to healings and 200. and then as you go down through the list. you can see that... that the number of cases that at least been handled is way more than previous years, and we finally got our staff back. and so that would be, so that answers the 349. and like, the left-hand column is the number of cases that we received during the 2013. >> yeah. >> and the column to the right then is the number of those that have gone to healing. >> and but you expect that to be higher and you expect that to grow, right? >> and you will have some of the bad in the 2013 and

including to state in the process and they could have continuances and on the advisement and so, like it you looked at those month or two. and more and more of those, will be in the pluses column. and it will be in the process column? >> yes. >> because, the reason of a consensus going around with the commissioners we talked about it is one of the remedis that we were trying to go to try to get out and a handle on these to have more hearings and more time to bring them to us and even to go and have one commission meeting a month, strictly to deal with this. and so the questioning to you is somebody who has been working the numbers and seeing, them go up and down and you keep pointing to the staff and the level being increased for a major factor for you, do you think that is necessary and should we let what we have right now, work its way or should we consider helping you

out by having hearings on the abatement? >> you are referring to the abatement appeals board? >> yes. >> and sorry. >> let me take that back then, you are right. >> and to help you process more, do we, or do we need to have more hearings? only on the... yeah. >> i am kind of getting caught. >> commissioner mar? >> what we are trying to figure out is how do we move to nov? >> if would be nice if the post one, notice, and they quickly resolve it. and you know that is in our dreams, right? and even if you post one and then you post two, and then nothing happens, then sooner or later it goes to the director's hearings. and so, we would like so we are trying to capture how long an nov lingers. so that is why i asked the

question about, how many of the 2012, or we can pick any year how many of one year's nov's are actually or was actually issued in the previous year? or two previous years? you know what i mean? so, one year is outstanding cases, and that does not capture how many we issued that year. and if you looked at let's say 2010. yeah. >> and the majority of cases that we would handle in 2010 may not be 20 cases but if you look at the numbers for 2013, it was the opposite, because we are staffed up now, the case can come into our division and we might give, you know, we will review the case, and if there was not a permit issue we

would schedule it right away, if there was a permit issue and a month and a half later and we were not seeing a progress we would ask it for a hearing. >> 2013, a case could come into our division and that could have always been in a month and a half later. if you look to that similar situation in 2010, and the order might not happen for a year, or two years, because we did not have the staff. >> and furthermore, we are now at a point where, you know, the case would come in and they would be put in the filing cabinet and the cabinet is empty now. and that was empty and it was 7 or 8 years ago. and the reason why it was empty 7 or 8 years ago we did not have the volume. >> it was pretty full two years ago because we had volume but we did not have the staff. now we have the staff, and so that drawer is empty now, and so now we are at a point where, we are handling the cases, as quickly as they come in.

and we are going in to back logs, and scheduling cases that may have been held back because a permit was issued but when we go back down and find that the permit was expired and we are putting that on the calendar, we are hearing what is going in and we are working now on the back logs and the numbers that you see here and if we look at it in 6 months time you will see the older cases there. and more of those, will be cleaned up if they have not got the permits. so, you know, i appreciate this exercise, but it could not come at a better time for us because the list that we have generated in coming up with these numbers, we have marked those up to go back through and quickly pinpoint the ones that need to be cleaned up it is

good for us moving forward. >> this is good that staffing was scheduling more director's hearings and even in the director's hearings and it is not usually resolved, and so the director's hearing will up hold the nov, and defend, i guess the owner or has the ability to appeal or not. and what we are saying is that if they appeal, we want to hear it. >> so that, because that will move the process forward. and so can we help the staff by scheduling more abatement appeals? >> correct >> meetings? >> and rather than having them, attach to the bic meetings, which takes up an amount of time and by the time we get to the bic agenda, some commissioners have to leave no

fault of their own, but what we are seeing is can we schedule some special abasement appeals solely to hear the casewise that help. >> when you look at the numbers that we are talking about here, and the number of cases waiting for appeal, it is a fraction, it is, you know, and like, we are at the point now where we are putting our staff time, as was a result of your request for generating these numbers, and we want to go back in and clean up those old ones and anything that in our division we want to have it, and gone through a hearing process. and then, whatever is left, will be ones that have to be returned to the inspection because the permit was issued. or very, very small number will be appeal cases. now, the thing about appeal cases, they take a sizeable

amount of staff time, but we found is that what we have in the recent past where we have one or two appeals hearing each commission, that does not disrupt our operation too much. even though it does take some staff time. and we find, you know, that moving forward we will be able to bring it before you but if we do it in a similar way as in the past and in the case of extra because we have the staff that will prepare them and that will be a better model like it is okay for you to pick one day, and have all of the hearings in one day. but, the amount of staff time for each case, but we would actually have to put some of the normal operation on hold. and there is some particular appeal case that you might be aware of that we should bring forward. and earlier, and unless there is some other major reason that

i think that, the what we have up to now is good where the housing and enforcement and each division sends one or two, and it does not appear to the normal operation. >> and the numbers here, and indicate to me, to me, that any way, we are responding to, the novs more quickly and we are, and what you mentioned is that there is more staff now, so we are handling more cases, which is good. i think what we are looking at is the number of 440 cases that are going to the director's hearing here it is going double. >> and the six month figure and it could go to 700 or 800. >> out of all of those cases, how many are resolved after the director's hearing? and because if they are not resolved, that is what we are interested in, where does it go next? >> if it does not get resolved in the director's hearing, do

you issue an order of abatement or do you issue something else? if that is the case, it is our involvement. >> 90 percent of the cases that go to hearing they may get a continuance or an avicement. and within two months. >> and the result is issued. and any party, involved with that building, it is aware because that order is recorded. and we will allow an issue and our initial and final fees, and so our costs are covered. and so basically, then furthermore, if that property owner wants to leave finance or if they want to sell that property, and that our abatement is a major impediment. and so the way that it works. once the order is issued, the city has everybody on notice so

we are not opened to a lawsuit. >> and tenants have a notice and the property owner is aware and everybody is issued a buyer and then, you can see that, you know, the number of people that are refinancing, refinancing now, and any impediment to that is a big, a big penalty to any property owner. >> so the property owners are more and more award that you don't want an order. if you do want to go to refinance, and minimum you need to get it done, and if you can you, and the money has to be held in escrow and the banks, and especially during the financial crisis were not doing them at all. and so, so the property owners were that of that now, but that the department might approve a subordination debatement. and so what we find is that

once the order is issued a good number of them will comply in months, and more, two or three years down the road they will need to refinance, and they will have to deal with it. >> what it sounds like to me is that the hearing officer has allowed discretion and a feeling of how to handle the cases which is okay. >> but when it gets continued is it the same hearing officer that hurt the case originally, hearing the second? >> yes. >> and the continuance, that is built into the system where you have simply, that maybe there could be a new property owner, and you know, they might have gotten the first notice of violation and intend to take care tf and or may have come into the department and kind of dropped the ball. >> so when, so the next thing they realize they get a second notice of violation. and now in the past, they could jump on the second notice and they could have the whole thing

resolved before it will get to hearing. >> okay. >> but no, they don't have that opportunity like before. they get a second notice comes to u.s., and we could have it on the calendar if three weeks. >> okay. >> so they are totally blind sided. >> so when they get that continuance instead of being upset with the department, they are focused on getting the permit and trying to get it resolved. if they get aresolved it saves all of the staff time, of issuing the order abatement and trying to assess the fees and all of that. and this is for the owner to resolve it and close it. if they don't, two days later that case is back on the calendar and this is the same that they usually and they see this person and here they are..., and so they are usually would issue the order right

away. >> and i see that the work load has to increase and how many hearing officers are there and do you have enough hearing officers? >> up to a year and a half ago you had one hearing officer, and handling all of the hearings for building and electrical and housing and building access and then a year ago. we created another hearing and choose this and so no one choose all of the code enenforcement and code is electrical plumbing and on thursday, the housing and the appeal and you have two different hearing officers, one for tuesday and one for thursday and if one is on vacation, they alternate. and we find that model is working good. because in the past, if we had a lot of cases on a particular week, and then so happened that the housing at all, and then you would have the staff healing officer, all of them in

the room for a couple of hours, what it is now, it is now because we have one day housing is another day. and we are not limited if we have a lot of cases we can put them on without any issues or with regard to the time taken at the hearing. >> so, i have never been more satisfied with the process. because now, we have the staff to use the process to its fullest extent. and then, furthermore, you know, where you have the serious case, and the order is issued, and it is a situation, that needs to be resolved, then, you are working with, the director and the deputies, we can get that to the city attorney through the litigation committee. everything is in place and finally you have the $52 fee, over a period of a yeaer or two, you are going to find that

as public are aware that it is no longer the situation and you get to the cost of living and once you get that first nov, every month you are going to occur a cost and there is going to be a sizeable percentage of the property owners that are going to say, should i throw that money away and why not use that to resolve the problem, and avoid going to hearing? >> and so over time, they will be less cases going to hearing and mislead of staff and preparing the amount of time involved for preparing cases for hearing and then that staff will be freed up to respond to complaints more quickly. >> and so, i think between the system that we have, and plus the additional $52 fee and i think that we have a good set up. >> and with our adequate staff and in ten month's time we can look at this again, and if there is room for improvement,

hear that.we will be glad to >> so the hearing officers, what are their options if they feel the property owner is not responding? is there only going to an order abatement? >> their options are fairly limited. on the case moves forward first, they could give an advisement, if the person was close to getting the permit signed off. if the permit was issued but it involved a lot of work, they could choose to give them a continuance. >> no, i meant, at the very end, if the hearing officer says that i heard this a number of times and i don't want to see this back here, you are not responding, i want to do something, what are the options? >> the order of abatement. >> like when the case is continued it is only continued once, generally, and when it comes back in the calendar the hearing officer on that day

with say that we are issuing an order of abatement today. >> okay, if it was close, they can give a 14 day advisement and but, once this is heard once and 30 days later once it comes back, it is in there, in the allowance for the order of abasement. >> thank you, john. >> we have increased the director's hearing, and we have two days instead of one, so we increased the director's hearing and the staff is being very pro-active in the staff, and as far as the building and being proactive and having them notice the violation and make sure that they have the code enforcement for the proper time and our whole goal in the code enforcement is compliance and a lot of times the code enforcement and bring them back to the staff and because they are pulling permits and so as long as these violate ors are working with the staff here and going through the process, and obtaining permit and working

through the inspection process and will work with them there. and a lot of times it will get hung up in planning or take a longer period of time so we do go through the process and we do go through the continuance to get the work done before the order is given, and once it is given, the code enforcement is going through the process there. and in the next alternative is refer to the city attorney. okay >> that is as far as we can take it. >> as far as, housing and i will let rose mary speak. as far as complaints, we have been proactive until this is the first month that we have actually all of the complaints that we see, we have 100 percent response in building, and so, i want to thank my staff for that. and that is the clerks and all of the building inspectors that monitor every complaint that comes in to make sure that it is done in a timely manner, on this sheet here. and complaints responded to within 24 hours, we have 49

percent. >> we have complaints response at 72 hours at 32 percent and complaints over 72 hours is 19 percent and so it is 100 percent response that we have had here, on top of 5,000 inspection and actual, 5,000 inspections that they performed and so i want to thank the staff for that because they are working hard and performing the building inspections and keeping track of the complaints, they can be tough because it is hard to gain access and, they have to monitor the complaint to get access, and they had 100 percent response. >> for housing, i will have rose mary speak on behalf of housing. on her, sheet that she provided you for the information you asked. and another thing that we have here is a code enforcement dbi monthly update that you asked for. and that was in your packet here. >> the amount of complaints,

and... the response times for those complaints on a monthly basis so you can monitor it. >> and ross mary will talk about the analysis for the data that she provided you. >> commissioners good morning, one of the things that you had just commented on was what you had projected regarding the number of cases sent to a director's hearing, i was in the first six months of this calendar, and you can see from housing, that we are really on target to double that, and where we hope that we will have about 800 cases by the end of this year that we have or will

have sent to a director's hearing. and unfortunately though, the issuance of the order of abatement does not always resolve a case and as you can see from the cases that come to you, because one of the things that i want to show you now is the questions that you were just asking is here is the same numbers, and now let me show you the totals were for that year, and so in the middle column here, you have the 154, excuse me, 154 of 1500 and 19 notices of violation issued for the 2009 calendar year. and so that is kind of what you wanted. so from that, you can see right now, as of right now, we have about touchdown of those cases open for the next calendar year, it is about 15 or 16 percent because there were 1600 novs issued of that there are 255. and then you see that for the years going up to we are currently in 2013 and so we

don't have those numbers just yet. and now, am i satisfied with these numbers, no. but the reality is that if this was a towel that i was ringing as far as i could, i would use every resource that we possibly could use with the staffing that we had and the diluted code enforcement tools to try to get compliance, so what gets compliance? an order of abatement, health and the issuance of fines, and the reimbursement and the assessment of cost helps and the last thing that actually helps, is the more time the inspector spends with that property owner and if i have less staff, i can't have that interaction to get them that constant, the more that they see of the inspector there and the more that they have that contact and the more that they are encouraged to resolve that or have us refer them to out reach and if there is access issue and if there is an issue with the property tenant and the own and her if they are not on the same page, the tenant

will not let them in to make the repairs, there are issues. and in the situation where the referral is not working we can't do the citations boughts the courts just were not issuing them, they have too many other larger case to deal with. that time that the inspector spends, how do we deal with that? >> staffing is one and making sure that it takes less time to be able to do documentations on these cases. we can do the inspections more quickly and efficiently for the property owner and the city and then spend the time having these interactions. and you just had a case before you, at the abatement and appeals board where the tenant and the landlord could not get on the same page that i could not be here, what you didn't know is that i had already met with both of them and they are not going to come together and we have offered them to before them, but i have a lot of cases that way, cases and, work

without permit cases and building cases where they have the maintenance issue and what we do with those and we, have, and we have many interactions with the property owner, or the family members as we possibly can, we are also looking at the hording and cluttering situation to develop a pilot program. and work with the protective services and other agencis that have great best practices because when we are dealing with the hording and the cluttering situation, the time line to get the compliance is extended extreme and so in those situation wheres we are dealing with mental hel and this those things and we are trying to minimize the amount of time it gets or takes to get these compliance. i am hoping with the additional staff and the tools and i was one of the individuals that just reviewed a 100-page document and got it back to them yesterday, and the language for every housing code violation and every description of where a violation can be and

what they goek through with a stylus and a tablet and identify these so that on the back end, we will have better data for you. do i like these numbers, i don't like these numbers. but, i am hoping with those tools and with everything else we can think of, we can get these down, and now having said that. we turn our cases through those director's hearings as quickly as possible and keep in mind that we only write one notice. and when that notice goes out, there is boilerplate with that, that tells the property owner if you don't comply with the time frame on the notice, then the assessment of costs are going to attach and then the $52 fee will follow off that. >> and if a notice is written on november 1, and it was a 30 day, and we are out there on december first, within that 30 days, we sent another notice out to them, saying to avoid the penalties please work with us to get your case resolved. >> call for an inspection, and facility an inspection or show

us that you are trying to comply and so if the permit is needed, file that permit, if you need to access to the information, or to do whatever the repairs are and work with us and then let us know so that we can refer you to other agencies as well. and such as the cop people that most of them it is stayed for this agenda item and so we are doing, everything that we can, and i do want to commend dan and tom and emily for helping us staff up a year long process to be able to do that and finally, 7 is a large number, and when you have golt 20 field inspecters and that is a good chunk of people and it is a good group and we are happy with this group and we are hoping that those numbers will be able to, and this will be minimized. because of the economy i got to tell you with the foreclosures and the issues it is still not going to be easy, from that standpoint, our best tool, is

that interaction with the property owner, that is what gets it done. >> okay. >> commissioner mar? >> thank you, both for that report. i think you know, i think that we are all happy that you know, all sites of the house are staffed up now and i think that i agree with you rose mary that the most important thing is getting our inspecters out there. that is why i am happy to hear that we are going to start the routine inspections again. because i think having the inspecters in the properties especially the larger properties is a little bit more pro-active in proventing the novs. from your side of the house which is helpful and i have raised this in the cop meetings and that i thing that c-op plays a great role in being proactive as well. but they are not a replacement for the inspecters. and so, we have to be clear at what point is c-op education,

and gentle nudging and organizizing and then the other side is at what point the inspecters go in and the routine inspections and the routine inspections and novs if they are called for and actually, i would like to find out, more from both sides of the house, i think that abatement, and the notices of abatement are very important and that is what ends up to us and so what we see, and maybe this is one side, at what we see, are cases that have been out there for years. what we hear about our neighbors and that this guy built this thing and it has been sitting there for five years. you told me that it is illegal, but, it is still sitting there and they are still using it. so, that is what we hear, and that is what we see. in the abatement of appeals and i want to go back to one other thing and i know that the staff spends a lot of time on the abatement and appeals and we want to work with you guys and we will give you plenty of of notice and i don't see if we have a meeting that we schedule

way out in advance because we have to public notice it any way and we have to notice it by the plaintiffs any way and the city attorney has to be here any way and so we have to notice it, what i want to do is have it so that if someone is not getting done, we will up hold that abatement. that is what i want to do, i want to have the process, because if we are talking about 440 outstanding cases i think that most of us now that it takes us all morning to hear three or four cases. that is the reality, so all morning for three or four cases? it is going to be send us the worst and the longest cases that is all that i am asking. >> and send us the cases that have been out there, for years, i think that the directors and if it goes to the directors hearings and there should be a discussion on how much advisement can i give. and how much, continuance can you give. >> you see... >> unfortunately the cases that we have, have orders. most of them