commissioner murphy: -- unfunded. commissioner murphy: the buck stops with us, but we should not be out here in force and all of these things. >> that is correct. back in 2008, when we had this conversation, i had seven clerical staff and one supervisor. i have gone down to one clerical staff and one supervisor. if we were to take on more, we would need more resources and staff to even begin to look at anything different than what we are doing now. commissioner murphy: i just do not want this to get into bed bug issue. that is what everyone was talking about up to the election. i have not heard about it recently. >> unfortunately, they are still out there -- commissioner walker: the point i'm trying to make is the stuff

that comes into us is not all we are dealing with. i want to make sure that we are engaged, as we have committed to, no more, no less, and that we are aware of the issues. i have heard complaints through other programs as well. i just want to make sure that the partnership is in tact and that we are available to help with these types of issues that come up. >> absolutely, and at that point, it would be the decision of the executive management and commission to do something else. we would be able to immediately do that because we have got such good working relationships with the housing authority and those other groups that are well versed with the problems going on. commissioner walker: absolutely. without committing more of our staff time and anything else, we

already have our code enforcement outreach there. it could just be a matter of bringing housing authority in to those meetings. >> the housing rights committee has historically done a phenomenal work in these projects. this goes back to when we had those lawsuits. going back to significant resources being put into adjacent areas. in the oakdale project, we spent 60 hours on the notice of violation, participating on the project. the housing rights committee was an essential part of that. commissioner hechanova: was there resolution of all of those components? >> yes, but it took a long time to go item by item. part of the problem was, at the time the housing authority had plans to partially vacate that

part of the project. there was one part that was still occupied but not well maintained. it took quite a bit of time to be able to get those items addressed. commissioner hechanova: but they have been resolved? >> yes, but things may recur, but yes. >> >> good morning, commissioners. just a little background. their federally funded. we will probably start to get more complaints about their man's. >thank you. >> are we in a position to handle all these extra complaints? >> we are rather tax with what we have, but we do have three

work orders and for three more house inspectors. if we get the other three house inspectors, that would help out quite a bit. >> ok, thank you. additional questions? >> any public comment? we're going to do the public comment at the end of both. item number 5b. >> mr. president and members of the commission, when that song yet indicated to me that this was on the agenda last week, i have to look at the data to see what i could pull that would be meaningful to you. i can get a list of the number of complaints within a certain amount of time, but it does not give me because a lot of this is in the narrative in the way it is captured.

what we did is print out the 295 cases that were heat or hot water complaints that received from the last calendar year to give you some kind of meaningful snapshot of what is going on. to be able to come up with this data took about eight hours. so a lot of this data is not captured. we found interesting things that we wanted to share with you over all. as you can see, the majority of heat and hot water complaints that come in were over in longingly he complains. of these cases we are required to make some type of a response within one business day. as you can see, even with the staff shortage we were able to do that with 94% of the time.

the remaining have some sort of response within 2 business days. not all, but most. in those instances which is typically the situation the inspector will go in and update complete tracking when they have been able to go in and do inspection. keep in mind that an inspection cannot occur with one or two business days, because we're also working with an individual. it is complained about a heating unit within an individual's dwelling or guest room, we have to scuttle a time for them to be able to do the inspection. from the calendar year until now we have about 27 cases that have carried over that are open for various reasons. some because they are duplicates, some because we're waiting for the permits to be final. there are various reasons why that may be the case. that means we have the majority

of the cases that have some resolution. the other thing that takes awhile is that if you go in to complete tracking and is this the case is debated, that means everything is done. payment of assessment of cost and everything is done. that is a day week in a train -- obtained very easily. i have to look case by case to determine. we literally went to all 295 cases to come up with that. if we had more time, i would have been happy to get this information to you sooner. let me tell you, that is that the only one of the list of items in a long wish list that we of given to executive management that we would like to see in the new system when someone is hired for that. we wanted to make sure we got you some meaningful data. >> our tracking mechanism right now is basically having to go back and read, as opposed to

keeping track of which specific items are listed? >> >> i did i hear the first part. >> the tracking thmechanism sees very cumbersome right now. >> it is. it depends on the type of data being captured. in a situation like this where you would want to know how many of the complaints or problems with the boy rather than something else, it does not track that. i would have to go into each of these cases and look at a notation that tells me that. we are asking for that type of data to be tracked in the new system, but it is not like that right now. i have to look of the notice of violation, and then be able to tell you that. having looked at 295 cases for the last calendar year, i will tell you a very small percentage of he completat complaints had o

wideal with the boiler. the majority of complaints had to deal with this time clock not being sent properly or the thermostat being defective. if it was a single-source heating device from a gas or electrical compliance in a dwelling unit, it was usually something having to do with the heat-sensing device or maintenance. that was after going through each one of the cases individually, which we have been doing since last week. >> are they trained -- let's say someone calls and what of faulty boiler -- calls in with a faulty boiler or hear, does your staff responded and asked

them if they have contacted the landlord or property management first before we take it on? before we this that someone in other words. >> absolutely, because we want the property owner to get on that as soon as possible. generally the occupants is telling us there is no heat. they do not necessarily know what kind of system it is or what ever. we have to find out what is in the central system, can we get into see the boiler or the time claclock? the time clock is usually behind closed doors. that is the first thing we look at. >> what i would really like to hear is to get a list of the repeat offenders, property owners that are doing this all

the time. the majority of property owners out there take care of their business, i would like to see that list of these repeat, what i would call owners that do not do the repairs in time. if you could come up with that. to go on th>> on the heat situa? >> yes. >> we could do that. there were a number of situations that by the time we got out there they were already abated. we ask them to call to let them know so they could look at this situation. that happened very frequently because we were asking that question. >> when there is heat the issue or hot water issue, do we, as they are trying to resolve the bigger issues, is there some way

that we require them to provide heat, space heaters, that type of thing until they get the bigger issue fixed? >> it depends on how long the work is going to take and whether they can do that in a safe manner. the housing code says when you put space heaters in, they cannot substitute for qualified for the required hearing -- heating and was there permanently fixed with a permit. that is are rare instance when the housing code is very strict. it depends upon the time frame and how long it will take. we are issuing paper, issuing notices and sending them to directors hearing. we're building the people and referring them to the city commission. generally if there is lack of heat, there's usually other maintenance issues. then we are before you asking those cases be referred to the city attorney. it is generally the elevator and other issues going on with the

building as well. we will analyze that to see what has been outstanding for how long and what the nature of it is. you have heard as make those recommendations. we're happy to go back and look at that. if you look like us to do this particular sampling and see if we do the same building and if it was the same problem. it is not the time clock, i would give you the analogy of an elder -- elevator. if the parks and another part breaks, then we have to go through that particular process, as long as as they are taking a reasonable amount of time to deal with that. if not, that is definitely on us. the dow the issue that commissioner murphy brought up, and we have heard about it where there is a boiler that continually breaks. it will fix it and it breaks

again and brakes again. that is the interesting issue. at what point do we say get a better fix or replace it? >> i have asked that question, and it's a high bar unfortunately. >> this is an example of why i think we need more background information on our agenda items. i think there is another statistic we are missing. it will help us look at the whole picture and see what the problem is. i am glad we are responding within 24 hours to these complaints. i am sure we are also tracking these complaints to make sure they are resolved or the matter is debated. so i would like to see the statistics on the number of cases where they were resolved with and a certain amount of time and which ones were not.

which ones were resolved within 24 hours. compare that to what commissioner murphy wants as a list of repeat offenders. or if we see the cases, there are lots of cases over seven days or 10 days, we need to probe a little more. maybe this will help us understand the situation a little better. >> thank you. thank you for the direction. that is what i was asking of the last conviction so i know what statistics to provide you. >> i know we're coming into the cold season soon, and to be pro- active in the enforcement and also in the category of condensing and distilling where the major areas of true

attention needs to happen is really timely for the department to really follow up. given we are at the tail end of this summer, it is going to be ramping up, because if we do not resolve some of these issues before, they will be on top of the other ones coming in. >> as we get into september, we will do ua heat sweap. we will make sure the property owner has the time clocks up properly and the proper permit. we do that in the residential hotels. we really create emphasis on that as we get into the fall. we will be doing that again this year. >> it would be good for the response to getting the list of the law of the basically

continue to disregard. >> if you would like that for the calendar year with in the sampling on, we will go back through and give you the data for the next commission meeting if you would like. >> thank you. to go any additional commissioner comments? >> public comment on five5a and 5b? >> part of what i do for -- as a housing advocate is to advise tenants on how to take care of back rent issues. they will get a 14-day notice and they will come to us and say what the we do? the first thing i will ask them is how did you get in this position? why did you not pay your rent. a significant number respond

that i do not want to pay the rent, because where i live, my unit is in disrepair and lacking maintenance. i tell them that is not the way you go about it. do you notify your property managers about the issues that need to be attended to? they say yes, but they are unresponsive, and this is the only way i feel like i can get their attention. in all fairness, once i get involved and bring these issues, maintenance and have the ability issues to the property managers and to their supervisors, things do get addressed to get fixed. my point is why do i have to get involved? they should be able if something breaks or needs addressing, they should be able to go to the

property managers and say i have an issue, this is not my fault, i have kids, what ever. again, what they are telling me is that is not happening until someone else hire up gets involved. i do not understand why housing rights committee or some other person has to get involved. this seems like a pretty simple process. if something needs fixing or broken, you go to your property manager and say please address this. for whatever reason, and i do not know exactly, i have heard staffing issues and a lot of different things. i do not know the answer, but i do not understand why things are not being fixed in a more timely manner. think you. -- thank you. >> thank you.

>> those people are quite good, but you get the odd one that is not here yet those we need to get onto and have a hefty penalty like $1,000 per day or something like that, because there is no excuse for that. i do know most of them. i have been in many of these hotels, and most of them are really quite good. there are tenant problems sometimes, but then there are other ones that let the issue go on and on with excuses. a heavier penalty. thank you.

>> any additional public comment on this item? >> commissioner walker. >> as a closing comment, i appreciate this. i really hope you can take advantage of the fact that we have these organizations and programs around code enforcement out reach, and may be connected in that with that meeting through our housing division to make this more effective and to see how we can help you more on these kinds of issues, especially staffing issues that will compound. i think it has been the intention to help, and we are ready have something in place with the court enforcement are reach where we can use them -- code enforcement our reach where we can use them instead of our reach. thank you for coming in

participating. we look forward to working with you. >> i have my own comments to make. with regard to the categories that mean it's really triggers have the ability, that there needs to be a stronger effort or at least attention in a timely way and effective way to resolve these as quickly as possible, because as they get delayed, the complaints that are repetitive basically become part of the statistical padding that comes as a result of that. most importantly, the categories of the citizens that are at risk are the ones that reside there. they trigger the categories of not paying rent, so then it becomes a volleyball effect. more importantly, i think attention is needed immediately, if not more than a timely way

the immediate rebecs -- effects will be revolution. thank you. and >> item 6, directors report. item six6a. >> pamela anders. we are about $200,000 over when you compare the revenue this year versus this time last year. i decided what i would focus on is how we ended the year for 2010 and 2011. i want to make sure that everyone realizes that the year in terms of the accounting entries is not over. in fact, departments are still

making entries through the 24th of august, and then at the comptroller's office will make entries. so we have not gone through and booked our accruals. some of the departments have not billed out all of their expenses. so that really affects what we end up with work orders. the work orders historically have been one of those things where until we get closer till september or october time frame, we will not know how much they will bill us out. what we are looking at is that our charges for services are up this fiscal year. our refunds have been significantly lower than they were three years ago, which was over $1 million. now they have reduced to

$250,000. we project the revenues will be refunds of about $5 million, $4.9 million greater than that which was but it did -- which was budgeted. do not grab the revenues yet, because we need to talk about those in a minute. in terms of the expenditures, we know we had many vacancies this fiscal year, so that resulted in the a surplus of money of expenditures that were less than budgeted. non-personal services, a lot of those are due to vendors that have not submitted their bills yet, so there is open building for that, and we usually have to carry forward money in years for

that. that number will definitely change. the materials and supplies, we have historically budgeted a significant amount of money for things like computers and small i t items that are less than $5,000. -- small it numbers that are less than $5,000. we budgeted based on replacement need, but we have not impacted any of the services that we need to provide. in other words, we did provide new computers and new printers and other types of i t devices to people this fiscal year, but we still have savings in there.

services of other departments is primarily due to the fact that the bills are usually late. this number definitely will change. we do not have -- we are low on -- the city attorney has not done their billing for the fourth quarter. the controllers had not done all their billing for the whole services by the time that we produce this report. there are going to be changes. our best guess was or best estimate was that we would end the year in terms of expenditures compared to budget by about 3.9 million, resulting in the balance of 8.9 million. this is expenditures versus budget.

let's talk about the revenues. i think you all had heard the explanation that we have to make sure that we set aside sufficient funds to cover the work that people paid for. in other words, permits can last for four years. there can still be a lot of work that needs to be done. people come in and they pay before. we have to set aside funding for that. >> don't the term holders pay for an extension? >> that is if they're in extension if they have a situation where the life of the permanent is over. what i am saying is you come in and you have standard kind of

project where you are going to have to do demolition and you will have to do -- you will have to rebuild an area, a house. you say, ok, so you are paying for planned review, you are paying for -- let's say you are past the agenda. you were paying for the work that you do for the planned review. you are paying for the work that s group will do in terms of inspections. that does not occur the day you pay. that will occur over the time. >> i understand that. you pay that on the day it is issued. let's say the project does not start and lingers on for two