increases their nonconformity. so, if you had extra space in your garage, you couldn't expand that unit to capture that space in the garage. you simply cannot expand the nonconforming units. you can expand the units that are legal nonconforming. basically in a four unit building you can expand two of the units but not the other two. this would allow you to expand the legal nonconforming units provided that you don't expand the building's envelope. unless there had been a no fault eviction in that building. does that help? >> yes. my other question is you said merger in two units. what exactly -- >> so, that would occur -- say you're dealing with the same four-unit building and an owner comes in and has purchased two of the units and decides to combine the two units into a larger space. perhaps -- in that case either the unit would need to be empty to do that or there would need to be some sort of eviction

process so that the two units were empty and could be merged. this would not allow you to merge the units if there had been a no-fault eviction in order to have the two units available to merge into a larger unit. >> okay. so, to make your legislation, connect the dots for me. how does this save rentals? or affordable -- what are we trying to do here? >> according to this incentive for units to be demolished or merged and converted. one of the ways is if there has been a no-fault eviction or there is a disincentive, you can't evict a tenant because you're not going to be able to actually make a conversion of the building or merge units in the building or demolish the building in the future. so, it could actually work to preserving the tenants and the rental stock in those building. we're also making sure that

where a property owner does want to make improvements to nonconforming units, that a building where there are conforming units, that they be able to make those conversions and to actually stabilize that overall property and making sure that we're preserving rental property in those units that are nonconforming to be able to become a higher standard, but also make sure there remains -- maintain their affordability and their housing stock as part of the rental housing stock. >> okay, thank you. so, as you can see, colleagues, there is a lot of information that -- i came in here thinking i knew something and through this discussion i realize that there is more information that i real i do need to learn. i'd be willing to entertain a continuance of this. i understand we are at a crisis in protecting our rental -- our rental stock of rent controlled units, but i'm just nervous and

don't want to make the wrong decision and have an adverse impact on people i am looking to continue to help. so, i'll listen to the rest of the comments. thank you. mr. president. >> supervisor kim ~. >> so, i think we're all aware of the current economic situation for a lot of our residents and tenants here in san francisco. and i think that is why there is a little bit of urgency behind passing this legislation before the end of the year so it can be signed by the mayor. normally i would want as much time as possible for folks to feel comfortable around supporting legislation. i know it's a complex piece of legislation, but i do think it's on all of our offices to come in really comprehending and asking all the questions prior to a full board meeting or asking for a continuance in advance. i just think, you know, in most cases i would support

continuance. but in this one, we are hearing from so many residents there is a housing crisis that's going on currently. and instead of facing threatened evictions throughout our city -- and i know that this type of eviction is something that is impacting supervisor avalos's district. and i didn't fully comprehend the legislation until i got e-mails from his residents explaining actually this type of eviction that they have faced previously and if this legislation had been in effect, this would not impact them. so, tenants that had been threatened eviction so that their units could be merged with another unit to be filled out to sell off a larger unit, et cetera, et cetera, i think there are not a whole lot of things that we locally can do to support our tenants you unfortunately because so much of legislation ~ around tenant right happen at sacramento and it forces our local body to be incredibly creative around

thinking about how we want to preserve the current use of the housing stock that we have. so, i think for that reason i would support moving it forward today. i would support maybe taking it after public comment if folks want to take the additional time to understand the legislation or voting this today and hopefully having an additional week to work with supervisor avalos's office to be able to feel comfortable supporting or not supporting it next week. so, i mean, that would just be my suggestion for now. but i do just want to recognize, i think that the situation that we are facing here in the city is incredibly challenging and we are really focusing a lot of different tools that we have to preserve the existing uses of the housing stock that we have today. and i think that this legislation is just one of those tools. >> supervisor wiener. >> thank you, mr. president. i'm prepared to support both

pieces of legislation today. i do agree this has moved forward quickly and we are living in i think unfortunately not a unique time in san francisco because this happens periodically where we go into a housing crisis mode and avoid toomey vixes. ~ too many evictions. it sets a bad time. i want to give supervisor avalos a lot of credit for really listening and accepting the amendments where concerns were raised. yesterday in committee, we discussed in-depth the issue around the nuances around temporary evictions and whether a tenant wants to return or doesn't want to return and what level of proof you need and supervisor avalos accepted i think a very reasonable amendment to distinguish among temporary evictions when the tenant does not return. and supervisor avalos also accepted the amendment from supervisor farrell around the

retroactivity date which i thought was a very he reasonable amendment. supervisor avalos accepted the amendment from supervisor tang supported by supervisor yee to reduce the amount of time that you can't do a merger, demolition or conversion after an omi recognizing that there are differences between omi evictionses and ellis act evictions. and then supervisor avalos accepted an amendment to make sure that we weren't unintentionally impacting the residential hotel ordinance. so, i think the author has been very reasonable and accepting amendments as proposed by a lot of different people and groups with different views about the legislation, about the issue. and i think that's to be commended. i think at this point the legislation is in good shape and i think it deserves our support. >> supervisor avalos.

>> i'll talk later. >> thank you. i just wanted to address, i guess, a previous comment and, you know, just with all due respect, i certainly do my homework before coming into office, but don't sit on the land use committee and don't have the same privy committee members have. i do the best i have and studying and reading committee notes. but this is a complex piece of legislation that was obviously admitted to by the planning department. and, so, i don't want to feel bad because i'm not getting it the first time. i understand the crisis need of it, but i mean part of it while we're in this crisis is because no one has done any long-term thinking and planning. we do a much of piecemeal and one op when it comes to housing crisis. yes, we he need more stock, yes, we need to be building more moderate or affordable. we even struggle on the definition of working class. i don't know how we want to classify the housing.

but this, you know, i just didn't want to be be made to feel i'm coming unprepared to the chamber because i'm asking these types of questions. i feel like if i'm asking t there are other members on the chamber or people watching on television that would have these same types of questions. this is an extremely critical piece. this is a crisis, right? so, these are the types of questions that need to happen. i'm perfectly happy to continue this conversation after public comment to allow members of the public to certainly say their piece. >> supervisor campos. >> thank you. i would suggest that we perhaps proceed to public comment so that we give members of the public the opportunity who have been standing to speak. and i would hope that between now and the time that the public comment is closed that maybe some of the questions that have been raised can be answered. i do agree with supervisor kim and supervisor avalos that it's important to move this forward. i understand that there may be

question, but maybe we have an opportunity to clarify some things, but i'd like to give the public an opportunity to proceed to public comment. >> thank you. president chiu. >> thank you. i'm going to be brief because i also agree with supervisor campos. i would like to get to public comment and i don't think any of us expected that this discussion would take so long. but let me say a couple things. first of all, yesterday at land use we had a lengthy discussion about this and as supervisor avalos knows, and i think others were not prepared to support this legislation without the amendments that have been made today. but given that these amendments have been made, i do feel much more comfortable in moving forward, particularly having addressed the data issue, the omi issue and the ellis issue. that being said, i do very much have sympathy for our colleagues that were not on land use. and let me suggest the following perspective and i discussed this briefly with supervisor avalos yesterday. supervisor avalos has spent months trying to get this through the process. it's been a lot of work. and i think we all recognize the issue and interest in getting this done before the holidays. that being said, this is a very

complicated piece of legislation and it has taken the three of us on land use some time to wrap our brains around this so i completely understand the comments of supervisor cohen, yee, and breed. so, i think the suggestion might be let's hear from public comment and perhaps vote after public comment. but i would say for our colleagues who are unclear as to what this will do, i will say this for the public, i would understand if you weren't prepared to support it today, but perhaps in a week if we don't have the volts or if there are the votes for a second read ~ that you might change your vote next week with more comfort with additional amendment. i would just like to say that to our colleagues because this is very complicated stuff. my staff and i have spent probably half of our time over the last few days trying to wrap our brains around this, so, understand why these new amendments that are coming in last minute are challenging. the orctionv thing i could say about that is these are amendments that were discussed with our colleagues and with other stakeholders and our city attorney's office and i do feel

much more comfortable with that as well. i would be prepared to support today. ~ only >> thank you. supervisor breed. >> thank you. so, i appreciate the clarity on some of these issues. i do have a few more questions and happy to try and deal with those questions when we come -- before we come back to this item later on today. and i just would appreciate a list of what the amendments are. and also understanding where they are in the specific resolution because the resolution on its own was challenging enough to understand without the specific definitions of the code, and that also required a lot of time to research and understand even before i came here today. and, so, i would appreciate just really a lot more clarity. i know supervisor tang proposed a ten -- reduce from ten-year to five-year.

i would also like to understand why five-year, why ten-year, why one versus the other? i wasn't on land use either so i don't understand all the discussion that took place during that time. so, i really would like to understand the impact of this decision. and thank you, supervisor campos, for proposing that we move on to public comment in order to allow more time to do that. >> supervisor avalos, any final comment before we go to public comment? >> let's go into public comment. i know mr. chafee is waiting very patiently to speak first on the mic and we'll presume after. >> i do want to acknowledge our deputy city attorney. i understand you need to leave at 5 o'clock. are there any final comments you would like to make? >> deputy city attorney jon givner. i unfortunately have to leave the meeting at 5:00. one of my very capable colleagues has volunteered to take my place. but in response to supervisor breed's question about where these amendments are, we have not drafted all of the

amendments because they have been coming at the board today, some for the first time. but they are all changes to one specific paragraph in each ordinance. it's the paragraph regarding the -- regarding eviction. and in the demolition merger conversion ordinance, that is page 16 beginning on line 22, there is [speaker not understood] in a different [speaker not understood] there in aerial double underline font. and that language in the special font reflects amendments that were made two weeks ago by the land use committee. all the amendments today are changes to that language. the parallel language in the nonconforming use ordinance is on page 4 line 10, but it's basically the same language. what the board has done today is adopted a little bit of

clean up from the technical stuff to make sure the language is clear. has changed the date -- the date from october 24th, 2013 to december 10th, 2013. has provided that for owner move-in evictions there will be a five-year look back as opposed to all other types of no-fault evictions where we have a 10-year look back as reflected in the amendments that were already made in committee. and finally, the language that i read into the record earlier changes the rules for no-fault evictions, the font to a certain category where the evictions are temporary and the tenant has the right to move

back in. the amendment that i read in would allow the owner to proceed with an alteration or merger if they evicted a tenant temporarily under one of those two sections and the tenant either moved back in or had the opportunity to move back in and voluntarily declined to do so. >> would that allow for them to still pay the same rent or would they be subjected to the -- will the improvement cost be incorporated into a new rent amount? so, i mean, again, i guess we can get to these questions later, but there are still some concerns. >> that question is really a rent ordinance question and this legislation does not amend the rent ordinance. this legislation only says if you have certain types of evictions in the past 10 years or five years with regard to

owner move-ins, you cannot alter your nonconforming unit or merge unit. and then finally, there was one additional amendment that supervisor avalos mentioned regarding the residential hotel ordinance which has pass and had has not really been an item of discussion during this meeting. >> okay, thank you, colleagues. and with that, let's continue these two items till after public comment. i want to thank all the members of the public for your amazing patience and standing in line. and with that, why don't we go to mr. chafee. [speaker not understood] use your time during public comment to listen to public comment. thank you and stop the corporate rape of our public library. don't give money to the friend of the library. don't accept money from the friends of the public library. the public scandal of the privatization of our library is the indication of the central scam of city hall. the president of the library

commission ~ gomez has been found guilty [speaker not understood] which was a willful violation of sunshine and found by the ethics commission to be found below the standard of decency. the city librarian luis herrera has been found guilty of three years of violations of the california political reform act and the california [speaker not understood] practices commission assessed a fine for violation of conflict of interest laws. there have been repeated violations of the sunshine ordinance, found by the sunshine task force to be found [speaker not understood]. we now know that in the 12 years that the funds have been raising fund for the branch library improvement program, the friends of the library expended 53 million. the amount expended for the benefit of the library was 5.1 million, 9.6%. these are all this year and come on top of the history of scandals in the new main library, the book [speaker not

understood] and the degrading of library service. there is no accountability because of the laws that protect democracy and the public interests are not real laws. this reveals the central scam of city government. city politicians collect both from the citizens for passing laws. city politicians then collect money from the rich and the corporations for ignoring those laws. there is no accountability not only -- although for public asset in city hall. democracy itself is for sale in city hall. the damage is to our public institutions and our democracy which continues. david chiu having me arrested does not solve society's problems and, of course, the lies cost more than [inaudible]. >> thank you. next speaker.

good afternoon, supervisors. i'm peter war field, executive director of library users association. i'm very sorry to say that the san francisco public library plans to evict long-standing materials residence of the library, and that is the bound magazine collection. i asked you to hold a hearing on the library's practices, policies, and priorities and in particular its destruction of the accessibility of all or part of the magazine collection. this is a real attack on the core purpose of the library which is acquiring, preserving, and making accessible the materials that it collects. the purpose of this eviction, if you like, goes against the library's basic policy and its slogan of free and equal access

because it would impose a huge barrier to access and make browsing the displaced magazines impossible. the immediate reason for the -- that the library has given is to install a literacy program, offices and classroom. no mention of project read which already has space in the library elsewhere. of course, there was mention of the friends of sfpl, presumably for them this would be a great fund-raising opportunity. we understand the teaching [speaker not understood] is important, but the new space, any new space should not come for an expanded program or a new program should not come at the cost of reducing long-standing core library purposes. the place where the magazines presumably would go is brooks hall, [speaker not understood]

questionablability -- cause a delay in obtaining books. please hold a hearing. >> thank you. next speaker. actually, if you could use the mic to your right. good evening, everyone, my name is karen [speaker not understood]. i'm from [speaker not understood] services. i would like to take this opportunity to thank supervisor yee, supervisor mar, and supervisor kim for sponsoring a resolution to urge the department of education to reconsider the division of service area by zip code. as a former [speaker not understood] manager managing the program [speaker not understood], i explain many parents coming down to our office seeking for help with their little ones every day. and having to redirect them to [speaker not understood] for service just because they don't live in the service area that

we serve just does not make sense. it will create a very difficult time for them. so, i -- we really appreciate your support to the resolution. thank you. >> thanks. next speaker. good afternoon, supervisors. president chiu. i'm here mainly to support ban in the box. i guess you guys really stole my work because i've been using that for years. so, i heartly support ban in the box. before i say that, i was up all night with a couple supervisors same time last night watching historic event. hundreds of black [speaker not understood]. it way a bomb last night. i didn't know you knew that much about it. so, that was great. so, i want to thank you, supervisors, that recognized mr. mandela, president mandela. i'm from chicago and the mayor -- the original mayor, daly of

chicago, made every employee's name in the city. 30,000 employees, he knew every one of their names. it's a pleasure to see one of my supervisors knowing her local street sweeper's name. and i love she knew a couple other street sweeper's name. he ran for election 12 times and got reelected 12 times. [speaker not understood] a lot of it was because he knew everybody's name. so, thank you for that. you know, i do walking tours among other thing. a lot of people are asking me why are our young african-american brothers on the corner of [speaker not understood] selling crack or whatever. well, partially because of ban in the box. we go two blocks further and people are asking me why is twitter headquarters looking like jury ~ jurassick park [speaker not understood]. they ask mandela, they said, we thank you for dignifying the

black man, but you edved apartheid. he said, i didn't dignify the black man. i dignified the white man. maybe we can apply this to twitter. >> thank you very much. next speaker. ~ [speaker not understood] my name is eugene gordon, jr. the state challenges public ownership means of production, evidence confrontation [speaker not understood] imperialism followers, embracing managers of [speaker not understood] contest continuum [speaker not understood] for clarification and logic. what is known about nazis, fascism in argentina [speaker not understood] and now in 2013 pope from argentina. i did not memorialize religion [speaker not understood] pious dictatorship.

the state so much an effort to convince itself self-destructs. instead, the people voted for [speaker not understood]. contraction expansion, rotation, gravity, periodic table of elements life. as implied, education physics, quantum fizz i can chemistry, [speaker not understood] to answer inability of the state [speaker not understood] public ownership of means of production and minimal work time, medical health [speaker not understood] recognition and exchange for all healthy-based needs, educate material logic, redress internationally vote to end the state capital currency provided by the exchange class

system, racism, [speaker not understood], military, [speaker not understood], corruption of education values. >> thanks. next speaker. i'm not sure what the protocol is. i made 13 copies, one for each of the supervisors. >> our clerk can help circulate that. thank you. good afternoon, supervisors, here in this beautiful room, and tribute to nelson mandela. i have a much more unhappy story to tell. my name is steve lindsay. i have bipolar type 1, one of the most vile form of mental illness there is. i'm here to describe one of the experiences i've had in one of the most vile places i've been. it's called the l-7 unit run by the sheriff's department.

it's simply described as s.f. general hospital on their website. not too many people know, but what goes on there. if they did, i don't think they'd stand for it. i call it the snake pit. i haven't seen a movie, but it's that kind of experience. it's a unit that's run with little humanity. i've shared these experiences with patients rights advocate. she was appalled. i don't know what the jurisdiction is between the board and the sheriff's department, but i know there is some. so, let me tell you a little bit about who i am. i'm a 54-year old white policy analyst with a masters in public policy from u.c. berkeley. the relevance of that is twofold. first, i provided some

recommendations about closing l-7 and what to do about it. second, i ask you to imagine the increased vulnerability of the less educated and people of color who are probably the ones who mostly fill that unit. i mean, even for me it is hard just to get here. i've been meaning to come for weeks, but i just couldn't do it. so, i've provided a copy of a five-page document. in the time remaining i'm going to describe my personal experiences. which constitute legal abuse, prisoner abuse, and sadism, psychiatric abuse, psychiatric care, there isn't any. you never see a psychiatrist. i asked a psychiatrist to come see me. i said, look, i broke a cup. i didn't try to commit suicide. she said, it's a done deal. that's the level of care that's provided.

legal abuse, it's guilty until proven [inaudible]. that's my second one? >> it is. thank you. thank you for listening. >> thank you. next speaker. good afternoon. i have two comments, right. the first one is about the jail phones. i don't know if you guys are aware of it, but exploitation is not even adequately describe that. but when you put money on the phone, they charge you $5 to put the money on there. but when you make your call -- >> excuse me, sir, you are giving public comment on an agenda that we have already had public comment on and that we have already voted on and under our board rules you are not allow today do that. but if