record because they've been denied to operate. and these jobs they're taking away from the western addition are hurting households, seriously. and people need the income. and if you would support lime and let them operate, they could get their e-bikes back in, and there would be more jobs in the western addition that we've been forgotten about. lime's the only company that reached out to us. not scoot and the other companies, but lime. i'm through. have a good one. >> supervisor safai: thank you. next speaker. >> my name is sam did evore. we've been having meetings with lime, and they've introduced themselves and the scooters, and the thing is is that the veterans are very excited about being able to get to work, to

learn how to work and maintain these vehicles. they were were rehabilitated that were on drugs, homeless, and having mental issues, and they're getting back their lives. this is really helping them, and i'm just really hoping that you support lime. >> supervisor safai: thank you very much. next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is dejeny davis, and i'm here to support lime for this reason. they're the only scooter company or any other company that has approached the two most disen franchised communities in this city. they have approached these communities with jobs, and once they lost their permit, there

was 65 jobs lost in these communities. most of those kids that lost jobs, it was the first job they ever had in their life. thank you. >> supervisor safai: next speaker. >> good afternoon. i'm the chief programs officer here at lime. prior to joining lime, i was the director of transportation in seattle, and before that, i was the managing deputy commissioner in chicago and d.c. so i have over 15 years of experience managing, running, overseeing public procurement processes? i led bike share procurements in d.c., chicago, and seattle? i developed -- or my deputy developed the nation's first flee floating bike share regulations? when i was in d.c., we developed the first flee floating car share regulations? so i have a long history of

examining public procurement processes. what i can tell you is that the process that m.t.a. followed was flawed and clearly biased. i think when you look at the ratings, some of them were inexplicable to me and some others. we were rated poor, while companies that had never operated scooters were rated strong. our service area covered the entire city, allowing people to pick up and drof off scooters wherever they wanted? we were rated poor. companies that limits their service area to limits parts of the city were rated strong? we had the most robust community engagement. we had six letters of support

from west side best side, young community developers, community collective impact. we reached out to lower polk c.b.d. to try to integrate into their 311 system, and we were rated poor. others were rated strong. one of out competitors was asked for 350 and was awarded 600. >> supervisor safai: thank you, sir. thank you. any other speakers want to speak on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. [ gavel ]. >> supervisor safai: okay. tom, had a bunch of questions. hopefully, i won't cross the line, deputy city attorney jon givner. okay. so if you go back to your table presented here, this is where a lot of the frustration begins for me.

i' i'll just admit i'm frustrated because of the lack of coordination with this body. you came to us and asked us for a permit for unshared scooters. without an ordinance passed by this body, all of the continuing operators would be allowed to continue to operate in san francisco, is that correct? you needed legislation from the board of supervisors to halt what was, i guess, arguably a loophole in the system in san francisco, right? >> well, supervisor, my interpretation was this board asked how we could get what was deemed a scooter problem under control. >> supervisor safai: right. you would not be able to regulate the sidewalks or the dumping or putting of these shared power scooters -- i think we established that supervisor peskin put that forward. our body unanimously passed

that. and then, we didn't hear from you again. you created a program and a permit. did you come back to this body -- did you work with any members of the board of supervisors to create this program? >> so we had a hearing here on the 24, when this body created the program, and one of the things that we heard was that moving quickly to get an effective pilot program in place was a high priority for this board. >> supervisor safai: i know that myself -- i know that supervisor peskin asked for technology -- what -- what was -- deputy city attorney givner, there was a reference in there to a conversation that you and i had with supervisor peskin before he left. was it -- >> mr. givner: privacy? >> supervisor safai: privacy, right. is that part of the permit currently? >> yes. all permit -- anybody receiving a permit under this pilot is required to sign onto a privacy

policy as part of the terms and conditions of the pilot. >> supervisor safai: okay. so that's good. but this body was not asked to review the -- the proposed permit before it was set out, is that right -- or the proposed application or the criteria, is that right? >> that's right. my understanding was the legislation that you passed unanimously setup the violation but also directed the m.t.a. board to move quickly to create the pilot program. >> supervisor safai: i don't know if it says quickly, but it says that there would be a violation and you should create a permit program. it said no one should operate these without a permit program. yes. >> supervisor safai: okay, so you never came back to this body and asked for our input, i would say. was the scoring criteria, was the structure in which everyone would be able to apply for these, was this published in advance? did you promulgate how these

would be listed? >> yes. it showed up in division two of the transportation code which the m.t.a. made when it created the pilot program in april, so the m.t.a. board's legislation specifically refers to some of the issues around safety and equity. secondly, the application itself includes required responses from any of these criteria. and thirdly, there are the emerging principles which were passed by our board and the transportation authority. >> supervisor safai: did you put the criteria in advance? was it promulgated this is how many categories you're going to be judged on, this is how much weight each one is going to have. was that's put out in advance of the application? >> the criteria we put in the application, it's a good question about the weight. we did not publish -- this was not a procurement -- like a request for proposal where we

were asking vendors to come in and score five points on this, ten points on this. that were certain issues, like accountability and safety, for which a poor rating would not have been acceptable, no matter how they would have scored on the other criteria. for that reason, we didn't publish a specific criteria, where if you get, like, 26 points out of 50, you get a permit. >> supervisor safai: usually, if you've got a permit process, applicants need to know how much weight in each category is going to be given so they understand. i'm -- again, i don't want to get into any specific application. i understand that there's appeals in front of the body. i'm just trying to understand the larger framework on which -- so we've established that we setup the ability for you to -- for there to be a violation for these to operate without a permit. we said there needed to be a permit. we gave you that authority. you created that application for a permit, but were -- were the

criteria published in advance and was there a clear direct on how much weight each category would be given? it sounds like there was not. >> i think we built a pretty good public record of what categories and issues needed to be responded to. we did not give a specific weight or scoring at this time like you asked. >> supervisor safai: okay. another ordinance that we passed was put forward by supervisor yee. it was emerging technology. resolution for guiding principle, and the city administrator was asked to put together a working group. did you ask that working group to weigh in on your permit process? did you ask them to review or weigh in at all on the application for this particular permit? >> we did not share the applications. >> supervisor safai: not the application, but what you were putting out as part of the

actual application process. did you go to that group and ask them to weigh? >> no, we asked the joint committee of the m.t.a. and t.a. >> supervisor safai: but you didn't go to the emerging technology working group that supervisor yee setup specifically to cover all types and forms of emerging technology? >> we did not review the process with them, no. >> supervisor safai: okay. and did you go out to community based organizations or neighborhoods that are currently under served by alternative forms of transportation before you put out your documentation? did you get any input on the actual application for the -- in terms of under served communities? >> yes, we did. we got that input in this chamber on march 24. we got that input on the our --

at our board on april 27. >> did you go out to the community other than the one meeting with our board. did you go out to underserved communities to solicit feedback? >> so m.t.a. staff had met with some community groups in under served communities. for instance, united save the mission. i do not want to suggest that that group or any group has endorsed the process, but we've done some of that outreach. >> supervisor safai: okay. so it sounds like the answer to that is no. i had a particular interest in the issue -- one of the speakers spoke about this, some of the companies that were operating or some of the practices to some of the companies were to pay to do piece rate in terms of the collection process, and we had asked there to be a labor piece provision. is that included in your permit? >> yes. we've comm we've committed that no scooter permit will go out until the vendor has signed a labor

permit. >> supervisor safai: and i guess my land question, i'll hand it over to any other supervisors that want to ask a question -- so your body, there's been some debate, and this might -- there's been some direction given about past practices of companies. we've gotten differing results, and i'm only refer to what i've read in the paper, but there's been some confusion about this. as part of your criteria, was it past practices of the business as it pertained to the scooter business or was it past practices of the business in general? >> so actually -- would it be okay if i take a second to quote the transportation board? because the board gave us some specific direction, and i don't want to misstate it.

>> supervisor safai: sure. >> so there's a section in the division two changes -- that the division two ordinance that was passed that said in evaluating a permit application, director may consider the extent to which an operator has the capacity to meet the permit terms based on past experience, including compliance with applicable laws and its efforts to ensure compliance with its users with applicable laws. so i -- again, without going too far into the how we evaluated specific applications. >> supervisor safai: so that's an existing section of your transportation code. >> no. our board added that to the transportation code to govern the pilot program. >> supervisor safai: when? when did that add that? >> that was on may 1. >> supervisor safai: so your board added that specific language on may 1 as it pertained to this specific application permit.

>> it's in the section of the transportation code governing powered shared scooter program, so it applies specifically to this program. >> supervisor safai: can you read it one more time? >> in evaluating a permit application, the director may evaluate an extent based on past experience, including compliance with applicable laws and its efforts to ensure compliance by its users with applicable laws. >> supervisor safai: i don't hear anything in there specifically about refining to the scooter. you're saying it's a broad statement of past practices? >> that's -- that's right. >> supervisor safai: and that was authorized by your board. >> that's right. >> supervisor safai: actually, in the beginning of that statement, it says scooter. >> that text appears in the section entitled power scooter share permit issuance.

>> supervisor safai: so i'm assuming you would be talking about past practices of shared scooters, not the overall universe of how a company behaved. i don't know. can -- can i have an interpretation from the city attorney on that? it sounds like if it's under a section of power shared scooters in that section of the code -- >> mr. givner: deputy city attorney jon givner. i agree with mr. mcguire that this is a law that was adopted by the m.t.a. board governing the powered shared scooters program. i am very reluctant, given the timing here of giving this body interpretations of the code. >> supervisor safai: that's fine. that's one we'll leave. it sounds like it could be up to debate. i guess my last question is can you talk a little bit about

there's this conversation about five permits were authorized by your body, but you chose to only issue two. can you talk about that? >> right. so our board gave us the ability to issue anywhere from zero to five permits with a total cap of up to -- >> supervisor safai: when you say up to five, would might not have issued any permits? >> we met with most of the applicants in the permitting process, and so we were given that latitude by our board and told to make sure that we offered the permitted to the applicants -- permits to the applicants who scored the highest. >> supervisor safai: so why only two? why didn't you issue all the way up to five?

>> maybe i'll just answer that question generally. >> supervisor safai: yeah. >> in the matrix, our scoring sid that there were clearly two that out scored the rest. and as a result, we thought that issues those two permits to the applicants that made the strongest showing would deliver the best service. >> supervisor safai: were there any other agencies that were involved in the evaluation process? who was involved in the evaluation -- was it just completely m.t.a. staff? >> well, obviously, we worked very closely with our city attorney, and as i said, we're building on the principles that were developed jointly with the transportation authority staff.

[inaudible] >> we also got feedback from the department of the environment. we worked with the department of public works to make sure that we were equipped for, you know, the potential confeiscation issues, and we have consulted with the police department, as well. >> supervisor safai: okay. i'll hand it over to supervisor kim. >> supervisor kim: so a couple of things that i wanted to say, and it's a little distinct from supervisor safai that i was actually very impressed how quickly you crafted a permit program and how quickly you are now issues them.

getting r.p.'s out that we approved on june 30 sometimes don't get out until april of the following year. i just wanted to congratulate the board and the staff for moving so quickly. i'm very impressed that we are ready to issue permits on october 15. i do want to clarify that while the ordinance that this board unanimously passed gave sfmta the ability to permit these types of scooters, the department of public works already had the authority to remove these unpermitted scooters. and so even though m.t.a. didn't have that ability to permit them -- not permit them, we already had a city agency that was removing them under our current code, and that was the conflict that we were trying to address for. so there was no ability for the city to legally permit these scooters that city was just picking up because they were clutter on our sidewalk. so i think that's really

important to note, that this process had to happen, that we couldn't just have these scooters out there because they would get cleared out by the city, by a different agency. there is a different type of hearing partly because this board of supervisors pursuant to the city charter doesn't have authority to make decisions around contracting. mr. givner, i was hoping you could clarify the roles of the different branchs via contracts. >> mr. givner: deputy city attorney jon givner. the board of supervisors does have the authority to review and approve the sfmta's contracts that exceed $10 million or 10 years or bring in $1 million of revenue. but a permitting program like

this is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the m.t.a., so that the m.t.a. board plays the role that the board of supervisors would otherwise play adopting the program. and the m.t.a. staff has authority to implement the program. and the board of supervisors because of its separate role from the m.t.a. under the chatter doesn't have decision making authority on either front. >> supervisor kim: i do just want to say because there are these clear authorizations of power, i don't think it's -- it is just a very awkward hearing because while i'd love to given put to you on what i'd like you to consider, i don't want to provide input on who you finally select or how many you select. i feel like that's a distinguishing line, and maybe that's just more of what's culturally appropriate versus

what is permissible. i just want to say a couple of things. i did look up that article after one of the members of the public talked about kind of what is happening in other cities with this gig economy job through many of these e-scooters, and i read the atlantic article and i was disturbed to see what type of -- i do think it's our best interest to ensure that all of these workers are city employees

versus outside contractors. let's create real jobs with benefits for employees. i've always said when i get these great economic studies on how many jobs we're creating or not creating that i would rather create 100 good paying jobs with benefits than 300 jobs barely paying minimum wage. i appreciate mr. walsh's statements that scoot hires all of its employees in house, ensuring that they get the compensation and benefits that all their employees do. by the way, i know scoot also runs the moped program, and i do think they run a great program. not commenting on who you should award contracts to, but that's just my comment, to the best of sfmta's ability that we should

be encouraging these businesses to be providing about benefits. again, i just want to thank you for moving so quickly. there's clearly -- you heard a lot from members of the public that they'd like to see us pilot this program and see if it works, and if it can be a last mile connector, and see if it gets people out of private vehicles, including uber and lyft. i think the public's out on that still actually. i'm personally open to public biking rather than scoots, but i78 i'm open to see what's happening. but i just wanted to comment thus far. >> supervisor safai: thank you, supervisor. are you going to say something, supervisor tang? so i just want to come back to an important point, and i always appreciate the conversation and debates that we have and in this

chamber. normally, supervisor kim and i are in agreement. but on this one particular point, i am not in agreement because i hail from a part of san francisco and live in a part of san francisco that is dramatically underserved by emerging technologies. the way sometimes speed can help in the way rerowe roll out prog, and yes, there's been a lot of debate on speed and how quickly we can get them out. but in our neighborhood that has not been served by this, it would benefit to have community input in this process, and that is what is frustrating to me. there is a lot of areas in my district that would be greatly served by this. so if we would have been asked to have input in this process, i would have said let's ensure that one of the criteria for selection would be that there's going to be a robust and well

laid out plan to serve and employ -- to your point, supervisor, because i care deeply about it not being piece rate employment, and that's what i care about, when people are paid by the number of items or individual units that they produce for a company. i do think that that is important, and i appreciate the fact that you're saying that there is going to be a labor provision. but in terms of the creation, it is important, because if we had had an opportunity or if the public had had an opportunity to have input in the overall process, there might have been a slightly different criteria, and that rite real estate could have been weighted, people could have weighed in. it might have slowed the process down slightly, but we might have had a different result. ultimately, the selection is your body's job. but i do want to end on another point, that this body went

through the process -- through or legislative process to create a conversation, and we were very close to going to the ballot to have a different process that this legislative body could be involved in and influence and have more say over the transportation process and transportation policy in san francisco. i've only been on this body for 1.5 years. i know supervisor kim's in her eighth year, and i'm going on finishing up my second. but there is no agency that we receive more complaints, inquiries, advice, suggestions, than the sfmta -- in my opinion. and it is frustrating beyond belief to have to say we are bound by the charter, we have no influence and input in the policy making. so i -- i am going to continue to hit that point. i think it's an important point. i think the citizens in san francisco deserve to be involved in that conversation and need to

understand that it's not just five members of a body that are appointed on a four-year term that have the decision over policy power in this city. i know you saw yesterday in the paper, paris came out and is rolling out powered scooter. they're not limiting the number. they're offering as many permits as they can, and i would argue they're leaps and bounds above san francisco in terms of providing a world class transportation system. we are making a lot of progress. this is not to undercut or undermine or demoralize anything that you are doing. i know that we have made a lot of progress, but i am using that as an example to say that is a world class transportation -- you can go to any neighborhood in paris, underground, above ground, and they're still not limiting the number of companies that can be involved in that

delivery system. what i care ultimately about is delivering a system in san francisco that will serve the citizens of san francisco in the best way possible. so i don't have any other comments. i don't -- i would just say i will follow with up you all with my additional concerns, but this is what i wanted to layout today. >> supervisor tang: thank you. supervisor kim? >> supervisor kim: i just want to say that i agree with supervisor safai, that there should be robust community outreach in terms of a permitting process. i didn't mean to say that -- >> supervisor safai: oh, no, i figured you do. i know you care deeply about that. >> supervisor tang: all right, colleagues, questions, comments? do you have anymore. >> supervisor safai: did you want to say something? >> supervisor tang: sno. i have comments around bike share versus scooter share, but save that for another day. we've been here many hours now. what would you like to do with the hearing? >> supervisor safai: we can

file the hearing -- tapping tang okay. so we will file the hearing, and we'll do that without objection. [ gavel ]. >> supervisor tang: all right. madam clerk, is there anything further before us today? >>clerk: there's nothing further before us today. >> supervisor tang: all right. thank you. we are adjourned. good afternoon, everyone, my name is naomi kelly and i'm the city add straight to be. thank you for joining us here at

the marine memorial. i'm pleased to share the summary of recommendations from the tall building's safety strategy. this was a report that was commissioned by our late mayor edwin lee. who asked myself and the director of the department of the emergency management to work with outside consultants to help us preview our existing tall buildings in san francisco. copies of the summary and the recommendations and summaries are available here and will be postponed online at one san francisco.org/resilience/sf. it's a pioneering effort by the city of san francisco is the first of its kind in this nation. and it represents 14 months of

city wide collaboration with the san francisco tall building stock. having this information available is a huge step forward and our ability to think collectively and proactively as a city about the seismic safety and the resilience of our tall buildings in the implications of their surround be neighborhoods. here today, we have with -- we just came from a tall building panel discussion and discuss our strategies with us today is professor greg deerloin and a member of the applied technology council. he is an author of the study many of we also have mary ellen carole the director of the department of emergency management and angus carty and oohed like to bring up professor to discuss a little bit about the recommendations in this report.

>> thank you. i've been working on a team with the applied technology council with the team of other academics and technical engineers to develop this. there's 16 recommendations in our plan. i won't a at the present time to go through all of them. a few of the high points, first to get a handle on the issues with tall buildings, we initiated developing a data base of how many tall buildings are there in san francisco. what are their occupancy and about what types of materials were they built out of. depending on the age and materials of the buildings, we learned things through subsequent earthquakes. with concrete structure and in 1994 north ridge earthquake and l.a. we learned about fracture issues with frames. in the existing building inventory of tall buildings there's many of those tall steel moment frame buildings in the city. so from that, we developed recommendations and some of

these are related to what we can do better on new buildings and there's some related to putting more pre and there are looking at tall buildings and recognizing current building codes just to protect life safety of a building. they don't address recovery. thinking that tall buildings, especially those that are residential, are housing increasing number of people on the city and offices. on tall buildings, who we think of upping the seismic design requirements to address the issues of recovery to reduce the risk of damage and down time of the buildings. we also have a number of issues that are related to what you can do before an earthquake to address the existing building stock. one of these is looking back at the types of buildings that these welded steel moment frames that were damaged in the north ridge earthquake, the earthquake occurred years before that here in san francisco and there's never been a systematic

reassessment of those buildings. some of the connection fracture was not obvious. there's a start to look at the existing problem to go back and recommending to. there are things on existing get a better handle on older buildings that may have deficiencies that are the trigger the building code can use to. when major buildings change hands, that might be a time to do an assessment of it and there's a major new tenant lease or something like that. there some of the recommendations for the new buildings and building eveners and commercial owners have insurance or other financial capital where when there's damage they'll be prepared to

repair their buildings for their own ache and collectively for the community and liking and recognizing the stressors after earthquakes and the set of recommendations is looking at what we can do and anticipating inspections after the earthquake. and of course, california the city of san francisco emphasized a lot doing post earthquake buildings inspections, training people and getting volunteered lined up and so fourth but are there issues to tall buildings or systems that can be more proactive. san francisco has pioneered a system program building occupancy program that is voluntary that any building owners can lineup ahead of time and do studies and inspect and recover and to exercise that

board program and run a field exercise and think about if it should be required or some version of it be pride for some, tall buildings or gone back to existing ones. there's a number of sort of recommendations on being better prepared to following an earthquake and to inspect tall buildings and if there's damage to tall building and sometimes that can trigger larger assessment and retro fits and to again, reassess whether those triggers in the building code and how they apply to the inventory of tall buildings that exist there now and also the steel frames, concrete building and they're specialized guidelines that have been developed over the years to inspect those to make sure that they're part of the program here. finally, our last set of recommendations is to continue to enhance this data base of tall buildings with more buildings and with also getting more information, different types of information on the buildings and in fact, then to use that to look at a plan for

dense parts of districts three and six with low rise and just to kind of go through and anticipate what some of the issues might be better prepared for those issues. that's a snapshot of those 16 recommendations. >> are there any questions? we'll open up for q and a. >> yes. >> so, there were 156 tall buildings, why now? and why not before now? >> well, i'll just say this, san francisco has had one of the most -- some of the most stringent building codes in the country. there's been and we always are looking at how do we improve those codes? just saying that in what was different now is that we're looking at existing buildings. we're always moving forward in

improving our code for new buildings. now we're going to go back and look at existing buildings and see what can we do to go back and make those more resilient. not just making sure that we can get out after a major disaster. but now that more and more people in this area, what can we do to make sure everyone stays in place. >> two years ago, when there was a huge attention to tall buildings. as a result, we want to make sure there's trust in government. the trust in our regulators and we want to make sure we do it in a transparent and un bias way and that's why we asked the -- that's why mayor lee asked us to reach out to some of the academics and engineers who weren't conflicted and worked on some of these tall buildings in the downtown san francisco area. they helped us with our review of our existing building codes. and see what we can do to even go above and beyond what we already do.

and again, just look at the resilience. we would like to stay in san francisco when the next one, the next big one hits or anything else and so we want to make sure that we're able to stay and live here in san francisco. and be a safe place for our residents and tourists and visitors. >> thank you for the question. also, i'm one of the authors of the study. i have a team. so, this type of fractures that occurred in the 1994 north ridge earthquake, occurred in a time

of welded steel program popular for buildings of various rights uheights. from the 1970s up to the northridge earthquake. that was the type of construction used throughout, especially the western u.s. it would effect los angeles, seattle, oakland. it's not unique to san francisco. that would have occurred in all of these cities. i think this is kind of one of the first efforts i think to really look back and start to address and be proactive about starting to look more carefully at assessing those buildings. i would emphasize, you hear in the news and l.a. has an ordinance on the book for non ductal concrete buildings the level of risk in those is much, much higher than what we expect in the welded steel moment frames. it's reasonable that it wasn't on the top of the list but now, because of the large inventory of them here to be proactive looking at them is why now?

>> is there a priority? how do you prioritize it? there were 15 major recommendations. what are the priorities with the top? are you going to enact them all at once? >> let me turn it back to naomi. in our report that you have there, we listed the end, out of those 16 recommendations, short, medium and long-term. we didn't feel we could prioritize them. they're all important. the short, medium and long-term, we prioritized in terms of which were low-hanging fluid that you. the others would be long-term. we provided that input to the city. in terms of priorities, my sense is that needs to be a continuing discussion amongst agencies.

>> sure, we can. but i have another question over here. >> what about buildings going down -- >> we did look at that. that was a question we got. so a few things. first, in the building inventory, we tried to identify of the existing 156 buildings what foundation types they have and we have to look at the numbers but out of that 156, there's three or four that have the drilled shafts that go to bedrock. we point out in our reports, one of our recommendations is to for a group to put together an administrative bulletin or information sheet to take the best practice in geo technical

engineering and the foundation design is less pre descriptive in the building code. it's to try to get the best practice from the geo technical engineering community and others to kind of agree on that and for the city to have kind of a incorporate that they're building code or to have that as an administrative bulletin. part of that answer you would get from every geo technical foundation engineer is whether or not a foundation goes to bedrock is building-specific. it's very site specific. so while in the popular press, it might say every building should do that there's no reason to do that. it would be a number one a waste of resources to do that every case and there's also even in more environmental impacts when you are going down to those depths. >> don. most of the -- out of those 156, except for three or four, some of them are on shallow

foundations, map foundations that might be on rock or shallow stand layers and some of them are on pile foundations with the mat. >> are they the most vulnerable? >> going through the site exploration, i mean, geo technical engineers and this is not around san francisco and around the world. this is something geo technical engineers focus on. what's the best foundation type. there's important cost implications in performances so the community at large does a good job on it. what our recommendation does is helps san francisco and the building department here have their own set of a little bit more pre descriptive or requirements on good perhaps that will building departments look at that.

>> yeah. well, the current building code requirements, these are two in san francisco and across the u.s., it's based on a national standard. it says that under an expected earthquake, which is sort of the one we assessed in the studies we did, that buildings can drift two percent. that means that under this very large earthquake, if you had a story height that was 100 inches, two inches. and under more severe quakes it's more. that's a level where it damages the non structural components. interior partisan walls. curtain walls. they are designed to accommodate that drift and not lose the facade but drop it off. it could cause leakage problems. one of our recommendations is to revisit that and to think about tightening it up. part of why we do that for tall buildings too, because of a variety of design constraints we did a survey of many of the tall

building that's have been until the in san francisco, los angeles, seattle and other cities, and many of the buildings don't approach or don't typically push that maximum limit of that 2%. some of them are close to one or one and a half percent. we're asking look at that and if that could improve the recovery of these buildings to think about imposing that, here in san francisco, it's along the lines of these initiatives to have functional recovery or recovery based or occupancy and it's going in that direction. not yet. when we bantered around, it might be a number of one or one and a half percent instead of the two. but that is something i think, our recommendation is really in san francisco it has a long history of this is to bring together groups of engineers, structure engineers to really talk about that and sort through the issues and come up with a consensus on what a good number

it would be. >> all new buildings are safe. all existing buildings are. all the recommendations are important. the example of puerto rico, you know, we've been reading about in the news media how the biggest loss of life in puerto rico from the hurricane was not during the hurricane but it was the slow recovery for the year after it. part of our recommendations here so to make sure the areas of california can recover better so people get emergency care and all those things. there's not a direct relationship between any of these and say lives.

>> i think from our perspective, and the recommendations that apply to emergency management and response, are around accelerating our ability and resources to do assessments. so we can determine the extent of damage. again, we expect that, as the professor states, we don't expect to have complete failure of these buildings. our bigger concern, probably is the longer term recovery and when we can get people back in the residentses and businesses back up so we're looking at that from that perspective. it will take a lot of resources to get engineers to do the type of assessments we need. and then we're looking at -- we've committed to putting together a financial, a specific financial district response plan because there's some, with all these buildings there's a unique

environment and particular challenges that will have as far as that goes. so working with building owners and businesses residential and neighborhoods in these areas to look at longer term recovery and immediate response. >> i really wouldn't add anymore to that many of this is the type of thing that keeps us awake at night. how we can get better at this. the program we have in place we're evolved and trying to improve that. we have a program we're trying to influence new building owners to participate. it will help us and the recovery. getting people back into their buildings quicker and sooner. this is the thing we're always evolving and trying to improve on.

>> that was a great question. anybody else want to answer? [laughter] >> in terms of how it was founded, it's an interesting story. the day after the north ridge earthquake, you didn't read about this in the headlines and the fact it was different ways. it was one building i know that had residual draft. other ended on broading to inspect those in a couple of those and they looked into the connection and spotted some of these fractures and there was one building under construction where the connections were exposed so that is how it was found. and then that -- you know, it became, it was so obvious in the few that was found, if you look at newspaper articles a time a month or two after the earthquake they said and if we want a year later it was 100

buildings after they had a proactive inspection program. that's how it was found. it was due to a combination of design and detailing practices and how they connection details that were used and the weld medals and the welding processes and since that time, the steel industry has stepped up and have much more stringent requirements on those types of systems and in terms of of what can be done, some of these building have been retro fit and meaning that that would involve going in and removing and replacing the weld medal. it's augmenting with braces or viscuk dampers. i think one of the questions is like how do you start that process if you have a building that is vintage, there's actually inspection protocols and one of our recommendation snow squalls to bring those forward into make more known in the city. they are statistical based. if you have a building of that vintage you open up and look at connections and if you see

damage, look at a few more. at some point, if you don't see damage, you are reasoning you don't have that problem. >> well, in our data base and we focus on buildings and the number is about 60 or 70. i have been asked that question. now there's many buildings, that's 240 feet. there's many other steel frame buildings below that. one of our recommendations, for the city to require an inspection of steel frame buildings that existed in 1989, would trigger that, which could be -- how that's crafted whether it's all buildings or the taller buildings is remains to be seen. i don't know the number for all the steel buildings in the city. >> all right. well, i do know that the city, along with the department of building inspection, the department of emergency management, my office and our board of supervisors and mayor

look forward to this report and start implementing the recommendations. thank you very much for being here today. >> a way of life in san francisco. when the next major quake hits, the city hopes a new law requiring seismic upgrades to five story buildings will help keep more residents safe and sound. tell me a little about the soft

story program. what is it? >> it's a program the mayor signed into law about a year and a half ago and the whole idea behind it was to help homeowners strengthen buildings so that they would not collapse. >> did you the soft story program apply to all buildings or building that were built in a certain time frame? >> it only applies to buildings built in the time frame of 1978 and earlier. it's aimed at wood framed buildings that are three or more stories and five or more units. but the openings at the garage level and the street level aren't supported in many buildings. and without the support during a major earthquake, they are expected to pancake and flatten ~. many of the buildings in this program are under rent control so it's to everybody's advantage to do the work and

make sure they protect their investment and their tenant. >> notices have gone out to more than 6,000 owners of potentially at-risk properties but fewer than one-third have responded and thousands might miss an important deadline in september to tell the city what they plan to do. let's talk worst case scenario. what happens in a collapse? >> buildings have the tendency of rolling over. the first soft story walls lean over and the building collapse. in an earthquake the building is a total loss. >> can you describe what kind of strengthening is involved in the retrofit? >> one of the basic concepts, you want to think of this building kind of like rubber band and the upper three floor are very rigid box and the garage is a very flexible element. in an earthquake the garage will have a tendency to rollover. you have to rubber band analogy that the first floor is a very tough but flexible rubber band such that you never drive force

he to the upper floors. where all your damage goes into controlled element like plywood or steel frame. >> so, here we are actually inside of a soft story building. can we talk a little about what kinds of repairs property owners might expect? >> it's a very simple process. we deliberately tried to keep it that way. so, what's involved is plywood, which when you install it and make a wall as we have done here already, then you cover it with this gypsum material. this adds some flexibility so that during the earthquake you'll get movement but not collapse. and that gets strengthened even more when we go over to the steel frame to support the upper floor. >> so, potentially the wood and the steel -- it sounds like a

fairly straightforward process takes your odds of collapse from one in 4 to one in 30? >> that's exactly right. that's why we're hoping that people will move quickly and make this happen. >> great. let's take a look. so, let's talk steel frames. tell me what we have going on here. >> well, we have a steel frame here. there are two of these and they go up to the lower floor and there is a beam that go across, basically a box that is much stiffer and stronger. ~ goes so that during the earthquake the upper floor will not collapse down on this story. it can be done in about two weeks' time. voila, you're done. easy. >> for more information on how to get your building earthquake ready,

>> good morning, everybody. this meeting will come to order. welcome to the september 26th, 2018 regular meeting of the public safety and neighbourhood services committee. i am chair of the committee. to my right, will be vice chair, supervisor and ronen we have supervisor peskin. i would like to thank jesse larson and helena mendoza for staffing this meeting. mr clerk, do you have any announcements. >> thank you. please ensure you have silenced your electronic devices. completed speaker cards and any documents to be compd