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tv   [untitled]    January 18, 2012 11:01am-11:31am PST

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with the current year's balance. the new funding would partially replenished the project. finally, i wanted to just tell you about the replacement. as i mentioned, we have not done anything since 2007. you will see that we still have 1999 vehicles that are honda civic cng. what we are trying to do is not only getm]n by hybrid types of green technology, which the city is encouraging departments to do. in 12-13 -- and this is based on their mileage. there are many cars that they
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have taken into central shops and gotten back -- those are the vehicles we are looking at replacing. those would be the four from 2009 and then the crown vics that we have and then the ford tauruses and rangers. in 13-14, we would also replace 10 vehicles. the vehicles will not actually be determined of which we will replace until we get closer to that. we need to look at their mileage, their repair, their history, and whether the vehicle is still acting like itm4vfju d in terms of being a green products. 12-13 is preset, but 13-14, it is our best guess at this point in time. that was a quick overview of the
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budget. i am more than happy to answer any questions. president hechanova: thank you very much, pamela. commissioners, any questions? >> i have a question. thank you very much. i think it is great that we are operating in the right direction. the year rosarrows go the right. a couple of questions. do we resell the cars? what do we do with the ones we have when we get new ones? >> that's a little bit of a challenge. we turn them in to central shop. they then auction them. we've been told we get the credit. the last time we turned in any vehicles was before my day. i do not actually see the money. that is something we would push. they are our assets. we pay for them. >> the other question involves
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the code-enforcement outreach groups and programs and the additional moneys. we have heard testimony here. there was also a hearing at the board of supervisors that there may be some issues with senior outreach. maybe we could talk to the outreach groups about adding some outreach focus to make sure the issuesq7a the hearing are addressed better. since we are giving them more money, it makes sense that we looked at it. some of the issues that affect people in general around health and safety affect seniors even more, and who are unable to exit
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buildings, etc. elevator repairs and boiler repair type issues. if we could be more productive around senior outreach, that would be a really good thing and would help some of our issues, i i think that's it for right now. are we planning to add more on code enforcement? >> yes. >> that's great. i think some of the issues we also deal with here could use a little bit of assistance in that department. thank you. president hechanova: additional questions? commissioner murphy? commissioner murphy: should we think about some courtesy cars to bring our stakeholders in to pick up a permit? we have a fifth floor. it is a revenue-generating
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machine, the fifth floor. i have not gone through this budget in any detail. i have not had time. the fifth floor, so many of us have worked so hard to put that together. the people over there are running it. i do not think there adequately staffed. all i ask for is that that floor is adequately funded with staff. the engineers, plan checkers, a clerics. we've been trying to get people over there for three years. i do not think we are quite there. you5 i think business is going to pick up. it has picked up a little bit. we're going to get busy over there. we do not want people standing in line to pick up permits.
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we want to make it easier. we want to encourage people to get permits. there are a lot of stories today about people doing work with no permits. everybody should get a permit. it should be made really easy for them. that is really all i wanted to say. some people over there -- i'm not going to mention any names -- have worked hard to make that a more comfortable place to go and get a permit. i think that -- i do not mean rewarded in promotion, but rewarded with extra help. if the stakeholders are happy, i am usually happy. president hechanova: commissioner lee?
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commissioner lee: i would like to support his suggestion at looking at the fifth floor budget and cost a little bit more. i do feel that the number of permits are going to increase this year, hopefully. iy
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the vehicles. i understand you saying the 10- vehicle replacement is a hard sell. out of curiosity, how many vehicles did we have in fiscal year 2007-2008 compared to now? just to get an idea. just to give the commission an idea, we're talking about one vehiclei-1+ó°÷ for three employs right now, is that correct? we have about 300? inspector and then there are some -- commissioner lee: i understand that. for the department, we have roughly 200 employees, so we are at 99 cars? >> we havd 106 previously, i
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believe. then the city decided to do the vehicle study a couple of years your vehicle more than -- i think the threshold was 5,000 miles or 3,000 miles per year. c. we fought and fought to keep the vehicles. qjc gave up somewhere around four or five vehicles. we are now at 99. the reason this is difficult, the reason it has been hard to get more -- i believe it was passed last year or the year before, it required the city to reduce their vehicles by 5%. we are trying to keep everything that we have and not -- without losing it.
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several of the chiefs can give have given up their vehicles. they're using their own cars. ô because we were increasing inspectors. there seems to be a difficult argument for people to understand that we need to have more vehicles in order to have our inspectors have enough and who regularly go out into the field. i have a list of who the vehicles are assigned to. i do not have that with me, but i can provide that. commissioner lee: have we look into alternatives?
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i seem to recall commissioner walker at one time -- there was a time we were asking about smaller cars, smart cars, especially if inspectors are only going al by themselves. do we need a closer-seat car? >> there are many issues to deal with the supplies that inspectors have to have with them, emergency supplies, so they need space in the trunk for those types of things and to be able to be prepared, if there were a an earthquake or some other type of emergency. that was our original argument of trying to keep cars or trucks. we can go back and look at whether or not the smaller vehicles would work. we've talked about using bikes.
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in the downtown area, that would not work. you cannot carry all the supplies you need. then we talked about the use of mass transit. that was also difficult because of the scheduling of the inspectionsbal$ we can go ahead and look at the use of smaller cars that are easier to find a parking space and are possibly more energy efficient. president hechanova: additional comments? commissioner mar: thank you for the report. i also noticed there are a lot of vacancies. i know we want to staff up. in this last year, part of the reason we could not fill some of the positions was because they were not -- not because they were not approved, but because
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human resources did not have the adequate list we could draw from. i was wondering if there was a way we could hire people to either bring back some of the retirees or other clerke positions. have we thought about doing that with part of the budget? >> let me tell you the good news. they do have tests out now for all the clerks. other people were encouraged to apply for those positions and take the test. zú[g requisitions. that is the bad news. our mayor's representative is here.
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i do not want to put him on the spot. we just keep trying to get information, exactly what dhr needs to approve these positions. prop f is also difficult because there's a maximum number of positions that the city. can. can have. i do not know what the maximum is. one issue is that you have to have an open requisition. when we are staffing up and we have all these inspectors,, there's not a vacancy to sit on. we are doing whatever we can to keep pushing this. we know there is a big issue. the one thing is, we are not the only department that is having
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this issue. >> on the prop f category, the category of where our income stream might have a better trajectory than a department that's not an enterprise department, is there leeway for our department to be given priorities relative to the prop f? >> i do not think funding sources is what matters. i will continue talking to the mayor's office about it. they're the2ñef ones who have to approve prop f. when you look around at the departments that have brought people back, it is all over the gamut. i do not think the source is what matters.
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>> i have several issues i want to talk about. i would love if the president could set a meeting with the director and they could talk about that at a different time. is that possible? president hechanova: on which area? >> on the budget. president hechanova: i think we are going to have a special session. >> we're scheduled to have a special meeting at the end of this month. president hechanova: before the end of month. >> i will get the exact date. president hechanova: great. additional questions? commissioner lee: i haven't looked at the budget totally in the tel. you mentioned the community outreach is increasing, which is great. i like to see that. that is good to see. i'm wondering if there are any
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plans to may bbe re-implement those conferences we used to have with the neighborhood's? i forgot what they were called. the town halls. i think those were useful. +c;0[h.it engages the public as answer questions about how to obtain a permit in what they need. >> i agree with that, especially knowing what we know about the seismic issues coming forward. i think it would be good to try >> we had hoped to be able to go out to more neighborhood groups and be able to provide them in othermore information in other venues, so it would be on a more
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intimate basis than the big meeting we had a couple years ago and the meeting we had a library where there was probably 12 people there. we need to look at not just what cost less, but what is the biggest bang for the buck. we can look at that. i think that is a plan that would evolve. >> i would hope that all of us commissioners would be willing to help with that and go out to the meetings. that is what you are doing, going to neighborhood meetings. maybe take a commissioner with you just to have us out there in support of the department. commissioner lee: i would be willing. >> the parks department, for example, goes out and meets regularly with their groups. as you can imagine, they have issues. maybe we can tag along with them or somehow or another address
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the same groups. we need to do some research on exactly how we can"qtm"h; get te people of that would be the most -- that would benefit the most from our information. >> with a proposed outreach program, at least come up with one proposal on how to conduct it on a time basis, whether it is quarterly, every other4 or monthly, along with personal that might be involved from commissioners to those within the hour reached to the community leaders of the respective neighborhoods. >> planning has a list of neighborhood groups, have one. they have a pretty complete list. that might be a pretty good start. >> i think it is a balance between the neighborhood groups, which might be the homeowners,
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and the larger construction architects and that group. we need to find a balance. i think we need to emphasize it more. >> i've never seen the meetings very well attended watching them on tv. the usual faces are there. >> we do not televise those. we are talking about maybe sending staff to neighborhood meetings to talk about the different issues. the code enforcement program is really aimed at tenants and landlords specifically. we are talking more about neighborhoods. >> what will that cost the department? will that be part-time or full- time? >> we could develop it in all sorts of different ways. right now, when people go out on the weekends or if there is a
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festival, we do have staff i, inspectors, and other volunteers who go to the festival. they give out information and answer questions. they are obviously paid on an overtime basis. we do budget that as being an expense. the larger things where we have to get a room somewhere -- the library may provide that to us free or they may not. and we have to get a large menu, then we have to pay and that is in extra expense. commissioner murphy: what would be a good way to get people educated? i could see that. >> i would think it would be
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much easier for the staff to go to the community events, whether it is a cultural event, like chinese new year, or carnival, or those events that are more neighborhood-based. we could have a more effective outreach. there are thousands and thousands of people all over the there, as opposed to trying to bring them to a location like the library, 0 where we will have 20 or 30, as opposed to 1000. >> the hardest part of this type of outreach is to try to be able to evaluate how useful it was and what was more useful. by going to a festival, did we actually talked to a lot of people who found it useful or
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not? we want to increase the budget to this and design a program that will hit many different audiences. we would like your participation. h about, but i looked down and i see $2 million for the city attorney fees. >> i looked at the history of the city attorney's office. á(lw÷[laughter] >> i was hoping to get that in -- [laughter] >> on the slide, we looked at the revenues and expenditures since 2006. through 2009-2010, the revenues
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are a little come in many years later from the various cases. that is of interest, but not something we have control over. we get a bill every month that says it is this many hours for this many cases. obviously, i cannot provide that right now. it shows how much is spent by a senior attorney. >> we are getting a counting on all of that? >> is the number of hours spent by categories. the categories are the fullblown city attorney and then the assistant city attorney. then there are some things for materials and other supplies,
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which is very minimal and not even really worth talking about. x have their salaries and they put in the overhead, just like it is approved by the comptroller's office, or the overhead charges for the:lfa city services. we are not double counted. we are not charged directly by the city attorney and the comptroller's office. we also have a quarterly meeting with the litigation committee and talk about what is going on with various cases. we can always negotiate cutting it. i do not know what the impact of that would be. they would have to come back and say, "we can only do this." >> maybe the litigation committee could take the initiative. >> we have tried to. one of the things we have asked
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for -- the cases where we have resolution and are owed money and are in the process of collecting -- there are a lot of them on the list. an additional line on that chart would be those funds that are out there that are ours. that is something the city attorney could probably give us in our reporting that would help. i think it is several million dollars, if i'm looking at our cases. >> it used to be on a monthly basis or a quarterly basis. we would get a report from the city attorney's office that would show what the revenues are and how they're going to post it. >> that is once we have the
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money, right? >> exactly. now we only get that once per year. it does not really give us that much information. >> it would be a gainable from our list. somebody would have to go through it. we could look at it according to our expenses and revenues are actually. >> i would be glad to talk to the people, the financial people in the city's attorneys office and get with the attorney we deal with. i just want to say that we have not been successful in getting this information. >> what can we do? >> they are short of staff. >> maybe somebody can go over the list of active cases. we do not need an exact dollar amount, but just a figure. if what we are spending is the
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same as what we get, it's the same as far as code enforcement. commissioner murphy: there needs to be some sort of mechanism in place. there comes a time when there's no money there. why keep billing this department? >> right. we want to cover our costs. commissioner murphy: we get judgments for $900,000 or something, and i would like to see how much of that we got back. how much went to the city attorney? >> we do. commissioner murphy: i have not seen that. >> we do get that once per year. it is not as transparent as we would like. commissioner murphy: i think we asked at one time. >> that is the money we actually get. there are many cases where we actually have1' but are still pursuing receiving
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them. that is what i'm talking about. that could be the difference in the figure over there. >> i will work on trying to get a handle on that. president hechanova: may be a summary[.oy h possible, to have the least until the february meeting. their budget is also due. we're working on it. it is probably the same people that are doing the counting that are working on the finances. i want to be fair to them. president hechanova: sure. knowing the time constraints and especially with the importance of. >>. make it known that we are reviewing our budget and what we pay the city