>> good morning. today is wednesday, november 16, 2011. i would like to remind everyone to please turn off all electronic devices. the first item on the agenda is roll-call. commissioner lee? >> here. >> commissioner murphy? >> present. >> commissioner walker? >> here. >> is presidenvice president mas excused. >> good morning. vulcan to the november meeting.

here over a few items we want to make mention of. a new state law took effect on november 1 and require that dbi obtain copies of any and all soil reports. while we obtain a copy and received a report, we bus also transmit an electronic copy to the state. details of the requirement are on our new web site. please visit to see the new in learn more about our professional services. along with that, i would also like to mention the mayor's response to supervisor melia cohen's enforcement. dbi has set up a link to the mayor's office. this provides loans who may

need further funding for outstanding violations, and the details are at the new web site modified with www.sfdbi.org. earlier this month, neil friedman and i attended the annual code meeting and provided updates on not only what is happening at dbi but some of the features provided within the next few months for the new pts system and pilot testing for chromat q-matic, and a press ree for the new features being provided to the public. and also, representing dbi on channel 7 was built strong where he talked about the public

affairs program on november 10 and played -- explained our role in enforcing the new state law enforcing carbon monoxide alarms to residents with fuel-burning devices, especially with the oncoming demand of heating. these alarms prevent injury and death from carbon monoxide, which is odorless and invisible and can only be monitored with technology, so please take a look at that. another item is to express my appreciation to james [inaudible] i want to extend my appreciation that james is representing the public and to the public of the category of service.

happy thanksgiving to all, especially to the debbi family and their friends. that is all. >> is there any public comment on the president's announcement? cnseeing none, if it will take public comment on matters that are not within this jurisdiction. -- that are not part of this agenda. >> commissioners, a deputy sweeney, i would like to discuss three things this morning. one is the failure to collect than nine times multiplier on cases brought to the city, and the second thing is the process

for notices of violation, and the third thing is the open notices of violation in the city. the first thing i would like to mention is this building at 4801 3rd street, the city lost $7,000 worth of revenue -- i believe they lost $7,000 worth of revenue because they did not collect nine times multiplier when the city came to the attorney's office. the owner of the building representative came in and brought in a check for 765, which is the legal fee. the penalty was dismissed, and essentially they bought themselves another year of doing nothing. this has been here for about eight years vacant. i believe they were speaking about this building in general. the second thing is, the process is broken.

we do not have any court nation within the three departments that handle dpw and dbi. no one knows what everyone is doing. this is the corner of thomas and third, right next to the children's association center. the blighted buildings are dbi. the weeds, grass, trash, the department of public works. this building has been on your radar for 15 years. the third thing is i have gotten information from mr. strawn with all of the open notices of violation in the city. i started in bayview because i wanted to know how many buildings were on there. these dated back to the year

2000. i was surprised about that, because i thought open notice of violation, you get a notice, and you take care of it. and you have 30-60 days or the penalties start to kick in. to compare it to the bayview numbers, i asked for a number for all of the city to see how we stood, and i was surprised to see that there were nearly 5800 open notices of violation in the city, some dating back to 1994. you have to wonder what the process and how can we fix this? what i would like to also ask is to have this as an agenda item. i think there is enough going on than it needs to be looked at. thank you. >> any further public comment?

item number four, discussion and possible action to approve and swear in members of the board of examiners. reappointment or appointments recommended by denominations sub-committee are michael casheion, high-rise sprinkler- building owner. commissioner lee, would you like to give a review? commissioner lee: we met last week, and we reviewed the applications for the seat of the high-rise sprinkler building owner sweet, and we found that michael cashion was

very well qualified. he currently manages a high-rise building in downtown san francisco, so he definitely fits the category. it was sort of a process of elimination. there was one candidates that did not live in the city. there was another can of it that did not seem to have of the experience -- candidate that did not have the experience for high-rise building owner. we narrowed it down to two, and decided michael would have the best experience. we're recommending we appoint michael cahsioshion to that. >> frank, you might next time need to talk closer to the microphone. commissioners come any questions? -- commissioners, any questions?

>> was he told that he needed to come to get sworn in? >> i did mention the meeting was going to be held today, and he had the opportunity to come if his schedule allowed, or he could be sworn in as the later date of the apartment. >> it would be a category of questions -- >> the commissioners can still discussed and decided they are in agreement with the appointment. the appointment can go forward today. >> for further discussion? >> or further discussion. >> i would like to see the appointees come before the commission. that is my feeling on it. maybe he can make it the next meeting. >> i agree. i would like to be able to meet the people we are pointing, and

i appreciate the committee went through the process, and is recommending this, but i prefer meeting folks, and being able to have a conversation with them. maybe we can continue this until the next meeting? >> are you requesting all of the candidates to come. >> is there any public comment on this item? do we have a motion to continue the item? >> move to continue. >> second. >> continue to the call of the chair? >> yes. >> promotion, a first, and the second -- a motion, a first and a second. [roll call vote]

this item will be continued, and the motion passes. item number 5, directors report. 5a, update on dbi's finances. >> pamela. i will give an update on the revenue and expenses through the end of october, which is four months of the fiscal year. as we are at this point still projecting we will end the budget with a balanced budget. one of the reasons why we are

continuing through the first four-five months in a projection that we will be on budget is because we don't have enough information to projected to the rest of the year. at this point things are looking really good. in terms of revenue we have a grasp we have been putting up. - grap- graph we have been puttg up. we have 41.7% of the budget for charges of services, which is primarily due to the large projects that will be discussed in one of the leader items. in the report i gave you you will notice that the year-over- year comparison and the valuations shows the growth of 40.7%. when you look at where the

growth is in terms of issue permits, there is some increases in permits from 10,000-50,000, but the primary increase's and the reason for the increase is the permits that are $1 million or more in terms of valuation, and that is 62% increase. we have built in when we did the budget of about 2.5% increase year over year. that was excluding mou's, transbay terminal, any other large port projects. puc building is pretty much done. we're doing inspections on that come up the planned review is completed and pretty much built. we will be coming back to you in

january with the full budget, and we will show and a continued increase in revenue. in terms of expenditures the first cylinder and the graph is personnel salaries and fringes. we have spent 27% of the budget, and in terms of how much the fiscal year has passed is 33%. we continue to have room for us to be able to hire more positions, and we will put some requisitions in, primarily for clerks at all levels, building

inspectors, and an individual who would be able to do some of the updating of the policies and procedures that we have for the department, because that seems to be a concern on many people's part. so right now and when you look at the total expenditures year- over-year, we're showing expenditures are 6.4% year-over- year increase, and that is to come in large part, to the fact that we have 24 more filled position than we had at this time last year. so we are continuing to hire people. the recognition is that we do need to get more requisitions out. we need to push the approval and

get the results of the tasks and be able to hire clerks, and we will be doing that in the next month to two months. >> as far as personnel needs, it seems from what we've been looking up for the past few months that there may be in need to toughen up some code enforcement, and i might just -- maybe we could talk about that. certainly in the blighted buildings category, and a list we have been provided showing 5000 cases open, it might be who of us to resolve and close some of these cases. otention there. maybe. >> ok. to g>> i think they're acting director needs to listen to the mid-level staff and fill some of

the positions. i was not aware when our previous director was leaving -- when she went on leave, she appointed deputy sweeney director, and she did say and the appointment would be done by you, pamela. i did not hear that. i asked our president to check that out, and he went back and said that was correct. he checked the minutes. there are many, many needs. we need engineers. i keep getting questions all the time, why are these engineers being hired? the transbay terminal, we were

told we would have three inspectors down there, and that has not happened. there is a need for inspectors down there. and so i think we are dragging our feet a little bit there. we are concerned about that. >> i want to clarify my role in this. i signed off there is sufficient financial backing for the positions, and that they are budgeted and we have the requisitions. i do not make the decision on the hiring. it is a collaborative effort, and it really is the acting director makes decisions with consultation with the other deputy directors and the staff in terms of what positions to push through. i just try to help them get approved by the mayor's office, keep pushing to make sure recruitment goes through, and

then sign off in the end. i am not making the decision on what positions we're filling. >> all i know is there are 40 or 50 vacancies in that, and we keep hearing complaints from customers that they have to wait in line, and it is usually clerks and cashiers, and i am wondering why that has not been addressed. that is all i am asking. i am not pointing fingers at anybody. >> i would like to weigh in on that. we have about 10 clerks that are in the process of being hired. the engineers -- the problem with the engineers is we are waiting on a new list. that list is in. we just hired mechanical engineers, and that you can see clearly has had an effect, and

we are in process of hiring another structural engineer. i believe it is one. >> what about the inspectors for big projects? >> you mentioned transbay. they will be nothing but digging for the next five or six months. >> i was down there a couple of weeks ago. >> it should be one for one inspector down there right now. >> know, all of the pile driving are all done by a special inspection. we will go down there once a month just to check on it and to check the special inspections logbook, but traditionally all of the earth moving work and she through special inspection. we will get down there. >> 94 expanding that.

is there a timing relationship -- >> thank-you for expanding that. is there a time relationship -- timing relationship for inspectors and the time that we need them and when they can be put in place? >> we have one more that we can call back at uthe puc. additional inspectors after that, we would have to initiate a test. >> in terms of the clerks, the city is waiting for testing to occur for p-clerks and the level below that. they finished doing that. but have the application period that ended at the end of last week. we are going to the process to see how the ratings came up. and then we will be doing the actual hiring.

we continue to run into this situation where the city has to do testing for large groups of physicians. some of which we can do ourselves. some of which we cannot. >> do we have the ability to encourage them to expedite those tests in a manner that fit with our hiring needs? >> the deputy director and actor and director and i are in contact constantly with dhr to kind of push them along with that and other areas that they have authority over. it is hard. the process, there are so many steps in it. especially new ones that were established last year, a committee to look over each requisition. yes, we are trying our best.

i think i have been pretty successful in pushing the mayor's office. we are trying. >> what is the workable time. if we were to pushing and request to make the modification so -- if we were to push and request to make the modification? would it be the next quarter? the start of the year? >> and the time that we are going to do a test, it has to be certified and posted. commissioner romero is probably better of me than telling you how it works. it will probably be the new year. march or april. >> it being a slow process, will it be time enough to meet our needs? it seems that we are always trying to play catch-up as opposed to providing that service when it is needed.

>> the problem, for instance, we were just told that the building inspector for district four, the marina, pacific heights, he will be retiring at the first of the year. so, we just got that. and we immediately, myself and pam, got together to said that we needed another building inspector to replace jerry. by law, we have to keep so many vacant. some are -- some arcane servicing rule. but we did, one of the vacant positions that we have at the building inspectors, reactivated that and called up -- we activated that and called up the building inspector. we can save some time in doing that. >> as long as there is a vacant position, the way that the city works is we have a bottom line

that we need to stay within expenditures for salaries. we have a bottom line in numbers of physicians that we can have failed. we have the ability to activate positions to decide on the field positions as we need them in terms of our building process. our needs. but we do have to keep some of them vacant. as much as possible. in this case we are lucky that we have vacancies for retirement. we can push it so that we have people was the people retire. it seems to be a slow process. >> we were having this conversation a few years ago, talking about laying off people. the financial report reflects that things are moving in the right direction.

i think it is important to keep up on it so that we give our customers stakeholders the service they are paying for. >> when we come to you in january and request a new budget, the one thing that we need to be cognizant of and has been discussed in the past is how much we push the revenues in terms of expectations for growth next year. that will determine how much staff can do. it is tricky. you do not want to get too much staff too fast because you do not want a layoff like last time. we are just trying our best to meet the needs of the customers. >> i understand that. i think that both you and the director can dissect where our needs are. and then go from there. >> who pays for the testing?

>> if it is testing outside, dhr pays for it. if it is something that we are doing, essentially what happens is it is internal testing. people are participating in interviews and interviewing -- and going over resumes. the bottom line is that there is no increase in cost as a solution to opportunity. >> thank you. commissioners? any questions additional? >> thank you. >> thank you. >> item 5b, update on proposed legislation. >> good morning, commissioners. i am the manager for public

affairs legislation. i provided in your packet a november highlight summary, similar to what you saw last month. you may note that this ordinance that supervisor chu has introduced actually received some coverage this morning in the chronicle -- "chronicle," business section. about the accessibility of not reaching it. the acting director is putting together a brown bag briefing. we are organized to do that probably by the end of this month, to bring people in and make sure that small businesses are very clear on what needs to be done. including the information on the certified access specialty that is one way to try to deal with some of these lawsuits. in addition to that,