>> good evening, and welcome to the august 11, 2010 meeting of the san francisco board of appeals. the presiding officer this evening is board president tanya peterson, and joining her on the dyess is commissioner chris

wang, commissioner michael garcia and commissioner frank fong. the vice president kendall go is absent this evening. to my left is miss guessner, who will provide the board with any legal advice this evening. i'm cynthia goldstein, board's executive director. in the front row we have representatives from some of the city departments. the deputy director of the department of building inspection. sitting next to him is scott sanchez, acting zoning administrator who will also represent the planning department and planning commission. we also have in the audience dr. johnson ogzo from the department of health and a representative from the transportation agency and division of tax aries and accessible services. at this time if we can go over the board meeting guidelines and the swearing-in process. >> the court requests you turn off all phones, beepers and pagers so they do not disturb the proceedings.

please carry on conversations in the hallway. the board's riles are fonetprigses are as follows -- appellates or respondants have seven minutes to present their cases and three minute for rebuttals. people aeighted must include their comments within the serve an or three-minute members. members of the public not affiliated with the parties have up to plea minutes each to address the board and no rebuttals. to assist the board in the accurate preparation of minutes, members of public who wish to speak on an item are asked, but not required to submit a speaker card or business card aboard staff when you come up to the lectern. speaker cards and pens are available on the left side of the podium. the board also lks your comments and suggestions. there are customer satisfaction survey forms on the left side of the podium as well. if you have a question about requesting a board hearing or reschedule, please speak to board staff during the break or after the meeting or call the board office tomorrow morning.

the board office sloketted at 1650 mission street, room 304, between duvos and venice avenues. this meeting is broadcast live on san francisco government television, sfgtv cable channel 78 and d.v.d.'s of this meeting are available for purchase from sfgtv. thank you for your attention. at this point we'll conduct our swearing in. if you intend to testify at any of tonight's hearings, please stand, raise your right hand and say i do after you have been sworn in or affirmed. do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? thank you. >> thank you. moving to the agenda, item number one, which is public comment, is there any member of the public here who would like to speak on an item that is not on tonight's agenda? please step forward.

>> could i have the overhead projector on, please. and could you leave this on until i take it off? good afternoon, president and commissioners. can i -- there is a copy of the section 108.8 appeals board n subsection 108.8.1 said an appointment member will be specifically knowledgeable in the california building standards codes and applicable local ordinances. president peterson, commissioner garcia, i have a copy of your resumes that you provided to the city when you applied for and accepted the position of d.o.a. commissioners. president peterson, is an attorney and commissioner garcia, you are a retired securities dealer. both of you did not claim that have you any specific knowledge in the california building codes applicable local ordinances.

your voting records prove that your votes are based on who you wish to support, not on the codes. you have no knowledge of the codes really. but you act as commissioners of this board of appeals and are in violation of the california law. now you have the law, and if you proceed, you are willfully and intentionally violating the law. i'm sure you've heard about the permit of jimmy gin, who has been arrested for massive fraud. it is obvious d.o.a. supported these fraudulent plans and applications. there are others doing the exact same as him. you commissioners permitted false testimonies. you passed the project through with flying colors because building and planning department supported them. you are supposed to protect the people and not support illegal construction. a lot of people have been unfairly treated by you and have suffered unjustly because you blindly support building and

planning. i will be back every single week until the people get justice. thank you very much for your time and consideration. >> next speaker. >> commissioners, my name is ray harts and i'm director for san francisco open government. i'm here actually to talk about something that the last speaker spoke about. i didn't realize he was doing that but that's the article that appeared in last week's san francisco chronicle regarding jimmy, who if you google him is noted as a notorious permit expediter. he was indicted on friday for over 200 separate felony counts involving 100 projects and 500 forged documents that were presented to the department of

building inspection. the investigation began in november 2008 when a land surveyor raised questions about a locked subdivision in one of his projects on madrid street. he contacted woo, who was the persons whose name was used, who triggered the probe. district attorney harris said the investigator soon realized there were, quote, very obvious, unquote, discrepancies between the approval stamps and the engineer signatures compared to the ones he submitted. one curious circumstance, she said, was no building inspectors ever asked any questions related to the surveys or engineering plans in any of the projects. had they done so, they would have discovered that the neenching nears had no role in creating the plans. we are very curious about that, harris said, noting that prosecutors are seeking to find out how 500 bogus documents could be reviewed by the department of building inspection without a single question to ask. we will find out exactly what's

going on with how the documents could make it through, quote, these offices and that office in particular over the course of decades without notice, unquote. the most fascinating part of the article was the following -- bill strong, spokesman for the department of building inspection, said that so far no project mentioned by prosecutors has been found to be problematic. so that's the official position of the department of building inspection, that 100 projects, 500 forged documents went through their hands. they didn't catch any of them. over that period of time and that's not problematic. now, if i were you and the reason i'm speaking of you, if i had to put my signature of approval on something and i was basing my decision on what d.b.i. was telling me this, would raise some questions for me. and i'm sure there are a lot of people scurrying around, pulling out their documents for appeals and other things that have probably come before you looking to see if any of these documents

might have been in their particular case. i think it's really, really bizarre the department of building would have a public information oiv who would actually make a statement that 500 forged documents -- and only the ones they caught, from one particular person and 100 projects is not problematic. that is ob scene. >> thank you. any other public comment? >> good evening, commissioners. my name is pat duscov. crifment h. i feel weird following on these pro-previous speakers. my opinion as a board is you are our citizen's body that represents the public. i'm not here for that issue. i'm here to talk about a specific instance where the building department made an unusual ruling. and i want to start off with what the mission statement of this board is.

you're a quasi judicial body that's the final administrator to review permits. you were created in 1932 to provide efficient, fair and expeditious public hearing before an impartial board, which is exactly what you are. you are citizens. you are not engineers or architects or planners as the last step. the board shall hear appeals based on someone who thinks they didn't get a fair shake by the building department of planning or some other body. and during that process, the boferede's rules state the permit is to stay still. no work is to be done. have i a client that appealed -- i have a client that appealed a permit to build something. it was a revision permit on a long-standing issue. the specific issue with what permit they appealed isn't important. they appealed the permit. the project sponsor, and we have statements from them, made a decision that they would do whatever it took to avoid coming here in front of a public body.

they withdrew the permits and to withdraw a permit, i'm going to read the building code section. it says, an applications filed per permit, any kind of permit made and withdrawn by the owner provided that no part of the work proposed on an application is performed. no part. when the permit was withdrawn by the project sponsor for this revision to a very large project, we went to the building and permit and said not only has workmen started, they finished it. how can you withdraw a permit for something finished? and the response was, well, we're going to handle it administratively. now, you need to understand at that time if i had ababiled near mitt to the board. you guys had jurisdiction. why the building permit would allow someone to draw a permit in front of this board for

something completed is beyond me. now, i understand what the building permit wants to do. they're probably going to do exactly what you would do, which would be a solemn decision. but there's a process here that you guys have jurisdiction. you know, you represent the public and by what the building permit has done is they abrogated your authority and they've denied the public the opportunity in a public forum to make their complaint. and they apparently are trying to solve a planning glitch that the planning did with the permit. thank you. >> thank you. is there any other public comment? seeing none, we'll move on to item number two, which is commissioner comments and questions. commissioners? >> i do have a comment. i hadn't intended to address any of this. i know i do, and i know for sure that i speak for the board when i say each and every one of us takes our processes, what we do

very seriously. of course, gaps in our administration and training have to do with some of the issues that have come before us and we seek to the advice of the city attorney and other departments are owe go and do actual research ourselves. at any rate if anybody ever watching this were to think we're not serious about this, and don't give this due diligence, i think they would be sadly mistaken. what i did intend to say under commissioner comment was i wanted to thank mayor newsome for having reappointed me to this board. and my reappointment went first before rules and i want to thank matt gadio in the mayor's office for having overseen that process. i want to thank the members of rules for having accommodated this board because we had scheduling problems and i also want to thank them because they made some very kind comments that i certainly appreciated. i, again, want to thank the full board.

i think it was unanimous. i'm not sure. but they approved or supported by reappointment and when i went before rules, i executive director, cynthia goal steen was there, as well as commissioner fromme and i want to thank them for their moral support. i certainly want to thank president peterson because she went and she testified and made some very nice comments that i would like to be able to live up to. lastly i want to thank former commissioner katey albright, because she also came and spoke on my behalf and said very nice things i would also like to live up to. at any rate, those are my comments. >> thank you. any other commissioner comments? >> just addressing one of the remarks made by the public, madam director, i don't know if you know the specific situation where we still had jurisdiction and a permit was outstanding and can we follow up ob that?

>> i'm familiar with the situation and i will be happy to follow up further. typically when there isn't work that has not been performed on a permit, then it is, the d.b.i. will withdraw it, allow it to be canceled. even though it is before the board. typically when work begun, that is not possible and board retains jurisdiction. >> thank you. and also i will be out and i don't think i can get back in time for the september 8th meeting. any other commissioner comments? is there public comment on this item? seeing none, we'll move on to item number three, which is the adoption of minutes. commissioners, before discussion and possible adoption are the minutes of the meeting of july 21, 2010.

if not, i will move to adopt the july 21, 2010 minutes. >> thank you. can you call the -- sorry, is there public comment on the minutes? seeing none, if you can call the roll. >> on that motion from the president to adopt the july 21 minutes -- >> aye. >> commissioner garcia? >> aye. >> and commissioner wong? >> aye. >> thank you. the vote is 4-0. those minutes are adopted. >> thank you. if we can move on to item 4-a, if you can call that item, please. >> calling item 4-a, a hearing and request subject property at

2642 to 2644 hide street. we have a letter from an agent from arzon trust, apellant, requesting appeal of arza trust versus d.b.i., decided july 14, 2010. at that time upon motion by commissioner fong, the board vote 5d-0 to withhold the board to variants. >> thank you. you have three minutes. >> good afternoon. my name is ellen sanchez. i have only three minutes to speak. in trying to connect the injustice, i would note the outcome because a few days ago the director of d.b.i. send an e-mail and i quote, this matter can no longer be appealed and we

will be not be doing any further research on this, unquote. the appeal process not completed when she wrote the e-mail. but both planning and building department continues brandishing my rights for public record so they could protest this illegal construction. as of today the planning department did not provide me with all of the public records. commissioner garcia at the last hearing made it very clear that his support and belief of administrator scott sanchez when he asked mr. sanchez, did you provide her with all of the records, and mr. sanchez said yes. mr. sanchez maked many forced statements and thace response and not a forced statement. he has not been involved in the project for over a year and has no knowledge of what happened since but you choose to believe him and not the public. you allowed deputy counsel to make statements in support of this when he admits he knows

nothing about it. the project and the entire processing are filled with forced statements and plans and violation of the procedures and has moved forward on a council permit. this is a long listing of injustice and in violation of the codes and law. i cannot in three minutes. a rehearing should be granted. we talked to the plan supervisor and he told us he great will he reduce the cost of the project from $3,000 to $1,000 and his reason was, he was doing them as favor. he did not remember which was set of the 11 revisions that based on his decision. this project received many favors from all around. the department and the permit holders did not provide you with a copy of the plans. they treated the plan as a secret document because they have full knowledge these are forced plans but will support

the project. if you did not review the plan and did not ask questions regarding the plan. the various decision is to replace the existing legal debt but the plans will follow opposite signature and plans to modify it. the second shocking new evidence that the attorneys inform me that president peterson and commissioner garcia's resume did not meet the minimum qualification to become a commissioner, according to california law. one is the retired dealer and the other h.p. cornt attorney. their resumes they specifically did not claim they have any knowledge of the building code and local ordinance. the evidence is the same as what the permit of jimmy is being charged and prosecuted for, u.s. supporting criminal activities. when they have the opportunity

to hear the entire case, including requesting and ruling the final plans before warding to prevent justice. to uphold the constitution but you are allowed to violate my constitution right for public records and information. my rights of quiet enjoyment in our own home and rights to live in a safe environment and our property line. >> ma'am -- >> for this reason, i want you to grant me a rehearing. >> ma'am, you mentioned in your papers that you intended to have counsel at the last -- >> yes, he had back surgery and is still recovering. >> so he's not here? >> he is still -- >> you engaged him for the public access issue? what issue did you engage him? >> i got the attorney for dealing with the planning and building department's violation for constitution rights and

popular records still not receiving and i thought maybe for the best interest for an attorney, he actually is a trust attorney. to represent the trust, fully protect the trust interest. that's what i'm saying. unfortunately, he's still recovering from his back surgery. >> does he have any associates or anybody in his office? >> no, he has assistants but not associate attorneys in the office. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> you also have three minutes. >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen. name is christian tina vogel. i'm the owner of 2642 hyde street.