many websites replaced the website with some kind of black and white frame. we feel we really have a model of activity we should - i'm going to tell everybody that 1, 2, and 3 to support the immigration reform. we're going to have access or the chances of services like voices 1, 2, and 3 is going to be much lower. i want to see the business owners follow suit. by the way, my wife and daughter are here and my daughter has the march t-shirt >> thank you for the practical steps and again, we have folks that are tweeting or posting

there's so many ways to engage and it's easy and effective. it also means meeting people. we'll be taking another small group of ceos from small business by also start ups. in washington d.c. they only hate you when your successful. then we're going to open it up to the audience. as - >> we work with people all over the united states. we have an intelligent to do that we're suppliers there and we get to them and explain the how and why and what to do. and that's another way to

leverage our networks and our stories to be able to do that. and march for innovation that's a great thing it's allblast about how easy it is to do those things. i take every opportunity to be out there talking to people because numbers are great bs but as human nature it's better to put a face to a story and i encourage you to all do that. our start up was because we decided to get together and do that. he's from kansas and he takes every opportunity to talk about our stories. we have a network to make sure we keep going forward with this >> thank you we're going to go

to questions from the audience. we're going to start with a few partners. first bob who's president and ceo of the san francisco chamber and if i'm not imposing too much we have others to the extent we have time >> thank you carl thank you for getting us ail together. first of all, i'd be remissed mr. mayor if i didn't congratulate you on the events coming up. before i get to my question. thank you for your participation particularly entrepreneurs. i want to get you to talk about the education and the world of the united states.

what kind of impact if the immigration reform didn't happen what impact will it have >> in the short time the visas the h1 petition we're trying to find a replacement for that person in the united states it's difficult to find people with skills so we might enable them to set up their offices and build a team. >> i was going to say if you guys haven't checked out the start up report they've done things around the world. so everywhere the e go system is growing but if we don't fix the

immigration issues then the other pavrts parts of the world like brazil and china and venture capita lifts have activity invest in other countries >> if it does happen have you seen the banner - we'll just get real sad. >> mayor lee. i think the recovery will not be fully for everybody. you'll have thirty to 50 thousand people in our city alone maybe 2 and a half million that don't talk about their health and they have to create things underground and that effects health safety and fiscal safety in our neighborhoods

because people have to hide. this has been building up thaits it's not that it just happened. we need to do something about immigration reform it can change the circumstances to bring a lot more people out into the light to have full prarngs in our economy >> the president has said it allowed and clear he believed that our immigration system is broken. he has laid obvious his ideas. he believes we need a strong bored and it's a priority for his administration a fair path to censorship[p to the millions of people who are contributing to our country and need to be

here and have a lot to continue to contribute when they come out of the shadows. there are other priorities that he will continue to support and push forward. we want to, you know, look at those employers that are not following the rules. like all in this room there are employers who are not following the rules and it's a priority for our wanting to stop the things that are making us weak. and we still have a few years ahead but at this point it's not the end of the world but the administration stays commented to fix this system >> we're not going to lose because if we lose this opportunities it will be

decades. but bob thanks for that question >> yeah. i have more of a city observation. as this effort moves from the senate to the house that's the argument it needs to be made. we're dealing with a few moderate members the message is it grows the economy. in your networks across the country like the voice bunny you're the best messengers and democratic and republican members say we haven't heard enough you from the business community. we can help you impact public policy so if you get a chance to fill it out leave it under your chair and we'll collect it.

>> thanks for the leadership of business forward. i hope all of us fill out those cards week, engaged or enraged. >> thank you carl and all. i'll uses the rules of order to keep this short and fast and also to say it's critically important here in san francisco is is we're being heard in washington and what we're seeing in the house is going to be a lot longer than we anticipated. it's to stay involved and engaged. we've got a campaign which is keep us here dot.org. we'll be keeping that going.

but it's critically important at this junction we stay involved >> i've got a long line of folks who want to identify themselves we have 6 minutes left and so think lightning fast. >> i'm the ceo of the scientific research company. my question is how can we collaborate with the office at the federal and local level to do the research. a lot of the immigrants don't understand they can do immigrant research >> we have a short conversation around the b-1 conversations and

the processing of the visas. i'm happy to engage with you that we can help promote the b-1 visa to promote that we have also some brochures about our offices and folks are having a problem with requests to allow business activities under b-1 week help >> our city we're one o one of the largest general offices in the nation outside of washington and new york. we promote invests and i have educational leadership projects. we can work together on

international ideas this promote the professors and education issues >> yes, sir. . i'm a founder of a company. a few weeks ago i was told i'd have to leave the united states. i've been living in japan and i've entered the country numerous times and i've paid my taxes pr is there any way for the immigration officers to interpreter the law like they do in japan >> what a great question and compelling question. >> our office does a lot of

reviews in the immigration issues. i have a colleague here and he's our senior advisors. fred and i work very closely in giving adjudication issues as they relate to a start up business whether in the h b context we're very involved and providing recommendations to ac i s in how to improve + jurisdictions in policy and training. we welcome our comments and ideas but case examples that reflect miss application of the laws. make sure you have our card before i leave and a maria thank you for responding >> we have two speakers and

literally are out of time. >> my name is juan gomez i gntd from columbia. i wanted to ask i talk about what you can do in the middle america i move forward from kansas city so i know that middle america looks up to san francisco. so what can the city's do not only the tech world is leading the world but in the technology industries they're not as progressive as in the tech community part what are your thoughts in the tech community leading the way to be more progressive on immigration and

the city of san francisco leading the way for other cities of embracing immigrants. people not knowing we pay the same taxes and have the same obliterations as the rest of the americans. so what can the city and a tech destroy do. that's why the silicon leadership group who have all those members to make sure that all clusters emphasize the need for all immigration. we want to get to one more person >> i'm here actually, i went through the exact same issue i was a foreign student and it took me looked at to get the

green card. i'm not sure in the category i see less than 20 thousand people in america - the question i have why people say the farm worker when you look at the - they have the h1 b visa which means allowing both people can go to singapore and go to the u.s. to work and they never have a problem and they can stay here for long. why is there an exception to

>> good afternoon and welcome to the department of building inspection's brown bag lunch. we depo this every third thursday here at the department of building inspection. we have an interesting topic today about preventative home maintenance. and we'll talk about what that

means a little bit. i have two great guests, extremely knowledgeable folks, anthony wong who is a contractor here in the city, thanks for joining us, anthony. and dan, also a contractor and both of these gentlemen do a lot of small, medium and some, i guess you do some large size jobs as well. but also have maintenance and home prevention, damage prevention and maintenance issues built into the work they do. in fact, i know dan brought along a list of maintenance check lists that they actually use in their business to help people. so what do you use that mapet nance check list for? -- maintenance check list for? >> for every project we finish, we sign a service agreement or offer a service maintenance agreement and then when we go back to the house a year later we go through this check list

and we go through the whole thing to make sure everything's being maintained, that, well, it's a very detailed check list. but every house in san francisco needs to be maintained and you can see through lawrence's slides what happens if you don't maintain them. >> in my experience, often people do wonderful design work and excellent construction but stop at that point when the construction is finished and think they're done. but that's not the case. you have to maintain it. you have to have a program first to evaluate it. is this what we wanted? pick up the stuff that's not quite right, you thought it was ok but not. so we have to do post construction evaluation and then we have to have a maintenance program. you've got to maintain them. these houses do not maintain themselves. and much of the work that we see coming in for small permit work in the department of building inspection are things that are related to maintenance. people want to rebuild a deck or they need to fix the

bathroom and put new materials and tile and so on and a lot of that work is work that could be -- extend the life of what you have if it had been properly maintained. not to say we don't like you to do bork in your homes, we -- to do work in your homes, but maintenance will help home repair. i have some slides here. let's take a quick peak here -- peek here. we'll look at the outside buildings first and inside buildings next. outside buildings are typical maintenance issues. a whole plethora of maintenance issues. the siding, the windows, the doors, the stairs, the sidewalk, the landscape. so let's just look at a couple different kinds of buildings and the typical problems they might have. so, for example, here's a building with final siding. what kind of maintenance do we need with the vinyl siding? we have to wash the thing, that's for darn sure. what do you think? >> it's got to be washed, caulked, checked to make sure water is not getting behind the

siding. >> caulking is not a replacement for good flashing. caulk something sort of a -- an interim waterproofing material that has to be maintained. if somebody says, we have a leak, let's caulk it, what that means is we've got a temporary solution that's going to leak some more unless you maintain that caulking constantly. the way that leaks are prevented and by the way leaks and water intrusion are pretty much the number one problem in buildings. that's my experience. is that what you see as well? the way to really prevent that is through proper flashing, typically metal, and then counterflashing over the top. complex flashing solutions. we're talking about washing buildings by the way and every year or two it is really a good idea for to you put a ladder up on your long weekend and get a bucket of soapy water and a big long handled mop or brush and get up there and scrub it and hose it off. you don't need a pressure blaster, you don't need to do

anything more than just wash it off and hose it down. that's my speernls. what do you think? -- experience. what do you think? >> it's really important. also, when do you the water testing you have to make sure you test around the windows and then go back inside to see if there's any dampness around the sheet rock, to see if there are areas you need to do additional flashing or caulking which again is a temporary measure. but that's a good time to check to make sure that your windows are waterproof. >> so don't be overly aggressive about water testing, though. if you take a hose ass and squirt it at something, water will -- hose and squirt it at something, water will go in. when you wash it off and hose it down gently and carefully, it gives you a chance to look for problems as well. >> yeah. the main thing is wash around all the windows. the water will go inside your house,ed siding. >> so don't be overly aggressive with your hose. if you go to a window an start squirting it, it'll get wet. let's look at another style of

house. here's wood siding with stucco in this pattern of masonry and then a solid wood garage door. how do we maintain wood siding? >> wood siding needs to be painted, it needs to be maintained. if it's a clear finish and you -- there's some shingles and siding that you can let go gray in that instance you're really depending on all the flashing to do your water proofs. >> by the way, stucco, people say, oh, i got stucco like this blue area of the house. stucco is taking care of the waterproofing. stucco is not a waterproof material. stucco always cracks. stucco combracks and in fact -- cracks and in fact unless you put a waterproofing membrane on top of it which is paint or something, when it gets wet, water's going to pass right through the stucco and what happens when it passes through or gets behind your wood siding? what happens then? a few things happen. first you get wood rot from the

sheathing underneath. but secondly something really important in our earthquake-prone areas is that you can rust the fasteners, the nails, the nails that are holding the sheathing and other types of metal as if ners which are always underneath -- fasteners which are always underneath the siding, you lose the sheer connections between the sheathing and the framing of the building. and we saw that in earthquakes. especially in that lower few feet close to the sidewalk where you have a lot of water splash. we see rusting of connecters, a serious problem and a reason for to you make sure you're keeping that stucco painted and coated. do we have to seal the grout and the masonry around brick? >> if you don't, if you don't seal the brick, then water penetrates through and you have the same problem as you have with stucco. most of the dry rock that we come across is either in stucco or brick because the water gets in and gets trapped and can't get back out. where the wood breathes better.

so, wood gets -- water gets behind stucco. the worst dry rot is always behind a brick or a stucco facade. >> brick has a special problem and a special reason for you to make sure that it is waterproof and that's because it has metal fasteners that keep the brick attached to the building. if the fasteners rust, the brick is just sitting there and in an earthquake the whole brick can fall off. >> you should always have a six-inch separation between the lowest shingle or piece of siding and ground contact. and that should be a concrete foundation there. >> so it's probably -- there probably is a foundation but they figured out a way to extend those all the way down to the ground which is a problem. so the reason you want to have it up from the ground is that

we have a lot of water splash in heavy rain and they're going to get wet and also that what happens is water through capillary action and other methods will actually get sucked up through -- behind those shakes and shingles, if they can go all the way down to the ground. dan mentioned a topic that i think is really important. it covers not just building maintenance but generally new buildings and everything. and that's that the building is made of a system of components and the problem is that not all of these components have the same life span. so we build a building and the life span of a building in san francisco is essentially unlimited. we don't say we expect buildings to last 30 years and then we're going tear them down and build a new building like they do in japan and other places. we say, once a building is built we expect that it will be able to be maintained. and once it's 50 years old, it's likely to become a historic resource of some sort.

the problem is then that buildings might have shakes and shangele -- shingles that are good for 30 years but the paper underneath it might be, you know, have a 10-year or 15-year or 20-year warranty or life expectancy and the fasteners mible own -- might be only reasonably good for 15 or 20 years and the window might have a 20-year warrant and this stuff does not align. and we see this especially as a problem with new buildings where we have a new building that -- where we have a facade that we expect to be secure for 30 years to 40 years before it needs to be reteared but underneath it has -- it has some membrane that's a 20-year membrane. that's an issue that we're all wrestling with it as part of this new sustainability overview. how do we align all of the components so that we have a durable building? you can't have a durable building if the stuff that's behind those shakes is not as durable as the shakes themselves basically.

one of our big issues right now. here's a stucco facade with a wood door. it looks like it might even have new vinyl windows, hard for us to tell from this distance. >> wherever you have two dissimilar materials coming together, you have an opportunity for a leak. so we're stuck -- where stucco but thes up to -- butts up to brick or wood or to vinyl or -- those are the areas that you have to be -- where two materials come together, that's the area that you really have to maintain and that's where the leaks happen. that's where cracks occur. there's differential settlement, over time the materials pull apart and that's where you really have to be concerned about maintaining a water proof seal. >> so if you look at a picture like this where we see the stairs which are probably concrete and the building which is a wood frame building, they separate. they will separate.

they are not made of the same materials. and the reason that we have a gap that will ultimately occur between the stair and the building is they have different rates of expansion and contraction from the sun and just from temperature change. they have differential settlement in san francisco. everything settling a little bit. doesn't have to be settling a lot but if it settles a quarter of an inch over 10 years, part of it is going to settle more than another part and the inherent materials actually have different properties that allow them to shrink and swell. for example, a wood building when it gets humid shrinks and swells. here's an interesting building. it has three different construction types, materials on its finish. it's got this brick -- what do they call that? clinker brick? is that what it's called? yeah, clinker brick, whe