happen. they've been enjoying the street since it was sold, and i don't think that's going to change, but i thought my client, michael chang's answer was instructive. he said look, we don't have anything against them at people, but if i was in their shoes, and i didn't pay my taxes, such that my property was taken once, and i had to redeem it from the state and get it back and then i went right back to that practice of not paying my property taxes, then yeah, i would expect that that piece of property would be sold from me and i wouldn't complain about it. thank you. >>president breed: thank you very much. colleagues, do you have any questions or comments? seeing -- supervisor kim. >>supervisor kim: thank you, mr. kopp. i had just a few questions. one, i noted in the brief that you wrote, you know, what you considered appropriate and appropriate for the board to

consider in today's hearing, and i'm just curious why you believe that what the board -- that the board should limit their inquiry today to simply what the statute that governs the california tax code -- why you believe that we are limited to that question solely versus some of the due process claims that have come up here? and i guess specifically is there anything in the state statute which entrusts the board of supervisors with the power to rescind these tax sales with sort of a limited role in what it can consider. >> to answer that part of your question, i don't any there's anything in the code that specifically prohibits this body from considering constitutional due process questions, so i think if you choose to do so, you can do so, but i could probably demonstrate it visually by showing you a stack of, i don't know, 10 or 15 decisions, which is a small percentage of the

cases that i've read, and i think to really grapple with these issues, you need to read these cases because they all turn on the facts. >>supervisor kim: so the last time you came before this board, i remember that you made a number of due process and constitutional claims that you asked this board to consider. >> under a completely different statutory scheme, correct. >>supervisor kim: but the way i read your brief, your argument wasn't based on what we were considering, but that not every member of this board is a trained attorney, and that we simply don't have the resources or the analysis to really examine constitutional claims, so then, do you believe that we should not consider them in ceqa appeals and other types of aviewed ka todjudicat

and cases? it i see that there's a ton of case law in every ceqa appeal that we read that every member of this board does not read, yet we make these decisions on almost a weekly basis. >> well, i can't speak to other types of decisions you make involving other statutory schemes, and forgive me -- i didn't mean to disrespect any member of the board who happens not to be a lawyer. i've known a lot of nonlawyers in my lifetime, and most of them are very fine people. i -- i think in this case, to me -- and i don't know a thing about ceqa -- but to me, the constitutional due process claims are of a sufficient complexity that i just think they're better fleshed out in a way that's fair to both sides in a court of law. and i mean, even the briefing

the way it was setup here, i didn't know what cases they were going to cite, so i couldn't respond to them. so i -- >> n >>supervisor kim: no, no, i respect your opinion. i was just wondering if you knew there was something stated in the statute the limitations of the board on this issue. it's certainly not the issue in other cases, but it seemed your main argument was background and training of the members of the board of supervisors versus something that was explicitly written out in state statute or our tax code. >> no. there's no case or authority. it's my opinion only. >>president breed: thank you, supervisor kim. now, we will have up to two minutes for those persons wishing to speak who oppose thus rescinding the sale.

please come forward; you'll have up to two minutes, and if there's anyone else that wants to speak, please lineup up to your right. >> okay. board of supervisors, my name is michael chang, and i've spoken with several of you in the past about this case in particular. right now, i'm just looking at it as a situation where i followed all the laws, the tax collector followed the laws, and now we're being burdened by the fact that other people don't know the laws and we're being penalized for their lack of knowledge about it. the fact is that's not an excuse for not following the law. we all know we've got to pay our taxes. we all know if you don't, the only resource the stacourse is property, and the state has taken it before. in that case, they should have

known it could happen. for them to ask for a third chance, i think it's really unfair, for us that have lawfully owned this property for the past 2.5 years, we have been paying all the taxes. we have been paying the taxes pretty much for the last 40 years because they haven't been paying the taxes. they have been asking what negative impact our owning the property could impact the neighborhood. i can tell you we're going to be very responsible stewards of this street, make sure the property taxes are paid. because that is the most important act of ownership. if they want to maintain the property in whatever way they want, we're perfectly open to let them have all the free reign. we propose a no cost agreement for them to continue matching their property, continuing the

way they want to, and they haven't taken it. we think it's a very generous offer at this point, and they've still rebuffed that offer and refuse to strengthen the kmubt going forward. >>president breed: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi. >>president breed: i'm sorry. just one second. supervisor tang, do you want to wait? okay. >> hi. my name is tina lamb. i'm the owner of presidio terrace. i'm just an skbreer with the south bay with a simple dream of owning a piece of san francisco. i'm not rich enough to live on that street, but i would like to think that by owning that, i'm a san francisco resident in spirit. the homeowners make it sound like i'm taking away the home. i did not and i will not. in the 2.5 years i've been owning the street, they have been still walking on the street, they've been still

driving on the street. as one homeowner has told me, his son is still riding his bike. i did not impact their life in any way, and there's no way in the future i would do so. all i did for the past two years was being a good san francisco resident, a good owner and dutifully pay my property tax so it will not fall into the tax sale again, and what did they do? when they realized mistake, they blamed the tax collector's office. when i tried to contact them by being a good governor contact of the street, they sued me. do you call that behavior good san francisco? so -- and then, i want to assure the board of supervisors that i will be a good stewardess of the street. i will work with the neighbors, with the homeowners, work with the pastor of the emanuel church so that the street will be benefiting to the neighbors

and to the community. at the same time, preserve the beauty and integrity of the street. thank you. >>president breed: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello, supervisors. i just want to say this is clearly a case of arrogant rich people trying to be cheap and not pay their taxes. it's well known fact that it's been going on for years, and they're cheap and they don't want to pay their taxes and they think they could get away with it. if it was a poor person, we wouldn't even be here. this is ridiculous. these people bought the stuff fair and square. they dwaumted. they should suffer. this is sour grapes by rich people, and arrogant rich people think they can get away on it. the public can't go on that street. you and i can't go on that street, yet they think they still owe it even though they don't pay the taxes on it, yet these people bought it, and they own the street. thank you very much. >>president breed: thank you.

next speaker, please. >> hello, supervisors. i'm a san francisco resident. i lived here fore 20 years, and i'm a taxpayer. i think the homeowner association is really unreasonable because this is mistake and they want the city to pay for it. this is our taxpayers money and it's unreasonable that we're using taxpayer money to pay for homeowners association mistake. >>president breed: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi. good evening. i believe that miss lamb and mr. chang have purchased this property fairly. i believe the tax collectors office has done their duty, and it seems unreasonable that the homeowners should ask the tax collector's office to try harder to notify the homeowners. it costs money, like the previous speaker said, and as honest tax collectors, by

rescinding this deal, it seems like you would just be helping the rich people and -- and it's -- it should be on them. it was their mistake. thank you. >>president breed: thank you. are there any other members of the public who'd like to speak? if there are any other members of the public, please lineup now, otherwise, after this speaker, i will close public comment. >> my name is teresa duque. i think this young couple, they paid their fair share, and they should own the land, because i don't think those rich people can come and say oh, you pay and then they sue you -- and this is not the right thing to do. this is not right. i don't think it's fair. they pay, they should owns it. >>president breed: thank you. next speaker, please. >> i just have a feeling, i want to say if this street was

purchased by dianne feinstein, i best all of you would shoo up your hands and be in support of it. why is it so unfair treatment? >>president breed: i'm going to ask members of the public to please refrain from using vocal expression in the chamber. if you'd like to express any support for a speaker, please just wave your hands. any opposition, thumbs down, but please respect our process so that we can move forward with this meeting. and if there are any members of the public for the sake of moving this process forward in a more timely manner, please lineup now. thank you. next speaker. ma'am, i'm going to stop you. one second, one second. i'm going to pause your time. we're going to need an interpreter, so if you can hold on just a second. >> i'm going to interpret for

myself. i'm going to speak in english right now. my question is if it happens to any of the non-chinese people, will the result is the same? the question is, why the tax collector take 20 years to collect $1,000 on this property? is this a problem or is this a discrimination? please, this is a very good example about discrimination. we came here for opposing cannabis. our item is number 8 and number 9, but we -- >>president breed: ma'am, i'm going to stop you right now and pause your time. you need to stick to the item before you and not deviate from speaking about this particular item. we are not having public comment on cannabis, so you can not make any comments related to cannabis or item number 8 or 9. thank you. >> thank you. the people behind me, if you support the owner of this new owner for land, please wise up,

please. we, the community done the research, and we had a radio show last night. the owner spoke in the chinese community and asked the people to rally and support them. it is important for people to know the government did a wonderful job to search everything to put it in newspaper, to put it on the website, and to put -- notify. the question is why did it take 20 years? why? why 20 years to collect less than $2,000? why the mistake repeated three different times in history? why? are we -- are we in this rich and poor game? are we not? the owner, right here behind me, i don't know her, but i support her, because she said it clearly. she's not meeting anyone's demands, she is just the owner and willing to cooperate with

anybody who's in there and willing to maintain their livlyhood. she's not taking away anyone's life, she is only auction to property that you, the government put it out there. she followed the law, so therefore, the law should be on -- with her and support her. thank you. >>president breed: thank you for your comments. next speaker, please. >> yes, supervisors, ladies and gentlemen. i'm here to support the fair government policy. everybody deserves the right to buy, to sell, and if they don't buy, they don't sell, i mean, you just -- it would be the normal people that you don't have any arguments. look, this situation is very obviously. transaction in presidio, in and out -- you know, everybody can sell, but they have to go through the title research. who is responsible for the last

of the land, the common area? the title company will be responsible. the homeowner is doing the due diligence, be responsible for what they entitled to pay, so i hope that these supervisor -- board of supervisors are not voting anything against the law, that we sat a long time ago in the city of san francisco. we will have a big lawsuit and i'm not willing to pay for that. i'm not willing to say hey -- no, for example, my friend, her father was about to die, and she forgot to pay her tax, and she went to the assessor's office, providing the medical reports, the death certificate, and ask for waiving of penalties, and she expected no way. no way that this penalty would be waived. where is the compassion from

the city? the city has been mentioning about compassion to people who use medical, but what about the compassion of people who are really in desperate of taking care of their dying father and forgot to pay their taxes? so what is fair in i support the fair policy of the government, and i think the rules and regulation has to be applied just like our rules and laws -- >>president breed: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> hi, supervisors. i am also here to support fair government policy. i believe the house owners and the couple legally buy from the city. both should not liable for the mistake make by the h.o.a. thank you. >>president breed: thank you for your comments. are there any other members of the public that would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is

now closed, and we will have up to three minutes for rebuttal by the petitioner or their representative. >> thank you, madam president. very quickly, we commend the steps that the treasurer takes when it comes to occupied property. that's great. he goes the extra mile. he should go the extra mile. we shouldn't be selling occupied property or resulting in evictions if we can possibly avoid that, but the distinction that he's making between occupied property and vacant property has no basis in factor in law. and let me tell you what i mean by that. let's google vacant property, all right? that's what you'll come up with, something that looks like that. this is the property we're

talking about today. does that look like vacant property? is it as far from vacant property as you can get, but more importantly, whether you call it vacant or not, the law doesn't make that distinction. the term -- let me just quote from a california appellate court case from just a few years ago about the question of due process and property. the term property is sufficiently comprehensive to include every species of estate real and personal, and everything which a person can own or transfer to another. no one has cited a case, and i know of no case that says it's okay to take someone's property when it's vacant -- under different rules than had it been occupied. there's simply no distinction under constitutional law, and that's the keouy omission in wt you heard the treasurer talk about. i'm not here saying chehe didn

check the boxes and send the mail. he did that, but when the mail comes back and you know the property owner didn't get it, the law says you have to do more and he didn't. now, much has been made that this happened once before, why didn't they know -- they should have been paying taxes? i've got a couple responses. one, even if the association was some sort of chronic tax delinquent, that wouldn't change the issue before you, and jones versus flowers addresses it right on point. let me quote from the supreme court again: jones should have been more diligent with respect to his property, no question. people must pay their taxes, and the government may hold citizens accountable fore tax delinquency by taking their property, but before forcing a citizen to satisfy his debt by forfeiting his property, due process requires the government to provide adequate notice of

the impending taking. bad -- they didn't pay their taxes, bad on them, but that doesn't eliminate the constitutional obligation, and on supervisor peskin's question about easements, they were recorded in this parcel. in our propose skbral, you'll see the title reports. >>president breed: thank you very much. supervisor peskin. brody breed oh, supervisor tang was on the roster first, and i removed here. supervisor tang. >>supervisor tang: yes. i had a question, and i don't know who this question would go to, the tax collector orrine the planning department, but under the tax code, 3692, it does say that there should be an alternative sales process for property that are unusable by their size, location or conditions and that process involves contacting quote

owners of continuous parcels, holders of easement, including right of way easements to see if they're interested in purchasing the property. i'm skbrust wondering, would the presid yo terrace residents be considered as owner of a contiguous parcel, so i don't know who that would go to. i'm sorry. >>president breed: perhaps -- do you want to come back to that question because it sounds like someone from our treasurer's office. >>supervisor tang: i think maybe because it falls under the tax code, we could hear from the treasurer later. second question to the treasurer is that so during the auction process, there are bids that are submitted for these parcels. my understanding is that if there are any excess proceeds, that they should be sent to the

previous property owners. i'm just wondering, if there were excess proceeds, where did they go. >> again, there were excess proceeds, go, aand they're to made available to the previous owners. we mailed to previous address of record which we did for all previous excess proceeds, and we also publish in the newspaper that those excess proceeds are available. the parties who are eligible to receive the excess proceeds have one year from the time of the sale to make themselves known and come and receive the excess proceeds. >>supervisor tang: and so were the excess proceeds mailed to that kearny address.

>> yes. >>supervisor tang: okay, and so then i'm assuming that bounced back and returned to your office, then. >> like many of the mailings we sent out for parcels from this office, yes. >>supervisor tang: and do you have a process for resending those returned parcels? >> yes. it's published in the newspaper, and therefore it's know identified in a couple of different ways. >>supervisor tang: and i don't know if you had an answer for the continuous parcels, and if the owners of presidio terrace would be considered owners of continuous parcels. >> my understanding is there's a section that has to do with a particular type of treatment called sealed bids of parcels, and i would invite the city attorney's office who's more learned on that than i am to

comment on what that refers to. >>president breed: one second. we'll turn your mic on. it should be on now. >> supervisor tang, my name is carol roark, deputy city attorney, and the sealed auction process contemplates that adjacent property owners and others are to be notified. it's a limited auction process, and it is not a mandatory procedure, it's optional, and my understanding is the tax collector may use this process in the future, but there are a lot of issues with it that they want to consider, and not all properties are suitable for it. >>supervisor tang: thank you for that. so i would just say that those are all my questions, thank you, mr. treasurer, but i'm going to answer the question that was presented in miss lamb's -- the brief that was submitted by her attorney. that question was is the city and county of san francisco in the city and county of san francisco, does this exist a

different standard of government service which guarantees different results for the wealthy and politically connected than there is for others. i'm going to answer that and say absolutely not, and so i heard from a lot of public commenters that oh, the people who live here in presidio terrace, they're wealthy, they've not met their tax obligations. it was $14 a year, to my understanding. i don't think that that probably was a problem for them, so no, it doesn't matter who you are. if it were any of you in this situation, i would apply the same standards, and i would look to not only the laws, which i believe yes, according to at least the bare minimum for -- under our tax law and so forth, but when i look to constitution and the taking of property from individuals, i think that is a high standard that really hasn't been met here, so no, we do not apply different standards based on who you are, and i think it is

quite offensive to even ask whether that is something that we would consider there. >>president breed: thank you, supervisor tang, and before i call on other members of the board, i'd like to know, does -- besides supervisor peskin, who i know has questions, are any of the other members of the board has questions before you make any closing remarks? okay. so supervisor peskin, if we could keep it to questions, so that i can close the hearing, and then, you can do your summaries after i close the hearing. supervisor peskin. >>supervisor peskin: thank you, madam president. i have two questions for the president of the presidio terrace homeowners association. mr. emblich, the first question is how you respond to the reply brief by counsel fore the owners, mr. kopp, with

regard to his statement, which i assume is a statement of fact that had notice been mailed to some of the other addresses that you say the tax collector could have easily found that these two would have been returned to sender? so he says with regard to the 28 presidio terrace address, that mr. snow sold the property in 1995 and has not lived at that address for 20 years. he further says that as to the 214 grant avenue address, that william sherr has not used that address for several years, and in fact, today was a different address that's set forth on the kyle bar website. how do you respond to that? >> i assure you if you sent a piece of mail to the presidio terrace association, 28 presidio terrace, it would get

to the association. regardless of who the person is residing there, they would provide it to their association. as for mr. sherr, i spoke to him: did you get any of those notices? no. did you have a policy in 2014 of forwarding mail from your old office to your new office, yes, we had a policy, and that's cherry picking, too, about eight different addresses that i pointed out could have been gleaned from the addresses of an adequate title search or an adequate property search or an adequate search of the secretary of state's records. >>supervisor peskin: i won't bother asking my second question. >> oh, please. thank you. >>president breed: thank you. supervisor safai? >>supervisor safai: sir, if you could just come on up because i don't think you were able to yelucidate this board

about what the treasurer's office was required to do in terms oflenes, monetary abrupt se -- bankruptcies and deeds of trust. >> yes, thank you supervisor. if you look at exhibit 7 to our brief, it is the c.c. and r.'s. they are from the treasurer's files. it shows that they are recorded against the property. they are recorded against lot 1, which is the common area property. page 33 of those c.c. and r.'s provides for the recorded easement that run in favor of all the homeowners. the reason the treasurer didn't come up with that is look at exhibit 14. the title search that you had

done did not look for easements, it specifically relates to irslenes, bankruptcy sees, and deeds of trust. if anybody had been looking for easements they would have been found as you see the regular titles research that we did, which is exhibit 27, and then on item 9, comes up with the c.c. and r.'s which are recorded against the property. they have the easements. anybody that looked at that would have known that they were parties of interest and therefore would have provided notice to the individual homeowners and we wouldn't be here today. >>supervisor safai: so in fact there was not -- just to be very clear, on the title search or the work that was required by the contractor for the treasurer's office, easements were not actually searched. >> the scope of work that was given to that title search company did not include easements. >>supervisor safai: and what you're stating is if that had been done, it would have come up as parties of interest, the association would have been

identified very clearly. >> undeniably because there's no dispute the c.c. and r.'s were recorded against this lot. >>supervisor safai: thank you. >>president breed: thank you. mr. cisneros. >> we've checked that -- sorry, i just want to weigh in and say we've checked that document and do not find the block and lot for that auction parcel in there, in spite of what mr. emblich says. >>president breed: supervisor kim. >>supervisor kim: mr. emblich, would you just address that point that the supervisor brought up, that the block and lot are not listed? >> i don't know what that means. if you run a title search on the block and lot, the common area, you find recorded against it the c.c. and r.'s. it's right there. it's in the title search that we did. it is exhibit 27. if you look at the c.c. and r.'s that are recorded against

that lot and block, you see the easements. i -- i'm -- we're having a disconnect because i don't understand how ecohe could be making those statements. >>supervisor kim: i do have a few more statements, but i wanted to give the treasurer's office a chance to respond. >> we don't know what the office was asked to look for. it could be more than just the block and lot, but when we look for the block and lot in that document, it's not there. >> there's no other way to search the title on this lot. i mean, it's a block and lot title search. i mean, i'm just mystified. >>supervisor kim: okay. we can go back and forth on this. >> if you look at page 1 of title 21, it says what was searched and it's the block and lot. >>supervisor kim: okay. i had just a few quick questions. you had mentioned that the

homeowner's association was aware of the need to have sort of an address forwarding means, and so if they were aware of that, why is it they didn't file their address change with either the assessor or treasurer's office? >> well, i can't answer as to what happened back in 1996, but that accountant is deceased, and since then, none of the accountants that have worked for the association, nonof the property managers that worked for the association was aware that this street was a separately taxable lot, so somebody should have caught it, and somebody should have provided an updated address to the assessor's office, no doubt about it ja. >>supervisor kim: i guess, yeah, and i was also curious in opposing counsel brief that the h.o.a. does hire a property manager company whose job is also ensuring that property

taxes are paid on time. i guess i'm not understanding why the h.o.a. wasn't able to pay their taxes? >> right. so let me try to explain that. they hired property management companies. those -- chandler properties is their current property management company. they manage condominium and other homeowners associations throughout san francisco. they've never seen a situation like this where the common area of the association is separately taxable skbr but the h.o.a. is aware of it bau as has been pointed out many, mnyy times, h.o.a. was delinquent on their taxes in the 1980's. >> i understand that, but unfortunately, i can't go back in time why mr. mendelssohn, who they hired to take care of this problem, i can't tell you

who he communicated with. he didn't pass that information forward. >>supervisor kim: that's fine. i understand that. you had enumerated a number of things that the treasurer's office could have done to find the correct address, but i guess my question to you would be based on what the treasurer's office has stated in their presentation, do you believe that their work was reasonable and practical? >> i believe their work was reasonable and practical up until the point that the mail came back. that's the key point here. they followed the tax code. they did what the tax code says you're supposed to do for these sales, but then, they got the letter back that said undeliverable. that imposes on them a burden to do something more to make sure that that particular property owner gets notice, whether it's posting the property, which would have been incredibly simple here, whether it's researching as i showed you all the policies from the other counties, researching for a better address. that would have been quite simple here.

that is the burden that they have before they can sell someone's property. >>supervisor kim: dow thi youk it's practical for the treasurer's notice in the city, 600 lots, some underwater and other cliffs. >> i don't think the wyattest thing to do for an underwater lot is posted, but i do think they're responsible to make sure that that property owner is notified. today, come on. today, let's compare what the tax code requires: an ad in the local paper versus the internet age we're living in? it's just antiquated. nobody who doesn't know that they paid their taxes is going to look at the san francisco examiner in the fine print to see if gee, am i listed there, but a google search would find plenty of addresses.

for example, when the buyers wanted to approach the presidio terrace association to let them know two years after they bought the property that guess what, we now own your property, they had no trouble finding the presidio terrace association. they called up miss wientraub who's the president, so in this day and age, it's not that hard to take some additional steps is not that hard. >>supervisor kim: we know that local governments, courts often issue notices and mandate notification for things, even like child custody and other very important issues via the newspaper, and so while i agree with you on that point, just from a pure layperson's perspective, i agree, i would not be looking for the newspapers for something that i didn't even know ioed taxes on. i just think it gets hard when you're talking about a large agency that has 1500 parcels to

look at. i just have a hard time thinking about what it means for the treasurer's office to perform reasonable work that's practical and in this particular case. >> first of all, the child custody example, that is a notice of last resort, so yes, the legal process allows sometimes notice to be published in the newspaper, but that's only after i've tried to serve you personally, and i've had somebody go to your house three times and go to your business address, and if there's no way i can serve you, in some cases, i get to publish in the newspaper, not a matter of first resort, which is what happened here. and i understand -- i am not the tax collector. i am not schooled in what their jobs are and what they need to do, so i couldn't tell you what the right policy is for them to adopt for what classifications of property. all i can tell you is what the law says, and that is if you get that notice back and you

know it didn't reach the person, you've got to do something more, and that something more could be a policy matter going forward for the board or for the treasurer, but something more wasn't done here. that's why the sale should be rescinded. >>supervisor kim: thank you. i think, you know, the under lying -- one of the issues that, you know, i would like some clarification on, but i'm not sure we can get to a resolution on are the fact that there are two different statements in terms of the block and lot number being included or not, and so i don't know how to resolve that issue. i think that's actually a very important piece of this. thank you. >>president breed: thank you. supervisor safai? >>supervisor safai: yes. i just have one more question for the treasurer. it's my understanding, based on the information provided that there's over 200 streets that fall into this category of privately owned and not owned by the city, is that correct. >> i'm not aware of exactly how many private streets there are

in the city? >>supervisor safai: you don't have any idea of how many of these streets exist? >> no, i haven't done a count. the information we get is from the assessor's database. i haven't done a count, and beyond that, i'm not sure how many of them are stand-alone parcels as opposed to private streets that are part of a different part of the property that has a structure on it or a condominium building or whatever. >>supervisor safai: i think it would be really important based on this situation to define that. >> and define what's an extra long street and what's an extra long driveway. i'm not aware of anybody who's done that or researched those classifications. >>supervisor safai: that would be helpful because i have a number of them, as i said to you, in our district, but my other question is do you know of any other instances other than this one where a third party owns -- that a third

party actually would own the private street that has no immediate connection to that? >> i wouldn't have an exhaustive knowledge of who owns what and how it's related to other properties, no. >>supervisor safai: so you don't know of any other example like this? >> no. >>supervisor safai: okay. thank you. >>president breed: thank you. supervisor peskin, do you have another question? >>supervisor peskin: i don't have another question, but i have gone through the c.c. and r.'s, and there's a metes and bounds, but i cannot find any description of a block and lot as mr. cisneros has indicated. >>president breed: okay. seeing no other comments from my colleagues, this hearing has been heard and is now closed and is now in the hands of my colleagues. supervisor farrell? >>supervisor farrell: thank you. i'm going to address a few things that i heard during the

heard today. first of all, as an initial matter, want to address the contention of the attorneys for the people who purchased the lot, that it's an inappropriate role for this board to consider constitutional due process matters. supervisor kim actually asked that question. i appreciate the attorney doesn't want us to consider anything else except for the statute, but the law says different and the statute says different. it doesn't limit us as to what we can consider, and as supervisor kim mentioned, we listen to and adjudicate in a quasi-judicial setting ceqa matters feels weekly around here, monthly, matters, at supervisors, it's what we do. but it was a little offensive because it said -- the quote in his brief says a legislative body consisting of a majority of nonlawyers simply cannot contend with the legal issues of this complexity. look, i'm one of the people

here that went to law school, but i don't that gives a fair shake to everybody else here. first of all, nothing is a novel constitutional interpretation here. this is around due process, and not only is it an appropriate role for the board of supervisors in this case, it's a job requirement, and this is something that's in front of us and legally in front of us today. second of all, look, this is obviously a very, very unique and bizarre situation. hopefully, the last time we will ever see one of these at the board of supervisors, and there is plenty of blame to go around. fo for the homeowners and the h.o.a., they fully accept responsibility for not updating the homeowner's address. this board, and me in particular, i owe a share of the blame as we approved the sale back in 2015, but to remind everyone what we did approve and we as the board of

supervisors get these committee packets and i made photocopies of everything that we do approve, over 20 pages of single spaced lines that don't even identify the street address or supervisorial district. block and lot to me, until today didn't mean much. i couldn't tell you the block and lot that i live on, but i think it's something, certainly in 2015, that i relied upon, that these issues were being adjudicated, the numbers that were on here, because they didn't say hey, mark, supervisor farrell, this is one that's in your district, this is a little bit different. you should take a look at it. i thought they were all taken care of and handled appropriately, and i don't think that was the case. in terms of our treasurer's and tax collectors office, first of all, i need to say, i am in the beginning -- and he needs to know this, i am a huge permanent fan of mr. cisneros

and i will continue to be, and everyone that i've had contact with in his office, i've had great interactions with over the years shs so it's nothing on a personal level, but as defensive actions here, to me, what happened is totally inappropriate, and i think we need to have a little bit of a shift here. i appreciate some of the comments of my colleagues of the attorney of the people who bought the lot, that it's about the statute itself, but there's a lot of discussions about is it reasonable? could our treasurer and tax collector's office have done more? we need to flip this and think what do our residents and taxpayers expect from us as a city government, and when we do that, we are here to serve the residents of san francisco in my opinion, not people who are speculators from out of town on

our property. and since i've been involved with this issue for more months than i'd like to admit, i wanted to frame the issue as i see it, and supervisor safai asked the question. san francisco -- there are 264 private streets that we know of, as we did the research literally scattered throughout san francisco in every single one of our districts, except i think supervisor fewer might be the loan island in the city of san francisco. the bottom line is this situation can happen to any one of us as supervisors, as representatives of the people that are in front of us today here talking about this, so to me, there's two things: one, from a procedural perspective, was this handled appropriately, and second of all, from a policy perspective, is this the type of behavior that we want to condone and facilitate at the board of supervisors, so in terms of what wasn't handled

appropriately, a lot of discussion. i agree with mr. emblich, that once the treasurer's and tax collect jorz office received a returned letter downtown, do we think we did due diligence enough to sell the property and too bad for the homeowners. again, they should have updated their address with the assessor's office, no doubt, however, i think it's absurd to think that failure to do that would result in your land being sold out from under you. talk about the law. there is one supreme court case on point here, two supreme court discussions. there was a lot of discussions back and forth. the one thing i want to say, every one of these cases, for those that are lawyers and have gone through this exercise before was about a piece of property that was occupied, for

sure. but each one of the holdings did not distinguish between occupied or unoccupied property. they just talk about property, so therefore, by not distinguishing, they are including both occupied and unoccupied property in terms of the constitutional rights of the people that own them. that is a very, very big distinction. second of all, we also should be looking at what other jurisdictions do. now, i appreciate and i absolutely appreciate the tone of mr. cisneros today and the fact that he believes, at that point in time, he did what he needed to do, but since then, there have been a lot of things that they've done to improve their process inside the treasurer and tax collector's office. i distributed this letter that i printed out for the first time this morning. i have never met this person or spoke to him, mr. drasba, but talked about the four main things that as he was in charge of the 2017 auction at the

treasurer and tax collector's office, he said dwhoo, there was a bunch of things that we need to change. those were the basis for significant changes to the city's tax sale procedures and are evidenced by the resulted of the 2017 tax sale. because such drastic improvements were made and because of their timing, they seem significant to merit your attention. in contra costa and san luis obispo, the staff has to consult a lexus next i sus wou have solved the issue. in this case, i appreciate our treasurer and tax collectors office, but what reasonable people, reasonable residents should expect of our city government, the only thing they did was post in the examiner, and again, i go back to perhaps i'm not the right audience here, but they posted lot and

block number. they didn't post address. they didn't post on the property, they didn't check lexus nexus or do other things that other counties do. and again, what i would like to do going forward is work with my colleagues, if there's additional things we need to do, codified in law or other things, i'm certainly willing to do that. i look forward to working with you all with this. and again, let's talk about what a reasonable person who expect. if you are a property owner in san francisco, if i own property and the city was going to sell it, i would expect absolutely expect the city to do everything it can to locate me. and after multiple years of getting returned mail, the only thing that results is the placing of an ad in the examiner is ridiculous.

it's not assessing fine or increasing a penalty, it's a sale. i would expect a notice on my property. i would expect the city would check all of its recorded. i would simply expect more because this is a serious matter. and lastly, from a policy perspective, is this what we want to be supporting or condoning at the board of supervisors? do we want to allow speculators, out of town to bid on san francisco pieces of property and purchase streets and then charge our residents for access to those streets? or to make a quick buck on their backs? as a supervisor representing presidio terrace, obviously, i'm offended by it, but it happened in any one of your districts, i would also be offended by it. on its face, it's a ridiculous idea that we want to condone that here. again, we can debate the fwlam of what happened, but i can't imagine anyone on this board, literally anyone in the entire

city. i think it's not a good idea to auction off our streets to force residents to pay for the use of their streets outside their homes. it shouldn't happen in any district. and the current property owners, they were very nice when they dame in any office a -- came in my office and spoke with me. they didn't want to change anything on the property. since then i have learned that they wanted to entertain a long-term lease with the residents, so they want to make money, and last night their attorney offered the h.o.a.'s a settlement of $950,000, so they wanted to make close to $1 million to sell it back to the h.o.a. that, to me is offensive, to we want to condone that at the board of supervisors? we want to condone speculators buying people's streets and making million dollars off their backs? i don't. so look, what should we do? we have two choices: keep the

sale and place or rescind the sale and give everyone their money back, and while this is the first time we've had this hearing in san francisco, it happens in other jurisdictions unfortunately all the time. los angeles, 15 times in the last four years this exact thing has happened, and it's been -- property sales have been rescinded. it's happened in contra costa county in the last five years, and it's happened in alameda county in the last five years. what's the right thing to do? it's an obvious answer. given this is totally bungled -- i don't believe this body wants to set a policy which facilitates speculators buying roads in our cities and then holding the homeowners hostage, whether they want to rent it back to them so their kids can ride their bikes in the street or making a million dollars off of it. i think there's only one reasonable out come: rescind

the sale. give the speculators their money back. no harm, no foul except the massive profit expecting to make off of our residents' back, and require the property taxes to be paid now, and i'm sure the h.o.a. has their checkbook ready and will be happy to pay those taxes at this time. so what i would like to do it make a motion to approve item 30 and table item 31. >>president breed: supervisor has made a motion to approve item 30 and table item 31, and there's a second. supervisor ronen? >>supervisor ronen: look, i don't think we're dealing with an actor that's blameless in such a critical situation where their life would be ruined if we voted one way or another on this individual case, and i have a lot of respect for

supervisor farrell, but i'm not going to be supporting this motion today, and i wanted to explain a little bit why. first of all, what i believe my duty is is to look back at 2015 and evaluate the treasurer's judgment about how to use limited resources, which there always are in city government to perform his job duties. and at that time prior to a situation like that revealing gaps in the system, the treasurer decided to put more resources into lots that were not vacant -- and many times, i've heard mr. emblich refer to it as vacant property. it's not vacant property, it's vacant lots, and that's a very different. the picture that you put up of a vacant piece of property that

doesn't have a structure on it is very different from vacant lots. and the treasurer deciding at that time he's going to put limited resources into noticing of lots that are not vacant to make sure there's nobody living there seems actually like an appropriate use of limited resources to me. and that the measures at the time that the treasurer went through were reasonable. were they the best measures? no, and the fact that the treasurer is changing his practice, i think shows that i realizes he can always learn and do better because the intention is never to deprive someone of their property, the intention is to make sure that individuals pay their property taxes. and so, you know, i -- even looking at the due process issues, and mr. kopp, i think, as a licensed attorney, i might be a little more sympathetic to

your argument than some of my colleagues who are a little more offended by it, i think i do need to read more of the cases to decide whether they're relevant or not. but i -- i think that there's an elephant in the room here that we have to talk about and to respond a little bit to supervisor tang, you know, there are so many laws in this city where poor people never get discretion. they never get a second bite at the apple. they never get to come to the board of supervisors and say, you know, you know, that this isn't fair. it's like oh, you're going to be homeless and you're going to get kicked out of your house because you know, the sheriff's going to come and evict you

because you forgot to pay your property taxes. oh, you're an elderly person who didn't understand the paperwork and you're in your wheelchair? do we give you any discretion or opportunity? no, and so this has viscerally san francisco residents because there's no discretion in the law when it comes to poor people, there's no discretion in the law when it comes to people of color, and that's what people learn again and again and again and again. and here is a situation where homeowners in a wealthy part of town -- and i don't blame them. i could see where they didn't think they had to pay taxes for the street in front of their home. i don't think they're bad people. i understand why they're angry that this is happening, they're being reasonable in that anger, but this property was taken away at one point, and they had notice that this was a

responsibility of theirs. and mr. emblich started his presentation saying that most people wouldn't think the area in front of their home is taxable. well, most people in san francisco don't expect exclusive use of the sidewalk and the street in front of our homes. in fact, most people in san francisco pay for the roof to park their car, and most people in san francisco either do that by finding one of the very coveted spaces that exist in the garage, or they find if in some way, shape or form a mile from their house or they pay parking tickets, because that's what a person without a parking garage does, they pay regular parking tickets, and this is not the end of the world. you've been enjoying -- it does suck for you, and i get that, but did the treasurer act