our friends across all. i am delighted to see that our friends on a left appear to be seeing the light with regards to the planning code. recently at a hearing of the small business commission that i attended there was unanimous boat to simplify the planning code by a neighborhood commercial districts. a move in the right direction. i remind our friends at the planning department that the first recommendation by outside auditors in their report from a couple of years ago was to scrap the code and start fresh. perhaps all supervisors from each district could update the code for their particular

constituency, greatly reducing the document that has completely grown out of control. on the issue of the planning department, too often i hear unfavorable words, such as elitist, long delays, lack of courtesy and respect for the customer. you know, the one that pays their salaries. i hope that someday the mindset there will be changed. i am very proud of how far the billing department has come. as evidenced by a number of people that come up to me and speak favorably of the people that work there. earlier on i said about in most construction businesses over the last few years, they have

basically been dying. barely able to make their payments. a lot of them have gone bankrupt. many of the properties from three or four years ago are gone. so, we raised permitting fees, updating the fees for the customers. i am not so sure that they are getting a fair shake. i think that we can help to improve. i would like to thank my wonderful secretary down here. she has helped me greatly over the past couple of years. her able assistants, sonya.

i would also like to say thank- you to someone who is doing a wonderful job, ted sweeney. i rarely get complaints from the field. doing a marvelous job. still get a few complaints from the electric division. people waiting 10 days to get a broad inspection. not good enough. again, i would like to thank you, commissioners. are we open for nominations? >> yes. >> i would like to nominate someone that i got to know over the past few years.

my vice-president for the last two years. a wonderful gentleman who really cares about san francisco and dbi, very giving up his time. someone who will make a great vice-president. commissioner rubieuben hechanov. >> second. >> public comment? >> seeing no one. >> on the nomination for president? >> [takes roll vote]

>> the vote is unanimous. congratulations. we are now open for nomination for vice president. >> being as i am still the president, i would like to nominate also some what i have worked with on the commission for the past shorter period of time, and while we do not agree on everything, we do agree on most issues that involve permits and most small business interests in san francisco, commissioner mar. >> second. >> we have a motion and a second. is there any public comment on that item? >> seeing no one.

>> presitake[takes roll vote] >> unanimous. congratulations. do we have any further public comment on these nominations? would you like to say anything? >> i feel very privileged. as well as proud to serve not only the city of san francisco, but to continue the great mission that the department has been challenged to bring about. not only in the challenges of

the economy, but on the operational side. the idea of keeping it going, making it smoother, bringing in delivering to the public and customers a category of service that will be more elevated, functional, service oriented, and properly serve the citizens of san francisco. i am also very proud to serve with the current commissioners, who i have gotten to know over the years. i look forward to serving with them and challenging them to really bring about a new period of bringing about and delivering what the department brings. thank you very much for not only the nomination, but this privilege to serve not only the

citizens of san francisco, but to have u.s. colleagues in this wonderful city. thank you. >> vice-president mar, would you like to say something? >> as one of the newest members, i would like to thank my colleagues for their confidence in for bringing me up to speed. i have really gotten to appreciate the work of our staff, sometimes under appreciated. before i entered the commission, as a homeowner and landlord i have stood on the other side of the counter. sometimes they did not go as fast as i wanted, but i always got the project done. i think that that is in the family, luckily. i do not have a lot of

complaints in terms of the staff. i think that sometimes they catch a lot of anger from the public because they do not agree with some of the code or they did not do things right. in that sense we have the responsibility to educate and i would really like to help with that. just to make sure that everyone is treated fairly. another great improvement of the department. i am proud that the commissioners are on board with that. in the past if you had a multimillion-dollar project, you not -- you did not necessarily get the attention of people. whoever walks through the door is treated fairly. even if they do not like what they hear all the time.

i just want to feel that the public is moving in the right direction and i do look forward to moving it better. >> we can now move on to item number 7, discussion of possible action regarding the 2011 cost schedule building valuation. >> in your packet we have prepared a memo to the commission. last year the commission voted to keep the increase at the level of 2009 instead of increasing it in 2010, as was called for in the actual report. this year we are proposing to increase by a little over 1%.

bringing it up to the current level of construction costs as proposed by marshall and swift. that is 1% from 2009. >> have you factor this into the budget recommendations or not? >> the increase in valuation about yes, we have. it is only 1%. the budget that was submitted included a slight increase depending on whether or not the commission voted to approve this. it has not been fully integrated into the budget yet. >> any questions?

>> you are the president. >> the issue that has been run by a lot of commissioners, we are just beginning to get our feet under us. i know that we need to uncover the chaos, but i feel we should not increase costs again. until we see how strong and sustaining the increased activity is in the apartment. it is a challenging time for everybody. i am reluctant to make it worse if we are just darling to get going. >> by the same category, given

how the proposed budget is basically based on -- and before the valuation has been drawn down, we can still maintain and sustain. >> yes, we can. >> any further discussion? >> any public comment? >> hello, commissioners. of course we are going to keep up to current valuations and it is important that we do that. i did notice the other day that there was a couple that came in and owned condominiums in the 1970's.

they were just changing the cabinets out. there was a poster on each station for remodeling the bath and kitchen. where there is a young couple, getting up to code without electrical work and minimal plumbing, i would not charge the full whack. from what i sought after that, i think that they sort of gave up. i think that we should keep that in mind. but let's be reasonable about

how much we charge. we should not be hitting them up for the entire evaluation. thank you. >> any further comments? >> and the motion? someone want to make a motion to approve or not approve? >> i will second. >> what, we want to continue this item? until the call of the president? ok. we have a motion to continue this to the call of the president. >> this means that the current fee schedule is in effect? >> the 2009 fee schedule is in

effect. approved in 2009. >> so, but current and applicable the valuation is pre- 2009. >> yes. >> and will continue until the commission approves organize another fee schedule. >> unless you want to put on a timeline to see how the economy is in six months. otherwise your call is bringing it forward again. >> we will simply leave it open for the duration. >> we have a motion to continue

this item until the call of the president. all of those in favor? this item is continued. item #8 is report discussion regarding dbi's process for obtaining tapes 3r report. >> [inaudible] >> please speak into the microphone. >> i am here to respond to questions from commissioner on 3r process. >> i know what the process is. can you explain what the process is two other commissioners?

is it 10 working days? >> business days. the majority of our requests, in the mail. 10% are walk-in customers. we have forms on the website that you can just fill out. those that fill it out on the website will fill it out completely. the majority of these requests, in the mail. from 1998 or 2000.

sometimes they do not fill it out completely. or owner information is missing. then the fee is $50. the most common error is that they have no signature. that portion takes a while. we also have to call the customer. we want to stop the report at the beginning process for the correct address or unit no.. once we have made sure that all

of the requested information is completing -- completed, we check and verify information from property profiles. it could be mixed use as long as the building as long as we can issue report. we checked for a zoning and whether or not the building has already complied. then we have to start our research. we have all kinds of resources.

san francisco, old history. in the early 1920's, 1930's, that is a lot of old building permits. in the old days we would microfilm building permits. one of the resources that we use were 60 millimeter micro film roles. and then we moved into a computerized scanning system. we have all kinds of resources to work with. sometimes in that process we

have to work with the building division. we have to work with housing inspection. some records are just not clear enough for us. so, the process is quite expensive before we finally have all of the data. >> you say that it takes six days, generally? how soon can that be done? how long has along this taken? >> the best that we can do from beginning to end, it can take two hours. if it is just a repeat request, it might take one hour. the longest one we are doing right now has already taken three days because that building has more than 200

permits. on average, one person, one staff member can do a request per day. -- eight requests per day. we have only four staff to do this. >> pretty nice presentation. what would be the average report that they would show? >> we have about 500 to 600 requests per month.

six business days. >> i think that you and noreen have done a great job. i do think you probably need some help for that process to be brought down to a couple of days. >> we would love that. >> thank you. >> any other requests them >> from the previous meeting it seems that one of the public comments was that many of the 3r report came from realtors. when i got the pd f burgeon in preparation for this meeting it seemed straightforward. i am concerned that this is one of the situations where people are not filling out the form correctly and our apartment -- i do not want to use the word blamed, but people are angry but they are the ones that filled

the form of robert pirie -- filled the form out wrong. we have talked a lot about -- and i am sure that this happens in other city agencies, the inefficiencies of the department. but we should know how to fill out a form right. we are in the business of trying to help people. i was wondering if we could try to be more active, or if we should go back to people who are getting paid to do this. it is kind of light -- fill out the form right. there has got to be a way to communicate with the property

owner. i feel the same way when the permits are not taking care of quickly enough. if you got your contractor to do it right the first time, we would have signed off on it. i feel that there is a bit of two ways here. we have to make sure those forms are done right. >> we do also we went to the re. just a few months ago we went to call where baker -- coldwell banker. we educate them. we let them know what we need in terms of assistance. because that is actually more in

terms of delaying processing. a few days later we will call again and they will say that they forgot. it does delay the process. of course, they will come on the same day of the request and from the time that they receive the report, when it does not happen in six business days, it is one of the biggest challenges for us. >> thank you. have you had any problems with balance checks? >> not often.

ashley thought we were going to seize of amir if i am a mistake, then i apologize. but i think that the outline of the council for the public to understand the process and how things are going, after reviewing the pds file, i came across a question that realtors have asked me. one question was -- how do we correct? >> we have a process of deaths. i didn't have specific when it

is a two-minute gallatin you're burning on the board it says issued. and we do not have that information. pilar a data elisse phillis as the job was completed within two weeks and the homeowner can demolition and understood