he'll say i can't do this. most of designers have a fair idea if they can get -- >> is it based on a dollar amount? >> it's can i approve your plans within an hour. that's the sole criteria. we have a lot of designers that push us. for instance if you came at 8:00 and i know we are not busy until 10:00, we might do it. >> it's kind of arbitrary. i have a couple of follow ups. can you request specific plan checkers. this is one thing we are trying to deal with with our system? >> no. >> only as a follow up? >> we use a list. it's like a wheel system. as you come in off the elevator and finish the intake and come into the

building inspection part and you sign in. if you are no. 7. whoever is finished on-the-job they go over and they have to pick the first one. >> you have to do that in person, you can't call in? >> no. the only stuff that goes on up there is -- the list of puc, that person might be trying to get their puc portion. what we put is non-responsive and if it happens twice, we cross you out. they know what they are doing and they stand in the middle and they are listening. the first person that calls, we run over. >> as a subsequent question to yours. is that your wheel system. is that public? this system where you schedule who is going to be at the desk at a certain time?

>> yes. that's public. >> if we say, so and so is there at this time. i'm going to show up at that time? >> they could, but there is no guarantee you are going to get that person. they are do two -- done two weeks in advance. >> thank you for this report. maybe in future meetings we would like some of this. i would like some of this in writing like the wheel system or the size of the projects. i'm actually particularly glad that we are working on stuff like that and that is their plan and i want to encourage the department to actually move forward with that. simple plans. replacement of doors, windows, things, more for the homeowner or for maybe very

very small remodel. so i want to thank you for that and urge you to move forward with that. here is one of my concerns follow upping on commissioner walker's comments. i think the one hour thing is very arbitrary. luckily i'm not a professional but i have tagged along on the fifth floor, there are expediteers that come with roles of plans and very big plans and of course they want to do it right away, of course they think it can be done in an hour. so, how can we say, wait a minute, there has to be some to me, it would be much better to have some standard and it should be a professional standard. to me it's not even just a dollar amount. it could be just scope of work, it could

be square footage, something that we are saying. this requires a lot more time for us to look at. so that's point no. 1. the other thing that i'm concerned about is just a larger backlog. i know again, usually those things come from planning and i think some of the pressure we get is we kind of catch what happens in planning because they can -- they may have helped the plan for god knows how long before they handed it to us and i think we should be commended for the people checking the plan. i think we are doing a very good job, but again, we need it handed to us, how is it handed to us. it would be nice to have some reportage on that because i think sometimes the pressure we feel from the clients or from the developers is because they walk in to our

building, there are various city departments there, but we are the catch all i think at the end of the day. it's the building department that they feel is responsible for all their permits whether that's true or not. i know that is a long winded question. >> it's called a building permit, though. we get it at the end of the process we are the ones that collect the money but we are at the end of the process usually. i would like to follow up on the people you see with the large plans. oftentimes they come up for a recheck. they have gotten their comments and they have done the corrections and now they want to resubmit. the person they want to resubmit to is up on the 5th floor so they can't sign in and seek that person out and say here is my comments that you gave me. >> do we have data, do we have written -- i think it would be

good to keep some data. this is recheck. this is new submittals. that's kind of what would be good to alleviate some of this question that everybody is coming through in an equal manner. >> to answer some of the questions. thank you, commissioner walker. first of all i was in the county all the time before, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. generally by what size of the roll. generally when they come in the building department over the counter, usually they are not new building, not addition, not changing use. generally they are simple or ti jobs. you saw those big jobs rolling in. most

are ti. ti job because the architect wants to charge more money, right. they pay by page. mostly details. you don't want any major change in the ti. i had expense when i was in the counter with the director approve for over the counter. we help to take the pressure off the plan checker. when there is an issue, they should go to the supervisor and ask to review it. the job i had before like a change from a b to a and then lots of changes on the counter. that's why sometimes you have to divide the jobs. say this is one hour, this is 45 minutes, this is 35 minutes. that's why it's the judgment

call. in engineer, lots of judgment because you need to see how is the job. it's not the size. sometimes one or two pages is more complicated than the big roll. usually big roll is by professional with a small job they do without professional. to answer your question regarding how to have the staff to learn how to do all of those jobs, except for committee what they call cross training of the inspector because we have lots of new inspectors coming in in different divisions, lucky enough i ask -- one -- our new chief building spinth -- inspector and to form a committee to make sure to train

all inspectors, building inspector to be in learning in all divisions. similarly engineers we have quality control of what they do too to make sure all the public -- proper way. considering the backlog, we remind to each plan checker, you are over two weeks now. you better start your job. there should be a constant reminder. same as the constant surface. we are always assigned people depend on their work load and then they have the big jobs or priority jobs or opinion jobs they can request the supervisor, maybe they can pick up the counter and do some in-house plan checks. that's why is the supervisor and deputy director and myself to

how to balance the work load. lots of people are trying to work out of their office procedures and policy but some of them is a little bit judgment call. i hope i can answer all your questions. >> i think that the request could be answered by looking at data on how successful we are if we are determining something is one hour over the counter job and it ends up with problems later on because it should have been evaluated more. those are the kind of things that it's hard to have someone say, well, if it just takes an hour, you have to determine that ahead of time and you might not know until after the hour is up and you still have issues. it is a judgment call, but it's problematic because it's a judgment call. >> that's why the plan takes 15 minutes and they say this is

not over the counter and go to the supervisor and then the supervisor says this cannot be over the counter. >> oh you are plan checkers are aware within a few minutes. >> generally most of the customers are very familiar >> i don't know if we have it in the current system as if it's true. if it ends up being a two hour thing then your evaluation is an hour. that would help us being competent about it. if it's about me. >> i feel it would be good to get the data on which ones are going over the counter, the cost, what are the scope of work because even tenant improvements, there is a lot of

tech companies coming in and they want office space. it not a matter of cubicles. maybe they have to inspect these things that was not the use of the before and now they are changing it and they are adding sprinklers. there is other things that need to be done where it's not just a matter of same usage. those are the kinds of things that we are using. what is going to the fifth floor and how do we make that judgment. because to me this one hour rule about that you can finish it in an hour, it's still very subjective. it's very -- commissioner clinch? >> i guess i missed something. what's broken? it seems to be working fine. why is this discussion being held? >> i think it's an update so

commissioners understand. i personally think things are going well. i think commissioner mar is saying, if i can establish, i don't see any harm in that, can you establish what was done on many plan checks going through an hour verse what can be potentially an hour other. >> we are talking about human beings. i have something on the overhead. as you can see no matter what the industry, some people do the large jobs and it would appear that their dollar amount is huge and you look at the amount of jobs they did and that will tell what you they are working on. i can tell you that on a regular basis we call people in and we are very frank with them. we say, we've been collecting this data now, i

have been down there for 11 months and i often call my office an i say, your numbers are down and they have been down regularly and i ask them why. what do you like to work on? what can we do for you? do you need extra training? do you like ti? do you like small additions and often they say i like a and b. i never tell them to take one particular person. i never do that. >> i think if my fellow commissioners read the papers, there have been accusations of lack of transparency in the department with a member of the board of supervisors has made those. i think it's good for us to put things in writing and during our public hearings to

put up how you come up with those schedules and to share with the public what the methodology is and the process and all that stuff with transparency and clarity the process is really good with the department and it goes a long way towards letting folks know how we actually do thing because there is the perception that folks who are on the inside, folks who are professional expediteers, have some kind of angle that other folks don't. so if what you are saying is that's not the case, so we have knowledge. >> they are there everyday >> right but they don't have an unfair advantage. i think it's good for the department to have transparency and have rules that are consistent and that everyone can see particularly folks in elected offices who

are being responsive to the public just like we are. >> yeah, exactly. it's really trying to find a way to get that information out and have it be there and have that one person evaluated as the next person so we know what is being asked of them. it's fine if it really is an hour and that works. we need to just establish what that means and what kind of projects fit into that for everybody that walks in the door and i think it's helpful and i will like commissioner melgar said that it would help to be transparent. so we make it

available so people know what to expect when they walk in the door. >> commissioner mar? >> i feel like a lot of our discussion, i do want to make a distinction between large projects and small. we are happy with the cranes in the air, i feel with a lot of the smaller jobs, we want people to pull permits. we want to make it easy to get a permit and pay for a permit and do things the right way. that's the spiel that i always give whenever i'm out. in order to do that, that's whenever those stair plans and deck plans, those are great because we want someone to do is you don't need an expediter for the small people. you get a good general or good

architect and anybody should be able to get a permit in this city. maybe that's the perception. maybe the public's perception is wrong but it's our job to correct that perception so they will do the right thing. like an education, if you want to do an awning, that's the time to do this. if we don't educate them, people think they have to know someone to get a permit. that's the problem. we need to reeducate and that's what i'm pushing for to make things as simplest as possible especially for the smaller projects. now, i'm not worried about the skyscrapers because they know what to do and they have the money to do it with. >> actually we have a system to help the small projects for

small additions for home owners because they have submitted a job. lots of home owners come in request to over the counter because they have an addition and they can request over the counter with the review by the plan check supervisor. they can go up to the fifth floor to review it. we try to help all the small contractor and homeowners by extending our hours to 5:00. people say, i need to go back to work and meanwhile they can come in and then they can finish that and go home. we try our best to help all, not the big job also the small job. we consider that. >> okay. i think that's a good discussion. we have good

direction there and we have to start monitoring things. i think it's going in the right direction. i believe the department is doing all the right moves to count er all the smaller and bigger developers and the idea is where we can get to this point where the smaller applicant can go in there and have a stress less process to get a permit and in return we will have less permits not being taken out. i kind of get that argument and that is ultimate goal to get that done. so deputy director, thanks for all your work there and i know it's constantly evolving and you are managing that 5th floor and we appreciate the fact that you are constantly trying to improve and make changes. thank you.

>> going into my second year, it is exciting to hear what you just said that i have never heard before. in the month of may we have 230 applicants, 200 of them were completed on time within 30 needed extra time. >> right now there is 230 in the backlog and the only ones we haven't gotten to is 24 of them. but we approved $1.5 billion in building products. >> right. we get the big sheet but to hear that monthly report was good for me. i would like to hear that at least quarterly to know how we've done, how many we are behind, what's in the backlog. so at least here at the commission level anyone who wants to turn on the television or read the notes can hear where we have and what we've done.

>> it's important to realize the 5th floor is only in existence for 2 1/2 years. prior to that, we had a small counter and almost everything came in. the only thing that was coming out with the counter was not plans and reroofing and kitchen and bath. the 5th floor is a big league . it's wide open. if you look at my numbers what i approve, i approve no plan permits. i get them out the door. it's a completely different way we do business there than three years ago. >> i don't know three years. i only know one year. thank you. appreciate it. >> okay. is there any public comment on this item? seeing

none, which item are we on now? >> do you mind if we do public comment because we prefer that? >> go back to the beginning? no. 3. general public comment. the bic will take general public comment that are not part of this agenda? any general public comment? seeing none, the next item. >> if i may just do the president's announcements. >> we are back to item no. 2. president's announcement. >> congratulations to plan review services. rudy purdah and jimmy and tom lee,

congratulations to trevino for her outstanding customer assistance. thank you to building inspector tom chiu and housing inspector for his work on china safety festival and tom chiu gave information on state law on carbon monoxide to prevent deaths. congratulations to the best ik commissioner who was sworn in by jeremy lee. welcome back. congratulations to acting director tom hue who is act explaining the dbi implementation for the retrofit

program will be in july magazine. this is a community outreach to inform the property owners to provide step by step navigation how implementation will occur in how to make the city better prepared for the next big one. chief and patrick rear dan, helping dbi inspectors understanding the complex issues involving permit and process review and he's been assisted by chief building inspector ron tom and tony greek oh. congratulations to the team on its excellent work with next year's budget. the department had it's first budget and finance committee this past monday with a budget analysis recommendation of final hearing on dbi budget will be next monday on june

24th and we are currently in fiscal year. finally the fourth quarter. just a reminder in early june, all dbi and staff are asked to submit now their nomination for a colleague performing outstanding work for quarter 2013 employee of the quarter award. nominations are open so please e-mail as soon as possible. that concludes my announcements. >> any public comment on the president's announcement. seeing none. item 11. 11 a commissioners questions and matters inquiry to staff.

activity, commissioners may make inquire easy to staff regarding various documents, policies, practices and procedures which are of interest to the commission. seeing none. >> next item. future meetings. agendas, at this time the commission maybe discuss and take action to set the date of a special meeting and/or determine those items. >> are we meeting in july? it seems about 4 or 5 commissioners said they would be willing to do the vacation in july. it's up to you if we are going to skip the july meeting. >> i will be on vacation. >> i'm perfectly happy to have one less meeting a year, but i have some concerns about july not canceling the meeting there, one is because we are on

track to hire a permanent director and i wanted to make sure as many members of the commission was engaged in that process as possible because that might be happening right around that time or a little bit soon after in august. that's the goal, anyway. also if we were going to cancel the meeting, it might be better to do it in the winter when maybe things naturally, at least the smaller construction projects slowdown anyway. that was my thought on that and also concerns speak ing about meetings what the issue is on abatement appeals and how many do we have in line and how many we might still need an abatement appeals meeting to help in that backlog for boeltsdz -- both the staff as well as the people involved with that process. you may want

to do this. they are not, so you you can talk about that. >> commissioner? >> yeah, i'm actually fine either way. but i agree that we are in the midst of a director process, director search process and maybe there are things that we can do. i know that we have to schedule special meetings when we are altogether interviewing, so maybe we can do that during july to have a couple of interview meetings that are closed which is what we have to do i believe. if there is applicants? >> yes, i concur, very valid point. i just think if we are going to take vacation that we all concur in july so we are all here for the august particularly because of the business schedule we are going to have with regard to

obviously the search for the new director and so on. >> i personally i'm having time off in august. >> when we sent out that e-mail how many people? >> i believe there were 5 commissioners. i have to double check with her. >> who would check with july? >> yes. who is not going to be here with the people who are here. you are out? >> i'm out. >> i'm going to change my schedule if i have to because it's important that i'm here. but at the end of the day i'm just trying, if we are going to -- rather than august. obviously, i'm okay with the way it works. >> i don't mind.