works who will summarize the reports on assessment cost. >> good afternoon, president chiu and members of the board. my name is gretchen rooud with robbins to representing the public works graffiti unit. chapter 80, the administrative code, the community preservation and black and white reduction act requires that property owners maintain their property in a blight free condition and inspect graffiti and notify owners of the damage. we have notified property owners by physical posting at the property, regular mail and by certified mail the property owners are given 30 days to an abate

graffiti. when posted blight they are given an additional 15 days when they ignore or refuse to do the work. the city will perform the corrections and assess the cost through the tax role. the department is requesting your approval for the assessment of blighted properties. >> thank you, colleagues, any questions to the department of public works? i know there are a number of properties that have received various assessment cost and we'll hear from the members of the public who wish to dispute any aspects. if there are in members of public who wish to speak on this item, please step up and lineup on the right hand side and we'll give you two minutes to articulate your perspective on the cost that has been assessed. what we'll do after public comment, let's

me wait for everyone to lineup. after public comments we'll ask for members who have come to this session to meet outside with the department of public works staff to briefly talk about your situation and after those conversations have occurred we'll invite the staff to report on whether there is a resolution or whether the cost should be assessed. as you speak, please identify your name and the property address. thank you. >> hi. i'm jerome. i own 549 street in san francisco. there is a problem with the way this process is working. first of all they put a sign up on the property that might have graffiti on it. all it does normally say is you have graffiti on your property. there is no way for the owner of the property to know exactly where the graffiti is, if a big

piece of property. in my case, i always address it immediately, but in my case they have addressed twice places we could not find. we've called many many times to the department of public works, tried to talk to gretchen and her supervisor and always goes to voice mail. never getting a call back. after many many months of me calling many times, i finally was able to go to the radio room at that particular facility and he put me through to gretchen. now i have response from gretchen. she's also notified me that she's called a person that was working on our property when the city has the records of my phone number and me being the owner of the property. the problem is that for me to be assessed any problem in not removing graffiti, i need to

know where it's to talk to someone to identify that or at least give me a picture of where the graffiti is. there has to be a remedy on this and i hope you can help us work on that. that is all i have to say. >> thank you, as i said before, at the end of the hearing, i will ask members of the company to have a continued conversation outside. next speaker please. >> good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of the board. my name is peter schaffer, 1264 folsom street. my parents lived here through the 1906 earthquake. i was married here. my family has a long standing history in the

city of san francisco. i care deeply about what i feel used to be one of the most beautiful cities here in the world. i'm here today to protest the treatment of the victims of the crime run a muck graffiti. i only find out about it if i drive by or i get a notice from the graffiti abatement department. i do not live in the city of san francisco. 1264 folsom is a notorious corridor where blight is covered. as soon as they cover it, it happens again. as you imagine there are many citations issued. if you would catch the perpetrators. it would eventually stop. punishing the victims, only em bold ens the

perpetrator and creates a new canvas for them to payton. paint on. the only way they get caught is if it's a concerned neighbor the police happen to accidentally stumble across them when they are in the process of vandalizing somebody's property. i'm proposed two solutions to help curb this black and white. i hope the mayor's and others will propose several ideas. stake out known graffiti corridors with your graffiti abatement department or what you might call it and when these things occurred -- >> thank you very much. we give everyone equal time. you will have time to discuss with w w staff. next speaker. >> my name is michael man and my address is 428 grove street.

i don't have an issue with the graffiti. my property is graffiti free currently. my issue is with dpw. i have recently gotten two bills from dpw, one was $263, the original bill in september 2011. i purchased the property in january 2012. i'm expected to pay the final bill of $4339 and i have no idea where that is coming from. so, thank you. >> next speaker? >> my name is mary. the property address is pacific avenue. i have been a tenant for the past 15 years. i'm

speaking today because we have had in 16 years in this location we had the first 12 without any graffiti, but in the past almost 5 years we've been tagged quite a few times and we've never received a clear message from the department that supervises this. we were originally contacted by someone from the graffiti unit that told us that our location was a high tag area even though we are on a really quiet one way street. he suggested that a stake out was going to be made that we were in a location where the city would -- he was going to see to it that the city was going to find a way to stake out this area and once he gave us the okay, we were going to

participate our wall and paint over the existing graffiti and they were going to do a sting operation and catch the people in the act which was suggested by one of the other speakers but it never happened and in the meantime we kept getting more notices about this graffiti situation. in the past years we've painted over it many many times and the amount of the fee that has been assessed on us is $3800 and our landlord is not paying it. he's going to pass it on to us. need to go pay $3800 which only cost us $800 is over our budget. we thought we were in communication. >> thank you very much. next speaker? >> good afternoon. my name is

bill. i'm a manager in chinatown. i don't own any building but i manage many of them. this city is fineing the landlord for graffiti even though they maybe merchant gates. i think it's being done that way because it's easy to tag the landlord that have properties. i don't understand why the board of supervisors with the public works department would not cite the merchants. they have a business license they can go after them. my clients are day after day being penalized. we don't see them because the gates are up only at night. inspectors are driving at night and

tagging on almost like if it's a game. it's getting worse and worse. also i noticed being everyday in chinatown that none of the sidewalks or properties that are owned by the city are being packed like some of my clients have been tagged for chewing gum, a tiny piece of green along the edge of the building but if you go around, not just in china town but everywhere you will see a lot of sidewalks cracked and chewing problems, but it's owned by the city but they don't get tagged. that's it. thank you. >> next speaker? >> hi. my name is william

chang. i own the property for many years. i have so many problems. the street level, i have the people clean it. every time i clean it, they are going to do it next time. finally i spent a couple thousands. i have a mirror on it and they stop doing it on the street level. then they start doing it up in the roof. in that case i can't just like stop them doing that. i wonder see if the city can help me out to try to stop the people doing that. otherwise i just can't stop them from doing that every time. i have to hide the people from doing it. some it is when they do, they put the gum in the key hole. the tenant calling me and says my front door doesn't work and i have to

hire a locksmith to do the work again. i don't know what to do in that case. also. i got a penalty for $260 for the late fee. in that case i just wondering then what should i do in that case. thank you. >> thank you, next speaker? >> my name is sheldon. i have owned the property on 274 cap street. >> speak into the microphone, sir. >> thank you. >> my name is sheldon fong. i'm the owner of 274 cap street. i have been doing this for the last two months. i have been

taking care of every time they paint it. they mess it up, i went there and paint it, touch up. now, you still want to fine me for what i'm not doing, but i'm doing it every time they mess up the place i went to paint it. now, do i still have to pay the fine? i'm asking you a question? do i have to pay the fine? they want to fine me. why? i'm asking. why pick on the taxpayer. i'm the one who works hard to pay the tax and pay you to fine me. do that to me? that's what i want to know. okay in let me know. do i have to pay the fine.

>> as i said before, for anyone who has come in today please sit tight at the end of the hearing well ask you to speak to the staff. next speaker? >> good afternoon supervisors. i have lived in san francisco for 61 years. while living here i have noticed that blighted properties have become so obvious especially lately in districts 4 and 7. i would like to thank the board for holding this item because even district 4 and 7 have deteriorated to the extent that blighted properties are obviously there. i would like to recommend two suggestions. no. 1 authorize publically citizens arrest for catching these people and there

will be plenty of people watching to make the bounty money. it's like having pal dean in san francisco and making money on the graffiti guys and secondly have it mandatory jail time for convicted graffiti and being in a same cell with a killer and that would discourage a lot of graffiti people and will also encourage people not to do it repeatedly because you are sitting in jail and you don't know if you are going to get killed or raped in city jail. i think that should be a good deterrent. if you don't know who pal diane was look for it on the internet. we should have

a bunch of pal dins in san francisco. >> thank you, next speaker. >> any other name is steven. i live on valencia street. i would like to see a crack down on graffiti vandals and i think the city is too lenient and causes millions of dollars for everyone. we have to constantly paint over. i have spent thousands of dollars on this a year and i also go out myself once a month for one or two hours to paint over graffiti on my block. for me to be hit with this $263 fine violation for not painting it over in time, i think it's an outrage. like i say, i hire the people to paint the stuff over everyday and i

do it myself. i think it's outrageous. thank you. >> thanks. next speaker. >> hello, my name is pat gave in and i got a bill from you. everybody is here for graffiti. the cops stand by all day watching them spray my building. i happen to be a paint contractor. i paint myself several times. the people next door they paint it for me. i don't n what this bill is for. it's completely wrong. i paid over $22,000 over two days ago to the city of san francisco in my taxes alone. in four days, everyday cleaned up and i have done nothing to improve the place an i get a bill for $22,000. i don't have the money to pay it for no. 1

and it's a historic building. the university studio came out and done it for free. so the building is up and rulg and i'm doing my best all day but i don't have another $2,000 to pay. i'm broke after this whole deal. it's wrong. serving wrong. i'm down there all the time trying to fix it. it's remarkable, the improvement i have made and you can send me another bichl it's wrong. i just don't know do i have to pay this one more time or what. who is going to answer to me. i don't have the money. the cops are going up and down to street to see what is going on and here you send me a bill. something is wrong. thanks folks, i appreciate you

listening to me. i'm horrified. >> thank you, next speaker. >> hello, i live in the mission and we have been getting graffiti for 37 years. i have been cleaning it all up. i live in a brick building. they just write on the corner, you can't just paint over it. you have to do certain things. for you to hit us with that kind of bill is ridiculous. we get hit all the time. i don't know what it is. if you if this continues to happen, it's going to end up lie -- like new york city. they cleaned it up. it's not fair for what you are doing to

us. you have to make us pay for what they are doing. you don't make them -- you slap them on the wrist. if they jaywalk. they make them chop wood. after they have suffered they may not want to do it again. you are giving them a free for all. that's why it's happening here. i hear people say, we can write on san francisco, it's legal. this is a bunch of bs, right? it's not fair to these people. nobody wants their house to look like that. >> thank you, next speaker. >> members of the board. director of san francisco open government. this is about the fourth time i have been here while we've had this kind of

hearing i keep hearing from individuals who are coming here and i'm having a hard time deciding who is here and who is not. people say i call the department and leave message and i can't get an answer about where it is. it keeps happening repeatedly. the bottom line is i was in retail for about 30 years and one of the things i learned was that for everyone person that complains there are nine that simply walk away because they don't think they have a chance to do anything. don't assume because you have handful of people here that it's a unique problem. i would be willing to bet that this is a problem citywide, you know it and there seems to be a need to do something. if your building gets defaced over again, we are not going to work with you, we are not going to consider the number of times you painted it. all we are going consider is the rules say you have to fix

it and you didn't fix it period. if somebody goes through a case where they have had to repaint their building five times in the same year, there ought to be a way to come up with it to help them. simply saying that's your problem and it's not our problem which is the approach to be taken, is unacceptable. the city has a right to have a department to work with them openly and honestly to resolve these issues and not dump it on them and send them a bill when they don't respond. i have a hard time that these people don't want to do anything about the graffiti and they don't know what to do and they are asking for your help and if you didn't look at your screens like you always do, maybe it would pay

attention to help. >> thank you, very much. are there any other members of the public that wish to speak on this item? >> okay, as i said at the beginning of this hearing. what we would like to do right now is we have d w p staffers, can you stand so they will know who to approach. they are going out to the hallway and if we can ask members of the public to address the specific case here, once those conversations have occurred i will ask dwp staff to come back. we'll hold this hearing open until we have received final word from dpw staff. please step outside and if the rest of the public that wishes to speak with them please step outside as well. and with that, it is 3:30 can

we go to recognition and commendations. >> the clerk: in recognition of asian specific heritage month ceremony. >> thank you, madam clerk and as our colleagues know, we like here as the board of supervisors during various times of the year to recognize important leaders in our community who have been contributing so much to add to the research and diversity to the community. the month of may was declared by president clinton as asian pacific month. i want to thank those in the audience who have been celebrating this city of asian americans here in san francisco. i would like to acknowledge the woman who has been managing a lot of our city's american asian pacific

heritage events in recent years. claudia chang. i want to acknowledge you to make some comments this afternoon. >> i want to mention that this citywide celebration has been going on since 2005. so the group has been growing and every year the committee meets to plan on the celebration and theme. as some of you know the theme this year is honoring achievements in the performing arts. they have honored two individuals in the organization for the impact of using the skills and experience in the performing arts in benefitting the community. so we are very happy to a public nomination to address on our website and we are very happy is to discover

those. i would like to inform you that this year we have an honorary in our audience today for the heritage awards for inspiration leadership. we have brenda wong for lifetime achievement, our activist and we have for the people's and information organization we honor asian, an organization and nurturing opportunities for asian american jazz artist. who are able to join us in the center on may 6, we want to thank you so much as the acting -- board of supervisors chiu and as you have seen some of our posters we have the committee that has our local a on it. it's a tradition that i

did last year. i would like to pass out the pen. there is one for each one of you. i hope that you will wear it with pride. thank you so much. >> thank you, with that, why don't we pro -- proceed to our individual commendation. we rotate. i would like to start on the right hand side of the chamber and starting with supervisor breed walking back to supervisor campos and finally finishing up with supervisor tang. i would like to acknowledge supervisor breed. >> thank you, today i'm honoring mr. eugene hwang. he's a science teacher but i realize that we are supposed to

be honoring someone in the arts community. the reason why mr. waeng is here is because he's been a cheerleader. cheerleader is an art. he has been a galileo cheerleader, the voice of the high school. you couldn't walk passed him without putting a pon pon on your face and he's telling you to wear your colors with pride. i went there and so many people when you say his name, they say is he still there? that's because, as young as he looks, he's been teaching in the san francisco unified school district for over 40 years. and what a tremendous tremendous

tremendous distinguished career in the public school system. he has served the city with pride, he has been really relentless in his pursuit to support students in the academic world, to support students in applying for scholarships and to support students in having pride and returning back to galileo high school and part of the galileo community. you couldn't have a better person in the high school. more importantly, the people of that school make it what it is. mr. waeng you have made galileo an important not just for me but every student in san francisco.