>> good morning, today is wednesday, november 20, 2013, this is the regular meeting of the building inspection commission, i would like to remind everyone for please turn off all electronic devices. the first item on the agenda is roll call. >> president mccarthy? >> here. >> mar? >> here. >> lee? >> here. >> commissioner mccray. >> here. >> commissioner walker. >> here. >> commissioner clinch is excused and commissioner melgar is expected. we have a quorum and the next item is president's

announcements. >> good morning and thank you all for coming and forgive for starting late but we are waiting on one of the commissioners who should join us here real soon, my president announcements, many thanks to the dbi staffers joseph chan, and perez and ron dicks who represented the department at the annual china town resource fair on saturday, november 2, there was an excellent turn out and many questions about dbi process was responded to by the dbi staff there. and so thank you. >> thank you to senior building inspection joe duffy of inspection services who received a thank you letter from customer shirley, and presenting himself in a professional manner, so well done joe. so a big thank you to the record management staff who received a letter, from (inaudible) commanding them, and commending them for the great customer service skills and a job well done, kutos to

the record management staff who received a thank you letter from wo slin and forgive me for not pronouncing the names for the customer service, acknowledging that the entire staff under the leader hip of herera and including benji and maggie and simpson, and valesia and deron also included in that. thank you. and we will hear more details later in the meeting, and i do want to make you aware of the fact that there will be hands on testing of the new permit and project tracking system on december 17th by members of the citizens advisory group, the group was established by dbi and planning last year. and last year, to obtain the user input on the features of new ppts to enable the fine turning prior to our going live date early next year, so please note that on november 21st, from five to 7:00 p.m., dbi

will host the third workshop for the owners of the building that fall under the mandatory requirements of the new ordinance, the workshop will be held at the correct auditor um of the main library at the second workshop, which was held on october 28 and there was attendance of 350 and it was really impressive and it was clear that the out reach efforts are helpful ways to educate the property owners on the details of the program and the steps that need to be taken. and note that san francisco bay guardian contacted both dbi and the plan and published two stories regarding the 1049 market street situation is. and prior to the meeting and process to legalize the current illegal residential units and the steps to be taken to address the essential life safety systems in the building, formally requested on october 28th a suspension of the

building permit issued in august and which they have given to the board of appeals and this is schedule for december 18th which we will keep a close update on that. and fellow commissioners please check your cal lers and hold a space on december 13, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. for the annual dbi staff holiday party that will be held on the second floor of 1660 mission, and your children will be warmly welcomed and we will unwrap presents to be handed out on this merry occasion i hope that my kid behalfs himself better than last year. >> we are accepting nominations for the employee for the

quarter, for quarter four which ends at the end of this calendar year and so send in your nomination to william no later than december 13 and this we will announce the letter at the big meeting and congratulations to kristina wo ng and our quarter one winner, sarah lou and our quarter two winner and sonja or quarter three winner. and that concludes my president's announcements. >> is there any public comment on the president's announcements? and seeing none, item 3 general public comment. >> the bic will make public comment on matters in the commission jurisdictions that are not part of this agenda. >> no general public comment? >> and we are moving on to item four. >> madam before, and madam before we move on to item four commissioner walker requests that some adjustments of the commissioner walker do you want to suggest what you want to do here and if it is okay with the fellow commissioners we will proceed to that point. >> yes, i would like to move up our commission discussion of number of item 11.

discussion concerning whether dbi should adopt a new policy regarding intake and response of cold violation complaints and it is just a discussion. and then maybe if we could leave public comment open in case someone comes later in the meeting thinking that it was on the calendar. i want to accommodate the housing staff who is here to represent the department. >> so if there is no objections and wear in mind if somebody who was coming here has been based later on in the calendar that we will open up the public comment to that question if that works for everybody. and if there are no objections we can do that madam secretary. >> i would like to acknowledge that commissioner melgar has joined us. >> so, with that then. >> we will start with item eleven?

>> yes >> item eleven, discussing concerning whether dbi should adopt a new policy regarding intake and response of anonymous code violation and complaints. good morning commissioners, and i am already the deputy director of the services. and the discussion concerning the dbi should adopt the new policy we are just looking at options for this right now, currently we get complaints on 311, from the internet, on the phone. and a lot of times it is hard to know the source of the complaint and it can be anonymous and when the complaints are made they are made in all directions and they are complaints from one complaint, complaints from everyone. and so sometimes it is difficult to assimilate these complaints because sometimes they come in all directions.

so what is the policy, i mean... >> right now we take complaints anonymous. >> through the phone and through the internet and through 311. and for the counter and we make a complaint and we investigate the complaint and we try to investigate the complaint within the response time. >> so we don't handle it. >> right now we are taking the anonymous complaint. >> commissioner walker. >> i think that a lot of the interest in this is coming from the issue that we hear sometimes of the units and the concern that i think from our department's division is that there is housing, people's housing at stake in this process. so but i also, i mean that it has got to be weighed against the concern for the people to be able to complain without the fear of retaliation. and so, maybe if i could just

say that as a concern for me, too. that often times, tenants are fearful of being retaliated against, if they issue complaints about ha bitbility and such. so, i would want to have a situation where that is addressed somehow. >> well, it is not hear on this today, just so you know. >> okay, thanks. >> i will try to make it. >> fine. >> so you can fill in? >> yeah. >> commissioners any more questions before i get into my thing? >> what would, you know, as the commissioner mar and i, we are always, what would this mean if would you say and this is probably an unfair question, but, if you were to choose a policy where you, you know you had to put your name forward if you were to make a complaint do you thaifrng it reduce our nov

intake? >> i think that it would commissioners. >> you could not say how much? or >> it will be hard to estimate that. >> yeah. >> and go ahead. >> and well, we have been looking at what other cities do. and remember, that we were here a couple of months ago. and we had this whole part which shows all of the actions that we take, yeah. >> compared to other cities. >> and one of the cities that we looked at was the city of cincinnati. and i had to make the pass around here, sonja? >> okay. >> and the city of cincinnati gets that exactly what commissioner walker was talking about.

they screen their anonymous complaints so, they have certain complaints that they will accept that are anonymous and they have others that they will not accept. >> when we did the survey we noted that there are five cities, and among the top 25 cities in america that do not accept any anonymous complaints. san diego, phoenix, charlotte, north carolina, chicago and elpaso. cincinnati accepts the anonymous complaints this is only for the housing inspection, exterior buildings, public stairways or hallways, public elevators. and vacant buildings, and yards or vacant lots. trees, swimming pool enclosures. etc.-and then, they do not

accept anonymous complaints from the interiors of dwelling units and basements and lack of the second egress and the illegal apartments which is something that has been in the news lately and overcrowding. so, you know, there are people that call housing inspection when they need help. but there are also people who call when they don't like their neighbors. many call anonymously and expect us to force the neighbors out of their homes. i mean, i have seen people screaming, crying, hurling racial epitets two-minute call or an e-mail can lead to an eviction or a wild goose chase and often there is little information to go on. so if you look at the second page, the procedure that dan and i both went over, and with

rose mary and the housing inspector. and we also had some neighborhood or some community groups, that were very interested in this, too. and this would, this would just apply for housing inspection. and then, this one says anonymous complaints are to be accepted for heat and hot water and apartment buildings and hotel, lead paint removal work practices. common areas of our two occupancy and two unit buildings including stairways and elevators, lack of or defective means of egress and imminent hazards. and then, the second part of the proposal would be anonymous complaints would not be

accepted for interiors of units neighbor dispute and illegal occupancy and overcrowding. so, we will see this as a screening procedure, that could really greatly reduce a lot of the agony and the abuse that we see out in the field. commissioner mar? >> thank you for bringing these forward. i think that these are good examples just to compare. i will just, i had a question about what about the complaints where it is a building? where it is an illegal building and if not, tenant generated? ... >> if you are talking about a commercial? >> yeah, or a remodel and a new construction where there is no. >> that would not be changed that would continue the same as it is now because those will go to the building inspection and code. >> that is right. >> right, i am talking about the building and inspection site, do you have any idea of

how to deal with those? there are a lot of anonymous complaints and those two come from neighbors and the people from down the street who will see something happening and there are no permits posted or they feel like there are permits posted but it is beyond the scope of work. >> whenever there is a complaint now on the building, if it is exceeded in the scope of the remodel or the building used we send the district inspection out and we look at what permits there are on the building and permit of the building itself and go to verify it in the field. >> okay. >> so this is verifiable, and then, we continue to process, but if it is not, we drop it. >> but if it looks like it is in the scope of the permit and what it is approved for, we amend the complaint. and if it looks like it is for the further investigation that needs to be done and we investigate it. >> thank you. >> commissioner walker?

>> the housing folks, can you give us some examples or an idea of how often it happens that the last group comes to you like the ones that we are talking about, that will not be accepted? >> yeah, we get, well, let me show you the numbers that we do have. and i think that i gave them to sonja. >> yeah. >> and here they are. push >> it does that. >> we get about 1,000 a year.

anonymous complaints >> people call and they are aggressive with us and they are anonymous. >> and when you go out, do these situations present health and safety issues? or is it just... >> i mean, that i find that the ones that do, that we do see a lot of the help and safety issues, those people leave their names and contact numbers and want us to go in and they are not anonymous. >> if you could, weigh in, thank you for coming, i know that you had a tough day getting here and it was not easy, i appreciate it. >> and the safety that you made since the operating procedure has cut out all of the commissioners and this looks like a