you can't control what's flushed down the toilet from a tenant unless you're the only person there and you're the only one that knows what's going on. ifyou did not check on a regular basis, like rainy season and what not. i also have a letter that was submitted. commissioner lee: before you go, can i ask, just to clarify -- i know you and commissioner murphy have been going back and forth. is the violation specifically saying that the location of the bath water valve is in the wrong location? is that the issue? >> that is the issue. commissioner lee: the way i understand it, there is one near the property line to catch the rain water and sewage that should not be there. you are saying it should be on the other side so that even water can flow into the sewer. >> it should just be for

everything below the fresh air. commissioner lee: i think commissioner murphy also asked if there are other that flow for ventures. >> there is two total. one is for the lower unit there on the bottom, and one is after that that goes to the main -- commissioner lee: so the back one is not the issue. the one in front is. >> correct. commissioner lee: thank you. >> can we hear from the appellant? commissioner lee: you have seven minutes. >> good morning. i was not sworn in. >> ok, would you please raise your right hand? do you swear that the testimony you are about to give us the truth to the best of your knowledge? >> i did. >> thank you. you may begin. >> i have prepared a statement

for the purpose of explaining our side of the dispute. i understand why the will of violation has been issued to me, and violation of an improperly displayed back water valve. my tenants affected by the problem and i are here before you this morning to state for the record that the violation is in place theory the violation was founded my partner and myself, once again calling the puc after having a flood of sewage water backing up into our home. we then, that november 4, 2008, were incredulous that after calling the pc yet again at each event, we were being cited by the agency we had looked to for answers throughout this ordeal. the level of this belief was heightened by an employee telling me that afternoon that the main -- the city main pipe in front of our home was undersized according to city mapping. he then added that work we have paid our contractor to do in the street should have been done by

the city. the statements were not solicited from him but rather volunteered. armed with this information, i made an appointment with our then district 8 supervisor. at the meeting in december 2008, i had made to speak with mr. dufty, i was first made to meet with laura spanion of the puc. she acknowledged our many calls to the agency but acknowledge that they had nothing to do with the problem. her demeanor changed upon hearing what i have heard from one of our employees. we have asked for input on our problem of flooding and received a letter that was dated june 2, 2006, from the assistant chief of claims. his basic response, the property owner is completely responsible for the maintenance and repair of a private sewer. these words along with our engineering contractor george wilson cost us approximately

$40,000. $40,000 is a large sum of money to be paid for sewer replacement on a three-unit building. george wilson replaced our silver, and that is why i'm standing in front of you this morning. he replaced the store in 2006 without a backwater of all, only to install it with an additional cost after the system goes the first failure. we learned in 2010 that a bath water valve should have been installed at the time of replacement. this information along with puc responsibility beyond the curve was addressed in a survey inspection. this inspection was done on 4/26/2010, by the inspector of plumbing for the city of san francisco. my count here today is brief in comparison to the many months of disrupted the construction and reconstruction of our sewer. the years of 2006 through 2008, being in the dark as to the degree of fraud that had taken place. we had a sewer that was somehow

done without the proper degree of oversight. we believe that not only was the permit for the bath water valve not obtained but the entire system had not been installed and submitted. has been a long, arduous, and circuitous route, and yet, we are still without a solution. we had a onetime hired a lawyer, but that seemed to go nowhere. he gladly receive payments that got us nowhere. we are now awaiting arbitration hearing was perplexing -- help is george wilson able to install a complete sewer system without the proper oversight and city permits? we have been asking for the assistance of the city before, during, and after its installation in 2006, get it was our repeated calls to the puc that lead to finding this error in 2008. it is george wilson that we feel should be made to pay these fines and fees for violations that never should have taken place.

>> i want to make a comment. it is unfortunate, but sometimes, i think, the public realize on the city folks for all the answers for certain things, and unfortunately, in this situation, i do not think the city folks' advice to you should be the only advice that you see. you should seek your own professional consultant's advice on the matter. what i see is that when you said "lack of oversight," no, i do not think our department failed you in that sense. we do not tell you how you should solve the problem. we cannot tell you that. we do not study your building. we do not know the extent of your problem and say, "you need to install a backflow preventer." there could be a number of ways

to do it. but you chose to install it. that is why it is now under our jurisdiction. because you installed it, and it was incorrect. we cannot look at your plans and say that you are missing something here, unless it is obvious to us. it is not something we tell you that you need to install or something you and your engineers probably have to decide. but we as a department will look at your plan and say, "this is what you want to build." we would not know by looking at your plans that there is going to be a sewer problem. that is what i'm thinking has happened here. nevertheless, i think it is right that your backflow preventer are in the wrong place. if you want a second opinion, i would think you ought to find another professional out there that could study your building and let you know what they think. other than that, any other discussion? >> did you sue the contractor? >> did not suit him.

we have an arbitration pending with the california state licensing board against him. we had contacted a lawyer to get to the bottom of all these unanswered questions that were coming up. in response to mr. lee's comments, we only found out the city inspectors coming back to our home that and that flow valve should have installed at the time of so were replacement. we did not know when we paid to have the sioux were replaced. we were just told that the store was our responsibility, so we took it upon ourselves to replace the store, which we did. almost at the end of the installation of the sewer, mr. wilson came to me -- and this was after many months and many thousands of dollars spent already -- he said, "you know, you might want to consider putting in a back flow valve.

at that point, we had spent so much time and money that we thought, why did we need this extra expense? we did not know at the time that the fact flow valve actually should have been part of this installation. we did not know that. we depended on our engineer /contractor to do the job correctly. m sorry, you said the arbitration is still pending. when you see some type of resolution? >> the latest information i got, i think i contacted the california state licensing board. it was the end of 2009 or some part in the early part of 2010, and only now am i getting letters stating that they are choosing which are ready to give the case to. >> what is the remedy you are seeking? realistically, you know, commissioner lee is correct. i appreciate the fact that sometimes you get in contact

with somebody who is less than capable of working on your property, and that is one of the reasons why you would look for an insured licensed contractor, so it's something like this happens, unfortunately, you do have to pursue some legal remedies, but my assumption here is that if you had to pay any fees, that those types of things would be wrapped into the remedy you would be seeking from the arbitration adjustment board. >> that is a possibility. i have been asked what i'm looking for, and i did give them a figure. i love the fact that i'm standing in front of you today shows that he did work incorrectly. we have suffered many floods since the installation of this new sewer. commissioner lee: commissioner walker, mar. commissioner walker: i have a question, and it may be better

to the staff. in the original store permit -- 2005, did you say? >> i believe it was 2006. we had our first lead in 2005. commissioner walker: my question would be when the zero original permit was applied for, would there have been a mention of the backflow or not, and would that have been a time when we might have said, "should they have a back flow?" >> the permit was for the house track and the building's sewer. we did not get inside the building. there was no work that was done inside. it was after the fact that the permit was obtained. commissioner walker: we would assume it was already in there? >> we would not know that there is anything underneath there. we're looking at just what they have -- the house track and the sewer. there's no work being done inside. we are not going inside to look at it. we are looking at what is being

replaced. there should have been some kind of that water protection. from what i understand, there was. secondary valve was installed after the fact because of, assuming, flooding here it installed without inspection or permit. >> that was going to lead to my second question, maybe to the property owner as well. i think commissioner lee is right. we are responsible for the contractors we hire. with the sec and installation of the back flow valve, do we know -- did you not question the contractor? did you pull a permit? and if you did not, of course, there would have been no inspection. because if he pulled the permit for the second installation, we would have inspected it, i assume, after word, and signed off on it.

the plumbing inspector would have gone off and said that it is right or wrong, and we have to do it again. that would have been the time. we would have called the contractor and said you were not paying until inspection. >> i will agree, sir. this is what is confusing to us in this case. we believe that these permits, whichever are in place, the two back flow valves replaced simultaneously. they were not done separately. they were done after the installation of the main sewer. there were many months -- not many, but a few months in between the time that the store was completed and the installation of the back flow valve. they were not done continuously. so when it comes back to the point where we are being cited for violations for not having a permit, it seems to me that that

should have happened with the installation of the sewer. if the store were properly permitted and inspected, the inspector would have said, "where is your back lowball?" -- where is your backflow valve?" >> it was not. >> she asked my question, and we got an answer on that, and commissioner mar follow up on that. the answers were there. the other thing that i'm curious about -- the work that was done on the inside of the building -- was there or was there not a permit? >> that is my question. i believe there was not because if there had been a permit obtained -- i will say that none of this came to light until we got the violation in 2008. the sewer was completed in 2006. we had a subsequent flood,

called the pc again, and had their inspector come out because we could not believe we were still flooding after spending this much time and energy and effort to get the problem fixed. that is one inspector gave us the citation, stating that this back flow valve is incorrectly placed. and that was our first inclination or the first light bulb moment that maybe this entire system is wrong and maybe the entire system has not been thoroughly checked and investigated. commissioner murphy: it happens. you get a contractor that was a lousy job, but it is still the duty of the department to enforce and do it correctly. >> i understand that. i do. and we plan -- we have always tried to do as homeowners and be responsible to our tenants to do the right thing. i think that is demonstrated by

the amount of money and time we spend to have this done here also, our diligence with contacting the puc and calling the city and asking for assistance. yes, i understand that it is ultimately the homeowners responsibility, but i think that we look to professionals and we look to agents that have the expertise to tell us whether we are going about this the right way. in this instance, we only got the direction after the fact. commissioner murphy: you seem to me to be a very responsible homeowner. that is my impression of you. i just think you were in bad luck. you bet the wrong contractor. that is where you are today. >> when was the last time that your basement -- or problem flooding occurred? >> i believe it was last year. this is 2011.

i believe it was 2010. i could have my tenant speak with you because she is the one most affected by this, although we all are, but she lives in the apartment that floods. >> what i'm curious about is with the most recent rains, some that were fairly -- of a volume earlier this year, was there any flooding? >> we have had none this year. none in 2011. >> that part in trying to somewhat connect, whether the system had failed or basically it might have been a condition of something back then. i would believe that if the system is at fault, something of a volume that would have really pushed your system to a failure point would have been most recently when the rains did come. >> the instances of flooding that we had ever since this

began in 2005 until present, have been sporadic and have been at odd moments. i cannot speak to how it happens or why it happens, but i do know that it is during times of heavy, heavy rainfall. when we had the el nino periods of rain, it happened during those periods. i know we had heavy rainfall this year, but for whatever reason, it did not happen this year. >> when you bought the property, did you have inspected? >> yes. >> so you paid for that out of your own pocket, and they did not find anything? >> yes. the home is as it was when we purchased it 18 years ago. the three units were there will be purchased 18 years ago. as a matter of fact, the tenant in the unit that was now flooding had lived there for 35

years. so we did no reconfiguration. we could not afford to. >> when you had the sewer either modify or replace, was it because you were starting to have problems, or did you start having problems after the contractor fixed it? >> no, we had started having problems. we started having some small flooding in the unit. we called our insurance company, and i think they came out in the camera work. we called, i think, a local plumber, and they came out and did some things. nothing worked. everything we tried did not work. they came out and put some traps in the street. we did not have traps in the street. i did not know why, but they were not there. they said we needed traps, so they put in traps, and that did not work. then, we called a number of other plumbers. there have just been a lot of work to try to figure out the bottom of this. it just never was resolved.

commissioner lee: ok. i have a final question before we go to public comment here the problem of flooding seems to still exist, and we still have that notice of violation of that backflow preventer in the wrong place. what is your intention now to solve all that? >> we do plan to do what the city code states. it is just we are exhausted financially and emotionally at this point. we do not have the funds at this time to go ahead and do this, and, quite frankly, i think if we had the funds at the ready, we would be nervous to do it for fear that someone else is going to do something wrong. it seems that throwing money at this problem has gotten us nowhere but here today, and we have thrown a lot of money at this problem and a lot of time and a lot of inconvenience for ourselves and our tenant. our tent here has been displaced from her home maybe six or seven

times. i am amazed today that she sits beside me willing to support me. i think most tenants in this city would be ready to sue me. commissioner lee: 20 to think you can get the notice of violation lifted? >> i would hope that i could do it as soon as arbitration is complete. i would hope that arbitration would see things in our favor. i do not know that that will happen, but i do know that this is an outstanding thing, and we need to get it fixed. i know we cannot afford to get it fixed now. i would like to have had it done when we got the violations cited. i do not know. commissioner lee: i understand. thank you. why don't we go to public comment? if your tenant would like to come up and say something.

>> i'm hannah murray, and i did not get sworn in earlier. >> please raise your right hand. do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth to the best of your knowledge? >> i do. i just want to back up what billy was saying about their ambition to resolve the issue. it has been a constant and ongoing. i know that this particular instance is for this back flow valve and the placement of it, but i do not know if there could be potentially a larger issue with the sewer in the main road. it seems to me that the floods happen after a time of very little rain, so there is a lot of debris and leaves in the debtors and everything in the roads.

we happen to be placed on a hill, and they make a corner in front of our house, and that is the corner where mr. ewing was stating the puc employees, when one of the price makes a turn, it is actually smaller than stated on a city map. so i just wanted to -- i do not know if that has anything to do with what we're talking about today. i just want to point it out, that it seems that is the crux of the problem. commissioner lee: any other public comment? no, okay, department, rebuttal? >> answer a field the questions that were brought up -- one was there was not a permit obtained, so that is one of the problems we had. second is if a permit was

obtained, we would have resolved the issue at that point. the third thing is that the contractor that was hired was a licensed contractor. he is allowed to do that work. that is what he was hired for. he is allowed to do that so were replacement and do that work. one of the other reasons why -- commissioner lee, you asked about flooding, if it is still an issue. they did have flooding that it happened, but one of the inspectors found that it was lifted open. if it would have been closed, normally, if it was raining, there would be flooding, but there was not any flooding, and one of the reasons why is because somebody put a bypass in. when it closes, if any rate goes up, it goes out in the other type. we would never have allowed that. that is one of the other reasons why it has resolved that issue, that was not happening. like i said, if the bathwater belts -- back water valves were

put in the correct location, we would not have any issues as long as they were maintained. pressure inlets on the street have a relief point. like i said, i have another design that might be able to help as relief point out at that house trapped, so if there is a major flood, it would relieve the water and allow it to escape out onto the street instead of into the building. i am more than willing to help with the older to resolve this. the plumber has been in contact with me, wants to resolve it. mr. wilson, i believe, is the contractor that has been in contact with me as well, and he has also offered to fix this problem with the owner, but we have had no inspections on the previous permit. commissioner murphy: so it is not a relatively big job to fix this, is it? >> i have not been out to the site, but i know they are willing to make the corrections to resolve this issue.

commissioner murphy: does it entail tearing up living spaces or anything like that? >> again, i have not been out there, so i could not tell you 100%. >> on the chronology of time, as mr. ewing would describe this train wreck, the dates here that back in 2006, you were part or involved or somehow have been to this property. could you describe what you might have done that in 2006? >> i have no idea how my name was involved on it. i cannot remember being out there at all. i would have to go to the side and look and see. i might remember once in there, but i cannot remember being there at all. am i just want to clarify whether this date is correct and if you were back there, in 2006, and what you may have done. >> i do not remember being back there.

>> it is the third page of the letter that mr. ewing had submitted. the accuracy of that is -- i'm just curious. >> i do not have any recollection of it, and i do not see anything on any permits that have my name on it. >> yes, i also was looking back on the permit history. the listing of you in there might be inaccurate. mr. ewing, could i ask how his name not listed on this? we are always very supportive of staff, and we want to make sure that they are not in any way mis-listed. >> in 2006, mr. devontes did

come to our home after a flooding episode. this time there was very brief. the flood had already occurred, and basically, i believe -- it was a long time ago, and the reason his name is there is because i started logging everything and keeping business cards. he gave us his card, but i believe his time at our whole was probably less than two minutes. he came into the basement, took a quick look around, give us his card, and then left. i'm sorry, he gave us the citation. >> you have him as being there in 2006. >> yes, that is correct. >> this man, this gentleman? >> i do not remember his face. i just remember i had the card, and he came in, and we explained he had this flooding, and he took a quick look around. we were not doing any work at the time. we had just had an episode of flooding and wanted to know if there was anything that the city knew about this issue.

because we had lived in this home -- we purchased the home and i believe 1993, and we only started having issues with flooding -- what is it? 2005? i'm getting my dates mixed up now. i think december 2005. we had lived in the home for many years without issues of flooding, and suddenly, now, we are having this problem, so we called the city. >> i think i might have been the supervisor at that time, and he might have put me down as part of the reference, and that is how i might have been involved. commissioner walker: i think that this is really unfortunate, and i think we feel your pain. unfortunately, the building code is the building code, and that is really what we are here to is really what we are here to apply.