because of his dedication and efforts on maintaining his business in san francisco, the family has become an integral part of the city of san francisco. he was not able to be here today, that somebody else is coming to take his place. thank you. >> thank you. i want to thank you for the staff working on this. as a representative of labor, i come here and i ask for something and it's a pleasure to be here today to recognize one of the real assets of this city. and to recognize somebody who really personifies the values to which i believe the city stands. if there was an inventory to be taken of the city, of its residents and business owners, i believe the name of richard

patani would be written there boldly in black ink. fors a participation in our apprenticeship program and of the iron workers for over 26 years and being a responsible employer. it's an honor to accept this recognition on richard's behalf. thank you. [applause] president chiu: congratulations. that concludes our special commendations for today. please call 49 through 51. the board of supervisors sitding as a company of the whole for a public hearing on amendments made last week to the resolution determining and declaring public interest and necessity for seismic retro fitting for earthquake safety funded by general obligation bonds and the ordinance pertaining to the seismic upgrade general obligation

bonds. president chiu: if we could now open this hearing to hear from individuals that wish to speak either for or against the amendments that we made last week to the proposed resolution and ordinance regarding the proposed earthquake safety retro fit and general obligation bonds. if i did not call your name and you wish to speak on this topic of the amendments, please step up to the microphone and if we could ask individuals, please step up. and each speaker will have up to two minutes. first speaker, please. >> good afternoon. i'm the chair of the caps program. it's a program in the department of building inspection. as i said, i'm a seismologist. i chair this public advisory

committee. it's comprised of more than 50 members of the public that come monthly to a two-hour meeting, volunteer their time. we have representatives of building owners, tenants, neighborhood landlords, small businesses that come to the meetings. the advisory -- public advisory committee has been apprised of the seismic vulnerability of san francisco and san francisco's buildings. and as a result, the committee has unanimously recommended that we need, here in san francisco, a mandatory retro fit ordinance. we think this is the only way to preserve housing, particularly for vulnerable populations in the city. to keep housing affordable and available. the committee believes that meaningful incentives like the proposed bond measure for the seismic retro fit program are absolutely necessary.

this is the only way to keep san francisco safe and protect housing and to keep people in their homes after earthquakes. thank you. president chiu: thank you. next speaker, please. please step up if you wish to speak to this item. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i'm heidi seek. i coordinate the citiwide post disaster resilience initiative which is a citiwide initiative under the direction of the general services agency, the department of emergency management and the office of the controller in collaboration with the harvard kennedy school of government. i'm merely going to give you very simple comments that will quantify and hopefully insight a sense of urgency about all of the work that we're going to be doing in the next few years regarding seismic safety. i will outline that in 2002, the usgs, the united states geological survey presented our earthquake prediction and that is there's a 99.7% likelihood

of a 6.7 or greater earthquake hitting california but the key statistic is that 63% chance of that earthquake hitting northern california. that means that we are in the zone of the 30-year time frame for the earthquake to be hitting northern california. and again, a specific piece of data that i would like you to keep in mind is there's a 30% probability on the highward fault. what does that mean? we've not had an earthquake on the hayward fault for years and we hit our rupture interval in 2008. we should expect an earthquake on the hayward fault any day now. so all the work we do on seismic safety is very important. i will say that both haiti and chile had similar predictions and they were generally ignored.

so we have our prediction. it is time to act urgently. any work that we do with the community actioplan for seismic safety and all of the seismic safety legislation that comes forward, i would just encourage you to act with urgency and move the sum forward as quickly as possible. thank you. president chiu: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. i feel the earth move under my city feet. i feel the sky tumbling down. i think it's time that you fix it up and represent it all around. city, when i want to fix it up, i want to have you make it safe. oh, city board, when you fix it, it always makes it always

better that way. i feel the city earth move under my city feet. i feel the city earthquake sky tumbling down, tumbling down. time to fix it up all around town. [applause] president chiu: thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i'm with the department of emergency management. as you know, we're the agency that runs the emergency operation center and we coordinate our first responders and other citiwide agencies that would be responding during an earthquake or other major disaster. we urge to you accept the amendments and move this very important legislation forward to the ballot in november. from the perspective of the emergency management department, we see two specific benefits of the legislation. one, the more buildings that are retro fitted, the more

folks will be able to stay in their homes following an earthquake which means fewer folks needing shelter, fewer folks being displaced in san francisco. not only does that mean fewer shelters that we need to open but less misery and difficulty for san francisco januaries who need to find an alternate place to live. this is particularly important for folks who are disadvanced in our community, folks who are not native english speakers. the more we can keep those folks in their home and prevent them from being displaced, the better that is for san fan sis cans. the more we can do to provide life safety for folks by having them live in a safe building, the less injuries we'll have, the fewer locations that the first responders need to go to during an incident and the best service that everybody will get. we're strongly in favor of the amendments in the legislation and we urge to you move it forward to the ballot. thank you. president chiu: thank you. next speaker. ?r good afternoon, supervisors.

i'm a practicing structural engineer and i'm here on behalf of myself and chris pollan, co-chair of the lifelines council. and i can speak having been to the sites of major earthquakes and seeing what happens when people are displaced. people being displaced from their home is second only to a failure of emergency response facilities and causing disruption and preventing a community from recovering after major seismic events such as earthquakes. you can tie it in with what we observed after hurricane katrina with the failure to allow people to come into their homes and the extent that it took to -- and is still taking new orleans to recover. we have an opportunity, especially for the vulnerable populations which this bond measure specifically deals with to allow the vulnerable populations, people who can't afford a hotel in sacramento after a major earthquake, to be able to return to their home and to be at least able to shelter in place and so we don't have to put a greater

demand on the city shelter. we don't have to cause the injuries that happen and the fatalities that happen due to the buildings collapsing. we have an opportunity before us to make san francisco a model of what a disaster resilient city is and the bond measure and amendments are a great way to do that. i urge you to consider this. thank you. president chiu: thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i'm from spur. i'm here to speak in favor of the amendment. we have made a lot of progress in the last 10 years on certain aspects of seismic safety. with the bart retro fit, some of the infrastructure getting fixed, same thing with the new bay bridge. the bond measure that we're talking about today is dealing with one of the most hardest pieces of the problem which is affordable housing. there's no other revenue stream to pay for it. i think this is going to appear in hindsight as one of the most

farsighted bond measures that the voters pass to make it to the ballot. thank you very much. president chiu: next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i have the pleasure of serving on the mayor's task force looking at the legislation. i'll make this quick. you've already heard the arguments how important it is for us to return to our homes in the event of an earthquake. the bond that is before you, and its amendments really gives those who live in low and affordable housing units the ability to access these funds to make the buildings safe and again, make them a part of our community by returning to our homes after an earthquake. so in support of it, please think about it. thank you. president chiu: next speaker. >> general services agency and the department emergency management. i'm here to speak in favor of the bond and the amendments. this bond measure seeks to close a critical gap for some of the city's most vulnerable

populations in the event of a disaster. as my colleague had mentioned, san francisco's likelihood of experiencing an earthquake that would result in potential housing loss is 63%. emergency management agencies actively advocate for sheltering in place following an earthquake. that means staying in your home if it's safe to do so, having access to medicine, paperwork, documents and all of your critical life support functions. that means those particular housing stocks need to be capable of sheltering in place. mitigating the effects of soft stories is a critical step in achieving this. this bond measure is an incredibly important step in the continue disaster efforts undertaken by a city in order to support the citizen pole laition and we all appreciate your support. thank you so much. president chiu: thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors. assistant deputy chief with the san francisco fire department and the city's fire marshall.

while we can't prevent a large earthquake from occuring, we can mitigate the effects. the measures before you today will ensure when the big one hits that fewer people will be injured or die. and the property owners and renters in san francisco will have fewer losses and that the city of san francisco will recover more quickly. please support these measures. president chiu: next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i'm chair of this task force and i would just like to point out that it was comprised of good 40 to 50 people representing all factions and interests in the city. we all came together, worked and hammered out a compromise here that i think is fair, equitiable and more importantly will serve the most vulnerable

in the city and ensure they all have a place to return to or stay in after the next earthquake. i was also here in 1989 as director of the rent board and saw firsthand what the damage that happened and most of that was in soft story structures. so this legislation will go a long way to keeping our citizens in place, returning the viability of our communities much quicker and allowing us to continue to be the great city it is. so thank you for your support on this matter. president chiu: next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. i'm a structural engineer. i live and work in san francisco. i am extremely active on a number of committees and efforts involving soft story buildings and seismic safety in the city and around the state. i know you're all familiar with

the hazards posed by certain soft story buildings and other buildings in the city. i know supervisor ross mirkarimi knows that there's one of these buildings on practically every corner on our neighborhood. president chu was gracious enough to be on a panel last december, together with the seismic safety commission and the former of director of emergency services so he knows very well the issues we're dealing with and the technical challenges and the political challenges faced by mitigation and the risks that we face. what you might not know so much about is how much technical consensus there is in the earthquake engineering community about this particular issue and this particular risk and this particular approach to mitigating it. the engineering community, the earth science community, the technical community who looks at earthquakes and follows them around the world knows this is the vulnerable class of buildings in the city and it is easy to deal with. it hasn't been dealt with yet.

it poses an enormous vulnerability and is also representing an incredible risk to the vulnerability of the city. it is the number one policy recommendation that we've worked on the past couple of years. the soft story buildings represent the primary policy recommendation from spurs. we urge you to support these amendments and this proposal. president chiu: thank you. next speaker. >> hi, president chiu. need to see you again. i think we should do all that we can to prepare for an earthquake and i'm glad to hear that we're trying to do that and it's your job, among other things, to help protect us from things that might happen that are really bad for us. but you know what? i can't help but call that some day, whenever the last day occurs, there's going to be a great earthquake such as never

was. this one, as much as we've prepared for it, we're not going to be able to stop it because god himself is going to send this earthquake on the last -- pardon me? you're right. i was hoping you wouldn't bring that up. i was wrong. what can i say? guilty as charged. but sometime, there will be -- president chiu: we're not supposed to be exchanges between the audience and the comments. >> some day there's certainly going to be an earthquake we can't prevent and that's going to be on the last day when jesus raises the dead. i'm telling you something, when that day comes, unless you're righteousness matches the righteousness of jesus christ, you're not going to make it in. you're not going to be with god and god has made one way and that's through jesus. you know, he was righteous. he said look. when you've lifted up the son

of man, then you're going to know that i don't do anything of myself. but as my father has sent me, i speak these things. he chose to go to the cross because he saw that god could only be just and the justifier, you know, of him that believes in jesus if he would go ahead and make the payment for our sin. you know, god can't overlook sin. we live in a day and age, particularly in san francisco where we just -- you know, we just want to go our own way. i was up here a few weeks ago for the gay parade and i thought, you know, saw some churches -- so-called churches m the gay parade and one guy was passing out literature saying it's okay to be a christian and be homosexual. i just walked with him. i said two can play at that game. i passed out the word of god and maybe some people actually got saved. you know, when this earthquake comes, everyone who says they're a christian will be investigated as to whether they

were one. and that's going to be a big, big earthquake. president chiu: are there any other members of the public that wish to speak on the topic of the amendments to the proposed resolution and ordinance referring to the ret yoe fit seismic grant? colleagues, i understand this is an item likely to be continued to the later part of the meeting but do you have any initial comments you want to make? i wanted to say thank you for the task force for all the work they have a dime. i do feel compelled to speak a little bit to this simply because i'm the supervisor that represents the marina. we all remember what happened back in 1989. one thing that i do want to say in support of doing anything we can, during the earthquake, we

had it eleven thousand first responders that were in the marina and about four hours coming out of the army division at the presidio and coming out of the air station that is also still active. both of those bases have been closed down. we have residents living in the presidio that means our need in an earthquake could be even greater. the support that we had back in 1989 is no longer there, and we need it even more now to prevent any problems from occurring, anything we can do to prevent a real disaster from taking place. i like to think the task force and anyone who has been involved in this effort. president chiu: i understand that several colleagues would like to continue this conversation until after the budget discussion.

supervisor avalos has made the motion. seconded by supervisor mar. >> is there a roll call on that motion? president chiu: let's have a roll call vote. >> what is the connection to the budget? why do we need to continue this? >> no budget monies will be used. >> i think that there are other things in discussion, other revenue measures that are still being discussed. i would feel more comfortable having this later in the meeting today. president chiu: rollcall votes

to -- supervisor daly. supervisor daly: i am wondering why we would continue several charter amendments until later in the meeting. it's fine. i don't think there needs to be a motion to vote on it. i think we can kind of pass over its. i am not looking to vote against this, but i think i have an attorney's opinion floating around. i just wish everyone will do the right thing all of the items. president chiu: any further discussion? we will have a rollcall vote to continue items 50 and 51.

supervisor campos: aye. president chiu: aye. supervisor chu: aye. supervisor daly: no. supervisor dufty: no. supervisor elsbernd: no. supervisor mar: aye. supervisor maxwell: >> superviss absent. there are 6 ayes and 4 no's. president chiu: if we could now called items 52 and 53. -- call items 52 and 53. >> they comprise a special order, sitting as a committee for a public hearing on

amendments made to a charter amendment authorizing split appointments. president chiu: i would like to open this hearing in regard to the charter appointments. there are a number of people that wish to speak in public comment. if i could ask -- [reading names] step up to the microphone. first speaker, please. >> i am director of the san francisco open government advocacy coalition. i have been spending time at the rent board. some interesting things that people don't realize, the budget is $5.40 million.

that is $2.7 million out of the pockets of the tenants, and $2.7 million out of the pockets of the landlords of this city. although every other city agency and body has been asked to make cutbacks, they have asked to forgo increases, they have even been asked to take a cut in salary. the rent board has, for the past couple of years, taken in excess of $90,000 a year in additional salary and has also taken an additional $475,000 to pay for retirement benefits and even some city agencies are being asked to contribute out of their own pockets. what do we get? we get a body that meets in secret in the basement.

they advertise that they follow the sun shine ordinance, but they do not record any of their meetings. they take miniscule minutes that you can't tell what they have done and why they have done that. they constantly point to policies that are not written down anywhere. so that certain participants in the process know what the policies are, and others do not. this needs to be passed and needs to go on the ballots of the city and county have a rent board which is fair. i am not saying -- it should be one that is open. it is not at the present time. president chiu: next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i am here to urge you to pass this. the rent board definitely needs reform. there are three tenant

positions, and one homeowner position, it is just not fair that the homeowner is the deciding vote all the time. the one thing that made me want to come to speak to you, when i heard it that they gave a statistic of 66% in favor, that was their decision, i said this can't be, i did research years ago and i came up with them siding with the tenants only 18% of the time. i have come to find out that they use everything that they do, even things that the rent board does not hear, you should really know that the statistics show that in cases that come up before the rent board, the only side with the tenant 18 percent side of the time according to my research. thank you.

>> my name is cindy a citizen. right now, it is difficult to use the rent board as a tool for most tenants, because they feel they always side with the landlord. that is why it is important that the elective process be put on the november ballot. it would be better to change the structure of these cases and better for the deciding vote so that in the future, they cannot overrule the citizens. we need the rent board to be morton and friendly. thank you. >> i am with the mission collaborative. i am speaking in favor of the reform that you have in front of you and putting it on the november ballot. san francisco is the only city where the mayor alone appoints

the rent board. in other places, the city council elects -- appoints them or they are elected in. just one example why the rent board is not fair. in 2008, the tenant harassment legislation that the city also fought for, a few months ago, i went to see how many cases that they had voted in favor of, they ruled in favor of zero times. that doesn't mean zero tenants have been harassed, it means that the way they look at the legislation is a very conservative viewpoint. when i am counseling tenants and we think about if we should go to the rent board, we know that the tenant will get retaliated against. is it worth it to go to the rent board if they know they won't even get voted in favor of? and of the rent board won't be there to protect them.

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