it is worse. i have to go to three different stations. >> we have determined from q- matic it is not possible to adjust our system? >> no, not in our case. >> first of all, most of the people that testified here are architects and contractors. part of their service is getting the permit. that makes whoever they said down there and expediter. i have talked to them about oakland and san jose where they have the same system. from what they tell me, q-matic works on an express window. if your door to do windows, kitchen, bathroom, from what they tell me, it does not work for additions, tenant improvements, because you have multiple stations. for a tenant improvement or a commercial project, you can go to as many as eight or nine

stations, and that is what is killing it. unless we don it down and say q- matic is only for residential small projects, but that defeats the purpose of transparency, openness, everything else we're trying to get. >> we could come up with another way to address that but it may be the solution. >> i know even before we launched the program, we had a lot of questions about how it would work. i do not remember this thing about parallel tracks as an impossibility of the system. i think that automatically came up before. we could review the notes, but one of the first thing that came up was, what if i have to be in two places at the same time? even though i am at planning,

will my place be held at fire, so when my turn comes up, i can go there later. so that i did not lose my place and go back to the beginning. i do remember some discussions about parallel tracks. we knew that a lot of folks were coming in and they needed to go to more than one area. >> certain applicants have multiple permits peer that is why the parallels do not really work in our system. you are talking about a single permit, one permit only. you hear from some of the customers, multiple permits, which is why it is harder to make parallel. >> any more questions for the deputy director sweeney? >> that is an interesting point.

our history here has been to try with -- to work with folks who are regular users. we tried the one stop, many ways to help folks coming in with these multiple projects. i think that israel to these are people that do business with us a laot, and we do not have the appearances lie down and the grand jury report an fbi case of favoritism, plan checking chopping. all those issues. i am willing to pause here and address the issues that are up. i am not interested in something that is not working in major ways. it has got to be effective and efficient, or it will not work.

i think it makes sense to think about all this and figure out a way to address all of these issues. >> obviously, i want to thank everyone for coming in today. all the commissioners really appreciate it. you have given us a reality check of what your life has been like in the last couple of months. i went down there myself and spent about 10 hours on the weekend. commissioner walker was there as well. i could see you boiling and boiling in getting up to this boy. -- getting up to this point. with regard to the staff, i know this puts you in a difficult situation. i know that you are in the trenches. the acting director hui was

there solve the problems as best they could. in regards to the system and q- matic system, this is a new system. as my wife always says to me -- i watched commission meetings as if they are soap operas. sad but true. the q-matic system was almost a headline for years at this commission and it was the same conversation. i did not save a lot of dialogue about problem-solving until it arrives at our doorstep. and i do not know if you could have. everybody wants to the right thing. what concerns me is, as the commission, we have to do the right thing. it would be responsible for us to ignore what is happening out there. a lot of money was spent on this, and especially in these times, we need to be responsible for every penny that we spend,

but at the same time, if we recognize that something is going to fall off the cliff, it would be irresponsible for us to at least not put a hold on this. i like would you say, commissioner walker, about the parallel system. i hope this money is not a waste, but maybe is more of a dumbed down system, doing simple, over the counter in needed permits. i do not know the answer. but i would like a good run and try to solve the issues. no problem with that whatsoever. i would be very interested to see how we do that. obviously, there are some very intelligent people that are out there. a genuine effort, so that money does not go to waste. if we can make this work for the dollar amount we spend for it, so be it. but i do not want to go down there this week and see these

frustration at our stakeholders are having. i do not know what other options we have. it is a policy issue, obviously. if we are to make a decision, how would that play out? >> john malmamut, city attorne's office. >> this is a matter concerning the city department. from the perspective of the building inspection commission authority under the charter, there are certain things that you got to look at, code changes, you make decisions about the director, deputy directors, but day-to-day operations is, in a sense, outside your control, all other than your reaction -- interaction with the directors. even if you want to collectively voiced a concern, this is ultimately a matter for

the director to determine what is best. you can continue to conduct hearings on it. it is not on today's agenda, but if there was a desire to form a subcommittee, that may work more directly with the director and staff to see if there are ways to modify this program. that is one option. you can ask the director to create a staff working group. you can give some direction but you do not have any direct authority. >> i think we have rehashed already what has happened, so why don't we do this? wide and i make a new motion, recommend to the director that we put q-matic on hold, go back

to the old system with clipboards, and in the meantime, study what can be dont were voiced here, reminded us of why we want this system in the first place, why we wanted a system to show transparency to show there was no favoritism and all of that. today, we had 26 speakers that came up to make comments about the system. i hope you could reach out to them and enlist their help to find a solution that is workable for all of us. and then perhaps come back to the building inspection commission in a month or two and proposal can be done from this point forward. >> that sounds good. >> i would echo that. i just want point out, director

hui stated it was $160,000 that we have spent on the system. i heard testimony from a couple of people about the time wasted by staff. i heard 300 minutes, if you add up all those little minutes a day. if you put a dollar amount -- with what i know plan checkers get paid -- that is $360,000 in one month. i just wanted to make that cost- benefit analysis in the back of the avalos conaway. i just think we need to do something. -- envelope kind of way. >> i just wanted to make a friendly recommendation. at the same time, i do want to have this rediscussed and not do anything in the meantime. i would like to call in the

company, i would like them here at the next meeting, if possible, and i would like for them to have a full report from the director who works with q- matic about just what is possible in terms of parallel tracking, what needs to be done. there were a lot of things said today that -- if they are facts, i want to hear it from the vendor. if not, i want to hear it from them otherwise. >> what we would do is take commissioner lee's motion -- which cannot make a motion, that is right. just a suggestion. ok. you are going to make the decision then.

>> yes, we will return to the clipboard system tomorrow -- >> then we will do is get together and strategizing working on q-matic and see what we can do. >> i will concur with commissioner mar that we need to then. seriously address the issues that we're trying to address with q-matic, which are the complaints that were laid down in the grand jury report about favoritism, which includes any number of activities, that we make that a priority with staff and with professional using our department. this needs to be a fair system, transparent system, and an effective system. that is the goal. >> let me add, i do not think we are 100% committed on q-matic. it sounds like the fifth floor was added and other things changed. if there was a new system that would solve the same problems, i

think we would listen. >> we can file another system around. >> madam secretary, it looks like we have a consensus. >> the item number five, discussion on housing authority code enforcement. >> thank you all for coming. >> are we taking a break? go ahead. who is the vice-president? >> president mccarthy, are we on

a brick or are we continuing? -- break or are we continuing? >> thank you for keeping me in mind, vice chair. no, we are continuing. >> mr. president, members of the commission. chief housing inspector. the department of building inspection and the san francisco housing authority have had a joint memorandum of understanding that was executed by both departments back in

april 2007, which laid out a protocol for the efficient collaboration of the two departments with respect to when the department of building inspection received complaints that involved housing authority public buildings, not section a. what that did is laid out, when we got to comply within a certain number of days, which transmit them to e-mail, designate the parties would send it to, they needed to respond, depending on whether it was a life safety has alleged, or whether it was a non-hazardous type of complaint. since that time, we have had about 173 complaints received in occupancy -- by occupants in those types of buildings. you have before you the spreadsheet that lays out the types of complaints they were

when they came in and the nature of the complaint. since you received the spread sheet, we had another complaint come in, which i have been told may have been abated shortly, but we will begin information from the housing authority. i have also just passed out a summary of of that table so that it makes it easier to understand. for those in the audience, it is agenda item number five, a fellow summary. as you can see, the bulk of the types of complaints we have gone really have surrounded mold, mildew, hot water, plumbing issues. we have given you some percentages on the total number of complaints that come in on a leak -- yearly basis. of the 173 cases, we only have one active, the one that just came in. we do have a representative from

the housing authority who told me earlier than that actually had been abated, and they will be sending us the information. so the question is, what did the mou do to improve things? it made things more efficient. as soon as we got the template within one to two business days, to send it to the entities within the house and a door that we traditionally worked with but also the general counsel's office. as soon as they got that as well, it meant that everybody of importance at the housing authority had the information we've got. let me separate that out from complaints that may go from the occupants of housing authority buildings directly to the landlord. that is a separate issue that the housing authority should address. i am not familiar with what they do. they used to have a separate #. i do not know if they use that or 311.

that is not something within the purview of the department of building inspection. i also want to make known that we have a housing rights commission, one of our vendors who works with individual that live in housing authority properties with respect to out reach and to assist to make sure items are corrected. unfortunately, sarah was here but she had to leave. she is the director of the organization. it is my understanding that we have some entities that intersect with her and that we do have some things under the con fines of dbi. i understand that he addresses some of these issues as well. this has been a successful program. as you can see, we have been getting very quick response from the housing authority. a lot of times, we are getting complaints from individuals who tell us one of the reasons for

contacting us is that they want to use our documentation for purposes of perhaps getting a section 8 voucher or getting relocated to another location. if they want a copy of the documentation, we're happy to give it to them. we also availed ourselves to any additional service we can provide to the housing authority with respect to identify and housing code violations. they are required to not only deal with the type of infection -- inspections that they have done, but also according to the city attorney's office, the code enforcement must be fought with the housing code. we feel we have been able to work effectively with them on this and we would recommend that this program be continued. >> thank you so much for doing this. i know that we had a hearing last year to get up to speed,

get the numbers on what the issues were. as a tenant representative, i hear from folks in the community. i think that this mou, the partnership we have a housing authority, is one that works really well. when you look at the numbers, from our perspective, it shows that. working together and apart during is important. it would be good, i think, to hear from the housing authority representative to hear what their process is, and if they have members for us about how we can better help and partner in this, but thank you very much for coming. >> good morning, thank you, commissioners. i am the administrator of modernization and development. recently, --

this inspection at mou is actually new to me. since 2007, some of the people who were on your list of contacts are no longer with the housing authority. one thing we want to do is update the contact information. we do appreciate getting information, it is some oversight. perhaps a tenant went directly to your department. we certainly want to know about that right away and correct the situation. maintaining and improving our property is the highest priority for us. they are, however, older, between 50 and 70 years old. we have $240 million of limited capital properties. the capital funding in 1996 that we received from hud -- we are totally dependent on hud

funding. $24 million. three years ago, we were receiving $13 million for capital improvements. this year we're getting $10 million for capital improvements. so we are getting less than half the funding, the properties are older. it is very difficult for us to keep up and make the kinds of improvements want to make on those properties. we have had similar operating budget cuts. the operating fund pays for maintenance and property managers. we have had to cut staff -- i believe about 100 staff people, going from over 400 down to 300 over the past three or four years. our goal is to maintain and improve our properties. we have been able to leverage outside funding. we were successful with hope 6 to rebuild five of our properties. we are starting an energy conservation program.

we are doing about $25 million of energy upgrades. some of which greatly reduces our energy costs. others we were able to squeeze into the program, which are high need improvements that do not have a lot of savings, but over the years, because we're able to finance it, $20 million of boilerplate replacements, showers. some of our sites were built without showers. we have done whiting replacement inside and outside properties -- lighting replacement inside and outside properties. low flow toilets, other things that we have been adding. we were able to address not only energy conservation but get some new fixtures, new equipment.

health, safety, livability, those are high priorities, also improvements that maintain the integrity of the property, the exterior waterproofing, window replacement, and those things which do and of having an impact on residents as well as maintaining the longevity of our property. we tried to be as efficient as possible with our shrinking resources. we are actually improving our work order monitor system. by september we hope to have a better, integrated system that gives us immediate information on not only calls that go to 311, but calls and go directly to property managers. that should help us reduce the number of calls that would go to the department of building inspection. we should be able to prioritize and dispatch workers more efficiently than we are now.

although, again, the workers are more limited than they used to be because we have fewer. we're happy to work with your department. we would like to update the contact information. i would like to have not only the property managers and legal department in your reports, but we have area managers that oversee about half a dozen properties each. they are the ones that really help prioritize between developments. if we have a lot of work orders coming in from six developments, we need to be able to prioritize those and get to the health and safety items as quickly as possible. i talked with james and rosemarie. again, we are happy to work with you. we do work with bay area legal aid, sarah as well from the house and rights committee. we are all working to try to give the best service we can to

our residents with what we have available. >> it is really impressive. the numbers reflect a good relationship. i wonder if you guys keep track of the number of complaints you get, like we do. that would be helpful, too, to see what the complaints are. >> we have work orders coming in in two different systems right now. we are trying to integrate them. we get a lot of them every day. several hundred. we will be able to give you much better reports if you ask me to come after september. i should be able to give you some great information on that. >> great. >> i concur, is great to see figures that reflect the departments working together. that seems to not be the norm

these days, so it is good to see. did you have a question, vice- president are? >> -- mar? >> i wanted to thank you for your work. and the housing authority, when i saw how quickly these things were being updated, that was good. half of the private sector would not move as fast. i know you are under funding restraints and things like that. i do have one question, i do not know if it should be directed more towards our staff. for private-sector complaints, we end up sending a bill to the landlords. we do spend a lot of time on this. i am glad that we are doing this collaboration. it is good. i wonder how it affects our staff time, how we are reimbursed.

is that just something that we do for the good of the federal government? >> that is a point well taken, commissioner. one of the people you have to thank for the fact that our spreadsheet keeps track of our time is, when mou was drafted and we were going back and forth to get something that was acceptable for both parties to sign, our city attorney was very helpful advising me on some of the things that we should consider. that is why you see the amount of time we have spent on the spreadsheet. we have kept that information from day one. unfortunately, this is an unfunded service we provide. we do not get money from the housing authority, as you have heard. they have resource issues. we continue to keep track of that information so that we can report that to you, the board, or whoever needs the

information. it is a matter of public record. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> is there any public comment on item 5? seeing nine, item six. discussion and possible action regarding a proposed update to existing the minister the bulletin ab-093, implementation of green building regulations, to incorporate the current san francisco green building regulations, other related ordnances, and dbi procedures. >> good morning, commissioners. i have a couple of slides. >> you should be able to click on the computer and it should work. you have it