to help those in disadvantaged communities, and parched communities. and a different age ranges, seniors and below, so that people can come before -- can become more familiar with the operation of a computer and building computer literacy. all these centers had tried to reach out to communities within their orbit, to make that happen. the other plants that are here from the centers is quitting is obsolete. the instructions seem to be obsolete. the level of interest in the centers dating back 14 years now is not hitting the demand. it is like they are not talking anymore. so part of the interest in my

earlier question was, how do we know we are going to hit that community that is waiting to be activated, where interest is simmering but might need a little bit of prodding, controlling. just so that it does not look like a federal grand coming to us that is not well applied to the scale and the volume of people in san francisco. >> our represented can speak to that. generally, many of those grants are administered by the ntia. so they have tried to incorporate some of those things they learned in terms of the monitoring they are requiring us to do. to insure these programs are relevant and are making a concerted effort to share

practices among the different participants in this program nationwide, and are developing a group of grantees in urban areas, trying to develop one-on- one interaction, so we can learn from one another. i think they have learned from that program. there was a big emphasis on the sustainability on these programs beyond the life of the grant. the interest in broadband beyond the media training. i think that has been an emphasis on the ntia. supervisor mirkarimi: thank you. >> good morning, supervisors.

department of aging and adult services. our program is going to be putting computers and technology -- wi technology into centers around the city for seniors. 21 senior centers in the city. six public housing sites for seniors and adults with disabilities. it supported housing sites, eight adult day health care sites. we worked with 24 different nonprofits within the senior community and discussed with them what their clients could be interested in. san francisco seniors only had 20% adoption, and this is an underserved community. a lot of the older people have to deal with isolation. what we are doing, we have nine

of the nonprofits -- the recipients are going to be coming in with many volunteers to do extensive training courses at all of these locations. we are working with a lighthouse for the blind and a number of others that will also help us with the assistive technology part, but we are going from the very basics for some people, how to use a mouse, how to get on skype, answer a skype call, so you can see your grandchildren in mississippi or taiwan. this helps people with the basic isolation, feeling like they are a part of the new world. we are also doing a lot with social media, with the ties

programs that organizes a social network around an individual that needs support. that is one of the programs that we are going to be working more to develop that already exists in the city. as well, introducing people to different kinds of social media. we are really working at what we call teaching to function. we are going to be doing a couple thousand hours of training. the metrics we are tracking is the number of classes, the numbers of hours, the number of people, how many hours per person. all of these things are the things that we will be reporting back to the federal government and also will be indicators of people's adoption and their use and interest. it is a flexible program. people will be able to do any range of training, depending on their particular capability and

interests are. in supportive housing, they will be focusing on supportive employment, ways that people can use computers to be able to get back into the workforce. at adult day health care, we will be working more with the kind of accessible technology will help people to connect with resources and also learn to do things that will help be helpful to them in other ways, and to break the isolation barrier. with the national council of aging, we will be doing a pilot program to develop a site that continues the help aid programs we are doing in the city. that will include such things as a peer to peer discussion group that will be monitored by master traders and chronic disease, health management, and other resources we will be developing

in five languages, at least. streaming video of different health promotion programs. we will be putting that on the website and will make it available nationally. we are working closely with other cities that are also doing programs for seniors and adults with disabilities, including the bay area consortium, that the cal. emerging technology fund has brought in. so i think we have looked at with the community needs for adults, people with disabilities. this program will meet their needs and bring them into the world of technology. supervisor mirkarimi: thank you for the detail. much appreciated. supervisor chu: thank you. we do not have a budget analyst report for this item. this item would not require

that. why don't we open this up to the pot -- public. is there anyone from the public that would like to comment on this item? >> good evening, supervisors, whoever is looking at this event. i am as washington. i happened to be in city hall as a press person. i saw on the agenda technology. all this money that these people from this department is talking about bringing into the city -- they keep on using that frame community. how come the community does not know anything? right now, public access is a sham. the city and county paid to contract with bayvac. you do not even know who the board of directors is. it is a violation. i do not know how you are tried to pass on millions of dollars when this department is talking about helping our seniors,

youth. it is a bunch of baloney. i have been in public access for over 20 years. 45 time they unplug me. i am on blog right now because i am an activist, because of who i am. there is no oversight on this department. they need a commission, public access, government access the san francisco government channel that you are looking at now evolved from our hard work, producers like george. i do not know if you oversight over them, but there needs to be. there should be a public hearing on public access to find out all the corruption going on. sign a contract with bayvac. you do not know what the board of directors is doing. i have spoken lost of time to mr. frazier, but his hands are

tied because he works for you all. my purpose right now is to request a public hearing on all of the government channels to find out who is controlling. supervisor chu: thank you. next speaker please. >> good morning, supervisors. my name is douglas yepp. i have lived in san francisco for 59 years. i would like to speak in favor of this ordinance. the reason i feel that way is the department of technology's past performance has been pretty poor. i would like to thank supervisors ammiano and david chiu for demanding improvements for dt. from my 20-year experience at san francisco general hospital, the technology part of my job was pretty much in the dinosaur era. a lot of my friends in the

police department have wore me out listening to their complaints about their lack of technology in the police field. i hear it is improving recently. in regards to serving the community, for using this money, since it is in the millions of dollars, i would like to make a controversial suggestion and see where it goes from here. according to my work experience at san francisco general hospital, it is a sad commentary that much of the time he used by city employees using city in -- computers has been underutilized. one of the things that i would like to point out, which many consider a taboo subject, is how much pornography actually flows through the city's various computers during the workday. i have a suspicion the comptroller's office has some

information in regards to that, but i do not know for sure. i think it is proper to maybe do an investigation using this grant money, to see how much actual pornography flows through the city's best computer system during the workday. my main interest is not only on pornography, but also to highlight the federal law enforcement efforts on the very sensitive subject of child pornography. thank you. supervisor chu: thank you. is there anyone from the public that would like to comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. ok, the item is in and of the committee. do we have a motion? motion to send the item forward with recommendations. without objection. item to police. >> ordinance amending chapter 10 of the san francisco administrative code by amending sections 10.177-2 and 10.177-3

authorizing the assessor to recommend rewards for information related to the detection of underpayment of tax owed to the city and county of san francisco. >> our assessor phil ting is with us today. why don't i invite david chiu to speak. he is a sponsor of the legislation. >> thank you. this legislation we have in front of us is the reauthorization of the real state watchdog program which came of conversations i had in 2006, before i was elected to office with the assessor recorder, who is here today. we had been hearing reports about the underpayment of property taxes and had discussed the possibility of creating this watchdog program to consent individuals who might hear about this underpayment to report information to his office. i am very pleased, both that we were able to move forward in

2006 with this program, as well as results we have had today, which our assessor will educate us on. at the end of the day, this is a program that has worked, has been successful, is a great partnership between the public and the public sector. i want to thank assessor quarter phil ting for the work he has done to implement this concept. i hope to move this through the board again for reauthorization shortly. supervisor chu: thank you. mr. ting? >> you are right. supervisor david chiu is being modest. it is actually his idea, modeling our program after the irs watchdog model out there. it really empower citizens to help the city do a better job of collecting property taxes that were not known to us. we have had, over the last five years, 66 reported incidents. most have been ruled out, -- 62

-- because we had knowledge of the transactions in office. however, we had two cases, one, a fairly on in the program's early history, that brought in over a million dollars in back taxes. that does not even account for the future taxes after the reassessment. so you are looking at a program with just the rich -- two reports that have brought in over $1 million of back taxes. this should also be noted. no additional city staff was hired. staffing was absorbed by my office and the comptroller's office. we have a couple of modifications. the program has been running for five years. we want to reduce the report. we want to make it 10% of the reward. 10% of the taxes that were actually brought in, up to $100,000, which lowers the cap from five under thousand

dollars. we feel $100,000 is plenty of money to justify an award. -- the cap from $500,000. we also want to define what a whistleblower is from a real- estate watchdog. 311 has graciously accepted to be the intake of that. they will be able to give us that information, which is traditionally what the comptroller's office had done. lastly, our office has the responsibility to do an annual port to you six months after every fiscal year, so that we can have an opportunity for you all to understand what has been reported, why it was given a reward, properties known to us. there was a report. the most recent was dated january 1, 2011, which summarized eight cases, all of which were ineligible -- the primaries and was just the information was known to our

office. at this point, we would be happy to take questions on the program. supervisor chu: thank you. let's go to the budget analyst report before we go to questions. >> madam chair, members of the committee, president chiu, as has been indicated on two-five of the report, the city has realized $1.7 million in additional property tax revenues. this is during the existing five-year pilot program. wonder what was paid out in the amount of $66,600. this program is being administered with existing resources, so there are no additional costs for administering the program. we recommend approval of the ordinance. i do not know if it was noted that the maximum reward amount would be reduced from 500,000 to

100,000. everyone has concurred on that. >supervisor chu: i have two questions on the program. in the report, it indicates out of the 62 referrals we received, 60 were eligible, primarily because the assessor's office already had the information. in those situations, the individuals did not meet the criteria to receive a reward. in terms of your staff time to process and check up on the 60 ineligible referrals, did you find that that was a duplication of work because you knew about them, they were already being assessed correctly, but you have to follow up on these additional 60 referral that you knew about? how do you judge that? >> if you think about 60 referrals over five years, it is

a fairly minimal amount of work. it is -- part of the reason i like it, it is like quality control for our budget office. it gives us an opportunity to double check and make sure we are working on a particular item. the amount of time -- certainly minimal. the most time it would take is two hours. in most circumstances, half an hour's time. even though that information was already in our office, it is a good opportunity to provide some quality control to make sure that we are doing our job. supervisor chu: on the background, i know mr. rose had reported that with real estate transfers -- in particular for president properties -- we know about the property easier because the deed needs to be reported. a clearer transactional period and we are flat that there should be a reassessment. with the transfer of commercial properties, it is not always as clean, clear, i suppose.

have you thought if there is any way this could be legislatively fixed? is there any improvement that we can make on what is required to be reported during commercial transactions, or is it just the nature of the deed? >> the one big quagmire, a proposition 13, is that it changed our work from being purely about the value of real- estate to figure out when a change of ownership occurred. after proposition 13, the state legislature had the duty of defining what specifically is the change of ownership. you are right. while it is clear in most residential circumstances, it sometimes can be convoluted, at best, for commercial property owners. so the state legislator has tinkered with numerous definitions. we, as assessors, have constantly conveyed ways where we can get these more streamlined.

unfortunately, it is purely under the state assembly per view, and it is a constant fight, i will be honest, at the state legislative level. mr. ammiano is pushing for legislation on that, and we are supportive of that, but it is a continuous struggle. in the long run, certain members of the legislature see it as a way to increase taxes. supervisor chu: if there are any ideas, any improvements that we can make locally, that will help. that will be something we would all be interested in. it is something that would more clearly denote when a reassessment should occur. that would be helpful for us. >> one thing that we have to rely on, a lot of corporate transactions happened, as you mention, without eighth being recorded. the only way that a county assessor with no a transaction occurred is if a deed was filed.

what we end up relying on is information from corporation tax returns. that information then goes to the state board of equalization, which is then circulated to all assessor's up and down the state. that is called a legal entity ownership program. we have been working much more closely with the board to get that information. unfortunately, even that information may take a year or two. you do not file your taxes until april of that calendar year. something may have happened in january 2010 and they are going to file in april 2011, and we may not get that information for another six months to a year. unfortunately, that is part of the system that we, as state voters, created. it would be much easier if we look at the value of real estate. about who owns it. i have worked very closely with

the state board to have more collaboration and make sure we are working on that. the other thing that effects locally is when transactions occur, they don't transfer taxes. with transfer taxes, we have been more aggressive. once we know on the assessors' side, a transaction has occurred, doesn't mean they have to pay transfer taxes. we have been more aggressive about demanding payment of transfer taxes once we know it has occurred as well. supervisor mirkarimi: is there a statute of limitations on the infraction or violation? >> for us, the watchdog. in general, we have a four-year statute of limitations to process -- if the information

was never provided to us or was hidden from us, we do not have a statute of limitations. in this example, the one watchdog case we had, the statute of limitations had already passed. we have to go all the laid-back to get all of the back taxes, not just the four-year limit. that information was hidden from us. supervisor mirkarimi: how far back would be some of the examples? i imagine most of them would be between three and five years. but they go back farther than that? >> my recollection is that information came to us in 2006 and the transaction occurred in 1998, approximately. what was ironic about that case is it was a real estate investment trust which is a publicly traded company on the new york stock exchange. if you pulled their 10k, they

reported it to they stock exchange but they never reported it to the assessor's office. supervisor mirkarimi: if the assessor's office would not be doing this, would this also be considered part of the district attorney's purview and the white collar crime bureau? >> i'm not really sure. i guess it could be. supervisor mirkarimi: thank you. supervisor chu: why don't we open this item up for public comment? are there members of the public who wish to comment on this item? >> hello, i am deborah benedict, a voter in district 6. i want to thank chairman chu bandmaster chiu.

bringing home the bacon is such an important job for this committee as well as for the city. hidden transactions, especially of commercial property provide an opportunity for the city to fill in gaps such as individual properties can only drop in. i would encourage this committee as well as the assessor to vigorously go after all of the individuals who have done these transfers as well as individuals who are turned in. i don't know if there is an incentive program, possibly the suggestion of you turn somebody in that you know about and there is some financial enumeration for that report. i just want to say how important

i think it is to have these efforts focused in and directed toward our city. our city operates at a deficit and i support it. thank you. supervisor chu: next speaker, please. >> the countdown is still going on. i would like to speak on behalf of this ordinance. i feel like something like this is beneficial and i would like to take this opportunity to highlight the department of public works program for graffiti busting. i think the rewards for that program should be increased since it is obvious the problem is still prevalent in san francisco. maybe we should consider increasing the rewards for our

department of public works and their program. under this heading, it says rewards to informants for information. i would like to take this opportunity to reword that a little differently. i would like to reword it to show rewards to informants for information related to the detection of suspected misconduct inside the department of public health, specifically san francisco general hospital and laguna honda hospital. it is obvious that laguna honda hospital has plenty of negative publicity. supervisor chu: if i could ask you to stick to this item which is the underpinning of property- tax. >> thank you. supervisor chu: are there other members of the clot -- other members of the public who wish to comment? seeing none, the item is closed.

supervisor mirkarimi: motion to approve with the recommendation. supervisor chu: we will do that without objection. we will take a recess until our special order at 4:00 which is the hearing on the line martin for closure. thank you for your presentation and we will see you at 4:00. chair chu: welcome to the reconvening meetings of the board of supervisors subcommittee. mr.