we're just having a little technical difficulty it. the time is 10:30. good morning. today is november 21st, 2012. this is our meeting of the building inspection commission. i would like to remind everyone again to please turn off all electronic devices. and the first item on the agenda is roll call. president mccarthy? >> here. >> vice president mar? >> here. >> commissioner clinch? >> here.

>> commissioner lee? >> here. >> commissioner curran? >> here. >> commissioner walker? >> here. >> and commissioner melgar is excused. we have a quorum and the next item on the agenda is president's announcements. >> good morning, everybody. thank you. very happy thanksgiving to everybody. this morning also like to recognize fresh out of retirement [speaker not understood] here, [speaker not understood], boasting her new first meeting out of retirement. good to have you here. >> thank you. >> so, president's comments, i'll keep it fast. we have a pretty swift agenda today because i believe we have to turn the room over at 12 o'clock here because i think we should be on time here. there was a 2 alarm fire at 42 fernwood drive caused by structural damage per dbi [speaker not understood].

they signed an emergency demolition order on this. there were no injuries, that's good news. looks like we'll be able to close that down. mayor lee [speaker not understood] important contributions to the successes of green sustainable buildings in opinion editorial published in the san francisco examiner on november 13th. the editorial conceded that the city's welcomes 2000 professionals from around the world attending the green building conference. deputy director ed sweeney and chief electrical inspector ron allen met with and assisted contractors and owners this week for repairs underway at 345 [speaker not understood]. we talked about it last week. continuing dbi's response, fire damage, the mayor has [speaker not understood]. it look safe and hopefully we'll see a new building there

soon. but we'd like to recognize the staff and the department for their efficiency in getting there and getting this done as quickly as possible. it was a very severe eyesore for the people of west portal. we're delighted to join a special salute to edwin lard a for going beyond the call of duty. inspection were completed in a timely manner. * there's a lot of paperwork. thank you, edwin, for your outstanding customer service. bill, i believe you have an announcement you would like to add in with the president's announcements from supervisor kim's office. is that correct? >> yes, mr. president. [speaker not understood]. legislative affairs. we have a copy that was presented today to supervisor kim to the housing inspection division of the department saluting them for work with the city attorney on a case on

leavenworth street that took place recently. supervisor kim and other supervisors wanted to call attention to honor the good work the housing staff does in terms of supporting these types of litigation cases which i know all of you are familiar with. so, that's what was presented yesterday. >> thank you, mr. strong. >> do we have any public comment on the president's announcements? seeing none, item number 3 is general public comment. the bic will take public comment on matters within the commission's jurisdiction that are not part of this agenda. >> if i may before you get started, members of the public may address the commission on items not appearing on the agenda for a period time not to exceed three minutes. speakers shall address their remarks to the commission as a whole and not to individual commissioners or department personnel. thank you. hello, commissioners.

henry karnilowicz. what i wanted to bring up was about parking for building inspectors. [speaker not understood] can't park their cars in yellow zones or white zones or green zones. and, so, a lot of times they have to park in someplace that could be two or three, four, blocks, particularly downtown. what this does, it creates a longer period of time by trying to find a parking spot. by the time they get to the job site, by the time they make the inspection, by the time they get back to the car, it hold up -- it costs the city more for them to do this. and also for the contractors, too, because they've been waiting for them to get over there. i would hope you could discuss at a future date about allowing them to park in these different zones and not just limiting them to where the parking meters are because i believe if they do park in the yellow zones with the green or the white, they would -- they do get tickets for doing that,

which is rather insane that the city agency has to pay the city -- the inspectors themselves are liable for that. so, i'd hope that you would consider that at another meeting. >> thank you. hi, tom harvey, fire marshal. i just wanted to say a couple quick things. i have this meeting on my calendar every few weeks and i never make it here so i wanted to be here. i want to thank director huey. he invited me to a code discussion and it's a real big issue. it is from a building association about single-family homes. and through collaborative review, we found the state had made a mistake in an amendment that was a huge deal for one and two family homes. a huge deal for a builder that wanted two-family homes. that is going to be coming out from director's staff real quick, but it was a very good discussion on it. it's not going to be on the

agenda or anything, but we're also trying to get more consistency and put out different examples spayctionv concerning residential properties where they're adding a floor, residential occupancy or they're going to be changing use from garage residential, even a portion of, to give better guidance. * especially again, police and fire and building have to be coordinated in these reviews. so, like i said, it was a real good meeting. i know on item number 4, you have the overall umbrella permit for sprinklers, for sprinkler coverage for high-rise buildings. that is a great thing for helping expedite the programs. i know the director's staff has worked with fire, so, we're all on board with that and everything. it's nice to be here again and happy thanksgiving to you all, too. >> thank you. good morning,

commissioners. happy holidays. my name is robert davidson, i live in the bayview, 90 21 4. i'm here for [speaker not understood]. one is an emergency demolition order that was signed on august 7th for some properties on the corner of thornton and 3rd street in the bayview. properties are still there and i understand that the department is working on them. but we'd like to get the buildings knocked down. second item is 48 01 3rd street. there is a long history about this building. and there was a director's hearing hosted for 11-6 and apparently that has been postponed till january. and i was hoping to get that back into everybody's radar. and then we would like to get some information about open director's meetings and open hearing. this is a violation. we'd also like to get a little information about the q-matic software and an update on 18 81

oakdale. that was the house that caught fire in march this year. and apparently the house has been sold. i was just hoping that the dbi will help the new owners get their permits, get the building knocked down, get it all going. we'd like to see that building knocked down and rebuilt. thank you. >> any further public comment? seeing none, we can move on to item number 4, discussion and possible action regarding a proposed administrative bulletin ab 105, voluntary sprinkler protection for existing high-rise buildings which provides for an administrative permit to document sprinkler protection of existing buildings that are completely sprinklered, but not required to be sprinklered. >> thank you. my name is kirk means from the former building inspection services and i'm here to introduce you to the proposed

administrative bulletin, new administrative bulletin, bulletin number ab 105, voluntary sprinkler protection for existing high-rise buildings. through the tireless efforts of jerry cunningham, he's a local fire protection engineer and appointee by you people to the code advisory committee for 15 years or so, he put together this administrative bulletin that will give some opportunities to customers that have needs related to it. what ab 105 does is it provides voluntary process for documenting a fully sprinklered building. it's basically administrative permit that puts into the public record that this is a fully sprinklered building. i'll explain why that's important in a minute. many high-rise buildings in san

francisco were built without sprinkler systems over the years. it wasn't a requirement by california until about i think somewhere around the early '70s. so, in 1993 the san francisco passed an ordinance to retrofit certain types of buildings with sprinklers. it was a mandatory retrofit and it covered -- what it did cover was commercial high-rises and tourist hotels. what it didn't cover is pre-1974 high-rise apartment buildings or condos, historic buildings, or mixed use buildings that had residential occupancies in them. so, it left a group of high-rise buildings out there that are required to be sprinklered, but may have voluntarily added sprinklers to

their buildings for their own various benefits. the compliance task for the mandatory buildings, they were given numerous years, many, many years to comply. so, what they did is as they were doing remodeling or renovation tenant improvements, they would provide sprinklers with that and [speaker not understood]. over the years, the first year they may have done floors 1 and 3. second year they might have done 4, 5, fourth year 3 and 7, something like that. at the end of it, it's hard to tell exactly when they complied with the ordinance when they were fully sprinklered. so, an umbrella permit was devised at that point which was a permit to look at the permit history, basically, and determine that all of the areas of the building had been taken care of. and upon filing that permit,

they became in compliance with the ordinance. current codes allow a lot of various concessions for sprinklers. allow reduced excess separation , b rated corridors, additional stories, additional area, height and area. so, there are currently a number of customers that would like to make use of a current code in using -- for those items, they come to dbi to get a permit and they submit the plans and the plan checker goes, are you sure this is a fully sprinklered building? because it's not one of the required high-rises. they say yes. the plan checker says, you're going to have to prove it. i need to know. [speaker not understood] fully sprinklered high-rise before i allow you to use those code options.

that's basically what this administrative bulletin does. the process is the fire protection -- fire protection engineer, independent fire protection engineer sits down with fire and building and a pre-application and goes over the -- what's going to be required, iron out all the bugs, questions, and then he goes and gets the permit history that shows all the various permits that have been issued in the past. and then he walks the building to make sure that all the areas are protected. and if there are areas that need to be protected, he advises the owner that in order to get this permit, you're going to have to sprinkler this closet or that story or whatever it is. so, the owner will go out and get a permit to get the final sprinklering done on the building. and at that point there's permits for all the various

areas of the building. the fire protection engineer submits a report to dbi stating such and listing all the permits. it's fire and building and that permit is issued. it's an administrative permit. the work ha already been done. it's like the umbrella permit. call for a final building inspection, it's signed off, and at that point you have a permit that says that your building is fully sprinklered and offer that to your plan reviewer or include the letter and permit number with your plan set. so, that's the basics of it. is there any questions i can try to answer for you? >> i have a question. go back to the early '70s, do

you have an idea of how tall these buildings are that we're talking about? it's not the really tall ones, the newer ones. >> roughly 75 feet or higher [speaker not understood]. >> do we know how tall the tallest is that we're talking about? >> no, i don't. it would cover to the tallest. >> right. i know that we -- i mean, just as -- when we were talking about new construction, i guess tweak of the sprinkler systems, there was some adjustment made to the elevators so that the drainage would not go down the chute so that the fire responding folks could use the elevators for emergency. and i just wonder if those kinds of things are being looked at, too, in this or not. maybe -- you know what i'm talking about, the fire marshal there.

>> just a quick comment on that. that would be for a fire service elevator? >> yes. >> that would not be covered at all by this. the average height of these buildings is between 8 and 20 stories. the 6 stories and things like that, those are all much newer buildings. but no, this would not have anything to do with anything going down the sprinkler shaft. those are only for fire service elevators that have just come in recent edition. >> okay, thank you. >> excuse me. i may have missed this, but how many buildings are we talking about that would fall into this category? >> in some round numbers, there's about 550 some high-rise buildings, but that has nothing to do with this number. i would say the number of ones that were either residential or historic buildings that were not required to be sprinklered through the 1993 ordinance, i would say are 100, maybe,

something like that. >> oh, 100 have voluntary sprinklered out of the 500? >> i wouldn't say that. i think that could be answered. most of them haven't. most residential buildings haven't been voluntarily sprinklered. as they do upgrades for insurance purposes they have started to do it. and there's a lot of areas that were mentioned that other requirements, if a building is fully sprinklered, they don't have to have one alley corridors or [speaker not understood] otherwise. it has to do with a reward/benefit type thing, how much do you get out of it. round numbers. >> is most of the people you deal with homeowner associations? >> building owners are the benefiters. it's part of a homeowner association. >> so, it's mostly condos we're talking about here, right?

>> condos and apartments. >> would you say more condos than apartments? >> i don't have a feel for [speaker not understood]. >> are any periodic follow-up checks for the systems that have been put in? >> once it gets into the system, regular routine inspections. and as part of our annual high-rise program, high-rise inspection program, there are a few things to make sure pumps are working and there are state requirements for five-year certifications. and regarding the apartments and condos, most of the condos are newer unless they've referred it over. i think most of these would be apartment buildings. and historic commercial that may not make any changes. something like one market, not the newer part, but the older part. they've come in and installed sprinklers.

>> so, essentially this bulletin is just trying to document which buildings have voluntarily added sprinklers and which -- i guess we wouldn't know which didn't. there's no other encroachment to offer the other building owners to voluntarily sprinkler? >> well, i think it's once again the rewards. we would know all the buildings that were sprinklered just by year and those that came into compliance through the 1993 retro sprinkler ordinance. i mean, there's a number that -- i wasn't prepared to speak on it nor have those numbers. but no, those numbers are there on the buildings. actually, i think the bottom line to this is this is just a way to help any designer that's coming through the process get through it quicker. so, when the plan reviewer -- as somebody said, my building is fully sprinklered. i don't want to meet x and y requirements. and the map reviewer asks, is

the building fully sprinklered? here's our form, it's fully sprinklered and it will get them through the process much quicker. >> i think that's the goal. does that sound right? >> yeah. okay. >> thank you, mr. mimms. >> any discussion with the commission or any public comment? seeing none, does someone want to make a motion? >> commissioner walker. >> move to approve. to support, or whatever vernacular is. >> second. >> possible action item, yeah. >> okay, is there a second? >> yes. >> we can do a roll call vote. i'm sorry, on the wrong page here. president mcdahr think?

>> aye. >> vice president mar? >> yes. >> commissioner clinch? >> yes. >> commissioner lee? >> yes. >> commissioner mccray? >> yes. >> and commissioner walker? >> yes. >> the approval is unanimous. the next item on the agenda is item number 5, discussion on progress of recruitment for executive search firm regarding hiring of a permanent director for the department. >> thank you, madam secretary. we have in front of you which was just distributed there, if you'll bear with me i'll go through everything and give you a road map on how this process has done. we have some good news in the sense that approximately over two months ago we sent out for the vendors from that, which we updated. at the end of i believe last month i think we had the time frame for the vendors to get

in. we actually ended up with five vendors who applied. alliance resources was one. bob murry & associates. you will remember them from the last time. ralph anderson & associates and [speaker not understood]. so, they have submitted packages and in their packages covered the range of things obviously the cost and so on. when we went through it and i kind of want to take this opportunity to thank ted yamasaki and his staff over there in human resources and also deputy director levin for support, and helping me through this process and getting -- giving me the road map i need, too, so we can make this presentation to you here today. and using their expertise and their opinions, we kind of came up with a formula on how to evaluate these. one of the things we did was we kind of broke it down to six points of each of these vendors

and we asked these questions. question one, how did they demonstrate experience recruitment of similar positions or other higher level positions? evidence of recent successful requirements in the building inspection industry. you know, we asked that question in looking at their application. recruitment approach, how they approach. demonstration of challenges of recruitment in a political environment. and i know one of the commissioners had a question with regard to that there last week. so, firms experience and expertise in recruitment and schedule and cost obviously. and from that, i personally kind of went through and did my own analogy and kind of tried to -- the whole goal here, i believe, would be to short list this to three, three vendors. i did my own. obviously what's in front of you here today is just kind of a little snapshot on what we did and how we got here.

if i may, i'd like to turn it over to ted and ask him. because what i did ask of him was for him to evaluate and maybe recommend, which is the other page that you see there, which is this page, a kind of a 1, 2, 3 list. and from that we would -- what i'm proposing to do is to give him direct -- to go back with those three list and get them. and from that we can make the final conclusion. so, if it's okay with you, ted, if you could kind of walk us through and kind of take it from there. thank you. >> president mccarthy, commissioners, [speaker not understood] managing deputy direct term department of resources. with me is [speaker not understood] in the department of human resources. * at the i think you have in front of you a one-page grid that identifies the proposals as well as some of the categories that we looked at in those

proposals. president mccarthy identified some of the -- we don't really have a recommendation on a specific vendor that you should go with. we are recommending that you take into consideration probably the most important piece in any recruitment and selection program as far as we're concerned, and that is the contractor's experience or proven experience in successful recruitments in similar positions at the proximate levels. we believe in california given the nature of the work here in california. you will see, then, on that one sheet three vendors have what we consider to be significant experience in doing recruitment similar to these in california. they are alliance resource consulting, bob murry & associates, and ralph anderson & associates. we are generally familiar with all of these contractors and have -- and i have personally worked with bob murry and ralph anderson in other recruitments throughout the city and county, i've not worked with alliance resource consulting as of

today. of the three contractors, you can see that other -- they've also done work in similar fields outside of the state of california. the third column going left to right on our spreadsheet identifies that alliance bob murry and ralph anderson really also have experience in doing similar kinds of recruitments outside of california. moving over to about the middle of the spreadsheet we're interested in identifying what kind of experience these contractors have working with the public sector. all three of those vendors have significant experience in the public sector, 14, 25, and 33 years respectively. the issue, then, is one of cost. you'll see that alliance actually came in at the low end of what we customarily see as a recruitment cost, at about 17,5. and ralph anderson & associates on the higher end of what we typically see on recruitment costs, $40,000 plus expenses. if we were challenged today to actually make a recommendation

on a short list, we would obviously recommend to the commission that they do allow us , [speaker not understood] in particular, to go in and do the vetting of these proposals. we want to ensure we understand from a reference perspective how cooperative the vendor has been in working with specific needs of the hiring authority, how flexible they were in meeting the timelines that are demanded by the higher authority, how satisfied the clients were in the actual identification of finalists. really, the goal in using a contractor is to have the contractor provide for you the appointing authority, highly qualified candidates from which you can make this selection. so, the department of human resources role in all of this as requested by mickey callahan, the human resources director, is to be the facilitator. we believe that you should rely obviously on the consul