. thank you. is there any public

comment on this item you can provide public comment now. okay . mr. green mentions in his letter to you of two days ago, which i just received this morning, that we had a pleasant talk, which we did at the building department, and i always have pleasant talks with mr. green and i learn things as well. i was there to meet with code enforcement. so since he brought up the words code enforcement, i will tell you that they are the ones who told me, oh, look, here is the direction to the world from the building department. it says revision to regular permit typed out for all of us to read from the building department. if your permit was issued and you need to make revision as it later says, if it's from the board of appeals, as revisions from this board, you must apply for a new permit. so i have every right to be questioning as a non-attorney me why it was the norm to call

it a reinstatement. it could be called a reinstatement. i think it's incorrect. it's a misuse of the term reinstatement in the law because here in the building department's warning to two permit holders, if it needs to be if you need to make revisions, you must apply for a new permit. the other thing they showed me, i'm sorry, i don't have my glasses, but i can tell you here it says i'm sorry. i need my i pause time. and i'll be brief. so the point is, they also showed me plumbing, mechanical permit issuance and inspection fees. this is an amendment to the current building code which applies to all the codes. it's on pages 52 and 53, a separate permit is required for each structure for. can you read these under here? now it's overhead. yeah. i mean, if it works, i don't know if it's working. i got a shall i leave this with you. it's i have

a copy of it. i mean you can all see it because it's, it's from the building code pages 52 and 53 pointed out to me by the code enforcement group, plumbing mechanical permit issuance and inspection fees, a permit application shall show a complete itemization of the proposed scope of the work and select the appropriate fee category. okay. b this is what i'm pointing out and what was pointed out to me. a separate permit is required. this is for plumbing for each structure condom arnhem condominium unit, existing apartment unit, high rise office floor suite or tenant space in a modern city which we hope we all live in. i think we do. it is not surprising to me that by now, in 2023, i'm not the first person in the history of san francisco who has had these issues where a landlord says, oh, i'm just doing a 15 nobles might be six, might be five, might be three units, might be the basement, might be the illegal adu. i

don't know, whatever. i feel like because i'm in charge. that was the way the world was in the 19th century and maybe through post world war two. certainly since 2000, i would think that that the building department has gotten itself together and the codified the codifiers, the legislators and they have indeed done that by answering the question that would have prevent me from ever having this issue with my landlord, so-called permit holder, to begin with. if this had been followed, meaning a separate permit is required for each structure for a condominium unit, existing apartment unit. et cetera. we wouldn't have had this issue. the city is telling the permit holder to do it right, and it wasn't done right. thank you. thank you. okay. thank you. is there any further public comment on this item? okay. seeing none, we will move on to item number three, the adoption of the minutes commissioners before you for discussion. possible adoption are the minutes of the november 15th, 2023 meeting commissioners do have a motion or comments. i move that we

approve the minutes as presented . thank you. okay on that motion, vice president lopez. hi, commissioner trevino. hi, commissioner lundberg. hi, president swig. hi. so that motion carries 5 to 0 and the minutes are adopt did so we are now moving on to item number four. this is jurisdiction request number 23, dash four, subject property at 99 saint germain avenue. letter from edward g. requester asking that the board take jurisdiction over alteration permit number 2022 0804 9876, which was issued on october 5th, 2023. the appeal period ended on october 20th, 2023, and the jurisdiction request was filed at the board office on november 6th. the permit holder is lisa and patrice gauthier. the permit description install a new dumbwaiter elevator, including all structural supports as needed. add structurally reinforce concrete retaining wall and infill concrete slab, rip face stucco wall below

stairs, waterproofing over mechanical room and tile replacement as needed area drains, plans, traveling with permit number 2022 08039878. thank you. and mr. can you please remind the board, please what the standard is and what we are expected to. okay, so how how we are expected to reach a decision or the standard for the decision please the requester has to show that the city intends finally or inadvertently caused tim to be late in filing an appeal. and so that that takes four votes in order to get that granted. thank you. thank you. welcome mr. yee, you have three minutes. i've been here so many times that i can't fathom the hours that i have addressed this board, number one. number two, i am a physician and this

crisis of has made me a specialist event crisis, crisis, personal crisis. i have been so generous to my neighbor. and unfortunately, unfortunately, the board has been complicit to my understanding of what are my rights. i was not given we were not given our neighbors were not given the permit of what was to be done. and now this has happened many years ago. and unfortunately for me, i turn a blind eye. okay my fault, my line, because i'm a physician.

my raison d'etre is not to harm people. i took an oath, but unfortunately, over the last seven years since the guilty years, they have harmed us in so many ways. i i probably can spend the next 12 hours delivering this. and i conjured this concept to the judge curtis kiernan, last week. this is legalized terrorism. um, i mean, my wife and i have been terrorized so many times and i will more than happy to present to the board a litany of pictures where we have been terrorized. i ask simply that maybe, maybe you can have some

empathy, maybe not sympathy, empathy, empathy for us. because the last seven years it's been bombarded, admit of issues, notably less than a year ago, 30s go ahead. you have 30s. okay. three a year ago i was assaulted and this past month i was robbed by the guilt. tears on multiple multiple elements of private property now is asymmetrical warfare. i'm you know, i'm i'm 74 years old. i'm sorry. you know, they have commandeer commandeer of so much of the easement areas which i'd be more than happy to deliver. thank you. that's time. thank you. thank you, mr. we have some questions from president swig,

commissioner lundberg and commissioner trevino, president swig. sorry dr. lee, i am i'm probably, as the senior member of this panel, i we are we are. we've met before, as you've been in in front of us, because i've i'm familiar with your case and i'm sorry for your pain. the what we and i asked miss rosenberg about what is the standard that we have to make based on our decision on tonight and that is that the city aired or or was late or had a problem in getting out the proper notice . to for you to appeal this this permit. and that's how we have to base our decision on. i know you've gone through a lot of stuff. i've been witness to your a lot of stuff. i've read the briefs. but i have to ask you

the direct question because that's the only way that we can make a decision. did the city air in in getting in noticing you and cause you to miss the opportunity to appeal this permit? absolutely. in what way? and also in previous events, just just i'm i'm not debate this. i'm just saying absolutely . i'm trying to be empathetic and understand that. you can see because i've i've i've lived this this case from before. so can you tell us, please, how the city aired and abused your your process of appealing this permit? my understanding is that the surrounding community, including myself, should be notified. we were never, never, never notified. okay and then

i'll ask in follow up to planning or dba, whose jurisdiction it is. tell us about the notification process. so i just ask them, thank you. i'm going to yield to commissioner trevino. thank you, president swig, and thank you, dr. for your testimony. if i could just follow up notification of what. they're doing, a planning of multiple egress on the easement area. so we were never notified. in fact, that during our 311 discussion on they never addressed the issues that i had asked. our concern that is they've had

egress into the easement area to use the sport term. we were boxed out. we were boxed out in going forward with our ada elevator enlargement on our side of the property. okay. dr. you asked you about that when you said to president swig you were not notified and neither were other residents, other neighbors , as can we expect anybody else to testify by who was similarly harmed or just you? tonight i believe the protocol is simply to notify anybody. everybody. during that 150ft surround ending. if there is more debate

or public interest, it and that's what i'm okay going back i'm just answering the question simply we were not notified. i have asked my neighbors. we were not notified. okay. thank you, commissioner lundberg. thank you, dr. ye, i'm struggling a little bit here because the your neighbors in their brief sighted to and provided a copy of the. permit that was actually signed by your wife that is the what we're calling a mirror permit that because this to conduct this work, it requires two permits, one for your property and one for the neighbor's property. and they provided a permit that was signed by your wife on behalf of your property. is that not did did that not happen or how what am i missing here? unfortunately my wife is

at an age where we don't communicate well. unfortunately, i'm telling you things that very private. so i was hoping that she would be here tonight at because of our aging elements, her mental issues, my physical issues, but nevertheless, i'm here to argue, not argue, to deliberate out my concerns of not being informed. okay thank you. okay. thank you. you can be seated. thank you. okay. we will now hear from the attorney for the permit holders. emily. charlie, welcome. you have three minutes. thank you. and good evening. my name is emily. charlie, i have the pleasure of representing the go tos. before i begin, i would like to

categorically deny claims of robbery or any other criminal activity that is as categorically false as dr. yee's claim that he was not notified. dr. yee's request that this body retake jurisdiction often does not even purport to meet the applicable standards, and he was able to offer nothing here today to cure that defect in his request. in addition, the jurisdictional request completely lacks merit. the yee's signed off on the merit. the permit application that, as you noted, is a mere application. and it's not just that mrs. yee signed off on this . both dr. and mrs. yee represented to judge cano that they were willing to do so in our contempt proceedings in addition, the application that they're seeking right now that this body retake jurisdiction lacks merit because they were court ordered to facilitate the permit application that is at issue here. finally, the alleged concern that dr. yee now

expresses in his jurisdiction requests were already addressed in full, not only by his engineer, but also by the court as commissioner trasvina said, the last time we appeared before this body in response to another of these actions, quote, the gautier's have suffered enough, end quote. so the facts here are clear as described in our response and also within the city's own records. so frankly, unless there are any questions, i see no reason to belabor this hearing or expend any more time or energy to the detriment of my clients, i'll close with commissioner lopez's note last time that, quote, this has gone on long enough. okay. thank you. i don't see any questions at this point. so we will hear from the planning department at. good evening, president swig, vice president lopez, members of

the board. i'm tina tam, deputy zoning administrator. this is a jurisdictional request from dr. edward lee for building permit number 2022 08049876. this permit was issued on october the fifth, 2023. to lisa and patrice gauthier, the property owners of 99 saint germain, dr. yee, who is the adjacent neighbor at 95, saint germain, stated that he had missed a deadline for filing an appeal because he was staying in place and never got the posting. the scope of work for the permit is to install a new elevator at the front of the property because as the elevator will straddle both 95 and 99, saint germain, both owners, the gautier's and the yee's, had to consent and submit separate permits for the elevator project . the yee's provided authorization, so both permits permit ending in 9876 for the gautier's and the permit ending

in 9878 for the yee's were filed on the same day and concurrently reviewed, approved and issued under the same timeline based on planning department's record mail. notices for the new elevators were sent to all owners and residents within 100ft radius of the property. in preparation for this hearing tonight, i double checked and confirm that the yee's were included in the list for the mail. notice in addition, we have a signed affidavit from the gautier's that the 311 poster was posted on the property for 30 days between december 16th, 2022 through january 16th, 2023. during this 30 day review period , the planner did not receive any orders for the permit. while dr. lee stated that he had safety concerns about the new elevator, he did not provide further details. he also did not provide any evidence as to how the city, intentionally or

inadvertently caused him to be late in filing an appeal. dr. lee had multiple opportunity to object to the permit. however he did not object when the opportunity rs were made available to him or do so in a timely manner. while i understand dr. yee still has concerns for the for the permit, the permit was issued correctly. as such, the department is asking the board to deny the jurisdiction request on the basis that the city did not intentionally or inadvertently cause the requester to be late in filing the appeal. that concludes my presentation. happy to answer any questions. thank you, president swig. i'm i'm just going to ask the obvious. expecting an affirmative question. so i heard there was a letter mailed. there was a posting on there was additional commentary. and so it wasn't exactly there was nothing that

got in the way of notifying the doctor about this permit. right the permit triggered section 311 neighborhood notification. that was done. we have a mailing list. dr. yee is on this list. we have a email from the third party vendor repo mail who does the mailing stating that the mail did go out on december 16th and it ran for 30 days and no daca was filed during that 30 day period. and so all the boxes were checked metaphorically, all the boxes were checked. there's nothing, i believe. so we didn't see any errors made on our part by the city in regarding this permit. right. so the thing that makes me scratch my head because we've been involved in quite a few lately where, you know, the project is touching both, both property lines and so there's been two recently where one didn't go along with, you know,

one went along with issuing the permit. but the one that that were the project touched the other property line. it didn't. and therefore that we learned about you can't have a permit unless both sides do it in this case, both sides did it, both sides signed it. and but how how can you appeal a permit that you actually filed for this is what how does that happen? well, there are two permits. okay. okay. one for each property. but it's for the same elevator. it's only one elevator. so the city process concurrently, both of these permits under the same time line. they cross reference each other right. so for the same project, doing the same scope, same everything, same set of plans, same set of plans and both parties sign off on this permit. yet one could actually appeal the other guy's permit even though they signed off on the same permit. basically. possibly. i mean, it's kind of quizzical, isn't it? i, i can't

answer that. i mean, the permit is appealable by anybody, right? it is a little strange. strange if you want to appeal something that you gave authorization to go forward with just asking. i'm just confused how how can somebody who signs off on exactly the same permit challenge the same permit? that's certainly not a question for me. okay. i was just wondering and but more importantly, all the boxes were checked. everything was the notification, notification, notification timely fashion signs posted. no issues on your from your point of view. yes. from from my research. okay. thanks very much. thank you. commissioner trevino has a question for miss tam. thank you for your testimony and covering so many aspects of this. are you familiar with judge cano's order from 2020? i'm not super familiar. i did see some attachments in the response brief. i'm not intimately

familiar with all the details, but i do know that there's been a number of court proceedings related to the elevator and the easement between these two parties. so i want to read from part of the order. it's on page 22 of the 64 page of submissions , and it says the ees shall not object to the city issuing permits necessary to build the replacement elevator described below in section three b, which talks about the replacement elevator. does that language apply to this permit and elevator? if you are aware, i would think so, because this is only one elevator. this is the same one that's being the subject that's discussed and perhaps this could be a question for the counsel for the permit holder. i may ask that. i was hoping you might be able to shed some light on it. and you have. so thank you. okay. thank you.

you can be seated. we will now hear from the department of building inspection. good evening again, commissioners. matthew green representing the department of building inspection. i don't have much to add. there are two building permits here, one for 95 saint germain, one for 99 saint germain. it's the exact same language on both permit applications. it shares one set of plans. it went through the whole process concurrently with the same plan checkers at each stage. the appellant's wife did sign the original permit application. i verified her signature with another permit application from previously. i would concur with tina tan from the planning department. i don't think there's any grounds for jurisdiction and encourage you to turn down the request. i'm available for any questions you may have. thank you. i don't see any questions. is there any public comment on this item? please raise your hand. i don't see anyone on zoom and commissioners. trevino, you said before you wanted to ask a

question of permit holders council or because we're going to move on. i was going to submit this since we don't have any public comment. there's no rebuttal for there's no rebuttal. then i don't need i don't have any to ask the question. okay. thank you. so there's no public comment. so commissioners, this matter is submitted. commissioners anybody want to comment on this or make a motion? somebody want to push the button. commissioner tasmania i will move to deny the request for jurisdiction on the grounds that there has been no testimony that the city took any action or failed to take action to deny any rights of the mover of the any any rights of the requester. okay okay. so the

city did not intentionally or inadvertently cause the requester to be late in filing the appeal. that's what i heard. okay. thank you. so on that motion, vice president lopez, a commissioner lundberg, a commissioner eppler a present swing. so that motion carries 5 to 0 and the request is denied. so we are now moving on to item number six. this is a special item discussion of possible action on october 17th, 2023, the board of supervisors discontinued remote public comment by members of the public except as necessary for disability accommodations. see section 1.3.3 of the board of supervisors rules of order and board of supervisors. file number 231020. the instructions from the mayor's office are that all commissioners shall also adopt the board of supervisors new rule and not allow remote public comment except when necessary, to accommodate a disability. the mayor's office has further directed that all presenters from departments shall attend commission meetings

in person. the board will consider whether to end remote public comment except as necessary for a disability accommodation. the board will also consider whether to require department representatives and parties to attend meetings in person and to end remote meeting participation, participate ation for such persons except as necessary for a disability accommodation. so. president swig, did you want to start off the conversation? sure commissioners, i strongly recommend that you accept the mayor's direction on this. this request that the grounds my view on it is that prior to covid, the way the mayor's requesting that we conduct our business was the standard operating procedure . it worked well. i didn't feel that prior, both in serving on this commission and prior to

that, the redevelopment agency commission, that any member of the public really was harmed in any way by having to show up. and no member of the public, if they had a disability or something that justified a remote participation, was ever resisted from enjoying that liberty and that opportunity. me so i, i would be in support of the mayor's request. quest and, and so we can go back to the future and go, go back to what i consider standard operating procedure, pre-covid. commissioner lambert thank you, president swig i have a very different opinion on this. i've been on this board about a year and a half now, and certainly remote public comment and remote appearances have been the standard the entire time i've been on this board. and i just don't see any downside to

keeping it. i don't you know, i think there's any number of reasons that somebody might have of above and beyond a disability accommodation that would lead to somebody potentially not wanting to appear in person to provide public comment, not to mention the actual disability rights and disability access portion of this which obviously would remain intact anyway. but the fact is that we have we have all the technology set up and we've been successfully using it for several years and proceeding my time on this board as well. i will also add that i was well, i know i can't say that, but. it is my understanding thing that that the mayor's request is not a mandate on us. and i because it's not a mandate on us. i would i would be pretty

resistant to ending remote public comment and remote appearances and in fact, i would be in favor of increasing the ability to appear remotely, although certainly i think it's a good idea for people to appear in person when whenever possible . and i certainly appreciate it having, you know, either parties or public commenters in the hearing room with us. and i think that does add. but i think there's any number of reasons why why allowing to continue remote public comment is a good idea. and really no active downside. to it either. so that's that's my stance on this and i would not be supportive of a motion to end public comment. commissioner transylvania thank you president swig and i would like to note that under the text of the special item, this seems

to be precipitated from an action taken by the board of supervisors, which i fully supported because i saw and heard and we all heard the abusive nature of some of the non non present members of the community city who spoke with profanity and other ways to at the board meetings, board of supervisors meetings that has never been the problem here. in fact, as commissioner lehmberg points out, i and i agree the ability for members of the public to participate in our proceedings is only enhanced by by this use of technology of being being available for virtually. i also would well, i appreciate getting a instructions from the mayor and i certainly would strongly very much hesitate declining the

mayor's request or instruct or direction, however it is described. and i think that we are hurt the quality of our decisions is harmed, not not only when we don't get full public testimony, but also when we don't get testimony from the departments. and there have been many times in many cases where we've had virtual testimony from the experts, from various departments, not just dvi and planning, but also from the people who do the smoking cases and the state environmental people. and we start our meetings at 5 p.m. that's after the traditional workday for most city employees is now the managers, the leaders that we see every who come before us, every every time that that's part of the job is to is chris buck. and tina. et cetera. but for the for the experts, i think we should do at least find out what the impact of this of our

requiring them to be here in person may be at 6:00, maybe at 9:00. they don't know. but right now they're able to monitor the hearing and they're able to call in when and if they are needed. and i think that's an accommodation, an appropriate one to our city employees. and it's one that i would i would want to before we voted for this, i would want to ask the departments how it affects them. if we if we required every everybody to be here in person. so my view right now is very close to commissioner lundberg's that to not move forward on this at tonight's meeting. anybody else. thank you. i i have a tendency to agree with commissioner lehmberg inconvenient. i do have have

some security concern because the decision by the board was born out of bad acts that were taking place there were i have been in an eastern neighborhoods community advisory committee that was zoom bombed and it was a very disruptive and disturbing experience. and so we certainly need to have protocols in place to minimize any potential disruption that could occur. but it you know, it's i do value people coming in in public. and i do value when in particular the city agencies and other other folks whose profession it is to provide this information. do come in public. but i do appreciate that the availability of the public testimony that we've been able to received as a result of the remote accommodation. and so i'm a little bit more on the fence of this, but but i'm don't i mean, the argument to go to a full in-person has not been presented

to us. we were just had it directed to us and you know so to make that change in the absence of a rationale as to why we might do it, i'm hesitant to make a move, you know, perhaps at this time, until that rationale has established itself in mr. lopez. thank you. i would say i'm excuse me, i guess i'm a little bit it's it sounds like i'm a little bit closer to commissioner eppler's position of kind of seeing the merit of both sides. i do think that we lose something by not having folks here in person on and i think there's something to be said for as as much as i you know celebrate and welcome public comment but i think

sometimes we may have made it too easy for folks who maybe have only a marginal interest to chime in. and i think there's something to be said for requiring you know, putting your boots on and making making your way to city hall if you really have an interest in in the matter before us. and i think that's something is lost when there communications issues and an inability to you know appreciate the nuance of facial expressions and back and forth much more easily. um i think the standard of in-person or disability seems like like a pretty stark kind of binary set up to me. and i think, you know,

just going back to a pre-covid reality, you know, in, in a way kind of overlooks some of the lessons of covid, which which are which are that there are public health concerns. you know, other than that one specific covid, you know, era or breakout that that that, you know, we're thankfully be in much better shape, you know in terms of where we are now vis a vis covid. but i think if there is if there is flexibility, which it sounds like this is a directive of request, not a mandate, then maybe a way to find a middle ground is to say, you know, presumption of in-person in. but maybe we brought in that exception to include other things other than

disability accommodations, needs because i do think that there is merit and benefit to having folks in the room as opposed to, you, you know, dialing in. and yet, you know, public health concerns also, you know, life life happens. circumstances happen. these things are scheduled in a way that doesn't unlike with the parties is where there is, you know, input. i think there are scenarios to where life comes up for a member of the public. they didn't have a say on when our hearing would be scheduled, but it doesn't it you know, take away from the fact that they do have a significant public interest. they do want to have that point presented in a way that's, you

know, more pronounced than just simply sending an email to be included in the packet, in the record. and so i feel like i can envision something with, you know, a pre, you know, prior request requirement or something like that with some explanation of those circumstance chances, something like that. that's just thinking out loud. but but you know, default in person absent a disability does seems like it's not taking account of the lessons learned from covid and i think the benefits that we've seen where by and large it has been, i think a net positive without the same kind of zoom bombing issues that other bodies of experience. so i think there may be a middle ground there.

commissioner lambert, i just i just want to add, i guess i been having a hard time forming this thought, but. it was something along the lines of the fact that, you know, even though that the formal governmental ill health, public health emergency is over in in regards to covid, i know several people with covid right now as we speak who as of today, covid is not over. it seems like it's here to stay. but of course, as we all know, covid is not the only disease out there either. respiratory illnesses have taken a pretty sharp spike up. and i feel that a move to restrict remote public comment is in potentially encouraging people who do have a legitimate interest in a hearing

to say, oh, well, i really want to come to this hearing, so i'm going to come and potentially endanger the health of other people. whereas if they have an option to just appear remotely for either as a party or as a public commenter, you know, that risk kind of dissipates because i think people know more or less at this point that if they have some sort of respiratory illness going on, that you avoid going out in public, you avoid going into public places with lots of people in them and, you know, these problems are not only not going away, but they seem to be getting worse every for ever. increasingly worse. and this is a society wide issue. this isn't a san francisco issue or a government issue or or, you know, really anything specific to this body at all. but this is more just a, you know, a worldwide everyone issue. and

again, it really just boils down to the fact that we already have all the technology in place and we have been successfully using it for three plus years, three and a half years at this point since the pandemic started. i don't know. i wasn't here for what happened in march 2020, but it is my understanding that the city picked up on its technology requirements pretty quickly when the pandemic started and i just think it would be a shame to see all of that go away. you know, i didn't i certainly saw the precipitating event that led to this at the board of supervisors. didn't agree with it there either, though, you know, we don't have any control over that. but it seems, as you know, i'm just always going to be pro access, pro public and even what vice president lopez suggested in regard to, you know, some sort of preregistration requirement. you

know, i feel like a lot of people kind of decide last minute that they want to that they care about an issue or want to speak on an issue. and that precludes those people's participation or they you know, they test positive for covid 20 minutes before the meeting starts. there's just so many potential. all things to consider here that i feel like setting any sort of rule up kind of gets in the way of schaeffler . and i. and i think the other the other question that we have to ask ourselves is, do we have a different standard or a different rule for the parties and the department heads versus the general public? i do feel that the general public, we should have probably the least impediment to participation that we can tolerate and we can discuss what that level of toleration is. but for the for the parties in the departments, it feels like, you know, perhaps

there should be because those are the folks from which we do perhaps gain the most in terms of knowledge from their in-person presentation. and we get the best interaction. they're the ones with which we need to have a, you know, a better face to face experience, perhaps. there might be a difference in the way that we think about those two different groups. that's why i've kind of held back. i see merit in everybody's commentary. i think the i understand and the commentary from the commissioners who the real life is that yeah, you test positive at 3:00 in the afternoon. you want to talk or you're listening to the hearing and you go, what? i need to comment. and i see your points. i see your points. well and i'm a little bit more

flexible on that. what i think where i've had my biggest issues in the remote active party is the parties. i think commissioner eppler brings up the my biggest issue is that i really think that the parties should be be in the room and presenting for all the reasons i don't want to be redundant to everything you said. i agree with. so i, i would be a little bit more flexible on on the points raised by the other commissioners in support of keeping public comment open until we get into a hopefully we'll never get into that situation of having people be inappropriate but what i would

like the commission to consider is that we get the parties back in the room. if you had to be in i'm not a lawyer, you guys are. you know, you're actually know what to do. you're actually trained to do something. but if you were going to into a formal court situation, you'd show up and because you are you are principals and you would show up, you wouldn't call it in. so i feel that this is a formal situation that the parties have filed. one against the other or whatever. and so i, i would like to us to adjust that behavior to back to the standard operating procedure that existed in this room prior to covid. and that is that the principal parties show up in person and if they would like to appeal or or ask for special consideration for appropriate reasons, that that

they appeal to the executive director, executive director talks to the president and the president deals with that request accordingly. but that would be a pretty a pretty high bar. so that's i would that's my point of view on this. so far. commissioner trevino thank you. president swig particularly for considering and listening to the various perspectives that we have. i'm if, if we feel that we can just resolve this matter by by solely dealing with the parties, i could see us doing something tonight. otherwise i think it would be appropriate to ask the staff to come up with some guidelines that takes into account the technology, the issues of disability. i'm not sure how how how the staff can

say yes or no to someone who calls up and says, i have a disability, is it a temporary disability? is it a ada recognized disability? she is she going to be second guessed by by by someone? i wouldn't necessarily want to put that burden on, but i think it's useful if we're going to go down the road to then to really specify. it takes some time to do that. and i'm sure the city attorney would want to weigh in. so i would urge us to. are you when you're we i think we are you relating to parties or are you relating to the public at large when you when you say if somebody calls up and says, i have a disability, are you talking in this context? i think i think either one i do think that parties are able to have been able to at accurately present themselves to us and present their case virtually. i also know that some of their

experts, whether it's an attorney or whether it's an architect, may or may not be here in san francisco. and if we're requiring the expert to be here, that's an added cost for either a neighbor or either the appellant or or the permit holder. so i do think there are many values in many reasonable reasons to have and allow for even the parties to be here virtually. and so i think it does it does take some serious thought. i appreciate all the serious thought that's been given. that's why i'm suggesting that that we have staff look at this and come back with a report to guide us forward. make sure you. thank you, commissioner lundberg. thank you. i just wanted to respond to something you said, president swig and. as somebody who is both a practicing litigator who does cases in probably 20 different counties in california, and as

somebody with an invisible disability with unpredictable symptoms and unpredictable ways that it comes up in my life, one i will say nearly all of the state courts in california still provide. it's almost exclusively on zoom still in almost every court in california in it's i know, i believe federal courts have moved back to in-person, but state courts have not, by and large. and in regard to the disability portion, you know, i've always known that it was possible to request disability accommodations. i'm an attorney. i went to law school. i know the law on this. i know how it works. i know how the systems work. i'm in a very privileged position with that. so that being said, if i had to do that process every time i wanted to

appear remotely to a proceeding rather than just having the option or actually in many cases, the by default being able to appear remotely in court, not to mention the geographical portion of it that i appear in court in los angeles or san jose or all these places that are not geographically close to where i am here in san francisco, not even counting the geographical piece to it. we're hoping that most of the people involved in most of the things here are in indeed in san francisco. so but some property owners don't live in san francisco. a lot of the attorneys aren't in san francisco who appear before us. many most of them are, i would say, but not all of them. and you know. it is, although it provides although disability accommodations do provide a path for disabled people to receive those accommodations as it's putting quite a bit of burden on

them. and i you know, and again, if we just have it available by default, that burden is dissipated, it disappears. it's not it it's no longer a burden. it's no longer a hurdle for people to overcome. and being disabled is not the only valid reason why you wouldn't want to appear. why why you would want to appear remotely. and that applies to parties as well. department head department representatives. i mean, in my experience, they always show up in person anyway. i don't mean with a few notable exceptions. when we had the sunset toxics case, when we had all sorts of, you know, unusual or not, our usual set of governmental agencies appearing here. but for that second hearing, they actually did all come anyway. and the only reason they didn't for that first hearing was because it was kind of a last minute request that we had had kind of sprung upon them, that they appear an id they did

appear the second time. so department heads seem mean. the practice seems to be that they show up in person anyway. i've never seen mr. green or ms. tam or mr. buck appear on zoom. they're always here in person. and if they were unwell but had a case on the agenda, i'd want them to. i would much prefer that they be able to appear remotely than we have to reschedule the hearing and inconvenience all the rest of the people involved in that case too. and that's a very real practical consideration too. you know, if they have a light cold and don't want to come in and get everybody sick, but, you know, and can still otherwise testify, but just don't want to do it in the hearing room, i would so much rather have that. and that's even for the department heads who i think are under the most duty to appear in person. and again, i agree with what other commissioners have said. i vastly prefer it when people show up in person. i definitely don't want to discourage anyone from appearing in person, and i do think it often has a greater impact on us

as a body when somebody does appear in person as opposed to appearing remotely. not to say that it has any less weight or that we don't consider what people are appearing remotely say. but it is you know, we get that human connection aspect when people appear in person that is more challenging to get with remote appearances. but that what we're being asked to do is set a policy as to what can or cannot be done here, both in regard to public comment and in regard to department department representatives and to parties and just having that option. and again, i encourage anybody who has a case before us to appear in person, if you can, that's i think i think we all agree on that. on that point, the question is whether we should require them to show up in person and make them jump through hoops if they don't or cannot appear in person. and that to me is what the issue

before us is. commissioner lopez . i guess before i chime in again, a couple of points of information. what's the binding nature of this action? could we take an action tonight and iterate in a couple of meetings? i'm sorry, we're not changing any rules technically because we never did modify the rules to allow for remote participation. it's been a practice we could take a motion and it would it would just indicate the board's direction. you know what they want to allow? i mean, or you could do nothing. and we can continue with the status quo. but if you want to make an affirmative motion, you can is it is it binding? i don't think so. really. it's just kind of setting forth the board's

position. right. and if you later want to change it, if circumstances change, it's you can do that. and if you want to modify the written rules, there are some procedures we have to go through. there's ten days notice. et cetera. et cetera. we'd have to publish it. but right now, i think you're just making thing you would be expressing the board's position on whether or not to allow remote public comment, remote participation in by the parties and department representatives. right i guess. thank you. what the outcome that that makes sense to me that i'll throw out there is i do think there's a distinction between parties, departments and the public. with respect to parties. i i don't see it as too much of a hoop or a barrier to, to express the

policy that they're expected to be here in person. and if they have a disability or another extenuating circumstance that they have to let us know beforehand that they can't be here in person. i think the parties are are engaged with us to schedule the hearings. they have to provide. they're available pretty for the hearing. and i think we can communicate to them that, hey, there's an expectation that you be at the hearing in person. and if that that expectation cannot be met, you have. to let us know beforehand. that doesn't seem like too much to ask to me. i think similarly with respect to the department's case, at least with our you know, frequent customers, it doesn't seem to too much to ask to me for them

to be expected to be here in person absent extenuating circumstances. i think their there there's even a distinction that can be drawn as between again the frequent customers of planning, you know, dpa. yeah buff you know the frequent the usual suspects as as compared to the a department that's maybe not you know directly like a department that represents who's coming in, in, in an analogous, you role is that had by an expert witness but not the direct department in question and that's related to the to the permit or to the underlying permit. but for those parties essentially those frequent frequent fliers that are directly tied to the issued the

permit, essentially, i don't think it's too much to ask to have them be here in person. i do think, you know, back to commissioner lundberg's point, we have had a number of times when the department's with the permit in in question before us, they, you know, they're appearing remotely. i do think we lose something when they're not here in the room with us. and i think that's another one that i would say it's analogous to a direct, you know, appellant or a permit holder who's, you know, presumably in the loop with the with scheduling and would have the opportunity to say, hey, i actually can't do it on on the 13th because i have to be at my daughter's graduation or whatever the situation is. can i dial in or the day before,

hey, i tested positive with covid. can i dial in? i don't think it's too much to ask those types of folks. i do think i am convinced that that we have the technology we and we haven't had the issues that the board of supervisors have had and has had with respect to disturbances in public comment. and i am convinced of the i think we have had that situation in the two years that i've been here, two plus years where, where, where there's someone who's watching us live and says, hey, wait a second, i've got i've got a point of clarification on this matter that you're discussing right now. and it has been valuable in in certain matters before us to have that that live input from someone who suicide has has something to add. so i guess the kind of you know,

portrait that i'm starting to see is making a distinction between parties departments that are directly related to the permit. you know, as as opposed to members of the public as opposed to the expert witnesses of the parties who frequently aren't based in san francisco, for example. and i do think. you know, particularly for folks who who for whom even getting counsel to help them out with with an appeal is not financially viable to them for them to then be expected to pay for the expert to you know fly or drive to san francisco to appear. that starts to become pretty burdensome in my opinion. so i am convinced that even, you know, witnesses as of a party, you know, we can maybe make the

default, you know, remote optional for those folks. commissioner trasvina, thank you. president swygert. i agree with many of vice president lopez's good, good ideas. and questions here. i note in the agenda it says the mayor. s office has further directed that all presenters from departments shall attend commission meetings in person. that sounds to me that that's not a it's not a question for us that the mayor's or the department's employees, as they get to decide that. so that's not something that we have have on our plate the rest of the issues as we continue to talk about different nuance and different experiences, i think and given that this is going to restrict the members of the public in some way, i think it would be appropriate if we say and i would move that the president and staff work

together and come back with recommendations on a response to this request. separately delineating, delineating rules for parties which bonuses and members of the public. so. a couple of things caught my attention, my ears. miss rosenberg, you said that our rules haven't changed for pre-covid that that we accommodated in the context of a pandemic change of procedure. so do you happen to have our rules about showing up or not showing up just so we know what the rules are, even though we may or may not have abided by them just

just so we know. i mean, it would that's a good baseline, i think. and by the way, guys, i'm not i'm not using this to advocate a position. i just really would like to know what the rules are. so we all know so i think i can speak to that. i have the board's rules. okay. what about that here? it doesn't say anything about the how parties shall appear. it's silent on that. i think that pre-covid it was assumed that it was in person. that was a given. and when the pandemic hit, it was changed as a policy or a practice. but the rules were not formally amended. so the rules are silent on this. right. just so we know that's important. all right. so what i've heard from this commission is that i'm hearing that the public should not be restricted and i honor those. i hear i use these things on either side of my head, these ears. and i like to listen. and

i'm hearing that the commission feels strongly that the public should be given every opportunity to comment and i would only place that the obvious caveat is that if a member of the public becomes abusive or otherwise inappropriate, that that we have the opportunity of cutting them off. i don't think i'll have an argument there with regard to staff. i'm i'm heeding. commissioner trevino's reading of the mayor's direction to staff that they have to show up, which is consistent with our practices pre-covid. okay so i think that's that's that's piece number two. piece number three are the parties and i'm hearing that we're a. commissioner. lundberg stated, let me

paraphrase commissioner lundberg . if you disagree, yell at me that that commissioner lundberg stated that he he feels it would be he would be more effective with parties in the room a position that i would adamantly take. by the way, i am far more effective and therefore, i serve the public much better when the parties are in the room for a variety of reasons and it was past practice that parties were in the room. it was just past practice. that's what it was. it wasn't a rule. it was just it was a given that parties show up . so if the commissioners feel that that that that that they are more effective with the parties in the room, that would for me lead to we do our job better with parties in the room and although i'm not sure i would make it a hard and fast rule, i think that i would

suggest that it is pass that practice that parties showed up to make their presence nation in in person for the betterment of the ability of the commissioners to do their job and for the betterment of the public to get the best possible hearing. so i, i would like to go in that direction. however under with the understanding that if a hardship is presented to a party and they are precluded from getting a fair hearing that that hardship hardship be noted to the executive director who who who as as i think suggested by commissioner trevino, would bring it up to the president of the board, whether it be me or or or my successor. and and that

the executive director and the president of the board would, as we do with a hearing dates, render an opinion fairly and appropriately so that's that's what i'm hearing that's kind of where i'm standing. and i wouldn't mind if somebody said, okay, can we think about it for a couple of weeks and agendize this again and, and, and come back and have a review of this or, or i would i would i would accept a request from commissioner trevino that the president and at the recommendation or with the collaboration with the executive director and with the executive director's initiative, actually come up with after hearing this discussion, come up with a direction not rules, not rules, but a suggestion of direction

for this commission that we can further discuss and go along with staying away from the word approve. i'm staying away from the word mandate. but just the understanding that that would be the practice. so maybe we want to go in that direction. that's where i'm you know, that's what i'm hearing. that's what i'm feeling. that's my opinion. commissioner lundberg, would you like to comment on on those feelings and direction? first, i agree with everything you said about characterizing what i said, except that i do. you know , while i do have those strong feelings that it is more effective if people appear in person, i do not think it should be a requirement that is that's the only exception that i take to what you said. i would would would a request and a general

practice if we're going to be can it be characterized as a request in a general practice? i mean, i see no issue in in formalizing a policy that says if it is feasible, please show up in person. i have no, no problem with that at all. but as far as you know, the procedure for a party who to which it sounds like is the major sticking point here is what how it applies to parties is as far as the procedure for what a party wants to do, if they they would like to appear remote. lee i am just in favor of not adding new barriers to that. that's basically the essence of my opinion on this. i, i do agree with what commissioner trasvina said about it. it seeming more like a mandate to the department employees, at least that our

city department employees under the purview of the mayor, which is not all departments, i will add, but it is most of them. the planning buff. those are under the purview of the mayor for sure. all the ones that we see here most frequently, but not like, for example, when we had the state agencies. those agencies are not affected by the any mandate that the mayor's office puts down because those are state agencies. et cetera. so what i would like to do is break this down into three pieces. one is public comment access. one is parties and one is the department chairs. i agree with again, i agree with commissioner trasvina that i don't think we need to speak as to the department heads. i think the mayor has the ability to do that to speak as to that. and i don't think we as a as a commission, need to set policy in regard to that, which leaves public comment and the parties i

, i would be supportive of a motion from commissioner savino regarding a kind of a staff report on on the impact of parties and like what the different options are for future consideration. and i would also and i might even do this since i want to the reason i'm breaking this down is because it sounds like there's consensus that we want to maintain in public comment access remotely. and i would be fine making a motion to do that, to keep that practice or enshrine that that access today. if there's consensus to do so. what what i would like to do what i would like to suggest and do is to ask a favor of the a not a favor, but ask the we're

going to ask her to do it anyway. the executive director to take a stab at some language in the spirit of commissioner lundberg, unless there's adamant at this moment, adamant pushback from members of the commission with regard to, again, three buckets, the city departments have to be here. the public can do it remotely or they can come in in in person at and the third thing i'll let her come up with it but we would that we would encourage large parties or encourage parties to present it in person not mandate not require not put a rule around it

but encourage parties for the betterment of the hearing and the public, encourage parties to present in person, and that we leave the rules alone in because miss huber just read the rules and she said it doesn't say anything about what we do. so i'd like to leave the rules alone because they are what they are and just come up with a statement of purpose or a statement of direction on that. that addresses those three buckets in the way that i just just suggested and that we take a another run at this as an agendized item. so in the world is not going to end if we don't get it in the next time or the time after. but i think we should close the issue, not make it a rule and not make it a

mandate. just make it a general direction. it is the general direction of the commission on that and miss rosenberg can fill in the blanks. okay. so we have a general policy and a general direction. is that okay? you just want me to come up based on the conversation with some language for a motion? basically which would allow remote public comment and encourage the parties to participate in person and not address the department, the department representative of, you know, i think you might acknowledge that that it has been the mayor's position that the that the department heads are required to be here. but that's out of our jurisdiction because she's the boss. the other two issues we can address, we've already addressed those and come up with some language as a direction and advisory, a whatever. we'll figure out the

words so that we can communicate. so that you can communicate to the parties what the expectations are. it is it would be our expectation, my view, our expectations that parties show up in person. that's not a mandate. that's not a requirement. that is a an expectation and a preference. right. i think and the parties want to. and if they don't if they don't want to or they think it's a hardship, then let them not show up. and we're we'll be fine with that. but i'd like to i think it's i think it's the direction of the commission that we do a better job seeing people in person. if i may, i'm fine punting this a little bit and not voting on it tonight. my one concern with with not enshrining a policy, particularly in regard to remote public comment is that the technology could then be pulled from us, pulled out from underneath us and if we don't

make a change to the rules, that right disappears by default. but i think that is a possibility. i don't know if that would happen or not, but i think it could happen. i think if we make a motion that is the direction on on the date that we do it is the direction of the board of appeals commission that the public can can have access either remotely or in person to public comment. nobody better pull the plug on us or else there might be a problem legally. the board is required to allow access for disability, so the technology will remain regardless. okay all right. yeah i don't think we got to go. i don't think we have to go hard and fast. i like direction. so why don't you let with your permission, if we can let miss rosenberg take a stab at it? we can agendize it as necessary as

agendizing it. we will take public comment on this remote public comment, for that matter, or in person. then then we will. we'll we'll hone in on this and hear from the public as well. and i think it's fair. in the meantime, no harm, no foul. nothing's changed. and we can just get some clarification and arms around this. okay. so the main point on continuing this is so that we can tighten up the language of the boards position, which we seem to have arrived at tonight. right. okay. a general policy of the board, the general policy of the board is this direction and i'm not going to fill in the blanks because that's julie's going to help us with that. and when would you or when would you like it to continue to when the agenda is allows? okay. it could be sometime in january. we only have one more hearing left in december and we're going to be busy next week. all right. in

january is fine. okay wonderful. all right. so i don't i don't even think we need a motion to continue this or anything. i have one thing i'd like to add. if it's not a too much of a barrier for my fellow commissioners, but i think i would like to with that policy guidance that we expressed, i think i would like to make explicit that the witnesses, the parties, witnesses, you know, don't have the kind of same level of expectation of being in the room as as the parties themselves. can i ask the logic behind that? i think what we've discussed about experts and. you know, folks who who the parties are asking to speak on their

behalf, i think it it can be i think it it can lead. to just less less color being presented. if we're saying that, hey, you and all your friends have to show up, too. but remember, i purposely used it is the expectation that parties. no mandate. so if it's the expectation that that doesn't mean the parties have to show up in person. we're not mandating anything. we're just expressing our preference. yeah. and so i don't think that if we went into with all due respect, we don't have to do that, which i'm not disagreeing with, you. we just don't have to deal with it because we're really playing softball here by saying it is the expectation an if that indeed turns out to be the word that that julie suggests. yeah yeah. i think it i just don't

want to overkill. yeah i, i hear that. i think i think. i think it's worth it in my mind. i would like i would like the party to understand that if they do have of an architect or a member of the public who's informed on it and who they would like to speak and appear on their behalf, that just because that expert is in new york, that they can't they're not expected to fly somebody out, for example. good feedback. and julie can can work that in. yeah okay. we do we have two public unless there's yes we do have to do public comment but commissioner i just want to i want to thank you for so well encapsulating all of our views and anticipation of julie's work on this. thank you as well. i think this really does meet our obligations to consider it that

the mayor sent over a as well as taking into account the interests of public comment in general, but also in individual members of the public and parties who are often just neighbors. and they they don't anticipate ever having to be part of this. but they are. i appreciate your accommodating fully fully addresses the points that i raised earlier. thank you . thank you very much. we need to take public comment on this item. yes okay. so is there any public comment on this item? please raise your hand. i see some people in zoom if you want to provide public comment on this item, please raise your hand. did anyone in the in the queue? mr. cureton, mr. patterson or mr. carter. okay. i think they just wanted to listen , listen and not provide public comment. so i guess that

concludes the hearing. so no vote is required? no, no action is required at this time because we've deferred that action until at the request of the board. ms. rosenberg comes up with suggested language for the for the future hearing. okay. and we'll just put it on an agenda in january. yep with that, i think we're done for the evening. yes, we are. thank you. we're done. thank you very much.

>> bring up person that [laughter]. for me it was we had neighbors growing up that were fold my dad he is raising me wrong for having me pursue the things that are not traditionally female roles. and i think the biggest barrier to anyone in general is when you have cultural norms that make you feel like you can't do something that make you doubt yourself and make you feel you should not be there i don't belong. those other big efbarriers i think that is the thing to focus on the most is belong everyone should belong here.

[music] >> wishing we trained women grow in production. and recording arts and so we have everything from girls night classes for middle and high school girls. we have certification academy program. that would be women and gender [inaudible] adid you tell us. progress in the internship frm program where they are working in the studios. they are helping to mentor the youth in the youth programs and the job place am component. most of the time we hire interns instructors in our programs and engineer in our studios here. we have conferences we do all overnight country and we have

concerts that we feature bay area women and gender artists. [music] [music] >> an education forward organization. and so advocacy organization. dedicated to closing the gender gap and the audio and production industries. >> started out of the lead answer, why is there a critical gender gap in this industry that started at city college. why are there so few in this

class i was ashamed i did not have the answer being a feminist. why have i never thought of this i have been in the industry for decades and why have i accept today of all people. it was out of that and unraffling it. actually started the infernship last fall and just fell in love with all the things about women's oshg mission because we are diverse and so many aspects of audio i did not know and i feel like eyes opened up and i gained a lot of confidence in myself and other fells and queer people in the industry i felt there was more connection and community. ironically my time in the industry is all pretty good. i think what happened is i was raised by a father who is an engineer. i was comfortable being strounlded by men all the time in his lab i was used to technology. when i got in industry my mentors were men and i saw i had a unique importance that got mow in the place i could be fluent and navigate something difficult and it was the norm for me. what if it was not woman was createed provide it for everybody. have this environment you are surrounded by technology and people that are going to support you and get you in this industry in a good way. i have been interested in audio i was never trained in music took piano when i was a kid. i never pursued it because not a lot of women doing that. and my family is not musically inclined. when i want to davis the first time i took a music class there were few females in the class.

like a rodey for my dayed was load you will the mixers and monitors and the giant speakers and gigs and help run out the cables and take things down and set up mics i did all of that growing up and never occurred to mow that that was a field they could at all. and then one i could pursue i didn't nobody else was doing temperature my dad and then i go with him to studios and see -- the men in the studio. dj for 5 years now and comments you get like wow you are a girl dj that is crazy. that is wild. and i have great moments where it does not happen. and they treat me like easy. telling mow what to do they correct mow in ways that make me feel less i sprjs the opposite

and i notice hand's on like you don't know what you are doing rather than asking me. not consistent times it happens. it is like when i talk to other females they are like say the same things it is like funny i know that nice men don't experience tht main thing triggers me when i experience different treatment and that happens a lot in the audio world. industry is changing slowly. there is still that issue making the places that are places belonging for everybody. i don't think so. having a studio where it is not all run by white men like most studios. the studios are only in the word built and run by women. it has been super normalize

thered are opportunity for girls and nonbinary people. you go in school and middle and high schoolers know that this is a field. this is a thing there are many jobs you can have in this field. some producing pod casts to setting up live shows. there are so many things you can do >> wee go in and teach the audio skills and give them equipment. i pads and then teach them how to make music and they get to come in here and will getting the tools to people who don't have t. that is really important to me. that's why i was like wow. i want to be there for other fell and queer people who don't have the opportunity and also to be a mentor for them to really push them to experiment and not going to break it. does not matter if it sounds bad that is the point to try it. i think it is the goal to see

confidence what they are doing and passionate and asking for hymn and excite body learning and excited about making music and it changed my life to realize i'm callented in the field i can make music without being trained to it it is amazing to be able to be part of that process and -- ushering women to the field. we can entirely transform how -- the technology part of what you hear every day. we can put xhg something in women's points of view in this every time. it affects the store and he messaging. think our best example is how we transformed an entire city. place that major artists on tour one of the men looks likeip don't get it there are woman

every where i go and the person was like you are in san francisco. you like oh , you are right it is here. most venues have graduates we are grateful to the city for that reason because than i supported us at the beginning. following your curiosity and interest and don't let anybody get in the way what is presented to you, go for t. no matter what! we are here for a reason. find what it is. don't let somebody else tell you what it is. you are the oldsmobile one that have been can know when you are supposed to do. go do it. .

>> it is now about 1:02 p.m. and my name is bivett brackett and this is the regular meeting on commission on community investment and infrastructure on tuesday december 5, 2023. i would like to welcome everyone today joining us. today's meeting is held in person