if things are getting better, we will work with the mayor's p4ñoffice to make sure we do noo over budget. it really is a balancing act so we are not inconsistent. >> may i -- you mentioned the department is required to do this. but then i just asked a question about the department andttú who sets it, so -- can yu talk about how that is done? 7n÷ñr>> yes.4) veep sudeep rules, as far as i know -- >>$ob the city rules, as going back td,vójá)p&e%ei numbers used in years past and used kcáq)e. you know,k[ we do not budget at

100% ofpo salaries, because we know there is going to be movement. there will be retirements, there will be hires. we have the flexibility to move our attrition, if we want to. but the goalxyñ isñr -- ÷ colleague would agree -- rimisñe budgeted attrition decreases so much, you are never going to get back. to get level and work with the ebb and flow of positions is much more preferable than to cut the salary budget by adding more positions. it is a business. i mean, i will just be honest with you. ñrwe look at that. inñrm-÷ march, itñr is an artiff the past that)tú we used for the

budget. sometimes the mayor's office was more successfuls"u and we incree it. sometimes a department like us has been very successful with 24, 25 positions. >> good. any more questions? all right. thank you. thank you to the mayor's office. >> is there any public comment on item for -- in four? seeing none, itemcw÷ five updatn the bicñr subcommittees', access appeals commission, board of examiners, and could advisory committee. >> good morning. i thought i would give you a quick overview on access appeals. it then we can talk about the

code advisory committee. the access appeals commission is a five-person commission that meets twice a month. ñrit is comprised of people from the disabled community as well as the constructionñr industry d a public member. the idea behind that commission, when someone has a dispute about the way the disability somaccess rules are being interpreted, particularly by the department and u) codes, then they have the right through written appeal to this commission to take the case there and have the commission make a ruling on its. $xthat isñr the heart and soulf g>> some issues have come up

recently in the business community about lawsuits,ñr isss about permitting and whether it complies with federal standards. and wonder if we can useçó these to help us proactively, rather than reactive lee come up with those kinds of things, --th ratr n -- reactivelyñr , up with those kinds of things. >> 5nhi do not think if there is any rationalñiñr reason not to e advantage of their expertise. i know that they are addressing those kinds of issues or attempting to address some. i personally see no problem. >> i think it would be helpfulq

as an advisory. mayw3 be the city attorney can tell us if we can do that. >> john;pñ malamut, ñrcity att's office. the action is strictly a body that can hear appeals of dbi decisions. it is a bit like the board of appeals. it would be equivalent to having the board of appeals, say, have a joint meeting with the planning commission. it is not -- wbic kazis a littlt different in terms of thecrt but dbi, the department to work

with, it is sortñr of the decisn maker in terms of appeals. appeals from aggrieved parties to think the way the department ñris applying the rules is inappropriate. so,bkxthñ7]d i not know if it me to work with them collectively as a body in terms of some of these issuesc(u -- x6w>> let me be clear commissioner walker:ñr let me be clear about how we created this access appeals commission. i do feel they have very particular knowledge about the issue. they would be very helpful. so, if we may be need to expand its -- if we set forward that criteria, i needçó job, --ñr thr

knjjob, per se,çqg can we expan? >> i cannu÷ look into that. d8wi believe at a minimum it has been set out legislatively with various requirements to the administrative code. that may need to be amended and there is a charter requirement as well. commissionerñr walker:h%ñ ok. thank you. >> quickly, about the board of vxexaminers, that is actually a 10-mperson committee full of experts in engineering and construction, some fire personnel. it meets on request when someone is looking at an equivalencyñr r an alternative type of building approach that may not be specified in coats. ñrso, as -- specifiedñr in code.

vízso, as a consequence, theyñ"y need a couple times a year. çóit is a committee of experts n code-related issues. with that, i will turn it over to my colleague. building inspector. one of my duties is to be the secretary of thewn committee. to thatq access of appeals commission is currently having joint meetings with the code advisorykm committee to develop some input into the administrative bulletin, access issues. we are using their expertise to

deal with the code issues. >> great. -- commissioner walker:u y grea. >> as far as:ci the code advisoy committee, there are 15 members. they deliberate and make recommendations on matters pertaining to theh+d building ad improvement of the content of the san francisco building code , electrical code, plumbing code, and housing code. fáthe rules and regulations area proposed ordinance and they determine an impact on construction permits. they refer issues to the department of building inspection for your further action. theyñr include--y a major projet ñrarchitect, a civil engineer, a

construction engineer, a mechanical/ contractor. a fireoñz inspection engineer. and general contractor, a modeling contract, a commercial property8/ñ owner, members of te general business community, and a person knowledgeable about historical preservation, a person knowledgeable] disability access issues. i do have the chair from the code advisory committee here. they are bothñi available for >> good morning, commissioners. i am the chair of the code advisory committee. ñrñrthank you for recognizing my colleague. it is terrible thatçó he passed away. he was a really active member of the committee. it is a great loss.

i just want to talk a little bit about the philosophy of our committee,c because i think is important. we are in between the regulations and the real world. the expertise our committee members bring is really important. one of the things we work really hard to do is to get interpretations' out of the ether and on paper. %eier and on paper. point about the accr&ity issues, ourydv subcommittee reay is proactive about that. you are absolutely right. we have 15rlv members active in that subcommittee. -@xthey help develop a bulletino clarify and get it out in writing.

the processes and the terminations there in the code. we alsoñr have another subcommittee. we have aq structural subcommittee. we have a disability access and green building subcommittee. we have a few issues that i think kirk prepared a handout. /5we have a few issues we are waiting right now. one of them is we heard the capital living space discussion. another one -- habitable living space discussion. another one is the waterñr botte filling stations. and ordinance to add that. we discussed that at our last meeting at quite a bit. i think there was a general support about the idea, but

there was confusion aboutñr howe y really implemented. were with the targets be, how targets be, how would we implement them? is there a barrier between the water and the bottle? and so forth. detai1oárpá. i also want to mention there is c stat%xjf code -- an emergency packet of code revisions. i uf accessibility changes as well. flexibility, i understand. been there are some changes to the regulations. ñr billo work on getting a link their -- on the o=[dbis?ñ website.

ñiñrcowthe access accessibility subcommittee is working proactively on one issue, which elevators. i understand they had an on-site meeting so that we could work out the type of screens and whar information was displayed, how it is actually communicated to the publicñr and all the regulations are met. we also continue to work with the structural subcommitteeñr on the different building sizes. this is the outgrowth of moçósf the caps from a few years ago. we arey8 working hard to make e ourñr subcommittee is up toñr s.

there is one other issue that came up recently. in courage -- we got some information about umb buildings that were upgraded, and the type of ramp may not have been installed per the intent roof e ordinance. a lot of brick wallsxd are layes of brick. it appears that they were approved for thatñiñr purpose. in some cases, the property owners were only anchoring the first layer of brick. we cannot know if this issue is on a couple buildings,fácouple s

happening consistently. this is from some years ago. so, our subcommitteeçókóñ has bn communication, and --ep&e%ei çówe believe a study should be done to review some of the plans to see how many buildings might be using the type of anchor we are talking about. what we are trying to get a handle on, are all of these g impacted? or is it just añg÷ few that are impacted? the bottom line is, if it is justñr the first layer, we're nt going to get the strength that everyone expected on the code. from the code.

if we look at plants, look at a revised plan check -- look at ?5if you can direct resources o that effect, that would be very helpful. ñiif there are any questions, im zwavailable to take questions. commissioner walker:'sc i would like to think the committee for all the work they have done it with the recommendations. obviously, the issues are very complicated -.lthese are the folks who have brought together all of the expert to know about geology and seismology and mind-numbing statistics that go into these coded 53 recommendations better going forward. -- that are going forward. i think the committee has provided us commissioners with

the knowledge that is out there on the issues thateíñ we prioritize. it is important that you guys are there. of course, i think we have a strong motion finally that i think the director is in charge of. fái think the umb program is beg looked at. i mean, even during the tap discussions, we talked about whether the scientists -- cap discussions, we talked about whether the scientists could provide safe for solutions. this is something we mightñr lok at. >> we are concerned about this. if it is reallyx#p'ecdotal and not a problem, then we can deal with those of the case by case basis. commissioner walker: i do have another question. on our hand out, we noticed once the commission gets a participant fort each meeting,

to all of them -- for each meeting, to all of them? >>ñr since 1997, i any stipend. commissioner walker: i know. when we are it commissioned by charter, we are not allowed. us up here, we are not paid. >>a& you know, most of our mems have been on ouud committee for quite some time. p how committed theyñr are to the code. i am really proud to be chair of that committee. amazing work for our city. át to thank the department directors. especially kirk jumped right in. it really helpsñr with our

knowledge. >> you spoke about the on reinforced masonry -- unreinforced masonry building. i know as a former pastor here in san francisco, we had to redo our building.there were issues k 1980's. these public-type buildings, older buildings. gx8.vi commend your work and the get the support for that. that is quite important for those institutions to remain in 8 cap study helped illustrate was it there are certification -- there are certain things you can demonstrate, sort of low hanging fruit. that is really what our efforts

have been the last, i would say, 18 months. to bring those four were in code regulation and say, -- forward in code regulations and say, hey. i do not think it will be a repeat of 19 06 -- 1906, but that has been our recent focus. >> my second question -- going that most of our seats expire in 2013. i don't know what the nomination process is, how we move forward people to fill these seats, but i think it is important for our commission and the existing committee to start working on that to makeñi sure this excellt work continues. it seems to me to be much of the guts of what we do proactively

and on into the future. i hope we calendar that matter, nominations and so forth. >> we actually have a nominations' subcommittee of the bic. >> ok. >> i just know there isxd a subcommittee where everybody sees -- people have been there ñrsince 1997, and they?f say "w" commissioner lee: i also want to express myñr appreciation to the code advisory committee. 0hthey have puta2÷ in a lot of. many, many appreciate. i just thought i would ask, how

do you feel about the process -- i think i asked this before -- is the process going well? i thought i would ask. on your end, is there anything the code advisory committee ñrxdneeds other than support frm us? >> i think the only thing that comes up regularly in our meetings is the request that we be more represented at our meetings. and mainly that is to sort of make suree5-is continuity %zuwhen code legislation moves m our committee9

been in a lot of our meetings. i know the director has been in our meetings asñrsur well, so tt helps a lot. but(uç if there were a regular be supported across the board by all members. ago we would just vote approval at the committee recommended this and this and this. just recently, we started receiving lettersxd for this and this reason. there are probably public documents were supporting materials with those. those might be useful tools? >> possibly. we to record all of our meetings as a matter of record. the really heavy lifting, as you know, is done at the subcommittee level. we have so manyql÷ members, it s

hard to get an issue vetted in afá two- 53sgéwe pushed theñr legislatio that the working language can be really have about their. when the subcommittee brings it to the -- %xso that the working out there. when the subcommittee19ñ bringst to the committee, it is those topics that we cannot bring for. the issues are generally not totally discussed. they are only discussed at one or two meetings. years has proved very successful. commissioner lee:w2áutááhut &e%i should leave it to us as to whether we want to sit ontw the subcommittees are not.

>> the work comes our way, and we just assume it comes out of the air. cal4 get a consensus which 14ñr peope is beyond me. we put people who really understand the code together like that. there isñró-ú genuine issues tht need to be resolved in the code. other commissioners touched base on this. it is sort of feast or famine with your code. in there, there might be something, and i do not see it in their. do you have a formula addendum? if you feel --fá;dk i am tryingo thinkñr.

flthere were six or seven or 10 items that came forward from the code advisoryisi committee. and you know, it was fine and it worked out fine. but it caused concerns. my question to you isñr, do you have a you pull that,a meeting togethe, or do you piecemeal it, or -- >> the process is that we are allowed to amend the code. is it is on a three-year cycle. ñ#ñ of these codevr revisions in every department they want to change and they push it all into a new code. is a big waveñr ofu0j new provis at the state levels[q that we tn have to see how they affect ourr administration. then you see a glut come

through. occasionally we do not catch every conflict. there isq( light windows. we are correcting that, essentially. and my gosh, it has been four years since that happened. then youl.z get provisions where jt(s people saying, hey, thereiu÷ is a prob. çso, in between those cycles, they go to the top because they are individual issues and we're dealing with them on their own individual cycle. but when those changes happened during those large waves of changes, theyfá get kind of los. ñrbut they are best -- once again,ñr a constituent groups ae

invitedñi to)yñ our submitting meetings. they have a notice. those are agenda items. those are the best places for wjathose issues to get hammered out. if there are constituent groupst and call different people and ask them to attend the meeting. our structural subcommittee many times+wé as other members attens well. we make sure they are reaching out to the community. if there is something i put forward by the supervisors,ñr te committeeñr has background information. where did it come from? omhow was it supposed to fit io the code? we understand what the real intent behind it is so we can integrate