thing for us to take used motor oil from customers. we have a 75-gallon tank that we used and we have someone take it from here to recycle. >> so far, we have 35 people. we have collected 78 gallons, if not more. these are other locations that you can go. it is absolutely free. you just need to have the location open. you are set to go.

captioned by the national captioning institute ---www.ncicap.org--- >> good morning. today is wednesday, april 20, 2011. this is a regular meeting of the building inspection commission. at this time i would once again remind you to please turn off all electronic devices. the first item on the agenda is roll call. president, vice president. commissioner clinch. commission murphy. commissioner romero. commissioner walker and commission lee is excused. we have a quorum and the next item on the agenda is president's announcement. president hechanova: good morning. would love to add that april 27 will be administrative assistants day and would like to recognize all of those who in all departments but more importantly the d.b.i. in

making sure that i remind all of those that have their administrative assistants do something special for them on that day. also would like to recognize that almost a year ago that the board of supervisors provide legislation for voluntary seismic upgrades and the category is that we've had multiple earthquakes during the course of that time and that we need to really step up the act of and more conscious efforts to bring about seismic safety. and all those from the category of where other places, whether public or private, would have shelter in place, the categories of mandatory for the soft story legislation and most of all the alternative funding that gives the options for how

we could make our cities safer and also be more responsive. and in the category of being more responsive, the d.b.i. hopes to promote the level of higher service than what has been provided in the past to provide really the category of the success and succession, learning from our mistakes in the past and the categories of how we could bring about the next level of preparedness. what has happened in japan is unfortunate, but we know that somewhere down the line our time will come and we have to be prepared for that. i urge everyone to really look at where they're at during their place of work during the day or where you're going and the category of how you're going to be safe and make your

families safe in places where you live. that's it. >> ok. is there any public comment on the president's announcement? seeing none, item number three, update on d.b.i.'s integration with the city's earthquake preparedness policies, plans and procedures. >> yes. vivian day, director. i'd like to introduce the acting chief of the disaster coordination unit and matt green, senior inspector. >> good morning, president hechanova and fellow commissioners. tony greco rorning on item number three -- reporting on item number three. the purpose of our agenda item is to update you in two areas. one is, again, to report on the most recent developments taken to establish and ensure d.b.i.'s vital role in disaster and emergency response and

obtain feedback and guidance from the commission and respond to any questions you may have regarding these issues. ok. here's a little background. the disaster coordination unit, d.c.u. is the acronym, was reactivated on march 7, 2011, with the assignment of myself as manager and senior housing inspector matthew green reporting to edward wean sweeney. our office is located in rume 3001 rat 1616 mission. in terms -- in room 3011 room at 1616 mission. in terms of our mission, it is to prepare, coordinate and provide an effectively manage response to incidents of earthquake, emergency and other disasters in conjunction with the department of emergency and management. pursuant to that we've developed a work plan. a little background. the office had been started a couple years ago with tom and

vern. drafted a plan, got that in place and a lot of resources. so part of our work plan that i've outlined here is six items that we are going to noff ahead on. one is to provide training and education for all staff as city disaster service workers. this is required every two years. we need to assess the training needs and develop training goals for all department staff consistent with fema and california office of service management. that involves training, etc. as well as postdisaster earthquake design of buildings. two is to resign and update the d.b.i. emergency response plan to conform with all current city standards and ensure compatibility and integration with the city and county of san francisco all-hazard strategic plan.

three is to sign and update positions and to clarify duties with the assessment team, verify recall costs, documents and reporting requirements are current. item four is going to be to attend regular emergency operation center meetings and workshops, participate in tabletop exercises and support the emergency resource planning work group which is participating and apply for available grant funding opportunities through the department of emergency management. last month, we on a monthly basis there's emergency resource planning work groups that are intradepartmental and those have been important for us communicating information and resources, sharing resources throughout departments. one aspect of that is we work with the city's response plan has emergency support functions and they're numbered. in particular one we're focused on is emergency support function number three with

public works. and that is infrastructure response to damaged buildings. we are starting up. there had been a group that was kind of ad hoc committee that was meeting informally with public works. we're starting that up again to meet more regularly and get that back in operation. number five would be to identify and evaluate all emergency resources including the use of our emergency command vehicle for disaster response, verify agreements for mutual aid and volunteers at marriott hotel and confirm access to emergency equipment and supplies at mosconi center as an alternative center. finally to modernize the department center and conduct training exercises for staff. i'd be happy to answer any questions and give you a little more. i want to mention, too, that tomorrow, thursday the 21st at noon at 1660 is our d.b.i.

brown bag lunch and this month the topic again is the lessons learned that will be hosted by lawrence cornfield. it's particularly important for myself and matt to attend that. there's a great amount of historical information over the years. i remember that earthquake. certainly at the time i had a house up on russian hill and i remember leaving work early that afternoon obviously to to watch the world series and being on great highway. it certainly comes back very vivid when you think about it, but you realize all the actions and the activities that took place, everything that was developed was really important, vital, historic information and i am trying to coordinate with that. i am going to meet with deputy director cornfield to hand over some of that information so we have that historical data.

if you have any questions? president hechanova: commissioner walker. commissioner walker: thank you for your presentation and for your work. one of the things i might ask you all to coordinate is within our department and our code enforcement outreach program and our s.r.o. collaboratives who have information about who might be in buildings while we're out there that somehow that information or those organizations be hooked into the emergency response. so that as we're out there the first responders are out there there might be somebody who can help tell us who's in those buildings or -- and that -- since it's our department that holds that information, maybe we can hook them in somewhere. >> to have essentially a list of the occupants in terms of the names of the occupants, the number of individuals? commissioner walker: who might need to be rescued from upper floors. i think that our code enforcement outreach teams that

we contract with are -- might be helpful in, you know, filling in the gaps of our plan. whatever. in dealing with those kind of buildings where there's multiple occupants, limited access, especially if there's no elevators. they might know who might need more assistance in coming from those buildings, that kind of thing. >> yeah. any information we get, it's so vital in terms of what we're sharing with other city departments because, again, what i recognize and just doing this in the short time is that the coordination of how we use our resources is essentially -- is essential for how it's going to be effective in terms of the response. commissioner walker: and many of them might be nert trained. there is a real connection that should be defined, maybe we can help with that.

president hechanova: commissioner murphy. commissioner murphy: yes. tony, hopefully we never see an earthquake in our time, but let's assume we do have an earthquake, what's our cooperation with planning as far as, you know, a proven project to get rebuilt? have we any communication with them on this? >> in our plan there is a segment that deals with recovery, essentially, and that's essential element in terms of picking things back up after any kind of event. there aren't really specific details and that's one of the things that the department of emergency management is urging all city departments, look at your plan and clarify, fill any gray areas and get some details on how you can have little addendums and subsections to deal with that particular issue. we as the d.o.c., we have a building safety team that will deal with permits and rapid permitting in that process, so

through that we will communicate with planning and identify those planning personnel that will assist us. commissioner murphy: have you guys sat down with anyone at planning at this point? >> not at this point. commissioner murphy: do you see -- >> no, absolutely -- we are redrafting and rewriting our whole entire plan. as we get to each element, that's exactly something we are going to get is the feedback to address those issues. commissioner murphy: thank you. president hechanova: i think given the timetable to, one, coordinate a meeting date, you can request it now because by the time they will then respond to a specific date certain they will at least or both the departments could really have some dialogue before-hand. >> it's a critical issue, again. depending on the nature and the extent of this event or incident where we'll be is certainly critical to how wellary' going to operate, whether it's our d.o.c. or

whether we will be in a different location. president hechanova: we can host them. >> yeah. commissioner walker: that could be something we will have as a joint commission item when we meet. president hechanova: yes. commissioner walker: i am part of a group that's meeting and i handed over early documentation with lawrence cornfield around a concept called shelter in place which is a way to provide for habital space that might be under our current code because of, you know, lack of electricity, lack of water, but might be structurally ok to inhabit and we are going to make recommendations and maybe we should have you in this group. shelter in place contact.

>> we see if we have people focused on that. commissioner murphy: i see the new administrator, i guess zoning administrator, in all accounts he actually comes over to d.b.i. and meets his counterparts at d.b.i. and works through problems. now, this was something that never happened before. so i'm really happy to hear that. and i got to compliment him on that. president hechanova: would you be able to provide a global timeline as to what major steps are going to happen and what target goals are to achieve? >> yeah. i think certainly we can come back and certainly in the next meeting give you an actual timetable with some -- from the work plan and some target dates in terms of what we want to accomplish. again, i can say that's something that i'm very focused

on because, again, with any type of project you're involved with, unless you have benchmarks and you actually measure to say this is better than it was the day, you know, previous, we actually are making progress. for example, our command vehicle is in central shops being serviced. again, up to date. so it's going to be operational as we need it. but whether it's supplies and all those things that need to be done, from that list, work with our director, vivian, and we'll prioritize that and come back. president hechanova: could you tell us a little bit about the mobile unit? if it has the operability to perform? >> right now it's in the shop being serviced. it's time for the annual regular service. the last time we had it in use was more of an educational function as opposed to a command vehicle. prior to that i think it was used back at the broadway that was a few years ago, two years ago, 2 1/2 years ago.

president hechanova: is there going to be some category of public outreach that will allow the public to understand what realm of critical path the disaster coordination unit can provide? >> i think certainly in terms of the whole city plan, we're a part of this big city organization. so our piece is pretty clearly defined. i think within d.b.i. ourselves we are going to certainly part of our responsibility is going to be to educate staff as well as our regular d.b.i. customers, if you will, of what our responsibilities will be. and that's really very critical point to bring up. because with public works and any agency we need to identify clearly what everybody's role will be. certainly. president hechanova: could you differentiate between item number one which was on training and versus the staff training, number six? >> number one is the general

all city workers. number six is the streamline operational sflert. so certainly with all our staff at city disaster service workers we are all required to come to the city in the event of an emergency and recall to our specific location. if we don't have a preassigned assignment, something will be given to you. obviously there is a protocol of, are you at work when this occurs? are you at home? what protocol will take place based on your department's instructions. so the training and education is, again, part of the two-year renewal for every city worker to know what their responsibility as a disaster work -- service worker is. and the incident command system, some overview. that's something that's required for all staff. in particular, d.b.i. has a special, unique role in this because we have something that will be doing the postdamage,

safety and assessment of buildings. so that is a whole really different function in terms of the inspection of all the private buildings, public buildings throughout the city. additionally, we have the building occupancy and the latest list, we were involved in that committee meetings. we are aattending those which is an excellent program. i think there's close to 118, 120 buildings there now. and that information is part of what we want to do. president hechanova: one more item, geologically throughout the city there are areas that are a little bit more vulnerable and we have components that are out there that will suffer more damage and if we can identify those that will probably be beneficial. >> no. that's essentially very important to us.

recently the meetings that we had with public works there has been great mapping going on through g.p.s. and other technology that's out there so we got maps now that we've just plotted recently. one is the transportation routes in the city, critical facilities, shelters, all types of infrastructure mapping that we've now produced and we hope to illustrate, put out on our walls that will help us coordinate our strike teams. part of this is a geographic strategy in terms of the event is and how you are going to locate people and move them efficiently and quickly and to respond to an event. do we all respond from our central location here or will we have people in our strategic locations? once we have a mapping of the critical facilities, working with public works, there will be predesigned, predetermined strike teams that will respond to critical facilities and other areas in the city.

and you want to match up the expertise as well as the person's availability. there is the first line of defense and you need the redundancy throughout so people will know what to do and who to call and how to make that connection. we are relying a lot -- i know we have gone workshops and table tops at the e.o.c. and you work with commuters and you are assuming electricity and when you change some of those variables it does. it creates a whole series of contingency plans that you really need to think about. commissioner walker: so are you all, is our department coordinating with tg&e to identify where the gas lines that will exacerbate some of these problem areas? >> we wouldn't be directly involved with p.g. in terms of that. the department of emergency management would have the lead

in terms of coordinating that with public works and other city departments. commissioner walker: so there's a system where if we see an area that has a lot of collapse that information would be given to somebody so they would be possibly cut off gas? >> absolutely. no. the -- if you go to the department of emergency management's website there is a whole list of strategic plan. in that plan lr elements that address pg&e, all the pertinent agencies that will be affected. when you look at our role, i want to focus our resources on our critical commission that's assigned to us. that's where we're trying to devote our energies now. again, we have a lot of resources throughout the city that's been very enlightening to see how they will orchestrate together. commissioner walker: i did the nert training recently and

there's a component of that that actually simply educates them about buildings and when not to go in and when you might. >> yeah. commissioner walker: is might be something that you want to send something somebody to go see what they're presenting and if there's something more that we can have them do, give them information about, etc., because they're there trying to do emergency people rescue and an emergency response. >> i think as we look forward to do any kind of educational programs -- what i've seen doing this with our own staff is always the question, ok, is everybody ready. so much is individual preparedness, each of us has the responsibility, again, to ourselves and to our own family in terms of knowing what our plan is that that and being able to handle that, that's a

critical first step because then you know what our next piece is going to be with everybody else. that can't be emphasized enough. as staff we have responsibility. we are advising to all our staff all the resources we have at our disposal how important they are. the cars, the radios, everything that you have, all your tools and personal protective equipment that this is all going to come into play. commissioner walker: could you also maybe keep us posted if there is training for helping, you know, inspectors when they're out doing the first responder? i took a class and there are a few people that would be of assistance if there was -- >> was it through the california building association? commissioner walker: i think it was at one of their conventions. it was a building identityification course, you know, where you go out and you get certified as a helper. >> if you're referring to what's called the atc-20, it's

rapid and a detailed assessment of buildings. that training again, training is always good and education. part of the certification and the legal aspect of that is having two pieces to the identification card to be able to do that. but, again, and right now it's inspectors or engineers. but certainly we can utilize all the resources and to find a place for everybody to use those skill sets when the time comes. commissioner murphy: i have a question for inspector green. >> i'm very fortunate to have senior inspector matt green. commissioner murphy: on the routine inspections that housing do, how often do -- how often is the rotation for small apartment buildings throughout the city? is that once a year, once every two years?

>> the building code inspection is once every five years. i know at the inspection it's determined to be a poor building or many violations it might be inspected more often. commissioner murphy: is it part of that inspection to have the housing inspector inspect where the gas meters are located? >> absolutely. they'll look at the gas meters and supposed to be a shutoff tool as well as a diagram explaining how to turn off the gas. commissioner murphy: what about heavy objects that i see in a lot of apartment buildings bicycles hanging up on top, bicycles outside doors and stuff that would block -- >> i mean, it is supposed to be inspected and kept clear, absolutely. inspect storage materials to make sure that there is no

combustible materials up there. commissioner murphy: and heavy objects that might possibly fall? >> if something appears to be hazardous it will be noticed on a housing inspection. i don't know specifically had the october hanging from a ceiling i'd have to have a little more detail to see what you're talking about there. commissioner murphy: on a scale of one to 10, where are we as far as being ready? >> well, as a department? commissioner murphy: that's exactly what i'm asking. >> we are better than a couple months ago. i'd say right now in all honesty four or five. we want to be an eight or night. commissioner murphy: very diplomatic answer. thank you. president hechanova: what is needed in addressing and identifying in getting it to the current situation to where we should be relative to budget, training, because we're

right now applying for our annual budget but the next category of where should we be because we then can start searching for either the funding sources or reallocation of what is critical because we don't have a choice. it's going to happen and we don't have a choice of when it will happen. >> i agree. it's interesting to note, a few years ago there was a lot of fema money available that was spent to produce brochures and handouts and a lot of training. that's pretty much gone right now. certainly on the federal level. i mean, there is some grant money coming and emergency management department has information about those. even then there are limited resources. so you may have 100 applications and only 10 available so, again, that's another thing we are looking at as well. to try to make sure we identify the right priority for the resource and have the financial ability to pay for it.

president hechanova: any other questions? tony, matt, thank you very much. >> thank you. president hechanova: and will we be updated on a monthly basis or through director day? >> we can update you as needed. previously regarding a timetable, that's something that i'm certainly interested in as well to produce and we got the work plan. we just need to set the priorities and really have some realistic target dates so we can show you that we've done this by this date. president hechanova: ok. and maybe the global points that would allow for us to see how comprehensive that would be on verticality and bandwidth relative to where we're headed. >> and the calendar that a lot of meetings, a lot of coordination externally with other -- at e.o.c. and city ha